mathmom's blog

We have quite a few buttons on appliances that Luke can reach. Most of these have "control locks" which adults can push in order to keep young ones from starting the appliances. They have varying degrees of success. The oven control lock does not apparently work. The first time Luke found out about the oven buttons was when he pushed the stool up to the oven/microwave wall stack to see what I was doing with the microwave. He leaned against the oven light button, which obligingly beeped and turned on the light, a very gratifying response. He stayed there for the next few minutes happily beeping as I tried in vain to lock the controls. If all else fails, I suppose I could read the manual... The dryer works slightly better. If you hold down the control lock button for 3 seconds, the controls are indeed locked---except for the "cancel" button. Thus Luke can turn the dryer off, but in order to turn it back on again, I need to hold down the control lock button aga

Eleanor brought a disposable camera to kindergarten last year, and since they didn't use it, she brought it back home a week or so ago. She was very excited to take pictures. I tried in vain to explain to her that these pictures actually cost money (as opposed to digital pictures which only take up disk space) but she went through the 25 pictures in 2 days. The first day I made her take pictures outside, the second she did inside (with no explicit approval or flash, of course...) Here is what she took pictures of: the side of our neighbor's house Amanda in the left foreground, our driveway in the background our garage with the car in it a picture of herself (holding the camera at arms length) two pictures of trees and clouds in our backyard 3 pictures of Luke driving the van (but with no flash, so you can't actually see him) a picture of herself and Amanda sitting on the porch swing (holding the camera at arms length, so you see Eleanor's face the top 1/4 of Amanda&

Luke has decided lately that he is a person, and he ought to be doing whatever all the other people around him are doing. He watches very carefully, and imitates as best he can. This morning we were playing quietly in his room. He decided to walk over to his dresser, open the bottom drawer, take out a bunch of clothes, and stuff them into the boxes of clothes next to his window. This is because the day before I had moved all his 6-12 month clothes out of his dresser in order to put them in the attic. If Mama does it, he needs to do it too. For a while we have stored a thermarest pad in his room. The girls back all the way against a wall, run and jump onto the thermarest . I believe they are imitating what they once saw some penguins doing---so far, no injuries. Luke backs all the way against a wall very carefully, runs and stomps his feet on the mattress. Just like his sisters. At a potluck after church last week, Luke carefully watched me and other people get food from the lo

Most days Luke wakes us up at about 6 (sometimes earlier, sometimes later). Yesterday was dark and rainy, and he woke up at 7:10. Eleanor has to leave for school at 8 (if she leaves too late, the car gets trapped behind a school bus and she is much much later.) This is much less time than we usually have. The morning was terrible: Eleanor was slow as molasses getting dressed (15 minutes to put her underclothes on), Amanda and Luke and Eleanor steadfastly refused to eat breakfast, we couldn't find Eleanor's shoes (stop laughing, Mom!). Michael came down a bit later than usual and we practically dragged Eleanor into the car. As Michael said, that's what you get when your alarm clock sleeps in. Of course, today, Luke woke up at 5:25. Michael took him from about 5:45 to 7, since I had been up from about 4:30 with Amanda. The 8 hours of accidental sleep I got the day before seemed awful nice.

Q: At what age do boys think that laughing while drinking milk, so as to make milk spray all over the table, is funny? A: Apparently about 18 months. I see two bright spots here. At least the milk didn't come out his nose, and after he sprayed the milk everywhere he did wipe it up with the paper towel. Of course, after doing the trick with his milk he wanted to try it with my water...

I haven't been blogging as much as usual lately. This is mostly because I can only tell so many stories of how Luke is getting into trouble these days without making you all think badly of me (how many times does he have to pour the dish soap on the steps before she puts it under the sink, anyway!). So I will tell you the story told by one of my friends who has survived the toddlerhood of a boy: when she went in to work on Monday, she said that she hadn't gotten anything done that weekend except keep her son from getting hurt. That was challenging enough. I will also add something from The Emotional Life of the Toddler by Alicia F. Lieberman (quite a helpful book actually): Home observations of mothers and their preschoolers show that mild to moderate conflicts take place once every three minutes, and major conflicts occur at the rate of three per hour. The younger the child, the more frequent these disturbances. hmm , I think I'll read that book again.

We (along with most of America, I think) have been enjoying watching the Olympics. I heard a report yesterday on All Things Considered about kids are staying up later to watch the games. Eleanor has been staying up a little bit later, but since school started for her last week, we mostly get her to bed on time. Eleanor's favorite part was the torch lighting ceremony. We have mythtv (a bit like tivo , but open source) so that every time I suggest watching olympics , she asks to watch the torch lighting ceremony. She refuses absolutely to watch women's gymnastics---a sharp contrast to 4 years ago when she loved watching "the girls doing gymnastics". Eleanor and Amanda both enjoyed watching rhythmic gymnastics. One of the "apparatuses' is a jump-rope type thing, and Amanda was leaping and dancing all around the room. My favorite was the ribbon---I think I will get the girls some ribbon. My favorite sport was synchronized diving. I had no idea that this

When I went to the grocery store the other day (without children) I finally had time to check out all the frozen non-dairy desserts. In the past, the soy ice cream said things like, "May contain almonds and peanuts." This time, it said, "Strict quality control measure in an effort to prevent contamination by undeclared food allergens." They actually test to try to make sure there is no contamination. I know some parents would not be satisfied by that, but it's more than good enough for me. So what ice cream do you start a 3 year old on who has never had ice cream before? Chocolate decadence? strawberry? I finally settled on vanilla and some ice cream bars. Yesterday I finally gave her one of the ice cream bars--- Neapolitan . She only liked the strawberry, and she was distressed that the cookie part kept coming off on her fingers. Afterwards she said, "Eating that ice cream sure was hard work!" One more story: lately, she's been waking up

Luke's newest word is "woof", which he pronounces "oof oof oof." He crawls around on the floor "pretending to be a doggie," saying "oof oof oof oof..." We don't really have very many dogs in our life, but he is quite impressed when he sees one. He loved seeing his aunt's cat this weekend, but I am quite sure he thought it was a dog. This reminds me that our next door dog is really good with kids. When Amanda was about Luke's age, when ever she would see the dog in the yard (a BIG golden retriever) she would run over to see him---whether I was going with her or not. I was worried at first, but I noticed that if Amanda would get near to the dog, he would lie down and wait patiently for her to pet him---he might lick Amanda, but would definitely not jump or get excited. What a sweet dog. We had a job teaching her that not all dogs were that sweet. For a while now every time Luke sees a crawling baby he will get down on his

So today was the last Friday of summer (Eleanor goes back to school next week). Friday is "adventure day" in my schedule (Thursday is "Laundry day", Tuesday is "Library day" and so on), so I had thought about trying to go to the zoo or something if the weather was good (i.e., not too hot). That idea vanished yesterday when I got a flat tire. We just barely managed to get Eleanor to her class gathering at the jumping palace, there was no time to get the tire fixed. So this morning Eleanor, Amanda, Luke and I all headed to the car dealership to get the tire fixed, the inspection done, the oil change done, and a piece of the car hooked back in. (I think Luke has managed to take off part of the panel below the sliding door. He's talented that way.) We were there for 2.5 hours, watching the tv , playing with their legos , playing their video games and eating popcorn. I think the kids may have even enjoyed themselves... The weather was gloriously sunn

In the past 3 days, Amanda has managed to 1) write in ballpoint pen on the leather couch (an "A" and an "x"), 2) cut her own bangs, and 3) draw a mustache on her face in purple marker. Repeat after me: "It's only a stage. Only a stage..."

Yesterday we went to watch Star Wars at a friend's house. Eleanor had complained for a long time that she was the only person in her class who hadn't seen the movie. (When I pointed out that I knew that her friend hadn't seen it either, she said, "Yes, we are the only people in our class who haven't seen it.) When the movie came on, Amanda exclaimed excitedly, "This is my favorite show!" During the scene where the storm troopers board Princess Leia's ship, she laughed uproariously. "This is so funny!" I think she thought the people who were getting shot were just jumping around for fun: the smoke and the lights were funny too. I am 99 percent sure that she didn't think anyone was getting hurt, much less killed. During a part that I thought might be scary for her, I asked her if she needed a hug. "No, I'm fine," she said, and went back to watching and climbing around on the seats. Luke snuggled with me for the fir

For the past few weeks, Eleanor has been complaining every time she has to eat anything she doesn't like. Well, I mean more than usual---she's getting her 6-year molars, and where they are coming up is raw and torn. I give her an advil and a break for eating, I hope this doesn't become a habit. Also, she said that one of her front teeth was hurting a bit yesterday, and she said it might be wiggling today... she's said that before ("I'm the only person in my whole class who hasn't lost a tooth!") but you never know. And Luke is finally getting tired of having just 8 teeth. He's skipping the canines and getting a lower pre-molar (I think that's what it's called). He is drooling up a storm---or maybe that's because he still has a fat lip from when he fell and split his lip a few days ago.

We did get to Jumping beans yesterday, even though my instincts told me to go swimming since it was such a beautiful day. Well, the kids got exercise anyway, even if they aren't outside. They have a 10-pass card where you get $2 off per entry if you pre-pay. I finished up my card, and as a bonus they now have a "plinko" board: you drop a circle shaped tile down a board filled with nails, and it lands in a slot at the bottom. Depending on the slot you could win a free 10-pass card, a free admission, a free ice cream cone, and so on. I dropped the first tile down and got a free admission. I decided to drop again---I couldn't do much worse, I figured, so I chose to drop the second. I ended up winning a free birthday party! This was great, since I had been planning to have Amanda's "super-hero" birthday party there anyway. I will be having it on a Friday rather than a Saturday, but that's not a big deal (maybe Eleanor will take the afternoon off,

Today I mentioned that we might try to go to Jumping Beans. After mentioning it (and having girls jump up and down) I remembered that Thursday is laundry day, and I had many loads of sheets and blankets to wash. I told the girls that I needed to move laundry around, and Eleanor said, "How can I help?" Those were her precise words. I nearly fell to the floor. Then she suggested that she could fold the underwear. When I told her that the whites hadn't been washed yet, she followed me upstairs. I was trying to think of something she could do as I moved the sheets and towels from the dryer to the bedroom, and then moved the blankets from the washer to the dryer. As I came out from the laundry room, still trying to think of something fro Eleanor to do, Eleanor approached me with a stack of folded towels. She had decided that that was what she would do, she had done it, and they were folded very nicely indeed. Unfortunately, we never made it to jumping beans.

Wednesday was the final cooking club of the summer. We made pizza, x-ray bananas, and puppy chow. Pizza is one of those great recipes that can be made by amateurs and comes out looking fabulous. I made the pizza dough before hand, and we sprinkled on sauce, cheese, pepperoni, red peppers, mushrooms, broccoli... We didn't open up the artichoke hearts, amazingly enough. Amanda made a cheese-less pizza and Eleanor made a sauce-less pizza. Neither girl put broccoli on, although Amanda put peppers and prosciutto on hers. When it came out of the oven she ate the meat and the peppers, ignoring the crust. I guess a couple years of not eating bread is hard to overcome, even though she's not allergic anymore. The x-ray bananas were so that we could have the letter "x" in our "Cook the alphabet" theme: they were a magic trick where you cut the banana before you open it. The girls had a great time making up magic moves and magic words. After the trick I warned

New games for Luke: This morning Luke had a great time with gravity. Daddy started by dropping his froggy on him from a few inches. This was so much fun that Daddy threw his froggy up in the air. Giggles galore! Luke would find his froggy , put it in Daddy's hand, and day " Dat !" It was quite clear what he meant. Once he said " dla ba kda bkes kda blsa dat !" He has found that he can turn on and off the lights at the bottom of our stairs. Electricity is almost as fun and predictable as gravity.

Amanda learned how to swim yesterday! Well, sort of. I was "zooming" her from me to the edge of the pool, and she started going under the water and paddling towards the steps. Mostly I think she ended up walking on the bottom of the pool while her face was under the water, but eventually I think she propelled herself without touching the bottom of the pool. She refuses so far to wear goggles, but she was opening her eyes under the water: "I can see people under the water!" She's very inefficient at paddling and kicking, but she does go a long way, and she swims with a huge smile on her face. Way to go Amanda!

On the back of our cereal there is a game which has color words written in different colors: the word "orange" will be written in pink, for example. Your challenge is to try to say the color of the word instead of what is written. Try it out here . It's a fun game, and Eleanor has gotten pretty good. Eleanor points out that it is easier for people with glasses to play without glasses, and for people without glasses to play with glasses. The real champion is Amanda, who is not confused by the written words and goes straight to the color. It is fun to see her do something easily that causes the older folks in the family trouble. In other news: Amanda's hands, which she calls "butterflies", are going to be stinky shoes for Halloween. Luke really enjoys playing with the beeping dive ball that Michael got for playing with at the pool (you have 90 seconds or something to find it and turn it off...). "Bee Bee BEE! Baa Baa." He loves beeping thing