more on socializing and other tidbits

Thanks for all your comments on my last post and I wanted to add a little bit more about our neighborhood. Kids always show up at our door asking to play with Emi and Misaki. For the most part they appear at times when the girls are allowed to play outside. If my girls haven't finished their homework or we have something we have to do then I just say no and usually kids just come back at another time. As Emi and Misaki have been able to understand how to be safe outside I've let them go farther and farther on their own so now they show up at other people's houses and ask to play, too. Recently they've also asked for the phone numbers of their friends so they can call and make sure it's OK to come over. I like this arrangement and up until now it's worked really well.

But I've never had a child show up, even after I just said no, and insist on being played with. Under normal circumstances I would've said no but she is shy and lonely (her mother works until late so she's with her grandmother most of the time) and I just didn't feel right about sending her away. Since the weekend we haven't gotten anymore calls and Emi says she's been playing with her at school. I wonder how this weekend will go.

My friend Henri wrote a really great response about what our responsibility is as Christians versus our responsibility as parents. This was the first time I found it hard to strike the right balance with Emi. How far is OK to go for this girl? Maybe it won't come up again but Emi and I need to come to an agreement about what is OK and if she's feeling overwhelmed then I need to be able to help her, too. We'll see...



In other Emi news, she really likes Star Wars. We've shown her Episodes I and IV and she thought they were so cool (Misaki was totally freaked out). She wants to watch the other episodes but Chikara and I don't think she's ready. She brings it up all the time and yesterday we had this conversation.

Emi: I want to watch Star Wars.

Me: No. We've talked about this. You need to wait until you're a "certain age".

Emi: THIRTY-EIGHT!

Silliness abounds.



Also today is Day Two of The Last Potty Training I'll Ever Need To Do! I did a trial run in July to see how much Natsuki understood about using the toilet and the anwer was: not much. She would sit and that was it. Then during summer vacation, when I wasn't potty training her, she pee'd on the toilet 3 times. It was always during bathtime and she would say, "I need to go potty" and then I would take her and she would actually go. The first time I thought it was a fluke but after the third time I realized that she knew she wasn't supposed to randomly pee without a diaper or a toilet.

I've been thinking about what the next step would be and I thought that if she knows that it's not OK to just pee anywhere that maybe if I put her in panties when she's awake she'd be just as careful as when she's in the bathtub. So I did it yesterday from about 10am and she pee'd twice in the potty and there were no accidents! She got a sticker to put on her chart each time and she was so excited. I put her diaper back on during her nap but when she woke up it was dry. I feel like this is a huge step forward from July so we'll continue this way each day and see if Natsuki continues to improve. Right now I ask her to go every 30 minutes so if we got to a place where she tells me she needs to go I would consider that progress. Wish me luck!