1m2aSandbox

I’m not sure if it’s a toddler
thing or a girl thing or what, but Cora and Maddie both love purses
and bags, and have recently found a few they just adore.


It started in July – we were walking around for a July 4
celebration and saw a little girl with a water bottle carrier slung
diagonally over her shoulders. The bottle carrier was made to look
like a butterfly and was sized for a little person to wear, and
Maddie thought it was the coolest thing ever. I stopped the family
to find out where they’d gotten it, and the rest is
history.

Cora’s 14 months now, and as
misfortune of all kids with older siblings, I keep comparing her to
where Maddie was at the same age. There a deeper blog about that
somewhere out there, but today I’m thinking of one milestone
in particular – nursing.


On some levels Maddie and Cora at 14 months are much the same;
they’d both been pretty much weaned from nursing for meals by
12 months old, and it’s clear that from then on out the
nursing’s been all about routine and comfort. Somewhere
between 9 and 12 months nursing went from a mealtime thing to a
snacking/sleeping/comfort thing, with actual meals and snacks
creeping into those nursing slots. By the time we hit a year with
Maddie, she was down to four times a day – early morning,
when she’d go back to sleep for a couple more hours; nursing
when she woke up; nursing for naptime; and nursing for bedtime. On
paper, Cora’s been very similar, but in practice it’s a
bit more difficult to pin down.

Maddie had her last swim class yesterday,
and I’m clearly going to need a Costco-sized box of Kleenex
at her graduation because I got a little teary as she completed her
final lap.


She’s three. Years. Old. And I’m misting up while she
makes her last “alligator nose”. Geez, lady, get a
grip, right?

Our whole discipline thing with Maddie is
built around the ideas of obedience, choice and consequences. If
Maddie chooses to obey, the consequences are pretty wonderful; if
not, the consequences can be hard to take. We’ve been
following this for over a year now and she’s got a very clear
understanding of it, showing she clearly grasps what’s going
on when situations come up.

I’ve talked a lot this summer about
Maddie’s trials and tribulations in the pool and swim class,
and only briefly touched on Cora’s love of the pool. But as
the summer’s gone on, her adoration of all things aquatic has
become ever more obvious, and strangers are starting to stop and
stare.


Cora spends most of Maddie’s swim lessons (when she’s
not scouring the waiting-room floor for week-old goldfish) staring
intently out the glass at her big sister. At first I thought she
was merely watching her Maddie for fun, but it’s become clear
that she is studying hard and taking mental notes. In the early
days of swim lessons when we were working so hard on getting Maddie
to put her face in the water, blowing bubbles was our big goal, and
everyone around was constantly demonstrating.


Including Cora.

Hey, remember when you had time to get
excited about the new shows coming out in the fall on t.v.? I
don’t even know what movies are out right now, thanks to my
tivo’s capability of automatically skipping commercials as I
try to catch up on “So You Think You Can Dance” at
midnight (what’s up with WILL being gone, by the way??? He
was far and away the best guy.)


So I’m not talking today about upcoming television
programming; I’m thinking of upcoming toddler activities
programming.

Most days I’m pretty ok with the
fact that my girls love their routine and love having the same food
every single day. But sometimes, I think I’d rather take
Maddie’s travel Spork and scrape all my taste buds off my
tongue one at a time than have to eat another $#@# sandwich for
lunch.


Yesterday was such a day.


So as we headed home from a play date with friends (yes, in the
car, but they live five miles away so it doesn’t count!) I
heard Chick-Fil-A’s siren song pulling me off the road, and
since unlike Odysseus I had no one to tie me up and keep me safe, I
turned the car towards the cow with the sign that says “Eat
More Chikin”.