Odds and Ends

Oh, how I neglect writing about Adelaide. I gave you play by plays of every breath Gillian took, and Adelaide lives her life in anonymity because blogging falls by the wayside. But for a moment, I have to tell you how absolutely delightful Addie is. Addie is sweet and funny. Right this very moment, she loves to dance and kicks her legs up when she’s shakin’ what her mama gave her. She leans in for many sweet kisses and goes “mmmmmmmmmmmmmm-mah!” when she makes contact. She loves a quick snuggle, but is very busy, so doesn’t linger long in your arms (unless she’s feeling under the weather). She is very chatty, and mostly sounds like she’s speaking Japanese, inflection and all. She imitates every single sound, so Gillian saying “tickle-tickle-tickle!!” in a high pitched voice sounds like “dee-dee-dee-de-de-de-de” from Addie in the exact same tone. I can tell when Addie says “kitty cat”, “bye-bye”, “Hi!”, “boobie”, “poopie”, “baby”, “bottle”, “Papa”, and “Mama”. Other words are not nearly as obvious. Addie still makes a habit of pooping in the bathtub nearly daily. If not in the bathtub, sometimes on the floor after a refreshing bath and while I am drying Gillian off. We call her The Mad Pooper. In fact, anything brown or debris-like is “POOPIE!”, like crushed dead leaves on the stroller foot rest yesterday (I guess one could argue that it kinda looked like bathtub debris)..

Addie takes Gillian in stride, and hits back when hit, and snatches back when Gillian snatches from her. Of course, I struggle with the fairness issue, which is apparently all the rage when you’re almost-four-years-old. So, when Addie steps on Gillian or hits her, it’s an accident. When Gillian does the same thing, she gets a time out. See? Not fair! She is totally not down with the differential treatment. So, that’s a tricky discussion. Mostly it goes like this “When Addie does that, she doesn’t understand what she’s doing. You have to be a big girl and show her how to act. If you do it back, it becomes a game or it shows her that hitting is ok, and it’s not. Mama or Papa or Anna will make sure Addie stops. When you were a baby, we didn’t hit you back when you hit because you didn’t know what you were doing, just like Addie doesn’t know.” Boy is that a doozie of a complicated explanation. I mean, even elementary rationale can arrive at the fact that my explanation is complete utter BS. So, add the unfairness to the “we’re-putting-you-out-to-pasture-in-PreSchool-while-we-sit-around-with-Addie-all-day-playing-and-having-fun-and-eating-ice-cream” and you have a touchy situation and a very disgruntled little princess who has ALWAYS been the Center of the Universe. Until that Stupid Baby was born, anyway.

Needless to say, Gillian has a conscience. It was with shame that after (ONCE) saying “I HATE ADDIE”, and me answering that with “Well, that’s so sad, because Addie loves You”, she said “well, I love her too, but I want to play with you.” So, I try and I try to give her words to express how she’s feeling so it doesn’t come across as physical anger. Yesterday, she actually said she wanted Nonni all to herself. That was a breakthrough and a little warning that Addie would only bare the brunt of Gillian’s jealousy if we didn’t have concrete time visiting her grandparents by herself.

In the end, I am sure my girls will grow closer as they get bigger and as Addie becomes more fun to play with. I see glimpses of the future, and it is giggly and bright. But being almost-four-years-old is rough, and that’s a fact.