Ahead of Schedule

Posted: October 7th, 2009 | Author: kristen from motherload | Filed under: Firsts, Husbandry, Miss Kate, Paigey Waigey Wiggle Pop | 7 Comments »

Last week our Israeli babysitter came up to me holding Kate’s new anatomically-correct doll. She had its diaper pulled down.

“Okay, so what is this?” she asked, waving the uncircumcised plastic penis at me. “Really, Kristen,” she said, in mock dismay. “I don’t know about this!”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “That doll? Definitely not Jewish.”

For the past couple months, whenever we’d go to our local toy store, Kate would immediately run over to where this doll was shelved. It was all boxed up with a pacifier, a bottle you could fill with water, a diaper, and a little training potty. Oh, and a penis! An actual working—well peeing at least—penis.

Or as Kate says, a “pee-NOOS.”

Now, I realize this pronunciation is absurd, but you try telling an, ahem, self-assured young child that she’s saying something wrong.

Anyway, for weeks she’d visit her pee-NOOS doll and totally obsess over how much she loved it, how great it was that it really tinkled, how desperately she needed it, and how I’d better get it for her before someone else came in and snatched it up.

Oh, and did she mention it has a pee-NOOS?

Now, I didn’t expect that Kate would become quite so interested in pee-NOOSes at this age. I mean, she’s FOUR for God’s sake. And this particular pee-NOOS doll obsession actually began when she was three. (We staved off getting the damn doll until her fourth birthday.) But three, four, whatever the age—I couldn’t even utter that word until I was MUCH older. As in high school, maybe. And then, (and even now a little) not without giggling.

At any rate, it seems that a lot of things around here are progressing faster than we expected.

Last night before dinner, Kate was sitting at the table doing some little art project, and I called to her from the kitchen to please wash her hands before dinner. She ran past me and mentioned something about also “having to clean up the hair on the table.”

“Huh?” I said. “Hair?” And I walked into the dining room to see scissors, purple construction paper, and Crayons, covered with a layer of wispy locks of hair.

Now, for some reason I had no idea where this hair, this FINE BLOND LITTLE GIRL HAIR, had come from. “Is this from a doll, Kate?” I asked, confused and annoyed.” It really took me a couple minutes, hearing her innocent “I dunnos” then eventually noticing her new asymmetrical ‘do, to finally grasp that it was her hair.

Ah well, there goes the cute bob. Now her hair looks like one of those choppy surfer dude wigs. Well, on the right side at least.

“I thought we’d have to wait until the teen years to worry about this,” Mark muttered as he set our turkey burgers on the table.

And then, mid-way through our meal, Paige shoves her fingers down her throat. All the fingers on one hand. She gags, then looks around at us, and makes a huge proud grin. From across the table I’m yelping, “Paige! What are you doing, Paige?! Don’t do that!” as Mark turns his head away so she won’t see him laughing, and want to do it more.

So then, we’ve got rampant pee-NOOs interest, self-hacked punk haircuts, and pre-bulimic baby behavior.

God help us when these girls turn five and two.

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