Do you remember the first time you ever did jumping jacks? Me neither, but apparently they are a lot harder to master than I ever knew:
On the other hand, when’s the last time you had that much fun doing exercise?
Evie Update
Everything is coming up Christmas (and Chanukah)
We had a very, very busy weekend, but it was a really good weekend. Well worth it!
On Friday, Oliver and I went to a Chanukah party at Evie’s school. The party afterwards was fun, but for me the best part was going to temple. I had never been inside the temple (any Jewish temple), and I was very curious. It was so much fun! My favorite part of the day was seeing all the kids spinning like dreydles while singing the dreydle song. We definitely never had that much fun at church when we went for school!
At the party they got wooden dreydles and some chocolate gelt, so Evie and I played dreydle at home. It was a lot of fun, and simple enough that Evie could understand, even though she couldn’t spin the dreydle very well. Unfortunately, we eventually will run out of gelt, since she keeps eating it (we didn’t let her eat it all at once).
In an interesting dichotomy, Saturday morning we went to see Santa. Well actually, first off, Evie and I made oatmeal and danced our butts off to Christmas music. There are actually two radio stations in Chicago that play only Christmas music, so we had our choice. The funny thing about listening to Christmas music on the radio is that you’re constantly saying, “Didn’t they just play this song?” They all sort of run together after a while. But it certainly put us in the Christmas mood.
So anyway, they tried to have some sort of holiday celebration in the neighborhood with all day crafts, lights, etc. The only part we were interested in was seeing Santa, since we usually have to drive way out to the suburbs or something, fighting big crowds, crying kids, and barely escaping with our life. So we showed up to the restaurant listed, camera in hand.
Now, I’ve been to that restaurant before, and I wasn’t really sure where they were going to put Santa, or how it was going to work. It was as sort of claustrophobic and disorganized as I feared. Also, they tried to push their “Christmas brunch” on us, and when we said we were only there to see Santa, they charged us $5. Oh well. Between that and the parking, it was still well worth it to see Santa in the neighborhood with a very limited wait.
Evie was a little nervous about Santa. It took us two tries to get her up there. I had to agree to stand with her, but when she got up there she went on his lap without me. She was too shy to talk to him (and anyway, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted, which I take to mean that we are the best parents ever!). We assumed that Oliver would sob his eyes out, since he’s been going through a mommy-only (and-very-occasionally-daddy) phase lately. However, he just stared at Santa with huge round eyes the whole time, and never cried once. I think he was just like, “What is this crazy talking beard thing??”
Overall, everything went about as well as possible. As far as Santa goes, he was ho-ho-hoing like there was no tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him jollier. By the end of the day, his throat must have been raw.
The ironic thing was, we ended up spending the rest of the day shopping in the suburbs anyway. I don’t know how the rest of the neighborhood festivities turned out. It was cold and snowy, and outdoor crafts seemed a little much. Maybe we’ll give it a try next year if they do it again.
Evie and I also found time to play in the snow for awhile, and we made a nice (read small) snowman in the front yard. Afterwards, Sara made us some hot cocoa (and Sara’s homemade hot cocoa is to die for!)
On Sunday we put up our Christmas tree. We have an artificial tree, so we left the bottom row of branches off, so Oliver can’t reach up and topple the whole thing. It actually looks pretty good without the bottom row (and more room for presents!). We also hung up the stockings and replaced Evie’s butterfly lights with Christmas lights. Evie was really excited about all of this, but eventually lost interest and I decorated the tree alone. She gets pretty excited about the Christmas tree though, and she’s upset that we don’t keep it lit 24/7.
Sunday night, Evie and I had a sleepover. After supper we both got ready for bed and then put our sleeping bags out in the family room. We watched a movie and, in a bizarre twist, Evie wanted to watch an Elmo potty video. So, not only was there not a plot per say, but she’s already seen it, and the whole thing is set up to convince you to use the potty, which she has been for a long, long time. She didn’t care though, she loved it. She said to me, “If there is a scary part, I can hide in my sleeping bag.” Not a lot of scary parts in Elmo potty videos!
Afterwards, when we turned out the lights and we were whispering and giggling, she said to me, “Daddy, you’re my best friend.”
Unfortunately, the night went downhill fast. Evie was really sick and she was having trouble breathing through her nose. She was waking up every 30 minutes or so. Finally, around 11:30 or so, she woke up with a really tight chest and a croupy cough.
I gave her some medicine and broke out the humidifier. We moved into her room so she could sleep in her bed, and the humidifier would be more effective. I slept on her floor for the rest of the night, and it seemed to go a little better after that. However, it was a disappointing end to our special night. It’s always hard to see your kids sick.
However, the sleepover was still the highlight of a very nice, very busy weekend. I didn’t even mention the part where Oliver managed to cut his finger on something and crawled around in the kitchen for like 20 minutes afterwards, spreading blood on about every surface he could manage, including his, my and Sara’s clothes! He didn’t seem to mind though.
So, except for that, it was about all you could ask from a December weekend!
Testing…1, 2, 3
3 year olds…hoo boy!
Everything you’ve ever heard about a 3 year old being a tyrant is totally true. We’ve entered into a very difficult phase lately, where every minute of every day becomes an opportunity for a power struggle.
Obviously it’s all about testing limits and seeing how much power she has. Everything you ask her is, “No!” or “I won’t ever! Never ever!” She won’t eat what’s for supper. She won’t go potty. She won’t get ready to go, she doesn’t want to go. She does everything she can to pick a fight and she’s pretty good at it.
It is extremely frustrating, and not only for the obvious reasons. It turns out that she actually DOES have a lot of power. She can really make things difficult for us. And, it turns out, our aura of authority is actually quite thin when pressed.
This results in a LOT of timeouts (hence the brilliant pun in the title of this post). But the thing is, I know that A) this behavior is completely normal (and expected) at this age, and B) this is ultimately helping her grow into her own person. So, while writing this blog post at night when she’s sleeping, it’s easy to sit back and view it with an impartial eye. However, in the moment, it is madening.
Timeouts are useful to give Sara and I time to regroup. Another useful technique is to switch off frequently between the two of us. As soon as one of us detects that the other is getting frustrated, we try to switch. It is amazing what a difference this makes for everybody: the frustrated parent gets to leave, the non-frustrated parent usually has a better, less passionate view of the situation, and Evie reacts much more positively to the new parent. Of course, she usually manages to frustrate the other parent pretty quickly, but you can only do so much.
We also try not to set her up to fail. This means getting her as much sleep as possible, and not going out in public if we can help it. She’s much easier to manage at home (she completely sees the power she can wield by having a fit in public, don’t think she doesn’t), and she tends to “show off” by demonstrating her power when other people are around.
The problem is, timeouts are becoming less effective. Part of testing limits is testing our ability to punish her. Timeouts now usually involve chasing her around while she laughs, and then her refusing to stay in timeout. (Although, it’s pretty clear that her laughter and apathy towards timeouts are just an act…she usually laughs and says, “I don’t care!’ for a few seconds before it turns into crying) We usually salvage the situation, but just barely (she says she won’t stay, and she might leave a few times, but usually she ends up staying put after all). It’s like she’s tearing the veil away and revealing that we really *don’t* have all that much power (I don’t know what we’d do if she really just wouldn’t stay in timeout. I guess that’d be the end of timeouts).
I’m trying to remember to use different things for motivation, besides just timeout. For example taking away a toy for a period of time or having her “miss an opportunity” to do something she likes, like getting in the bathtub before I start the water. I’m also trying to have more positive rewards than just negative punishments. For example, “If you do X, I will tell you a story” (she loves hearing stories) instead of always “If you don’t do X, I will put you in timeout”. However, it’s hard to remember all of this when she’s really pushing it. Timeout is still my go to, gut reaction punishment.
Still, we’re not eliminiating the timeouts. My mom pointed out that testing limits is also testing consistency. So we try not to change things up too much. For example, hitting is always an instant timeout. So we don’t let her get away with it in some times and not others. It’s always a timeout, even if timeout is not that effective at the moment.
The key to this is not painting yourself in a corner. Don’t threaten things you don’t intend to follow through on. Because then you really can’t do it, your threat is meaningless, punishment is inconsistent and your entire punishment regieme becomes suspect (“If you don’t stop that right now, you’re not going to school!” is a pretty empty threat).
The funny part is, every parent always says, “You think that’s bad, wait until she’s X [years old]”. When she was a baby, they said “Wait until she hits the terrible twos!” When she was two they said, “Oh, that’s nothing, wait until she’s three!” Now they’re saying, “Oh, 4 is even worse!” And, of course, there’s always, “Wait until she’s a teenager!” It seems like every challenge just prepares you for the next, harder challenge.
Oh well. We’re trying to do what we can to get through it. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is just a stage, and it’s only temporary. Oh, and also, the fate of the rest of her life hangs in the balance if we don’t handle everything just perfectly.
(Side note, based on the text of this blog post, WordPress thinks I aught to tag it “safe sex”! That’s some smart tag recognition! If this doesn’t motivate you for that, I don’t know what will.)
Drawing and Writing
Lately Evie has just been on a drawing tear. It’s like she’s bound and determined to go through a ream of paper, churning out pages by the second. On the plus side, there are few uses of paper that are more appropriate (it certainly beats printing out directions or something). Not only does it keep her occupied for long stretches, but I can actually see her getting better.
It’s kind of interesting how her drawings of people change over time. They’re still circles with arms and legs, but little details here and there are filling in. They always have hair scribbled on top now. They used to not have any mouths, now they always have big smiles. Sometimes they get scribbles for teeth. She used to always do eyes as dots, but lately there are a few that have “eyeballs” on them. She always draws herself with blue dots for eyes. (“This one is you daddy, he has a red pimple on his nose!” – it was like looking in a mirror) There are other things too, like when she was drawing a “mommy and her little boy”, she drew a big person and a small person. So she’s experimenting with spatial relationships.
She’s also been writing a lot. She’s been able to write her name for a long time, but even that has improved lately, with better E’s and now she’s working on better V’s (she used to draw them with 3 lines, like a squared off U). She’ll get a new letter and work on it for awhile, like drawing entire pages worth of L’s.
She likes to “write” books which are a collection of a couple of pages of drawing, or write letters, which are pages and pages of letters repeated in a random order. The other day she was writing letters to her friends and putting them into a basket in Oliver’s room, which was the mailbox.
The only thing is that she doesn’t hold the crayon the way you should hold a pencil. Don’t mention it to her though! She gets very frustrated. She just wants to do her drawings or write her words, and not be bothered by holding the crayon any certain way. It’s not really a big deal, I just hate for her to learn how to draw all these letters, and then have to learn it again a new way later. However, for the moment, she just wants room (and paper) to draw. And I am happy to give it to her!
Monster
Evie has just been turning into a monster lately. She gets this look in her eyes, and you just know she is looking for trouble. She goes from one thing to another so fast, that you haven’t even finished telling her not to do something, when she’s already doing something else naughty.
It’s just so weird to see how she is so actively looking to be naughty. I’m not worried about it, I know it’s just a phase. Probably some combination of tiredness from not taking naps, just the age she’s at (the terrible 3’s?), and attention seeking due to all the changes going on, especially starting school. But it sure makes for a frustrating day! By the time she goes to bed, we’re exhausted.
Speaking of a turnabout, the other day we were at the 57th St. Children’s Book Festival, and there were costumed characters there. In the past, Evie has been terrified of such things. This time, however, Evie saw a character she couldn’t resist: Martha from Martha Speaks of all things.
We’ve read some of the books and she’s apparently seen it on T.V. (though I haven’t), but this is far from one of her favorite things. I wouldn’t have even recognized Martha, but Evie did and ran right over to stand next to her. She wouldn’t get that close, but far closer than she had ever been to a costumed character.
After that, it was like the floodgates broke. She proceeded to follow Martha and 3 other costumed characters the entire length of the festival. It was like a parade, with Evie in the rear. Every time they stopped she would sort of mill about with them, and then follow once they started again. Sara and I are in the back of every kid’s picture, since we were forced to follow along behind. When the characters got to the end of the festival and turned around to go back the other way, I literally had to grab Evie and pull her away. She looked and me joyfully and said, “We’re going back the other way!” She seriously thought she was somehow part of the fun with the characters, like she had to do her part.
Better than being scared to death of them I guess.
Shane Halbach 