Sight Words

Sam and I have been working on reading for a while, but we have been concentrating specifically on sight words since Saturday. She's pretty good at it, and so far its been lots of fun. We started with five words, and we draw a new random word from the deck each day.

Today, neither of us are feeling really well, so I was relieved to draw the word "I". Yay an easy one! ...or so I thought.

Me: Sam, today our word is "I". Look at the word. "I".

Sam: Mommy, "I" is not a word, its a letter of the alphabet.

Me: "I" is a very special letter of the alphabet that gets to be a word too!

Sam: What does it mean?

Me: "I" is a pronoun used to refer to oneself. For example, "I would like a snack, please." In that sentence, who wants a snack?

Sam: Mommy wants a snack.

Me: Wonderful! That is how we use the word, "I".

.........significant pause here.......

Sam: So "P" is a pronoun for my pee-pee.

.....Maybe mixing flash card time and potty time was not the brightest thing for me to do....

Mommy Dugu

This morning was just like any other. The kids woke up, were given their morning drinks, and while Caius was having his bottle I vacuumed the floor and put out a fresh blanket and a bucket of toys for him to play with while I made breakfast. I put him on the floor and went to help Sam in the bathroom.

When I came back, I noticed something in Caius' mouth. Upon further investigation, I found a piece of dog food! I was shocked! So I picked him up, put him in his bouncer, picked up the blanket and toys, swept the floor again, and started all over. Then I went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

At this point, I should mention that aside from some unnecessary barking, I have generally well behaved dogs. As such, I often save my "mommy eyes" for the kids and miss out altogether on whatever my dogs are doing.

After a minute or so, I peeked around the corner to check on Caius. Again, there's something in his mouth....another piece of dog food! That's not even possible! He hasn't moved from that spot! So I decide to observe. And this is what I see...

Ndugu (who evidently believes with Dave gone I need help feeding the baby) walks into the kitchen, picks up a couple bites of food, and brings them to Caius. I think to myself, "Well, that's inconvenient. He often takes his food other places to eat it, I wish he wouldn't do that right there." Caius is facing the other direction and not paying attention, so there is hope. I keep watching. Ndugu picks up the food again, takes it around to the other side of the baby, sets it down, and nudges it toward him. Yup. That just happened. My dog is feeding my kid.

Maybe he is a big helper. Maybe he thinks I'm not performing up to par. Or maybe he's just trying to earn brownie points so Caius will drop food down from the high chair. I guess only time will tell.

Small Packages

The best things come in them!

Little Plastic Cow

My daughter has a MILLION toys. Okay, not quite a million, but close. She has everything from the latest Dora's talking dollhouse to the retro squeaky pull along phone just like the one I had when I was her age. Her grandparents always make sure she lacks for nothing in her toy collection. For all their efforts, her favorite toy is a little plastic cow she found at the bottom of a box that was on its way to the trash at the farm.

She takes him everywhere. He gets lost multiple times daily. He's been stabbed, almost burned, painted, colored, left out in the cold, and he's been covered in bandages (Sam's self administered first aid class) for over a month.

Bowie is what she calls the cat she sleeps with. He is pristine. He's always on her bed. She gets really upset if anyone tries to play with him (especially our little dog, Ndugu). He's been through the wash several times, but you could never tell. He's never enjoyed a pbj with her or dug in the sandbox. But try getting her to sleep without him.

I was thinking about this last night as her cow (after spending most of the day in her hand) was sitting out in the snow and she was crying for Bowie. I realized that most of my own things fell into either a "cow" or "Bowie" category. Some things I use hard and all the time. Other things I keep well and protected, only handling with clean hands when things are calm and safe. As I thought even more about it, I often keep my loved ones in these categories as well. Some share my messiest and ugliest times; they are almost always within reach. Others I keep away from the mess, protected and safe, but I love them just as much and have much difficulty sleeping at night without them in my life.

I usually feel almost guilty about the latter--like I'm not really sharing myself with this person. But maybe that's how its supposed to be. Maybe I'm not supposed to smear grape jelly on all the people in my life. Maybe.

Robot Unicorn Space Cat

A few months ago, I read an article in a parenting magazine about how important it is not to stifle your child's creativity by imposing your own tastes on them. It offered various tips to letting them discover their own tastes in music, art, fashion, etc. When I read the article, I felt pretty good. I thought to myself, "I do all those things! Yay! Go me! I win at mom!"

How wrong I was. Fail evidence A: Enter my daughter's comfort item "Bowie" the Robot Unicorn Space Cat, with whom she sings "Bowie's in spaa-aaa-aace. Whatchyadoin Bowie?" and answers "I'm jumping over space rocks" and runs around the room singing "always I want to beeeee with you and make beweeeeeeeve with you....."

Ah well. Better luck next time. Right?

My Tech Babies

After spending a few hours this week trying to upload various videos of Caius to this blog with no success, I've finally given up. Pictures will just have to do.

I had intended on presenting a blog about how funny it is when babies first start trying to actually communicate with mommy verbally, supplemented with an adorable compilation of video clips of Caius doing just that. Alas, I lack the tech knowledge to make that happen.

But as I was furiously attempting this, I glanced away from my computer at my children and noticed several things.

1) My daughter at two years old can choose a dvd, remove it from the sleeve, place it in the player, and choose the correct menu option using the remote control.

2) My son at seven months old can flip the switch to turn on his little farm soundboard and push his favorite keys to create the combination of sounds he finds the most entertaining.

3) My daughter can operate a touch-screen handheld video game with a stylus with as much ease as turning the pages of a book.

4) Both of my children attempt to interact with my computer by lightly touching the screen where they would like to see movement or hear sound. This seems to be inherent.

This is when I realized...I have become that woman. In 20 years, I'm going to be my mother-in-law. I will be calling my son who lives hours away to ask him to come home and fix my computer or television or hologram transporting device or whatever. My daughter (while possessing the intelligence and technological know-how to do this as well) will over-estimate my ability to solo the project and try to explain it to me. But if I'm lucky, my son will flash me that same "oh mom, you're so silly" smile he gives me so often now, and just fix the darn thing.

Snow Day

1000 words.