Behind Closed Doors

My one-year old likes having doors closed. She really likes playing by herself, so she'll go into a room, close the door, and play quietly by herself.

We usually keep the bathroom door closed since she LOVES the toilet and the drawers full of makeup and hair care supplies. One day, Anya disappeared. We looked around the house, seeing that the baby gate was up, so she couldn't go downstairs, and the sliding door was closed and locked, so she couldn't have sneaked outside. We checked every closet, nook, and cranny we could think of since she now likes to play hide-and-seek with us and finds some interesting places to hide. (I found her in Daniel's pitch-black closet in the darkest corner she could find a while before this happened. She was in there looking around and got excited when I found her. Then she crawled away to find a new hiding place. Aren't little kids supposed to be afraid of the dark?) Still, no Anya. Now we're a little frantic since it's much too quiet in the house even though we're loudly calling her name and noisily running around the house. I realized that there was one place we hadn't checked: the bathroom. Since the door was closed, we figured she was somewhere else, but when I opened the door, there she was! She was very busy studying the toilet and had no time to respond to us when we were looking for her. Apparently, Daniel, I mean, Stephanie, left the bathroom door open, she quietly snuck in and quietly closed the door so she could play interrupted. It worked, right?

She loves playing in her bedroom by herself. Yesterday, she went into her bedroom and closed the door. Daniel and I assumed she accidently locked herself in, so he went and opened the door. While he was talking to her in the doorway, she closed the door in his face...literally. Apparently Daddy wasn't being very polite by just barging in. This happened about four times in a 60 minute period. He said that each time he went in, she was sitting with a notebook and a capped pen "writing" in a journal. I have another notebook that looks the same as the one she found which I use as a journal, so she was writing too! Oh yeah, and we also found the diaper bucket which had been nearly full of dirty cloth diapers completely empty with diapers all around the bucket. I thought quick and grabbed Anya to immediately put her in the bath and Daniel got stuck picking up the diapers. Then again, he gets frustrated trying to bathe a very wiggly toddler who hates getting her head wet, so he probably thought I got the harder job. It all came together in the end, right?

Anya can easily open the baby gate no matter how tight we set it (which means the railing is starting to lift off of the floor), can point to her tummy and her head when we ask her where they are, and has entered a "DON'T TOUCH MY TOYS" phase. Wait, that last one is a bit inaccurate. I should say, "DON'T TOUCH MY TOYS OR YOUR TOYS!" On Friday, she had a playdate with a little friend who's a little bigger than she is. She was fine with him playing with her blocks and Dora The Explorer bus, but if he touched anything else, she threw very loud tantrums. She has this stuffed soccer ball which she likes to use as a pillow. Apparently it's completely off limits since when her friend picked it up, she FREAKED out and wouldn't let him play with it or any of her other toys. I gave him some of his toys that he had brought, and apparently he couldn't have those either. Anya was being such a pain that she ended up in her crib for over half the time her friend was here. Well, he and I had a fun day, anyway...

Anyway, since this post was about Anya playing behind closed doors and since she's in her room and I haven't heard her for a while, I'm going to do the good-mom thing and go check on her. Until next time!