We couldn't make this crap up!

Well, we experienced a first today. Tasman tried to eat her own poo. Too much information, you say? You bet! Nevertheless, I feel that it's my duty to report this kind of thing. (Okay, I promise, that's the last puerile poop joke.)

From time to time, Tasman gets a bit of diaper rash, like all kids do, I suppose. When she has a particularly bad one that lingers, we give her some "naked time". Oh, how she loves naked time! While she's getting a bath from Mommy, Daddy is downstairs laying out old towels all over the floor of the living room. Then we bring her down and let her streak around the room with wild abandon. We don't worry too much about her bodily functions during naked time; that's what the towels are for.

So here we are watching "Last Comic Standing" from last week on the DVR, and suddenly Kirsti shrieks. I look over in time to see Tasman quickly drop a—how shall I put this?—"Lincoln log" that she had just been holding in her hand. Neither of us had witnessed the original deposit of said stool. Kirsti just happened to look down as Tasman picked it up to examine it and decide if she thought it tasted yummy. It all happened so quickly that Kirsti couldn't tell if Tasman had managed to swallow anything.

Of course, we were immediately concerned about the effect of ingesting fecal matter. Kirsti asked me to look it up on the internet. I opened up Google, but then wisely paused for a moment to consider the potential ramifications of conducting a search involving people eating poo. I finally decided that if I included the word "toddlers", I was less likely to get . . . well, you get the idea. So in my Google search bar I started typing "toddlers" and then "eating". The Google search bar, as some of you might know, takes what you type and immediately starts to offer suggestions for common search queries similar to your own. Not surprisingly, "toddlers eating habits" comes up first, but I was shocked to see that "toddlers eating feces" is second and "toddlers eating poop" is fourth. Apparently, this is a more common problem than I expected.

Unfortunately, none of the first few hits gave us much useful information. I did learn the word "coprophagy", but that didn't really help. On the plus side, we came across a site that sells the T-shirt seen in the image above. I can't imagine what kind of parent would put their kid in it, but it's hilarious anyway.

In the end, we just brushed her teeth as well as we could and put her to bed. I suppose I'll find out tomorrow if there are any problems. It could be worse: I remember not too long ago watching an episode of "Nanny 911" that featured a three-year-old who liked to stick her hand down the back of her diaper, and then fling her poo all over the house. At least Tas didn't try to throw it at us, right?

Life interferes

You may have noticed that it's been a week and a half since our last post. Mind you, I don't expect that people are obsessively checking this site every few minutes. Well, there may be some grandparents who are . . .

The fall semester just started at Miramar College, so I've been super-busy trying to get course materials together. My precalculus class hasn't been so bad since I taught essentially the same course last fall. But I'm teaching statistics for the first time, so that has taken a lot more time and effort. In general, it takes more effort to teach statistics since I have to prepare data sets for classroom analysis, whereas for "normal" math classes like precalculus and calculus, I can basically come up with most of my examples off the top of my head. (It doesn't make much difference if I plot the line y = 2x - 3 or the line y = 3x + 5.)

Kirsti has been pretty busy too; other than the inaugural blog, she hasn't been able to post at all. Perhaps she can pick up some of my slack. :)

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

So I have this theory.

Everywhere I have ever been to church and listened to primary children singing, "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," the children always shout the last syllable: "Jesus wants me for a sun-BEAM." The really hyperactive ones tend to hop out of their chairs too. I wondered how it could be that all the primary children across the country knew that they should do this. Sure, once it's established somewhere, the younger kids learn it from the older kids, and then there's no stopping it. It's too insidious, too addictive. But some kid had to be the first to do it.

I was even more surprised when I was in Spain on my mission and I learned that Spanish children knew how to do it: "Cristo me manda que bri-LLE."

Given the universality of this custom, there is only one explanation: there is a secret cabal of primary children that travels around the world and teaches this to other primary children.

So imagine my surprise when I sang the song with Tasman the other day. After singing just one verse, she was already shouting out "BEAM" throughout the chorus. Apparently, I couldn't even protect my daughter from the secretive Sunbeam Society before age two.

Tasman counts

Tassie is learning to count. Never mind the actual number of objects she is counting; she counts the same way regardless:

Two, one, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, eighteen, EIGHTEEN!

Sometimes that latter "eighteen" is signaled by throwing her hands up in the air.

Swimming

Tasman has enjoyed going to the pool for some time now, but up until now, she refused to allow us to let go of her and let her float out in the middle of the pool. But once she gave it a shot, we couldn't get her out.