June 20, 2007 by Barbara.

Reid has such a great vocabulary and it seems that her pronunciation is getting clearer and more regular every day. There are still some words that she uses that are hard to distinguish sometimes, though. This morning Reid built a fort out of pillows for CareB to play in. She said to me, “Look, Mama, a *#;+(indistinct)”.  I had a couple of guesses as to what she had said but have forgotten them because of her response chased them away. Reid said “a barn for animals.” This represents a jump in her language skills, I think. Previously, she has repeated the word we didn’t understand over and over, sometimes with increasing frustration and volume. I like playing amateur linguist. Reid is a great “specimen” to study ;+)

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June 20, 2007 by Barbara.

Since we’ve been travelling, Reid has not been adhering to her usual sleep schedule. Read that as I haven’t been providing the conditions that would allow her to do so. While we were waiting on the train platform for that red cap fellow to arrive, Reid asked me to recline her stroller seat so that she could sleep. We didn’t have to wait quite long enough but it set the stage. She has stayed up late and napped late and little, except for that time she fell asleep about 9:30 am and slept about 90 minutes.  Many times she has fallen asleep in her car seat. I am more than a little bit impressed that she is able to sleep with her head on her own shoulder without seeming to experience any ill effects. I also admire her ability to stay in good spirits with the sleep disruptions. I’m looking forward to getting back on track and also hoping that she’ll fall asleep right about 7:00 when we’re on the train tonight.

Reid had been sleeping for 8 hours at a stretch most nights in the last month or so. I know some kids do this at 5 or 6 months and Reid it for a week and a half when she was that age but then it stopped. My theory is she got too busy during the day to nurse as much as she needed and that seems to still to be true. Since we’ve been in Toronto, Reid has been waking often. She has also been having particularly vivid dreams. A couple nights ago she was fretting about Patchy-Patch, Binoo’s stuffed animal on the cartoon *Toopy and Binoo*. This morning she was thrashing about and saying, “I push. I push.” I agreed that she could push in a little bit and she subsided back into a calmer sleep.

I have to stop writing about sleeping because it’s making me yawn. Or maybe it’s my own sleep disruptions. Between our running around, staying up late to finish the speaking notes for my presentation and chatting with my big sister, I haven’t been getting my usual sleep either.

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June 20, 2007 by Barbara.

It didn’t just start on the train but I’ve noticed while on this trip that Reid thinks “poop” is funny. Sometimes, when we’re walking along or just sitting still, she’ll say “poop!” At first I thought she was saying “boo!” but she helpfully repeated herself, ennunciating clearly. Each time she says “poop”, she grins. Sometimes she chants, “Poopie, poopie, poopie!” And she laughs. Sometimes when someone tells Reid s/he loves her, Reid will say, “I love Daddy” or “I love Mama” instead of “I love you, too.” Yesterday, when Aunt Karin said, “I love you, Reid,” she heard, “I love poop” in response.

We don’t treat poop as a dirty word, no pun intended. I don’t know why Reid thinks it’s funny. Okay, I’m pretty sure that the daycare kids and their older siblings are to blame. We first noticed peer pressure affecting when Reid went to the Toddler Room and suddenly discovered Dora the Explorer but I’m still surprised a bit when it crops up. I’m a slow learner but Reid isn’t, especially when it comes to kid culture.

We’ll just ride it out. My first tactic will be to try to “extinguish by ignoring”. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to reopen one of the advice books I practically memorized when Reid was small.

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June 20, 2007 by Barbara.

We’ve called Daddy on the telephone a few times since we’ve been in Toronto. Each time Reid has eagerly taken her turn talking *at* him. Yes, I know that usually people talk *to* each other on the telephone but Reid has been treating her daddy to a stream of consciousness recitation of all of the fun things that she has done in her day. Without context or shared experience and the speed of the delivery, Daddy has had trouble figuring out what Reid was saying. He could tell that she was having a great time and her enthusiasm was contagious. By the time I got my turn, I could hear the smile in his voice. I hope the photos that we took help her tell the story of her adventures. Daddy doesn’t complain when we leave him behind but it would still be nice to share a bit with him.

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June 20, 2007 by Barbara.

I left Reid and Aunt Karin in the breakfast room Tuesday morning as I dashed off to my conference. We decided if they were at waterfront at the end of the day, they’d meet me at the conference hotel. Aunt Karin was hoping to go to the beach or maybe the Ontario Science Centre.

After breakfast, Reid and Aunt Karin went back up to the room so that Reid could have a bath. Afterwards, Aunt Karin tried to get her to go out. Reid refused. They played and read in the room until finally Aunt Karin said Reid had to either go out for lunch or have a nap. Lunch it was. As they walked, many people were looking at Reid and smiling at her in her little sundress and shorts (thanks, Grandma Joyce). They ate lunch at an Italian restaurant. Reid chose penne. At the end, Reid’s face was covered and so was her pretty dress. Aunt Karin, being a resourceful woman, turned the dress inside out and put it back onto Reid. They got lots of smiles as they walked afterward and so it must have worked - or the people were laughing at the lady who didn’t know how to dress her kid. They stopped at a store to buy sand toys but Reid was not interested. Instead they chose Old MacDonald: A spin and sing story book and returned to the room. After their nap (I wish - had a nap) they played again for a while until Aunt Karin had to threaten another nap to get Reid to agree to leave the room again. Aunt Karin asked Reid what she wanted for supper and she answered “pasta”. They weren’t in the same neighbourhood and pasta wasn’t evident. Finally, they passed by a KFC/Taco Bell combination store and Reid noticed and asked for a taco. When Aunt Karin asked her if she wanted a soft or hard shell, Reid got a confused look on her face but when Aunt Karin said she was having a soft shell, Reid asked for a hard shell instead. I’m not sure I’ve ever given Reid a hard shell taco and doubt that she has had them at daycare. They wandered around the Eaton Centre and Reid conned Aunt Karin into buying her a new hat. If you’re keeping track, that’s one hat per trip over the last two trips. We still have the seven or eight hats Grandma Joyce made last summer and they still fit Reid. Reid is the Immelda Marcos of hats.

By the time I got done at my geek dinner (and it was fabulous!), Reid and Aunt Karin were once again back in the room. Aunt Karin told me the story of their day. She told me that she had drank the cup of camomille tea I’d forgotten. The first sips, she said, weren’t to her taste but since she wasn’t going out to get a coffee she persevered.

Reid really needed a day of chill’axing, as the hip kids say or did say. Or maybe she didn’t want to go in case I came back. Either way, she was likely to have an easygoing adult that was able to follow the pace and join Reid in reading, playing with CareB and penguin (new from McDonalds on Monday), and watching some cartoons.

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