Adventures in Time Flying

I can hardly believe that last month, my son started first grade; that he now bathes himself completely independently; or that his love of washing machines continues unabated, but there you have it.

Vinny is enjoying school, and doing very well. One thing they have here, similar to the school I attended in England, is the concept of houses (like in Harry Potter, only without the magical hat). For good behavior you can earn a house point for your house. This is something Vinny had really wanted to earn for his house. After a few weeks, he started earning house points (which are awarded at Friday assembly). He was so proud every time he earned another point for his house, which surged into second place last week. Jeff has seen him receive his house point awards at the assemblies. Sometime I will have to attend too.

He can now bathe himself; we start the water for him, and he takes it from there. I am enjoying this new independence, personally!

Vinny continues to love washing machines. In addition to the washing machine videos on youtube, he has watched other videos that are Minecraft tutorials, which helped him figure out how to build a washing machine in Minecraft! And lately at night before he goes to sleep, we have been discussing our "fake day[s] at the laundromat." I don't know what exactly he sees in washing machines that is so fascinating, but my job is to support him even if I don't always understand him completely. And I am enjoying that job immensely!

Inquiring Minds Need to Know: Thomas the Tank Engine Edition

Some things that are particularly disturbing about the world of Thomas the Tank Engine:

• Am I the only person who noticed the fact that "Sodor" and "Mordor" sound very similar?
• And that Sir Topham Hatt always has his eye on the trains?
• The virtue on Sodor is "being useful," while the biggest vice is "causing confusion and delay."  Apparently, verbally abusing trains is A-OK.  
• Am I the only person who thinks that sometimes, the trains should just tell Sir Topham Hatt to shove it?
• With all the accidents that happen in just about every episode, how has Sir Topham Hatt's license to operate the railroads not yet been revoked?
• What exactly is the role of the train driver?  The trains seem to make all the big decisions.  Why do the drivers not put their foot down when the trains are being reckless?
• Am I the only person who abhors the classism inherent in Sodor society?  The trains aspire to be "really useful" and bicker amongst each other to get the "most important" of the menial tasks Sir Topham Hatt throws at them.  Mr. Perkins, the engine driver who is featured between stories, has a working-class British accent and is sickeningly deferential when Sir Topham Hatt calls on the phone.  (And don't even get me started on the exotic "oriental" train, Hiro!)  Everyone has their place in society and there is no mobility.
• Speaking of accents, why does the obviously American narrator of the story pronounce "Thomas" in the British way?  And I also find it hilarious when he says these typically British phrases (e.g. "Sir Topham Hatt was very cross!") with an American accent.
• Sir Topham Hatt's brother Sir Lowham Hatt was in one episode, and caused the dreaded "confusion and delay."  This helped me hate Sir Topham Hatt a little less, and understand why he turned out the way he did, given a childhood spent with this ne'er-do-well.  Still, it does not excuse the way he behaves towards the trains.  But more importantly, how did some useless nobody like Sir Lowham Hatt become a "Sir"?  Clearly he inherited the title, which furthers the case against royalism.
• When will my child finally outgrow this horrible show?

My Big Boy

It is hard to believe that my sweet little boy is 5 years old!  He turned 5 about a month ago, and we had a birthday dinner for him.  The presents included Boba Fett action figures of various sizes, and a fancy steering wheel setup for the Playstation 3 that included a gear shift and pedals.  But the biggest hit by far was an antique fan.  Jeff picked it up off of Ebay, from an estate sale.  It is 60 years old, but works beautifully still.

He still loves fans, and has amassed quite a collection.  One of his birthday presents, a joint gift from my boss and my admin and their families, was a fan shaped like a dog.  The actual fan part was located in the tummy of the dog.  He loved this fan, and played with it for hours -- just turning it on, and then back off, on, and off, on, and off...

He's taken a fan to school for show-and-tell at nearly every available opportunity.  And, speaking of school, he is doing really well at school.  The main issue is that he is 5 days too young to be an official kindergartner, but at his school they are letting him participate in the kindergarten classes and we are paying the kindergarten rate.  His teacher said his math skills are off the charts (gee, where did he get that, I wonder?) and his reading is at the 1st grade level.  She said he should really be promoted to first grade next year, because he will be bored out of his wits and cause trouble if he has to repeat kindergarten.  We have to start working now with figuring out how to get him tested and into first grade.

He has an amazing mastery of the English language.  He often surprises me with the things he knows!  I really love talking to him.

Child Logic

Vinny has a cough and a bit of a cold, so yesterday morning I gave him some children's cough syrup before school.  I went into the kitchen with the breakfast dishes and left him at the table to drink it down.  While I was rinsing them off in the sink, I heard him say something to the effect of, "I wonder if this would help my nose, too."

When I returned to the dining room, I saw that his nose was all red -- the same color as the cough syrup.  He had tried snorting some of it into his nose, I soon found out after he started screaming in pain!  He kept telling me it was an accident -- but I think it was only an accident in the sense that it unexpectedly hurt him.

I helped him blow his nose and get all the cough syrup out.  He was a little freaked out because he mistook the red dye in the cough syrup for blood -- probably because his nose was burning so badly.  He whimpered for a while but eventually the pain went away.  I stressed to him the importance of using medicines as they are supposed to be used.  My doctor prescribed me some nasal spray in an effort to help my sad sniffer -- and I explained to Vinny that if I swallowed the medicine meant to be sniffed, I would be in trouble.  Hopefully he understood, but even if he didn't, I suspect that this experience will warn him off of trying to snort any kind of illicit drugs!

My Little Mathematician

Vinny loves numbers.  (I wonder where he got that from?)

He loves to count.  He will just start counting and keep going as high as he can, sometimes with humorous results (e.g., ninety-eight, ninety-nine, ninety-ten, ninety-eleven...).  He also loves to count people, or toys, or anything else he can figure to count.  When he is upset, I can take advantage of his proclivity for numbers, and calm him down by counting to 100 together.

He loves clocks and timers.  I was getting exasperated with him the other morning for wasting time when I was trying to get him ready for school, so I turned on the timer and he suddenly saw it as a challenge to beat the countdown.  He is really into telling time, and remarks on the passing of nearly every minute in the car on the way to school.  He's also fascinated by the thermometer in the car, and we have nearly daily conversations about the relative heat or cold of a range of temperatures.

His favorite book these days is 26 Letters and 99 Cents, (the 99 cents part, not the letters part).  It has pictures of coins (or, as he calls them, "coinks") that add up to the numbers 1 through 99 (skipping quite a few at the end, thank goodness!).  From this book he has learned to identify pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, and how the coins add up to various numbers.  I swear I have read him this book a countably infinite number of times.

We play games with numbers.  We count together, alternating who says the next number, so that one is counting evens and one is counting odds.  We find cool number patterns and remark on how cool they are (e.g., "Mama, it's 12:34 -- one two three four!"  "Cool!  Good observation, buddy!").  He loves to type or lay out a string of digits, and make me say what number it is (e.g., 8537832104 is 8 billion, 537 million, 832 thousand, 104).

It is really fun to enjoy numbers together.  I look forward to teaching him how to play Sudoku and Kenken when he is older (games he already wants to play but lacks the skills at this point).  I hope he never loses his enthusiasm for math!

Bunk Bed Update

As I alluded to in the previous post, Vinny's bunk bed finally came.  It has been working out great so far.

It is a little big in his very small bedroom.  Unfortunately the way the room is configured, the only place to put the bed is right by the door, but the door opens such that it does not interfere.  The thing I like about it though, is that even with his door open (as he insists on keeping it at night), he can't see out so that makes it easier to sneak past without disturbing him.

The bed also has a trundle underneath, meaning that there could potentially be room for three children.  (I have visions of two of his boy cousins* staying over for a sleepover someday.)  However, we have only one mattress at the moment -- he is sleeping on the lower bunk because he is much too young to sleep on the top as of yet.

He's enjoyed it so much that when we first got the bed, we had to pretend that it was nighttime and so he could pretend to sleep in it.  And he's been going to bed in his own bed without a fuss, and not even complaining when I don't sit beside his bed for five minutes.

Here's hoping I don't jinx it by saying this, but I am so glad we got the bunk bed for him, because it has made a world of difference at night!


* Either my sisters' sons, or Jeff's sister's sons.  Probably not both sets of cousins at the same time, though!

My Poor Baby Boy

My sweet baby boy has been sick since Friday.  He's been running a fever for three days now.  He has also been suffering from diarrhea.  I got concerned this afternoon when his temperature was still above 100 F despite the fact that he was under the influence of acetaminophen.  So I have called the doctor's office and hopefully the nurse will get back to me soon.

But, on the bright side, he has been sleeping very consistently in his own bed, because he finally got his cool new bunk bed* on Tuesday and has been faithfully sleeping in it because it is so cool.  He hasn't even considered sleeping in the bed with us despite feeling so sick.


* Best investment EVAR!!!!

Humor, Preschooler Style

Vinny's sense of humor continues to grow and change.  I taught him the concept of the knock-knock joke over the summer, and he loves it still.  For some reason, his favorite stage from which to tell jokes is the potty.  So in the evening, when he is sitting on the potty doing his business, he is also telling me jokes.

Most of his jokes really aren't that funny, except for the fact that he laughs so heartily.  For example, while on the potty, the punchline of his knock-knock jokes is often "[X] farted!" which gets pretty old pretty fast.  He also repeats the old standards that I taught him, such as "Boo!" "Boo who?" "Don't cry -- it's just a joke!" and "Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwowning!"

But it can be funny when he tells a surreal, Dada joke, such as "Knock knock!"  "Who's there?"  "Bob!"  "Bob who?"  "Bob sat on a mushroom!"  and its sequel, which culminates in "Bob got off the mushroom and sat on a log!"

The Skeptic and Santa Claus

Vinny is really excited about the upcoming visit of Santa Claus.  I am enjoying his excitement and enthusiasm.

After he was born, I had some reservations about Santa. I enjoyed the tradition of Christmas stockings filled with gifts.  But I was unsure how to handle the existence (or non-existence) of Santa Claus.  I did not want to lie to my child, after all.  On the other hand, I recalled a story about my parents telling my older sister that Santa was not real -- "I don't want to know that!" she replied. So being truthful wasn't all it was cracked up to be, either.

I remembered from reading "Ask Marilyn" years ago that she told her kids that Santa represented holiday joy and love, but was not real, and they would all pretend to believe in him.  I thought that was probably how I would handle it, until I read the book Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan.

In the book, they had dueling articles about whether a freethinking family should endorse or eschew the Santa legend with their children.  After reading them both, I was convinced of the wisdom of teaching my child about Santa, to give him an early lesson in reasoning.*

Santa, you see, has a number of parallels with the another supernatural peeping-Tom myth that persists well past childhood in the majority of the American population.  They are both watching and judging you. They both have big white beards.  If you are good, you will be rewarded.  Whatever you get, you deserved -- anything lacking is your fault.  So puzzling through the Santa myth is just a dry run for puzzling through the God myth.  The same logic refutes both.

I've already gotten some skeptical questions about Santa from Vinny.  "How does he go to all those houses?" I was asked just the other day.  "Some people say his sleigh is magic," I replied.  "What do you think of that?"

For now, that was an acceptable answer to his question.  But at some point, says McGowan, the desire to know the truth about Santa will outweigh your child's desire to believe in Santa.  The trick is to allow your child to reason through it on his own, and to never lie to him when he asks direct questions.  That's why, following McGowan's lead, I deflected with "some people say," and allowed him to assess the validity of the answer.

Someday, he will puzzle it all out himself.  He will realize that Santa and his parents use the same wrapping paper, and have the same handwriting.  He will fathom the sheer numbers of houses Santa allegedly serves, and deduce that it is impossible.  He will no longer believe in magic.  And he will put it all together, decide that the benefits of knowing the truth outweigh the benefits of living in denial, and stop believing in Santa.  And when he makes this decision, it will feel good, and not be disappointing, because he figured it out himself.

And I will be proud of my little skeptic, and feel confident that he will use his intellect to dismantle other myths he's exposed to (not just higher powers, but myths about gender, race, politics, relationships, himself, etc.).


* Read McGowan's Santa article here, and then buy the book to read the rest!

Adventures in Speaking Too Soon

Alas, I spoke too soon in the previous post.  He was able to sleep on his own for about a week but now we're back to square one.  Sigh.  I know it can't last forever -- if nothing else, he'll become a teenager and not want anything to do with us at some point.  But it sure is frustrating.

Adventures in Migraines

I can't say that I am a fan of migraines, but the last one I had actually resulted in something good.

I've been getting them with more and more frequency, probably 3 times a month over the past couple of months, which has been pretty unpleasant to say the least.  I went to the doctor, and she has scheduled me for a CAT scan to make sure I don't have a tumor or something, but otherwise I just have to collect information and try to figure out any kind of pattern to them.

On Wednesday night, I had a really, really painful one.  It is my job to put Vinny to bed every night.  Lately he has been too scared to fall asleep on his own, because developmentally he has gotten to the stage where he knows something about death and is afraid of being alone.  So I have sat there and played on Melvin (the tiniest, babiest computer) until he falls asleep -- thus the recent spate of prolific postings on this blog.  But on Wednesday, my head just hurt way too much to be able to do that.  And of course, that evening he was particularly hyper and not ready to fall asleep at bedtime.  I was getting angry and because I was so frustrated and in so much pain.  So I went downstairs to Jeff and asked him to help me.  Jeff went upstairs and lay down the law, telling Vinny that Mama was going to bed because her head hurt really badly, and that Vinny could goof off and play if he wanted to, he just had to stay in his room.  There was some crying, but Vinny did it.

The next morning, Vinny pointed out to me that he had been promised a prize for falling asleep all by himself and staying in his bed all night.  (This prize had been dangled in front of him after he returned from that week at Grandpa and Grandma's, where he had fallen asleep by himself with no problems, in an attempt to convince him to do the same thing here, but to no avail at the time.)  Upon confirming what had happened that night with Jeff, I agreed and awarded him the prize: sunglasses with blinking blue lights on the sides (one of the best pieces of swag we picked up at the conference).  Then I told him if he did it again that evening, he would get another fantastic prize.  The next morning, he was rewarded with another piece of light-up swag.  And yesterday I told him if he did it for the next two nights he would get yet another prize.  Last night was a success, and I anticipate tonight will be too.

I think he'll be falling asleep on his own for the foreseeable future, which is a great thing!  So for perhaps the first time ever, something good came out of a migraine!

Winter Weather

It has been pretty cold here lately!  Why, today I don't think the temperature rose above freezing.  I excitedly wore several layers of clothes today.

It doesn't get quite this cold that often here in Tennessee.  The weather (although not the complete lack of snow) reminds me of my days in Illinois.

Speaking of Illinois, when I told Vinny that one of his cousins lives in Illinois, he suggested that his cousin actually lives in "Billinois" and just laughed like it was the most hilarious thing ever.  Then I suggested that Vinny lived in "Sillynois" and laughed a bit myself (although Vinny did not find that as humorous as his own joke).  I am still trying to figure out the four-year-old sense of humor.  So far it seems to me that watching him laugh is about the funniest part of his jokes.

Fun with Creative Play

Vinny's been really into creative play these days, which I really love.  He has a great imagination and it is so fun to see what he comes up with.

Tonight, he was C3PO and Jeff was R2D2, and when I joined in the play I was dubbed Darth Vader.  Luckily, I didn't have to behave like Darth Vader particularly, and all our conflicts were solved with a pizza party.  If only it were that easy in real life!

Humor

I came up with a pretty funny joke on Friday, and I was actually fairly proud of myself.  Vinny and I had been talking about his shoes, and how he has to pull the tongue of his shoes up before he straps the velcro straps.  I pointed out how silly it was that shoes have a tongue and people have tongues too.  Then I asked him,
"Vinny, do you have a tongue?"
"Yes, I have a tongue.  It's in my mouth."
"That's silly!" I said.  "I thought only shoes have tongues!"

This led to some more similarly structured jokes:
"Vinny, do you have any ears?"
"Yes, I have two ears, here and here."
"That's silly!  I thought only corn has ears!"

and punchlines
"I thought only tables have legs!"
"I thought only potatoes have eyes!"
etc.

Others I thought of include:

• Bread has heels
• Roads have shoulders
• Cows have calves
• Macaroni has elbows
• Roses have hips

I'm sure there are more out there.  Anybody?

Oh, Hi!

I've been a little bit busy lately!  So busy that I failed to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of my beloved son (that was October 5), or discuss the family party that we held for him, or talk about the student who started working with me at the beginning of the month, or the vacation I've taken for the past week.  I'll try to remedy that right now:

• I can hardly believe that Vinny is 4.  He is such an amazing little boy and I am so glad he came into my life four years ago.  Every day I love him more and more, as if that is even possible.
• Since his birthday was on a Tuesday, we held a family celebration the Sunday before, just the three of us.  Vinny's aunt and cousin had a little online video chat with him for his birthday.  We ate homemade pizza and a Dora the Explorer cake for his birthday dinner (more on that cake later).  He got lots of great presents, including a remote controlled car; Lego Rock Band plus a guitar, drum set, and microphone for the game; and a fun set of gears that you can put together on interlocking backing.  He was positively thrilled with the whole thing.
• He had requested a Dora cake for his birthday.  I said okay, I would make him a Dora cake.  Jeff bought a Dora cake pan and I baked the cake.  That was the easy part.  The hard part was decorating it.  You need 10 different colors for decorating Dora.  For example, she has light brown eyes, but dark brown hair.  Furthermore, she has the whites of her eyes, the light brown iris, the black pupil, and a little dot of white in her eyes.  She also has a bracelet that has light blue, dark blue, and yellow beads in it.  Luckily I bought some sort of frosting mix that was probably actually some amalgam of petrochemicals.  I mixed up all the ten different colors of frosting in ten different bowls, but I was having a lot of trouble with doing everything I had to do to follow the directions.  I had to change out frosting colors, which was an arduous process, especially because I had only one tip of each kind that was required.  A lot of times I just had to do one or two little tiny things and then I had to move on to the next color (for example, red was used only for Map's mouth and nothing else!).  By the end I was going so nuts that Dora's eyes and hair were the same color, and furthermore, she did not have a pupil, not to mention that glimmer in her eyes.  And she evidently forgot to put her bracelet on, because even though I had mixed the blue colors, I did not use them because if I had, I would have completely lost any shred of sanity I had at that point.  I had allowed myself two hours to decorate Dora; it ended up taking five!
• I have a student working with me who worked with me the summer before last.  He has a prestigious fellowship and worked with me the other summer on something completely unrelated to his research.  He asked me if he could come back and I could help him with something that he's doing for his research.  I said "of course" and the rest is history.  He's a really smart dude and easy to work with.  He is close to graduation, so he asked me to write him some letters of recommendation for jobs.  I'm trying to figure out if there's a way we can hire him at my workplace.
• Last weekend, we went to Memphis.  We saw the children's museum, which Vinny loved.  They had this wind tunnel with a model airplane in it, and you could turn the fans on to create the wind, then operate some levers which would operate the flaps on the airplane and lift it into the air.  He absolutely loved that wind tunnel because it had fans!  He was talking about the "fan tunnel" for days.  We also went to a place called Incredible Pizza, which was a pizza buffet plus arcade games and also larger games such as miniature bowling and go-karts.  Vinny rode with me in a go-kart, and we were winning the race until somebody hit my go-kart in the back left corner and spun me out, which caused the race to stop until they cleared it up.  Some of the other go-karts had passed me before they had to stop for the cleanup, and they ended up winning.  Anyhow, the food was pretty good and the games were fun too.  The next day we went to Graceland, and that was a lot of fun to the adults in the party but not so fun for the four-year-old.  On Monday we headed back home but we stopped at Shiloh National Battlefield Park, where a major Civil War battle was fought.
• Then, I stayed home for the rest of the week.  I went in to work for a half day on Wednesday, but otherwise I just spent the week at home.  I did some cleaning up around the house, and I did some shopping, and Jeff and I went out to lunch together once, but I basically took it easy all week, which was really nice.  I really needed to get away from work for a while, and I feel really refreshed after this time away.
• Today, Dad and Marvis are coming to celebrate Vinny's birthday.  It should be a lot of fun!

Projection

Me: Vinny, I have a question for you.  Daddy's birthday is on Friday.  What do you think we should give him?
Vinny: Hmm.  Maybe a remote-controlled car.*
Me: ...



* Apparently Jeff got the same answer when he asked Vinny what they should give me.

Spinner for Dinner

The money we spent on a fun food game for Vinny is arguably the best money we've ever spent.  Vinny is a picky eater and doesn't like to try new foods.  We bought this game that consists of a plate that's kind of like a cafeteria tray from elementary school, except that in each part of the tray it has a picture.  Then there is a spinner with those pictures, and which ever one you land on when you spin, you have to take a bite of the food in that part of the tray.

Vinny absolutely loved playing "spinner for dinner" as he put it.  He even tried a food that we thought he would like but would not have tried without "spinner for dinner."  And he liked it!

Knock-Knock Jokes Redux

We've had a lot more fun with knock-knock jokes lately.  I taught Vinny some pretty hilarious* jokes, including:
A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Boo.
B: Boo who?
A: Don't cry, it's just a joke!

A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Ach.
B: Ach Who?
A: Bless you!

A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Anita.
B: Anita who?
A: Anita tissue! Achoo!

The entertainment value of that last joke has just been priceless.  When I first told Vinny that joke, he then responded with the following joke:
Vinny: Knock knock!
Me: Who's there?
Vinny: Roger.
Me: Roger who?
Vinny: Roger, I need a tissue!  Achoo!

I didn't understand the connection until I remembered that Anita and Roger are the dalmatian-owning couple in 101 Dalmatians, which then made the joke hilarious**.

This past weekend, I taught him the banana/orange knock-knock joke:
A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Banana.
B: Banana who?
A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Banana.
B: Banana who?
A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Banana.
B: Banana who?
A: Knock knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Orange.
B: Orange who?
A: Orange you glad I didn't say banana again?

We have gotten tremendous mileage out of this joke too.  He was able to tell it to Daddy, who laughed heartily (as required).  But it has now hybridized with the "Anita" joke to become
V: Knock knock!
M: Who's there?
V: Banana.
M: Banana who?
V: Banana, I need a tissue!  Achoo!


* hilarious to a three-year-old, that is...
** even to a thirty-something

Milestones

Today we took Vinny to his first-ever movie in a movie theater.  It was Toy Story 3 (which was very good, in fact).  He sat the entire time on my lap, and paid attention to the movie for the majority of the time.  The previews were painfully loud, though, so I covered his ears at the beginning.  I thought I was going to have bad cramps in my arms (not to mention the pain shooting through my left elbow!), but luckily the movie was not quite so loud, and I was able to remove my hands from his ears.

After the movie we met some friends at a sort of arcade/amusement park place, where our three-year-olds just enjoyed sitting at the driving games and thought they were playing without us having to insert any tokens, and also went on all the kiddie rides (e.g., the airplanes that go round and round, the mini-train, etc.)

Then we went out to dinner together before going home and putting Vinny to bed.  I think I will head to bed really soon myself.

Irrefutable Logic

Vinny: Daddy, I want to go swimming.
Jeff: We can't go swimming right now, buddy, it's raining!
Vinny: It's not raining in a hotel!
Jeff: ...