Twilight and Madagascar

I was just explaining the plot of Twilight to Quinn, and he made a very astute observation. It has almost the exact same plot as Madagascar! One creature has to resist the temptation to eat his best friend.

The Santa Fe Children's Museum

On Tuesday I went to the Santa Fe Children's Museum with my friend Michaela, her son, John, and Calvin. Calvin wasn't feeling well, his asthma was bothering him, and so he cried the whole time I tried to install John's carseat, and was grumpy all the way down. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to go and have fun.

As soon as we got there he was ready to play. The boys ran right past the admissions desk before we even paid. Calvin was yelling "Ball!" "Fish!" And running from a rollercoaster track for pool balls to a fish tank. There was a mirror station where we could paint our own faces. I put stars and hearts on our cheeks and he yelled "Stars STars STars!" when he saw himself.

The best thing about the museum was that it was kind of messy, and you don't have to feel bad about the mess that your kid is making (because he's learning). Calvin found a concrete pool and water fountain system that was full of boats and rubber duckies. He loved throwing the sharks and octopi in the water. I gave him an apron to wear, but he still got so drenched that I had to buy him a t-shirt and borrow a pair of shorts.

John, who's three, was really into the bubbles. There was a tractor tire in the middle of the floor full of soapy water. Kids stood in the middle of it and pulled a string that was attached to a metal ring in the water, and it made a bubble that surrounded their bodies.

(Calvin also liked the bubbles, but he wanted to put his face in the soapy water so I had to keep him away from them).

After lunch we went outside, where there was a sand pit, lots of little huts and a music area where there were instruments made out of planks, pipes and hubcaps.

These balloons are freaking me out

Some of the words that Calvin knows aren't from books, but from memorable experiences. We went to the balloon fiesta last fall, and so you know that Calvin can say "balloon" perfectly. It's hard to say no to him when he points to the expensive long-lasting balloons in the grocery store and say's "balloon" as sweet as can be.

So for the past week and a half we have had a Sponge Bob Square Pants balloon and a globe balloon living as guests in our house. Just before I started I had to ask the globe to move over so I could sit at the computer, while Sponge Bob flails insanely in the wind outside the window.

At first I thought a balloon is an inanimate object, but they keep moving from room to room on their own. I'll turn the corner to the stairs in the middle of the night to find Sponge Bob grinning at me from the tall ceiling over our stairs. The globe is hovering over the stove, when I could have sworn it was in the living room just a minute ago.



They'll sneak up behind us when we're reading, jump out of the closet to scare us, or leer around the bathroom door. They spy on us while we're asleep. I was just trying to relax and read a book to Calvin and I could see them scooting along the ceiling. The globe ducked under the doorway to my bedroom, and I sent him out and locked the door behind me.

Next time Calvin asks for a balloon I might have to say no.

Big Dog Little Dog captures our bed drama

But they did not sleep well!

Upstairs Fred thrashed and crashed and thumped and bumped in the little bed and Downstairs Ted tossed and turned all over the big bed...Big dogs need big beds and little dogs need little beds.

Our final solution for the head hitting

I would like to say the magic potion that Dr. Krohn gave us for head hitting worked like a charm, but I accidentally poured it down the drain, and his teeth kept hurting, and he kept hitting his head until we reached a low point. I was tired and miserable, Calvin was just following me around and hitting his mouth and Quinn and I were bickering about it all the time.

Then a few days ago, at three in the afternoon, I tried to get Calvin to take a nap in his crib. He was obviously exhausted. I held him in my lap on the rocking chair, hoping he would doze off, but instead he flailed his arms like a crazy boy and so I put him in the crib and went downstairs to get a glass of water.

When I came back, I walked into the room and my heart nearly stopped. His face was bloody and he had blood all over the pillow that I wrapped the crib in. He made his lip bleed. I picked him up and brought him into the guest room and breat fed him laying down, and he fell asleep in a few seconds. I checked to make sure he didn't do anything bad to his teeth, but it looked like he just cut his lip.

He slept for almost two hours on the futon. But I was stressed out for the rest of the day. I took the pillow off the crib and washed it. This was not going to work. It was obvious that he just hates the crib and he's getting overly tired.

We started out co-sleeping with him when he was young and we've always struggled to get him to sleep in the crib. When we got our new place we thought that it would be a good time to get him to sleep there because he is in a separate room and so he can't see us, so will go to sleep. It has worked on and off, but in general, he hates it. The point of the crib is to get kids to sleep without hurting themselves, but so far Calvin's most serious injuries have come from the crib.

So when Quinn came home we put the futon mattress on the floor of the bedroom, and Calvin has been sleeping there. He doesn't hit his head as much, and he never does it at bedtime. He's catching up on sleep and is noticeably happier. If he falls out of bed, it doesn't matter because it's only a couple of inches off the floor.

I can't tell you how happy I am that we found a solution to this problem. He just wasn't happy and was hitting his head to let us know.