No-ganoff

I sometimes tire of the mac and cheese-spaghetti-fast food meal rotation the children enjoy. I added variety to the routine tonight with potato stroganoff. It was the kind that comes straight from a box, with enough salt and artificial additives to make even the pickiest kids at least try a bite.

My kids wouldn't touch it. The boys may have snuck a taste while I wasn't looking, but by the end of the meal they determined the only suitable use for stroganoff was drowning it in Kool-Aid. Abbie simply screamed at my suggestion she taste it. I vainly tried convincing her that the potato slices were just like french fries.

It's back to mac and cheese tomorrow.

Red Room

Every time I wonder what else the kids can get into, Abbie finds a creative answer. Yesterday she found a bottle of purple ink, meant to refill a stamp pad. She emptied it onto the floor and ran up and down the hallway a few times before I noticed. The walls are still stained red, as are my hands. It looks like I killed her, but I swear I only thought about killing her.

Costumes 2008

I was so smart last November. When the Halloween stuff went on clearance, I bought costumes for the kids. Abbie got a Dora costume, and the boys got Star Wars Jedi costumes. Everything was set for a perfect Halloween.

We took the kids to the zoo for trick or treating tonight. Much to my dismay, all the kids hated their costumes. Mommy swooped in and saved the day with some old dress-up clothes.

Abbie slipped on a pair of wings and a sweatshirt with a butterfly on it. Presto, she's a butterfly.

Tory got a jacket with a skeleton on it, and a tiger mask. Presto, he's a tiger ... skeleton. Yeah, a tiger skeleton.

Ian got a dinosaur sweatshirt and a hat that's a giant dinosaur head. Presto, he's ... well, he's a kid walking around with a dinosaur head on his head. It still counts as a costume for ages 3 and under.

When we arrived at the zoo, Ian refused to wear his dinosaur head, Tory refused to wear his tiger mask, and Abbie insisted on wearing a coat over her butterfly sweatshirt.

We've officially given up on the idea of giving them cute costumes.

P.S. All the fish from yesterday all still alive, but the water is still cloudy from the onslaught of food, so they're not in the clear yet.

Feeding Fish

I got a shipment of fish today. Live fish. The kind you put in an aquarium and watch swim around.

We sometimes mail order fish because we can't buy them around Des Moines. We keep discus fish, which have special water requirements, and not enough other people in the area are crazy enough to keep them. The local pet stores won't stock them, so we have to mail order them.

Being shipped through the mail is hard on a fish. They usually do okay at home, but it's extremely important to provide a low-stress environment for a day or two. Crystal clear water. No aggressive fish to compete with. Not even aquarium lights shining into the tank.

I unpacked the fish, acclimated them, and let them go in the tank. As I was busy with that, Abbie was busy unpacking the fish food we also had shipped. At some point this afternoon, she took an entire container of fish food and dumped it in the tank.

So much for crystal clear water.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

The boys' current favorite song is The Alphabet Song. As in, "a, b, c, d..."

It was cute for a while. I humored them and sung along. Tory knows most of his letters, but he still needs to work on recognition. Ian is aware of the existence of an alphabet, but his letter skills don't extend much beyond that.

They started singing it painfully slow, like they were struggling to remember each letter. I sung at their pace, thinking they were just learning the song. A couple days later they started rattling it off as quickly as I could. Their preschool must be playing some odd tempo games with them.

Now the boys sing it constantly. They sing it repeatedly when bored, upset, or just sleepy. They still don't recognize letters very well, so I need to keep working on that.

Born Free

Tory has recently developed a stubborn streak. He knows what he wants, and any deviation from his desires results in a tantrum.

The past couple of breakfasts have been a battle. I sit him down at the table, he sees his cereal, and he throws a fit. His language skills are to the point where he can verbalize concepts like "no" and "I want (unintelligible)." I run down the list of things he might want, he says no to all of them, so I send his whining to his room. Two minutes later he comes back, happy and ready to eat. Two minutes after that he remembers why he was upset in the first place, and I return him to his room.

I lock him into his car seat, and he starts screaming about wanting something. I offer him a toy from the stash littering the floor. He refuses. I continue offering from the stash, through planes, trains, and, uh, cars. He refuses each in turn. Two minutes later he calms down, and is content with stealing whatever Ian was playing with.

We take him into a store, and he starts whining. I offer to let him walk, and he throws a fit. I try to carry him, and he throws a fit. I throw him in a cart, and he throws a fit, but at least we're moving.

Things You Don't Want Your Child's Preschool Teacher to Say

When mommy dropped Abbie off at preschool yesterday, her teacher came out to talk to her.

"Are things going okay at home?"

"Uhhh ... yes."

The teacher was concerned that Abbie was acting strange. She hasn't been focusing on tasks well this week. Considering a stopwatch is generally required to measure a 4-year-old's attention span, I don't know how they could tell she was acting flightier than normal, but they were concerned.

Mommy blamed her behavior on a cold. Never mind that the kids have had a perpetual cold for about 6 weeks. Abbie also refuses to go to bed at night, refuses to wake up in the morning, refuses to nap, refuses to eat most foods, refuses to eat most meals, refuses to poop in the potty, and is experiencing a traumatic life change that results in her spending several hours a week at preschool for the first time. Otherwise life is fine for her.

Back on the Wagon

The boys' preschool tells me the boys are doing well with potty training. We still use diapers with them, but their teachers put them on the potty at school, and they do something most of the time. So I've decided to push potty training a little bit at home.

When the boys woke this morning, I put them on the potty. Ian, not sure what was happening, stood in the bathroom naked, screamed for a minute, and peed on the floor. At least he did something.