Hoppy Oppy Boppy!

That is one of Lily's favorite sound combinations right now. She's a singin' toddler. She loves to sing right now, and she'll make something up, just a couple words or even nonsense words like her favorites, and she'll say, "That's my best song." John told me she was singing to one of her stuffed animals and told it "I'm singing you my best song."

I love this marvelous, simple joy. She'll ask us to sing with her sometimes, and when I do, I realize and remember the joy of just making something up to sing (I was a notorious late-night singer, according to my older sister whose bedroom was next to mine) and it didn't have to be complicated or make sense or mean anything, it just had to please me with its sounds.

It also reminds me of one of the Basilica's mottoes, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." I know it's called something else besides a motto, but it comes up all the time in bulletins, reminding people why we sing so much in church.

We take Lily to Mass almost every Sunday, and she likes it. She's usually interested in the music, and I think she enjoys seeing (and hearing) Mommy and Daddy sing. I mean, we sing to her all the time, but then she sees us singing at church and it just reinforces how it's a normal, joyful part of our lives, to sing. It's one of the main reasons I love church so much--the singing. And why I love this particular church. We'll sing a lot of things that other churches would just say, and I think it's so much more beautiful to sing it.

Lily's joyful little snippets sometime reminds me of these short bits that we sing in Mass, like we'll sing after each petition, "Lord hear our prayer" or "Thanks be to God" (sometimes in Latin) after each reading. Lily sings "Cocoa's happy" and "And Mommy and Daddy and Baby and Cocoa."

Sweetness

Yesterday I had to go to the hospital for an infusion because my migraine was so bad. So John had to come home early from work to take me in and to take care of Lily. When he got home he showed Lily what he'd brought from the company store: cake mix, "so we can bake Mommy a get well cake!" Chocolate GF (gluten-free) cake, plus he'd picked out special frosting that Lily would like--whipped pink.

It was such a sweet thought, literally and figuratively, and Lily enjoyed helping, and they even put candles on it for me to blow out. Lily kept saying, "It could be Mommy's birthday," so John sang "Happy Get Well To You." Lily helped me blow out the candles and we all had a piece.

That's my family, God love 'em.

Laughter

Rough day today for me. Very nauseated and big headache. But Lily made it bearable. Tonight she made John and I laugh so hard. It was almost bedtime and so John was reading her a book (we always read three books before naptime and then before bedtime), and he kept dozing off as he was reading.

I've done it before, too. You are trying so hard to keep reading that your brain will make up stuff that isn't there while your eyes are crossing and your speech is slurring. I was reading The Cat in the Hat yesterday and dozing off at the part where the house is all messy before the cat starts cleaning it, and I heard myself explain to Lily that "this is the part the garbage man says." Then some more awake part of my brain said, "What the hell are you talking about?!" And I woke back up and read a few more pages.

So John was reading and he'd already dozed off a few times and I kept saying, "Hey! Wake up!" Finally one time he was totally incomprehensible reading, and Lily said, very clearly and patiently, "What are you trying to say?" It woke him up and he answered her, laughing, saying, "I have no idea!" We were both laughing so hard that it made her laugh. It was so funny, because that's what we say to her when we can't quite understand what she's saying. So then she turns around and says it to us. I guess you could call that a good parenting moment. It was wonderful.

I love this cookie!

Especially the black frosting. This was at a General Mills family event celebrating winter. I guess they thought it would be funny to have snowman cookies with black frosting, for the hat and lining the edges. I mean, there's no way a kid could not get black frosting all over their face! Hee hee.

Some Great New Children's Books

Every few months I try to grab a few recent Horn Book issues from the library and scan the reviews and ads for new children's books that look fun. Then I get online and reserve a bunch of titles from my local library, which is now a huge conglomeration of Hennepin County library and the Minneapolis libraries. So I can usually find anything I want, I just have to wait for it to get to my branch where I pick up my reserves. It's quite satisfying, a definite improvement over ye olden days when you had to go ask the librarian in person for every book you wanted.

So here's what I've gotten lately that I like:

Mermaid Queen by Shana Corey
This big picture book biography is gorgeous and fascinating. It's a bit too texty for Lily right now, but I mostly got it for me to read anyway. It's the story of Annette Kellerman, the real-life inspiration for Esther Williams. I always thought Esther Williams was, well, a mermaid queen herself. Who knew there was an even more interesting real-life woman who was a real queen of the water?

Annette Kellerman was a sort of swimsuit suffragette for women, rebelling against the ridiculously uncomfortable swimwear of her time (the early 1900s). This was no small feat. The first time she swam in public in America (she grew up in Australia and England), she was arrested for her shockingly revealing swimwear (while the other women on the beach sweated it out under their parasols on the hot sand, too poofy and heavy to actually go into the water)! Celebrating swimming as both an athletic and artistic pursuit, she paved the way for female athletes all over the world.

The artwork is--dare I say it?--splashy. And I mean that in the best way possible. It's appropriate for the subject matter, and the bold color palette of artist Edwin Fotheringham is delicious to behold. Not only is water illustrated with curving, swlirling shapes, but everything from the sound of music to the night sky seems to take on the joyful shapes of water as well.

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino
Yes, another book about humans in the water. A large part of my childhood was spent in the water, and I miss it! I want to go back to the beaches of my youth. And the swimming pools. Especially the backyard swimming pools. But I digress.

Cousteau was kind of a skinny little runt, so his doctors suggested he build up his strength by swimming. Then when he was a young man, he got in a bad car accident and had to wear braces on his arms. His fate was sealed soon after this, but not by his injury. He built strength in his arms by going back to the sea and swimming. Then a friend lent him some goggles and he suddenly saw all the fishies in the sea underneath him.

Yaccarino does the artwork as well as the story, and it's wonderful to see how he transforms Cousteau's scrawniness on land to lithe grace underwater. In one layout, Cousteau's swimming form parallels the shape of an octopus swimming above him. The colors are bright and many-layered, like the rich palette of undersea life Cousteau is exploring.

Like Mermaid Queen Annette Kellerman, Jacques Cousteau was a pioneer in his field. Today we take scuba suits for granted, but the diving suit of Cousteau's day was like an iron spacesuit. Cousteau worked with engineers to invent diving equipment that allowed him and his team to swim like fish. Likewise underwater camera equipment.

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (of which I have fond memories) ran for ten years on television, and served as Cousteau's platform to both entertain and educate the world about the vast array of life in our oceans that needed our protection. Yaccarino does a nice job of portraying Cousteau as a man who wanted to share his joy and passion, in contrast to a celebrity with a cause-of-the-week.

This is a fabulous book. I'm going to buy a copy to keep for Lily (and me), because I think it works on so many levels. The artwork is so good that it can be explored on its own, and the story is appealing in a classic way, like a rags to riches tale, where the rags are Cousteau's physical limitations and the riches are his exploration of the undersea world--and most importantly, the joy this brings him!

And that concludes today's book reviews. Hope you enjoyed them! Oh, and if you don't get the Horn Book at your library or you aren't familiar with this bible of children's book reviews, you can always look at a few pages of reviews of the current issue online. Here's a sample.

Non-Verbal Communication

This is from Christmas, obviously. I just love the look she's giving me.

Lily petting a horsey

This was at Gale Woods Farm, where we went last weekend for a horse-drawn sleigh ride and other fun activities. Lily was not intimidated by the size of the horses and wanted to pet them.

Seeing how calm she was with them actually made me feel more comfortable with them! This really surprised me. Even though we had horses when I was a kid, I was always wary of them and still am, but this time when I pet this horse, I relaxed and just gave him my full attention. When I put my hand on his head I just felt him, really felt his warmth and his spirit. It felt very different than any previous experience I've had around horses. I still sometimes have dreams of getting stepped on or nipped by a horse.

I love how Lily changes my perspective on things. I see her wonder and her courage in reaching out to a world that is all new, and it inspires me.

Mass Happiness

Today I went to Mass with John and Lily, and said a prayer to St. Anthony (we have a side altar for him) about my headaches. As it seems either a lost cause, or the lost thing I can't find is my health, he seemed like the go-to saint. I felt both serious and slightly cheeky about it, which seemed right. Gotta keep that sense of humour. And wonder.

Lily was slightly more than average on the squirm-o-meter, and very talkative. As we walked in, a woman in choir robes stopped mid-sentence talking to someone and said, looking at Lily, "Oh, there's the little girl." When I looked at her, wondering (it's a big congregation, several thousand families, so for Lily to be the little girl was interesting), she addressed me, adding, "I always love watching her, she's so cute."

This meant a lot to me, because I remember the many years before I had a child, watching other children playing, thinking how wonderful they were. Now someone else is thinking that about my child! How cool is that? Of course I always think Lily's the most fabulous child in the whole church every time we go to Mass. I love hearing her chatty little voice ring out in the silences, and how no one turns around shushing her, at least not in the this church, as our motto (I know it's called something else, but "motto" is easier to remember) is "Make a joyful noise."

Clever Girl

Here's Lily cookin' Mac' 'n' Cheese with peas with Daddy. Takin' a test bite.

Last night Lily picked up a cloth flower and said it was a flower with a nest in the middle for a bird. I thought it was fabulously clever as the middle of the flower (a Gerber daisy) did look like a bird nest in shape, if not size.

Then she said something brilliant about the toilet. Wait! It's not about poop, don't worry. No, the thingy that pulls up the plug for the water when you flush broke, and so I had to take the top off the tank so I could manually flush it. When Lily saw how the mechanism worked (she is very studious when she sees something new), and watched it a few times, she said "It's like Cranky!" That is a crane in the world of Thomas the Tank Engine, if you don't know. I thought it was great that she related one thing to another, and also that she used the word "like." Sometimes she'll say something IS something else, like any red car is Lightning McQueen, and if I say "Yes, it is like Lightning McQueen," she'll insist "No, Mommy, it's not like Lightning McQueen, it is Lightning McQueen!" So when she's playing, she enters the imaginatory world wholeheartedly and insists that I do as well. But if she's figuring out the world, then she makes a distinction. I love it!

Back in My Day

Lily, looking out the window at an older neighbor lady snowblowing her driveway:
When I was an older man I used to have a snowblower.

I know, it's hilarious. It's also exciting, because it's about her imagination and how it's developing and taking off into new realms. Before it was always Mom and Dad who had to make up stuff, like she asks what Cocoa is saying, what her trains dream about, etc. Of course we always ask her what she thinks, but mostly she'd just ask us again. Now she's starting to make up stuff herself. It's quite entertaining, as you can see.

Getting To No

You know, like getting to yes, except it's NO. No, no, no, said the toddler. So cooperative before, and now not so much. I suppose it was inevitable, that my two-year-old would start acting like, well, a two-year-old. And it's actually good, it means she's making more decisions. Doesn't that sound nice, that she's figuring out how to make decisions? Yeah, she's the decider.

Of course, it's also annoying as hell.
Lily, it's time to go to sleep.
No, I don't want to nap anymore.
[Note: no nap had thus far occured.]

Lily, we need to clean these up. Can you help me put these blocks back in the box?
No. (leaves room)

or, even better:

No, thank you.

Well, gosh, at least she has manners when she's being contrary! The good thing, we've noticed, is that often about a minute after she says no, she'll come back and do as you asked, like it was her idea. I think that's good, it shows that she's more concerned about being able to make the decision herself than being able to just do what she wants all the time. She's getting more independent. My baby!

and the baby goes snork!

Here i am at 2 in the morning. I can't sleep because I have a dang headache and I'm watching a Netflix movie on my laptop for distraction because when I just lie here and try to sleep everything hurts more. And I have headphones on so I won't make any noise in consideration of the two sleepers next to me. I turn and see Lily's face in the light of the computer screen, and she is so sweet and perfect-looking, like all children in their sleep. I pause the movie to listen to her breathe, and instead I hear something even more wonderful--a funny little snoring snork noise that makes me grin. And it feels like even though I am a mess right now, in some way all is right with the world because of this snork. What power our babies have to inspire us!

The Bright Side

The good thing about how much I hate our current ECFE class is that it has focused my attention on what I do and do not want in a school for Lily. At Hale, the school we've gone to for most of our ECFE classes, I took for granted a lot of wonderful things, and I guess I assumed all schools would be like this. Because they should be.

At Hale, when I come back from the parent discussion time, I usually get some comments from the teacher or assistant about how Lily did that day, and what she did, like one time she really wanted stories, and so she sat with several other kids and listened to the teacher read stories, and then she and the other kids played reading to each other. At Wilder (the class we're in now), I never get a report, and it feels like the teacher is kind of distant. He's very focused on preparing the kids for school, getting them to all do one thing together, and follow directions, and even find their name tag (with mom's help) for attendance. Attendance? Recognizing letters? Excuse me, they're two. TWO! They should be playing! He even has them do exercises, and tells them it's important to exercise. Well, yeah, but do we have to make it a chore? Why can't you just put some music on or sing and have them dance around and hop and run?

Then there's little things, like having windows in the classroom (none at Wilder), and knowing that if I leave something in class by accident, it will be there next time with our names on it. I've lost several things at Wilder, never to be seen again. My notes from discussion, a binky, and who knows what else. The teachers just don't seem to be personally involved with us. It's like the class is a blob of students instead of individual kids and parents.

Oh, and how about this little gem: during parent discussion time at Wilder in the first class, the teacher explained what the procedure was in case of a lock down. A lock down. As in if there was a "situation," all classrooms would be locked until the building was deemed clear of the "threat." Kind of like in prison. Or Columbine. Jesus. I mean, yeah, okay, it's good to know that if I leave the discussion room of my own volition, against the better advice of the teacher, the teacher in the kids' classroom will not unlock that door to let me in to see my child, because he would be protecting the children against the "threat." So I'd be stuck in the halls, because nobody would let me in any doors.

When asked if there had ever been a "threat," the teacher said rather too nonchalantly that there had been one the previous year and no one was hurt. When asked for more details she glossed over it very quickly and moved on to the next thing on her list.

I don't want Lily in a school where this is a top priority. I mean, of course safety is a top priority, but you know what I mean.

So, having a fire lit under my butt from this experience of "bad school," I sent in the application this week for Lily's preschool. We went to a preschool fair a couple of months ago and it was interesting, but it seemed rather in the distant future. Not anymore.

Last week we went to an information meeting for a specific school that we thought sounded nice, and it was fabulous. I want to go be a student there. It's Willow House Preschool, Waldorf and Lifeways inspired. It's all about nurture. The school is actually in a house, or is a house, I should say, since the whole house is the school, including the backyard, where they have a fabulous actual willow house, check it out:



Isn't it wonderful? They spend a lot of time outside, which is great. The teachers (they are two women, both with teaching backgrounds) said they only stay indoors if the temp is below zero outside. So they go out in the rain! (In raincoats, of course). There's a K-3 school across the street with 3 playgrounds, and they go on field trips a couple blocks away to a park with a lake.



They do lots of handwork, like sewing and knitting, and making little gnomes and sheep from wool. Ah, I feel happy just thinking about it. So that's the bright side. It's very clear to me now that this school we are going to send Lily to is a very special place, and I won't be taking it for granted (that's why I sent in our application the day of the kid-hitting discussion). So my response was positive, you could say. I've been venting here for a couple of hours now, and I hope you aren't bored reading it all. I just really needed to put it all down in black and white (or in this case, green and beige). Yes, that icky stuff really happened, and then look, over here, a fabulous counterpoint!



Oh, and another response I have to this ickiness is that I'm taking a community ed class on making a "Magic Fairy Tree House." Here's a sample of what the teacher made:


Okay, I really have to stop now. I hope all this long-winded rambling makes sense in the morning (I haven't slept yet--havin' a headache).

Ditching School

No, not really. But sometimes I want to. I'm talking about the ECFE (Early Childhood and Family Education) class that Lily and I are in right now, and how much I hate it. I waited too long to register for this session and got what was left, which was not the school we usually go to, but instead a school that has a very different socio-economic base. It's not really too much farther away from home than the school we've usually gone to for the last two years. But it's in the other direction, in more ways than one.

In the most recent class, during the parent discussion time (the kids are in the classroom with other teachers and helpers while the parents get together with one teacher in a separate room) there was actually a discussion about whether or not it's ok to HIT your kid. And I quote, from one of the dads, "There's a big difference between occasionally hitting your kid and abusing them." This is when I felt like getting up and leaving, and not quietly. The discussion was supposed to be about discipline, and this is what I got to listen to. In other ECFE classes, I have always felt validated listening to other parents and what they are going through with their kids, and I've always gotten helpful ideas to think about or try with Lily (or myself). This class, no. It's frustrating. I don't want to be there. I'm not dealing with the same issues, or, maybe I am, but I'm not parenting at the same level.

I'm trying not to be snobby or prejudiced, but it seems to me these folks are learning how to be parents at a really basic level, and I'm not. For instance, there's one mom who's dealing with her son spitting. To stop this behavior, she "pops him in the mouth," as in, hits him in the mouth. Now, terrible as this sounds, she did concede that hitting him is not working. And she was asking for help, for other ideas that would be better and teach him a better lesson. So, good for her. She's getting a lot out of the class, and she's trying hard. But I just don't feel like I have anything to discuss with her when we split up in small groups. And that she has nothing to offer me. Is that mean? I end up feeling like my challenges are trivial compared with hers.

There's one mom who I really can NOT stand. She has twins and two more at home, and she is the long-suffering mom. It's all about how difficult it is for her. Even the weather is against her. I never hear her happy about anything. Except that she seems to really enjoy complaining. And doling out advice to everyone else. She seems to think that because she has more than one child, she knows more than those of us with "only one." It's obnoxious. Here's some of her advice: "TV is a great motivator." As in, you can get kids to do what you want if you offer them tv. Oy. She even admits it's probably bad parenting, but "I don't care, because it works." She's all about controlling her kids, and they are always trying to get away with something (her viewpoint). Sitting next to her (which I now avoid), I can feel the icky waves of stress and dischord flowing off of her.

There's another mom who has teenagers at home and she is constantly saying some variation of "Just wait, it's worse when they're teenagers."

These are not my people.

As far as the kids, some of them are like wild animals, running around screaming, or just sitting and yelling. Some are nice, though. I don't think Lily is enjoying the class as much as the classes she's had before at other schools, but I am trying to look at it positively. Maybe it's a good experience for her to have exposure to kids from different backgrounds, and to be the more mature kid in the bunch. Maybe she'll calm them down some. But sometimes I see her looking at some of the other kids like they are from another planet. Yes, honey, we are strangers in a strange land.

Mommy Doesn't Feel Good

So I've been having a rough time recently with my migraines again. I was doing really well in November and December, and then on New Year's Day it all went to pot. I started having awful headaches and not being able to see clearly. It really scared me.

I got an MRI and they didn't find anything to explain this sudden flare-up, if I can call it that. So I'm going back to doing physical therapy and probably trying some other things like guided imagery and maybe yoga or pilates.

It's going to be a lot of work, and take time. Sometimes John will have to take vacation time so that I can go to physical therapy. I hate that. I want his vacation time to be spent on actual family vacation.

And I don't like it that I've had to poop out on Lily so much lately. I can't do a lot of the things she wants me to, like jumping up and down and chasing her, stuff she loves.

I feel bad that Lily has to grow up with a Mommy who has migraines all the time. It bothers me that I have to lie down on the couch sometimes and tell her I can't play. On the other hand, she seems to have developed some empathy since she's become more aware of when I don't feel well. She'll give me a kiss on the forehead and tell me that will make me feel better (Of course, I modeled this first and she's chosen to imitate it). I know I've seen other kids who have a sick sibling and they have developed empathy as well. So maybe it's ok. The thing is, it has to be okay. I don't have control over this.

And I know that I will feel better once I get some PT and find some other things to help. I'm just really crabby about it right now. I think once I stop having a constant headache, I will be able to see the forest for the trees and believe it's really there, not just a mirage. For instance, I know intellectually that Lily will be ok even though I'm sick sometimes. My Mom had migraines that confined her to bed sometimes, too. And she had to go to the hospital ER sometimes. And yet, I turned out ok. I wasn't scarred for life. I don't remember those parts the most. I remember that she played games with me all the time, and how much I loved that.

Well, I have my first PT in a few days. Better days are ahead.

How To Live Green with a Toddler

Don't ask me, cuz I don't know. We recycle and I save all kinds of crap from going in the trash and try to find a way to reuse it. And so it pains me to see anything go to waste. Especially food. Now, I'm not even talking about the way Lily grazes and only eats 3 bites of anything and wanders off. At least then I can put the remaining food in the fridge for later (unless I leave the room for .0001 seconds, in which case Cocoa steals it and makes me crazy). No, I'm talking about the food getting knocked on the floor or dropped.

I know it's because she's only two and doesn't yet have a lot of coordination. Or attention to what her body does when she moves. Like she doesn't notice that turning her wrist while holding a plate in her hand makes the plate turn over and the food go on the floor. Oy. I try to remember not to put too much food on a plate at once, for just such a contingency. And yet it still drives me crazy. Now, I'm not averse to a few germs, but I can't pick up the food and brush it off. Because everything has dog hair on it.

Okay, so I'm cranky. I couldn't sleep last night because of my dang headache. And my new glasses have not come in yet. I'm sick of not being able to see. I need baby kisses.

Today

Here's a picture from today. She's laying on the couch next to me. She got a haircut today, at her request. Her hair had been getting in her eyes and bothering her. This was her 3rd haircut ever and she's a little more ok with it each time. Today she didn't cry at all or try to get out of the chair. She just held my hand very tightly at first, then relaxed after a while and was ok with me just standing right next to the chair. It helped they had Thomas the Tank Engine videos.

Christmas Pic

This is one of my favorite pics from Christmas. Lily got this new art easel from my folks and she immediately figured out a way to climb on it. She made me laugh and we were having a lot of fun.

"Babies Sing on Trains"

It's a new hit song, composed by Lily in the car today. She just started singing, it was the most adorable thing ever (since the last most adorable thing she did five minutes before that). First the verse was "Babies on the train," and then she modified it, first to "baby rides the train," then the funny "Babies sing on trains!" She asked me to sing it with her, which was easy, since it was only one line over and over, and it was a wonderful moment. Then she told me not to sing, so she could belt it out on her own. She's brilliantly talented, what can I say?

She's also got complex musical taste. The things that I think she'll like, that are cute and played on a xylophone or other baby-friendly instrument? She's oh so bored with those. After she had finished composing her toddler transportation ditty, she wanted me to put some music on. I tried some Pink Martini but she was oh so bored with that. I tried some Blue Man Group (Las Vegas 4 Song Sampler)on a whim, and she loooooved it. "Make it louder!" she said. Wow. Maybe she'll be drummer like her mama. Sniff. No, not really. I have no twisted desire to see her relive my musician days. The smoky bars, the long nights...just kidding, I was only a musician in junior high and high school and the biggest hardship I endured was walking through horse poop in parades. And I was damn proud to do it. I was a superb marcher.

Fun Family Christmas

Much as I would have liked to celebrate Christmas with my family in Seattle, we did have a really nice Christmas Day with just the three of us. She's a little more aware of Christmas now than last year, although she still calls Santa "Christmas" when you ask her who that is. She took her time opening presents and playing with each one, which was really nice, the way I was hoping it would go. Of course, it went on for hours. We had french toast for breakfast, then opened a bunch of presents and then went to noon mass at the Basilica. I think I'm over going to midnite mass, although it was really amazing to attend when I had the stamina. Maybe when Lily gets older and I'm old and can't sleep anyway, we'll go again. Ha.

When we got back home after church, Lily was really tired, in fact she fell asleep about 10 minutes from home. But then she insisted it was NOT naptime, so stayed up for another hour, and we opened presents again. She was doing her "I'm not sleepy" frenzy and was opening packages too fast, even ones that she knew were not for her. Then we opened a present from Wendy, and it was a fun blanket. I said "Hey, that might be good for nap" and that was a great idea! She went for it. Phew!

Later we opened the rest of the presents and ended with the easel my Mom and Dad got her. I think that and the train set I got off Woot! were her favorite things. And she got a lot of things!! This morning she got up and came downstairs where John was already up, and said, "Let's open more presents!" Ha! The thing is, we will be opening even more presents next week when we see John's dad and Dave and family.

Now, I have a question about accumulating all these wonderful toys and things for Lily. How do you get rid of anything?? One mom from the Lakeshore Learning store told me, "when they're asleep." Yeah, I guess that would be less stressful. But how do I choose what should go? What if she wants it next week?? Ack.