C's First hair cut

Fun at the Fair

Playground Fun

Princess Sofa Pose

Mommy knows best

Heard at the house:

I don't think it's a good idea for the children to fly around the house unsupervised on a broom.

Dad didn't think it that bad of an idea.

4 hands are better than 2

A.: Last night you and Daddy put me to bed.
Mommy: That’s right.
A.: Four hands tucking me in.

Little things mean a lot. Even Especially at 3.

Nineveh and Some Guy

Mommy: What did you learn at Sunday School?
A.: A whale swallowed a person.
Mommy: Oh, and what was his name?
A.: I don’t know.
Mommy: You don’t?
A.: No.
[Pause]
But God told him to go to Nineveh.

Evidently in a 3-year old’s mind, Nineveh is much higher on the retention scale, or just more fascinating, than Jonah. Toy marketers, pay attention.

Baby Cher

I got you, Babe. Yeah...

E. loved wearing this wig. In fact, she loves putting on anything: shoes, costumes, hats, helmets.

E's First Haircut

No smiles were captured, but it wasn't as painful as it looked.

Shoes, Glorious Shoes: Our Imelda Marcos Protoge

Little E. loves two things in the world. First and foremost, she loves milk. Rude is her mood at meal time until she gets that sippy cup at meal time. But following that, shoes are the next best thing. Now at almost 20 months, we attribute her mastery of the words "off" and "on" because she uses those as her commands to you when she brings you a pair of shoes. And she’ll do it for hours.

You just sit there, and she’ll scavage her room, A.’s room, and our room and bring you one pair of shoes at a time. You take off her shoes, put on the new ones, and she runs around with them on like it’s the first pair she’s ever worn. Now it doesn’t matter if these shoes are 2 sizes too small or if they are daddy’s big old shoes. She is happy as long as her feet are in them. And then repeat this process over and over until she gets hungry.

Want to see this child throw a fit? Try taking her, strapped in a stroller, into a shoe store and just buy shoes for her sister. No amount of stickers will appease her. She’ll feel slighted for life and repeatedly cuss you out in her babble, that is, until she gets milk.

I pity her poor husband. He’ll have to make sure she’s got an Imelda Marcos-sized closet or else they’ll have a pretty high monthly rental bill from the self-storage place.

And the gender is

Every non-revenue producing blog seems to take a hiatus now and then. And after a great start, in the spring, I did that while in daddy-needs-a-new-job-cause-he-ain't-got-one mode. So, now that I'm happily employed once again, I thought it'd be a great time to kick start my blog with a gender announcement. Number 3, we're told, is going to be a girl. We're well-outfitted with clothes of all sizes for all seasons from A. and E. No. 3 will be a superb hand-me-down dresser.

This news, less than 24 hours old, is told with 98% accuracy! Everything else looks healthy and happy. Mommy is still in a bit of shock and experiencing guilt because she'd been "thinking of this one as a boy." I don't think there'll be any long lasting psychological repercussions affecting the child, just Daddy's checkbook.

"I can't believe we're having three girls," Mommy says.

"Well, the decision tree didn't take that long to create. 50/50 makes it pretty easy to predict and prepare for the possible outcomes," I said.

Hmmm. I guess guys just think of these things a little more factually. Meanwhile, the rest of the women population in our family, extended family, and friends are already speculating on the hair color ("Will this one be a brunette??!"). And of course after birth this rampant speculation will continue ("It's going to all fall out and come back in darker." "No I think it will come back lighter." "It's going to stay this color. Look at her eyebrows." "That's just like your fill-in-the-blank-with-a-relative's-name's fill-in-the-blank-with-a-body-part-that-hopefully-typically-has-hair.")

I'm glad we can produce children that provide such joyous conversations, hypotheses, and betting on the side.

I, on the other hand, sum it up a little more concretely:

• Yes, it's a girl. I love girls in fact.
• No, our insurance premiums won't go up; they're already maxed out at "family." It's nice to have those economies of scale. (And I hear auto insurance premiums are a bit more favorable for the ladies!)
• Yes, there'll be (hopefully) 3 weddings to pay for unless Kelda secretly passes on her elopement advice.
• Yes, people should, from time to time, feel sorry for me being the only male in the house.
• Yay, we don't have to buy all new clothes, bedding, etc. that are simply a different color.
• Now we can get bunk beds and put them all in the same room. ("I get an office!") We wouldn't want one to feel left out of all of the roomie fun now would we?
• January 21 (or probably sooner) is D-Day! (They'll be about 2 years between No. 3 and E., and A. will be 3 1/2 years old.)
• A. will always be the Queen Bee. E. is the middle child, sandwich meat, Oreo filling, whatever you want to call it. Let's just get it out in the open once for all. Don't worry. She'll be fine. Daddy will see to that! She's quite the "pistol" these days (and that comes unprompted from unaffiliated sources). She'll make herself known on her own.

Until then, I've got a backlog of posts while A. and E. still get all of the attention. Stay tuned!

Safety Queen

Out of the blue last week, daughter A. says, "Daddy, I want a helmet."

"What? A helmet for what?" I say.

"I need a helmet for my tricycle."

I have no clue where she gets these ideas as I have not felt compelled to lecture her on bicycle safety quite yet.

A. is truly the Safety Queen in the family always being the cautious one. Her younger sister, just the opposite, throws caution to the wind and has more bumps and bruises at 1 than A. has had in her entire life.

Fortunately, the Easter Bunny's order hadn't been placed yet, and we were able to get it in on a rush. When she saw her Easter Basket, she simply exclaimed, "MY helmet."

I have never seen her so excited over something she received. She's pictured on the right wearing it before the packaging had even been removed (still in her PJs and holding Baby, of course).

I'm sure that she'll continue to keep the family in line when it comes to safety. In fact, she just asked if I'd tested our smoke detectors within the past 6 months.

Please say "please"

It is an understatement to say that manners are challenging to teach a 2-year-old. At times, it is like trying to convince a cat to jump into a pool. I believe and hope that consistency is the key in the journey to instill manners in children (but not really useful in cat training).

Sometimes manners are there, but other times they’re out the window.

At the dinner table.
Me: Would you like some more chicken?
Daughter A.: Uh huh.
Me: [feigning deafness] I'm sorry. I didn’t hear you. What was that you said?
Daughter A.: [Loudly] UH HUH!
Mommy and Me: [Trying rather unsuccessfully not to laugh out loud]

I am not alone

OK, sorry to harp on Dora the Explorer, but it is just so easy to do. Daddy Zine shares some of my feelings in one of his recent posts with a few added links of my own (just in case your vocabulary is equally as deficient as mine):

You haven't seen my glasses anywhere, have you?

There's some chance they spontaneously combusted when daughter L. asked me to read her new Dora the Explorer book for the fifth time. Were I to express my opinion fully on the matter of the Dora book there is some chance the Third Commandment [link mine, but you can probably guess which one] might come in for a little rough usage.

(As an aside, you'll note in the Amazon.com blurb for this moderately compendious [link mine] volume, "Dora and her best friend, Boots, go on more adventures than you can count." Which is sort of sad, because I just glanced at the book and it appears they go on seven adventures. Unless the publishers were not satisfied with having sapped my will to live and have also chosen to afflict me with dyscalculia [link mine].)

Daughter A. throughout a normal day emulates some trait of each of the characters found in Dora's stories (as previously described). Swiper, when he gets a chance to actually steal, will often throw the loot off a ways and say, "You'll never find it now!!"

A. loves to take her toys when about to be grabbed by younger daughter E. and throw them across the room.

"You'll never find them now," she exclaims to E.

"What's up with this chick," E. thinks to herself with a bewildered
expression.

I have a feeling that we're going to need to work on our choice of role models. Thanks, TiVO.

However, it's quite amusing to have a "bilingual" two-year-old with no effort on my own part.

"Let's go, Daddy. ¡Vamonos!"

Thank goodness I had that Spanish in high school or I'd be wondering what's going on.

Adios.

The throw-up throw down

One major drawback to kids, as I have discovered from personal experience, is the fact that parents have to come in contact, from time to time, with a wide spectrum of fluids that originate from bodies other than their own. This is a story of such contact.

Let me start by saying I’m so glad that I was not present when this happened. Dear Wife was not so fortunate.

A. had a stomach virus. It didn’t seem all that severe. She had thrown up early in the morning and had been fine for several hours. DW thought, “Oh, that must be all that’s going to happen. Let’s go out in public.”

By now, surely, you have already recognized the err of her ways.

Dear Wife chose to meet another mom, who I shall label Poor Friend for the purpose of this story, at Mellow Mushroom, a local pizza joint. PF had an 11-month old, one of E.’s good buddies, with her. A. wasn’t in the best of spirits, but she was functioning fine throughout the entire meal.

The quality of life quickly plummeted as A. announced, “My stomach hurts” and then proceeded to throw up all over DW’s shoulder, her booster seat, and the booth. And it wasn’t just once but was described by first-hand witnesses as seemingly endless, continuous flows, not unlike Niagara Falls.

The diners in the adjacent booth escaped a soaking by a mere fraction of a millimeter and amazingly never even noticed their imperilment. PF sat in stunned silence, I’m sure calculating how best to protect herself and her innocent babe from infection of this obviously deadly disease. DW was frozen in shock as well with thoughts running through her head such as, “What was I thinking taking this child out in public!? Surely this isn’t happening” while her shoulder continue to be soaked by the ongoing flow.

(Did I mention I was so glad not to be there?)

As soon as the well had run dry and clothing was shed, DW escorted A. out of the restaurant, holding her hand. A.’s pants having been removed, she was walking out wearing only a shirt, a diaper, and her shoes. I’m sure the observers who missed the main act wondered why this poor little girl was being paraded in public with no pants in the dead of winter.

I’ve always heard that the first child is experimental. I guess it’s confirmed.

Awwwww Man: Dora strikes again!

In every episode of Dora the Explorer, there's a battle with Swiper, a swifty fox who loves to steal. By shouting, "Swiper, no swiping" three times, his ability to steal is squelched and he replies, "Awwww mannnnn" in a whiney little fox voice as he runs off the screen.

One day A. was, as usual, attempting to guard her coveted toys from her sister, E., who is deterred by nothing unless she spots an opportunity to eat. Allie stood in front of her toys and yelled, "Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping!" with the sincere belief that this would prevent E. from getting her toys. How funny is that?

I'm sure E. was momentarily delayed and confused by this quick outburst, but I'm positive that she didn't reply, "Awwwww man!"

Baby Substitute exposed

Almost every child has a toy, usually a stuffed animal or doll, that becomes the chosen one, the favorite, the must-have-all-the-time item. Parents live in mortal fear that this coveted toy will be lost, left, forgotten, dropped in the river, accidentally thrown away, mistakenly shipped to Brazil, or shredded by a pack of stray dogs. When something is taken everywhere your child goes, it's not a matter of if but when a crisis will occur due to the premature termination of your child's loving bond with the object.

A.'s favorite toy is a Gund baby doll that she has affectionately named Baby. It is a mystery as to why exactly Baby was ordained to carry out this role, but up to this point, A. has not felt compelled to offer an explanation.

Mommy and I shudder to think what might happen if Baby were to ever meet her Maker before her time. A. won't go to sleep at night unless she is holding Baby in her arms. A. prefers not to leave the house unless Baby comes along. Baby gets to sit out the dinner table, attend numerous tea parties, be read to, rock, swing, and say her bedtime prayers. In fact, A.'s childhood fantasies are literally lived vicariously through Baby. Neither one of us ever wanted to be the bearer of bad news that Baby was forever lost. Enter the clever back up plan...

When Mommy discovered that Baby was discontinued by Gund and not readily available for purchase, she quickly sent out an All Points Bulletin to the relatives, friends, and extended family to be on the lookout for a replacement Baby: the just-in-case-the-unthinkable-should-happen Baby Substitute. Evidently, the only things you can't buy on eBay are human body parts, people, and A.'s Baby Gund doll.

Fortunately, one of our out-of-state relatives spotted a genuine Baby Substitute in a local store and purchased it for us. We were now prepared for the worst. If Baby should croak, we would quickly and slyly pull out the new one, and life would be grand. And wouldn't we look so smart? Parenting Magazine would be calling us for interviews. Katie Couric and Today would be set up in our front yard.

One day when Baby needed a bath in the washing machine to remove the grime acquired from 24/7 living with a two-year-old, Mommy offered up Baby Substitute to A. in the dark when she was in her bed. A. immediately said, "That's not Baby!" In the dark she knew, I tell you. She felt the doll and could tell that it's travels were only extensive as to the top of our closet where she had been hidden away until needed. Clean and shiny Baby Substitute was quickly labeled a fraud. This was not Baby!! Where is Baby!?

Couldn't we just say, "Baby went to the spa and got that deep cleansing treatment to make her skin silky smooth. Face masks have come a long way in technology to remove those pesky fuzz balls. And yes, she stopped by the Baby boutique and got another Onesie since the other one had a few worn spots"? Evidently A. wouldn't buy that.

So far, Baby has survived (knock on wood) as a fully functioning member of the family although she's a bit tattered. With each new sign of wear, A.'s love for her has only grown. Baby Substitute, now fully exposed and out of the closet, has been given to E. A., to protect her copyrighted name, has refused to allow us to call it E.'s Baby but has instead renamed Baby Substitute to Baby Sister, appropriately enough. E. doesn't quite have the same affinity for Baby Sister. Her biggest thrill is to chew on Baby Sister's night cap, tackle her in the crib, and then fall asleep on her. I think E., taking the practical approach, views her more as a pillow.

We just thought we were going to outsmart our two-year-old daughter, but she could instantly see through our plan. And I hear that parenting only gets harder. My gosh.

Don't throw the baby out...

For some reason, 2 kids just don't make our lives crazy enough. This conversation occurred several months ago when E. was around 10 months old. A. is 19 months older.

A. easily grasped the concept of old and new when she was quite young. "Old milk" (e.g., a cup left sitting out too long) was something we didn't drink. We emphasized "new milk" to help her to learn not to drink spoiled milk.

Us: One day, A., we're hopefully going to have a new baby. You'll have a new little brother or sister!
A.: [Pointing to E.] That's the old baby. We're going to get a new one!
Us: Uhm, yes, A., but that doesn't mean E. is going away. We're going to have another baby. E. will still be here!
A.: [Secretly disappointed and silent.]

Her first word was backpack: The Dora Conspiracy

If you have kids and Dora the Explorer has not invaded your household, please let me know your secret. A.'s first exposure to Dora was through a simple book. She had never even seen the cartoon and she was captivated. Evidently the child psychologist designed character with big brown eyes charmed my daughter to love and idolize it instantly. Actually I used to only jokingly say that psychology was used to design these characters. Then I started believing it. Then I researched it and confirmed it. Meet Daniel Anderson, professor and consultant, who is changing the world our children live in. (He's only one of many people that helped created Dora among other popular characters.)

Now I'm not saying this is bad, but at a minimum, it is pretty scary and worth a moment of thought. Indeed Dr. Anderson's Senate Committee testimony states that kids who have watched certain shows such as Sesame Street have gone on to do better in school than those who didn't. Surely the end goal of the producers of today's new shows is typically not to make our children smarter but to please Wall Street and ultimately their own pocketbooks. We are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.

If creators of TV shows can influence our children to do good things and become smarter, why can't they also be using their psychology tricks to make our children ask to buy their licensed products? Parents are the ones that have the money and are ultimately the ones responsible, but sometimes the influences are difficult to detect or deter. What seems harmless and happy on the surface may in fact be quite harmful. Subliminal influences are a hidden enemy. Consider it food for thought.

In our household, we've had the following Dora products: videos, books, a doll, a talking Dora swimming pool, yogurt, potty seat, disposable placemats, and Dora's Backpack. I'm probably leaving out another half dozen things. But my word, A.'s just 2 1/2! There's still time for more. Dora has generated over $3.5 billion in retail sales since 2002, and yes, we've helped out!

In fact, the very first thing that A. pointed at and asked me to buy her in the store was Dora yogurt. She had eaten it before, so she was recognizing not only Dora, but a familiar product. (As a plug for the product, it has a child friendly consistency that makes it clump together and not be runny and messy like the standard yogurt. I'm sure the sugar content is distressing, but hey, it's a dairy product so I can't complain too much.)

So were my wife and I surprised when E. chose to say backpack as her first word? Well, I'm stretching it just a bit. It was not her first word, but it was definitely in the first 10, and I'm betting even the first 5. Dora wears a purple backpack (affectionately known as Backpack) who holds Map, who helps them find their in every episode. Backpack has its (her? his? Ambiguous I guess like BackPat?) little song that gets E. excited and exclaiming, "Backpack, backpack" in her scratchy little voice.

Yes, I know that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies under age 2 should not watch any TV. Well, when her older sister insists on watching Dora on a daily basis, it is hard to keep E., who is one year old, away. Now E. doesn't sit and stare at the TV. She's normally playing and doing other things while A. watches. But when a snazzy song comes on or she hears Backpack, it definitely gets her attention.

Let's see, why don't we analyze E.'s vocabulary and see if we can detect any influences from Dora and TV? She can say bye bye, dah dah, ma ma, milk, book, baby, banana, and backpack.

Hmmmm. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others by the time I finish my song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others? Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong? If you guessed this one is not like the others then you're absolutely...right!

(How appropriate to end with a Sesame Street song. Her father must have grown up watching that! I don't know how smart he is, but he sure does have a nice collection of Sesame Street toys.)

The BorderCollies: fine Celtic music

Being that it's St. Paddy's Day, it's a perfect time to introduce one of my favorite groups, The BorderCollies, "a contemporary Celtic band, featuring a unique blend of traditional Celtic and folk influences in their music." They feature original works and the classics, with many great jigs and reel, that often tempt you to break out in your own Riverdance moves until come to your senses and realize how embarrassing that would be. In concert, they showcase their musical abilities with many injections of humor.

Based in Duluth, Georgia, (metro-Atlanta) you can catch them in action around town and the South. A fairly family friendly smoke-free setting where I've seen them twice is Fiddler's Green, a "coffeehouse" folk music venue usually held at the Garden Hills neighborhood community center in Buckhead. (More precisely, it's family friendly if you're OK with BYOB and your children are > toddlers. Noisy and squirmy really won't work.)

The coffeehouse happens once a month and is sponsored by the Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. If your children are a little older, this is a great way to expose them to a variety of musical styles in a rather sterile setting. The atmosphere is great. An exposed timber lodge-style building nestled in the trees provides a very intimate setting for this type of music. Many of these performances sell out, so be sure to reserve your place in advance.