Livy had a rough day today and an especially difficult evening. She's sick and running a low-grade fever that just serves to damper any fun she can work up the energy to seek. Her nap was ruined by a sweaty, febrile nightmare. She accidentally misjudged her depth when eating a carrot at dinner and bit her finger, which was so painful and upsetting that it caused her to throw up her last bite. Dinner ended with her curled up under a blanket on the couch, weeping and clutching an ice pack to her finger and a lovey to her chest.
It was tragic. My heart ached for her sick, sad, tired sorrow, and I figured we were headed to an early bedtime. It's hard to come back after a few hours that challenging when you're 3 1/2 and sick, and I wouldn't have begrudged her an evening of limp snuggles on the couch.
Then, weakly and sadly, she asked if she could sit on my lap and watch a video on the computer. I said yes, cuddled her close, brought up YouTube, and asked her what she wanted to watch. I thought it might be The Sweptaways' "Oh My Darlin' Clementine," or maybe Mike Doughty's "Madeline and Nine," but she shocked and delighted me with her completely badass request.
Can you even begin to guess what she asked for, friends, after months of not watching it? Do you know which video called out to her from the wide breadth of her media consumption? Do you know what she said that made me laugh out loud with surprised delight and pride? DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE SAID?
"Rocky." She said "Rocky," and I fell in love anew with my resilient little warrior beast child. So we snuggled, and I stroked her hair while we were reborn with Rocky's every triumphant step.
Good on ya, Rock. Good on ya, Liv. Gonna fly, indeed.
Hello, old friends! We're finally starting to come up for air here at Me Show Central after a relentless whirlwind of Halloween, colds, Thanksgiving, colds, stomach flu, Christmas, sleep training, colds, New Years, and colds. That's an overwhelming list to try to recap in one post, so let me just say this:
Larsen ladies in effect, y'all!
You see those people? The little ones snuggling in that chair? They are relentlessly adorable and relentlessly exhausting in equal measure. I look at that picture and I'm as weak with devotion as much as I'm weak with fatigue. God, I love 'em. God, I'm tired. Wash, rinse, repeat for at least 2 more years, or until they both agree to sleep through the night - the same night - at the same time.
So, this may not be my most coherent post, but due to repeated requests for information on my jumbled (but effective!) approach to teaching Livy to read, I'm writing it anyway. Jessica, Aley, Katie, and Mrs. Miller: This one goes out to you.
First things first, my kid ain't your kid, and my kid ain't normal. She knew her letters by sight at 18 months, she spoke early, and she's always been drawn to language and books. She is this kid.
15 months, and all we did was read books all day long.
She is also this kid.
20 months - letter recognition fully down and working on bizarre sight words.
So, no, she's not typical. This means that, as much as I would love to take credit for being a fantastic, Annie-Sullivan-caliber teacher here, really I can't. Livy was bound to acquire verbal skills readily and easily because of who she is, not because of what we've done together with books and reading tools. Thus, obviously, but it must be said lest I start sounding too much like a blowhard, your mileage may vary with these suggestions.
1. Read to your kid frequently, early, and often.
This seems intuitive, but it was really hard for us to implement until I built it into a regular schedule. I began when Livy was a little over a year old by choosing three hardcover picture books every morning and reading them to her with her on my lap so that I could control the paper pages and make sure she couldn't maul them too badly during story time. Then I added in an afternoon, post-nap book time during which she and I would paw through her basket of board books, and I'd read anything she chose as many times as she chose it until she was ready to do something else. Sometimes afternoon book time lasted 5 minutes, and sometimes a half hour or more. Now, being an Awesome Housewife, I had the luxury of time on my hands, but I believe it was the regularity of this practice that nurtured her love of books rather than the quantity of time we spent reading. On days when we're really pressed for time, I've read to Livy during meals and during bath time (We had a good thing going where I'd read her poetry during her bath - we need to start that up again.).
2. Regularly expose them to letters.
It's easy to understand - if you want your kid to learn his or her letters, then you've got to show him or her letters. We started insanely early because I am an insane babbler and constant singer. In addition to repeating the alphabet song until my voice hurt, when Livy was a baby I also made up a goofy little song whose only words are "O-L-I-V-I-A, O-L-I-V-I-A, Olivia!," and then I sang it all the time. That, plus Livy's love of a beautiful piece of custom name artwork from Auntie Morah, led to this:
Yep, she's 19 months old and attempting to spell her own name. Also, there is a poop joke in there, you lucky devils!
We also played with a smaller set of these foam letters a lot, at first in the tub and then out of the tub, where she'd randomly fish them from the dispenser lid of old, plastic wipes holder for me to identify. My mother-in-law's preschool also had this toy (It wasn't this expensive when we bought it; there must be a new version that's cheaper), which Livy loved, and so I bought one for our house, too. That, plus reading tons of alphabet books, both ours and those that we borrowed from the library, really helped cement her alphabet identification.
3. Books, Books, Books.
Quality is good, but at this point quantity is better. If you're going to read lots of books with your kids, then you need lots of books to read. Although I am an admitted book snob (Sookie Stackhouse and Alexia Tarabotti notwithstanding), in the early days of Livy's book journey, I put no limits on what we read during the day. The booty from a book shower at the school where I was teaching when pregnant with Liv got us off to a good start in building a children's library in our home, and my rampant bibliophilia has added to that library mightily. Now that Livy has a keener understanding of narrative and plot, I'm starting to weed out the literary twaddle and replace it with more quality children's literature, specifically feminist picture books, Caldecott Award winners and nominees, and books about whatever scientific topic is currently piquing Livy's interest (mostly space, volcanoes, and snow/winter). I buy from everywhere, but especially love finding books at thrift stores, yard sales, and used book stores. Scholastic.com is a great resource for paperbacks and thematic packs of books, plus my mother-in-law's preschool benefits from our purchases. We also bring home sacks of books from the library to enjoy, and I'll order particular favorites from Powells.com or Amazon.com (Having worked at the best children's bookstore in the world, Bank Street Bookstore, I realize that I should be ordering from them. I will remedy this immediately.) Out of print favorites from the library are easy to find on Abebooks.com. If I'm feeling adventurous and have the time and patience to go browsing with Livy, we'll go to Secret Garden Books or Third Place Books, both of which have excellent children's sections.
And so that's what has worked. Now that Olivia is showing an enormous interest in learning how to read, which I have expertly discerned from her cryptic comments like "Mommy, would you please teach me how to read?," we're off into the world of direct instruction. So, these aren't so much suggestions as mere peeks into our current practice. I don't know if or how they'll work in the long run, but this is what we're doing.
So far, with some tweaking, I really like using this book. It's a great, straightforward curriculum for teaching phonics at home. We followed the plan strictly for learning short vowel sounds, and then veered away from it a bit since Livy already knew her consonant sounds. Now we're back for learning three-letter words using those short vowel sounds, and it's working wonderfully. It involves a lot of index cards, so we've invested in a few packs of those and a plastic envelope for containing them. Beyond that, all it requires is the book - no special materials required. Easy peasy.
We used to sell the daylights out of these at Bank Street Bookstore, and I know why now. They're fantastic for the little people using them to learn how to read and easy for the big people helping them to use. Each book has an illustrated list of the letter sounds used in it (M has a moon next to it, etc.), so kids can tell right away which sounds to look out for. The stories are not riveting for adults, except for the book with the line "Muff has nine rags," but Livy genuinely likes them.
3. Homeschooling binder & activity books.
We just started this a couple of weeks ago, and it's more of a playtime toy at this point than a serious piece of instruction, but I've made Livy what I'm calling her homeschooling binder. Livy has a number of preschool-oriented workbooks, some gifts and two that I purchased on learning how to print, and I've torn out some of their pages and put them into page protectors within the binder. With the page protectors over the worksheets, she can use them over and over again with whiteboard markers. So far my only intention with these pages is to get her to practice her pencil grip and start controlling her pen strokes in preparation for learning how to write. She thinks it's fun to use the whiteboard pens, and she gets in a few minutes of concentrated small motor practice a day. If it works, we can continue to use it for the reading, writing, and math exercises included in the workbooks. So far she likes "doing school" with her binder and seems to be controlling her writing grip better. Liv also has a number of cheap activity books with dot-to-dots, puzzles, and mazes in them that she likes to do. While they're clearly games, I consider them legitimate educational activities in that she practices her small motor skills while improving her concentration and perseverance (you'd better bet I don't let her leave pages half done).
Santa got Livy this for Christmas, knowing that she loved the letter-based version of this, but the jury is still out. Sometimes she plays with it, but she prefers to just make me write 3-letter words on index cards for her to carry around all day long. We'll keep trying with it, but so far the verdict is an apathetic "meh."
Having written all of this, it seems like a lot. It's not. At all. We do about 4 dedicated "lessons" a week, usually during breakfast, and each of those is about 5-10 minutes long. No biggie whatsoever.
It's been a busy week here at Me Show central, what with our cousin Hanna visiting and prompting visits to the Puyallup (pyoo-AL-up, Morah, not POY-ul-up) Fair and Seattle Aquarium, among other places, for everyone but Madeline and me. I'd write something that would encompass all of these events in a witty and pithy way, but I'm terribly sleep-deprived from, you know, the sleep deprivation. That, plus the soaring crescendo of a sugar high achieved through the manic consumption of an entire box of dark chocolate-covered caramels, have rendered me inarticulate. So, here, look at these pictures instead. They're said to be worth thousands of words, or at least a gander.
Sleep smile! Wakey smiles are rare, but they happen now. This is Madeline's first smile captured photographically.
Look at how big Livy's gotten! And, uh, someone else, too!
No, I didn't eat too many doughnuts. Or, rather, the too many doughnuts I ate didn't cause that bloat. THIS little lady did!
Don't bug me; I'm busy sleeping and growing hair.
That there is Miss Madeline (rhymes with "nine") Mae, and she is 4 weeks old today. In that picture she was 1 day old. She is even bigger and hairier and cuter now. She does things like smile at us in her sleep and fart like a dyspeptic longshoreman all day long. We love her a lot and are going to keep her forever and snuggle her and pet her and OH MY GOD, SHE'S SO CUTE SHE MAKES ME TALK LIKE LENNIE FROM OF MICE AND MEN!
Wonder Women!
Luckily, we have an in-house (housemade?) superhero to protect "Baby Sister" from Mama's overzealous snuggles. Livy loves "[her] baby," and we've yet to see any kind of rivalry or jealousy from her. I may have just jinxed it, but the love has held for 4 weeks so far. The jinxy statute of limitations must be up after 4 weeks, yes?
So, to reintroduce myself to blogging and to blog readers, I offer both a postpartum mix tape and a personal cri de coeur.
1. For you nursing ladies in the crowd, let this inspire you to great lactational heights:
Latch on: Kool & The Gang's "Get Down On It."
In flagrante delicto: Nirvana's "Drain You."
Digestif: PJ Harvey's "Dry."
2. Mr. Weaver, please forgive me for exploiting another tiny person for my own entertainment and pleasure. I am a limited woman who needs a hobby, and this is better than making God's eyes out of popsicle sticks and nasty acrylic yarn and then mailing them to you in bulk. What my children lose in privacy, you gain in not having to haul my handiwork to the dump, and now you have to be on my side. Sucka.
Before we begin, why don't you look at my sweet Halloween punkins?
They are luminous, no?
And now on to the less luminous of our October doings. Dudes, I have been crazy off the resolution wagon this month. CRAZY off the resolution wagon, I tell you, and in a remarkably predictable way. I start all big projects just like this:
Step 1: Huge declaration of intent.
Step 2: Phenomenal dedication to goal.
Step 3: Minor initial success!
Step 4: Arbitrary rebellion against stated intents, sought-after goals, and achieved successes (Also known as the "SCREW YOU, I DON'T HAVE TO!" stage).
Step 5: Self-loathing hidden beneath self-deprecation, shame spiral, quitting, insane consumption of impossible amounts of sugary deliciousness.
And friends, OA reached Step 4 on October 9th, when I first began to avoid filling out my resolution chart in the evenings. I also stopped keeping my one-sentence journal in real time and resorted to retroactively batching entries, which led to a date screw up, a mystery day I don't remember at all, and an irreparable rift in the space-time continuum. Sorry about that, science!
So, shithowdyduckfuckinggoddamn, it's time to saddle back up before I slide into Step 5 and start to smell constantly and strongly of fun-sized Snickers, Nutella, and humiliation. So here's now that's going to work.
*Edit those resolutions down.
There are too many of them for me to keep them forefront in my mind without constantly checking a list, and so some of them have got to be enfolded into others or let go of entirely.
The new list of resolutions for months 1 (Energy) and 2 (Health) now consists of
1. Use energy honestly.
2. Exercise better.
3. Plug leaks.
4. Make the right effort.
5. Plan meals and snacks.
6. Weigh in.
*Take some time to make these habits regular.
It was ridiculously optimistic to think that jumping into a huge project like this and following new resolutions and goals every day would come easily and enthusiastically. Then, when it inevitably became work, I stomped my bratty little foot, screamed "Don't wanna!" and sulked in a pile of Halloween candy in the corner. Now that I know how hard these life changes are, I know that I need more time to settle into them before adding new resolutions to old. So, this month, I'm paring things down a bit and reinforcing previous goals by making November's overarching theme and single resolution be Pay Attention.
SLB works in a field where he's required to keep track of his time at work so that he knows to which clients he should bill his working hours and minutes. He complains sometimes of the burden of remaining conscious of his time when he'd rather lose himself in his work, but I think it sounds like a fantastic tool for keeping worthless distractions at bay. Continually asking "O.K., what am I doing right now, and is it what I should be prioritizing at this time?" would be irritating if you were sure to be efficiently focused on relevant tasks at all times, like my husband ALWAYS is (Have I mentioned that he's part German and part Mormon? Now imagine the discipline and ambition of both of these cultures funneled toward good instead of National Socialism and/or Manifest Destiny, and you've got SLB. The man GETS. SHIT. DONE.). But, friends, I am a flibbertigibbet, and flibbertigibbets really benefit from asking "O.K., what am I doing right now?" because so often the answer is "Stalking people I don't care about on Facebook while watching bitches hoard cheap barbecue sauce on Extreme Couponing," which, I think we can all agree, is just no way to live.
So, I am going to make November my time to pay attention and remain conscious of my goals while I go through my days. To do this right, I'm going to literally make myself uncomfortable (I almost said "take myself out of my comfort zone," but then remembered that I'd have to smack myself bloody for using such stupid and vapid cliche'd language on this esteemed platform if I did) by doing something I usually don't do: wear jewelry. I've read in various motivation and time- and task-management books and blogs about wearing a bracelet or other piece of conspicuous jewelry to remind one of one's goals. So, I've got a nice silver bracelet that sits closely enough to my wrist not to be a physical burden while still feeling foreign enough to keep me from getting too distracted from the day's stated goals.
Yes, November is going to be like a do-over for September and October. But a do-over is better than a never-done, and so I'm starting over by re-starting differently. Besides, I've had some successes (5 lbs lost, no headaches AT ALL in October, spending better time with Livy, working out harder on higher resistance levels at the gym, reading record numbers of books, etc.), and I don't want to disrespect the effort it's taken to earn them by backsliding into old, bad habits any more than I already have.
Did you know that the Giant Pacific Octopus has 8 arms to hold you and 3 hearts to love you? That explains why this specimen that's been running around our house since our Halloween party last weekend is so snuggly.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we're all about hybrid technology. And so, in the spirit of all things green, crunchy, and Northwesty, I give you these latest, heretofore unseen hybrids:
Behold! The Liamoctopus!
Tentacular Spectacular!
And gaze upon the Jeliviafish!
Given her constant desire to be nakey, it's no surprise that she's a moon jelly.
If we could exploit the vast energy potential of these two hybrids we could solve the energy crisis entirely. Scientists will continue their study of these two powerhouses as soon as naptime and snacktime are over.
Here. I'll toss you a cute bone for listening to all of my earnest attempts at personal development and self-improvement. Here we are on the way to the the-ah-tah.
Our CB nicknames are Hot Mama and Little Biscuit.
Little Biscuit's not really that blurry in real life, but she never did meet a wiggle in which she didn't want to indulge.
So sometimes Hot Mama has to wrestle Little Biscuit still to get a semi-decent photo. Thanks to Big Poppa Daddy Studmuffin, Esq., for the fine photography. Hot Mama over and out.
Hi, there, peeps! We're now into month 2 of Operation Awesomepants, and I haven't yet stated or begun to track October's resolutions. Oops! Let's get started now and call it even, shall we?
This month's goals all relate to health - amplifying it, maintaining it, and enjoying it. This was always going to be one of the 12 months of Operation Awesomepants, but it was launched to ASAP status after a series of tension headaches last month left me hobbled for days. Good health is one of those things you don't really appreciate until it's compromised, and I discovered that immediately and painfully last month. So, in the service of happiness, awesomeness, and the ability to move my head without wanting to vomit from the pain, October became Healthtober.
Part of the reason I was shirking the introduction of this month's goals is because some of them relate to losing weight, a practice that I have both personal and philosophical problems with. Personally, losing weight and counting calories triggers the living shit out of my OCD and makes it hard for me to think about anything else besides numbers in (calories), numbers out (exercise), and numbers on the scale. Philosophically, I question our culture's preoccupation with body size as a measure of overall health and am loath to participate in it. But, frankly, it's time to try to remove some of this burden from my bones. I'm slightly built, weigh more than is comfortable to carry around, and have a huge rack, all of which I think are contributing to my headaches, which reliably start in my upper back, then move up my neck and lodge firmly behind my eyeballs. So, structurally, losing weight can possibly help improve my health and, therefore, my life. I don't like it, but I'm going to do it and see whether I can heal myself.
In addition to the discrete goal of seeking medical help for my headaches, this month's resolutions are as follows:
1. Keep a food journal.
I'm already doing this with The Morah via a shared Google document. So far, so good. If it's too embarrassing or too much hassle to write something down, then I shouldn't ingest it. Plus, I do a lot of unconscious eating during the day (bites of Livy's snacks, eating dinner with her at 4:30 and then eating more later when SLB comes home). The food log is useful not so much for calorie counting, which makes me crazy anyway, but rather in just keeping me conscious of what I'm stuffing in my face. Business schools like to remind us that we can't manage what we don't measure, and, even if these aren't strict measurements, they're helping me manage my food intake already.
2. Plan meals and snacks in advance.
If the carrots are peeled and cut the day before, I will eat them. If I have to peel and cut them a la minute, I will eat a handful of cheddar bunnies. A few minutes an evening will save lots of emergency snacking the following day. Done and done.
3. Exercise with Livy every day that we're together.
Our dance class has proven so enjoyable, that I think it's time to introduce a little purposeful activity into our everyday life together. I usually exercise at the gym when she's in childcare, or when she's upstairs napping. It's time to initiate her into the world of intentional movement. While I'm not going to necessarily tell her to drop and give me 20, we can do yoga videos together, have dance parties, and go for longer and more challenging walks. Even if she just watches me lift weights or flail about on the floor doing core work, she's learning something about how to take care of her body later in her life. Hopefully she will be more graceful and attractive about it than I am, but either way it'll be a good experience to share with her.
4. Daily weigh-in and documentation in my day planner.
I've been doing this already, and it keeps me aware of the goal of seeing that number go down without making me too crazy.
So, in the name of good health, happiness, and awesomepants, Salud!
Today is September 30th, which makes tomorrow October 1st, which means that the first month of Operation Awesomepants, whose theme was energy, is coming to a close. So, did I keep my resolutions? Did keeping them dramatically improve my life and make me a happier non-camper? It was a mixed bag with a positive result, like when your Starburst packet contains a disproportionate number of orange ones, but then you decide that you actually really like orange ones. Yeah. Just like that.
Wait? What the what is this? Do you think it rumbles with Sunny D? Does orange juice look down on it with disdain? Fascinating. Let's table this discussion and get back to business, shall we?
1. Go to sleep earlier.
I opted to ignore this resolution so many times that the first row in my OA log looks like it's been hit with some 90's-era crop circles. I managed to go to sleep earlier exactly 6 nights out of the last 29, and will likely stay up tonight, too. That's a whopping 20% completion rate, friends, not something I'm proud of. The siren song of just a few more minutes of reading in bed, or watching TV with SLB, or surfing the stupid web in an obsessive quest for Halloween decorations was just too strong to resist. Still, I'll persist (Did I mention that I'm an amateur rapper?) into next month and the rest of the year. The strange thing is that, even though I didn't get more sleep than previous months, especially with big transitions in Livy's life that kept her up some nights, I seemed to have more energy during the days. My self-exhortation to "make the effort" rang through my days loudly and really did give me the verve that I expected more sleep to impart. But more on that later. And, hopefully, more early nights next month.
2. Use energy honestly.
All right, this one is a 27/29, clearly a success, but, again, unexpectedly so. I had anticipated that this resolution would prompt more rest in my days - more naps when I'd been up the previous night with Livy, more quiet reading time - but the exact opposite was true. I know that I have a tendency to try to quell the ants that seem to permanently reside in my pants, sometimes to the extent that I'll force myself into quiet activities simply because I think I should save energy or maintain a calm home during Livy's rest times, a habit left over from our previous house that was half the size of the new house. So, when I examined my energy level during the past month, I found more often that I really wanted to be doing more activity, not less. That meant less reading, napping, and screen time, and more cleaning, weeding, exercising, puttering and cooking, all of which are good things. This is also reflected in a surprise weight loss of 3 pounds for the month, too, which is also a great unexpected blessing. Who knew I had it in me?
3. Exercise Better.
This one was a toughie to maintain because I'm generally leery of new physical activity, but I managed an 18/30, or 60% of my workouts consisting of more than just pounding away at an elliptical trainer. I've also been brave about attending an evening yoga class at the gym with great results. I'm already improving in my flexibility and strength and can do poses now that I couldn't do when I was at my peak fitness before Livy. Liv and I have also been attending a mommy-toddler dance class, and I'm counting that as flexibility training because of all the stretches we do. One thing I still need to confront is my reluctance to lift weights at the gym. It smells like raw ass in the weight room, like post-Katrina flooding and old sweat mingled together, and I hate to take up valuable cardio time when at the gym is my only opportunity to really work up a sweat (Livy hates it when I run with the stroller). But, I recognize that this is a next step in exercising better and will find a solution.
4. Plug Leaks
22/30, or 73%. Leak-plugging has been easy this month, mainly because we have so many to plug. We may have moved in in March, but we've also been so busy and complacent that we never really settled in and began nesting in the new house. There was a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick, and we picked a bushel in the last month. And I say "we," uncharacteristically, not in the royal sense. Once we sat down and took a room-by-room inventory of changes we want to make and things we want to do in the house, SLB got on board with feverish activity. Livy has even begun cleaning up her toys at the end of the day - a couple of times without my having to ask. The leak-plugging has also spread to car maintenance, self-care, parenting (Oh, hi big girl bed and potty training!) and all manner of nagging "undones" on my to-do list. This forward motion feels great, and the sense that we're tackling these projects as a team is even better.
5. Make the Effort.
This one is tricky. I've got a perfect 100% here, no zeroes in any square in that row. I should celebrate, but I feel like I sometimes make the wrong effort. I may work and hustle all day long doing things, but often at the end of the day I feel like I've accomplished nothing of importance. Sure, I may have cleaned the kitchen, but did I do any writing that day? Yes, I may have run around hauling Livy from errand to errand, but did we have any meaningful floor time together? I know this is normal for a lot of people, particularly stay-at-home parents, but I'd like to focus on not just making any old effort, but on making the RIGHT effort. So please consider this resolution duly changed to Make the Right Effort. The days during which I did make the right effort, particularly when doing art projects with Livy or taking her to a play at the Seattle Children's Theater (she talks about painting on her feet to make footprint art and "Hawold and da Puhple Cwayon" ALL. THE. TIME.) I consider my most successful of the month. That kind of effort is where good memories come from, and that's the kind of work I want to do under this resolution. So, a result, a reflection, and a revision. That's parallelism at its best as I launch tomorrow into Month 2.
Here are two examples of Livy's following in her mother's occupationally impoverished footsteps from today's conversations. That sobbing you hear is SLB calculating the overall cost of my humanities-laden education plus inflation minus the grants I got for being poor and the 2+ jobs I held at any given time during school to get a rough estimate of Livy's upcoming education expenses.
1. Olivia Lee (babbling loudly in the back seat of the car): "DON'T BE RACIST, GOAT!"
Seriously, Goat. You have to chill on the goat power talk in front of the kid.
Olivia Lee (playing with toy hippos in the bathtub): Hippo is going for a walk.
Mama: Where is hippo going?
Olivia Lee: Hippo walking to the cafe.
Mama: What is hippo going to do there?
Olivia Lee (gleeful, grinning): Hippo likes to hang out! Hang out at the cafe!
Oh, please. It took them 9 seasons to cast a Black woman. Like they'd ever let a hippo hang out there. Goat and Friends: Rivaling one another for racist supremacy since 1994.
So, to encourage her to pursue her dreams, she is definitely wearing this for Halloween:
Bring on the Karo syrup, Elmer's glue, and patchouli. We've got us another novitiate!
Once upon a time there was an expectant mother who looked like this:
Rock out with your bellybutton out.
And an expectant father who, seeing his wife's increasingly gargantuan belly, decided that the time was ripe to assemble a crib for his growing baby girl. That process looked a lot like this:
He's just pretending to hammer. Our crew of crib-building elves is just out of frame.
And this crib worked for a long, long time. Like when that baby looked like this:
Yes, I know I was supposed to take the bib off before her nap. I can't go back in time, so don't nag.
or like this:
Cat always was, cat always is, and cat always will be Livy's snuggly little nighttime pal.
But now that that baby has started looking more like this, it was time to think about transitioning the crib into a toddler bed.
She never climbed out, but she could have. It just never occurred to her to do it when yelling for us to get her out was so much more efficient.
And so now she sleeps in a Big Girl Bed that looks exactly like this:
Why is it that pretending to go to bed is always more fun than actually going to bed? Why would you play at something you apparently don't like much anyway?
The transition to a Big Girl Bed wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I can't say it was easy given how much sleep we've lost in the last week or so now that the crib is gone. Livy stays in it well enough, but she has a hard time getting herself back to sleep when she wakes up in the night in her new bed. This means, of course, that we have to help her settle down and then settle down ourselves, often to just have to get up again and calm her down again. She loves playing in it, though, and just hanging out in her bed with her toys and books keeps her occupied for whole dozens of minutes. That alone makes the switch worth it.
We celebrated her first day with her Big Girl Bed with another first: Mama's first attempt at making a Mickey Mouse pancake. While I would never post a photo of what it wound up looking like, it started off looking like this:
A little misshapen, but delicious nonetheless.
And, in the spirit of "out with the old and in with the new," SLB finally replaced his old collegiate printer with one from this millennium. The old one, an Okidata (???), looked like this:
It printed at maximum 3 pages before it would jam, and sometimes it had to be hand-fed paper. My blood pressure is spiking just thinking about it.
We also finally man-,woman-,and childed-up and said goodbye to Livy's cardboard clubhouse, which we've had in our "formal" (HA!) living room since we bought our new range back in April. She misses it, but it was starting to stink and collapse. So getting rid of it was good practice for when she shoves us off onto an ice floe when we start to stink and collapse too much, too. You know, like in the next year. That fetid, structurally unsound hideaway looked like this:
Yes, we remembered to take the toys and daughter out before hauling it to the dump.
So, as we're upgrading and improving around these parts (this leak-plugging has become a real family affair), I'm just grateful that there's one old thing we aren't tossing out yet. And that looks like this:
Hi there, people! Tomorrow is September - no joke! - which means, meteorological calendars aside, I am declaring an end to summer and the beginning of autumn. I love the fall. As a longtime student and sometime teacher, fall has always meant new beginnings and fresh starts to me. SLB and I got married in early September for this very reason. September is a breath of fresh air and a chance to start anew. It makes me think of newly sharpened pencils and possibilities. In this calendrical and inspirational vein, I'll be starting some new writing projects on and off of this blog soon. Summer's over, and it's time to hunker down and do something good, dammit. But, until midnight when I become all virtuous and productive, let's linger over fine summer memories, shall we?
Like that time I took Livy to the Ballard water park, where she proved that a fleece Viking hat is, in fact, all-weather gear.
Pillaging knows no season.
Or that time I rode a mechanical bull in Las Vegas.
In hindsight, the blouson peasant top wasn't my most flattering bull-riding option. Learn from my example, people.
Or that time I made forty-freaking-eight cupcakes, along with forty-freaking-eight cupcake toppers for Livy's 2nd birthday party.
I'm crafty. I'm just your type.
Because I have an embarrassing tendency to do dumb things like this in the presence of a camera...
... let's let this sweet picture of Liv and her good friend Margaret stand in for the touching one of Liv and me that never manifested.
Or that time we went to the Oregon coast to play and to Sauvie Island to meet some new friends.
Livy LOVED the beach...
...
...
... until she didn't.
Handsome Baby Jake may be Sauvie Island's newest resident...
... but Livy preferred the goats.
Or the time we saw my boyfriend Steve play at the Snoqualmie Casino.
Flawlessly silver. Flawlessly foxy.
Or that time I read 9 horny vampire novels in 6 weeks?
So far #9 was the best.
Or that time that Toddlers & Tiaras started making sense.
Bathing, basking belly.
As you can see, it's been a fantastic summer for frolicking and fun. But my pencils are sharp, the tags are freshly off of my school clothes, and I've got a Trapper Keeper full of fresh college-ruled paper. Summer's been great, but fall is here, and that's time to shine.
We are currently entering a new phase of Earnest Potty Training here at Me Show Central, which is different from our usual Lackadaisical Potty Experimenting in its first and third words only. Basically, we've regularly put Livy on the potty to do her dirty bidness a few times a day ever since she could sit on the seat without toppling over. Sometimes magic happened, and sometimes it didn't. Now that she's older and more communicative she's started asking to use the potty and/or displaying more blatant potty cues, and so we have more magic than not-magic. Thus, the countdown to potty training has begun by small degrees. There is a distant light at the end of the potty tunnel, and we're slowly inching toward that dry, clean, fresh-smelling light.
To aid in this endeavor, we've been collecting potty books for some time. These are 3 of the best.
Happy nakey potty baby! Dang, I want one of my own!
This is an adorable little board book that's very accessible to toddlers just becoming familiar with the potty concept.
Pro: I really appreciate the line about the baby being able to go in her diaper, but choosing not to. I also love the illustrations of her waiting for the magic to manifest.
Con: The final image is of a collection of underwear with the exclamation "Undies!" written above it. Yes, I know that undies are the final goal, but the implication that one successful potty trip leads immediately to undies is misleading and rushed. It's hard work to learn how to use the potty, and I'd rather that work (and setbacks) be acknowledged than glossed over.
I don't care if the spider is a friend in every Mercer Mayer illustration; I will always, ALWAYS want to squish it.
As a kid, I was a huge fan of Mercer Mayer's Little Critter books, and it was with nostalgic glee that I bought this book about Little Critter's little sister learning how to master her pink potty. Overall, it's a great book for all beginning potty-ers: not too long to lose the younger set, and not too simple to bore the big kids. Plus, it has illustrations of pee in it. How can you go wrong?
Pro: There are accidents in this book, and they're handled gently and normalized. Little sis can't make it to the potty a couple of times, Mom cleans her up, and life goes on. Then she gets it, successfully masters the potty and her new undies, and lives happily ever after.
Con: Seriously, is Mrs. Critter a member of a fundamentalist LDS cult? What's with the neo-Little House dresses, and where's Dad in this story? Alas, in the Critter world, as so often among humans, parenting is women's work and moms wear shit fashion. At least Little Critter is learning this early so he can take his rightful place in the Critter patriarchy with no qualms about his gendered entitlement. Also, I hate that Goddamn spider.
I used to have Jolly Roger underpants, too. One time, when I had lost a lot of weight after drinking the water in Mexico, my pants fell down in the esteemed Benaroya Hall and all of Seattle's symphony-goers got to see them, the lucky bastards.
This book is the newest in our potty collection and is a gem of its genre. We bought it during our recent trip to the Oregon coast, and Livy has demanded that we read it before every nap- and bedtime since. It's got adorable illustrations and hilarious text, including two pirate songs about having to go and waiting to go potty. Brilliant!
Pro: The line about the little pirate making "the greatest, grandest pee and poop ever" alone is worth it. The pirate language is adorable, and the author fully commits to it throughout the book. For example, the little pirate yells "anchors away!" as he flushes and "swabs" his hands on a towel after he washes them.
Con: The book comes with and mentions within its story a paper pirate hat and stickers to be used as rewards for successful potty-going. While this is a fun idea, I'd rather that Livy's motivation for going on the potty remain intrinsic for as long as possible. I want her to go because it makes her feel proud and grown-up, not because she'll get a sticker on a paper hat if she does. Research shows that extrinsic motivation for a task can ruin adults' experience of performing it even if it had previously been considered pleasurable. I don't know whether and how this affects toddlers, but I'd rather not play around with it if I don't have to. Praise and pride are enough for now, and stickers will come later if we absolutely need them.
These are clearly not requirements for potty training, but they do make it more fun and open opportunities for talking about going potty throughout the day. But, at this point it's still a no-pressure prospect. After all, as the venerable Captain McCluskey says, "You gotta go, you gotta go." And as long as she keeps going we'll keep practicing getting the location for that going right.
