This afternoon I was helping Hallie repair a toy in the kitchen. We’d left Travis around the corner in the playroom. He’d set the two little chairs up facing each other with about a foot between them. He was sitting happily in one playing with a toy.
As I worked with Hallie, I heard a sound kind of like a whimper coming from the playroom. It didn’t sound too serious, but I still asked “Hallie, go take a peek and see if T is OK.”
Hallie dutifully went around the corner. She came back right away and said, very matter-of-factly, “The problem is, he’s falling through between the chairs.”
Of course I raced into the playroom. There was Travis, quite literally falling through between the two chairs. He’d gotten himself turned around and his back was resting on one, his legs were across the other, and his bottom was almost touching the ground in between them.
While he clearly looked uncomfortable, he wasn’t crying or complaining. As I rescued him, I laughingly told him, “Travis, this would have been a very good situation for you to use ‘Help!’”
He went on about his playing, apparently no worse for the wear.
Hallie and Travis paid not one but two visits to Grandma and D-Daddy’s neighborhood pool today. And boy did they love it! Hallie pranced all over the place in the shallow end, loved splashing and spraying everyone, and didn’t mind the occasional dunking when she walked in a bit too deep.
With Travis, I was a little worried about how he’d do in his swimming lessons in a few weeks. One of the things I know they work on is getting the kids to put their faces in the water. Travis pitches a fit when water runs down his face in the bath, so I thought we might have a tough time.
We DID have a tough time, but for the opposite reason. All Travis wanted to do today was stick his face IN the water. He’d dunk himself, come up spluttering and streaming, grin, and lunge down to do it again. No matter how I held him, he kept trying to get his face in the water. I hope his swimming lessons hold some other challenges for him, or we may not have much to learn!
One the second visit we were joined in the water by Hadley, Davis, Aunt Suzie, and Uncle Jeff, with Grandma and D-Daddy watching from the side. (Hadley had actually joined us in the water on our first visit, but since her family had just stopped by to say hello and she was wearing a dress she wasn’t quite prepared for a full swim!) All the kids enjoyed the water and each other. While we munched our KFC after swimming, Hallie and Hadley set up camp on some lounge chairs and declared themselves in a “private area” that no one was supposed to come in or even look at. And of course they shrieked with laughter whenever anyone did just that.
We followed dinner with some holiday cookies and then homemade ice cream at John and Sandra’s. It’s a wonder the kids went down smoothly. But then again, swimming does wear them out. We all agreed we’d have to make the Sunday afternoon swim/picnic at least a monthly event if not more often. What a great end to a weekend. And tomorrow we get a bonus day!
Travis made my day today by saying “I love you, Mommy!” for the first time. It’s really more like “I loo Mommy,” but I’ll sure take it. He said it a whole bunch of times and now he thinks it’s a game and won’t say it when prompted. But I got a few unsolicted ones, and I’m sure he’ll keep them coming. What a sweet thing to hear!
Travis is a big fan of his Aunt Suzie. He’s been saying her name with a big grin and a cackle for a few weeks now (except when we tried to get him to say it for her). At Emma’s birthday party this morning, she was all he was interested in. He wanted to hold her hand when we walked back from feeding the ducks. And when she tailed Hadley across the playground, Travis wanted to get out of the swing (very unusual) and kept saying “Faddow Sudjie!” (Follow Suzie.) Very cute!
Both kids had a great time at the party. Hallie and Hadley enjoyed holding hands on our walk. They are well matched–both happy bringing up the rear as they plodded along or got distracted by neat things like goose poop. (Fortunately Suzie had some wipes handy, and they claimed they didn’t touch it.)
Suzie also got to hear an entertaining exchange between the two of them.
Hadley, while fingering the beads Hallie was wearing: “Hallie, can we share your necklace?”
Hallie: “No, I think I’ll keep it on me because it makes me look so beautiful.”
Boy will it be fun to look back and share some of these gems with them when they are older!
One night last week, Hallie and I ran a quick errand after dinner. At a stoplight, we saw a school bus hoisted on a matching tow truck. She asked me why it was on the tow truck and I explained that something must not be working right.
She asked me what kinds of things could go wrong that would make it need a tow. This led to a 90(!) minute conversation about things that can go wrong with cars. Now, I’m not a complete idiot about cars. I could come up with quite a few examples of things. But 90 minutes worth was a real stretch. Each time I’d explain something, I’d get almost finished and she say, “Tell me something more about what goes wrong with cars!”
The cashier at Office Max got to hear us talking about transmission fluid. When we pulled into the mall we had to get down on our knees in the parking lot to check out the different types of exhaust pipes and mufflers on the cars around us. At one point we found ourselves walking through Hecht’s while I explained CV joints and cracked boots. I was so proud of Hallie when we got home and I asked her in front of Mark, “What do you hear when your CV joint goes bad?” and she grinned and said “click, click, click, click.”
By the time we were heading home I was grasping for ideas. We spent quite a while on the significance of the different lights on the back of a car. And anti-lock brakes got some good coverage, too.
I was pretty relieved by the time we got home and Mark could take over. And he came up with a good technique that might have saved me some floundering. He’d tell Hallie a few things and then ask her to repeat them. This both reinforced some of what he’d been teaching her and also quickly made the game harder (and thus less interesting) for Hallie. It didn’t go on all that much longer in that format and we were actually able to proceed with bedtime.
Over the last few days I’ve still heard a few instances of “Mommy, what else can you tell me about cars?” But at least I got a bit of a breather. With Hallie’s interests in plumbing and auto mechanics, I guess we’re just left wondering what type of engineer she’s going to be!
All the kids with summer birthdays got the chance to do their school birthday ceremony this week. I’m so glad we squeezed Hallie’s in. It was so much nicer than the usual cake and singing party.
For the CHR ceremony, the guest of honor stands on a circle outlined with tape, with the classmates sitting around the outside. In the center of a circle is a lighted candle. The birthday child holds a small globe while Ms. Gretel reads the parent’s description of the child’s first year of life. At the end of the “first year highlights” the child walks around the circle, still holding the globe. The candle represents the sun and each pass around the circle represents the year it takes for the earth to go around the sun. This is done for each year the child has been around.
At the end of the ceremony, everyone sings “Happy Birthday.” Then Ms. Gretel spreads out photographs of the child, one for each month of the first year and then one for each year after that. The kids loved looking at the photos and hearing what Hallie was like in her early years. They were fascinated by the ICN shots and loved hearing about how fast Hallie got strong and healthy.
After the ceremony the guest of honor gets to sit at a special table with flowers on it for a special snack prepared by Mom or Dad. She or he also gets to pick the classmates to sit on either side, something they don’t normally get to do. I was lucky to get to spend the morning at school on Wednesday and observe Hallie’s first CHR birthday ceremony. I know I’m going to have to fight Mark for the chance to be there next year.
Yesterday was Hallie’s last day of school. They did their usual early-release but instead of dance class they had a field trip to the fire station. Both of my kids (and the whole class) loved it! They got to climb in the trucks, tour the station, and best of all meet Angus. Angus is a Dalmatian who helped with the fire safety class. He demonstrated “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” and he also showed how to test a door for heat and then crawl to stay below the smoke.
Angus was a great teaching tool. When I asked Hallie later what you should do if your clothes are on fire, she gave me a blank look. But when I said, “What did Angus show you how to do?” she immediately said, “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” And she’s had a great time practicing that at home. We need to make sure that’s something we go over a lot more often.
Both Hallie and T were giddy with excitement at the firestation. Hallie kept jumping up and down saying, “I’m so excited! I’m so excited!” while she waited her turn to get on the truck. And Travis cackled and did his dance during most of the visit. One of the mom’s asked if this was their first trip to a fire station. Of course it wasn’t, but it was probably their favorite!
I was also so proud of my kids at the end of the visit. Some of the group were heading to a park for some playtime which of course Hallie didn’t miss hearing about. I had a 2 pm deadline for approving some proofs, so we had to head straight home. Hallie complained for about 30 seconds but then was very accepting. I had to share my corrections with the designer over a lot of lunchtime background noise, but I got it all done just under the wire. What a busy week! (Hence the lack of posting and now all the catching up.)
We’ve been having some big storms lately, with lots of wind. The storms don’t usually bother Hallie–she’ll sing our “Rumble, rumble, rumble, boom boom!” song and tell me how the water is making our plants grow. It’s so nice not to feel apprehensive about how either kid will react to a storm.
I usually take down our hanging baskets and flag when I know a storm is coming. Now Hallie knows the signs, too, and she’ll remind me to go get the plants. Last night we had some major rain and wind and thunder around bedtime. This was a day after a storm knocked down several trees and power lines in our area but not our neighborhood.
I don’t know if all that made Hallie nervous about the storm or if it was all a delaying-bedtime tactic. But first she asked me to take down the plants, which I did. Then she asked me to make sure I’d taken down the plants. After several repetitions of that request, I carried her downstairs and showed her the plants tucked against the wall of the front porch. That worked for a little bit but then she decided the plants weren’t safe there and needed to be inside. By this point the worst of the outside storm was over but the Hallie-storm was gathering steam.
We finally compromised that I’d put them in the garage. After I went in to report that they were in the garage she seemed OK at last. Until, that is, she created a new worry. On the umpteenth popping out of her room she had to tell me she was worried that the plants were getting “squashed” in the garage. Now admittedly our garage is a disaster and there’s not even close to room for a car in there. However, there IS room for four hanging baskets. And somehow I finally convinced Hallie that they’d be OK and didn’t hear from her again until morning.
For months, Travis has done a little two-step stomping dance when he gets excited about something. Hallie still does that, so maybe that’s where he learned it. We’ve taking to asking him, “Travis, are you excited?” when he does it.
Last night T was in the kitchen. He held onto the counter and started stomping his feet. Then he looked up at me with an enormous grin, clearly hoping for a reaction, and announced, “Cited!” It took me a moment to realize what he was doing, and then I howled. He was thrilled he’d gotten his reaction and he repeated his performance several more times. What a cutie!
I’ve made a surprising discovery in recent weeks: Travis doesn’t like chocolate! He definitely loves cake and cookies, so it’s not that he’s anti-sweets. But he’s now been offered Godiva pieces, brownies, and cake with chocolate icing and rejected all of them. I’m not sure he’s even ever tasted chocolate. So it may be that as soon as he tastes it, he’ll realize he likes it.
For the last several weeks he’s been asking for apple juice. He’d never had any juice of any kind but he sees Hallie getting hers. So he’d shriek “Ap joos” when we’d to the fridge. I finally gave him a cup of it, heavily diluted. He took it gleefully, took one sip, scowled, and held the cup out to me saying “No, Mommy!”
We went through a few more rounds of him asking for it and then rejecting it. The last couple times, though, he’s drained his cup. He’s getting about 3:1 water to juice, so I don’t think it’s going to mess up his diet too badly.
