This week Will’s been pulling his ancient “Ally did it!” trick out of the bag. It was way back in November when I last recorded Will’s habit of blaming his imaginary friend Ally for evil deeds. Ally shaped up for a long while, but apparently his mischievous instincts have returned.
Yesterday I caught Will in the act of spitting on the top of Owen’s head, while Owen sat playing with blocks, oblivious to Will’s antics. I could see the light of intrigue in Will’s eyes, and I’m pretty sure I could read his thoughts: “I wonder if I can make this spit land right there in the middle of Owen’s head. I wonder how Owen will react? Bulls eye!”
I instinctively admonished Will immediately -- I don't remember my words but I was letting Will know how inapprorpriate it is to spit on another person and asking him how he'd feel if another person spit on him. And Will, knowing full well that I’d seen him, shouted in protest, “I didn’t do it! Ally spit on Owen.”
He’d pulled the same stunt on Rob, just a couple days before, then got more insistent about Ally being the culprit when Rob said: “Will, I saw you do it.” (I can’t even remember what the transgression was that time but Will got all worked up, protesting his innocence, shouting that Ally had done it and on and on.)
So this time -- since I was fresh off a new chapter in the “Ten Greatest Gifts” book, currently in a section where Steven Vannoy talks about guiding kids through questions not admonishments -- I decided to change course and play along with Will.
“How do you think we can help Ally learn that it’s not okay to spit on Owen?” I asked him.
Will thought about it and decided we should tell him together. First, though, Ally had to go the bathroom, then Ally had to wash his hands. And then, when Will decided Ally was ready, we went over to a little patch of thin air together and told “Ally” that it’s important to be kind to Owen and that we don’t spit on people in our family.
Will did most of the talking. “Spitting is yucky,” he told Ally.
And we’ll see how it goes from here on out, but as of yet neither Ally nor Will has spat upon the nearly hairless head of Owen again.
Showing posts with label Ally and Puff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ally and Puff. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2008
Monday, November 26, 2007
An id called Ally
It occurred to me today that Ally (of imaginary friend duo Puff and Ally) is sort of like Will’s id. They are both boys exactly the same age, and of late, Ally has become the kid that does the things that Will’s learning not to do – or that he at least knows he shouldn’t do:
Last night, for example, Will shouted out, “Ally just sprayed the wall!” Will, who’d gotten his hands on a spray bottle in the bathroom, showed us a spot on the bathroom wall, where Ally had done the misdeed. It looked dry enough, so maybe it really was just invisible Ally spraying his invisible spray – but it was hard to imagine that Will hadn’t been tempted to do a quick authentic spray himself.
Often there’s no denying that Will’s crossed the line, and as we embark on a conversation about why he needs to avoid repeating action X in the future (“patting” Owen with a bit too much vigor, for example) he’ll try to divert the conversation to Ally, who inevitably has committed a similar and often slightly worse crime. “Yeah, but Ally is always hitting people,” he’ll say, shaking his head in disapproval.
And sometimes Will likes to point out how he has advanced a bit beyond Ally. We’ve been teaching Will to recognize the 5, 6 and 7 on the left hand side of his alarm clock (He’s mastered 5 is an S; 6 looks like a G and he’s working on 7 as an upside down L – and for a week now he’s celebrated the fact that he got up on the 6 or 7 – “Yeah, but we don’t get up at 5,” he says with a smile.) Today when he got up at 7:05, he marched into our room and started discussing the fact that: “Ally keeps getting up at 5. I keep telling him not to but he just eats his oatmeal.”
Poor Ally. He can’t do anything right.
Last night, for example, Will shouted out, “Ally just sprayed the wall!” Will, who’d gotten his hands on a spray bottle in the bathroom, showed us a spot on the bathroom wall, where Ally had done the misdeed. It looked dry enough, so maybe it really was just invisible Ally spraying his invisible spray – but it was hard to imagine that Will hadn’t been tempted to do a quick authentic spray himself.
Often there’s no denying that Will’s crossed the line, and as we embark on a conversation about why he needs to avoid repeating action X in the future (“patting” Owen with a bit too much vigor, for example) he’ll try to divert the conversation to Ally, who inevitably has committed a similar and often slightly worse crime. “Yeah, but Ally is always hitting people,” he’ll say, shaking his head in disapproval.
And sometimes Will likes to point out how he has advanced a bit beyond Ally. We’ve been teaching Will to recognize the 5, 6 and 7 on the left hand side of his alarm clock (He’s mastered 5 is an S; 6 looks like a G and he’s working on 7 as an upside down L – and for a week now he’s celebrated the fact that he got up on the 6 or 7 – “Yeah, but we don’t get up at 5,” he says with a smile.) Today when he got up at 7:05, he marched into our room and started discussing the fact that: “Ally keeps getting up at 5. I keep telling him not to but he just eats his oatmeal.”
Poor Ally. He can’t do anything right.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Road trip survival guide
How to survive a 310-mile road trip as a solo parent with an infant and a toddler:
1. If you let your husband leave you at the beach with your kids for an important meeting, make sure he has to go back on an overnight Greyhound (this should be at least a 12 hour, 2- connection journey). Since you know he’s been punished too, it’ll keep the resentment to a minimum when your own trip starts to go awry.
2. If it looks like a five-hour drive, bank on seven after you factor in nursing and bathroom stops, backed-up traffic and multiple rainstorms.
3. If you’re leaving your beachfront cabin on a windless days and mosquitoes and biting sand fleas are hovering around your car in droves: Get the car packed and then shut yourself inside, slaughter 50 biting sand fleas on the back windshield and crawl around the car until you’ve struck a fatal hand-clapping blow to six mosquitoes or so. Then hug the grandparents in the cabin, pack the infant in his car seat topped with mosquito netting, run for the car and don’t belt the toddler in until after the doors are closed. Slaughter another 30 sand fleas and a few more mosquitoes, strip the netting off the infant seat, crawl up to the driver’s seat, blow kisses to the grandparents through the window and hit the road.
4. When your toddler (who is unversed in juice boxes – just gets them on road trips) insists he can put the straw in his juice box he’s probably right. You don’t need to pull over and do that one together. But be prepared once you’re back on the road, to change his shirt when he squeezes the undrunk box too tight and douses himself with juice. Can’t find an extra shirt because it’s packed away in a suitcase in the center of the trunk? A pajama top will do.
5. When your toddler asks “When are we going to get there?” 20 minutes into the seven hour trip start pointing out exciting roadside attractions. When he tells you the flag you pointed out on a colonial-era house isn’t exciting – firetrucks and ambulances ARE exciting, admit that he’s probably right.
6. Since you won’t see a single fire truck or ambulance on the whole 310-mile journey, point out every motorcycle, cow, salt marsh, boat, school bus, cotton field and digger that you do see. Tell your toddler about how his pajama shirt is made of cotton and about how birds love to lurk in the salt marsh, where they can find lots of great things to eat. If nothing else, it’ll help you to stay awake.
7. Never stop the car unless at least one of the kids is crying.
8. Bring along the CD “Country Goes Raffi.” Play it again and again. Repeat “Shake your Sillies Out” and “Baby Beluga” time after time, if that’s what the toddler requests. Sing along loudly if you expect it to entertain the infant too. When you realize that the infant likes “Baby Dear,” which is the one song that bores your toddler (sorry Alison Krauss) – teach your toddler to think of it as a song about his baby brother. Then play “Baby Dear” again and again.
9. Don’t even think about playing your own music when the kids are sleeping; the infant will wake up.
10. Nurse a Coke over the space of two hours. If you don’t normally drink caffeine, enjoy the caffeine high as you drive through a light rain, glance back at your lovely sleeping boys and wonder how this driving solo thing could be so easy.
11. Laugh at yourself shortly thereafter when the infant starts crying on a rural stretch of Interstate and you exit at a gas-stationless road, pull over on a dirt road and realize you can’t open the windows while nursing because there are mosquitoes lurking outside here too.
12. Don’t ask your toddler if he needs to pee when he wakes up sleepy at this nursing stop. He’ll just say no. And he’ll be wrong.
13. When your normally potty-trained toddler informs you that his pants are wet, call an end to the nursing for the infant and cheerfully find a new pair of underwear and pants for the toddler. Dab the car seat with a paper towel.
14. Kill the mosquito that got in the car when you were changing the clothes.
15. Don’t rub your eyes in a moment of weariness. You’ll probably dislodge a contact lens.
16. If you violate rule 15, know that it is possible to insert a contact lens with a single hand while driving down the Interstate and staying in your lane and attending to the cars around you. You probably shouldn’t do it, and it’ll take at least a dozen attempts and your lens will be almost shriveled and deformed before you get it back in, but at least you won’t have to wake up the kids with another stop.
17. When your toddler says he needs to pee, pull over immediately. If you land at a Subway, they might just have a clean restroom big enough that you won’t have to put the infant in a front pack; just leave him in the car seat. And they might have an unoccupied outdoor patio area with an assortment of Halloween- and nature-themed windsocks for both toddler and infant to gaze at, as well as semi-privacy for nursing. Buy your sugar-deprived toddler a 42-cent cookie for making it so far without whining (even if he has managed to wet every article of clothing he started the day in). Don’t tell him you’re glad he’s not whining – just call him your travelin’ hero and let him enjoy the cookie.
18. When your toddler tells you stories about Ally and Puff from the back seat listen to each word attentively.
19. When your infant starts to scream, you can pull over to the right of one of those turn-off lanes leading off the freeway and insert a pacifier with minimal stopping time.
20. When the pacifier falls out a couple minutes later, you can pull over again.
21. When the pacifier falls out and infant screaming resumes for the third or fourth time, begin weighing the costs and benefits of minutes-long pacifier use and time lost stopping to reinsert the pacifier. Suck it up and listen to the poor kid scream. Sing and talk to him if it makes you feel better, but it won’t do a bit of good. Thank someone or something way up high for not allowing the screaming to ensue full force until the final 45 minutes of your seven-hour trip.
22. Swear to yourself you’ll never do this again.
23. When your toddler says he needs to pee just 25 minutes from home pull over immediately on a rural dirt driveway and let the kid make an attempt. When he hesitates and declares instead he needs to poop, haul him a bit further out of sight (brambles make good screen) and let him do the deed.
24. Clean the toddler up and get him back in his car seat. Then find a plastic bag and about a dozen wipes to pick up the deposit and cart it back home. Sure for a half-second you might consider leaving it, but if you get irked by the dog owners who don’t clean up after their leashed-ones at the park, think of what these property owners would think of you as a negligent human-owner.
25. Put the plastic bag in the trunk and don’t forget to tell your husband about its precise location when you finally do make it home and he starts unloading the car.
26. Tolerate some final infant screaming, wish your way through the stop lights (where the wailing reaches its highest pitches). When you get within a mile of home and your infant suddenly stops crying and starts gazing at his big brother from his car seat and smiling through his teary eyes, don’t worry if you get a little misty eyed yourself: You’re almost home and you’ve got yourself a couple of mini road warriors.
27. When you get inside hug that infant tight and cover him with kisses and swear off all solo road trips until at least 24 months have gone by. Give your toddler hero some hugs and kisses too. And if you’re feeling generous save a couple for the husband who went home early. But let him handle that plastic bag in the trunk of the car.
1. If you let your husband leave you at the beach with your kids for an important meeting, make sure he has to go back on an overnight Greyhound (this should be at least a 12 hour, 2- connection journey). Since you know he’s been punished too, it’ll keep the resentment to a minimum when your own trip starts to go awry.
2. If it looks like a five-hour drive, bank on seven after you factor in nursing and bathroom stops, backed-up traffic and multiple rainstorms.
3. If you’re leaving your beachfront cabin on a windless days and mosquitoes and biting sand fleas are hovering around your car in droves: Get the car packed and then shut yourself inside, slaughter 50 biting sand fleas on the back windshield and crawl around the car until you’ve struck a fatal hand-clapping blow to six mosquitoes or so. Then hug the grandparents in the cabin, pack the infant in his car seat topped with mosquito netting, run for the car and don’t belt the toddler in until after the doors are closed. Slaughter another 30 sand fleas and a few more mosquitoes, strip the netting off the infant seat, crawl up to the driver’s seat, blow kisses to the grandparents through the window and hit the road.
4. When your toddler (who is unversed in juice boxes – just gets them on road trips) insists he can put the straw in his juice box he’s probably right. You don’t need to pull over and do that one together. But be prepared once you’re back on the road, to change his shirt when he squeezes the undrunk box too tight and douses himself with juice. Can’t find an extra shirt because it’s packed away in a suitcase in the center of the trunk? A pajama top will do.
5. When your toddler asks “When are we going to get there?” 20 minutes into the seven hour trip start pointing out exciting roadside attractions. When he tells you the flag you pointed out on a colonial-era house isn’t exciting – firetrucks and ambulances ARE exciting, admit that he’s probably right.
6. Since you won’t see a single fire truck or ambulance on the whole 310-mile journey, point out every motorcycle, cow, salt marsh, boat, school bus, cotton field and digger that you do see. Tell your toddler about how his pajama shirt is made of cotton and about how birds love to lurk in the salt marsh, where they can find lots of great things to eat. If nothing else, it’ll help you to stay awake.
7. Never stop the car unless at least one of the kids is crying.
8. Bring along the CD “Country Goes Raffi.” Play it again and again. Repeat “Shake your Sillies Out” and “Baby Beluga” time after time, if that’s what the toddler requests. Sing along loudly if you expect it to entertain the infant too. When you realize that the infant likes “Baby Dear,” which is the one song that bores your toddler (sorry Alison Krauss) – teach your toddler to think of it as a song about his baby brother. Then play “Baby Dear” again and again.
9. Don’t even think about playing your own music when the kids are sleeping; the infant will wake up.
10. Nurse a Coke over the space of two hours. If you don’t normally drink caffeine, enjoy the caffeine high as you drive through a light rain, glance back at your lovely sleeping boys and wonder how this driving solo thing could be so easy.
11. Laugh at yourself shortly thereafter when the infant starts crying on a rural stretch of Interstate and you exit at a gas-stationless road, pull over on a dirt road and realize you can’t open the windows while nursing because there are mosquitoes lurking outside here too.
12. Don’t ask your toddler if he needs to pee when he wakes up sleepy at this nursing stop. He’ll just say no. And he’ll be wrong.
13. When your normally potty-trained toddler informs you that his pants are wet, call an end to the nursing for the infant and cheerfully find a new pair of underwear and pants for the toddler. Dab the car seat with a paper towel.
14. Kill the mosquito that got in the car when you were changing the clothes.
15. Don’t rub your eyes in a moment of weariness. You’ll probably dislodge a contact lens.
16. If you violate rule 15, know that it is possible to insert a contact lens with a single hand while driving down the Interstate and staying in your lane and attending to the cars around you. You probably shouldn’t do it, and it’ll take at least a dozen attempts and your lens will be almost shriveled and deformed before you get it back in, but at least you won’t have to wake up the kids with another stop.
17. When your toddler says he needs to pee, pull over immediately. If you land at a Subway, they might just have a clean restroom big enough that you won’t have to put the infant in a front pack; just leave him in the car seat. And they might have an unoccupied outdoor patio area with an assortment of Halloween- and nature-themed windsocks for both toddler and infant to gaze at, as well as semi-privacy for nursing. Buy your sugar-deprived toddler a 42-cent cookie for making it so far without whining (even if he has managed to wet every article of clothing he started the day in). Don’t tell him you’re glad he’s not whining – just call him your travelin’ hero and let him enjoy the cookie.
18. When your toddler tells you stories about Ally and Puff from the back seat listen to each word attentively.
19. When your infant starts to scream, you can pull over to the right of one of those turn-off lanes leading off the freeway and insert a pacifier with minimal stopping time.
20. When the pacifier falls out a couple minutes later, you can pull over again.
21. When the pacifier falls out and infant screaming resumes for the third or fourth time, begin weighing the costs and benefits of minutes-long pacifier use and time lost stopping to reinsert the pacifier. Suck it up and listen to the poor kid scream. Sing and talk to him if it makes you feel better, but it won’t do a bit of good. Thank someone or something way up high for not allowing the screaming to ensue full force until the final 45 minutes of your seven-hour trip.
22. Swear to yourself you’ll never do this again.
23. When your toddler says he needs to pee just 25 minutes from home pull over immediately on a rural dirt driveway and let the kid make an attempt. When he hesitates and declares instead he needs to poop, haul him a bit further out of sight (brambles make good screen) and let him do the deed.
24. Clean the toddler up and get him back in his car seat. Then find a plastic bag and about a dozen wipes to pick up the deposit and cart it back home. Sure for a half-second you might consider leaving it, but if you get irked by the dog owners who don’t clean up after their leashed-ones at the park, think of what these property owners would think of you as a negligent human-owner.
25. Put the plastic bag in the trunk and don’t forget to tell your husband about its precise location when you finally do make it home and he starts unloading the car.
26. Tolerate some final infant screaming, wish your way through the stop lights (where the wailing reaches its highest pitches). When you get within a mile of home and your infant suddenly stops crying and starts gazing at his big brother from his car seat and smiling through his teary eyes, don’t worry if you get a little misty eyed yourself: You’re almost home and you’ve got yourself a couple of mini road warriors.
27. When you get inside hug that infant tight and cover him with kisses and swear off all solo road trips until at least 24 months have gone by. Give your toddler hero some hugs and kisses too. And if you’re feeling generous save a couple for the husband who went home early. But let him handle that plastic bag in the trunk of the car.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Guns in the house?
Will woke up yesterday all lovey-gushy.
Daddy, I love you so much. You’re my best friend. And Owen’s my best friend and Mommy’s my best friend. 'Cause I love Owen and Mommy and you so much.
We told Will how much we loved him too. But that was enough of the niceties for Will.
But Ally and Puff and all my other friends aren’t very nice. I’m going to shoot them down with a gun.
My fumbling response: You wouldn’t want to do that, because they wouldn’t be around anymore. Guns can kill people.
Rob: Where did you hear about guns Will?
I just hold it in my hand and I shoot them down.
Rob: Do you pretend that you have guns with your friends at school.
Yeah. And I just shoot them down...
I know guns will be a part of Will’s play and I’m not going to hover and censor him (although I’m not planning any plastic machine gun purchases for Christmas). But I do need to start talking with him now about the dangers of real guns.
This article on Parents.com suggests that as parents we should probably be asking our friends if they keep guns in their house, and if so what safety measures have been taken to ensure children have no access to them, before we send our explorative children over to play. It cites a recent Pediatrics report that nearly 1.7 million American children live in homes with unlocked loaded firearms and a study by San Francisco General Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health that found that: “In 39 percent of families where parents said their 5- to 14-year-olds didn't know where guns were stored, the kids actually did know the location. In 22 percent of homes where the parents said their children had never handled a gun, the kids told researchers that they had.”
I’ve very rarely left Will at a friend’s house – usually I still accompany him for play dates – but once he starts going solo more these are questions I’m probably going to start asking, awkward as it might feel at first. I can see how little Will understands about life and death and irreversible dangers, and guns are one place where there’s no room for exploration.
Daddy, I love you so much. You’re my best friend. And Owen’s my best friend and Mommy’s my best friend. 'Cause I love Owen and Mommy and you so much.
We told Will how much we loved him too. But that was enough of the niceties for Will.
But Ally and Puff and all my other friends aren’t very nice. I’m going to shoot them down with a gun.
My fumbling response: You wouldn’t want to do that, because they wouldn’t be around anymore. Guns can kill people.
Rob: Where did you hear about guns Will?
I just hold it in my hand and I shoot them down.
Rob: Do you pretend that you have guns with your friends at school.
Yeah. And I just shoot them down...
I know guns will be a part of Will’s play and I’m not going to hover and censor him (although I’m not planning any plastic machine gun purchases for Christmas). But I do need to start talking with him now about the dangers of real guns.
This article on Parents.com suggests that as parents we should probably be asking our friends if they keep guns in their house, and if so what safety measures have been taken to ensure children have no access to them, before we send our explorative children over to play. It cites a recent Pediatrics report that nearly 1.7 million American children live in homes with unlocked loaded firearms and a study by San Francisco General Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health that found that: “In 39 percent of families where parents said their 5- to 14-year-olds didn't know where guns were stored, the kids actually did know the location. In 22 percent of homes where the parents said their children had never handled a gun, the kids told researchers that they had.”
I’ve very rarely left Will at a friend’s house – usually I still accompany him for play dates – but once he starts going solo more these are questions I’m probably going to start asking, awkward as it might feel at first. I can see how little Will understands about life and death and irreversible dangers, and guns are one place where there’s no room for exploration.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Inflatable buddies -- deflatable bullies
The nice thing about imaginary friends is that when they bully you or generally behave unpleasantly, you can just swap 'em out for a new friend – maybe of the same name.
Here’s how Will traded in his old friend Ally yesterday:
I have a new Ally Mama, 'cause the old Ally wasn’t being nice.
He wasn’t? What did the old Ally do?
He poked me.
So what did you do about that?
I poured LEGOs all over him. And then I got a new Ally.
How does that work?
You just get it and pump it up and it turns into a new Ally.
Nothing like inflatable – and deflatable – friends for taking the headache out of conflict resolution. Ally and Puff and Will periodically push each other to the ground or hit each other – and Will’s none the worse for wear. No bruises, no blood, no tears. It’s my kind of roughhousing.
Here’s how Will traded in his old friend Ally yesterday:
I have a new Ally Mama, 'cause the old Ally wasn’t being nice.
He wasn’t? What did the old Ally do?
He poked me.
So what did you do about that?
I poured LEGOs all over him. And then I got a new Ally.
How does that work?
You just get it and pump it up and it turns into a new Ally.
Nothing like inflatable – and deflatable – friends for taking the headache out of conflict resolution. Ally and Puff and Will periodically push each other to the ground or hit each other – and Will’s none the worse for wear. No bruises, no blood, no tears. It’s my kind of roughhousing.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Potatoes, butter knives and all the simple things
I spent today alone with the boys (no preschool, no playdates, no errands, no scheduled anything) and we were all so happy. It’s a reminder to me of why I keep Will at home at least a couple days a week so he has plenty of time to discover his own fun (camping in sheet-tents in our bedroom, reading books to himself in his bedroom, sorting playing cards in the living room, “ice-skating,” running and purposefully falling throughout the house, and of course inventing stories with Ally and Puff as central characters). 
On our daily walk with the gargantuan double stroller Will and I talked all the way to the park --- about the birds, cats, construction site, and mail man we passed, about life, about Fresh Burger. And for the first time, Owen stayed awake for the whole 20-minute journey, which until now has always lulled him to sleep at some point. He was enjoying our first semi-cool morning outdoors so much that he also stayed happily awake while Will ran around at the playground.
Owen was also thoughtful enough to go to sleep in time for Will and I to
enjoy lunch and naptime reading, just the two of us. And then miracle of miracles, both boys napped in unison for an hour and a half.
On our daily walk with the gargantuan double stroller Will and I talked all the way to the park --- about the birds, cats, construction site, and mail man we passed, about life, about Fresh Burger. And for the first time, Owen stayed awake for the whole 20-minute journey, which until now has always lulled him to sleep at some point. He was enjoying our first semi-cool morning outdoors so much that he also stayed happily awake while Will ran around at the playground.
Back at home Will and I cooked up a barley/kale/carrot/potato/kidney bean stew for dinner (which Will would later devour, once we extracted the kale from his serving) and Will discovered that he loves 
cutting potato wedges with a kid-sized butter knife. We decided we were putting on a cooking show for Owen – and we were careful to try to elicit coos and smiles, which are more exuberant and expressive than ever, from him as we worked. (I’m pretty certain that there’s something biologically rigged about those baby “social smiles” that forces us as parents to engage with our little helpless infants as much as possible. Owen’s smiles are so intoxicatingly full of happiness that you can’t help but do silly songs and dances and speeches to illicit more of them. And so sweet baby Owen, who might otherwise get ignored for little lapses of time, keeps learning from us.)
cutting potato wedges with a kid-sized butter knife. We decided we were putting on a cooking show for Owen – and we were careful to try to elicit coos and smiles, which are more exuberant and expressive than ever, from him as we worked. (I’m pretty certain that there’s something biologically rigged about those baby “social smiles” that forces us as parents to engage with our little helpless infants as much as possible. Owen’s smiles are so intoxicatingly full of happiness that you can’t help but do silly songs and dances and speeches to illicit more of them. And so sweet baby Owen, who might otherwise get ignored for little lapses of time, keeps learning from us.) Owen was also thoughtful enough to go to sleep in time for Will and I to
enjoy lunch and naptime reading, just the two of us. And then miracle of miracles, both boys napped in unison for an hour and a half. Who could ask for more?
For the thrifty shopper in you: I also found a book at the Just 4 Kidz Consignments sale that made Will laugh and laugh. If you're a Columbus area-mom you might want to check out their Saturday sale for lots of half-price bargains.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Welcome to Fresh Burger
Owen has been battling a post-vaccine fever that’s been hovering just over 101 – high enough that the nurse told us we needed to make a return visit to the doctor’s office to make sure hot baby was not undergoing excessive complications from the shots. So we enjoyed morning number two in the doctor’s office (where I always wonder what sick germs the boys are contracting as we get shuffled from room to room) and canceled a planned walk to the park with Will’s good friend and his mom. That, of course, frustrated Will, but he went along surprisingly patiently with the change in plans.
Then as he was eating lunch, he reflected on his morning. “Mom, I didn’t have a tantrum,” he said. We talked together about how as he’s getting older he’s beginning to get better at talking about his frustration and avoiding those screaming, tearful blow-ups that make us all miserable. Of course, I’m thinking all the while about the afternoon of successive tantrums we barely survived two days ago as Will readjusted to life without water sports and constant attention from his grandparents and Aunt Leash.
But that’s old news too Will. He matured so much in two days. He says, “When I was young I used to have tantrums too.”
And for now I’m happy to play along with the fantasy that those days are over.
Speaking of fantasies, here’s an update on “Ally and Puff and all my other friends,” which make daily and sometimes hourly appearances in our home. “All my other friends” have lately acquired names. Yesterday Rob and I listened to the adventures of Wake-we, Suey and Upkine Baby over breakfast, in which Wake-we, Suey and Upkine Baby all went looking for Ally and Puff who, it turned out, were hiding in the mud. Then Wake-we started climbing all over houses and whales and things: “Wakewe used to come upside the house and downside the house and he’d tumble down the stairs, but I didn’t watch him because I was making a hot dog with Ally And Puff. And then he jumped off a whale and I didn’t look because I was making a hot dog with Ally and Puff but then he just tumbled off and fell right in my arms.”
For weeks now, Ally, Puff, Will and “all my other friends” have been living in the town of “Fresh Burger.” We finally learned where that was when Will pointed it out on his placemat map. Turns out they’re living smack dab in the middle of the Caspian Sea (that’s just north of Iran, in case you’re a geography fool like me). To get there, they enlist a pilot, who first drives a car, then flies a plane, and for the final leg of the journey, drives a truck into Fresh Burger. As Will explains, “It’s a big long way.”
Then as he was eating lunch, he reflected on his morning. “Mom, I didn’t have a tantrum,” he said. We talked together about how as he’s getting older he’s beginning to get better at talking about his frustration and avoiding those screaming, tearful blow-ups that make us all miserable. Of course, I’m thinking all the while about the afternoon of successive tantrums we barely survived two days ago as Will readjusted to life without water sports and constant attention from his grandparents and Aunt Leash.
But that’s old news too Will. He matured so much in two days. He says, “When I was young I used to have tantrums too.”
And for now I’m happy to play along with the fantasy that those days are over.
Speaking of fantasies, here’s an update on “Ally and Puff and all my other friends,” which make daily and sometimes hourly appearances in our home. “All my other friends” have lately acquired names. Yesterday Rob and I listened to the adventures of Wake-we, Suey and Upkine Baby over breakfast, in which Wake-we, Suey and Upkine Baby all went looking for Ally and Puff who, it turned out, were hiding in the mud. Then Wake-we started climbing all over houses and whales and things: “Wakewe used to come upside the house and downside the house and he’d tumble down the stairs, but I didn’t watch him because I was making a hot dog with Ally And Puff. And then he jumped off a whale and I didn’t look because I was making a hot dog with Ally and Puff but then he just tumbled off and fell right in my arms.”
For weeks now, Ally, Puff, Will and “all my other friends” have been living in the town of “Fresh Burger.” We finally learned where that was when Will pointed it out on his placemat map. Turns out they’re living smack dab in the middle of the Caspian Sea (that’s just north of Iran, in case you’re a geography fool like me). To get there, they enlist a pilot, who first drives a car, then flies a plane, and for the final leg of the journey, drives a truck into Fresh Burger. As Will explains, “It’s a big long way.”
Monday, September 3, 2007
Eating machine
This weekend we enjoyed a short but wonderful visit from our old college friend Sean and his wife, Priya, who live much too far away in Seattle. After a day at Callaway Gardens and a dinner in downtown Columbus, Priya got a taste of Will’s desperate passion for moon-watching.Here’s the scene driving home, with Will moon searching from the back seat and me explaining away our inability to spot that soft magical night light:
I can’t see the moon. Where is the moon?
I don’t know Will. These tall buildings may be blocking our view of it.
I’m going to eat up all the buildings so I can see the moon.
That would be something to watch you eat up all the buildings. But it might also be that we can’t see the moon because it’s a cloudy night and the clouds are blocking our view of it.
I’m going to kick all those clouds into the road and eat up all the buildings so I can see the moon.
Soon after, as we gave goodbye hugs to Sean and Priya before Will went to bed (they had an early morning flight to catch), Will threatened quite sweetly to eat them up so that they could stay with us too.
But they got away undigested and the moon stayed tucked behind the clouds and we're all feeling a little sad about it now. (There is still hope, however, that we won't go years between our visits with Sean and Priya this time. Will, who sort of enslaved Priya and Sean as his playmates this weekend, is currently devising a little scheme in which he and Ally hop on their motorcycle and go and retrieve both of them from their "far, far away" home.)
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Monster patrol
Will’s bedime rituals and night-waking problems are so ridiculous and complicated and problematic for us that I’ve been avoiding discussing the issue here for a good while. It’s probably the most obvious place where Rob and I feel like we’ve just mucked things up as parents.
Finally this week, we’ve made a deal with Will. If he will stay in bed, rather than fall aslee
p on the carpet, then Rob will stand guard outside the door for 10 minutes. He sits on a chair there, doing crosswords or napping – but so far no monsters, or cows or coyotes have made it past him. And so far Will is sleeping quite well. The guard-the-door trick is an idea borrowed from my dad, who used to sit outside my door guarding me from spiders when I was around Will’s age. Nighttime fearfulness runs in the family, and I remember being greatly comforted by having my dad as nightwatchman in the lighted hallway outside my door.
“Dad, remember how you sit in the chair when I go to sleep?” he asks Rob. “I’m going to do that for Ally and Puff. I’m gong to make sure any monsters don’t get in.”
I’m not going to bore you with the whole long story. But here’s evidence that Will’s weird when it comes to bedtime (and that we’re equally weird for complying with his requests):
We went through a little sleep program (courtesy of Marc Weissbluth’s book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child,”) that involved putting Will back in his bed every time he got up, even when it took dozens of repetitions (130-something was our record on our first night following the plan for treating "Jack-in-the-Box Syndrome"). Finally we resorted to locking the door for five minutes so Will could cry things out for a bit and then he would agree to be put in bed. Will got to the point of asking us to lock his door and then lying on the carpet beside the door so he could peer through the little crack down the hallway and (“see what you are doing”) until he fell asleep. Once we heard the deep breathing of sleep, Rob would gently push the door open, pick Will up and put him in bed. Until he woke up the next time that night.
We went through a little sleep program (courtesy of Marc Weissbluth’s book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child,”) that involved putting Will back in his bed every time he got up, even when it took dozens of repetitions (130-something was our record on our first night following the plan for treating "Jack-in-the-Box Syndrome"). Finally we resorted to locking the door for five minutes so Will could cry things out for a bit and then he would agree to be put in bed. Will got to the point of asking us to lock his door and then lying on the carpet beside the door so he could peer through the little crack down the hallway and (“see what you are doing”) until he fell asleep. Once we heard the deep breathing of sleep, Rob would gently push the door open, pick Will up and put him in bed. Until he woke up the next time that night.
Finally this week, we’ve made a deal with Will. If he will stay in bed, rather than fall aslee
p on the carpet, then Rob will stand guard outside the door for 10 minutes. He sits on a chair there, doing crosswords or napping – but so far no monsters, or cows or coyotes have made it past him. And so far Will is sleeping quite well. The guard-the-door trick is an idea borrowed from my dad, who used to sit outside my door guarding me from spiders when I was around Will’s age. Nighttime fearfulness runs in the family, and I remember being greatly comforted by having my dad as nightwatchman in the lighted hallway outside my door.Now during the day Will’s started doing the same thing for his imaginary friends. He makes a bedroom out of our living room by lining both entrances to the room with cars that serve as the “gates” to the room, and then he parks his little chair beside one gate and reads a book.
“Dad, remember how you sit in the chair when I go to sleep?” he asks Rob. “I’m going to do that for Ally and Puff. I’m gong to make sure any monsters don’t get in.”
Problem is sometimes mom forgets (or chooses to ignore) that the living room is actually Ally and Puff's bedroom. And that gets me and Owen both in trouble.
“Ally and Puff, wake up!” Will shouts when I try to sit on the couch with Owen. “There’s a monster in the room. Go away monsters!” He is pointing at me and his brother too.
Truth is sometimes I do look and feel a little monstrous, after a couple days without a shower and who knows how many nights of broken sleep. But I try, no matter how exhausted I am, to be a friendly monster.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Acrobatic songwriting: Spinning, spinning, spinning
This is our weekend morning ritual: Will and I rise and eat breakfast first thing while Rob drinks coffee and strums his guitar. Owen is not one for ritual yet so he may or may not be sleeping. Soon Will joins Rob with his own mini guitar and they play and sing a round of “Going down to Okeelee,” the one and only song of the Okeelee Blues Band, which features Will and his daddy. (The word “Okeelee”is a Will invention.)
Yesterday, a while after breakfast, Will decided to “write” his own song, as he does on occasion. Here’s the scene. Will’s italics, Rob’s regular, I’m the scribe, Owen’s the sleeper:
Excuse me mommy and daddy, I have a new song, but I don’t know how it goes. Ally and Puff know how it goes but they went to the show.*
(This prompts Rob to start asking Will about the last song he “wrote,” one we forgot to write down. They soon remember it together):
Horsey, horsey what can you do?
Pig, pig what can you do? (There were more animal refrains, but they stop here and get back to the present song.)
This is a spinning song. It goes, ‘spinning, spinning, spinning,’ but I don’t know the rest of it. Ally and Puff know the rest of it but they’re not here…Now they’re back. They’re ringing the doorbell. They might have to sing the spinning song. It just goes ‘spinning, spinning, spinning.’ It’s a booky.
It’s a boogie? A song you can boogie to?
No, a booky.
You mean it’s a bouzouki song?
Yes.
(And yes, bouzouki is a word. Rob recently acquired a hybrid banjo-bouzouki from the late, great Columbus luthier Mac McCormick, but he and Will just call it a bouzouki to keep things simple.)
Rob goes to get his bouzouki so he can accompany Will. Will becomes conductor. And his “songwriting” becomes much like gymnastics or jazzercise.
Go fast. (Rob complies with a fast-paced tune.) You have to kick while you do it too (kicking one foot in the air.) Then you have to fall (falling to the floor). Then you have to spin balls up like this (picking a small cloth ball and throwing it up with a back spin on it).
First you have to go slow, then in the faster part you sing it loud. In the slower part you don’t sing.
So Rob plays at a mellow pace while Will does more acrobatics.
Now it’s the fast part. (Rob obeys with some speedier pickin’ and Will starts running around with the ball.) You got to play basketball.
Sing it Will. I’m curious how it goes.
Spinning, spinning, spinning. Watch me spin. (Now he’s spinning dangerously close to the fireplace and we’re inserting “Be carefuls”.)
It needs some more lyrics than that. Maybe something about ‘spinning can make you dizzy.’
Spinning, spinning, spinning. I’m dizzy.
I’m afraid you’re going to be like daddy – lyric challenged – where you have a little idea but then you can’t develop it.
(Now will starts spinning in a sort of yoga “cat” position, hands and feet all on the floor as he moves around in a circle. And I am loving this developing three-dimensional song. It’s the kind of whole-body “singing” we should probably do more often with kids.)
*Ally and Puff are two of Will’s three primary imaginary friends. See August 2 Silly Will post for more on them. I need to get myself a couple of invisible friends to pin the blame on when I get writer’s block.
Yesterday, a while after breakfast, Will decided to “write” his own song, as he does on occasion. Here’s the scene. Will’s italics, Rob’s regular, I’m the scribe, Owen’s the sleeper:
Excuse me mommy and daddy, I have a new song, but I don’t know how it goes. Ally and Puff know how it goes but they went to the show.*
(This prompts Rob to start asking Will about the last song he “wrote,” one we forgot to write down. They soon remember it together):
Horsey, horsey what can you do?
Pig, pig what can you do? (There were more animal refrains, but they stop here and get back to the present song.)
This is a spinning song. It goes, ‘spinning, spinning, spinning,’ but I don’t know the rest of it. Ally and Puff know the rest of it but they’re not here…Now they’re back. They’re ringing the doorbell. They might have to sing the spinning song. It just goes ‘spinning, spinning, spinning.’ It’s a booky.
It’s a boogie? A song you can boogie to?
No, a booky.
You mean it’s a bouzouki song?
Yes.
(And yes, bouzouki is a word. Rob recently acquired a hybrid banjo-bouzouki from the late, great Columbus luthier Mac McCormick, but he and Will just call it a bouzouki to keep things simple.)
Rob goes to get his bouzouki so he can accompany Will. Will becomes conductor. And his “songwriting” becomes much like gymnastics or jazzercise.
Go fast. (Rob complies with a fast-paced tune.) You have to kick while you do it too (kicking one foot in the air.) Then you have to fall (falling to the floor). Then you have to spin balls up like this (picking a small cloth ball and throwing it up with a back spin on it).
First you have to go slow, then in the faster part you sing it loud. In the slower part you don’t sing.
So Rob plays at a mellow pace while Will does more acrobatics.
Now it’s the fast part. (Rob obeys with some speedier pickin’ and Will starts running around with the ball.) You got to play basketball.
Sing it Will. I’m curious how it goes.
Spinning, spinning, spinning. Watch me spin. (Now he’s spinning dangerously close to the fireplace and we’re inserting “Be carefuls”.)
It needs some more lyrics than that. Maybe something about ‘spinning can make you dizzy.’
Spinning, spinning, spinning. I’m dizzy.
I’m afraid you’re going to be like daddy – lyric challenged – where you have a little idea but then you can’t develop it.
(Now will starts spinning in a sort of yoga “cat” position, hands and feet all on the floor as he moves around in a circle. And I am loving this developing three-dimensional song. It’s the kind of whole-body “singing” we should probably do more often with kids.)
*Ally and Puff are two of Will’s three primary imaginary friends. See August 2 Silly Will post for more on them. I need to get myself a couple of invisible friends to pin the blame on when I get writer’s block.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Talking death at an early age
Will has a deep-seated fear of animals visiting our house – especially when he’s sleeping. So I’m generally wary of introducing anything fearsome into his mind. Yesterday when he asked to read The Story of Babar (originally published in 1933), I skipped right over the part where Babar’s mother is killed by a hunter. (Do they write these kinds of children’s books anymore?)
“Hey, you forgot to say the hunters killed his mother!” Will protested.
“You’re right,”
I admitted and retreated to the first page to read about the incident in full.
Then Will launched some of his story-telling with his imaginary friends as main characters: “One time a hunter killed me and Ally and Puff,” he said.
“Do you mean he hurt you?” I’m interested in knowing what he meant by kill, but not so eager to offer up an explanation of killing.
“Yes. And then we woke up.”
“Oh…” I’m relieved that he’s come up with this impermanent sense of death for now. And who knows -- maybe that is how it works.
Our first encounter with hunters and killing was much more real – and yet obviously still puzzling to Will. While we were visiting friends who live on a large swatch of property in rural South Georgia, one of their friends came over for an evening round of wild hog hunting. He came back to the house with a dead boar strapped to the back of a four wheeler, and Will wound up viewing – and even touching -- the hog’s body up close. He talked occasionally over the next couple weeks about how that big pig never moved.
I’m still fumbling for the explanations of death and killing that would be appropriate for a boy Will’s age. For now, when I spot a flattened tree frog or squirrel in the road, I try to point the stroller, and Will’s eyes, away. Sure it could be a good illustration of why we “Look both ways before we cross the street.” But I’d rather stall on the gruesome stuff a little longer.
Hospice Net offers lots of insights about discussing death with children at this site (including how children tend to view death at various stages of development and whether it’s wise to bring children to funerals – obviously not the dilemma I’m facing with a simple reading of Babar). Here’s a quote that jives with Will’s story of being killed and then waking up: “Studies show that children go through a series of stages in their understanding of death. For example, preschool children usually see death as reversible, temporary, and impersonal. Watching cartoon characters on television miraculously rise up whole again after having been crushed or blown apart tends to reinforce this notion.”
Any ideas or stories about navigating discussions of death with kids?
“Hey, you forgot to say the hunters killed his mother!” Will protested.
“You’re right,”
I admitted and retreated to the first page to read about the incident in full.Then Will launched some of his story-telling with his imaginary friends as main characters: “One time a hunter killed me and Ally and Puff,” he said.
“Do you mean he hurt you?” I’m interested in knowing what he meant by kill, but not so eager to offer up an explanation of killing.
“Yes. And then we woke up.”
“Oh…” I’m relieved that he’s come up with this impermanent sense of death for now. And who knows -- maybe that is how it works.
Our first encounter with hunters and killing was much more real – and yet obviously still puzzling to Will. While we were visiting friends who live on a large swatch of property in rural South Georgia, one of their friends came over for an evening round of wild hog hunting. He came back to the house with a dead boar strapped to the back of a four wheeler, and Will wound up viewing – and even touching -- the hog’s body up close. He talked occasionally over the next couple weeks about how that big pig never moved.
I’m still fumbling for the explanations of death and killing that would be appropriate for a boy Will’s age. For now, when I spot a flattened tree frog or squirrel in the road, I try to point the stroller, and Will’s eyes, away. Sure it could be a good illustration of why we “Look both ways before we cross the street.” But I’d rather stall on the gruesome stuff a little longer.
Hospice Net offers lots of insights about discussing death with children at this site (including how children tend to view death at various stages of development and whether it’s wise to bring children to funerals – obviously not the dilemma I’m facing with a simple reading of Babar). Here’s a quote that jives with Will’s story of being killed and then waking up: “Studies show that children go through a series of stages in their understanding of death. For example, preschool children usually see death as reversible, temporary, and impersonal. Watching cartoon characters on television miraculously rise up whole again after having been crushed or blown apart tends to reinforce this notion.”
Any ideas or stories about navigating discussions of death with kids?
Monday, August 6, 2007
Baby talk: What makes the words boom?
Here’s the news on baby talk: There’s a lot less magic involved in how children master language than you might think. As described in this article, researchers have recognized for quite a while that the word acquisition of the average baby and toddler follows a pattern something like this: Sometime before the first birthday baby produces that first word – “dada” perhaps. A month or so later comes a second word. And then up to age 14 months words pop out here and there. (Remember when you were still able to keep track of your little toddler’s new words in her baby book?) Then there’s an acceleration of words and after your tiny talker is saying about 50 words – BAM, a language explosion hits, sometime around 18 months. (By the way, these are all averages so if you’ve got a stubbornly quiet 2-year-old, don’t worry. You might even have a genius on your hands. Many sources report that Albert Einstein didn’t start talking until 3 and was still speaking hesitantly at age 9. So what’s coming out of the mouth is not necessarily an indicator of what’s inside the noggin.)
Scientists used to hypothesize that there might be some special brain mechanism that triggered the word spurt. Not so, says University of Iowa psychology professor Bob McMurray. He argues that the language boom is just the result of a lot of quiet, under-the-radar work your toddler has been doing to learn word meanings ever since he was a baby. (He’s basing his theory on some fancy computer modeling that seems to help us realize what should have been obvious all along: Kids are learning all the time but not all of that learning is immediately evident to us as observers – and listeners.)
The implication for parents: Talk and read as much as possible with your little ones (no Baby Einstein videos necessary) starting from a very early age. And go ahead and put your adult vocabulary (minus the profanity) to practice with your kids. As McMurray says: “Children are soaking up everything. You might use ‘serendipity’ to a child. It will take that child maybe hundreds of exposures, or thousands, to learn what ‘serendipity’ means. So why not start early?”
Although I assume 3-week-old Owen isn’t really working on word comprehension much at this point, he and I both seem to enjoy our days together more when I talk about what I’m doing. There’s at least a connection through the sound of my voice. And it makes some of the chores of newborn-raising and general housekeeping feel less like monotony to me.
For Will, who has hit the “why?” phase and become an incessant questioner about all details of life, long-winded, happy-to-explain answers are the best medicine. And when he wants it, which is most of the time, we repeat those answers and elaborate on them for as long as he remains curious --or until we’re able to steer him toward yet another topic. I’m learning from him what it means to love learning, all over again.
Any insights on the langauge learning or the general jabbering of your own children? Or stories from your own childhood?
Scientists used to hypothesize that there might be some special brain mechanism that triggered the word spurt. Not so, says University of Iowa psychology professor Bob McMurray. He argues that the language boom is just the result of a lot of quiet, under-the-radar work your toddler has been doing to learn word meanings ever since he was a baby. (He’s basing his theory on some fancy computer modeling that seems to help us realize what should have been obvious all along: Kids are learning all the time but not all of that learning is immediately evident to us as observers – and listeners.)
The implication for parents: Talk and read as much as possible with your little ones (no Baby Einstein videos necessary) starting from a very early age. And go ahead and put your adult vocabulary (minus the profanity) to practice with your kids. As McMurray says: “Children are soaking up everything. You might use ‘serendipity’ to a child. It will take that child maybe hundreds of exposures, or thousands, to learn what ‘serendipity’ means. So why not start early?”
Although I assume 3-week-old Owen isn’t really working on word comprehension much at this point, he and I both seem to enjoy our days together more when I talk about what I’m doing. There’s at least a connection through the sound of my voice. And it makes some of the chores of newborn-raising and general housekeeping feel less like monotony to me.
For Will, who has hit the “why?” phase and become an incessant questioner about all details of life, long-winded, happy-to-explain answers are the best medicine. And when he wants it, which is most of the time, we repeat those answers and elaborate on them for as long as he remains curious --or until we’re able to steer him toward yet another topic. I’m learning from him what it means to love learning, all over again.
Any insights on the langauge learning or the general jabbering of your own children? Or stories from your own childhood?
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