Preschoolers | Goddess in Progress

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Death Wish

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (9)· January 13th, 2012

[Unrelated: In case you're interested, you still have until Monday morning to join the weight-loss competition!]

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Conversation in the car on the way home from preschool the other day:

Me: So, Daniel, what did you do in school today?

D: I did my journal. [As far as I can tell, they have a set of lined paper and are welcome to write whatever strikes their four-year-old fancy.]

Me: Oh, really? What did you write?

D: I wrote: “Me and Becca don’t want to die.”

Me: mouth agape, stunned silence

D: Well, what I wanted to write was “Me and Becca don’t want to die until we’re 100,” but I ran out of space, so I wrote “Me and Becca don’t want to die.”

W. T. F.?

I have mentioned this strange fixation on death before, and you can see it has not exactly gone away. Daniel, especially, is sticking with it (and the idea that people die at age 100, which I’m not sure how to debunk in either direction). I would say it comes up at least a few times a week, most often in a totally nonchalant way. It’s really getting under my skin, and yet I am at a total loss about what to do with it.

My gut reaction is that he doesn’t seem to be expressing any real anxiety over this idea. My default stance is a sort of non-reaction, maybe in the hopes that if I don’t overreact and draw extra attention and allure to the topic, it’ll eventually fade. But maybe I should try to talk to him about it in case he actually is concerned? I don’t even know where I’d begin, frankly.

Weird death thing aside, I will say that Daniel is otherwise your typical precocious preschooler. Generally happy, totally flighty and distractable, sometimes bent completely out of shape by the color of his fork. He’s a bright and inquisitive kid, which maybe means he’s digesting this information a little more thoroughly than his emotional maturity can handle, but otherwise is not a particularly anxious or stressed kid.

And, no, I actually haven’t gotten a call from his teacher about this. I get a call about Santa, but not about “me and Becca don’t want to die.” I can’t tell if that’s a good sign (as in, she’s been teaching preschoolers for 25 years and is totally unfazed) or what.

What say you, moms of the internets? Is this just one of those strange developmental things, an obsession that will pass with time? Or is this starting to cross a line and warrants a little TLC before he goes all morbid on me?

Comments (9)

Categories : Child Development, Preschoolers

Everybody wins

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (12)· January 4th, 2012

Yesterday, I resurrected the star chart for earning privileges and completing tasks. I’ve got an app on my iPad (naturally) that easily keeps track of the running total and lets you dole out the rewards. I had started using it last winter, but it kind of fell off in use by late summer. But four-year-olds, like elephants, never forget. Occasionally, the kids would do something and ask me to give them a star.

Well, after one of those requests and a realization that video game time was again getting out of hand, we reinstated the star chart. They can earn a star for all variety of things – making their beds, clearing the table, putting away laundry. I even have the generic “help mom” on there as a way to reward otherwise unspecified good deeds. But after 24 hours, my favorite star-earner is “read a book.”

At almost 4.5, both kids can read pretty well. Daniel, honestly, is ridiculous. He can read it all. All of the words. ALL OF THEM. And he has so much committed to memory as “sight words,” his speed is downright alarming. Rebecca is still sounding a lot of things out, but is getting faster and smoother by the day (she’s also more likely to “cheat” and just guess by looking at the picture on the page). Regardless, I want to encourage both of them to keep practicing their reading at home.

So I tossed “read a book” on the star chart. Well, being the first day and starting from zero, both kids were desperate to earn more stars. So when we ran out of laundry to put away and the dog had been fed, I suggested that Daniel read a book to Ellie. Over the course of the afternoon, Daniel read three books to Ellie, and Rebecca read two.

When they each asked to read a second book in order to earn a second star, I hesitated. Were they just gaming the system? Then I realized I DON’T CARE IF THEY ARE. It takes 10 stars to earn 45-60 minutes of video game time. Read your baby sister ten books in exchange for some time on the Wii? GO FOR IT.

This is a win for everyone. The kids earn a reward while practicing reading (nearly any book they want, though I draw the line at the super short ones that they have completely memorized). Ellie gets extra attention from her big brother and sister, and gets read more books than I find myself able to do in a given day (oh, am I a slacker second-time-mom on that front). And I get eager, happy kids and anywhere from five to fifteen minutes of peace, interrupted only by the occasional request for help on a tricky word.

WIN.

Comments (12)

Categories : Behavior, Infants, Preschoolers

Tags : reading, reward chart, star chart, video games

Spoiler Alert

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (17)· December 6th, 2011

I got a call from Rebecca’s teacher yesterday. There was a “situation” that she wanted my help with. I didn’t imagine it could be too serious, since she hadn’t said anything when I saw her at pick-up, nor was there any kind of “incident report” on a random playground injury. Still, I was surprised. Rebecca is such a goody-two-shoes in school.

At circle time, the class was talking about different holidays, and how different families celebrate different things, etc. OK, fine, sounds good. Well, just as they were about to dismiss and go out to play, my girl decides to announce that “Santa doesn’t really bring presents, it’s really other people.”

That’s right. My four-year-old decided to tell all of her classmates that Santa is bullshit.

So, obviously, there’s no Santa in our house, what with trying to raise Jewish kids and all. Honestly, though Santa was something I had as a kid, I find that I’m actually quite relieved NOT to be including the man in red in our holiday celebrations. No waiting in line for hours to try to convince screamy kids to sit in a stranger’s lap, no coming up with a good story for what Santa is all about, no fallout when they get older and realize it was us all along. That said, I certainly have no beef with other families’ Santa traditions, nor do I have any desire to ruin the magic for any kid.

It’s not like my kids don’t know who Santa is. He’s freaking everywhere. They have no trouble recognizing him (much like Dora and Spongebob and other things I try to keep out of my house… you can’t avoid them). But they’ve pretty much come to see him as a character in a story, like any other. And M, well, M is a compulsive truth-teller and detail-explainer when it comes to the kids. He apparently had a talk with Rebecca the other day about exactly how and why Santa is a big, fat myth. Which, fine, I don’t mind that for my own kids in the slightest. But anyone with preschoolers knows that they have ZERO filter, and really love to trot out their newest tidbits of knowledge. Hence, the Santa truth bomb at circle time.

Ultimately, M and I each talked to the kids last night about it in an attempt to not completely ruin Christmas for all of their classmates. I talked to the chief truth-teller myself, and explained to Rebecca that different people believe different things. And that even though we know Santa is pretend, it would be nice to let her friends still believe otherwise if they want to. She mostly gave me an “OK, whatevs,” and we started talking about fairies and princesses. Daniel took in his own conversation with M, to which his immediate response was, “but WHY would their moms and dads not tell them the TRUTH?”

M is, frankly, quite proud of that one. I’m just smiling and shaking my head.

Ultimately, I think the preschool crowd has some pretty staunch Santa-believers, so I don’t think my kids’ occasional proclamations will be the death-knell for anyone’s holiday traditions this year. I’ve explained it to the degree that I wish to, I have tried to gently suggest that we not ruin the magic for their friends, and that’s as far as I’ll go.

For the record, I think that’s all the teacher was asking – she just wanted to avoid a full-scale Christmas meltdown in a class full of 3-to-5-year-olds. I sort of wish she had handled this herself, but I’m not especially bothered by it.

What do you think? How do you handle belief or disbelief in Santa at your house?

Comments (17)

Categories : Holidays, Preschoolers, School

Tags : Christmas, Santa

A list within a list

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (2)· November 21st, 2011

On an average week, I feel like I’m just barely keeping up. Plenty of balls being juggled in the air, but always at least one on the ground, rolling away. This is a week that feels even a little crazier, more frantic, more likely to fall apart.

The big kids only have school on Monday and Tuesday, because of course the preschool teachers need a staff day on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Ellie has three appointments in two days. I need to keep moving in my training program so I don’t die when attempting to run five miles on Thursday morning. And in the meantime, I have to sufficiently de-clutter my house so that there will be room for all sixteen of us to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner. And did I mention the brining and the roasting and the baking? Oh, and the dog needs a bath.

This week, each day requires it’s own lengthy and time-sensitive to-do list. When to pick up my race bib and shop for groceries. When to pick up the big kids from preschool and when to take Ellie to physical therapy. When to put the turkey in the brine and prep the green beans. When to do yoga and when to run. It can be done, but I really need to stay on top of things.

Naturally, after we got home from dance class tonight, Rebecca started weeping and shivering and saying that it hurts when she swallows. Her 10-day course of antibiotics finished yesterday. Tomorrow, we’ll be back at the pediatrician, and I suspect we will hear that the strep is back.

Of course it is.

Comments (2)

Categories : Holidays, Illness and Injury, Preschoolers

Tags : NaBloPoMo, strep throat, Thanksgiving

Living the dream

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (2)· November 20th, 2011

We stopped by the local sporting goods store before lunch today. While I attempted to find a good rain jacket for running (no, I do NOT want to talk about the deteriorating forecast for my Thanksgiving race), M tried to keep track of all three kids while simultaneously offering advice on various running jacket features.

As he stood in the middle of a bunch of clothing racks, squirmy and increasingly heavy Ellie in his arms, pair of insane four-year-olds running in circles around his legs, he turned to me with a wry look on his face.

“I am living the dream, right here.”

Comments (2)

Categories : My beloved, Parenting, Preschoolers

Tags : NaBloPoMo

Wha-say?

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (5)· November 19th, 2011

Both of my kids have always had great verbal skills, Daniel especially. They have good vocabularies and speak quite clearly for their age. When they mis-pronounce things, I almost never bother to correct them. The mistakes are adorable, for one thing. And for another, they have outgrown nearly all of them on their own, no intervention needed.

Daniel, however, is going through an intentionally lazy phase. He shortens words just because he can. When writing his name on papers at school, he stops at Dan. Because he can. It mostly makes me laugh, since he is clearly just like his mom and dad – perfectly capable of doing the work, but aware of how little he can get away with.

There is one development, in the past couple of days, that I do think I will try to correct. Mostly because I’m finding it annoying as hell. As with most four-year-old boys, he often has his head in the clouds and isn’t paying attention to what someone tells him. “What did you say?” has, apparently, become entirely too burdensome to say in its entirety. Because at least two dozen times today, I heard him say:

“Wha-say?”

“Wha-say, Mom?”

“Wha-say, Becca?”

But, of course, just because he’s asked you to repeat yourself doesn’t mean he’s ACTUALLY LISTENING the second time. So I get “wha-say” about six times in thirty seconds.

Oh, the random irritations of parenting, and the sudden realization that you sound like a crochety old lady.

“I can’t understand you when you mumble! Please speak clearly!”

I’ll just go soak my dentures, now.

Comments (5)

Categories : Preschoolers

Tags : NaBloPoMo

Afternoons

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (2)· November 17th, 2011

Afternoons are mighty quiet around here. I make it a point to give Ellie a nice, long, uninterrupted nap in the afternoon, since mornings are so unpredictable. And believe it or not, the big kids still nap a fair amount of the time (maybe 30% of the time for Daniel, probably 80% of the time for Rebecca). Even if they don’t sleep, it’s mandatory “quiet time” in their rooms for an hour and a half. Ultimately, that means we’re fairly shut down until at least 3PM, sometimes close to 5PM. We make very few plans out of the house for anything after lunchtime on weekdays.

The kids are back in a big Wii phase, and finally the two of them are really playing together much of the time (usually Rebecca prefers to watch and give Daniel “helpful” feedback). The game of choice is Mario Party, which is about the weirdest, trippiest thing you’ve ever seen. But they’ve figured it out and they love it. I put Lego Star Wars on their Amazon Wish List in the hopes of getting the annoying Mario Party sound effects out of my head.

Ellie says, “whatever, y’all. I got my toes.” She has literally no interest in any other toy. She just wants to hang out and grab her toes. Whatever makes you happy, my dear.

Comments (2)

Categories : Infants, Preschoolers

Tags : NaBloPoMo, video games

Picture Day

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (4)· November 16th, 2011

I don’t envy the guy who showed up at my kids’ preschool today, and somehow managed to wrangle 50 three-to-six-year-olds in three different classrooms in under two hours. But hey, that’s why we leave this up to the professionals.

Thanks to the modern magic of digital photography and photo-printing, I hear we’ll see the pictures within two weeks. Didn’t we have to wait ages and ages back in the dark days of actual film?

We missed last year’s school pictures while we were in Hawaii (not that I’m complaining about that trade-off!), so I don’t have them for comparison. But I’m kind of excited to get our very first official school photos. One more sign that they’re just getting bigger and bigger…

Comments (4)

Categories : Preschoolers, School

Tags : NaBloPoMo

My favorite time of the year

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (1)· November 12th, 2011

I’ve always loved Fall. I love sweatshirt weather, I love the different quality of the sunlight. I love those clear, crisp days.

Of course, the truth is that those perfect Fall days don’t necessarily come along that often. Freak warm front, freak cold front, freak day-before-Halloween Nor’easter that dumps snow and messes up trick-or-treating for three states.

But when those perfect, sunny, chilly days come through, it’s not half bad. Especially when the three gigantic oak trees in your yard are about halfway done dropping their leaves.

Which reminds me…. where’s the phone number for that landscaper to come clean up my yard? We have a quarter acre (huge lot ’round these parts) and once-a-month yard waste pickup. No way am I doing this myself.

Comments (1)

Categories : Preschoolers

Tags : Fall, leaves, NaBloPoMo

Birthday Buzzkill

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (8)· November 11th, 2011

I was about eight years old when my dad first pointed out what would become my favorite numerical phenomenon. I think I’ve mentioned it to practically everyone I know over the last 25 years.

On 11/11/11, I turn 33.

Not many people spend more than two decades looking forward to their 33rd birthday. I mean, really. It’s 33. An entirely nondescript birthday. But it’s been out there for me, waiting. I thought it sounded like fun! What kind of party would I have? What would we do?

Somehow my 8-year-old self neglected to consider the realities of life as a 33-year-old stay-at-home mom of three young kids. Remember how fun it was to have a birthday on a national holiday? Never went to school on your birthday? Guess what… now that means YOUR KIDS don’t have school on your birthday. Not nearly the same indulgence, believe me.

Still, I thought I’d start the day on a positive note. I was up early and got my run done, outside, nice and peaceful. It felt pretty good, as running goes, and I found the increasing light of 6:15AM much better than the pitch black of 7:45PM that I’ve been running in recently.

Sadly, it was pretty much downhill from there. Rebecca spent half the morning uncharacteristically weepy and refused to eat breakfast. After a complaint of a sore throat, and a warm body but cold hands and feet, I made the call to the pediatrician’s office. What time was available? NAPTIME. SUPER.

Stopped by Starbucks to redeem my free birthday drink, and the kids got an extra snack courtesy of their favorite barista. Drove to M’s office to have lunch, mostly because it seemed like a fun way to kill time, and he likes to show off the kids to his coworkers.

Off to the pediatrician, who was impressed by how quickly Rebecca’s strep test came back positive. Delightful. More driving around, poor Ellie has been in her carseat for the better part of the last five hours. To Target for the bright pink antibiotics, then finally back home and a late nap for everyone.

I was pretty ready to start drinking by then, but mostly just zonked out on the couch and vowed to order delivery for dinner.

Oh, birthdays when you are at home with small kids. Such glamour. Such pampering. Still, it wasn’t all bad. I got lots of sweet, heartfelt birthday wishes at random intervals throughout the day from my kids. A hand-written card from Rebecca (she did get some spelling help from M), and Daniel’s total incredulity at the fact that we weren’t celebrating my birthday with a party at a bouncy house and dinner of pizza and cake. In fact, both kids are insistent that we bake a cake tomorrow. Really, who am I to argue?

Farewell, 11/11/11. It was fun anticipating you all those years, and totally anti-climactic when you finally arrived. Guess I’ll have to find a new random factoid to bore people with at parties.

Comments (8)

Categories : Birthdays, Illness and Injury, Just me, Preschoolers

Tags : 11-11-11, 33, NaBloPoMo