Why my son will eat his boogers, but refuses to taste an olive, or a bean, or allow his food to touch, or drink a carbonated beverage.
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Why my daughter shrieks in pain when anyone looks at her and falls on the floor faint with utter pain when someone brushes by her or the cat looks at her. But she will clip a clothespin on her own earlobe and then say simply, "oh mommy, that hurt!" (Giggle, giggle, giggle!)
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How everything in the world that Skadi ever does is an "ansident", but cannot accept that anything done to her might also be. "Mommy, I ansidentally hit my brother on the head with my doll while he was watching TV!"
Showing posts with label kid interactions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kid interactions. Show all posts
Monday, March 07, 2011
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Privacy? What's that?
We seem to have a bit of an issue in our house.
Modesty.
A lack of modesty.
I keep hearing that just one day the kids will want their door closed, they will close the door when they use the restroom and they won't run around naked. I ask Leif if he closes the door to the bathroom at school knowing that it is up to each kid, "sometimes", he tells me, "when someone tells me to."
Typical, oblivious little Leif.
My son is going on 5.5 and it hasn't happened. He desires no privacy.
It isn't like AB and I are hippy parents. Our parents weren't nudists, we weren't raised in the buff.
You may have noticed pictures of my daughter in the blog... she starts out the day in one outfit, changes a few times to suit her mood and then finally mid-afternoon has had it with clothes and runs around in her panties... if we are lucky and can convince her to keep those on.
I leave our bedroom and bathroom door open on weekday mornings since while the kids sleep, I work out and then shower. They come in when they wake up and tell me they are up (me in various states of dress or undress), then they crawl in the bed and watch whatever happens to be on the little TV. I don't lock my door. My son sees me nude, but it's no big deal to him. Will it be at some point? Or will it just become a big deal to me?
Leif is better about keeping his clothes on than his sister, but he is often seen carrying his clothes to a particular place in the house to get dressed - to be near whoever.
Our friends' daughter (age 6) spent the night a few weeks ago while her parents went to a nice wine and food dinner. At one point she told Leif, "I need some privacy". And Leif wasn't joking when he said, "what's that?"
She had her pajamas on when Leif walks in naked, carrying his pajamas to get dressed near everyone else.
Giggles erupted!
I quickly directed him back to his room to get dressed. Oblivious-ness set in again, "I just want to get dressed where I can talk!"
See Leif and Skadi also still bathe together at 5.5 and 3. We have tried for the last six or so months to split them up. We have tried alternating bath nights, we have tried consecutive baths, we have put them in different bathrooms. Somehow they migrate together. If it is Skadi's bath night, then she is begging Leif to get in and play mermaids with her and he is all too willing. If it is Leif's bath night then we are physically restraining Skadi and locking her out so that she doesn't get in with him.
Which is less healthy?
Within a day or so we give up these attempts and let them go back to their baths together where they play and laugh and blow bubbles and see who can float the longest.
I am waiting for that day that Leif requests privacy... though right now I am thinking Skadi might reach that milestone first, given history.
Then again, maybe not, and maybe we are just hippy nudist parents.
(Oh goodness, wonder who is going to be directed to my blog now with keyword searches...)
Modesty.
A lack of modesty.
I keep hearing that just one day the kids will want their door closed, they will close the door when they use the restroom and they won't run around naked. I ask Leif if he closes the door to the bathroom at school knowing that it is up to each kid, "sometimes", he tells me, "when someone tells me to."
Typical, oblivious little Leif.
My son is going on 5.5 and it hasn't happened. He desires no privacy.
It isn't like AB and I are hippy parents. Our parents weren't nudists, we weren't raised in the buff.
You may have noticed pictures of my daughter in the blog... she starts out the day in one outfit, changes a few times to suit her mood and then finally mid-afternoon has had it with clothes and runs around in her panties... if we are lucky and can convince her to keep those on.
I leave our bedroom and bathroom door open on weekday mornings since while the kids sleep, I work out and then shower. They come in when they wake up and tell me they are up (me in various states of dress or undress), then they crawl in the bed and watch whatever happens to be on the little TV. I don't lock my door. My son sees me nude, but it's no big deal to him. Will it be at some point? Or will it just become a big deal to me?
Leif is better about keeping his clothes on than his sister, but he is often seen carrying his clothes to a particular place in the house to get dressed - to be near whoever.
Our friends' daughter (age 6) spent the night a few weeks ago while her parents went to a nice wine and food dinner. At one point she told Leif, "I need some privacy". And Leif wasn't joking when he said, "what's that?"
She had her pajamas on when Leif walks in naked, carrying his pajamas to get dressed near everyone else.
Giggles erupted!
I quickly directed him back to his room to get dressed. Oblivious-ness set in again, "I just want to get dressed where I can talk!"
See Leif and Skadi also still bathe together at 5.5 and 3. We have tried for the last six or so months to split them up. We have tried alternating bath nights, we have tried consecutive baths, we have put them in different bathrooms. Somehow they migrate together. If it is Skadi's bath night, then she is begging Leif to get in and play mermaids with her and he is all too willing. If it is Leif's bath night then we are physically restraining Skadi and locking her out so that she doesn't get in with him.
Which is less healthy?
Within a day or so we give up these attempts and let them go back to their baths together where they play and laugh and blow bubbles and see who can float the longest.
I am waiting for that day that Leif requests privacy... though right now I am thinking Skadi might reach that milestone first, given history.
Then again, maybe not, and maybe we are just hippy nudist parents.
(Oh goodness, wonder who is going to be directed to my blog now with keyword searches...)
Friday, March 14, 2008
My kids can do that and do it better
Not really. I just wanted to see how it felt to say that.
Ever look a parent in the eye and you are sure this is what she is saying to herself? Or maybe she is saying, "yeah my kid got past that MONTHS ago and is NOW onto (insert bigger and better thing here)". And some parents actually do say this. I know some.
One of my good friends posted in her blog about keeping up. Trying to keep her competitive and perfectionist nature at bay in regards to her daughter, particularly in comparison to other kids.
I get this. I so get this.
How can you not look around at other children your child's age and wonder, "should my kid be doing that too? How old is that kid, he has to be at least 2 years older right?"
What it really comes down to is, "what am I doing wrong as a parent that my kid can't do that?" While we all know that kids excel at different things and isn't going to be the best at everything (though some parents I know claim their kids are indeed...), it is still a source of anxiety.
There are some things that Leif excels at and enjoys doing - riding his trike is one. Though now we are transitioning to the bike and that is proving to be a touch more difficult and frustrating for him. We are lucky in that we have a bike path behind our house that has no motorized traffic and we aim to walk on it everyday. This has afforded him lots of opportunity for trike riding and his tricycle shows it. It was crumbling underneath him. Our intentions were to get him a bike in May or so, but the state of the trike dictated moving that up on the timeline. He is still a touch small for the big boy bike, so a steep learning curve is ahead of him.
He is a good swimmer for his age, but has been in swimming consistently for a couple years now. If he wasn't decent for his age I would think I was throwing money out the window. Leif excels at numbers, but to me, he comes by this honestly with parents who enjoy and studied mathematical applications into graduate school. He says "thank you", "please", "no thank you", "sorry". The fact that he has to remind us of our manners regularly is an indication that he did not learn this at home. I pay good money for his Montessori education thank you very much.
Then there are the ones we don't have locked up - he still struggles with poop training at 3.5 years old. He can't be bothered to do anything artistic for more than three minutes and only then it is upon request by me (this has GOT to be AB coming out in him). He doesn't sit quietly anytime even for chocolate (which says a lot) - what are other parents doing - drugging their children? While we are good with numbers, letter recognition is very hit or miss. He has lucked out that his name is short and essentially four lines with various squiggles... this was not intentional when we looked towards the day he might be trying to actually write his name.
The past few months we have also encountered a new aspect to parental competitiveness. Our daughter.
Those same feelings still exist with regards to other babies in her room and who we know. (That little girl in her class who was walking at 8 months? Show off.) But now we have a new one.
"Remember when Leif was one year old," I said to AB the other night, "wasn't he doing a lot more at that point?"
Inevitably we have started comparing our own children's abilities. Our conclusion has been that Skadi is a much "younger" one year old than Leif was. Her teachers agree she is on the young side, but right now that doesn't bother me as it ensures her a little more time in the infant room with her doting teacher who we all love.
I am pretty sure we have done this to her. She hasn't had our undivided attention whereby we could focus on her skills one on one. Take for example the other night when she was "walking" between AB and I.
We would do this for 30 minutes at a time with Leif until HE didn't want to do it anymore. The other night we had 10 minutes before Leif needed to get in the bathtub and so we held her hands and walked her back and forth. Twice. Before Leif NEEDED to stand between us and be a part of the game. Only his version meant dancing with Skadi in the middle or making her crawl over the mountain named Leif. (And she should have roared like a lion when on top... but she didn't.)
The fact that she isn't walking yet and probably won't be anytime really soon I put somewhat on myself. Who knows how much of it is me or just who she is. And she isn't her brother.
So while I bemoan the fact that she is a second child who never, ever will get as much attention as her brother had. I also have to remind myself of what she has. Something that as an oldest child, I always wanted. A big brother. A brother who thinks she is the coolest thing around and offers her a substantial amount of attention - some wanted, some not. She does something my son never had the opportunity to do, light up just by seeing him smile at her. Which sends me nearly to puddle stage as a mom.
Sure, I try not to compare her to Leif. She is her own person. Just like I tell myself not to compare my kids to their peers. But I maintain that if I was really good at not paying attention to what other kids were doing, it would mean I wasn't being a good observant parent. I believe that by expecting a lot of my children, they will live up to that. It's what my and AB's parents did with us - and I think we turned out pretty good!
Ever look a parent in the eye and you are sure this is what she is saying to herself? Or maybe she is saying, "yeah my kid got past that MONTHS ago and is NOW onto (insert bigger and better thing here)". And some parents actually do say this. I know some.
One of my good friends posted in her blog about keeping up. Trying to keep her competitive and perfectionist nature at bay in regards to her daughter, particularly in comparison to other kids.
I get this. I so get this.
How can you not look around at other children your child's age and wonder, "should my kid be doing that too? How old is that kid, he has to be at least 2 years older right?"
What it really comes down to is, "what am I doing wrong as a parent that my kid can't do that?" While we all know that kids excel at different things and isn't going to be the best at everything (though some parents I know claim their kids are indeed...), it is still a source of anxiety.
There are some things that Leif excels at and enjoys doing - riding his trike is one. Though now we are transitioning to the bike and that is proving to be a touch more difficult and frustrating for him. We are lucky in that we have a bike path behind our house that has no motorized traffic and we aim to walk on it everyday. This has afforded him lots of opportunity for trike riding and his tricycle shows it. It was crumbling underneath him. Our intentions were to get him a bike in May or so, but the state of the trike dictated moving that up on the timeline. He is still a touch small for the big boy bike, so a steep learning curve is ahead of him.
He is a good swimmer for his age, but has been in swimming consistently for a couple years now. If he wasn't decent for his age I would think I was throwing money out the window. Leif excels at numbers, but to me, he comes by this honestly with parents who enjoy and studied mathematical applications into graduate school. He says "thank you", "please", "no thank you", "sorry". The fact that he has to remind us of our manners regularly is an indication that he did not learn this at home. I pay good money for his Montessori education thank you very much.
Then there are the ones we don't have locked up - he still struggles with poop training at 3.5 years old. He can't be bothered to do anything artistic for more than three minutes and only then it is upon request by me (this has GOT to be AB coming out in him). He doesn't sit quietly anytime even for chocolate (which says a lot) - what are other parents doing - drugging their children? While we are good with numbers, letter recognition is very hit or miss. He has lucked out that his name is short and essentially four lines with various squiggles... this was not intentional when we looked towards the day he might be trying to actually write his name.
The past few months we have also encountered a new aspect to parental competitiveness. Our daughter.
Those same feelings still exist with regards to other babies in her room and who we know. (That little girl in her class who was walking at 8 months? Show off.) But now we have a new one.
"Remember when Leif was one year old," I said to AB the other night, "wasn't he doing a lot more at that point?"
Inevitably we have started comparing our own children's abilities. Our conclusion has been that Skadi is a much "younger" one year old than Leif was. Her teachers agree she is on the young side, but right now that doesn't bother me as it ensures her a little more time in the infant room with her doting teacher who we all love.
I am pretty sure we have done this to her. She hasn't had our undivided attention whereby we could focus on her skills one on one. Take for example the other night when she was "walking" between AB and I.
We would do this for 30 minutes at a time with Leif until HE didn't want to do it anymore. The other night we had 10 minutes before Leif needed to get in the bathtub and so we held her hands and walked her back and forth. Twice. Before Leif NEEDED to stand between us and be a part of the game. Only his version meant dancing with Skadi in the middle or making her crawl over the mountain named Leif. (And she should have roared like a lion when on top... but she didn't.)
The fact that she isn't walking yet and probably won't be anytime really soon I put somewhat on myself. Who knows how much of it is me or just who she is. And she isn't her brother.
So while I bemoan the fact that she is a second child who never, ever will get as much attention as her brother had. I also have to remind myself of what she has. Something that as an oldest child, I always wanted. A big brother. A brother who thinks she is the coolest thing around and offers her a substantial amount of attention - some wanted, some not. She does something my son never had the opportunity to do, light up just by seeing him smile at her. Which sends me nearly to puddle stage as a mom.
Sure, I try not to compare her to Leif. She is her own person. Just like I tell myself not to compare my kids to their peers. But I maintain that if I was really good at not paying attention to what other kids were doing, it would mean I wasn't being a good observant parent. I believe that by expecting a lot of my children, they will live up to that. It's what my and AB's parents did with us - and I think we turned out pretty good!
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Love and marriage preschool style
So the little chicky who proposed to my son and is probably still waiting for his answer via phone call, latched onto me today. Ok, not latched. As a nursing mom, "latch" means something that I am not trying to convey here. I got a HUGE hug from her.
I hugged her back as icily as I could - in typical mother-in-law-in-practice fashion (though my MIL doesn't hug with ice, she is a good hugger). I wanted to whisper in little chicky's ear not to be expecting an answer from Leif anytime soon, he can't read and there is no democracy in our house, it is a dictatorship and I control what he reads. But I didn't. I just thanked her for the hug, but I see through her tactics...
Love and marriage is in the air at preschool though. One of the other moms who I am friends with told me her son was trying to decide which of two girls he was going to marry at recess tomorrow since she had told him he could not marry his sister.
And then the other day on the way home from school Leif blurted out that he was going to marry me. I was flattered, but told him I didn't think Daddy would like that too much since he is already married to me. He proposed a three-way marriage, but I reinforced the one man, one woman thing. (I accept homosexuality and I am pro gay marriage - but my three year old doesn't need to start thinking about that anytime in the near future.)
I told Leif that he was going to need to pick out someone else to marry, and he did. Our friend's daughter and not terribly surprising.
I want to think of Leif as being immune to the advances of girls everywhere - but I know him too well. Everyone gets a hug in our house, and kisses get doled out too and not just for the girls either.
He and one of his male friends always kiss as they depart from a playdate. Not surprising since on New Years Eve at their house I was kissed hello and goodbye by nearly everyone there and very few of them I had met previously. (A little weird... but whatever.) But at their house, Leif gloms onto this practice. Kisses all around!
Then there are the two girls we are closest friends with, it is hard to pull Leif off them... I have a Christmas eve picture I could post of a "Leif sandwich" with the two of them - it is apparent he was enjoying a little slice of heaven there... There are usually threats of dad's needing to become involved - though Leif doesn't pay them much heed. N has proved to be her own woman though as she puts up with his advances for about three seconds and then shoves him off saying, "no kissies Leif". C, on the other hand, eats it up and we have questions of "when do we force them to stop this" with regards to the present as well as future timeline with respect to age.
So while I want to think that my son is an innocent bystander not provoking any of this attention... I fear that he is an active participant in garnering this attention.
I hugged her back as icily as I could - in typical mother-in-law-in-practice fashion (though my MIL doesn't hug with ice, she is a good hugger). I wanted to whisper in little chicky's ear not to be expecting an answer from Leif anytime soon, he can't read and there is no democracy in our house, it is a dictatorship and I control what he reads. But I didn't. I just thanked her for the hug, but I see through her tactics...
Love and marriage is in the air at preschool though. One of the other moms who I am friends with told me her son was trying to decide which of two girls he was going to marry at recess tomorrow since she had told him he could not marry his sister.
And then the other day on the way home from school Leif blurted out that he was going to marry me. I was flattered, but told him I didn't think Daddy would like that too much since he is already married to me. He proposed a three-way marriage, but I reinforced the one man, one woman thing. (I accept homosexuality and I am pro gay marriage - but my three year old doesn't need to start thinking about that anytime in the near future.)
I told Leif that he was going to need to pick out someone else to marry, and he did. Our friend's daughter and not terribly surprising.
I want to think of Leif as being immune to the advances of girls everywhere - but I know him too well. Everyone gets a hug in our house, and kisses get doled out too and not just for the girls either.
He and one of his male friends always kiss as they depart from a playdate. Not surprising since on New Years Eve at their house I was kissed hello and goodbye by nearly everyone there and very few of them I had met previously. (A little weird... but whatever.) But at their house, Leif gloms onto this practice. Kisses all around!
Then there are the two girls we are closest friends with, it is hard to pull Leif off them... I have a Christmas eve picture I could post of a "Leif sandwich" with the two of them - it is apparent he was enjoying a little slice of heaven there... There are usually threats of dad's needing to become involved - though Leif doesn't pay them much heed. N has proved to be her own woman though as she puts up with his advances for about three seconds and then shoves him off saying, "no kissies Leif". C, on the other hand, eats it up and we have questions of "when do we force them to stop this" with regards to the present as well as future timeline with respect to age.
So while I want to think that my son is an innocent bystander not provoking any of this attention... I fear that he is an active participant in garnering this attention.
Monday, February 04, 2008
A whole new scary phase
Today as I was picking Leif up and cleaning out his box, I happened upon a note in his box.
I am used to notes - usually instructing me to bring extra clothes in or go see the director. But this note was different.
It was in a child's handwriting. And since Leif only makes four various lines and curves to represent his name in some vaguely semi-recognizable fashion, I knew it wasn't his.
Yet it had his name on it.
And a big heart.
I opened it cautiously where I saw it said "mary me (heart heart heart) E----".
Oh and she didn't stop there... she gave him her phone number too.
Somehow I had hoped I would have time to prepare myself for this eventuality that would likely happen in 25 or so years...
However, the little chicky needs to wisen up if she wants my son. Because she has a big barrier between herself and my little boy... ME!
I am used to notes - usually instructing me to bring extra clothes in or go see the director. But this note was different.
It was in a child's handwriting. And since Leif only makes four various lines and curves to represent his name in some vaguely semi-recognizable fashion, I knew it wasn't his.
Yet it had his name on it.
And a big heart.
I opened it cautiously where I saw it said "mary me (heart heart heart) E----".
Oh and she didn't stop there... she gave him her phone number too.
Somehow I had hoped I would have time to prepare myself for this eventuality that would likely happen in 25 or so years...
However, the little chicky needs to wisen up if she wants my son. Because she has a big barrier between herself and my little boy... ME!
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