"My greatest dream...."

Last weekend in that post-lunch pre-nap endless tunnel of time, I decided to clean the house a bit. I alerted the children of the upcoming activity and asked Amelia what she'd like to do. She clasped her hands together in a very Oliver-like way, body taut with hope, and said:

"What I've always dreamed of is cleaning the toilet."

I replied, "That is your dream?"

Amelia, breathily: "Yessss."

So here you have our new toilet cleaner:

Talking heads

As Mary's long day came to a close the other day, I got the kids ready to take them to gymnastics. Mary sat down to watch a political news show. Oliver, ready to go, walked through the room and saw the newscasters, shoulders up. He stood there staring at the screen, then said "Do they have feet?!?!"

:)

Amelia considers time and space

Amelia on childhood:

When will I ever leave my childhood? I think my childhood wants to kidnap me so it never has to let me go.

Amelia on the night:

"It feels like night time is a dark tunnel that continues to infinity."

(I venture to say those are her versions of more classic 4 year old lines like "Not fair! I am TOO big enough!" and "I don't wanna go to bed!!")

The ski bunny takes off!

A very generous Grandpa offered to take Amelia up to the slopes, including a short morning private lesson. As Grandpa says, group lessons for little ones are basically very cold babysitting given all the time they spend sitting around on the snow waiting. So - her first private lesson, her first trips on the chair lift, and look at this little ski bunny go!

It is astounding seeing her confidence on skis now. She loved it and as she was finishing the last run begged to do "just one more." Grandpa and I shared the adage "quit while you're ahead." She is eagerly looking forward to her next trip to the mountains with Grandpa. I heard one foot complaining to the other foot last night that it really prefers to be gliding along on skis!

For a snapshot of our little ski bunny, watch the video!

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The Beggars in the Market

Everyone remembers the joyous days of young childhood, pretending to be orphaned penniless beggars playing music in busy markets to make ends meet. This is just another of those fun-filled moments captured below.

Notable is how much having a deeply imaginative older sister impacts Oliver's play style. He is very imaginative but tends towards more active imaginative play, less focused on sitting around gently strumming a ukelele while discussing at length just how very desperately poor one is. He does spice it up a bit at the end.

I've put a transcription at the bottom as you'll find Amelia is using her honeyed "If I talk like this Oliver will stay engaged for longer" voice, which makes it even harder to understand.

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[Beggar girl singing]
Beggar girl: “I have had a lot of customers today. Now, I’ll count….this was from the last time a customer came……I’m working in the market because I wanted….I did this job so I could buy things…because my family is a poor family. I’m going to use this for other people. Now, it’s time for you to come out Oliver!
Market-goer: “What beautiful music!”
Beggar girl: “Now, I bet you have a lot…uh…you have…is your family a weak family?
[Interlude to experiment with spinning coins]
[Beggar boy playing ukulele]
Market-goer (Amelia now): “You have some money. Do you want me to put it in your pocket for you?”
Beggar boy: “Yeah! Uh uh – I don’t have pockets anymore.”
Market-goer: “Oliver, please move your arm. Is your name Oliver?”
Beggar boy: “Yeah.”
Market-goer: “You have jeans pockets. I’ll slide them in there.”
Market-goer: “Do you have a poor family?
Beggar boy: “Yeah.”
Market-goer: “Well, I have lots of money. I’m a rich family. I’ll give it all to you, because you probably don’t get any money probably all the time. Why did you come to this market? Did you need a job?”
Beggar boy: “Yeah.”
Market-goer: “Oh! And you thought people would listen to the music and give you some money?”
Beggar boy: “Yeah.”
Market-goer: “You have to promise you will let me have some. I’m a very poor family now, because robbers stole it and my mother and father are dead. Are your –actually, my mother and father are not dead…so I’m still rich…so will you promise to be in my family?
Beggar boy [losing interest]: “This is a guitar.”
Market-goer: “Would you like to be in my family little boy?”
Beggar boy: “Yeah.” [starts playing and singing Pixies song] “This monkey’s GONE to heaven!!”
Market-goer: “Okay, I’ll show you around. The market’s actually my house.”
Beggar boy/Rock star: “This moooonkey’s GONE to HEAVEN!!”

Cleverish

A cleverish comment, from Oliver as we entered the gymnastics gym last night:

"Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Gymnastics and cheese sticks - the are the same! They sound the same!"

He was not eating a cheese stick, may I add. He was just playing with the words in his head. You can tell this is a kid who loves language by his incessant talking, but he also just loves words for their own sake.

A few Oliver comments

Oliver, our very big, very grown-up boy who had his first two days in a drop-in daycare/preschool last week, said the next day:

"I love my cute little class!"

Oliver, our very perplexing and extremely social little boy said tonight, after walking up to a lovely 8 year old girl he'd never seen before just before Amelia's gymnastics class:

"Hi, I'm Oliver! What kind is your brain?"

She, needless to say, did not know how to answer that.

Goodbye training wheels!

I may have neglected to mention that we took off Amelia's training wheels last week. Amelia had been asking me to do it for weeks and I was dragging my heels. I pointed out how nice it would be to do in the summer, maybe when she was 5, etc etc. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Finally I decided to go ahead and do it...last Friday night we took them off. Saturday and Sunday we were able to spend about 20 minutes each day practicing. As I predicted she was extremely nervous, more than a little whiny, and immediately asking me to put them back on. Oh, and right, I had a SORE back!

Did I put the training wheels back on? No. The whole point in parenting is (keeping them alive and) passing on one or two lessons. Like the one about finishing what you start, sticking to your word, not giving up as soon as something is hard. I did dangle a bit of a carrot that once she learned she'd get to pick out her own basket and streamers. You know, to go on the blood-red monster bike she picked out just before she turned 4. Did that make a difference? No, not really.

We went out again yesterday and I could really see that her body was getting it. Her mind remained nervous and reluctant. We discovered a trick that if she started prattling on about something (her plan to paint her treasure rocks rainbow colors in the hope that they would attract fairies) she would forget what she was doing and balance perfectly. I was able to let go a few times but the second she realized it, she'd panic and tumble over.

So....today, practice day #4 - SUCCESS! I can honestly say I am insanely proud of her. She's a cautious kid who has a body that can do amazing things as long as she doesn't second guess herself too much.

Video, do you ask? Why certainly! Here you go.

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Wild thing

Oliver was very lucky to receive a singing Valentine's Day card (and many other fantastic Valentine's Day cards). This particular singing card sings "Wild Thing! You make my heart sing! You make everything grooovy....Wild Thing!" You all know the song. We all know the song by heart for sure now, given the million times he's played it.

This morning after he played it yet again, Amelia said "Awww, he's my little wild thing. He makes my heart burst into dreams."

Amelia discovers the "Omniscient Narrator"

Amelia, last night, withdrew her toothbrush from her mouth to comment:

"You know, in shows like the one I watched today, it seems like there is an invisible ghost character who knows everything and can see everything...sort of like Santa."

I'm not sure if it was helpful or not for me to tell her that's the "omniscient narrator."

If I had a hammer...

Poor Amelia has a bad cold, so I'm giving her a ready excuse for being a bit spiteful, cranky, and prone to anger. She's having a home-sick day today. Right as I was leaving she asked for some cockroach play time (I'm sure you all get this every morning too) and I told her I'd be happy to do it after work. Since she had recently used "YOU and your promises!!" she had to think up a new poetically angry phrase. She rushed off to her bed, where I followed her in an attempt to get a kiss goodbye. Her head was covered in blankets, and when she heard me come in, she lifted the blankets, glared at me, and said "I feel like you're a hammer breaking me into a thousand pieces!!" and then flopped back down under the blankets.

Cockroaches inspire such passion.

Our little one with the big head

Amelia asked me to continue a story I'd started telling her a couple of months ago - actually, in August when we were in Virginia. I was struggling to remember a few details, which she filled in with some degree of exasperation, after which she said "Sometimes I feel like I have the biggest brain in the world - bigger than yours, and you're older than me!"

I guess there's no mystery anymore.

I cause problems

Amelia has in general been pretty lovely to be around lately. But she certainly has her moments. Last night as we walked into the house she realized she'd left her book in the car. She wanted to rush down and get it, and I wanted her to get her pajamas on. I suggested if she got her pajamas on, I would go down and get her book for her.

She rushed down the hall angrily, then turned, locked eyes, and yelled, "YOU and your promises!!"

Oliver draws and draws...

Oliver has suddenly decided that drawing is a favorite activity. Now, many of his drawings depict a banana covered with fruit flies (really) or other similar stories that make the drawing very hard to decipher. The boat on the ocean from today was great until a big wave crashed over it, drenching it in water (marker) and making any attempt at representational art irrecognizable. But I have to admit to being pretty impressed by this one from yesterday. It really is a car, with two wheels, crashing into a tree that looks vaguely tree-like, with a dramatically swirling sun in the sky.

Princess Amelia of San Francisco

She came down from quiet time today deep in some scenario wherein she was an orphaned princess. (Conveniently, my daughter had just died of a terrible illness as she explained). You can hear some of the explanation here. The real reason I videotaped this is to show off some of her new mannerisms - hand gestures and a LOT of shrugging. Definitely some affect she's trying to layer on and pretty darn cute.

Highlights of the video include the shrugging and a rather amusing description of one of her dead mother's faults. Oh, and the glistening above her lip is actually not snot - it's how she typically looks after she applies her own lip gloss.

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As soon as Oliver came out from his nap, she said "Oliver, I'm sorry to tell you that your sister Amelia has died."

Not the best way to wake up.

Sorry, Beth.

Amelia, while reading (unabridged) Little Women, looks up to say "Oh, I just can't WAIT until the part where Beth dies! You see, in my children's version she doesn't die, so I've never had the experience before of hearing about her dying."

Lest you get concerned she didn't say it with any malice or a bloodthirsty grin - she is just really intrigued to see the story differ.

Oliver update 26 months

Age: 26 mo

Physical abilities: He's totally obsessed with soccer now. We take the soccer ball everywhere. Without anyone to watch or learn from he dribbles effortlessly while running, passes with anyone who wants to play with him, and just loves it. He will join in any pack of kids anywhere. He also loves playing his version of tennis (he runs around like a maniac with a tennis racket hitting the ball around the ground). His swimming is pretty cool - he jumps in and swims to me about 10 feet (can't take his own breaths yet), goes to the bottom to get toys (needs a bit of a push but comes up by himself) and just last week he started back floating totally by himself without me touching him for up to 15 seconds. I was particularly impressed since he was a bit tense about backfloating until now.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc He is extremely chatty. He's in a stage of explaining everything - lots of sentences have the structure "blah blah blah BECAUSE blah blah blah blah." He talks to everyone so I suppose he gets enough practice. He's also enjoying leveraging his knowledge of 4-year old drama to say things like "But MAMA, I've never had ice cream before! Never EVER!!" (lies, all lies)

Reading/pre-reading: I did a fun little experiment with him "reading" his rules (a few posts down the page). Other than that he loves being read to!

Number stuff: He knows the basic numbers, just like before. He seems to count objects much better now (one finger tap, one object).

Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc After watching how easily he memorized words and could pick them out on the page I thought he'd probably be pretty good at puzzles. We only have peg puzzles and one 100 piece of Amelia's, so maybe I should get one or two.
Creativity: He really does enjoy coloring but isn't doing a ton of drawing. He can do basic circles and stuff. The other day he wanted homework so I drew a series of shapes and had him circle the one requested and he was very cute and proud.

Imagination: Continues to be extremely imaginative. He's doing a lot of "nested pretend" which can be really fun to watch - pretending to be something pretending to be something else. Last night at the bookstore he was a mouse pretending to be a train, for instance. He's so "out there" from a personality standpoint that we get a lot of comments about his imagination + speech.

Social: Extremely social. REALLY social. Again, last night at the bookstore - first he tried to make friends with the one kid there (9 year old boy) by trying out a few jokes. The boy ignored him, so he switched to his mother. He started doing slapstick prat falls (where does he get this?) and was really cracking people up. He just goes up to people, engages them, and tries to get them to laugh. I'll admit he was a bit surprised when two grandmas (strangers) started pinching his cheeks. Also extremely social at the playground - he'll run out, toss down his soccer ball in a group of 6 year old boys, and say "Hey guys, let's play!"

Character/personality: Gregarious, extremely resilient, determined, impervious to most attempts at discipline, full of life.

School/Pre-school/DayCare update: He's totally dying to go to school. He's pointed out that since he doesn't wear diapers and is in a big boy bed he should go to school now. Next week happens to be "take your sibling to school" day (for an hour only) at Amelia's preschool, so he's super excited.

Balloon Land

Very odd conversation today in the car. Excuse the frequent – may I say constant – references to poop.

Amelia: “Mama, did you know that one time when I was all alone, looking out the window, I saw a dog without an owner or leash stop by the grass in front of our house? It had a stomach full of people food and as soon as it stopped it vomited all over the grass. Right when it vomited poop started shooting out of its bottom!”
Oliver: “HA HA HA HA! HA HA HA! I’m laughing because the dog pooped straight into the sky!! HA HA HA!”
Amelia: “And you know, the funny thing is I realized this dog actually belonged to BalloonLand, where poop can actually be eaten as food. [Oliver: HA HA HA! I’m still laughing! HA HA HA!] The other night we all went to BalloonLand together, where we turned into balloons and all of us ate poopoo.”
Oliver: “NO! We don’t eat poopoo!”
Me: “Oliver, Amelia was explaining that in BalloonLand it’s actually okay to eat poop. Apparently balloons eat poop.”
Amelia: “Right, and then when we came back after the night was over and turned back into people, the poo poo disappeared from our bodies at that very second. Because only the balloons can eat poopoo.”
Oliver: “But balloons don’t have mouths?!?”
Amelia: “They do in BalloonLand.”

Then we got interrupted. Thank heavens for small favors.

Fiction vs nonfiction

Amelia overwhelmingly prefers fiction to nonfiction, but has never verbalized this. She did tonight when I handed her a nonficiton DK book that I'd gotten for Oliver about animal families. Looking at it I realized there were several interesting parts in it that she'd probably enjoy. She looked at it, practically shuddered, and said (in her well-worn exasperated voice), "Mama, you should know this by now - I don't like books that explain things. I want books to have a great story."

We had a little talk about being open-minded vs being close-minded. I will admit that rarely does a nonfiction book cross my (reading) palate, but I always enjoy them when I do read them. I guess she and I are suckers for "great stories."

So very true

Amelia this morning:

"Ugh, this hairbrush is just tragic."

Oops.

We may have made a slight parenting miscalculation. At Amelia's last haircut a few months ago, she watched Tom and Jerry (cat and mouse classic cartoon) which was on from the child before her. She had never seen classic cartoons and was laughing so hard she couldn't sit up straight. The endless slapstick violence! Oh the joy! It was so fun hearing her laugh like that - then Santa brought her a Tom and Jerry collection for Christmas. Since then she and Oliver have watched it several times.

Now, a 4.5 year old watching violent cartoon slapstick is one thing. Apparently we did not thoroughly consider the impact of a 2 year old boy like Oliver doing so. You can see an example of what has happened to him in the graphic above which I stole from some study. Last week Oliver came up to me with a baseball bat (luckily a padded one), grinned, and said "I'm Tom, you're Jerry" and then walloped me across the shins with the bat. He's frequently spotted running through the house after our long-suffering cat August with a tennis racket shouting "Come heeerrre Jerry the mouse!" Like I said, Oops.

A new attempt to get the rules through to Oliver

Oliver doesn't necessarily disobey the rules - he just considers them irrelevant. Completely opposite from his big sister. Every day we're diving to the ground to avoid zinging projectiles of toys (he LOVES to throw) or reprimanding him for beating the cat with a tennis racket (you'd think the cat would be smarter than to come near). Oddly enough repeating them until we're blue in the face doesn't seem to work.

I decided to try another approach last night at dinner. As Oliver sat down to his bowl of tofu and broccoli I told him we were going to write down his rules. Then I read them to him. Then I told him he might want to learn to read them himself. The results are pretty cute. Not surprisingly, Oliver's good memory enabled him to figure out the words pretty quickly. I have a hunch that if I did anything with him for 10 minutes he would similarly pick it up. So if anyone wants to bribe me to spend my time teaching Oliver, he'll be reading Latin by the end of the month. Unless I receive my check in the mail, however, he will go right back to running around like a maniac and throwing toys at me.

The little rules-reader:

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Nature vs nurture

I've probably already said this a dozen times, but the second child is extremely ... illuminating. Most of the behaviors we gave ourselves credit for with the first (great parenting!) are actually just personality. The things we've worried the most about with the first (we've made her this way with terrible parenting!) appear to be genetically stamped into her. We can coax and cajole the water buffalo to take a different path through the marsh....but we cannot turn it into a mouse.

Self-confidence, to my surprise, falls into this category. I guess I thought that self-confidence was carefully cultivated over years of experience. Amelia worries all the time about what people think, assumes other kids won't like her, can be self-denigrating. We talk with her, do our best to help her through tough social situations....all a gradual process, right? Right. And then came Oliver. Oliver is supremely self-confident. He emanates self-confidence. At this most recent doctor appointment, the pediatrician said "I can tell - everyone must love this kid." Indeed. Except for perhaps the kid at the bookstore who Oliver is self-confidently pushing away from the train table. Our children were both born with their gifts and their challenges, and this is one of Oliver's greatest gifts.

I've been musing about this since the other day at the school playground. Oliver had taken his soccer ball (favorite accessory - he's like a 1950s sketch of "boy" - one grassy field, one soccer ball, and he's completely happy). It was only 20 minutes after school ended, and there was a pack of 5- and 6-year old boys running around on the grass with a football. Oliver ran up the steps, straight over to the boys, tossed down his soccer ball, and said with a big smile, "Do you want to play soccer with me?" They all immediately agreed and the game was on. Of course, he was a 2 year old trying to keep up with half a dozen big kids - but they were good about kicking the ball to him so he got enough play time. Here he is in the thick of it:

And then of course later he thought he'd join in on the basketball game. This was less successful as he's much better at kicking and dribbling than making baskets ....but that self-confidence is there!