A Fisher out of Water

So Naomi is potty trained! (You can obviously decide right now if you'll be reading the rest of this post.) She will be two next week, and I am so happy about not changing any more diapers.
With Penny, potty-training was a 6-month-long, tortuous ordeal. They say not to start until they're showing several signs. Um... besides throwing a violent fit every time I changed her diaper? Not really. They say not to start right before traumatic events, such as moving (does the other side of the world count?) or getting a new sibling (oops). So we were really asking for it.
But hey, it was our first child; we had NO IDEA what we were doing. And our 6-month ordeal truly demonstrated that.
For Penny, the "aha" moment when it finally clicked happened after our "aha" moment as parents: It turns out our toddler had much better bladder control when we didn't flood her system with a huge cup of juice first thing in the morning. Once we changed it to just water (which she'd only drink until she wasn't thirsty anymore), she could finally control herself, and then it was smooth sailing from there!
It was much the opposite for Naomi. She was ready. She'd been watching her sister do this "potty" thing for years. She started telling us, "my pigu hurts" (my children's code for "I gotta go!"), every time she used her diaper for over a month now. We settled into our new apartment, made sure no new siblings were on the way, and then we got down to business (bwa ha ha).
But nothing happened. Instead of floods and accidents happening all over our house, there was actually a drought. How does one potty-train a child who doesn't potty? This whole farce of taking her to the potty every 15 minutes until she does her thing-- worthless. We tried it for about 15 minutes and then I just put the potty chair in front of the TV. If she's going to be sitting somewhere for extended periods of time, it might be there.
And I started buying juice, trying to flood the system just a little.
Eventually it worked. She started calling me over to "tsa tsa pigu" (wipe her bum) more and more often, and sometimes there was something to wipe. (Confession: At the beginning of the drought, I ran and got actual paper every time and went through the motions. When this went on for more than 30 minutes, I got impatient and just patted her little cheeks with my hand and said, "There you go!" And she was none the wiser.)
Naomi has been getting pretty consistent these days, so on Tuesday I decided to take her out with me to run some errands. I hadn't even buckled her into the car seat yet before she'd already had an accident. Then when we got to the store, about 15 minutes into our shopping tour of Super Target, when I was in the back corner of the store, she decides to tell me her pigu hurts. When I huffed and puffed into the ladies room by the front door, she demonstrated it was a false alarm. And that is why she wore a diaper again.
But then on Wednesday we went to the library successfully. On Thursday, we took an all-morning trip to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum-- also successfully, luckily.
She doesn't like to sit on strange big public-restroom toilets, so I just hold her over it like Chinese parents do. (But unlike in China, I hear it's taboo to just hold your kids in the corner of the store or on the street. Even holding kids over bushes is frowned on. Ugh! Come on, America! How are we supposed to potty train our kids? By running all the way from the back of the store to the front, hoping there's no line at the ladies' room?) (Yes.) (I kind of liked potty training Penny in China.)
Today wasn't perfect. I was shopping for clothes, and Naomi was playing peek-a-boo in the clothing racks. One time, instead of saying "peek-a-boo," she told me, "My pigu hurts," but instead of saying it as a warning, I could tell by her wide eyes and pouty lip that it was more like a confession. I cleaned it up (because I was prepared... enough), put her in new panties, and moved along as if nothing had happened. See? I did learn a lot living in China!
So now we're done with diapers! I know there will be a few more hiccups in the next few days and weeks, but on the whole, we are claiming victory! There are a lot of exclamation points in this paragraph because I am just happy and relieved (ha ha) that the battle was short and the victory early!

Naomi is learning how to talk. She learns a lot from her sister's accessible vocabulary. She also just has a lot to tell us. So yesterday I wrote down just about everything I heard her say, starting first thing in the morning:

Mom, eek up. Eek up, Mom! (My wake-up call. Good thing she's cute!)

Penny hurt myself. (Penny hurt me.)

Breakfast:
Wuh guh giss. Wuh guh giss, Mom! (Look at this!)
My drop it cereal. (I dropped my cereal.)
Dup! (Jump!)
More wadder, Mommy. Wadder. My need wadder. (Naomi was thirsty.)
Mommy, broom! (Mom, I'm holding a paintbrush!)
What's that, seed? Wo's sat? (holds up apple seed)
I got you lights (I turned on the lights.)
Jumping chair jumping chair (jumps off chair)
I found a seed! I put in it water. I goddit! (We were playing with apple seeds this morning, obviously!)

That one's pink. (That one's red, blue, or green.)
Me: What color is it?
Naomi (every time: Pink!

Kippera gog (Kipper the dog. Penny loves this show. Naomi likes everything Penny does.)
It's hamme shubbel! (It has (me) shovel. : i.e., the dog on TV has a shovel.)

Wuh guh giss! (Look at this)
Bwee bops (or bee bops) (Flip flops)
Ow! My himme self! (I hurt myself!)
Ow! Jiejie himme self! (Ow! Jiejie (Penny) hurt me.)

Mom, I'm cookie. I'm cooking. (self correction)
Me: "What are you making?"
Naomi: "Crn." These girls love corn!


Where's my sipping soup? (Swimming suit)
My need heeop. (I need help.)
I'm too hodda me. (It's too hard for me.)

Butter jam finger me. (I'd like a scoop of peanut butter on my finger, please.) (And I have NO IDEA where they get the idea it's okay to eat peanut butter by the glob! Ahem....)

(Singing) Lou lou darlin', tippa lou lou darlin'.

I need Daddy snuggle you! (Usually heard lamenting in her room after being put to bed.)


Penny has a wonderful command of the English language. Her vocabulary continues to amaze me. But words are just part of the story. I have no idea what she's talking about sometimes, even though the words themselves are beautiful and precise. Case in point:

Penny: "Look at all the cars on the bridge! We can't call the ocean died."
Um... The cars part made sense. She lost me on the dead ocean.

Penny: Mommy, look what I'm drawing with my finger (draws in the air). 'A' ..... I have to do this part.
Thank you, Superwhy.

Penny (singing): It's actually colorful. Co-lor-fuuuull.

We have church at 8:00 these days, so there was no lying in bed being served breakfast on a platter for me. Which is really too bad! Kevin bought a chocolate cake last night, saying it was going to be for breakfast, and I was sort of looking forward to it!
But as I was getting ready for church, Kevin brought each of the girls in to me to tell me, "Happy Mother's Day." I loved hearing it in those sweet little voices, even as they were prompted word for word. Still sweet!
Yesterday, Kevin and the girls got me some dirt and flowers for my window boxes. Now with those all planted and birds actually visiting our bird feeder-- after only two days-- we've practically transformed our balcony into a backyard. After living in China for 2 years with no balcony, no parks, and not even any trees to speak of, this feels incredibly lush. I'm not sure I would have appreciated the "green space" on my balcony as much if I hadn't lived in China.

Our fantastic garden plot

At church, the Primary children went and sang one little song. Penny originally said she didn't want to go sing, but when the children all went to the front, Penny went along with them. We lost her in the crowd for a few moments, but as they were getting situated, we saw her smiling little face appear between a couple of the bigger kids, and she sang right along with them all.
I was super excited for Penny to go sing with the Primary kids, and I told Kevin that it was the reason I had kids in the first place. Pretty much true! It was super cute.
My Mother's Day gift (which I found online but Kevin pressed the "click to buy" button-- so he technically bought for me) was a fancy set of razor-sharp Komatsu knives, as suggested by Our Best Bites. There are thousands of websites that offer recipes and kitchen suggestions. But only a small slice of them are good, and still fewer are consistently good. This is one of the best! All their recipes I've tried are either great or amazing. I've made their recipes for company without even doing a test run beforehand, and they've been delicious! So when they recommended these knives, I felt like I could trust them with confidence. So far, so good!
And happy Mother's Day. I know that not everyone loves Mother's Day, and some people even dread and avoid it. I like it now that it's all about getting presents and doing fun things for myself, but more than that, I like it because I'm a big fan of motherhood. I think most of the world's problems could be lessened or avoided completely by mothers putting more time, effort, and love into raising and educating their children. And while it's not up to me to judge whether someone's efforts are adequate or not, I try to support mothers and motherhood in general. So happy Mother's Day!

Going back in time for a minute...
Before we got to DC, we spent some time with our families. Kevin's brother graduated from law school, and so his whole family got to be in town at the same time! It also coincided with one of the cousins' birthdays, so we got to have a great family party together.
I forget how everything came together, but after an impromptu hula by Kevin's mom and a Hawaiian friend (while Uncle John played "Tiny Bubbles" on the ukulele and I stood by with a bubble machine), Mosiah and Bahii got out their hoops to do some Native American hoop dancing. They are half-Navajo, and they're taking a hoop dancing class. Mosiah was a bit shy with everyone watching, but Bahii loved the crowd. They both taught Penny to dance, and she was pretty proud of her butterfly and eagle hoop formations.
Here are some videos of our impromptu pow-wow:







And if you're like me and never watch videos online of people's kids, here are some pictures from the event:

Naomi had a blast with her hoop (singular).

Penny was very serious about learning to dance just like her cousins. Here she has mastered one of the butterfly formations.

We move around a lot. It's a challenge, but it also gives me a fresh start at each new place. When we move to a new place and I know no one, I get to be whoever I want to be. This time around, I think I'll try to make myself a bit more interesting. 

Sometime during our stay in New Mexico, Penny became obsessed with ballet class, or "baolay class" as she says. It could have been that I was always heading off to Zumba class or some other dance class while we were there. It could have been that my mom mentioned in passing that I used to take ballet class when I was little. Whatever it was, we now have an aspiring ballerina on our hands.
So when we got to Virginia, I briefly looked into ballet classes. But since we don't have a car, our options are obviously very limited. I'm trying to jump right into life here instead of waiting to "feel settled" (whatever that means), so I decided to start a dance class here in our apartment building.
I got the word out to various kids in our building, but despite my mediocre efforts, I had a class of two this morning.

All dressed and ready to dance!

Tadah!!