parenting

The Library Book Incident

/ Shane / 7 Comments

Let me start by saying that Evie is an amazingly good kid. She very, very rarely does anything to really get in trouble. Furthermore, let me say that we sort of brought about this situation by planning a day that was a little rough for her. She missed meal times and she missed nap time. So, by the time we finally did get her down for a nap, she was sort of past the point of no return.

So, more or less, the library book incident involved her ripping the crap out of the book, when she was supposed to be taking a nap. I mean, utterly destroying, every single page removed. It was sort of spectacular in it’s destruction.

Now, since she doesn’t usually do things like this, Sara and I were sort of at a loss for what to do. We told her how naughty it was and gave her a time-out, but she just didn’t seem to really get it. She told me later, the reason she ripped up that book was because it wasn’t hers. She knew on some surface level that she was wrong, but there wasn’t really any indication that she wouldn’t just do it again, if given the chance.

I felt like it was important that she be the one to tell the librarian that she ripped up the book. This technique probably works pretty well for a little older kids, but she’s a little too young to be cowed by such a thing. I still think it was the right thing to do though. The library was open for another 45 minutes or so, so we hopped in the car so we could take care of it while it was still fresh in her mind.

I felt pretty bad when, on the way to the library, she was saying to herself, “You have to apologize. You always apologize before you go to the police.” Ouch! I explained to her that we were not going to the police, just the library, but I kind of thought, “Maybe we’re overdoing it a little bit.” It only got worse.

She never did manage a nap, so as soon as we got in the car, she was out. When we got to the library she was in that state that kids get into sometimes where they are so tired that nothing else matters in the world. She tried walking with her eyes closed. She grabbed on to the legs of people she didn’t know, clinging to them for support. She couldn’t support her own weight, slumping to the floor when I wasn’t physically holding her up. So here we are waiting in line so that she can apologize to the librarian, and I’m trying everything to wake her up. I felt like everyone was judging me, thinking, “Geez, no wonder this kid did this, her parents are clearly not letting her nap, etc.” In short, I felt like a child abuser. She did apologize (and wake up) at some point. We also returned all the other library books and didn’t get any more.

I feel like we handled it pretty well. Anybody else have similar experiences? Horror stories? Support, sympathy, ridicule? Share in the comments.

The Redirect

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie has been practicing a new trick lately, which I will dub “The Redirect”. Basically, it works like this: when she suspects she’s pushed an issue too far, she turns it around on you. So, instead of saying what you think she’s going to say, she says something she knows you want instead. I’ll give you an example:

“Can I have some candy?”
“No.”
“But, can I have some candy?”
“No.”
“But, can I have some…”
::raise eyebrows::
::impish grin:: “…smooches?”

As if that is what she was going to ask for the whole time.

I really love if when she does this. First off, I get smooches, or some other similar thing she knows I want (for her to drink her milk, etc.). Second off, for her to do this, shows such an adult awareness of things. She understands that I’m getting annoyed with her questions. She understands that continuing to ask the question is not going to get her anywhere. She understands what sorts of things an adult wants from her. And she understands that subtle art of buttering someone up.

As always, Evie amazes me with her ability to grasp complicated, contextual situations and behave in ways that I would have said were far beyond a 2 year old. Kids are so much smarter than they are given credit for!

Now that’s what I call a daughter!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Tonight for dinner, Evie had 11 pieces of bacon. Then afterwords, she took a bath and we played with pirates. Isn’t parenting grand?

P.S. This is published post 666, the post of the beast. I hesitated to put a post about my daughter as the 666th post, but if you count private posts, it’s not really 666. I’m sure satan will take things like private posts into account.

Potty Update

/ Shane / 3 Comments

I realized I hadn’t really had a good post to close out the potty training.

Evie is just the super most awesome in the world. She is doing so great. We had our rough patches, but we pushed through them. We still have some power struggles now and again, especially if we try to force her to go, but if we just leave her alone about it, she takes care of everything.

She hardly has any accidents, maybe one a week at most. She doesn’t wear a diaper during her nap and her overnight diaper is dry most nights. She has been going poo poo in the potty for weeks now. We discovered the magic formula for that was to put her on the potty, tell her to hold on tight, run and find Nala, toss her in the bathroom, go out and shut the door. Usually she was going before the door was even closed. The privacy part is very important, even though I am always a little nervous about leaving her perched precariously on the edge of the toilet.

She also knows that going poo poo means she gets to pick out a prize from the prize bucket, which is mostly stickers and toys from cereal boxes. Believe me, it doesn’t take much, one of her favorite prizes was a thing of travel size Kleenexes. Another good reward is singing the “potty song” which is a nice little conga that goes, “Pee pee in the potty! We listened to our body!” Sara is quite proud of the second line. 🙂

Evie has always enjoyed going out of the house more than in the house, so taking her to new places isn’t really a problem. In fact, the problem was that she enjoyed strange potties a little too much and would insist on going over and over again at every stop. I think the thing that fixed that was only allowing her to wash her hands if she actually went potty. She thinks that washing her hands is pretty exciting, and she especially likes to see what color soap a particular place has. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has every bathroom in the city memorized and categorized by soap color. Using this as a “reward” seems to have calmed it down to 1 or 2 trips instead of 4 or 5.

Evie is something of a clothes horse, so it should have come as no surprise when she started wanting to change her underwear about 10 times a day. It can be pretty frustrating, but we quickly learned to let her change whenever she wanted or else she would pee in them just so she could change them. This has been lessening lately though, and she has some days where she stays in the same pair all day.

She has even started going by herself now, I mean completely by herself, up until the part when she calls you in to show off her handy work. So I think we can say she is officially potty trained! Well, I would have said it a while ago, but it’s not official until it is on the blog.

In summary, hard work, persistence and out smarting your enemy, those are the keys to potty training!

Another day, another nursemaid’s elbow

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie was having a fit about something or other and she flopped boneless to the floor while Sara was holding her hands. Suddenly, she cried out, clutched her arm to her stomach and yelled, “Noooo! Not again!” Later I found it funny that she remembered clearly enough the sensation of the first one, that she recognized it as the same. It seemed such an adult thing to say. Then she immediately called for a blanket and her teddy bear, for comfort.

Anyway, it was very clear that it was the same thing as before. They told us at the time that once it happened the first time, it was likely to happen again. It was a lot less scary this time having gone through it once. The doctor had showed us how to fix it ourselves, but our memory was not perfect. Sara tried it and it didn’t seem to fix it. We weren’t sure what to do about it, but I was a little suspicious that perhaps Sara had indeed fixed it, even though Sara didn’t think so. Evie had been crying and after Sara tried she stopped crying, even if she was still holding her arm close to her chest.

She said her arm still hurt, but I was still suspicious. I mean, this is the girl who’s still milking her skinned knee from a week ago, and still tells me about her “brave fingers” that got pinched in the closet door months ago. Also, the doctor told us that sometimes it took a little while for it to stop hurting, even after it was fixed. Sure enough, maybe 10 minutes later, Evie was giving us high fives with her bad arm.

So, once again, all’s well that ends well. At least this time it didn’t involve a trip to the emergency room.

In completely unrelated news, I saw the movie Once last night. I had never heard of this movie until the Oscars, when Falling Slowly, the song from the movie, absolutely haunted me and I had to listen to it over and over again.

There are tons and tons of good songs in there, some possibly even better than Falling Slowly, such as If You Want Me and The Hill. I think I’ll be needing this soundtrack for Christmas…