Month: January 2010

I think Lewis may have lied.

Yesterday Lew and I were hanging out around the house. As he was playing in the liing room I heard him make a low “I’m-making-a-poop” sort of noise. I asked him, “Lewis, did you just make a poop?”
“Uh huh,” he admitted.
“Do you have a poop in your diaper,” I asked for clarity’s sake.
He looked at me, sorta grinned, and shook his head no. “Uh uh.” So funny!

Babysitter report from cousin, Cait

The other night my sister and I went to Orchestra Hall to see the Wizard of Oz with the Minnesota Orchestra playing the music.  Pretty cool.  Meanwhile, our cousin, Cait, watched the kids.  Art was particularily excited about Cait coming over.  He asked over and over and over again, "When is Cait going to get here?  Why is it taking her a long time?"  We had pizza, the boys spazzed out on the couch for a while and then Em and I left for our concert.  Here's Cait's report:

Hey Jess and Ben- 

Everything went super smooth, those boys are such a treat! After Dinosaur Train I said "it's time to get ready for bed for Lewis" and both boys went up the stairs to their rooms. While I helped Lewis Art stayed in his room quietly (but also helped me find things and answered a lot of questions for me. When I took Lewis' diaper off I asked him if he would like to pee in the potty and he said "uh-huh" and went and peed in the potty! Then he ran around naked for a second and Art scared him (in a fun way) and then I read him 3 books and put him in his bed and he went right to sleep – no fuss! After Art brushed his teeth we read some books in his bed. Snakes was first and he told me all about his favorites and we talked about how some snakes eat eggs and how they crush the shells in their throat. Next was a story about Wednesdays. When we got to the part about waking up the dad Art laughed and said that it was really hard to wake up Papa sometimes, and sometimes he likes to surprise Papa with a very gentle face pat to wake him up. When the story was over I tucked him in and he said goodnight and that was that! Then I discovered how awesome Tivo is. I got to watch The Office from the beginning even though it was almost at the end! 
It was way fun and I'd be happy to do it again if you guys need to do things like go out on dates or whatever. Let's have cousin time soon!
cait

Speaking in Lewease

It is fun to know a little kid's dialect.  Art is almost done correcting his little misspeaks.  No more oat-uh-meal, no more bass to wash his hair.  He still says, "Go the fast that I'm going!" but that will disappear soon, too.  But now we have Lewis's language to delight in!  Here are some of his fun verbal interpretations of his world:

Heh-woh  It's not just a greeting!  It's a phone!  That's what he calls a phone.
Gree  Yes, Lewis is a genius.  He can already count!  But there are only ever gree of them.  "Gree, gree, GREE!"
Hoo-hoo!  Dinosaur Train, the crack-cocaine t.v. show of Art and Lewis's generation.  Dinosaurs that ride an effin' train.  
Wee-wee  Said in a regular voice, it means frog.  Said in a guttural growl, it is the sound a frog makes.

A rare opportunity to see inside the mind of a four-year-old!

Last night Art called me upstairs after he'd been asleep for a good hour or more.  He'd had a bad dream, he said, and I asked him if he wanted to talk about it.  He told me all about it!  Then I came downstairs and told Ben, who typed it out since he was sitting at the computer anyway.  This is the dream, as transcribed only minutes after it's first telling:

In his dream he had a blanket on his head and a bag of water and a frog that he wanted to be his friend. He wanted the frog to be his friend.  And he looked at the bag of water and there was something really cool in the water.  There were flowers coming out. And then he smiled.  I repeated back what he had told me and he added that the frog DID want to be his friend. When I mentioned the flowers coming out of the bag he clarified that the flowers were coral, like in the ocean. He said that in the ocean coral is really big but this was really small.

I asked him why he was scared and he said that the flowers came out really fast.  Then he smiled and laid back down in bed.

Picking Art up from school is fun..

It’s something I rarely get to do since I work, but picking Art up from Willow is really fun. As soon as you walk in a gaggle of fully bundled kids swarm the door to see who’s mama or papa came. Today when I walked in I heard Arthur yell, “Papa!” Jessica and I have often marveled at how Mr. Jen is able to outfit 5-6 kids in winter gear when it’s often nearly impossible for us to dress just two.

What happened today.

The kids have often been at unhappy around each other lately. There’s a subtle but intense competition between the two of them for their parents’ (especially Jessica’s) attention. It’s not worth figuring out in all its complexity because they’re often little angels together and tomorrow something will change anyway. But for now, it can be tough to be around the two of them.

For example, Lew might grab a toy to play with, Arthur will go and grab it just enough to cause Lewis to scream as if you were removing a toe nail. And then Lewis might hit Arthur hard with the toy, and Arthur will cry and hit Lewis back hard, and then they both cry for a while because they got hit hard.

As a workaround lately we sometimes each take a child and spend time with them (one upstairs, another down, etc). Tonight Jessica took Lewis upstairs to get ready for bed and I made a marble toy with Arthur in the living room. Jessica and a naked Lew came down to check out what we had made and I took care to help them cooperate. Arthur shared marbles with Lewis, even showing him the best spots to put them in. It was nice. And I, knowing that eventually Lewis would probably knock the thing down either by accident or on purpose, said to Arthur, “You know Arthur, this is a great marble toy, but if Lewis knocks it down we can always build another one.” The moment I said this I realized what had happened. In that long sentence Lewis had heard a smaller edited version, “Lewis, knock it down!” And he did.

Arthur screamed and immediately grabbed a huge chunk of marble toy and smashed it over his brother’s head. Then Lewis collapsed into Jessica’s arms and cried really loud. And Arthur yelled, “Can we build another one, Papa? Can we? Can we?! Can we!!!” I could barely hear him over Lewis, who I had plucked from Jessica’s arms to further console. Then I felt something warm trickle down my arm and onto my favorite wool sweater. Lewis was peeing and crying at the same time. And when Arthur noticed I was ignoring him and focusing instead on Lew’s urine, he screamed as loud as his four-year-old body would allow. This was a moment a more seasoned parent might be able to avoid losing it. But I wasn’t able, and yelled as loud as I could, “BE QUIET!!” and stomped into the kitchen.

Art was scared and followed me into the kitchen saying through his tears and fast breathing that he doesn’t like it when I use that loud voice. And I said I was really sorry, that I had lost my cool, and that I had found my cool in the kitchen. We had a long hug and everything was quiet. Jessica, who afterwards said she’s lost similar amounts of cool at home with the kids, immediately forgave me and we all went on to have a lovely evening. I’m not proud of that moment and hope next time I will do better and not lose it. But at the same time I’m proud our family–especially Arthur–that we’re able forgive each other and keep loving each other.