Frida do'd it

This past week we've been nightweaning. "Frida, when do we nurse?" I will say. And she will answer either slightly mournfully, "nurse night-night time. nurse morning" (correct) or, mischievously, "nurse here!" as in, nurse right now, yes please thankyouverymuch! The first three or so nights went surprisingly well-- she'd wake and be reminded and cry for a heartfelt minute or two then roll over with a determined expression-- but then on Thursday she was sent home from daycare right after waking up from her nap, ca. 3:15, with a fever, and ran a fever all that afternoon/evening/night. She slept most of the evening, not having eaten anything, and then woke around 1:30AM clearly feeling better and hungry. After a snack and some awake time I nursed her to sleep around 2:30... and when she woke a few hours later feverish again, I figured what the heck and destroyed the previous few nights' work by nursing her in the middle of the night. Feh. Friday she couldn't go back to daycare despite being fever-free (24-hour rule), but then Friday night when she woke expecting to nurse and was denied, she screamed a lot. And that happened a couple of times. I was tired today. So was she.

This morning we brought Sam to taekwondo and then, because staying there watching with her is impossible (she wants to participate and tries to for the whole 45 minutes) we went out, as we did last week, for some breakfast. She didn't want any of my bagel and the unfamiliar cafe I'd thought to try didn't have scrambled egg sandwiches (boo!) so I got her a banana. As usual, she tried to open it herself. She tried many times and each time she considered letting me help but then changed her mind, until finally hunger got the better of her and she handed it to me, "Mommy did it?" So I cracked just a little of the peel open, leaving the rest for her to do. And then she changed her mind again, and proceeded to wail and shriek and throw her banana hard at the floor, all because it had been violated by my cracking the peel open, until I had to carry her out of the cafe. Outside she calmed down and at the taekwondo studio she calmly peeled her banana and ate most of it.

We did a bunch of other things (farmer's market, home for lunch, swimming at the local pool which we'd somehow not been to for the last two years-- Sam can swim! though he hasn't figured out how to breathe while swimming, so he does a passable head-down crawl until he gets halfway across the pool then stands up to catch his breath. And Frida kickedkickedkicked for nearly 45 minutes before being exhausted. Various other errands. Lots of negotiating with Sam about appropriate consequences for misbehaviors, as he seems unable to open his mouth without being rude or disrespectful this past week.) Then finally, putting Frida to bed and going through the events of the day with her, I asked, "Did we bring Sam to taekwondo?" "yah!" "And did we go and get a banana?" and her face fell and she said, mournfully, "Mommy do'd it. Frida do'd it. Mommy do'd it." (aka, some version of, Mommy opened it. Frida wanted to. But Mommy did it.) Sigh. Who knew helping one's child begin to peel a banana could have such lasting ramifications?

Here she is enjoying a tomato on our new outdoor furniture. We've been eating outdoors as often as possible now that we have somewhere comfortable to sit.



(She likes to take a couple of bites of a ripe tomato, suck as much of the juice out as she can, then discard it. So we give her small-ish ones. Tomatoes this time of year are so very good.)