Erica’s dark past is still haunting her. As a result she has been forced to agree to watch the boys again this summer (yes, Erica, you’ll get the negatives this year for sure…). I suppose we should tell her about Alice, spitting ball o’ fury, at some point, but why spoil the surprise?
Erica will have an evening class this summer. I’m sure that a day with the poopers will give her the energy she needs to get through the class - I suspect her biggest problem will be not skipping about the classroom in a delirium of good feeling. But we’re such nice folks that we don’t plan to dock her pay for that side benefit. It’s a freebie!
Mom’s going to try to do some gardening this summer. In preparation for this she ordered herself a big pile of dirt. She had it delivered and they dumped it in the driveway so that now I have to park on the street. Mom didn’t seem bothered by this.
Mom did get a bit of hauling in earlier this week. She has two new beds she’s putting in on the south (side) lawn. She was able to use the wagon a loving husband got for her, a wagon with special features that made it easier to haul the dirt. Mom’s been a bit frantic this week because she’s going to be out of town all next week and needs to get something planted. We still have a full weekend of activities so it should be a fun time.
The pile of dirt is so impressive that a couple of neighbors dropped by to ask where Mom got it. Apparently keeping up with the Joneses includes replicating their big piles of dirt in the driveway. Sadly for them, Mom wasn’t home at the time and I had no idea where from where she had obtained the dirt or how much it cost (hmmm…better check the kid’s college funds).
We had a bit of a mixup last week on Thursday. Normally Mom picks up Corwin from school on Thursdays for violin lessons. However, last Thursday the lessons were cancelled and Mom forgot to tell Corwin. It was a frantic day for Mom and I ended up being sent home to wait for Corwin. I waited for a while, watching the rain, until I got a call from the school telling me that there was a very wet Corwin still at the school. Woops! I immediately popped over to get Corwin, who was not a happy camper. He asked me in a pathetic little voice “why didn’t you pick me up?”.
Mom mentioned to Corwin that it was violin lesson day and that she’d pick him up from school. Corwin was dubious and it was looking like another rainy day. As a result, Mom had to swear that this time, she’d pick him up. I’m hoping that Corwin waits inside, even if Mom does remember to pick him up.
Charles has a new phrase - “I’m not happy”. He tried this out on me last night when I tried to load the poopers up to go to Corwin’s soccer practice. In contrast to previous outings, Charles did not want to go. He expressed this with increasingly distraught repitions of “I’m not happy” wherein he gradually increased the emphasis on the first syllable of “happy” until he was literally screaming it (in quite a piercing tone). The rest of the sentence was in relatively normal tone. But he could hit that one syllable like an opera singer with shoes two sizes too tight. But eventually I had to drag Charles out to the van as he declared his unhappiness. Once we got to the practice, Charles calmed down after a while and went off to play in the pebbles of the playground.
Mom shanghaid Charles on to the potty this morning because he had a dry diaper. I subbed in for Mom once I was ready for the day. As soon as I was there Charles announced “I’m not happy”. I suppressed his happiness anyway. But we had a bit of a progress. Charles eventually broke down and told me “pee alone!”. After some discussion on Charles remaining on the potty, I left the bathroom to give Charles some privacy. He upheld his end and remained on the potty until he peed, after which everyone was happy.
Mom is redoing the front porch area, part of which consists of a rock garden with a fringe of some kind of grass and a juniper bush. Mom kill the juniper bush by chopping off all of its branchs last fall. Now she’s trying to get rid of the rocks by hauling to the backyard. Last year I got Mom a serious garden wagon which she’s been using to do the hauling. Mom has a bucket and a couple of pots that she uses to hold the rocks as she pulls the wagon around to the back.
Charles has watched Mom move the rocks and decided that it was the cool thing to do. He isn’t to clear on the larger goal, as he generally only puts about 5-10 rocks in each container unless I egg him on to fill them more. What Charles likes is pulling the wagon around. He can make it on his own from the front to the backyard because it’s sidewalk all the way, but he can’t manage the wagon over the grass to the dump off spot (it’s a heavy wagon that probably weighs more than he does). Therefore I have to “help” although I’m forbidden to actually pull the wagon. That’s Charles’ job. I have to kind of push surreptitiously so that the wagon moves. It’s a good workout for Charles - his cheeks get very red as he struggles with the wagon.
The best part is that Charles taught Mom a trick for loading up rocks - use a shovel instead of your hands. He is truly a helpful boy.
Tomorrow is Mom’s birthday. Everyone remember to give her a call and congratulate her surving another year with that scumbag she married.
Jacob’s Mom has been over to help me out with my office fixup. A couple of weeks ago we were in my office discussing various furniture layouts. The boys of course couldn’t resist coming in to help out with the discussions. I decided to get some revenge so I told Corwin that Jacob’s Mom had something to show him. Corwin’s face lit up and he went over to look. Sadly, for Corwin, it turned out that Jacob’s Mom showed him a big smoochie on the cheek. Corwin fled in horror.
A few minutes later Charles showed up, Corwin encouraging him in to the room. I did the same trick to Charles, telling him that Jacob’s Mom had something to show him. Corwin shouted encouragement to Charles until Charles got his own smoochie. I admonished Corwin for sending his brother off to suffer the same fate as he did, but Corwin was unrepetant. However, we did manage to trick Corwin a second time a little while later.
Jacob’s Mom was over again on Saturday, which we spent hauling everything out of my office. She managed to fool Corwin again, although when she actually wanted to show Corwin something she had to promise in many and varied ways that she wouldn’t kiss him before he’d come over. So the short term memory is working better. I’m sure it’s because Jacob’s Mom and I have been working with him on this.
Mom and I both had to go rescue Charles in his bed last night. It turns out that cuddling with Lego trucks doesn’t work as well as a real one. Mom had to go first and repair the broken trucks but she tagged me for the next round. I cleverly put the trucks near Charles so that they were psychologically close but not in a good cuddle position. That got us through the night, although Charles drafted Corwin in the morning to fix the trucks once again.
I finally got Corwin to play in a computer game with me. He’s always been reluctant to do multi-player for reasons he won’t specify, but I suspect that it’s his strong fear of losing. However, once we played for a bit he warmed up to it. We had gone through about half a game when Mom announced supper. This brought Corwin almost to tears because we hadn’t finished the game. We did play a bit more later in the evening, but then it was time for Corwin to go to sleep. It did seem to be a psychological break through for Corwin, as he played a bit with a computer opponent while I was helping Mom and that’s something he’s never done before. Perhaps I destroyed a bit of childhood innocence, but that’s what parents are for.
I was giving Alice a bath yesterday when Corwin wandered in out of boredom. I think that’s the first time Corwin has seen a naked Alice. He immediately noticed that she was structured a bit differently than he is. He pondered for a moment and asked the key question - “where does she pee?”. I pointed to the appropriate place and Corwin responded “I don’t think that would work very well”.
Charles’ mind apparently is a big soup of various memes which then randomly coalesce in to actual thoughts. The following tale is a case in point.
Last night Mom popped out to WalMart to pick up some groceries, leaving me with Corwin and Alice. Of course, Charles got a new truck but he fell asleep on the way home. Since it was past his bed time, Mom just popped him in to his bed.
Charles got up early this morning and played around for a while. Eventually he decided to watch some Bob the Builder. I set him up and he watched it for a bit until he suddenly broke down in tears for no apparent reason. He started calling “my truck” but I couldn’t understand what he meant because he had his silver truck right there. I finally convinced Charles that he could go get his truck instead of just crying on the sofa, so off we went on a search of the house. I have no idea which of the 3,427 trucks he wants so I ask him what color it is and he replies “green”. We look a bit more without success so I ask Mom about the green truck, at which point she lets me in on the fact that Charles got a new truck last night and it’s probably in his room. Armed with the knowledge that the truck is still in its packaging, I was able to quickly retrieve it from the boy room.
I snuck the box down behind me and then “found it” in Charles’ ear (he was coming the steps in slow motion because he was driving the silver truck on the stairs instead of the banister). The effect was somewhat ruined by Corwin shouting “it wasn’t in his ear - you had it hidden behind you!”.
Charles was very happy with his new truck, solving the crisis until the next time his thoughts go together.
I’ve got a couple of movie clips for you from our trip to the science museum.
First up is Corwin extracting DNA from wheat. Part of the experiment involved having to shake a container for three minutes, which Corwin did fairly well. I felt sorry for the poor girl running it because only Corwin and one other kid showed up, both of them really too young to understand what they were doing. We were actually a bit late so she started off with just the other child. She was a good sport though. Her virtue was rewarded because although she had warned us that the experiment frequently didn’t succeed (because it’s just kids, after all) both kids managed to get DNA strands out.
While Charles was in the toddler play area, Mom put Alice down on a blanket to let Alice wiggle. She’s definitely mastered that activity.
I ambushed Charles this morning. I threatened to tickle him but instead I hauled him off to the potty. Circumstances and Charles’ clever ploys had stymied me most of the week. But the easy living had made Charles soft and he hadn’t prepared his bladder properly so I was able to get him diaper-less and on the potty before he let loose. Unlike previous adventures this time he fought my like a wild boy the entire time. He is quite strong for his size. However, I think he is bowing to the inevitable as he gave in after about 5 minutes of struggle and peed. He still struggled a bit even as he was going but his heart wasn’t in it. I let him go as soon as he finished. He wasn’t very happy with me afterwards but I think we’re making some progress.
As noted, Charles wanted to go with watch Corwin play soccer so I sent him back upstairs to get dressed. Afterwards he was driving his truck down the banister when he lost control at the landing and the car went crashing down to the next to last step. Charles reacted as he normally does to adversity and collapsed in to a fetal position, started crying and calling out “mah tuh!”. I figured Charles could go down the stairs and pick it up, but I was mistaken. Charles was to a large extent psychologically incapable of it. He layed on the middle landing crying for about 20 minutes before he slid down the stairs to get his truck. He immediately went back up to the landing so he could finish his drive. I think it’s good for Charles to start learning how to conduct search and rescue operations after a car accident.
Free bonus - picture of Charles cuddling his truck book. This isn’t posed, that’s how he fell asleep. You can also tell how much Mom indulges me - those are the sheets on our bed, not Charles’.
Corwin had a soccer game this morning. They didn’t win, but they didn’t do too badly. Mom tells me that they won one game last Saturday. Corwin is still enjoying playing which is what really matters. Charles likes watching Corwin play. We’re not sure what Alice thinks but she’s mostly OK with watching as well.
The exercise seems to be helping Corwin. When he was a baby he had the plumb roasting baby thighs, but he got skinny as he became a little boy. He’s getting some serious thighs again, though, which are hopefully muscle from his running rather than baby fat.
Corwin has started playing with some of the neighborhood kids as well, which is something we were hoping for when we moved here. Because of the neighborhood and our location, we don’t worry too much about just letting Corwin wander outside, although we require him to stay within sight of the house. Corwin likes to ride his bike and his scooter and I’ve been trying to convince him that it’s best to not do it right in the middle of the street. Corwin is not what one would call “situationally aware”. If we can just get by a couple of years without him getting squashed I think we’ll be OK.
As a bonus, I have added a gratuitous picture of Corwin and three of the J’s - left to right Jared, Corwin, Jacob and Jesse. One guess as to what device has turned off their higher brain functions.
I have to admit it - the battle of the potty is a quagmire. Charles is a dedicated and clever opponent who at present has our advance stymied.
At the beginning of the week, I had secured an agreement with my ally “Mom” to watch Corwin if I managed to trap Charles on the potty. So on Wednesday I managed to trap Charles in prime condition - just woken up without a full diaper. I grabbed him to put him on the potty but he responded by immediately wetting himself. Fortunately his night shirt and my shirt soaked up the overflow. Since then, it seems that Charles makes sure to fill his diaper as soon as he wakes up, just in case Dad is lurking about. I may be forced to start grabbing Charles out of the bed before he wakes up and hoping I get his diaper off and him on the potty before he empties his bladder.
Alice went in for a doctor appointment earlier this week and the doctor said she wasn’t putting on enough weight. Mom thought that was a bit odd, as Alice has developed some serious thunder thighs over the last couple of months in contrast to the chicken legs she started with. Not to mention that her cheeks are about as far from gaunt as you can get. Mom thinks Alice is just being irregular, as she’s put on 5½ pounds in three months and she’s supposed to have put on 6. So we’re not overly concerned. Mom has been giving Alice some extra formula, just in case. I think that Alice should just stop spewing quite so much.
Alice is doing well with holding up her head as well. She doesn’t have much problem holding it up while sitting up, but she never really had the “floppy head” that Corwin and Charles did. Mom says it’s because her head isn’t as huge as the boys’ heads were. I say it’s unfair to label the boys freaks just to make Alice seem more normal.
It now seems to me that the stereotypically male trait of avoiding verbalization in favor of grunts or gestures seems deeply rooted. Corwin does this quite frequently, where he’ll make some gesture instead of speaking. If I miss the gesture (which can consist of something like setting out a box of cereal in response to the question “what do you want for breakfast?”) and seek clarification, Corwin tends to just grunt or make an exasperated “unnnnnh” sound.
Charles is now, at the ripe old age of three, is doing the same thing. In a sense, he couldn’t do it earlier because one has to acquire language before one can choose to not use it. In this case, Charles wanted to watch his “choo-choo train” (Thomas the Tank Engine) DVD but he refused to say which one he wanted. He was willing to let Mom enumerate them and hold up the appropriate number of fingers to indicate his choice. It’s nice to know he understands small numbers but it would still be easier for everyone if he’d just speak.
Alice taught me this morning what it really means to be a parent. Mom likes to overfill Alice when feeding which tends to lead to spillage later on. Alice managed to spew a couple of times this morning. The first time it was just on the floor but the next time Alice had a bit better aim and tagged me a bit. At that point I realized the difference between a parent and not - the first thought is “yuck, there’s baby goo on me!” but “I wonder if that will show if I don’t change?” Something to keep in mind if you touch a parent - just because they look clean doesn’t mean they’re not carrying the mark of a child.
There are some disadvantages to Charles’ obsession with vehicles. This became apparent last week when I tried to give Charles a bath. He was crying when I put him in (not that uncommon) but he didn’t calm down. He just sat there, arm outstretched over the side of the bub, calling “mah buh buh” over and over in a pathetically beseeching voice. I guessed that he wanted a vehicle and I tried the standard ones but none were satisfying. Finally I actually got him out of the tub and sent him out, dripping and naked, to wander the house. He headed off downstairs to behind the end table on the couch in the media area, under which was a Hot Wheels boat-car. It was sort of blue, so I presume Charles was calling for “my blue boat” but I even if I had understood that I would never have either guessed which car he meant or where it was. Could it be that all of the neural circuts that would normally do language are tied up keeping track of Charles’ immense toy car collection?
While we were out playing this afternoon, Corwin spotted a dead bumblebee. He asked what killed it and I told him that lives only for about six weeks. Corwin of course asked why it was only six weeks, a question I managed to fudge an answer for. Corwin then launched in to a little story of his own. It started with Corwin having a pet bee that was alive and living for longer than six weeks. Corwin wandered about as he was telling his tale so I didn’t follow it very closely, but the ending stuck with me - “… but then the bee would die and the dance lesson would be over”. “Yes”, I said, “I can see how that would follow”.
This morning we went off to the regional pinewood derby, continuing the saga of Corwin’s racing career. There were about 150 cars or so competing but even so, Corwin did pretty well. It was a double elimination tournament and Corwin won 5 races before getting eliminated. I couldn’t see the entire tree but based on the number of cars left he was probably still a couple of runs away from getting a trophy (which went down to fourth). Corwin was disappointed that he didn’t get a trophy (during the last couple of races he would cover his eyes and plug his ears so he couldn’t tell what was going on). But he’s mostly recovered now. Mom really got in to the race. On the first race that Corwin lost, Mom spoke up and complained that they had run his car backwards so they ran it over. Corwin still lost, but it was definitely closer. Overall Corwin enjoyed the event. The result was as good as could be expected - he won some races but didn’t make it to the finals. He’s already for next year, though.
While hanging out at Corwin’s soccer practice Wednesday, Charles and I played dice for awhile. I’ve been carrying a many-sided die in my purse for a while. It has numbers instead of dots.
We started by having charles point out the numbers from 1 to 10. He’s really good from 1 to 5, and then a bit iffy until we get to 10.
After doing that 3 or 4 times, we changed games. I would roll and then ask Charles to identify the number that came up. After doing that a few times, I let Charles do it. I mistakenly told him to the throw the dice, which he did. Fortunately he can’t throw very far.
Mom has started using this as her nickname for our spitting ball o’ fury. Alice has been extra grumpy these last few days. This has been especially fun for Mom as she tries to participate in phone meetings. Alice does give the arm a good work out, trying to hold on to her as she thrashes about.
Charles got a new book last week which has many pictures of various kinds of trucks. Charles was enthralled with the book, insisting on carrying it while we were checking out, on the way home and around the house continuously once we were back. The most common phrase we heard out of him for the next couple of days was “where my book?”. I’ll try to update this post with a nice picture of Charles cuddling up with the book while he sleeps.
Charles has also taken to “driving” everywhere. This consists of having some small cars and pushing them to his destination. Frequently he takes cargo as well. Once when he wanted more milk he loaded up his sippy cup in the back of a dump truck and pushed it over to the refrigerator.
Conversations can be a bit different as well. Here’s an example:
Charles: “Beep beep!”
Dad: “Beep beep!”
Charles: “Beep!”
Dad: “Beep!”
…
Eventually I wear out the various combinations of inflection and rhythm and let Charles have the last beep.
Alice was in fine fluid form over the weekend. She managed to soil my pants three times, each time with a different bodily fluid. She’s a wonder, our daughter.
She’s also growing very rapidly. I’m starting to notice the weight when I carry her. Those days of light, tiny babies are so fleeting.
Alice’s eyes are definitely brown now. Mom is still living in denial and mumbling about “green” but Alice has clearly made her choice.
Alice is also starting to be OK with not being held 24×7. Most days she likes to take a break from the parents and get some “wiggle time” on her baby pad. Alice is a very active baby and is frequently in a state of high dudgeon, squirming, spitting and mildly screaming. She’s our little ball ‘o fury. I wonder if that’s not the secret of Mom’s and her mother’s well noted calm - they worked it all out when they were babies.
We had two soccer games in the last week: one Wednesday and one this morning.
Corwin is still enjoying the games and throwing himeself into it. I didn’t realize he had a game Wednesday (normally games are just on Saturdays), so he didn’t have his game shirt. So he spent a lot of time at goalie (since you have to wear a red penny then anyway). But that is ok with Corwin. He is more of a defensive guy than an offensive one. He made several excellent saves. The other team was quite agressive at the goal, but they only got one goal on Corwin.
The game Wednesday was closer than the final score would indicate. The Wiley team lost 1 to a lot more than 1. But the ball was in play all over the court. It was just that the other team was a bit more agressive about trying to make some shots.
The Wiley team seemed to take the need for agression to heart and came out with both barrels blazing this morning. Corwin started playing offensive, but then he took a ball in the chest and had to sit out for a while. It couldn’t have been too bad because he was kicking the ball with another sidelined player after a couple minutes. He played goalie for much of the rest of the game and had a couple of excellent saves. He also managed to fling the ball quite far out on a couple of his throw ins.
The coach’s son, Jack, was a one-boy offensive machine. He drove the ball down to the opponent’s goal several times, dodging yellow shirts with great agility. Unfortunately, one of the yellow defensive folks would ultimately slow him down enough so the goalie could strip the ball. Finally on one of these drives, the ball made it in either from Jack or by a rebound from one of the other players.
Josh, another offensive player, also had some excellent drives. He was enjoying himself so much he did a little happy dance on the last player change. The game ended in a tie one to one.
I took Corwin to see Joshua Bell play at Krannert Center a week ago Thursday. Since Corwin is the only boy in his violin class, I thought it would be good for him to see a male violinist. Besides, I had seen Joshua Bell play in Pittsburgh many years ago, and he is very, very good.
Since I only got the tickets a month ahead of time, we were stuck near the rafters, but the sound was still quite good. While we waited for the concert to start, Corwin asked why the roof wasn’t flat, and I got to give an ad libbed explanation of aucoustics.
Corwin lasted through the first set of pieces (three pieces by Schubert). He asked me why Mr. Bell was moving so much. Corwin’s teacher gets on his case for walking around during his lesson. I pointed out that Mr. Bell actually kept his feet mostly in place. He was just moving his upper body. And besides once Corwin was as good as Mr. Bell, perhaps he could move around too.
After the Schubert pieces, Corwin crashed. He managed to curl himself up in the chair like a cat.
I woke him up during intermission and walked him around in hopes of waking him up. I tried to astound him with the age and price of Mr. Bell’s Stradivarious but to no avail. He conked out again as soon as the lights went down.
Oh, well, I enjoyed the music anyway.
The kids and I went off to the park yesterday. Corwin was playing with Arnold, the neighbor’s poodle puppy.
So of course Arnold followed us as we walked to the park trail. “No problem,” I told myself, “he will turn back when we reach the trail head”. He did not turn back.
He raced behind Corwin who was ahead of us on his bike. “No problem”, I told myself, “I’ll pick him up when we reach the main paved trail and take him back”.
When Corwin and Arnold reached the main trail, Arnold, the poodle puppy, started chasing an interesting pair of joggers that was passing by. For Arnold, anything moving is interesting. Of course this is a park where all dogs are to be on leads, but that is of no concern for Arnold, the poodle puppy.
So we all start following Arnold and the joggers, trying to be more interesting targets. Finally, Corwin got Arnold to start chasing him. After several false starts, Corwin got him herded back. At one point Arnold nearly derailed a roller-blader by darting in front of her. “Neighbor dog”, I explained apologetically.
I’m not sure he actually handed him over to the neighbors. By the time I got back to the house, Corwin had parked himself in front of the game computer. But at least Arnold was back in the subdivision.
We’re still not having much luck on the potty training with Charles. I caught him one morning earlier this week with a dry diaper, so I forced him to sit on the potty. After about 20 minutes. I sent Mom down to get him a sippy cup full of milk. Another 40 minutes later, Charles was still holding out. Unfortunately, he managed to escape and go fetal on the floor, at which point he let loose. Based on the volume the problem wasn’t that he didn’t have to go. I can only assume that he’d rather pee all over himself and the floor than to pee on the potty. Next time I’ll have to not let him off for any reason.
On the other hand, the sleeping by himself effort is finally paying off. Last night he woke up with a wet diaper so he came in for a change. After I fixed him up with a new diaper, I lead him back to his bed and he climbed in with a smile on his face. Oh yes, one of those rare victories that I will savor as a parent.
Linguistically Charles now uses mostly complete sentences, although he isn’t very good at using pronouns. For instance, he’ll say “watch the TV” instead of “I watch the TV”. He has a reasonable grasp of prepositions. His diction is still terrible and it’s really a problem when he’s upset. He tends to lapse into an endless refrain of a short phrase that neither Mom nor I can parse at all because it’s mostly wail with a little bit of vocalization sprinkled on top which is bounced off the floor from his fetal position before we hear it.
Charles also has a tendency to drop trailing syllables (so, for instance, “want to watch T[V]”). It seems to be primary a diction problem because Charles understands fairly complex sentences. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for him to want something and not be able to make Mom and Dad understand the problem. But eventually Mom and Dad will grow and adapt enough to comprehend Charles’ vocalizations.
Corwin won a leadership award at school last week. This is recognition that not only is Corwin a good boy but he encourages others to be good as well.
We’re not sure if it was school wide or just for his class, but we suspect that it was for the class. Corwin is no help, because he refuses to discuss it. Corwin will, albeit reluctantly, confess to when he misbehaves. But if he gets an award he shuts down completely. Except, of course, if there is a trophy involved. Regardless, Mom and Dad are proud of Corwin being a good kid.
Corwin has acquired a severe phobia about the noises that Charles makes. At first we just had problems at the dinner table. But lately Corwin has been finding all of the the noise of Charles obnoxious. The new problem is that in the morning we can find Corwin either sleeping on the floor in our room or down on the couch. This is because he woke up during the night and couldn’t deal with being in the same room with a snoring Charles.
This evening Mom and Corwin went out to see Joshua Bell and didn’t get home until late. Charles had fallen asleep on the couch with me and was snoring. As soon as Corwin got home he asked “can you move Charles to another room?”. Corwin wanted Charles moved because the couch is in front of the TV and Corwin preferred to have Charles relocated rather than flee to another, TV-less room. Mom intervened by telling Corwin that it was way past his bedtime. Corwin, for once, didn’t give Mom any grief over this, presumably because that meant he could escape Charles.
P.S. Be sure to send Mom e-mail asking her to post about the concert.