Ditching the Evidence

John has a new habit which is both exasperating and funny (not that we can let John see our laughter about it). When we tell him to give something back to us, he runs away and "ditches the evidence." For example, this morning he found a computer disk of lactation handouts of mine. He's not allowed to play with CDs lest he scratch and ruin them, so I said, "John, that's not a toy for you. Hand it back to Mama." In his new typical response, instead he turned tail, ran like crazy, and threw the CD in the other direction. It reminds me of criminals who are fleeing the police and throw the illicit drugs into the bushes so that there will always be doubt in court. It's as if John is saying, "Mama, that wasn't really your CD in my hand. I mean, maybe you think you witnessed it, but how accurate is eye witness? The CD is lying over there on the ground. I am over here minding my own business . . ."

Some Men Bring Flowers

Some husbands come home unexpectedly with flowers. My husband came home yesterday unexpectedly with a garden statue and bird bath! He had driven to a customer meeting several hours away via a rural route and had passed one of those little country homes with all manner of items for sale in the yard and a sign saying, "If you're interested in buying something, call this phone number." Chris called the number and the owner returned there ten minutes later to bargain. The owner at first told Chris that he couldn't reduce his price as much as Chris was asking, but Chris had cash in hand and was closing up his car, ready to walk away when the owner changed his mind. These gifts for my garden cost about as much as a fancy bouquet of flowers, but they'll last much longer!

St. Francis of Assisi stands beneath our Japanese maple, outside the side entrance porch and kitchen window, along the driveway.

We can't tell if the statue of St. Francis Assisi and the bird bath are actually aged or were artificially aged, but we think they're pretty either way.

The bird bath has a crack, so leaks a little bit. (The darker area you see is simply wetness.) We're going to investigate whether there is such a thing as cement sealant.

Another Bird Nest

We have another bird nest! A couple of weeks ago, I bought a hanging fern for our side entrance porch. The first time I watered it, a bird flew out of it right before I poured the water. When that happened the second time I watered it, I decided to investigate and, peering into the leaves, found a nest with eggs!

Do we have crazy birds around here? This porch is a high traffic area, not the best for sitting on eggs. That porch is where the milk man comes every Monday morning, where the dry cleaners pick up and deliver clothing every Tuesday and Friday, and where Chris comes and goes daily when taking out the trash.

I don't want to give the mother bird a heart attack every time I water the fern, but I know that if I don't water it, all the leaves will die and she won't have a hidden place for her nest anymore. What to do?! I'll just have to water the fern carefully and hope for the best.

Mid-day Bliss

We recently received three bins of girl clothing hand-me-downs from Chris' brother's family and I'm having so much fun dressing up Mary! (Thanks, Holly!)

Here Mary is not pushing away John, she's having fun grabbing at his face. When she is in my lap, she likes to concentrate and grab my nose, then burst into peals of laughter.

John loves to give Mary kisses now. (No babies were hurt in the taking of these photographs. John was laying very gently without squishing her and I was sitting right with them.)

Both my little ones are asleep right now. I am five-and-a-half months into motherhood-of-two and a development of the last few weeks is that, more days than not, I get both kids down for the mid-day nap simultaneously. It's bliss! Mary still falls asleep for an early morning nap, often while I'm getting ready to leave for errands. I'll pop her into my sling where she'll fall asleep while I'm getting ready (with no work on my part), then I'll transfer her into the car seat asleep so we can go on errands, then transfer her back onto my person to go into the store, transfer her back to the car seat to drive home . . . . In all of John's life, he was successfully transferred asleep once. That is one time. I still remember it clearly, how I'd come home from the grocery store, I carried him upstairs, and he kept napping. I've done nothing different with how I've handled Mary's sleeping, she's just much more easy about it.

So, Mary takes her early morning nap, then she and John are both falling asleep around 11:30 or noon. I usually have to get him to sleep first because she has trouble falling asleep while he's awake and being chaotic around her. I just hold Mary in my lap while doing nap time routine with John and he doesn't seem to mind if she's squeaking or cooing. Then I go lay down with Mary and get her to sleep: she's so tired by then, it tends to take very few minutes (five?).

Then I get my positively blissful mid-day break when I can do chores productively without wearing an infant and chasing a toddler simultaneously.

Girl and Boy

I was going to post these photos as two blog entries until I noticed that they're rather a good juxtaposition of a girl and boy. Kind of cute.


This week I bought Mary her first infant barrettes. They're soft yet clip very well to her hair. I felt pretty silly with how excited I was to take her out in public with her sweet barrette! (I also have the most beautiful handmade barrettes made by my friend Sierra, but they are bigger and probably won't work in her hair till she's one to two years old.)

And here is our boy wearing his new cowboy boots! John's only boy cousin, Ryan, recently handed down to John some of his old clothing and these great leather cowboy boots. John will need to grow into them, but he loves clomping around in them, especially when he is clad only in a diaper.

Non-White Foods

I've heard of kids liking only white foods, and John has usually been That Kid, but lately he has a new funny food. His current favorite food he calls "doodles": Wacky Mac rotini. Whereas he used to eat only white noodles, now he eats only the colored rotini. First he eats all the dark green ones. Then he eats all the medium brown ones. Then he eats all the light orange ones. Then when the bowl contains only white rotini left, he asks for more.

Five Months 16 Days

Today is the first day Mary did not coat my shirt in spit-up at least once. At the end of the day, my shirt remained clean. Wow.

Things Your Parents Said

Today I had one of those moments when I said something to John that my parents (and parents in general) said to me as a child. At almost two-and-a-half, John asks a lot of questions and often repeats the same question over and over. This morning was hectic and I was already very low on patience when John would not stop asking, "Where are we going, Mom?" I finally gritted my teeth and said, "I'm not going to answer that question anymore."

It was the first time of many I'm sure of telling him that. (I hear that three-year-olds ask way more questions than two-year-olds, especially "why?") I felt kind of bad about my quickly deteriorating mood and took a few deep breaths. Then I remembered a little trick I've developed. I've learned that virtually every time John is asking me the same question incessantly, he actually wants me to ask it of him so he can answer and get it "right." So John asked yet again, "Where are we going, Mom?" I replied, "Where are we going?" John answered gleefully, "On an errand!" And that was the end of that.

ICAN Conference 2009

This weekend was spent in Atlanta so I could attend the 2009 ICAN Conference. It was a wonderful, well-designed conference and I learned so much, plus I got to spend lots of time with my dear friend Elaine who was there! Sadly, we took very few photos all weekend.

Friday night we met Chris' parents for dinner, then visited in our hotel room afterward. The only photo of Grandmom holding Mary is out of focus!

On Saturday, Chris took John to the swimming pool, then out to his brother's house during the day so John could play with his cousins and see Grandmom and Pop-Pops again. Then Chris, Pop-Pops, and John went to visit a nearby lake. Meanwhile, I was having a great time at my conference. On Sunday, I finished up the conference, then missed the last session so we could attend Mass at our old parish before hitting the road to go home.

Language Development and OT Update

Chris and I have been amazed to watch John's language development lately--not that we think it's particularly advanced, but just that the human brain can do such a thing at only two years four months old. Just a couple of weeks ago, I introduced the ABC song into our repertoire of songs we sing casually around the house all day--and I don't know why that one didn't make it in sooner--and last night I discovered that John can sing his ABCs now. Also, one of his favorite books is "My Little Mother Goose" and last night I discovered that he has almost all the 21 poems memorized. It's not like I test him, so I don't have any idea how long he has known these poems. I read the poems as often as he hears them and I don't have them all memorized. Of course, I have a stiff, old brain and John has a gorgeous, expanding youthful brain!

Another new development is John's interest in us telling him a story and his telling the story back to us. We no longer just read books to him, but John asks us, "Tell a story!" We tell stories that are about John, said in the third person. Children love stories in which they are the main characters! In response, John is getting very good at telling stories to me, whether they are stories from real life or repeating a story from a book. It's just amazing to me and so fun!

In other news, our son ate a carrot yesterday. I tell no lie! John seems to be making great progress with his occupational therapist. The OT got him to eat not just peanut butter, but peanut butter with crushed up pretzels in it, then peanut butter with chopped up carrots in it. Meanwhile, in the previous week, John had joyously played with shaving cream on his hands, eaten whipped cream, asked to try a green bean (he licked it), asked to try marinara sauce (he dipped his finger in it and licked it), and asked to eat pretzels covered in peanut butter. I know all of that sounds normal but these are things John would never before have done. We're very happy with the techniques the OT is using and we're doing our "homework" with John during the week.

Playground Visit

Wednesday afternoon we trekked to our neighborhood playground, despite the high winds and loud noises from the pool being repaired nearby.
Despite John's generally cautious nature, he is now an expert at the playground equipment! On a previous visit with me, John had even climbed that rounded staircase/ladder you can see on the video; when I got home, I told Chris how surprised I was that John could climb it by himself and Chris replied that he doesn't let him do that because it's dangerous! (And I had thought it was dangerous too, but I didn't want to be the "lame" overprotective mother who didn't let him do what I thought Daddy lets him do.)



The playground is so convenient to our house. I took this photo to show the lay of the land. I'm standing at the playground and to return home, I'd walk across the grassy field, past the storage shed and tennis courts, then 36 paces through a strip of forest to our back gate. Also, you can see the outdoor volleyball court to the right where John likes to play "sand box." Beyond the picture to the right are the recreation club and pool.

Unfortunately, we've realized that this recreation area must have been a low-lying drainage area when the developer built here. There is a normally dry creek that runs through that strip of forest behind our house and the grassy field itself is essentially a marsh at this time of year. I think this standing water explains the number of mosquitoes who make our back yard almost uninhabitable in summer!

Lately I have been realizing that I don't know almost anything about the etiquette of being a parent around other children. For example, when we were at the playground yesterday, school let out and the parents congregated in the parking lot beyond the volleyball courts to retrieve their kids from the bus stop. Some kids raced over to play at the playground while their moms presumably waited for other buses. Two boys, around six or seven years old, came to play and it was quickly apparent that they were Mean Boys. They were incessantly mocking a same-aged little girl who was trying to play by herself nearby. (And was I supposed to defend her? She didn't have a parent there either. I didn't know what to do!) Meanwhile, John was fascinated with the boys (observing all their mean behavior!) and wanted to play with them. Then one of the boys did a climbing maneuver right over John's head and I perceived it to be dangerous to John, so I asked the boy to be more careful. The boy completely ignored me--and not in a shy way. (Note to self: Be sure to teach our children that they must respond to adults speaking to them.) I didn't want John to approach the boys to play with them because I knew the boys were mean, so we went to play in the volleyball court.

Then at the volleyball court there were two bigger boys, maybe 10 or 11 years old, digging in the sand with their tennis rackets (I'm sure their mothers would have loved that--ha ha!). John desperately wanted to play with them and kept walking ever closer, and then picked up some sand and threw it in their hole. I didn't know whether those boys were going to be mean, but I could tell from their demeanor that they did not want to play with a two-year-old. I was all twisted up inside about what I was supposed to do: I don't want to continually steer John away from approaching other children in a friendly manner. I want him to be better about approaching strangers than I was as a child. But I know that some percentage of the time, he will be rejected and my heart breaks at that! How does that saying go? Something about how a child is his mother's heart outside of her body . . . that's so true. Especially if I already know the kids are going to be mean, I don't want John to bother them. Yet how do I explain that? What do I do? I'm realizing fast that John is not far from discovering that there are kids who are mean. That makes me so sad. Thus far, John has mostly been exposed only to home schooled kids from large families who tend to be gentle and the older ones know how to play well with the littler ones. (Also, I realize that someday one of my kids might be the mean kid, so I don't say all of this from my high horse, as if I'll never be on the other side of things.)

Any tips from more experienced moms are welcome!

New Hats

I bought two hats for Mary for $1.50 each at the consignment store. Can't beat that! The first one is an exquisite, fancy bonnet that I hope she can wear to her cousin's First Holy Communion next weekend.
The other is a little sun hat--still a bit big--but I realized after I got home that I'm not sure how it is supposed to be worn. This is one possible way, but then the tag is in the "front."

But if I put the tag in the "back," then the front looks like this, which is a little odd. Any ideas? (Perhaps the tag has to be in the front because the back of the hat has that cute little split design meant to be at the nape of the neck.)

I think Mary's age-appropriate stranger anxiety is setting in. This morning one of Chris' coworkers stopped by so they could carpool to the office for meetings. Mary was fine until I turned her away from me to look at the coworker and, when he made direct eye contact with her, Mary's little face crumpled into silent tears.

Flowers for Mary

Yesterday after dinner John played in the back yard while I transplanted our marigold seedlings and picked weeds. There were some gorgeous flowers that had fallen to the ground, so I placed them at the feet of Our Lady's statue, showing John that I was giving her flowers. Well, he promptly gave her his most prized possession of the moment: a giant stick. Then when he saw me picking weeds and tossing them away, he ran and gave those delicately to Mary as well. I tried to explain the difference between plants we like and weeds, but it was beyond him, so I let him continue giving the weeds to Mary.

Last Sunday John began using the title "Virgin Mary" for the first time, instead of just plain Mary. I have been hoping to catch it on video tape, but haven't yet. While we were playing outdoors last night, I noticed John suddenly become still as he spotted something far away, inside the sun room. He walked inside and picked up my house key on a small key chain of Our Lady (the Miraculous Medal). He gasped and declared, "It's the Virgin Mary! The same!" and he pointed to the statue.

John sure does miss his daddy, who is on another business trip. For the last two mornings, John has woken and immediately declared that he had to find Daddy, so I explained again where he is. In the middle of the night last night, John woke and cried for at least 15 minutes, asking for his daddy. The most pathetic of all was this morning when we were loading into the car--John looking particularly adorable wearing his cowboy hat--and John opened the van door, then closed it on his finger. Crunch! He burst into fat weeping tears and my kisses just weren't enough. "I want Daddy! I want Daddy! Oh Daddy, I miss you very much!" Well, this mama got all tearful at the sound of that!

Confession

I love when toddlers rat themselves out unwittingly.

John approaches Mama in the den: "Mama, where is the cat food?"

Mama (suspicious): "I don't know, where is the cat food?"

John (gleefully): "In Missy's water bowl!" (He has, once again, put the pieces of cat food into the cat's water bowl.)

You know, at least he makes my detective work easier on me.

Mary Before Mass

She has been sucking her lower lip lately, either for comfort or because it feels interesting, I don't know.

New Play Room

We have a 400-square-foot bonus room above the garage that has undergone several major changes since we moved into this home a year ago. It was not baby proofed and it does not have a doorway at the top of the stairs that come off the kitchen, so we were in continual battle to keep John out of there. (Nor would a baby gate attach at the bottom of the stairs. We couldn't put a baby gate at the top of the stairs either because the litter box was up there and my cat Missy is too fat and old to leap over gates anymore.) We were so tired of the battling with John that we baby proofed the room as best we could and made it a play room. (Now there is only one room left not baby proofed: the combination guest room-Mama's office-sewing room upstairs.)

Here is the view as I stand at the top of the stairs opening into the room. John can open those file cabinets, so I have temporarily closed the doors with packing tape. You can see that I moved the bookshelf in front of the little doorways that open into a crawl space. I bought the cute Kindergarten classroom-style decorations at the dollar store.
A view from the stairs straight back to the windows overlooking the back yard. I have a little stereo I'll be putting on top of those file cabinets so John can listen to music up there. What he loves most about this room is the wide open space so he can run madly in circles ("dancing!").

He can do artwork at the craft table:

I can walk on the treadmill while watching TV and having the kids play idyllically around me. Even better, I can continue to talk about walking on the treadmill a year after moving into this home and having walked on the treadmill all of--let me count--zero times.

The TV nook, with the armoire locked so that John doesn't turn on the TV without our supervision:

The view toward the top of the stairs. You can see a collection of empty cardboard boxes: that is for shipping gifts and such. I figure that if John gets into them, he can't get hurt and empty cardboard boxes are loads of fun. Also note the baby gate I have at the top of the stairs: that is to prevent a toddler running wildly while having fun from failing to look where he is going and careening down the stairs. Just today while we were up there, John did just that: went running wildly and smacked himself into the baby gate, thus not falling down the stairs.

In the future, this room stands a high probability of also being used for home schooling.

Planting Annuals

The local grocery store was having a loss-leader sale on annuals, $1 per 6-pack. I am planting white and fuchsia impatiens on either side of the walkway to the front door and am planting dark purple Sweet Alyssum in two spots near the walkway to the side entrance.

Reading in Bed

Some of what John is saying to himself:

"I'm not going."

"That tools, no, that's a ladder."

"That is a paramedic."

"That is a crash rig."

"[???] go this way, [???] go this way." [Imitating when Daddy reads the fire engine book and the fire chief tells me the men, "You go this way, you go that way!"]

Does Our Lady Have a Home?

Our new statue of Our Lady might have found a home in the back yard. We found a spot that seems almost made for the statue, as it is surrounded by three Lenten rose plants and before it is a pretty green carpet. When Chris set down the grotto, John immediately ran to stand in it. He declared repeatedly, "This is a beautiful house."
While digging in the plants, Chris happened to find the top of an old bird feeder which had blown down in a storm and has been missing for months. John instantly knew what to do with it and "crowned" Our Lady. He declared it solemnly a "beautiful crown." In fact, he wouldn't stop saying, "It's a beautiful crown," and there was no way we were going to tell him otherwise! I think the Blessed Mother would be touched to wear such a "crown" just as many of us moms have worn our children's jewelry handmade from pipe cleaners and dried macaroni noodles.

A more distant shot:

New Mary Statue

Chris and I have wanted a Marian statue since we married. Recently we've had the money set aside and, for the last year or so, have been slowly looking. A few days ago, Chris was on a one-day business trip when he drove past a statuary, found a statue and grotto he liked at a very reasonable price, and, after emailing me a photo from his phone, we bought it!
When Chris arrived home, John climbed into the back of his SUV and onto Mary, whom he kissed, all of his own accord.

We temporarily placed the statue next to the driveway, although we will be moving it into the back yard. Tonight while leaving on our walk, John kissed the statue repeatedly.

Today was also the first day that John remarked to me that Mary (the Blessed Virgin) has the same name as Mary (his sister). Imagine that! After kissing the statue, John said that the Mary statue should have a baby on her back, just like I had baby Mary on my back. I told him that was very clever and it's quite possible that Our Lady carried baby Jesus on her back!

Fun with Big Boy Toys

John learning how to ride his new (used) Sit N Spin:


John learning how to ride his new (used) tricycle, which he calls a "trikle."

John playing with his new (used) golf caddy, which he persists on calling a "trash can" because it rolls like our outdoor garbage can.

Have I said that I love consignment and thrift stores?

Crochet Roses

Imagine my delighted surprise to open a package from my dear friend Elaine and discover that she had crocheted roses for what John now calls our "rosary game"? What a wonderful gesture! Thank you, Elaine!
The other day I walked into the den to find John holding a plastic rosary and saying, "Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace."

Update on Occupational Therapy

Most of our close friends and family know about John's eating issues, but I thought I'd put a little update on the blog now that he is four sessions into his occupational feeding therapy. He was diagnosed with "moderate to severe texture aversion resulting in a low variety of oral intake" (although his caloric intake is fine). Another phrase used was "oral sensory texture aversion." He has mixed oral hyposensitivity (he can't feel where the food is in his mouth) and hypersensitivity (then the food goes down his throat too fast, alarms him, and sets off his gag reflex, so he chokes and vomits).

Part of me thinks this is potentially all hooey, one more thing to diagnose and manage. I think about how starving kids growing up in Indian shanty towns don't have texture aversions. But the other part of me thinks this is all very valid and I'm so extremely relieved to have a plan, to have something we can do to help John eat better. It certainly can't hurt, so we're going ahead with the occupational therapy.

John has been working on sucking out of straws and I've taken away most of his sippy cups, which apparently can cause oral problems (I suspect this happens more in kids who already have underlying issues). John wants to put any straw on his back molars through the side of his mouth and bite down hard, thus crushing even hard, semi-permanent straws. The therapist has the neatest way she has taught him to suck from the front middle of his lips and without using his teeth, although he still needs reminders and practice.

John is supposed to play with whistles. (Oh great, a two-year-old with loud noise-making devices!) There is a whole hierarchy of whistles that require the mouth to make different motions, so I am supposed to start with him on the whistles at the most basic level. They should be available at the dollar store, but three stores later I'm still hunting for them.

I'm supposed to be talking to John about textures--in food and in anything else--to give him vocabulary for what he is feeling. So I'll chat with him about how his cereal is crunchy, his ice cream is cold and smooth, the pudding is squishy, and so forth. Just a week into that, with my remembering to do it only a few times, John has already started to volunteer comments like, "I hear crunching!" (as he crunches his food).

Today John and the OT worked with pudding, which is a consistency John absolutely will not eat and doesn't even want to touch. The OT played a game of hiding John's sesame sticks in the pudding and asking him to dig them out. He would not use his fingers, but would use a spoon. Then he'd take the chocolate-covered sesame stick off the spoon and place it on a nearby napkin. Then he'd freak out about the pudding that was on his fingers, asking me to "clean it!" We would give him his own napkin and ask him to clean his hands himself, which he did because I refused to do it for him. We went through this game several rounds, with every step needing to be encouraged/bribed/manipulated with offers of playing with a toy he wanted.

Part of something I am supposed to do at home is find ways for him to play with the pudding texture he dislikes. Ideas are to use shaving cream, whipped cream, or mud. This has me reflecting on how several people who have watched John eat have remarked how fastidious he is for his age. I wonder if this is because John hates certain textures on his hands so much that he will only eat in a fastidious way. Reflecting back, he never played with food to quite the degree that I think is typical for babies. He never squished it all up in his hands and spread it around. Now, he does play with his food a little bit and we've always stopped him. Something we're going to try now is allowing him to play with his food (keeping it on the table, not throwing it), especially if it is a food texture that normally bothers him. He can always learn table manners fairly easily when he's so much as three years old.

(On a related note, this afternoon we played in the back yard, which John loves to do and asks for every day, but it was still rather muddy from recent rains. John got a little bit of muddy dirt on his feet (in sandals) and hands. He was so disturbed that he wanted to go inside and give up playing outdoors just so that I'd wash him clean. How sad is that?)

Also today, the OT used her "buzzy bee," as she calls it, with John. John did not want this thing near his mouth, so in a very friendly way the OT let him play with it and we talked about how it buzzed like a bee. Then the OT would let it buzz on some distant part of John's body, like his knee or his chest. Then John would get to buzz it on the OT. The woman worked closer and closer to John's mouth, putting the buzzy bee on his cheek, forehead, nose, and finally his lips. She works gently in order to avoid John becoming obstinate.

It's all very interesting for me! Now, it's probably not interesting at all for most other people, but I thought this was an effective way to update the grandparents and a few friends. Thanks for your patience!

Easter Monday

On Monday the kids and I visited my friend Marla's house, as she had most generously offered to host a little egg hunt for John. It turns out her kids had the day off of school, so John's most beloved babysitter Zach (Marla's son) was there to play with him. (Recently at night prayers, John even thanked God for Zach! So cute!) John got to find eggs, pet a kitty cat, play with Zach and his sisters and brother, chase a ball, eat cookies, throw marshmallows, and generally run wild. It was so fun.

"New" Auto Tool Chest

Why do I buy things used for the kids? Isn't that a little silly? Not when today I found this Black & Decker Junior Rolling Auto Tool Chest for only $10 when it sells new for $160! It comes with a hammer, a screw driver, a working air wrench, other tools, and a car to "fix." John kept shouting gleefully, "I have a hammer! I have a hammer!"