My kids and notes from Year 5.7
December 1, 2020
Problem-solving
I see evidence of JB attempting to solve problems in very five year old kinds of ways. If one stool helps you reach up high, surely two stools stacked on top of each other is better? Until a resounding crash ensues, where they call out: I’M OK! JUST A LITTLE BLOOD BUT I AM TOUGH!
I see a variation on this theme later when they offered to fetch things from my closet and those things include a sweater hung on the top closet rod: a different stool stacked atop the previous base seems to have worked.
“I cleaned up the crumbs!” they shout from the other room. I’m not sure what that means until I come out and find the small dustpan filled with crumbs set near the garbage bin. They couldn’t empty it into the bin without making a mess.
Instead of “good morning”, JB says…
“Wake up sleepies, the early cats get the fish!”
“Mommy, if you die, baby dies.”
“Do you remember your dreams? MY best dream was …”
Kindergarten is …
Their 13 year old playmate asked: how’s kindergarten, what do you like?
JB: Kindergarten is boring. We just learn one letter a day. I already know my letters! My favorite part are the videos.
It’s sad but true. They like kindergarten because it’s easy and fun and they can sort of socialize in the sense that they see other people. But academic learning? Nah. That’s really not happening.
They are picking up a slew of DELIGHTFUL habits from the teacher though: complaining every flerken day about being tired and how hard things are and how much they wish they could be back in the classroom. šš
I can’t stand their teacher.
The First Trimester
The familiar stuff: I was immediately sick and more fatigued than usual at 5 weeks. Seems a little unfair, considering I couldn’t even confirm anything for another 2-3 weeks. Thankfully, my nausea wasn’t quite as bad as it was with JB. Not thankfully, I was hungry and nauseated all the time and the nausea lasted much longer.
The cravings were pretty strange. I feasted on…
– Chicken nuggets topped with sauerkraut
– Quesadillas every single night
– Fresh mozzarella balls and mango slices
– Lettuce wrap cheeseburgers
– Hot dogs with mustard, sauerkraut, pickles and avocado.
The new stuff: Rage. I felt raw unmitigated, barely harnessed rage at even the smallest of things. Let’s be honest, some of this is pandemic fueled, but the hormones affecting my mood were definitely new. I hated it.
PiC seems to think I was showing more obviously but I still think that was just overeating when I could eat. I was also way more tired a lot more often, but this time around, I took time to rest. I had a lot of really weird pains and muscle issues these months.
Home education
I was going to recycle our 2004 Atlas that was just taking up space in my office but then I came up with an activity for JB. I gave them a highlighter and sent them to highlight all the states where we have friends or family. Just a touch of reading and geography.
Pupdate
The thing I’ve noticed this month is that Sera is starting to show she trusts us. She’s been doing some Happiness rolls whether or not we’re around. She’s not worried about showing her soft soft underbelly. She’ll almost relax when we’re giving her belly rubs though I think her legs will always stick straight out awkwardly like she’s been taxidermied and just fell over.
She doesn’t understand what’s happening all the time but instead of panicking and attempting escape, she’s willing to let us lure her into iffy situations like the shower if we offer a treat. And once in, if the door is shut and people are in there to bathe her, she may not love it but she doesn’t make any attempts to escape. She could very easily but she’s willing to tolerate the situation for the promise of more treats later and possibly even praise.
The praise definitely happens, I just don’t know how meaningful it is to her.
PiC and I can’t resist picking her up because she’s so petite. She’s heavier than JB but so compact that it doesn’t translate the same way. Something about a dog shape is easier to carry for a bit. While she obviously thought it was weird, you could tell by her eyebrows and facial expression, she just hung out calmly and confusedly until he put her down. She even wagged her tail a little bit. It might seem weird to do but I’m a huge proponent of acclimating the dogs to things you might have to do in moments of stress like carrying her in an emergency or if she’s sick or injured. I don’t want a high stress situation to be the first time we pick her up. Similar philosophy with things like pilling and checking teeth and trimming nails. Mostly her nails stay short from her activity but her dewclaws won’t and I know that as she ages, those nails tend to grow faster or get ground down less. Whichever it is, we’re seeing it with Seamus – I have to give him regular pedicures now whereas they weren’t necessary before. If I had to hold him down now the way I had to when he was younger, this would be a terrible chore. But now he protests quietly by sitting up and refusing to look at me, then I gently press him to lay down again and we carry on.
For Sera, I just lay her head in my lap and hug her a little while I do one dewclaw, praising her mightily, and PiC will usually bring her a treat as a reward and she’ll put up with it. That’s going to take more time to get her to the point where I can do all paws without objections but she’s cooperative enough for now.
Precious Moments
JB: I’m about to have a heart attack.
PiC: Do you know what a heart attack is?
JB: Yes, it’s when the tube is so small inside that blood cannot even get through.
PiC: Yes, that’s true.
JB: Oh, but mine is just going the wrong way.
Me: ?
JB: Yeah, it definitely just went the wrong way.
Me: Did you mean water went down the wrong tube?
JB: Yeah I choked.
Us: … no you didn’t…
JB: I definitely choked.
***
A running commentary as we force quickmarch through a Target that is way too crowded because we had to get stuff only available in-store but there are too many people so we gotta get out: ooh that is a cute backpack! Look Baby Yoda toys soooo cuuuuuuuteee hey I have that box oooh I like those containers, I really like those costumes but I’m not going to stop because we need to go and anyways I have too many things and also where are we going still I thought we were looking for sanitizer oh also can I have that cute bottle that was up front and oh oh oh it’s time to go back and find daddy run! Excuse me! Run mama run!
***
Me: You can go play for a while and then we’ll play some games when I’m done here.
JB: Can I do my chores?
***
Me: Can you bring me my … oh. you can’t, never mind. (water bottle is trapped in the other room)
JB: Here you go, Mom *hands me cheese* since I couldn’t bring you what you wanted, I brought you a snack instead.
Me: …. genius ….
***
I really only have myself to blame.
We started watching Avatar together. Two episodes later, I had to tell JB: no waterbending at meal time.
They are still a bit young to be watching this show but it’s given us a lot to discuss.
***
This only lasted ten minutes but they were a glorious ten minutes…
JB: Can we not talk so I can focus on cleaning?
YES WE CAN.
:: Did your parents let you watch tv that was outside your age appropriate range?
My parents were all about enforcing age-appropriate shows! I remember when I was about 10 (and deemed too young for it) I watched an episode of Fantasy Island while they were out. And of course it was a creepy stalkery wildly inappropriate episode.
My relatives have trained my nibling to get the parent to take a picture of anything that the kid might otherwise ask to purchase. I had some very weird pics on my phone after a visit, but it’s way better than constant begging for something!
JB got away with a show that I think is still too age inappropriate because of language recently but I saw that it was rated G, so I don’t go by ratings anymore.
Ooh we also do the photo thing! I forgot that PiC does that most with them.
My parents barely let us watch tv at all! Also we only got 5 channels (semi rural VA in the 80s!). For my kids…. let’s just say we showed them all star wars this year and the oldest is 11 and the youngest is 5. Well, it’s a pandemic…
Jenny F Scientist recently posted…Nobody Listens to Scientists
I actually don’t remember what we got back in the 80s but it wasn’t all that much either. My family tended to pass around huge sacks of serials on VHS tapes, Asian operatic type shows, and I didn’t understand most of them but BOY were the movies not age appropriate. I watched all of Bruce Lee’s movies before 5 and maaaybe that wasn’t a great idea.