In The Doghouse

Long weekend, way behind on work and other stuff so this week will mostly be short stories with no pictures, but I did feel the need to share about my weekend in the doghouse.

Well it was more like the dog tent… Soapfi has found a new game to love, even more than Monster or TRAIN…. it’s called “Come Here Puppy”, and she loves this game….

Because Mommy follows her around on her hands and knees, barks, licks the side of her face, will eat pretend dog food out of plastic bowls on the floor, and nap on a pillow.

And it’s worth every giggle and pat on the head!

When More Isn’t Enough

Apparently Soapfi feels that just asking for “more” isn’t properly expressing her level of desire to continue playing TRAIN or Monster or Open/Closed. Going forward all requests will be made extremely clear, when she really means it, she will ask for “more again”.

Of course she runs it together so it sounds like “Morrigan” so at first I thought she had been sneaking episodes of Charmed or Buffy, or perhaps she was just getting in touch with her Irish Roots.  The more I think about it, the more appropriate it is that she’s asking for the celtic goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty when trying to get us to do things over, and over, and over!

Attention Span

The almighty “everyone” is always saying that people have shorter and shorter attention spans. “Everyone” is probably referring to me, and has not met my child. It was another weekend where poor daddy had to work lots of overtime, and I was left to my own devices to keep the kidlet entertained.

We ended up going to the park both Saturday and Sunday just so we (okay *ME*) didn’t go stir crazy in the house. Soapfi would have been perfectly content to repeatedly watch 90 minute stretches of Calliou videos, with barely a snack break between hitting replay, for the entire day – but even my lazy “bad parent” side refused to indulge in that monumental of a parenting fail. So we braved the wind and the cold, bundled up in puffy purple coat loveliness and went to the park.

Soapfi loves the park – especially the opportunity to run away from me (I am currently editing together a “backside montage” because 90% of my video from the weekend was of her backside as she ran away). We “played” chase for a good 40 minutes that first day, it only stopped when she became enamored with watching the older kids have baseball practice. It then took me a good 10 minutes to pry her away from that, perhaps this means we’ll have better luck taking her to AquaSox games this spring! The entire ride home was peppered with exclamations of “baseball”.

That evening we played “I like your….” for what seemed like *forever* to me, but was probably only about 15 minutes. It’s one of those things that is fun to start, but then goes on far too long for your adult attention span, or you run out of things to like. (For those who are not acquainted with the intricacies of the game, it goes like this… You say to Soapfi “I like your eyes” and she will reply “I like your eyes too” and then she picks something she likes and it’s your turn to reply. This goes on and on as you take turns choosing a different body part or quality (smile, laugh, cheeks, fingers, teeth, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum since repeats are not only allowed, but encouraged to show you really really like something!)) 

Sunday we went and supported friends who were selling Girl Scout Cookies (nom nom nom nom!!!) and went to a park we’d never visited before. This park had swings, little Soapfi’s head just about exploded with “OMG SWINGS!!!!!!” After a good 25 minutes of “more swing, more swing, more swing” I was forced to bodily remove her against her will, as her little hands were turning blue along with her lips. She was appropriately dressed for the most part, but she refuses to wear “hand hats” (Soapfi speak for mittens), and it was extremely cold and windy out. That lead to a tantrum the entire way home, that was due more to stubbornness than attention span!

That evening we had a rousing game of Monster and Open/Close that, once again seemed to last forever. (This game involves Soapfi sitting in her plastic Little Tykes car and opening/closing the door as Mommy/Daddy enthusiastically (well for the first 30 times) shout “OPEN” or “CLOSED” depending on the status of the door. This can also be modified to “Up/Down” for jumping games or “On/Off” for playing with light switches.) 

Yep, when it comes to attention span, she has one.

Nuances of Brass Instruments

Sometimes I forget that Soapfi isn’t even 2 yet. She soaks up everything like a sponge, and what is even more astonishing to me is how much she retains and then applies it appropriately at a later date.

My favorite example, even though it involves her probably watching way to much TV for her age, is the “Eh, Mickey” (how it sounds when she tries to do the pirate “Argghh, Matey”) that she picked up from Calliou. Calliou gets a pirate book from the library, he and his dad say “Argghh, Matey” back and forth a few times in the episode in relation to pirates being pictured on screen. Last week we realized she was retaining what she was seeing and applying it to other things far better than we imagined.

We were at Toys ‘R Us letting her try out tricycles and bike helmets in anticipation of buying them for her birthday. Conclusion: “No Like It”, so she will be getting Gator Golf and a cash register she was completely enamored with.  

We were walking down the isle with all those Playmobil sets when she starts growling “Eh, Mickey”, sure enough – we were walking by the Pirates. Holy crap, Mommy’s mind is now officially blown away – kidlet recognizes chunky plastic men are pirates, kidlet connects chunky plastic pirates to cartoon pirates from TV, kidlet remembers what cartoon pirates are supposed to say and shares it with us.

So now that we realize how much she is actually remembering, are we starting to unintentionally overload her with information?

We were playing some Monster and TRAIN, as well as participating in the much beloved “Run around in circles and fall down” dance with the hockey game on in the background. At some point an ad came on with a band featuring a closeup of the trombone player. Soapfi started shouting (when she is in identification mode, it is *always* a shout and usually repeated in triplicate) “trumpet, trumpet, trumpet”, at which point Daddy points out that it is actually a trombone. “Oh, tombone”.

Then Daddy wonders aloud “Does she really need to know the nuances of brass instruments at her age?”

Does she? Shouldn’t we just be happy she was at least in the same section of the orchestra and didn’t think it was a woodwind??