mathmom's blog

It is so much fun communicating with Luke these days. It has definitely become a 2-way street. He comes up to me obviously chewing on something, and I say "Take that out of your mouth please. I need that," while holding out my hand. Then he'll either give me what is in his mouth or he'll run away: either way, I know that he understood and responded to what I said. Sometimes I'll tell him something that makes him mad, and he'll start bouncing up and down angrily in what is clearly a precursor to stomping feet. Sometimes he'll look at me, grin, and put something on his head, asking me to say, "is that a hat?" We're not up to deep philosophical discussions, but the simple stuff is fun. Eleanor is communicating through reading more and more. We have to be prepared to explain much more complicated subjects these days: the other day she read "We sell houses FAST!" on a sign on a telephone pole, and we tried to explain what was going

Today I did a little teeny bit of spring cleaning---I tried to tidy up the porch, one of my most favorite places to be in the spring. I tried to tidy it up while Luke and Amanda were around, which reminds me why I don't usually try to do that. First I swept the leaves off the porch. Luke helped first by grabbing the broom and swinging it wildly around. I don't know what babies have with brooms several times taller than they are, but my kids loved swinging brooms around. I finally gave him a hand broom and rescued my broom from him. He then proceeded to sit in the middle of the pile of leaves and pick them up with the hand broom and throw them around. Amanda helped by hiding behind the pieces of porch furniture and by picking up the leaves that were stuck between the floor boards of the porch. Then I needed to wash off the chalk from the walls. I had started letting the kids write on the wall with chalk one day when it had been raining for about a week and we really need

Today Luke spent about 30 minutes digging in the dirt that had collected at one corner of our driveway. He got very dirty, and the look of intense concentration and then joy on his face as he was digging was priceless. The amazing thing for me was that he was so busy he actually let me walk away from him without his bursting into tears. Perhaps we'll have to look further in to getting a sandbox, and find some way to deter the cats roaming the neighborhood.

Amanda has an interesting idea about what dresses are appropriate for her to wear. First, she only wants to wear dresses. I can sometimes get her to put on pants and a shirt, but only if I tell her it is a ballerina shirt. Perhaps this dates back to the last two summers, when her legs were so itchy and scratched up (to the point they were bleeding) that I never let her wear dresses, because then she'd just end up scratching some more. Second, she prefers long dresses. The other day she went into her closet and picked out a new (to her) dress. Eleanor had just put it in the closet since it was too short for Eleanor, and I hadn't moved it up to where Amanda couldn't see it yet. It was a size 5t. Amanda is a smallish size 3t. However, we put on the dress and it fit Amanda pretty well all things considered--the sleeves were a bit long, but the dress wasn't absurdly long, just longer than it was intended to be. Amanda enjoyed swooshing around in it. Finally, she lik

I was just reading a blog about a mother, recovering from surgery, who felt bad because she didn't have green milk and lucky charms for breakfast on St. Patrick's day this year. Some of the commenters said they try to make their lives revolve around their children, but they can't for too long... I have a hard time relating to this. I have always felt that the correct analogy for my children is not that I revolve around them like a planet around a sun, but that they are satellites revolving around me. Let me point out first of all that there are 3 of them, and I physically can't revolve around all 3 of them at the same time (unless by a miracle they all want me to do the same thing, which almost never happens...) They really do seem like my satellites. Luke is like something in low earth orbit, very nearby, practically crowding into my atmosphere. Amanda is further out (perhaps geosynchronous orbit) but well within view. As Eleanor gets older, she's going in to her

Luke has a fascination with the refrigerator. The other day he was playing happily with some tupperware on the floor of the kitchen when I opened the fridge door. I heard a squeal of delight, and the thump thump thump of Luke racing to the door. I managed to close it quickly enough to just miss his fingers... Yesterday, however, was different. Lately Luke has been clinging to my legs as I try to navigate around the kitchen: on the one hand, he mostly stays out of trouble, on the other hand, getting anything done is very time consuming. I needed to search for something in the fridge, and Luke was at my feet. By the time I looked down, he had taken the leftover chicken chili out of the veggie drawer and put the mustards (honey, Dijon and German ) into the drawer. We'll never know what his next plan was, because as I looked down he grabbed the chili and started running away from me, giggling and squealing. He manages to have a great deal of fun in his life.

Amanda, tonight at dinner: "When I grow up, I could be a superhero! That's because I have two costumes." She and her cousin could have a good time making the world safe.

One of the problems with learning a language is that your vocabulary is often not adequate to express your thoughts. In addition, often the connotations of the word you use are not appropriate, even though the word may be technically correct. One of the things I admire about Amanda is that she never lets vocabulary get in the way of what she is trying to say. Language is flexible enough that I can almost always understand what she is trying to communicate, even if she uses the wrong word. Today she wanted dessert after eating a good breakfast. She told me that she wanted a black round cookie. We have "Newman o's " that are like oreos , so it was pretty clear what she wanted (and equally clear that she would not get it, although that is another post). She then told me that if you lift up the circle cover, there was slime inside the cookie. "I love the slime. mmmm ." Perhaps I should talk to the company about a new marketing campaign for slime filled cookies. Yest

Luke is pretty sure that he doesn't really need me at the playground anymore. After all, there are all these other kids running around without their moms trailing them, right? He can walk, he no longer puts the mulch in his mouth, he should be set! Today he crawled up on the "little kids" play structure at the park. He found the slide, and I arrived at the top of the slide just as he was starting down it, so he didn't hurt himself too much or go too fast. This may have been a problem, since then he wanted to climb up the slide. I directed him to the steps, which he climbed up. He then wanted to go down the slide again. He got the whole routine down pretty well. Then he started exploring the structure: there is a bridge, a tic tac toe board (with 9 cylinders each with an x, o and a blank), a window for looking at your mom, 2 other slides, and plenty of drops to get next to, so that you can scare your mother. I was desperately running around to catch him if h

We had a teacher conference for Amanda today. She is a great 3-year old, working on 3-year old things like sharing, playing with other kids, learning to cut with scissors, recognize letters, and so on. She is perfectly normal, with her own personality for variety. It's interesting, but she's not the "genius" I had imagined my kids would be. My kids are smart and funny, ahead in some areas and behind in others (for example, Amanda can sing the alphabet song, but she doesn't recognize the written letters). I think this is a case where reality is more pleasant than my naive expectations before I had kids. One funny story: she likes to build "airplanes" with the legos . Apparently she has taught another kid in the class how to build her model of airplane... That's much better than him taking it away from her---I'm very proud.

Yesterday was very trying. Each of the kids had an (almost) completely irrational loss of control which lasted much longer than was comfortable for anyone. It started with Amanda at the grocery store. She has a quiet voice at the best of times, and in a busy store when I'm trying to keep Luke from diving out of the cart, it can be hard to hear her. I think she was trying to show me something, but whenever I asked, she would whisper something about "over there" or simply be quiet... She's discovered indefinite pronouns a bit ago, and now she likes to make me read her mind instead of pointing to things or describing them accurately. At any rate, we were both getting more and more frustrated, and I suddenly realized where this was going. I got in line to pay, but it was too late. I had gotten about half of the groceries out of the cart by the time she started screaming. The clerks offered to find someone to help us out to our car (the whole foods cashiers are grea

Children do not do clocks. Which is why explaining to them that we have to wake up an hour earlier to gt where we are going is fruitless. Luke is actually doing the best of the whole family. Just don't give him a nap, put him to bed an hour early, and let him wake up when he naturally wakes up. Skipping a nap is a really easy way to put him to bed early, especually when you don't have to worry about waking up at 5am. Amanda is not doing well at going to bed earlier. The night before last, as Michael was putting Eleanor to bed at 8:30 DST, he heard "Thump. Thump. Thump..." It was Amanda, banging her bed because she had to go to the bathroom. She really enjoys being able to get out of bed when she wakes up, though. Eleanor is pretty adaptable. She'll go to bed (although not necessarily fall asleep) whenever her "routine" is over. She'll sleep until her alarm wakes her up, or later, if she's tired. We've woken her up the past 2 days.

This has nothing to do with my mood this morning. Really.

Today Eleanor really rode around a lot on her bike. Yesterday our neighbor saw me holding Luke and a kite, while keeping Amanda from getting run over and trying to help Eleanor ride her bike, so he came over to help out. He's a good coach, and I think someone other than her family encouraging her really had an effect. At any rate, she learned to turn around. This allowed her to go up and down the driveway. This evening she went down to the cul - de -sac, back up past our house to the top of the hill, down to the cul - de -sac, to the hill, for 25 minutes.... She said she was going as fast as a racer! So fast Daddy couldn't keep up! But when she fell down and hurt herself, Daddy ran really fast to her. This girl, who last weekend didn't want to ride on the driveway (she didn't want to hurt herself), now prefers to stop by standing up on the brake and screeching to a stop. She also likes to go as fast as she can while sticking both feet up in the air and shouti

Two stories of mistaken identity, courtesy of Luke: 1. Luke has a light green froggie blanket that he loves very much. When his sisters bring it to him, he squeals and kicks with delight. When I take it away from him, he cries, although he is learning that he needs to give it to me during dinner even though he doesn't want to. The other day Luke was helping me do laundry (clinging to my leg as I attempted to sort clothes and move them from washer to dryer... He's a Big BIG help =) Suddenly, Luke got very excited. He crawled through the piles of laundry, grabbed something lime green and held it up to his face---only to find out it was his sister's "Funky Kitty" pajama top. He was first shocked, as though he couldn't believe this terrible thing was happening to him---someone turned his froggy into pajamas! Then he was mad. We went to find his real froggy, which made him much happier. 2. This morning I was getting breakfast together, and the box of chee

The piece of sleep advice that I just can't seem to make work for Luke is to put him in his crib sleepy but awake. This morning I nursed him for my usual 20 minutes and put him in his crib. He happened to be awake, but I thought he was sleepy enough to drift off. Nope. He screamed for 30 minutes at the top of his lungs before falling asleep. He did manage to take a 1.25 hour nap, which was good (esp. since he really doesn't get an afternoon nap) and unusual: usually he takes a 45 minute nap after crying himself to sleep. The thing is, I know he needs to sleep. He was yawning and rubbing his eyes before I put him down. He was snuggling against me and not wanting to run around at top speed. But if he goes into his crib awake (or sometimes even when I bring him into a darkened room) he seems to think that I am trying to be a cruel tyrant who makes him do things he doesn't want to do. Probably I'm putting him down when he's too tired... I feel like I can't d

A few months ago we went to a new allergist ( apparently one of the best pediatric allergists in the region) and he told us that instead of having gotten new allergies to soy and barley, as seemed indicated by the tests we had gotten back in August, Amanda was not allergic to soy, likely not allergic to barley, and had likely outgrown her allergy to wheat. (He also said that she was likely not allergic to tree nuts, but that it wasn't worth trying to find some non-peanut-contaminated tree nuts to test this out.) The way they test this is to bring the child into the clinic, feed her a previously disallowed food, and watch what happens. I can't tell you how trying it was to give Amanda something that we had been studiously avoiding for more than two years, and watch anxiously as we waited for something to happen... Fortunately, nothing at all happened. We gave her 4 graham crackers over about 2 hours, and she had no reaction at all, other than wanting to eat more graham crack

We went up to visit my sister and family over President's day weekend. We had a great time, and played outside in the beautiful weather. Unfortunately, beautiful weather means tick season. We arrived at our home airport at about 5, which is exactly dinner time. The nearest/best place to have dinner turned out to be Arby's (which has an allergy menu online), and while eating dinner I noticed that Amanda had a tick on her shoulder. I grew up in Minnesota, so I know in theory the methods used to remove a tick---pulling gently and firmly with a tweezers ( apparently Vaseline , nail polish and other removal methods are not recommended anymore). However, all the knowledge in the world doesn't help when you have a panicky 3-year old screaming for you not to touch the tick, being in a restaurant far from home with no tweezers, as well as having to take care of a tired 5 year old and 1 year old. I knew that we didn't have to get the tick out absolutely immediately (it hadn'

...about 2 and a half feet. (Sorry =) He's now tall enough that he can't stand under the table without bumping his head, which he does quite frequently. Here are some of his other recent activities: He got a 5 th tooth (on the upper right side) sometime around his birthday: I don't know when, exactly, since it is no longer advisable to stick your finger in his mouth. He still chews on everything, especially if it isn't food. He went from walking a few steps every day (sometimes just one---you wouldn't want to overdo it!) to walking all over the place. His recent accomplishment is opening unlatched doors while standing up. He is a little monkey, imitating everything. Today we went to the park, and he dug with a shovel in the sand---something I never taught him explicitly. He loves to have a paper towel and wipe things clean (I am encouraging this activity). He'll hold almost anything up to his ear and pretend it is a phone (I think this is what

In her latest blog entry (Letters from a broad...: Est- ce que it pokes?) C.L. Hanson talks about her son's bringing of French grammar and phrases into English. One of her comments raises the question of how the language you speak influences the way you think. I've been wondering about this and the ease/difficulty of saying no and yes in various languages and whether this might influence the famous negativity of toddlers. For example, one of a baby's first words (at least English speaking babies) is " Da ," yes in Russian. Does this mean that when a baby babbles in Russian they are saying "yes yes yes yes..."? Would this have an effect on power struggles, or the way a parent interacts with a baby? Compared to Luke who is already learning " nnnnnnn " when he doesn't like something, a baby babbling "yes" would seem to put a positive spin on the whole situation. Luke is also learning to shake his head "no!" at things---it

Michael was finally able to get out today with Eleanor and help her ride a bike. She wants everyone to know that she pedaled 40 times, and that she likes riding in our back yard since it is bumpy and helps her learn to balance. I think that she will be perfectly able to ride on the sidewalk as soon as she wants to, although she still needs to work on starting without having Michael hold her up. Now we just need to get my 18 year old bike and Michael's bike (even older than that) tuned up, get some seats for the little kids (or maybe a cart to pull behind, although I need to be in much better shape before I start doing that) and we can ride around the neighborhood! Probably we will start a tradition of riding after dinner, once it starts staying light later. I should mention that my blog readership grew by one person this past week: Eleanor saw her name as Michael was reading the blog about her bike riding, and asked to read more. I'm not sure quite how much she read, and I