Category: Family

The Tooth Fairy is going to get tired of trekking out here this winter. Whileout at dinner, literally just prior to the food arriving, the boy exclaimed “Mytooth came out!” and spat it out into his hand.

Bakugan from the TF this time around.

He doesn’t have anymore loose ones at this point. But this one makes it thefour front teeth across the bottom and his 2 top fronts that are gonzo.

If he were to maintain his current pace (3 in the last month, I believe) hewould need a set of falsies. Or a liquid diet…

With the couple of inches of snow we got overnight into today, I told the kids we’d go for a hike and then go sledding. They got snow shoes for Christmas so they were excited to get a chance to use them. Plus, we were going to a big hill for sledding, how much better could it get?

Of course, all of this stuff seems great in theory. The reality of it usually has some sort of snag that I foresee, but strategically choose to ignore. In this case, the hike throuh the snow is cool because of the snow shoes. Unfortunately, it takes time to get from point A to point B- and it’s tiring. The other tidbit I omitted was that long hills are great for sledding down- not so great for walking back up. Especially after a 20 minute hike to get to the hill.

The boy was excited enough that he didn’t complain at all. I even got a chance to reinforce the “awesomeness” of his snow shoes. There was a point where the new snow covered up some older snow so my feet sunk way down. I pointed this out to him and he was very satisfied in the knowledge that his snow shoes worked so well.

The lass was a slightly different story. She lagged behind and I ended up carrying her for the last third of the way to the hill. When we were done- she was really done. I held her hand and made her walk the whole way home. She was fighting back tears from fatigue and the effort of trudging through the snow.

The Wife was waiting for them when we got back. She even made some hot chocolate. I played with the dogs for awhile before I finally trudged back in the house myself.

A nice way to spend a morning.

I’m just not sure what.

We were driving up to the Y for the lass’s dance class and the boy was merrily trucking along with his counting. He got to around 240 or so and then he stopped. The lass had distracted him. He went to start counting again, but he forgot where he was at.

Then he started to cry.

Not big crocodile tears, but more of a distressed and whiney “I can’t remember where I was.” I checked in the rear view mirror and he was visibly distraught.

Yes, over numbers.

Now, my first instinct is to point out the ridiculousness of his reaction. It’s numbers… and counting. But some part of my brain checked my mouth and instead I just calmly counciled him to calm down. That getting so upset wasn’t going to help. The part of my brain that had checked my initial reaction further engaged and basically turned my mouth off. Instead, I just sat and observed.

For about another minute or so, he continued with his agony of trying to remember what number. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking “Just pick a number and count from there,” but I continued to stay silent.

Then, he did. In a tearful voice he said “Two-hundred-fifty” and he continued counting from there. By the time he reached 260, his agony was gone and he was back to counting as if nothing had happened. He stopped at 299 because he hadn’t figured out the pattern yet.

I filled in the blank: “300.”

He picked up from there and continued. As we neared the Y’s parking lot, he hit 399. He paused, and then said “Four-hundred” and continued counting until I pulled into a parking spot. As I turned off the car he exclaimed “Dad, I know what comes next. When I get to 419, then it will be 500.”

I chose not to quibble about the details, as I’m sure his excitement had addled his speech somewhat. Like I said, I’m convinced that he had some sort learning moment for himself; but beyond the events, I couldn’t really describe what it might have been. For that matter, I may have stumbled across some sort of wisdom related to child rearing. It’ll be interesting to see if I recognize the circumstances again sometime.

Wife: Who’s doing the halftime show?

Me: Who’s doing the halftime show.

Wife: Right, who’s doing the halftime show?

Me: That’s what I said, Who’s doing the halftime show.

Wife: (Finally glances at TV and hears “Teenage Wasteland” playing.) OHhhh… (Makes a move to whack me.)

Me: (Wagging finger, then point to head) Concussion.

Wife: Yeah, not enough.

Maybe we should take it on the road…

The boy lost his fifth tooth tonight. It’s the other top front one. Yes, he looks hilarious when he smiles; no, he can’t pronounce words like “thistle” properly.

He said another one of his teeth is loose as well. At this rate, we’ll need to put him on a liquid diet. The Tooth Fairy is racking up huge frequent flyer miles.

The lass is a little tired of the spectacle. She wants to start losing her teeth NOW. I’d rather not think about how far she’s willing to go to get there…

During the course of tackling my chores yesterday, I slipped on a patch of snow covered ice and fell. The fall wasn’t one of those pinwheeling-arms-try-to-regain-balance types of falls. It was one instant I’m walking, the next I’m looking straight up at the sky. I remember landing on my back and then my head snapping down onto the ice, bouncing and then coming down again.

One instant, I was looking at white flakes and grey skies, the next everything was black.

The boy went to bed a little warm last night. I speculated that he may just be tired. He didn’t eat real well at dinner either- he forced himself to eat more than he wanted because he was worried that he would get the pasta again today. He isn’t a big fan of pasta. Unfortunately, he’s smart enough to know he can play the “I’m full” card if he doesn’t like something. Our only counter measure is, if we suspect he is still hungry but just doesn’t want to eat what’s in front of him, to serve the meal again the next day.

So about 1:30 he got sick. He dealt well with it. The Wife saw him back to bed after about 15 minutes.

About a half-hour later, the Wife disappeared into the bathroom. Shortly afterwards she got sick. She came to bed a little after that.

The boy got sick again around 3 or so. I stayed up with him until he was ready to go to bed. Again, he was a trooper- dealing with the unpleasantness as best he could. He was trying to understand why he kept getting sick. I just told him it happens to everyone and all he could do was get through it. He finally went back to bed about 3:30.

The Wife then got sick a couple more times shortly after that. I was up with her until she was steady enough to make it back to bed.

So the lass and I escaped the night unscathed. The lass in particular, since she slept through everything.

The Wife is still sleeping. The boy came down around 8 this morning- very late for him. He’s hanging in there, but his stomach still isn’t quite right and his head hurts a little too. The lass is at school- she was nice a chipper. Just the sort of remedy for a long night.

On to the long day.

The boy has lost his first front tooth. The left one.

I told him that now he looked like a hockey player. He promptly pursed his lips and whistled and triumphantly exclaimed he could still do it.

Hopefully the Tooth Fairy can still arrive on such short notice…

So the kids’ jackets and backpacks are lying in heaps on the floor by the coat rack. I asked them to clean them up:

“Come one guys, how often do I have to ask you to clean this stuff up?”

As I finished my question I walked around the corner and there, on the floor, is my racquetball bag. Its been there since Monday.

The kids are kind of looking at me. So I reached down, picked up the bag and told them:

“Even I’m guilty of it sometimes. But I’m the Dad and I’m allowed to be guilty.”

I’m sure they noted the distinction.

The lass finally got her long standing Winter wish. She went ice skating. Twice, in fact. The second time on her own skates. Don’t think she doesn’t know what THAT means.

The weather here broke a little this weekend and it was actually pleasant to be outside in less that full blown Arctic gear. So, in a bid to give the kids a little something different to think about, we took them ice skating outdoors at the Kennedy Plaza in Providence.

They offer rental skates there and the thought of sticking her feet in a pair of skates that some other toddler had stuck their sweaty peds into didn’t phase her one bit. She was going to skate. On ice. With Mom and her brother. Sweaty kid’s feet be damned.

… one step back. First, the step forward.

One thing that we’ve are trying to instill into the boy (and the lass) is that while mistakes should be avoided if possible, they are still going to happen and when they do what matters is how he deals with the mistake. One simple, and fairly insignificant, example is spills.

When he spills something, he tends to freeze up and get REALLY mad. To the point where he won’t respond to polite suggestions that all he has to do is clean up the mess. I don’t know if this response is typical of children his age or if it’s a trait that’s his and he’ll have to work on his whole life. Regardless the mechanism, we’re working to teach him a preferrable way.

The boy and the lass have been playing with rubber gloves that the dental hygienist gave to the boy at the end of our visit a few days ago. And by playing, I mean constantly playing with the gloves. They’ve been having adventures of all sorts all afternoon.

The latest adventure has been attempting to blow up the glove by any means. They even tried using a bicycle pump. The boy got so frustrated by that scheme that he yelled “GOD- next time make me better so I can blow up this stupid glove!”

We’ve obviously screwed up the whole Christmas gift thing. On the plus side, at least they’re resourceful.

The boy and the Wife teamed up to make a snowman this morning. They had so much fun that the lass decided that she had to join in the fun as well. Previous, she had declined the chance to go outside in the snow because, well, I guess because she’s at that age. Still, she wasn’t going to let her brother one up her in snowman making.

Well, not completely. However, we’ll be drastically reducing TV time. I used to think that we kept their TV time to a minimum. The Wife and I have been talking and we’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t minimum enough.

Both kids have shown certain attitudes that Grandma is very certain they get from cartoons. The idea didn’t always have much credence with me. But in thinking about it, certain behaviors are very similar to the characters they watch on TV.

So, I guess I’ll have to consider this a New Year’s resolution. Perhaps that will help me to follow through on it with the kids.

When we went out to dinner the other night, we had to wait for a table to open and we got one of those little restaurant beepers. The Wife handed it to the boy and told him to let us know when our table was ready.

“What will happen? What does it do?” he asked.

“It will light up and vibrate” the Wife replied.

“What does ‘vibrate’ mean?”

“It’s like a tickle…” the Wife answered.

The boy considered this definition in the context of the beeper for a moment, leading to the following question:

“Does a hand come out of it or something?”

It was over in 15 minutes.

I got up this morning to deal with the fire at the usual time- about quarter to five or so. The kids were still snuggled in their beds. Presumably sugar plums in their heads. Although, since I can’t figure out what’s going on in their the other 364 days, why should I know now?

I got back to bed half-expecting them to wake up- but they didn’t. I drifted off to sleep again and finally awaken around quarter to seven by the kids. They didn’t come to me, however, they went to the Wife and woke her up. It was time to go open presents. I wasn’t quite ready to get up, but I wasn’t given any choice at that point.

The boy’s last day of school was yesterday. The lass’s was today. The Wife’s vacation started yesterday afternoon.

I wonder how long before we’re all wanting vacation to be over?

One of the most pleasant surprises of the Fall and the Winter this year has been the boy’s attitude towards playing outside. For the past four-and-a-half years, we’ve had to strong arm him to get him outside. If the Wife or myself didn’t go out with him, he would invent and try every excuse his little mind could muster so that he wouldn’t have to go outside.

Then, about mid-Fall, something funny happened. Around dusk he started asking if he could go outside. Then, he would grab a flashlight, grab the dogs and trudge out to the backyard and … play. Running with the dogs, playing with the flashlights, whatever games he could come up with.

Even with the meager first snowfall, he was outside in a flash to play in it. He took the dogs with him as well and would kick the ball around for them as well as throw snowballs. With the latest storm, he’s been going out a couple of times a day, always taking the dogs with him. I watched for a few minutes this morning. He was out there with a shovel throwing as much snow as he could into the air with it. The dogs were jumping into the mini-maelstrom trying to … well, do whatever it is they’re trying to do.

I can’t really say that it’s rewarding because I’m not entirely sure if or how we might have affected his decision. I can say that I’m happy for him. He’s found something here that he looks forward to.

As do the dogs.