"Bon Appetit!"

- Ruby, after flushing the toilet in a public restroom yesterday

What She Doesn't Like

This is what was just yelled to me from the bathroom:

"Mom! MOM! You know what I don't like? When you poop and it drops in the toilet and the water splashes up and touches your butt."

I guess we're a close family...

Media Saturation.

[Dadam walks past the bathroom door, where Cici is sitting on the toilet wearing a spare pair of glasses.]

Dadam: Cici, what are you doing?

Cici: I'm Al Franken.

Skilled Manipulator.

I think Ruby may make a skilled political debater at some future point; consider this conversation.

[Ruby and Cici in the bathtub, and have been for approximately one hour.]

Dadam: Girls, it's time to get out.

Ruby: But Daddy, we're cooking ice cream.

Dadam: No, I mean it - it's time to get out of the bath now.

Ruby: No, we're cooking ice cream!

Dadam: Ruby, you can finish your ice cream out of the bath, okay?

Ruby [after considering this a moment]: Real ice cream?

Random Quotes.

Dadam: Girls, I'm going to go upstairs for a minute and go potty.

Cici and Ruby: Woo hoo!

***

[Cici and Ruby are working on a project "together."]

Cici: Ruby, no! Don't take those, they're mine!

Ruby: Well, how 'bout you try getting along with me?

A Slick Trick.

Many of you know that one of the big differences between our girls' personalities is that Cici falls asleep instantly upon going to bed whereas Ruby will stay up playing in their room (and in the hallway, and in the bathroom) for hours. Well, last night was no exception, and about 20 minutes after bedtime we heard some sniffling coming from upstairs. I went upstairs to check it out.

What I found was Ruby, wearing only her pullup, as slippery and shiny as a fish from the Vaseline which she'd smeared all over her body and face. I said, "Honey, why did you do that?" and she said, "Because it smelled good."

We toweled her off and told her that she could have a bath in the morning. But when morning came, we actually found that all the Vaseline had been absorbed.

Needless to say, her skin was as soft as a baby's bottom. . . .

Comparisons.

Last night, Cici had watched an episode of Nature on PBS that was focused on the rhinoceros. When she had gone upstairs to go potty before bedtime, we heard the following lovely phrase shouted gleefully from the bathroom:

"Daddy! My poop is like a rhinoceros horn!"

Meet Cholaidia. R.I.P.

For the past month or so, Ruby has been talking about her new imaginary friend, Cholaidia. (It's pronounced "collide-ia.")

Every day, Ruby comes home from daycare with stories of Cholaidia and her amazing adventures. It's a little creepy, though - well, imaginary friends are always a little weird and spooky, I suppose, but what makes the Cholaidia relationship especially odd is that Cholaidia often doesn't survive the stories about her.

So far, we've heard about how Cholaidia . . .

1. Climbed a tree and went riding on the back of a bird, but fell off the bird and died;


2. Went poop on the potty, but then opened up the potty before flushing, ate the poop, had to wear a diaper again, and died (our personal favorite); and


3. Went swimming in the lake, where a shark came up behind her and bit her (oddly, she actually survived this incident).

In fact, Cici will often ask Ruby, "How is Cholaidia today?" and the cheerful response she usually gets is "Oh, she's still dead."

***

Update: This is from about two minutes ago.

Momlissa: Ruby, what did Cholaidia do yesterday?

Ruby: Oh, she spilled her chocolate milk, and her mommy had to clean it up with a paper towel.

Dadam: Oh, well, that was nice of her mommy.

Ruby: Yeah.

Cici: Is she alive?

Ruby: No. She's dead.

Logic.

On Friday night, Ruby accidentally locked herself in the bathroom for the third time. HOWEVER, it is important to note that this is actually the first time she was able to let herself out without us having to take the door off its hinges. Woo hoo, Rubes!

After the incident, Cici and Ruby and I had the following conversation:

DADAM: Okay, girls, here’s the rule on locking the bathroom door: no locking the bathroom door.

CICI: Yes, no locking the bathroom door, unless I’m in there with Ruby.

DADAM: No – no locking the bathroom door at all.

CICI: But I know how to unlock it.

DADAM: Yes, but it’s a better idea not to lock it at all.

CICI: Why?

DADAM: Well, because what if you got stuck in there?

CICI: But I know how to unlock it.

DADAM: Yes, but what if the lock breaks? You could be stuck in there forever.

CICI: No, I wouldn’t. You’d just take the door off, like you did for Ruby.

DADAM: Yes, but what if we couldn’t get the door off?

CICI: Well, why would that happen?

DADAM: Well, suppose the hinges broke, or got stuck, or something. You’d be stuck in there forever. It happens, you know.

CICI: Well, we could make a ladder out of something and try to go out the window.

DADAM: Um, I wouldn’t advise that. So the rule is, no locking the bathroom door, if you’re a kid.

CICI: Okay. No locking the bathroom door if you’re a kid, or a grown-up.

DADAM: No, grown-ups can lock the door if they want.

CICI: Why?

DADAM: Well, because we know how to unlock it.

CICI: Oh. [pause] What if the lock breaks?

The Bathroom Is Not Your Personal Candy Store, Young Lady.

As a follow-up to the "toothpaste as condiment" post from last week, this morning we got out of bed to find Ruby already awake and happily eating TUMS out of the bottle. Anybody got the number for Poison Control handy?

(Update: As of five hours after ingestion, Ruby is JUST FINE, so there's no need for frantic or reproachful calls, thank you very much!)

Build a Better Burger

Recently, while dining on turkey burgers, Ruby had her own idea for a delicious combination of taste sensations.

Her brilliant addition?

Toothpaste.

We looked up after hearing Cici gasp loudly to see Ruby squeezing a sizable amount of toothpaste across the top of her turkey burger. We scraped it off, covered it with ketchup, and were good to go.

Should We Be Worried?

As a reward for Ruby's pooping success, we took the girls to the Mall to ride some rides. Here they are on a little train, about to take off. Doesn't it look like they're plotting against their parents?

Family Matters.

As we mentioned in a previous post, Ruby had been showing interest in potty training again, and after another frustrating false start she really seems to be getting it now (knock wood).

She's now gotten in the fun habit of nicknaming what she sees after she's finished on the toilet as the "Daddy Poop" and "Baby Poop," based, naturally, on the size of the items in question.

Well, last night she was sitting on the toilet for a while, when she took a peek beneath her and gasped.

"What is it, Ruby?" I asked.

"A family!"

A Breakthrough.

I don't want to jinx it, but we seem to have had a breakthrough with Ruby doing you-know-what in the you-know-where. I'll follow up later this week, when it should be clearer how things are, um, "going."

Back to the Old Drawing Board.

Oh, and for those of you waiting with bated breath for an update on potty training - well, let's just say if there's anybody out there who can turn poopy underwear into gold, I'd be very interested in hearing from you. No rush, though.

Houdini She Ain't.

Many of you know that Ruby came down with pneumonia this week, possibly after contact with some germs that were swirling around and impacting members of the K---- family during our recent holiday visit there. (Cecilia has been sick about a grand total of four times since she was born, and rarely with anything worse than a cold. Ruby, on the other hand, sometimes seems to think she's in training for some sort of Medical Emergency-Off at next year's State Fair.)

But after a visit to Urgent Care on Wednesday, she began antibiotic and nebulizer treatments and almost immediately rebounded to full speed. This includes the usual shenanigans at bedtime - lots of footsteps on the upper level after tuck-in time, multiple requests for essential sleeping prerequisites like shoes and bread, etc.

But last night's adventure took the cake. We had had some friends and relatives over for dinner, and Cici and Ruby were eventually put to bed. After a good deal of nonsense from both of them, they seemed finally to be settling down . . . and when we heard Ruby shout "Dad! I have to go potty!", it seemed safe enough to yell back, "Okay, honey, go ahead and go!" While Number Two is still something of a challenge for her - she usually goes and hides in an inconspicuous place when she has to go - Number One has been more or less mastered, and she doesn't need the least assistance from us anymore in successful negotiating most bathroom experiences.

Or so we thought. Ruby went into the bathroom and closed the door, and a very short time later we heard, "Dad! I can't get out!"

Dadam went up alone at first to check on things, but almost immediately after he had established that yes, it was true, she couldn't get out, the entire company assembled in the upstairs hallway outside the locked room like characters in a theatrical farce. The expected mayhem soon ensued. Cici, who as it turned out was not yet asleep, began wailing from offstage that Ruby would be stuck in the bathroom forever and would never be seen again. Momlissa and Dadam demonstrated their typically different approaches to crisis management, with Momlissa laughing to herself over the whole situation and speaking encouragingly to Ruby through the door, and Dadam screeching "I don't even know what the lock looks like!" and eventually needing to be ordered downstairs to grind his teeth where he wouldn't bother anyone else. The gallery provided many suggestions of helpful intent, if not always a practical nature, ranging from breaking the door down, to picking the lock with a tiny elbow wrench, to unscrewing the doorknob plate and thus getting the lock to magically disengage (no burglar ever thought of this one before, I'm sure), to calling in the county sheriff's office for a private consultation.

As for Ruby herself, despite her inability to grasp what was fundamentally required of her to actually unlock the door, she appeared to be delighted by her predicament, and except for excusing herself briefly to stand on the toilet and turn the sink on (and leave it on), responded with a uniformly positive attitude to all suggestions, usually shouting "Oh!" as if the solution to the problem had been suddenly and simply revealed to her, and she had been very silly not to see it herself in the first place. Here's an example of how it went:

MOMLISSA: Okay, Ruby, right underneath the doorknob there's a button. Do you see it?

RUBY: Yeah!

MOMLISSA: Can you put your hand on it, please?

RUBY: Okay!

MOMLISSA: Now, all you need to do to unlock the door is just twist it.

RUBY [as if understanding perfectly]: Oh!

MOMLISSA: Okay, twist it!

[RUBY's hand appears under the door and gropes the floor inside the hallway.]

Variations on this theme continued for some time. And, long story short, she got out. It was actually the suggestion of Auntie Landi that did it - we ultimately unscrewed the hinges of the door and took the whole thing off its frame. As she was released from captivity, Ruby laughed and smiled as if the experience had been specially designed to fulfill the recreational expectations of the American two-year-old and she not only had gotten her money's worth but would definitely recommend the attraction to all her friends. Cici, for all her initial concern and distress, had actually fallen asleep about five minutes into the entire ordeal, and would have to wait until this morning to find out how it all came out. The rest of the company retired downstairs for games and beverages.

And Ruby went back to bed, only calling for things about five more times before konking out once and for all.

Pee-Port Card, Part Four

We did in fact try Ruby in big-girl underpants over the weekend, and she's been doing extremely well. Her success rate is probably close to 90 percent when in comes to Number One (not counting nighttime); we've had some accidents where Number Two is concerned, but she's trying, and learning. Way to go, Rubester. Now if we could only get you to get along with your sister. . . .

Pee-port Card, Part Three

More successes. If all continues to go well, we may try big-girl underpants this weekend.

Pee-port Card, Part Two

Make that four times!

Pee-port Card

Three times in the past 24 hours, woo hoo!