Feely Gloop Sunday
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
spent last Tuesday through Saturday in LA for the Society for Adolescent Medicine Meeting. Seems like every 3 years, we’re back at the good ol’ Century Plaza Hotel. This time, however, instead of staying with the family and being a conference commuter, I opted to get a room in the hotel…so much better!
As is typical for me during meetings, I too busy for words, but I did manage to slip away to see Joe (my stepfather) and Auntie M one night during the trip. Sure I wanted to see the family, but my ulterior motive for visiting Joe was to acquire Baby Stella’s feeding set from wherever he managed to lose it in his house. Yes, you read that correctly…he lost it in his house.
The Reader’s Digest version of this silly story is that AdoringHusband, the munchkin and I were in LA with Joe and the rest of the family for Christmas. I had a ton of her presents sent out to LA so that she could do the whole Christmas morning paper tearing thing. One present was Baby Stella, her first doll.
Now having already sent about a million boxes urgently to Joe’s LA address before we flew out there, I decided that Baby Stella needed to be there on Christmas morning but Baby Stella’s feeding set
did not. Let’s save some money on the rush shipping. I figured it would be fine if it arrived Friday the 26th or Saturday the 27th. I had not planned for it to arrive on Monday the 29th especially as we had already left on Sunday the 28th. Sigh…
After Joe told me that it had arrived that Monday, I asked him to send the feeding set to me as soon as he could. I waited. Nothing. I called. He said that he was getting to it. I waited some more. Still nothing. Finally when Auntie M was coming out for the Inauguration, I asked her to get Baby Stella’s feeding set from Joe and bring it with her.
She called me before she boarded the plane. “He can’t find it,” she said. I could feel her head shaking in disbelief and annoyance from 2700 miles away.
“What do you mean ‘he can’t find it?’ How do you lose a box in that little house?” I asked incredulously.
“Girl, I do not know. Do not ask me. How your mother put up with him all those years I will never understand…” she launched into her usual refrain, “He’s got so much crap all over that house, I don’t know how he can find anything!”
So Baby Stella had no feeding set. She did have a cradle and a bath set, but she could not be fed. Yet that really wasn’t a major issue at that point. Zara had shown no real abstract play with Baby Stella as well, a baby. I’d suggest putting her in the cradle and poor Baby Stella would get unceremoniously dropped face first, feet hanging over the side into her little bed. I taught her Rock A Bye Baby to sing to Baby Stella, yet she would rock her so hard that Baby Stella would end up skittering across the wood floor. So there was no great loss without the bottle and bib. I figured that I could wait until my March trip to find Baby Stella’s feeding set (you just can’t lose something like this in a house. I would find it!).
We found, however, that Zizi’s interest in Baby Stella suddenly peaked when Mommy bought Baby Stella’s stroller.
First the stroller became a general battering ram, but in short order, we taught her to place Baby Stella in the stroller and wheel her around the house. Something then seemed to click: doll, stroller, baby, Baby Stella! The pieces fit together.
These days, the most common thing you hear is “Oh no, Baby Stella!” said with extreme anguish. Oh no, her shoe came off. Oh no Mommy, don’t put her in the trunk. And recently our babysitter said that she took Zizi out for a walk when Zizi turned around and exclaimed, “Oh no, Baby Stella!” and ran back up the driveway. She had forgotten to bring Baby Stella out with her for her walk! Horrors! So you see why it eventually became so important for me to find Baby Stella’s feeding set when I went to Joe’s house last week.
I went to Joe’s house last Thursday night. I did not find Baby Stella’s feeding set at Joe’s house. I did, however, look through about 50 unopened boxes from Publisher’s Clearing House that contained god-only knows what while fending off an overly affectionate German Shepherd. After 30 minutes I emerged covered in dog slobber, pissed off, still unable to understand a) how he lost the one box that wasn’t from Publisher’s Clearing House and b) what in the name of all that’s holy is he buying from freaking PCH?
I guess this means I have to buy another feeding set for Baby Stella. Sigh…
I returned home on Saturday night to find an extremely frazzled AdoringHusband and bubbly little girl who was a large part of the frazzlelation. I vowed to make up for the time away by giving him Sunday completely off. No equally shared parenting for the day. It would be a day of Mommy Mommy Mommy for Daddy’s Girl.
Miss Zizi woke at 7:30, jumping up and shouting her usual, “cereal!” I tried to encourage a potty visit before breakfast but there seems to have been some potty trauma during the days I was away and she reacts to it like Elphaba contemplating a dip in the pool. Alas, no go.
Zizi had Rice Krispies and Mommy had Total Cinnamon Crunch. We made faces, laughed and had a good chat about world events. By this time, I wanted to face plant back in the bed, but instead we camped out in the spare bedroom. I attempted to talk up the restorative benefits of a morning nap to my young daughter, only to find myself hearing “Wake up Mommy!” shouted in my ear. Eventually we emerged, went downstairs, and made brunch. She was really into breaking the eggs…really.
Our plan for the afternoon was to make Feely Gloop, the wondrous substance for toddlers mentioned in the book First Art (yes I do have to buy books to help me think of cool things to do with the kidlet…say something! I’ll smack you!).
But we hit a stopper. Inadequate cornstarch in the house. This meant one thing…which happened to be Zizi’s favorite thing: shopping!!
And off we went to Macy’s (no, not for cornstarch…for a lightweight jacket, silly!), then Radio Shack, and as we were leaving, Zizi made a beeline for a concession cart selling personalized music CDs for kids. They didn’t have Dora but they did have Elmo (thank goodness!) and her name was one of the possible personalizations (makes me so happy that I didn’t follow my patient’s example and name her Tequanisheama). Then we went to the grocery store for the cornstarch, food coloring and something to eat for dinner: barbecued short ribs.
As luck would have it, by the time we returned home and had a good diaper change (she was still potty phobic), someone was asking for Rae Rae and a nap. During which time I managed to order her 7 pairs of shoes in her new size including these adorable (and overpriced) Agatha Ruiz de la Prada sandals.
(Hey, I did have a 20% off coupon.)
She woke up, had a snack, and we took Baby Stella out for her requisite walk after putting the short ribs on to cook. I then begged her asked her to sit still for me for 2 seconds so that I could complete my homework on focal points (take a picture with the subject to the left or right in the frame) during which she began attempting to disrobe for no good reason.
This one would have been perfect had I not muffed the focusing (yes, I managed to screw up autofocus…good job!)
As the sun went down and the wind picked up, we went inside, put on her personalized Elmo music (Zara come sing with us!) and set about making Feely Gloop. She poured the cornstarch in the giant bowl and Mommy poured the water. Our faces mirrored the fascination and delight we felt as we let the slippery, part-liquid, part solid gloop run through our fingers. Her little hands were trying to steal the gloop from my big ones. We added colors one at a time, watching how the drops mixed into the solid/liquid goo. I lost track of time standing next to my daughter in our short-rib scented kitchen, playing and squealing with all 33 inches of the kidlet as she stood on the stepstool pouring gloop from one hand to the other. Yes there was flingage. Yes there was mess. But it was so worth it.
And she didn’t even ask for Dora until after dinner, which she didn’t eat, by the way. She’s almost two. That’s the way it goes.