17 September 2011

I Think We'll Give Scripps a Miss This Year

Aaron read the previous day’s post and liked it, but said that I also needed to post another story from the same day. (What can I say? Eamon was just “on” yesterday.)


If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching the PBS show Super Why, I can tell you that’s it just as repetitive as Dora, but better in my opinion because it’s all focused on the alphabet and reading. They mostly use lower case letters, so Eamon now knows all his uppercase and lowercase letters.

Because the show is so repetitious in form, Eamon feels comfortable “playing along.” When they ask him to say his name, he does. When they ask him to read the next letter, he can. He points to the “a” when they ask him to, and shouts out the letters in the words.

But most importantly, it’s teaching him that WORDS are made of LETTERS. Letters make sounds, and sounds make words. This is a huge concept, and I know that he’s getting it because of this incident yesterday:

From the backseat of the car, Eamon suddenly shouted, “MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!”

“Yes, Eamon?” I wasn’t worried. He’s terribly dramatic, and will often shout like that just to let me know he’s seen a school bus or a stop sign.

“I can spell, Mommy!”

Well, that's something new, I thought. I didn't even know that he knew the word "spell."

And then, Eamon began. “B.”

I thought to myself, it sounds like he's actually going to do it. He's actually going to spell a word. Maybe he’s going to spell “bed.” Or “bath.” Or “bat.”

Eamon continued, “R.”

Uh, okay. Maybe “brain” or “branch?”

“E.”

Okaaay… “bread?” Did we watch an episode about bread?

And last, “D.”

Wait, what?

He then announced triumphantly, “B-R-E-D spells ‘Presto!’”

Okay, so I guess we need to watch a few more episodes.

16 September 2011

I Think from Now On We'll Just Call it a Yoo Hoo

I debated whether I should put this story on the blog, but my mother made me promise that I would. Here’s my warning: this story acknowledges that my son, Eamon Wolfe, is indeed a boy with all the requisite boy parts. There is nothing graphic, but if you find yourself easily offended by medical terminology, you might want to skip this entry.

***************************************************************************

Eamon is two years old. He’s talking more and more, and wanting to know what everything is called. I’m the daughter of a nurse practitioner, so we have a rule in our house that we use the correct names for all body parts. I always thought this was a mature and responsible parenting choice, and never regretted it. Until today.

Another thing about having a two year old is that Eamon desperately wants to be independent. He’s a Big Boy, and as such he thinks that he deserves all the privileges afforded to Big Boys, like the right to eat only Frosted Mini-Wheat cereal for days on end, drive the car, or at least not have to constantly hold my hand in public places.

It’s the last privilege that often becomes a struggle. Eamon does not WANT to hold my hand. But he also doesn’t often want to stay where I can see him.

Today we got into our age-old argument in Subway.

It started innocently enough. Eamon walked in holding my hand, sweet and amiable as could be. But the man in front of us was ordering 3 subs…and apparently had never heard of the various meats, cheeses, and vegetables before because he had to have everything explained to him.

Eamon got bored.

Then he spotted it.

A Lion King poster.

He desperately wanted to go see that Lion King poster, across the restaurant, by the door, where I couldn’t keep an eye on him while also ordering my sub. He pulled away from me and started to run to the poster.

I told him to come back. Reluctantly, he did so.

But in protest, he then lay down on the floor and refused to move as the line moved up.

I hissed at him to get up.

He ignored me.

So I played the I'm Bigger and Stronger Than You card, and picked him up so that he was sitting on my hip. Even though he struggled, I held onto him and explained quietly to him that he made a bad choice so now he had to put up with the consequence. But he’s a big kid, and the more he struggled, the tighter I held him to keep from dropping him.

“Wanna get DOWN!” he protested.

“No,” I hissed again, repeating my mantra about choices and consequences, holding him tighter.

And that’s when he played a card I quite frankly never expected, and no parenting book or blog had prepared me for it.

“OW!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “MY PENIS! MY PENIS HURTS! MOMMY, YOU HURT MY PENIS!”

Everyone in the restaurant stared at us.

I put him down immediately.

We paid and walked quickly out the restaurant, one of us far more mortified than the other.

But he held my hand and walked nicely the rest of the time.



So I guess we both learned a very important lesson.

We'll call this one a draw.

03 September 2011

Sometimes I Think We Are Secretly Playing Mad Libs and He Forgot to Tell Me

Outside the car, the sun twinkled its merry smile in the sky. Inside the car, however, a mystery began its churning rumble.

“How was school today?” I asked, still beguiled by the bright rays of the celestial golden orb and oblivious to the fate about to befall me.

“School’s fun!” shouted Eamon from the backseat.

The first answer giving me confidence, I immediately, and unknowingly, fell into the trap. “What did you do in school?” I asked.

“I pway with giraffe! I pway with elephant!” came the sing-song chorus.

“What ELSE did you do?” I continue to probe.

“No pway with giraffe! Sarah* pway! Eamon wait! Hmph!”

“Oh, Sarah wanted to play with the giraffe, too? You had to wait your turn?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Did you wait nicely?”

“Eamon, sit down!”

“But you are sitting down, sweetie…oh wait, you mean someone told you to sit down?”

Silence.

“Or that you were a good boy who sat down when he was supposed to?”

“The boy…the boy…the boy, Mommy.”

“What boy, Eamon?”

“The boy…he…tickled…me! Eamon!” (Another mystery to be solved: why Eamon feels the need to clarify his pronouns, in case I was unsure who he is referring to when he says “me”).

“A boy tickled you?”

“No tickling!”

“You told him no tickling?”

“Nooooooo…” he announces with a devilish smile.

“Miss Lauren told him no tickling?”

“Mmm hmm. No tickle, Eamon!”

“You mean she told YOU no tickling? Did you tickle the boy?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“You tickled each other?”

“Owie, Mommy! Owie!”

“You got an owie?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Were you inside or outside?”

“Yes.”

“Well, which one?”

Suddenly silence draws a veil over his expression. “Shh, mommy. People working.”

“There are people working?”

“Uh huh.”

“You mean when Miss Lauren took you on a tour of the school, you had to be quiet because people were working?” I feel a bit proud, because finally, THIS strange fragment of a memory I understand thanks to an earlier mass email from Miss Lauren.

“Mmm hmm. Cwackers, mommy! Eamon eat cwackers!”

“Oh, I bet that was yummy. Did you eat anything else?”

“No, Mommy. Cwying! No cwying! Be okay…”

“You cried? Why would you have cried when you haven’t cried all week?”

“No Eamon cwy. Mark cry. Be okay, Mark. No cry.”

“Oh, Mark cried again?” (Every day I hear about poor Mark crying).

“Mmm hmm.”

“Did you tell him it would be okay?”

“Giraffe, mommy! Eamon pway giraffe!”

And that is how our wrap-ups about school go every day. I sift through these strange, half-remembered fragments and out-of-context phrases, desperately trying to piece together what the heck Eamon did for 3 and a half hours besides play with a giraffe (he seems most sure about that particular piece of information. He definitely plays with the giraffe every day. He and the giraffe are tight).

And Aaron has told me that I need to CHILL on grilling his poor teacher (not in a mean way! just in an interested, what the heck do you DO with 11 toddlers all morning because I can barely handle the 1 toddler I have! kind of way). So I am trying to be content with the assistant, Miss Savannah's, brief reports to my mother each day when she picks him up, which are always, "Eamon had a great day! He's such a good boy!"

Well, only a month until parent-teacher conferences.


*All names have been changed to protect kids whose parents probably aren't as obsessed with documenting every moment of their children's lives on the internet.

AND NOW FOR SOME COMPLETELY UNRELATED PICTURES...




Hellllllllo, Ladies.




What? Oh, this is just me...on my stump. You know. Some people might think it's hard to get up on a stump all by themselves, but I don't know, I've just always found it really easy. I guess you could just call me...naturally talented.




Yeah, I'm pretty modest, too.




And this is me, just kickin' back with muh dog and muh football. I like to do athletic things in my spare time, and I enjoy being kind to other creatures. Some people might say I'm quite a...catch. Get it?




Why, yes, people have told me before that I am super suave. How kind of you to notice. I don't suppose you'd be interested in playing with some small plastic dinosaurs sometime, would you? Or maybe a giraffe?

Excellent.