Fatherhood in three easy lessons

World in a song

2009-09-06T09:55:00.002-05:00

This song sums up the world of my five year-old today:

I go to kindergarten
I go to kindergarten
I go to kindergarten
I just lost a tooth!
(repeat, ad nauseum)

One tooth down, 19 to go.

Why I haven't written lately...

2009-09-01T22:10:00.002-05:00

'nuff said?

Like a slap of aftershave after using a month old razor, summer came to an abrupt halt today. Both girls started school, one in 4 yr. old pre-K and the other in kindergarten. If the emotional pulls weren't enough, a parent also gets bombarded with forms, information, rules, numbers and whatever else. All nice enough and from good people, but I thought it was the kids that were supposed to be overwhelmed by the end of the day. I don't even know where to start. So I won't, for tonight.

Now that I'm back, I'm sure you'll hear more.

Jokes and posts

2009-07-26T14:16:00.000-05:00

Genevieve has "pretty good" memory for jokes; unfortunately, the wording for joke punchlines requires a precision that she is still working on. I am mentioning that in part as a reminder to myself to note some of the specific instances of this soon.

This note has no punchline. I have taken a break from most posting for July and August. I'm having too much fun (and too many projects around the house) to keep up with the dozen a month that I've been doing lately. You'll hear more often from me again in the fall.

American fireworks

2009-07-04T23:54:00.006-05:00

Our city has two holidays: Memorial Day and the 4th of July. Legally, we have other holidays, but on those two days the party sign is out and friends from around the area come in celebrate. On our block of ten or eleven houses there were four backyard parties in the late afternoon and evening, and at dusk most of the city gets up and starts walking to the city center with blankets and wagons for the fireworks display.

Throughout the fireworks display, Genevieve sang loudly and Reesa plugged her ears. Genevieve's singing had so much volume that people in front of us turned around above the din of the display to see what the source of the noise was. And what was she singing? Beats me -- it was mostly a stream-of-whatever-crosses-her-mind.

Reesa needed cuddling for much of the show, was very impressed by any rocket that was a "sparkler" (and, no, I couldn't figure out exactly what she meant about that), and in the middle of the show started her own song, fingers still firmly planted in her ears. Her words were very minimalist (she'll make a good pop song writer), and went like this:
a-MER-I-can fire-works
a-aa-MER-I-CAN fire-woo-orks
a-MER-i-can fire-WO-OO-OO-ORKS!
a-Mer-i-CAN fire woooOOORKS!

So, it is a good thing that fireworks are loud, because they were relentless.

The day did not start so well for Genevieve. Our neighbor's daughter was over playing with our children this morning, riding bikes in the driveway, and Genevieve slowly rode past the friend and with her sister a little distance away quietly said "Hey, wanna go on the swing with me?"

There are only two swings on our swingset, and it seemed clear to me that Genevieve's intent was to cut her sister out of the swing action (like, maybe I'd seen this maneuver a few times before, hmmmmmmm?). However, Reesa's ears are sharp and mind keen and she wasn't on her bike, and immediately and without fanfare she bolted for the backyard swings. So did the friend -- after all, she had been asked to go swinging. Genevieve took a little smidge of time to dismount her bike and didn't realize that both other girls had a big headstart on the run to the backyard until too late, and ooooooooo, what a tantrum there was! Oh, her sister was a tricker and a sneak! And it wasn't FAIR (oh, that F word again).

I failed to be won over, which eventually earned me a big fat "I HATE YOU!!!!" Don't fret about me -- I was in good company, because she placed her mother and sister in the same boat. So, only Reesa got to go to the bike parade. This meant that She-Who-Would-Like-To-Be-Having-Fun-With-Our-Children ended up at home with the whirlwind child, which did break our "rule" of not having a consequence for a child be a consequence for an adult. Sometimes, it is unavoidable, and this was one of them. Next time, it will probably be my turn.

The sincerest form

2009-06-27T23:46:00.001-05:00

Reesa came running to present me with this drawing, two people parachuting under the sun and a rainbow. What she was most proud of was that one parachute was further away (the smaller parachute, bottom right).

A few moments later, Genevieve showed me her drawing (below), and seemed to complain that her sister had been copying her. I explained briefly that this was because her sister looked up to the work she did, and that her drawing was well done and that it was a compliment to be copied in that way.
I don't know that Genevieve sees it that way. Reflexively, she wants to feel cheated that her sister is imitating her. We try to suggest that she provides an older example for her sister. The trick then is to watch out for the hint of bragging or belittling that can come. It's familiar to me. As the eldest child, I remember dealing with similar feelings when my little sister tried to copy me.

Kite fairy

2009-06-27T11:53:00.002-05:00

Genevieve did this pencil drawing recently of two parents and a child flying two kites in a partly sunny sky with a kite fairy. I don't know what kite fairies do, but it was a clearly important attribute to her.

In other news, Reesa denied four times with four separate people that were over at our house today the fact that she had experience a pee-pee accident. The wet-looking dark stained crotch was the suspicious factor.

"Hey Reesa," I shouted over from the lawn to the lower patio. "Did you have a pee-pee accident?"

"Nooo!" she replied without a break in her play. "It wasn't a pee-pee accident! I just had a little extra pee-pee that came out."

She certainly doesn't like the label "pee-pee accident."

Is that a threat or a promise?

2009-06-25T19:37:00.005-05:00

Sign at a local coffee shop.

I think it's part threat and part promise. I've never heard any yelping puppies in all my times there. I have seen an espresso or two, though...

If I had my children here, I wouldn't leave them unattended. The espresso alone would be adequate and proportionate. The puppy, however, would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Mostly, the coffee shop is the refuge of the solo dad. Especially this coffee shop.

Sign of summer no. 1

2009-06-24T22:51:00.004-05:00

Amazing how different people are, and how early and noticeable are the dissimilarities between siblings. Take eating ice cream from a cone for example. When Genevieve was learning it, she was a little messy, but wanted to eat neatly like adults, and listened and followed advice.

For Reesa, it's like I said, "She is three years old, and not about to miss out on a moment of doing three year-old things." She was fascinated by the cone. Wanted to wait for the ice cream to melt to the cone, and then lick it from there. She sort of listened to advice -- there was no ice cream in the hair or on the floor -- but she clearly wanted to explore her own fascination with the intersection of cone and frozen dairy item.

All in all, she is a child that doesn't mind wearing her food on her face, and usually has to be reminded or cajoled to clean up.

Speaking of ice cream, that was the second time last weekend that we had some. The previous night we had a family outing and canoed over to the bait shop for some of our favorite frozen treat. The canoeing portion took two hours, round trip, so I think that the adults worked off the calories and some extra.

Way better than a necktie

2009-06-21T22:38:00.005-05:00

My children were prompted by She-Who-Loves-Me a week ago to think about what they wanted to give as a gift for Father's Day. Reesa quickly settled on getting me a rainbow toothbrush, and also two juggling balls and an adult book (meaning a book not for children). I only started hearing about it this morning at the breakfast table.

"Does someone need a new toothbrush?" she announced. "Is it momma? Noooo, not momma. Is it Genevieve? Nooooo, not Genevieve. I think it's a surpri-i-i-ise."

There were a couple of other mentions of the plans for obtaining the toothbrush, which I had to deny hearing, and then after our all-day strawberry picking outing (I am sooo tired tonight) Reesa and my wife went out and upon their return I was presented with my shiny new toothbrush. She then asked me where I kept the juggling balls, took those, got a book off the shelf and presented me with those, also.

Afterwards, my wife told me that Reesa had been talking about getting me a toothbrush all week long. (No, not because I didn't have one -- the one I had was just boring, okay?) I am going to think about her every time I brush my teeth with that toothbrush. I may have a hard time giving it up.

And in her spare time...

2009-06-19T09:12:00.005-05:00

I haven't written about Reesa much lately for two reasons. First, I spend more time with Genevieve since I do the pick-up drop-off routine twice a week with her. Second, Reesa spends much of her time screaming. Leaves me with a lot less warm-fuzzy material to work with. She is three years old, and not about to miss out on a moment of doing three year-old things.

But I did get a conversation with her today.

Her: I want to be a ballerina when I grow up.

I: That's a good thing to want to be. The dancing is graceful and pretty, and it's fun to dance. You do have to practice a lot, but for some people practice is just like play time and it's fun, too.

Her: That's not all. When I grow up I want to be a fairy, and a mermaid, and a princess, and a ballerina, and a cheerleader.

I: Wow. That's a lot. And a cheerleader?

Her: Yeah. I want to stand on one leg, that's the kind of cheerleader I want to be.

I: Hmm, I think you wouldn't have to do that all of the time.

Where does one get the idea of being a stand-on-one-leg cheerleader? As opposed to the pom-pom waving one, or the cartwheeling one, or the megaphone shouting one? Ooo, she'd be good at that last one. Wouldn't even need the megaphone.

U.S. Grant

2009-06-18T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today at the convenience store, I caught a quick glimpse of a corner of a fifty dollar bill in my wallet as I was paying for some two-cycle engine oil. Since I typically don't have much more than $40 total in my possession at any one time, this was a happy and perplexing discovery.

When did I get that? Was it a mistake? Did I have it from some recent weekend away, not yet returned to the family money stash? Leaving the store, I pulled out the wallet to look at it again.

Oh yeah. Then I remembered. It's fake. Fairly good quality copy, but smaller than an actual bill. It might be just barely at the 75% legal limit for print reproductions, but it was printed on both sides (not permitted by law). When Genevieve found it on the ground, I explained to her that it was not real money. When asked more about that, I tried to explain about counterfeit money, but in order to do that you have to explain about how currency has any value at all anyway, and even a bright five year-old quickly loses interest. That is to say, she lost interest in the way I was trying to explain it.

"The government prints the money, and then we get it, but if anyone could print it, then why would we work, or uh... well, that would be like cheating and, um, anyway you're not supposed to do that." I said something like that, but probably not so elegantly.

How would you try to explain currency and counterfeiting to a kid?

Can we renegotiate this union rule?

2009-06-14T21:08:00.004-05:00

Hmm, there were little sweet moments this weekend, but wow, summertime can sometimes be a lot of work when you don't have your parenting groove on. Late nights equal tired children, because it is simply not possible for a young child to sleep in on a Saturday or Sunday morning. It must be a union thing or something -- you know, the International Order of Toddlers, Kids, and Teens (teenagers graduate to a different union, I think). Tomorrow morning, odds are that we will need pry bar or really good bribe to leverage them out of bed.

Today after a late lunch I sent the kiddos off for a nap. Genevieve the elder melted down at this turn of events, exhausted herself within three minutes and conked out. Reesa went more willingly, also fell quickly asleep. Then I pulled out the secret weapon -- the fiddle tunes practice CD on perpetual loop. Popped that baby in, folded some laundry, and then hit the backyard. Genevieve slept for an hour and half and Reesa doubled that.

Since Genevieve was up earlier, she went and played with her neighbor friend. By the time Reesa awoke, the neighbor was home and getting ready to go out with her family. And oh, that wasn't FAIR! How come my sister got to go and play, I wanted to play, why didn't you wake me up (ha-haha!), bwaaaaaaaah!

Is this what I get for letting them stay up hugely late last night? Tonight it's 9:45 and despite getting them into bed over an hour ago, they are still awake. This is NOT glamorous.

Wishing well

2009-06-11T21:10:00.006-05:00

On the bus yesterday, my elder daughter and I had this conversation.

She: I want to go to Africa.

Me: That's a very interesting thing to want. There would be so many things to see and do, and it's so big, an entire continent. That's a good wish to have -- you can add it to your wish list.

She: Oh, no, I can't have more wishes.

Me: Sure you can. Why do you think you can't have more wishes?

She: You can only have three.

Me: Why is that?

She: That's how many wishes you can make at the wishing well at the library.

Me: Oh, I see... Can't you just have other wishes that aren't in the wishing well.

She: No.

Me: Hmmm. If you had another wishing well, could you make more wishes there?

She: Well, umm, no,...uh, well, I guess so. I think you can.

Me: So if we had a different wishing well, you could add more wishes? Can you make wishes into a fish tank?

She: Sure.

Me: How about if we had another little fish jar at home, like we have Dorothy in? Could you make wishes there?

She: Then there'd be another fish in there. We don't want to do that.

Me: No, no. There doesn't have to be a fish in it -- they come separately, you know. The bowl Dorothy is in, we had that at home already, and I brought Dorothy home and added her into it.

She: But I'd need another penny. I can't wish without a penny.

Me: Oh. [pause] What if you had another penny, could you add more wishes?

She: Yes.

Me: And if you had more pennies? make more wishes?

She: Sure.

Me: Maybe that's the way to go.

By then, I'd forgotten that this had begun with a wish to go to Africa.

It's elementary, my dear Watson

2009-06-07T17:12:00.000-05:00

Here's the answer to the puzzle posted in the June 3rd entry:

The photo was inverted left/right. The actual photo is above. I included the photo of the house to make it fair for readers that haven't seen our house. The top left of this photo shows the correct orientation of the front door and living room bump out.

Yes, Genevieve wrote her note to us with inverted letters, from right to left. She is entirely capable of writing the regular letters and from left to right. Don't know why she wrote this the way she did, but she really nailed it.

The f word again

2009-06-06T23:14:00.002-05:00

The same night that Reesa and I were telling a ghost story while at Quaker camp, Genevieve and She-Who-Loves-Songs were out at the sing-a-long, and up came this one from local favorites Lou and Peter Berryman:

There are pirates in their fetid galleons
Daggers in their skivvies
With infected tattooed fingers
On a blunderbuss or two
Signs of scurvy in their eyes
And only mermaids on their minds
It's from them I would expect to hear The F-word, not from you

We sit down to have a chat
It's F-word this and F-word that
I can't control how you young people
Talk to one another
But I don't wanna hear you use
That F-word with your mother...

Of course, Genevieve asked what they meant by "f-word." Shocking, really--haven't we been through this before? Her mother had to remind her: "That's just a song about a mother who is tired of hearing her child say 'this isn't fair' and 'that's not fair' so she sings a song about it."

Our really big blackboard

2009-06-03T10:10:00.008-05:00

We have quite a bit of driveway, as shown in the above picture of our house. Our children make good use of this blackboard and a bucket of sidewalk chalk. Every rainfall, viola, fresh chalkboard.

Below is a love note scrawled on our driveway from Genevieve: I LOVE YOU MOM & DAD. I found it one day about a month ago.

But there something not copasetic, not kosher, not... quite right about this second photo. Any guesses? (Answer in future post)

Full of questions

2009-05-30T09:26:00.005-05:00

"Daddy, what was the first thing in the world?"

"Well, there are many interesting and different stories about that, and..."

"Where did God come from?"

"That's a good question. Maybe God was always there."

"Where did the first egg come from? Daddy, I'm just so full of questions. How many questions should I have?"

"You should have as many questions as you need to get the answers you want."

Pause.

"Is magic for real?"

Illustrated by

2009-05-29T21:50:00.001-05:00

grass -- at bottom
one flower -- yellow
caterpillar -- series of circles above flower
the roof of the fairy princess ballet dance house -- hatch marks to right of caterpillar
dragonfly -- black, above caterpillar
butterfly -- circles above dragonfly
rainbow -- obvious
mosquitoes (only 2 are allowed in fairy princess land) -- blue spots above caterpillar
stars (orange) -- top of page
night sky -- top of page
writing that says "HI HO! Where is Genevieve? Illustrated by Reesa." -- squiggles on left margin

Weekly quarter

2009-05-28T20:35:00.006-05:00

Our children receive a weekly allowance of $0.25, not tied to work or cooperation or anything. We provide this amount in order to let them begin to experience the exchange of money for goods, to see that there are some things that you can get for yourself, and some things that you can get for yourself if you wait and save, and some things that you can get sooner if you want to cooperate and pool your money with your sister, and some things that it would just take to long to save that much money, and some things to which mom or dad just say "no."

Other money they get as gifts they are directed to place into their piggy banks. The plastic pigs that don't break, with the once-removable-but-now-glued-shut-by-daddy snouts

Here's some of what our children will do with their weekly riches:

breath mints
gum
toys from gumball machines
apple
grapes (to which Genevieve sat down, pulled out a grape and a straw, stuck the straw into the grape, and proceeded to attempt to drink the grape juice that should gush forth, just like from a juice box)

Ghost story

2009-05-25T19:05:00.006-05:00

“Daddy, let’s tell scaaary stooories!”

It was dusk at the regional annual Quaker gathering, and I volunteered to take Reesa, the three year-old, back to the cabin for bedtime. At the time I attributed it to the mosquitoes, but after arriving at the cabin I recognized that my field mouse headache had turned into a growling bulldog. I was happy to get a chance to get to sleep early, especially after failing to find the pain reliever.

That’s when Reesa made her proposition.

“Here, we’ll sit on this blanket for the story.” She had spread out one of her children’s fleecy blankets on the hard tile cabin floor.

“Ooo, I think we should lie on my bed. Under blankets and in the dark.” My headache was asking for those conditions. “That will be scaaaary.”

“Okay. That way we can cuddle, too.”

So that is how my headache, Reesa and I came to telling our ghost story.

“Once upon a time, there was a ghost that lived in a rutter cave, and…”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “Did you say rutter cave?”

“Yes.”

“Is that like a bear cave?”

“Yes. So this ghost lived in the cave, but then one day the ghost left the cave to do scaaaary things.” Pause. “Okay, your turn daddy.”

“Hmmm. Well, this ghost came to a house, and there were people that lived there, and they were home. So he did scaaaary things, and the people in the house were afraid. Your turn.”

“Well,” Reesa said, thinking. “The people left the house, so the ghost went to another house and scared the people there. Your turn daddy.”

“The people were so scared, they ran away from their house, too. This time the ghost decided to have a ghost party for all of his ghost friends, so he called them up on the phone and they all came to this house and had a b-i-i-i-i-i-g party, and it was really loud. Your turn.”

“So the police came and kicked them out. And they caught all of the ghosts except one that they didn’t catch, and that one was hiding.” Pause. “Your turn daddy.”

“The ghost waited for the police to leave, then went out to another house, scared the people away, called up other friends for another ghost party, and they had lots of fun but not for too long because it started to get light with the sun coming up, so all of the ghosts disappeared for the daytime. Your turn.”

“The next night, the police came, and the ghost ran away from that house, and went to a different city. Your turn daddy.”

“Well, that ghost was getting tired of being chased, and this time instead of scary someone out of the house they lived in, he looked around for a house that no one lived in and was a little broken down, so that the police wouldn’t be called in to chase them out. And that is what happened, and that is why to this day ghosts live in abandoned old houses. The end.”

And I gave her a kiss, and she went to sleep.

The Great Quillow

2009-05-23T21:08:00.001-05:00

By James Thurber (c) 1944
Our library has the Harcourt Brace & Co. 1994 edition with illustrations by Steven Kellogg

Ooooo, this is really good.

Message: intimidation and brutality are overcome not by weaponry or physical traps, but rather by storytelling, planning and toys.

Story: Long for a three-year old, but our five-year old has the attention span for it. Gets a little detailed with the town council bits, but the repetition of the reactions of all the different tradesmen is fun. Other townsmen want to crush, poison, burn, etc. the giant, but the town toymaker sees the futility of this and convinces the town to participate in stories he weaves, eventually driving the giant to his own destruction.

Illustrations and layout: This edition is in a large layout format, with a mix of layouts for the watercolor-and-ink panels. The variety of presentation has been good for a half-dozen readings, and will be good for many more.

On the list of one of my potentially great children's books. Let's revisit it in a couple of years, yes?

Power of... stickers as an entertainment device!

2009-05-21T18:12:00.000-05:00

Overheard from our back seat on a recent 10 hour car drive after a dance weekend. Notes courtesy of She-Who-Loves-Fatherhood-in-three-easy-lessons. The conversation took place while exchanging and pasting stickers of doe-eyed anime figures over everything in reach of their five-point harnessed position, especially all over themselves.

"We're going to win against the bad girls!"
"The bad girls?"
"Yeah! They're trying to win, but we have to beat them."

"We're mermaids!"
"We're princesses!"

"Do you need some slime? They eat slime."
"Yeah, give me some slime."

"Huh-Huh-Huh!" (cartoon sound of panting)

"Let's use corn power."
"I don't like corn power. I like rainbow power."
"No, I want to use star power!"
"Let's use star-rainbow power."

"Ooooo, she has a lot of slime."

"Huh-Huh-Huh!"

"Oh no! They're winning."

"I'm Rosie and you're Jessica."
"I don't want to be Jessica. I want to be Emma."
"I'm not really a mermaid, I'm a princess."
"I'll be Emma-fairy."

...and on and on for a good hour.

The Deal

2009-05-19T22:22:00.004-05:00

"Daddy, can you do, you know..."

"Yes, Reesa, I know The Deal. I'll watch you go down the stairs, you turn on the basement light, and I'll be here in the kitchen while you get your clothes."

"Right. And then when I get back upstairs, you can leave the kitchen."

That's the deal, and Reesa wants to have that conversation every time she goes downstairs to get clothes from her relocated dresser. We set up a turned-over milk crate so that she can reach the light in order to chase away the monsters.

If she had been able to cease from tossing half of her clean wardrobe across the bedroom floor every day, she would still have a dresser in her bedroom rather than the basement, but she couldn't learn that lesson, so we have The Deal. (The placement of the dresser in the basement has resulted in many fewer clean clothes tossed around. I am particularly happy with it, since I had come up with that ploy. Desperation begets the occasional good solution.

Brundibar

2009-05-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

Once, I researched a list of recommended books with which to raise independent-minded girls. I don't remember what I found, or where the list went. I do remember finding a few good books off of it, but at the the moment I don't recall which ones. For the most part, my approach to finding good children's picture books has been the filter-by-volume method. I typically have 25 items checked out of the children's section of the public library at a time, and we read everything we get, often a half dozen times.

I've just come across the illustrated children's version of Brundibar, complete with the eye-catching illustrator/author combination of Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner. This is hardly a new book (2003), just new-to-me. Reading it has started me thinking about the qualities that make for a very good children's book.

The "Do Not Pass Go" test: do the children like it? If they don't like it, then it doesn't matter what I think. If I really like something they could care less about, then maybe it's just a book for adults in the guise of a kids book.

For illustrated books, one quality is (DUH!) the illustrations. Not every book in my very good category has to have fabulous illustrations, and there are two sets of tastes that have to be considered -- do the illustrations satisfy a child, and do they satisfy an adult.

For adults, are the the illustrations engaging? complex? multi-layered in meaning? For kids... do they like them? on the tenth reading?

Layout. This includes story flow, quantity of text to complexity of illustrations, eye flow, and are the eyes a non-literate child likely to flow to pertinent illustrations while hearing the text.

There's more, but I'll get into Brundibar.

First, there are a couple of background items for this book:

Brundibar podcast at http://blog.naxos.com/2008/01/22/brundibar-an-interview-with-ela-stein-weissberger/
NOW page at http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/brundibar.html

Brundibar the book is adapted from Brundibar the Czech opera, and I suspect that fidelity to the theater script rated more highly than creating a children's (or adults) literary text. The essentials of the plot are there, but it's chunky. There is content that is engaging for both adult and child, but I couldn't help but feel like an outsider for not having seen the opera first.

I believe that Reesa maintained her interest mostly on the Maurice Sendak illustrations (she loves Sendak). Their flow and variation careen between the dark underside of Jews in Nazi Europe and irrepressible youthful hope in the face of desperation. And, hey, isn't that the baker from In The Night Kitchen making a cameo appearance?

Bottom line: not a great book, but despite that it is a book that will get you curious about the story behind the story and the opera. Worth it for adults to read it, and the kids won't mind.

There's a biyana at the door

2009-05-14T17:45:00.000-05:00

Knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
Banana

Knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
Banana

Knock knock
Who's there,
Orange,
Orange, who?
Orange you glad I didn't say banana!

That's the way the joke's supposed to go. Reesa's version, which she cracks up to every time she says it is twisted up...

Reesa: Knock knock
Victim: Who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange
Orange who?
Biyana
Banana who?
Orange you glad I didn't say biyana! HA HA HA HA!!

These days

2009-05-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

These days are burrowing into deep corners of our minds
Our young children still in love with us
But beginning to find other role models, becoming more interested in friends

These days more precious than rare earth elements
Of tricycles, and wrenches used to put on and take off training wheels
Small eating utensils and toy tea sets
Of the smell of crayon, pee-pee accidents, and sweet breath
Stubbed toes healed with a kiss, the simple glee of a balloon
Of sidewalk chalk, shortened naps, and first words read
Snuggling in the early morn, reading picture books, the thrill of a merry-go-round

If our lives are graced with long duration
These are days that will be cherished after the pitter-pat on hardwood is gone
Even when memory of the past hour is unrecoverable, unknown, immaterial
These days will be sharp and clear, poignant and biting
Indelible

Written for my loving wife on the occasion of mother's day
My partner, and mother of our children without whom I could not be the father I am

See sewer robots

2009-05-06T23:16:00.003-05:00

Why doesn't my calendar look like this? This was Genevieve's day.

Sleep in a little late.
Breakfast.
Shop at farmer's market. Buy flowers and cookies.
Play with balloon animals.
Play freeze tag with friends in a beautiful downtown place.
Eat cookies.
Listen to bagpipes.
See sewer robots. See yourself on the sewer robot TV monitor.
Eat lunch. Give flowers to teachers.
Nap.
Music time.
Play time.
Dinner.
Go to friends house and play.
Get picked up to go home to bed.

What did I do? G-a-a-c-k! Nothing nearly so fun.

The only slight improvement I would make would be to replace "bagpipe" with "banjo," but that might just depend on the day.

Water fun

2009-05-04T21:04:00.004-05:00

"What are we going to do that's fun?"

This is the question that Genevieve asks of me lately when I pick her up from preschool or daycare. I ask you, is it my duty to provide her with fun in the park every day? I'll be carting her off to daily dance or soccer or swimming or violin soon enough -- she can learn some self-entertaining skills that will come in handy. Climbing down from my fatherly soapbox now.

Tonight, I said that we would (with proper behavior) take the canoe down to the lakeside for the first time this season and go for a paddle. They behaved, we paddled (more or less -- this is a motor skill not yet mastered by these kids), we stayed dry, and had a successful first spin on the lake.

Last week, I took the family fishing for the first time. No one got hurt, the children left with a positive-enough memory, they want to do it again, so I'll call it a success. I'll also see if I can get the girls out one-at-a-time for the next try -- it's amazing how quickly great lengths of fishing line can get tangled in an unassailable ball when you're busy helping the other sibling.

Not chopped liver yet, but...

2009-04-30T17:48:00.001-05:00

I'm still pretty cool as far as my dad status goes, but I am no longer recipient of the rock star treatment. My arrival at home generates the same excitement as a new box of crayons -- wow, that's really nice, lots of immediate attention, and then move on to other things.

My daughters now give the rock star treatment to our neighbor across the street, peeking out windows to see if her car is there, or did she take her husband's car this time, and if there's a sighting... oh my gosh, the shrieking and running for the door and shouting across the street, the begging for when can they come visit. The letters, the fan club... sigh.

I knew my rock star moment wouldn't last long. It was nice while it lasted.

Icy 8

2009-04-27T21:02:00.001-05:00

Icy 8 and Icy Monkey: sometimes, better than a parental kiss.

The mommy and daddy kiss works for the small boo-boos, or ouwies (spelling please!) that occur outside of the last hour before bed. But when Reesa gets hurt when she's tired, or when she really gets whacked good (by herself or by her sister -- yes, hard to believe, I know), then the daddy kiss won't cut it. Then you need the big guns.

Call in the Icy 8, and the superhero sidekick Icy Monkey. One for the mouth, one for the boo-boo, and it works better than a bandage. If one is lost or breaks, we'll have to go out and recruit for another Icy pain relieving superhero.

Glorious! I still have hair.

2009-04-26T23:10:00.003-05:00

Whew. Made it through a weekend alone with the children, still have most of the hair that I began the weekend with. Not to say that's a lot of hair, but that makes it even more important to keep what I've got.

Genevieve has been driven lately not by the need for power, but for attention. Her eating habits are messier, she spills milk on purpose, and today she had a crying outburst in the middle of Sunday school that only ended after I hauled her out to the car. She-Who and I are talking about it, trying to figure out what is missing, what she needs, what we need to be aware of and look out for.

Reesa has two words of note:

DEEES-gusting! = disgusting, used frequently and with gusto.

Glorious! = beautiful, awesome, glorious. She saw one of Genevieve's new shirts for the first time today and said, "Wow, that's glorious, Genevieve!"

And yes, she informed me this weekend that I still smell like mashed potatoes.

I'm just a bill

2009-04-19T19:52:00.009-05:00

She-Who-Manages-The-Netflix-Queue would know for sure, but I think Schoolhouse Rock! has been steadily working it's way up our list, and is now playing at a DVD player under our TV. It is every bit as good as I remember it from thirty-plus years ago. I still recite the Preamble to the Constitution to the tune I learned in Schoolhouse Rock!

Memorable three minute lessons to tunes that will never leave your head, and viewing it as an adult I can now see influences previously invisible to me. For example, I now immediately hear the Rocky Horror Picture Show influence on Interplanet Janet. In the grammar rock arena, Verb: That's What's Happening has that Mo-town movie sound. Interjections! has the Hallelujah chorus (obvious, I know, but I wasn't exposed much to high culture as a kid).

And check out these lines:

I'm just a bill,
Yes, I'm only a bill,
And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.

If you're a butt-end Baby Boomer or Gen X-er, it is probable that you read those above lines not just with a certain tune, but with that raspy voice of Jack Sheldon in your head.. c'mon, you can hear it, right?

Jack is also one of the voices to this ditty:

Backup singers -- Conjunction Junction,
                 what's your function?
Jack Sheldon   -- Hooking up words and phrases
                 and clauses.
Backup singers -- Conjunction Junction,
                 how's that function?
Jack           -- I got three favorite cars,
                 That get most of my job done.
Backup singers -- Conjunction Junction,
                 what's their function?
Jack           -- I got "and", "but", and "or",
                 They'll get you pretty far.

Okay, some of it is a little dated, like Elbow Room and the recent demotion of Pluto from planethood. But this is still fabulous fun for all of us. The girls wanted to watch it again for our pizza and movie night (they liked "galaxy girl" the best -- that would be Interplanet Janet).

Sky child

2009-04-18T23:18:00.000-05:00

She-Who-Gave-Birth-To-Our-Children gave the following report earlier this week:

Genevieve came running into where I was sitting. She was chasing someone I could not see and yelling, "She's supposed to be on the ground, she's a ground child!"

Reesa was hot on her heels and retorted "No! She's not a ground child!"

As Reesa came to the spot Genevieve had left off, she put her arm around the unseen being and started to walk back from whence they had come.

Genevieve conceeded "Okay, she's a sky child."

And they both went back from where they had come and continued to play with one another and the sky child.

LCM

2009-04-14T21:11:00.001-05:00

Our family attended a women's college basketball game a couple of months ago. It was one of those promotional days, so the crowd was larger than usual, and with a high ratio of children to adults. I fully enjoy taking my daughters to these events -- I want them to see active, competitive girls and women and know that being active and athletic is an option for each of them.

As an attendee (a.k.a. fan) at a sporting event, there is much to take in, to experience, to be entertained by, and for young children the biggest star doesn't wear a sport uniform. No, the center of attention for young children is someone wearing a garish furry costume with an oversized head and team colors.

"Aaiiiiieee! It's Local College Mascot*! Local College Mascot, come here, come here!"

After a first half of spending equal time watching the game as watching out for Local College Mascot (LCM), I took the two girls to the family restroom. Thank goodness for the public family restroom! (Though having two potty seats would've helped things move along more smoothly.) At the conclusion of our break, I looked into the arena. Halftime had less than five minutes to go, and the halftime show was wrapping up. Rats, the kids would've liked that. So, I figured to burn off some of their energy by walking around the concourse under the seats of the arena. We made it a quarter way around and our pace was slow, and I was about to turn around and backtrack to our section when I stopped. I couldn't believe my luck.

"What, daddy?"

There, behind a gaggle of eleven year-old girls and scattered adults was LCM.

"Girls, look! It's Local College Mascot."

Genevieve followed my eyes, locked in on her target, and took full advantage of her five year-oldness. Small enough to weave around the legs of adults and squeeze through and end-around the eleven year-olds, she pounced on Local College Mascot as he was signing the t-shirt of a pre-pubescent fan, hugging his furry leg with all her little happy joy.

Reesa shouted the name of LCM again and again, but didn't budge from my side. I finally had to rescue LCM from the clutches of my elder daughter. Later in the game, Reesa regretted not hugging LCM and got her mommy to carry her over for a personal greeting.

So here we are, watching our children scream for (a) a marketing ploy (b) an oversized stuffed animal that moves (c) a goodwill ambassodor for the university (d) a combination of some of the above.

*(yes, our local college mascot has a name, but does it really matter?)

Egg race

2009-04-12T20:26:00.007-05:00

Though She-Who-Cringes-When-Her-Children-Eat-Chocolate and I are convinced Quakers, we still raise our children with some of the the traditional religious holiday baggage. Santa and the Easter Bunny visit our house.

This year, we attended our local egg hunt for the first time, and it was a little confused and chaotic for a first-time attender. I'm usually the type of person that counts (or estimates) heads at an event, but I really didn't think about it when I was there. Let's say there are 400 screaming, squirming children, held back from their prizes by caution tape. Plus adults with cameras, an unintelligible person on a bullhorn, and a man in a bunny suit that featured an open mouth and big teeth -- oh, yeah, THAT will attract the two year olds.

The "hunt" was divided by age group. Reesa was in the 1 to 3 year old field with She-Who. (See photo of both of them checking out the 1-3 year old field). I took Genevieve to the portion of the play structures allocated to the 4 to 6 year olds.

I ran into some neighborhood friends, chatted briefly and was interrupted by the unintelligible man on the bullhorn. I got my camera ready for the excitement. Finally, Mr. Unintelligible said something I could understand.

"On your mark...get set..."

BATTERY IS LOW

...oh no

"...GO!"

On our compact digital camera, the battery is low message is not a warning of things to come soon, but rather a courtesy informing you why it just shut down. In the thirty seconds it took to replace the battery, the mad dash for the plastic eggs was over. I found Genevieve after several minutes of searching. She was wandering around the maelstrom of adults and children, looking for two more eggs to fulfill the maximum of ten eggs.

"Honey, you found eight eggs! That's really good. Some children only found five or less." She didn't fully believe me, but she did seem to succumb to the reality of not finding any more eggs. When she discovered that her sister had collected "only" three eggs, she decided that she could be fine.

Reesa had three eggs because she eschewed all but pink and/or purple eggs. Walked past other colors. She seemed happy enough.

Elephant muffins

2009-04-08T17:19:00.001-05:00

Conversation between Reesa and She-Who-Bakes-With-Children yesterday morning...

Reesa: Momma, can we make elephant muffins?

She-Who: You mean monkey muffins? (We have a recipe for monkey muffins)

Reesa: No, elephant muffins!

She-Who: I don't have a recipe for elephant muffins

Reesa: You take eggs, sugar, yogurt, sauce and almonds and mix it up. Then you just bake it!

She-Who: Ah! Thanks for the recipe!

I just want to know to which sauce was Reesa referring.

Please curb your rabbit

2009-04-07T21:19:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, Reesa found a small, round, desiccated tan item in one of our perennial beds.

"What's that, daddy?"

"Hmm. It's old rabbit poop."

Reesa didn't think that rabbits should be pooping in our garden. So she took her chalk and wrote a message on the driveway closest to the garden bed. It had a simple drawing of rabbit scat, overlaid with a circle and a line through the circle. That would be the universal "NO!" sign. Then she added a line of scribbles with a few letters and pseudo-letters mixed in. I asked her what it all meant.

"Well, that's Frrrrench wrriting." She trills her some of her R's. "When da rabbits come here in the night wif their flashlights, they can see it. It says, 'No rabbits poop in the garden wif da yellow flowers.' "

"Oh. Where will they go poop then?" I asked.

"In the forest." Duh! Don't you know these things, daddy?

Color chart ABC's

2009-04-06T18:21:00.003-05:00

Genevieve did this gem at pre-school last week. She started with seven columns, intending to do a calendar, but changed her mind and used the first four columns for color charts. Very rainbowy. The fifth column has the ABC song:

NIV = now
i NO = I know
M AB C N X TM = my ABC's, next time
WT YOU SIN G W TH M E = won't you sing with me

She cracks me up.

As you may recall, I quickly gloated when I reached sixth place in the Johnny Quest Memorial Candy Basketball Pool, correctly sensing that I had reached an apex. I am no longer anywhere near sixth place, and in the interest of complete and unbiased journalism, I report the following:

Genevieve won the family pool, and has already been rewarded with her yogurt pretzels. Don't even have to await the outcome of tonight's game. She even smoked President Obama by 15 points.
I will beat 1000 out of 1001 chimps (I will either lose to, or tie, one chimp).
Most importantly, I again accomplished my most important goal and did not lose to She-Who-Is-A-Mostly-Good-Sport-About-My-Tournament-Watching.

New bicyclist alert

2009-04-05T17:00:00.003-05:00

A bicyclist has joined the family. Genevieve rode without training wheels for over a minute at a time, negotiating both left and right hand turns, slowing and braking at will. Well, almost at will -- the braking/stopping is not reliably smooth, but in a pinch she will bail out or fall over.

This is not a shocking development. She was on the verge successful sustained riding last fall before the cold weather halted children's biking. Her bicycling development mirrors her some of her personality: diligent, determined, and a little impatient to master something that she felt was almost in her grasp. She doesn't immediately look for sympathy or attention when she falls, but seems to run an internal diagnostic before announcing her status. Like many things in her life, it came somewhat easily to her, and now she's ready to use it to jump into other things.

For me, it was a lot of fun both in watching her accomplishment and in working well with her to provide a little bit of coaching. I treated practicing how to stop as a game while providing some insight as to why it was so important, and mostly cheered her on and fixed dropped chains (finally got the wheel backed out enough to keep the chain taut).

Just a dad getting to do something that dads are good at. Doesn't get much better than that.

duck... duck... mud...?

2009-04-05T16:09:00.003-05:00

My wife owned a dog before she married a husband. Some days she wonders why she ended up keeping the husband and giving away the dog, but that's neither here nor there. (Specifically for the record, the dog was incompatible with young children and the husband was both compatible and extremely helpful with young children. The dog moved on to a child-free home.)

Gromit is a pointer. He loved going to the dog park, playing with other dogs and, most of all, chasing waterfowl and rabbits. Generally an obedient dog, he was nothing but raw canine instinct when prey was in his sight. Command? What? Did you say something?

On Wednesday evening, I took the girls to a playground. When it was time to head back to the car, instead of motioning them to the bike path that led directly to the car, I pointed toward the soggy field and foolishly said, "You can walk back that way and get a closer look at the birds."

The birds were a mixture of mallards and pintails. The attraction of this field for these twenty or so dabbling ducks was food. Standing water in a grass field fits the bill for a nice duck dinner.

In the mind of a five-year old, grounded ducks fit the bill for a game of chase the birds. Once locked in on her prey, the outside world (i.e. daddy) fell away. She expertly moved the flock just enough to find separation between three ducks and the remainder, and drove that wedge. Wearing a bulky winter coat, cotton pants and flip-flops, she had her selected trio on the run. With the bulky-coat gait of a three-year old, the speed of a five-year old and the frozen smile of glee of a demented duck chaser, she laughed and relentlessly pursued, oblivious to my calls or anything else including what might happen if she actually caught a duck.

If it weren't for the mud, she would've been there until dark or until she had dispersed the entire flock. She couldn't hear my pleading, but she came to a sudden stop when her flip-flops became mired in some deeper mud. She stared at her feet, looked over to me, and shouted with incredulity: "I'm... stuck! My feet are stuck!"

Daddy and the ducks quietly cheered.

Play poor

2009-03-30T21:56:00.006-05:00

When Genevieve's time of Saturday afternoon rest concluded (I'd call it a nap if actual napping had occurred), I suggested playing with our pattern blocks. She accepted this idea, and while her sister slept we played with the pattern blocks (2nd photo in this post), and after a time that diversion had played itself out. So we put the blocks away and began to talk about what to do next.

"Let's play poor," she suggested.

"What?" I thought I had mis-heard.

"You know. Play poor."

"Poor?"

By now, she must have been wondering just how much overexposure to 70's and 80's rock music had I burdened my ears with? "Yeah, people who don't have money for things."

I was starting to get it now. You can "play house", "play doctor", "play family,"and "play restaurant", so obviously you can "play poor." But I didn't like the idea. There was nothing about it that sounded very fun. I told her that I didn't want to play poor, and could she come up with another idea.

At Friends Meeting the next day, I heard something that gave me pause to revisit the matter. Latter that day, I asked Genevieve if she wanted to play. When she said yes, I asked if she wanted to play poor. Reesa asked what that meant, so Genevieve took her to their bookshelf and paged through The Quiltmaker's Gift, and pointed to a drawing of a homeless person.

But she didn't want to play poor that day. She wanted to hear more of my story that I am making up on the fly during our bus rides, which features a family that lived on a boat until it was stolen from them and now they are poor and trying to make ends meet in a strange city. She is learning from me about how "poor people" live, and wants to hear more before she tries to play poor.

Rainbow love

2009-03-29T22:34:00.004-05:00

From Dora the Explorer to other scattered stories to our own periodic viewings, rainbows are held in high esteem by both of my children. Genevieve drew this one below and presented it to me as a gift of how much she loves me. Awwwww........

Here is Reesa's try at flattering her sister's art:

Reesa's art is progressing nicely. We're beginning to see more solid representation. And it is good that they both enjoy it.

I don't have these problems

2009-03-26T23:54:00.005-05:00

In the category of "old news," and I can't believe that I haven't written about this one yet. In the latter half of the winter all three females in the house obtained significantly shorter hair -- one by accident, one by appointment, and one by self.

She-Who-Bought-A-New-Curling-Iron-Recently was the one with the accident. Let's call it a curling iron malfunction and leave it at that.

Genevieve wanted a hair cut because she needed help to cease chewing her hair. She did hers the adult way, which is to say she went to a scheduled appointment with a hair professional.

One night toward the conclusion of dinner with a friend, after the two children were dismissed from the table they disappeared to the far end of the house. Soon, Genevieve came back and whispered into her mother's ear.

"Aaiiiieeee!" screamed She-Who, and ran to the other end of the house. This was followed by lots of three-year old bawling. I arrived at our bathroom to find Reesa standing in the dry bathtub, and She-Who was preparing to even out the hair cut that Reesa had given herself.

Following up on this past Sunday's post, I just have to say:
HOLY MOLEY, I'M IN 6TH PLACE IN THE JOHNNY QUEST MEMORIAL CANDY BASKETBALL POOL. It's my fifteen minutes of fame. (Sad, isn't it?)

Bobber, hook and worms

2009-03-24T20:35:00.001-05:00

Our family has rented a spot on the neighborhood boat rack this year, so Genevieve and Reesa and I walked down to the beach to check out the rack (daddy) and the water (children). It was a warm weekend with high temperatures in the low 60's, so the girls waded into the lake water up to their knees. The bay was clear, but I could still see ice on the main body of the lake off in the distance, so I let the children have the icy water to themselves. (The way I look at it is that I just spent the entire winter trying to keep my feet warm -- I'm not about to blow it now.) They didn't complain, but they didn't stay in for too long at a time either, and played in the sand to round out their "summertime practice."

Another summer prep activity was to pull out the new fishing poles for assembly. I have not fished in many, many years. When I fished, my tackle was limited to hook, spinner, swivel, sinker, bobber, hook and worms with the occasional floating tri-hook lure for muskie fishing. The starter tackle kit that came with the new fishing pole had lots of colorful, weird stuff, so it was almost as new to me as to the children. They are looking forward to their first fishing experience.

Usually, when I mention fishing, I have to put in a disclaimer that no, we will not be keeping any of the fish we catch as pets. If we keep any fish, they will be to eat. It will be interesting to see if they want to see exactly how those fish get turned into food, and what their reaction will be.

Science terminology

2009-03-23T20:56:00.001-05:00

"I know these words: expand, contract, and explode."

Genevieve then proceeded to describe each term accurately enough. She claims to get this information from her newest favorite TV show, Sid the Science Kid. I did not see that particular episode, but from the one episode I've seen and bites of other episodes I've caught in passing, Sid certainly seems curious and industrious enough to have explored the meaning of all three terms.

"You know what I don't know, is what does decompose and disintegrate mean?"

As a parent, you are called upon to deliver definitions without recourse to a dictionary. I do my best. I pointed out that both words referred to something that was falling apart and in the process of changing from one solid structural form to another crumbled form, and that "decompose" was the description used for things that were once alive. Upon later review, this was not supported by Merriam-Webster's, but was marginally supported by an online Webster's. In any case, I believe I conveyed the meaning well enough.

"Did you know that jam and jelly are made with jellyfish? So that's not good for the jellyfish."

I had to shoot that one down. But I couldn't explain pectin at that moment, and thankfully didn't try. Sometimes the best course is to say simply, "No, it's not made from jellyfish, it is made from fruits."

They humor me

2009-03-22T21:37:00.006-05:00

It is that most wonderful time of year again, that of college basketball tournaments with all of the basketball competition on the court and the bracket competition off of the court. This year, yours truly wised up and took five hours of vacation on Thursday and watched the entire first day of the tournament. This was fun for me on that day, and after 12 hours of basketball on Thursday, I watched some portions of some other games the remainder of the weeked but didn't feel like I urgently had to be in front of the TV.

This ties into the family because like last year, everyone joined in on picking their winner of all 63 games of the men's tournament. After the first 48 games, here's the family lowdown:

Genevieve discovered what the seeding numbers mean. A team with a lower number (higher seed) is considered to be better than a team with a higher number (lower seed). That's all she needed to know. With the exception of two first round games in which she pick the lower seed (Texas A&M and Wisconsin, and both won [how did she do that?]), she picked the higher seed for all the other regional games. She picked North Carolina out of the four number one seeds to win the tournament, and in a year with few upsets, Genevieve finds herself in 25th place out of all 658 entrants in our on-line candy bar pool. She leads the family pool.

The President is an honorary member of our family pool, though if he wins, we ain't sending him a candy bar. Like Genevieve, he is enamored of the former Jayhawk coach Roy Williams and the Tar Heels to win it all, but unlike Genevieve he did not use a scientific method to make his selections and finds himself 5 points behind our five year-old.

She-Who-Fills-A-Bracket-Because-It-Will-Give-Her-Something-To-Talk-To-Her-Husband-About-For-The-Nineteen-Days-Of-The-Tournament has a soft spot for Duke, and apparent residual year-old warmth for Kansas. She has both teams playing in the finals, with Duke and Coach K on top. She has proven herself as good a prognisticator as the Prez and is tied in points, and she will be applying for a cabinet position as soon as one opens.

Reesa... well, Reesa does this by which names she likes better, or if it corresponds to something she recognizes. Arizona, Arizona State and Wisconsin were all picked to win a few games on name recognition. The word "Siena" slipped like silk on her tongue all the way to the final game, but there was one other team that caught her fancy like no other.

As a native New Yorker (as in the state, NOT the city), I grew up pronouncing Binghamton like this: BING-um-tun. Not Reesa. She says it like this: bing-HAM-ton. Or, to be more precise, "bing-HAM-ton, tee-hee-hee-hee" as if every time she uttered the word it tickled her neck. Reesa gets "daddy credit" for picking two New York teams in the finals, but by her using her methodology she is already mathematically eliminated from winning. No yogurt pretzel prize for her.

And me? So far, I'm four points ahead of She-Who, one down from Genevieve. I figure I can start getting used to being outcompeted by my children -- that's the way of the world. As long as I don't lose to She-Who-Gloats-Upon-Beating-Her-Hubby, I'm doing okay.

A Nightmare on My Street

2009-03-17T05:40:00.004-05:00

Yesterday
"I had nightmares last night, but I can't tell you what they were about because you'd freak your head out." -- Genevieve

5:40 a.m.
Hah! It's not Genevieve's nightmares that would freak me out. I just spent what seemed like hours in the midst of a bad dream that sends shivers down my spine. It was about Genevieve, and she refused to go to sleep for hours and hours, kept getting up, and didn't care about what I said or did, or what consequences or punishments I would use.

Currently, the parents of this house maintain a thin veneer of control over the children. Putting aside the nice desire to fully embody love and logic and the application of natural consequences, when metaphorical push comes to real-world shove, we rely on other strategies to exert control. My nightmare was of a child who fully and completely realized that she could not be controlled. It's good to have parental 'authority,' but worse than Freddy Krueger scary to be confronted with the fragility of it in the middle of the night.

Bored?

2009-03-16T19:13:00.003-05:00

She-Who-Organizes-Things-And-Creates-Lists came up with this one for the tykes of the house. For use any time that particular complaint of childhood comes up.

Bored?

Read a book
Color
TV (sometimes)(just a little bit)
Write a note
Organize a shelf
Sweep the floor
Brush your hair
Fold blankets
Visit friends (sometimes)
Put away toys
Dance
Dress up
Cook with mommy (sometimes)
Play with toys
Music--piano, flutes, violin
Brush your teeth
Dust
Play outside (in nice weather)
Swing (in nice weather)
Yoga

Bilingual fruit

2009-03-13T23:03:00.005-05:00

I've written before about pronunciation, and recently I was reading an alphabet book to Reesa. An alphabet book of food. We were on the B's, beans, beets, and...

"Bi-yana!"

Like her sister and am-blee-ance, Reesa is very consistent in her mispronunciation of the yellow Cavendish. Has done that since early in her language career.

"Bee, bee. bee, boo."

She was getting silly.

"Bah-nana! Ha-ha! That's Spanish."

I couldn't believe it. She got it right.

"How do you say banana in English?" I asked hopefully.

She looked at me, gave her impish smile and said, "Bi-yana."

Minty

2009-03-12T22:26:00.000-05:00

Genevieve walked into the living room. "What smells so good on you? You smell like graham crackers. Or peanut butter. Did you eat something like that?"

I had just snuck a couple of peanut butter graham crackers. It was late afternoon this past weekend and I hadn't had much lunch. Man, it stinks to be ratted out by a five-year old with keen olfactory ability. And now she will want to know why can't she have some for a snack.

"Maybe." I admit nothing.

There I am, stuck between one daughter who can distinguish between many odors, like a nosy detective, and a younger one who thinks I smell like mashed potatoes all the time (except following toothbrushings, and then I smell like mint).

They both are proud of brushing their teeth. "Daddy, smell my breath!" Hhhaa, Hhhaa come two exhales.

"Oh, smells like mint. Very good."

They used to go for the bubble gum or other children flavors of toothpaste, but lately, it's been all about the mint. They clamor for my adult minty toothpaste. She-Who-Can-At-Times-Be-More-Eco-Than-Me uses baking soda, which is neutral in the odor realm. She-Who's stockpile of toothpaste is at no risk from pilferage by our children.

Grown-up stone

2009-03-08T19:35:00.007-05:00

"I want to have a sleep-over at Sheila's. She has a magic stone that has special-er magic than my black stone." We were driving to Quaker meeting, and Genevieve had a captive audience.

"What does it do?" I asked.

"It only works for children. If a grown-up comes in, they would get poisoned, and I don't want you to get poisoned."

"So if you were there using it, you wouldn't want a grown-up to come in because it could poison them"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Well, that's very considerate of you." Good to know she's looking out for me. "So what kind of magic does it do?"

"Sheila didn't tell me yet, but I think I heard her say that it makes smoke to try to kill the grown-up, so that when the grown-up comes in, you forget where you're going and get lost, and it hates grown-ups."

"What does it do without grown-ups around?"

"Oh, well, the princess turns into an evil queen, and she has magic that makes you get lost, and ..."

...and on it goes with castles and rescues and danger, all rendered in spoken phrases not capable of being logically linked by a grown-up, but I'll bet that Reesa understood every word her sister said.

Dorothy

2009-03-03T21:26:00.005-06:00

I have no funny pet fish stories to tell, which is another way of saying that two and a half months into Genevieve's first foray into pet ownership, things are going well. No fish under the bed, no toilet bowl tears. Just a little spilled fish food. Of course, I do the water change-outs and more often than not have to remind her to actually give poor flipper some food. But she sometimes remembers to feed it on her own, is still interested in the fish, and even asks for another pet.

I bought her a male beta, since they require no mechanical filter, are fresh water fish, and are a very good starter fish as far as pet fish go. The males have showy fins and color. My girls don't care what my story about the provenance of this pet -- it's a girl, and it's name is Dorothy, end of discussion.

Shown here is Reesa's earliest extant representational artwork -- Dorothy from the top. The squiggy blob in front of Dorothy's face is the food that she is about to suck in.

So far, so good

2009-02-28T23:22:00.002-06:00

As previously mentioned in three posts in January (this one, this one, and this one), Genevieve and I some serious issues with drop-off and pick-up time at her pre-school, and that we had a moderated dialog to attempt some resolution. Since then, our pre-school transitions have improved greatly. The first week following the dialog still had residual whining and reluctance, but with reminders Genevieve eventually cooperated. Since then, the pick-ups have gone smoothly with only minor exception, and few reminders. I arrive, set a timer with at least two minutes, and inform her of the time she has remaining to play, say goodbye, get water, etc. At the conclusion of the time, she is good (in that five-year old way) about getting dressed and catching the bus on time.

On Wednesday, she had a relapse, but even that meltdown showed the utility of our agreement. After the tantrum went on too long, I calmly informed her about the agreement, and that her meltdown meant that she needed some time to calm down and that would come as a time-out when we arrived at home. Her crying continued for a while, but her tantrum subsided and she got dressed in her winter gear and walked (frozen tears all the way) to the bus on time.

Picture book

2009-02-28T23:15:00.002-06:00

Genevieve authored a 5 page picture book recently. Here it is…

Can't tell a book by its cover

Every book had a cover. This is hers. Genevieve hasn’t decided on the name of the main character.

At the ball

Our protagonist is wearing her dress, complete with a picture of a girl flying a kite on the chest of the gown, to the ball. In the left background, you can see another princess dancing with a prince. (The circles on the neck are rows of jeweled necklaces bedecking the swan-like princess neck, straight from a UK book entitled Imagine you’re a Princess!)

The music house

After the ball, our princess returns to her music box house…

In two straight lines they broke their bread, and brushed their teeth, and went to bed

And goes to sleep in her bed (bottom) along with (in ascending order) mommy, baby, and daddy. (The Ludwig Bemelmans influence is obvious here.)

Good morning sunshine!

In the morning, the sun shines through the window and the girl wakes up!

Office visit

2009-02-27T19:32:00.002-06:00

On occasion, one or both of my girls will be dropped off at the office. Maybe because her sister has a doctor or dentist visit. Maybe because She-Who-Is-Trying-To-Run-A-Business has a mid-day client meeting. The latter was the reason for the most recent lunchtime visit from both children.

To get to my first floor office, we must go through the lobby, and every trip through the lobby is accompanied by a plea to play restaurant. In the center of the lobby is a large table, with a decorative vase on top. The space underneath is the restaurant.

“I’ll do food, and Reesa does drinks,” Genevieve announces.

“Yeah,” Reesa chirps, taking her place at her own window. “What do you want?”

“A veggie burger, waldorf salad, and ice tea.”

“Oh, okay, umm…we don’t have that,” Genevieve informs me. “Our food menu is there, and the drinks are on that menu.” She points to the building directory, and a sign for the health clinic on an upper floor.

“I see. Do you still have macaroni and cheese?”

“I have your drink, daddy.” Reesa either has ice tea for me, or didn’t want to wait anymore.

“Yes, we do have macaroni and cheese. Here you go.” Genevieve does not want to miss her part.

“Thank you. Here’s the money.” I give them air money.

Once inside the department cube farm, they go from cube to cube looking for the stuffed animals and saying hello to my co-workers. We go to the break room to eat lunch.

“Can we pretend it’s a cafeteria, daddy?”

“Sure…”

Twenty-five minutes, some food and a potty break later, it is clear that we need to leave the office. We bundle into our coats and head across the street for something better than a shopping mall on a cold winter day — the hospital skybridge.

I work close to a hospital with a heated, carpeted, windowed, enclosed pedestrian bridge that spans a busy city artery. It is a perfect to go with young kids to burn off some ya-ya’s. On another day, we might even go all the way over to the hospital to go eat in a real cafeteria. But fifteen minutes on the bridge and She-Who-Had-A-Successful-Meeting is on her way to pick up the kids, and I am soon on my way back to another meeting.

Dots and squares and floor plans

2009-02-22T21:29:00.000-06:00

You might remember playing dots and squares as a child. Well, there is another turn taking game with pencil and paper that Genevieve and I engaged in on the bus. I call it layout. Genevieve might call it floor plan.

Each take turns drawing a room or significant object as you would see it on a floor plan. I draw the driveway, she does the garage. I block out the kitchen, she draws the basement (yeah, I know, different level, but I just go with it). I draw the fire pit, she draws the swing set.

The wheels turn inside her head. My intention is for her to understand it like a very personal map, on a very scale more accessible than any commercial road map.

Ear

2009-02-17T23:19:00.000-06:00

Reesa complained that her ear ached at 5:30 this morning. I was putting away dishes in the kitchen and trying to get ready to leave for work, and thought that it would be much better for my chances of making the 6:28 if she were mistaken. I gave her some pain reliever, changed out her wet overnight pull-up diaper, and sent her for some cuddling with mommy.

I had forgotten about it until my wife called me at work.

"Reesa is asking why her name brand pain reliever isn't working yet, and that her ear hurts. Know anything about this?"

So I fessed up and after a couple of hours I learned that Genevieve would not have to come and hang-out with daddy while Reesa visited the doctor, as other arrangements for Genevieve's care were made. I asked my wife to give me a call to let me know how the doctor's visit went.

She-Who-Usually-Takes-Sick-Children-To-The-Doctor didn't miss a beat. "I can tell you how it went right now. We'll show up at the clinic, check in at the desk, and wait for a long time. Then they'll call us in, and we'll wait a long time, and an intern will see her, and we'll wait some more, and then the doctor will come in and prescribe antibiotics."

And that's exactly what happened. Followed by more crying and whining from Reesa.

Some days, I am soooooo happy that I get to go to work.

French Valentine

2009-02-14T09:42:00.006-06:00

Reesa's Valentine's wishes (above):
"Dis is in French writing. It says
Dear Daddy
Happy Valentine's Day
Dear Daddy
That was in French writing"

Genevieve's Valentine wish was to the point.

Dry run

2009-02-13T22:50:00.003-06:00

Today, my wife and I took Genevieve to a kindergarten introduction at the local K-2 school. Parents bring their soon-to-be-entering-kindergarten child, and parents get a broad overview of most pertinent facts and children get to march of with their soon-to-be-classmates to go do art and sing with the kindergarten staff.

As parents who did not grow up in our current "city" of residence (in New York State, this would not qualify as a city, but hey, whatever), this was our first experience of our local school, so we were learning as much or more than Genevieve. But the biggest reason to have this thing wasn't for the kids, or for the school to get that paperwork in from the parents. It was a dry run... uh, wet run for first time moms to practice their crying skills as the kids gather up and file out of the room. I don't know that this will make September go more smoothly, but She-Who-Sees-Her-Daughter-Entering-College-Really-Soon noted that there were many wet eyes in the room.

As for Genevieve, she loved it. She could probably start tomorrow, as far as she is concerned.

Butterfly map

2009-02-11T22:54:00.001-06:00

Last night, Genevieve picked up a pile of things I dumped on the floor when doing a minor repair on a coffee table, and she wanted a reward. I was up for some fun, so I had her choose a non-food thing, and she chose a "butterfly map." Not having a butterfly map lying around the house, I thought about drawing one but elected instead to start with the computer, hoping to find some map-like thing with great pictures or art. I can try to draw butterflies, but it's really cool to see the wide variety of wing patterns that exist "in the real world."

I found a site on which you could click on your state and county and see a list of photo links to butterflies sighted in that locale, and somehow we got around to the NOVA website and found The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies. It is the story of the North American monarch butterfly migration, and is available for viewing in six segments, so the two girls and I started watching it. It became our bedtime story -- Reesa fell asleep to it -- and Genevieve was completely still for the entire program, which I think means that she was emotionally satisfied with her day and enthralled with the program.

The most fascinating part was listening and responding to her questions about why some people would be chopping down the trees that the butterflies used in their Mexican sanctuaries. Yes, it wasn't nice. Those people did it because they were poor and needed some way to make money, so they cut down the trees and sold the wood. They needed money to get by, maybe to buy food. Yes, maybe they had children. The man said they were dangerous because maybe they had guns, because they didn't want to get caught doing something illegal.

That was only about three or four minutes of the almost hour-long program, and most of the remainder was spent watching the wonder of their life-cycle and migration. I love books and storytime, but I do like the option of finding these little gems on this thing we call the internet.

Cleanliness

2009-02-08T19:33:00.006-06:00

Myth: Now that our children are old enough to bathe themselves, I have them bathe in order to get clean.

Myth debunked: Cleanliness is a fortunate side-effect. Children are sent to the bath for wholesome, confined entertainment while I clean the kitchen in relative peace. I can tell if they're doing okay--the incessant din of their screeches easily reaches the kitchen. Sometimes Reesa will come wandering down the hall, wet and without towel, and will say through chattering teeth, "I'm sh-iv-ery." She does not yet appreciate my explanation about the cooling effect of the evaporative process on human skin.

News Flash -- The hydrangea fairies live out back. In the hydrangea shrubs. The Lizzy fairy lives in the fairy house off the front stoop. They know each other, and they are good friends but are not related. Of course, none of them are in either place right now, since it is winter and too cold outside. This is very important, so I thought I'd let you all know.

Identical fairies

2009-02-06T23:47:00.003-06:00

“Fairies are real. Scientists are still trying to figure this out, but I know.”

Genevieve says that on the top of the roof of our house live ‘identical’ fairies. ‘Identical’ fairies help other fairies; they are fairy doctors and fairy angels.

“Are fairies for real, dad?”

“Well, how would we figure that out?”

“Ask the computer.”

So we look on the computer, and lo and behold, there are pictures and paintings of fairies. When you see it on the computer, that is proof that they are real. The other night we saw a planet next to the moon, and looked it up on the computer and the computer knew that there was a planet next to the moon, and had a picture of exactly what it looked like, and knew it was Venus. So, the computer knows things that are real.

One hundred ninety-nine

2009-02-05T21:17:00.000-06:00

Tonight, Genevieve is trying desperately to put herself to sleep. After announcing that five plus four is nine — it’s dark in the room beyond the computer screen, so I can’t see if she is using her fingers to determine this — she moved on to raw counting. She just counted her way to one hundred ninety-nine, and no, one billion is not the next number. After a brief discussion about how it was appropriate that two hundred would be the next number, she said, “Oh, and then is it three hundred?”

“Yes, after you count all of the two hundreds.”

“Wow, that’s gonna take a long time.”

Mmm-hmm, that’s the point, honey.

List of names

2009-02-03T21:09:00.000-06:00

This past Friday, I found a list of the names of Genevieve's classmates in her pre-school mail slot. I stared at it, thought "hmm, that's nice" and put it in my bag.

Another child's mom followed behind, and the gender difference is that she immediately understood the intent and significance of finding this list in our mail slot.

"Ooo, good, the class list! Just in time for Valentine's Day."

I suspect that in general, Valentine's Day is more popular with girls than boys, and that it was no mistake that that the mom got jiggy to the meaning of the list before I did. I don't know if She-Who-Does-The-Shopping will get a pack of the tear-off cards, or if she has plans for a card-making project. Since there are about 15 other kids in her class, that's a bunch of work.

Purple is the best color in the world

2009-01-30T22:30:00.002-06:00

The fact that purple is the best color in the world is self-evident to both of my children, but only the older one could provide some background on the matter.

"So Genevieve, why is purple the best color in the world?"

"Well, back in the old days, it used to be a color that only royalty could wear purple -- you know, only kings and queens -- but then other people, they wanted to wear purple too, and now anyone can wear it and that's why it's the best."

Well, at least it didn't have anything to do with the Vikings (you know, that football team from Minnesota?).

Does 'sigh' have an emoticon?

2009-01-25T22:54:00.004-06:00

As I've indicated, there has been some drama in our house as of late with our older (five year old) daughter. For example, being sent for timeout because she failed to act on a parental request.

First, the last second attempt to comply with the request once she realizes that she has incurred the timeout consequence:

"No, wait! I'm doing it! See! No, no.... I'm doooooing it!" she wails as she is shooed of to her bedroom.

Then, the screaming and door slamming (oooh, extra two minutes for that).

"I WAS doing it. You... YOU are MAKING this bad!" she bellows at the top of her well-exercised lungs. [Sigh] Just think--when the weather gets warmer and the windows are opened, we'll be able to share these moments with the entire neighborhood.

Finally, Genevieve and I had our moderated talk. She-Who-Referees-Family-Disputes presided. It went remarkably well considering how difficult it is for a 5-year old to listen plainly to the impact of her tantrums. Genevieve wants us to treat each other more nicely. I am willing to do that, but she needs to be able to listen and respond to my requests.

I was detailed about the difficulties of her behavior during pickup at her pre-school, and she agreed to cooperate fully with departure if I would give her two minutes after my arrival. We agreed on that, but haven't decided on what happens if she is not cooperative. The natural consequence of being late for the bus (daddy has to stand out in the cold and extend his homeward commute by another half hour, the rest of the family eating dinner a half-hour later) imposes penalties on many other people than Genevieve, and she's just as happy playing in the snow at the bus stop and having my attention for more time.

So, we need something else, and haven't figured it out yet. We'll start finding out how this chat went beginning this Wednesday.

Gruffalo rhymes with Buffalo

2009-01-22T21:17:00.005-06:00

Oh, I can see the end of the days of my deep and daily involvement with children's picture books -- it's not here yet, but a couple-three-four years and we'll be on to other things. Sigh. I'll enjoy it while I can.

The Gruffalo's Child
Author: Julia Donaldson
Illustrator: Axel Scheffler

I shouldn't miss another winter reading season without mentioning this one. A story with rhythm and rhyme, a little suspense, identification of animal body parts, and an easy-to-identify-with monster protagonist. The Gruffalo child is a girl, and we meet her, her Gruffalo daddy, and the forest animals she encounters on her search for the Big Bad Mouse.

I love the playful detail in the illustrations: the progression of the weather during the story (from snowing hard to clear and starry); the forest trees that can look like they have a face; the stick doll carried by the Gruffalo child; and the "animal extras" that look on from the dark of the forest.

I think this is our third winter with the book, and it has not suffered from repeated readings (even a few in the summer months).

Once upon a time there was a girl-boy

2009-01-18T21:40:00.002-06:00

Girl story (left)

Once upon a time (WNS APN A TM)
There was a little girl (THR WS A LTAL GRAL)
Whose parents were delighted (HWSE PRANS W DEELITAD)
So they lived happily ever after (SO THE LD HL E E)

Genevieve said she ran out of space on the page to spell out the last few words.

Boy story (right)

Once upon a time (WNS APN A TM)
There was a boy (THER WS A BOY)
... (can't decipher or recall)
flower pick (FLWR PK)
[heart]

The era of f-r-u-i-t

2009-01-17T23:55:00.004-06:00

Lately, when I look at Genevieve, I see the end of an era. The independence she is attempting to exert, the complexity of her thinking, her physical growth and language development--all signs of her readiness for kindergarden. By Erikson's eight stages of development, she has mastered the third stage of "learning initiative versus guilt" (development of purpose). It seems like she is going back for seconds on the second stage in which a child deals with the development of will, and maybe she will continue to deal with that as she continues to develop in other areas.

Put in a more immediate way, I look at Genevieve and see that my little dependent daddy's girl has grown up into a somewhat bigger I-am-my-own-girl.

Another end of an era has also arrived. That of the secret parent language called spelling. Used to be that if we wanted to have secrets in front of the kids, we could just spell things. That time is going-going-gone. Yesterday at the dinner table, Genevieve requested more food. To be on the same page with She-Who-Cares-About-What-Her-Children-Eat, I quietly and quickly said, "We could do f-r-u-i-t."

Genevieve immediately piped in: "Fruit. Yeah, I want fruit!"

Now I wish that I had a second language fluency in common with my wife. Maybe we'll try Morse code.

Calm, wet and snowy

2009-01-12T20:36:00.003-06:00

Calm
I was able to speak more extensively with my wife, and I no longer feel the urgent need to put my daughter in hour long time-outs on a daily basis, which is much better for everyone. Genevieve and I have not yet had our moderated talk, and I can't say as though everything is smooth, but we are both .... a little more careful with each other?

Wet
Tonight, the girls wanted to sleep in their mermaid den instead of their beds. They've had a mermaid infatuation for the past two weeks, thanks to the Backyardigans. Most special sleeping dens have been located in their closet as of late. It turns out that a clean closet has room to be favorite play spot, and their closet has been a number of places, from a house to a restaurant to a secret hiding spot.

Anyway, their mermaid den was not the closet. They wanted to spend the night in the bathtub. Maybe tomorrow night I'll let them try that experiment, but I wasn't up for it tonight.

Snowy
Winter brings small, brief moments of wonder to me on my mile-long walk home from the bus. On Christmas week, I came upon an owl in the tree next to a native American burial mound. I stopped and looked at her for a while and then, perhaps tired of being stared at, she launched and flew on.

Last night, I took a detour to stand out on the lake. The snow was falling heavily, weighing down the city noises across the lake and putting the nearby bay shores in fuzzy grey. Suddenly, I was surprised to see a fox running perpendicular to my line of travel across the bay, 50 yards on, moving at a steady gallop toward on whatever destination that was suddenly more secretly accessible over the ice and through the snow.

Fed up

2009-01-10T12:49:00.004-06:00

My daughter and I will be having a moderated problem solving session soon. Within one minute of rising this morning, I heard myself saying to the children, "What? Are you deaf?" It was not a sparkly daddy moment, and I later apologized. But my right-out-of-the-gate breakdown this morning is merely a symptom of a wider issue.

My wife points out that I am engaged in a recent cycle of power struggles with our older daughter, and She-Who-Is-On-My-Side offered advice on other potential approaches. While this may be a correct analysis of the situation, this was not well received by yours truly. You see, I feel like I've tried those different approaches, over and over, and I am officially FED UP.

Genevieve recently spent over an hour in her room for repeated tantrums and non-cooperation, and it was a pleasant hour for me and boring for her. It got her attention. That reinforced my view of a new approach with clear-cut and rapidly increasing consequences. Though I am uncertain as to it's long-term success, I do know that the other suggestions have not worked. My wife thinks that if I improved my application of different approaches, then that could bring about change, but I now believe that my daughter behaves differently with me even if I relate to her exactly as does her mother. Where I'm at now is that I've tried the change daddy approach with no success, and I am now trying the change daughter approach.

This is an evolving thing, and She-Who-Is-On-My-Side and I have more talking to do. What is certain is that we do have a parental difference of opinion and a strained father-daughter relationship.

Health care and fruit

2009-01-10T11:38:00.000-06:00

Genevieve still pronounces that word to describe emergency vehicles with extensive medical equipment and sirens as am'-blee-ence.

Reesa says hos-ta-ble for that large medical complex that ambleences take their injured patients to. She also enjoys eating those curvy tropical fruits with the yellow skin that you peel off to get to the yummy insides: the bi-ya-na.

The girls also reached a joint agreement that Clementine oranges have two parts: the clemen (the outer skin that you peel off) and the tine (the inner part that you eat).

Chore chart

2009-01-06T22:50:00.002-06:00

Genevieve did a "chore chart." More like a chore and personal values chart. Here's the chart and her interpretation. The blanks in my table were items she couldn't remember.

A cleaner, bleached-out world

2009-01-04T07:09:00.000-06:00

I tucked Genevieve and Reesa into bed, and sat down in a corner of the room to do some laptop reading. Staying in the room for a short time can help them settle down more quickly. After a couple of minutes of silence, Genevieve started talking softly. Before I could ask her to quiet herself, I heard the content of what she was saying and decided to not interrupt.

"A cleaner world gives us a healthy environment.
"A healthy environment makes a world for healthy people.
"A cleaner healthier world for children to grow up in."

Wow. Such heartwarming, eco-sentiments from my five-year old. My green heart swelled with pride. Our household examples were being absorbed by our child! The world would indeed be a better place! My daughter is so perceptive, so articulate -- she's ready to be president someday!

And then, she added the kicker:

"Clorox--bringing you a cleaner world."

@!#!!!!...sizzle%$%..fry?@#*!%..pop! Thump! (last sound was my jaw striking the floor)

"What did you say?" I whispered.

She recapped for me. "When the world is a cleaner place, and the outside is clean, then we can all be healthy."

"Yeah, yeah, not that. Um, where did you hear that?"

She paused. In retrospect, her recitation sounded like a data dump, and it felt like she was trying to find the file and retrieve the information.

"It was on PBS Kids, at the end of the program."

More evidence that public broadcasting has both sponsorships and commercials. When a kid absorbs it like a commercial, it's a commercial. Kinda funny that PBS has some webpages on being media smart--they should have a page on being smart about their own commercials. These are skills that we will have to concentrate on teaching our children, and it looks like we'll need to get it in high gear starting now.

Castle! Castle!

2009-01-03T08:09:00.001-06:00

Isn't it curious how children relate to traveling around town? in the development of the ability to have a mental map of their surroundings?

One thing the children relate to are local landmarks, and the general proximity of certain landmarks to certain other landmarks. Many of the landmarks they have are very close to home--we pass those most frequently. Also, there are landmarks near frequent destinations. At an intersection on the route to their preschool, two buildings with crenellations (one with a crenellated turret) are situated opposite each other. Genevieve associated this feature with castles at age three, and Reesa still cries out "Castle! Castle!" whenever we pass the intersection.

As for going around our local area, our children currently think that any local landmark is readily available on any car trip. Over the holidays, there is a light display in the shape of a horse, and they frequently ask to drive past it even if we are on the other side of town going in an opposite direction. When you're not driving and never have driven a car and are very young, I suppose that stuff outside the window is sort of like a television with a DVD player--just ask to plug in a local landmark to watch go by.

Insert name of child here

2009-01-02T15:42:00.007-06:00

"I have to go pee-pee!" announces our three-year-old Reesa, looking at me while standing up with her hand between her legs.

"Okay, run to the bathroom," I say, duly fulfilling my role in her bathroom ritual. She doesn't need my blessing, but if she cannot get a permissive response from a parent, she will continue to stand there and try to get one. I suppose that I could try and train her out of the ritual, but at some point I look at the big picture. The big picture includes some internal and mysterious gauges measuring a variety of father/husband energy levels, including Overall Energy, Patience Energy, and Creative Energy. These are three of the items at the center of my emotional dashboard, and all are critical for successful problem solving or getting out of jams.

In terms of this exchange, which I or my wife will face many of the times that the tyke feels the call of nature, I just figure it's a ritual whose time will pass and I don't spend any of my energies on it. I save those energies for the other things that I (rightly or wrongly) seem to think that she should be ready to get. You know, stuff like (insert appropriate name, or select one item, at bolded text):

"Name of child, what is this name of clothing article doing in the middle of the hallway?"
"Name of child, are you jumping/standing/climbing on that name of piece of furniture?"
"Name of child, are you are using your outside voice on the inside of my house?"
"Name of child, what are you doing with that pen/pencil/crayon/marker/paint brush?"
"Name of child, no, you may not change your clothes for the third/fourth/fifth/etc. time today."
"Name of child, did you wash your hands after going to the bathroom? And don't tell me that you did, because you are out of there much too quickly."
"Names of all children in the house, who used the toilet last? I want you to come over here now because you need to flush it/I need to talk to you about the 3 yards of toilet paper stuffed in there."

Looking over the list, it boils down to: Hygiene, housekeeping, and preservation of peace and assets. Hmm, that looks about right.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-30T21:39:00.002-06:00

Some photos of our Christmas day.

Nocturnal friends

2008-12-28T23:00:00.000-06:00

One recent week, my girls deduced that Santa, the Aardvark, fairies, and the Easter Bunny are all homeys. They don't share the same pad, but the girls know that the foursome are down with each other because they are all nocturnal (which was the word of the day). Obviously, anyone that is routinely awake a night will be friends with everyone else awake at night.

Three of the amigos are in a related line of work. Santa brings toys to children, and the Aardvark takes away toys that have not been put away. The girls have decided that the Aardvark is one of Santa's suppliers, and I have to tip my hat to the cost-effectiveness of the relationship. The Easter Bunny is also in the gifting gig, except he deals chocolate and candy. I don't know what the fairies do, perhaps just live off of some inheritance--they seem to have lots of parties and teas. Maybe the parties double as kitchenware or beauty-product marketing? As a guy, I'm definitely not in the know about fairies.

Speaking of nocturnal, Genevieve has been trying to go to sleep for two-and-a-half hours. I rarely have insomnia now, but I remember many nights as a child when it was difficult to get to sleep. The unconsciousness of sleep was merely an opportunity to miss something that might happen. Now, I look upon getting to bed late as something I'll pay for over the course of the next day.

I stand corrected, sort of

2008-12-27T23:01:00.003-06:00

Okay, okay, I didn't know this, but I didn't receive any comments from my legions of readers, either (all 5 of you). It seems that there is an aardvark more famous than our own nocturnal toy-snatching aardvark. The eponymous subject of the animated television series Arthur and the series of books by Marc Brown is an anthropomorphic aardvark.

Unlike many other monsters they've heard about, they haven't had the benefit of seeing a picture of one in a story picture book. I believe this is because Aardvarks aren't in either the first or second ring of anthropomorphized animals approved for use in children's story books. From entry of February 9, 2008.

I predict that further viewing or reading of Arthur will not pollute their mythology of aardvarks, however. They've seen some of the Arthur episodes, and haven't made the leap, and why would they? Arthur looks more like some generic rodent than an aardvark. It's laughable, I tell you. Technically speaking, my above statement on aardvarks and children's literature is apparently not true, but I won't lose sleep over it. Our aardvark is way more interesting than Arthur, anyway. Not to be a name-dropper, but did you know that our aardvark hangs with Santa Claus? What's Arthur got on that, huh? That his mom knew Fred Rogers? Nice, but not in the same league.

Green is good

2008-12-26T19:51:00.001-06:00

No, you can't have more broccoli until you eat your....

A sign of how much our children like vegetables (or is it just that we keep them hungry? nah!) is demonstrated by the fact that they can be bribed by vegetables. Reesa was recently bribed off of the television by mommy...

"Reesa, do you want a green bean?" asked She-Who-Has-Our-Children-Begging-For-Tofu.

"Yeah!"

"Well, you can have one if you quickly get in the car so we can get Daddy and Genevieve at the bus!"

"Okay!" And off trots the three-year-old to the car to claim her green prize.

My favorite gift

2008-12-25T08:45:00.011-06:00

Christmas morning started at o'dark-thirty when Genevieve came in and announced, "It's Christmas!"

UGH. "But it's still the middle of the night," say She-Who-Thinks-Quickly. "Come cuddle with us for a few minutes."

Ha, ha! She fell for it. Staying up until 10 pm on Christmas eve and not "letting" them nap meant that I had two tired girls, and Genevieve fell back asleep until...

...8:03! Yikes! Has the babe made his appearance in our living room? Did we miss it? No, I'm just in time...

As I was snapping pictures of the happy couple and the blessed babe, the remainder of the family gathered in the living room and beheld the gifts. Genevieve was the first to open her stocking, but the rest of us had to take care of a variety of other things before opening our stockings. We told Genevieve that she could start eating the food from the stocking (orange, mixed nuts, granola bar and pink pudding), but to wait to open the gifts until the rest of the family could join her. From the other end of the house I heard the front door squeak, so I came down the hall in time to hear the main door close. Genevieve, with her hand on the doorknob said, "I just said thank you to Santa!"

Last night she had been 'talking' to Santa on her way home from Grandma Lois' by shouting messages up to the sky. Messages such as:

"Santa! Don't go to Genevieve's and Reesa's house yet! We're not there yet!"

"Santa! It's Genevieve! Wait awhile before you go to Genevieve and Reesa's house, okay?! We'll be sleeping soon, but wait until we get home to get to sleep, okay?!"

That was last night. This morning, I presume any neighbors outside within a block in the 4 degree weather heard her shout her thanks.

Genevieve reads a card on a gift. "Who. Who. Who."

"That's close. It says 'Ho! Ho! Ho!'"

"Oh."

I feel blessed today that my children are thrilled and thankful for all of the gifts they receive, be it clothing, games, or food. That is my favorite gift of Christmas this year.

Paper clip fun

2008-12-16T20:35:00.004-06:00

My girls believe me to be a magician and a clown. I am a clown for the outrageous claims and statements with which I will test them ("when I was three years old, my momma left me floating in a basket on the river, and I was found by wolves, and they raised me. A-OOOOOoooooooooo! That's why I have such poor table manners.")

I am a magician through the proper combination of angular momentum, gravitational acceleration and friction, employing string, 3 paper clips, string and a ring of keys. My 3 and 5-year old found this to be fascinating, and after watching me do it, wanted to try in on their own. With a steadying adult hand on the pencil and a chair for height, they could each experience success.

The illustration here is from a Danish website that explains the experiment (they also have other demonstration experiments). I used keys -- they use a coffee cup for the drama of it. Hold the pencil steadily high enough above the floor with one hand, and the paper clip end of the string in the other hand. Release the paper clips (not the pencil!), and watch the paper clips wrap around the pencil before the keys/coffee cup hits the ground. Fun for all, and simple too.

How to play buses for power

2008-12-06T00:09:00.005-06:00

I am noticing the effect my attitude has on me when dealing with Genevieve. I started the pickup at pre-school in a good mood, due to the fact that we had plenty of time to make it to the bus. But then she lost her "gold coin" and we spent some time looking for it, a calculated plan and within the time we had. Now we were out of slack time, but I had honored her wish to find her toy (we found the coin).

At this juncture, she dawdles. Walks over to her friends and converse and say goodbye, even though she had been saying goodbye for fifteen minutes. Doesn't "hear" me asking her to come with me, that we needed to get going. Finally comes, but announces that she is hot in her coat and must have water now. Walks away from me again. Our walk time to the bus is now one minute longer than when the bus is scheduled to arrive.

At this point, I simply say "that's it," chase her down, pick her up, tuck her under my arm, and leave the preschool room with her flailing and crying. I drag her by the hand all the way to the bus, which we barely make. I am not a happy camper. It is 5 degree wind chill and I don't want to wait an extra hour. I am not having a successful daddy moment. She's got me right where she wants me -- she is winning the power struggle.

Exasperation or melty cuteness

2008-12-05T21:59:00.001-06:00

Like death and taxes, another sure thing in life is that a consequence will occur if mommy or daddy start a countdown and get to zero before the child does what they were asked to do. That's what our children know.

Sometimes, it would be better if daddy had a countdown for himself. Last night, sick and tired of having to repeat myself, I left Genevieve alone in her room only moments after sitting to settle her down for the night. It was the right action for me to take, but I did it with exasperation, so it wasn't exactly the right attitude to do it in. 5-4-3-2-1-breathe in and out, that could've been more helpful.

On the other hand, my attitude is swayed by the cuteness of Reesa's greetings and play. She is giggly to see me at the end of the workday, and her imaginary play has innocence and bare-naked id wrapped up in a 3-year old voice with 5-year old sentences. I try to treat them equitably, and I have to admit that it is difficult to avoid giving Reesa just a little more leeway for her behavior. So, when I find three dozen Lite-Brite pieces in my bed, courtesy of that little pixie who was storing them there for her sister's upcoming birthday, I think "what a pain in the butt -- but how sweet she is to think of her sister!"

See? Older daughter, exasperation. Younger daughter, melty cuteness. Today, that's the state of fairness and equitability.

This is not the result of a wax buildup

2008-11-30T22:01:00.002-06:00

It's amazing which things my children can remember from months and months ago, especially when compared with difficulty they have with parental requests from thirty, or even ten seconds ago. I even scanned over a list of known medical causes of memory loss --

Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Alzheimer's Disease
Brain Tumor
Cerebrovascular disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Dementia
Depression
Drug Abuse
Encephalitis and Meningitis
Epilepsy (Seizure Disorder)
Head trauma
Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Lewy body disease
Malnutrition
Medications
Neurodegenerative diseases
Neurosyphilis
Normal pressure hydrocephalus
Parkinson's Disease
Pick Disease
Prolonged toxin exposure
Psychological/emotional disturbances
Sleep disorders
Stroke
Thyroid disease
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
Vitamin deficiencies
Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
Wilson's disease

Hmmm. Nope. I don't see anything applicable to my children.

So, what about this curious dichotomy of memory that my children exhibit? I think the medical community currently accepts this well-known and wide spread childhood malady as some normal phase of development.

Let's think about this. Reesa remembers the name of the man that I bought our canoe from four months ago. She spent maybe ten minutes in the presence of this guy, and for all of it I was talking to him about price, about how well this canoe would work for us, and how to tie the thing up on the roof of the van.

Yet, she is completely incapable of recalling that ten seconds ago I asked her to pick up her shoes for the third time. Some might call this selective hearing, as if it is a sensory failure. I think people have categorized it in the same manner as an automotive problem, as if their child's auditory wiring has a periodic short circuit rendering them incapable of collecting the sound waves. And no, it's not a hearing problem, because I can test that by going to the other end of the house, closing the door and mumbling "juice box," and faster than you can say "what was that you said" the thunder of little feet would close in and a little voice would be squealing, "can I have a juice box?"

I suspect something entirely different. I think it is a evolutionary development: natural selection of those children in the species who exhibited tendencies to drive their parents to drink and an early demise, thereby creating more opportunity for the young to make their mark in the world, and to eat crackers and popsicles whenever they wish. Seems to me.

The Quiltmaker's Gift

2008-11-19T22:42:00.001-06:00

Because I can't help but have opinions about books...

Super highly recommended for your child's book shelf:

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau (Author) and Gail De Marcken (Illustrator). Here's a children's story about the power of generosity, commitment and beauty that is as remarkable for its writing as its artwork. We brought this to a summer camp weekend to read to the children there, and it was well received by a group ranging from 3 to 12 years old, largely on the basis of the story. You really need to hold the book in your hand see the nice detail and vibrant color of the art.

If you haven't seen it, click on the link above which will take you to the digital version of the book at the International Children's Digital Library. Worth taking a look at.

A prequel was also published, entitled "The Quiltmaker's Journey." This too is a visual treat with a nice story. Of the two books, though, it is "The Quiltmaker's Gift" that is the must-have.

Monsters and fairies and ghosts

2008-11-11T23:05:00.001-06:00

"Are you the baby monster?"
"Nooo."
"You're the bad guy."
"NOOOOOO, I'm NOT the bad guy."

"Are there monsters and ghosts in the real world?"

Genevieve asked this question one recent morning when my mouth was pasted shut with oatmeal. My wife had not yet begun eating, so she jumped right in.

"Well, that's a complicated question. Sometimes there are things that happen, or things that we see, that are difficult to explain, and ghosts and monsters seem like a reasonable explanation."

I immediately thought, yeah, add in aardvarks or fairies!

"But there's always some other reason why these things happen," my wife continued.

Uh-oh. I don't like where this is going.

"The short answer about whether ghosts and monsters live in the real world is, not so much."

No no no no no no no! This is an area of equivocation and vagueness! Don't give away the store when we haven't even hit age five yet! Monsters and ghosts can be useful. And it's only a short step to disbelieving fairies and aardvarks, and then where would be be?

Since then, I told my wife my thoughts about what I saw as her strategic blunder. She was not impressed.

"They won't be confused. Monsters and ghosts aren't real. Aardvarks and fairies leave evidence of their existence, so they're of course real."

I didn't buy it. So later in the day, my wife equivocated when the children asked about monsters and ghosts.

Ever since then, they see either monsters or ghosts in every other room, and have used them as excuses to delay doing things or demand attention. There are ghosts in the bathroom, monsters in the basement. And don't even ask about the closet.

I am beginning to reconsider my position.

For my next trick

2008-11-10T09:41:00.005-06:00

At the conclusion of lunch, Reesa dragged her shirt sleeve through the dal that she had dribbled onto the table, neatly cleaning the table and "earning" her pajamas for the upcoming nap time in one swoop. I don't know at which age kids cease to wear one-piece pajamas, but Reesa is still wearing hers and came looking for me to help her with the zipper. The zippering action between the knee and the waist is difficult for either of my girls, so I got it up to her belly button and she took it from there.

The observant reader will note that I used the words "nap time" in the above paragraph. Of course, they are used in a hopeful sense, much like a saloon owner will declare a "happy hour" in hopes that it will be profitable for his business. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, and sometimes three year olds spend an hour in bed cooing and singing softly to their stuffed animals.

When Reesa got out of bed after an hour, I shot her the look (version P2.3), the one that says:
"DON'T you even start to tell me that you slept and can you get up now--I didn't get enough of a break yet, and you have had no sleep!" Being the perceptive child she is, she immediately spoke up before I verbalized anything, "I have to go potty!" Mmm, she knows that she'll get permission for that, and I send her along to the bathroom with a toss of my head and a grunt.

A few seconds later, she has tracked me down in the kitchen.

"I need help with my zipper."

I lean down to help her. She has no zipper. Same pajamas, no zipper. I stare for a couple more seconds, then turn her around.

The little Houdini has her fully zippered one-piece pajamas on backwards.

Maybe I should do this sort of thing at work. Show up with my shirt on backwards. Why not?

Fairy, fairy, quite contrary

2008-11-08T21:10:00.007-06:00

Some people build bird houses, some make bat houses, and some make bee houses. My wife and the children built a fairy house this summer. You know--to attract fairies.

It was very nice, a flowerpot roof, flowerpot walls and floor, sheltered by the front stairs on one side and a yew on the other. They furnished it with a bed, table, chair, ladder, interior decor (including seashells), and a little exterior landscaping. Very chic, nice neighborhood, good fairy school district, and what do you know? Some fairies moved in.

How do we know that fairies moved in? Well, stuff that was put out for the them would disappear. Duh. So that's proof. No, we never saw them of course, because they are shy, and they were busy during the day. They stayed at night, when we were in bed.

Oh, and they wrote letters to the girls. In little teeny-weeny 8pt font on teeny pieces of fairy paper. They were polite, thankful for the house and furnishings, but they'd ask for other things. Typical tenants, always making demands of the landlords.

Fairies are very popular around here. Genevieve's Halloween costume this year was initially "Fairy Pink Princess," though she did later claim to be Snow White (but was still sans white in the pink get-up, so does that make her Snow Pink?). Fairy books are always a popular find at the library, and my wife is reading a second book in the Fairy Chronicles series.

Lately, we've noticed that the fairy house is looking shabby, and that the fairies must not be living there anymore. The girls decided that the fairies must have migrated (or maybe I planted that thought there... I can't remember) for the winter. Which is good, because I have enough work shoveling out the driveway without worrying about digging out a fairy house this winter.

Chicken or the...

2008-11-05T23:28:00.003-06:00

My wife noticed recently that our children had not yet put together where that food item called "chicken" comes from, besides the grocery store. So she call a friend of ours who keeps hens, and made arrangements for a little field trip.

It was reported to be interesting and exciting. They saw the hens, the brooding boxes, the coop, their yard, and the chicken poop. Actually, Genevieve put her hand in chicken poop as she was crawling around, so she had a chance to practice good hygiene. They talked about the eggs the hens laid (that's where eggs in the grocery store come from), and were shown how small a chicken's wings were compared to its body. And, of course, we eat chickens, and this is what they look like before we eat them.

The chickens were such a big hit that Genevieve decided that she wanted some at home. So she asked the next reasonable question:

"Mommy, can we plant some chickens at home?"

Election day

2008-11-04T20:36:00.005-06:00

Every election day, I am reminded of when I was a child going to the polls with my parents. My mom and dad voted in primaries and final elections, and my sister and I were always excited to help them vote. We voted on one of New York State's nearly 20,000 mechanical voting machines (see picture), and we were allowed to click the levers at the direction of our parents. When the slate was completed, we'd look it over one more time, and when I was big enough I was allowed to pull the big red handle that simultaneously recorded the votes, cleared the levers and opened the curtain. These demonstrations about our civic duty to vote stuck with me, and my wife and I carry it on by bringing our children to the polls.

My mother is a naturalized citizen, having immigrated from Canada to marry my father. Today, my mom voted in a presidential election for the first time without dad. My thanks go out to my mom, and to my father in his final resting place, for teaching their children to be inquisitive participants in our nation's political choices.

My children will see their parents voting, will grow old enough to reliably mark the ballots per our instructions (not quite yet), and hopefully learn those same lessons I learned. Some things will change. This will be my mother's last election on a lever machine, as New York is in the process of replacing them with other technology. We have seen in this election the continuation of the trend toward early voting. We as a nation may stubbornly hold on to our Tuesday "election days," but it seems that my girls may one day regularly vote during an election season rather than a day, and may use technology different than the optical scanners we used today. In any case, may their generation improve upon the efforts of ours.

God bless America and President-elect Obama.

Pumpkin patch

2008-11-01T19:06:00.001-05:00

Genevieve drew her class when they went to a pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. I think that she is the one carrying the pumpkin at lower right.

The part that I find fascinating from a developmental standpoint is the child walking off the page at upper right. How did she know how to draw someone that was only half in the frame? Where did she get the idea to do that? I don't think that she drew the remainder of the figure on another paper underneath.

And is there a term art for figures only partially in the frame? Anyone know?

Recipe for pumpkin soup

2008-10-31T20:26:00.006-05:00

Here is Genevieve's recipe for pumpkin soup. Take 2 cups of water, put it in a pot. Ask an adult to please boil the water for you, and add the pumpkin, some pepper and oil. Stir the pot with a big spoon. Serve with a ladle.

Translation below.

They can be grown-ups, too

2008-10-28T22:42:00.001-05:00

My children will sometimes switch roles with their mom. This morning it was climbing in bed to comb the hair of a mommy who had been working late last night.

Sometimes, they stroke our heads when we are trying to cuddle them to sleep with the adult more tired than the child. We get everything but the lullaby, and sometimes Genevieve will try to sing one of her own making.

At other times, they offer advice. Recently, mommy admitted she was cranky because she was tired, so Genevieve suggested that mommy should go workout at the gym. And if I apologize for something, Genevieve has lately taken to telling me in her most understanding voice, "That's okay dad, sometimes adults make mistakes."

They emulate other things, too. One of them is my loud voice when I lose my temper. It's a tough sell to have them drop that when it seems to be okay for daddy to do it. Those kids are sometimes a tougher mirror than the one in the bathroom (and that one's not too kind, ya know).

Shy of that

2008-10-26T21:27:00.001-05:00

Reesa says, "I'm shy of that," to mean that she's afraid of something. It's a slight shift in use from the definition of shy that means "wary of." It was my wife who clued me into where Reesa picked it up. She got it from the classic Robert McCloskey children's book, Blueberries for Sal, in which this particular usage of shy appears twice, the first time in reference to a mother bear who suddenly finds herself next to a young human child:

She took one good look and backed away. (She was old enough to be shy of people, even a very small person like Little Sal.)

Given that usage, it makes more sense that my daughter -- who would hear this construct twice each time we read this story -- would use "shy" interchangeably with "afraid."

My wife and a friend had a canning date yesterday. You know, get together and spend hours canning three different recipes. I had the prime role as the go-to parent. By the end of the day, they were more tired than I, and as we sat enjoying dinner I thought of Blueberries for Sal, probably because it is the only book that vaguely involves canning that I am familiar with. My wife read it to the children last night, but they didn't comprehend a very strong connection.

A series of verbal exchanges

2008-10-25T18:01:00.001-05:00

One of the things I take for granted as an adult is the context in which phone conversations occur.

It seems to me that typical phone conversations generally involve a greeting, a "main body" of conversation with a series of verbal exchanges, and a closing. When I look at it that way, it doesn't seem so strange that the conversational behavior of a young child seems a little off track. They just need more practice.

Greeting

I called a parent of one of Genevieve's friends about some details for her son's planned birthday party, and after I got the information I needed the parent said that her son would like to talk to Genevieve. I handed the phone to my daughter, and she didn't waste a moment.

"Um, hi. I have a jewelry box in my bedroom, and I have lots of special stuff in it..." Her voice trailed off as she crossed the house and disappeared into her bedroom.

Well, she did have a greeting--can't say that she allowed any space for it to be a two-way greeting, but that would be a learned behavior. My dad-ness also observed that she wanted to go off for a private conversation when a boy is on the other end of the line. And, she's talking about stuff in her bedroom. Don't think that I don't notice these things.

Main Body

The "series of verbal exchanges" thing is definitely a learned skill. If she hears the person on the other end (sometimes she doesn't), then you'll get some mixed results. She might give you a full response, and listen to the next comment, and give another appropriate response--in other words, successfully engage in mutually satisfying verbal exchanges. She might give you a brief response, followed by talking about what she had been talking about or an entirely new subject. Or, she might pause, and as if she couldn't figure out how to respond, just go on talking.

Closing

In Discourse structure of English telephone conversation : a description of the closing, the author posits:

Research on conversation has shown that people do not simply stop talking. Conversationalists have to indicate somehow at a certain point in the course of their interaction a desire to 'terminate the contact.'

Putting aside the fact that I know some adults who don't follow the above sequence description, my general observation of Genevieve has been that she does one of two general things: she stops talking and hands the phone to an adult, or she doesn't stop talking.

In the birthday boy conversation, I picked up a second phone after a couple of minutes to hear the last few words from my daughter before the mother of the boy got on the other line. Her son was done talking, she explained.

I'm not sure that the poor kid had the chance to do much talking.

Deep thoughts

2008-10-13T07:59:00.005-05:00

A recent morning, Reesa was flat on her back on the bathroom, looking up contemplatively at the ceiling. With her finger up her nose. She had just figured out one of the great mysteries of her three year old life.

"I think... there's a bug in my tummy that makes the buggers in my nose."

There's all sorts of parental advice for dealing with nose-picking children. A sampling of what is on the internet:

the behavioral emphasis--http://www.parentkidsright.com/pt-nosepicking.html
the medical emphasis--http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/badhabit.htm#nose
the at-the-child's level emphasis--http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/yucky/booger.html

Common themes are humidifiers, vaseline, and reminders that nosepicking is not socially acceptable. I think that I can try those three and see where we get.

Flat

2008-10-10T17:58:00.006-05:00

On the bike commute home, Genevieve heard a train approaching.

"What happens if you get run over by a train?" she asked from her seat on the trail-a-bike.

"Oh that's not good," I replied.

"Not good? What happens?'

"You would die."

"Does it make you flat?"

"Yeah, something like that," I said, wondering what to say if she wanted more details. Probably something like, it's yucky and isn't something to think about too much, because if you're dead, then you are just dead.

But she didn't immediately follow up, so as we watched the Wisconsin Central locomotives go by, I decided to talk about how I remembered trains.

"When I was a child like you, there used to be a car at the end of a long train called the caboose. And it..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah", she interrupted. "I know all about that. That was back in the old days."

Yup. The old days. I am already being relegated to ancient history.

Bad shoes

2008-10-09T15:23:00.005-05:00

"eeeeEEEEEE!!!! Noooooo!"

Genevieve was, as we say, having issues with her shoes. My wife asked what was going on.

"Bad shoes!"

"Bad shoes?"

"Bad shoes! They won't let me put them on, and they won't let me tie them."

Genevieve was ushered out into the car, and eventually got her shoes on. She spent the remainder of the car ride periodically scolding her shoes. Just to make sure they heard her.

Art and Letters

2008-09-25T21:02:00.003-05:00

Genevieve is making good use of treating her life as school, as it were. The two drawings shown here were completed at her preschool, and the note was done at home in honor of mom's upcoming birthday in a month.

Above is Genevieve's depiction of her with her sister in a pumpkin patch. The drawing shows a time of good fortune -- rainbows and smiling suns are both positive omens in the mind of the artist.

HPE DRTH DA MOM XXOOXO.

Other than the obvious misspelling in the second word (should be BRTH, right), she's getting pretty good with those birthday greetings.

Five people going down a water slide. Wheee!