Category: Ah, me boys

In which my four year old outwits me

For the most part, potty training Tristan was a breeze. He waited until he was three and a half to be ready for it, but when he was ready, the transition was quick, painless and relatively dry. From the last day of diapers, we’ve had a total of maybe a dozen accidents at most. A year and a half later, however, one hurdle remains.

He refuses to wipe his own butt.

We’ve tried cajoling, reasoning, bribing and ignoring him, but he outwaits us every time. And for reasons I’ll never understand, the vast preponderance of the time, he likes to go when we are sitting at the dinner table.

Tristan, from the bathroom: “I’m done.”

Me, at the table: “Good.”

(pause)

Tristan: “Are you coming?”

Me: “No. Wipe yer own butt.”

Tristan, whining: “I can’t!”

Me: “Yes, you can.”

Tristan: “I don’t want to!”

Me: “Well, that’s probably closer to the truth. You have to learn to wipe your own butt, Tristan. Big boys wipe their own butts.”

(pause)

Tristan: “Is this Monday?”

Me, unfazed at the non-sequiter: “No, it’s Saturday.”

Tristan: “Well, I only wipe my own butt on Mondays.”

How do you argue with logic like that? He may have won again today, but you can bet he’s not getting away with it come Monday!

(Edited to add: and by God if he didn’t wipe his own butt on Monday. By his choice, mind you. He called from the bathroom, I reminded him it was Monday, and he said “Oh, okay” and did it. Who knew??)

Tristan lends a hand

I had spent the whole day doing laundry and sorting clothes into careful piles on my bed.

I was in the kitchen finishing dinner when the boys came home. Tristan disappeared upstairs shortly after he got home, and hollered down for his brother after a few minutes.

“Simon, Simon, guess what! Our favourite jammies are clean. I just put yours on your bed!”

I stopped stirring the potatoes. I couldn’t have heard that right. Did my four year old just say he was putting away the laundry?

“Tristan,” I called in as neutral a voice as I could manage, “What are you doing?”

“Putting away my clothes,” he called back, the pride evident in his voice.

“You put away the piles that I had on my bed?” I asked, still unable to believe what I was hearing.

“Only my own clothes, and Simon’s jammies. I left yours and most of Simon’s on the bed.”

“Oh. Okay, thanks…” I said, incredulous and bemused and annoyed all at the same time.

Yes, my four year old took it upon himself to put his own clothes back into his drawers. When I went up later to retrieve them, he had even correctly sorted the pants, shirts, jammies and underwear into the correct drawers. I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled them back out of the drawers. They had been carefully sorted on my bed for a reason… I was about to put them into a suitcase, as we were leaving the next day to visit my brother.

Think it will ever happen again? Nope, me neither.

It’s a new year!

I’m fond of odd-numbered years -they seem to be lucky for me. Beloved and I met in 1995 and married in 1999. We conceived Tristan in 2001 and Simon in 2003. We also bought this house in 2003, and I started my current job that year. In 2005, I earned a promotion. I like odd-numbered years. I have a good feeling about this one.

Without any attempt at a segue whatsover, I’d like to introduce the latest member of our family. On Boxing Day, Beloved got a great deal on a new desktop to replace the old one that died this summer. After reading all your comments about kids and computers, I realized it was high time the boys had access to a computer of their own, so rather than putting this back in the basement, we decided to keep it in a central place. On the weekend, we picked up this little desk/cupboard so we could keep it on the main floor – and hopefully keep the clutter to a minimum.

You were so right, bloggy friends. It’s freaking me out how easily Tristan is taking to the computer, considering how limited his exposure has been. He’s seen a computer practically every day of his life, but far as I know, the only mouse he’s played with significantly has been the one at the bookstore – and it’s a Mac.

I remember how long it took me to coordinate the mouse in my hand and the pointer on screen, way back in 1986 or so. And yet, Tristan does it like he’s moving the pointer with his mind instead of the mouse. What really blew me away was that he figured out within the first three minutes how to grab the top of a window and drag it across the screen. He’s seen me do it a dozen times or more, but there’s nothing intuitive about it – for an old girl like me, anyway.

It’s a whole new year, and a whole new era in our house. There’s a desktop in the very heart of the house, wide open for the kids and us to share.

I can feel it – this year is going to be amazing!!

Happy new year!

Post-Christmas wrap post

(Editorial note: please stop to admire my careful wordsmithery before proceeding. That’s two devices in three words in a four word title: the post-post repetition, and the wrap as in gift wrap/it’s a wrap pun. What, you don’t love it? Sheesh, you people are hard to please!)

Ahem, well then, on with the show. Without further ado, I’m pleased to present to you this round-up of the Gifts of 2006.

The Theme of the Year award goes to Pixar’s Cars movie. Between the two boys, they got maybe ten or a dozen of the cars characters, including duplicate Lightings and Maters; the Mack playset; the movie; a set of board books; the deck of Uno cards; and a toothbrush each. Close second is the Wiggles, making an appearance in a Memory card game, two DVDs, and two board books, including one with a surprisingly un-annoying digital music player that makes a good toddler-friendly impersonation of Mommy’s iPod.

The If I have to play another round of Candyland I’ll swallow this cyanide pill award goes to Cariboo and Uno. While Cariboo is still a little bit simplistic, it’s a game the boys can play with each other – and without parental engagement. They actually prefer just using the key to open the boxes and hunt for balls, bypassing the rules entirely, but so long as they are playing with each other instead of torturing the dog, we all win. And in Uno I have finally found a game that I could sit for hours and play with Tristan. He needs to be prompted a bit, but can play independently without showing me his cards. We are well on our way to family game nights!

The Have I told you how much I love my mother award goes to – surprise! – my mother, who gave me a small package with a gift tag that read, ‘To Danielle, with love and admiration. From Mom.’ Inside was a small silver key chain, inscribed with the word “mothership”. She printed out the blog banner and brought it to the engraver to duplicate the font – and they did a damn fine approximation. Does my mom rock or what?

The Ohhh, I love a good deal award goes to the Bob the Builder Electronic Workshop. We were in WalMart when I saw a bunch of these stacked on a skid in the toy section. They were reasonably priced at $14.97, so I picked one up for Noah, my two-year-old nephew who has recently become a Bob devotee. The boys were so fascinated by the box that Beloved went out that night and picked up a second one for Simon. A few weeks later, we were in our favourite specialty toy store and they had the same set – for $54.99!!

The Indoctrinate them while they’re young award goes to the 65-piece kitchen set for Simon. He calls it his ‘tea set’ and loves it. He was especially excited by the ‘flipper flopper’, which Tristan precociously informed him was called a spatula. (How he knows from spatulas is beyond me.) I’m hoping to have Simon cooking dinner by the time he’s in grade school.

The I know you better than you know yourself award goes to Beloved, who got me the Penguin Book of Popular Canadian Quotations (he specifically said he thought it would make for good blog fodder), and the first season of the Muppet Show and Sesame Street Old School (1969-1974) on DVD. We’ve recently discovered old Sesame Street clips on YouTube, and have spent hours watching them. Ironically, the boys’ very favourite clip from YouTube is the first sketch on the first episode of the Muppet Show DVD.

The How to flummox the staff of Future Shop award goes to me for trying to find tapes on December 24 to go with Tristan’s portable cassette player. The first clerk I asked had no idea what I was talking about and sent me toward the VHS cassettes. The next two clerks hemmed and hawed and said they didn’t think they carried that kind (insert tone of disdain here) of thing. I finally found them in the car audio section. Sheesh, it’s not like I was looking for laser discs or 8-track tapes, for goodness sake. I bought bulk, just in case.

The Most Annoying Toy award goes to Mr Bucket. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Simon has developed a peculiar obsession with Mr Bucket, going into paroxysm of excitement every time he spotted it in a flyer or catalogue. We have no idea why, even going so far as to ask the caregiver if she has this game. She does not. Simon has simply become fixated on this particular toy for some reason. So of course, we bought it for him for Christmas. And he hates it. Well, that’s not entirely true. Mostly, he’s afraid of the noise it makes. Unfortunately, he forgets about every three hours that he hates it, and takes it out of the box, plays with it for 90 seconds, and puts it back.

The No really, I bought it for the kids award goes to two winners this year: Marble Run and Superfort. It’s a natural progression from the hours I’m willing to spend building intricate and looping wooden train tracks to building intricate and looping marble runs and really fun and funky forts. Bonus marks to Cranium, makers of Superfort: after watching me just once, Tristan is already building his own forts. I am highly impressed! Now, could somebody please add an expansion pack for Marble Run to my Tristan’s birthday wish list?

On a less commercial note, the Awwwwww award goes to Simon, who loved everything he got. Everything! Every time he opened a gift, it was the best gift ever. Not once did he ask for more presents, even when the festivities paused to regroup or welcome a late arriving guest.

And finally, the Big brother award goes to Tristan, who has made my jaw drop open more than once in the past few days with the tenderness he has shown in helping Simon open stuck toys, reach high shelves and find lost toys. There has also been plenty of bickering and sniping, but I’ve been so impressed with Tristan’s behaviour that it merits a mention.

In retrospect, it was a blissful, bountiful Christmas. I’ve said it before: I’m a lucky girl!

Now I’ve got two preschoolers and my mother’s birthday coming up in the next ten weeks. Any recommendations for more great gifts?

Christmas joy

Once upon a time, I dreamed of the day when our Christmas tree would be filled with ornaments made by little hands.

My heart grew three sizes this week when Tristan brought home his first hand-made ornament, carefully crafted at school and packaged in a brown paper bag.

It’s a keeper.

A sad excuse for a post

Simon doesn’t get sick too often, but he seems to be making up for lost time this week. He has a horrible, snotty head cold, a fever AND he’s barfing. Sheesh, I’m *so* very glad we got our flu shots last weekend. (insert eyeball roll here)

He’s also so incredibly grumpy and needy that I can’t even tear myself away for 10 minutes to write up a blog post. Hopefully more later… or maybe I’ll just see you tomorrow.

Bed switching

It’s been a little more than a week since we switched Simon from his crib to a bed. He’ll be three in six weeks and he weighs somewhere around 40 lbs, so I’m thinking it was about time.

You might have noticed it’s not so much a bed as a mattress on the floor. We’re working on that. The bed frame has been ordered (no bunk beds for now) but in the interim, he’s thrilled just to be in a close facsimilie of a ‘big boy’ bed. And the bedding isn’t even a close match to Tristan’s because when I bought it on sale seven months ago, it was supposed to go in the purple and yellow room next door.

By the time we finally got around to boosting Simon from his crib, there was no longer any need for the boys to share a room, but we had done such a fine job of selling the idea of room sharing that we couldn’t have convinced them otherwise.

They’ve been surprisingly good. One night, Granny came over to babysit and there was giggling and shenanigans until well after she left after 9 pm. Other than that, though, they’ve both been great about settling in and actually going to sleep.

Even more surprising, Simon is actually staying in his bed. Those of you who have known me for a while will remember Tristan’s nighttime wanderings when we liberated him from his crib at the tender age of 21 months. He was so incorrigible in his midnight-to-three a.m. wandering and I was so sleep deprived and exhausted (still working full-time, eight months pregnant, in December) that one night I checked that the gate to the stairs was in place and locked my bedroom door to keep him out. The next morning, I woke up to find him curled up fast asleep against the door. It was one of my worst bad-mommy moments and I can still taste the bitter guilt three years later.

That’s why I’ve been nothing short of astonished (relieved, but astonished) at how easily Simon has made the transition that I’ve been dreading for three years. The only hiccup came this past Saturday night, on the one-week anniversary of his liberation from baby-jail. On my way to bed, I checked in as usual to kiss both boys goodnight. Tristan was snoring lightly, and when I turned to look at Simon, the half-smile on my face faded in confusion.

Simon’s bed was empty, and we hadn’t heard a peep from him. I checked his crib, thinking maybe he had crawled back into it, but it was empty, too. I finally found him deeply asleep smack in the middle of my bed, duvet pulled comfortably up to his chin.

I laughed and laughed and laughed. I was laughing so hard I could barely call Beloved to come and see, and was still snickering when I finally crawled under the – still warm! – covers myself after putting Simon back in his own bed.

When I asked him the next morning why he had slept in my bed instead of his own, he answered logically, “Because I just did, Mummy.”

Tristan was my well-sleeping infant. We had to wake him up every three hours to feed him when he was a newborn. Simon, by contrast, didn’t sleep a full six hours straight until until well after I went back to work, sometime around 14 or 16 months. As toddlers, they have switched places and Tristan is restless through the night where Simon falls asleep in minutes and stays that way.

Funny how that happens.

Kid fears

Simon seems to be going through a fear stage, and I don’t remember Tristan ever going through something similar.

The first time I noticed it a couple of months ago, we were at the Farm and when the cows mooed in the next field over, he practically leapt into my arms and buried his face in my shoulder. Also at the farm, he was terrified of the bleating sheep. He curled his whole body into mine as I carried him through the barn; I’ve never seen him react like that, but could feel his fear in his posture.

Lately, the list of things that he says he is afraid of has grown to include clowns (okay, so I get that one), the sirens and truck horns at the Santa Claus parade, ghosts, and… snowmen. It’s going to be a long holiday season if he’s afraid of snowmen, considering they’re one of my favourite holiday icons and I’m sure I have a dozen or more iterations on the snowman theme in my box of Christmas decorations.

He doesn’t seem overly troubled by most of what he claims to be afraid of, but when he saw clowns at the parade (even across the street) he curled himself into me and averted his face until I assured him they were well out of sight.

I’ve been dismissing this as a two-year-old phase, but now that the list of things is growing incrementally toward pantophobia, I’m beginning to be concerned. This past weekend, at least a couple of times a day he would tell me he was afraid of something. Not to mention the fact that he’s getting to be a big boy – close to 40 lbs – and cradling him in my arms with my own growing belly is getting to be a problem!

Care to share your experiences with kid fears? Is it a phase to be indulged and waited out, or would you try to confront the fears?

The naming of Tristan Louis and Simon Francis

A couple of weeks ago, Chantal from Breadcrumbs in the Butter ran a lovely series of posts about how each of her four kids came to be named. I am fascinated by how people choose names, and always love to hear the story behind someone’s name.

I suspect I might have already told the story of how Tristan and Simon got their names, partly because I so love the topic that I tend to talk about it often and partly because after 600+ posts, it’s inevitable that I start to repeat myself. Those of you who know me in person are nodding vigourously at this point.

Regardless, because you know the topic of baby names had to come up eventually, and because I don’t have anything else percolating for today, let’s talk about names.

With Tristan, we always knew what his name would be. I don’t remember exactly when we decided on it, but we were thrilled at the ultrasound to find out he was in fact a he because we were solid on the name of Tristan for a boy and had not even an inkling of a name for a girl.

Tristan was chosen because of Beloved’s love of the Arthurian legends – King Arthur, knights of the round table, and whatnot, and I simply refused to allow any son of mine to be named Gwain or Galahad or Lancelot. Not that there’s anything wrong with those names, if you happen to like them. But as soon as he said “what about Tristan?”, I knew it was the one. (It didn’t hurt that Brad Pitt had played the noble but wounded Tristan in Legends of the Fall just a few years before, either!)

Tristan’s middle name was also an easy choice. My dad’s name is Louis, Beloved’s middle name is Lewis and his grandfather’s name is Louis. We knew unequivocally that he was Tristan Louis from the time I was five months pregnant.

The sticky part came with his surname. I didn’t change my last name when Beloved and I got married, and when I was pregnant we agreed that my surname would be a second middle name for any kids. But the more pregnant I got, the more important it became to me to have my surname equally represented. Unfortunately, our names hypenated are a bit of a mouthful, and Beloved was resistant to the idea.

We were still undecided when Tristan was born, but we were literally not allowed to leave the hospital until we completed a health card application for him – with his full name. We were all packed up, and Tristan was dressed in his going-home outfit, purchased specially by Granny. I was sitting on the bed and Beloved in the chair, and we glowered at each other, each unwilling to concede. In the end, Beloved capitulated, and I cried tears of relief as I filled out the form with the hyphenated surnames. There have been many times, as I spelled out his name for a pharmacist, or to make an appointment, that I silently apologized to him for saddling him with such a mouthful of a moniker. But mostly I’m proud that both boys carry my name, a name fairly unique and unusual, and I’ll let them decide if they ever want to truncate it to a single name some day. To my surprise, I just noticed the other day when Tristan’s first school picture came home that he is the only child in his class with a hypenated name.

The naming of Simon is a little bit less dramatic. Right up until he was born, we were vacillating between three names, even though Simon had been a front-runner in my mind even when we were naming Tristan. My brother had a friend named Simon when we were growing up, and he always struck me as kindly and thoughtful – two characteristics I attached to the name Simon. The other choices were Thomas and Lucas.

When Simon finally made his way into the world, 10 days past my due date and after nearly 30 hours of efforts to entice him to leave the womb, I knew when I saw him that he would definitely be Simon. Since we gave Tristan the name of Beloved’s grandfather and my father as a middle name, we gave Simon the name of my grandfather and my mother (in masculine form) as a middle name. Simon Francis.

I worried a little bit about “Simon says” and “Simple Simon”, and I even considered the impact of one of my childhood favourite shows, “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings.” Remember that theme song?

Oh, you know my name is Simon
And the things I draw come true.
And the pictures take me take me take me
Over the garden wall with you.

(Ironically, the Teletoon network here in Canada started running an updated version of that cartoon when I was home on maternity leave with Simon, but when I asked a young teenage acquantance of ours if he had ever had someone tease him about the song, he had no idea what we were talking about.)

In the end, of course, I love both names. I couldn’t imagine them being named anything else.

Rest assured you can expect much more on the topics of baby names in the next six months! In the interim, care to share your baby naming stories?

A Happy Halloween

The boys had a terrific halloween, and by extension, so did I.

A few thoughts on halloween this year:

  • I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when I heard that Tristan’s school had a ‘no costumes’ policy. The kids are invited to wear black and orange, but costumes are not allowed. I was disappointed just because I remember the great fun of wearing a costume to school – the excitement, the sense of a special day, the thrill of seeing what the other kids were wearing.

  • I can also understand why they did it – it levels the playing field for the kids who might not be able to afford a fancy costume, I guess.

  • Speaking of fancy costumes, I got sucked in myself. Even though I nearly choked when I saw the price tag attached to Tristan’s Scooby Doo costume, when I amortized it over three kids I could justify it. Plus, he really loves it.

  • Granny, who normally goes out of her way to give us a lift on Tuesdays anyway, dropped in to see the boys in costume between dinner and trick-or-treating. In his excitement to get his Fuzzy Caterpillar costume on Simon said, correctly, “Granny, you’re going to LOVE this!”

  • The boys’ excitement was infectious as we walked to a few houses on our street. It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since I felt that swell of excitement, walking up the laneway to a house obviously decked out for the occasion.

  • Is it just me, or is the upper threshold age for trick-or-treating getting higher each year? I swear, we had more than one young man whose voice was changing, and a few I had to look up to look into their eyes. There is such a thing as too old.

  • Then again, kids too young to read a “DON’T RING BELL – PLEASE KNOCK” sign probably shouldn’t be trick-or-treating alone.

  • A lot of things are even more fun when you can share them with your brother.

***

This post launches my participation in NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month. There’s no way I could write a novel in the month of November, but since I’m already putting up at least one post a day on weekdays, it would be within the realm of the possible to post every single day. Besides, what else is worth doing in November?

Postcards from the Mothership – now with 20% more drivel!