Holiday updates

Happy New Year, all! Edith just completed the first calendar year for which she was around to see the whole thing. Our 2006 ended most unseasonably, if pleasantly, in balmy 70-degree weather in North Carolina, where we've been spending a leisurely holiday break with Mor-Mor, Moo-ma ("Grandpa" as pronounced by Edith), and...PeeWee. Sorry, Uncle Peter, I think the name is here for good.

I'll post plenty of pictures once I'm back on a computer to which I know how to upload. In the meantime, you're stuck with more text.

Amidst the Christmas and New Year's festivities, Edith continues to grow and flourish. The most exciting development of the last month has been her consistent, successful use of the potty. We've had a training potty sitting in our bathroom since the beginning of November. Edith knew it was hers and liked to sit on it, but that was about as far as it went, since we weren't pushing any kind of regime. Then one night while Tom was drawing her bath, Edith sat down on the potty naked and tinkled in it. Tom made a huge deal out of the event, cheering, clapping, and calling me to come look. Edith was delighted with the attention, pointing and clapping for herself. But she also had a disbelieving look on her face a bit like, "So THAT's what you wanted me to do with that thing? Why didn't you just say so?"

Since then, we've asked her if she wants to use the potty every time we change her diaper. She always says yes and almost always tinkles, then stands up and claps for herself. A few days ago for the first time she couldn't emit anything. I reassured her that that was okay, sometimes we are empty. Since then, she has had a couple more times where she sits down, concentrates, then shrugs her shoulders and announces "empty."

But mostly she loves the new game and participates with enthusiasm. She has figured out that after she deposits in the potty, I take out the little bowl and dump it in the big toilet. So now she races to do to that part, too (always making me catch my breath, lest she dump the contents before reaching the big potty). Then she tears off some grown-up toilet paper, wipes, throws the paper in the big potty, and flushes...just once, she agrees, holding up a single finger and announcing "one." It's all very exciting. I have no idea how long it will be before she asks to go potty without prompting, but we're in no rush.

One thing she has started asking for on this vacation has been to "watch flowers." (She has started using a few two-word phrases in the last couple of weeks, too.) Flowers in this case are the dancing variety animated by Disney in Fantasia, accompanied by the Cossacks' dance from "The Nutcracker Suite." Mor-mor fulfilled her promise to corrupt Edith on this vacation and introduced her to television. As things go, two-minutes worth of Fantasia seems relatively harmless, especially since she shows little interest in anything more than the jumping flowers section. But she does want to watch them at least half a dozen times a day. At first she enjoyed trying to jump along with them and just once got airborne by a few millimeters. But then Uncle PeeWee stepped in to help her achieve a more impressive vertical, and now she would far rather have someone assist her with her leaps than leap alone.

The other major new development is a growing fastidiousness about dirt and mess that, while far better than the opposite, I fear sometimes borders on OCD. She is especially concerned about toe jam and several times a day can be found pulling apart each pair of toes and digging out the most minute (imaginary?) specks of sock fluff, announcing with concern, "Duht. Duht." She then asks someone to blow on her toes to get rid of any remaining specks. A new entry in the category of "What will they think of us at daycare?": I'm can't imagine what Ms. L or Ms. C will say when Edith sits down in the middle of the floor, pulls off her shoes and socks, and demands that they blow between her toes.