Tragedy Strikes the Heiss Household

Rachel has become somewhat attached to her blankies. Lucky for us, there are two favorites--Andrew thinks having two favorites might be hereditary since he also had two favorite blankets.

Rachel and her blanket

Her attachment can be nice. Sometimes if she bonks her head and is upset, she'll crawl to her blankey to cuddle instead of to me. It all depends on who is closer. If I'm too far away, she'll choose the blanket over me. Her blankies help her fall asleep at night. She likes to cuddle them and stick her fingers and toes through them and use them as pillows and so forth.

Rachel and her blanket

When she wakes up, whether first thing in the morning or after a nap, she'll bring a blanket out of the crib with her. Usually she'll let go after she cuddles with mom or dad for a few minutes and fully wakes up. After she woke up from this morning's nap, however, she was not going to give up the blankey.

Rachel and her blanket

She had to go potty. I knew this because she hadn't gone all morning. We went to the bathroom and I tried to take the blankey away from her, but she wouldn't loosen her grip. I explained that I was going to take it away because she was going to use the potty and we don't use our blankies on the potty. Then I wrenched it out of her hand and threw it into the hall.

Rachel went balistic. She has this super cool temper-tantrum move where she completely relaxes her upper body making arms go limp and her head loll backwards, so you can hardly keep a grip on her, while somehow still managing to thrash her legs about. She was howling and thrashing and eventually I gave her back the blanket so that she would use the potty.

She held her blankey and sucked on it while she peed. She likes to watch the stream between her legs and so she moved the blankey so that she could see. I saw the wheels turning in that little head of hers but by the time I figured out what she was thinking it was too late. The blanket went into the potty between her legs.

Rachel and her blanket

I took it away and put it in the washing machine for safe-keeping, which was fine because she was over her post-nap blanket need by this point.

Fast forward a few hours to mid afternoon. Rachel, again, is acting like a little girl who needs to use the potty. She keeps standing up, sticking her little bum out and doing toots while looking at me with a panicked look on her face.

We have created somewhat of a monster. She doesn't always like to wear diapers. She doesn't like to go in them and she doesn't like to have them changed. She throws a fit everytime we try to change them: screaming, rolling around, delivering some well-aimed kicks, etc.

She also sometimes doesn't like to sit on the potty. I think she finds it boring. She'd much rather open up the bathroom cupboards and see what treasures they hold. Or tip over the garbage can. Or play with the toilet and/or toilet paper. Or try to climb into the tub.

This potty break was one of those potty breaks. It took me about five minutes just to get her diaper off. When I tried to sit her on the potty she went as stiff as a board and screamed while trying to get me to let go of her. I gave up on the potty and tried to put her diaper back on but she threw a fit and started bouncing around on her back.

I picked her up and tried to calm her down but she kept on screaming and thrashing around so I put her down in her crib, diaperless. I realize this was a bold move--I knew she had to go potty--but I wasn't really expecting her to do what she did.

The minute she was in her crib she stopped fussing, looked up at me, smiled, and peed...all over her other favorite blankey. I picked her up and moved her to the tub, figuring that she'd be safe in there now that she wasn't convulsing, and stripped her bed, throwing everything into the washer. I started the load and then filled up the bathtub and rinsed Rachel off before going on with the rest of our day, completely forgetting about the laundry.

Dinner was an interesting experience. Rachel must be having a willful day because she would not take a bite of food, or even open her mouth, unless she was putting the spoon in her mouth. She isn't very good at getting the spoon and food into her mouth so we worked out a system where I would put a spoonful of food into her mouth every time she put the spoon she was holding into her mouth. It got very messy. She smeared food all over her hair (another hereditary trait, I guess), her tummy, her legs, her arms. Pretty much everywhere.

I am feeding myself!

All gone!

We headed to the bathtub straight after dinner. Rachel maintained her self-sufficiency in the tub. She knocked all the shampoo bottles off the side (over and over again--I need to stop picking them up, I guess) and when she was done with that she tried to reach the ones on the shelf. When she realized those were too high she went for the soap dish, but it wasn't there because I had removed it during bath #1. So she moved on. She loves to try to pull the plug, but today she went even further. She tried to reach the tap.

All of this even before the tub was full. I guess all of her exersion made her thirsty because she decided to get herself a drink from the dripping faucet (we were using the shower head to fill up the tub because she likes the fountain that it makes).


She spent her time in the tub blowing bubbles--yes, our eight month old baby blows bubbles--and trying to stand up. I spent my time lathering her with as much lavender-scented soap as I could while trying to keep her sitting down. When I had had enough I took her out of the tub. Rachel did not approve.


I dried her off anyway and after much hassle got her diaper on. She was still screaming so we went to find her blankets so that we could cuddle. That's when I remembered about the laundry.

I switched the load up into the dryer and turned it on and then went into Rachel's room and grabbed my favorite blanket. It seemed to do the trick. She calmed down after I wrapped her up and held her. After her blanket fix, she got down and played for a little bit more, bedtime looming ever closer.


By the time I had Rachel all ready for bed I had completely forgotten about the laundry, again, so I was shocked when I walked into her room and found her crib barren of blankets. I put her down anyway, with my favorite blankey and went to check on the laundry.

She started screaming the minute I closed the door...and the laundry was still wet. I put it in for a little longer and listened to Rachel scream. After ten minutes or so, I went in to comfort her and gave her a different blanket--another crocheted one. I figured since her other blankies of choice where crocheted that this one might trick her. It didn't.

I nursed her while we waited for the laundry. It was still a little damp when we checked on it, but I gave her one of her blankies anyway...and she fell fast asleep. Hooray for bedtime!