A Day in the Life of My Little

Usually, Mal wakes up with his computer, like some grown-ups do coffee. But today, he jumped headlong into playing, and just did not stop all day. So here are some pictures of the way his days usually go. Spoiler alert: There is lots and lots of Disney's Cars.

A lot of times, after he's played Cars, he adds in other stuff. Here, we're playing fire station Cars.

Here, he's acting out a racing scene from Cars 3.

At this point, we'd gotten dressed and were playing Cars for a minute, then would read "A Very Hungry Caterpillar," comparing the pictures in the book to our refrigerator magnets. We read it at least half a dozen times.

Then Mal brought in the "marble maze" he does with his dad's carboy and funnel.

Mal is making a "pathway" with the bulldozer, then he used the marbles as a track outline to race the... yes... Cars.

Outside break, because it's a GORGEOUS day!

He was "hiding" from me.

We moved to the back yard to play for a while.

We ended up at Veteran's Memorial Park for an hour.

Then we went to the sculpture garden.

We met James at Logan's Roadhouse for dinner, then James took Mal to Target to get some soda, and Mal talked James into buying... MORE CARS.

So when Mal got home, we had to get out the Paw Patrol track to use as a racetrack.

He did finally watch TV for about half an hour, then took James into his room to play for a while. He finished up the night by playing "Cars get stuck in the 'mud'" (play dough).

When he was finally ready to go to bed, it took about 4 minutes. But most days, it's non-stop from wake-up to falling to sleep!

Thanks for spending our day with us!

That Time I Accidentally Drugged My Kid

Mal went to sleep last night about like normal. At 11:30, he woke up crying and coughing. After I held him for a minute and tried nursing him to help with his throat, it became clear that it wasn't helping at all. I went to get him some medicine, and he freaked out when I left the room, even after I had explained what I was doing.

The more upset he got, the more barking his cough got, and it was to the point where his chest was shuddering loudly every time he inhaled, too. James had to help me open the cough medicine, and I had a pain reliever in line, too, when I decided he needed a breathing treatment to open up his airways.

Mal has witnessed me doing breathing treatments before, but we've never tried one on him before. He HATED it. Although I had him set on the bathroom counter and was holding him, he managed to wriggle away, without even putting the inhaler up to his face. He was screaming, "I don't want it! I don't want it!" and sounding more and more in distress.

He ran into the closet, and I know he was just completely freaked out because he's super sensitive both to light and to sound after he's asleep (just like I was/am). I got him and held him on the bed while James reloaded the nebulizer. Mal had just calmed down when we tried again, in the bedroom, and again, he screamed and wriggled away.

I was angry. I wasn't mad at Mal, per se. But I was scared to death that we were going to have to go to the hospital, I was certain that the breathing treatment would help him, and I was upset that his fear is bigger than his trust that we wouldn't do anything other than help him.

I left him with James and went into the bathroom to get the pain reliever. James got Mal calmed down, then I gave him the medicine, and we went back into the bedroom to see if he could breathe okay.

As James was lying him down, I realized... I'd given him children's Benadryl instead of acetaminophen. Oh well. Allergies are awful around here, anyway, so I figured that wouldn't hurt, and might help him sleep.

And I KNOW. It's a rookie mistake that could be dangerous. But we don't have medicines that are risky for a one-time accidental dose, and also... we were all a little frazzled. I'll look more carefully next time. Turns out we were out of pain reliever, a situation I've already remedied.

Mal was pretty congested all night, but otherwise okay. James had asked, after Mal calmed down, if I wanted to take him to urgent care, but he seemed to be a little better, and we waited it out. He seems 100% this morning, but did tell James, "You scared me last night!" We both apologized, but I also told him sometimes, you have to do scary stuff to help you feel better.

Anyway, guess what? Benadryl does not affect his sleep either way. That kid is a perpetually-charged machine. And he's been in no way groggy today. So glad I never resorted to using that to help him sleep. No dice.

FYI, if Mal ever tells you he had a story, and says something incomprehensible... He means "dream" when he says "story." I mean, he means story sometimes, but he never says "dream."

Today, Mal wanted to play outside, and it's just so dry and chilly that I almost hated to, but I try not to say "no" to outside unless it's absolutely necessary. His poor lips are all cracked and red, but he had a blast. At first, he tried going out in undershorts and a long-sleeved shirt, even after I'd told him to put on clothes. "I have on pants, see!" He quickly came back in asking for a coat, and I convinced him that pants first and THEN a coat might be wise.

Mal hates mittens, so before it got cool this year, I bought him gloves. They only sell mittens in his size, so I got ones that are for a slightly larger child, and it's some work getting his hand comfortably in them. 

I have been saying, "Push your hand forward while I pull up," but he doesn't get it. When I pull the cuffs up, his arms yield to the direction. Today, I had an idea. I said, "Try to touch my boob." THAT WORKED. As he reached out toward me, I pulled the gloves all the way on. He never made it to the target, but I call that a success.

Have a great weekend!

Childhood is Magic

This morning, Mal found the basting brush in a drawer, and decided that he wanted to "paint food." So, we toasted a slice of bread, melted a pat of butter, and mixed some green food coloring in with the butter.

And after that, we added jelly on top, because Mal just doesn't appreciate plain butter toast like I do.

Then tonight, at about 9 PM, after he'd watched the "Nighttime" episode of Daniel Tiger, Mal decided he wanted to go outside and "find out what's special at night." At the time, I was in the middle of a very long hold waiting for customer service to fix an error. But James manned the speaker phone while I took Mal out onto the porch.

After we'd handled that business, Mal said, "Okay, let's go in the car!" So... We did. James, Mal, and I got on shoes and decided to go to the lake to see what was special at night over there. I'm glad we did!

First, when we got there, we drove through a scene where the police had their high-beams on and were talking to two people with very large dogs. We decided to go in the far entrance, and then park.

As we pulled into a space, we saw a frog under a tree. It's funny, because that's one of the things Daniel Tiger sees on his night walk, and Mal had (wrongly) said on our porch, "I hear the frogs!"

Before we got out of the car, James and I got to see the frog catch and eat something. Then we walked over, and the frog was nonplussed by James's flashlight pointed at it. I told Mal, "If you want to pet it, you can. It will jump, if you do." So he did, and the frog hopped away. Mal was tickled.

See the vertical-ish line to the left and about in the center? That's the frog's back.

Then we went over to the playground, where a little girl was actually playing in the dark as her family packed up their stuff from an afternoon on the water. There were boats coming in, and a surprising amount of activity, for it to be 9:30 at night.

It was actually pretty nice, Mal getting to play on the playground without burning his legs on the slide, and without my having to hide under the play structure for shade.

When we left, we were going to drive around a bit more and decided to stop by Sonic. Mal ended up falling asleep on the way back from Sonic, without even eating any of his French fries. So guess what he's having for breakfast tomorrow?

If we didn't have a toddler who wanted to explore after dark, we probably wouldn't have gotten out this evening. I'm glad we had a tour guide who wanted to explore the magic.

The moon through our trees.

Cloud cover

Clearing Out and Pondering Stuff

We have this really cute curio cabinet that I mistakenly thought was a bookshelf, so I put books on it and... well, a picture is worth a bunch of words, apparently, so:

In addition to the wavy shelving, it was leaning forward. Way forward. And the shelf is on top of another cabinet unit, so you're basically looking at a death trap waiting to be sprung.

So, I did what any responsible parent would do: I gave the shelf to someone else. And as I was clearing it out this week, I came across a few things that made me stop and think. Dang, I hate it when that happens.

The first thing I found was this.

I bought this magazine in early 1998, about the same time I was buying tickets to go to the 20th anniversary sing-along showing of Grease at a theater in Las Vegas. I know, I know. Here in Austin with the Alamo Drafthouse, there are sing-alongs all of the time. But this wasn't the case nearly 20 years ago.

I loved Grease, and I thought this would be a neat magazine to have for posterity's sake. I was living in a condo near the airport at the time, and this magazine traveled with me to the house we bought in northwest Las Vegas, then to Boys Town, then to Washington state for a few months, back to Las Vegas, to our move to north Texas... For some reason, I remember that I kept this in the broken drawer of my built-in vanity at the house in Sherman. Anyway, when I went through the divorce and moved into the RV, it was there, and then to the Nuthaus and now to Vogelfutter.

So I look at this magazine now, and I wonder, "Why?!" I have zero emotional attachment to this thing, and why do I still have it?! I should just throw it away, but I can't help but feel that someone else might want it. But probably not. This thing has traveled with me for nearly twenty years! It's time for it to go bye-bye. Because I just can't remember why, or come up with a new one that justifies keeping it.

Another thing that I came across was James' 4th grade journal, and I set it aside to read last night. It was entertaining and insightful from beginning to end.

Three weeks in, James announced that he'd developed a couple of opinions about the school year: "1) I'm going to like the 4th grade. 2) I am not going to have to study harder." Have I mentioned that my husband is very very smart? Because he is and always has been. No joke.

Anyway, the thing that struck me most (yes, even more than the introduction of the "new" game of Frogger that he happily discovered delivered to his Safeway) was this thing.

Yes, he's a proud little guy. That shows up several times in his writings. But I love the enthusiasm of his "greatest idea." AND the "Why not?" attitude.

For a day or two, at least, because then this happened:

Do you hear a balloon deflating? The "wah-wah" trombone of Debbie Downer? "We don't get to do, nobody will supervise us."

It makes me so so sad. For fourth grade James, and for every kid who ever had an amazing idea that got shot down by a grown-up because it wasn't important to the grown up to try to find a way to make it happen.

Listen, I understand. There are probably liability issues with allowing a group of unsupervised kids use the gym or the front lawn or whatever outside of school hours. I get that teachers have families and lives and already give more than they have to to the school.

But, dang it, if just one person could have been there to say, "We can't do this officially as a school thing, but let's try to figure out how to make it happen, anyway..."

Sigh.

This. This is one reason I unschool. I want to see what the kids are going to do of their own volition. Maybe it's sit around and watch videos all day. And maybe it's writing a play comparable to Shakespeare or Miller. Or maybe it's just using the oven for the first time, even though you've always been scared of it, because *you* wanted to bake brownies, not because someone told you to make something.

Adults often complain that kids are not motivated or lazy, but the truth is that a lot of times, they just don't want to do the stuff we want them to do, things that seem important to us, but for which they have no context and don't find important in the least. What if we set them free to pursue what they find important? What could they accomplish? What would Mrs. White's 1981-1982 4th grade class have accomplished?

Finally, I've been seeing (and reseeing) a bunch of memes lately about the things that "drive me crazy": things like not replacing the toilet paper roll, but just putting a new roll of TP on the counter; a kid folding laundry but not doing the "right" folds on the towels; that kind of thing. In fact, I was doing a search for the toilet paper meme, and, good grief... You can actually get a sign to put in your bathroom that says, "Replacing the toilet paper will not give you brain damage." Someone PAYS to have a sign like that in their house.

I guess if you're using it as a humorous reminder, okay, whatever. But there is an anecdote that I believe was in 30 Days of Purpose, and if not, it was in something Rick Warren wrote... and it's literally the only thing I remember about him except that when he and his wife went to visit some small African village, their helicopter blew the corrugated steel roof off of the school building.

Anyway, he said that he used to get really bothered by the fact that his wife didn't refill the ice trays when she used ice. He said that every time he had to refill them himself, knowing he hadn't used the last ice, he would grumble in his head, if not out loud. One time, he was so bothered, his self-talk went like this: "Seriously, this only takes six seconds. It's not like--" Then he realized "it only takes six seconds" applied to him as well as to her. He allowed himself to consider whether his wife was worth serving, with kindness and no ill will, for six tiny seconds, as he did something that was very important to him, and apparently not important to her.

I've remembered this for probably 15+ years. I don't always practice it, but I really try to.

Do you know what I do when I got into either of our bathrooms and the toilet paper is out? I replace it. Do I get mad at the person who let it run out and didn't replace it? No. I sincerely don't. I'm sure I do and don't do things that the other people in this house wish I did differently, too. It's nothing for me to fix the toilet paper. I hope it's nothing for them to extend grace to me.

There are lots of things that could and used to get on my nerves that I realized don't bother me when I don't let them. Most of that annerved reaction is because of pride. Because I feel like I'm not being respected or that my time is too valuable to waste doing whatever it is that didn't get done.

An example: The other day, the trash was put out for the complex valet service, which means the container we use for recycling was outside. We just put a recycling bag in the pantry to use until we pull the empty can back in. My older child had brought some trash up and had basically just sat it on the floor, on top of the bag, but not in it. Me from several years ago would have gone into the bedroom, marched the child back into the kitchen, shown the child the offending trash, and insisted that it be put away correctly. This time? I just put it in the bag and mentioned later, "If you don't feel like putting the trash into the bag, just leave it on the counter and I'll throw it away." And the reaction made me think that it wasn't intentional. It hasn't happened again, either.

There is enough to be genuinely bothered about for me to waste negative energy at the people in my house. We're all on the same team. And now I'll get off of that soap box.

By the way, if Mal ever folds the towels, I'll put them away however he manages to stack them. I don't care. You can't see them when the cabinet is closed. Done and done.

Finally, somethnig... uh, interesting. James' co-worker brought these and thought I might appreciate them. Because I'm a moo-cow, you see? *sigh*

If you think that looks dirty, you're not alone. From this page: "Thought it was a certain action of the boys, and later learned that only 'milking'." Oh, those boys.

And speaking of boys, the same co-worker who brought this in for me is the one who drew a "cool/weird" scale about me and put me way higher on the "weird" side than the "cool" side.

Anyway, I'm going to have these for breakfast in the morning, so wish me luck.

Growing Kids

Hello, Internets!

This pleasingly dichromatic picture brought to you by my letting the boy hang out diaperless on the bed too long.

As you might remember, we have not one, but two children. I wish I could give you loads of updates on both, but one of them is a teenager who is very private, very introverted, and wisely wary of what ends up on the internet in regards to herself (this she did not get from me). I will say that, while she might not recognize this, having her as a child has made me and is making me a better parent and a better person, slowly and painfully, but we're getting there.

One big thing is that it's cured me forever of ever even thinking, "Gosh, if that were my kid, here's what I'd do..." You don't know. You never know. And things might not make sense to anyone looking in, but really, I'm learning that the best support you can be for another parent is to listen, only throwing in tips if they're requested, and even then being very aware of the other family's parenting style, and being totally prepared for them not to take your advice at all. In order to be the best support, though, I think that you have to keep listening and sympathizing without being frustrated that the other parents are not doing it "right" or "different" or "better." I hope I can be this kind of friend to everyone else. Feel free to spill if you need an ear.

Now, the other kid. I try to be cautious of what I put online regarding him, so it's not too intrusive. There are things that crack me up that I won't share here because they cross a line. But I don't think this does, so here.

Because why wouldn't you?

Mal is growing up so much, and parenting him is in many ways so much easier than it was. But his opinions are strengthening, and he is very very determined to make us understand him and to bend us to his will that he will often cry over an issue for an hour or more, over and over, re-upsetting himself after calming down -- and these are things we cannot fix for him, like the fact that it's after 6 PM and the apartment office is closed (they have marshmallows), or that we don't have McDonald's French fries, we only have frozen ones that we have to cook (and, yes, one weekend, James and I each took him through the drive-through at McD's on a Saturday, and this might have ruined him!).

This next thing I'm hesitant to mention, because I truly don't find it important in terms of development or indication of future mental prowess or success, but I'm still going to note it so that I'll remember and because it so well illustrates that unschooling works in that kids learn whether you sit them down and force feed them or not.

Mal knows some letters. Some by name, and some phonetically. He knows "b" and sometimes "d" but also sometimes says "b" for "d." "B" he gets right every time. He knows "i" and "y" (he says "by"). He says "ssss" for "x" and "mum" for "m." Sometimes, he'll just surprise us by pointing to something with a letter on it and saying the letter or its sound. Did we teach him this? Um, no. He has picked it up from watching his favorite videos over and over again.

I reiterate: this is apropos of nothing, but just kind of funny.

Regarding "mum," this is also what he calls the moon. We'll be outside and he'll point up, saying, "Mum! Mum!" He will also point at the Death Star decal on his wall and say, "mum" while shaking his head "no." In other words: "That's no moon."

He will know all of the Star Wars memes before he ever sees the movie. In the book "Epic Yarns: A New Hope" that some friends gave Mal, he does several things: He breathes asthmatically when we see Darth Vader. He points to Greedo on the page introducing Han Solo and says, "Die!" And when we get to the garbage scene, he says, "waycanebeee," which, of course, is translated, "3PO! 3PO! Where can he be??"

Back to his videos: He usually watches compilations that are a half hour to an hour long. Lately, though, he will pick out a particular song and ask for us to "rewind" it so he can watch it over and over and over. Later, we'll often catch him acting out parts of the videos. James is sure when we were on the train that he was doing a cadence from "Walking in the Jungle" by Super Simple Songs.

Thing is, the next day, or even later that day, the video he watched 40 times in a row is repugnant to him, and the one he insisted we skip is the one upon which he lavishes his attention.

I'm going to treat you to something special. It's the freaking weirdest video on the definitely weirdest channel he likes (that I let him watch; Videogyan would be one in the rotation, but I have my limits).




Yeah. Explain that to me, if you will. On second thought, don't. Some things are better left a mystery. (P.S. These are the dudes behind these videos, if you can believe that. Not a bunch of Einstein-baby-moms, huh?)

When I bought Mal's car seat, I didn't realize it had an upper weight limit of 40, something he is approaching rapidly. I went ahead and got him a replacement seat, and yesterday we received it. I had not anticipated how sad this would make him. He cried and cried when he saw it, begging to go see his old car seat. We went down to the van and I put the new seat in the captain's chair beside the old one, asking him if he wanted to get in the new seat. He didn't. He sat in the old one, wanting to be strapped in (we were only going to the mailbox, but I did it). He kept crying and saying, "Bye bye... bye bye." So I guess we'll use the old one until he's definitely 40 pounds. He still has a few pounds to go. I'm going to keep the new seat in the car so he gets used to it and maybe that will help the transition.

Mal continues to be really interested in music and instruments. He has his ukulele as well as an "air piano" (like a recorder, but with keys, so it sounds a lot like a harmonica) and a little novelty keyboard with about 8 notes on it. He will pull out James' guitar and whatever other instruments he wants to use and have us all pitch in to make really horrible music while he strums his ukulele ("la la") and sings happily. He gets really upset with me when he hands me James' guitar and I try to coax something vaguely musical out of it, one string at a time. So I just strum randomly with him and that usually placates him.

James can really play, though. Mal's interest has sort of forced/accommodated James' practice almost every day (some work days are just too long, though). I love hearing him play. He's really good, and classical guitar is just lovely.

It will be interesting to see whether Mal ends up playing one or many instruments. I think he'd love a drum set, but we'll probably have to wait until he understands earphones and get him an electric kit or else his big sister, the day sleeper, might just have a conniption. Incidentally, she had a little drum kit when she was 5ish, but there were no other kids to complain about the noise.

I can tell nap time is wrapping up, so until next time... (as they say in that video) Bye byeeeeeee!