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1) Yes, I know she is (still) adorable.
2) Yes, I know it will grow.
3) Yes, I know it will be easier for me to take care of.
But I am still sad. I don’t know how this happened. I took her in to get a little trim to tidy things up a bit. I thought maybe they could undercut it a little to make it turn under at the bottom. How did 5 inches off and full layers happen?!
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- Kate before
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- Kate after
Alternate title: Don’t get out much?
Duncan’s answers to his kindergarten spotlight form:
My favorite place to go is “the grocery store with cars attached to the cart.”
[Please don't waste your time worrying about his deprived life. In the past few months I have taken this boy to the library, This is the Place State Park, the natural history museum, the Bean Museum, the art museum, the ocean, his grandma's houses, two different swimming pools, and several different parks. But dedicated as I am to child self-expression I dutifully noted down his answer.]
I am “happy.”
My favorite color is “shiny red and shiny yellow.”
I like to eat “Lucky Charms.”
I like to “run.”
My favorite candy is “marshmallows.”
My favorite toy is “Lightning McQueen.”
My favorite restaurant is “The Golden Corral.”
My favorite holiday is “Christmas.”
I have 5 people in my family.
They are “not very nice. I wish I lived by myself.”
[Actually, despite my aforementioned commitment to child self-expression, I declined to write that down. Was that the wrong move? I pointed out that his class would be hearing this and waited.]
They are “The nicest of all is my Daddy.”
Did I mention that I took him to the grocery store that has cars attached to the cart yesterday? But I didn’t get the cart with the car attached because it is too difficult to maneuver? Daddy, I was told, always gets the cart with the car. Do you think this could be related?
For my journal:
Tomorrow is Duncan’s first day of kindergarten. He turned 5 1/2 years old last week. He is not nearly as emotively expressive as his older sister, but I think he’s quietly excited. Not that he’s quiet–this is hard to explain. I was trying to mark the occasion and make it special. We had pie and said several rounds of “hip-hip-hooray for Duncan’s first day!” He was very loud. When I say he’s quiet about it, I mean that he doesn’t talk about how he feels about kindergarten much. People ask him if he’s excited and he says, “yeah” with a little smile and then turns away from them.
Duncan and Amelia, August 2009
In preparation for the grand day tomorrow he picked out a green sweater he feels handsome in and asked me about soccer: “Amy [the pet name Amelia insists he and no one else call her] says that all the boys at my school play soccer. Do you think that’s true?” [I don't think Amelia was trying to make him feel negatively about his school; she thought her observation might help him to keep playing soccer].
[And then, because he doesn't like soccer:] “Mom, do they have any trees in the yard at my school?” “Yes, Duncan, they do,” I said. “Do you think a boy can ever just sit under a tree?”
With no prior prodding or interrogation on my part, Duncan told me today what he wants to be when he grows up. He told me he had four ideas, but he could only remember three of them: 1)Train Engineer, 2) Artist, 3) or a Person Who Makes Cool Stuff.
Meanwhile, Amelia has already started at her new school. So far, she seems to love it. Her 5th grade teacher is “her favorite so far.” The homework load at this school is a bit terrifying for the parent of a daughter who will allow any task to expand to fill all available time (plus more), but five days into it, Amelia herself seems to be enjoying the challenge. I hope that will remain true in the months ahead.
Pdad gave her the standard “a new school offers the chance to be a new person” spiel. I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want her to think we weren’t happy with the person she was before. But his spiel was aimed squarely at her stalwart dress-wearing ways. Amelia has consistently worn dresses daily [except under duress] since the beginning of first grade. She gets quite a bit of attention for that from her peers, as you might imagine. Since she reacted with disdain to the idea of buying some pants for school, I figured she had chosen to travel the same path as before: soft cotton one-piece dresses with no buttons or zippers, difficult fasteners, or offensive textures of any kind. It’s not so terrible! If her clothing choices make her odd, they also make her modest, feminine, and age-appropriate. How much can a parent complain under such circumstances?
But look what I saw when I asked her to lay out her clothes for the first week of school:
Change–”Ready or not, here we come!”
Kate tells us that she is “goge.” Now, in general, her speech issues seem to have really improved. Her vocabulary has expanded considerably. She has even blurted the occasional five word phrase. Hooray! Articulation, however, continues to be a struggle. Our new problem: Kate is constantly “goge” and we don’t know what that means.
Here’s what we’ve figured out so far:
a) Goge is not good. You do not want to be goge. If you feel goge (or is it goke? goque? gogue?) you also want to whimper.
b) Goge is related to cold. When Kate fills her cup with ice and holds it for a while (she adores ice), she becomes goge. She will tell you that her hands are goge. You can verify this by feeling them. Yep, they’re cold.
c) Goge is not the same as cold. Temps have been hitting 80s and 90s here and Kate is goge inside the house (too much airconditioning?) and outside.
d) Kate is most likely to be goge when she does not want to nap.
e) Boredom and feelings of dislike can also trigger goge-ness.
e) Hands, teeth, bottoms, all sorts of body parts can be goge.
f) “Me goge” should not be confused with “Me gog.” “Me gog” means that Kate has transformed into a four legged creature who “oofs” and hops across the floor. Being gog is apparently very funny, being goge is nothing to laugh about.
Taking stock of my day—
I have three children.
1. Child #3 (Kate)’s speech therapist came for a home visit. I explained that I was pleased that she is saying a few more words and phrases, but frustrated that I have gotten nowhere with “articulation practice,” where I am supposed to help a 2 year old practice the sounds that are difficult for her to make. (Do you see a problem with this plan?) I may be a bad person, but I actually felt pleased when said 2 year old first covered her mouth, then turned around and put her bottom in the air after the speech therapist pushed her to make the “k” sound a few too many times. [It isn't just me!] Ultimately #3 hid and refused to say goodbye. Oh yes, speech therapy is going well.
2. I asked child #2 (Duncan) to empty the dishwasher. He said he was hungry. I said, “Great! Because I have a special treat for you right after you get that dishwasher finished!” It was more than three hours before he got any food because it was more than three hours before he was ready to empty the dishwasher. I suspect he might have eaten some of the trail mix that was supposed to be the special treat while I wasn’t looking though.
3. I didn’t take child #1 (Amelia) to Shakespeare for Kids although she desperately wanted to go, because she spent the entire day doing her chores and homework. Shakespeare is supposed to be a reward for doing her chores and homework well and quickly. We are not there yet.
One huge success today was that we found some large grid paper at Office Depot. [Amelia explained to me during a review of her homework that the reason I cannot read her numbers is because I am not trying hard enough, but I don't know, I think it might be something else!] The smaller quad ruled squares were too small for Amelia to fit her numbers in. I think the large grid paper might represent a significant boon to her future in math. It is important for your math answers to be readable in settings other than standardized tests! Unfortunately, Amelia hates the paper. She is no fan of anything that would make her look different from the other kids. I hold out a weak hope that once she sees it’s useful . . .
It’s that time on the parenting clock.* We have a 2 year old in the house.
When Kate began regularly standing next to the toilet and tugging on her clothes plaintively crying “poo, poo, poo, poo,” I thought it was a sign of readiness. When she stood in the cart at Costco and peed through the cart and on to the floor (except the part intercepted by my bag of frozen burritos), I felt we couldn’t put it off any longer.
Well. Here we are. Two months later. She has been night dry for weeks and weeks and weeks (Thank you, genetic lottery!) And there have been entire weeks during the past two months during which she did not have a single daytime accident. Ultimate success is still elusive, however.
Consider the following important principles:
1) You can take a child to the potty, but you can’t make her pee.
2) Your child can take you to the potty, but if she won’t use it, it might not feel like success.
3) Candy can be a helpful tool.
a. Offer the child something she really wants in exchange for something you really want and the agency and tender feelings of each party are preserved.
b. If you have a child who, while on vacation, happily peed in strange potties all over coastal Oregon (to the point that every one of your restaurant reviews on TripAdvisor includes a restroom review as well) do not congratulate yourself too soon. [When it comes to potty training in general, avoid premature feelings of relief or satisfaction. You will be sorry!] If that same child comes home and suddenly and inexplicably decides that there is only one true potty in the entire world, and it is not at Target, not at Grandma’s, not at the grocery store, not as this restaurant or that one–well, candy can help the two of you find a saner place.
c. If you are solving your toilet-training problems with candy, at some point you are going to need/want to drop that incentive. Will your daughter feel the same?
*I wrote most of this post a few weeks ago, but had to relegate it to the drafts folder after another accident and my ensuing feelings of despair. Currently, however, I am experiencing feelings of relief and satisfaction. Premature? Time will tell. But the last Smartie was eaten three days ago, and things are going well here!
Disclaimer: This is a mommy blog. This is obviously a mommy blog. You know what that means: if discussion of bodily fluids makes you uncomfortable, surf elsewhere immediately.
Please reply in the comments:
If your 2 yr. old daughter peed all over you right after you had checked in for your son’s much needed, long awaited dermatology appointment, would you:
- a) Leave in haste, telephone to apologize, and ask for a new appointment
- b) Beg for a new appointment and then leave in haste.
- c) Put the 2 yr old in clean clothing. Return to the office carrying her in a strategic position to block the view of your wet clothing, apologizing to nurses and doctor.
- d) Put the 2 yr old in clean clothing. Return to the office carrying her in a strategic position to block the view of your wet clothing. Pretend that nothing has happened.
- e) Other — please elaborate.
Category: Not What I Meant or Responses that Leave Me Speechless
Amelia: I don’t want to touch him. I don’t want [contagious skin condition]!
Pmom: Think of how Jesus treated the lepers.
Amelia: Well, I can’t heal him.
Only mildly apropros: This picture of Duncan is from a couple of weeks ago. The upside of a painful and difficult treatment: you can pretend to be Aladdin afterwards. It worked for this 5 year old!
So, if someone poured water on your computer, how long would you wait before turning it back on?
And, would you simply wait? Or:
Put it in a low oven?
Blow it with a hairdryer?
Pour denatured alcohol into it?
Incident Report
Friday: A terrorist, believed to be acting alone, scored a direct hit on a high value target this morning. An experienced Homeland Security agent was present and monitoring the facilities but unable to avert the stealth attack. Preliminary investigations suggest it was likely the work of a homegrown threat rather than Islamic extremism.
Facts:
Date of incident: 10:46 a.m., 03-27-2009
Weapon: H20 filled flotation device repurposed as projectile
Current disposition of high value target: inoperational
Final status: unknown
Outlook: Grave. The high value equipment targeted is essential to homeland sanity.
High Value Target: Inoperational
Suspect currently in custody.
Languages spoken
Babblelonian: fluent
English: few words
Weight: 30 lbs
Height: 34 inches
Hair: brown
Eyes: blue
Suspect in Custody