Friday, May 16, 2008

We All Fall Down!

So, my daughter is coming into the stage of "precocious pre-schooler." Aside from her dramatics when we ask her to do something (she's got a jaw-setting, eye-averting, won't budge stubbornness when she is dead-set against something), she's branching out to embrace the view that "all the world's a stage..."

We've been taking her to the Sacred Meadow Montessori Preschool in Accident, MD -- We LOVE her being there. She adores Miss Carolyne, the teacher, and is making friends with some really good kids. She's been successful at taking naps, helping out, and obsessing about the pet rabbits that Miss Carolyne has outside. (I wish she'd go to the potty there, but we're trying to be patient about that...) It's been wonderful for her. I hope that we can find a way to let her attend more than one day a week at some point.

It's been a little nerve-wracking for me to anticipate what stories we will hear from Carolyne about how Ingrid interacts with the other kids...or what kind of stories about her home life that she will tell...

Well, here's the first one. :)

The other day, Ingrid fell out of her booster seat after eating lunch. Since she started pre-school, she's wanted to do EVERYTHING by herself. The other day, she went to the potty to poop and I happened to walk by the open door and she yelled, "Don't look at me! That's not nice!" I told her to shut the door then... Geesh! She also wants to click herself into the carseat (which she can't do in the end...and inevitably makes us late to wherever we're going...) and climb in and out of her booster seat at the table.

I'm fine watching her climb into the seat. There are plenty of things to hold onto. It's climbing out that makes me hold my breath. The booster seat is on a regular chair, but it has sides on it, akin to arm rests. She inevitably folds her leg up underneath of her so that her balance is completely forward as she crawls out of the seat over the arm rest face-first. I don't even think I can describe her process... But she gets really angry when you try to help.

Anyway, Rowan's high chair is on the one side of her seat, about a foot and a half away, and the other side is open for her to get in and out. Well, Andrew had Rowan in the high chair waiting for his food, and Ingrid in her booster seat beside him eating her lunch. When he went to the kitchen to fix the baby's cereal, she must have decided to get out of her seat to get something for (or from...) Rowan and fell face-first out of her high chair, only to catch herself on the high chair by the bridge of her nose! The seat was far enough away from the high chair that she couldn't get back into the booster seat and couldn't get herself pushed back up from the high chair. Neeless to say, this left a mark...right down the middle of her face.

So, for the past week, she's been walking around looking like a hockey player (Andrew calls her Boogaard after his favorite Minnesota Wild hockey player--the one known to fight a lot...). Her nose is scratched in 2 places and she has one bruise going across the bridge of the nose and a bump and bruise between her eyebrows. There's no missing it. When she went to preschool, on Tuesday, I knew it was only a matter of time until someone asked her what happened.

Here's where it could have gotten REALLY interesting... Her dramatic tendencies could have made it as interesting as it was for my former professor for whom I babysat regularly the year after I graduated from college. His 2-year old told her pre-school teacher that the bruises on her forehead (which she contracted herself after falling down a few steps...) were from the fact that her dad was driving nails in her head! Fortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, she gave an answer that echoed our reassurance that everyone makes mistakes...

"Well, everybody falls out of their high chair sometime."

Shew.

She lets us help her out of her booster seat now. At least until the memory fades. Maybe by then, her coordination will have improved. :)

1 comment:

IrishMommy said...

Are you sure her and Levi aren't related? He has to do everthing, "I do it myself" and it drives me CRAZY... I have to fight him to get his car seat buckled. Otherwise, I have to add another 10 minutes to our "get ready" schedule. Man, they grow up so quick! Levi would love that she looks like a hockey player. he he he