My kids and notes: Year 9
February 14, 2024
Life with JB
We have a nine year old! 👀 JB got a small party this year.
We booked part of a pizza parlor early in the day so we were the only ones there. 9 kids (5 families) showed up of the 16 kids/8 families we invited. I was very worried about how much energy it’d take and how it’d go, especially because we were just coming off a rough week of illness, but it worked out really well in the end. It was small enough to be just manageable, with one family helping us with Smol Acrobat, and the other families occasionally assisting with stages of cleanup and kid management.
We splurged on the activity and the food, we saved on the cake (Costco: $25, first time we’ve ever had one of their famed sheet cakes) and the decor (Party City: $20). The place provided almost none of the assistance they had promised so I was orchestrating so most of the event unexpectedly. That kept me too busy to socialize but we did each catch up a little with each set of parents. JB was thrilled to see their friends and ran an illicit (temporary) tattoo parlor out of the bathroom for them. Of course they did. Smol Acrobat was briefly put out that they didn’t get one too, but they weren’t willing to wait with the older kid crowd and moved on quickly.
There’s a new kid in JB’s class that said they couldn’t understand them speaking with the mask on. They repeated themself, he said he still couldn’t understand them so he reached out to take their mask off. I asked, what did you do? They said they swatted his hand away and said don’t do that.
Good, that’s exactly the right reflex. He has no right to touch anyone, much less the right to remove someone’s mask! That kid. He’d better have learned his lesson.
Life with Smol Acrobat
I was trying to figure out what their special things were. For example (not to play the comparison game but just so you know what I mean), JB’s excellent eating, ability to sleep when sick, and ability to make friends literally everywhere they go were their special toddler powers. Those things balanced the other every day challenges.
Smol Acrobat’s special toddler powers were feeling more subtle and difficult to identify. But I think I finally put my finger on a couple! When people are sleeping and we have to be quiet, they can whisper consistently without forgetting within 0.2 seconds (JB absolutely could not keep their voice down for an entire second). We had to put them to bed after PiC had already fallen asleep and they were good about keeping their voice down through the entire routine.
They notice things! We finally replaced the floor mats in the kitchen and the moment they wandered in, they exclaimed: “Oh! Dese are new!” I put on a sweater that had been in the back of my closet for a while and they immediately noticed: “You got new sweater, Mommy?” This was initially obscured by their inability to find things they wanted like their favorite plushies. I guess the noticing things eyes are different from the finding things eyes? I have the finding things eyes, I don’t notice new or changed things.
And their imagination is solid! Anything with wheels, and without wheels, can become an ambulance in their minds.
I think they get both of those from PiC. I struggled with imagining anything as a kid and I couldn’t actually visualize in my mind’s eye. You know how some people talk about seeing something when they close their eyes? I only see darkness, generally.
They get the “stricken by criticism” from me. Correct them too firmly in tone or word and they crumple. “I’m SAD!”
Reasons they melted down this month
Their ravioli skin tore a little bit.
Because I cut their tortellini exactly the same way I do every time I cut it.
They were asked to eat their eggs for the fourth time and we got exasperated.
They wanted BLUEBERRY cereal. It turns out they wanted the cornflakes that had a picture of blueberries being poured into the bowl from the box. Gah.
Mommy, Wee TALKED at me!
Pupdate
I would say that it seems like Sera is responding to the medications but increased appetite is actually a side effect of the meds, so it’s unclear whether it’s a side effect or a benefiting from thing. But she’s a lot more peppy on our many short walks, and is eating well, and those bits are heartening. I wish we knew what was wrong.
Sera’s labor intensive schedule is probably good for me in that it forces me to get up and walk/feed her every 2-3 hours when I’d stay glued to my desk the whole time JB is away at school, but terrible for my rest because we have to take her for a last walk at 10 or 11 pm to make sure her bladder is not terribly stressed overnight. That helps us avoid the middle of the night desperation wakeups but it means I go back to my desk and work until 10 or 11 instead of winding down for the night. I suppose it’s just as well that it coincides with my need to work late because my days are extra hectic (partly because of her daytime schedule, partly because there’s always something else going on in our personal lives cutting into my work hours, partly because there’s too much work for one person).
Precious Moments
They’re afraid of Siri/Alexa talking to them. I don’t allow Siri/Alexa in our home. I’ve watched BSG, I’m not helping the Cylons (or the real equivalent – law enforcement and whoever Google/Apple wants to sell our data to) steal information about our lives. Anyway, they’ll whisper to me when we’re in a house with Alexa: I’m afwaid of ‘wexa! So we’ll whisper to each other instead of talking loud enough for the little surveillance unit to hear us. But at home, they have a sandtimer for brushing teeth that they have dubbed “Timer ‘wexa”. The conversations before brushing: “Ok timer ‘wexa, set a timer for ten minutes! OKAY timer ‘wexa? ‘wexa, you set timer for TWO minutes! I need TWO MINUTES.”
At dinner, picking the crust off their fried chicken: I don’t wike cwunchies.
JB: I’ll eat them for you!
Smol Acrobat: you wiw(will) eat dem fo’ me?
JB: Yes.
Smol Acrobat: t’ank you. You be my best fwiend. *Passes to JB*
JB: Oh, can you not put it on my plate yet? I’m not ready.
Smol Acrobat: oh. You wiw(will) get it when you weady?
JB: Yes, I will.
Smol Acrobat: okaaaaay!
Me: Ok, Smol Acrobat, you need to put away the toy box if you want to move on to trains.
Smol: ok. *picks up old broken cell phone* hi, I need help, peez.
Me: Who’d you call?
Smol: A firefighter.
Me: Oh.
Smol: Daddy, can you be firefighter n help me?
PiC: Ok, with what?
Smol: Put my box away.
Me: Hang on! You can’t call the firefighters to come do your chores!
SA: *blank stare at me* DADDY. CAN YOU BE FIREFIGHTER AN HELP ME.
SA: I was nice to Beeper today.
Me: Oh! It’s good to be kind to our friends. How were you kind to them?
SA: I was sad.
Oh. That’s not where I thought that story was going.
Happy birthday! Sounds like a great pizza party.
Thanks! It was pretty good!