Floppy

I made Phoebe a Bluey doll for Christmas, which she simply wasn't very excited about even though it turned out pretty cute. What she was really excited about was a tiny "Floppy" that came with a Bluey action figure set that she got. Now, I knew that she loved the episode "Sleepy Time" but I had not realized how much she loved Floppy. Floppy is just a...toy...though I suppose Floppy comes to life in Bingo's dream scenes. 

Phoebe has been carrying around that tiny figurine ever since Christmas, which means she's also been losing it left and right. One of her most common phrases these days is, "Where Floppy? Where are you, Floppy? Where Floppy? Where?" It's a miracle we still know where Floppy is! 

Sooner or later, however, that tiny toy is going to disappear into thin air, so I decided that the best thing to do would be to crochet a Floppy doll for her, so I've been working on that for the past week or so. I finished late last night shortly before Phoebe stumbled into my room, so proud that she managed to stay in "Phoebe own bed" all night. 

"Oh, you didn't stay in your own bed all night," I said. "It's still the middle of the night, so you've got to go back to bed."

"Back to bed?!" she wailed. 

"I know," I said. "But it's still sleepy time. Do you want to go potty?"

She absolutely did not. We don't make her go in the middle of the night because she can get quite upset when we make her try while she's busy "staying dry" so we let her choose. She usually manages to stay dry all night, so whatever. 

"Do you want a little drink before you go back to your bed?"

She did. And my water bottle was sitting on my desk so (contrary to all advice to not share water bottles), I carried her over there and let her take a sip from my water bottle. There she spied the finished Floppy. 

"Floppy!" she said, thoroughly impressed. "Nice!"

"Do you want to take Floppy to bed?"

She did. So we grabbed Floppy and went back to bed. 

Phoebe has finally figured out that if she says, "Guess what!" she has to follow up with exciting news. On the one hand, this has been nice because I was tired of her leaving me hanging when I'd ask her "What?" and she'd just...walk away. On the other hand, she hasn't quite figured out what exciting news is so she usually just tells us something random. 

"Guess what, Mom!" she said, after I'd tucked her back in.

"What?"

"Floppy has eyes now."

"That's right. I finally finished making Floppy's face. Floppy has two eyes that are so tired. Floppy wants to go to sleep. Can you help Floppy go to sleep?"

"Yeah."

"Great."

"Guess what, Mom!"

"What?"

"Mommy made Floppy me!"

"I did!"

"Floppy so nice! And Mommy so nice!"

"Well, thank you, baby! It's time for sleeping now, though, okay? So hush-hush."

"Mommy, guess what!"

I eventually had to call Andrew up to take over for me because she was not going to stop talking to me. She woke up not in Phoebe's own bed, but in Mommy and Daddy's bed, where she continued to gush about Floppy (even though she'd left Floppy behind when she came to find me). I got up with her and we went downstairs where she found her small Floppy and asked me to take a picture of her and Floppy and Floppy.

You can see a bit of friction burn on her knee in this picture. She also has quite a bit on the underside of the same leg, on her ankle, on her foot, and on her wrist. She had a little run-in with the treadmill (no pun intended)...

Alexander was having a little jog yesterday afternoon and Phoebe climbed on behind him, quickly got thrown off the end, and landed with her front half stuck between the couch and the treadmill and her bottom half on the still-running treadmill. 

I had been rinsing out some glass bottles in the kitchen when I heard her start screaming, so I gathered them up in my arms and headed into the entertainment room (which leads to the garage, where we keep the glass recycling container) to check on what was happening and stumbled upon the scene: Phoebe screaming and clearly in pain, Alexander blithely jogging along.

"Alexander, stop!" I hollered over her screaming. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

"Oh!" he said. "She just climbed on behind me and fell off!"

"Well, turn off the machine!"

"Oh!" he said. "Ummm...ummm...ummmm..."

He continued jogging while he fumbled around, looking for the off button. 

"Oh, just..." I said, pulling the emergency stop (which attaches from the jogger's shirt to the console, and which immediately turns off the machine if the supply is disconnected). "Just pull the emergency stop!"

The machine came to a halt and we got Phoebe upright and taken care of. She's going to be just fine. 

All that is to say that...sometimes when we take pictures we prompt the kids to say silly things (other than plain, ordinary "Cheese!"). When I took Phoebe's picture so soon after we looked at all the little owies she sustained from the treadmill yesterday, I asked her to smile and—unprompted from me—said, "Treadmill off! Cheese!" 

It was pretty funny.

We took round two of pictures after she'd gotten dressed for the day. This time Alexander wanted to join in. And we had to be so careful to balance the mini-Floppy and mini-Bluey on the laps of the big-Floppy and big-Bluey, so more time was spent fixing the toys than actually smiling for the camera, but they still turned out pretty cute!

Here are the kids trying and trying to keep their toys balanced:

They're a pretty cute pair!