Waddling; goodbye highchair; poop in the tub

Zuzu: 3.67 yrs old
Bear: 1.56 yrs old

It is July 21, exactly one month after the summer solstice, and for the first time I can tell that the days are shorter. 

Bear likes to pound his chest like a gorilla.

Zuzu likes to waddle like a penguin. Except she doesn't exactly waddle, she bounces, adorably. I tried to instruct her on what the word "waddle" actually entails, because after enjoying her bouncing version a few times it began to grate at me that she wasn't using the word waddle correctly, and the meaning of words MATTERS! I told her how to waddle. I showed her how to waddle. I confused her. I took the bounce out of her step. I told her to forget everything I'd just said and done and waddle however she wanted.

Zuzu does not yet take instructions well when it comes to learning something challenging. Her attention span is nothing. If she tries the activity and fails, she wants to be done, to do something else. She doesn't yet understand that she can do it, if she would listen, if she would practice ...

Bear hasn't been in his highchair at all the last few days. He was getting strapped into his highchair for every single meal and snack and many art activities, then one day he climbed into one of the regular chairs at the dining room table and I gave him his plate and let him eat, and since then we've been done with the highchair. Because he throws a fit if I try to put him in it. And because I don't mind it this way, either. If he drops his spoon he'll get it himself.  And I don't have to wonder as much if he's had enough food. He gets up and down a lot during the meal, but when he's still hungry he always comes back right away to eat more.

One of Zuzu's friends came over to play. The first thing they did was dress-up. Then they sat together in the rocking chair, snuggled side by side, still wearing their princess dresses, and read Bible stories to each other. Each of them had one of the kids Bibles on their lap, and they flipped through, and took turns telling the stories. Zuzu improvised quite a bit on her turns and her friend corrected her on the details.

While on the phone with poison control yesterday (don't ask--everyone's fine), I was watching both kids in the bathtub splashing happily away, when I noticed the water surrounding Bear slowly fill with poop. He's been having soft poops recently. So the poop in the bathtub wasn't a log. It was a cloud of little soft poop bits. Luckily he was sitting closest to the drain, so when I opened the valve the poop cloud moved away from Zuzu. Still on the phone with poison control, I lifted Zuzu out of the tub, to her surprise and displeasure, and spent the next minute trying to clean the tub and Bear and slapping his hand every time he picked up poop. Finally I finished the call, got rid of the poop, put Zuzu back in the tub and started the bath over.

Bear hollers "hi" and "bye" to strangers whenever we're out shopping. Zuzu still likes to greet other shoppers, too, so we get lots of smiles when we're out and about.