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On the Rocks

We had a small errand to do at the store today. As I packed our snack to take with us to the park I was thinking maybe we could eat it under the pine trees boughs. But once outside I realized the ground was soggy and eating under the tree wouldn’t be at all pleasant. Near the store are some large limestone rocks and as soon as Brigit heard we were headed that way she asked to play on them. Ahh….the perfect high and dry place to eat our snack! These large craggy rocks are a mini adventure gym. One of them is not too high for Lily if I’m right with her. She’ loves climbing on and off of them.

Later, after Brigit’s rest, and while Lily was still sleeping, I set out a number of bowls on the floor for Brigit to mix colours. I put a few drops of food colour into each bowl and she added water and mixed the colors, sometimes making new colours and sometimes altering the intensity of the colours. We’ve done this before and Brigit now seems to mix less randomly as if she knows which colour tones and shades she wants to make.

Lily is Talking

In the last two weeks Lily’s expressive language has begun to explode. From stringing together groups of syllabic vowel sounds to attaching beginning consonants to now speaking beginning and ending consonants for two word sentences. She is saying things like “Sock on, Thank-you Mommy, Boot on, Mitten on, Bye Cwawa…..It’s amazing!

I am fascinated by Lily’s curiosity and interest in language. Some days I could see her watching my mouth to see how my tongue formed words. She would watch and then try the word again. She always gave us ‘phrases’ in response to our questions and requests. An Lily loved a song. Recently we recognize the songs she sings. Like Happy Little Bus, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Ring Around the Rosey and Hush Little Baby. These are songs we’ve been singing to her for months; songs that she knows we sing to communicate with her. It’s a delight to hear her singing them back to us.

Lily’s receptive language of course has also been developing. Lily can easily find her own social way with her siblings. No small feat when you’re the youngest! She has been able to express clearly what she wants and doesn’t want. I think this is hard for Sammy and Brigit sometimes. They are having to recognize Lily as a full sibling with rights and privileges – not just a cute baby whom they can tell what to do.

Lily loves to please and responds positively to instructions and tasks. We all enjoy asking her to help us out – like fetch this or that or help us clean up.Her developing language is a huge benefit to her.

I think the biggest change I see in Lily these days is her pleasure in being included in our activities. She comes to circle and plunks herself down, tapping her knees in readiness for our Good Morning song. She sits and listens to a story from beginning to end, perhaps because she loves the little things we do after the story – like our drumming and calendar activities. Along with the growth in her language, Lily is growing in her sense of self in relation to her wider world.

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s day was a fine time. Brigit had had several days of doing valentine art which included making cards for family and friends and a valentine box for her treasures. Sammy joined us in these projects and also made the valentines he needed to take to school.

I am including Lily for art more readily these days, rather than saving our art time for when she is asleep. This week she tried a few new art ‘techniques’. Up to now, it’s been pretty much only drawing with markers and painting with Lily. This week she also did gluing, paper tearing, coloured water painting, sticking on tape and adding sparkles to her work. Of course, as is true for all early artists, having ‘work’ to show at the end of the day isn’t her goal. Lily loves to deconstruct as much as she enjoys making the piece. However, on Friday after working long and hard with her ‘mar’s’, Lily’s word for markers, she took it to daddy to show him. She loved the praise she got!

Our ‘In our hearts’ drumming continues to be a meaningful time and was especially good for valentine’s day. This little ritual gave us the structure to talk about our friends and special people in our lives. We learned a new song to give as a gift to our friends on valentines day or any other day.

Tell Me Why

Tell me why the stars do shine
Tell me why the ivy twines
Tell me why the sky is blue
And I will tell you just why I love you

Later in the day the girls and I went down to the park to play hide and seek among the trees and tell stories under the evergreen boughs.

What Can You Do On A Tricycle?

fav toys - trike, PT and wagon

The paved traffic-free pathway winding through our local park is perfect for ‘triking’. These last few days we’ve been short on snow, so our toys have been the trike, wagon and the ‘pink thing’ (the only name we could think of for this funny looking very useful toy). Brigit has enjoyed the freedom of this paved ‘road’ to stop and get off her tricyle and hop on again safely. I can let the kids push off for their ride down the small hill with as much power as they can give it. They can’t go fast enough for serious crashes but they get enough speed to have fun.

I like the trike because it is a social toy. The trike is far more flexible for the pre-schooler to use in pretend play with other children than a two wheeler.The child can stop and get off with ease then jump back on to move just a little bit or a long way. I bring ropes with us when we go to the park. We attach the wagon, pink thing and trike to each other in various ways to make trains. The children take turns pulling each other and exchanging riding seats. Even Lily takes her turn, riding the trike tied to the end of the train as well as pulling the wagon from the front.

These three and four wheelers invite lots of creative play and lead to incredible exercise. Every hill they ride down they have to push and pull the toys back up. They’re tired by the time we get back home!

Winning the Gold

Photo by Robert Bell http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

If the competition is for Attention then winning the Gold is getting the biggest share of it. One day recently Sammy wasn’t feeling very well and I offered him little extra comforts to make his day easier. Brigit of course cried ‘unfair’.

They were just small comforts really. But the race to get ‘the best’ was launched when I offered Sammy my place on the couch along with the warm fleecy blanket. Sammy and Brigit demanded equal time to sit in that spot. Though the coveted blanket was just one of many in the house, this became the premium place to sit for the rest of the afternoon. There were several more instances that afternoon of Brigit competing with Sammy’s illness for attention. Like when we got dressed to play outside and I suggested to Sammy that he wear his neck warmer. Brigit jumped in front of him to grab it out of the box for herself.

I know this isn’t about Brigit wanting Sammy to stay sick. It’s about her feeling insecure because her rules for ‘fair’ aren’t the same as mine. She feels challenged to accept that I will decide what is just and fair based on how I perceive their needs. Equal distribution, in her mind, is the only fair way but I won’t promise that. Brigit (like most Three year olds) doesn’t like ambiguity. I don’t want her to feel uncertain, but I do want her to see that I feel confident in my decision making and that I carry the overall big picture about what is good for her. So sometimes I will make decisions that won’t make her feel like she won anything, but she and her siblings will all come through with their needs being met.

Soup and Noodles

I promised Brigit that today we would make noodles. I was also going to make creamy tomato soup, so the noodles would be a side dish.

We started by putting enough flour in a bowl for noodles for all of us. Sammy made a donut hole in the centre then he and Brigit each cracked an egg into it. Lily and I stirred the egg into the flour. From there, I finished the mixing and kneading adding small amounts of water until the dough held together. Cutting the noodles wasn’t easy for the kids, but they hung in. Our noodles were wide and uneven – but a very good lunch served hot with butter and parmesan.

Before we started making the soup I gave the kids the tomatoes to hold, squish and squeeze out some juice. Children often don’t like the slimy, pulpy texture of tomatoes so I wanted to let them get a little familiar with this vegetable. But still, no luck with Sammy; he wouldn’t touch the tomato once the skin was off. We chopped and stewed them, then pressed them through a sieve. I added milk and warmed it then poured the soup into their bowls over broccoli. Lily and Brigit enjoyed it, but Sammy remained constant in his refusal to taste. At least now there’s a little less mystery around this unpopular veggie.

Bean Bag Games

February 9,2010

One of the first things I did when I started working with these children was make bean bags. Both Sammy and Brigit asked to help with the stichting and filling. For each bean bag we stitched three sides of a denim piece, turned it right side out then filled it with beans. We had several ‘stitching’ sessions to complete the bean bags.

We use the bean bags to play catching and throwing games in the house, and we have some favourite bean bag games we play along with CD recordings. Back in September games that required us to ‘pass’ the bean bag from one to another only frustrated Lily. She needed her own bean bag and could not share. But now, six months later, she loves to join our circle and take her turn passing the bean bag to the next person. Bean bags have lots of versatility for throwing, catching and balancing. The children always love a bean bag game!

Spinach

I don’t argue with children about food anymore. I figure I’m the adult and I know what I want to serve and what I want to eat. The most effective way to get children to eat a new food is to show them I like it. And then I remind myself that they’ll be eating again in two hours so it doesn’t matter whether they eat or not. No battles at the table!

I love spinach, raw or cooked. I brought uncooked spinach in to work today, to give the children a chance to feel it and help me tear it up for cooking. We were getting it ready to another dip. The big fluffy leaf pile delighted Lily. I didn’t plan to turn our cooking into a play time – but these things happen!

Our leek stem dollies came back out for one last day of play. Sammy, Brigit and I brought out plastic animals to play ‘farm’ using the spinach for animal bedding and food. Sure enough, once we had the cows and sheep nibbling the spnach Lily was stuffing her mouth with it. I gave her the go-ahead and the others followed.

We ate far more uncooked spinach during our play than later when it was cooked and mixed into our dip.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire, Your Nose is as Long as a Telephone Wire

Lily fell asleep in her booster chair over lunch. I carried her upstairs instructing the children not to leave the table. I would be back in just a minute. From Lily’s room 30 seconds later, I heard Sammy calling up from the kitchen. “Brigit spilled her milk and dumped Lily’s lunch on the floor and Casey ate it and he’s getting sick!” I opted for keeping Lily asleep rather than answering him so I finished settling her in her crib before I returned to the kitchen. Sure enough milk was on the floor and no food was there because the dog had eaten it but I couldn’t see signs of him getting sick.

Brigit was sitting quietly. “Brigit” I asked her. What happened? “I don’t know” she said.
I’m always a little stuck at this point in the discovery process so I asked her to go into the family room and try to remember or figure out what happened. I think I was wrong in doing this, I ought to have given Brigit a stronger presumption of innocence before I put the onus on her to ‘remember’ what happened. It turned out that she really didn’t know how it all happened. Piecing the story from both kids I learned that Brigit and Sammy had been fooling around and Brigit’s milk spilled. She got a cloth and tried to clean it up before it went onto the floor and in that process Lily’s food dish went over the edge. Casey didn’t really get sick – Sammy was just worried that he might. I thanked them both for their efforts to inform me and clarify events and reassured Brigit that she had done the best she could.

But I’m often in doubt about whether Brigit tells me actual truths or ‘sort-of-maybe-versions-of-truths’. Hand washing and using the toilet are always fuzzy tellings. We do these routines several times a day so I suspect she gets bored of doing them and takes shortcuts; like a pop into the washroom and out again kind of shortcut. I’ve never been able to prove that she didn’t wash her hands, but gosh sometimes I have to wonder about how fast she can do it. Of course I can send her back and ask her to wash again just to make sure and I can go and watch her do it. But the next time we go through the same thing again and she assures me that she really really did wash her hands!

I don’t want to set up a dynamic where Brigit doesn’t expect me to believe her. I want it to be the other way around. I want her to expect me to believe what she says.

At this stage in her life Brigit is figuring out what it is that adults want to know and whether telling all will cost her adult approval. The other day she came to me after drawing with markers. “The markers wrote on my hands”. she told me, showing me the happy face drawn on the back of her left hand. “Hmmmm” I said. “The marker didn’t draw the happy face Brigit, who drew it?” “I don’t know” she said.

Okay this time, my presumption of guilt was definitely on the right person – she was the only one in the room with the markers! “Brigit, I want you to go and sit down and remember who drew the happy face on your hand” After a few moments she came back and said that she had done the drawing.

I thanked her for telling me. Then I explained that I need to hear the story about what really happened – not a pretending story. I want a real story because it has to match what I already know, like, markers don’t draw pictures by themselves. I do think children at Three can and should know/sense the difference between real and pretend stories. Both are very important in their lives and need to be separated.

It’s normal for her not to want me upset about her behaviour – after all she loves to please me. So I want to help her trust that the approval she’ll gain from honesty and transparency will feel good. It’s hard telling a ‘real’ story if it’s not a nice one. But there’s no better time than childhood to practice telling it like it is.