Using Her Invisible Friends Against Her

Quinn doesn't quite have invisible friends, but she does have lots of invisible animals — cats named Milo (after the co-lead in Milo and Otis, dogs, rabbits, the occasional pony, etc. She will run after them, catch them, pet them, cuddle them, and want you to do the same. If she forgets one in the car or outside or something, she can get quite distressed.

However, they have, upon occasion, proved to be helpful to have around.

Over the past few nights, when she's gotten a little distressed/distracted at bedtime, I've been able to pet Coll the collie and Point the pointer as they curl up in bed with her and convince her that they need her to stay still in bed because her dogs want her to make the bed warm. The coup de grace usually involves finding Milo sitting on the end of the bed, waiting for Quinn to settle down so that she can go to sleep.

Some nights it's worked better than others, but it's nice to know the invisible animals can be helpful ...

Setting an Example

Upon occasion, I get quite frustrated with myself and say unkind, self-abusive things. (Self-abusive in the "You idiot" or "I'm a frickin' moron" sense, not the other, clinical sense of self-abuse — I'm sorry, but some readers make such clarification necessary.) Anyway, Celeste was feeling ill this morning and had a bit of a regurgitative moment, so Evelin set her up in her bed for a while to recuperate. To keep tabs on her while downstairs with Quinn, Evelin set up an old baby monitor in Celeste's room.

Flash forward to the evening. Evelin's in Quinn's room getting her to sleep, I'm downstairs (having been dismissed by Quinn) going through some work e-mail and I realize Celeste is coming through loud and clear on the monitor.

She's playing one of the games on her Vtech Kidizoom digital camera. [ASIDE: By the way, that was one of the best present's she's ever gotten ... not only has she had lots of fun with the extra features, like games, she's enjoyed taking pictures, albeit very low resolution ones, and there have been some interesting bits of accidental art.] However, things weren't always going the way she'd've liked and I could hear the occasional complaint of "Oh, that's not right" mixed with lots of "Stupid!"s ... which makes me think I need to be more careful what sort of verbal responses I have to my own missteps.

Animal Sounds

Celeste, as she will readily tell anyone and everyone within ear shot likes "puppies and that's all!" Quinn, however, is a much more equal opportunity animal aficionado. "I like puppies and bunnies and elephants and baa-baas [sheep] and turtles and ponies and kitties that don't scratch and ... and ... and ..."

Thus Quinn's animal noise extravaganza the other day shouldn't have been a surprise: "Meow-woof! Meow-woof! I'm a mixed up kitty!"