Posted by nathan on Feb 29, 2008 in
Father After most of a week of suffering, both EJ and I are feeling much better. We both still have some coughing, sniffling and nose blowing on our collective todo list. The relieving thing is that we are no longer quarantined to the apartment, so yesterday we went to the local library for some out and about time.
The local area has groups of kids who are ushered into the library at somewhat regularly for storytime. One of the librarians is a passable story teller and the kids seems to enjoy, or at least they act interested. They all sit on the floor and quietly face the front. When they are leaving and arriving they all have a buddy to hold hands with and they quietly stand in line and wait to shuffle along to where ever it is that they being taken to. The Bubster does not play along with any of this behavior. She grows bored of the story the librarian is reading, she gets up finds her own book and starts reading it. Then she sits at the little table and colors a picture, and when she wants to, she wanders through the aisles of bookcases.
I n one of my sociology classes, I learned that the behavior of the group of kids above, can be called “institutionalization.” I am certain that at this point in their life it is really not a huge factor, but somewhere along the way of standing in lines, holding hands and sticking together with the group, following the agenda of social norms, these kids will have some of their nature creativity taken away from them and their natural curiousity will be subverted into following group think. It may not be surprising to those who know me, that I’d really wish to avoid that sort of thing with my own child, so we are going to continue to encouraging her to explore things naturally, like a child.
Tags: childlike, learning, philosophy, sociology
Posted by nathan on Feb 21, 2008 in
Mother is home sick today. Everyone send him healing prayers, please.
Posted by nathan on Feb 19, 2008 in
Daughter There are a few things that we have determined to be on the current list of favorites.
- Dora the Explorer (and her cousin Diego the Animal Resucer)
- Bubbles
- Playing in the sink
It doesn’t really matter where we are, The Bubster has a way of playing, watching or being involved with an adventure that is lead, organized or narrated by Dora(unless it is a Diego adventure.) Â Â This involves lots of marching about clapping ahnds while in public or hours spent navigating the nick, jr website.
The only way I know she likes the bubbles is during any period of bubble obsession, the only word I can understand during all the running, jumping, falling down commotion is “BUBBLE!”
The sink, hours, with the water on, soaking herself and the entire bathroom too. We are now hiding the toilet paper to keep her from trying to flush theentire roll at once, but the sink is still open for playing.
Tags: bubbles, dora, fancies, water
Posted by nathan on Feb 19, 2008 in
Mother We thought we had financing all locked up, but we got a letter from the bank telling us if we don’t have an agreement to purchase by February 29, we’ll need twice as much money for a deposit. It’s due to the mortgage crisis. We’re paying for the bank’s previous foolishness. Or rather - not paying, because we just don’t have that money, so we may have to wait quite a bit longer. Ah well. Nothing huge in the scheme of life.
Posted by nathan on Feb 19, 2008 in
Daughter,
Father,
Mother Paige Brooklyn Barengo has arrived. Welcome! We are so happy to have you with us.
Posted by nathan on Feb 16, 2008 in
Daughter,
Father We have been putting the door chain on for the past couple weeks, since we discovered that Bubby could open the door and throw the bolt. Tonight, she dragged a chair over, pulled the chain off the door, hid the chair, returned to the door and walked out of the house. She really wanted to visit our neighbors. We have enjoyed the company of a coupe from Finland and their two kids. Bubby has really enjoyed the two kids.
They moved to a new temporary apartment today. Bubby does not quite understand it, yet.
In other developments keeping with the title of this post, she has difficulty recognizing ‘H’ and sometimes confuses ‘M’ &’W’ or ‘S’ & ‘Z’ but she can and will recognize all the letters in the alphabet. I have even tried to pick them out of order and still she does the trick! Numbers, too! * was a little difficult but she’s got that one as well.
Tags: escape, reading, tricks
Posted by nathan on Feb 12, 2008 in
Daughter,
Father Now days, whenever things are not going her way, our little tike will say, “Oh dear!” in a rather distressed tone of voice. This response is most frequently given to me when I firmy tell her that there will be no more telly.
We have been saving our spare change for a few months. When we got up here to Cambridge, it all went into a plastic tub. Today, The Bubster and I took all those coins to the grocery store and turn2ed them into cash. $52.26 to be exact. Then I turned that cash into a step stool, with a certain amount left over, for bubby to wash hands in the bathroom
She spent an hour getting used to uing it tonight; playing with the water from the sink. The running water encouraged her to use the bathroom, but then the running water did not encourage her to leave the running water while she was using the bathroom. So har pants were wet in more than one place.
I worked her into getting in the tub and playing with the water there. I gave her an empty water bottle to play with in the tub. You know the kind of bottle you get with water in it from the store. I left her to play while doing more stuff in the rest of the house. I went to check up on her after a few minutes, and she was doing fine.
Then when I had returned to my chores, she played and played and then got quiet.
I ran into the bathroom and discovered what was going on. She was still playing with the water bottle, but now it was full of poo. Well not full full, but all there was no other poo in the tub, it was all in the water bottle.
“Oh dear!”
I threw it out, drained the tub and washed her off. That was it for the bathroom fun, at least for today.
Tags: funny, poo, thrifty, tub
Posted by nathan on Feb 10, 2008 in
Father
Posted by nathan on Feb 6, 2008 in
Father …yesterday we all woke up very early and tried to go someplace, but the New England weather combined with our like stroller cover caused me to turn around with The Bubster. The two of us sat on the sofa and watched some early morning children’s telly. Then when there was enough of that, I shifted her to using the computer to play some games, etc. At eleven AM, I moved to prepare us to go out again and then the boom lowered on the day.
The Bubster was throughly pissed off by my intention and refused to cooperate. She screamed and yelled and threw her weight about. She begged for food, I gave her food, she didn’t want the food, she grabbed the plate and tried to throw it. Then she refused to put her coat on, then she peed on me. Then she screamed and cried some more, and then she punched me in the face.
I reacted.
I popped her bottom with my hand with approximately the same force necessary to dribble a basketball. She immediately was defeated and deflated her whole attitude.
I cried.
She hugged me and cried. We cried together, she fell asleep, and I was left an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. I hope all you people who I did the same thing to when I was the same age, are happy now! 
