This first one took me at least a month to decipher. Libby suddenly became very picky about which diapers she would wear from her cloth stash. I would pull out a tried and true, and she would scream, "No! Dipper crack my butt!" I was pretty confused. I repeated back what I heard, "The diaper cracks your butt?", hoping she would correct me and expound on her complaint. No such luck, she just said, sobbing, "yeah, dipper crack my butt!" So I'd try another, and another and another. She would wear disposables ~sometimes~ without the 'crack my butt' complaint. I really could find no rhyme or reason to what was bothering her. I tried thin dipes, thicker dipes, Dora, Spongebob, zoo animals....She'd wear some, but not others.
To be honest, Daddy and I had some good laughs over this, after she was calm and diapered of course. Daddy would proclaim, "You'd better change that diaper! Libby has a crack in her ass and it's getting bigger!" Her antics combined with his dissolved me into a quivering, side-aching mound of giggles at least once, and we've tried like hell to solve the code, amusing as it was.
I finally figured it out the other day. She would wear the diapers with snaps, but not with velcro. There's a clue here! Aha! What would velcro do to her butt that snaps would not? Double Aha! The velcro is
scratchy! "Libby, does the Dora diaper
scratch your butt?" "Uh huh, mama! Cractch my butt!" Oh sweet heavenly translation! "Do you like the diapers with snaps better? They don't scratch your butt?" "Uh huh, Mama, want stnaps!"
Mystery solved!
She is a very particular child, that is for sure. Her newest reason to freak out is when she eats something sugary; like say, cereal with milk, and it drips onto her chin. If she doesn't wipe her mouth right away, the sugar dries on her face and she has a meltdown. She will start screaming, "MY FACE! MY FACE! SOOGAR ON MY FACE! HURT!" Oh boy. So then, I have to get a wet washcloth and wash her face. She will not do it herself at this point, she is too beside herself with discomfort. While she waits for me to get and wet the washcloth, she stands in front of the mirror, making painful faces, dramatically opening and closing her mouth with apparent great difficulty, with panic in her eyes, as though her face might actually freeze in one position or the other.
The other recent development is an aversion to wearing shoes. It started, I think, when she wouldn't be able to find her shoes when going to the store with Daddy, and he would offer to just carry her to and from the car, and let her ride in the cart at the store. That worked fine,
for him. It did not work so well when we could not find the green flip flops, which are the only shoes she will wear right now. I think they are her favorites because she can take them off in the car, and only put them on to get out. We couldn't find them one day, but we could find the Dora sandals. No go. She allowed me to put them on at one point, but cried and fussed, and acted like they were leaking acid onto her feet the entire time. She wanted me to carry her and let her ride in the cart. Oh yeah, that will work. 9 mos old in sling, 3 year old in arms. Sorry, not a precedent I want to set! So she wore the Dora shoes with the leaking acid. She took them off in the car, and I had to put them back on before we could go in. It was 100 degrees outside, and the car was an oven. We go into the store, and she wanted in the cart, at which point she expected me to take her shoes off! So she whined for half an aisle before we had a little impromptu lesson on "Daddy rules" vs "Mommy rules". Somehow she managed to bear the acid leaking Dora shoes for the rest of the trip, but Daddy found the green flip flops the next day, and we've all been keeping tabs on them since!
She's going to love these stories when she's older.
Oh ok, I have to edit already, because she just reminded me of her newest neurosis. She is a bit of a hypochondriac, and I'm not sure what to do about it. Nearly everyday, she says, "my head hurt, need muh (medicine)" and then she proceeds to ask for it in a "muh cup". EVERY TIME. The entire time I am getting it for her, she reminds me about the 'muh cup'. THE WHOLE TIME. If her head really does hurt, I don't want to deny her pain relief, but I am pretty reticent to give my kids unnecessary drugs. So I don't know what to do. I've been giving her a little when she asks, but I have tried also asking her to lie down if her head hurts before we take medicine. She doesn't like that suggestion at all. It's possible she has a headache, the rest of us have seasonal allergies and get frequent headaches. Right now, I'm just planning not to buy anymore when it's gone. Bad mommy!
