Meltdowns!

It's funny, the meltdowns. I mean, they are funny later, after the molten-down kid is asleep, like right now. Today we had a nice evening after work, played in the garden for a while, came inside to make the couscous salad and generally life was cheerful. But then Nina was too warm, and wanted to take off her sweater. The sweater was underneath the PINK DRESS:

Don't ask me. She looked like that when I picked her up. Apparently she wore it all day. I don't know how it started. Let's just be clear: this is not MY example she's following, with the frilly-ness... and not A's either, just in case you were wondering.

Anyway, the dress had to come off, and OH MY GOD. The DRAMA! Time out. And the time out wasn't such a problem, even -- we still don't know what the problem was, except that it was about closing something. Nina kept shouting "Close it! close it!" and we'd look at the door and say "do you want me to close it?" and she'd say "...yeah" so we'd try to close the door and she'd scream "CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT", clearly not wanting us to close the door. This went on for about 10 minutes (10 minutes TOO LONG, 10 minutes with a tearful child literally lying on the floor kicking), until finally we brought her into the other room, and  I opened and closed my hands, and a pen with its lid, and we finally got through to her that we didn't understand what she wanted. Then suddenly it was all "Nina down the slide! Play Mummy gotcha!" and everything was fine again.

In other news: did Nina make her first language joke today? We were walking back from the car, happily parked nearby for once, and she said "mummy change nappy" so I said yes, we'll change it when we get home, and have you done a poo? and we talked about that for a bit (I'll spare you the details) and Nina said "Nappoo! Nina have a poo. Nappooo!" Get it? Nappee, nappoo ...  

Another thing she did, perhaps a more pleasing example, is to generalize "yesterday" to "tomorrowday". I thought that was very clever, though I admit I'm rather biased. She's also pretty good with "soon, not yet" referring to bedtime. It's been a month or two now that she's been talking about other days, which can be quite confusing especially if we don't know what event she's talking about. Yesterday we went on these little mini-trains, with real mini steam engines and mini tracks. They are so cute. And she loved it! She talked about them a lot today, but if I didn't know, I'd really wonder what "Nina went on train inna tunnel, train DARK, train too HOT" or "Nina did a train, little train wheel around and round, engine, fire engine, very hot" could mean.

Why a parenting blog?

I read this article yesterday on Salon by John Barry: My baby is too boring to blog about

And I disagree, but it made me feel defensive anyway. After reading other blogs, like Refract, I confess that I've wondered: given that I'm blogging, why all, or mostly, about Nina? Why not a science blog? Or one all about amazing bacteria? Or math (who am I kidding)? Or music, or food? Or, maybe most relevantly, none at all? 

Well ... first off, it's not given that I'm blogging. This is not the given part of this scenario. It's given that I'm parenting. It's not like I can choose, hmmm, I'm going to spend many hours each week engaged in some outside-of-my-work activity that can be funny, heartbreaking, isolating, connection-affirming, maddening, deadly dull, frustrating, and fascinating, all in the space of just 32 short minutes ... and gee, what is that activity going to be? Is it .... scuba diving? Music? No! It's parenting!  Once the child is here, we are parents every day, and at least in our case it was by choice, and greatly celebrated.

But John Barry's right about some things. It's boring to read about whether someone went to Starbucks or Second Cup, whether it was quiet enough there to work, what kind of coffee they had and what the people at the next table were shouting about on their cell phones. I get that. And I get that it can be pretty boring to see pictures of someone else's precious child doing whatever precious children do at that age. So why did I start a blog?

Well, I doubt John B could go back and read all the archives of www.alittlepregnant.com and tell me that it doesn't reach out far beyond a bunch of multimedia collections about that particular story, those particular children. Parenting is a huge part of human experience and people like to share it, maybe so as not to feel like they are the only ones whose toddlers have a fear of lawnmowers. It is generic and it's unique. Most everyone does it, but it seems to require a lot more creativity than we give it credit for, not to mention sensitivity and perceptiveness, upper arm strength, stamina, patience, and finely honed negotiation skills. I blog because I've been entertained, informed and moved by the blogs I've read, I blog for myself, to remember these rapidly-evaporating penguin days, to share my excuse for a "scrapbook" with our relatives who are all too far away to enjoy a paper scrapbook, not that I'd have the time and energy for that either, and I blog for the occasional amusement of my friends. And like everything else out there, in newspapers, magazines, blogs, videos and novels: if it's in a genre that bores someone, he doesn't have to read it. 

On that note:

Bye Head!

Sometimes I hear Nina say things, and I think: wow, I sure didn't know that word until I was an adult (and no, I'm not teaching my child any of those kind of words, if you were wondering). Or in some cases, at least quite a bit older than 23 months. For example:

1. We were walking to the pub

2. and on the way, there were some iron gates, behind which there were tightly linked fence-type things made of thin strips of something like bamboo, just like a sushi mat, which Nina pointed out with great interest. Yep. We have a toddler who knows what a sushi mat looks like, though not, admittedly, what it's for. My sushi-making days have hit a little hiatus.

3. In the morning Nina helps her papa make a cappuccino for me (a chuni!), and at the appropriate time, she announces: Nina tamp! Papa tamp! Nina's turn, papa turn. See Mummy coffee there! So yes, we have a todder who can tamp herself a shot a of espresso, though she doesn't drink it. 

4. And on a related note: coffee beans, coffee ground... cappuccino, for that matter. 

4. Marmite. Enough said. 

5. Banjzos, otherwise known as garbanzos or chick peas

6. Rotate (maybe I knew that one, but I'd be a little surprised)

7. A large class of food items that just weren't probably on the toddler scene in Canada in  19xx-whenever-I-was-a-toddler, ie a very long time ago, like hummous, pesto, maybe even cherry tomatoes, olives, definitely edamame (a big favourite), pistachios ... naan, chai

There are more, I'm sure. I certainly didn't entertain myself at 2 by asking Mummy to look for another plane taking off on youtube. The current favourite is this cool little one here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDmnjwbJrVM&feature=fvw

And I have to admit that it is pretty cool to see a functioning plane being unloaded off the back of an SUV. 

As far as language goes, we're firmly in the territory of full sentences, a large proportion of which have the following format: 

"Not Joejoe's drink, not Evie's drink, not Lyla's drink, not Mummy's drink, that's Nina's drink!"  "Not Papa sock, not Mummy sock, not Joejoe sock, not Cami sock, not Papa sock, not Eva sock, that's Nina sock!" 

Or, hiding under a towel or behind a very small sock, "Where Nina?" 

(moving sock slightly) "There's Nina!"

One more funny little thing. Yesterday we went to the pub to see some friends, including our friend Ed, and have a celebratory drink. Nina was so good, and played with her toys, talked to everyone, and ate her treats and snacks. As we left: "bye bye, Head!". Like I said, sometimes it's just not quite there yet.

Always a new thing

We went on a trip last week to see relatives in Holland. It was great, and I won't bore all of you (all ye two or three readers out there) with lots of details. We had fun, we had wonderful food, it was cold and rainy and there were tulips in abundance. We learned that our child is NOT going to sleep when she's on a PLANE! A PLANE! Nina on a PLANE! Whirrrrrrrr! Plane! Another plane? See another plane. Plane again? 

And after the plane? Oh wow. It's a bus. Long gone are the days when you got off the plane and walked along a little enclosed ramp to the terminal. Nope. Those lie unused and empty, while we all load ourselves onto a bus to drive 37m to the terminal door. One can only surmise that airlines pay a fee for the use of those ramps, and a lower fee for the buses. And after the bus? Well, there's OMA, with a BALLOON!

We learned a few other things. Our child is more than ready for more advanced toys, and we've got to get rid of the babyish toys that clutter up our flat. There were a couple of toy camper vans, and these provided hours of narrated entertainment ("Mummy in the back! Mummy shower. Mummy in the back, Nina in the back. Wheel! Round and round, round and round. Look, a bed ... ") She got a duplo bus for a gift, and we opened it just before the long car ride to Keukenhof. It was so cute when she realised that it was, in fact, a toy bus. "It's a BUS! A BUS! heeheeheee .. heh. heh. a BUS." We put the little doors on it, loaded in the little lego guys and put their luggage underneath.

She also got some little toy dishes, and I wondered how she'd react. Within minutes she was stirring things and offering me some tea and soup. Today, she got out the lego luggage from the bus, and deftly pinched thumb and finger together to take the imaginary treats it contained, and then said "Mummy have it!" and handed it over. I know - it's typical kid stuff. But I thought that pretend tea parties happened when kids were 3 years old, not 22 months, just like I didn't realise that 19-month-olds tried to draw circles and airplanes (with, I admit, limited success, although some of the circles were pretty good).

We've also decided that we need to change the plan with food. We need to make dinner and eat together and not just give her whatever she wants whenever she first asks for it as long as it's healthy, which is sort of what we had been doing (at least on weekday evenings if she'd already had "tea" at childminder's).  The new plan is to actually make a meal and not let her snack much while it's being made, and then provide it and see if she eats it. What a nightmare. Today the thing (risotto with edamame instead of peas, and asparagus) wasn't ready until 6:30, 2 long hours after she'd had a jacket potato at childminders. She pretty much had a complete and total toddler meltdown at about 6:20. I was reminded of why we had our old system (you want olives? great! here's an olive! Here are 10 more olives ... can I cook now?) in the first place. But she ate it. Was it worth it? I think it will be.

 

A bus a splash splash! a bus again!

I've written before about how much Nina likes mechanical things - anything she can manipulate, turn, latch, open or close, spin; things with wheels, anything with buttons. A few weeks ago she worked out how to turn on the digital camera, and somehow set it to display an inset image along with the full image, after you've taken a picture. Neither of us can get it back. Last weekend she broke the camera, prompting me to look up how much it's worth. I thought that since it's a bit old it'd be easy to get another one, but nope, it's still about 300$. We googled around, and finally the much-recommended 'bang your camera on a hard surface to un-stick the lens-extending mechanism' worked. It took me back to last summer: 

T

That's a baby who's really annoyed that she's not allowed to play with the camera. Oh, and there's an Irish castle in the background.

Another favourite thing is water: bathing, splashing, and especially swimming. The other day we rode a BUS ('a BUS! a wheel! around and round! Mummy! Look! There's a BUS! Nina ride a bus! Nina bus! People up and down ...') past a FOUNTAIN, otherwise known as a "plash splash!". Later we went to play with the fountain, which was extremely exciting, what with all that water splashing around everywhere.  Where's this going, you wonder?

 Well, the other day Nina woke up from her nap and was very very cranky, so cranky that she was on my lap and I was trying to distract her from the seemingly urgent need to shriek in my ear. So I opened up the laptop and asked her if she'd like to see a bus.  'Eeeeeeeyyeaaaahh!' She said. So google was helpful enough to provide a large number of quality bus images. And then I found this wonder of toddler entertainment:




I'm always impressed that there are people out there, uploading these things, seemingly just for me, as if they knew that one day there would be a woman somewhere with a toddler who would just LOVE this... how did they know?

Baby barista

Payeh the penguin isn't obsolete after all! But he's not an essential part of every outing, an essential part of every bedtime ... sometimes he takes a turn on the slide, in his little pink stroller. I guess sometimes he's still a comfort.

A

A mini-barista. Train 'em young, I say. Or at least, entertain 'em so I can have my coffee already.

Baby "chuni"!

But by the end of the day things were looking rougher. Bath time.

Nina's got "I" and "my" confused, which we have finally noticed. I feel a bit bad now: a few times, as she climbed up to a slide on the playground, where there were a number of other toddlers, and loudly proclaimed "MY slide", I corrected her and explained that this was a shared slide for all the kids. What she meant, we now know, is that SHE would like to slide too. So we're trying to teach her the difference, and sometimes she gets it. I get such a kick out of her language, both how it's developing and how it's still not quite there. For example: 

A: Nina, can you say "I brush my teeth"? 

N: "My brush a teeth, My brush my teeth, Nina brush Nina teeth. Mummy brusha teeth! Mummy turn!" 

A: Nina, can you say "I walk to the kitchen"?

N: "My walk a chicken!"

BBC radio 3

It is 7pm and dinner has been made, but not eaten. I'm astonished at how relaxing it is around here when A takes Nina to the park. It's sunny, and about 10C, out there. I am trying to adopt the attitude that this is SUMMER. 16C at midday, and sunny: about as good as it gets around here, or at least, as good as it's been for the last 2 years. It does occasionally reach 20+, but only for a few isolated, unpredictable days. Our Augusts have been so rainy that our luggage (!) and our shoes (!) and our coats (!) went moldy. Yep, mold is NOT just for fruit, or things left too long in the fridge, around here. According to google, mold doesn't have a natural predator. Can this be true? Anything that ate mold in this country would take the place over. I'll have to go on Ask A Biologist and find out.  Meanwhile, in line with the pretense that it is in fact summer, we're taking Nina to the park a lot, eating lunch in the gardens on campus, and generally making an effort to be outside. So he went out and I turned on BBC3 and made a simple dinner. 


Every time I try to re-involve my life with music I can't imagine it not being there. At home I used to be an avid CBC2 listener, and I particularly loved Disc Drive with Jurgen Gothe, and Music for a While with Danielle Charbonneau. They've changed it all now - Shelagh Rogers doesn't do the morning one any more since they got rid of Take 5 (which I liked), in favour of Studio Sparks or whatever ... but that was all ages ago and now a lot of it is jazz/world/rock. I like jazz, and "world" (is that like "ethnic"? meaning, not white? or what? aren't we in the "world", and wasn't Beethoven, too?) Anyway, it's all different and I'm all gone, and all that. And I haven't gotten familiar enough with BBC3's programming to listen regularly, but I've just re-read An Equal Music by Vikram Seth, and have again decided that I have to reconnect with music somehow ... Lately BBC3 has been just the thing. I imagine, like in Seth's book, that children across the UK who otherwise might not hear classical music are out there somewhere, in villages, in cities, listening to Piazzolla, to Lieder, hearing the sound of voices joining and thinking: I have to be part of that. So tonight I might finally make it to my Irish music jam. And I've been slowly and sporadically working on a few projects: teaching myself basic harmony (much progress has been made and I can now harmonise simple Christmas carols and folk songs pretty quickly, not that the resulting arrangements are terribly interesting), practicing scales and arpeggios with my eyes closed (really helpful! and not as boring as with eyes open), planning to start transcribing music I hear (I got as far as printing out blank sheet music pages) ... And of course I want to work out how to best expose Nina to music. She can play around on the piano, saying "bam! bam!" as she hits the keys hard, and "pling pling pling" as she plays them softly. She can mimic simple rhythms. She can try dance and sway her arms, sort-of in time (so cute). She can sing "twinkle twinkle" in tune, with a mish-mash of words from abc's to twinkles to yes sir yes sir three bags full. She sings a few other little phrases, life is but a dream ... 

Any advice? How do I bring music into her life in a fun way? I wish I'd had music lessons much earlier, not that I want to force it on her. 

Oh, and another thing: on Saturday, A and I and a friend started this program. Just so you know, I'm not doing the full ones, but they are. So far, so good - and I'm surprised by how many different muscles got just that bit sore. The goal is to be able to do 100 by Nina's 2nd birthday, approximately 8 weeks away. I will add healthy eating, regular running, developing upper body strength, transcribing music, learning more classical harmony, learning introductory jazz harmony (after probably some simple blues), music games with Nina ... baking bread ... and a million work-related things ... to my ever-growing list of projects. Hmmmm...