What did we do with a huge pile of mulch?

Our yard is a soggy mess for days after each rain. Last spring we invested in a backyard playset for the kids. We got it for a very reasonable price at Sams and built it ourselves in the only spot in the yard that was flat enough for it. It turned out that the absolute soggiest place in the entire yard, the spot that takes days and days to dry out after every rain, is directly under the swings. We put up with it for a season, but now that the kids are a little older and able to use the playset a bit more independently (yea!) I didn’t want us held back by the constant mud. (As a quick aside, last year Ava could climb up but not down. She would climb to the highest level and then wail for me to come get her. Not so much fun for Mama.)

What I would love would be to have a landscaping company come in and install a patio and a drainage system for the yard. That's just a dream though. Instead, we decided to order $100 of high quality playground mulch from a great local company that delivers for free. They dumped the pile in our driveway.

My parents came over for the evening. When we all started the project the kids were very excited. They used buckets and sand table shovels to help fill the wheelbarrow. When it was full one or the other would ride on top around the side yard and into the back to be dumped out along with the mulch. They loved it. Several times Michael took his huge Tonka dump truck and pushed it to the driveway to have Daddy or Grandpa fill it with a shovel. He’d then push it all the way back and dump it on the pile below the playset that I was raking into shape. When the kids got bored with helping, my mom took over their entertainment while my dad and husband continued to fill the wheelbarrow and push it around back to dump wherever I directed them to go next. I did all the raking.

It took about two hours of labor from three adults, but the result looks great. All of the mud from yesterday’s rain is completely covered up. And the whole project was done for a reasonable cost. I think it looks great and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. I’m calling it a success.

Tot Clock = More Sleep

I wanted to write a review of a product that I love. As I’ve mentioned before, my children are early risers. Michael rarely sleeps past 6:30 in the morning and Ava has never learned to go back to sleep after the sun rises. Right now, after the time change that’s about 6:15, but by the middle of the summer it tends to be in the early 5:00 hour.

Meet the Tot Clock

I decided to try a Tot Clock with Michael. This product is wonderful. Fundamentally it has a clock face that changes colors. It’s standard color is yellow. That’s the “awake color”. You then set a bedtime and a wake-up time. For us, bedtime is 7:40 pm and wake-up time is 7:00 am. At bedtime the clock face turns blue and it stays blue until the time you’ve set as the wake-up time. Then it turns yellow again. Michael knows that he can’t leave his room or call for us until the light turns yellow. It has a nap timer too. So I’ve set his nap timer for an hour and a half. I push a button to turn it on (and turn the light blue) when I leave his room. If he wakes up before the hour and a half he knows he has to wait until the light turns yellow before nap time is over. It has worked beautifully. I love this clock. Michael never calls for us before 7am any more.

There was a flaw in my plan to get more sleep though. It didn’t really do me any good to keep Michael in his room until 7am when Ava was still waking up at 6:15. So I decided to try a Tot Clock for her too. She’s a little young for it, but she loved Michael’s clock and seemed to get the concept. But when I went to order the second Tot Clock for Ava they were out of stock and wouldn’t be getting more in until May.

I didn’t want to wait that long so I tried a similar product I found on Amazon. I hated it. It was difficult to set and didn’t have nearly as many features. Most importantly, it didn’t have a nap feature. Ava was completely confused by the fact that her light didn’t turn green (this clock’s default color was green) letting her know nap time was over. Then I got an email that Tot Clock had some used clocks in stock. I ordered one immediately. Ava was delighted to have one just like her brother’s clock and I shipped the other one back to Amazon. Actually, there is one difference between Ava's clock and Michael's clock. Michael's clock has the standard face plate: the moon and stars. We ordered one with butterflies and flowers for Ava because I knew she would like it and it would make this clock "hers". The company has a ton of optional face plates to choose from.

So now we have two Tot Clocks. They’re working perfectly. We now set our alarm for 6:50 so that we can wake up and pull on clothes before the kids start calling, “Mama, Dada, my clock is yellow!” at 7am. Sure, 45 minutes of extra sleep doesn't sound like all that much, but remember that before now Ava rose with the sun. In the middle of the summer I'm hoping this clock will be getting me almost two hours of extra sleep every day. Besides, the predictability is nice.

I also think it is helping Ava learn to go back to sleep after surfacing. I’ll hear her wake up and fuss a little, but then she’ll fall back asleep for a while. She rarely did that before the clock.

It has a ton of features we’re not using. It will tell a bedtime story, play music and white noise, and function as an alarm clock (who on earth would actually want to wake their toddler up in the morning on purpose?). It has a built in time-out timer (turns red) and activity timer (turns green). If any of this sounds interesting to you check it out. I highly recommend it.

(One drawback: the blue night-time setting is very bright in a small room even on its dimmest setting. You can turn the night-time light off all together, but Ava protested that option. We've ended up turning the clock away from her bed at night and partially covering it with a baby blanket to reduce the extra light in her room.)

Selling baby things - or not?

I decided to bring in a little extra money and declutter the house and garage at the same time. This seems like the perfect time to do a little craigslisting and maybe pay for a month of therapy.

First I decided to list the double stroller. I truly don’t remember the last time we used it. I wrote an amazing, detailed ad for craigslist. I spent at least half an hour working on the ad. In the process of writing the ad I remembered exactly how cool our double stroller is. And I remembered that spring and summer are right around the corner. I started to think about how I could take the kids on long walks, carry all the drinks and snacks in the stroller, and then push them when they were too tired to walk home. So I didn’t post the ad for the stroller on craigslist after all. I did save the ad though. It will be all ready when I am finally prepared to let the stroller go.

Then I decided to list the cloth diapers. We used Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers with both kids. Now they are pretty much both potty trained. We haven’t used a cloth diaper in months. We use 4 pull-ups a day – two at nap time and two overnight. So, I pulled out all the cloth diaper stuff, sorted it and separated it into three lots of 8 diapers each. I took pictures. I wrote the ad. Then I started remembering how nice cloth diapers are and how expensive the pull-ups are. Ava walked by and desperately wanted to put on a pink one. I started talking to my husband about how perhaps we should start using cloth again for naps. Well, I did list one of the lots of diapers, but at the moment I’m hanging on to the other two. Still deciding. Money is tight right now and pull-ups aren’t cheap. Perhaps I should switch back to cloth for naps.

I still have some wraps I used when the babies are little that I haven’t listed yet, and even I can’t think of a way to use them with a two and three year old so I’m hoping I’ll get those successfully listed without changing my mind. And there’s the single stroller and matching pumpkin seat/carseat base. Again, not much use for those any more. But so far, this project isn’t exactly leading where I’d hoped.

The endless cycle of feeding

I thought the feeling that you barely finished feeding your child before it’s time to start again would be forever gone after breastfeeding. Not so much.

To be completely honest, I am not a kitchen person. I don’t have a history of enjoying cooking. I have no significant experience or skills or natural inclination to cook. To some extent, necessity is the mother of invention. I am interested in feeding my children healthy food. I made baby food when they were little. Michael ate pretty much everything. Ava not so much. I actually stopped making baby food and switched to finger foods pretty quickly because she just didn’t seem to like the baby food and it was a lot of work.

Now that they’re at the toddler / preschool stage I find myself in a serious rut. For breakfast they eat a banana, baby yogurt (whole fat, supplemented with iron) with some multi-grain baby cereal mixed in, or a relatively healthy cereal (Cheerios, Mini-Wheats, Kashi) dry. This is pretty much every day. Lunch is fish sticks and sweet potato fries, peanut butter crackers and carrots and grapes, and whole grain pasta with peas and parmesan. I’m having trouble thinking of more. Dinner is often some kind of pasta: spaghetti and salad or cheese tortellini and broccoli. If my husband takes over it might be pot roast or chicken from a crock pot. We tried hamburger helper. The kids won’t eat it so that was kind of a fail. Not really a nutritional win anyway.

There must be more simple, picky toddler friendly, quick meal ideas out there right? I came across a website devoted to healthy meals for small children. We found some ideas we like and were inspired to try for a very simple goal. We want to make one week of meals that we can regularly prepare here at home that minimize dependence on pre-packaged material, have some variety in all the food groups, and that the whole family will eat. (Ok. We had to give Ava a pass on three of the dinners. It just wasn’t possible. She'll eat leftovers or just the sides on those nights.) Just one week’s worth of meals. I’m willing to eat the same thing week after week. That’s what I’m doing now anyway really. Maybe we can eventually build up to a Week A and Week B plan, but let’s start small.

Here’s the current rough draft of the meal plan. We’re starting this week. Wish me luck. Tuesday and Thursday have no lunch because they eat at school. Friday’s lunch has a question mark because we usually meet my husband at work and all eat Chick-Fil-A for lunch on Fridays. The arrows to the right on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday breakfasts indicate planning to eat leftovers from the day before.

So, does anyone have other suggestions? What are your “go to” meals? I could really, really use the help.

Fine Motor Activity - One

I came across this webpage on handwriting. The entire site has been fun to browse. I don’t even remember how I ended up at the site, but I'm glad I found it. The page has a great list of fun fine motor activities. Since I’m looking for fine motor activities to do with Michael, and fun activities to do with the children in general, I was pretty excited.

I decided to do the eye dropper art. I gathered eye droppers (something I had gotten months ago for art projects and never used), paper towels, cookie trays, food coloring, a cup of water, and ice cube trays before I called the kids over to the kitchen table. (Please excuse the blurriness of the picture. I didn't realize it was so bad, but at least it gives you an idea of what the prep looked like.)

I did a sanity check and decided propping the eye droppers in ice cube trays wouldn’t work and switched them out for empty baby food jars: two for Michael, two for Ava, and two for me. I brought the kids in and we talked about how water is clear but when we add the food coloring to it we can make it pretty colors. I let them choose the colors to make. Ava chose pink and green. Michael chose pink and yellow. I chose purple and blue. They loved watching the food coloring drop into the water and combine as we swirled.

Then I stuck an eye dropper in each jar and let them start. I quickly realized neither child knew how to use an eye dropper. Michael picked it up pretty quickly. Ava took a little more time but eventually got it. Michael didn’t have the patience (or fine motor control) to do only one drop at a time even when I encouraged him and showed him with my picture that you could do things like make flowers using one drop at a time.

He did stay engaged in the activity for nearly twenty minutes though which is a major accomplishment. Usually he’ll only do an art activity for a few minutes before getting bored/frustrated and wanting to quit. Ava loved it too. She actually remained at the table another ten minutes or so after Michael left to do another one.

I think the finished products are rather pretty. Mine is the one that looks vaguely like flowers. Ava’s are the small ones and Michael’s is the other large one.

I’m going to do this project again. We all enjoyed it and it’s good fine motor practice. Perhaps if I demonstrate how to make a train track or road or something like that he’ll be motivated to fine tune a little more?

Macaroni Colors

On a whim, I decided to try coloring macaroni last night with the kids. I looked up the directions online (consensus was 2 tbsp of rubbing alcohol combined with lots of food coloring in a ziplock with 1 cup of macaroni - then pour out onto wax paper and dry overnight). I have lots of macaroni around. I just scooped some out of the macaroni bin I made a couple of months ago. The kids had a blast helping. They held the ziplock open while I added the rubbing alcohol and food coloring to it. They put the macaroni into the bag and then squished all the contents around once I sealed it. Then they oohed and ahhed over the results.

I learned several things.

• This amount of liquid allows you to dye 2 cups of macaroni - not one.
• Do not use wax paper. It gets soggy with the extra liquid and then sticks to your macaroni. Use aluminum foil instead.
• When using blue food coloring, it mixes with the natural yellow of the macaroni for a result of green - not blue.

I now have several trays of colored macaroni drying overnight. I'm not really sure what to do with them though. Any ideas for fun projects with colored macaroni? Anyone know how to overcome the problem with the macaroni being naturally yellow in order to make blue or purple macaroni?

Daylight savings miracle

My children wake up early.  They wake up with the light to be specific.  So, in the middle of winter, near the solstice, they are sleeping till 7:30 or so which is wonderful.  In the middle of the summer near the summer solstice they are waking around 5am!!  Ava is particularly susceptible to the light and over the last month she moved from 6:30 to 6:15 to 6:00 and then started waking in the 5:00 hour.  It’s driving me crazy.  I need sleep too!!  And she’s waking up cranky because she isn’t really getting enough sleep.  Well, the daylight savings switch was wonderful.  Saturday morning she was up at 5:45 am.  Sunday morning it was 6:45 am.  Just like that.  I’ll take it. 

Now, what can I do to manipulate things so that perhaps I won’t end up right back where I was a month from now?  I have to find a way to keep her room dark.  I tried it when she was little, but then even the slightest change was enough of a cue to get her up.  I couldn’t block enough of the light for it to work.  Maybe now that she's older, blocking most of the light will work?  Also, then I didn’t have a sewing machine to use to make some light blocking tools.

I have a plan.  Light gets into her room from two main sources:  the window and under the door.  I’m going to make one of those door draft stoppers to block the light from getting in under her door.  Then I’m going to put up light blocking curtain liners.  But instead of attaching them to her curtains I’m going to just cover the entire window opening.  Seriously.  If it works it’ll be worth it.  I don’t care if we can’t open the windows any more.  I’m thinking I’ll sew velcro to the light blocking liner and then glue velcro to the wall around the window and just stick it up there attached on all four sides.  Ugly, yes.  But it’ll be hidden by the curtains. 

So that’s the plan.  I’ll let you know if it works.

Screening Results - Always interesting

Each year, Missouri’s Parents as Teachers (PAT) program offers a free screening to each child enrolled in the program.  Michael’s screening was Monday.  This was the first year he got the “preschool” screening rather than the toddler developmental screening.  Our PAT educator, Ms. S., came to our house to do the screening.  She worked with Michael independently at the kitchen table while I kept Ava busy in the playroom.  The screening probably took about half an hour.  To be honest, I wasn’t paying close attention to the time so I’m not completely sure.  Ms. S. told me that they don’t switch over to the preschool screening until the child is at least 3 years, 3 months old so Michael just made the cutoff to use the higher level screening. 

The screening has three parts:  a language section, a concepts section, and a motor section.  This particular screening is used with 3, 4, 5, and 6 year old children.  In fact, they’ll use the exact same form for the next two years so we’ll be able to track his progress from year to year.  The language section covers personal data (do they know their name, etc.), a basic articulation screening, matching actions to objects, letters and sounds skills, rhyming, and simple problem solving.  The concepts section covers body parts, colors, counting, shapes, positions (under, beside, etc.), and concepts (longest, full, cold, etc.).  The motor section covers both gross motor skills (catching, jumping, hopping, etc.) and fine motor skills (building with small blocks, cutting, copying symbols, etc.).

So, Michael did an amazing job on the language and concepts sections.  He performed at the 4, 5, and even 6 year old level on the questions on these sections.  I am so proud of him.  I knew he was a smart kid, but wow!  It’s always nice to have independent confirmation. 

In the motor section we saw an entirely different picture.  He pretty much performed at the under three level or barely qualified at the three year old level for these skills.  It’s strange.  He can use a computer mouse completely independently.  He can double click, single click, and move it to exactly where he wants it.  He can build complex structures with duplos and the smaller legos.  He can string beads onto a pipe cleaner.  And yet he holds crayons and pencils in his fist like he’s trying to stab someone with them.  He still doesn’t show consistent hand dominance.  Sometimes he’ll use the right and other times the left.  He isn’t interested in coloring for more than 2-3 minutes at a time perhaps because he finds it difficult.  He does like to cut paper, but we don’t do it often and so he isn’t very precise.  Perhaps I need to work art into our weekly schedule a little more often.   And as far as gross motor is concerned I guess we need to work more on balance and catching.  Hopefully spring will provide more opportunity to get outdoors and play physically some more.  He also cannot pedal a tricycle yet.

I suppose, as I parent I do the things I like most.  So we do a lot of singing, reading, talking, and playing with toys like legos, marble runs, trains, and puzzles.  We don’t do as much art and physical play.  I need to branch out more so that my children will have a more balanced skill set.   

So, overall I thought the screening was great.  It showed me that Michael is a smart little boy who has definite areas of strength and I’m so proud of him.  It also showed me that I have an opportunity to focus on some new things that hopefully we will all enjoy while getting to practice some new skills.

Does anyone have suggestions of fun art activities that might work on some of those fine motor skills beyond simple coloring projects?

Look what I made!

First let me say that I am not, by nature, an artistic person.  People who are genuinely creative are mystical beings who are worthy of my admiration.  However, about a year ago I decided to buy a sewing machine.  I didn’t know how to use one.  I bought it almost on a whim.  It’s shocking what curtains cost, really.  I bought a beginner’s sewing book and did little projects like making a pincushion and a sewing machine cover.  My first major project was the curtains for Ava’s room.  I was quite pleased with myself actually given that I hadn’t touched a sewing machine since one small unit in high school home economics.  I don’t make particularly beautiful things, but I like the idea of making practical ones.  Here are my curtains (see picture – I made the curtains, not the valance).

Not so long ago we converted Ava’s crib to its toddler bed form.  She was ready.  We did it spontaneously though, so I hadn’t bought any “big girl” bedding.  We still made it up just like her crib with her crib sheets.  She sleeps in it holding her stuffed kitties and covered by one of her baby blankets.  A couple of days ago I decided I’d try to sew a pillow for her.

I dug around in the box of old baby clothes and found a couple of old baby dresses.  I cut them up for the material.  I shredded all the scraps that were left over and a bunch of other scraps left over from other projects for filling.  The scraps are mostly fleece so the stuffing is really soft and fluffy.  I serged the edges of the material together leaving a small gap so that it could be filled.  I turned it inside out, filled it with the cut up scraps of material using a funnel, and hand sewed the gap closed.  Voila – pillow.  Ava loves it!  I finished it just in time for nap.  She grabbed it from my hands and ran upstairs to her room to put it in her bed.  She wouldn’t leave the bed to get dressed.  I had to put her pull-up and pajama bottoms on her in the bed and she didn’t want her usual books and songs.  She just went right to sleep that day.  It was adorable. 

Then I made a second one so that when one set of bedding is in the wash she can use the other one.  I added a border to this one so it looks slightly more fancy than the first one.  The first one is the pink one.  The second one is the purple one.  Ava, of course, won’t touch the second one because it is purple and not pink.  She’s recently decided pink is her favorite color.  And it’s icing on the cake that I did the entire project from stuff I had lying around the house and so it didn’t cost a penny. 

Unexpected Crisis

Saturday night got exciting at about 11pm.  There’s nothing like a “Should we go to the emergency room or not?” situation to fully wake you up.

Ava came down with a cold Thursday morning.  (Somehow that never fails to happen the day –after- you visit the pediatrician for a check up.)  It was just a normal little kid cold: tons of snot, fatigue, crankiness, and a fairly impressive wet cough, but nothing particularly scary.  In fact, I commented Saturday afternoon that things seemed to be getting a bit better because now I was only having to wipe her nose once every half hour instead of once every 5 minutes.  

Just as I was drifting off to sleep at around 11pm Saturday night I hear Ava start to cough and cry and cough and cry.  It went on and on.  We very rarely go into our childrens’ bedrooms at night, but something just seemed off here.  My husband volunteered to go check on her.  Moments later he was back in our bedroom with Ava.  She was wheezing.  The cough was croup and she was having trouble breathing.  That was causing her to panic which just made things worse.  

It was Ava’s first time, but not our first time.  Michael’s colds often end up with croup/wheezing in the middle of the night.   Once it was bad enough that we did end up in the emergency room with him.  We knew what to try first.  We turned on the shower as hot as possible to get the bathroom steamy.  I sat in there with Ava cuddled close to my chest rocking and singing to her.  She was extremely hot.  So hot I didn’t even bother with a thermometer.  We just got a dose of ibuprofen into her as quickly as possible.  She completely freaked out about taking the medicine which made the wheezing worse, which made her panic…  Then I just continued to sit there with her rocking and singing in the warm steamy bathroom while my husband prepped her room. 

He got two humidifiers going and removed her smoke alarm.  Humidifiers trigger our smoke alarms, so if we need the humidifiers we have to pull the smoke alarm down.  This took him a good 20 minutes and in the meantime, the ibuprofen kicked in and the wheezing calmed down and she had almost drifted off.  However, when I stood up to take her back to her room, the wheezing instantly came back.  By the time I was in the armchair in her room I was practically starting over.  Twenty minutes after that I laid her down in her toddler bed which flared things up again so I crawled in with her.  My presence kept her calm, but it also kept her awake so I slipped out of her bed and sat right next to her waiting to see if the wheezing would stop.   We knew that if she continued to have trouble breathing even while resting, we’d need to go to the ER.  About an hour later it finally faded and I slipped out of her room. 

I finally went to sleep around 3am and was back up with the kids at 7am.  I do not function well on four hours of sleep, so Sunday was a bit of a blur.  I do remember that Ava’s temperature at one point was 102.7.  And she wasn’t nearly as hot as she had been in the middle of the night.  Getting the infant drops into her was predictably difficult again.  The highlight of the day was discovering that they make chewable bubble gum flavored acetaminophen that Ava can now take because she’s two.  I told her it was candy.  She loved it.  Is that wrong?  Technically, I lied, but if I had told her it was medicine she would have refused to try it.  I know her.  She definitely would have refused to try it.  Anyway, hopefully we won’t have any repeats of croup in the middle of the night.  And hopefully this cold will pass soon. 

Of course, I have the cold now.  And my voice is on its way out.   Parenting two little ones is enough of a challenge with a voice.  Without a voice it’s crazy.  And therapy will pretty much be out until my voice is back.  Life is always interesting.

Completely unrelated rant

I admit it. Where cell phones are concerned I was remarkably reluctant to enter the modern world. I have had one for about 12 years, but it was a pre-paid phone that I left off all the time. I kept it with me only for the purpose of making outbound calls in an emergency. I turned it on once a month or less. My husband hated not being able to reach me when I was out, but I was stubborn on the issue. I didn’t want to mess with it. I thought being on the phone when out was rude.

Then I had children and realized that I needed to be available. I needed the person with my children to be able to reach me. So that simple necessity, combined with an iphone has made me a changed woman. I still use the phone as little as possible, particularly when I’m out, but it is turned on and always near me. I absolutely love to read books on it. I also play a few games. I use the calendar. I take pictures and videos of my children. I occasionally make or receive calls.

I still have the same phone number for my cell phone that I’ve had since I got my very first cell phone. I like the number. I’m attached to it. A couple of years ago, Ava’s first summer, I began receiving debt collection calls on my cell phone. The calls are for Michelle D. I am not Michelle D. After hanging up on the automated message about 20 times over a period of about a month, my husband finally called the number back, spoke to a real live person and had my number removed from their database.

A few months ago I began receiving debt collection calls for Michelle D. again on my cell phone. I have no idea if it’s the same company, but it’s still an automated message. My only option, if I am not Michelle D., is to hang up. At first they called once every couple of weeks. Then it was once a week. The past few days they’ve called 3-4 times a day. If you call the number back you always get routed to voicemail. I’ve left 2-3 messages. My husband has left 3-4 messages. The calls aren’t stopping. I can’t get a real person on the line. This is becoming more than an occasional nuisance, and I can’t seem to do anything to stop it. Shouldn’t this be illegal? Anyone have any ideas?

Lost

On a sad note, we realized a couple of nights ago that one of our kitties is lost. She must have slipped out of the house earlier in the week when the weather was nice and we were playing outside. We had left the door open. Things have been so crazy this week with the illnesses, hospitalizations, and surgeries that we didn’t even realize she was missing for a couple of days. I feel terrible. We’ve searched the house and the neighborhood, but there’s no sign of her. Our chances of finding her seem poor. She was a great kitty. I'll miss her.

Our house = Plague ground zero

So, as I discussed, Michael had some kind of stomach bug last week. It hit him last Friday night to be exact. I didn’t mention it at the time, but my husband and I came down with it Sunday night. We thought Ava had escaped because she was at her my parents’ house Friday night. They even kept her Saturday night too to try to protect her. I didn’t know I was sick yet on Sunday so we had therapy with Ms. J that morning and our playdate. I found out later that Sara got sick this past week. Then Ava got sick anyway Monday night. So far, this bug had proven to be extremely contagious. But at that point we thought we were clear. No one had been sick since Monday night.

Thursday my mom had the day off so she spent the morning with us. The other set of grandparents were coming in to town this past weekend to celebrate Ava’s birthday with us. The party was planned for Saturday morning. Ava spent Saturday night at my parents’ house again so we could decorate. Saturday morning early my parents called asking us to come get her. My mom had the bug. My parents were going to have to miss the party. Mom had to have picked it up at our house Thursday morning even though no one was sick any longer.

So if you’re counting we now have infected all four of us, a playdate friend, and my mother. Victims = 6. We did warn my husband’s parents. But they had driven 8 hours to spend some time with us so they came. It was wonderful. We had a delightful party. The children and the grandparents played beautifully together. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday together. We had plans to go to a children’s museum together Monday. Nope. Both of my husband’s parents got sick last night. My dad got sick too. Now we’re up to 9 victims. Seriously, this thing has a 100% infection rate.

Everyone else had a terrible 5-8 hours and then several days of low appetite/energy. My mom, on the other hand, is now in the hospital. In an isolation room. She’s not getting better. Three days in her symptoms are still severe. I feel terrible. I’m worried.

So, due to a bug that passed through our household last weekend and we thought had passed, we managed to put my mother in the hospital and infect three other grandparents as well. Two of those grandparents drove 8 hours for the privilege. Not our most successful weekend ever.

Two years ago today

Two years ago today I held Ava for the first time. Happy second birthday to my little girl. It's such a cliche, but I fall in love more every day.

A new power put to use

Ava is learning to communicate and she loves it. She feels empowered. She can ask for the specific food she wants to eat. She can request the specific television show she wants to watch. She can ask her mama or daddy to drop what they’re doing and come play. She can tell her brother “no”. So many things are now possibilities that weren’t before. Mostly this is all good. However…

She’s also about to turn two. We’re celebrating her birthday this weekend, in fact. You know what they say about two. It often involves the words “terrible” and “tantrums”. Combine the explosion in her ability to communicate with the natural nature of a two year old and you get a child who has discovered how to protest. Loudly. At great length. Complete with tears and wailing. For example, we came in from a walk. Ava wanted to go back outside and I told her that we couldn’t because it was time to get dinner ready. She sat in front of the door and cried for 15 minutes. Then she finally noticed that I wasn’t paying attention and gave up. This is happening more and more frequently. Now it tends to be at least once a day.

Ava is also developing a mama thing. When she asks for milk she wants me to get it for her. If she needs to potty she wants me to take her. When it’s time to get ready for bed she wants me to read the books. And you should see the performance when I leave her at school two mornings a week. At first we indulged her. It didn’t seem like a big deal to just have me take her to the bathroom instead of her daddy. But then it got worse. The insistence on mama instead of daddy started coming more often and the protests became more dramatic. Now, she will simply refuse to use the bathroom unless it’s me. Even if my husband carries her to the bathroom and places her on the potty, she won’t go. The child certainly knows her own mind. I’ve seen her hold it for more than two hours rather than go for her daddy.

I don’t really know what to do about any of this other than to refuse to indulge her. Surely this is a stage that won’t last forever?

The secret and the consequences

I have discovered the secret to getting my children to enthusiastically finish off an entire bowl of carrots (or cucumbers or celery) and then come begging for more. First, provide dip. Second, give it to them before the meal. Serve it when they’re hungry, but you haven’t finished getting dinner ready yet. I put out a bowl of raw veggies with a side of dip and they go to town. If I serve it with the meal they’ll eat one or two. If I serve it before the meal they’ll polish off a whole bowl and ask for more.

I did this the other day, but told them “no” when they asked for seconds. I wanted them to be hungry for the rest of the meal. A few minutes later they wandered into the kitchen hands and faces covered in ranch dip. Since they were out of carrots they had just decided to finish off the dip with their hands. Sigh. I said to Michael as I was wiping off his hands, “In the future, we do not eat dip with our hands.” He asked, “Is this the future?”

A magical 90 seconds

Imagine, if you will, a play place at the mall. In it there is a small rowboat divided into two sections by a small bench to sit on. On one side of the bench, nestled in the spot where the feet would go if you were sitting on the bench, is a young girl perhaps 2 ½ or 3 years old. Ava crawled into the other side facing the bench and the girl.

Now, what would usually happen here is that the other child would make some sort of friendly advance towards Ava. She would respond by screaming and turning away as if she’d been attacked in some way and I would have to apologize to the parent and explain that Ava reacts that way to everyone. I promise. Their child had been perfectly polite – friendly even. Then Ava would run/crawl/climb away as quickly as possible while I try to explain to her that the other child was just trying to be nice.

This time was different – wonderfully different. The other little girl glanced at Ava, only briefly, and smiled and then began drumming on the bench. Ava smiled back and began drumming too. They were playing together. Both laughing. Making eye contact. When one would stop, the other would start again and more laughter and drumming ensued. At one point the other little girl stood up saying, “Up!” and Ava immediately mimicked her standing up and saying “Uh!” And then they both sat down and drummed some more.

Then two other little girls tried to climb in too and broke the magic spell. At that point things were way too crowded for Ava and she left. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than 90 seconds, but they were a magical 90 seconds.

Imagine, other parents take such things for granted.