Loosely related to speech class...

While Matthew works with his speech teacher I keep Melissa busy with books and toys. Recently, she found a fisher price doll house and was just enthralled. She started making up little scenarios and stories about the baby, mommy, daddy, brother, and dog. She put the baby in the stroller and mommy took baby for a walk. Then baby had to go potty in the toilet, then daddy put the baby down for a nap. "Shush! baby sleeping. Now baby up, morn'n time! Baby play with dog. Ruff!" She is going to looove her Christmas gift! I bought it months ago when on sale and have had it hidden ever since. A picture is worth a thousand words so here is what the doll house looks like.

I am so excited to watch her open it Christmas morning! I'm debating whether I should paint or stain it... Hmmm, I'll have to think about that.


Matthew's speech teacher lives way out in Herriman in the middle of nowhere. Last week Jonathan took the kids to speech class because I felt lousy. Driving on the way back he was going around 50 mph in a 35 zone. It's a country road with a few ranches on it and not much else, so he felt confident going fast. Well, as he rounded the bend he saw a cop waiting. He braked to slow down, and the cop motioned slow down. Jonathan waved a "yes sir!" and that was that.

He related the story to me when he got back. "And there was this cop in the middle of nowhere, just around the bend!" I mentioned that I've seen a police car there more often than not, but didn't think to say anything.

He looked at me.

"Um, clearly I wasn't thinking was I?"

We both laughed.

I Two!

An earlier conversation with Melissa:

Melissa, "Mama, you sick?"

Me, still recuperating from a fierce head cold, "Yes, I'm sick."

Melissa excitedly, "Matthew is five, I two!"

(I guess at least she acknowledges that she is two now! For a while she insisted that she was five as well, just like Matthew.)


Melissa is also showing more of her mischievous side. The other day she and Matthew were sitting on the couch. Actually Matthew was more sprawled head down over the arm of the couch, when Melissa got this gleam in her eye. Before I could react, she grabbed his foot and shoved him over-board. Matthew only fell about a foot, but though unhurt, he was sure indignant! Meanwhile Melissa laughed and laughed at him. Matthew bristled, "It's not funny Melissa!" Actually, considering all he's put her through, it kind of was funny. She's his match alright.

Melissa Milestones

I got Melissa a Hamburger kids meal at Burger King today. (Rachel is sick so Daddy is taking care of the kids while trying to get some work done.) She ate it without making a mess. If you've ever seen a kid try to eat a hamburger ("hammer," she calls it) before they are coordinated enough to hold the two halves together and eat at the same time, you know what I mean.

She also made the sounds of the alarm system sticker at BK, which read ADT. "Ah d d d tuh!" she read. Matthew has been watching phonetics videos and Melissa has apparently been following along.

The chamber pot

About a month ago, Rachel started Melissa on a potty training program again.  We've spared you the details, but Melissa is mostly potty trained at this point.  She still has the occasional accident but it's been at least a week since the accident involved poop.

She usually poops once in the daytime then saves the rest for after she has her bedtime diaper on, and lets it rip during her bebopping around after being "put to bed."  (So there are usually two bedtime diapers.)

She hates it when the poop is caked on her bottom and I have to scrape it off, and I always tell her, "If you pooped in the potty instead, we wouldn't have to do this."

Tonight she decided to give that a try.  Rachel went in to re-tuck her in, prepared to change her diaper, and instead found Melissa sleeping naked on her bed, her sleeper in one corner of the room, and her doll's potty full of poop.  (Yes, her doll has a potty.  For educational purposes, you know.)

She actually did a really good job of aiming, considering the doll potty is only about 3 inches by 5.

Matthew plays a trick

Matthew is playing outside in the snow.  I have come inside from shoveling.

Ding-dong!  I answer the door.  It's Matthew.

"Daddy, the mail is here.  Can you get it?"

"Is it snow in the mailbox?"  I saw him stuffing snow in with his friends before I came in.

"No.  It's mail.  Can you get it?  I can't with my gloves on."

"Son, is it really mail, or just snow?"

"It's snow."  He grins at his cleverness.  "I play a trick on you, Daddy."

Bomb Game

It's been over a year since we've had my Dreamcast connected, but somehow Matthew remembered Bomberman Online aka "Bomb Game."  He's been asking to play it for a while now, but we really don't have room in our entertainment center anymore, which is currently home to a PS3, Xbox, Wii, and VCR.

Rachel's cousin just moved (temporarily) to Florida and offered to loan us a TV while they were gone.  "Perfect for the Dreamcast!" I thought.  So now it is hooked up downstairs and Matthew is delighted to play Bomb Game again.

I like that old Dreamcast (launched 9/9/99).  PS1 graphics were just too primitive for me, so the Dreamcast was my introduction to modern gaming.

I might have to go play Shenmue again now.

Holiday nostalgia

I'm not normally a very sentimental person.  Perhaps this comes from having poor long-term memory; my earliest memories date only to about 5 years of age, and those are pretty fuzzy.  This seems on the high end comopared to other people I know.  Nor do I remember a lot of the details from only a few years ago that Rachel does.  I've mentioned before that when Rachel asked me if we had any holiday traditions growing up, I have no idea.

But I discovered one source of nostalgia today.  Practicing Christmas songs with the ward choir, I kept thinking back to when I was a teenager singing in my ward choir.  Then, I sang bass; now, I usually sing tenor.  I'll sing which ever the choir is short on, because I can neither hit the really low notes nor the really high notes.  My only virtue is carrying a tune.

Mom anchored the soprano section then; she's a pretty serious amateur vocalist.  Besides the choir, we'd sing as a family and go caroling.  Twice that I remember, we sang a quartet at the neighborhood Christmas party -- Mom, Grant, Telitha, and me.  Christine was young then, and the other boys were less musically inclined.  Then I left on my mission and when I came back my parents moved.

Singing today, I remembered all that.  I missed it.  And I missed Mom.

Mmm, pie

Rachel cooked nine pies (and an apple crisp) and invited all her cousins over for Thanksgiving dessert.  With all her cousins, spouses, aunts, and uncles, we could have had 30+ people.

But only seven showed up, so even after they took some home, we had a lot of pie left.  (We had dessert scheduled for 5, after a 2:00 dinner at Rachel's aunt.  But her aunt's turkey was very late and we didn't eat until after 5.  Fortunately our guests were flexible.)

We had our neighbors Walt and Marilee over yesterday, with their kids, and we still had a lot of pie left.

Finally we had the  Casslers over, and now we only have a little pie left over.

All told, I had four pieces of banana creme as well as some pumpkin, pecan, raspberry creme, blueberry, and chocolate mousse.  But only a little of the chocolate!

I think I'm done eating dessert for a while.

Another difference between men and women

At lunch with the guys Friday, Gary mentioned that he caught hell from his wife that morning for his attire.  "You're not going out like that, are you?"  Gary checked.  "My shirt looks fine, Dear."  "Not your shirt -- your pants!  You can't wear corduroy with sneakers!"

This was news to all the other guys at the lunch, too.  We sympathized with Gary, and finished our burgers.

When I told this story to Rachel, she laughed.  "Well," she said, "his wife did have a point."

Advant Garde Artist

Matthew loves exploring new artistic mediums. He's used duct tape, sticks, vegetables, cardboard, masking tape, paper tubes, rubber bands, newspapers, wood scraps, ink and more to express his art.

Recently he took an empty milk jug, uncapped all his markers, and put them into the jug. Then he put his hand on top of the jug and shook it for all he was worth. The markers dotted the inside of the carton in a riot of colors. Voila! Art!

He was immensely pleased with his creation.

Daddies are so different from Mommies

A few days after Halloween, Melissa and I were walking through the neighborhood when we heard loud whooping and hollering. As we came closer, we saw two young boys gleefully dancing on the roof, while smashed pumpkin guts splattered the pavement. Our neighbor was climbing a ladder to the roof with another pumpkin in his hand to hand off to his boys. He was thoroughly enjoying himself too and was egging the kids on. (Not that they needed much encouragement.) They were having a grand time! Melissa and I sat in the grass to watch the pumpkin carnage, well out of the way of flying debris and rolling gourds. I noticed that the boys' mother wasn't home to witness all the fun...

I have a great husband!

Jonathan usually gets up with the kids in the morning and feeds them breakfast so I can sleep a little longer. Melissa now calls out for "DAAAAD DEEEEE!" first thing in the morning.

Heaven is burrowing deeper in the bed covers on a cold morning.

Grownups

While at the park a few days ago Matthew ran up to me clearly steamed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Matthew replied with unmasked disgust in his voice, "Those kids boss me around. They keep telling me what to do like a grownup does!"

The joys of homeownership

After a month of trying to get some guys out to stain our deck, Jonathan bit the bullet and broke out the circular sander yesterday. We got most of the sanding and cleaning of the deck done, but then Melissa woke up. She didn't nap very long, so Jonathan entertained her for a bit while I started staining. Matthew was supposed to be cleaning his room during this time.

I informed our son that I was now staining. Matthew really likes to "help" in any project with mess potential, so he quickly finished cleaning his room so he could offer his services. Not wanting to discourage any budding work ethic, I gave him a cloth so he could "help". I did insist that he wear old clothes though. Matthew's idea of staining is to saturate the cloth with as much stain as possible and then drip it on random parts of the deck. He stayed out to help me for about an hour before he got bored. I asked him a few times if he'd rather do something else, but he was adamant. "Painting the deck is a lot of work! You need help! I will help you!" I couldn't turn him away. Instead I mopped up excess stain when I could, and thanked him for his efforts. Definitely not a professional job, but it'll protect the wood at least.

When Matthew decided to go inside, Jonathan popped a movie in for the kids to watch while he and I finished the deck. He asked me a about staining a part of the deck and I said, "Up to you dear, I leave it to your good judgment. After all, I know you have good judgment, because you married me!" He grumbled something, the last bit I caught, "and I could have had a condo!" Grumble, grumble.

So we got about 80% of the deck done yesterday. We didn't have time to finish the stairs before it got dark. Today it rained of course. I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have to redo the &%!* thing again this year!

Fartiquette

I was at Home Depot Saturday with Matthew looking for wood scraps for him to nail together.  (What can I say, I am cheap.)

As occasionally happens, I passed wind.  Matthew noticed.

"Something stinky," he said.  "Is that you?"

"Matthew," I admonished him, "That's not a polite question."

When I told Rachel later, she laughed.  "You can't blame him," she said.  "It usually is."

(Rachel also says the title of this post is uncouth, but she cannot or will not suggest a better one.  Just so you know who to blame.)

You missed a great dinner

We had my friend Kevin and his wife Celia over for dinner tonight.  I made beef caldereta and it turned out as good as any I have ever had.  My caldereta is a bit hit or miss as I experiment, ever since the chef at The Boondocks told me his secret was "maraming keso" (lots of cheese).  The nice thing about caldereta is, the ingredients are so good that even if it's a bit off it's still edible.  And when everything comes together just right, like it did tonight, the results are fantastic.  

Here is tonight's recipe, more or less.  You can google recipes with lots more ingredients but I prefer to strip things down to the essentials because I don't see the point in spending added prep time on things that don't really affect the result.

As with any dish you make over and over I didn't actually measure any of these.  But I think I'm pretty close.

2 lbs beef, cubed
1 medium onion or half a big one, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp chopped garlic
5 small purple carrots from Rachel's garden, or about 3 boring normal orange carrots
2 8 oz cans of tomato sauce
2 cups grated cheese (that is, post-grating it was about 2 cups)
3 bay leaves 

Throw everything in a wok and cook until the beef is done.  Serve with rice.  Feeds four adults.  Feeds no kids; they would rather have a PBJ.

Notes:

• I suggest adding the cheese just at the end.  It seemed to make a difference tonight.
• Bell peppers and peas are acceptable carrot substitutes for caldereta.
• All the "authentic" calderetas I have had included potatoes.  But since potatoes are nutritionally and tastefully almost the same as rice I omit them in keeping with my no-wasted-effort cooking philosophy.  Just eat more rice with it and it works out.
  

Sportsmanship, peanut style

Rachel found the Wii Sports disc. Good thing I didn't buy another from Nintendo for $20. (Ouch!)

Matthew likes Tennis but despite my efforts to demonstrate has not figured out volleying. It's not that he swings and misses; the Wii makes that almost impossible. He just won't swing at all at the net. Since the computer is very, very consistent at returning baseline shots this means that he loses to all but the most inept computer opponents. (It scales its skill level as you get better. But Matthew hasn't been getting better.) Matthew often loses his temper as well as the game when this happens.

Fortunately for his wii privileges, he came up with a solution: he plays all four positions! The rallies aren't very long but he is immensely pleased because he wins every time.

I'd rather he learn that losing a game isn't a big deal and losing to a computer is an even smaller deal but I guess I'll take what I can get in the meantime.

Spelling

Matthew was playing with the stick-on-the-wall bathtub letters last night.  He'd throw random letters up and ask what they spell.  I explained that the written word represents the spoken word, not the other way around, or in five year old terms, pick a word and spell it.

He didn't really get it so I told him to spell "cat."  What sounds are in "cat?"  He sounded it out, and put up C A T.  Great!  Next he replaced the C with an S to spell "sat."  Then he must have gotten tired with spelling, because he put up VAT next.  "What does that spell?" he asked.

I didn't want to make this a vocabulary lesson.  I wanted to reinforce my point about picking a word and spelling it.  So I asked him to sound it out and see if it made a word.  "Vvvv... aaaa... t.  Vat."  "See, it's not a word," I told him.

"Yes it is, Daddy.  Mommy says, 'Pick up vat!'"

His speech therapist still has some work to do.

Things that remind me of my dad

Every time I have to tell one of the kids, "I just told your [brother/sister] to stop doing that! Why did you start?!" I think of my father. My father who seemed to ask that question with the same tone of puzzled frustration that I hear in my own voice now. Dad used to seem so clueless at such times.

Poor Dad.

My own earliest memories are from when I was five. Three memories in particular. Having Matthew turn that age makes me think of my dad, too.

When I was five I remember measuring my height against my father. I came up to his belt buckle. I was halfway to being as big as Dad. A huge milestone.

When I was five I got a big yellow steam shovel for my birthday. I am not so old that they were really "steam shovels," but I had read a book in which such earth-moving machines were indeed steam powered and in my five year old mind so they remained. (I don't think this was the famous Mike Mulligan story, but it may have been.) This was the coolest present ever.

When I was five I saved up my allowance -- fifty cents a week? twenty-five? I'm not sure -- to buy a half-sized pair of vice grips. I didn't really have a use for them, per se, but I did know that vice grips were one of my father's most-frequently used tools and therefore having my own made me more grown up by association. (Which reminds me of a modern update to the old adage about vice grips: "Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job.") [Rachel comments, "You're so nerdy." And then kisses me so I guess she approves.]

That's one thing I wish I did more of, is projects with Matthew like my dad used to do with me. I'm relucant to admit this in public, though, because Rachel is full of good ideas for home improvement, and it's really more of a fuzzy "wouldn't it be cool" wish than an actual desire. ["Darn it," she says.]

Rachel adds: "Matthew thinks all the tools belong to me, and Mommy is the one who fixes things."

Just doing my part for modern gender attitudes, Dear.

What Matthew is thankful for

• Robots
• Transformers
• Emma

Daddy did not make the cut.

Don't get me wrong; I like Ellis. It's a fine last name. If common.

"Have you updated your wish list for the holidays?"  Tonight Rachel did.  Then she checked out my wish list for good measure.  "21 Jonathan Ellises!" she exclaimed.  "What a common name!"

Rachel has a thing about common names.  She still hasn't quite forgiven me for changing her name from what was probably the only Rachel Sinden in the country.  (But on the other hand she doesn't like it when parents make up new names for their kids, either.  It's really hard to win this game.)

I pointed out that, really, Ellis isn't that bad.  "Try John Brown," I suggested.  Rachel was skeptical that there could be anything much worse than Jonathan Ellis.

There were 368 John Browns.

Princess

While waiting in the grocery store line we saw a burly and bearded man dressed in an emerald robe and wearing a crown. Melissa was delighted. "Princess!" she squealed with delight pointing. "Princesses! Princess!" The woman behind us hooted with laughter while the kingly man tried to maintain his dignity and made a point of ignoring us (guess he didn't have much of a sense of humor). I apologized to the man and tried to correct her, but Melissa would not be dissuaded.

I bet that is the first time the man had ever been called a "princess." Oh well, the woman behind us remarked that that was the funniest thing she had heard all day. At least we made somebody's day!

Matthewisms

We were driving in the car and Matthew piped up, "Grandma gets lost." "Oh? Grandma gets lost?" I queried. "Yeah. Grandma gets lost if I don't hold her hand, so I hold her hand."

"When I grow up I will come back and visit you and give you a hug and kiss. I will leave my kids with a babysitter to come visit you," Matthew explained. "Well, I think Grandma likes seeing you, her grandson, and I bet I'll like seeing your kids too, just like Grandma likes to see you." He thought a moment and then brightened, "Oh! You're right! I'll bring them too!"

"I was a cute baby, wasn't I?"

"I just tricking you!" One of Matthew's favorite explanations for his mischief.

"I am big, but 6 and 7 year olds are really really big!"

I a Pretty Dirl!

A conversation between Melissa and Jonathan:

M: I a Pretty Dirl!

J (somewhat taken aback): Yes, you are a pretty girl.

M: Dada, you a pretty dirl!

J: No, I am a handsome man. You are a girl; I am a man.

M: Datthew a man?

J: No, Matthew is a boy. Matthew will grow up to be a man.

M: Datthew drow up man?

J: Yes.

M: Mama a pretty dirl?

J: Mama is a pretty woman. You will grow up to be a woman too.

M: I drow up woman?

J: Yes.

This was a little beyond Melissa.

M: I a pretty dirl!

J: Yes. Good night.

A letter to Uncle Chris

Dear Uncle Chris,

Hi.

I broke my toenail. I went to the doctor to fix it. He cut it off part of the toenail and put a band-aid on it. I got shots in my toe. I walked slowly with the blue band aid on it. It's feeling better.

It needs a 2. "Why?" It just does. 222222

I had fun with Mason. (Mason is Matthew's friend)

I went to church happy. And what did I learn about Dada? I don't remember what I learned about. (Jonathan was teaching his class today).

My pet is sick, my penguin pet. (a stuffed animal)

We hanged the pinata at my birthday party. We broke it. With a bat, by whacking it. Ate cake. And opened my presents.

I got sick on Wednesday. "You weren't sick on Wednesday." A long time ago on a Wednesday I was.

Love,

Matthew

Classic Peanuts

Our neighbor came over to our in a panic and wanted to use the phone. Apparently her one year-old baby had locked her out of the house and her two older children were still sleeping inside and couldn't wake up open the door for her. I gave her the cell phone to call her husband. Meanwhile their baby was crying on the opposite side of the door, while she tried to calm him. Thankfully her husband was only 5 minutes away at this point. This brought to mind a similar unfortunate occurrence...

When Matthew was about 17 months old I took him on a very memorable shopping trip. I'd forgotten to bring a toy and he was getting restless. I gave him my keys which entertained him enormously. We finished shopping, I loaded the groceries into the car, and put my purse in as well. I then buckled him into the car seat and closed the car door. I'd parked right beside the cart return so I pushed the cart in and reached for the driver side door.

CLICK!

Oh crud!!!

Matthew had found the lock button on the key chain. I tried to coax him into push the unlock button to no avail. In a panic I ran back into the store and grabbed a clerk with a phone (my cell phone was conveniently locked along with my AAA card, d'oh!). We called the police and waited and waited. I think Jonathan was teaching a class at the time which is why I couldn't reach him... Thankfully it was early March and pretty cold outside so Matthew was in no danger of overheating. The store employee even brought some blankets out to cover the glare from the sun and help keep things cool. I played peek-a-boo with him for about 15 minutes. He was amused at first but became distressed when I didn't open the door and join him. He then started a full baby wail. It tore at my heart. Poor fellow! I wanted nothing more than to come to him. I got to the point of requesting a brick to bash open a window, but decided to wait a few more minutes.

Thankfully the locksmith arrived shortly thereafter (maybe 30+ minutes total wait time?). Matthew was getting frantic as was I- but I didn't want to show it for fear of freaking him out even more. The locksmith did his work quickly and then informed me that they don't charge in instances where a kid gets locked in, but they strongly suggest a $50 donation. I wonder if the man know that at that moment he could have named his price. I'd have written a check for any denomination. Matthew snuggled up next to me saying "Mamamama" Then I had to put him back into that dreaded car seat in order to get home. He was not thrilled, but I bribed him with some candy.

He took a very good nap that day.

Peanuts

• The kids watched Star Wars with Jonathan on Thursday night (orchestra night). Matthew is a huge Star Wars fan after playing Lego Star Wars over and over... Every time the movie cut to a new scene he'd excitedly exclaim, "They made it to the next level!

• Matthew's speech therapy is going well. He can now say "k" sounds and intermittently "f's" instead of "s". He proudly announces to strangers on the street and store clerks that he is now "five" instead of "ssive". Melissa also insists that she too is five.
  

• Last night we took the kids out for ice cream. On the way to the ice cream parlor Matthew piped up, "I want blue ice cream!" Not to be left out, Melissa chimed in, "I want red ice cream!" This went back and forth for a while, the kids happily shouting out their favorite colors, when Matthew slipped and said he wanted red ice cream. Melissa corrected him, "No Dachew, you like blue one!" At the store Melissa changed her mind and said she preferred the pink kind. Good thing too, because there was no red ice cream to be had.
  

• We can't leave anything out on the counters or on top of the refrigerator any more. Mostly we are pretty good about keeping it clear of tempting and/or dangerous things, but every once in a while we slip. One morning Jonathan caught Melissa on top of the counter happily helping herself to potato chips. "Mmmm, chips! Licious! Mmmm!" (Daddy is a bit of a softy, and gave her some chips at the table before putting the rest away in the pantry.)

Tattletale

Matthew tattles on Melissa.  (Melissa got into the cookies!)  Melissa tattles on Matthew. (Matthew's playing with markers!)

I hate tattling.  But Melissa made me laugh when she was mad at Matthew but didn't have anything to pin on him at the moment.  "Mom!" she tried, "Matthew did something."

A cheap table

My grandmother once said that, as far as furniture was concerned, "Ethan Allen is the cheap stuff."

If that is the case, we just ordered another cheap table.  We checked R C Willey and Granite first (my grandmother would have been horrified) and could not find anything that was not laminate -- the kind that you can scratch with your fingernail, for the most part -- or weird, like one that was all stainless steel.  Or just shoddy construction, like the one that was perfect except that it wobbled if you breathed on it wrong.  That would have lasted Matthew about a month.

We also checked a place called Campo that imports solid wood furniture from Mexico.  But Rachel didn't like any of the styles they had.

So at Ethan Alen we got what was I believe the cheapest table in the store.  The saleslady called it "virtually indestructible," and I think she might be right.  (She kept going on and on about how high-quality EA furniture was, blah blah blah, so I told her about my grandmother to shut her up.  It worked.)

The price on the table itself was actually quite reasonable.  Then they really nail you on the chairs.  (You wouldn't want chairs that don't match, would you?)  All told it was almost $3000, or 10x what I paid for our current cheap table and chairs (a glass-topped iron model that is really patio furniture) 8 years ago.

Darn inflation.

Gunsmoke

Matthew's favorite birthday present was a late one: Uncle Ellis gave him and me Nerf dart guns.  There was much shooting and laughter in the basement last night.  (I am a better shot than Matthew, but our hit rates were about the same because I am a much bigger target.)

It's a good thing Ellis gave us some extra darts too.

Darts lost by Matthew not paying attention when he fired somewhere in the kitchen: 1
Darts chewed up by Melissa: 2

(I thought she was done with the "let's chew up random stuff for no particular reason" phase.  Good grief!)

Those glow sticks sure smell bad when you chew them open

Grandma Ellis sent the kids some glow sticks for Matthew's birthday and the run-up to Halloween.  We gave them one each to start with; then Melissa bent the rest of hers, starting the glow reaction, so I gave those to her too.   She preferred them bent into bracelets.

Some time after putting the kids to bed we heard a disturbance from Melissa's room.  Rachel wearily asked me to investigate.  I poked me head in the door and Melissa told me "Ow, tongue!"  I smelled something funny.  She'd been chewing on one of the glow sticks and sure enough one was broken open and she had glowing yellow liquid on her.  I got her a drink of water (I tried to get her to just rinse and spit but she drank it) while Rachel called poison control.

Turns out it is caustic, as Melissa found out, but not really dangerous in small amounts.

In some ways Melissa is an easier child than her brother.  But we have never had to call poison control for Matthew.  This is twice for Melissa.  (The first time, which I don't think I blogged, was when she ate a handful of Tums.  Which is funny, because Rachel would rather endure heartburn than eat those.)

It's 10:30 PM

I know where my children are.

In particular my son is in his room, making various not-sleepy noises.

Uh-oh, the water is running. Now he has incurred the wrath of Mommy.

I predict a cranky boy tomorrow.

Why some people never have children

Actually, I think five-year-old birthday parties are pretty low down on the list of reasons why some childless couples choose to remain that way.  But that's only because they don't know how bad it can get.

Last year, Rachel let Matthew invite six (?) friends to a party. Four came. It was fairly manageable.

This year, counting on a similar acceptance ratio, she let him invite nine friends.  All of them came.

Perhaps the best summary was offered by Rachel's friend Jessica, who stayed for the duration of the party with her two daughters that Matthew had invited -- one a little older than he, the other a little younger -- and two younger sons.  I don't know why she stayed.  Maybe she just didn't want to drive back and forth again since she lived about 10 minutes away.  But I think it was more likely simply morbid curiosity, just like you can't look away from a train wreck you know is coming.  

Anyway, Jessica pointed out that "Wow, little boy parties are very different from little girl parties.  Little girls like to sit, and talk, and follow instructions.  They don't hit each other or wrestle or run off away from the activity."  Which our guests did constantly.  When there wasn't anything obvious to hit each other with, like Matthew's lightsabers or swords, they'd find something else.  Like teddy bears.

Rachel reminded me that "testosterone starts affecting boys' brains in the womb."  I believe it.

Matthew's party theme was superheroes.  (Of course birthday parties need a theme!)  Rachel tried to get him to accept an offer of a pirate party, but he would have none of that.  As a compromise of sorts, she managed to get him to broaden his demands for a Buzz Lightyear party into one to which all superheroes would be accepted.

Mostly Rachel wanted a pirate party because it's incredibly easy to come up with pirate-oriented activities for attention-challenged youngsters.  But she did pretty well with the superhero theme: first there was a "training camp," with races and bean bag throwing contests and the like.  Then there would be a "mission," where Rachel had a trail of photo clues leading from one location to the next and finally to a pinata.

We did have to improvise briefly after the last training episode -- a race around the house.  Matthew fell and threw a tantrum, some of the other kids were arguing about who cheated, two kept having sword fights, and at least one was inclined to wander off and explore the house.

Rachel called an emergency meeting of superheros, with popcorn.  The heros ate the popcorn with gusto and order was (briefly) restored.

Then we did the photo clue mission, which went as planned except for the oldest guest running around picking up clues out of sequence, which left me running around putting them back.  Then the pinata was duly destroyed, candy was put into bags for when they left, cake was served, and presents opened.

Then everyone left, we swept up all the popcorn and cleaned away the cake, put the kids down for a nap, and fell asleep exhausted ourselves.

The party ran from 11 to 1, but what with pre-party cleaning and preparation, and post-party cleanup and recovery, it really was an all day thing.  (I woke up from my nap at 5.  I needed it.)

I wonder if there's a way to distract Matthew from having a party when he turns six.  Maybe if we're out of the country for all of October, for instance... 

Either he's in for a big surprise or I am

Today Matthew wore a suit to church.  (After all, he is now a big five-year-old.)  After Primary he was really excited to tell us that Emma told him he was handsome.

Emma is the neighbor girl he has decided he is going to marry.  (Why?  "Emma is nice."  What about [some other girls]?  "They are not as nice as Emma.")

Toe trauma

Thursday night is when Rachel practices with her orchestra. (She is viola chair this year.) Thursday is also, not coincedentally, when Daddy takes the kids out for fast food.

This past Thursday I took the kids to Burger King. Matthew rushed ahead. "I want to open the door!" He heaved it open with all his might.

Unfortunately, his toe was in the way, and he was wearing sandals.

He shrieked and kept shrieking. I could see that it had started bleeding but I didn't think it was that bad; Matthew's prone to exaggeration in such things, particularly when he sees his own blood. I carried him inside and put him on a table where I could look at his toe.

It was a mess.

The toenail was shattered and the toe itself was bleeding pretty badly, for a toe. It was bad enough that clipping away the toenail mess myself didn't look like an option.

So I carried him back to the car and bucked him in, still shrieking. Then I went back and collared Melissa, who had run ahead to the slide. She didn't want to go but was fairly philosophical about being caught. "Matthew ow, toe."

We drove down to the instacare a couple miles away. Matthew wasn't in that much pain but he was still freaking out in a big way. I reached back and held his hand, and he made some efforts to calm down by singing, but it was only partially successful.

When we got to the instacare the receiptionist gave him a lollipop and he calmed down instantly. Then some other kids came in and saw his injury, by far the coolest in the waiting room, and started talking about times they hurt themselves. Matthew was pleased with the attention.

It was a good thing that he calmed down because we had a long time to wait. We got there at 7; they closed at 8; we were done at 10. By that point both kids were way past their bedtimes and fatigue was taking its toll on Matthew's composure. It didn't get as bad as my flight back with him from NJ when everything caused massive and noisy hysterics, but it was definitely causing extra crankiness.

First they took x-rays to make sure it wasn't broken. I was sure it wasn't but it's Procedure dammit. At least it didn't add that much time to the wait. Then they got him on the operating table. The doctor took a closer look and didn't like what he saw. "It's deeper than I thought," he said. "He'll need anaesthetic for me to trim the nail. We can either do that with a local here, or you can take him to Primary Children's where they can knock him out through the nose." I'd had needles in my toe when I had a doctor attack an ingrown toenail very aggressively. (He tried to take out the root so it wouldn't grow back. It grew back anyway.) It hurt like hell but I survived. General anaesthetic can have rare but nasty complications, especially if you're young. So I opted to take care of it then and there.

I and a tough-looking nurse held Matthew down while another nurse gave him three barrels of novocain. He screamed again. "I don't like medicine!" Now that I don't blame him for in the least, poor kid. Then it started to go numb and he figured he was good to go home, but we had to wait another 20 minutes or so for the novocaine to be at maximum strength before the doctor could operate. The nurses and I praised Matthew for being Tough.

Fortunately a kind nurse took Melissa into the staff office and gave her papers and crayons at the table during this. She had reached her own limit of how long she was willing to sit still and listen to stories, and we'd exhausted the few child-safe amusements of the OR (tongue depressers and... that's about it), so I was very relieved.

Matthew's toenail was just generally mangled at the front. That needed to come off. But it was also split down the middle almost to the base. The doctor gave me the choice of removing it completely or trying to save it with a little superglue -- the danger being that if he caught it on something it could very easily rip it open along the seam. I opted for the superglue. When he started in, the toe was so numb Matthew didn't even notice, so he put a couple dissovlable stitches in instead of the glue since the stitches are stronger.

Finally we headed for home. That's when Rachel got home, saw the house dark and deserted, and freaked out a little herself. I'd called a couple times but she'd left her phone home. When she called she was relieved that we hadn't been in a car accident or worse.

When we got home Matthew couldn't wait to tell Mom his adventure. Novocaine is wonderful stuff. We gave him some codeine before tucking him in so hopefully the pain wouldn't wake him up during the night. It didn't.

By today he is running around normally, not favoring his toe at all. Kids heal fast.

Travel update 2

So it turns out that January is about the worst possible month to visit Tahiti as weather goes (temperature, not shown, is also lowest in the US summer months when rainfall is lowest). Conversely, US winter months are the best for the Philippines.

Both get roughly the same amount of rain ("a lot") in their rainy season. (The Tahiti graph is in mm -- 15 inches is about 380 mm, so they peak at about the same rate.)

Rachel has put me in charge of getting passports. ("I'm sure you'll get the job done. Plus, I don't want to deal with it!")

Travel update

I did look at some French-speaking African countries. Morocco is currently very popular with Europeans looking for something different (and cheaper). Here is one good Morocco blog by an American.

The main drawback is that these are very Islamic countries and although foreigners are left alone, a Moslem who converts to Christianity is not treated well there. (Since under Sharia the penalty for apostasy is death, I suppose they're making progress, technically.) Perhaps not coincidentally the LDS church does not have much of a presence there.

So we're going to leave these off our list. Besides the part about your religion making you a second class citizen, the church is also a support group of sorts, and when contemplating a drastic change like this it's nice to know that there will be some people there with whom you at least have religion in common.

Madagascar was the only French-speaking country that did have an LDS church presence. But it seems very, very third world. (One ISP I found touted as a selling point that their equipment only uses 25 watts! "Easy on batteries, generators, or solar panels!") Their recent history probably has something to do with that.

Peanuts

• Melissa was sitting on my lap being cute the other day when she unleashed a series of four loud, moist farts. How unladylike! I was a little shocked, not that a two year old would do such a thing but at the juxtaposition with her picture-perfect cuteness in every other respect. She looked up at me and grinned her dimply grin. "Bubbles!" she exclaimed, clearly pleased with herself.
• Today Melissa was on my lap again. "How were the kids today?" I asked Rachel. Melissa chimed in, "Machew dood boy." [Matthew good boy.] Rachel confirmed that it was so, and I praised Matthew. "Were you a good girl?" I asked Melissa. "No, I not dood dirl, I dood boy." "Silly little miss, you're a girl!" "I not dirl!" "You are!" "I not!" I changed the subject: "Toes!" I tickled her and there was much giggling.
• Matthew copies letters and words and really wants to read, as long as it doesn't require any concerted effort. (We are on reading lesson 10... a month ago we were on 9.) He tries to guess words based on context. He claims he can read "Exit" on doors, which works fine except when the door actually says "1st floor," as one did today.
• Rachel has labels on the linen closet shelf to show her well-intentioned but slightly oblivious husband where things go. Matthew copied the "Towels" label (you wouldn't think I'd have trouble with that one, but Rachel was thorough) and placed his next to his mom's. With his own duck tape. That label is manly.
  

Travel distraction

My company's current and so far only contract has a major deadline in January. Even though I know better (in software development, you only get busier post-release) I have been thinking about how it would be nice to do some traveling.

Rachel and I have talked about living abroad for a year or so in the relatively near future. There are lots of places we would like to live but probably the top three are Ireland, Tahiti, and the Philippines. The main line of reasoning here is

1. If you're going to go abroad for a year it's a bit silly to live somewhere that's not very different from the USA, which tends to rule out Australia which is after all rather like Canada, only warmer
2. On the other hand it does suck to not be able to understand anyone. We should be fine with English in Ireland and the Philippines; we think we could probably dust the rust off our French quickly enough to make Tahiti viable. (Thanks to my father's influence, my French was once good enough to be able to watch the news and occasionally trick a Frenchman into thinking I was Quebequois. Although I never managed the opposite; my accent was not French enough.)
3. You could apply (1) and (2) to France itself as well, but neither of us is really excited about that idea for various reasons
4. Ditto Northern Africa, although it's quite possible I should look at the options there more closely
   

Of course, before moving somewhere for a year it only makes sense to make some shorter trips first to see if we actually like it first. That is what I have in mind for January.

Of those, I'd prefer not to make our first visit to Ireland be in the winter. From what I have read, the weather there is similar to Rachel's native Washington in the sense that it rains a lot most of the year; the main difference is that Ireland is colder.

My dad wants to come out and say hi if we go to Tahiti; since he's a college teacher, that means waiting for summer makes sense for Tahiti too. (And if you are thinking "sharing a vacation with your parents doesn't sound like much fun," you clearly do not have kids yet. Free baby sitting. Plus my parents think Rachel walks on water which doesn't hurt either.)

So, that is the long explanation for why Rachel often catches me reading about the Philippines online. At first glance there's a lot of information available about living just about anywhere but if you look closer most of it is geared towards either singles or retired couples. Or retired singles. Younger couples with kids... not so much.

Not out of the woods yet...

Last night Jonathan and acted like newlyweds, we stayed up late playing...video games.

In retrospect that wasn't such a good idea.

About 1:30 in the morning Melissa woke up yelling for Daddy. Daddy was out for the count so I went in her room. As I knelt by her bed I abruptly realized something was very wrong. I picked her up and and started yelling for Jonathan. Melissa had thrown up and was covered head to toe. I bathed Melissa while Jonathan took care of the bedding, floor, and wall.

Freshly bathed and attired, I rocked her in her room. She threw up again and got me and the rocking chair, not to mention herself too. We showered

(Well wasn't that interesting. As I wrote this Melissa was sick again while on my lap. I wasn't quite fast enough and she got the couch too. Poor thing.)

So anyways it was about every 10 minutes she'd have another episode in the night. It went on until around 5:30. I'm not sure what time she got up this morning, Jonathan took her then and I slept till 9.

So then Matthew started complaining about being sick. I thought he was just vying for all the attention that his sister was getting. Unfortunately I was wrong. So now both kids are taking turns upchucking. We are in constant threat of running out of fresh towels and Melissa clothes. The washer and dryer and running full time. Poor kids, poor parents.

Poooooooop!

*Warning the following contains bodily functions and interior decorating. It is not a pretty combination.

Sunday Jonathan put Melissa down for a nap. He could hear her goofing off and then it got erily quiet. Daddy patted himself on his back for successfully putting her down for a nap. A half hour later he hears "Dadda Poop! Dadda! Dadda!" Upon entering the room he is overwhelmed with the poop fumes. Melissa is in the room diperless and the contents of her discarded diaper artfully decorating the floor, blankets, and her. He picks her up, gives her a shower, and cleans the floor.

Fast forward to that evening. I'm taking a shower and Melissa barges on in the bathroom. I tell her firmly that "No, you had a shower today, now it is Mama's turn." Jonathan extracts her from the bathroom and locks the door for me. I finish up and head upstairs. Melissa is in her room naked and covered in poop. Her floor is covered in poop, her bedding likewise adorned. She looks up and Jonathan and me and says, "Daddy Poop! I shower?" Gahhh!

She got a cold wipe down in the tub instead. Daddy and Mommy were not amused.

Call Me Old-Fashioned

Since moving to Utah a decade ago, I've noticed a trend. Most adults here are addressed by their first names by children. In fact if I introduce someone to my children as Mrs. So and so, they will interject, "oh you can call me Jane." I thought it was a regional quirk, but after browsing through an online parenting discussion forum, 97% of the posters go by their first name with children. In fact more than a few of them thought it is degrading to children to have to use Mr. or Mrs./Ms.!! That using a title is an inappropriate form of respect and real respect comes from actions not words.

Well, in my ever humble opinion, words do convey respect or disrespect, and there is nothing wrong (and quite a bit right!) with using a title to express that. Kids are wonderful, delightful people, but they are not adults in miniature. Believe me, I live with two of them! I have yet to see an adult throw himself onto the ground kicking and screaming because he can't have the gumball he wants! Or decorate the walls, floors, and her body with markers. I think that with age comes responsibility, experience, and (hopefully) wisdom, right? Adults teach and protect children and as such are not on the same level. On television, could you imagine calling Mr. Roger, Fred? As in "Fred's Neighborhood?" I just don't see myself as the peer of a three-year-old! Likewise, those whom I grew up addressing as Mr./Mrs. or Brother/Sister, are still addressed in that manner, unless they prefer to be addressed otherwise now that I'm an adult.

However, my viewpoint is not popular. It's hard to teach Matthew and Melissa to address adults with a title when their peers don't or the adults prefer to be addressed by their first name. Even very casual acquaintances will ask to be known as Bob or Amy. Often I can compromise with "Ms. Amy." Really close friends and cousins have the honorific "Aunt or Uncle." I want to respect what other adults what to be called, at the same time I want to teach Matthew and Melissa good manners. It's tough to balance.

Peanuts

• It sucks when your kids get over their cold faster than you do. They're bouncing off the walls while you're groaning on the couch wishing the world would stop being so loud. At least Melissa slept in til 8:30 two days in a row while she was recuperating.
• Matthew's favorite song is the Star Wars Imperial March, aka "the Darth Vader theme." He has several variants that he hums to himself. I'm not sure if the variations have more significance than a 4-year-old not quite remembering how it goes.
• Matthew's class was assigned to say what they are thankful for during the ward Primary program. Matthew was thankful for his birthday, and Christmas. Recently he added Halloween. One of his classmates is thankful she doesn't have nightmares anymore.
• Melissa has been spending more time in her room lately as she learns that telling Daddy "No" when told to Come or Climb Down is not acceptable. This morning, for instance, I came back in the room to find her on top of the counter, stuffing her face with Mommy's gummi worms. She was not pleased to see me.
  

A trip with Matthew

I took Matthew with me on a business trip to NJ in mid-August. Matthew was a good traveler for the most part; if he hadn't done well on our trip for David's wedding I wouldn't have done it. 5 hours is a long flight, plus more waiting in the airport, is a long time to sit around when you're 4.

Continental overbooked the first leg of our flight (to DC, where we were going to take a Delta flight to Utah). The good news was they put us on a direct flight to SLC instead. The bad news is we still got in to Utah almost three hours later, past 10 PM. Matthew did pretty well until he fell asleep half an hour before we landed -- when he woke up he was in bad shape. Everything resulted in a flood of tears and howls.

But I guess it was worth it; Mom was glad to have Matthew for a couple days, and Matthew was glad to see Grandma and Uncle Grant again. Rachel was glad to only have one kid by herself while I was gone. And for all their squabbles, Melissa missed Matthew -- Rachel said every morning she would ask, "Where Dachew?"

Captain Oblivious

My wife figured out early on that I can't read her mind. That's just not a skill men come with, in general. Tonight she found out that even as men go I'm a little slow.

We were sitting at the table discussing Halloween costumes, and Rachel asked Matthew if he was going to eat his chili this year.

I paused. "Wait," I said. "Is that what we had last year [when Matthew wouldn't eat his dinner, so didn't get to trick or treat]?"

My wife looked at me with a grin in her eyes. "Yes, we've had chili and corn bread every Halloween for seven years now."

"Oh. It's a tradition?"

"Yes, Dear. So what you're telling me is, when I ask if you had any traditions growing up, you're not really a reliable source, are you?"

I guess not!

(I didn't tell her that I probably never would have noticed the chili and corn bread thing if Matthew hadn't refused to eat it last year. So, no. Not a reliable source at all.)

Another sign you need to work out more

Your wife tells you, "I like that look on you. Black is slimming."

On the hazards of getting your wife killed

We played Munchkin with my cousin Bryan and his wife Jen yesterday. At one point Bryan was fighting a level 10 monster. I made it "Ancient" (+10) and he enlisted Rachel to help fight it. Then I gave it a "mate" (doubling its power to 40). Rachel and Bryan had to run away. Bryan made it. Rachel did not and died.

Rachel was understandably peeved with me. I thought it ended with the game until she told me as we were going to sleep, "I think Lisa has the right idea." I immediately knew what she meant: Lisa only plays board games to make Grant lose. I have no idea why he still plays with her.

"I didn't know you were the vindictive sort, Dear," I said.

"I'm not vindictive. I'm just holding a grudge."

I guess that does it for Munchkin.

(It could be worse, though. My friend Howard knows a man with a couch he calls his Medici couch, because that's where he sleeps after he plays Medici with his wife.)

Little girls

Girls play so differently than boys.

Matthew's (second) cousins Abby and Alex are here playing. Abby is a little older than Matthew and Alex is a little older than Melissa.

Abby is running things. Her games are entirely different than Matthew's. I came down when she was serving "dessert" to the others. She saw me and assured me, "It's okay; we already had dinner."

Then she got the "bed" ready and told the younger kids they had 2 minutes before bedtime. Then it was storytime. Then, "Alex, go to bed with Melissa. I want to sleep with Matthew. He's the daddy."

But Matthew started arguing with her because he was having fun reading "stories" to Alex. "I sleep with Alex first." They argued at length. Abby played her trump card: "You'll wake the baby up!" But Matthew out-stubborned her, until Alex lost interest.

The two younger ones are taking this with surprisingly good grace, consenting to play along when it suits them, but ignoring the older kids when it doesn't. Mostly, it doesn't.

The most stubborn Ellis

I thought Melissa had "most stubborn Ellis" locked up but Matthew has forced me to reconsider.

Saturday morning, around 8:00, he was tasked with cleaning his room, same as every Saturday morning for the past few months.

He finished at 11:00 Sunday morning.

It was about fifteen minutes' worth of work. Thirty if you're horribly inefficient. An hour if you're inefficient and easily distracted.

So for over 24 hours Matthew only came out for meals.

It was annoying for the rest of us because we had some family activities we would have liked to do, but he was inclined to cut of his nose to spite his face.

I did beat Super Stardust though. So it wasn't a total loss.

Chaise lounge, postscriptum

This already is funny, to my mom.

"Just like her father," she chuckled.

"Hey!" I protested. You mean, "Just like her Uncle David! I wasn't the destructive one."

"You're right," she conceded.

"You've got to be more careful about that, Mom," I said. "Rachel hears you say 'Just like her dad' and takes it at face value."

I get the impression that my wife thinks I was 5 kids worth of orneriness rolled into one. Just trying to set the record straight.

Alas, poor chaise lounge

Melissa kicked off the weekend with flair.

I got home, kissed my wife, asked, "Where's the kids?" [downstairs, playing nicely] and sat down to read the paper. Hey, usually the kids are all over me, so I was going to enjoy the calm while it lasted.

Rachel checked on the kids a few minutes later. When she came up, she grimly deposited a marker-covered Melissa in front of me, then headed back down.

I went down too. Rachel's chaise lounge was covered in the same purple marker that decorated Melissa. Matthew had opened the Melissa-proof container the markers were in for his own use (on paper), but apparently saw nothing in his sister practicing her art on the chair worth telling us about. Odd, because usually he's so quick to tattle. Bad time to choose to be reticent.

Amazingly, Rachel got almost all of the marker out of the chair. Only four spots remain that I can see. And when I say it was covered I mean it; of the seven faces of the chair not facing the floor, five had marker on them and four had a lot of marker on them.

Rachel thinks there is hope if she tries different cleaning solutions on the four remaining spots but it is probably going to be time to drape her chair in decorative cloths of some sort.

Poor Rachel. As my friend said, "We've pretty much given up on having nice things until the kids are twenty or so." The chaise lounge was one of our few more-than-utilitarian pieces, and Melissa chose that one to practice on.

In a few years this will probably be funny.

Book reviews in exactly 10 words

Gun, with occasional music: Noir. Talking kangaroos. Doesn't merit hype. I couldn't suspend disbelief.

Medicine, Madams, and Mounties: 80 below? That's cold. Short but sweet; $1 on Amazon.

Rebel without a stitch

Melissa dressed herself this morning. She climbed on her bookshelf to get down one of her dresses that are deliberately kept "out of reach."

Next she decided she'd rather be naked. Rachel told her she needed to put on some underwear. "No 'wear!" she insisted. She argued for a few minutes, then decided that Mommy was probably not too bright and could be fooled. She put on a shirt and pants and came back, still underwearless.

Rachel was not fooled, and repeated her rule. "No 'wear," Melissa insisted again, between howls of outrage. Our daughter is well on the way to becoming the most stubborn of the Ellises, and that's saying something, so Rachel picked her up and put her in her room for a potentially very long wait for Melissa to comply. "No pick!" [Don't pick me up] Melissa demanded, but Rachel paid her no heed.

Fun with physics

I was just sitting down for my morning chat with the mayor when I heard a clunk from the living room. It was definitely the sort of clunk a glass makes when dropped on the floor, and I remembered now that Rachel had left a glass on the floor last night.

"Whew, I'm glad it didn't break," I thought, and debated getting up to confiscate the glass. Melissa decided for me, though, and I heard the glass hit the floor again. This time it didn't survive.

These glasses shatter particularly violently when they break, so I sprinted for the living room, sat Melissa on the couch, and started cleaning up. "Sowwy, Da'," she kept saying. She knew she was not on Daddy's Good List.

Let me just emphasize that Rachel had left the glass on the floor. So our daughter picked it up and deliberately dropped it, until it broke.

Our son isn't the only one with an appetite for destruction.

Breakfast of Champions

Jonathan often gets up with the kids in the morning (bless him) so that I can catch a few more winks. However his idea of what makes a complete breakfast and mine differ on a few key points. His concept of breakfast is expediency; whatever happens to be on the counter, or can be prepared in 3 seconds flat. On the other hand, I like to consider food pyramid type stuff.

Last week he gave the kids cookies for breakfast on Tuesday and on Thursday cake(!). (Yeah, the kids love Daddy breakfasts.) When I discussed the matter with Jonathan, he tried to say that cake is kind of healthy given that it has eggs, flour, milk... Uh huh.

Me: Daddy gave you cake for breakfast?

Matthew: Yeah, I asked for banana oatmeal, but he said no.

Me: Oh, really?

For the record, Jonathan refutes that oatmeal was ever discussed, or that Matthew was in the slightest bit dismayed with cake. "What a bald face lie!!!"

Sensing a necessary reform, I made a list of approved and NOT approved breakfast items.

Approved: oatmeal, fruit smoothie, any fresh or frozen fruit, eggs and toast, apple sauce, cereal, granola bar, yogurt, pancakes, muffins (*anything else, please consult the WIFE)

NOT Approved: cake, cookies, ice cream, goldfish crackers, etc (and yes these are all things he has fed them for breakfast)

Keeping Jonathan's ego in check

I just got back from OSCON where I presented a tutorial session. I was telling Rachel about it and I mentioned that on two separate occasions I was talking to an older fellow and they asked if I was in school. I was rather pleased about that, being a little sensitive about the whole over-30 bit lately.

Rachel, engrossed in Master of Orion, replied, "They must not be very observant. You certainly don't look like a student anymore."

I wasn't too flattered. A bit less than gruntled, even.

"... You look young. Really. Maybe, 23?"

Yeah.

Beans! Beans! Beans!

Melissa helped pick our first bunch of beans.

"Purple Bean! Purple Bean! I help!"

We planted Royal Burgandy and they are Bee-autiful! (tasty too!) Took some pictures, but I don't know where cable is... Jonathan can post a picture when he gets back from his trip. Meanwhile here's a link to what they look like, and yes, they are that gorgeous.

purple beans

More Peanuts

• Melissa loves to have books read to her. "Readzabook! Readzabook!" she demands. We keep a stash of rotated library books in the drawer of the entertainment center. She will pull book after book and clamber onto your lap expectantly. She is very insistent too, and will push whatever else you may be doing aside so that you can read to her. I usually peter out after four books, somewhat to her dismay.

• Baby counting... Everyday when Daddy comes home he throws the kids in the air and counts to 10 as he tosses them. (Incidentally this used to make Mommy panic, but I've since mellowed a bit about Daddy games. He hasn't dropped a kid yet.) Melissa now counts 1..2..4! She's getting there!

• Matthew likes to put the dog harness (it's a soft backpack that looks like a dog and it's tail is the leash) on Melissa and order her around the house. He calls the game "pet shop". Melissa, for her part, seems to enjoy the game and barks and licks things (while crawling on hands and knees).

• Matthew wanted to play "crashing boat game" when I gave him his bath yesterday. This game consists of, well, crashing boats into each other. Matthew is pretty rough, so my knuckles get a beating playing this game. I persuaded him to play a word game instead to spare my hands. He has a collection of foam letters that stick to the bathtub wall. We used words that end in "ip" He was very pleased with the words we made. lip, sip, tip, rip, nip, zip, hip, dip...

• Yesterday we were desperately low on TP. (You potty train a kid and toilet paper usage more than doubles!) I was certain we had more in the pantry, but alas. Since it was Sunday, we figured that if we rationed things we'd be fine until Monday. (Meaning kid use of tp was to be strictly monitored.) We didn't get to bed until late that night, and Jonathan gets a little loopy when he's sleepy. He had a "brilliant" brainstorm. "Hey dear, we can produce and market pee rags for crunchy people! Our slogan can be 'Save a Tree! Pee on Me!' or 'Pee is for Planet!'" Righhhtt.... And he likes to tease me about how crunchy I am! Okay, okay, so we do the cloth diapers, don't buy formula, don't use disposable feminine products, and prefer natural childbirth, but STILL!!! Night night, sleepy scheming husband!
  

When all you have is a hammer

Grandma Ellis sent Matthew a Real Hammer. Matthew was immensely pleased. ("My first real tool!!!") He immediately started hammering everything in his bedroom. He got a nail partway through one of his shelves before Rachel caught him. (It's probably just as well for Matthew's sake as well as the coffee table's that he didn't exactly pull a Calvin.) Rachel sent me off to Home Depot to get some wood scraps so he could express his male need to put nails into things in a more acceptable fashion.

I brought some 2x4 scraps and some thinner ones. So of course Matthew nailed "wings" on to one of the 2x4s to make an airplane ("for Mama"). (Later he decided it was more of a helicopter.) His first creation out of something more substantial than legos.

Working the system

I've been putting Melissa to bed lately. I offer to rock her first, which she usually refuses violently, then yells her indignation at me as I leave and for long minutes afterwards.

This is uncharacteristic of her in other situations; she's generally much more aware than her brother that you catch more Daddies with honey than with vinegar.

The other night she applied this to bedtime. I put her in bed, and she asked, "Wok, Da'." [Rock, Dad]

So I rocked her.

Then I put her in bed and she asked, "Nuhdoh, Da'." [Snuggle]

So I snuggled next to her for a minute.

Then when I left she yelled anyway. Oh, well.

Update: Tonight I put her down twice. The first time we rocked and snuggled. The second time, she was be-bopping around so I ducked in to tuck her back in the bed. "Nughdoh!" she demanded. "No, I already snuggled you. Night night." I left. On my way out she commanded, "Way! Stop!" [Wait! Stop] but I left anyway.

Then she yelled. But only briefly.

"Sissa"

Jonathan was reading a book about some mice and kittens to Melissa.
She named the cats off, "Dadda cat, Dachew cat, [and lastly] Sissa Cat!"

Jonathan: Is that a Melissa cat?

Melissa: Yeah!

Today I set up the photo booth on the mac so the kids could take pictures of themselves while I finished cleaning the kitchen.

Melissa pointing at the monitor: Sissa! Sissa!

Unfortunately the photo time didn't last long. [shaking head] two year olds and sharing....

Outsmarting a two year old

Melissa wasn't really interested in breakfast this morning. She jumped down from her chair and got her stuffed doggy harness on, then handed me the leash and got on all fours, so I could take her for a walk.

I did. Right back to the breakfast table.

More things we never thought we'd have to say

"Stop licking the air vent." [Melissa]

"No, you may not eat on the floor." [Matthew]

"No, Daddy does not poop his pants." [Melissa]

"Girls give kisses, not licks." [Melissa, repeatedly]

A new job

I started a new job on Wednesday. My last day at the old job was Tuesday. It would be nice to take a break between but somehow anyone who wants to hire seems to want you to start Right Away. Go figure.

It was a frustrating start, actually, because the new company was/is so brand-new that they didn't have office space, so I and the other 4 in Utah were working from home. (We signed a lease Friday so this should change next week.) (The 2 in California are working from home too but that isn't going to change any time soon.) I'm fine with working from home, but this is the week that our Comcast internet chose to go from "intermittently flaky" to "constantly flaky," where constant flakiness is "up for no more than 10 minutes at a time." When you're dealing with code repositories on VPN, not to mention all the googling that comes with (re)learning a new platform, this is a pain.

We actually got lucky (at least, this doesn't seem to be typical for interactions with Comcast) and the tech we got Friday fixed it immediately. Something to do with how the installer had wired up the line made the modem unable to keep a connection very long. Why it suddenly went from "annoying, but not annoying enough to spend enough time on hold to get a tech out to fix it" to "almost completely unusable," he didn't say. But it's definitely been stable since his visit so I'm inclined to think he knew what he was doing.

The relearning of Java has been a little stressful too. It's been 3 years and 2 major releases of Java since I really touched it at all, and neither of the two IDEs (and a third build system) are what I used before. But I've always been able to be immediately productive in a new environment before, so I've been feeling that pressure, at least from my self. Still, thinking it over, always before I've had the former maintainers of what I'm taking over available at least for my first couple days to answer questions. Although that's true here too, the man in question is (a) my boss and (b) horribly busy with everything else involved in running the new company, both of which make me a little hesitant to ask the sort of "stupid" questions I'd usually ask when starting out.

The bike parade

Our neighborhood had a childrens' bicycle (and tricycle and big wheel and scooter and skates and stroller) parade last Saturday. Matthew rode his New Bike. Melissa rode in the wagon, because somebody stole the new Red Ryder trike that Rachel got her for her birthday. (Seriously. I saw it left out for a couple days, then it was gone. And not because we put it inside. Grr.)

It was a cool parade, with two police escorts. Rachel decorated Matthew's trike with ribbon for the occasion. Matthew was not the youngest, but he was the slowest. He was more diffident than usual; it seemed the handlebars were loose, because he wobbled a lot. But on closer inspection one of the "hub caps" on the back had come off and the wheel was doing its best to come off. So for most of the parade Rachel and I took turns kicking it to keep it on, which Matthew took with relatively good grace.

Also there were donuts at the end. I'm not sure why Rachel didn't tell me about this because I would have been a lot more exited about the whole idea if I'd known.

Uncle Chris letter 3

Dear Uncle Elder Chris,

I made a house of cushions. I put newspaper on top so it looks like a house. Melissa caused trouble [kicking Matthew] and I tickled her hard [hmm] and Daddy took her out and put me in my room and said You can come out.

My computer's making a funny noise. Like this: blibittleblipdoodleit. Like people are talking in my computer sprrrft boing! And they were talking and next time bliddleoop and pwrfgt the C batteries were making a funny noise, but the six batteries were not. [Rachel explains: he thinks batteries that come in a 6-pack are better than the ones in a 4-pack, and Mommy bought the wrong kind.]

I do paper lessons with Mommy where I write letters.

That's all I want to write.

Love, Matthew

It's Saturday,

and Matthew is bellowing his "Time Clean UP!" song from his bedroom. This song is accompanied by lots of bangs and crashes, followed by erie silences. But hey, as long as it gets done I don't care how.

Every Saturday he's supposed to shovel out his room before receiving his weekly allowance. Room cleanup not such a huge battle anymore now that it's at a set time once a week. He knows what to expect, and no surprise room cleanups are pulled on him. (He hates surprises.) The rest of the week I just make a path to his bed when I tuck him in at night.

The Natives are Restless

Due to all of the wildfires in the area, the air quality has been poor. As a result I've kept the kids indoors all week. They are not happy with the situation... Usually we spend a few hours outside everyday (with hats and sunblock mind you), so this is rough. They are starting the climb the walls as is their mother.

Another letter to Uncle Chris

Dear Uncle Elder Chris,

Wednesday I saw fireworks. They were loud. Daddy set them off, and Lissa wanted to help and Daddy said "Lissa sit down!"

Now let's talk about something else. I made an airplane out of legos. Lissa building a lego tower that falls. It fell down, but Lissa not sad.

The kids in preschool were nice. I need to read a book about a wide mouth frog before I go home. It's about a wide mouth frog. We talked about astronauts. And about outer space. There was one kid raised his hand and said he wanted to be an astronaut when he grows up. In outer space.

I want to tell him why I got a haircut. Yesterday I got a haircut. On Monday.

I went to Gramma house a long time ago. I played and watched movies at Gramma's house. I played with Uncles and cousins. I came back my to house and played with my friends.

That's all I want to write.

Love,
Matthew

Preschool

Matthew started preschool last week. We are trying out a preschool in the neighborhood for a month to see how it goes and whether he'll go in the fall. So far it's a hit. Though getting him to move in the morning is like pushing peas from one end of the house to the other by blowing through a straw. He gets easily distracted and bounces off to another direction when getting ready.

Melissa is very displeased that she is unable to attend preschool. She knows that there are games and toys in there, and besides, anything Matthew does is automatically cool. I'm hoping that we can do fun things together while Matthew is away so that she will look forward to "Mommy time."

Will all the four year olds please stand up?

When asked "How old are you," Melissa holds up four fingers and announces, "I four!" Because that's what she sees Matthew do. So far, all attempts to teach her two fingers and "Matthew is four; you're two" have failed.

Plant Scare

Melissa had pilfered a mostly empty yogurt cup from the table and was happily smearing the remnants on her face and the couch. I confiscated the cup and was in the process of tossing it, when I heard a blood curdling scream from the front room. Tears were streaming down Melissa's face and she was wailing full throttle. I checked her head and limbs for bonks or cuts and didn't see anything apparently wrong. Clenched in her fist were two leaves from a plant. One was torn a bit.

Then she started gagging as though she was trying to throw up. Could she have eaten the plant and had a reaction? I rinsed her mouth and tried to get her to drink, without luck. Couldn't call poison control, because I had no idea what the name of the plant was. I tried to look it up in a plant book (while comforting Melissa), but didn't see anything quite like it. Melissa had stopped crying at this point but her face was starting to swell and she was drooling. Yikes!

Quickly I packed both kids up and drove to a nursery on the way to the doctor's office to identify the plant. The woman said it was a dieffenbachia and quite poisonous to pets. We made a mad dash out of the nursery and raced to the doctor's office five minutes away. Every couple of seconds I asked Melissa how she was doing and she'd nod back to me. She hadn't spoken since the painful screaming. Her poor little mouth was even more swollen. We got to the office and signed in. It was only a few minutes before a nurse called Melissa, but it felt like an eternity. During this time Matthew was telling everyone with great relish that his sister had eaten a plant and it made her sick. He also admired the turtle in the aquarium and chattered nonstop with all the kids. The office waiting room was packed, so there were a lot of kids with which to strike up a conversation. Melissa, on the other hand was abnormally silent.

Once in the exam room the nurse gave Melissa some benadryl (which we found out later does not help against plant toxins, but would have been useful if she was having an allergic reaction). Her oxygen levels were great. Thank heavens. She also got a popsicle. Melissa insisted on holding the popsicle, but would not eat it. The doctor came in and said that they'd contacted poison control and that oxalic acid in the plant sap causes a broken glass feeling in the mouth. She said that there really wasn't anything they could give Melissa to help, but they would like to keep her there for while to make sure her throat didn't swell and constrict her breathing.

Here's some info on that nasty plant...

So we waited in the tiny room. There was a TV on the ceiling and Matthew hopped up on the exam table to watch Blues Clues. Melissa mostly wanted to be held. I broke the popsicle into chunks and gave them to her. She resisted initially, but then the cold started to numb her mouth a bit and she gestured for more. About a half hour later she started talking some.

"Baby!" (there was a picture of a baby on the wall).

"Cold!" (the popsicle)

"More!" (referring to the popsicle again after she'd finished it)

She started to get bored in the little room and tried to ransack it. Clearly she was feeling better. The nurse in the hall insisted that we needed to be there at least an hour. Melissa requested another popsicle and the nurse got it. She was getting more vocal and impatient. I think the nurse was starting to tire of us. We saw the doctor about 10 minutes later. :) When the doctor came in, Melissa had just settled down to nurse. The doc had a big grin on her face when she saw that, but apologized for not knocking first. "Oh good! She's feeling up to nursing!"

So we left (Matthew reluctantly, Melissa bolting) and Melissa took a very good nap after her adventure. As soon as we got home, the guilty plant ended up in the trash.

Sunday morning activity

The kids are threading Froot Loops (1/3 less sugar, please) onto threads for "necklaces."

More precisely, Matthew is threading the Froot Loops and Melissa is kneeling on the table being a dog. (Dogs eat Froot Loops without hands, naturally.) It's great when they play nicely together. Matthew volunteered his help when she was distressed about only getting one Loop on her string. She wasn't sure she trusted him immediately but now she is OK with it.

She transformed into a baby dog on the way back to the table. Woof!

We're going to miss this cute stage.

Late to the party

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Steve Jackson's Munchkin. Its humor reminds me of The Order of the Stick. (The comic, not the game. The OOTS game looks lame-ish.) The humor extends to the title:

In gaming, a Munchkin is a player who plays what is intended to be a non-competitive game (usually a role-playing game) in an aggressively competitive manner. A munchkin seeks within the context of the game to amass the greatest power, score the most "kills," and grab the most loot, no matter how deleterious their actions are to role-playing, the storyline, fairness, logic, or the other players' fun.

... which actually describes the card game surprisingly well. Munchkin came out in 2001 and already has 4 full expansions and countless mini-expansions. (And a substantial Wikipedia entry.) Sheesh!

Anyway, we had one of my friends for work -- also an OOTS fan -- and his wife over and played a couple games. It's a keeper for sure, although I doubt I'll be buying all the expansions, at least not immediately. Who can't love a game with a FAQ like

If it's not in the rules, it doesn't matter how logical it is, unless you can talk the other players into it. And if you can, go for it!

or

Steal the Kneepads cards out of all your friends' games and EAT them. If they catch you, lie.

It's also a good candidate for "Grant's birthday present" if he doesn't get it himself after reading this post.

Not to be critical, but

I'm just not a fan of wedding dresses that shout, "Look at my boobs!"

I suppose that's a low-class way to put it, but really -- for your wedding?

Words words words

Melissa is turning into a real chatterbox. She delights in all the words she knows and uses them just to show she can.

Yesterday she decided she was going to name the color of everything she saw. Blue overalls! Red skirt! Pink horse! (That would be the My Little Pony that Grandma got her.) She was still at it when I got home from work.

It was worth it

I started reading Blackcollar: The Judas Solution last night before bed.

I don't recommend this as bedtime reading; I was up until 4 AM finishing it. I do recommend it highly otherwise. I was a little afraid that it wouldn't be up to my memories of the first two Blackcollar books but Zahn delivered.

If you're new to the Blackcollar books, the first two were reissued in one volume simply as Blackcollar shortly before The Judas Solution. (This is a little confusing since Blackcollar was also the title of the first book in the trilogy alone.) Both are now available as inexpensive used hardcover on Amazon.

One downside: the cover artwork of the new books appears to be done by an artist who never read a description of what he was supposed to be illustrating. And trying to do "action shots" was just a bad idea; I prefer the original covers. Oh well.

He said, she said

Matthew came running in this morning. "Daddy, Lissa push me! Lissa push me!" Melissa was hot on his heels. "Dada, Dachew [Matthew] push! Dachew push! Ow!"

It begins. (Melissa has tried to tattle on Matthew in the past, but this is the first time she's been intelligible. Alas.)

That's not cake

Rachel roasted a fantastic chicken for dinner tonight. After chicken and potatoes and salad and watermelon, Melissa was a mess. Seemed like a good night to have dessert in the tub, so Rachel bundled them off while I dished up the chocolate cake, which I then duly delivered.

I retired to the living room, but was quickly summoned back by Rachel yelling something. I hurried to the tub and saw the kids out of the tub and chunks of brown floating in the tub.

"That's not cake," Rachel said. "Why don't you take the kids for a shower?"

So I did, while she cleaned the tub.

Sometimes I think Matthew was a tougher baby than his sister. All the same, Melissa is now 3 months older than Matthew was when we decided to have another.

Shooting Aliens

A couple weeks ago I got my first "real" PS3 game.  I've actually bought several games from the online store, but none of the full $60 games really seemed worth it to me.  Finally Resistance got down to under $30 used so I picked up a copy, not coincidentally before Rachel's brothers came out for Chris's MTC induction -- Brian introduced me to Halo a couple years ago; I figured I should return the favor.

I'm hooked.  The plot isn't as gripping as Halo's (whose is?), but it's above average for the genre.  And the game itself delivers.  I'm enjoying myself immensely.

Rachel even played co-op with me for one session and admitted that "it wasn't as bad as I expected."  Which for her is pretty high praise of an FPS.

Flying with a two year old is hell

Matthew is pretty good on the airplane now. Give him his gameboy, or put a Superman DVD in Rachel's macbook, and he's good to go. I got him a pair of Sony noise-cancelling headphones -- under 20% of the price of the Bose ones and almost as effective. (But the Maxell ones I also got kinda suck.)

Melissa is another story. She didn't like headphones, so the DVD only worked for about 10 minutes. Then she went through the books and activities Rachel packed in about half an hour. Which left only another 4 hours of hell each way to New Jersey. She did NOT want to be strapped in her seat; when we unstrapped her, she wanted to climb over the seat to say hello to the passengers behind her, or tromp up and down the isles, both of which get old for the other passengers in fairly short order. So on the way back we decided strapped-in was the way to go, despite her protests. And did she ever protest.

I told my mom we'd fly out again when Christine gets married. (This does not seem likely to occur in the near future.) She thought I was joking at first; when she realized I was serious, she said hopefully, "But she'll grow out of this; Matthew did." "Yeah," I replied, "and by that time we'll have another one again."

David is married

David got married Saturday. I didn't really get a chance to spend much time with his wife, Dielha, so perhaps for that reason it still feels kind of abstract to me. Or maybe it's because he dated her less before their marriage than Telitha did Nolan or Grant did Lisa.

Dielha does seem to be a gentle soul.

Most of the family friends that I know, the Princeton ones, didn't make it to this reception; they were on the "must look up addresses" list and didn't get looked up. Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing some of them again.

But, the wedding cake was definitely the best I have had. Most wedding bakers don't spend much effort making it actually taste good as long as it looks good. This one was excellent.

We stayed to clean up; fortunately it ended at 8 so we weren't there too late. But Mom was up til one washing tablecloths. (I helped with the first batch but went to bed before it hit the dryer.)

Grant wrote about some more details of the reception on his blog. I'm going to shamelessly crib one bit here:

Last night I gave my (now four-year-old) nephew a pitcher of tang to carry into the party when we were setting up, under the theory that he (a) wanted to help, (b) an element of risk makes the sense of accomplishment greater, and (c) nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Grandpa Ellis, who caught us, explained that this was added to the list of Things I Was Not Allowed to Do.

What I didn't tell him was that he didn't catch us until the second pitcher.

Addendum: My wife points out that she caught us earlier, but what she said was, "That one is really, really full," so I just went back to the kitchen and gave him a less full one.

I'm an obedient husband!

On being a little sister-

of big brother...

How many 2 year old girls do you know that can accurately name batman, spiderman, and her favorite, "SOUP-Man!" [superman]?

Most recently Melissa has started to chatter about "trackman".

Matthew checked out a book from the library titled Tractionman about an action figure that goes on numerous adventures around the house. Currently it's his favorite book and he's even taken to calling his GI Joe "man" doll tractionman. He filled the sink up with water and put tractionman in scuba gear to go rescuing sponges. Daddy's shoes are now space ships and he saves his farm animals from various nefarious villains found around the house. This doll goes with him everywhere and Matthew reads the book to his tractionman each night. (And who says boys don't play with dolls? Boy dolls just have super abilities and a liking for big weapons and/or daring deeds to save the day.) He now wants to make some more clothes for tractionman because his (tractionman's) favorite colors are orange and blue. Or so Matthew has informed me. Guess I'm going to have to stitch up some tiny orange Bermuda shorts...

Things that go bump in the night

Scene: Matthew and Melissa have been put to bed, but are not asleep.

Matthew: Thump.

Matthew: Thump.

Matthew: THUMP.

Rachel: What is he doing? Jumping off the dresser!?

Me: ...

Matthew: THUMP.

I get up to investigate. He is, indeed, jumping off the dresser. I put him back to bed.

Melissa: [cries]

Back in the saddle

The diaper saddle, that is.

The last straw was when Rachel caught Melissa about to poop, and spirited her away to the potty in time. Matthew was yelling for something Right Now, so Rachel left Melissa there for a couple minutes. When she got back, Melissa had gotten off the potty so she could poop on the floor.

So Melissa's back in diapers for the time being.

Good karma saves a bad day

Thursday we were supposed to have our new hardwood floor installed in the master bedroom. (This is the floor we bought after Melissa smeared indelible rouge into the carpet.) When the installers arrived, we discovered that the lumber we'd been sold was cut into uniform 12 inch pieces, useless as flooring. Technically, you could use it; it would just be horribly unsightly.

I was at work. Rachel called Lumber Liquidators. They said it was the mill's fault. Rachel called the mill. They said you get what you get and that's that. She went back to LL and they said we could exchange for something else but pretty much everything in stock was twice the price or more. We were pretty annoyed. We could go through the credit card company but I didn't look forward to trying to explain that while yes, we did get something that, technically, matched the description of what we paid for, it was unfit for its intended purpose. I didn't picture a low-paid claims worker necessarily being capable of that sort of distinction.

Fortunately, our installer, Rich Wood, was in our corner. He and his wife had installed our floor in the main room last year, and we were pleased enough with their work that we paid them more than they charged us. They remembered Rachel, and when she told him of the runaround she'd been getting, he called up LL and arranged for us to exchange for a lot of seconds at the same price. We're not sure why he had more influence with LL than did Rachel; perhaps some of his clients have him take care of ordering the lumber as well as installation. At any rate, he arranged for the exchange, and even took care of transportation. (We don't have a truck so I'd had to borrow a friend's on Saturday to bring over the original lot.)

So, everything ended up working out. The seconds look fine; Rachel says they look like they have about 10 Matthew-hours of wear, versus pristine wood. No big deal for us. And the Woods will be getting another bonus.

A letter from Matthew

Dear Uncle Elder Chris,

When I grow up, I want to be a missionary. I want to have my own wife and my own kids. I will have lots of jobs. I will cook dinner and start the [barbecue] fire. When Jackson was 5, he helped start up the fire. I will get charcoal and put in stuff that has fire and put it on top of the charcoal and start the fire.

I love my family. I have my own garden where I planted seeds. Flower seeds. Pumpkin seeds -- and you should see the plants in my garden; it's a surprise, when it gets bigger.

I play with my friends.

Now I want to write about dinosaur bones. Dinosaur bones are fun to see at the museum. It's really fun, and there's dinosaur bones. And sharks hanging from the top [ceiling]. All of them died.

Did you know about snakes? That's kind of silly, snakes in a dinosaur museum.

That's all.

Love,

Matthew

Power struggle

Melissa pooped in her pants today. A couple hours later, she peed her pants for good measure.

Both times we had her "practice" by putting on the underwear, going back to the scene of the crime, and going back to the potty, 10 times. Rachel and I took turns doing the practice because it's really a chore, with Melissa kicking and screaming and generally making it very clear that she does not want to practice.

I told my mother about this and she said "Sounds like a power struggle," and suggested we just wait a few months. But, Rachel points out, we're already in the power struggle and Melissa is already stubborn enough. Encouraging that by appearing to capitulate in this might not be a great idea.

(Edit: oops, didn't realize that Rachel already posted about this. First dupe in over two years isn't bad, though.)

All sisters need a brother...

Yesterday our first niece was born (congratulations Lisa and Grant!). Upon hearing the news Matthew asked if his new cousin had a brother like 'Lissa does. We told him no, not at this time, but maybe someday. He thought for a moment and declared that his new cousin should have a brother when she got big like him.

Potty Training Update

Melissa was potty-trained, but decided it was too much effort (or something). She went from staying dry with very rare accidents, perhaps one or two times a week, to several times in one day. There is no medical or other reason that we can come up with for the regression. The child knows exactly what to do and how to do it, she just chooses not to...

(This is what happens when two stubborn people meet, marry, and procreate.)

I tried voicing disapproval, bribing, and even a swat on the rump- to no avail. I wish I had not resorted to spanking, not only did it not work, but it goes against my principles. I planned on resorting to corporal punishment sparingly and only for flat out defiance. Sigh.

So today we took a new (old) tack. We went back to "practice sessions" for dirtied undies. In the event of an "accident" she must take them off, sit on the potty for a few seconds, put the wet pair back on, and then return to the scene of the crime. We then have her check her pants (still wet) and repeat the process 10 times. There is no yelling or punishment, just the repetition of quickly getting to the bathroom. She HATES to practice. Almost as much as we do directing the practice sessions. We'll see if this works... Meanwhile I think I'm going to have retrain her dolls and see if that helps "The Importance of Staying Dry" sink in.

Toy lust

This sounds like so much fun. And safer than a "real" motorcycle. (Much safer, Rachel.)

The blame game

There was a puddle under the table where there was no reason to have a puddle. Melissa stepped in it. Rachel, watching from the sink, sprang into action. "Oh, no! That better not be what I think it is!" Melissa had indeed peed on the floor.

Sensing impending butt swattage, she pointed a finger at Matthew and cried, "Yoo di' it!"

Mommy wasn't fooled, and administered the called-for butt swattage to the dismay of the pint-sized prevaricator.

Things I didn't realize parenting involved

• Butt checks: your son is ostensibly wiping his own bottom after discussions with City Hall, but while his work may be good enough for government, part of the bedtime routine is now cleaning up what he missed during the day
  

Singing time

Melissa likes to sing, even more than her brother did at 2 (and much more than he does now).

The first song she sang recognizably was "Happy Birthday," around 6 months ago. Then she added "Are You Sleeping," "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Once there was a Snowman," which I remember was her aunt Telitha's favorite when she was a little girl. But Melissa's favorite right now is the Bus song, probably because it has rolling arm actions. (Round and round...)

Now I'm trying to teach her "Horsey, Horsey," but she hasn't really taken to it. Maybe I should try a different song instead.