Category Archives: Kid conversation
This is So Exciting!
So….the little genius is turning five this week. I’ll dispense with the sentimental glurge (that was so 2009), other than to say it still makes me a little teary to think about how fast she is hurtling through her early childhood, and her world is expanding in leaps and bounds every day. But that is good right?! exciting even? Yeah, I’ll go with Exciting for $500, Pat, thanks. More about that in a minute.
Lately my thoughts are turning more seriously towards the kind of experiences, values, and big-picture understandings that I hope she will gain in the coming years, and less toward “don’t drink that or you’ll grow a second head” or “here, let me make all your fashion choices for you”. It is a different kind of challenge; one which sometimes raises up ugly feelings of inadequacy and unpreparedness in me. Who am I (irreverent, pretend-adult that I am), to be (partially) responsible for the healthy development of such a bright and wonderful child anyway?
So yeah, she has always had a strong and sharply defined personality, but lately her maturity and independence are really, ahem, shining through. But again, I perceive this as positive, even though it challenges me to really think about my parenting and that which I hold dear enough to try to “instill”, mother-to-daughter. I don’t really like that word, “instill”, anyway, because for gods’ sake, I can’t just hook up a tube to her ear and pour in my beliefs and values (icky visual, huh?). Some days I think I have a pretty good handle on these concepts and then others, I feel pretty lost. Fortunately she is (relatively) patient with me. And of course, I acknowledge that my influence is only a piece of her overall tapestry, but it is the piece that I am responsible for and thus where I devote a good deal of thought processes lately. Please, karmic forces, just don’t let me screw her up too badly.
OK – all that junk aside, on to the exciting stuff!
My kid is LEARNING TO READ!!!
(Background information: I am a reading HOUND. I obsessively devour books of all kinds. I love, love, LOVE the tactile smell, feel, and design of books. I love the act of selecting something to read and sliding into a world wholly apart from my own reality. I have great patience for books…even for diffuse storylines, impenetrable classic literature, shallow or poorly developed stories, grittiness, explicitness…I want to experience it all. I want to be the crazy aunt from the movie Inkheart with a magnificent library, and a cozy windowseat. FF is also a voracious reader, although more particular about his genre preferences. Collectively, we have been reading to this kid since before she was born. She got her own public library card about a year ago and she uses it frequently.)
So the fact that she is learning to read is a really big, exciting event. I love thinking of all the literary adventures before her, and hope we can share this as a common passion. She is doing so well at school and home; learning to sound words out phonetically as well as identify an impressive handful of words by sight now.
The other night I unpacked a box of my old books that Gmom had in storage, and I discovered a couple of my all-time favorites. One of them was my beloved, battered 1950s-era copy of The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. For most of my life, I re-read this book on an annual basis because it is quite frankly, one of the most charming stories ever written. The various movie adaptations are cute and all, but they can’t begin to compare to the brilliance of this book. So I figured this would be a great opportunity to share a “big girl chapter book” with K, and last week we started reading a chapter per night. So far she seems to enjoy it and comprehend more than I expected. She gets a bit fidgety when there are long passages that are difficult for her to understand, but then we take a break and talk about the story. This is a monumentally exciting and happy experience for me!
Another expanding horizon….when K and I were shopping at Lowe’s the other day, she spied a nutcracker and asked me about it. And being K, a simple explanation wasn’t enough so I told her as much as I could in an understandable five-year-old fashion. Later in the day, I got a wild hair to check the on-demand TV listings to see if there were any classical Nutcracker ballet productions available…and score! I found a charming Bolshoi Theatre production, which we began watching last night after dinner. She was surprisingly engaged in it, once I began to tell her about the story and interpreting the related dances. Her attention span has always been pretty impressive, but I still didn’t expect a classical ballet production to keep her that entertained! She was actually mad at me because we had to stop watching about 3/4 of the way through to get ready for bed. Even though I promised her we could finish watching it the next day, she was royally annoyed with me. It just tickles me silly that she is so patient and open to new experiences like that.
…now if we can just get her to be a little more open to eating a wider variety of proteins and delicious fruits and veggies!
Director
Well, I got another fascinating glimpse into my daughter’s psyche yesterday, from a conversation that went something like this:
K: Mom, I had good dreams from the director in my brain last night.
CM: what? you have a director in your brain?
K: oh yes, he is my tiny little director friend and he lives in my brain.
CM: really, that is very interesting. What does he do?
K: oh, he takes the dreams and puts them on the screen in my brain so I can watch them.
CM: oh wow, that’s really cool! [trying SO hard to keep a straight face...]
K: yes, he is very, very tiny and he has a little computer in there that he uses to put the dreams on the screen. And there is a girl director in there too. And they are going to have a tiny baby someday too.
CM: that is great honey, thanks for telling me about the director in your brain.
K: Sure, mom! I’m a smart cookie, right?
CM: Absolutely.
Did You Hear a Bell Ring?
I guess this is how blogs die a slow, lingering, death and get their angel wings? Through the author’s careless inattention, unmotivation, and allergy to computer time? Well, I guess if so, then you dear readers can thank graduate school for the sorry state of things. Alright, I can only shift just so much of the blame, but honestly, I’ve been out of school for about three weeks now and I can barely, and I mean barely drum up enough forced attention span to sit in front of the computer to pay bills. (Work, is of course outside this artificial barrier, since I’d be out of a job in mere days if I refused my technological leashes at work.) Honestly, I don’t even know how it is possible to both love and hate something so equally. I mean hell, I shouldn’t complain about the amazing opportunity I have to go back to school and learn really interesting things, but holy bejeezus, it saps my will to live some days. Even though I am still pretty shell-shocked from this academic year, I am trying to focus on two important positive things: a) I get the summer off (WOOHOO) and b) ONLY NINE CREDIT HOURS LEFT TO GO! I might just survive this thing afterall.
So yeah I’ll agree, it’s pretty contradictory to be all “yay! 1 year blogaversary / empowerment / discipline / accomplishment / blah blah blah shit” and then just drop off the radar, but see paragraph #1, above. By the last week of the semester, my soul was bleeding out through my fingers every time I had to log onto the course system. I didn’t even bother checking my final grades for several weeks. Sorry, sorry state, people.
So I’ll try to tackle a series of “latest and greatest” posts to get back on track and we’ll see how things go. Not that there is really anything all that interesting to relay, but it’s my party and I’ll blog about it if I want to. So there. Of course the most interesting thing in my life is my little genius child so I think that’s a logical starting point. You’re welcome.
Dr. K. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Weird / Random Things She Throws My Way
Where to start? Well, she is on this side of four, and creeping up on the landmark age of FIVE this November. She is feisty, funny, and strong-willed as ever, precocious-ly talkative (seriously, her verbal functions are off the chart according to her preschool). At her last checkup she measured at the 75th percentile for height and she seems to be continuing in that growth pattern because when shopping for summer clothes, we had to go pretty much with all size 6′s because the 5′s were already too short in most cases. I packed away her size 5 long pants and shirts for fall but I sincerely doubt they’ll fit for long. Oh well, it means she’s healthy, right?
Which is pretty amazing considering that the kid never eats! OK, that’s not strictly true but she is still pretty picky and will go for 2-3 days at a stretch eating practically nothing. She has recently started eating chicken (as long as it is crispy, boneless, and fried to an acceptable shade of golden deliciousness (sigh). At least it is something new that she actually likes, so I am trying to feel encouraged. She is doing better with eating fruit, and willingness to try tastes of new foods, but still pretty much sticks to her usual routine of pasta, cheese, bread, milk, crackers, and yogurt. She has recently decided that fettucine alfredo is pretty much the cat’s meow at italian restaurants, after a yearlong consideration period of the merits of alfredo sauce for dipping her breadsticks in. I guess it passed the test or something because now she’ll eat it on pasta too, on occasion. And the girl absolutely LOVES garlic bread. She’ll even ignore a sprinkling of parsley on garlic bread, whereas you would think it toxic poison on any other lesser foodstuffs.
She has approximately 3,908,214 toys (I’ve counted) but I find it difficult to retire / donate any of them because she plays with EVERYTHING. She is the most creative, imaginative child I’ve ever known when it comes to the variety of toys she integrates into her play. I so look forward to the day she moves off to college so I can reclaim even one floor of our house to be semi-toy-free. Dinosaurs, stuffed animals, and pretend kitchen toys remain key favorites, but she really is an equal opportunity toy-spreader.
Ever since the loss of her beloved sleepytime Pooh bear (more about this in another post), she has taken to sleeping with a whole herd of critters on her bed. She generally has about 10-15 piled on there every night, but only 1 or 2 favorites are worthy enough to cart back and forth between her room and ours when she wakes in the middle of the night. Pretty crazy.
Yeah, she still wakes up every night and drops by for a visit (AKA taking over 2/3 of the bed and methodically trying to kick her father into permanent male sterility). So, she is sleeping somewhat better than a few months ago where we could barely get her to stay down for an hour. Lately she has been doing pretty well in her room until 4 or 5 am, which is pretty reasonable for her. We tossed around ideas such as draconic sleep training, rules and regulations, bribes, etc etc but when she started sleeping a bit better again, we let the notion slide. Mostly because when it comes right down to it, when I have a bad dream, a bad day, or watch something depressing on TV where kids are hurt, there is something so precious and comforting about having the chance to cradle her noggin in the crook of my arm, kiss her forehead in her sleep, and go to sleep to the sound of her peaceful breathing. I just figure that she is growing up fast enough that I don’t need to make a war out of this right now, even though at times it can be maddening…the sweet, good moments outweigh the rest. For now.
Her vision is much improved with just a few months of wearing glasses and she will most likely not have to go through eye patching or surgery. We are relieved and glad that we caught the vision problems in time to prevent further strain. She still looks totally cute as a bug in her glasses, and she takes really diligent care of them. She has been so mature and easygoing about the whole thing; it really swells my motherly pride factor.
We have been letting her grow her hair out longer because she wanted to start wearing it in ponytails. It is longer than shoulder length now and looks super cute when put up in ponytails or clips, but like a wild bushman otherwise. She prefers the wild bushman look about 5 days out of 7. Sigh.
How is it that they leave so many details out of the parenting manual? No one told me that I’d be called upon to make emergency trips to restaurant or store bathrooms to deal with urgent problems such as “really itchy buns!” Really kid, REALLY? Or that three month stretch when she’d randomly get the urge to throw up after eating (we think it was a mild acid reflux problem) which was super! fun! to deal with at restaurants. Usually after purging, she’d then want to go back to the table and order up some dessert. Um?
Preschool ended in early May and the last-day party was a hoot. Still not exactly sure what lies ahead for her schooling future but we’re still working on it. For now, she gets the summer off just like Mom and has been having a pretty good time. We are looking for some supplementary extracurricular activities to keep her busy along with weekly summer gymnastics.
Speaking of gymnastics, holy cow, I had no idea that a spring gymnastics graduation ceremony for 4 and 5 year old kids could be so hysterical / dramatic / entertaining / cute! They did it mock-olympic style and K and K2 got to show off all their mad skillz. Well, K mostly, since K2 was suffering an attack of performance shyness, but she was still cute as all get out. I think we’ll keep signing her up for the next 5 or 6 years just so I can keep going to the graduation ceremonies, hahaha. Yep, am pathetic example of humanity that is extremely easily amused.
She has a big-girl bike now and is learning to master it. She especially likes taking certain stuffed animals for rides and pedaling around in her gymnastics leotard, sparkley flip flops, and wild bushman hair. Hey, why not?
K has been getting into movies with nuanced storylines and more complex characters, and she has an attention span like a steel trap. We saw How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek in theater and she enjoyed both, especially the popcorn. She wants to see Despicable Me, but I’m not sure how appropriate that may be… She is watching less Noggin (AKA Nick Jr) and more Penguins of Madagascar, Fresh Beat Band, and food network shows with Mom and Dad. She is in love with Alton Brown, and rather enjoys Guy Fieri, too.
So, I guess that’s the latest and greatest with Dr. K. Strangelove. Every day seems to be a little mini roller coaster. She is a very intelligent, loving, generous, stubborn, and lovable kid and I think we’ll keep her for a few more years.
The Mysterious, Elusive, Leotard
So, K started going to gymnastics with K2 recently. She started lobbying to do gymnastics when she was about 18 months – no lie. But it took until now to get all the ducks in a row and actually get her there. Long, boring story. Anyway, so the first time she went, to check out the class and such, she borrowed one of K2′s leotards, because it would be unbearably UNCOOL to simply wear comfortable regular clothes.
Once we got her all signed up and everything, it was time to go shopping for her own “gymnastics outfits” as she called them. It happened that particular week that she and FF were going shopping at Target anyway so being the game dad that he is, he offered to help K select and purchase her leotards. Of course, the night before, he had to ask for a specific definition so as to have some idea of what to look for.
Apparently my vague description wasn’t quite sufficient, because their shopping trip was….a little unsuccessful. Despite determinedly looking through all the kid sections, the closest thing FF could find was a pair of footless “dance tights”. Naturally, he asked K if that was the right thing to buy, and her response was “I don’t know Dad, I just want to buy a gymnastics outfit!” So…at least they got the dance-tights-angle covered.
We all made another trip out to Target a couple days later, and upon discovering the activewear display, FF says “oh THOSE things!”. K insisted on trying on nearly every variety available (OMG) and was a little sad about the fact that her mean mother would only let her choose 2 to bring home. C’est la vie, little gym genius.
Germs
A recent engaging and revealing conversation with the little genius:
K: Mom! smell my arm!
CM: huh? why should I smell your arm?!
K: to see if it smells dirty.
CM: ummm…why would it smell dirty?
K: I don’t know, maybe it has germs on it. K2 told me there are germs in the dirt and they get all over our bodies.
CM: well yes, there are germs in the dirt and they do get on our body, but that’s ok.
K: my germs are sleeping right now and I don’t want them to wake up because then they will start moving around.
CM: um, ok.
K: sometimes my germs just hurt my skin when they wake up and wiggle all over. But I still like them.
CM: (speechless)
