Where do my kids get their red hair from?

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Juliette understands her world. Among the things that are pertinent to the world of a two year old, she is perfect in understanding the communication addressed to her (and probably much of what is not addressed to her.)

In the last two months she has started to communicate back to us. She uses whole sentences, though the individual words are less than clear, for the most part. Contextual clues make understanding quite simple. And Everyone in the family works with her on correct pronunciation by repeating her words and emphasizing the key sounds.

This morning she said something she has never communicated before. She comes to sleep in my bed every morning in the wee hours, and she regularly asks to breastfeed. The rule (when I am consciously aware of the situation) is that we don't breastfeed in the middle of the night.

So this morning, when I told her she could snuggle with me but we would not breastfeed, she cried, which is normal. And I repeated myself, which is normal.

But then, as her anguish seemed to be a bit more urgent than usual, she said, with her 2-year-old, marble-filled-mouth pronunciation, "I need the milk!!"

She has successfully learned stage one of "how to get mom to break the rules."

The innocent eyes of a child

Today Keenan asked about skull anatomy. Looking at pictures on the Internet we saw the spinal cord connecting inside the skull. "What is that?" asked Keenan. We talked about how the brain sends messages to different body parts.

A little later we were looking at eye anatomy and saw the fibers connecting the eye and the brain. This sparked conversation about how eyes work-- light hits the eye and the brain turns the light into a picture.

"Does your brain send the pictures down the spinal cord?" asked Keenan. "Sort of," I answered. I am happy he understood the explanations. It is fun to see through the eyes of a child.


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Naomi asked me today how our stuffed tiger, Dinah, can come alive. "How can she talk? How did she travel around the world?" (Dinah was lost and "sent letters" to inform us of her whereabouts: Hawaii, China, back to the U.S.)

Before Dinah was lost, Jon would sometimes pick up Dinah and make her talk. He doesn't hide or anything -- just holds her, moves her limbs, and uses a funny voice. It is in no way deceptive. I do admit that sending letters was a bit deceptive. And, after all, the tiger was lost, and wrote a letter about where she would be, and the kids did find a tiger that looked just like Dinah in the spot the letter said she would be.

Naomi's confusion is understandable. On the one hand, I tell her that monsters aren't real and most of the movies we watch are pretend. She is smart, she trusts me. But it doesn't make sense in her mind how a stuffed animal can move and talk. Even when she can see her Papa moving the toy and talking for her, Naomi doesn't see the deception.

Naomi even asked Papa to "talk for Dinah" when she asked Dinah these questions ("How can you talk ?"and "How did you travel around the world?"

Housekeeping Disease

I have a problem. Whenever my home approaches "nearly acceptable" (which isn't the same as clean but it's as close as I'm going to get at this stage of life), I develop a need to maintain the level of acceptable that I have achieved. I know if I let down my guard for even a few hours, that will be the end.

The problem is that I don't accomplish anything else. And I get very short tempered with my children. I extend my ideal fantasy of a nearly acceptable home to include nearly acceptable children who follow most of the rules and play respectfully with one another. But I am too busy focusing on keeping the home acceptable so I have no energy for teaching them to be pleasant with each other and obedient to the rules. I expect them to achieve these things on their own.

Will there ever be a day when both children and house are simultaneously "nearly acceptable "?

New skills

First Year of Four

I made my first photo book with Shutterfly. Thought I'd share.

First Year of Four

Horizontal

I fell asleep with my feet off the bed. I kept dreaming I was stepping onto trap doors.