Bye-bye high chair!

I spent Tuesday rounding up supplies for our trip to Ohio. To simplify, I thought we could just have Alice sit in a regular chair and use the booster seat for Simon, instead of his high chair. We did a test run for supper and Simon and Alice did just fine in their new seats.

Alice's first guitar lesson

The music teacher at Alice's school offers guitar lessons to the kids for an extra fee. We hadn't signed Alice up for the last couple of years because I thought she was too young and wouldn't take it seriously, plus I'm cheap, plus I like to rebel against the trend of over-scheduling children. 

But Alice had watched with great interest and envy as her friends got guitar lessons, and had personally expressed interest in trying it, so at the end-of-year celebration, I mentioned to Sandra that if there was a spot open, we'd put Alice in guitar lessons this year.

The following Monday, Alice came home and told me she'd got a sticker for following directions in her guitar lesson.

I have no delusions that she'll be a musical prodigy, but I think it will be good for her to go through the process of learning a specific skill. And she seems to be loving it.

Jordan Lake with Grayson & Bubbles

After dropping Laura off at the airport early Sunday morning, we packed the kids up for a playdate with Grayson's family at the Jordan Lake beach. It was a gorgeous day--sunny, mid-80's. There had been a security breach while packing up, though. I had gotten out some bubbles to take in case Simon got fussy. I was going to bury them in the bottom of the bag and only bring them out in an emergency, but I set them on the table and got interrupted before I had a chance to stash them in the bag. Simon saw them, and did not let go of them. He held on to them in the van, and when, falling asleep, he accidentally dropped them, he immediately became fully alert and called out for his dropped bubbles.

So when we got to the beach, Alice went right in the water and played with Grayson while Simon played with his bubbles.

He did eventually let me carry him in to the water though, which was a big improvement over last summer when he would scream the whole time if I tried to carry him out into the water. After a while, to my surprise, he even spontaneously stuck his face in the water and started blowing bubbles!

We got out for lunch, and then Simon stayed in the tent blowing bubbles for a long time.

He also demands participation in the bubble blowing ritual by those present (me). I had to blow bubbles with him, and whenever I took a break, he would squeal, "Blow bubbles, mommy!" Also, he has a tedious ritual where he places the wand inside and the lid back on the bottle after each blow, and insisted I do the same. He would sit on the cooler to blow, then get up, take my bubbles and show me the right procedure, then go back to the cooler, sit down, blow a bit, see that I wasn't following his protocol, get up, take my bubbles and show me again how to do it right, go back, sit down, blow, put wand in bottle, put lid on bottle, remove lid, remove wand, blow, replace wand, replace lid, tell me to blow bubbles...

A visit from Laura and the Ihop Incident

Friday night, after all the daycare end-of-year celebrations and after-party activities, I drove to the airport to pick up my good friend Laura, who would stay with us for a brief, two-night visit. When she lived in town, she would be a frequent visitor to our house, but had moved back to DC a year ago. We'd kept in touch with phone calls nearly every week, but she hadn't seen the kids in a year. She hit it off with them right away.

On Saturday, we took a traditional walk on the greenway near dragon park, while Zac stayed at the park with Alice. After the walk, we all headed to Ihop for lunch.

The lunch started out fine--the restaurant was busy and noisy and Simon was content to sit in his own chair. He soon tired of the crayons and high chair, so he moved to my lap and busied himself with putting the sugar packets in and out of the container.

But then our food finally arrived, so I put him back in his chair, so we could all eat. This was completely unacceptable to Simon, who was by now past nap time. He started screaming and protesting. Not wanting to give in to his tantrum, I alternated between ignoring him and calmly encouraging him to eat his food. The restaurant was noisy, and I kept telling myself, despite any evidence, that Simon would soon calm down. Although I was miserable and embarrassed, I persevered: I didn't want Simon's tantrums to control my life.

I need to digress into an analysis of my cognitive load at this point. I was in a social situation: trying to visit with my friend. I was also in a teaching situation: trying to mold Simon into a functional human being that was not rewarded for tantrumming. Due to this high cognitive load (I'm terrible at multitasking and social situations, even with good, close friends, require a lot of effort for me), I failed to fully consider the larger context: we were in a public space, sitting in close proximity to other people.

Soon an old lady comes over. She leans in to say something and I honestly think for a split second she's going to say some benign old lady thing about children and pancakes, commiserate with my plight perhaps with an anecdote about taking her grandchildren to lunch, or offer some encouragement, saying don't worry it gets better. But instead she says what everyone around us is surely thinking which is "It's hard to enjoy our meals when he is screaming like that."

I just mumbled "sorry" then disentangled screaming Simon from his high chair and took him outside. A walk around the building finally calmed him down. Although I was annoyed with the lady for not showing more sympathy, because I clearly wasn't enjoying my meal either, I was more mortified that I'd let it go on so long. Before having kids myself, I'd occasionally be in a restaurant with a screaming kid and I always told myself if it were me, I'd take the kid outside rather than disrupt other people's meal.

Zac quickly finished his lunch and came outside to take custody of Simon so I could go back in and finish my lunch. I was quite frazzled, but still managed to enjoy my hashbrowns, eggs, ham, and blackberry peach cobbler pancakes with slightly melted ice cream on top. On the bright side, Alice behaved herself quite well in the restaurant, so I have hope that in two more years, we will finally be able to go out to eat with the kids and have a positive experience.

That afternoon, while the kids napped, we played Scrabble, then had a nice supper of Zac's lasagna. That night, Laura and I went out to see "Far From the Maddening Crowd" at the theater. All in all, a great visit if you just crop out the Ihop incident.

End-of-Year Celebration After-Party at Pullen Park

Some of the parents had organized a potluck party at nearby Pullen Park for after the daycare celebration. Although for us, Alice still has another year, it must be quite sad for the parents of the kids going off to kindergarten. In the daycare celebration, there had been a slide show with some sentimental music and I was tearing up just at the thought of Alice transitioning next year. Especially now that she's becoming a somewhat civilized, reasonable human being, I want Alice to stay 4 years old forever in this nice, happy daycare.

Anyway, shortly after we arrived at the picnic pavilion, there was a downpour, and all the kids ran around in the rain and got all wet.

Once all the kids were wet, some of them took off their clothes and ran around in their underwear. Alice kept asking to take her dress off, but Zac came up with a simple answer: If you take off your dress, we're going home right away.  So Alice kept her clothes on, because she is a somewhat civilized, reasonable human being.

Simon, on the other hand, is clearly in a difficult stage. He knows what he wants, but he can't always communicate it properly and he doesn't always get what he wants and that is just unfair and tragic and the only way to respond to such a terrible situation is to have frequent bouts of kicking and screaming. He didn't want any of the food at the potluck, but was probably hungry and still stressed from the break in routine and all the commotion. At any rate, I didn't have any fun at the party.

Alice, at least, was fairly easy to maintain. She enjoyed eating some pizza while sitting between two of her teachers.

The rain moved on, and the kids played on the playground and rode the carousel.

Daycare End-of-Year Celebration

Friday afternoon, when the kids would normally be napping, their school scheduled their end-of-year celebration. In the big class, this means a proper performance, and certificates handed out to the kids who are "graduating" on to kindergarten next year. Since Alice is an underclassman, she did not have a starring role in the performance.  This is good, because I couldn't see anything the whole time anyway.

The celebration was held in the fellowship hall of the Ethiopian church, just across the street from their school. The kids are short, and we were in the fourth row of parents, and there was no stage or stadium seating. The performance consisted mostly of groups of kids playing guitar or singing Beatles songs. It was awful, as the kids could neither play nor sing, and why didn't they stick to typical children's songs with tunes that the kids had mastered? As I sat there, a pleasant smile plastered on my face in case one of the teachers or parents glanced at me, I thought of the years of awkward school performances that were ahead of us. What would I have to suffer through in the coming years as teachers constructed school programs designed to give parents conversational fodder about their perceived prodigy? "Why yes, my child is only in fourth grade and he has a monologue from Hamlet" these fashionable parents would be able to say at their next gathering. "I think he really nailed Hamlet's sense of ennui after his father's death. It was so adorable."

Anyway, I was impressed that the squirmy, nap-deprived kids seemed to have been well-trained and knew just what to do at all the parts. I always get nervous that my kid will be the one acting up, but Alice did just fine. At least I think so, because I couldn't see her. Luckily, Zac of the long arms took a couple of cell-phone videos so I could see it later.









After the performances, there were refreshments. Alice was thrilled to get a cupcake.

We loitered around a bit, then headed back over to the daycare building for Simon's end of year party. His was going to be like all of Alice's previous end-of-year celebrations where the kids just sit in a circle with their parents and sing a few songs, then break for snacks.

Although Simon's language skills are developing nicely, we can't really explain events like this to him in advance yet, so when we all showed up, he was really happy to see us.

But then, when we didn't leave to go home, he just started crying, and kept saying, "Go home, mommy!"

When I took him to sit in the circle for songs with all the other kids and parents, his crying turned into screaming and tantrumming. So I was now the one with the kid acting up. I didn't want to take him out in the hall, because I knew he would only cry more when if I then tried to come back into his room.  So instead, Zac ran out to the van and got his pacifier to calm him down. In this picture, you can see all the other kids relaxing in their parent's laps, while Simon is clinging to me.

After the singing, with monkey-fisted Simon still clinging tight, his teacher's tried to console me and said he's normally fine. Of course he is, the kid just freaks out when the normal routine is disrupted and he can't understand why. Alice, however, was happy to eat another cupcake.

Growing like tomatoes

The kids are growing up like tomatoes on the side of the house in the bright North Carolina sun.

Alice's 1st dental appointment

Alice had her first dentist appointment today. She did great. The hygienist was really good with Alice and got Alice to cooperate with all the cleaning. I couldn't have imagined doing this with Alice a year ago, but she has matured enough to want the adoration of others, and realizes (most of the time) that cooperating earns her praise.

It also earned her two prizes from the treasure chest.

One was a green bracelet, and the other was this orange blob that Alice confidently called a nu-nu.  I have no idea where she got the name or if I'm even spelling it correctly.

There were only two tough parts of the whole appointment. The first was when the dentist came in and talked down to Alice, complimenting her for being cute or something. It clearly made Alice uncomfortable and almost eroded all the rapport the hygienist had built up with the Alice. The other time was when the hygienist painted the fluoride on Alice's teeth. It tasted horrible, and Alice almost couldn't tolerate it, but in the end she powered through.

Alice's opinions

As I was buckling Alice into her carseat for the short drive to Harris Teeter, she said, "I like your necklace, mommy.  It's so jewelry!"

After getting groceries, I was strapping her back into her carseat and Alice was less complimentary. The car had been sitting in the sun and evidently did not have a pleasant aroma because Alice let loose this tirade: "Eww! The car smells like poo jam cheese, tinkle farts, and butt poop."

Ever since moving to the big class at daycare, her vocabulary has unfortunately become more more restroom-oriented. I'm starting to understand the phrase "potty mouth" more clearly.

Bubbles and a swim

Simon is happiest with his beloved bubbles.

Because the day was so hot, I got out the sprinkler and then the pool for the kids.

Alice was ambitious and had plans to use her kickboard in the pool. When she laid down in it, she was a bit disappointed to discover that she had to bend her knees to even fit, so kicking was out of the question.

Simon had zero interest in playing in the pool. So we took selfie pictures on the front steps instead.

Father's Day Creek Stomp

For Father's Day, we did our third annual traditional father's day creek stomp. We had to hike down a trail for about 25 minutes to get to the creek. Alice hiked the whole way, but Simon was carried most of the time.

Once at the creak, we changed Simon into his water shoes and discovered a turtle sitting nearby.

Then the kids played in the creek.  Alice was super excited, and Simon was more hesitant, but seemed to also be having fun. He's definitely less ecstatic about water than Alice.

We played in the creek for a long time, and Alice especially liked the deep part. She didn't catch anything with her net, and was disappointed about that.

Then we hiked back up the hill--this time with Alice in the backpack and me carrying Simon in my arms. It was a good workout.

Bass Pro Shops

Saturday morning we got up and Ella helped feed Simon, which is usually a small battle. He likes to say no, turn his head away, and swat at the spoon.

Our big adventure for the morning was to go to Bass Pro Shops, a giant "Sportsman" center that was recently built in Cary not far from our house. We'd never been there yet, to the astonishment of Pete. So off we went, and we had a great time.

Simon and especially Alice enjoyed climbing on all the boats and looking at the large fish tank they have in the store. After Pete's family left to continue their drive to their beach rental house, we had a snack outside then went back in and did some clothes shopping.

Simon was fussy and ended up falling asleep on Zac. Alice was obsessed with this large container of cheesy poofs near the checkout lane. We would never buy that anyway, but Zac and I have a firm pact to never buy the kids anything from the checkout lane, no matter what it is. Alice tested this resolve today, by insisting on the cheesy poofs, then switching to demanding some candy. There were tears and all. The poor girl was tired and hungry. But cheesy poofs and candy we did not buy her.

Back home, all was well again: Simon had his bubbles.

A visit from the KY Besants

On Friday, I had the kids home with me again.  Breakfast was a bit rough.

Then I spent the morning and afternoon trying to keep them happy and entertained while getting the house ready for our visitors: Zac's uncle Pete, aunt Donna, and cousins Nathan and Ella from Kentucky. The kids warmed up really fast; books and bubbles are the keys to their hearts.