On Sunday morning, Pam, her two girls, and my two kids piled into my van, and we all drove down to Blue Skies Berry Farm for a morning of raspberry picking and playing outdoors. Pictures of our outing are available here.
Quotes
I’ve been to several plays in the last week, and I’m reading Andrew a great story book, and I have all these lovely quotes floating around in my head, so I thought I’d share.
From Harold Pinter’s play Old Times, which was performed at the new indoor theater at American Players Theater. Terry looked this one up and sent me the text. Johnathan Smoots delivered this line:
Of course she’s so totally incompetent at drying herself properly, did you find that? She gives herself a really good scrub, but can she with the same efficiency give herself an equally good rub? I have found, in my experience of her, that this is not in fact the case. You’ll always find a few odd unexpected unwanted cheeky globules dripping about.
From Jame Thurber’s book The 13 Clocks, first publishedin 1950. Here’s where we first meet the princess:
The Princess Saralinda was tall, with freesias in her dark hair, and she wore serenity brightly like a rainbow. … Her voice was faraway music, and her eyes were candles burning on a tranquil night. She moved across the room like wind in violets, and her laughter sparkled on the air, which, from her presence, gained a faint and undreamed fragrance.
The Duke in this story is as evil as the Princess is lovely:
His hands were as cold as his smile and almost as cold as his heart. He wore gloves when he was awake, which made it difficult for him to pick up pins or coins or the kernels of nuts, or to tear the wings from nightingales.
I saw Jim DeVita’s one-man show Acting Shakespeare last night, and it was wonderful. (Here’s an interview he did about the show.) There were quite a few memorable lines, but Sylvia has come over and requested that I read her Global Babies, so I’ll sign off!
Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, how do I love thee
It’s been a good day. My car has new rear brakes, and my mechanic was able to remove the last of the coins from my vents and even fixed the tape player.
While Andrew and Eli splashed around at the Monona pool during their lesson this morning, a baby-sitter watched the girls back at home. Such luxury to sit pool-side with a dear friend for a half-hour, laughing and relaxing. Celia’s having a bit of trouble this week with her 2-year-old molars. Our normally sunshine-y girl has been kinda sad.
Sylvia is taking a nice nap right now, and I sat down with a copy of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s book Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a lifetime. Mary wrote Raising Your Spirited Child, which I love. And I’m loving this book too. Check out this lovely quote from the first page:
“Recognizing…emotions [yours and your child’s] is the key to stopping power struggles before they ever start. Responding to those emotions builds the relationship that makes your child want to work with you.
Discipline isn’t just about winning or losing. Every power struggle offers you the opportunity to connect with your child or to disconnect. The relationship you have with your child when he’s an adolescent lies in the words and actions you use today. Ultimately your real power is in that emotional bond.”
Mudpuppies and swim lessons
Andrew’s had a busy summer week! We signed him up for swim lessons at the Monona pool, and we’ve been enjoying meeting up with Jessica, Eli, and Celia to walk down to the pool for some lessons. When I was young, Michael and I took diving lessons at the Monona pool with Tammy Wiswell’s kids. And when I was younger, we would meet up with Carol Schroder’s family and walk a few blocks to the Lakeview Branch library. It’s fun to be doing kinda the same thing 25 years later with my own kids!
Andrew is enjoying his swimming class. I haven’t seen his hair get wet yet, but he’s feeling increasingly comfortable in the water, and he’s having a good time, which is the whole idea:)
On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, Andrew and Eli are both taking a class at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center on salamanders. They’re supposed to go to class on Wednesday wearing clothes they can get dirty in. What a great place! I’m so glad Andrew can take fun classes like that.
Sylvia wants, wants, wants to take fun classes too. She did not want to leave Andrew there today. That set off a major tantrum session. It’s hard, being the younger sib. I’m looking forward to taking her to Toddler Time on Tuesdays at Monona Grove Nursery School this fall!
In the meantime, we’re enjoying lots of summery August activities!
Tantrum diagnostics
Last night was a very quiet, peaceful evening, just me and my computer, and it gave me some good time to poke around online reading about other spirited toddlers and finding solace and humor in community. It also gave me time to think about what has been happening the last couple days to set Sylvia up so that she is primed to have such lengthy, fierce tantrums. And I think it’s about sleep and communication.
Since Andrew’s been doing swim lessons at 10am this week, Sylvia isn’t getting a mid-morning nap. Yesterday I put her down for a nap at 11:30, but she only played in her crib for an hour. So our 1pm trip to bank was sort of set up for a melt-down. Her half-hour tantrum at the pool-side on Monday morning was probably in part because she (really) wanted to get into the water, but the tantrum was certainly stronger and longer because she was really ready to take a nap right at that time. It just sometimes helps to know that there are reasons for these things.
My girl has really liked it when I speak in “Toddler-ese” to her (see The Happiest Toddler on the Block). Andrew liked this technique too. Sylvia really doesn’t say many words yet, but she understands so much, and she gets amazingly frustrated when she doesn’t think I “get” what she’s saying. For example,
On the way home from Donna’s today, I stopped by Java Cat to get a javalato (coffee ice cream drink with whipping cream on top, ohhh yeaaahhhh). Sylvie could tell it was something good, and she was pointing at it and clearly indicating that she wanted some. When I said, “I’ll give you a taste when we get home,” she got really made and started to flip. So I said something along the following:
“Sylvie is MAD! She is MAD MAD MAD! She is mad that Mama won’t give a taste RIGHT NOW. Mama is driving and said she will give Sylvie a taste when we get home, but Sylvie wants a taste NOW! No wait! Now! Mama says soon. Sylvie says NOW. Mama says that we are almost home. Almost home. Oh look, there’s our house. Sylvie says NOW, and Mama says, ‘Here we are. We are home. Let’s get out and have a taste.'”
The whole time I’m talking, Sylvie is very quiet and calm…unless I stop noting her feelings and try to make it all better. But in general (not yesterday, but in general), she’ll stop tantruming on a dime if I repeat…kind of yell…back to her what I think she’s feeling. Then she feels heard and understood, which I think is a very important thing for these kiddos!
Hopefully some good naps today will help make our day a more joyful one!
Tricycle decisions – assistance requested
Andrew loves his trike! You may remember that last spring I was trying to decide whether I should get him a bigger tricycle (he’d outgrown the one he was using) or if I should get him a glider or a bike with training wheels. I got him the bike with training wheels, and it turns out that he strongly avoided riding it. “I’ll ride it tomorrow, Mom!”
So mid-summer, I found a big tricycle at a garage sale ($4, baby!), and Andrew’s been zipping up and down the driveway on it all the time. But now I’ve got a little problem, and her name is… Let me rephrase. Sylvia wants to ride the tricycle too. But it’s too big for her – it’s just too high for her to sit on without probably falling off. So I would like to get her her own trike.
Here’s where I would like your help. I thought I was going to get her the kind of trike Andrew had been using, the Radio Flyer Steer and Stroll trike. I loved being able to push Andrew without having to bend over while walking down the road. I liked being able to steer him when we were crossing streets. I like that it has a seat belt because Sylvia is prone to deciding she wants to stop what she’s doing mid-ride, and a seat belt might help her dive off the trike this summer.
Continue reading “Tricycle decisions – assistance requested”
Half-birthday!
Sylvia turned 18-months-old today! She’s a year-and-a-half old. Wow. I thought about making cupcakes, I mean, any excuse for cupcakes, right?
Brain ache
It may have been caused by almost an hour of this:
[flickr video=3813066932]
I went to the UW Credit Union with Sylvia today (Andrew was at an Aldo Leopold Nature Center class). My sweet girl was darling and flirtatious for the first 20 minutes. Then I took her to the bathroom and she wanted to wash her hands (without end), and when I took her away from the sink, she screamed screamed for about 40 minutes. This video is taken on the drive home*.
Soon after, I felt a searing pain in my temples, I was seeing spots, and I had a strong desire to throw up or go to sleep. If I’m 70 and seeing a neurologist about brain troubles, I’m pointing the finger at least in part at my sweet daughter’s mind-destroyingly shrill, persistent screeching.
*I don’t condone the filming of videos while driving. I was desperate. I pointed the camera at here while I was stopped and held it with one hand while facing forward driving. Just so you know:)
Found!
Last month, I posted about how I had lost Andrew’s shoes and orange jacket. Well, his shoes are still gone, but Jessica called last night to tell me that she’d just found Andrew’s orange fleece jacket in the basement dress-up box! The jacket is back on its hook in our home.
I love the feeling of having lost things found. Thanks Jessica!!
How do you get coins out of a tape player?
So I made a bit of a parenting judgment error this morning. Andrew and Eli were playing in my car, and I thought they were fine. They looked fine from out the window. And they were fine, if fine includes putting my change in interesting cracks in the interior of the car.
I spent a while out there with a needle-nose pliers, tweezers, a thin-bladed knife, and tooth picks. Many quarters, dimes, nickles, and pennies have been removed. However, two batches of them are giving me trouble. There’s five or more coins in one of the vents. They rattle like a piggy bank. Not sure if they’ll slip back into the fan or if they’ll just hang tight where they are…
The sad one is that a couple coins are stuck in my tape player. I have an iPod tape in there, and it won’t play or come out. I can’t actually see the coins, so they must have fallen down into the mechanics. I looked online and saw some suggestions for putting duct tape on the end of a chopstick to get coins out of a tape player (good to know this happens to others!), but at this point the tape is blocking the area.
Oh well. The boys now are clear on the concept that coins should not be put anywhere unusual and if they have questions on that, they should ask an adult!
Any suggestions for removing my extra change are welcome!