Abbie & Ian & Tory Update

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Hitting the Baking Point

I spent yesterday afternoon baking. I don’t bake as much as I used to. I can’t exactly remember why. It may have something to do with the kids.

This wasn’t frivolous baking. Friends of ours suffered a death in their family. As per Iowa tradition, we needed to visit them with sympathy and food. It’s a simple way to help take their minds off the loss, if for no other reason than they have to figure out what they’re going to do with the half-ton of sweets all their friends brought.

I made them brownies and cherry crisp, fulfilling two food groups: Snacks, and dessert. The cherry crisp was easy; dump a can of pie filling in a dish, cut together the topping, and top. I left it unbaked so the family could freeze it and bake at their convenience after they’ve eaten/disposed of the more perishable foods others brought.

The brownies were more involved. I could have chosen something simpler, something from a box, but this was no time to go for a simple recipe. I had an ambitiously named “ultimate brownie” recipe to make.

The brownie recipe wasn’t exceptionally difficult; it just involved many ingredients, and a couple long wait times, specifically the “mix at high speed for 10 minutes” and “bake for 35 minutes” steps. I used the brownie baking breaks to mix together the cherry crisp, and to clean up the ensuing mess.

Notice what I did not do during the down time. I generally did not look after the kids. They occasionally wandered into the kitchen where I’d do my best to vocally entertain them, and they’d do their best to make my job difficult. They knocked over the garbage, dug inside the cabinets, and tried opening the hot oven door. Eventually I convinced them that the kitchen was not the best place to play, and they spent most of the rest of my baking time in the living room, probably playing, but most definitely not complaining.

After much hard work, I had everything mixed, baked, and cleaned to my satisfaction. The cherry crisp was in the refrigerator. The brownies had a couple minutes left in the oven. The kitchen counters were returned to their pre-baking cluttered state. I wandered into the living room to play with the kids for a few minutes before naptime, and found Abbie wandering naked from the waist down.

Abbie had pooped, and dutifully removed her diaper. Usually I’m observant enough to hear the familiar “shrip” of the diaper tabs when she does this, but the ultimateness of the brownies apparently distracted me. I decided she must have recently removed her diaper, or else I would have noticed it earlier. I merely had to find the discarded diaper, clean and re-diaper Abbie, and continue with naptime preparations.

I easily found the discarded diaper; it was next to the boys. My negligent parenting returned to bite me as they found the diaper several minutes ago, and had spent the ensuing time playing in its contents. Their hands were muckified, and with them their clothes, the couch, the carpet, their mouths…

This is where my prioritizing skills from a previous life in the workforce come in handy. What do I take care of first? Do I clean the boys before they touch anything else, and if so, which boy? Do I clean Abbie before she sits on something? Do I take the brownies out of the oven now that the timer is beeping? Do I clean Abbie before she sits on something else?

I went after the boys first. The brownies could stay for another couple of minutes, and I could give Abbie explicit directions to remain standing. I grabbed a package of wipes and quickly realized that mere wipes couldn’t clean hands that disgusting, Abbie couldn’t help but sit, and the brownies had already stayed in the oven for another couple of minutes.

I reprioritized. I pulled the brownies out of the oven, threw the boys in the bathtub (with no water!) to contain them in an area with easily cleaned surfaces, and cleaned and re-diapered Abbie. When she was fresh, I cleaned the carpet and furniture before anyone could make them a bigger mess. The boys screamed the entire time, but that was because I’d denied them their newfound toy.

Finally, I stripped the boys down and gave them a bath. My original intent was to give them a quick wash, but Abbie quickly informed me that she wanted a bath as well. I told her to stay out of the tub, but she listened to that directive as well as she listened to my earlier command to remain standing.

Several minutes later, everyone and everything was clean. I put the kids down for their nap, and walked into the kitchen to catch my breath. I still had some cleaning to do, and the brownies were overdone on the edges though not ruined. Suddenly I remembered why I don’t bake much anymore.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Copin' in My Cabana

I feed children when they wake up. I try to have their meal ready before they rise, but that system depends on them sleeping until their usual time.

The children woke up 45 minutes early this morning. I coped by placing them in front of the television until I was ready for them.

The boys woke up 15 minutes early from their morning nap. I coped by giving everyone Goldfish until I had lunch ready.

Everyone woke up 5 minutes early from their afternoon nap. The early rising wasn’t a big deal, but the frantic screaming from all three children was a larger deal. I coped by shoveling food into the boys’ mouths in between microwaving Abbie’s supper and directing Ellie on how best to help me in the kitchen. I didn’t cope so well.

Ian just woke up from his nighttime slumber. That’s nine hours early. I coped by giving him acetaminophen just in case.

I don’t know why Ian isn’t tired. I’m sleepy after all that coping.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Pajama Party

I change everyone’s diapers before naptime. I usually only change diapers when necessary due to concerns about the environment and the checking account. Pre-naptime definitely counts as “necessary.” I don’t want one of those suckers to leak; I’d have to clean up a big mess, and that’s assuming only liquids broke the elastic barrier. Worse, yet, a leaky diaper could prematurely end the nap, making the child and the caregiver cranky.

“Before naptime” means minutes before the nap for the boys. They chug seven-ounces of milk at every meal plus whatever they can suck from Abbie’s thrown sippy cup before I catch them, so they have enough fuel to wet a diaper at any time.

“Before naptime” can mean sometime in the last 90 minutes with Abbie. She usually only wets her diaper shortly after lunch. When I change her diaper after the post-lunch poop, it usually stays mostly dry until after naptime. As a child ages, she gains control over her bladder and liquid intake. I have no problem leaving a slightly moistened diaper on her through naptime so long as there’re no solids in it; it’s better for the environment.

Such was the case yesterday. I was preparing for naptime by changing the boys’ diapers. Abbie had pooped after lunch, and had been sitting in her mostly-fresh diaper for about an hour. That didn’t stop her from climbing on the changing table and removing her pants, though.

Abbie usually only removes her pants when poopy* or bored. Her book bin was lying on the floor, so she couldn’t be bored. A quick sniff confirmed that she wasn’t poopy. I shrugged and assumed that she wanted her diaper changed like her brothers. I finished with whichever beloved son I had on the table, set him on the ground, and turned to grab an Abbie diaper.

When I turned back around, Abbie was holding her pajamas. That’s when I realized that she didn’t remove her pants because she wanted her diaper changed, although she did remove her diaper anyway to pass the time while I grabbed a new one. She wanted to wear her pajamas during naptime, and taking off her pants was the best way to communicate her desire without using actual words.

This was new. I’ve always put her down for a nap in whatever she was wearing, saving the pajamas for nighttime. She might get a little cold during the day, but she needs some incentive to learn to properly sleep under a blanket. I recently tried using a new pair of pajamas on her at night to keep her warm. It’s a blanket sleeper, the kind with a zipper up front that she can’t leave alone, thus negating its warming benefit when she slips it off and onto the floor. It’s been frigid here recently, so I tried the blanket sleeper to keep her warm at night, hoping she’d leave it on this time. I made sure to point out that only big girls get to wear those pajamas, so she has to leave the zipper alone.

My maturity guilt trip must have worked, because she’s left her pajamas on all night ever since. Apparently, it worked too well, because now she wants to be a big girl during naptime also.

Fair enough. I changed her into her pajamas, finished the naptime routine, and set everyone down for their nap. She quickly fell asleep, and enjoyed her best nap in days. I enjoyed it too, but for different reasons.

Abbie woke just in time for supper. I changed her out of the pajamas to keep them clean since she wants to wear them for a couple more hours a day. If she’s that attached to those pajamas, I’d better make sure the diaper doesn’t leak or I’ll have to do an emergency pre-bedtime load of laundry.

* Some people take this as a sign she’s ready to be potty trained. I take it as a sign that she knows when she pooped. I remember from my potty training days that there’s a big difference between knowing that you have to poop, and knowing that you did poop.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Great Weekend

The definition of a great weekend before and after kids:

BK: Going out Friday and Saturday night.
AK: Getting everything done Friday night so you don’t have to leave the house again until Monday.

BK: Watching the big game from the stands.
AK: Watching the big game on the little TV in the bedroom that’s high enough to keep little fingers from pushing its buttons.

BK: Seeing the latest Oscar contender in the theaters.
AK: Seeing a dumb comedy on TV, leaving it for minutes at a time to take care of the kids, and not feeling like I missed anything.

BK: Completing a major home improvement project.
AK: Washing three loads of laundry, and putting away at least two of those loads.

BK: Staying up past midnight, and sleeping in until 10.
AK: Getting to bed before midnight, and not waking up before 7.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

How Old Are They?

Abbie is two-and-a-half-years-old.* The boys are 14-months-old.** I know that. Ellie knows that. Well-meaning gift-givers know that even when they give them toys clearly labeled “for ages 3 & up.” Nobody else knows that, though. My kids don’t realize how old they are, either.

I took the kids to a new playgroup yesterday. The age question was popular with all the moms in attendance. I grew a little tired of answering it, but hearing “how old are they?” repeatedly was less annoying than the one time I heard “which boy is older?”*** The age question even provided me amusement when one mom turned it around, and tried guessing their ages. She guessed Abbie was four-years-old.

The thought of Abbie looking like four-years-old floored me. My Abbie, who doesn’t talk, eats Play-Doh and dog food, and sees the potty as nothing more than a chair, looks like she’s four-years-old. I’m already thinking about delaying her entry into kindergarten by a year or five to give her a chance to catch up to her peers, but apparently I could sneak her into school next year if I wanted.

Abbie is big for her age and gender. She’s not huge, but she’s solid with a good height that gives me hope for an athletic scholarship even if the speech never comes. I’d guess she’s about 38 inches tall and 34 pounds on the scales. It helped her appearance that I dressed her in her tight jeans yesterday, the ones that I have to struggle to slip over her hips, the ones that accentuate her long legs, the ones that represent the style I will not allow her to wear outside the house from the time she starts school until she leaves for college on that athletic scholarship.

That four-years-old comment went to her head, because she also to nap yesterday. “I’m four-years-old,” she likely thought, “what use do I have for a nap?” She spent the rest of the day feeling the effects of her fatigue and not ignoring everything I tell her, which is a noticeable change from her usual rate of responding to the 9% of things I tell her.

Ian’s age confusion went the other way yesterday. As a 14-month-old, he’s firmly in the two-nap-a-day category. He ordinarily naps once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. The playgroup must have drained him, though, because he fell asleep in the car on the way home about 45 minutes before his regularly scheduled naptime.

I got him out after a quick car nap, played with him to drain him, set him down for his real nap, and listened to him scream. He was fully refreshed from his 5 minutes in the car, and refused to nap again. I pulled him out, and kept him busy until Tory woke by introducing him to Abbie’s wonderful world of morning wake time.

45 minutes later we were back out the door. This time we went out to eat for an afternoon treat. Ian of course fell asleep during the 10-minute car trip. On the way home, he fell asleep again.

Miraculously, he took his regularly scheduled afternoon nap for his fourth nap yesterday. He hasn’t napped that many times in a day since his first weeks home from the hospital. I need to find a way to harness this return to the four-nap-a-day routine. Maybe I could just tell him he’s 6-weeks-old again, and enjoy all the free time as he naps. Of course I’d have to remind him he’s 14-months-old before every bedtime to make him sleep through the night.

* Give or take a few weeks.
** Give or take a few days.
*** Ian is. By three minutes. Because the doctor pulled him out first. What does it matter?

Friday, January 26, 2007

"I must use this power only to annoy!"

Parenting can be a rewarding experience. When a mostly helpless child looks up at you and smiles, content from the food you gave him, the playtime you shared, or just a little love between you, it melts your heart.

Those experiences comprise about 5% of a child’s wake time demeanor. The other 95% of their time involves annoying the bejeebers out of you. They throw things, remove things, climb things, and otherwise do exactly what you’ve told them a million times not to do. Since the last rule repetition was outside of their three-second attention span, it’s out of mind and fair game, assuming of course they’re listening to you in the first place.

I’m amazed at the new ways they keep finding to annoy me. Abbie finds one more scalable surface. The boys find one more unlocked cabinet to empty. They team up to find one more forgotten Goldfish that I neglected to pull from under the couch.

Tory’s latest annoyance involves his car seat. All three kids have seats with five-point harnesses, which are the safest kind because they’re so hard to strap a child into that I only risk taking them in the car when absolutely necessary. I have to slip the left arm through the left arm belt, slip the right arm through the right arm belt, snap the arm belts together, click the arm belts into the crotch buckle,* and finally cinch the arm belt fastener up to chest level. Then I grab one of the remaining children, assuming no one suffered injury while I was fiddling with one car seat, and repeat two more times.

I’ve been inserting children into car seats for over two years now, and I’ve learned to minimize the annoyances by moving quickly before the child squirms too effectively. Tory has me beat by arching his back as soon as I lift him into the car. Any crotch buckle veteran knows you can’t fasten a crotch buckle while a child arches his back.

Sometimes he’ll arch when I put him in his car seat, resulting in a position where his head is on the headrest, his feet are on the seat, and there’s about 12-inches of clearance between his butt and the seat. When he does this I wait him out, because there’s no way his 14-month-old muscles can support his gut in the air like that for long.

When he collapses into a sitting position, the fun begins. At least it’s fun for him. He laughs the entire time I struggle with him. He’ll arch his back, contorting his body to the curves of the seat, and slide onto the floor. I reposition him, hold his gut down with one hand, and slip his arms through the belts with my free hand.

I abandon the arm belt fastener for now and go after the crotch buckle next to hold him in place vertically. That’s a two-handed job, though, and as soon as I let go of his gut, it’s in the air and he’s sliding down. This time he gets halfway down the seat before the belts catch in his armpits.

I reposition him, holding the crotch buckle and his crotch down with the same hand as he moves, and quickly snap the crotch buckle into place. He’ll try to arch his back again, grunt, maybe giggle, and give up. I attach the arm belt fastener, and move on to the next child. While working on the well-behaved child, Tory might root around for a minute before finding a long lost Tasteeo between the car seats, and will immediately insert it in his mouth. It bugs me when he does that.

* If you have a better term than “crotch buckle,” I’d like to hear it. By the way, I’d listen to a band named Crotch Buckle.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Milk Monsters

I imagine that one of the great advantages of growing up as a twin is always having a playmate nearby. Whenever you want another human to play a board game against, or a video game against, or send text messages to, or whatever kids do these days, there’s always someone around to pester until dad sends them both to their room for some quiet and they have no choice but to play together.*

Notice how I said that I “imagine” that’s an advantage. I haven’t seen much playing together yet. Most of their interactions seem to be of the malicious, thieving variety. Sure, they occasionally entertain each other. They like to make each other laugh while waiting for me to rescue them from their cribs, and are willing to wake the other one if necessary for an audience. They can also have innocuous interactions, like when I see them both walking toward something and wonder what could be so fascinating it would grab both of their attentions. That thought is usually followed with a panicked “how can I possibly prevent both of them from grabbing whatever forbidden object they’re tracking?”

Mostly they just take stuff from each other, though. By “stuff,” I usually refer to the most cherished of toddler objects: Milk. One of the boys will finish his milk, decide he’s still hungry, and go after a vulnerable sippy cup with remaining milk that just happens to be resting defenseless in someone else’s hands. Tory is especially bad about this as his larger volume allows him to create a greater vacuum, thereby helping him drain his sippy cup about the time Ian take the spout from his mouth to come up for air. Tory will take it, Ian will scream, thus alerting me that Tory took his milk, and I’ll take it back to return it to Ian. The typical result is two screaming children as Tory is out of milk and Ian is still mourning his original hold on the sippy cup.

Ian’s thievery is more limited to unattended sippy cups. He’s the runt of children, and needs to be sneakier if he can’t overpower anyone. Sometimes Tory will lose interest in his milk before finishing it, but it’s usually Abbie leaving her sippy cup unattended. She’ll take a couple sips, notice her duck pond, and lose all interest, giving Ian his opening. Tory will take advantage of her abandoned sippy cups too. I treat both of them the same, taking the cup back before they can drain another couple of ounces from the gallon of skim milk that should be going a lot farther than it is. This makes them scream. Sometimes Abbie decided she wants her cup back, takes it back, and pushes the offender over for good measure, also making him scream. She’s learning by watching.

It’s good to see they’ve developed a sense of ownership, specifically the sense that they own everything. I might have missed the beginning of this stage with Abbie. With a singleton like Abbie, I still take objects from her clutches, like a toy before bedtime or dog food after leaving the kennel door open. The difference is I shower the child with attention after taking the beloved object as I whisk her away to do father-child activities, and she quickly forgets the object.

With the boys, I usually take the sippy cup, return it to its rightful owner, or possibly place it in the refrigerator, and leave the offender to scream while I handle whatever emergency sprouted up during the cup exchange.** Eventually they’ll learn not to thieve, or at least they’ll learn to console the other one. That’ll put them on the golden path of learning to do chores together.

* The advantage for me having twin sons is I’ll get the garage cleaned out twice as fast when I assign the chore to both.
** You wouldn’t believe how far and fast Abbie can climb when motivated.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Breaking Bread

At 5:25 last night, I had supper ready to feed. It wasn’t my weekly cook night, so I simply had to dish out portions for reheating in the microwave. Three glasses of milk were in the fridge with a plate of macaroni and cheese for Abbie. A pan of broccoli was on the stove, waiting for me to turn on the flame at a moment’s notice. A warm bowl of macaroni and cheese was in my hands, ready to feed the boys as soon as I could strap them into their high chairs.

With Ian in the high chair and Tory was in my arms, Ellie walked through the door and announced that she wanted to go out to eat. She had a craving for Italian Chain Restaurant. The origins of that craving are a mystery since we hadn’t been there in two years. The kids make it difficult to visit a sit-down restaurant, plus I found a cheater recipe to emulate their bread thus eliminating the main reason to patronize them. But the bread needs a couple hours to rise, I didn’t have the foresight to start it at 3:25, and she wanted some tonight.

Abbie’s macaroni and cheese stayed in the refrigerator. The broccoli stayed in the pan until I could take care of it when we returned, and joined Abbie’s entrée in the cold. The milk went in the diaper bag. The boys’ macaroni and cheese went in the boys since it was already hot and the boys were unlikely to make it to the restaurant on an empty stomach without melting down. By 5:45, we were on the road.

I prefer having more prep time when eating out so I can have everything ready to go when the kids wake from their nap. That way I can slip coats and shoes on them at the first squawk, whisk them into the car, and be at the restaurant with at least some bread in front of us by the time they realize they’re hungry. That’s critical on weekends when crowds can force long waits, and even longer waits if you insist on a non-smoking table.

Fortunately, last night was a weeknight, so we could slip into a table with no wait. The only people who eat out on weeknights are families with small children enjoying a family night, business travelers who have to eat, and DINKs who have to spend that disposable income spilling out of their wallets. The DINKs must have had their own section,* because they sat us next to a solitary presumed-business traveler, and a family celebrating the birthday of their young child. Poor businessman.

We sat the boys in two high chairs, Abbie in a booster seat, and surrounded the children with adults. I met Ian’s needs, Ellie met Tory’s, and we both made sure Abbie didn’t run away. The waitress brought us bread almost immediately, and we spent most of the time at the table making sure the boys had bread in their mouths, or at least within their reach.

Ellie and I both ordered pasta, which is great for sharing with the kids. Abbie ordered, or had ordered for her, a kid’s meal with broccoli, which we knew she’d eat, spaghetti, which she’d probably eat, and a chicken breast, which she wouldn’t touch possibly because she knew it was the expensive part of the meal.

I always expect the worst when we eat out, but things went surprisingly well. Everyone behaved for close to an hour, at which point they were too bloated on bread and broccoli to remember their manners. We flagged down the server, grabbed our check, and sprinted for the exit. It was a mostly enjoyable experience, but I hope we don’t have to do it again for another two years.

* That area is probably called, “the bar.”

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Naptime RoutineUpdate

I’ve had a set pre-naptime routine with Abbie since she was old enough to find my attempts to soothe her to sleep amusing. A routine lets the child know that naptime is coming so that she may begin winding down in anticipation of sleep, or winding up in anticipation of fighting sleep as long as possible in Abbie’s case.

The routine’s details changed over the months as Abbie grew strong enough to roam the house while I was trying to run through the steps. They’ve always used the same basic principles, though: We read, we watch the fish tank while singing, and we slowly march to her bedroom while continuing to sing until I lay her in bed. Changing her diaper somewhere in there is usually a good idea as well.

The routine helped me because, when I implemented it, Abbie was impossibly cranky by the time she reached naptime. She was easier to deal with the rest of the day when she was just nearly-intolerably cranky. I was strict to the point of madness in enforcing nap times, and reading and singing usually helped to calm her in those minutes before naptime. Even when she continued screaming, at least I could feel like I was doing everything in my power to calm her short of reaching for a snack. Although she’s usually only cranky about Goldfish-related matters today, I still use the routine, partially to help her brothers, but probably mostly because I fear what she might revert to without it.

We still start with reading, which hasn’t changed much in all these months except that I read to three times as many children. About a year ago, I had visions of reading a book while three children sit attentively listening to my melodic voice. In reality, the best I can hope for is one child respectfully acknowledging my efforts while the other children don’t disturb us too much running around the room. Children apparently don’t want to listen to a book unless they personally dumped it in my lap. At least they burn off energy running around the room.

After reading, I put the boys in their cribs and take Abbie to watch the fish. Some day I’ll take the boys to watch the fish, probably as soon as I grow a third arm to contain all of them. I used to hold Abbie while watching the fish. After she struggled too much for me to hold, I started holding her hand. Now I just hope she stays in the room with me while watching the fish. I sing, “this is the way we watch the fish” to help keep her attention. Plus, I let her feed the fish, and she loves watching them eat all the food she generously shared with them.

I used to carry Abbie back to her room during the naptime march. When she mastered walking, I insisted on holding her hand while she walked back to her room. When she mastered running, she insisted on running back to her room while I struggled to not step on the toys littering the floor. Now that she’s mastered climbing, she insists on climbing onto my back so that I can carry her back to her room again, thus completing the circle.

Back in her room, I used to lovingly set her into her crib to keep her calm in the hopes that she might only scream for ten minutes before falling asleep this time. Now I throw her into bed with a ferocity that would be cruel if she weren’t laughing the entire time.

She still has to have her naptime objects to fall asleep, she just has more of them now. First she needed a burp cloth. Then she needed her lambie blanket. Then her stuffed dog. Then her stuffed cat. Then a couple more burp clothes. Then her Dora blanket. I check that all of these items are in bed with her by throwing them in her face as I yell their names. Again, it would be cruel if she weren’t laughing the entire time.

When every naptime object is in bed with Abbie, who is the most important naptime object, I kiss her goodnap, and turn for the door. I usually have to run for the door because she’s trying to make it out of the room with me. She still fights sleep as long as possible.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Quack. Quack Quack.

Favorite toys come and go. I remember when Abbie thought Weebles were the coolest thing ever invented. She’d throw it, watch it slide, and then roll back to standing. She’d do that for the equivalent of hours in baby time* giggling the entire time. After the initial thrill wore off, the Weebles found their way to the bottom of the toy bin only emerging when Abbie needed something to spread across the living room floor while I’m trying to vacuum.

Her latest toy du jour is a duck pond, and this one may stick around for a while, or at least the better part of a week. We bought the duck pond at a steep discount in the days after Christmas as the stores cleared out all of their unwanted holiday merchandise to make room for soon-to-be unwanted Valentine’s Day merchandise. We meant it to be a birthday present, but she seemed developmentally ready for it, and it was just taking up space on the shelf. Plus, we needed more evidence to prove my theory that we should never buy gifts more than a couple weeks before the event.

The duck pond is a preschool game that we’ve converted into a toddler toy. It has 12 ducks that “swim” around the pond thanks to a battery-operated conveyer. The pond quacks as it spins, thus fulfilling the federal regulation that all toys must make noise, preferably an annoying one.

Each duck has one of four colored shapes on its bottom. The intended object of the game is to lift a duck to check if it matches your selected shape. If it matches, set it in front of you; if it doesn’t match, put it back on the pond. The first one to collect all three ducks with the correct shape makes the other child cry. When played correctly, it teaches turn-taking, shape-matching, and searching-for-the-missing-piece skills.

Abbie’s primary object of the game is to use it as background noise. She turns it on, maybe strews a couple ducks across the floor, walks away, and screams when I turn it off. She finds other ways to enjoy it as well. She pulls ducks off, and puts them back on. She experiments to determine which other toys will “swim” around the pond.** She uses the quacking to bait her brothers into walking near enough to investigate, and then shoves them onto the floor. In this way she learns about the scientific process, self-defense, and, of course, searching-for-the-missing-piece skills.

Because it has 12 ducks to spread across the floor like slightly rounded blocks, I put it away when she’s not playing with it to keep everything in one place besides the bottom of my feet. I have to store it in our bedroom because that’s the only place in the house where she can’t see it. If she sees it beyond her reach when I don’t want to get it down for her, she will scream in agony for minutes until she composes herself, grabs a chair, and drags it to the shelf to retrieve the thing on her own. When it’s hidden behind a door, she only screams in agony during the dozen or so times a day that she sneaks into our room when I run in to grab something.

At least that was my hope. In reality, she also screams about a dozen times a day while pounding on our bedroom door in hopes that I’ll retrieve her duck pond. She’s so fond of it that she’s willing to utter syllables to ask for it by name, “uht ohnnnn.” So I break down, get it out for her, and regret my decision every time I try to vacuum over 12 ducks and she’s in another room while it quacks away. She’ll probably forget about it by next week.

* That’s about five minutes in real time.
** So far, she’s had the best results with a toy pig.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Because I haven't posted any pictures for a while

DSC02040
Here’s a beautifully adequate photo of our kids. From left to right, you see Ian, Abbie, and Tory.

DSC02041
Here is an example of the ten other photos I took trying to get that one beautifully adequate photo.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Tory Likes It!

For months a couple months, the kids ate the same thing for every breakfast: Abbie had a bowl of cereal, and the boys shared half a banana. The boys also had access to all the Tasteeos they could eat before I grew tired of refilling their trays, and all three children got a glass filled with an age-appropriate type of milk.

I know they should eat a variety of foods to ensure a balanced diet and a diverse palette, but their routine doesn’t bother me. I’ve eaten the same breakfast almost every morning for years* and I’m nutritionally healthy with a palette that accepts anything that doesn’t include coconut. Besides, if the children never learn to like, and demand, pancakes for breakfast, is that really a bad thing?

What bothers me about their meal is that it’s not an adult breakfast, or even a big kid breakfast; their handfuls of cereal make it a little kid breakfast. Abbie’s meal is close to a big kid breakfast, but she refuses to eat milk-moistened cereal. She has to eat her cereal dry with a glass of milk at the side in case she’d like to wash it down. Maybe she likes her cereal crunch, or maybe she’s learned that wet cereal doesn’t bounce when she dumps it from her bowl. I’m hoping she starts enjoying cereal with milk before she drifts into the evil of breakfast bars and toaster pastries.

The boys have longer to go to reach the big kid breakfast. A quarter banana isn’t an entrée, it’s a side dish, and one better suited to lunch. I wanted to switch them to normal breakfast fare, the kind that comes in a box and needs liquid added. Plus, it’s too bothersome to keep bananas around, always monitoring them to ensure they’re ripe enough to eat, but fresh enough to not ooze.

So I’ve switched them to oatmeal. It’s a great breakfast food that meets my criteria of being easy to make, easy to keep, and, most importantly, normal. Plus it’s warm, and years of television commercials have taught me that I should feel guilty about sending my children into the world without a warm breakfast, especially when oatmeal only takes a minute you heartless $%#&. I’ve had to deal with a few setbacks in making the switch, though.

First, as mentioned above, oatmeal needs to cook. While Tory will eat virtually anything with edible tendencies, undercooked oatmeal is not on his list. This meant I had to figure out how long I had to cook it, how long I could microwave it before it boiled over, and how long I had to stick it in the freezer before it cooled to the point of edibility. I’ve discovered it works best to microwave it a little before stepping in the shower, microwave it a lot after emerging from the shower, and freeze it immediately after it beeps.

Once the oatmeal was perfectly cooked and then cooled, I discovered another larger problem: They didn’t like it. The boys who eat dog food and scream in fury when I take it away don’t like oatmeal. I tried adding several things to make it palatable: Milk to add familiarity, brown sugar for sweetness, raisins for choking-hazard excitement, and various spices just for the heck of it. Finally, in a moment of desperation and willingness to clean out the refrigerator, I picked up a jar of jam that had been in our possession for months, poured a little into the oatmeal, and suddenly they liked it. It must have been the combination of fruit, sugar, and spices that daddy’s wild guesses couldn’t nail.

I’ve been doing this for a few days, and everything is going well. Except for when I forget to put the oatmeal in the microwave before climbing into the shower; then they have to wait for a few minutes for it to cook. It’s just a matter of time before they start enjoying raisin bran every morning.

* Raisin bran. And maybe a krispie treat if we have any, which we usually do.

Friday, January 19, 2007

SpeakingUpdate

Abbie still isn’t talking. We’re working on it. I’ve learned to accept that she’s going to talk when she talks. Talking is an essential prerequisite to moving out of the house at 18, but as long as she learns to talk eventually, I’m not going to worry about her. No, I need to save my worrying energies for the boys’ speech abilities since they’re not talking either.

Even though every developmental chart I’ve seen says children should be talking by 12 months, it’s still too early to worry. There’s a huge range when children begin speaking. Some children start communicating around nine months or even earlier. Some children wait until their second birthday to talk. Some children are like Abbie. Plus, there are several mitigating factors to explain a child’s speech delay: Boys talk later than girls do. Subsequent children talk later than firstborns do. Children raised in a home where the caregiver is too busy cleaning the kitchen and changing diapers to expose them to language talk later than well-tended children do. I remember these factors after researching them for Abbie and panicking after realizing none of them applied to her.

That doesn’t mean people aren’t worried about them. My mother for one makes it a point to ask if they’re talking yet during every phone call, right after she asks if Abbie is talking yet. The developmental follow-up team from the NICU will also be concerned that they’re not talking yet, especially since they were terrified at how little they were babbling at 9 months. They may call child protective services if they’re not talking for the 15-month check-up.

It figures that late talking would run in our children. Of course, both Ellie and I were early talkers. My mother claims I spoke at 9 months, probably right after I learned to tie my shoes and days before I started reading. Ellie’s family says she was speaking in complete sentences by age 2. Our children can babble completely different syllables by age 2.

Which isn’t to say they’re mutes. Well, Ian is kind of a mute if you don’t count crying, but he’s learning. Abbie makes many sounds, some of them even sound like monosyllabic words, but they’re not words. She communicates mostly through signs, screams, and just getting the box of Goldfish off the top of the refrigerator herself because daddy obviously doesn’t understand her.

The boys babble occasionally, but not when someone would traditionally use words such as to label objects, grab another person’s attention, or utter expletives while in pain. They both throw out strands of “mamama” and “dadada,” but it’s not really to grab our attention. It’s more like a way to occupy the time as they wander the house in search of edible objects. Tory is the bigger eater and more likely to wander and babble. Ian is more content to sit silently and plot ways to steal Abbie’s food. Tory also has a sound that I’ve never heard Ian make. He’ll use strings of “sha-sha-sha,” kind of like Dale Gribble without the preceding paranoia.

No matter how delayed the kids seem in speaking, I’m not going to worry. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing to expose them to language: Take them out into public frequently, read to them often, and scold them when they misbehave. I have to work language in whenever my chores allow.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Supper Preparations

These days preparing supper involves filling plates with food to be microwaved five days a week. I only actually cook once a week when I make enough food to last the rest of the week when supplemented by the restaurant leftovers we procure the other day of the week.

I prefer making supper in the afternoon while the kids are awake. I used to do it while they napped late in the afternoon since filling plates and cups is easier without children at my feet screaming for a second lunch of the macaroni and cheese flowing from the plastic storage container. Eventually I realized that I was wasting too much of their prime napping time dispensing food instead of wasting it on the Internet. When weighing the fruits of bonus Internet time against the horrors of screaming children, the fruits knocked the horrors off the scale, especially since I could placate the children with cereal and Goldfish.

Preparing supper can be a surprisingly intricate process, particularly when done for three children. I have to fill three sippy cups with two different kinds of milk. I usually mix the boys’ supper with frozen spinach cube to add vegetable matter. When serving meat with Abbie’s supper, I have to cut it into tiny pieces to increase the chance that a meat molecule or two might inadvertently adhere to her fork because otherwise all meat on her tray goes directly to the dog. I have to prepare Abbie’s post-nap fruit snack by washing and cutting the fruit at a pace quick enough to fill the bowl faster than Abbie can sneak fruit out of it. If I want a baked potato for supper now’s the time to prepare it by removing the dark spots around some eyes and the semi-evolved sight organs that have sprouted from other eyes.

Between all of this preparation, occasional breaks to deal with child emergencies, cereal dish refills every time the dog empties it, someone knocks it on the floor, or a child accidentally eats the last piece, it can take me 30 minutes or more to finish in the kitchen. That’s 30 minutes when I’m not paying close attention to any children who aren’t screaming at my feet.

Sometimes the children take advantage of my inattentiveness by getting into forbidden objects. I generally check on them when I don’t hear anything from them for a couple minutes. On Tuesday afternoon, I realized Abbie hadn’t squawked or broken anything for a couple minutes. I went to discover which forbidden object was so alluring that it could distract her for a couple minutes straight. I found her asleep in bed.

I knew she’d had a rough day from the way she grumped her way through the morning. Apparently she couldn’t take the frustration of being denied macaroni and cheese, and went for a nap. She never puts herself to sleep, though. Usually I have to walk her through an elaborate naptime routine, dump her in bed, run out the door before she can, and reenter her room 15 minutes later to return her to bed before she finally gives up. Yesterday she put herself to sleep out of free will an hour before her usual naptime.

I shrugged and finished preparing supper. Then I took the boys into the living room for some quality playtime, and was surprised to see how calm they can be when Abbie isn’t stealing toys from them.

I put the boys down for their nap a little early. I didn’t know how Abbie would react to her early naptime, and wanted everyone to sleep simultaneously. I snuck out of their room, crawled into my bed, and drifted into my nap with the boys.

20 minutes later, I woke to hear Abbie roll out of bed. I opened her door to release my fully refreshed toddler, and saw both boys rising from their slumber. Their two-hour afternoon nap had become a 20-minute afternoon nap. I left them in their room hoping they’d drift back to sleep, but they only drifted into anger at being ignored.

My Internet time took a major hit that day. I pulled everyone into the living room, and we played until supper. At least I snuck my nap in.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Learn to Fall Before You Run

First, a child learns to stand. He must hold on to stable object at first like a piece of furniture. Eventually, he pulls his hands away, and begins to stand unassisted. As his wobbly legs gain confidence, he dares to lift his legs for his first steps. At first, he falls with every step, but through tenacity he maintains his balance long enough to take one step, then strings together two steps, and finally several steps. Before you know it, he’s walking everywhere, determined to move as quickly and efficiently as possible.

That’s the point we’re at now. It’s amazing to watch. Their speed amazes me. Their resolve amazes me. Most of all, the fact that they don’t seriously injure themselves more often amazes me. They have the confidence to walk throughout the house, but lack the skill to adjust for unforeseen obstacles, and with three young children in the house, our floors are everlastingly littered with unforeseen obstacles. They fall frequently, and usually they just rise back up to their feet unscathed. Sometimes they’ll land on an errant block, and need a little love. Very rarely do they hit something that leaves a mark, but when they do, it’s uglier than an American Idol open audition.

Tory took his most recent major tumble on Saturday. I thought it was no big deal at first since he takes similar tumbles several times daily. He was in the living room, walking from toy to toy, stumbled, and crashed headfirst into the floor, this time whacking the IncrediBlock on the way down. Even though I heard a loud thud when he hit the floor followed by crying, I wasn’t concerned. We have many hollow plastic toys that sound debilitating upon impact, especially when it’s a hollow head impacting them, and when the boys experience a hint of pain, they cry like, well, babies. We picked him up, gave him the standard love, and when he didn’t calm down quickly I thought he might have hit his head harder than I thought.

The next morning I saw how hard he hit his head. He developed a silver dollar sized bruise on his forehead in a shade of purple so deep it’s rarely seen outside of Play-Doh. I shrugged, wished I had done more at the time, and moved on, knowing another child might fall at any second. Tory’s great-grandmother, who watched him fall right in front of her, was not as forgiving of herself. Fortunately, they’re three hours apart again, so she doesn’t have to know how painful his forehead looks.

Ian’s tumble came yesterday, and it was worse. I was loading the dishwasher as I normally do for 16 hours everyday. Ian toddled up to the dishwasher like he and/or his brother does every time the door opens. This time Abbie left Walter, her horse head on a stick, stretched across the kitchen floor about a foot from the dishwasher. Ian, in his zeal to remove flatware and hopefully find residual food, toddled at top speed, ignoring Walter. When his foot hit Walter’s stick, he fell forward at max toddler speed, striking face-first on the edge of the open door as I loaded a plate. I immediately knew this was bad because the impact sounded like Tory hitting the IncrediBlock, except the dishwasher door is heavily insulated with little to resonate.

I immediately picked him up and saw an inch long cut next to his eye. Ellie took him and worked her mother’s magic on him, calming him to the point where he’d at least open his eyes so we could see they were fine. I knew he’d be okay but probably cranky for the rest of the night, which he was.

This morning I saw how hard he hit his head. The cut had scabbed over nicely, but the area around his eye had puffed up and was threatening to become an impressive shiner. I shrugged, wished I had noticed Walter at the time, and moved on, knowing another child might fall at any second. Hopefully their walking skill will catch up to their walking confidence quickly.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Have a Cow, Bro

One of our first purchases for Abbie was a lamb blanket, which we imaginatively call “Lambie Blanket.” It’s about 24-inches long, and shaped like a lamb-version of a bearskin rug. It has four rounded “legs,” a head at the top, and a tail at the back. We acquired this for Abbie because it seemed like a good nighttime comfort object; it’s soft, durable, and, most importantly, machine washable.

The blanket served its purpose with Abbie. She never grew to depend on it to fall asleep; that honor went to burp clothes, which is a good thing since we have two-dozen burp clothes to lose* but only one Lambie Blanket. She does enjoy sleeping with her Lambie Blanket when it’s not shoved under the couch, and she recognizes it as a lamb or sheep, as evidenced by her insistence on retrieving it whenever either animal appears in a book, which is surprisingly often.

When the boys were on their way, we knew we needed to buy similar blankets for them. We couldn’t buy them more Lambie Blankets because we wanted theirs to be different from their sister’s blanket. Plus a lamb is vaguely feminine, and we wanted them to have something vaguely masculine. So, we bought them Cow Blankets. Yes, I know all cows are female. They could be Bull Blankets instead, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.

We let the boys sleep with their Cow Blankets as soon as they came home from the hospital. We were careful to follow all SIDS laws, stowing the blankets at their feet when they were newborns and unable to bring them up to their mouths where they could become asphyxiation hazards. Once they could move better, we draped the blankets over the crib railings to keep them out of reach.

Around six months they were mobile enough to pull the blankets into their cribs. We promptly removed the blankets from their cribs while sleeping to ensure good health. The boys promptly screamed and refused to sleep. We then promptly violated SIDS laws and let them sleep with their Cow Blankets in the interest of avoiding household-wide sleep deprivation.

The boys have slept with their Cow Blankets ever since. We know that when we travel, we have to pack the Cow Blankets along with burp clothes and Lambie Blanket just in case to ensure good sleeping. They’ll fall asleep without their Cow Blankets, but it’s easier on everyone to let them snuggle into slumber.

A strange thing has started happening, though. The boys are throwing their blankets into the other’s crib. At first, both blankets appeared in Ian's crib. Ellie blamed him for stealing his brother’s, but I pointed out that the boys can’t pull the blankets from each other’s cribs yet. That’ll have to wait until they can climb into each other’s cribs in a couple months. Tory must be throwing his blanket into Ian’s crib.

I tested my theory at naptime by spying on them through a slit in the door before shutting it. Before I could set my feet, Tory was standing at the railing dumping his blanket into Ian’s crib. Now I see Ian is returning the favor and dumping his blanket into Tory’s crib.

I’m glad the boys no longer need to cuddle with the blankets to fall asleep, but I wish I knew why they were rejecting their blankets. Maybe they’re being nice and sharing their blankets, but that contradicts every Tasteeo-hoarding, sippy cup-grabbing, block swiping behavior I’ve witnessed in them. Maybe they want extra space in their cribs. Maybe they want to see what happens when the blanket goes over the railing. Maybe I just need to throw those blankets in the washing machine.

* And we have lost most of them.

Monday, January 15, 2007

I Am the Eggman, Oh, They Are the Eggman, Oh, I Am the Horsie. Goo Goo G'joob.

Abbie’s latest infatuation is climbing on my back. It’s important for me to sit on the floor to better interact with the kids on their level and to knock things out of their hands before they eat them more efficiently, but she’s using my benevolence against me. If she keeps this up, I’ll have to stand and tower above them, pointing to things from a distance, and stacking blocks with my feet.

When Abbie was much younger, old enough to sit up unassisted but still too young to move quickly, I’d frequently hoist her onto my shoulders. If we were running errands, it was an efficient way to transport her quickly. I wouldn’t have to worry about her wandering away while she was on my shoulders, nor would she struggle like she did while I carried her normally or held her hand. Her placidity may have been because the new vantage point kept her entertained, or she may have realized from an early age that struggling from on top of daddy’s shoulders could result in a nasty fall. Either way, everyone was happy until I tried locking her back in her car seat.

Now I can’t keep her off my back. Not that she instantly climbs aboard whenever my back is within reach. She usually waits until a moment of boredom, like those horrible seconds when I ignore the book she’s holding to read the book a brother is holding. Then she’ll circle around while I’m distracted, and begin climbing.

She likes to mix up climbing destinations. Sometimes she climbs all the way up top until she’s holding my head with her legs draped over my shoulders. I can live with that position, at least until she leans forward onto my head in an attempt to make me dump her on the floor, straining my neck in the process. Sometimes she’ll wrap her hands around my neck and dig her toes into my waistband or maybe a fat fold. I can live with that position as well, at least until she lifts her feet and supports herself with her arms, depriving my sleep-starved brain of oxygen as well. The position I can’t tolerate is the in-between state, where she vacillates between the floor and my shoulders, picking random spots on my back to jab her extremities, like a rib or a shoulder blade, or maybe just suddenly shift her weight to one side to see if daddy’s back will hold.

If I’m up to the challenge, I use this to my advantage. Just like when she was younger, this is a great way to entertain her. It may torque my back, but it keeps her from terrorizing her brothers, stealing their books and toys, and discovering new foods I left within her reach in the cupboards.

It’s still a great way to transport her throughout the house, too. She hates going to bed, but if she’s on my back, she thinks me moving her to bed is great. I let her hop on as part of her pre-bed routine. We move while I sing. When I reach her bed, I flop forward and slam her into bed. She laughs the entire time, I rough her up a bit more, and walk out of the room while she winds down. If nothing else, she needs a few seconds to recover, giving me enough time to shut the door before she attempts to run out.

This has its moments of joy, but I hope she outgrows this phase soon. My back hurts and my head aches from her leaning too much on my shoulders. I’m guessing she’ll stop climbing on my back about the time her brothers start.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

She's Eating Broccoli. She's eat... ooh! She's eating broccola-ah-ie!

All three of my kids love broccoli.

I imagine many things pop into people’s minds upon hearing that statement. “&@$%er” is one of them, although if anyone thinks I’m a perfect parent, I assure you my kitchen floor hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. And, yes, I still allow them to eat things that fall on it.

“How did you do it?” might be another thing that pops up. I offered it to them. They ate it. They seem to like it, and they haven’t figured out otherwise yet. It probably helps that I eat a big plateful of it every night for dinner; the surest way to encourage a child to eat something is to give them the idea that you want to eat it first.

“That must be nice” would be the other words I imagine, to which I respond, “you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

When I sit down to my broccoli, I sit on the couch so all three children can share in my plate. Eating vegetables is a good habit that I want to encourage, especially since it’s just a matter of time before they discover I’m hiding nasty squash in their macaroni and cheese. All three children walk or toddle up to me when I call them, and each one has found their unique way to be a pain in the butt while we eat.

Abbie was my first broccoli eater, and is now the most experienced. She’s progressed to the point where she can pluck it off the plate with a fork. Not that she does; she’d rather use her fingers. That’s fine with me, but she insists on grabbing my fork while eating, possibly to feel like a big girl, maybe to intercept the floret en route to my mouth, but most likely to sabotage our eating to leave more broccoli for her. I can compensate for her thievery by bringing an extra fork, but she tends to steal both forks, though I can re-steal the one she’s currently not using.

I’ve learned to deal with Abbie. I keep the plate where she can reach it, and steal forks back as necessary. I need to be careful of how low I hold the plate because Tory is always hovering nearby. My preferred method of feeding the boys is to fork-feed them one piece at a time as they wait patiently at my side. Their preferred method of feeding themselves is to grab an airway-blockingly large handful of broccoli and shove it in their mouths. Both boys will do this, but Tory is especially gleeful in his grabbing. If I leave the plate dangling too low, just low enough for his to reach, he will pull it to the ground, dumping its contents on the floor. That’s good news for the dog who’s learned to hover nearby during mealtime, but not so good for the rest of us.

Ian is more laid back. If the broccoli is beyond his reach, he’ll wait patiently for daddy to feed him. Either that, or he’ll wander elsewhere, so I need to move quickly. I’ll spear a piece, bring it to his mouth, and he’ll watch it move to the precipice of his gumline. Then he keeps watching it as he moves his head back in perfect unison with the fork, always keeping his mouth open, and always remaining a constant distance from the food. He’ll keep leaning back until he’s outside my reach and I give the food to his brother, or he loses his balance and falls backward. At that point, I quickly slip it in his mouth before he can move back again. I also have to return to my plate before Tory knocks it on the floor or Abbie steals my fork again.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Too much to do

When 48 hours of work gets crammed into the weekend, something falls off the board. See you tomorrow.

Friday, January 12, 2007

"This means something, this is important."

If television is to be believed, and it’s never lied to me before, the hardest part about feeding young children is getting the food in their mouths. If they don’t like what’s on the spoon, they’ll keep their mouths shut, maybe even turning away, forcing the feeder to do an airplane imitation to insert the spoon. But once food enters the mouth, there are no more problems besides its inevitable emergence out the other end, or the projectile spit if you’re watching a comedy.

Ian doesn’t watch enough television, because he’s found a new way to be a pain at mealtime. He insists on grabbing his food. When the spoon is headed for his mouth, he’ll focus his attention on the spoon, attempting to grab the gruel on the end with his fingers with the intent of, well, mostly to see what happens when he grabs semi-solid food. At this point I’m not so much an airplane, but something much more evasive, like a Viper from Battlestar Galactica, especially in that one episode where Apollo had to fly his Viper through the Cylon transport passageway to destroy their tylium mine.* Even when I do deliver my payload into the intended target, i.e. his mouth, Ian is still desperate enough to handle his food that he’ll insert his fingers into his mouth to see what happens as the food swishes through his maw. The main result is he makes a mess.

I remember Abbie had her eating idiosyncrasies. She would periodically become insolent or distracted and refuse to eat the food I offered. I coped with it by holding the spoon out until she changed her mind. On her less cooperative days, I could read half the newspaper while I waited for her to grab the spoon.

That’s not an option today. When Abbie was an only child, the only person who suffered while waiting for her to eat was me. If mankind has gleaned anything from millennia of childrearing it’s that the desires of the caregiver are immaterial compared to the whim of the child. Now that we have three children, any uncooperative children have competition from two other demanding siblings, and millennia of childrearing have also taught that the whiniest child wins.

If I sit and wait for Ian to eat properly, I can send two hungry children into a fit while he happily gropes his applesauce. I can effectively ignore Abbie by sending a couple Goldfish her way, or if I’m too slow, she usually runs into her room, slamming the door shut behind her to finish her fit.

Tory isn’t so easy to ignore, and not just because he’s restrained a couple feet away from Ian. Tory has no qualms about ingesting food, and few qualms about ingesting non-food products. If it fits down his gullet, he’s willing to try it. When he sees a known food substance loitering a couple feet from his mouth, he wants it, and he’s willing to throw a tantrum to get it.

If I stare at Ian waiting for him to swallow what isn’t all over his fingers, Tory suffers a meltdown. While Ian plays with his food, I can slip a spoonful into Tory’s mouth, but I don’t like to do that. Tory already has about a couple pound lead on his brother; he doesn’t need any extra help. A few extra spoonfuls a day, and they’ll turn into one of those oddly mismatched sit-com couples in a couple decades.

* That was sweet.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Beating up Baby

Yesterday began innocently enough. The kids, having just finished breakfast, were playing innocently in the living room. I was seated in the kitchen enjoying my breakfast and not enjoying the basketball game recap in the newspaper about My Team’s butts being handed to them in last night’s game.

Ian screamed. I used to be able to audibly diagnose the severity of the boys’ injuries through their screams. A low simmering scream meant he’s generally unhappy, probably bored, and I could take a few more bites of cereal and look for a good stopping point in the newspaper before moseying into the living room to investigate. An intense scream meant he’s in pain, probably because of something Abbie did, and I should stop reading Dilbert in mid-panel to check on him, lifting Abbie off his legs if necessary.

Unfortunately, they’ve both discovered that going straight for the intense, full-bore, breath-holding scream is the most effective way to get my attention. Whether Abbie is using his back as a trampoline, or he’s frustrated that his sippy cup is empty, they go all out from the start. I’ve learned to compensate by finishing my bite of cereal while listening to the follow-up scream. If the intensity comes down a notch, he’s just unhappy, and I can continue reading Garfield while monitoring the situation to see if he comes down. If the intensity remains steady, or heaven forbid increases, I need to check for blood.

Ian’s follow-up scream held its intensity. That meant he was hurt, probably not badly, but someone should console him. I went to check on him, and found Ellie already checking on him before she rushed to work. Apparently, Ian had fallen while navigating the toy minefield set on our living room floor, and scraped his chin on the entertainment center on his way down. He was okay, but had about an inch square patch on his chin rubbed raw and bleeding slightly.

Ellie tended to him and calmed him down while I finished eating. Yesterday was library day, and I needed to keep moving to get out the door on time if I was to change diapers, clean the kitchen, and check the Internet first.

I kept moving, and we made it to the library as toddler time began. Toddler time for most parents involves sitting on the sideline and watching their toddler sit attentively in the circle around the group leader. For me, it involves sitting a few feet behind the toddler circle, using my two hands to keep three squirming children in check. Usually that means I hold a boy in each hand while hoping Abbie running circles around the room doesn’t disturb the well-behaved children sitting attentively.

Yesterday, Abbie drifted up to the toddler circle while I held onto the boys. I was proud of Abbie, and hoped for a second that the other parents might mistake me for a Responsible Parent who raised his daughter properly. Then I remembered that the large gash on Ian’s chin exempted me from any Responsible Parent titles. At least his wound distracted the other parents from noticing that, in our haste to run out the door, each boy was wearing two different colored socks.*

Abbie was moving through the toddler circle, and eventually drifted up to the group leader’s flannel board. She wanted to examine the ducks the leader had meticulously placed as a visual aide to the story, and by “examine,” I mean “throw on the floor.”

I set the boys down, and bounded up to Abbie hoping to retain any semblance of a Responsible Parent. As I leapt forward, my foot recoiled backward, and smacked Ian in the forehead. I continued forward to rescue the flannel ducks from Abbie clutches, but knew I was in trouble when I heard Ian’s all-out scream followed by another, angrier scream.

When I returned seconds later, another parent** had grabbed the poor little guy and was attempting to comfort him. I took him back, and set about calming him down as effectively as possible while still holding Tory in place. Ian quieted down a minute later, and luckily Abbie decided to hover near me for the next few minutes.

Ian was in good shape except for a little bruise on his forehead and a little more angst to use against me in his teen years. The bruise looked bad, but at least it distracted from the wound on his chin.

* These things happen when I keep two different pairs of socks in two identical pairs of shoes.
** It was the only other dad in the room; I think he had sympathy for his brother in parenting.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Grocery Getter

I’m getting braver on my unassisted expeditions. No longer do I huddle inside the house during the day, terrified to run errands for fear the children will begin wildly misbehaving. Now I leave the house expecting the children to wildly misbehave knowing that no one will criticize me since if they’re out during the day, they probably have their own wildly misbehaving children. I just can’t venture far without risk of running into naptime because if that happens, all four of us will be cranky.

Yesterday I needed to run to the grocery store. This wasn’t my main grocery store trip where I need a cartful of food to sustain us for the seven breakfasts, six lunches, and three suppers we eat at home every week. Tackling that chore without adult assistance or at least firmer child restraints than are generally socially acceptable would be suicidal. This was a trip to my nearby grocery store for a handful of things I noticed were on sale in their ad plus a couple things we ran out of after cooking that fourth supper in seven days.

This kind of trip is doable since I can use the stroller to tote the boys and groceries, leaving me a free hand to direct Abbie as she walks at my side, or at least runs around within earshot. Of course, I have to occasionally focus my attention on merchandise, and I pray she doesn’t poke anything too fragile or expensive while my back is turned.

The produce section that begins every grocery store is the scariest part with Abbie. Thin skinned, easily bruised items are everywhere, and Abbie knows that they’re all edible. I snatched many an apple from her clutches a fraction of a second before her teeth pierce the skin.

Fortunately, on this trip I didn’t need any produce, and was able to zoom quickly through the area en route to the things I did need. Abbie barely noticed the bounty of goodies, but she did notice the section adjoining the produce: The floral section. Abbie likes flowers, and will often run up to them regardless of foot or automobile traffic to furiously sign “flower” at me, pointing them out just in case I missed them. The flowers didn’t catch her eye on this trip; the balloons did.

Children love balloons. They combine the fun of a ball, the allure of bright colors, and the magic of a floating device into one neat package that can be used to repeatedly hit a sibling without cause physical harm. Abbie ran up to a collection of balloons hovering from the ceiling, and tried pilfering one. Being a responsible, semi-alert parent, I eventually stopped her and started to drag her away when an employee offered one to her. At this point, I noticed the balloons were emblazoned with the store’s logo, and were meant to be given away to children in hopes that they’d drag their parents back to the store several times a week for more free balloons.

I thanked her, and Abbie hauled it back to the stroller. She spent the rest of the store proudly walking through the store and clutching her balloon. Except for all those times she lost her grip on the ribbon; we had to stop until I pulled it off the ceiling for her.

Toward the end of the store, right after the meat section, the balloon drifted too close to the stroller and Tory grabbed it. I tried to wrestle it away from him, but he wasn’t going to surrender his treasure. Abbie pulled on it for a few seconds, realized Tory had it tightly, and made a decision. Instead of pulling harder or screaming in agony at having lost her balloon, she immediately ran directly back to the floral department to grab a new balloon. The employee recognized us and asked if her first balloon floated away. I said no, her brother stole it. The employee understood the actions of children.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Diaper Difficulties

Changing diapers is hard work. I figure I change about 15 diapers a day, give or take a few poops. At four minutes per diaper change, that means I spend an hour every day changing diapers. Subtract the seven* hours a day I spend sleeping, and that’s more than 5% of my life spent slaving over a hot diaper. That’s a lot of time spent lifting children, removing pants, opening diapers, wiping bottoms, wiping fingers after they wiped their bottoms, rushing across the room to grab a diaper that I should’ve grabbed before starting while praying nobody rolls off the changing table, attaching the clean diaper, replacing pants, and returning children to the floor.

My children could make my life easier by cooperating during diaper changes, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from taking care of children, it’s that they don’t exist to make my life easier. That, and always grab a fresh diaper before removing the dirty one.

Yesterday, Abbie went to extra lengths to make diaper changes more difficult. It had nothing to do with misbehaving while I change her diaper. She behaves fairly well having learned that the fastest way to return to climbing on furniture is to go limp and let daddy do his work. She made diaper changes more difficult by adding some excitement to her brothers’ diaper changes.

Right after breakfast, the boys always poop. I leave their soaked overnight diapers on a little longer because I know that post-breakfast poop is coming. I always check their diapers before I start to eat, and yesterday Tory’s diaper was poopy as always. I set him on the changing table to do my work, but the boys don’t lie still like Abbie. They’re too young to climb furniture, so being on top of the changing table is still a novel experience for them. There are too many things up there to distract them, like the wipe warmer or a slightly different texture on the wall, and they love to roll everywhere while I try to change them. Usually I hold their feet for a couple seconds while cleaning them, and they lie still long enough for me to finish, preferring to make their break when I turn away to throw away the diaper.

Yesterday morning she walked into the room while I was changing Tory. That’s usually not a big deal, but this time she was carrying the bowl of cereal that she likes to graze on for an hour because she can’t be bothered to sit still long enough to eat a half-dozen Fruit Rings. Nothing distracts Tory like food, especially when his sister carries it and he has a good chance of making her dump it on the floor. I had to spend the next several seconds holding Tory’s legs in place like a rodeo rider holding onto an irate bull, except that the rider only risked being trampled, while I risked smearing diaper deposits everywhere.

Later that day, I was changing Ian after his post-lunch poop. I had the fresh diaper by my side, his diaper opened and moved to a safe location, and a wipe in hand when Abbie walked into the room. This time she was naked. She had already stripped naked three times that morning, so I wasn’t too concerned until I noticed the giant poopy spot on her bottom. Suddenly I had to decide if I wanted to take care of Abbie knowing Ian would smear everything in a three-foot radius as he wriggled away, or if I wanted to finish cleaning Ian hoping that Abbie stayed standing by my side and that Tory and the dog stayed away from the exposed diaper wherever it lay.

I opted to finish the job on Ian. I hurried through the process and skipped replacing the pants to move to Abbie a little sooner before the poop hit the fan, or anything else in the house. I’m pretty sure I spent less than four minutes changing that diaper.

* On a good day.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Book Budget

Books are expensive. A cheap book from a big box store might cost $5. A decent book from a bookstore by an author you’ve heard of will cost more. A top-notch book from an independent children’s store that’s genuinely educational and not the cardboard equivalent of a LeapFrog toy will require a credit card.

It doesn’t help that tomes have a limited bookshelf life in our house. Abbie has destroyed a 529 account’s worth of quality picture books. She bends pages in new directions, intentionally removes liftable flaps, and demonstrates a creativity when finding ways to shove books into her book bin that I wish she’d show with those Little People cluttering the living room. The boys don’t help either, with their chewing on, drooling on, and eventually crawling on liquid-weakened pages.

I try to cut costs by buying used books, but that has its limitations. I usually visit garage sales to find used books, which works great in the summer, but not so much in mid-January when every Iowan is holed up indoors instead of trying to squeeze a few quarters from those old books gathering dust in the basement. When I find used books, they don’t always last very long in our house. My kids can destroy a new book easily enough without help from the pre-creased and torn pages in some used books.

I was delighted to find a new source for cheap books at the dollar store. We don’t usually visit dollar stores because, well, because we’re snobs. I gladly visit seedy discount stores for off-brand food that will only be consumed by myself and my loved ones. Buying things like laundry detergent at a dollar store is crossing the line since using weird detergent could ruin clothes that I paid good money for.

We were out of town a few days ago in small town Iowa and needed a few things. This being small town Iowa, our best shopping option was the local dollar store. We found a couple luxuries like some clearanced holiday merchandise.* Then I found the children’s aisle, passed over a few cheap yet surprisingly overpriced toys, and found the books.

The store had eight different books in two different series. One series appears to be a slightly Americanized version of a series from a foreign country, most likely China judging from the panda that appears on every page for no good reason. The other series is the “First” series, a group of books using photographs and words to illustrate concepts like letters and numbers. Their covers tout the series as “highly successful,” though they don’t say what they’re successful at. Probably at getting published while using stock photographs.

I threw all eight books in the cart. It was the best $8 I spent at the store, much better than the suspiciously cheap Christmas cards. We’ve had the books home for about a week now, and every one is still intact. For now.

* There are few things cheaper than clearanced dollar store merchandise.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

The Lazy Post

There once was a dad with a blog
His kids’ demands and lack of sleep put him in a fog
The blog sits empty while his house is a mess
“It’s the kids’ fault,” he tries to confess
He might have more time with cleaning help from the dog.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

I Bet Some People Who Find This Post Through an Internet Search Will Be Very Disappointed

We have a nudist in our house. It’s not one of the boys; they’re adept at wriggling out of their pants, but they haven’t figured out how to unsnap a onesie yet. It’s not one of the parents, although I often spend an hour or more wearing only an undershirt up top after washing dishes and struggling to find the time to slip my shirt back on.

Our nudist is Abbie. She’s always hated clothing. As a baby, we’d take her outside bundled up to protect her from the chill like responsible parents would do. She’d scream furiously until we removed her coat, or at least her footwear. She’s never tolerated footwear, and we still don’t try to make her wear socks around the house, just socks and shoes when we go outside. We spent many battles getting dressed for outdoors as she pulled off her socks faster than I could slip them on her feet. Now I put her shoe on immediately after her sock, double knot it, and let her yank the laces while I put her other shoe and sock on.

Abbie’s always hated shirts, too, but she never bothered removing them until recently. Far too often these days I’ll see her running around the house topless with her day’s shirt crumpled in the living room. I think she likes removing her shirt to take a closer look at it, examining the flowers decorating it, possibly to compare and contrast them to the flowers decorating yesterday’s shirt.

I know she also likes trying on different shirts, but she’s not as skilled at dressing as she is at undressing. She tends to throw new shirts on the floor after they frustrate her by refusing to admit her head through the sleeve. She also tends to dump shirts after they don’t fit right because she pulled her entire upper body through the neck hole and they drape across her torso like a skirt.

I also help Abbie’s toplessness by removing her shirt before meals. There’s plenty of time to teach her the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” rule later in life. For now, I want to keep her tops clean during meals, and since I can’t find the time to put my own shirt back on after meals, she usually runs around topless until naptime. She may look uncouth, but my laziness saved yesterday’s shirt after she found a pen and decided to give herself a full upper body tattoo. I think she was going for a rosebush thorn design.

Abbie running around barefoot and topless doesn’t bother me. Abbie running around pantsless bothers me, especially since the diaper always comes off right after the pants. Abbie started removing her pants independently a few days ago. This is probably nature’s way of telling me it’s time to potty train her. I wish nature would send me a nanny instead.

I hate hearing that familiar “shrip” from around the corner. It means the pants are off, the diaper is coming off, and I’d better tend to her immediately or I’ll have to grab the towels.

In her defense, she’s often has a good reason for removing her diaper, such as the gigantic amount of poop in it. I can say from experience, though, that if there’s anything worse than a buck-naked toddler running around the house, it’s a buck-naked and poopy toddler running around the house while a poopy diaper sits wide open in a mystery location that’s within full reach of babies and pets.

I find myself needing to prioritize things I never thought to rank when I find her naked. If I’m doing something worthless, like folding laundry, when I notice she’s naked, I tend to her immediately. If I’m doing something important, like changing her brother, I suddenly have to determine which urgent chore can wait a minute. A wet brother is trumped by a naked Abbie, which is trumped by a poopy brother, which is trumped by a naked poopy Abbie. Heaven help us when she shows up at my side naked and poopy while the poopy diaper is off her brother.

I just keep dressing her when I see her naked. She’ll learn to keep her clothes on eventually. Probably about the time her brothers start disrobing.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Curious about the Curio

We have kids; therefore, we don’t have nice furniture. Two of the children’s beds are the Cosco industrial-grade white metal variety; the kind that may never break and no one will shed a tear if it does. Our dining table had been in the family for years before someone could find a relative desperate enough to take it. Our sofa and loveseat were nice when we bought them before the kids; now they’re heavily stained with foods both digested and undigested, and are well on the pathway to being dumped on a desperate relative.

Our one nice piece of furniture is a curio cabinet. It’s an 8-foot tall and 6-foot wide cabinet covered by glass that’s held in by a wood frame, and is meant to hold our pretty things and the dust that coats them. We bought it during our honeymoon right after the wedding, so it will always serve as a reminder of that one wonderful January night we spent in Omaha. Ellie wanted to stop at the infamous Nebraska Furniture Mart to search for a wedding present to ourselves. Money was tight back then* so I made a deal with her: She got her cabinet, I got lunch at Fuddruckers. I have no regrets.

The cabinet has been proudly displayed in our living room ever since. We’ve moved it into a new home twice without breaking any of the glass, which is more than I can say for the delivery service that originally brought it to our home.

It survived Abbie in good shape. In spite of Ellie’s perpetual fear that she would send a Weeble through its front, Abbie mostly ignored it for her first two years. She liked the light at the top and the way it made everything sparkly. She also found the mirror in the back suitable for admiring herself. Otherwise, it suffered damage no more serious than fingerprints as she steadied herself while running after the dog.

The boys have been the opposite. As soon as they learned to pull themselves to standing at an object, they discovered the joys of standing at the cabinet. Not only is it stable enough to support their weight, but it also makes some great noises when they bang on it. Hit the front panel, and the shakes with a hollow boom. Hit the side doors, and the entire 8-feet glass panel rattles like a saucepan lid hitting the floor after daddy neglects to use a potholder.

Initially, we could move them to a different part of the room when they hit the cabinet, and peace would return. They weren’t quick enough to crawl back to the cabinet before something else grabbed their attention. In the last month, though, their dexterity and memory improved to the point where they would immediately return to the cabinet after being moved. Not even Tasteeos could distract them, although Crispy Hexagons would slow them long enough to snack on them before putting their grubby mitts back on the glass.

When they started using foreign objects to experiment with different percussive sounds, we knew it was time to move the cabinet. Abbie’s discovery that banging on the cabinet was a great way to grab our attention hastened our decision. Our home is too small to move it to another room, but fortunately we have a spare house.

We already bought a house for after Ellie’s residency. We’re spending the next few months remodeling it as thoroughly as childcare limitations allow, so we’re not moving much into it yet to give us room to move. We made an exception with the cabinet, though. Ellie packed up its pretty things, called a friend, and we moved it last night, which was about the time the boys started eyeing the Weebles.

Now it’s up at our new house, away from banging hands. As a bonus, it frees up a little more floor space in our cramped house. That means more space to spread out their toys, and more virgin carpet to accept food stains.

* As opposed to today when we freely pour money into luxuries for the kids such as food and properly sized diapers.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Run, Matt, Run

Wednesday is a busy day in our house. Every day is busy in our house, but Wednesdays especially. Wednesday is library day, the day when I take the kids to the library for 20 minutes of director-led music and reading while my kids run circles around all the other well-behaved toddlers who are sitting and listening attentively. I only have two hours to get the kids up, fed, changed, and out the door if we’re going to make it in time to hear the opening song.

The time drain is one of the hardest adjustments I’ve had to make since the children arrived. When I was still being paid for my slave labor, I woke up 45 minutes before walking out the door. That gave me enough time to shower, dress, eat, read the newspaper, make lunch, and let the dog out before beginning my commute. I could even make it out the door in 15 minutes by paring down to the essentials: Eat, dress, and of course let the dog out. Today I need two hours just to get the kids ready. I could get out the door in an hour if necessary, but trying to do anything quicker is suicidal.

I need to leave the house at 10am for library time. That means I need to wake the kids up by 8am to leave comfortably. Yesterday I was already behind schedule after sleeping in a little and grabbing the boys at 8:15. Actually, the tardiness started the previous night when Abbie stayed up until about 10:30 banging around the room, delaying my opportunity to check the Internet in peace.

Note that I only grabbed the boys. Abbie was not surprisingly still asleep. Fair enough, I had plenty of work to do with the boys. I fed them, cleaned some dishes, set out clothes for the day, changed their clothes, and of course let the dog out. It was 9am by this time, and this is what I saw in Abbie’s bedroom:

DSC02037

I stopped caring about her sleep and started changing diapers on the changing table next to her bed. The noise and potentially the smell roused her from slumber. I quickly dressed her for the day and shooed her into the kitchen for breakfast while I finished with the boys.

Abbie finished her breakfast around 9:15. I took 15 minutes to eat my breakfast, and decided to tempt fate by cleaning the dishes. I always crash late in the morning, and if I waited until we returned from library time to clean dishes, they’d probably sit until after lunch, and I don’t think I have enough free afternoon time to take care of the post-breakfast and lunch dishes simultaneously.

I went to work, but between putting away clean dishes, washing dirty dishes, and checking the kids every time someone screamed, it was 9:50 by the time I finished. No problem; I can rush everyone out to the car in ten minutes as long as I suffer no delays. I put shoes on Ian. I put shoes on Tory. I started to put shoes on Abbie … and discovered a poopy diaper.

I changed her, and returned to work. No problem; I can still make up the lost time on the drive. I put a coat on Abbie. I put a coat on Tory. I put a coat on Ian … and discovered that he’d removed a shoe and sock. No problem; I reattached the footwear while I carried him out to the car.

With everyone strapped into their seats, I pulled away and put the pedal to the metal relative to the speed limit of the residential streets we’d be speeding through. I needed to make good time to arrive for the opening song, and the traffic goods blessed me with green lights instead of the freshly changed red ones they usually throw at me.

I pulled into the parking lot right before the scheduled start of library time. I threw the boys in the stroller, set Abbie by my side, and implored her to run with us to the door. She dawdled to the door, as toddlers are wont to do. We walked inside, turned the corner, and saw the director about to close the door. We walked through, and I removed everyone’s coats as the opening song began.

I finally had a chance to rest. Not for long, though, since the kids were running in three different directions and disturbing the well-behaved children, but at least I could sit for a couple seconds.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

The "Learning" Train

Before Abbie was born, I hated all noisy, electronic toys. Their incessant, repetitive, tinny sounds drove me crazy. Plus, it seemed like mindless cheating that a child could hear a song for several seconds after pushing one button.

Maybe I’m being foolishly nostalgic, but I’ve always been fond of toys with an interior noise-making mechanism like I had when I was a kid. We had the old school See ‘N Say that used phonograph technology instead of the new version that plays electronic sounds. I could experiment with that old See ‘N Say by slowing the lever’s rise or the arrow’s spin to slow the sound and drop it an octave, or I could determine exactly how far down I had to pull the lever to give it enough energy to play the entire sound.* Now that’s educational. The only experimentation Abbie can do with her electronic See ‘N Say is to test how rapidly she can jam the lever up and down before it breaks. When I was a kid, dissecting a stuffed animal to find an air bladder that squeaks when shaken was an experience of unparalleled excitement, especially if that animal was commandeered from a friend’s younger sister without permission.

Today we live in an electronic age, though, and everything has a sound chip no matter how unnecessary. We have an infant crib toy shaped like a dog that barks for 15 seconds when pulled, which is educational if the child must sleep through barking dogs on a regular basis. After hearing these toys, watching them captivate my children, and realizing relatives will bring them into my house regardless of whether or not I want them, I’ve changed my opinion on them. I can tolerate most electronic toys because no matter how annoying their sounds are, they keep children happy, and nothing is more annoying than a screaming child.

We have one toy brought into our house for the boys’ birthday that is driving me crazy, though. It’s the Fisher Price Amazing Animals Sing & Go Choo-Choo Train. Why does this toy drive me crazy, besides of course the ridiculously, pretentiously, unnecessarily long name?

For starters, it has five pieces: Three animals, a locomotive, and a car. I prefer single-piece, self-contained toys that can be enjoyed without endless searching for missing pieces. Only the locomotive is electronic, so of course that’s the only piece that the children usually touch. Abbie kind of likes the elephant, but she keeps it in her room, far from the rest of the pieces. The giraffe hangs around the toy box. The car is too big for the toy box and hangs out under furniture. The monkey disappeared shortly after opening the box, and currently may be plotting a coup with the Little People that keep vanishing.

So the only piece anyone usually touches is the locomotive. The idea is to connect the car, insert the animals into the spaces, and watch it chug, light, and sing its way across the floor. Instead, the kids just hold the thing and push the buttons to make it play music in one spot.

Push the compartment floor, and it cycles through one of three different songs. Push the whistle, and it makes one of several animal noises. Push the smokestack, and it moves forward while playing the main song.

These songs are driving me crazy. They’re sung by one of those unrealistically excited vocalists who should be much more depressed after discovering how worthless her fine arts degree is. The music is also stolen from public-domain music, such as “Here We Go Looby Loo,” with “fun” lyrics added, which is a lazy tactic that’s always bugged me. It has a volume switch on the back to let you select “loud” or “really loud,” but the first feature Abbie finds on any toy is how to set it to maximum volume.

The lyrics are horrible. The main song’s lyrics, which I assure you are burned into my memory, are:

Come aboard the animal train!
Come on, everyone!
Learning about animals
Is really lots of fun!
Colors! Sizes! What they say!
If they’re fast or slow!
Learning about animals,
There’s so $%&@ing** much to know!


If she keeps listening to that, I expect Abbie’s first complete sentence to be, “That’s so patronizing.” Those lyrics aren’t educational; they’re an advertisement for the parents.

The lyrics also commit the ultimate infraction: Factually errors. You wouldn’t think a toy that pegs a giraffe’s height as “very very very very very very tall” would get specific enough to be wrong, but consider the following lyric:

Tigers can run very fast,
Hippos cannot!


I give it credit for correctly identifying tigers as “fast,” but hippos are fast, too. The St. Louis Zoo says they can run up to 30 miles per hour. That may not be as fast as a tiger, but it’s fast enough to trample a human, especially one who’s been reared on this toy and mistakenly believes hippos cannot run fast.

The locomotive sits in the living room, and I try to disable whenever I’m in the room with them. It’s not so annoying when I’m washing dishes in the next room. Maybe some day they’ll learn to line up the animals and watch the train pull them across the floor. The animals are fun with bright colors and several moving parts that mechanically click when rotated. I’m not betting that they’ll touch the animals, though; they’re not electronic.

* Obviously, I was a lonely child.
** I add the obscenity mentally. It keeps me sane.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Rocking Chair

Ian’s latest bad habit is rocking in his high chair. I strap him in his seat, give him a mouthful of whatever gruel is on the menu, and he passes the time until the next spoonful by rocking back and forth. He leans forward, throws himself back tipping the chair about 10-degrees, lets the chair rock back to equilibrium, and repeats. If he would show the same tenacity with reading, we’d be up to Shel Silverstein books by now.

Letting a child rock his high chair off the ground probably sounds horribly dangerous to strangers reading this blog. High chairs are supposed to be wide-based and sturdy contraptions where nothing bad could possibly happen no matter how hard the child thrashes in his seat. Let me assure you, especially those of you with connections to child protective services, that he is in danger of nothing more serious than possibly scaring the bejeebers out of himself.

Their “high” chairs are the space-saving variety meant to strap onto existing kitchen chairs. That usage didn’t save enough space for us, so instead we put their chairs on the floor and stack them on a counter when not in use. When they sit in their chairs, their heads are about 18-inches off the ground. Even if a chair tipped over and someone whacked his head on the floor, it’s not a great distance to fall. They’d hit the ground with more force if they were to fall from standing, which they do several times a day. Falling while confined to a heavily padded chair would be one of the more pleasant sensations they experience in a typical day.

Plus, those chairs don’t tip back easily since their center-of-gravity is far forward. I’ve tried tipping him back when he rocks far beyond the point where his momentum could carry him, and he always springs forward safely. He looks vaguely concerned about physics aberration that stopped his chair from immediately tipping back to equilibrium, but he’s safe.

I’m still concerned that he’s going to find a way to hurt himself, though. Maybe he’ll invent a new direction to tip the chair. Maybe he’ll choke as his food jostles around his airway. Maybe he’ll shove a plastic spoon that I’m holding up his nostril during chair recoil. Whatever could happen, I try to discourage the rocking.

The best way to stop the rocking is to feed them faster; he can’t rock when he’s trying to put a spoon in his mouth. This method has its limitations since I have to alternatively feed Ian and Tory no matter how large a weight disparity Tory puts on his brother. Ian rocks while Tory eats. It hurts our feeding speed that they’ve entered a curious phase where they like to examine their food before eating it by staring at it, poking it, and shaking it off the spoon and onto the floor.

That leaves physical restraint as my primary deterrence. It’s not like a do anything traumatic by holding him down with a full-body block; that just makes him scream and he can’t eat while screaming. I simply put by hand on his forehead, preventing him from leaning forward and disrupting the entire rocking locomotion. I usually resort to this when he becomes too enthusiastic about rocking, completely ignoring the spoon and threatening to test the limitations of the chair’s center-of-gravity protection. I stop the rocking, he rediscovers his meal, and we return to eating. The sooner they finish their meal, the sooner they can resume playing, running around, and likely falling face first into furniture.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Behind the Locked Door

Putting Abbie to sleep is simple: I lock her in her room. That may sound like child cruelty, but I prefer to think that leaving her in situations where she can’t, or at least won’t fall asleep is crueler. She’ll bang around for a few minutes, maybe complain for a while, almost certainly pull a few shirts from her dresser, but she eventually gives up, crawls into bed, and falls asleep.

Life was much easier when she was young enough to imprison behind crib bars. The boys are currently at that stage, but they’re only five months away from the age when Abbie discovered how to climb over the railing and fall onto the floor. I’ll be in trouble when that happens and they start working together to bang around the room, empty three dressers simultaneously, and possibly team up to defeat the child door lock in their room.

The whole sleep thing depends on Abbie being locked in her room until she gives up. This weekend I discovered what happens when I try to make Abbie sleep in an unlocked room, and the results weren’t pretty.

We were out of town, and the five of us were crammed into one room for the night. Technically, we had two rooms available counting the bathroom, but we couldn’t make Abbie sleep in there because there was a good chance I’d need the room at some point in the night. Plus instead of sleeping, she’d spend hours gleefully flushing the toilet and experimenting with what will and won’t go down the hole.*

We set the boys in their Pack ‘N Plays, and knew they were good for the night. Mommy and daddy got the nice full-size bed. Abbie got the inflatable Dora bed we bought just for her.

Once the lights went off for the night, Abbie, sensing that we might have spent money on this inflatable bed, refused to use it. Instead, she bounced around the room, literally bouncing on our bed. I would have violated my most sacred parenting principle and let her sleep in our bed with us, but she wouldn’t remain still lest sleep catch her. Several times she opened “The Door with no Lock,” peered outside, listened to us threaten her from our bed, and shut the door. She even ventured outside a few times.

Eventually I wizened up and fashioned a new bed for her out of folded blankets. I got the idea from peeking in her room while she’s sleeping and seeing her in the middle of the room on top of a fortress of blankets, stuffed animals, and books. She looked at her new “bed,” looked at the door, and made another break for the door. After catching her a few times, I lied and laid her in her “bed,” resting next to her until she fell asleep, holding her down when necessary.

She screamed and kicked occasionally. She even wriggled away from me and to the door a couple times. Finally, as if magically instructed to do so by a stuffed animal, she gave up. She stayed still for a few minutes without my threats, and fell asleep.

I rolled out of her “bed,” and into my real bed. She remained in bed and asleep the entire night except for the brief time when she lost a stuffed animal under the folded blankets. Thanks to my perpetual fear that she’d wake up and wander out the door any second throughout the night, I was awake and ready to help her find it in the covers.

She slept in a little that morning, but still lost over an hour of sleep due to her lateness falling asleep. We drove home that morning, and she stayed awake the entire drive. When we arrived home, she was cranky and obviously tired. After lunch, while I was busy cleaning, she slipped into her room without my notice, climbed into bed, and fell asleep. Her door was wide open. At least I know she can do that.

* Thankfully, sippy cups and inflatable balls 4-inches in diameter will not go down the hole.