About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read More
February 8, 2017
The Gracious Host
JuggerBaby has learned to serve zirself at the dining table, sloppily and with very little coordination, at daycare because they encourage the kids to serve their own snacks from the big bowl, and bus their table afterward. The latter skill leads to a lot of food waste, though, because toddlers are mini lemmings sometimes and so when one finishes eating and goes to scrape off their plate, all the others quickly follow suit even if they had only just served themselves. Mixed success, that. But something they don’t teach is serving others because they also have no sense of limits, so if you let them add food to each other’s plates, even more chaos!
Which is why I’m puzzled as to where zir latest habit has come from: “more, mama”, and “more, papa”. We misunderstood that to be zir asking for more for zirself, but zir exasperation and eventual pointing at our dishes cleared it up. When ze gets more, ze wants to make sure we both also have more. When we clink glasses, ze wants to be sure all glasses are refilled. If you haven’t reassured zir that really, you don’t need more, ze will take the initiative and add food to your plate. Either ze is mirroring us serving zir, or ze has inherited that compulsion every cook over the age of 50 in my family has: insisting that everyone have more more more!
Which isn’t to say ze is selfless or anything less than pragmatic. When it was just the two of us sitting down to dinner for a nice hot vegetable barley pasta chicken soup and ze was ready for seconds, ze helped zirself to all the soup in MY bowl while my back was turned. Food thief!
Literacy
I’m thrilled that JuggerBaby enjoys listening to reading now, even if it means the same books ten thousand times.
Ze is now working on “writing”, which means squiggles and scribbles and colors. Ze got my old planner for Art Time which makes zir feel just like mama, and is convinced that the secret to my being able to form letters is the pen. After every word I write, ze forces me to trade pens because ze wants the Magic Pen That Contains Letters. It never seems to work, perhaps clicking it open and closed several more times would help? No?
JuggerBaby dictionary
At-yai: outside
Hap: help
Yight: light, right
Dooaaaannn: down
Chiz: please
Nom nom: please put that food on my plate / please put toothpaste on my toothbrush
Yees: let’s brush our teeth!
Jeep: sleep
Dit-dews: stickers
Parenting skills
Holding the firm line. Our JuggerBaby is the most headstrong child and we have to consistently hold the line against zir temper, demands, and recklessness. It’s business as usual most days, but we seem to have entered A Whole New Zone of irrationality.
SWEET CHRISTMAS do I ever feel like a hostage to this toddler’s terribleness sometimes. Even just the slightest thing sets off the crying jag of the century, ever-so-slightly worse than the last one ten minutes ago, like asking zir to come say hi, or to leave daycare, or to go TO daycare, or go eat, which, what? YOU LOVE FOOD! YOU LOVE FOOD SO MUCH.
But we navigate it. Like the one morning when ze was circling PiC’s legs like a horrifically large cat when he was trying to cook and I set off a stopover at Meltdown City because we asked zir to come sit with me instead. Ze just fell to the ground sobbing, instant tears and snot, because how could we do such a thing??? Three rounds of tears later, I suggested that ze might want to look at pictures of “baby” (zir own baby pictures), and perhaps ze might want to do what baby is doing in the picture (eat)? Through many tears, ze forced out a YES. Ze even begrudgingly managed to dredge up the energy to shuffle over to the table, and then was immediately distracted by the crayons, and had to be convinced all over again to “show baby how to eat”. It’s possible that the current key is that ze likes to set an example.
Teaching manners. Ze went through a long phase of being a jerk to Seamus. Yelling “no!” at him, getting in his space, even putting zir hands on his side and trying to push him. As if ze could shift his 100 lb bulk. Nevertheless, it’s rude, it hurts his feelings, and it’s not ok. There have been consequences every time ze has been rude to him, and lo, miracle of miracles, it paid off! Ze accidentally kicked him in the face whilst flailing about one day, and turned and apologized to him without prompting! There was a lot of happy parental gasping in that moment. And some praise for the JuggerBaby.
Best moments …
Bath time
I drew a shallow bath for us. One minute we were practicing lying on our backs in the water. The next we were embroiled in a splash war. This kid believes the best defense is staying on the offense and ze isn’t wrong.
Reading time
Ze handed me a book but refused to lie down. Instead ze insistently pointed at zirself, garbling zir name over and over. “You want to read this?”
YES.
*shrug* Ok, you read to us.
Ze stared at the page for a while. Handed it back.
“Can’t read?”
No.
Too much snuggle
I lay down next to zir on the Boppy, elbow draped on zir leg.
“NO!”
Get elbowed off.
“BASE!” (Space)
Bed Time
PiC lowered zir into the crib. Ze bounced back up. YIGHT! Ze had to turn them off, personally. Ok fine. Lights off.
Bye GiGi! (Seamus had fallen asleep early and forgotten to come over for bedtime.)
Back in the crib. Bounced back up, arms out. I leaned down expecting to thwart an “up!”
Instead, arms went around my neck for a big hug, and ze flopped back down into the crib, satisfied.
Ponderings
“Pick one book, then it’s naptime, JB.”
Ze tapped zir finger on zir nose. “Hmmm.”
Where did that come from??
Roar!
JB pointed at zir shirt, then threw zir arms in the air: “RAWWWRR!”
*expectant look turns impatient*
“RAWWWRR!”
Zir shirt had …. DANDELIONS!
Favorite books
Nursery Rhyme Comics
This was the gift that just kept giving. Ze gets to pick three books to read before bed, and ze always picks this one. We’ve read it no less than 6 times a day, every day, for weeks. WEEKS.
Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep! by Todd Tarpley and John Rocco
You know JuggerBaby has robots on the mind when ze yells beep beep!
:: Does anyone else antagonize their kid/dog/cat/turtle just a little bit for laughs?
February 6, 2017
On Money
Income
Our normal income is two full time day job salaries.
We experiment with earning money on the side, including minimal cash flow that we don’t touch from an investment property.
The goal is to replace our day job income before my health gives out and prevents me from working.
Spending
Our normal spending includes the living expenses for two households, these updates ignore those ordinary expenses.
I stopped tracking our expenses to the penny five years ago because it was too time-consuming. That was fine for a couple years but I’ve observed increases in our spending in the last three years, mainly unusual expenses, that need to be budgeted for. For a fresh start this year, I’ve created a new spreadsheet where we list the bills we paid with an average spending amount listed in the budgeting column. Specific types of spending (food, gas, groceries, utilities, insurance, etc) are paid by credit card, so those will be mildly opaque but we seem to do better when we aim at reducing aggregate amounts rather than “$100 per month on drinks”. Not that we spend that on drinks. (more…)
February 1, 2017
Standing in the kitchen polishing off a snack of pretzels dipped in peanut butter, I prodded PiC. Ready for Sherlock?
We had one last night to catch Episode 2 of the new BBC season, before PBS stopped streaming it, so I was looking forward to a little Saturday night treat.
That’s when I heard it.
The fan in the refrigerator spun up an alarming rumble, loud enough to be heard from the next room, and it rumbled the doom of our relaxation. An hour of Googling and Youtubing later, we settled in for a long night of DIY.
According to a dozen semi-reliable (meaning also semi-sketchy) sources, this particular brand is prone to icing up and they have to be taken apart and de-iced before the icing destroys the fan compressor. Awesome.
PiC wanted to get started right away, figuring it’d only take an hour and a half. The brat in me whined “but, Sherlock!” while the ever so slightly stronger, more responsible side, grumpily conceded even though it really preferred to go to sleep and get an early start.
As it turns out, we were both wrong. It definitely didn’t take only an hour and a half, and we would have regretted starting the next morning.
We spent the first hour prepping: unplugging the fridge, unpacking the fridge, packing perishables into the cooler, and hauling out all the shelves to inspect the work area. Only one person fit in the space available so I worked on cleaning all the shelves which were overdue for a wash, while PiC used the hairdryer to melt the ice around the fan cover.
Try as he might, though, that fan cover wasn’t budging like it should according to the DIY videos until we realized why. The icing problem wasn’t just around the fan cover, it was a solid block of ice behind it as well! No wonder he was getting nowhere prying it off. It was 11:30 and my hands were aching from the additional late night labor, so I proposed an overnight break. We’d leave the fridge unplugged, set up a mini space heater aimed toward the fridge three feet away on high so we didn’t melt anything, and let it (try to) melt overnight. If it all worked out, we’d be able to pick up in the morning.
I usually ration my energy for the day pretty strictly, based on prioritizing absolute musts against the nice to have chores. This was definitely nowhere on my list and I’d thought I was done for the night.
I can’t quite accurately describe the level of tired and dread that passed over me as we contemplated whether this would work or not.
Nothing for it but to try!
For extra cooling, the perishables went into coolers that were rolled out on the porch to take advantage of the rainstorm chill. I prepoured JuggerBaby’s milk into sippy cups to minimize how many times we’d need to open the coolers if the fridge wasn’t back in order the next day, and placed several other morning needs at the top. With that, off to bed.
Around 3 am, my brain couldn’t leave well enough alone and I had to go check. We’d left a towel under the unit to catch the water and it was soaked. Thank goodness! I replaced the towel and slumped off to bed.
By morning, the jury-rigging had done the job and with more than a little interference from JuggerBaby, PiC had the whole lot of shelving back in, plugged the unit in and it was humming back down to temp by the time I emerged from my hibernation.
These same sources say that this issue is going to keep happening. We could attempt to MacGyver a solution but since we’re not positive what the true problem is, I’m less motivated to monkey around with it.
If it does ice up again, at least we know what should work, but what a pain!
Pessimistically I’m assuming that this is something that will keep happening or we’ll have to replace the unit. What are the odds that we find a real solution?
(No really, what are the odds?)
:: Any handyfolk out there have some refrigeration expertise you’d like to share? Failing that, any favored fridge models we should save up for?
January 30, 2017
With the whole house thing dropping down on my head like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West, plus the feeling that the world is coming apart at the seams, I need a reminder that slow and steady has brought us through some pretty tough times, and can still serve us well.
I’m reminding myself that not having a cool million in cash with which to buy a home in cash does not a massive failure of me make. (Sherry bought her half of their new home in cash and I’m STILL chuffed by that.)
Highlights
- I weathered a year of unemployment during the Great Recession.
- I started investing in 2012 in one stock, 7 whole shares worth $500 in total. We now hold 1100 shares of mostly dividend bearing stocks, worth $60,000 at our brokerage with Tradeking. I heartily recommend them. It was so easy to use when I first started out and continues to serve our needs.
- We once had a large mortgage loan, a bit of retirement savings, and my cash. Now we’ve halved that mortgage and double my cash savings, doubled the value of our tax-advantaged accounts, and own an investment property.
We’re by no means wealthy, but we have done well. A dear friend pointed out my money management was nearly miraculous given the obstacles and commitments we’ve honored. While I think she might have been at least a little hyperbolic, I respect her opinion immensely, particularly with regard to money given her background in financial fields.
Health and Fitness
I’m uncommonly tickled about this discovery. I was aiming to establish an average of 2000 steps per day starting last June. It was a struggle to get out from behind the desk twice a day, but Seamus and I have hit a nearly 100% success rate in getting out the door for walks two, and even three, times a day, every week day, even when pain was so high I could barely feed myself.
We walked, dadgummit!
My average to date is about 3900 steps daily.
I haven’t been nearly as good at the yoga, so that’s a work in progress. There’s something much more compelling about telling yourself that it’s for the dog’s good, and having Seamus yodeling at me, that gets me off my duff faster and more consistently than telling myself to stretch because it’s good for me. Maybe I need to train Seamus to yodel at me until I stretch every night?
This month, I signed up for an account with Achievemint which pays you $10 per 10,000 points earned. I’m already pushing myself to walk consistently and a little more each day, why not get paid for it?
This took me three minutes.
1. Use my referral link to create an account. This nets both of us 250 points, so right away, you get points.
2. Choose an app to link to Achievement. My choice was the existing Health app on the iPhone. You can choose from, among MANY others: Fitbit, Foursquare, MapMyRide, Microsoft Health, MyFitnessPal, even Twitter!
3. Download Achievement to your phone if you’re linking to an app on your phone. Linking an app nets another 50 points.
I only started out with 50 points since I didn’t have a referral link (sadface) but you can (look up there!) leapfrog over with a lot more points. It doesn’t look like you’ll earn remarkably quickly but this is my one of my favorite things – getting paid for doing something I’m already doing.
The world
Like I said, the state of American politics and government in this very moment has me incredibly concerned for our democracy and Constitution. Is the American experiment over? Did it fail?
I was raised in the bosom of staunch Republican families, surrounded by serving men and women, but none of them recognize what the party has become today. I sure don’t. To see some conservatives still speaking out against what’s happening now does give me a little bit of heart, but I think we’re still deep in the muck and a whole lot of vulnerable people are going to be hurt before it’s over.
This weekend was Lunar New Year. The airports were filled with protests against the unconstitutional Muslim Ban, and Custom Border Patrol officers were refusing to enforce court orders. Lawyers were on the ground doing pro bono work to help those who were being illegally detained: green card holders, visa holders, citizens with dual citizenship.
It’s hardly been any time at all in the new administration and we’re already seeing civil rights being violated left and right. There is almost certainly an intent to fatigue citizens who can’t protest forever, while it’s quite easy for the administration to roll out EO after EO violating our rights. It can be overwhelming.
BUT.
PiC and I are going to stand up for ourselves and our neighbors, families and friends, all of whom are fully deserving of the rights that our Constitution affords us, regardless of age, race, sex, religious convictions, disability, sexual orientation and any other way we can be defined and divided up. I can’t physically march, but we can speak out, organize on a one-on-one basis, donate to those organizations and individuals doing tireless work to protect our civil liberties and reminding us that we were never perfect and that we can improve.
:: Can you share any financial or fitness goals you’ve achieved over time? What’s a great activity day for you? What’s your approach to defending our civil rights?
January 25, 2017
PiC and I went to a doctor’s appointment together in the middle of the work day. The skies would not stop pouring down rain and a hint of ice. I really should have taken a hint and just gone straight home afterward.
There wouldn’t be a post, though, if I did, so onward we went, though the weather be foul. (Apologies to Dr. Seuss.)
We went to exchange my discounted gift card that I’d bought for a clean one that didn’t have marker scribbled all over it. Nope, they can’t use a gift card to “buy” a gift card, and can’t transfer the balance, so I was stuck with the ugly card to gift. Classy.
Having trudged out in the rain, I figured we’d make the most of having to be at the mall. We stopped in at Target to find a pair of boots because daycare requires them. Nope. Nothing on the shelves anywhere.
Fine. I had $1000 burning a hole in my pocket. It’d been withdrawn for the appointment but it turned out that we didn’t need it after all. We went to the bank to deposit a huge wad of cash, and like a fool I told PiC it was fine to just hit the ATM. THE ATM ATE MY MONEY.
In 16 years of banking primarily through the ATM this has never happened. So of course it’d happen on this day. Me and my big mouth. “I always use the ATM, it’s fine.” “No, of course we don’t have to go to the teller.”
Idjit.
7 minutes later, I had a claim number from the Citi rep, and an assurance that when the ATM’s take was reconciled, they’d match the overage to my claim and all would be well. “Give it 1-2 business days,” she said. Mmhmm.
Four business days, and a lot of semi-panicked grumbling later, the rep I spoke to found the claim after 30 minutes of searching. “Odd, it was archived, so I couldn’t find it. But I found it! You just have to call the disputes department directly to have them complete the process though, they’re open from 9 am to 1 pm EST.” That’s great.
Another 2 business days later, because of course this would happen when I was traveling and didn’t have time to sit down and deal with it, I remembered that another phone call was due and reached for the slip of information … that wasn’t in my wallet. Many bag searches later, I had to conclude that JuggerBaby had stolen and eaten it. !!!!!
Almost exhausted, I just gave up and called the branch to appeal to them for help locating any of the claim information that would help me duke it out with the disputes department. The almost jolly young man on the other line put me on hold to go a-huntin’ and returned 8 minutes later having opened a new claim, credited my account with a provisional credit, and an assurance that that money would stay put and they’d match up the new claim to their general ledger and confirm that the money was really returned to me. I thanked him profusely, he apologized for the inane contortions they’d made me go through, and I have my money back.
It’s an ante-Christmas miracle.
:: Do you have strong feelings about ATMs or a preference for going to the teller (is it worth having to talk to people)?
January 23, 2017
It might surprise you, with the not-exaggerated idyllic (for us) descriptions of our marriage, but PiC and I truly struggle to internalize each other’s perspectives on certain aspects of money.
When we talk about planning for the future, he rightly pointed out that I plan for the future as if I were an island, as if no one would be there to help.
Friends, I laughed and cried at the same time. Well, yeah!
My family had nothing. They were almost the personifications of the rags to riches trope, arriving at the Los Angeles embassy with just the clothes on their backs, striking out on the entrepreneurial road, and managing to earn enough of a living to get by for long enough we even thought we’d buy a house someday. They paid our bills and helped their siblings who didn’t strike out on their own. Unfortunately, in the course of doing business, and helping family, they also amassed quite a lot of debt.
The biggest lesson I learned from that point on was never rely on anyone. When the chips were down, I was mostly alone. Not entirely – relatives who cared didn’t have money, but they would help out by spotting the occasional bargain on groceries and bringing us some extra produce. Sage friends mentored me so I could build my career and blogging friends pitched in to tide me over a particularly rough spot in the year I spent job-hunting during the Great Recession.
Otherwise… My sibling was a hopeless case. My parents were reeling with the loss of their business and their health issues, and my entire extended family that had benefited so long from my parents’ labor had no use for us if we were no longer useful to them. Once we didn’t have money (to give them), they made sure we knew we weren’t welcome to drop in for a cup of tea, or a visit over a meal. Not that I had time to eat but it makes quite an impression to have my grandmother, who my parents had supported for longer than I’d been alive, sneer in my face about the family’s misfortunes, deciding that made me a worthless human. (I never spoke to her again after that day.) ((Yes, I hold grudges.))
Over the fifteen years during which my parents lost their livelihoods, their savings, and their health, after I buried a grandparent, my mom, and destroyed my health taking care of my family, I thought about what they could have done to help. It’s not that I expected them to support us until we got back on our feet, or even to lend us money, or put us up if we couldn’t make rent. It’s that I expected them not to spit in our faces while we struggled but that was too much to ask.
Naturally, I learned to rely on no one, for anything.
It was a great triumph of hope and human spirit that I decided to learn to trust PiC and I’ve never regretted that decision.
But. It’s as hard for me to imagine believing that if I need it, someone will help, as it is for him to imagine living with the knowledge that no one will be there to lend a hand if we fall down.
Maybe it’s a difference in perspective.
Maybe he thinks of “needing help” as a single bill that’s just too heavy to shift on our own. In that case, he’s right. One-off expenses tend to generate sympathy or empathy and it’s relatively easy for people to find a few dollars to help out.
But in my view, if anything went so wrong as to need help, it’s not going to be a single bill that we can’t quite manage whether it’s $1,000 or $10,000. Leave aside from the fact that I’m unlikely to ask for help with a single bill, the deeper issue is this: If we can’t absorb that bill, by dipping into savings or doing without luxuries for a while, it means that something catastrophic has happened to our financial system or is about to happen. We couldn’t cash flow a $250,000 medical bill for example. If something that bad has happened, I’m dropping my towel and I’m panicking. Why? One, we’re much older. I’m 40% as capable as I once was at 18 years and we’re both nearing the peaks of our earning ability. If we’re talking about a full system meltdown that our salaries and/or savings can’t cover, we are not at the point in our lives where we can double our hours and earn overtime to cover it, even assuming that both of us are still fully capable of working our normal jobs and they exist. Two, if our entire financial system has gone down the drain, which presupposes that we’ve already gone to bare bones on our necessary expenses and also that our savings and assets are gone, who on earth can give us the help we need to recover from that? There aren’t grants for People Who Worked Really Hard and Tried Really Hard but OUCH Life Happened. I would like to fund such grants, but they do not exist. In which case, it’s utterly beyond my comprehension to believe that “someone would help” if we suddenly became poor.
Also I cannot bear the thought of being poor again. But that’s a topic for another day.
I’m not trying to prove either one of us right or wrong here, obviously, I feel right and he feels right. In the long run, as the financial planner, I’m much more comfortable planning my way – assuming that we are on our own except for infrastructure issues which should mostly be covered by our taxes – so I will. It’s just such a fundamental difference in thinking that neither of us are yet able to find a spot in the middle to meet. It would really help if we could.
Belatedly, I should say that this isn’t a cause for strife, it’s just a Really Big Something we have to take into consideration when we’re not seeing eye to eye on how we expect to accomplish our desired goals.
:: Do you sympathize with one or the other perspective more? Do you have similar, seriously different, perspectives with your family members?
January 18, 2017
Words, words, words
JuggerBaby is a veritable treasure trove of gibberish. This month’s additions are mangled versions of “Thank you” (tant-too!), “cheers” (dis!), and “Seamus” (deee!). We can just about figure out what the heck ze wants between a combination of signing and listening to the 7th repetition of zir’s “word”.
There are also a lot of signs, like opening and closing a fist over zir head means sing Twinkle twinkle little star, or flapping arms in a certain way means to sing The Wheels on the Bus.
Disciplining a toddler
JuggerBaby isn’t, in any sense of the word, obedient. Not unless ze wants to cooperate which makes it cooperation and not compliance. Staring a not-2 year old down just does not work, not this one anyway. It’s worked on every other kid but of course not the one I’m legally responsible for. I had to find other ways to get zir to do what I wanted. Sometimes bargaining and bribery is useful – ze will do most things with the promise of giving Seamus a treat. Sometimes a more direct approach is necessary.
TICKLE ATTACK!
Ze loves being tickled so much it’s nearly an addiction. When ze is a recalcitrant toddler, it’s time to go on the offensive. Not only does it break the impasse, it puts zir in such a good mood that ze either forgets to be stubborn or chooses not to be anymore. It’s also become useful as a threat. When ze runs away and wants me to chase zir, I cock an eyebrow and ask “Are you coming back?” [NO!] “Ok, I’m gonna come GET you!” [NO!!! *giggles* *runs back*]
This morning…
Me: Put on your socks.
JB: No.
Me: You sure? Put them on.
KB: NO.
Me: Last warning.
JB: Nope!
Me: *tickles*
JB: *cackles*
Me: Ready?
JB: No
Me: *tickles harder* DO YOU STILL HAVE THE COURAGE OF YOUR CONVICTIONS?
JB: Noooooo
Me: *tickles harder* ARE YOU PUTTING ON YOUR SOCKS NOW?
JB: *cackles* YIISSSSS
Seamus: ???
Me: Ze is FINE. Ze is just learning who the boss is.
Seamus: *snort* *judging*
Parenting skills: not helping
We let JuggerBaby do a lot of things on zir own, and we were pleasantly surprised to see some of that pay off last week. Ze went from trying to put zir socks on through the toe side, to being able to get them on sole-side up, and then on entirely correctly. This happened in one 20 minute car ride, without help.
Then ze put on zir own pants! Then ze tried to put a shirt on zir legs and another pair of shoes on top of zir sneakers, reminding us that we are still quite far from There.
Surprising things about parenting
The dog is a DOG
JuggerBaby really does seem to be oblivious to the fact that Seamus is a dog. Ze has been insisting on offering him a pair of shoes every morning, after zir shoes are on, before his morning walk. I get the feeling that ze is judging us rather harshly for not providing him with his very own shoes, and ze is determined to make up the lack.
Ze is in turns more affectionate than ever, bestowing on him kisses and hugs as bribery for looking the other way when ze gets up to shenanigans. The jury’s out on whether this is acceptable currency because of the meanness, but he benefits nightly from zir insistence on giving him treats when ze gets home so probably he continues to look the other way anyway.
Just after the affection, though, there arose this complicated thing where ze acts territorial or jealous and runs over to push him away even though he’s not in zir space and isn’t doing anything to anything. It’s really frustrating to have zir yelling NO at him for no reason, being a big jerk to him when he’s just a big loving dog. We’ve scolded and disciplined, seemingly to no avail, but after weeks of this, we finally seem to have broken through a little. We have always insisted that ze be gentle with him, and so this is just a repetition of old instructions but it took several adjustments to our approach to get good results. For some things, consequences work just fine. In this case, they never did. So instead of scolding or punishing zir for being mean, I would insist that ze apologize for being rude, and say kinder things like “hi brother” and “how are you?” And when ze did act out, ze was instructed to apologize. We would remind zir that ze wouldn’t like it if he pushed or pinched zir, and that it was quite rude to do that to him.
We finally had a day when ze resisted the urge to pinch him, and he was patient enough to let zir make a mistake, correct it, and pet him gently without getting vindictive. Later that night, ze reached out to pet without trying to hit or pinch or push, and had a whole five minutes of petting him with kindness. *deep sigh of relief* I know we’re not there yet, but I really needed to see that progress was going to be made.
Things we are loving
Favorite books
Anything about space that includes a rocket blasting off. Currently we’re reading a children’s level biography about Mae Jemison, the Curious George book about space monkeying, and Roaring Rockets.
Dinosaurs. Ze particularly loves re-enacting this book.
Pulelehua and Mamaki: I have my suspicions that ze likes this one because it’s easy to say “mamaki.”
Favorite bath toys
Empty shampoo pump bottles! We’re learning about how water is heavier than air, and so when you submerge an empty bottle, it makes BUBBLES. Because that’s the air being pushed out of the bottle by the water, and the air floats. Something like that. I’m not sure that ze was following the lesson very well but we have time.
Things that are my fault
JuggerBaby refuses to wear costumes.
Things that are PiC’s fault
Ze eats 4 times as much as the normal toddler.