Hallie and Travis

The reason I couldn’t find the pictures Hallie took is because I’d hadn’t uploaded them yet. Now there is one more folder in the May folder called 2006_05_06.

Here are some of the first pictures Hallie took: (1, 2, 3, 4).

With some coaching she’s gotten better (though, uh, it may be wise to ask your subject to comb his hair before the shoot begins): (1, 2). Look at these pictures she took of Travis! (1, 2, 3, 4).

It’s great to see one’s kids including each other in their play (though Hallie’s photography presents a problem for Travis. Whenever she’s taking pictures he immediately wants to do it, too!)

Hallie has taken quite a liking to taking pictures. She’s surprisingly good at it, too! All her life of course she’s seen us taking pictures of her and Travis. I suppose its no surprise that her curiosity would be sparked by it.

She’d be in the car with me and see me pick up the new Nikon. “Daddy, can I take a picture?” she’d ask.

I’d hand the camera over to her, setting a rule that she always put the shoulder strap around her neck to prevent her from dropping it. Then it was snap, snap, snap and the results are impressive!

I’ll track down some of her shots once I can wade through our enormous photo gallery!

Yesterday Hallie and T and I were upstairs getting reading to go out. I asked, “Do you need to go the potty?” It was directed to Hallie but since T has been going a lot, too, it wasn’t all that clear. Hallie immediately asked, “Did you address that to me or to Travis?” She’s FOUR!

Hallie’s made several comments in recent months about wanting to be a mommy. One of them was in connection with a talk about death. “I really want to be a mommy before I die!” she announced. More recently she’s been talking a lot about having kids and being a mommy. And this shows up all the time in her pretend play, where most often Travis is the Daddy and I’m the Grandma to Hallie’s babies. We know she’ll be a wonderful mommy but we’ve been assuring her she’s got lots and lots of time before that will happen. She’s also been asking for a sister. That, we told her, is a lot less likely than her becoming a mommy one day.

Hallie had her physical on Friday and got a great report. She’s 42.5 pounds (90th percentile) and 43 inches (96th percentile). Her BMI has dropped off some, and the doctor said she was “ideally” prorportioned. Her blood pressure was also excellent, though I don’t remember what it was.

I didn’t have any real concerns other than her tendency towards constipation and her thumbsucking. On the former, Dr. Hewett said Milk of Magnesia (2 t 2x a day) is fine and can be continued indefinitely as needed. On the latter, he went with the “don’t talk about it or that makes it worse–she’ll stop on her own” approach. Which is pretty much what we’ve been doing.

Now that she’s four Hallie had to answer the safety questions herself. She did well about her bicycle helmet and smoke detector and car seat and pretty well on fire safety stuff, but she said “put it away” when asked what to do if she found a gun or anything sharp. It was a good wakeup call to work more on reinforcing some of the safety stuff and broadening our focus.

Dr. Hewett also asked Hallie a bunch of questions while he examined her. I don’t know if he was just chatting or assessing her communication or really wanting to know if she knew the answers. She was very comfortable talking to him, but some of her answers surprised me. She told him our first names and her street name but couldn’t remember either house or phone number (which she’s definitely known for a while but we haven’t talked about lately). He asked what color her house is and she said “white.” I consider it kind of tan, but even when she was looking right at it that afternoon she declared, “That’s not tan, it’s white!” So, difference in perception, I guess.

Dr. Hewett asked her if she played outside, and she said yes. He asked what she liked to play with. I just knew she’d talk about her new playset. Nope! “My soccer ball,” she declared. She got a soccer ball for Christmas but we haven’t touched it in WEEKS. No idea where that response came from. And when he asked what she played with inside, I was sure she’d mention her Madame Alexander dolls, which she’d done a lot with last week. Nope. She said, “Connect Four and games and stuff.” We DO play with Connect Four, but not that often and not very recently. What an interesting glimpse into Hallie’s perceptions of her world!

We had run into Dr. Hewett and his family getting ice cream last weekend. Early on in our visit, while I was talking with him, Hallie kept trying to get my attention. When I finally acknowledged her, she whispered in my ear, “Ask him what kind of ice cream he got when we saw him.”

The end of the visit held three shots. We’d talked about them in advance, and Hallie had asked me to ask Dr. Hewett to do them very quickly. I did, and he did. But they still hurt a lot more than Hallie was expecting. She was weepy for a while afterwards, though the worst of it subsided quickly. Whenever I told her how brave she was, she’d whimper “I don’t think I was brave at all!” I told her it would be a long, long time before she’d have to get another shot. “I don’t want to get another shot EVER!” she declared. I guess I don’t blame her!

Hallie’s always had oodles of stuffed animals and baby dolls. She enjoys them all and some are favorites for a while, but she’s never seemed to need a particular one that nothing else will replace.

Not so with Travis! He is very attached to “Alfie,” the digger train from the Thomas series. More than once (in fact, more than once today), I’ve had to go hunting for it so he would go to sleep. Both times today he also wanted a dump truck in bed with him. He snuggles down on his belly with a hand on each toy. I can’t imagine they are very comfortable to sleep with (in fact he cried out twice during his nap today and then settled himself down–perhaps he rolled over on something sharp?!), but they sure seem to do the trick!

Tonight was Hallie’s last swim class. As much as it was a pain to schlepp back and forth twice a day, this was a good experience for both kids–but especially for Hallie.

I didn’t know how she’d handle being in the pool without me. Turns out it didn’t seem to bother her at all. I saw very little sign that she was uncomfortable or shy during any part of the class, though apparently she was (see below). By tonight’s lesson she was jumping straight in to her instructors and going all the way under before they popped her back up. She’d hang on the edge of the pool and dunk under and up just for fun while waiting her turn. And she looked much more comfortable paddling with the noodles or floating on her back (with a little help).

But the best part was the end of class, when she got her certificate. She got several hugs from her teachers, and written at the bottom of her paper was “A pleasure to have in class!” Now this may well have been on every certificate. But it meant the world to Hallie. She just beamed when I told her what it said. And she kept bringing it up later. At one point she said, “I’m so glad it says I was a pleasure to have in the class!” And later, when we talked about how well she did, she said, “At first I felt shy but I kept walking toward them!”

We’ve already had several good conversations about how fun it turned out to be even though she wasn’t sure about it at first (and given her comments, she must have felt nervous at first, but she sure didn’t act like it). And also about how good she feels about herself for doing something that made her uncomfortable. She’s just wriggling with pride and happiness over the whole thing. It makes me want to wriggle, too. And I’d kind of like to hug her teenage/twentiesish teachers, who took the time to write six words that made a little girl feel so good about herself! At the very least, I can let their manager know their extra effort was appreciated.

Travis has a new term for anything that seems uncomfortable to him: “Too Tight!” At first I took him literally and kept assuring him that whatever the item was (his seatbelt, his shoes, etc.) wasn’t too tight. Then I discovered this was more an all-purpose expression of discomfort. For example, he has a new pair of sandals/sneakers that have a drawstring at the top of the tongue. If I don’t tuck the string in and it touches his leg, he complains “too tight.” But the shoes are clearly not too tight, and as long as I tuck the string in, I get no complaints.

He WAS justified in one of his “too tight” complaints. He had a pair of navy shorts that were really snug the last time he wore them. I agreed when he complained that they were too tight and I took them out of circulation. A few days later he saw on his dresser the pair of size 3T navy shorts I’d just gotten at BJs. He pointed madly and said, “No, Mommy! Too Tight!” It took me a while to convince him they weren’t. But I was impressed with the connection he made.

For the last few days, T has also been back to fighting his naps. He often demands “potty” right as you put him in bed. This is a pretty surefire stall tactic, but since he usually does do something we’ll let him keep that up. He hit on another good approach this week when he declared “Hungry!” in a very pitiful tone. He’d eaten very little lunch that day, so I broke my own rule and brought him a yogurt. Turns out he didn’t care for the type I brought and refused to eat it. But when I put him back in bed he immediately declared “Hungry! Tummy hurt!” (Whenever he says “tummy hurt” and I ask if he’s hungry he says “yes.” Since I haven’t seen any signs that he’s really in distress, I figure they mean the same thing.)

I decided if he was really that hungry, he’d eat the yogurt. So I left him in bed and he was out cold in less than 5 minutes. He’s pulled something similar the last few days, with no response from me. Today’s effort was decidedly half-hearted, so maybe he’s getting the point.

Travis has definitely acquired a sense of himself as a separate being. His two favorite things to say these day are “self” and “me too!” He desperately wants to do things on his own, from buckling his booster seat belt to putting on his shoes. If you try to do something for him, he’ll snatch at the object and shriek “SELF!!!!!!!” until you let him have it. If he can’t do it himself and you wait him out, eventually he loses interest and lets you help him. This works fine except when we’re in a hurry and he insists on putting on his own shoes, etc. More than once we’ve gotten in the car with him barefoot and I’ve put his shoes on when he’s interested in something else.

Rarely can we announce we are doing anything these days (getting the mail, going downstairs, getting a drink, etc.) without T demanding “Me too!” Whatever you are doing is always more interesting, and he’ll drop whatever he was engaged with to demand to come along.

We’ve been having quite a few sudden “thunderstorms” from T when he doesn’t get what he wants. Most of the time they come on quickly and subside quickly, especially if you can get him interested in something else. He’s getting a little more assertive about what toys he wants to play with or wanting something Hallie has. But he still responds well when you talk to him and explain things rather than snatching something from him. And if all else fails, ignoring his outbursts tends to defuse things really quickly. I’m sure all this new independence is just a taste of what’s to come over the next 18 months.

Travis has been using the potty several times a day for 3 weeks or so. Most of the time the volume is small. And he usually poops in his diaper and then demands “POTTY!!!” But he’s good about asking to go some of the time and so, so proud of himself when he does.

One night last week he’d just left the potty and was charging around naked from the waist down. As he raced off down the hall toward Hallie I commented to Mark that he has such a cute little bottom. Hallie agreed enthusiastically and announced, “And isn’t his penis just so cute, too? He has SUCH a cute penis!”