Nightmare U

It's almost Halloween, and we finally got our costumes: Chewbacca for Calvin, Darth Vader for Quinn and Jabba the Hutt for me. But last night, as we were getting ready to go swimming (we weren't even going to watch TV) Calvin suddenly started screaming, "Don't want to watch Star Wars!" and crying.  He was really upset, and we wondered if he had a Star Wars nightmare during his nap.

I think his imagination must be at a place where he's having nightmares and getting scared of the things that he sees on TV and in real life. I hope he won't get scared when we all put on our costumes.

It's not even like we watch shows that are that scary. There's a skit on his Sesame Street DVD where Smokey Robinson sings "U really got a hold on me" as a giant foam U attacks him and clings to his legs.
It's cute, I think, but lately Calvin's been crying when it comes on.  I have to fast forward through it! We figured he must have had a nightmare about that, and Quinn said, "If there's a heaven, I want to see Calvin's U dream."

The moral of the story is we don't let Calvin watch Dexter with us.

What's an appropriate reward for pooping near the potty?

After our vacation was over Quinn and I decided to try to get Calvin interested in potty training once again.  But, on top of the fact that he usually runs away when we suggest going potty, progress is still pretty shaky.  I think the main problem is that he's a little too creative with his technique.

First off, he always insists on being completely naked before attempting any bladder control methods.

Then, a week ago he was going to pee. Sounds simple enough. There was a potty seat facing the toilet and a stool in the middle.  I think he could choose between standing on the stool to pee in the toilet or sit on the potty seat, or maybe stand on the ground and pee in the potty.

So what does he do? He stands on the stool and aims for the potty, and pees on in, not in it. I'm trying to be encouraging while pulling out the Clorox wipes. I mean, he's close, right?

Yesterday he was leaning against the ottoman, and his face started to scrunch up in an all too familiar way. I rushed him into the bathroom and took off his diaper. "Hurry, sit on the potty and poop there!" I said.

"No!" He struggled to his feet. "No more potty chair!"

He got up on the stool, and I thought he might sit on the toilet.  Instead, from up on the stool, he lifted his leg like a dog and pooped on my foot!

It was seriously his best attempt at pooping so far and as an added bonus he sat on the potty afterwards and peed a little.  But I had more cleanup to do.

I gave him a congratulatory popsicle, and he didn't really want it. Oh well... I didn't really want him to poop on my foot either, so I guess we're even.

Chemistry set... or rubber chicken?

Last week we went to Border's because I had a gift certificate (thanks Melissa!) and Quinn wanted to get a book, and we also wanted to get an enriching toy or game for Calvin.  The last time I went there was a Dr. Suess letters game (Dr. Seuss's ABC Game) that was kind of like twister, and there were Krinkles and all kinds of puzzles. 

So what was Calvin's highbrow choice? A totally nasty rubber chicken that poops out an egg! He actually pulled out all of the rubber chickens and played with them one by one, and played with it all the way to the cash register (we had to wrestle it out of his hands to buy it) and then it was non-stop giggling in the back seat of the car going home, and he slept with it too. 

NM Education Department is Using Driving to Keep Kids in School

NM Education Department is Using Driving to Keep Kids in School

Lesson #1

In the past few weeks I've been potty training Calvin. So far it's been.... messy, what can I say?

We tried a few months ago, with him standing up, but nothing came out. Then my friends told me that I'm supposed to teach him how to pee sitting down, and when he masters that he can try it standing.

So I bought two potty pods.  They're these soft cushy throne-like potty chairs.  The first time he tried it, he peed. I thought, awesome, this is going to be easy. And in a way it is.

I don't have to bribe him.  He likes stickers fine, but he doesn't see the connection between getting stickers and peeing. What really motivates him is being able to pick up the little pee pot and pour it into the toilet and flush. (I know, that's supposed to be my job, but he wants to do it.) So we were both in the bathroom.  I was sitting on the toilet and he was on his potty chair.

Then, quick as a flash, he said, "Good job, Calvin," stood up and poured the pee right on my lap! I couldn't get up fast enough!

This other time he finished and just flung the pee towards the toilet, like a monkey, and of course, it landed on my shirt.

So we're getting there. It's a couple notches messier than changing diapers. I welcome advice.

Incarceron

I know. I usually use this blog to review books for really little kids. But Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher is the kind of book that you buy for yourself and keep it around until your kids are old enough to read for themselves. 

Its a YA fantasy about a seventeen year old boy, Finn, who is trapped in a living, breathing, ever-watching prison.  The prison was created 150 years ago to contain all the unwanted members of society forever.  Finn is convinced that, unlike the other prisoners there, he wasn't born inside the prison, and he wants to escape.  This review explains the plot really well. 

Catherine Fisher describes this bizarre world in such a clear and vivid way.  Quinn and I both devoured it and are ready to check out all of Fisher's books. 

The Times named it the Children's Book of the Year.

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I am going! by Mo Willems

Gerald the gets a little distressed when Piggy announces that he's going.

It reminds me of Calvin's routine when I drop him off a preschool.

After a fair amount of drama, we realize that Piggy is just getting a little lunch, so it shows the difference between going away permanently and just stepping out for a minute.

Pigs Make Me Sneeze, by Mo Willems

We have read Mo Willems' pigeon books until they fell apart, so I decided to buy Pigs Make Me Sneeze.  The elephant has a cold and he thinks that his piggy friend is making him sneeze, and starts to worry that they won't be able to be friends anymore.

I like kids' books where one of the characters makes a mistake and has to go through all kinds of emotional angst before they realize that they were wrong. I mean, how can you get any perspective on how how much you like being around your friends unless you think you're allergic to them?

Our favorite age-inappropriate television

Why oh Why am I writing about Lost on my children's books blog? I don't know, but for some reason Calvin is as addicted to it as everyone else in America.

We're total fuddy duddies when it comes to TV in our house - we just don't watch it.  But we do rent DVDs, and we just started watching Lost (so don't spoil it!)

We tried unsuccessfully to get Calvin to bed, and just let him watch it with us.  He was happy as a clam, sitting between us late at night on the couch with his bottle of milk, and people screaming on TV around the wreckage of their airplane.

The next night Calvin said, "Wanna watch the Lost?"

He asks to watch Lost all the time. Sometimes I get worried that it's going to warp his mind, like when the pregnant lady started screaming bloody murder and he imitated her for the next ten minutes. But clearly, something about the show appeals to him.  The waves? The golden lab? I don't know.

Added bonus: He's learned how to say L-O-S-T spells Lost!

Ducks have feelings too!

A couple days ago Calvin started to develop a nurturing side.  He started carrying around a fluffy duck that Katie gave him for his first Easter and announcing, "The duck is sad!"

Then he holds the duck out for me or Quinn to hug and kiss.  Then the duck will get sad again, so he'll hug the duck and say, "Oh, poor duck."

He's also been extra connected to other ducks.  We couldn't leave the pool until he said goodbye to the rubber duckie that he was playing with, and kissed it's bill.  We went to Ashley Pond and spent twenty minutes talking to the ducks and wondering what they were thinking about.

Then today, he brought the duck with him to preschool.  He's had a hard time adjusting to preschool, especially the Ark, where he seems to rotate between a few different classrooms.  He went in clutching the duck and he was still holding him when I picked him up three hours later. His teacher said that he did so much better and didn't get upset once.  When he got into the car, Calvin told me that the duck wants pizza.

Do you remember the words to Puff the Magic Dragon?

Quinn and I have been trying to sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" to Calvin since he was born, but can never remember the words. So I was delighted to find this book and CD set. It has the song "Puff the Magic Dragon," sung by Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary) in book form with paintings by Eric Puybaret. The CD also has a few other relaxing songs.

Our multi-lingual Easter

Calvin's favorite DVD is Here Come the 123's by they Might Be Giants, and he watches it so much that he has all the songs memorized.

On Easter we went to Vespers at the Orthodox Church in Los Alamos. Their tradition is to read the Easter gospel in every language that people speak. The whole thing was really impressive, because there were only 12 people there and the gospel was read in 9 different languages.

It was Quinn's job to read it in Spanish, and my job to read it in German. Quinn got up and was nervous, because his Spanish is pretty rusty. Calvin was sitting on the bench with a coloring book being pretty quiet, but when Quinn started to read in Spanish, Calvin started to sing one of the songs from the DVD - the part where they start to add in Spanish.

Quinn just lost it. He couldn't read because he was laughing too hard. I was laughing too. Unfortunately, nobody else could hear what Calvin was doing, so they must have just thought Quinn was just nervous.

Then it was my turn. I was trying so hard to concentrate and ignore Calvin, but it was impossible because he started stuffing crayons into the pockets of my dress, which made me laugh. It was not a good day for public second language speaking.

Blue Moo

This CD/ book set has 17 funny Sandra Boynton songs sung by a lot of famous singers. My favorite is BB King singing the One Shoe Blues. The book has illustrations for all the songs, plus all the music so you can learn to play the songs on the piano.

Our latest, have to read it five times in a row, favorite.

This version of Chicken Little has 5 out-of-it birds running around underneath an umbrella with no plan because the sky is falling.

It's fun to read out loud because you can make noises like "Bonk!" "AWK!" or "oof!" and "AhhhChoooo!" (sorry, I don't want to spoil the ending). Plus the pictures are colorful and goofy.

Fun book about shapes that helps your child draw

I recently bought "Shapes that Roll", by Karen Nagel. What really made it stand out for me was that it's a colorful book about shapes that comes with tracing paper tucked between each page so your kids can try to trace and color.

My son isn't quite ready to draw shapes, but I've noticed a huge difference in his coloring since he's been doing it in the book. He tries to imitate what he sees on the page.

Plus, the pages are glossy so if they're using a magic marker and they make a mistake and draw in the book, it will wipe off.

The Alphabet Puzzle is a hit!

I just bought a floor sized foam alphabet puzzle at the thrift store. And he has been going nuts over it. I can't keep it together because he keeps pulling the letters out and handing them to me.

My two year old can hang a spoon off his nose!

Of all the things Quinn has taught Calvin to do, I think this is what makes him the most proud!

Alison June

Last week Calvin and I got a chance to go out to North Carolina to visit my new niece, Alison June. It was a great week! I'm so glad that we could see her right away and help Katie while she was recovering. I was especially happy to see how quickly Katie and Derek got into the cuddling lifestyle that comes with having a newborn.

My only regret is that I forgot to take a picture of myself with the baby!

Firehouse field trip

Last week Calvin's class took a field trip to the firehouse, mainly because toddlers love fire trucks, but also to give them an experience outside the classroom.

The fire fighters mainly wanted to tell them that if their house was on fire they have to remember not to hide, and even if the fire fighters look scary in their uniforms, they should run towards them, and not away from them.

They all got to sit behind the wheel of the fire truck and explore the back of an ambulance.

Picture of Community Winds trumpet section

Last we I played in the Community Winds concert, and I have to say again how happy I am to get back into playing trumpet. When you have a child, it's easy to get paranoid and worry that that when you pursue your own interests you're somehow taking away from your parenting, by not spending time doing child centered things, but I think the opposite is true. Calvin learns so much when Quinn and I play our instruments, and he is really excited about it when we take our instruments out of their cases.

Natural History Museum

We had a good time at the natural History museum. I was surprised that Calvin wasn't that into the dinosaur bones. He barely gave them a second glance. But he loved looking at the fish, the snakes, the salamanders and butterflies. Then, upstairs there was a display about the origins of the universe, and it was in a dark tunnel with glowing pictures of the Big Bang and dust particles swirling and planets forming. He loved that. There was a video about pulsars, that showed how when a sun that's ten times the size of our sun dies, it turns into a pulsar, shooting light in a circular beam around us. That video gave us some perspective on what Quinn does all day at work (we usually just smile and nod when he talks about pulsars). Calvin was most excited about being able to drive the Mars rover with a remote control.

Bedtime is now officially a "man's job"

Last weekend, while on my trip to MN for Andy's wedding, I was so preoccupied with the fact I was traveling solo partly to wean Calvin, that I could hardly think of any appropriate conversation topics (that didn't revolve around boobs).

I couldn't help but wonder whether we would be successful. I mean, I'm happy to say that we've breastfed for 2 years (that's like, the gold standard according to La Leche League) and we've been tapering it off for the past 6 months. I was just worried that he would never be able to fall asleep.

Some people can get their kids to fall asleep at the drop of a hat - I never have been able to.

Would I cave in to him when the going gets rough? (Something told me that my husband and mother-in-law will frown upon that to say the least)

The first night home at bedtime I just went into my room and locked the door. While I took a shower and read I could hear all kinds of noises (screams, thumps, bumps, crashes and little fists pounding on my bedroom door) that I chose not to investigate.

Finally, the noises died down and ended completely. I tiptoed out of bed and unlocked the door so that Quinn (and only Quinn) could enter.

He did a few minutes later, looking a little ragged (you know, like I usually look like at bedtime). "Good job, Quinn," I said and we went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Calvin came in, and Quinn got him back to sleep without much fuss. Hallelujah!

The next night was the same thing, but when Calvin came in in the middle of the night Quinn was to tired and grumpy to deal with it. So I put on a turtle neck and zipped up a hoodie and went in. I couldn't have evasion be my only weapon in this battle of wills, we would have to go head to head.

I put him back to bed and he was screaming and flailing around because I wasn't giving him boobah. I sang to him and turned on the sleep sheep and he eventually climbed on top of my chest and fell asleep draped over me like that, like he used to when we had kangaroo care (when I tucked him into my bathrobe as a newborn and he fell asleep). The miracle was that I was able to roll him off and go back to bed.

The best thing was last night he fell asleep on the couch and I brought him up to bed without him waking up and he slept all night and didn't wake up until 7:30. I feel so well rested!

When he woke up, he asked me for a glass of orange juice and ate his rice krispies. I think this is going to work out!

Calvin's little fort

Gail Medrick, a professional office organizer, is helping me to set up my home office. The problem is that my "office" is scattered haphazardly all over my house. I know that I needed help, because my office is so non-functional that it makes it hard to get work done.

A year ago I had plans to turn the closet under the stairs into my office room. My idea was that I could put my filing cabinet in there, and use the shelves to keep track of my clips and clients. But after the filing cabinet went in, so did the skis and the books and the gloves and the propane camping oven. So I absolutely can't get to the filing cabinet, so the files have become completely useless. Instead I have piles.

On top of all that Calvin loves to go in there and mess around, and I'm always afraid that he;s going to get impaled on something.

Gail's solution to the problem was pretty interesting. At first she thought to make the room into an overflow room, but then had a much better idea. We will take out all the adult stuff. The files will go upstairs, into what will be my official home office and the skis will go into the storage outside. We'll just make it a room for Calvin. We can put books and a bean bag chair and markers and toys. He can go in there and it will be his own little world.

Preschool

This is Calvin's second week of preschool. He's been going to The Ark on Wednesdays and Fridays, and Little Forrest on Teusdays and Thursdays. The first few days it was a struggle, because (as always) he screamed bloody murder when it was time for me to drop him off. But yesterday he just cried for a couple of minutes and then started to have fun and participate. I guess all kids go through this when they go to preschool, because they're so attached.

Other than the stressful part, which I think is almost over, it's cool to pick him up and have him talk about new things. Yesterday he started to sing a song to me that I had never heard. He learned it at preschool! And he started to talk about things in a way that I didn't really teach him. It's amazing when you spend so much time with your kid, and then when they leave you for a little bit you have a chance to get to know them in a new way.

New Space Poems

I just got a book called Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars, by Douglas Florian, because Calvin just loves to read about space. It has poetry and collage-like paintings, about the stars and each planet. My favorite is the one about Pluto, because it says that pluto used to be a planet, until it got fired. (It's kind of a sore subject in my house that Pluto is no longer a planet).