I Do It

"I do it".

It's a phrase I hear a good thousand times a day, and I'm only exaggerating a little bit.

Well, actually I should say that, technically,  the phrase I hear is "You do it", because the conversation would go as follows:

Me (doing pretty much anything)
BigBro, in utter panic: "YOU DO IT?!"
Me: "We say, 'I do it'" (more or less)
BigBro: "I DO IT!"
Me: "Okay, you do it."
BigBro: "YOUUUU DO IT!"

It can be a real "Who's On First" kind of conversation. But it's important not to mistake that "YOU DO IT" means that you best get out of the way. Toddler on Mission: Independence here.

Many of these tasks, like climbing into his own car seat, makes me pull a muscle just to watch. He'd make a good rock climber. I'm impressed that he would still rather go through all that each time than just let me lift him in.

Quite the opposite, in fact. It's quite traumatic if we are in a hurry and don't have time to realize this pursuit of autonomy at every step. Not surprisingly, we are in a hurry often. Especially after a morning where he's insisted on doing everything himself.

Click to enlarge

I dared help him tidy up his mini Mr. Potato Heads the other day, and was blasted in the face by a panicked "YOUUU DO IT", followed by his removing the body parts from the bucket... setting them down on the floor... waiting a beat... then putting them in the bucket himself. Well, excuse me, then. 
 
I've tapped into this, though. As mentioned in a previous post, he takes great pride in pitching in, which I will not discourage in the least. He has learned the steps to making my coffee with the Tassimo in the morning, which he always looks forward to. Obviously at this point I take over once he's pressed the button, but I like where this is going. 

Toddlers are not about taking the easy route. Isn't it inspiring, though? Can I bottle some of this perseverance and enthusiasm for when he's fifteen? Heck, can I take some for myself?

My little boy, becoming more independent by the day *sniff*.
 As we head out to the car, he'll hang off the driver's side door, saying, "you drive?"
"Only Mama and Dada drive. You can drive when you're big like Dada."
"Okay," he says. "Tomorrow, you drive."

I laugh, but then, with how fast it's going, it will probably feel like tomorrow.

Toddler Moves

Toddlers dance like no one is watching. Or maybe they dance like everyone's watching. Either way, they all seem to have the same signature moves.

Oh, the spinning. Spinning until you run into your friend, the couch, the wall or the floor. Then repeat.

How can that not put you in a good mood?

Banana Phone and the Generation Gap

Have any of you had an experience that really made you feel the generation gap between your kids and yourself?

I had that experience through, of all things, a game of Banana Phone with Big Bro.

1. As I handed him the banana and pretended to talk to him with mine, I realized that a banana looks nothing like the phones he's seen. He might've felt more at home using, I don't know, a slice of bread.

Luckily, I have a stone-age (read: 6-year-old) flip phone that kind of looks like a banana, so I guess he could see what I was getting at.


2. To start the conversation, I asked him who he was gonna call on his banana phone. Quick! Fellow kids of the 80s! We all know there's only one way to answer that:



I then realized that his generation will not automatically go to 'Ghostbusters' in response to that question. How am I going to relate to this kid??

So we enjoyed a good chat, mostly about what he had for breakfast. But then when we wrapped up the call, I notice how we each hung up our Banana Phones.


I'm just used to always theatrically placing my banana down to hang it up. Big Bro's banana has an End Call button. Of course it does.

I have to catch up here! I'm not even old, either!

(Speaking of 'catching up', I also have to really start saying 'recording' instead of 'taping' when talking about TV shows before I'm dismissed entirely as a big lame-o).

What have been your experiences that make you feel the generation gap?

Things That Go Bump (and Beep, and Roar... ) in the Night

It's always unnerving to hear those mystery 'bump in the night' noises. They make you wonder if it's just the dryer running, or if you forgot to close the garage door and your house is being ransacked.

When you have small kids, however, and have any of those motion-activated toys that make sounds, the noises that wake you up are a whole new experience.

For example, we have an interactive toy house facade that is always at the ready for fun and singing and learning at any time of day. It's about two feet high, and it's not easy to see when you go downstairs in the dark for a drink of water, as we found on more than one occasion.

We also have kicking around a few musical trucks, Play 'n Learn singing puppy and a sassy wise-cracking ankylosaurus. Add those to our myriad "How-the-heck-do-I-open-this-thing" baby gates, and an intruder wouldn't stand a chance.

Who needs a security system?

Everything is a Vehicle

When I was three years old, I would set myself up in a laundry basket with every stuffed toy I owned and badger my dad to fly me around the house in it.

We called it "Pigs in Space" --you know, like the Muppets. Don't know about Dad, but I sure never tired of it.

Like mother, like son; Big Bro sees a potential vehicle for rides around the house (flying or dragged along the floor) in pretty much anything he can fit on or into-- boxes, bumbo chairs, blankets, buckets, serving trays, and so on. My poor back. That boy loves to be given rides.

I should clarify: he loves to be given rides, except for in his stroller and other things he's actually supposed to ride in.

Click to Enlarge

(P.S.: I've tried to word it as 'going for a ride' in the shopping cart or stroller to make it sound more appealing, but he's not buying it.)

Pintimidating

So I go on Pinterest and type in "Toddler Activities" to see if I can find some good ideas for things to do with Big Bro now that he's reached the exciting, curious age of two. Some extra little things I could set up for him to keep things interesting during those days at home together-- especially those times when I'm busy tending to Little Bro.

I found ideas, alright. Pinterest could be otherwise named "1001 Awesome Things You Aren't Doing".

Pages and pages.

Kids' rooms are supposed to be chic, I see... are ours chic? Not canopy-pirate ship-treehouse-reading loft chic, they aren't. My kids are also totally getting ripped off having to read in chairs instead of in a 'nook', let alone a super awesome reading loft. LOFT!

I also don't know how whimsical I could consider our play area. It's organized, but decidedly lacking in whimsy. Our suburban backyard doesn't even have a tree, let alone a vegetable garden and chickens for my kids to tend. I didn't lovingly restore any furniture, unless by "restore" you mean "put the cushions back on".

Then there are all the photos of excited, engaged children learning and developing skills through open-ended play thanks to busy bags and homemade sensory bins.

For a moment, I have an image of my kids picking their nose and staring at the ceiling fan all day because I'm not on top of my parenting game here. We didn't even do anything for St. Patrick's Day!

But it's not about stressing to do it all anyway, right? It'd be like going to Paris and spending the whole time stressed out because you're trying to fit in all your must-sees, not enjoying the experience.


But then, you wouldn't want to spend the whole visit in the hotel room watching TV either, if you get my analogy.
 
In reality, it's not that I don't want to do this cool stuff; in theory, the teacher in me and the artist in me would like to try it all ... it's just that I think I'd need to put the kids on 'pause' for a good month to do it. Unlike in teaching, you can't gather ideas gradually over the years for subsequent batches of kids. They're here, and they're growing up just once. It's now or never.

So I came across several quick and easy activity ideas using items in the house and small dollar store items. Yes, this I can do, at least! Cheaply, too! Such activities include:

• Pipe cleaners and a strainer-- he can put them in the holes!
• Pompoms and plastic bottle or yogurt container with a hole in the top-- fill and dump!
• Buttons and a muffin tin or egg carton--  sorting! Throw in plastic eggs and you've got an Easter theme!
• Tearing paper!

The kids in the pictures look so into it. And so does mine, at least for a while.

Well. That was a lot of effort to create more clutter.

(On a related note, I would also caution anyone trying to make a bean bucket not to buy yellow peas, even if they're on sale. You would not believe how far they roll.)

I guess we're getting there with the homemade toddler activities. I'm just not ready for my Pinterest debut yet. 
 

Thanks, Captain Obvious

It's so handy to have a toddler who will inform you when the bellowing baby is being disruptive and hard on the ears... especially when you've been two inches from said bellowing baby for the past 20 minutes trying to calm him down.

Having small children is full of delightful, precious moments.

This was not one of them.