FUD: Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt

First word! November 11, 2006

First word!

Originally uploaded by tracicle.

Ethan wrote a whole word that wasn’t his own name. He was stamping stars on his generic-brand Magna Doodle and asked me to write “Star” for him. “No way,” says I, “Do it yourself!” So he asked how to spell it, and I told him, and he painstakingly wrote the whole word.

The S looks pointy because he learned to write it from Superman’s logo. And I don’t know who taught him to write capital A and R — not me! — but wow. A thing of beauty and I hugged him and told him how proud I was, and we took photos and you can see how pleased he was with himself.

Honestly, wasn’t it only, like, last month he was born?

Funny stuff what kids say! October 12, 2006

At the dinner table last night:

Amy: Mummy!

Me: Yes, Mummy, good girl!

Amy: Mummy!

Me: Yes! Well done! [point to Mike] Who’s that?

Amy: [LARGEST BELCH IN BABY HISTORY]

We all fell over laughing (my dad, his girlfriend and her daughter were there too) and so Amy cracked up, nearly falling out of her high chair, because obviously burping to acknowledge her father’s existence is now the funniest thing in the universe.

…

Ethan has been asking us a lot about weddings, as we’ve got one to go to next month. He asked why people have weddings, so I told him the basic story that a wedding is a big party where two people tell everyone that they want to be together for the rest of their lives and live together and look after each other.

So now Ethan wants to marry — in the following order — me and Mike, his Nana (Grandad gets visitation rights), Hannah across the road, and Reuben, his friend who lives down the street.

Mike told Ethan if he wants to marry Reuben, it’s actually a civil union.

All in a day’s work. September 25, 2006

We got some portraits of the kids done recently and this morning while the kids were absent, I cut a wallet-sized one from the sheet with my papercutter, leaving the papercutter on the table. This afternoon I caught Ethan playing with the papercutter and said to him, “That’s not a toy, and it’s not for you to play with!” to which Ethan countered, “Well, why did you leave it OUT?!”

Amy has a big bruise on her forehead and a graze on the tip of her nose from attempting to walk down one of the concrete steps by herself. Have I mentioned the singlemindedness lately? She knows darn well that either she goes down on hands and knees, or waits for a grownup to hold her hand. But no. She can do it herself, thank you very much.

What was I saying about gender? I forget. August 25, 2006

Me: Thanks for letting me wipe your nose, Amy. Good girl!

Ethan: I’m a good girl too!

Me: Yeah, you’re a good girl.

Ethan: I’m not a girl, I’m a boy. I’m a girl, I’m a boy, I’m a girl, I’m a boy, lalalalala!

Okay, but if he wants to wear a frilly pink dress to kindy, I may have to put my foot down.

Things to do/Things I have done August 22, 2006

Have done:

* waltzed Amy around the dining room in full view of the neighbourhood to Rufus Wainwright;

* “played” my bass guitar for the first time since oh, the Jurassic Era or so;

* been bled on by Ethan from more than one wound at once;

* hugged my babies, just because they are so clever and funny and oh-so-cute-and-much-cuter-than-yours-of-course;

* watched reality TV;

* read a book on gender duality in preschoolers.

To do:

* get rid of this evil sinus cold that is currently lurking in my nose and throat;

* get a full night’s sleep for the first time in a week (dependent on the above);

* start the three assignments I have due in less than a month.

* * *

College — well, I haven’t written about college, have I? It’s going fine. I mean, the Certificate of Supporting Children’s Learning is level four, meaning somewhere between high school and DUH. Everything I’m told and everything we discuss in class is common sense, like, oh my god, reading to your child is…wait for it…GOOD FOR THEM. WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT.

I have been enjoying it though. Every Monday my day at college begins by having a lecturer read a children’s picturebook to the class. Every book is fascinating and has a positive message and I can’t believe I have never sat down and thought about the deeper meaning in a children’s book. We talked briefly about the mental health issues that lurk behind Where the Wild Things Are and then I came home and read it to Ethan and the discussion we had afterwards was so eye-opening, talking about the security of home and what fun it is to imagine and pretend.

The classes are deliberately vague and overarching, covering many things in a shallow way, but I’ve been picking out things that interest me to research later or things that directly relate to Ethan and how he plays or talks or reads and writes. I’m starting to get really excited about studying next year — but that’s another post, probably after I’ve ranted about the ridiculous incompetence of the Student Loans scheme.

I’d walk in her shoes, but you know, the crushing of tiny bones and all. August 16, 2006

At last, we have before us a toddler. Amy has been walking back and forth, with no encouragement, all afternoon. She strolled into the kitchen earlier and started rummaging through the hot-water cupboard (you know, the one where we toss all our plastic grocery bags and matches and lighter fluid and sharp knives?), so I took her by the hand and she patiently followed me through to the lounge: “Oh hello nice lady, why yes these floors are slippery — and would you be so kind as to remove the six-pack ring from my neck while we meander? Ta ever so.”

I have been reading a book called Frogs, Snails and Feminist Tales about avoiding a black-and-white view of gender and sexism in children, and studies in how gender factors into the way children relate to each other. It’s a fascinating book, not least because the author was inspired by The Paper-Bag Princess, which was one of my favourite books as a child.

These entries have been brief lately because a) I’ve been having trouble finding the time to write; and b) I’ve felt rather uninspired lately and unable to write teh funny. I know the funny is there; it’s right in front of me every time Ethan opens his mouth or Amy whacks Mike in the forehead with a lead block. But I can’t get it from in front of me to on the keyboard. Sorry. I’m sure the funny is lurking.

Zapatos! July 26, 2006

Amy la chiquitita tried to copy me this morning: I brought my shoes into the lounge and sat on the sofa to put them on. Amy saw what I was doing and raced over to her shoes, picked one up and waved it at me, saying, “Shoh!” Then she tried to place it on top of her foot.

By Ethan: a short story. July 20, 2006

The phone went walking down to the river, and had a drink. And he just went down home. He bumped his head on his chair and gave his mum a kiss. Then he walked down to the park and he watched a movie called The Incredibles. He saw a ‘F’ and then he said his name, which was “The phone went walking”.

Me: That’s his name?

Ethan: Uh-huh. And he just got scared because he found his kite and flew up with it. He heard a bump, and it bumped on his head. He found his mummy and he climbed up a tree. Up in the tree he found a nest and he lived in it. But the bird said, “Oh no! Who’s in my nest! A phone? With legs and eyes and a mouth? Yes!”

Me: Then what happened in the nest?

Ethan: The phone broke. Into little pieces and the bird ate them all up.

Me: Is that it?

Ethan: Yeah.

ET FIN

When the cat’s away… July 19, 2006

Mike is away in Auckland until late tomorrow, and so far all I have done is prove my dunce status in front of two of my neighbours in a sad case of “Wednesday is for Losers”. In a two hour space this morning:

* D brought a shirt to sew a button back onto, but forgot to bring the button. She told us that she’d checked for the spare button that’s usually sewn inside a shirt when you buy it, but it didn’t have one. Later she found it. Where it should have been.

* M brought some photos to put in her album and searched through her stuff a bazillion times, unable to find the exact piece of paper she’d meant to bring. Not surprisingly it was where she’d already looked.

* I slopped my cup of coffee all over myself.

* D got picked out in front of everyone — about sixty people — for having her nametag on upside down. This was more of a WTF? moment, though.

* I was separating some thread for a cross-stitch and had the end of the thread between my teeth to keep it taut, when my hair got tangled in the thread and I almost had to cut it out.

…

In other news, Amy has cut two more teeth! One lower first molar on each side, within two days of each other. The top two are currently very hard bulges under her gums.

Ethan had a friend to visit this morning, and the two kids were playing various pretend games. I heard them fighting at one point and went to see what was up: Ethan wanted to be four so he could go to morning kindy, and his friend H wanted him to be five so he could go to school.

D and I were discussing the impact of parental alcohol consumption on our children — D’s husband had gone to the supermarket with their three-year-old daughter who pulled him into the wine aisle and yelled, “We have to buy wine for Mummy!” while her four-year-old son wanted D to invite her friends around “for drinks” so he could have his friends around and they could choose between chips and popcorn. The other night I had a glass of wine while I was cooking dinner and Ethan asked, “Is that wine?” I said yes and he said, “That’s what grownups drink, isn’t it? That’s what you drink when you’re at D’s house.”
Honest, it was only that one time…

Beep-beep, beep-beep, yeah! June 1, 2006

I hauled out Ethan’s old push-along/ride-on digger that he loved to push around the house when he first learned to walk. Amy’s close enough to walking now that she can, with help, push it along on the carpet and smash it into walls and shins.

A few minutes ago she found my car keys where they’d slipped off the stereo cabinet, and has crawled with them over to the push-along digger and is whacking them against the steering wheel.

I can see that she is going to drive as well as her mother.

* * *

A few days ago I actually had to get the video camera out because she was playing with Ethan’s LeapFrog alphabet thing — it’s a magnetic magical singing box that sticks to the fridge, and when you put a magnetic letter in, it sings the letter, and when you press another button it sings the whole alphabet — and she’d not only managed to turn on the alphabet song but was bopping her head along to the music. When the song ended, she laughed and pressed the button and started all over again.

* * *

Ethan’s favourite new word is definitely:  “I’m definitely not eating my lambchop!” “I’m definitely having a bath tonight!” or “I’m definitely not pushing Amy right now, Mama!”