I finally have internet again. In fact I’ve had internet since Wednesday, but during my web break I got into playing Dragon Age 2 on the xbox – and by “got into” I really mean “became totally obsessed with.” The only reason I’m on the computer right now is because Kate is asleep and Den managed to wrench the xbox away from me.

Kate is an adorable 14 1/2 months old and I am constantly astounded by how much fun a toddler is. I was never able to picture anything beyond having a tiny baby and how wonderful that is (and it is! I love little bitty babies!), could never picture myself with a small child. But my little baby inevitably morphed into a small person and it all makes sense now. It’s actually kind of crazy how excited I get when she does something like put a block through a hole or says a new word.

Words are her new thing. She loves her picture book that has “kitty” and “dah” (dog) in it, and just the other day when I was running through the pictures she repeated “ball” back to me. Well it was “bah!” but she says it consistently at the picture of the ball. She’s trying to say “fish” but she gets caught up on the “sh” sound so it sounds like “sheh!” But again, it’s consistent at the picture of the fish, repeating back to me. Then she very clearly said “shews!” at the red shoes. And of course she says “bye!” every time she closes a book. I have heard her a few times in her highchair saying, “Oh!” when she drops her sippy cup over the side.

The book obsession is in full force. She loves her books. L-o-v-e-s. She has a huge stack of board books in the living room and she will bring us every single one of them. She walks up to me, squawks to get my attention (no matter what I’m doing), hands the book over, does a happy dance and then sits either facing me on on my lap so I can read the book to her. She watches intently as I read and point to the words and pictures, she helps me turn the pages. As we turn the last page she says “bye!” and then either shoves the book back in my face or leaves it with me and goes to get another one. I have to admit that after about five times I start hiding the books behind me in the hopes that she’ll play with something else for a few minutes. We love books ourselves and really want to foster an enjoyment of books in her, but dude, seriously, we KNOW there are dinosaurs. Got it. Let’s play with blocks for a while, k?

She’s eating like crazy right now, thankfully eating foods she had been refusing for a couple of weeks while not feeling well. Now she’s back at the chicken and eggs and sometimes strawberries again too. She’s also nursing all the darn time – there have been times where I say, “Sorry, boob bar is closed. Here’s your sippy.” But she is for some reason not so thrilled with her sippy today either, so she takes a few sips, drops it, then is back tugging at my shirt. Now I enjoy nursing her still and have no intention of weaning her soon, but not when I’m in the middle of something! Jeez. So I have a feeling a growth spurt is on the horizon here.

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We have been doing some very fun trips this summer, such as to the zoo and the aquarium. Granted I’m pretty sure we could have gone to a pond for free and amused her just as much, but the zoo and the aquarium are far more interesting for me, and at this age that’s what really matters, right? We’ve seen a lot of animals, big and small. Kate even seemed to actually care once in a while, that was pretty exciting. However, there is one thing she does NOT like: animal mouths.

On our second zoo trip this summer we got the opportunity to go up on a platform and actually hand-feed a giraffe. A giraffe! That’s pretty damn cool! So I went up there with a banana in my hand and held it out to this giraffe, who slowly plodded over. Kate was fine. The giraffe looked at us. Kate looked back. The giraffe stuck out its tongue and pulled the banana out of my hand. Kate screamed and clutched my arm. She was sick that day so I wrote it off as her being off her game. I mean, this kid isn’t really scared of much, she loves being startled and chased and “dropped”, not to mention she loves our cats and (big) dogs and interacts with them regularly.

So then Kate was in her stroller at the aquarium, and we were watching the beluga whale swim back and forth in front of the big glass window, playing with the spectators. Kate seemed to be amused by this large thing moving around. Then the whale opened its mouth wide and mouthed the glass. Kate threw herself backward and to the side in her stroller and screamed. I had to pull her out and give her a big hug. She calmed down quickly… until the whale opened its mouth again. Then she gave another – though smaller – little scream.

Even the eels in the tank frightened her. Well, not the eels themselves – she climbed up on the ledge in front of the glass and tried poking them. They swam back and forth and she patted the glass happily. Then, yep, one of them turned and nibbled at her finger through the glass. And yet again she shrieked and almost fell backwards.

So apparently not only does she understand what a mouth is, she understands that animal mouths have teeth and can hurt. Pretty sure that’s a lesson the cats taught her.

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I leave you with some recent pictures and apologies for the extended silence.

On the whole I am still very young, not yet even 30 years old. Yet the past 8 years have matured me more than I think I grew in the previous 8. Large parts of it are due to the specific struggles I have faced, from a long-distance relationship, immigration, infertility and losing a child. Some I’m sure is just due to time and now becoming a mother and raising a child.

Some friends were laughing recently at how young and naive we once were, so incensed at the injustices of the world, so fired up and unable to move past the little slights. I think back to my old blog, the one I had through college, and I roll my eyes at the emotional outrage and sulkiness that it contained. You think life is rough now, kid? Just you wait for what’s around the corner. But of course I didn’t know, and without that knowledge and experience that’s just what it was at the time.

Then I think, oh good god, I’m going to have a teenage daughter one day. I guess the best I can hope for is that we all weather that storm and she comes out a good, smart, grounded person on the other side. I know at the time you won’t believe anything I say about the world – it’s something you have to discover for yourself. Either you won’t believe me when I tell you the world is a tough place, with worse trials than you can imagine lurking out of sight, or you won’t believe me when I tell you that after all of that it’s still a good place to be, there is still plenty of things to look forward to. It will be hard on me to watch you struggle through. I won’t tell you to get over – well, maybe I will, but I’ll try not to. Everything you feel is valid, if based on an incomplete understanding of the world. You’ll come to your own realizations in time – as much as I’ll want to help you. But I’ll always be here for you if you need me. That I can promise.

I hope one day she’ll get to hold her own child in her arms, that all will make sense to her. I hope one day she understands just how much she changed my life.

What do you do when you’re 14 months old and bored in the highchair? Very little eating, apparently. Significantly more funny faces.

Until this week Kate had not worn a disposable diaper since the day she came home from the hospital at 1 day old. I still have most of a package of newborn pampers swaddlers stashed in her room, untouched. It’s been all cloth diapers since then. Even when we went to Canada for two weeks we used all cloth – not really convenient on the airplane, but we stayed at my parents so it was easy to do the wash.

This summer we are going on vacation to a cottage near the beach. With no laundry facilities. I thought a lot about what I was capable of doing by hand and what hybrid options there were and finally just said screw this and bought a package of disposables. (Huggies Little Movers, size 3.) Not only is this pretty much a requirement for vacationing without laundry, but Kate also has a very persistent blister on her bum that opens up every time she poops. It’s been a losing battle for a few months now and I’m at the point where I need to use some heavy duty butt cream which would ruin/stain the cloth diapers.

First impressions: The disposable diapers don’t smell bad like I thought they would. They don’t feel plastic-y either. They are also very thin! I like that her pants fit better and she doesn’t have a huge bubble butt (though the bubble butt is adorable, too). I like that I can stuff 2 or 3 sposies in my purse or small diaper bag and not have to either carry around the big bag or leave the diapers in the car and hope she doesn’t have an emergency. Very convenient, for sure! They ride up really high though, I had to ask my friends if I was doing it right or if she was in completely the wrong size, I am simply not used to a diaper going halfway up her back, it’s so weird and stupid-looking. They do get grossy mushy when she pees, from the gel soaking up the liquid – but that also means I notice and change her right away. Oh, and the poops? REEK. Holy yucky. It must be some interaction between the chemicals and the poop, because it does NOT smell like that in the cloth diapers – which is part of the problem, since we sometimes don’t notice a poop for a long time (and she doesn’t tell me that she pooped, doesn’t cry or whine or anything half the time!). So for right now the immediate notification smell is a good thing, but it’s still gross. I also really appreciate not having to swish the diapers in the toilet to get the poops off before tossing them in the bin.

I really thought Den would be all, “This is so much easier!” but instead he gagged horribly at the mushy gel butt and said, “Go put her in a REAL diaper, that’s gross!” He is so funny!

So we’ll see how it goes on vacation. I really hope we don’t start having leaking issues or something, I don’t have the patience for trying out all different brands or anything…. I just want the Huggies to work for a few weeks, that’s all. Once she’s healed up I’ll be going back to the fuzzibunz!

Kate wakes up crying at 4am after we all had a late night. I lay down on the spare mattress to nurse her, which she does sleepily before falling back asleep.

First thought: when did she get so slow at nursing?? Jeez. She was always so quick about it, now I’m impatiently tapping my fingers. She’s especially slow when half-asleep in the middle of the night, of course. (By “slow” I mean it takes her 10 whole minutes, rather than 4 or 5.)

Second thought: boy am I ever going to miss these cuddles when they’re gone. I love the feel of her curls, her hand pressed to my chest, the sighs. I love the kiss on the forehead I always give her before lowering her into her crib. (I always whisper the same thing, “Good night, baby, I love you.”)

But of course an hour and a half later I am still not asleep, my stomach unhappy with the two drinks I had yesterday roiling uncomfortably. Sigh.

…. are not very restful.

On the positive side, we had some nice days, Kate is a great car traveler, and she was hilarious and well behaved.

On the negative side she would not sleep. I knew it was going to be tricky the first night or two, but I was prepared – I brought the white noise machine, Violet, many extra pacis. I had even specifically booked a 2-bedroom cottage so that she would have her own space. I hung blankets over the door and window so that it was dark. Yes the pack-n-play is a little unfamiliar to her, but I figured with how exhausted she’d likely be and me nursing before bed still that she’d adapt pretty quickly. I was wrong. So, so wrong. This is how it went every night: Kate is playing with toys, but whining and rubbing her eyes. Very whiny. I carry her into her bedroom, turn on Violet, cuddle her, lay down on the bed to nurse her just like usual. What I got was a shrieking banshee, pushing me away and trying to climb down and run off. Shrieking, crying, throwing a big damn fit… every single night. Naps too! As soon as she figured out that room was the sleeping room she’d start as soon as I walked in and turned off the lights. She ended up being up way too late every night, which meant little to no quiet time for us, but at least then she’d actually fall asleep after crying for a few minutes (as opposed to the escalating shrieking that happened if we tried later in the evening).

The first night she slept through until 6am and I woke up thinking, well that was a bad evening, but she slept great so this is okay. The next night she woke twice – and it didn’t get better from there. The last night she was up about every hour or two, then refused to sleep after 5am so I ended up in her room in the bed while she fell asleep sprawled across Den’s chest in our bed. Oh, and yes I tried bringing her into our bed to sleep – anything for more sleep. She just ended up nursing and biting (!!), then rolling away. The bed was high so I couldn’t sleep because I was scared she was going to fall off. She just wouldn’t lay still for me!

But enough about that. It was horrible, we’ll acknowledge that and move on. I’ve never been so happy to see her crib as I was when we came home.

::

The weather was not our friend this week. Middle of August and we ended up walking the beachfront in the rain, shivering. I was wholly unprepared for that possibility – which Den thought was funny, because “It is Maine, after all!” So we bought me and Kate both a sweatshirt, and then had to get Kate some pants and socks. I also had to scramble a bit to find something to do in the rain, since my previous plans involved beaches, waterparks, and pools. We spent a day hanging out at the mall, which was at least something out of the cottage.

Our original plan was to go for 4 nights, but because of some booking issues/requirements we went for 5 nights. That turned out to be a very good thing, too, because the last two days were finally sunny and warm! Wednesday we went to an amusement/water park, and Thursday we went to the beach.

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The amusement park started off very badly. I was so excited because I knew they had a toddler area and I had read that they had many slides and amusement rides with no minimum height. Great! Except… we get in there and find out that parents can NOT ride with the child. WTF! I was so pissed off. There were two rides I could go on with Kate. First we went on a kids balloon ride (a very small, fully-caged-in ferris wheel), which would have been fun had she been allowed to sit on my lap and look out, but we were told she had to sit on the seat. So not only could she not see a damn thing, but she whined the entire time because she wanted to be held. Sigh. Then we went on a little helicopter ride, which she actually seemed to enjoy. We went up and down, she could see, it was good. But everything else? Little car ride, boat ride, elephant ride, on and on – no parents. My kid loves rides. We do not trust her to sit the entire ride, and those flimsy belts are not enough to keep her sitting. So a major no-go. I did go on a couple of roller coasters while Den occupied Kate, which was fun, but it still left me wishing we hadn’t wasted our money on the amusement park at all. Next year, maybe.

The water park was no better. They had this whole kids section with some fairly small water slides, the smallest being about 8 feet tall, then some bigger than that. Easy slides, great slides! But there was no way in hell she was going up that high and down the slide all by herself… No way. Then you add in all the spray things that were going on and the big kids running through the water splashing everywhere and Kate wouldn’t touch a toe in that pool.

I asked if there were any rides that she could go on with me, and I was directed to three rides, all big adult slides. Two of them required inner tubes with the child sitting in front of you in a double tube. Ummm, not going to work. The last one was a slide where you sat on a mat, she could sit on my lap. Okay, I can do that. So up we went. People stared at me, standing in line holding a 1 year old. They really stared when she started getting worked up. Let’s see, let’s take a 1 year old and stand on stairs for 20 minutes and not let her climb them. Yeah, that’s a great idea. She wanted to be put down, and while I cajoled and distracted by the time we got right to the top she. melted. down. I knew the smart thing was to just give up and walk back down but god damnit I just waited 20 minutes to go on a water slide, I’m going on the water slide. I even put Kate down to let her climb up the last few stairs to the top but at that point she just put her head down and screamed in pent-up frustration, refusing to move. Yep. Awesome. So I carried her. Oh then, to get started on the slide, you put the mat down in the water and sit on it in the water and push off through a spray of water. Ahahahaha. I saw that and almost started laughing because I knew how this was going to go: badly. I sat down and put the already-upset child on my lap and pushed off through the spray and she just screamed louder. All the way down. I can only imagine what the people standing in line must have thought of me. The funny thing is, the actual ride down was pretty tame and fun, and had she not already been upset she probably would have had fun. The slide let out at the bottom into a little pool like many do, so I just lifted her up as we got there…. she got only her legs and bum wet. But needless to say she was still Not Impressed.

I felt like just giving up, after spending $60 to get in, then finding out Kate can’t go on any of the slides, she’s refusing to go in the water at all and is throwing a fit.

Thankfully after I nursed her and relocated to the toddler pool I found things got much better. It took her a while to warm up to the water, at first she would only splash in the first inch or two. But then she got bolder and started wading out further. Then once she discovered the tunnel in the splash pond, well that was it for the rest of the day! All the toddlers thought it was the best thing ever. (Well, okay, some toddlers though the bubblers were the best thing ever, but my kid is apparently too much like me and hates anything that splashes water). So basically I spent hours walking around the tunnel, supervising as she walked in and out, in and out, in and out, and happily greeted every other kid in there. We took a break for lunch, then she was back in the tunnel again. By the time the sun was going down her lips were turning blue-ish and it still took me a while to catch her so we could get dry and go home!

While in the water park Den spent most of the day sunbathing and staying off a hurt knee, and I got to go on a couple of water slides (by myself! I wasn’t going to attempt the line with Kate again, no sir).

All in all I think I would do the water park again, but I’d try to find one that either had a very small toddler slide or lets parents go down with their child. And just in general I think I need to stop having any expectations of how a day will go.

::

We didn’t even bother actually going and setting up on the beach with the intention of sunbathing or swimming, since neither would be happening with Kate in the mix. Instead we took the stroller and walked the boardwalk, sightseeing and enjoying the sunshine. We did, however, find a little patch of sand beside a parking lot, where there was a line of tall grass between us and the parking lot and us and the main beach. It was just perfect to let Kate walk up and down the sand, sit and dig a little bit, and not have to worry about her wandering onto someone’s blanket. We moved on when she started trying to eat little pieces of driftwood, but she enjoyed touching the sand and letting it run through her fingers – though my dainty little girl always seems to hold her hands up like she doesn’t want to soil them in the dirt. (The funniest thing is when she wants to stand up but doesn’t want to touch the ground to do so, she gets quite annoyed!)

The beachfront had amusement rides, too, and we had planned to go on just a couple – they were the kind of rides you buy tokens/tickets for. Which was a great plan until we realized that we had to pay for me and Kate, which worked out to $5 per ride on the kid rides. Are you fucking kidding me? The adult rides were double the price, so $5 for just me to go on a dinky coaster or pirate ship. Not worth it.

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It was a 3 hour drive, and both there and back Kate slept for half the drive. She then occupied herself for another hour, playing with her feet and babbling and laughing while we tried not to distract her. The last half hour was spent with me feeding her goldfish one at a time, stringing them out as long as possible; apparently goldfish crackers light up her life and make everything better momentarily, very handy things. We are very thankful that she is a good car traveler!

Our little cottage was actually quite perfect. It had two bedrooms, a TV, a small bathroom with a shower, a small kitchen with sink and gas stovetop, a small refrigerator, and a screened in porch. The interior was nicer than the pictures online – we were expecting wood paneling and old floors, but everything was freshly painted, with new linoleum on the floor. Nothing fancy or expensive, it still was just a simple camping cottage, but it was cute and well kept.

The grounds also had a pool, which of course we never used due to the crappy weather and rain, and a playground. The playground was geared towards older kids, so it when Kate wanted to climb it required a lot of very close supervision so she wouldn’t fall down the ladder, but there was a baby swing and a big sand pit with toys. Kate enjoyed digging in the sand and then sitting on the dump truck. (Not so certain that is how dump trucks are supposed to be used!) There were also grassy areas, fire pits, and a shuffle board (which Kate thought was fascinating when people were playing). We also really appreciated that the grounds were set back from the road, unlike many others that we passed by where the pool was literally right by the main road. The only problem was mosquitos. They really like me, and Kate apparently swells up when she gets bit, so after one very brief evening at the playground she had several red lumps, poor kid.

All in all it was a good vacation. Far from perfect, what with the weather and sleep difficulties, but I guess that’s just life in general – and life with a toddler. I’m learning to roll with the punches but I’ll admit to feeling sulky for a while. But we have lots of pictures and memories – and some funny stories to tell.

5 days is a good amount of time to be away, I think. We usually go away for either 2-3 weeks (to see my parents), or 2-3 days (previous vacations). After a couple of weeks away I’m impatient to get home to familiar surroundings; 3 days never feels like enough, like you barely get settled into your vacation before you’re home again. This time I definitely felt relief on getting home, but we got to enjoy our time away without it dragging.

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Kate also had a bit of a verbal explosion this week. She’s a babbler to start with, but it just seems like she’s mimicking words now, repeating sounds and making mental leaps. New words this week (or at least recently) are “Oh!” (uh-oh), “Hi!”, “Ball,” and sometimes prompted “peez” (please). The please is because she has started this delightful new thing of shrieking at the top of her lungs when she wants something or is unhappy with something. Want food? SHRIEEEEKKKK! Want down? SHRIEEEKKK!! Want mom to stop holding my hand? SHRIEEEEEEEEEEK! It’s the kind of pitch that is specifically created to make parents’ eyeballs flutter back into their heads while they reach way down deep into their souls to ask themselves if they have the patience to survive raising a child. It’s the kind of sound that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you just want to snap, “BE QUIET!” So this is why we’re trying to teach an alternative behavior of asking politely. Well really what word she uses doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not screamed.

She also is starting to develop some funny mannerisms along with her toddler speech. Right now she nods her head very seriously while babbling at you, as if she is imparting wisdom of grave import to the world. After we ate dinner at a family restaurant one night Den took her for a little stroll to the waiting room while I waited for the bill. I heard her babbling and I glance over to see that she has walked up to a table of older, grandparent-age patrons and is doing her head-nodding babble at them. “Ger beg da glur-bloop!” They were cracking up at her. She then proceeded to the next table to repeat herself. (Normally we don’t let her interrupt people in restaurants, but the ladies especially thought she was super cute and encouraged her over, so we let her say hi.)

I find it amusing how easily I can catch Kate unawares. I can see why kids think their moms have eyes on the back of their head, but they’ve got it wrong; it’s not another set of eyes, it’s really big ears!

Kate will sometimes wander into the kitchen and I will let her be for a few minutes as long as I recognize the sounds, which is how it went yesterday. That one’s her little kitchen; that one is the broom; that one is her climbing in the big canvas bag. Silence – that always gets my attention. Then little noises I am not familiar with. I get up and walk into the kitchen to check on her and I see her crouched down on the other side of the kitchen, staring very intently at something. She’s poking and picking it up. I see her stand up, take a couple of steps, then that hand with whatever bit of dirt or whatnot held in her thumb and forefinger moves up up to her mouth. I’m standing right there in the middle of the kitchen. She clearly doesn’t see me at all because when I gave a loud, “Uh-uh!” she startled so bad she almost fell down. There was a brief flicker of something across her face – maybe a “rats, foiled again!” – and then she walked over to me and held out her hand, smiling widely, as if this had been her plan all along.

I kind of enjoy my new superpowers.

I am sad I didn’t even feel the earthquake yesterday. Granted here in MA we’re a long ways from the center, but some people felt it. I was sitting in a doctor’s office with Kate, reading her books waiting for the doctor, and didn’t feel a thing.

It was Kate’s 15 month appointment. She measured in at 29.5 inches long (around 20th percentile) and 20lbs 5oz (around 35th percentile – jumped up!). She looks fine, as usual, meeting all milestones and is healthy and happy.

He did agree with me that one eye of hers is a bit droopy. I’ve been looking at it for the last month. At first I thought it was a little swollen from a bug bite or something, but it didn’t go away. Then I was working on some older scrapbooking pages and realized that one eye was a tiny bit droopy even months ago. I went back even further and could see signs of it (very very slight) even at 6 months old! It’s been driving me nuts now, noticing it every time I look at Kate. I don’t think it’s a big deal – her eyes seem fine otherwise, it’s not obstructing her view, it’s very slight, and everything I have read online says that it’s somewhat common and just a congenital weak muscle that can be fixed by surgery when they are older. But just to be thorough the doctor is sending us to an ophthalmologist to get it checked out – which I’m glad for. It will be good to get reassurance that it’s just a small thing and not an issue to worry about.

This is the first appointment with the pediatrician in which Kate seemed to be a little reticent about him. Previous appointments she’s been all smiles and rolling and scooting (or walking). This time she definitely stepped back towards me, holding onto my leg, and then when on the table she held my hand and watched him carefully. She still smiled at him a little bit and babbled a little bit, but compared to her normal behavior it was reserved. It’s interesting watching her awareness of the things around her. This past month whenever other people try to touch her she grabs my leg and steps back, and sometimes even pushes the person away and whines a little. She is still an outgoing child, loves to walk around and greet people, but she now has a “bubble” of personal space that she doesn’t like intruded on.

Every night when I lay down to sleep I’m usually still pretty wired, my brain tossing over thoughts and ideas and composing blog posts. And then I get up in the morning all bleary-eyed, wishing I drank coffee, and those thoughts are gone. I stare at a blank page. What was I going to write? I swear there were like three or four subjects last night. They were even thoughtful and well-written in my head. I really miss intelligent posts.

I’ve been a night owl my entire life. As children my brother would be up and perky at 6:30am, but yet my mom routinely had to come in and threaten to dump water on me to get me out of bed. (Once I was awake and realized it was time for school I was happy and willing to get moving, but it’s the moving from asleep to aware that is the problem.) I’m a kid who used to sleep in on Christmas morning. Likewise at bedtime my mom was threatening me with all manner of things in order to get me to actually go to bed. And even then she’d walk in and catch me reading 2 hours later.

High school sucked with the early mornings. When I started college I did mostly evening classes, frequently getting home after 10:30 and then doing homework half the night. If I had no choice but to take on a class before noon I was very grouchy about it. I just don’t function well in the mornings and would typically doze off during class.

Everyone would shake their head at me and say, “Wait until you get a job and have to be up early!” or “Wait until you have a kid who gets you up early!” Which is not a sentiment I understand, really – I mean, why change everything to make it harder now in order to prepare for a maybe 5 years down the road? Regardless, I would just shrug. I’ll deal with that later, I told them.

Now I have a child who likes to get up between 7 and 8am – sometimes at 6. (I dislike the 6. Don’t even talk to me about 5.) You would think that I would be tired enough to sleep when she goes to bed, right? Well… no. I am tired in the mornings, so sometimes I’ll take a nap when she does. But in the evening I still perk up and get full of energy until midnight. I had to set a bedtime for myself of midnight or I would stay up later than that, which does not lead to fun mornings.

I’m just a night owl. It still works for me – although, I could do without Kate waking up crying half an hour after I finally fall asleep.

Yesterday I went to Home Depot with the thought of replacing our toilet seat. It worked fine but was old and kind of beat up looking. New seats can be really cheap so it just didn’t make sense to keep staring at something so ugly many times a day.

There was a wall of toilet seats and I quickly perused for the cheap ones, then looked over the ones that have the soft close mechanism. $30? Awesome. Done deal, and no more worries about Kate smashing her fingers on the rare times she is in the bathroom.

But wait, what was that? A built-in toddler seat? That is perfect! Not of use just yet, but it will be soon enough – and our bathroom is too tiny for more clutter.

I cam home and installed it while Kate was eating dinner. But then she was done and I wasn’t, so she came to “help.” Let me just say one thing about toddler “help”: it’s not helpful. At all. Like when I was putting the groceries away today she slammed the fridge door on my back several times. And when I roared, “OW! I said stop!!” she laughed. Thankfully I managed to distract her with a ratchet as I finished cleaning up. (“Here, play with this heavy metal object!”)

Then she saw me opening the toilet lid.

Though she does accompany me every time I use the toilet (an unanticipated side-effect of parenthood: getting used to someone climbing under your legs and playing with your pants as you pee), I have been careful to shield the functions of the toilet from her view. She tries to play with the lid, but I am sitting there. (This does result in bruises on my back.) When I get up I quickly put the lid down, flush, and shimmy her right out before she can explore this big water-bowl-lid thing.

Yesterday I was careless. She saw it. Her eyes lit up.

She played with the lid, lifting the seat, putting it down, pulling down the toddler seat, putting that up, closing the lid, lifting the lid, closing the lid, lifting the lid…

When I was done, and had enough of watching the joy of toilet lids, I gently took her hand to lead her from the bathroom, like I do every time. She pulled away. I tried again. She cried. I tugged her towards the door and she fell into a limp heap, shrieking. Cries persisted after I carried her out and shut the door.

Much later in the evening, after Den got home and was playing with Kate, I slipped off to the bathroom by myself, shutting the door gently behind me. Kate apparently saw me leave, as she ran towards the bathroom, crying. She stood at the door, wailing. When I left the bathroom, slipping out quickly and shutting the door, she frantically reached around me, trying to get in.

I’ve awakened a monster. She knows.