3/28/08 Three's a charm

I've been a single mom all week, which means, at the very least, that I've put all three to bed myself every night. When Dave's here, he does most of the bed-timing.

Tonight, as Dave does, I sat Katrina on the little potty before her bath and gave her a book. This, she's used to: "boo? boo?"

But tonight, something was different. She kept getting up and looking back into the little potty, then saying "yay bee!" prematurely, then I'd sit her back down, "boo? boo?", read a page, get up, look again. After about the 6th time, she looked ahead in concentration, and I thought, "If I didn't know better, I'd think...." Then she actually bounced up and down a little, as if to shake it off, and sure enough! She produced! She got up and looked right away, and there was her reward in the potty. She also anticipated the routine of walking over to the toilet, pouring it in, and flushing, all the while with me singing praises, clapping, and making a HUGE deal of it. And it was -- this was the 3rd night in a row, and she clearly has made some connections. Yay bee!

It'll be ironic if Gabriel is the first and last one we toilet-train. If Katrina is anything like my niece (who was completely done by 22 months, a rarity these days), then there's actually a chance of that.

Gabriel's strong personality may be an impediment to night-training, but it's an asset in piano-playing. This afternoon, I left work "early"...wait, I must explain. 2:30 is early for normal people, but horribly late for someone who got up at 6:45am, been at the most boring job for 6 solid hours, freezing to death in an office, and counting the minutes to get home to take a nap. On the way home, I realized I'd have just enough time to surprise Gabriel outside his classroom, so I picked him up right from school. His shout of joy at seeing me made me happy and guilty all at the same time! At home, I made him a snack, then he played the piano and with Legos for the rest of the afternoon.

A few times, I had to go in to see if he was playing a pre-programmed song, or if he was just playing on his own. Sometimes he plays along with a preprogrammed song. Then I heard him playing Wheels On The Bus, which he figured out on his own, but he moved between several different keys, transposing it easily. I tried to get him to do this for the camera, with mixed results; it's hard to get him to do it in short chunks. When I asked him to play it in a different key, sometimes he'd just play it in a different octave, and he completely understood when I said, "Noooo, that's just a different octave!" even though I don't think he knows the word yet.

So, a few videos. I really tried to keep them short, with varying success; at least the interesting parts are in the beginning.

The Muffin Man, in two keys.


The 12-bar blues.


A "little tune" he insisted I record.


He really needs to progress beyond hunt-and-peck fingering though!

Julian's been abandoned by his brother lately thanks to the piano, but he has another sibling to take up the slack. I remember now that Julian was about 18 months old when the boys really started interacting, and I'm seeing much more sophisticated interaction between the younger two now.

Tonight, this involved Julian "reading" Katrina the Jungle Boogie book, and acting out the shaky-shake bear, to Katrina's puzzlement.



After Katrina's bath, I tried to get some photos of her with her beloved blankie, a satin pillow cover that she chews on for comfort and sleep. Dr. Sears would call this a "lovey," though fortunately this "lovey" is hardly unique: it's $3.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond, so we have a few.

This is the sort of thing I like to do a scrapbook page about, especially since Katrina has an irresistable new name for it: her "mimi." I did get my scrapbook page shot, but I think I almost prefer these outtakes of her happily playing peek-a-boo with her "mimi" on Julian's quilt.



Maybe I'm just not at the right job....I do like working, but I also really really liked picking Gabriel up from school today (maybe because it was optional?), and hanging out with him at home this afternoon. Julian smothering me with his magnificent kisses after his bath almost got me choked up. And Katrina's vastly improved attitude goes a long way toward me missing home too...and really missing her.

One person I don't need to miss anymore: Dave is coming back from Dallas tonight!

3/28/08