The days are long but the years are short...nothing truer.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
While the world churns
I have recently decided to cede management of time spent on Facebook to my hubbie...he holds my password now, and last week I asked him to let me in once. It was nice! I am not a disabled addict, but still have found myself peering through the portal and living more virtual life than I would have liked. It was good to do! However, I traded at least some Facebook time for reading more news. Maybe that's good? But wow, as long as you stay semi-ignorant of what happens in the world it's easy to be a happy ostrich. I find that I was shocked to contemplate what is actually going on around me every day. Is it immature and irresponsible to stay ignorant? I think maybe yes, but also it's got to be important to keep my mind on what is good and beautiful and full of grace so as not to forget what astounding blessings surround us at every turn. I provide subjects for contemplation of grace:
Owen is an outdoors lover, and when the snow falls, the snowmen grow! Pictured here using his snowman kit provided by Nunu as a Christmas gift. We invited over a boy from his class and they begged his mom and I to go build a snowman. Well...OK...I guess. Leave us inside where it's warm to enjoy some tea while you play together? It will be hard, but we'll manage.
The crazy thing is, Eden had not a tooth until sometime after 11 months, and now at 13, she has six...more than this picture, can't keep up with her. She likes to use them too!
I've had some background guilt that Owen's birthday lands at a time when it's great to throw a big party and make him a super fancy cake. I'm just always in the mood to do something creative in mid-May, it seems. Asher's bday has so far always landed while we're vacationing. So Asher got at least a middling fancy cake for his 3.5 birthday on Monday! Superheroes are all the rage in our house lately. He is SOOOOO excited to be 3.5. If you meet him and don't know it, you will quickly find out. He really couldn't be much cuter than he is, what an agreeable and happy sort of fellow. I know, I married his father :)
The days are long but the years are short...nothing truer.
The days are long but the years are short...nothing truer.
Christmas pix
Ummm....so very outdated now, but I forgot to include the rest of our Christmas pictures (being too cheap to do anything but go to the free sitting at JCPenney, well, they are what they are). If someone in the family wants a print let me know and I've got the high res and can get one to you.
(Umm...fake backgrounds are bad enough, but wrinkled? Eesh!)
(Nice white socks!!!)
At least the subject matter is delightful!
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Monkeys
I made cinnamon sugar monkey bread for breakfast for a Saturday treat. I should have read the recipe a little closer...Kneading+two risings+time to dip 64 dough balls in butter and sugar+baking time meant we had a breakfast snack, followed by monkey bread at 10am :} I had no idea there were live monkeys in my house...you have never seen boys consume such vast quantities. We are lucky there were no upset tummies! Luckily, I haven't eaten for 4 days and still don't have much appetite, so I wasn't even tempted. Eden figured out it was pretty good.
Eden says now...
sign language: all done, hi, night-night, occasionally a 'please'
words: uh-oh, Dada, Ah-eh (Asher), Oh-eh (Owen), occasionally 'ah-uh' (all done)
receptive language: off the chart! she is understanding a lot.
Not walking yet! Cruising around and around!
Boys went swimming with Dad again today and had a great time. Eden and I ran a few errands this morning and had lunch out and it was fun to have a ladies' day. She actually likes sitting in a stroller and walking around a store, which is pretty new to me!
Asher: HUG man. This kid is a lover! Not complaining. Asher wanted to do homework this week just like Owen. So I printed out umpteen million worksheets for preschoolers and he was in heaven...would have done them for hours. His fine motor is getting much better...starting to handle a pencil pretty well.
Owen: Drew me a multipage diagram of how he would like the candles arranged on his cake for his 6th birthday right on up through his 13th birthday. He was REALLY into it...planning the patterns of smaller candles arranged around one larger candle in the middle for each year. It was sort of a geometry project for him!
Eden says now...
sign language: all done, hi, night-night, occasionally a 'please'
words: uh-oh, Dada, Ah-eh (Asher), Oh-eh (Owen), occasionally 'ah-uh' (all done)
receptive language: off the chart! she is understanding a lot.
Not walking yet! Cruising around and around!
Boys went swimming with Dad again today and had a great time. Eden and I ran a few errands this morning and had lunch out and it was fun to have a ladies' day. She actually likes sitting in a stroller and walking around a store, which is pretty new to me!
Asher: HUG man. This kid is a lover! Not complaining. Asher wanted to do homework this week just like Owen. So I printed out umpteen million worksheets for preschoolers and he was in heaven...would have done them for hours. His fine motor is getting much better...starting to handle a pencil pretty well.
Owen: Drew me a multipage diagram of how he would like the candles arranged on his cake for his 6th birthday right on up through his 13th birthday. He was REALLY into it...planning the patterns of smaller candles arranged around one larger candle in the middle for each year. It was sort of a geometry project for him!
Parenting thoughts
I read this recently:
http://drgeraldstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/what-children-need-from-parents-ii-on-slot-machines-and-candy-machines/
It made sense of course, and resonated with situations and problems we see in our home. However, whenever I think about this topic and how we interact with our kids I think, "How can I actually *almost never* compromise or negotiate in interactions with my kids?" From the example of how we have handled sleep and sleep routines in our house, I see that we have a lot of peace around that issue because we were (on someone else's advice...we never would have figured that one out left to our own devices!) exceedingly consistent from very young infancy. With sleep and a young baby, you are actually able to put them in a crib from which they can't escape and leave the room and ignore them until they fall asleep...your plan is your plan and it's a lot easier not to negotiate because you've shut the door and eventually there is SLEEP...the attempt to negotiate has an end. They wake up, they feel great, and they learned the rules! Usually (but not always!) it didn't even involve crying once we got the hang of getting the timing right.
Waking life is a whole other beast. Everything is WAY more complex. There are multiple people in the picture. There are multiple requests/demands going on at once. Sometimes you need to say no to something that you said yes to many times in the past (commence weeping and teeth gnashing). Sometimes you've gotten three hours of sleep the night before and you are short on patience and you know it. Sometimes you realize you've really been saying no too much and you decide to say yes to something you previously said no to. Sometimes your child makes a sweet request for you to change your answer and what parent doesn't get a soft heart to respond to that and want to make the change? By way of example; for a younger baby...all my babies have been exceedingly clingy (a 13 month old should not need to be held all the time. Eden thinks otherwise right now.) Of course, I see my role in it, because when she is at my heels fussing and crying to be picked up, I will challenge her when I'm in the middle of doing something that has to be done (sometimes I will even challenge her a long time) but eventually I pick her up. I'm totally a slot machine about that. I think it would benefit both of us for her to be content playing with some toys on the floor. So does that mean that I have to leave her screaming on the floor until she gives up (which is much harder in the kitchen with the chaos of life and me right there for her to look at than in a crib in a dark room for naptime, see my point?). Even if she gets to the point of giving up, eventually she will come over and want to be picked up. That seems like reasonable baby behavior. Can I *never* pick her up when she asks? Is that how to be consistent and make progress with that particular problem?? That's crazy! I want to and should pick up my baby when she asks sometimes, but that makes each time ambiguous and unpredictable for her so she'll keep up the behavior.
My mind reels when I consider all this psychology of interacting with my kids. When I look at my day with them, I see myself doing my best to consider the variables, make the best choice I can about whether to give in to my child's request/demand/whine/plea or to stand firm and suffer the temper tantrum. I don't think I am just approaching it lazily and giving in because it's hard to say no and stick with it. But sometimes it really does feel correct to me to not stick with my initial answer for whatever reason. I do however see that my kids don't see that our word is completely solid and they do a good deal of manipulating us until we move. I just can't imagine what life would look like if I stuck without bending to every single thing that I said. It would take an enormous amount of resolve and who knows how many days of serious, heart-melting angry outbursts, time in room, eventually a spanking, etc. to try to overhaul how we deal with our kids. The bigger problem is that when I attempt this sort of overhaul, it never ends up 'working' because I am attempting to change my instinctual parenting reactions and become a person who acts differently than I actually act and think. It doesn't really feel right to me to never ever flex about every single thing I say. If I were convinced it had to be that way, I would do it. I've done extremely hard work around maintaining consistency with sleep routines in our house! But I have to be really convinced that it's the right path, and it just doesn't feel right sometimes. Of course, like I said, if someone else hadn't told me how consistent I needed to be with sleep in order to have peaceful routines, I am quite sure it wouldn't have felt right to me to ever let a baby cry :{ (And as much as I hate ever letting a child cry in the crib, and perhaps have been TOO consistent in compensation for how inconsistent I would naturally be prone to be, it has been a good thing for us to do that overall. She says as her poorly-sleeping-at-the-moment-despite-best-efforts baby tosses fitfully on the monitor screen.)
This is all pouring out because we are reaching a point where we realize we are not in a great situation with attitudes, disobedience, demandingness, entitled sourpusses, fighting way too much in the home...on a daily basis. And we are not sitting on our duffs, we are 'disciplining' all day it seems...but clearly our instinctive approaches are not so effective. So something has got to change or we are going to continue down a path that is not working super well.
A last brain dump of a thought process related to this that goes on in my all the time:
Theory #1. Are my kids grumpy and dissatisfied about my answers to their needs/requests because I am not giving them enough autonomy? Am I being TOO prescriptive, not allowing them enough freedoms overall such that they don't feel a general positivity about their lives and their role in it and I am exasperating them? Do I need to give them more control/power/choices where I can so that they better accept the directives that are not up for debate? Am I am 'no Mom' too often?
Theory #2. Are my kids grumpy and dissatisfied about my answers to their needs/requests because I give them too many freedoms/am too flexible and then when they have to do something or accept something they don't really want to, they feel too big in their britches and are not at peace with the authority structure in the home?
You can see that having Theory 1 and Theory 2 banging into each other in my head all day is causing me to have no idea which way to proceed to make changes. Since I love black and white, it is exceedingly hard to live in the gray area of parenting in real life. Can I buy crib-cage structures for 3 and 5 year olds and stick them in there til they stop whining? I might get a serious amount of work done with a roomful of caged children for a few days til we reestablish who's the boss around here!! Ha ha. Don't report me for that comment please, it's a joke.
It's hard to be an analytical person. Don't be too hard on me for opening up my brain and sharing my thoughts! Believe it or not, I love my kiddos deeply and I just want to do what's best for them, easy or hard, but while showing them tons of warm love and making sure they know I'm on their side. Then again, I'm human. I snap. I yell. I wake up tired and have done the same things every single day for over 5.5 years now! Jesus, help!
p.s. I accept thoughts and advice with open hands! (Directives, criticism and comments of 'are you serious what kind of freak show are you??' I tend to be more close-handed about...though hey, I'm posting my thoughts to the internet so I'm kind of asking for it!!)
http://drgeraldstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/what-children-need-from-parents-ii-on-slot-machines-and-candy-machines/
It made sense of course, and resonated with situations and problems we see in our home. However, whenever I think about this topic and how we interact with our kids I think, "How can I actually *almost never* compromise or negotiate in interactions with my kids?" From the example of how we have handled sleep and sleep routines in our house, I see that we have a lot of peace around that issue because we were (on someone else's advice...we never would have figured that one out left to our own devices!) exceedingly consistent from very young infancy. With sleep and a young baby, you are actually able to put them in a crib from which they can't escape and leave the room and ignore them until they fall asleep...your plan is your plan and it's a lot easier not to negotiate because you've shut the door and eventually there is SLEEP...the attempt to negotiate has an end. They wake up, they feel great, and they learned the rules! Usually (but not always!) it didn't even involve crying once we got the hang of getting the timing right.
Waking life is a whole other beast. Everything is WAY more complex. There are multiple people in the picture. There are multiple requests/demands going on at once. Sometimes you need to say no to something that you said yes to many times in the past (commence weeping and teeth gnashing). Sometimes you've gotten three hours of sleep the night before and you are short on patience and you know it. Sometimes you realize you've really been saying no too much and you decide to say yes to something you previously said no to. Sometimes your child makes a sweet request for you to change your answer and what parent doesn't get a soft heart to respond to that and want to make the change? By way of example; for a younger baby...all my babies have been exceedingly clingy (a 13 month old should not need to be held all the time. Eden thinks otherwise right now.) Of course, I see my role in it, because when she is at my heels fussing and crying to be picked up, I will challenge her when I'm in the middle of doing something that has to be done (sometimes I will even challenge her a long time) but eventually I pick her up. I'm totally a slot machine about that. I think it would benefit both of us for her to be content playing with some toys on the floor. So does that mean that I have to leave her screaming on the floor until she gives up (which is much harder in the kitchen with the chaos of life and me right there for her to look at than in a crib in a dark room for naptime, see my point?). Even if she gets to the point of giving up, eventually she will come over and want to be picked up. That seems like reasonable baby behavior. Can I *never* pick her up when she asks? Is that how to be consistent and make progress with that particular problem?? That's crazy! I want to and should pick up my baby when she asks sometimes, but that makes each time ambiguous and unpredictable for her so she'll keep up the behavior.
My mind reels when I consider all this psychology of interacting with my kids. When I look at my day with them, I see myself doing my best to consider the variables, make the best choice I can about whether to give in to my child's request/demand/whine/plea or to stand firm and suffer the temper tantrum. I don't think I am just approaching it lazily and giving in because it's hard to say no and stick with it. But sometimes it really does feel correct to me to not stick with my initial answer for whatever reason. I do however see that my kids don't see that our word is completely solid and they do a good deal of manipulating us until we move. I just can't imagine what life would look like if I stuck without bending to every single thing that I said. It would take an enormous amount of resolve and who knows how many days of serious, heart-melting angry outbursts, time in room, eventually a spanking, etc. to try to overhaul how we deal with our kids. The bigger problem is that when I attempt this sort of overhaul, it never ends up 'working' because I am attempting to change my instinctual parenting reactions and become a person who acts differently than I actually act and think. It doesn't really feel right to me to never ever flex about every single thing I say. If I were convinced it had to be that way, I would do it. I've done extremely hard work around maintaining consistency with sleep routines in our house! But I have to be really convinced that it's the right path, and it just doesn't feel right sometimes. Of course, like I said, if someone else hadn't told me how consistent I needed to be with sleep in order to have peaceful routines, I am quite sure it wouldn't have felt right to me to ever let a baby cry :{ (And as much as I hate ever letting a child cry in the crib, and perhaps have been TOO consistent in compensation for how inconsistent I would naturally be prone to be, it has been a good thing for us to do that overall. She says as her poorly-sleeping-at-the-moment-despite-best-efforts baby tosses fitfully on the monitor screen.)
This is all pouring out because we are reaching a point where we realize we are not in a great situation with attitudes, disobedience, demandingness, entitled sourpusses, fighting way too much in the home...on a daily basis. And we are not sitting on our duffs, we are 'disciplining' all day it seems...but clearly our instinctive approaches are not so effective. So something has got to change or we are going to continue down a path that is not working super well.
A last brain dump of a thought process related to this that goes on in my all the time:
Theory #1. Are my kids grumpy and dissatisfied about my answers to their needs/requests because I am not giving them enough autonomy? Am I being TOO prescriptive, not allowing them enough freedoms overall such that they don't feel a general positivity about their lives and their role in it and I am exasperating them? Do I need to give them more control/power/choices where I can so that they better accept the directives that are not up for debate? Am I am 'no Mom' too often?
Theory #2. Are my kids grumpy and dissatisfied about my answers to their needs/requests because I give them too many freedoms/am too flexible and then when they have to do something or accept something they don't really want to, they feel too big in their britches and are not at peace with the authority structure in the home?
You can see that having Theory 1 and Theory 2 banging into each other in my head all day is causing me to have no idea which way to proceed to make changes. Since I love black and white, it is exceedingly hard to live in the gray area of parenting in real life. Can I buy crib-cage structures for 3 and 5 year olds and stick them in there til they stop whining? I might get a serious amount of work done with a roomful of caged children for a few days til we reestablish who's the boss around here!! Ha ha. Don't report me for that comment please, it's a joke.
It's hard to be an analytical person. Don't be too hard on me for opening up my brain and sharing my thoughts! Believe it or not, I love my kiddos deeply and I just want to do what's best for them, easy or hard, but while showing them tons of warm love and making sure they know I'm on their side. Then again, I'm human. I snap. I yell. I wake up tired and have done the same things every single day for over 5.5 years now! Jesus, help!
p.s. I accept thoughts and advice with open hands! (Directives, criticism and comments of 'are you serious what kind of freak show are you??' I tend to be more close-handed about...though hey, I'm posting my thoughts to the internet so I'm kind of asking for it!!)
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Coming down the track....
...is Mom, with an onset time of around lunchtime, followed by Dad a few hours later. And in case you wondered, boys who are feeling entirely better (it's a quick one! PTL!) learned nothing from their ordeal and whine and cry about the dinner you prepare for them saying they won't eat it, etc. etc. At which point mom breaks and yells, "YOU ARE SO INCREDIBLY SELFISH! YOU WOULD BE COMPLAINING IF I WERE ON MY DEATHBED TRYING TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU!!!" in a moment of complete immaturity herself. I am ashamed. And I wonder where they get their attitudes. However, they did proceed to play beautifully without fighting for the next hour til Dad got home while I stayed near the bathroom. I even got a couple of impromptu hugs and kisses. They are good, good kids, just little :}
Sorry for the exciting reading, just keeping our loving family up to date! Have to do something sitting here to distract myself from nausea.
Sorry for the exciting reading, just keeping our loving family up to date! Have to do something sitting here to distract myself from nausea.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Another one bites the dust
Asher has now been familiarized with the process of stomach emptying and is no longer ignorant of the joys of a GI virus. Eden will no doubt be inducted by the end of the week! But the parents? We are old enough to know better, yet still retain hope!
To top it off Eden is sleeping horribly again which makes her quite wakeful at night and she just woke when Asher started wailing. Then, Owen came downstairs while I was assisting Ash and was crying in a very weird way. I asked him what was wrong, if his tummy was OK, and he whines, "Where's my jelly???" Oh, Owen, I think I saw your jelly upstairs, let's go up to bed and find it. "OK, I neeeeed my jelly!" What kind of jelly do you want Owen? "I need MY jelly." How about blackberry? OK, there's some blackberry jelly right on your pillow, let's lay down.
Oy vey!
Eden and I caught a cold! Forgot that one! All in a week's fun! :)
To top it off Eden is sleeping horribly again which makes her quite wakeful at night and she just woke when Asher started wailing. Then, Owen came downstairs while I was assisting Ash and was crying in a very weird way. I asked him what was wrong, if his tummy was OK, and he whines, "Where's my jelly???" Oh, Owen, I think I saw your jelly upstairs, let's go up to bed and find it. "OK, I neeeeed my jelly!" What kind of jelly do you want Owen? "I need MY jelly." How about blackberry? OK, there's some blackberry jelly right on your pillow, let's lay down.
Oy vey!
Eden and I caught a cold! Forgot that one! All in a week's fun! :)
Sunday, January 20, 2013
MLK Jr. Weekend 2012
Haircuts! Asher was looking like that dog from Lady and the Tramp who has to brush her long bangs out of her eyes all the time. He began to throw his fit as usual once inside the barber (after having been thoroughly bribed to get that far). [Aside: Reuel and I both have memories of refusing our parents' directions as having been Not Done. As in, sure we got upset about certain directives, perhaps attempted a refusal, but one look told us that we had better go no further and do what we'd been told. Why is it not this way with our kids? I could have given Asher all the 'looks' in the world and he was not getting in that barber's chair. Are we softies, or are our own memories of childhood not quite accurate? We always wonder about this.] Well, the modern day answer to modern day kids finally hit me: the iphone. Solved that problem instantaneously. Asher just needs to be distracted from the sensation of having someone near his head and that did it. While I truly try to avoid having kids who are frequently plugged into gizmos, haircuts are a wonderful exception and I have no problem with it!!! Of course, he's so proud of himself afterward as if he were brave the whole time :}
Swimming! Reuel took the boys to the pool on base and they had a grand time. We can't believe we haven't been doing this sooner! It's perfect for them to improve their skills. I used to take them for once a week 30 min lessons shared by 5 children at the local club. For $10 per child per lesson. So $10 for 6 minutes of swimming...they were getting nowhere slow. Ugh. Really they just need time in the water more than formal instruction, at least I think so.
Contractors! After waiting since October for the contractor of our choice, who had various things arise, he came in person and informed us that he would not be able to start as planned, and was going to have to bump us 3+ months. :O We were speechless. What a disappointment. We've had 2 people come for quotes and 2 more this week. Exhausting, this process. It's like you can't get people to take your money sometimes.
Tummy Bug! Owen is down for the count since last night and no doubt someone will follow soon. He has not been vomit-free for almost 24 hours!! I remember one or two emptyings and that did it, so I'm not sure when this is going to end. He is so thirsty and hungry but even a sip gets his stomach going. Poor guy! I've got the piles of spare sheets ready to go for tonight's adventures.
Asher unplugged! I had teaching responsibilities at church this morning so just Asher and I went in to the city. I am entirely bummed that I didn't realize the kids were singing in choir in front of the congregation today and I was upstairs preparing the lesson. Asher, who Owen informs me never sings during practice (because Owen is nagging him, "Sing Asher, sing!!") apparently was front and center and belting out his part. Oh, to have seen that. Asher is quite shy about singing, and I am always trying to subtly trick him into it and as usual with my kids, when they aren't being observed by mom they let loose :} Guess I need to back off. Maybe I'm not as subtle as I think...
Husband! Oh, how did I ever come to marry such a generous man. He did the 1-5am duty with Owen since I had to teach this morning, then he let me get a nap myself, then he did a bunch of laundry, then he cleaned up the dishes. Not that I was on the couch all this time, but still...whaddaguy. All I did was make soft pretzels for supper, which when sliced and filled with ham and cheese, were pretty amazing if I do say so myself ;)
I think any fun ideas we had for tomorrow are going to have to wait. Please not Eden!!! But, these things too shall pass. We are blessed.
Swimming! Reuel took the boys to the pool on base and they had a grand time. We can't believe we haven't been doing this sooner! It's perfect for them to improve their skills. I used to take them for once a week 30 min lessons shared by 5 children at the local club. For $10 per child per lesson. So $10 for 6 minutes of swimming...they were getting nowhere slow. Ugh. Really they just need time in the water more than formal instruction, at least I think so.
Contractors! After waiting since October for the contractor of our choice, who had various things arise, he came in person and informed us that he would not be able to start as planned, and was going to have to bump us 3+ months. :O We were speechless. What a disappointment. We've had 2 people come for quotes and 2 more this week. Exhausting, this process. It's like you can't get people to take your money sometimes.
Tummy Bug! Owen is down for the count since last night and no doubt someone will follow soon. He has not been vomit-free for almost 24 hours!! I remember one or two emptyings and that did it, so I'm not sure when this is going to end. He is so thirsty and hungry but even a sip gets his stomach going. Poor guy! I've got the piles of spare sheets ready to go for tonight's adventures.
Asher unplugged! I had teaching responsibilities at church this morning so just Asher and I went in to the city. I am entirely bummed that I didn't realize the kids were singing in choir in front of the congregation today and I was upstairs preparing the lesson. Asher, who Owen informs me never sings during practice (because Owen is nagging him, "Sing Asher, sing!!") apparently was front and center and belting out his part. Oh, to have seen that. Asher is quite shy about singing, and I am always trying to subtly trick him into it and as usual with my kids, when they aren't being observed by mom they let loose :} Guess I need to back off. Maybe I'm not as subtle as I think...
Husband! Oh, how did I ever come to marry such a generous man. He did the 1-5am duty with Owen since I had to teach this morning, then he let me get a nap myself, then he did a bunch of laundry, then he cleaned up the dishes. Not that I was on the couch all this time, but still...whaddaguy. All I did was make soft pretzels for supper, which when sliced and filled with ham and cheese, were pretty amazing if I do say so myself ;)
I think any fun ideas we had for tomorrow are going to have to wait. Please not Eden!!! But, these things too shall pass. We are blessed.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Asher classics
Me: Asher, look at my eyes. Are you going to obey or disobey???
Asher: I'm not sure yet. I don't know if I am going to do what you say.
Me: Well, that's honest.
Asher: I'm not sure yet. I don't know if I am going to do what you say.
Me: Well, that's honest.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Bedtime stories on demand, episode n
In a far away part of outer space, there is a planet a lot like ours. It moves around a different sun than ours, and even though it's a lot the same, it's also a lot different.
O: It moves around a different sun??? How??? And which planet is bigger, ours or that one?
Just like our planet goes around the sun, that planet goes around a different star, very far away. I would say that planet is just a bit bigger. It is also full of very flat land with very few mountains so lots more people can live on the land there. And the oceans are smaller, so many people can live there on the large flat areas of land.
O: But they can't go mountain hiking! And they can't go fishing much at all!
Well, I didn't say there were NO oceans. AND, they have really terrific lakes, big lakes.
O: Oh good, THEN they can go fishing just fine...good.
Yep. Another thing about this planet is that they have not just one like we do, but two moons!
O: [skeptical] Wait, is one of them just space junk?
No way! Two real moons! [mother struggles not to laugh hysterically] One is bigger and it's sort of reddish and the other's a little smaller and it's
O: [interrupting] Yellowish!
Why yes, it is! A bit yellowish. The other interesting thing is that not a single bit of fruit grows on that planet. Not one single fruit tree. All the people know about is vegetables, and boy do they love them.
O: [wide-eyed shock] NO fruuuit???
Nope, not one bit.
O: Do they build rocket ships to go other places?
Nope, they've never flown into space and have no rocket ships. But one day a great explorer from our own planet built a rocket ship so fast that it could fly amazing distances, farther and faster than anyone has ever thought of flying. The explorer got on his ship and flew so far and fast that he actually found the other planet and landed right on it. But, the people were so terrified because they'd never seen anything like a rocket ship, and when he got off his ship he was wearing his space suit and they thought he was a monster. He couldn't speak their language and they didn't know English of course. They rushed toward him with weapons to kill him, but he had been eating a pear, and he held his arms up to protect himself with the pear still in his hand. The people stopped in their tracks and stared at the pear. Someone took it from him and tasted it...they passed it around...they they all started grinning and giggling and squealing because they'd never tasted anything so good!!! He showed them how to plant the seeds in their soil and pear trees grew wonderfully well there, and in 300 years the entire planet was covered in pear trees. They were so happy!
O: Did the man go back and get some other kinds of fruit for them too???
Well, even though his ship was fast, it wasn't that fast. An explorer knows that if they leave their own planet, they might never return. He couldn't ever go back. He stayed on the new planet for the rest of his life.
O: [crestfallen, thinking] Oh. [more time] But how did he live there if he couldn't speak their language?
Well, he had to use a lot of sign language at first, but eventually he learned their words and in a few years time he could speak quite well.
O: What did their language sound like?
[Reuel now steps in to help with a lexicon] Umm, 'sleep' was something like fashoofashooshooshoo. 'Drink of water' was eh-ee-OH. So if you want a drink of water before you go to sleep you have to say, 'Meh eh-ee-OH ta gong fashofashooshooshoo.' Or something like that.
O: But they only had one kind of fruit and he could never go back??
Well, the explorer had a special laser that he used to transmit information about his journey back to earth. But it took a long time for them to get the message. So maybe another explorer might come in the future to bring more fruits. But the people were just grateful because they'd never had fruit at all so having even one fruit made them super, super happy. Well, that's the end of the story. Time to go to sleep, we'll see you in the morning Owen. We love you! [parents exit room and pull door shut]
O: [from beyond door] What's the word for milk??
Reuel: [peeking head back in] Kee-Ee-Op.
Man, these stories get harder and harder to generate...and the expectations are mighty high. Let this be a lesson to you, dear reader, to stick with books or to set the story bar low from the start. Had to record this one because the 'space junk' question just tickled me!!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Bonding in the ranks
The bonds forged by Italian ice sharing are strong indeed. Noticed the lack of Eden's fussing (she is INCREDIBLY clingy right now) and came into the living room and found some children engaged in camaraderie.
You will also see Eden's first word...eventually she says it..."uh-oh". She is also a master of "all done" in sign language and uses it frequently! Tired of sitting on the floor at the library while I read books to the boys? "ALL DONE!!! [wiggling hands]" Don't like the book I'm reading you at naptime past page 3? "ALL DONE!!! [wiggling hands, then grabbing book from me and flinging it to ground] An opinionated little monkey.
She is cruising around all the time now and can balance while holding with one hand on my pants. She could be walking I bet, but the presence of her mother is like a potent addictive narcotic (hmm, the only time in her life that will be true I'm sure!!), and she just cries to be picked up constantly. I leave her for 15 minutes at a time but she never gives up unless I get down on the floor with her and sit while she plays. I call her the queen of Siam...I must not be higher than she is. Not like I don't have some things to do, dear daughter!!! Today I did some treadmill within visibility on the other side of a baby gate, she had her brothers and toys. She screamed for 19.5 minutes and then finally gave up and went and played. As soon as I was done at the 30 minute mark, I crossed back into the room and it was right back to crying to get a lift. Well, this may extend my workout time, which would be a good thing...
Video here: https://vimeo.com/57081822
You will also see Eden's first word...eventually she says it..."uh-oh". She is also a master of "all done" in sign language and uses it frequently! Tired of sitting on the floor at the library while I read books to the boys? "ALL DONE!!! [wiggling hands]" Don't like the book I'm reading you at naptime past page 3? "ALL DONE!!! [wiggling hands, then grabbing book from me and flinging it to ground] An opinionated little monkey.
She is cruising around all the time now and can balance while holding with one hand on my pants. She could be walking I bet, but the presence of her mother is like a potent addictive narcotic (hmm, the only time in her life that will be true I'm sure!!), and she just cries to be picked up constantly. I leave her for 15 minutes at a time but she never gives up unless I get down on the floor with her and sit while she plays. I call her the queen of Siam...I must not be higher than she is. Not like I don't have some things to do, dear daughter!!! Today I did some treadmill within visibility on the other side of a baby gate, she had her brothers and toys. She screamed for 19.5 minutes and then finally gave up and went and played. As soon as I was done at the 30 minute mark, I crossed back into the room and it was right back to crying to get a lift. Well, this may extend my workout time, which would be a good thing...
Video here: https://vimeo.com/57081822
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