Cleaning Up Her Act

First and foremost, Celeste not only had a bath tonight; she also had her hair washed ... and (at the risk of jinxing things) it all went pretty well.

I'm having trouble remembering the entire sequence of events, but suffice to say it's taken a few days, gradually getting her to stand happily in the bath (albeit upset when any actual washing takes place), to sitting of her own volition in the tub, to enjoying the bath.

The big difference maker was the bath crayons, but some bubblebath and blowing bubbles played a role, as did, I think, my letting her walk around the tub without being held ... and risking a slip. Evelin had been holding her firmly whenever Celeste was standing in the tub, but she was busy with Quinn one night and I kept a hand hovering but not on her. That seemed to free Celeste up to move around with the crayons more and made her feel unsteady enough (a 101-ism on my part) to feel more comfortable sitting down.

Last night, we pulled the bubblebath from the equation — seeing the floor of the bathtub expanded Celeste's canvas for drawing — and she did great. Tonight, I "accidentally" had Dave Penguin Head wet her hair, and then explained I was going to put baby gravy on her hair.

This will probably be one of those things that ends up surfacing in therapy years later, but I've always referred to Celeste's toothpaste as "bear grease" because she refers to it by signing BEAR. (It's Orajel Toddler Training Toothpaste, which has a Maurice Sendak picture of Little Bear on it.) Similarly, Celeste points to her shampoo/soap and says "Baby," so I started calling it "baby gravy." Hey, if it gets her to take a bath ...

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Other Stuff

SHEEP: On Saturday, we took the girls to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Quinn slept through much of it, but Celeste was interested in the sheep so long as she was in the backpack. When I took her into one of the show pen areas outside of the backpack, I think the sheep were a little big and noisy for her. I was also surprised that she wasn't very interested in the sheepdog demonstrations.

CUTE 1: This afternoon, Celeste and I went out into the yard to pick a flower for Evelin. While Celeste was looking at one of the azaleas, I noticed a bee hard at work gathering pollen and pointed it out to her. Celeste said "bee," but otherwise didn't pay too much attention.

After going back inside and giving Evelin the little pink rose we picked, Celeste ran over to her bookcase and pulled out Buzz-Buzz, Busy Bees, excitedly shouting "Bee! Bee!"

CUTE 2: Early Monday morning, Celeste had a night-waking episode that needed attention. I soothed her and sat with her for a while, and she eventually fell asleep again. When I went to put her back in her crib, she woke enough to say "No. More Daddy, 'leste ..." before falling back asleep.

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