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 ...