In Overdrive

You know how life sometimes just plods along for months on end?  I had a life like that.  It was great.  I enjoyed it.

Then this spring/summer happened and things just started happening.  One thing after the other.  And while on the outside it doesn´t seem like life has changed much, my head is still trying to catch up.

The changes started out small.  I wanted to take a yoga class.  No big deal, right?  Not at all!  But I don´t have childcare, so this seemed like a harder thing to manage than it should have been.  I put it on the back burner.  Then my best neighbor mentioned that her college-student-daughter wasn´t able to find a job for the summer.  Hmmm . . . no job?  My kids love her.  She likes my kids . . . I´ll give her a job!

So Diana took Clara to school and watched Joey for 2 hours twice a week while I did yoga.  What a great break in our routine!  And it set me up for a few other changes . . .

So big!

A few weeks later, Clara´s teacher teased Joey about whether he´d go to school in the fall.  It was never my plan to send him until he was 4.  But he told Maestra Mary very enthusiastically that yes, he wanted to go to school.  I kept asking him and asking him in any number of ways, trying to trip him up.  He was consistent.  He wanted to go to school.

I told him he had to stop wearing diapers if he wanted to go to school in the fall.  He stopped wearing diapers.  So I signed him up.  While part of me thinks it might be slightly better for his development to be at home, playing at whatever he wants to play with, I really can´t think of any real reason not to send him, since he so clearly wants to go.  It´s only 3 hours a day.  It´s FREE.  Maestra Mary will be his teacher and we already know her and like her.  And he loves being with other little kids and really doesn´t get enough opportunities to play with other little boys.  So here´s his chance.

Now I´m left wondering what I´m going to do for 3 hours by myself every morning.  I´ve got to say, I´m loving the dilemma, and am quite confident that I´ll have no problem filling the time.  (Ooo--I have a blog?  Maybe I´ll write more than once a month!)  Another solution to the empty hours came our way a week later.

A dog followed us home from school.  He looked hungry.  I told him that if he followed us home, I´d give him some turkey.  He did and I did.  A month later, he´s still living in our garage.  We can´t see his ribs anymore, and I think he likes calling our garage home now.  He´s growing on me, and Clara has declared him her favorite toy.  Not sure that´s what his role should be, but we´ll roll with it for now.

However, Doggy is still a big fan of jumping up on us, so training this beast might fill quite a bit of time for me in my mornings.  That, and I LOVE to take him for walks.  Sniffy and I--we are going to tear up this town this fall!


So, my vision for this fall--a bit different than I had planned on a few weeks ago.

Are bigger changes on the horizon?  Possibly.  And maybe not.  But whatever comes (or doesn´t), I´m getting used to changes.  I´m even kind of liking them.

So bring it on!

Clara´s Game

Ever since my parents brought Clara Candy Land for her third birthday, she´s been a big fan of board games.

So much so that she invents her own games.

Usually, her games are a little hard to follow.  Or they lack strategy.

But this week´s is a winner!  I´ve asked to play it more times that she has.

 1)  Evenly divide up the shape pieces between all players.  We´ve played with just two players and have had up to four.

  2)  Players take turns placing a piece on the board with one straight edge of said piece in complete contact with either the edge of the board or another piece that´s already been played.

  3)  Point of the game?  Fill up the board!

The trick is not to run out of room, and (magically) given the number of pieces, the shape and size of said pieces, and the size of the board, it always gets tight toward the end, but the board is always filled up.

 It´s rather like putting a puzzle together, but getting a different result every time.

 Way to be a game inventor, Clara!

Milestones on Both Sides!

What´s new with us in the last week?  A number or things!

I´ve gotten serious about Joey getting potty trained.  Now, I´ve been a big believer in T. Berry Brazelton and Magda Gerber´s advice to just let kids potty train on their own schedule.  It sure seems like the easiest way to do it.  However, after a very promising few weeks in September, Joey has had NO interest in learning to use the toilet.  I was planning on letting him take his sweet time and not force the issue until he turned 3.  I remember very well the months and months and months it took Clara to learn how to use the potty.  But, in retrospect, I started her too early.

It dawned on me last week or so that Joey is showing every single benchmark for potty training readiness that there could possibly be.  And then it dawned on me that this was just silly.  I KNOW he can go potty.  He did it just fine for a few weeks in the fall.  Then he got scared off after having a few accidents.  So I backed off.  All winter.

But now it´s warm enough to run around naked all the time.  So that´s what we´re doing.  And it´s working out pretty well.

It´ll be awhile before we venture into the world of underwear again, but . . .you go,  Joe!

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Clara´s milestone came on Tuesday when we were eating popscicles in the patio and she complained about her tooth hurting.  Turns out, she has her first loose tooth!

Truth be told, this threw me a little.  I´m not one of those people who cringe at birthdays and lament the passing of the years.  But . . . but, but--you´re five!  You can´t possibly be losing teeth yet!

I guess she can.  *sigh*

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For the last year, Joey has been taking some serious, two-hour-long naps (or longer).  This afternoon he woke up after a mere half hour.  Instead of getting him out, I let him know that he needed to rest for a full hour (because I needed the full hour) and I would be happy to give him some books to entertain himself with for the remaining half hour. He thought that was swell!

So here´s hoping for another smooth transition from naptime to rest hour.  Whew!

However, now he just started playing with the knob to his bedroom door, so I´m guessing that I´m out of peace and quiet pretty soon.

First Bullfight and Other News (or lack thereof)

Pablo Hermoso was back in town this weekend, and Mario was dead set on getting tickets. Pablo Hermoso is a bullfighter who does all his bullfighting on horseback, and he´s pretty famous.  I haven´t enjoyed watching him in the past--I was too afraid for his horses. 

But now, after seeing him on Saturday, it´s clear that he is quite a master and that he spends a good deal more time training those horses than many people do with their children.  It was clear he wouldn´t let anything happen to them.

 In addition to my normal Pablo Hermoso qualms, I was nervous taking the kids.  Clara has been to bullfights before, but that was before Joey was born and she was too young to understand what was going on.  At the ripe old age of five, I was afraid that this would be a little too real for her. 

At two, Joey was still too young to understand quite what was going on, but he really enjoyed seeing all the horses and bulls and still talks about it.  But he was missing some key information as, after they killed the bulls and were dragging them out of the ring, he´d yell, ¨Bull!  Up!¨

Yeah, he can´t get up again, Joe. 

 Clara watched with interest and claims that she enjoyed it.  I believe her.  Beef is still among her favorite foods, so I don´t think we´ve scarred her for life.  The experience may have been like our outing in December, when I took her to see the Nutcracker.  I asked her if she liked the ballet and she told me, ¨I just like being with you, Mama.¨

Awwww . . .

 In other news, Clara´s class wrapped up a unit on storytelling, so Clara´s class put on an original play.  It was the animal race.  A caterpillar wanted to race with all the other animals and, as it turned into a butterfly, the caterpillar won the race after all.  Clara got to be Butterfly #2 and tie for the win. 

And Joey´s just cute sucking on a vampire pacifier sucker.

3 Months Without an Update

Clara decided over Christmas (or perhaps earlier) that she´s going to marry her buddy, Lucas.  Buddy Lucas lives in Indiana, and for months she had been referring to him as her "boyfriend".  I realize that that meant that he is a boy and he is her friend.  However, we spent Christmas in Indiana and actually had the chance to see Lucas, so I warned her that she might scare Lucas away if she called him her boyfriend within his hearing. 

Like any innocent little girl, she immediately asked me why.  Why, indeed?  *Sigh*--silly boys. 

I explained that the people that are often called boyfriends are boys that we´re thinking about marrying. 

Her immediate response--"but I AM going to marry Lucas!"

(I also let her know that she better not tell Lucas that, at least, not within the next twenty years or so, or she´ll likely scare him away forever. What big lessons to teach an almost-five-year-old!)

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Yesterday when I picked Clara up from school, her teacher was beaming with pride for Clara because she´s noticably integrating herself well with the other kids.  I asked Clara about it, and she said, "Oh, yeah--I got in trouble for playing with Yamile´s hair."

So basically, Maestra Mary is proud of Clara for having enough gumption to get in trouble. 

I love this woman.  

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I can finally no longer count the number of words in Joey´s vocabulary.  He learned to say "cow" as we were driving through northeast Texas, "football" on Super Bowl Sunday, and "luge" the other day when we were watching the Olympics. 

To which Mario responded, "what´s luge?"

Me makes these great little two-word sentences like "Mo´.  Eat."  And, because he has a five-year old sister, "Beat. You."  (As in they´re always talking about who´s going to finish eating first.  He´s not going to physically beat her.  She does that.  She also always beats him eating, but a boy can always dream.)

Usually, he´s pretty easy to understand, but the other day we were skyping with my parents and it became clear that Joey was consistently referring to my dad as "bunny".  For a few minutes I couldn´t figure this out at all. 

Me: "Is Grandpa funny?"   [thinking he was just mispronouncing the word]

Joe:  "No.  Bunny."  

Hmmm . . .

Finally I realized that we have a book that the kids like called Grandpa Bunny.  Since "Grandpa" is still a bit of a mouthful for him, it just made perfect sense for him to call Grandpa "Bunny".  

Of course. 

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In mass a few weeks ago, I was super excited when I noticed that one of my children was actively participating.  Whilst crawling around the kneelers, I distinctly heard a little boy´s voice singing away during the Alleluia.  "Loo-ya . . loo-ya!" 

A little while later, everyone in our church raises their right hand while we recite the creed, like we´re being swarn into a judicial hearing.  Hearing giggles behind me, I turned around and noticed Little Joe, entertaining the people behind us as he raised his hand for the creed, too!  Two and a half, and nearly confirmed.  [rolling my eyes]

The "loo-ya" thing has stuck in his head, as whenever he sees a cross, or a picture of Jesus, or a church, or hears church bells, he proudly proclaims, "Loo-la!"

   

The REAL Reason for Preschool and Thoughts on Dora

In the last month, we have discovered the REAL reason why it´s a good idea to send kids to preschool! 
Now, keep in mind, I´ve taught preschool, and taken graduate level classes in early childhood education.  I can tell you any number of ways a child would benefit from a preschool education. 

But this year, as a parent of a preschooler, I have stumbled on the Number One Most Important Reason to send one´s child to preschool:  to boost their immunity! 

In the last 6 weeks, Clara has missed 2 weeks of classes, thanks to being sick.  I had a feeling this would happen, as Clara was rarely sick before this year (with the exception of spring allergies).  I was afraid that as soon as she started school, she´d be a magnet for any germ that would come her way. 

Nuts, I was right. 

But, on the upside, she´s naturally boosting her immune system, so (here´s hoping) that by the time she´s in elementary school, she´ll have a robust immune system and won´t have so many sick days.   Furthermore, this time around, she´s passing on her germs to the younger brother, so he´ll start his school days with some natural defenses. 

It´s not much fun at the moment, but I´m hoping that it will pay off in the end! 

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On a side note, it was always my rule with my kids that we do not watch TV unless we´re sick or if the weather has been really nasty for days on end. 

After Clara´s first bout with a cold a bit over a month ago, we developed a daily Dora the Explorer habit.  While she was sick, I said, ¨Sure--we can watch Dora!¨  But then, once Clara was better, we just kept watching Dora!  Where have my principles gone?  ;) 

However, Dora is on at 7pm.  It´s great incentive for the kids to eat dinner in a timely manner (as opposed to taking an hour or more to eat a bowl of yogurt) and take showers quickly.  Like any preschoolers, my kids are GREAT at doinking around, so telling them that ¨there´s 10 minutes until Dora is on!¨ really gets things moving. 

But, on another level, I really like Dora.  There´s goofy parts about her show--the repetitiveness, waiting for the audience to respond to a question--that I always thought was a little silly, but the kids eat it up.  They stand up and jump when she asks them to jump, they verbally answer her questions.  And when I say ¨they¨, I mean BOTH my kids.  Yes, Joey-child-with-next-to-no-vocabulary, VERBALLY answers as many of Dora´s questions as in can.  With real words.  In Spanish. 

Seriously, he´ll talk to Dora, but not with his own mother?  I may have to pull the plug.  Except he´s so cute!

And there´s another reason for keeping it on--it´s in Spanish.  Sure, Clara is getting much better Spanish exposure through school, and Joey is really learning it through Tía Patty, but . . . the more they get the better, right?  Sure.

But you know how´s Dora is a wee bit bilingual?  When she´s Spanish-dominant (on TV in any Spanish-speaking country), all her English comes out with an accent.  Now, that´s not necessarily a bad thing, but surely they can find a Dora voice that is rather accentless in both Spanish and English, right?  Apparently not, as ALL the characters (except Tico) have really thick accents.  Which sounds even more ridiculous when Dora asks my English-dominant children to tell a character to ¨STOP¨ in English.  However, Dora says ¨stop¨ with a long O, and my English-dominant children will repeat it back to her--with the long O! 

sigh

It seems Dora is around to stay.  And, overall I am OK with it, or I could bust out Big Bad Mommy and pull the plug.  However, it is rather ironic, as the week before we started the Dora habit, I filled out a survey at Clara´s school.  The very last question:  How much TV does your child watch in a week? 

Very smugly, I wrote down, ¨Less than 1 hour a week!¨

I knew I was far too smug when I wrote that!

Thoughts on Preschool

Now that we´ve been doing the whole ¨school thing¨ for nearly two months, we´ve got some patterns established and observations that we´ve made.  

1)  Clara still enjoys school, playing with the kids, cutting and pasting, playing ¨chase¨ with anyone who will chase her, etc.  

 2)  We´ve gotten a lot of information about Diego, a boy in her class.  Apparently he had a rough transition to school, following instructions, etc.  Clara still gives us daily, unasked-for updates on Diego´s progress (or lack thereof, somedays).  For the first few weeks, Diego seemed to be her only interest in school. 

3)  Fortunately, her interests have expanded in the last month, and now we get updates on the other girls in her class.  Who played with her, who has a new backpack, who threw up in class.  You know, the things that make a four-year-old´s world turn. 

4)  I´ve been very impressed with the homework that Clara´s teacher assigns.  My only experiences with Mexican preschools have been in private schools, and the director that I had in Metepec insisted that I give the kids homework EVERY DAY.  I felt rebellious giving them homework only 4 days a week.  (Knowing in my head that it´s ridiculous to give a preschooler any homework at all.)  Clara´s teacher, being a good deal smarter than that director, only asks for homework once a week, or once every other week.  Usually it´s before a holiday, and we (the parents) are to explain said holiday to the child and they draw a picture, or cut out pictures from magazines about anything having to do with said holiday.  That´s the kind of homework I can get behind.   The piece of homework above was a reflection on the United Nations, as they celebrated the founding of the United Nations on October 24th. 

5)  The only complaint with school is that she seems to get pushed and hit a lot.  I´ve walked past the school at recess time and all the kids have recess at the same time and it´s just a giant free-for-all.  I´m guessing that most of the hitting and shoving happens simply because preschoolers don´t tend to pay attention to their surroundings, so having 100 preschoolers running amok in a fairly confined space makes for any number of accidents waiting to happen.  On a daily basis. 

However, Clara is also not quick to defend herself (to put it mildly).  So she may be a bit of a target.  Mario and I encourage her to hit back when someone hits her first.  From what she says, her teacher encourages her to retaliate, too.  (I love this woman.)  Growing up, I can´t say I ever heard in a school setting that it was OK to hit anyone, even if they hit you first.  It was always, ¨take it to the teacher, take it to the teacher, blah, blah, blah . . . ¨ (Keep in mind, I never went to preschool myself.)  So I´m really happy that this teacher wants to encourage her to stand up for herself and is actively teaching her to defend herself, instead of letting her slip into being the perpetual victim. 

A friend of mine also suggested that she learn how to pray for problem children.  So tonight when she was praying for her friends, I suggested that we pray for another little girl, who Clara said that nobody likes because she hits and pushes everybody.  After we did that, Clara mentioned that Pushy Girl is doing a lot better.  Here´s hoping that´s the case!   

6)  And finally, Clara has been recruited by the speech therapist.  She doesn´t have any noticable speech problems, but the therapist will just work with her to increase her Spanish vocabulary.  Apparently, for her assessment, they didn´t realize that she spoke English at home (strange, because her teacher sure knows), so I can just see Clara sitting before a stack of flashcards they wanted her to identify, over and over saying, ¨I don´t know, I don´t know, I don´t know.¨  Until it finally dawned on her to explain that she knew how to say all these words in English!  Poor kid.   

She is doing really well and her Spanish has improved tremendously in the last two months.  Today, I even caught her using indirect objects, direct objects and both forms of the past tense!  (Yes, Spanish has two forms--and my four-year-old is beginning to dominate that!)

Obviously school has much to do with this improvement, as does Tía Patty coming back to live with us (so Joey´s getting solid Spanish exposure, too!) or if it´s also thanks to our new-founded Dora the Explorer habit.  Even Joey yelled at the TV this evening for Mapa to come out of Dora´s backpack.  (Of course, he called it Papa.)

But in the end, we´re really happy with school and pleased in our choice of schools.   

And I still can´t get over how stinkin´ cute she is in her school uniform!