Every morning our daughter brings gifts of dolls and stuffed animals to our bedroom. Tonight I found Mousey and Tiny patiently waiting for us to come to bed, apparently missed in this morning’s sweep.

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After eating some chicken minis from our favorite fast food place (Chick-fil-A), J went back to the kitchen and stayed pretty quiet.

I asked: “what are you doing?”
She replied: “just sitting here”.

I went in a few minutes later to see a very strange look on her face. She had just tasted a handful of some of the salt she had dumped on her plate. Yep, most of the previously full shaker was now empty.

It now stays in the cabinet unless an adult is present 🙂

A couple of recent incidents have helped me decide to focus on how I talk about Joanna. She’s very sensitive to what we say about her and I’ve seen the hurt look on her face as Jessica and I discuss her while she’s in the room.

Tonight’s episode: saying she stinks, instead of saying her diaper stinks. Shifting the focus from the origin (J’s apparently rotten insides) to the source (Pampers full of expelled evil) of the not-so-heavenly aroma still addresses the fact that it smells like a New Orleans sewer 3 days after Mardi Gras, without the shaming effect on my developing toddler.

Seriously though, I’m making an effort to change how I address situations so the issue is what it’s discussed, rather than the individual.