The good, the bad, and the ugly

The good:
Maggie's budding imagination. It's hilarious to see it in action, and tonight it was on overdrive. Or crack. She carried her big stuffed Dorothy the Dinosaur all over the house, creating different scenarios for the two of them to do together. (Dorothy is probably two feet tall, so she makes a better playmate than your average stuffed animal.) Maggie threw herself on top of Dorothy and announced, "She caught me! I fell down and she caught me!" She fake-fell with Dorothy landing on top of her and accused, "Dorothy pushed me over!" She wrapped Dorothy's arms around herself and pretended to struggle as she ran laps around the downstairs, shouting the question, "Dorothy, where are you taking me? Where are you taking me?" over and over. Their travels tonight took them on vacation to Aunt Jane's, to the doctor's (where a careful examination of Dr. Maggie to Patient Daddy resulted in meticulous and frequent counting of fingers and toes), to a Wiggles concert, and to the Mommy Restaurant, among other places.

The bad:
Bedtime. It's so darn frustrating. We've created a little monster, and now we're paying for it. Somehow, sometime, Maggie has become dependent on someone snuggling in the bed with her in order to fall asleep, preferably snuggling while "tickling" her (that's what she calls it when we lightly stroke her arms, legs, back, etc.). It's not that I have a problem doing this; on the contrary, I like the time together and am glad she still wants this -- so many kids her age aren't snuggly anymore. But every night? And now she can't fall asleep without it. I've implemented a new routine: after teeth, stories, etc., when she's ready to actually climb into bed and turn out the light, I'll snuggle with her in the bed for five minutes, followed by five more minutes in the glider. (Me in the glider, her in the bed.) She's done OK with this, for the most part, but tonight ... not so good. I was still doing duty in the chair when she started that heavy, rhythmic breathing -- the kind that screams "I'M FINALLY ASLEEP NOW!" -- so I got up to leave, and that little head popped up. "My five minutes is up, sweetie," I told her. "I'm going downstairs now." This led to requests for lullabyes, more snuggling, a drink of water, permission to come downstairs too, five minutes of watching TV in Mommy's bed, followed by various claims of being scared, lonely, and having her feelings hurt.

(That one was my favorite ... not really, but it was her explanation that was funny. I heard her coming out of her room, and I called up for her to stay in bed. She immediately started crying and said I'd hurt her feelings; when I asked what I'd done to hurt her feelings, she replied, "Your mouth.")

She stood at the balcony, which overlooks the foyer, playing with the plexiglass barrier we put up below the railing to childproof it and trying to think of more reasons for me to come up or her to be permitted to come down. All of a sudden she started crying, "My pointer! My pointer! I hurt my pointer!" I pointed out that this wouldn't have happened had she followed the rules and remained in bed. Bad idea. The crying intensified to the point that I went up to check on her, and I found her with her finger stuck inside one of the holes holding up the plexiglass. I'm not entirely convinced she didn't do this on purpose, just to get me to come up. It's happened before.

The ugly:
Deafness (also known as selective hearing, also known as not listening). Injected amidst a mainly fun and playful day were bouts of deafness, times where Maggie simply didn't hear my requests to put toys away, my commands to stop splashing so much in the tub, Bobby's "suggestions" that she stop spitting or get a spanking. It is beyond frustrating to have to tell her 17 times to do the same thing. She knows our rule and can repeat it back to me: "first time, every time." She just has to be reminded of this. A lot. Occasionally with force.

She got a spanking while in the tub, because she wouldn't stop throwing water out of the tub. Spanking is a last-resort punishment for us, and our rule is that whatever state her behind finds itself in at the time of the disobedience (for example, naked in the bathtub) is the state in which her behind will be spanked. So tonight's bathtub offense resulted in a bare-bottomed spanking. Now, I don't spank hard (and, incidentally, I now understand what he meant when my dad would say - prior to spanking me - "This hurts me more than it hurts you" ... only took about 25 years), especially if Maggie is bare-bottomed. I think the spanking hurts her pride more than anything. But tonight in the tub she was sincerely worried. "Not my bare tooshie!" she begged. "Just a little spanking?" she requested. And finally, "How 'bout you use water instead of your hand?" When it was over, she declared, "That WASN'T very nice!" and went right back to playing.