Beginnings

Noodle has started preschool with a persistent enthusiasm that is endearing and nearly distressing. Every day during breakfast she asks, "Am I going to school today?" Seven days a week, she asks. If the answer is negative, she turns quickly to her next most favorite topic, her new friend. "Can I play at my friend's house today?" We have explained that inviting herself over is not good manners. Noodle is undaunted. "Can my friend come here to play?" This past Sunday, as I was making dinner, Noodle burst into tears, "My friend isn't here!"

Q is settling happily into first grade. We met his new teacher last week, and she seems perfectly lovely and good natured, no doubt a job requirement. He's often tired and is battling with me over whether he can only eat the fun items I pack in his lunch box or whether he must also eat the sandwiches and/or yogurt. My current strategy is to pack only 2 sandwiches and yogurt. In a day or two we'll discuss how if he continues to eat these items, perhaps I'll give him tortilla chips and a granola bar on parole. (Honestly, all food battles seem dangerous to me. I'm the one who will suffer if he chooses not to eat and then has an epic meltdown later. Hopefully he won't figure that out.)

Recently we scored a library book by Dan Yaccarino called Every Friday. It describes Yaccarino's weekly breakfast with his son, a tradition they started when he was 3. Thinking over the matter, I decided, especially with my own classes starting, that it would be really nice to have some dedicated time with each kid individually. So Q and I have been getting up early on Wednesday mornings and trying to sneak out of the house early to have breakfast at Kristin's in Deep River. Q orders a 'dirt bomb'(a sugar and cinnamon muffin) and I get a bagel. We watch the early morning small town traffic and I try to get actual information out of Q. I now know the children whom he sits clustered with in class ("It's not a table, Mom. It's desks pushed together.") and that he gets sweaty and that's "boring." We have discussions on word choices like "boring" versus "annoying."

It's magical. I owe Yaccarino one.

NYC: Q's birthday trip (yes, from June)

I do know that it is August and Q's birthday is June. I postponed this blog entry when Q got all excited about creating his own blog. See My Adventures. He is planning his next entry on watching the fireworks. That is, the ones he saw back on July 5th. Evidently this delayed posting thing is hereditary.

The birthday trip was another golden day. We took the train from New Haven again. As we walked into the train station, Q began skipping. My heart just swelled up. The kid really knows how to make a treat rewarding.

We've figured out that to enjoy a trip to NYC with a small child, we have to keep our plans very simple. So we had only two objectives for the day: visit the Statue of Liberty, and visit the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park.

We were a little naive, however. When we got to the statue of liberty they were making loud, grumpy announcements. You couldn't get tickets for the crown, they were sold out for the day. Worse, you couldn't get tickets to enter the monument (the lower part of the statue). Most intimidating, there was a frequent announcement that the wait was one and a half hours AFTER buying tickets, before getting on the ferry.

Q still wanted to go.

Q was still lovely, even waiting in line for a remarkable amount of time (perhaps not quite 1.5 hours, but still, a long wait).



When we returned to Castle Clinton, there were acrobats performing in the street. They had a terrific banter, and were pretty impressive. Watching them perform, I realized that in NYC, the typical summer weekday is what I imagine a typical summer weekend day anywhere else. There is no avoiding crowds. NYC is always crowded.

We took the subway to Central Park to look for Alice. We overshot the statue with the expectation that we would walk to find her. We should never walk in Central Park without a map. We walked for a ridiculous amount of time (looking for bathrooms, then Alice), despite the meandering and distance, Q only got upset when he thought we were leaving the park. I'm always awed by Central Park. Despite containing thousands of people at any given time, there is a sacredness and a serenity that is breathtaking in the heart of this huge city.

Finally we did find Alice in Wonderland and her many friends. She's meant for climbing on, and we watched Q and other children swarming over her for probably half an hour.



After Q had his fill of climbing, J sat down in front of Alice, and read another chapter of Alice in Wonderland from his ipod.



Q chose to have dinner in Grand Central Station, but he barely touched his dinner, much to my bewilderment. After all the walking we'd done, I was starving, but Q could barely pay attention to his french fries.

Q loves NYC. He did charming things like put his ear to the ground on a street corner to listen for the subway.

On the subway Q distracted himself by leaning over and watching the young man next to him play a video game on an ipod. Amused the heck out of the random young guy and us.

As a parent, you can have wonderful intentions of making a day special for your children. Actually fulfilling those intentions always feels like a miracle.

Mini Update

So in honor of Father’s Day, I peeled the whining, fighting, sulking, tantruming children out of the house at 6am (YES BEFORE 6am THIS WAS GOING ON! Sorry for screaming.) J got to sleep till 8:30 or so. They continued to be awful until we went outside a second time and they played in the kiddie pool and with the hose and generally the screaming mostly evolved into good humored screaming. And supportive yells of, “Mom! Noodle pooped!” (in the potty. I’m sure you wondered.)

J was working today, and while I’m sure he would’ve loved to do something with the kids, he was grateful to sleep in. At least past 6:30, when normally he’d have gotten sucked in while I was hopefully out for a run (which I gave up on when Noodle spotted me after I treated Q’s cough with an inhaler).

But this evening, after dinner (lasagna, in honor of the day) and dessert (carrot cake, in honor of the day) J looked wiped. And I could’ve just taken the kids up and started baths and end of day routines. But I dug deep and took the kids out for a puddle splashing walk, which Q loved, and that turned into a trip to the small farm at the end of our road, and feeding the bunnies clover, and walking home on an early summer evening when a nice storm has cooled things off.

Then we did all the normal stuff, although it was so late we didn’t read, and I got caught up in finally doing laundry, and escorting Noodle to various potties (she’s independent in there, but doesn’t want to be all alone on the first or second floor).

And being kind to J led to being the kind of mom to my kids that I want to be more often. Must be karma.

Updates with photos on Potty Training and the new pets coming soon.

First HOT day of summer

Noodle had her first dentist appointment today. She was GOOD as gold. Q had his first since he was 2. He was also very good. But he's not 3, so that's not quite as impressive. (Although he is a bit wired about being messed with.)

Afterwards, over Q's objections, we went to the nearby beach in Old Saybrook. It was low tide and we walked around looking at the crabs and broken shells and being generally happy on the beach. Some friends turned out to be there with their 3 kids, which was nice.

Noodle wanted to be carried. A Lot. My back is not good right now, so I was aware of it. She was Not Into Wading. Or the muddy sand. But we wandered into an area of hard packed sand/mud and she scampered happily away looking for shells and animal prints, a spot of brilliance in a bright yellow tulle skirt.

Every once in a while I'd look for Q & J. They were almost always hunched over checking out a tidal pool or stream. It was great to see Q do a complete reversal on his attitude.

By the time we got home, the little one was done in. She had near hysterics when we didn't let her snatch a shell from her brother. It was suffocatingly hot upstairs, and she kept getting wound up over small things ("I can't get my dress off!") and calming down only to lose it again ("Q broke my hat!" -she acknowledged it was an accident- and "I don't want to wear a tank top!").

Finally I gave up on getting her to bed quickly, stripped her down and gave her a rinse in the tub. While bathing her, and worrying that the late afternoon sun had possibly fried her skin, I realized it had been a week since her MMR shot and they warned that she might run a fever in a week.

Applied ibuprofen (always cheers up the kids) and she settled into back into sane...

Candles - by Wendy Cope

Three little candles
On a birthday cake.

Count them very carefully
So there's no mistake.

We counted three and there's no doubt
Now it's time to blow them out.


________

Happy Birthday Happy Nuala.

I'd be embarrassed, but I'm too tired.

Scrolling through the blog to share pictures with the kids today I had several revelations. Not that I have neglected the blog, I blush whenever I think of it. But first was a revisiting of the fact that I cannot remember anything unless I have written it down, and sometimes not even then. Which is more motivation to blog.

Second, I found entries from when Q had just turned three. He was pushing my buttons constantly. I'd totally forgotten. He's become such a reasonable and easy going child, that I lost all recollection of previous behaviors. As I type this, he's scolding Noodle, "It's not funny! Go to sleep!" She's giggling hysterically at him.

I find this terribly reassuring. While we've recently turned a corner with Noodle, I was beside myself with impatience recently, trying to deal with her behaviors, whining, demanding, etc. In three years, she could be a mellow easy going child too.

Or not. But still, she's three (tomorrow) and I need to remember that threes are just a handful. On the grand scale, she's actually pretty cooperative and has surprising self control.

I'm actually feeling very clever right now. My boss (I have a new job working in a preschool) was giving some instructions for dealing with inappropriate behaviors from one of our kids at school. I realized I could use the same drilling technique with Noodle to avert bad behaviors. So when I really want to make my point with her, we repeat the desired language (eg: "Can I play with that please?") over and over and over. Followed with praise. I modified this with another technique recommended for use with the kids: physical prompts rather than verbal prompts. I'm tired, really really tired, of asking Noodle to say something nicely, or say please. So now, if she forgets, I hold up one finger. She often stops, mid-sentence, calms her voice out of a whine, adds please. If she simply says, "Please" I rotate my finger in a circle to indicate I want the whole sentence.

And it's working. No really. It's working.

I've also gone back to quick implementation of time-outs with the 1-2-3 warning. Usually she just needs a "One" to modify her behavior. She's such a good girl.

Of course, since hitting gets her an automatic time-out, it's hard to warn her ahead of time with that behavior. But I can only be so much of a genius at a time.

Perspective

Adult friend of family says to Q, "I think you're the apple of your grandma's eye."
Q replies: "Yeah, I think it's my super power."

Hide and Seek

As I sat down to carve out a little time to myself while the kids played happily together, I was quickly disillusioned.

"Mom? Can you play hide and seek with us? Could you hide with Noodle and seek with Noodle?" Two hopeful faces looked up at me.

Ah.

Noodle and I sit down to count. "1,2,3,4,5...11,15,13,18,19..." I see the first problem.

We go to seek out Q and find him hidden where he'd been hiding not 5 minutes before. Well, that should make things faster.

Now Q counts.

Noodle persuades me to carry her. We hide behind my bed.

Q enters the room. I put my finger over my lips. Noodle calls out, "Here we are!"

Both kids collapse into giggles.

Glorious Moment

Today as I drove the exhausted Noodle home from lunch with in-laws and friends, she has the nerve to start whining.

You have to understand that I don't believe any child who has a lollypop in their mouth has any right whining.

I explained to Noodle that I cannot understand her, and add the above statement.

There is a little pause.

Noodle very politely uses her best Not Whining voice, "Um, Excuse Me?... I want a blue one."

Although I went on to explain that, again, a) she's fine and b) even if she weren't fine, I do not have a blue lollypop, I relished the moment. The phrase, "Um, Excuse Me?" is pure Q, substantiating my theory that if I can drill manners into Kid 1, my chances of Kid 2 simply absorbing them is excellent.

A Child's Christmas in Chester

It's traditional in my family to gripe about Christmas: decorating, cleaning, shopping, baking, gift-giving.

Since Q became large enough to have an inkling of what was going on, I have grown decreasingly prone to gripe. He loves it so... So much that when people casually offer me their leftover Christmas decorations, I actually agree cheerfully to take them. Each layer of sentimental adornment on our home escalates Q's pure delight. And how can you resist that?

I realized the other night that in addition to a fairly ridiculous accumulation of decorations hanging heavy on the boughs of our home (Thank you by the way! They look great!), we have an unacknowledged tradition which is entirely my husband's brain child. Since J is being dragged with loud cries of protest into holiday cheer, it was a bit of a surprise when I realized what has developed.

A few years ago, J had a cool idea to recreate a feather Christmas trees (see: Feather Christmas Trees) out of, essentially, sticks with lights strung around them. We stuck it into a large can filled with rocks. My description cannot do it justice.

The next year, J was dissatisfied with simply restoring the little tree to its place in the living room. Much to my disapproval, he disassembled it, and the Frankenstein Tree was restored as a flat Christmas tree to hang on the wall. Cute. No, really. And less work than trying to keep the Feather Tree upright.

This year, J enlisted Q's assistance and they abandoned the sticks altogether.

I think you can see our living room from a block away. And I'm not griping at all.

I had lost the faith

but I did it. I would weep for joy, but I think I'll go to bed instead.

Apologies

Apologies to anyone who uses this blog to get their fix on Q and Noodle. I'm trying to finish Nanowrimo this month and blogging is definitely not a good excuse nor a good distraction when I'm ignoring my writing obligations.

That said, the children have some science facts to share.

Q on 11/22/09: "Coprolites are what Scientologists call poop."

Noodle on 11/20/09: "Baby ducklings are made of...duckling."

Photos and commentary will be back in December.

Fairyland

Last spring, the kids and I were inspired by Tracy Kane's book, "Fairy Houses Everywhere" to create our own little fairy house in the backyard. Although the activity was just one afternoon, the kids had a blast and the house remained, more or less, intact for the rest of the summer.

This fall, we had some terrific luck when the Florence Griswold Museum did an exhibit on Fairy Houses. I wasn't fast enough to get Q signed up for one of their classes on making fairy houses, but Grandma did score us a "Twinkling Twilight Firefly Tour" - an evening tour of the fairy houses.

When Noodle saw our tour guide, her eyes widened. He was a slim man, dressed entirely in black, with black wings. Henceforth she referred to him adoringly as 'The Butterfly Guy' or 'The Fairy Guy.'

Our tour started at 5:30, in the pouring rain. We were in the midst of a cold snap that had dropped the temperature to 35 degrees. The children happily tromped behind the guide, who explained which fairies lived in which houses, and pointed out special features of each. The grown ups whimpered and wished for snow rather than rain.

The next week the temperatures soared into the 50s and we returned with J and discovered that the twilight tour had, by necessity of time, skipped more than half of the houses. An hour and a half wasn't enough time.








The fairy house tour, complete with a 'Do It Yourself' area, whetted Q and J's appetite for architecture and last week they built a loftier fairy house on the foundation of the previous house in our backyard.



As we left home the next day, Noodle pointed to a pile of leaves in the street, "There's a fairy house!"

Fairies

After a busy weekend with late bedtimes, Noodle is struggling to fall asleep tonight. Even after Q fell asleep, we can hear her chatting away to herself, getting rowdier and rowdier.

I go upstairs to turn off the doggie light and try to settle her down again.

"I want to sleep in your bed!" She claims.

This is highly unlikely. But she's loud enough that I'm concerned she'll wake up Q. I pick her up, turn off most of the lights, and lie down with her in my bed.

She snuggles, just barely wriggling her feet, rolls over. She breathes rapidly and loudly through her pacifier, holding her breath when the furnace kicks in, then breathing regularly again.

We lie companionably for a while. Then she murmurs something. "What?"

"Gook is painting the leaves yellow tonight."

"Gook is painting the leaves yellow?" I ask. Gook is the first imaginary friend to last more than a few hours. Noodle constantly changes her own identity: Dora, Mop, Diego, Boots, Tinkerbell. But Gook seems to be lasting several weeks now.

As if sensing my thoughts, Noodle says, "Gook is Real!"

"Gook is real." I repeat as I carry her back to bed. "Gook is painting the leaves yellow tonight?"

"Gook is painting the leaves yellow tonight."

I kiss her cheek and imagine her dreams filled with fairies.

Call it what it is

I say to Noodle, "Please stop yelling at me."

She pouts. "Not yelling. It's whining."

Charms

In a recent post I mentioned that Q got his first library card. What I don't think I touched on was how Q developed a happy little scheme to go with his library card.

Perhaps two weeks ago, Q asks me if Someday we could go to the place where they make cards and get him a library card. "Absolutely." I replied, "Did you know that the place where you get a library card is actually the library? And I think that now that you are 5 years old, you are probably old enough to have your own library card?"

Q is all over this. When we go to get his card, he gets very specific. "Can I put my library card on a key chain?"

Our particular library does not make the small bar code cards that fit on your key chain, so I have to think about this. We agree to ask Miss Linda if we can punch a hole in his library card so he can put it on a key chain. Miss Linda not only agrees, but actually punches a hole for us. Librarians are very helpful.

Q then asks if we can go downtown and get him a keychain. I have a gift certificate, so we head down. He picks out one that is obviously a Halloween themed key chain with a mummy like character (name on the tag is Charlie Ribs, since you can see little wire ribs) with a tiny bell that gives the key chain a happy jingle. Q is thrilled.

The next day Q earned his first token for running and walking. The tokens have a small hole, so he can add it to his key chain.

Last week, Q received a 'Fancy Nancy Treasure Box' from a kind friend. It includes a tiny portrait of Fancy Nancy ready to be made into a pin or necklace. This too is added to the key chain on a safety pin.

Thursday Q comes home from school with FOUR! new tokens for all the running and walking he's done. He's thrilled and manages to lose one before we get home from Grandma's house. After we relocate it, these four get added to the key chain concoction as well.

When I suggest he will need a larger ring for all his tokens, he steals one from my strainer ("I thought you could hang it by the handle instead." He justified.) and loops it through the whole tangle of charms. He hooks it on his shorts, which immediately drop below his knees. The accoutrements of increasing responsibility.

If You Pee Pee on the Potty, Say "Hooray!"

Noodle has developed a new fun game for naptime and bedtime: strip the diaper.

Sometimes we find her naked. Sometimes she gets stealthy and puts her pants back on, so a quick glance implies she is still diapered.

After a few full bedding changes, we decided that pleading with her to "PLEASE keep your diaper on!" was not working effectively enough and started duct taping her into her diaper. I believe that, with effort, she might be able to get duct taped diapers off, but not when sleepy.

However this implies that she doesn't like having a diaper so much, so we're working on potty training. With absolutely no success. I'm thinking that she's not really interested, she simply wants to take off her diaper. But nonetheless, we've got the little potty set up in the hallway for what is evidently entertainment purposes.

Last night I put her into the bath, only to have her being crying, "I want to sit on the potty!" Okay.

So she sits naked on the potty and I sit next to her and read the entire book of potty songs. Or sing, rather. Then 'The Carrot Seed.' Followed by 'One Sea Horse.' She gets excited at one point and says, "I pooped!" Sadly, no. On to bath time.

After the kids are in bed, J says to me, with all the sentimental fondness of a parent realizing how fast their child is growing up, "I can't believe Noodle is potty training."

I begin to laugh.

"She's not."

*EDIT/UPDATE*
This evening Noodle spent another 20 minutes on the potty as I read to her, hoping in vain for success. Poor child.

"Feelin' Good Mileage Club"

Last week Q came home with a letter from the PE teacher. Nearly every day brings letters from school, which is bringing out my bad attitude (which is weird, I was totally conforming as a student). But this one caught my interest.

The PE teacher is keeping track of laps done at school. Any mileage of walking, jogging, running or biking done at home can be reported as well. After a certain distance, the kids earn a "colored toe token" (which Q corrects me, "No! It's a TOE-KEN."). All students can earn a "marathon token" after completing 26.2 miles. Ongoing until June 15.

So Wednesday, when I received the notice, I suggest we take action on this and go for a walk. Q walked a whole mile (of a 1.7 mile loop, where's my token?). Kindergartners earn a toe token for each mile. I sent in the note, and he received the first token (Of the class? of the school? it's difficult to get any information out of said kindergartner.) The token joined his library card on his key chain.

Now I'm getting ambitious on his behalf. Saturday there was a local 5k, and beforehand there was a 1 mile fun run. At least one other 5 year old did the fun run, so I realized that perhaps with a little preparation, Q might enjoy running the fun run next year. (The mother of the other 5 year old confided that there was whining all through the race.)

But after my less than stellar performance, someone asked if I was planning another road race soon. I hadn't really been - although I'd like to run the 5 mile race on Thanksgiving - however I take a look and in October there's a race in Higganum, the next town over. And ooooooh! There's a 1/2 mile fun run for kids!

I ask Q if he's interested. Oh yes.

So today we went for our first training run together. After trying the high school track (soccer practice) we end up at the nice ash path at an Essex park. Q is certain he'll be very sweaty, so he didn't bring his shirt with him. We have water bottles and my watch. I'm all but certain that one lap is .25 miles, so we set off.

Q laughed, almost all the way around the lap. Which he finished in a quite respectable 2:10.

I was starting to doubt that it was actually .25 miles, except then he had to walk a good bit of the next lap. (Mind you we're stopping to swig water and boast after each lap.) And he walked a good bit of the third lap, all of the fourth, and some of the fifth. A mile took about 13 minutes or so, but the kid did a very respectable 1.25 miles and giggled a large percent of that.

And when he was walking, he strutted, bare chest thrust out with pride.

The Tantrum, The Thinker and Clothes

Yesterday all the kindergarten stress came to a head. I thought it would be lovely if we all walked Q to school. And it was lovely. Noodle was in the stroller, we looked at the excavator digging up the water main, we held hands crossing the street.

But then when it was time to leave his backpack and go play, Q didn't want to. And he didn't want to stand with his friends who were standing near the backpacks. When I tried to detach and leave, he clung to my side. I didn't think it was really a problem until we got serious about leaving and he started to wail about staying with me. J took Noodle and walked away and I kept trying to walk away, reassuring him, 'Today after school, we'll go get your library card and we'll make scones.' He was not interested, he wanted to stay with me. I explained that I was going to work. He needed to go to school. I would see him in a few hours. Finally managed (luckily a kindergarten aide was there) to peel him off of me and walk away. He was crying/screaming so loud I could hear him ALL THE WAY HOME. A disadvantage of living close to the school.

They called about 5 minutes later. They'd gotten him into the building, and had taken him to someone's office (the counselor?) and were trying to calm him down with no luck. They asked me what our afternoon plans were so they could reiterate them with him, tried to put me on speaker phone, he covered his ears rather than listen, finally they told me they'd let me know how they made out and we hung up. I guess they managed to get him calmed down and the principal talked to him about the touch a truck event and then walked him to class. They gave me a call to tell me he seemed to be reintegratng just fine...

When I asked later what was up with that, he responded in a fragile voice that he wanted to be with me. I nicely let him know that sometimes I need to be at work and he needs to go to school and that we'll always come back together later. And then I doted on him for ages, taking him to get his library card, and a key chain to hang it on (he'd spotted it earlier at lunch with J who took refuge downtown because we had no water from 9 to 1), cookies and cash and then walked back up the hill. That seemed to be enough because then he went off to play happily by himself rather than helping me with scones (which I think he would've done if he was still feeling fragile).

It's good that he acts out once in a while so that I know he can, but wow.

Other recent stories:

Recently the kids have been allowed to play in the cars, pretending to drive, turning all the buttons and switches and creating havoc. Our motivation is to keep the kids outside where we can watch them, without having to constantly chase them, so that we (and by we, I mostly mean J) can work on painting the house.

After a few of these play sessions, I realized that they were trading jobs. One would be the Driver and the other would be the 'Thinker'. The Thinker is the person sitting in the front passenger seat - perhaps a version of Navigator?

Pulling away from the house with Noodle this morning, she softly says, "Daddy not in Thinker seat."

This morning Noodle was a riot of colors. She wanted to wear her Elmo shirt - a bright red shirt with a pencil drawing of Elmo from Sesame Street. I opened the shorts drawer to grab a pair of jeans and she spots her 'cousin's pants' - bright orange shorts. It was a little cool, so she selected a lavender sweatshirt with a lobster on it and pairs it with her rain boots, which are dark blue with pink ducks. And a brilliant yellow hat. I managed not to giggle hysterically.

But the boots are causing some problems. As I'm shutting the fridge door, she makes an unexpected rush for her sippy cup, trips and bangs her head. When I suggest that her rain boots are tripping her, she is outraged. "No! They're perfect!"

She did, however, concede that they were on the wrong feet.

Self indulgent post

I walked in to get Noodle after her nap.

"It's you! You came back! You came back!"