Children...

...can do some pretty gross things. Natalie is beyond adorable and I love her to death and it's a good thing I am her mother, because seriously some stuff that comes with kids is downright gross. Examples? Oh sure, no problem! Nessie is currently 20 months old, and she has never puked in her life until last Saturday, August 25th. We spent the day with some of Mommy and Me friends (a group of 4 moms and their first borns) and Nessie had lots of cheese and then some yogurt and then she had a few things to eat for dinner at home, although her appetite wasn't the greatest which is normal, the kid doesn't like dinners. Anyway, at 10pm on Saturday night she woke up crying which is very unusual for her, since the kid goes down at 7:30pm and sleep through until 5am without any awakenings unless something is not right. Since she was crying, I went in to check on her and that is when I discovered that she puked all over her bed and all over herself. She was a good sport as she stopped crying right away and showed me her hands because she wanted them to be cleaned. I cleaned her up, changed pajamas and Matt was in charge of changing the sheets. I had to throw the sheets in the wash right away along with blankets and pajamas. Cleaning the sheets from all the food she ate (remnants of cheese and all the other stuff) was pretty gross and oh the smell....This happened again at 12:30am. So yeah, cleaning up puke isn't that much fun, but you have to do it with a smile on your face so the kid knows it's no big deal and stuff happens. And if she happens to throw up on you while you are carrying her to the bathroom (Matt was the receiver of that one), well, you just deal with it and enjoy that part of parenthood.

But more eventful and challenging was Natalie and my trip to Target yesterday. We went to Target to do our weekly shopping. Nessie is a huge fan of shopping and is very cooperative and behaves really well usually. Yesterday was no exception. She sat in a cart, had a few snacks, then it was time to let her loose so she could run around. She went through girl's clothing and looked at some stuff and tried hiding from me, always a fun game to play :) Then she came over because she wanted me to hold her, which I promply picked her up and realized that I smell something. Since we were at Target and I didn't expect her to poop I didn't bring the diaper bag and thought oh what the heck, let's grab wipes and diapers. I will just buy them and then I can changer her. So, I threw diapers and wipes in the cart and we headed out for check out lane. And that is when the kid decides to poop AGAIN which makes her diaper pretty much explode and the poop ends up in globs being on Target cart and all over her clothes (remember, no diaper bag, so no spare clothes either). She freaks out at the sight of poop in the cart, so I have to open the wipes and wipe it all off, meanwhile looking as to where I can throw all the dirty wipes away...NOWHERE but the bathroom, so they will have to sit in a nice pile in the cart while we go back to the toddler section so I can get Natalie a new outfit to change her into. Nessie doesn't want to buy new clothes because she doesn't like anything I show her until I convince her that her current outfit smells of poo and has poo all over and needs to be replaced...Then she agrees to get a purple shirt and pink shorts. Thank goodness, we have all the supplies, but oh the smell and sight of this spilled poo and it being all over her is a bit horrendous. I don't bother going through the checkout lane just yet as I need to get her changed right away, so we stroll towards the bathroom, I open the diapers, grab the wipes and new outfit and a nice pile of dirty wipes from the cart to throw away and we proceed into the bathroom for a major clean-up. 15-20 minutes later we emerge with a clean diaper, new outfit (had to take off the tags and keep them so I can pay for the outfit she is now wearing). Then I cleaned up the Target cart more thoroughly and now we were ready to proceed to check out! And decided to grab dinner at Target afterwards since we have spent slightly more time in that store than was planned and were running past dinner time. Phew. Did you know that Target trips can be so much fun? I sure didn't :)

Yeap, that is some grossology for you :) joy of parenthood, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Being there for my daughter when she needs me, being able to comfort her when she is scared or confused, that is something I wouldn't trade for the world!!!!
Below is the new unplanned outfit from Target...

Biting....

I hear that all the toddlers go through biting stage...I guess mine is no different then. But we have a long and weird history of biting.
Let me just start by saying that Nessie bit Matt and me for months before she ever bit anybody at school. Around 11 months or so she started biting Matt and me. She would pretend to give us kisses and then all of a sudden bite. She never did it out of anger or frustration at that point. Then 3 months later we got a first report from school that she bit somebody. What is interesting is that her biting habit at school had a pattern. Every day in the second part of the day Nessie loved playing with the toy kitchen at school, but she wanted to be by herself when she was playing there. Whenever somebody would come to join her in playing, she would first push them, and if they came back she would bite them. I remember that one day I came to pick her up and the kitchen was in the hallway, they have had such a hard time with getting Nessie to share that they grounded the kitchen :)
That behavior lasted for a couple of months...Then she stopped biting on a regular basis.

What is interesting is that we still get reports that she bit somebody from time to time, except now she bites only when people are doing something mean to hear. The last time she bit somebody was when a boy was spitting at her and she didn't like that, so she bit him on the back. The time before, she bit somebody because she was sitting down before going outside and another boy was pushing her on the floor so he could sit in her spot and she didn't appreciate that very much, so she bit him. Now, I know that biting is bad, but I have absolutely no problem with my child biting somebody because they are being mean to her. Yes, ideally I would like her to just get up and walk away, but some part of me says 'Good for you Ness, don't let them bully you, you are a strong little girl who can't be pushed around' So, while I am not too thrilled that my child bites, she did stop biting us, and the only reports we get from school is when she retaliates so I guess it's ok...

Nessie's attitude

It should come as no surprise that Natalie is a strong-willed, smart and opinionated little girl. She is 20 months old now, and she knows exactly what she wants and doesn't like to settle for anything short of it. Her favorite word "No, no, no" sometimes, you get that with a waving finger at you...Her favorite thing to do is when she is told not to do something, look at her parents in the eye, smile and do exactly what she was told NOT to do. Discipline is HARD. Hearing Natalie cry because we took chalk away or made her pick up a toy she threw is heartbreaking, but I know it's good for her and we are trying to teach her to listen to mom and dad.

What is the hardest is to figure out which battles to pick...We went through a couple of weeks of Nessie not wanting to get dressed in the morning. Some days we would go to school in pajamas and no shoes, other days we would find to get dressed. Is it that big of a deal to get her dressed? Are we just breaking her spirit by pushing her to put those shorts on, or are we enabling bad behavior in the future where it communicates to her that she can only do what she wants to? Who knows? I sure don't.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised, both Matt and I are pretty stubborn people who know what we want.

And we are super proud of Natalie for asserting her will :) just wish it wasn't aimed at us :)