Copping a Squat Eliminates the Crankies

Crankypants wanted to be held, didn't want to be held, wanted a manana, didn't want a manana, wanted a cookie, didn't want a cookie, said Meesh? Meesh? didn't want to say Meesh? Meesh? Wanted to read, didn't want to read. What she did want to do over and over was tear out all the DVDs and videos from their shelves, regardless of the countless removals, stern "Nos" and "Stop thats" coming from Mom, Patricia and Margaret. Contrary Larry, that's who Miss Baby B was all day yesterday. She had a good nap for Dad, almost an hour and a half, but she was still tired-acting and unreasonable about so many things. But apparently this is the natural course of events, or at least the natural course of events for Downs girls. I dug out a couple of videos of Margaret and Patricia at this age and they both said and did the same kinds of things Brigid is doing right now. Patricia at 18 months sounded and looked just like her baby sister does now. I have footage of Patricia systematically pulling all the books off the bookshelve in what was once the toy room. She sits in the middle of the rubble and paws through stuff, flinging it right and left, occasionally pausing to actually look at it. Then she gets up and move on to something else entirely.

I can't find video of Margaret at exactly this age, although it exists somewhere in the house, but Patricia's vocabulary and sound are amost exactly the same as Brigid's. At 18 months, Patricia was calling me Ma-Mee, however, and Brigid, well, Brigid doesn't seem to call me anything. She calls my boobs Mah mah mah, so maybe that's synonomous with Ma-Mee. Who knows. She says Dah-Dee! with exclamation. In fact, last night I thought I was going to have another difficult bedtime with Brigid, with her screaming and heaving because she started to scream and cry when she called out for Dah-Dee and I had to tell her that he was at work. I even tried to call him on the phone for her, but that backfired. She just wanted to play with the phone and I wouldn't let her. She screamed even louder.

I gave her a bath, and that calmed her down somewhat. So did the poop she managed to take while IN the bath. She was playing, splashing and swimming when all of the sudden, she took on water. She choked and coughed and sputtered, looking at me in amazement. The force of her coughing brought out a little pee pee, and that interested her. She went back to splashing about only to jump up with a look on her face that spelled alarm. She said, "All done?" and I asked if she wanted to get out, but it was too late. She assumed the squatter's stance and all bets were off. But she certainly felt much better afterwards. I worried that if I swept her up and tried to sit her on the big potty, it would cramp her style and she'd freeze up. I'll have to get a little potty for the bathroom for these situations. She certainly knew something was about to happen, we just didn't have time to plan for it. But what's a little poop between friends?