mathmom's blog

Today we went to a nearby park. We almost didn't make it: Eleanor and Amanda had many spats about toys, who was breathing on whom, and so on, and woke up Luke. Eleanor couldn't find her shoes, then her socks, then something from school broke, then she could only find one sock, each of which caused screaming fits followed by whimpering fits... However, thankfully, getting out of the house proved magic and there were no more bad moods until we got home. Amanda, for her part has caught the whining bug, which made me not want to go out with her. Once I heard that it helps if the parent whines at the child, to help the child hear what she sounds like, so I tried it this morning. Amanda said "No, mama, that was my own sound. Not yours." I put some robeez shoes on Luke (they have little dragons on them!) In case you are wondering, Luke has big feet (which shows he belongs in this family, right David?) A while ago we went to the shoe store to get shoes for Amanda an...

An update especially for Michael, who was not home for bedtime tonight: Luke crawled up one stair today! I'm not sure that he didn't have help, though, Amanda was sitting right next to him and I didn't actually see the crawling. We'd better get the gate back up soon. Amanda and Eleanor got to bed _almost_ on time, but not quite. I put Luke down for bed while the kids watched "Rocket Soup". I finished with Luke as the movie was finishing, Amanda hopped right up and ran into her bedroom. But then as I was singing to her, Amanda started scratching the eczema on her feet just as she was going to bed, so we had to go back down for hydroxyz (which I had forgotten earlier). She was in bed, insisting that I needed to sing the song about the sling (David and Goliath) by about 7:25, not bad. (I didn't sing any more songs, in case you are wondering.) Then I went back into Eleanor, who wanted to watch "just a little more" of the video. We turned it ...

Today I got tired of Luke picking up every piece of paper on the floor and eating it (from tiny pieces to newspapers and magazines) so I thought I'd let him try some "Morning O's " (Cheerios without any wheat, so Amanda can eat them). Luke is very advanced physically, but he is still working on this object permanence thing, which causes troubles when you are eating. I put one cheerio on his high chair tray (I learned to start with one after Eleanor put whole handfuls in her mouth before she was ready for them). Luke started out by reaching for the cheerio with his best pincer grip, but he really couldn't quite get the cheerio between his fingers, despite all his practice with bits of lint on the floor. He'd get the cheerio in his fist, but then he'd lose track of where it was, look around confusedly, wave his arms and drop the cheerio. When he did remember where it was, he would stick his whole fist into his mouth and...drop the cheerio. What finall...

Otherwise known as Elastigirl , a.k.a Mrs. Incredible. She is a stay at home mom ( SAHM ), she clearly feels that what she is doing is important and is willing to give up a lot to do it (remember her comment in the intro: "I'm at the top of my game! Leave saving the world to the guys? I don't think so.") But she is finding fulfillment in leading her family from day to day, in doing a hard job well. She also knows that she is very talented, and that knowledge helps her see beyond the repetitive drudgery of staying home. My favorite scene is from the deleted introduction, where she talks with a "career woman" who is of the opinion that staying home is fine for people who can't do anything else. She responds that taking care of her kid is at least as hard as saving the world, and is valuable contribution to society. The point for me is that someone has to do the job that I'm doing, and it's not something that you could pay someone to do. I see...

Are you ready for this one? The current fascination the beauty industry has with putting food in beauty products is just a flaw in their logic! Here we go: When babies eat, they put food in their hair, face, everywhere. Babies have very cute hair and great skin. So if we put avocado, bananas, oatmeal, etc. in our hair and on our skin, we will have great skin too! Here's a hint: this line of reasoning is false! We can all stop spreading bananas all over our skin (well, some of us never started, I suppose)... I came up with this when I was feeding Luke today. For him, eating involves all 5 senses, and possibly more. After feeding him some prunes this morning, the only part of his entire body that was not covered by food was the part that was covered by the belt on the high chair. I'm not sure right now if it's easier feeding him without clothes and giving him a bath afterwards, or feeding him with clothes on and just peeling off the food coated clothes after he eats. ...

Last night Luke woke up at 11:30, 12:30, 1:20. Each time he was up for at least half an hour. Not a good night for sleeping. The main problem is that I have no idea why he was awake. It is likely to have been his cold---he had a lot of phlegm in his throat, was coughing some. On the other hand, it could always be his tummy---one of my great fears is that I ate something that traveled through his system and is making him sick. He also puts everything in his mouth, so he could have eaten almost anything. It could be his teeth, which as ever are trying to poke through. It could be his newfound standing ability, although he was whimpering in my arms last night, and that doesn't seem like his being excited by a new ability. Poor baby, he was so very sad. I have long wished for babies with indicator lights: wet, hungry, tired, fever, etc. For now we are stuck with mother's intuition, which does not always work when needed, and all I can do is hold him. In other news, my sis...

Luke has been pulling himself up to standing for a while now, and recently he started cruising around the furniture (not very well, but definitely moving). Well, today he stood up on his own, balancing himself, for 5 seconds. Yay, Luke!

Amanda just took all the shoes that were in the back hallway and put them in a grocery bag. The hallway does look much neater than it did before... This is also the girl who takes the little felt squares the gymnastics teacher puts out in a circle (so the kids know where to sit) and won't rest until they are arranged neatly in a row. She also arranges all her trains carefully when she's talking with them. I'm not exactly sure where she gets this tendency---not from either of her parents, that's for sure. Maybe it skips a generation or two, or perhaps it is a defense mechanism for living with chronic clutter, who knows.

This post is in response to Chanson's post about French schools---it started out as a comment and grew and grew... Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out how to link to it (and I need to do the laundry and shower before Luke wakes up), but here's her blog, it's September 20 th's post. I went to a public southwest Minneapolis elementary school. It was mostly white, until about 5 th grade when waves of Hmong refugees started coming into the city. The Hmong students were pretty much as nerdy as I was: my best friend Hai outscored the 6 th grade teacher on the Iowa test of basic skills. There were not many African American students there, though. When I was in 7 th grade, I went to a South Minneapolis jr . high---it was certainly integrated. However, the experience served mostly to confirm whatever vague prejudices I had gotten from TV: the black students were interested in smoking, making out in the back of the bus (these were 7 th and 8 th graders!), and...

I saw this on another blog, and I really just need to write something. I've been composing all sorts of deep articles for the blog, but in fact I will never write them, so getting anything on paper (screen) is better than nothing. These are in no particular order: 1) 6 preschoolers trying to do jumping jacks at gymnastics 2) preschoolers playing duck duck goose (or grayduck, depending on where you grew up) 3) Luke eating strained peas with his fingers 4) Eleanor climbing the door frame 5) waking up because I'm not sleepy anymore, instead of because a child wakes me up 6) Amanda talking to her hands 7) How many dull people does it take to change a lightbulb? One. 8) Singing at church 9) a clean kitchen or a folded basket of laundry 10) When Eleanor or Amanda say something to me that I say to them all the time ( 11) Talking on the phone with my friends ....wow, this is getting harder... 12) When Michael gets really excited about something at work 13) Kim Possible 14) Amanda or ...

Well, we have a cold. By that I mean that everyone in the whole family has one, from Luke to Michael. I feel a bit like death warmed over, although Eleanor and Amanda seem to be taking it in stride. "I hope I get over this cold by tomorrow" said Eleanor last night---Michael had to explain that it would probably take a while... Of course, the one who is most traumatized by the whole experience is Luke. His nose is running, and he just doesn't understand that when I bring a kleenex up to his nose it isn't for eating, so he cries when I take it away. Last night he was very stuffy, had a runny nose and probably a sore throat, too. He was awake every half hour or so from 9-11 (when the Tylenol kicked in) and then again from 3-4:30. The saddest thing was the look of betrayal on his face, as though he were saying, "I thought you told me it would be fun and exciting to be a baby! This isn't fun! I want a refund!" Sorry Luke, I can almost guarantee that...

Here I have a blog specifically for updating people about Luke's development, and I can't even manage to do that---two days ago, Luke started pulling himself up on things to stand. We lowered his crib (again). So far his favorite thing to stand up with is me: he'll climb up my feet while I'm kneeling and pull himself up on my back. His major trouble with all of this is that he thinks he can walk, so after pulling himself up on something he'll turn away to start walking and fall down. Poor baby! Perhaps I can say that I'm so busy chasing Luke and rescuing him from falls that I don't have time to write. Yeah, that's it =)

Today was the first day Michael took Eleanor and Amanda to school, and I stayed home with Luke, who was supposed to nap. My brother suggested I do something fun for myself, I ended up talking to my sister while cleaning the kitchen, which was pretty good. Of course, Luke only napped for about 30 minutes, so I didn't quite get a baby-free shower... However, after school we went to the gym for some swimming. The pool was closed, but there was room in the infant day-care room for Luke, and room for the other kids too, so I had some kid-free time! I hardly knew what to do, so I went and "worked out" for 20 minutes. After wandering around for a while I found the hot tub and got in there for a few minutes. Ahh , if only I had had a book. =) So I did get some "me" time after all. At this point Luke was getting fed up, Eleanor was turning into a zombie in front of the TV and Amanda was trying very hard to use the computer to draw a picture (the concept of clickin...

1) I don't ever remember my mother ever using the common curse: "I hope you have a child just like you." And everyone acknowledges that Eleanor is her father's daughter. However, every time I search through the house looking for one of Eleanor's shoes (she can't seem to take them off in the same place) I hear my mother's laughter... I also heard it yesterday when I went up to Eleanor's room after she was supposed to be in bed asleep and she had raised the blind and was reading using the light of the streetlamp. 2) (Warning: this story contains potty training. If you don't want to deal with it, skip to Luke's story.) Amanda has been in the midst of half-hearted potty training for a while. She likes her diaper off, and if we aren't going anywhere, I let her keep it off. So far she's managed to pee on her potty chair about twice, but she doesn't quite get it yet. Today I looked up from cleaning the kitchen when I noticed that...

OK, everyone, follow this link! It made me laugh very hard. Runnergirl, you especially need to read this =) Pokemon cards on ebay (read the description) My kids must be very talented, since they make me feel like this even though there are only 3 of them... Today Luke and I went to the grocery store. He didn't ask for a single thing, or put anything into the cart, or run away down an aisle, or scream because I was getting the wrong brand of macaroni and cheese... It was quite peaceful. Amanda was at school for her second to last "short schedule" day---starting on Friday she goes for the full 3 hours. We'll see how that goes, probably well. For posterity: The blog the ebay writer talks about is http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/ I feel like I must know her, or she knows me, especially when she talks about her husband going to the grocery store for 2 items and forgetting one. Michael has many wonderful talents, but remembering a list of groceries is not one of the...

Well, Luke is really crawling now, and to celebrate he is sleeping much better. I have read that children will have trouble sleeping while they are working on a new skill (crawling, standing, walking, talking, etc.) but I've never seen the association so clearly. (I do realize that by saying that Luke is sleeping better I am almost guaranteed that he won't sleep well tonight.) It's as though he was working on a project or something, and now he's relieved that he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. His new found mobility is causing another developmental milestone: separation anxiety. This morning at church he would be happy without me for a few minutes, but then he'd get anxious and start crying. When I picked him up he would sort of collapse into my arms and be very cuddly for a minute or two, just to know that I was there, and then be off crawling around again. He definitely wanted to know that I was around---turning away from him while he is looking...

Well, I was going to write a blog entry about how terribly Luke is sleeping these days, how he is waking up for hours in the middle of the night, waking up every 2 hours from 10PM to 6, and not able to sleep during the day. I was going to write about how I follow the best sleep advice I've ever found: have an early bedtime. Then I would have complained that I really can't follow the other piece of advice that everyone gives---put your baby down sleepy but awake---Eleanor and Luke are either asleep or awake, and if they are sleepy but awake, they will go to any length to wake themselves up. I nursed Eleanor to sleep (which may have been a part of her terrible sleeping when she was younger) and I nurse Luke to sleep, which may mean that he has trouble settling himself, and that he is getting to have bad sleep habits. I was going to write all these things, but last night he woke up only 3 times (still more than I'd like) and the last two times I put him down while he was st...

Here's the latest recipe from Chef Eleanor: 1 c rice flour 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/ 4 c oil 1/2 c water 1/2 c chocolate chips sugar Mix flour and the next 4 ingredients (baking powder through chocolate chips) together. Pat into a pie pan until about 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle liberally with sugar. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes (or so). And from Amanda, a song: Amanda is a ghost, She's putting on her blanket to be a scary ghost I say boo! You say eek! It's just me.

One of the problems with writing a blog is that you never come up with your best ideas sitting at a keyboard. For example, I have written brilliant blog entries in the middle of the night, while I'm up with the baby, but you'll just have to take my word for it, since I forget all of them as soon as I go to sleep... For example, I wrote several entertaining accounts of our trip to Florida to see my grandma, but you'll just have to settle for what I come up with while I'm awake. Grandma hadn't met Luke yet, so we decided to make the 4.5 hour flight in Michael's airplane to see her. I didn't know when I went to sleep the night before when we would be leaving, if we would be leaving after Eleanor's school, at noon, early in the morning... When we woke up Michael checked the weather and asked how soon we could leave. We didn't get out as soon as I hoped, but soon enough. 4.5 hours in a 6 seat airplane is long. I remember when we first got the airpl...