What does a toddler dream about?

Amidst all of this cuteness, Shoshanna had a doozy of a nightmare Sunday night. We ended up having to sit with her (awake) from about 11:30 until about 1:30. At first I went in and held her and then put her back in bed after about 10 minutes, but she screamed bloody murder, so Matthew came up and held her and then put her back in bed and she screamed more bloody murder, so I went and held her for a while, then convinced her that she'd be OK in her bed with me holding her hand. And then I just slowly moved further and further away until I was back in our room. She got upset a couple of times after I was gone (she was wide awake this whole time) but calmed down when I called to her that she was OK and I was still there. She was more clingy than usual yesterday, too, so whatever it was must have really scared her a lot.

Other miscellaneous cute

Shoshanna's been insisting on choosing her own clothes. On Saturday, she had on brightly striped pants and an equally brightly striped sweater. And even though the sweater and the pants had many of the same colors in them, the total effect was one of CLASH! I bet Opa has a picture of it, which I'll try to get my hands on to post at some point. And yesterday she was running around the house in a red, white, and blue jacket and a pink stocking cap. Of course, at the same time, I was wearing the hat from last year's Halloween costume (which also meant that every time she looked at me she made monkey noises).

On Saturday, she did a somersault. She's been close for a while (bending over and putting her head on the ground) but she'd never quite gotten it. She was a little surprised when she did this and suddenly ended up on her back, but I showed her what she'd done and we taught her to stand up, fling her arms up in the air, and say "Tada!" when she does it.

Yesterday was the first day of toddler gym class. We got there, she took one look around and hollered "Ball!" and squirmed her way out of my arms and was off like a shot. And she ran a race with Dusty (the teacher) and one of the other kids, too.

This morning as I was changing her diaper, she looked at me and said, "Mama, peebuh!" (Mama, do peek-a-boo!) When we were getting breakfast together and I was getting out spoons, she insisted on also getting out a spoon for Daddy.

My little helper...

Shoshanna helped me pack my gym bag this morning. And so when I arrived in the locker room, I discovered her blankie and a copy of Pat the Bunny (having of course completely forgotten that she'd put them in there).

Since I made you read my rantings...

Miscellaneous cuteness, in list form.

• Tonight I was going to take Shoshanna upstairs for bed and Matthew was going to go out and mow the lawn. When we asked her to say good night to Daddy, she declared "I need Daddy!" and flung herself at him. So he came up and helped with diaper change (which is how bedtime usually goes).
• Shoshanna's favorite game right now is hide & seek. She asks us to put her up in the papasaan chair and then she looks at us and says "hiding! hiding!" We are supposed to lie down on the floor next to the chair so that she can't see us unless we pop up over the edge or she leans out over the edge.
• Teletubbies are her new best friends ever. (Matthew and I are still trying to figure out what drugs the creators of Boohbah and Teletubbies were on when they thought the shows up... but that's a whole other story.) She's adored Boohbah for a while - she giggles like mad at them, and sometimes I can get her to copy the little blobs dance moves. Then, this weekend, I showed her Teletubbies. Holy cow. Her love of Boohbah is nothing compared to her love of the "tubbies." She giggles, she dances, she talks to them, she mimics them. And she asks to see them ALL THE TIME.
  
• "More." Shoshanna has signed and said more in relation to food for quite a while, but this weekend she showed us that she's beginning to grasp the concept of quantities. At one point she put one of her crayons in the tupperware that they are stored in and was shaking it around. She brought it over to me and said, "more!" I asked if she wanted more crayons in the box. She said "Yeah!" so I sent her to put more crayons in it and then I put the lid back on and she merrily ran around the basement with her new percussion instrument. She also did it when watching tv - there was one window on the screen, and then two more blinked into existence (we were watching Boohbah), and she merrily signed "more".
• She apparently also counted from two to six when she and Matthew were reading Five Little Ducklings yesterday morning. I haven't seen this myself, though. But we are teaching her to answer "Two!" when we ask her how old she is.

That's all for now.

On Children's Clothing

I usually confine my commentary here to cute things that Shoshanna has done lately, but this is a topic that really bugs me, and it came up twice this weekend, with two different strangers, so I'll rant about it a little bit.

There are very few gender-neutral kid clothes. I'm not talking only pink clothes available for girls and only blue clothes available for boys, although it is hard to avoid pink and blue. I'm talking about how it's often hard to avoid girls' shirts that say things like "Pretty Princess" and boys' clothes that have pictures of footballs and trucks (bonus points if they have BOTH!) For example, we were out shopping on Sunday and Matthew noticed a display of onesies. The boy ones were blue and said "Tough Guy" on them. (Shoshanna pointed and obligingly declared "Doodah!") The girl ones were pink and said "Drama Queen" on them. Matthew's comment was "Why isn't there one that says 'tough girl'?"

Different stores/clothing lines are better or worse. Just for reference, here are some examples of what's out there for girls and boys from The Children's Place (which I find to be among the least offensive in this regard). For girls:

For boys:

For both boys and girls, there are solid-colored shirts - but the girls' shirts have ruffled necklines and cuffs, whereas the boys' shirts have a plain collar and cuffs. Girls' printed t-shirts have flowers and butterflies. Boys' printed t-shirts say "Varsity" and "Rock Star".

No wonder I buy a lot of boys' clothes for her - when we were in Macy's on Sunday (right around the time Matthew commented about the onesies), the woman in line behind me was remarking on the lack of clothes for tomboys. I agreed and pointed out that Shoshanna was wearing almost entirely boy's clothes (her love-a-saurus t-shirt, and a pair of cargo cords). On Saturday when a woman asked me if a pair of shorts was for boys or girls (because her daugher would "kill her" if she bought the right kind - the shorts were plain khaki cargo shorts), she was wearing a hockey t-shirt. Remember the RockStar t-shirt? Yeah, that was a boy's shirt. As were the little doggy outfit, the first Red Sox t-shirt (which she can still fit into, incidentally), and the hippo outfit. Heck, I think the SOCKS I bought her this weekend would be considered "boy" socks - because all the girl socks are little ankle socks, and I think she needs something taller for winter.

OK. Rant over.

Fumk! Fumk!

Yesterday Shoshanna and I went to the library and brought home a CD of toddler songs... Since dinnertime last night, she has been insisting on listening to "Where is Thumbkin?" on repeat. "Fumk! Fumk!" and she tries to wiggle her little thumbs like we do when we're singing along with the CD. If you try to listen to any other song, she yells at you, "Fumk! Fumk!"

Grammy's pictures from Shoshanna's trip to Camp Grandma

Fun with the Internet

What celebrities does Shoshanna look like? See for yourself!

Pedestrian Girl

It has long been a normal occurrence for Shoshanna to decide halfway through a walk that she wants out of her stroller or wagon. Usually, her being out has resulted in lots of investigating sticks and mud and rocks and more often than not, a fight about either being carried or going back in her stroller.

In the past couple of days, however, Shoshanna has discovered the joys of actually WALKING on walks. Monday night she insisted that she wanted out of her stroller and then proceeded to push it (with us helping steer, when she would let us) for something like three blocks. Last night, she pulled her wagon (while walking backwards) for the better part of a block and then pushed it from behind for another 2.5 or so. She even crossed the street with it! We were very impressed, and she was terribly proud of herself.

Home from Grammy's House

Shoshanna is home from 9 days at Grammy & Grampa's house while Mama and Daddy went on vacation. A great time was had by all, despite S coming down with a slight bug mid-week. She hasn't forgiven us our abandonment yet, though, and is showing her displeasure by being a right terror - she didn't misbehave at G&G's house until I showed up, at which point she commenced climbing on things she knows she's not supposed to climb, etc. And now that we're home, she's being very clingy and having trouble going to sleep by herself - I had to hold her until she was very nearly asleep for her nap yesterday (at the same time reassuring her that I wouldn't go away while she was sleping), and she wasn't too happy about going to bed last night, either, despite being completely exhausted. I'm hoping that her return to daycare today will help in that regard, but we'll see.

Grammy promises pictures as soon as the semester gets set on its right and proper course. If you want to see what Mama and Daddy were up to on our vacation, there are pictures here.