Knock-knock jokes
Dec 2, 2011 Family life
My 4-year-old son wanted to tell knock-knock jokes this morning. But he doesn’t quite get it yet. First, he asked me to say knock-knock. Not being English, I didn’t think twice:
- Knock! Knock!
- Who’s there?
- … Hem, isn’t it you who’s supposed to be telling the joke?
- Knock! Knock!
- Who’s there?
- Orange!
- Orange who?
- Orangen’t you glad I didn’t say banana?
That was his best one. The only one I remember because the other ones didn’t really make any sense. But then his little sister wanted to imitate him:
- Knock! Knock!
- Who’s there?
- Hello!, says the baby while making the gesture of picking up a phone.
She understands a lot more than we give her credit for!
An update I would rather skip
Nov 25, 2011 Family life
I have been asked what has become of our child’s friend who is dying of cancer. Well, as you can imagine, the cancer is still progressing and the child has not been miraculously healed. I so which it could happen! I so wish I could pray to someone and believe it actually makes a difference…
I have not seen my friend or her child recently because they have been traveling, and then with the arrival of fall kids don’t play outside as much (it’s dark early, it’s wet and cold, not exactly the perfect situation for an ill child). But by all accounts of people who have seen them more recently than I have, things are not going well. The cancer has grown. The child is now barely able to walk and has lost the use of one eye. Language is long gone. And a permanent cough has appeared that seems to be caused by failing lungs and not by an infection.
I am not sure if I should wish for a prompt resolution, so that life in that family can go on (especially for the little brother who will soon turn 2 and who is being somewhat “neglected” in all of this – and I put “neglected” in quotes because I don’t want to assign blame, they are doing their best in the circumstances), or if I should hope for more time for the family to come to terms with the unavoidable end. Of course, my wish would not change anything anyway. Things will go on until the tumor kills all life in the body of that 5-year-old. And my guess is, after this year, Christmas for that family will never be the same again.
I need a child to hug…
Calling my son’s bluff
Nov 23, 2011 Family life
My son is lying through his teeth these days. I think it’s a normal developmental milestone, but it’s kind of annoying. Luckily, I’m getting pretty good at calling his bluff.
This weekend, we went shopping for boots. Right away, my son picked a pair that was all black, with fur at the top, and silver righting. It looked like policemen boots. It was a good pair for a decent price, but the boot was shorter than I wished and didn’t have a drawstring at the top, so I was concerned snow would poor in (when we go to the mountain), especially since his winter pants are kinda short. I made him try another pair that was also black, but lacked the fur and the shiny writing. It was slightly higher, with a drawstring at the top, but he complained the boot hurt his feet.
To be fair, the two boots of the “pair” he was given were of different sizes. Once that small issue was fixed, he still claimed they hurt, but I had trouble believing it. He had tried another pair first and the way he was describing that they hurt when he moved his foot seemed plausible. With the boots I liked, however, he was remaining vague and I was pretty sure he was lying. So I told him that it was ok, if these hurt we would not buy them, but we wouldn’t buy the other (preferred) boots either, we would wait and find some different ones somewhere else that would be comfortable to him, but still made sense to me. All of a sudden, the boots didn’t hurt anymore. Funny that!
This morning, my son got up earlier than he is allowed to (before the alarm clock turned his light on) and complained that his tummy hurt. He has been doing that quite a bit lately, and it’s really hard to believe he’s telling the truth. This morning, I was pretty sure he just wanted an excuse to get up. I told him to go back to bed. He said he couldn’t because he was going to throw up. I stood next to him by the toilet bowl for a minute and it was obvious nothing was going to happen. So I brought a bowl to his bed and told him to lie down, that it would make him feel better, and hoped I was right that he was faking it.
When the alarm clocked turned on 10 minutes later, he was strangely healed of any nausea or tummy ache. I stuck to my guns: if he had really been sick earlier, he was not going to preschool, even if now he felt better. When he asked for an extra portion of scone, I said he could not eat much since he had been feeling sick. I was really hoping my strategy would work, because if not Zak was going to be stuck with him at home all day and hate me for that! But after a long, stubborn while, it worked. He admitted that he had lied about being sick, and in exchange he was allowed to eat some more and go to preschool.
Of course, there is a danger here… he could have really been sick and changed his tune in order to go to preschool, or the boots could have really been uncomfortable but he said the opposite because he really likes new stuff. The lying is so hard to deal with! I try to explain that I can’t believe anything he says anymore because of it and he says “But it’s really real!”. But he always says that, even when he lies! So how am I supposed to tell the difference? This morning I was pretty sure I was right since I don’t think 10 minutes of lying down should have cured him if he was really sick. But it’s not always that obvious.
How do you deal with lyers?
My daughter’s progress
Nov 22, 2011 Family life
I just thought I should write a post about all that my daughter is now doing that seems amazing to a parent but will probably bore the hell out of anyone else.
Yesterday was really the first time that she ate with a spoon. Normally, we just put food on the table in front of her and she feeds herself with her hands. We tried plates or bowls, but she just threw them on the floor. We would sometimes use a fork or spoon to try and entice her to eat a few bites, but she would usually just throw it on the floor, too. So with just a bit of food in front of her at a time, she will still sweep it to the floor when she gets bored, but it’s not as much of a mess (yes, I do wash the floor underneath her chair every day, sometimes more than once). Last night, we were eating soup and she loved it! So we put some in a bowl and gave her the spoon and she was actually trying to feed herself. Really, she was just dipping the spoon in the bowl and then licking the tiny bit of mush that stuck to it (when I say soup, if you have ever had some here, you know I mean more like stew). But it is definite progress.
She has also discovered the fun of pretending to eat food. It started with play-doh waffles, but now when we are trying to spoon-feed her, she’ll grab the spoon, aim it at Zak and demand that he pretends to eat it. Then it’s my turn. Then our son’s. And only then will she sometimes put the spoon in her mouth. Or not. And she does all this while opening her mouth wide in the cutest of expression – I know, I need to show you a photo. I’ll try to do it tomorrow. She also pretends to eat food (especially when she doesn’t like dinner) making “mmm-mmm-mmm” sounds. Adorable!
Which is good, because she can also be a little devil. If you don’t do what she wants the minute she wants it, she starts screaming and collapses on the floor in a full-blown tantrum. At 14 months. She’s starting early, but maybe it means she’ll stop early as well? Usually, I am able to find it funny and just let her blow off some steam. She comes around relatively quickly. Except when she doesn’t. I mean, she’s awfully stubborn, but since most of our fights are when I’m not in a rush and I can wait her out, it’s not too bad for now. However, I do fear for the future. And when I’m trying to change her diaper and I have to physically pin her down because she only wants to get up, it’s not much fun.
We recently bought her some slippers to keep her feet warm inside, since with her socks she slips too much on the hard floor. She fell in love with them. When she wakes up, she finds them and brings them to me, pointing at her feet, so I can put them on. When she loses one, she makes it known – loudly. When I take them off to change her, she grabs them in her hands and if she drops one, she squirms until she can get it back. She would sleep with them if we let her. They are soft and fleecy and I have to admit I am slightly jealous! She does the same with her Halloween costume, which is a fleece with ears and a tail: she grabs it, brings it to us and requests to put it on, inside. It works well since it’s so drafty in our house!
She is lively and spunky, and despite the fact that she is already a “difficult” child, she is also obviously bright, happy and very affectionate, which compensates tremendously. There’s nothing like a big hug and a kiss when you didn’t expect them to make you forget about tantrums. All in all, she is, of course, wonderful and I can’t imagine our life without her. I mean, it would be much, much quieter. Maybe almost boring. And it would be missing something.
No!
Nov 21, 2011 Family life
My daughter was up at 4:30 this morning. Well, to be fair, she also woke me up at 3:15, but that time we all went back to sleep quickly. At 4:30, though, we didn’t. We dozed off here and there, but after a few minutes of silence, she would go back to crying very, very loud. But it’s not just crying anymore: she can now talk a little bit. So in between the screams, I could hear the occasional “No! No!” as well as “Maman!”.
I have to let her cry. I cannot respond to her when she wakes up that early or I will not survive much longer. I already have trouble with the 6.5 to 7 hours of sleep a night I am getting. But it’s hard to let her cry, and even harder to ignore her when she’s calling out my name.
I gave up at 5:45. But it has been a short night. It seems like whenever I actually manage to go to sleep at a reasonable time, I end up waking earlier. I can never get more sleep.
On the bright side, my work day is supposed to be quieter today so nobody will notice if I walk aimlessly like a zombie. At least I hope so!
What do you think?
Nov 11, 2011 Family life, Uncategorized
People are funny. They see what they want to see. I am talking here about children and their likeliness to their parents. I remember once reading about how people tend to see the resemblance between a child and the parent they know best. But I can tell you it’s not always the case, judging by how some coworkers tell me my daughter looks more and more like Zak. Except for those who say she looks a lot like me. And then there are those people who say that she doesn’t look like my son at all, and the others who say they are just the same.
So how about you be the judge? I submit to you three photos. Me as a toddler (one of the only photos that exist of me at that age, big thanks to my brother for scanning it), my son at about a year and my daughter at 13 months. Missing is a photo of Zak, so you can’t really judge who they look like the most. But do they look like me? Do they look like each other?
Me in my high chair... who knew I once had chubby cheeks?
My baby girl on Halloween
My son clapping at a friend's birthday
If you want my opinion… I look like me. My kids? I can’t tell. I don’t find much resemblance between either of us on these photos – maybe if I could have found more similar poses?