Hoarders 2032

"On the next episode of "Hoarders", season 26, episode3:
Meet T, young, bright, talented, and beautiful.  But her secret is going to bury her alive..."


My current, irrational fear for my daughter's future - hoarding.  She has been very attached to a few items recently and there are others that she rotates in and out, but wherever she goes, she is burdened with all the things she feels compelled to carry with her.  The regular items include Mimi&Binky (when we let her, trying to keep these for bedtime only), drumsticks, and Teddy.  Other items have included DVD cases, purses, new Mimi, Baby Doll, and a weird play mobile attachment part that resembles a question mark two feet long that T calls her "umbrella".  She even insists on sleeping with these items, as uncomfortable as they may be.

I've tried to suggest that she has too many things to carry and offer to help.  This is met with responses like "No, that's mines," or "I had it first".  Apparently, she is already prepared to her younger sister to start stealing her clothes.

"Where my DVD case?" says K.

In this picture, I really wanted to get a cute shot of my coordinating girls and tried to pry away the DVD case, Teddy, and High School Musical purse (filled with an assortment of items), but she refused. At least I got the smile!

So, I don't know if this is normal 2.5 year old behavior (I'm sure it is).  I'm watching closely though.  I've had first hand experience with cleaning up after a hoarder and it was horrifying.  Excuse me now, as I purge four trash bags full of clothes to donate...

On a side note, the other day, T said, "Look Mummy, there are three many birds!"  Puzzled, I asker her to repeat what she said, and again she stated "three many birds."  It took me a couple of minutes to figure out she hears me say "too many" (as in she is carrying too many things) and assumes I say "two many".  Thus, the logical toddler interpretation for even more of something would be "three many".  I need to figure out how to clarify that for her, right after I explain one snowman, two snowmen.  :)

Mash-ups

I'm totally Gleek - how about you?  I look forward to Tuesday night like a little kid looks forward to Christmas!  And by Tuesday night, I mean whatever night after Tuesday we can squeeze in 42 minutes to watch it on the DVR, because who has time for commercials anymore? My favorite episodes are the mash-ups where they take two seemingly unrelated songs and make something better.  I'm always amazed at the creativity of those kids - um, I mean producers.

Anyways, last night we were having a different kind of mash-up in our house.  Dinner time is never fun for little Miss T.  She is a great eater for breakfast and lunch, but dinner has never been her thing.  I've stopped being insulted (kind of) that she won't eat anything I make, no matter how long I've slaved away at the stove (microwave), and that she'd rather eat the raw ingredients including shredded cheese and frozen peas.  I've tried to stay away from the motivation of condiments.  We will not be a household that considers ketchup a vegetable!  However, the inevitable happened and now T has a liking for both ketchup and ranch dressing.  OK, fine, if she'll eat the food dipped, I'll learn how to deal.  Usually, though, she just sucks the condiment off of the bite and dips again.  Total fail.

Last night, T decided to make some new mash-up combinations of food and condiments.  I'm sure we're all familiar with dipping chicken in ketchup or ranch, perhaps even french fries.  Last night, T decided to dip pomegranate seeds into ranch dressing.  Ever try doing this?  It's basically battered in dressing and now so are your fingers because this is work that a fork or a spoon just can't handle.  In doing so, T also discovered that a more efficient condiment delivery system is just to dip your entire hand into that beautiful puddle of flavor.  Why waste time with some bite of food that will just get in the way and cloud the savory taste?  Before I knew it, her hands were completely coated in ranch dressing and she was rubbing them together as if washing with soap! 

Silver lining?   At least the girl has mastered the mechanics of hand washing.  That came in handy as I carried her up to her bath at arms length and plopped her in a tub full of bubbles.  I think I need to hide the ranch dressing now or the girl will be hitting the sauce straight out of the bottle!

p.s. By the way, don't think for a second that the condiment will hide food that you want her to eat.  She was no fool when I tried to dip a bite of zucchini into ranch.  In addition to hand washing, the girl has mastered twisting as far away from the offensive food offer while whining "noooooooo!". sigh.