Benches and Snacks

Last night Alice was overflowing with energy after a long two days stuck in the house.  She was driving us a little crazy so I took her on an after dinner walk to the neighborhood pond.  The walk was pleasant and Alice got to use her favorite flashlight so she had a good time as well.  After we had been at the pond a few minutes watching the geese Alice wanted to be picked up.  This kind of defeats the purpose of the excursion so I deflected the request and suggested she try and climb onto a bench that happened to be nearby. 

Now, when we all go out as a family on a day trip we will often find a nice place to rest and have snacks.  We sit on a bench or a rock and open the backpack and pass out little containers of crackers and dried fruit.

It is fun to see Alice figuring the world out; with a little bit of Daddy's humor she learned that not every bench means a snack.

Zac: Go try and get on that bench.

Alice: Do we have a snack?

Zac: No, I don't have a snack.

Alice: I want a snack.

Zac: I can catch a goose and we can eat it.  I'll give you the head.

Alice: No, I don't want the head.

Zac: You can have the wings.

Alice: No.

Zac: The feet! You can have the feet.  Mmmm feet.

Alice:...

Alice: The snack is at home.

Moving

We took advantage of us having a half-day off due to weather and moved all the rooms around.  It was hard to do because the kids were under foot, but I was going crazy so it needed to be done.  Simon was starting to be too aware of me, to the point that I was being held hostage in my bed. So now he is in Alice's former room, Alice is in the former office, and the office is now in our room. It's crowded but we'll all sleep better. For the room change, we kept as much the same for Alice as possible with one major exception: no pacifiers!  She went to sleep just fine, so we are free of the bo!

ALICE'S ROOM

The reading couch and Alice's crib. The end table stacked with library books is next to her crib so she can read books when she wakes up in the morning.

 SIMON'S ROOM

 THE OFFICE IN OUR BEDROOM

Alice at work

On Monday, my school let out early due to a coming ice-storm, and so did the kids' daycare.  The plan was for Zac to bring them to my school, where I would then take them home and he would go back to work.  Alice had fun coloring on the board while we waited for the carpool traffic to recede.

Mother-daughter

On the tire swing at Pullen Park

Sliding and swinging

Dilemma

I know I should use nap time to get things done. So I should put him in his crib and grade papers, but…

Bos and Bugs: An evening on the carpet

Wherein Simon demonstrates his scooting skills, and Alice picks up a lady bug for the first time.

Reach

Warm ice cream

Alice had a bad cold, so I stayed home with her on Thursday.  She never eats well when she's sick, so we tend to indulge and give her whatever she asks for.  After eating her spaghetti for lunch, Alice asked for ice-cream.  After a few spoonfuls, she complained that it was too cold and said, "I want it cooked!"

Here she is, sick and very unsymmetrical.

What is the grass?

I knew this eponymous blog post would come one day, and here it is.  Alice has officially reached the stage of questions. She's obviously been asking basic questions for a long time, such as "Where are my socks?" and "What is that noise?"  But something has changed in the last couple of days, as she is now asking questions of a higher order that shows she is pondering how the world works.  Here is a sampling of questions she has asked us lately:

• Do ladybugs have mouths and can they talk?
• Do birds have faces?
• Do cats have bones?
• Does my food go in my legs?

A is for Alice

Alice gets her first customized pancake:

Simon swings

We went to a park on Saturday morning that is next to a greenway to leads to another park.  It worked out perfectly because Alice could ride her bike while we adults walked.  The best part, though, was putting Simon in the baby swing.  He loved it and was all smiles and laughter.

Pretty soon!

It rained today, so Alice didn't get to go outside at all at daycare.  She's usually bouncing off the walls in the evenings when she doesn't burn off the energy on the playground, so we often put out the couch cushions for her to run and jump on.  In this video, you can see that Simon continues to work on the skills he's going to need to play with his big sister someday.

Books to remember

I took the recent batch of books back to the library, so it's time for another installment of "Books to Remember."

This is a great alphabet book where each page has the dinosaur eating a letter of the alphabet surrounded by items that started with that letter.

 Alice LOVED this book.  It's about a girl who is mocked by her older sisters for choosing a bumpy pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, but with the help of her friends (bear cub, deer, hare, and some birds) she makes a jack-o-lantern anyway.  When she returns home with it, her mother praises her and reminds the older siblings that all their jack-o-lanterns are beautiful in their own way.  Alice is still fixated on jack-o-lanterns from Halloween several months ago.

 Alice was obsessed with this book during the snow days, so I often ended up reading it to her twice a day: before nap and before bed.  It's about a bear, a moose, and a beaver who take a canoe trip down the river and argue a lot about everything, such as who gets to steer, which side to paddle on, and how to get over the beaver dam.  Eventually, they must work together to run the rapids.  In the end, they all agree to walk back rather than face the river again.  I liked it because it used real words like "stern", "port side" and "portage."  It also taught practical canoeing skills like the importance of paddling on different sides of the canoe to prevent going in circles.

 This is a great book for Alice at this time in her life, when she's becoming aware of her past and her future.  It's very multicultural with kids of different races and genders pointing out how they did things as a baby ("When I was a baby, I ate with my fingers") then contrasting those with what they do now that they're bigger ("Now I'm big!  I eat with a spoon and a fork.")  In the last part of the book, a girl has a baby sister and helps her do things that she now knows how to do herself.  This book was useful in helping Alice learn about how she used to be a baby like Simon.

 In this book, a bunch of piggies make a surprise birthday cake for their mother while she is out.  During their messy cooking, they keep thinking they hear their mother coming home, so they hurry to hide their mess, only to look out the window and realize it's another animal coming by.  At the end, they've inexplicably made a cake, a pie, and some muffins.  Their mom comes home and they surprise her with a birthday cake and candles (which Alice loved.)  Alice also liked the line "Stir to the beat" for some reason.

 Poor Mr. Gilbert!  He gets a guinea pig as a class pet, but his pupils beg him to get another one, so he does, and then there are a lot of babies. At the end, he gets the students to adopt all the guinea pigs, and he gets one rabbit instead.  The rabbit turns out to be pregnant and the book ends with baby bunnies everywhere.  The story is geared towards helping kids learn to count, but I was also impressed by the cleverness put into each illustration.  The classroom really came to life as the illustrator showed the poems the kids were writing about the pets, the bulletin board with the science activities centered on the guinea pigs, the votes for what name to give the pets, etc.  Alice liked one of the baby guinea pigs named Pickles the best.

Mr. Bird loves his nest, but Mrs. Bird is dissatisfied with it.  She causes them to embark on a journey looking for the perfect nest.  She finds a perfect spot in a tower, and after building the nest, Mr. Bird goes out to proclaim how happy he is once again.  Just then, the bell that they have unwittingly built their nest upon is run, and Mrs. Bird flees.  When Mr. Bird returns, the nest is dischevelled, his wife is gone, and he fears she has been eaten by a cat.  He's flying in the pouring rain, in complete despair, when he smashes into a wall, which turns out to be their old nest.  Mrs. Bird is inside, and has realized it was really the perfect nest all along.  And, surprise, she has laid an egg and they have a baby.

 A family of pigs share a small shed, and the runt is always squished.  One by one, he gets all his family members out of the bed, only to realize at the end that he is lonely and wants them to all come back.  Zac enjoyed reading this book in a southern accent.

 This book depicted a bunch of farm animals that did not do what they were supposed to do, and so the farm was really weird.  They all redeemed themselves at night though, because they always slept through the night without making any noise.

 This was a ridiculous book.  These pirates love underpants and wear them on the outside of their clothes.  They go on a journey in search of the golden underpants, and have to trick some other pirates in order to get it.  It had a lot of word play, using all the synonyms and euphemisms for underwear, but Alice didn't get any of that.  I'm not sure why she liked it so much.

This is a book I fondly remember from my childhood, so I was happy that Alice also enjoyed it.  A greedy troll wants to eat each billy goat as it crosses his bridge, but he each goat promises a bigger one is coming, so the troll lets him pass.  When the third goat comes, he is so large that he kicks the troll into the river, then goes and joins the others in the meadow where they eat and eat and eat and get fat.

This was another counting book, depicting groups of animals doing zany things in the zoo before it opens in the morning.

Like mommy's belly

Alice has been grappling with the concept of getting bigger and bigger lately.  Sometimes she'll give us random factoids like, "When I get bigger, I'm going to wear a bigger coat!"  Most often though, it comes up when we're explaining why she can't do something yet.  She's more accepting of limitations like not being able to sit in the driver's seat of the car  or read books without pictures if she knows she'll be able to do it when she gets bigger.

However, it has become clear on some occasions that she thinks that as she gets bigger and bigger, we'll get smaller and smaller.  This comes up mainly when discussion chairs.  She likes to tell Zac that when she gets bigger, she'll sit in his chair, and when he gets smaller, he'll sit in her chair (a booster seat).

We were trying to explain to her today that people don't get smaller, they just get bigger and bigger until one day they stop growing and stay the same size.  I added the caveat that although people might not get taller, they can still get fatter.  She grasped this concept immediately, and said, "Like Mommy's belly!"

Laura

My friend Laura moved here shortly after Alice was born, and we have her over for supper on the weekends a lot.  Alice went through a brief shy period, but for the most part has always been quite happy to wake up from a nap and find Laura at our house.  Whenever she comes these days, Alice asks her to read books to her.  Laura, being a geologist, got Alice a kids book about weird rocks.  And sometimes, being a geologist, she will bring Alice specimens.  Here, Alice proudly holds up halite, a rock that tastes like salt.  The next day, Alice brought it to me and asked, "Mommy, do you want to taste my rock?"

Circles

We went to Marbles again Sunday morning, because it is a great indoor activity space and the weather was still too chilly for enjoyable outdoor activities.  They had some craft supplies out again, and I made this valentine, but Alice drew the circles around the eyes.  This is significant because it is the first time I've seen her do something intentional rather than just random scribbling.  She said she was giving the face cheeks.

Hatching

Due to the snow days, Alice had been stuck in our house and yard for three days straight, so we really needed to go somewhere.  Since the weather was cold and rainy, our outing this morning was to the NC Natural Science Museum.  As we sat on the steps in our house putting on Alice's boots, for some reason we were talking about where things come from.  Zac asked Alice if she knew where she came from.  "Yes!" she said confidently.  When Zac asked, "Where?" Alice answered, without much hesitation, "From a pig!  Oink! Oink!"  We then told her she came from my belly just like Simon did.

We hadn't been to the science museum for several months, so it was all somewhat new to Alice again.  Two-and-a-half seems to be a magical age where she's not just looking at stuff anymore, she's starting to be able to learn about and understand new things.  Although the single thing that excited her most at the museum was getting to ride the escalator between the museum's four floors, she was interested in all the exhibits as well.

On the ground floor in the coastal section, there was an exhibit showing baby sea turtles hatching from eggs.  I explained to her how the mommy turtle lays the eggs, then the baby turtles grow, hatch, and run to the sea.  Later, on an upper floor where we were having a snack, we could see a bird's nest with some little eggs in it.  Zac asked her what was in the eggs, and she answered, "Baby turtles!"  Zac tried again, emphasizing that it was a bird's nest and that a bird had laid the eggs, but Alice still insisted there were baby turtles inside.  This, despite even having a couple of story books at home that feature birds, their nests, and baby birds hatching out of the eggs.

Showing Alice the baby turtles hatching from eggs in the sand

Other moments at the museum were more promising.  Actually, her visit to the small dinosaur exhibit was scarily impressive for a two and a half year old.  It started off with a weird coincidence: when Zac asked her about the Acrocanthrosaurous skull on display the first thing out of her mouth was that it was "real." Unlike almost all the other skulls she had seen this one was notable for actually being real. After a few moments gaping at the huge display (a acrocanthosaurous skeleton, similar to the T-rex, and a fleshed out sauropod) Zac prompted her to explain the giant depressions in the "mud" behind the dinosaur.  She knew that they were footprints (we had learned a lot about footprints during recent walks in the snow). She then ran up to the casts comparing the front limbs of the Acro and the T-rex and pointed out that they were the claws and then correctly counted them (three and two).  She saw the giant wound in the skin of the dinosaur and said it had a boo-boo and needed a bandaid.   There was also a short video on a mounted monitor showing a dinosaur attacking and biting another; when Sera came back from feeding Simon she excitedly explained what had happened to the dinosaurs in the room - putting together the content of the video and the dinosaurs on display.

Because it was Darwin Day at the museum, there were many tables set up with volunteers and interactive lessons about parts of evolution.  At one station, Alice made a microphage out of pipecleaner and beads. At others she got a tattoo of a "climbing monkey", made a dinosaur magnet, and colored a picture of a turtle.  One of the highlights was a station meant to teach about how different birds adapted beaks with shapes related to the type of food they eat. There were two bowls of "seeds": one large puffs and another with small seeds. The task was to take a pair of plastic pincers that approximated finch beaks and grasp the seeds and feed them into a giant paper mache bird with an open beak.  One was supposed to be harder (and thus demonstrating that it would be easier for a finch with that beak to eat the seeds) but Alice carefully plucked one of each and put it into the bird. Zac tried to rescue the lesson by saying that the birds who were able to eat the food better had more babies. (The highschoolers volunteering at the table quipped that they wondered why their teacher had to spend three weeks teaching such a basic concept.)  Alice of course didn't understand the meaning.  But it is a start.  She didn't know the colors after the first lesson either and slowly but surely she grasped the idea after many exposures.

Another thing they had because of Darwin Day was a table of bones (mostly skulls), where you could see the evolution of the earliest hominids into modern homo sapiens.  I thought Alice would get a kick out of seeing and touching the skulls, because she's still obsessed with skeletons from Halloween, and we have a pirate-themed book from the library that features lots of skulls and crossbones, and there is even a real skull in one of the caves in the book that Alice always likes to point out.  We got off to a good start, where a volunteer handed her a bony hand.  Alice wasn't afraid to hold it, and I told her how those were the bones like in our hand.  To test her understanding, I asked her which one was the thumb and she correctly identified the shortest digit.  However, things took a sharp turn when the next volunteer picked up a cast of Lucy's skull and the jaw bone at first stuck in place then dropped suddenly as she lifted the skull towards Alice.  Alice was quite startled and scared.  She clung to me the rest of the time and could not be coaxed into touching a skull. Later, at home, she recalled that "The bones were trying to eat me!"

On the top floor, there is a very small rain forest with a sloth, a turtle, and some butterflies.  Alice did a pretty good job trying to match the butterflies in real life to the ones on the guide.  She knows all about matching things from school.  There were other moments where I could tell the little lessons they get in daycare had stuck in her head.  Whenever she sees a globe, she knows right away that it is the earth.  She always says, "The earth goes around the sun."  She sounds quite intelligent if you can get past her pronunciation of "erf" for "earth."  Whether or not she really understands what she's saying, I don't know, but it's a start.  There is other evidence that she's starting to get a sense of things.  For example, during a segment on the space race at home when we were watching the Olympics, she saw an astronaut going into  space and she asked, "Where's the moon?"

All in all, it was a really fun day, really getting to see Alice's thinking and reasoning skills start to hatch. We look forward to the day when she'll understand evolution and realize that she comes from an ape, not a pig.

Valentine's Day

On Friday, the schools were still closed, but Zac went back to work so I was home with the kids all day.  To keep Alice occupied, I got out the shoe box where I put stickers and random craft supplies and had her make a Valentine for Zac.  There were some unsharpened pencils in the box, and Alice said, "I want to open them.  There's one in the closet at grandma and grandpa's house!"  (Translation: I want to sharpen these pencils.  There is a pencil sharpener in the closet at grandma and grandpa's house.)  That pencil sharpener must have made quite an impression!  For the time being, I'm letting her believe that we must travel all the way to Ohio for the pencils to be sharpened.

Most of the day, she did a good job entertaining herself.  She's becoming quite good at playing by herself, although she still tries to enlist the cat in a lot of her activities.

In other news, we've introduced the water bottle to Simon and he's getting better at drinking from it.

Sometimes his big sister likes to help him.

Simon is getting closer and closer to crawling every day, and he seems frustrated that he doesn't go anywhere when he flails his legs around.  We are waiting excitedly for this next milestone, while knowing that it's going to make our lives a lot harder.

What our house looked like Thursday night

A mess!