EGB....Is A Milk-a-holic

EGB is 19 1/2 months old. I'm not sure when to stop quantifying her life in months, but for now it's a helluva lot easier than days (599 not including today), or minutes (862,560), or seconds (51,753,600), or diapers (986,562,365,520,000,). I'm not sure how many diapers that is but I'm sure it's more than a kadrillion bazillion, which is a lot.


Speaking of diapers--


The good: We're using less of them. She's taken a strong interest in her own potty which is basically a bucket with squishy foam on top. Actually she may be taking too strong of an interest these days....her school notified us that she "fell in" the toilet. I'm not sure what it means to fall in a toilet other than imagining a scene of wild monkeys swinging from vine to vine only to slip into the swamp. It's not hard to imagine EGB as a wild monkey. It's quite easy actually. So she must have run and done a triple lindy into the commode. That's our girl.


Anyway, her personal potty bucket at home is conveniently placed next to a rack of magazines which she adamantly demands to be read to her as she focuses on doing her excreting. (This is the part where I start to talk about pee-pee and doodie, so for the squeamish, now would be a good time to look at another blog about fairies or cotton candy. Not here. This is for the die-hards that want to know what real life in the trenches with EGB, the doo-doo monkey, is like.) It's laughs because the magazine selection is basically "Cooks Illustrated" which is essentially black and white pencil drawings. So while EGB is attempting to do her thing, we're chanting, "Pee pee in the pot-ty. Hey. Pee pee in the pot-ty. Hey. Pee pee in the pot-ty. Hey." like we're doing the Conga line at a Bar Mitzvah. Then she's pointing to the "Cooks Illustrated" drawings repeating after me, "Chicken breast. Brisket. Garlic press. Chris Kimball." It's a bizarre scene. After she goes we all high five and fist bump our way back to her room.


Along the same lines. EGB saw her doodie for the first time. For all these months it's just been something that happens "down there". No worries. Pappa D or Dairy Queen will take care of it. She doesn't have to see it, address it, or handle it. The other day she accidentally "dropped some kids off in the pool" (actually it was one rather large child) in her bucket and stood up to take a look at the carnage. She looked at me like she'd seen a ghost. I looked at her like I'd seen a ghost. It was freaky. I got myself collected, looked EGB in the eye, cracked a smile, and changed the Conga song-- "Poo poo in the pot-ty. Hey. Poo poo in the pot-ty. Hey. Poo poo in the pot-ty. Hey" We all danced around the fire beating our chests until the wee hours of the morning like a bunch of cavemen.


The bad: They're now really heavy and stank up the whole block.


Doo-doo talk is over. The squeamish may now return to the lighter side of EGB.


For those of you that have recently spent time with EGB, you know she can get her talk ON for a little one. She's got the vocabulary of an English professor. She can talk and copy you like a parrot. So don't be using cursing around here or we'll have our hands on a 19-month-old Chris Rock stand-up getting kicked out of pre-school to live a life in a string of bad movies. I was reading that the more words that one knows the higher one can climb up the evolutionary ladder. Up the evolutionary ladder? I'm just not seeing it yet. It's more like an evolutionary ladder and slide. There's a lot of movement, but it all occupies the same space. An evolutionary vortex. Black hole.


EGB just meanders through the house looking for things to verbally identify. "Momma's jacket. Ellie's Jacket. Daddy's shoes. Doggie. Kitty. Wall. Batteries. And on and on and on." The kid can repeat. If repeating was a sport or a job. EGB would be the Lebron James and Bill Gates of the repeating world. One would think it'd get old to say the same thing 5,000 times in succession, but not EGB. Noooooooooooo. When I'm on an important phone call, EGB thinks that's the perfect time to stand in front of the refrigerator, pull on the handle, and yell, "Meee-yulk, mee-yulk, mee-yulk, mee-yulk....... times 5,000". And don't think you'll win the battle. I've tried. Ignoring doesn't work. It only adds fuel--especially when it comes to milk. I didn't know there were so many ways to say milk until I met EGB.


"Hi. My name is Pappa D and my daughter is a milk-a-holic." True. We're all dealing with it quite well, but it's gonna take some time to deal with.


Other 19 1/2 month stats:

• EGB tries to jump. She knows all the motions of jumping except for the key element of feet leaving the ground. Try jumping with cement boots. That's what EGB looks like.
• Loves crayons.
• Favorite song is Itsy-Bitsy Spider, but when presented with a plastic toy spider is not happy.
• New molars are cutting in.
• Loves school.
• Uses spoon (has been for a few months) to take food and throw at the dog and cat. They circle her high chair like a team of piranas waiting to attack.
• Thinks every store should have a mechanical horsey like the one by our house.
• Believes that there is an omnipresent vault of cookies that can dispense goodies at all times. So yelling "cookies" all day seems to make sense to her.
• And much more.....to be told at the 20 month party.

Where have we been?

Sorry.

I know I said I wasn't, but I am. I feel an obligation as the family historian to stay on top of all the happenings of our clan. And things are happenin'. There is just not enough time this holiday season. It's my hope that in the coming weeks I'm able to create an arsenal of post so that I can blow you out of the water. 2010 is coming. Change is coming. Details to come.

Until then. I wish you all a weekend. Wishes do come true, ya know.

Up first a video of the great EGB using a spoon. It's an inspiring tale of some oatmeal that made a long treacherous journey across the Midwest to our house. Upon arrival we brought the well travelled oats into our warm home and boiled him. EGB proceeded to get her favorite torture instrument, the spoon, and stuff the oats in her face. Heartwarming episode. Think Great Gatsby meets Freddy Krueger. Think Oscar performance. Any agents out there?

4 months.....and still toothless.

5 months.....and not sure if toothless, but little.

6 months and life to go.

17 months and running away to her native home with the monkeys in the Patagonia rainforest.

Ok. I haven't gone Carolina yet. However, EGB and D-Queen took off last Saturday. They left me here until tomorrow.

Me and Nanna hangin.

It's a perfect world where animals frolic in the sun. EGB is coming to bring peace to your world soon.

Bring on the weekend. I hope it finds you in an abandoned school with extra toys and free reign of the playground.

Don't know why but the video didn't attach to the last post. If you'd like to see the legendary Ellie Stringbean, go directly to the blog.