Good luck or bad luck?

Sunday night Sophie wasn't looking too good and felt very hot. By Monday morning it was clear that she wasn't feeling well so her dad took her to the dr. (read earlier post). I was a bit frustrated because the days she decides to get sick coincide with the last few days I have to write before I turn in my dissertation on Thursday. Fearing that she's not going to make it back to school until Wednesday, in something of a panic, I call both of our extra babysitters, who are both unavailable. Luckily by Tuesday she seemed mostly better except for her vomiting on my in the morning, so we sent her off to school. On the one hand, I thought, what bad luck, right as I am trying to finish, my child is sick with a raging fever and vomitey. On the other, I thought, what good luck, at least she made it through school on Tuesday and they didn't send her home which would have meant she'd have to stay home for the next day as well. In hindsight, I now realize it's all really just a matter of perspective.

My mistake

"Oh goose," I said as she huddled on her mother's lap at 1:30 a.m., coughing and radiating heat like an unhappy little pot bellied stove, "Oh goose, are you sick?"

"No, Ima two!"

Spiderman

Taking a talking girl to the doctor is a new experience.

She's much more aware than last time I was with her at the doctor's.

Mainly, she's aware that she does not want to be there.

"No here, no park here!" she told me as we turned into the parking lot.

"No in here! No in here" she continued as I tried to unbuckle her car seat. (She covered the buckles with her hands to try to keep me from unbuckling her. Then she hung on to the straps as I tried to remove her from the seat).

She lapsed into an apprehensive silence as we entered the building and then burst into tears when we approached the desk to check in.

There was a waiting period, which we filled with books, which was nice enough. But every time a nurse came out, she whipped her head around to see if this might be it.

"Daddy, mono in my car now" she told me, trying to get back to the car under the guise that it was mono (her stuffed monkey) who needed to go back.

"No, goose, we're not going back to the car now," I told her.

"No, my mono my car now!" she said.

Soon enough, our time had come. She wailed as I carried her back to be weighed (27 pounds as of today). The nurse and I tried to explain that there would be no shots this time, but she was having none of it.

Then we were left alone in the office. She clung to me like a barnacle on a rock.

"Would you like to sit on my lap?" I asked.

"Nyes." She crawled up and buried her face in my chest.

When the doctor finally came, she was so brave. After all that apprehension, she was so good about having her ears and throat looked at. The stethoscope didn't bother her at all.

Her spirits rose noticeably as we approached the exit. She got a Spiderman sticker (thwarting the receptionist's efforts to guide her to Hello Kitty), which she promptly pasted on her chest.

Then we went to play in the mall, feeling much better.

(She has a summer cold: fever and congestion/coughing, but not too contagious).

Just a bit bent, thanks

Sophie, upon seeing her father stumble in the door after his run:

"Daddy broken?"

Potty trained!

I'm writing this entry knowing only too well that I will have to write another admitting that I called it a bit too early. Regardless, I'm going to go ahead and say it, Sophie's potty trained. All done with diapers, at least during the days. Today we went all day in the same shorts we started out with. I don't even think they put on diapers during her nap at school--although I'll have to ask about that. I can't really take much credit for this, peer pressure and some willing teachers did/do most of the heavy lifting. Although, I should be given a little credit because I did suspect if we put her back into school but in the older room, this is what would happen.

hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.

all abord the potty train

We're all on board now. Amazingly, Sophie Tegel's new caregivers at school (she moved up into the older room) are all about getting her potty trained. When we were talking to them about this, they boasted that they got their entire room trained. The teachers' eagerness, along with the peer pressure from being with the older kids, has made training much easier. Suddenly, the money with pay for daycare seems completely 100% worth it.

it's never too young for music lessons, right?

The local symphony offered children the chance to familiarize themselves with different instruments. Sophie's favorite: the violin.

Just in time for father's day

The miracle of birth. The first day of kindergarten. Losing her first tooth. Learning how to ride a bike. Crying at her wedding.

There are things that I easily imagined when I contemplated fatherhood before her birth. There are some things I did not.

She called me over while she was in the tub tonight.

"Mer Daddy!"

So I came over.

She reached out her hand to me, so I reached out my hand to her.

And watched as she promptly deposited therein the turd she'd been holding.

Little Miss Bossy

On the occasion of her mother leaving the house:

Sophie: Mommy! Doan ta'e my car!

Mommy: What? How should I get to work?

Sophie: Wak!

Mommy: Walk?

Sophie: Wak, mommy!

Mommy: Why should I walk?

Sophie: [incoherent] my car!

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Earlier she had thrown a fit when she gave her smoothie to her mother with strict instructions not to drink it––mommy drank it.

Back to school: my happy!

This morning I was one of the first parents to have Sophie Tegel back at school after her nearly 2 month absence. As we drove up and Sophie realized where she was going, she said, "My happy." As a parent, that's a reassuring sign on many levels.

more literalness from Sophie Tegel

Me: Can you say hi to JJ?

Sophie Tegel: Yes (as in, yes, I am able to do that)

Me: ok, then, say it.

Sophie Tegel: Hi JJ.

More Turtles

Today at the Hands On Museum: in the waterplay area with the buckets and funnels and plastic fish.

Sophie was playing with the plastic marine life and had gathered up quite a collection in her corner. She jabbered happily at a turtle. She made an improbably large monster hermit crab go "snap snap!" I asked her if the turtle was a snapping turtle: "does he go snap snap?" I asked.

"No! Baby turtur!"

More jabbering and splashing ensued.

Then a little girl grabbed one of the large turtles Sophie had collected.

"Nooooo! Mine!!!!" she shouted.

I explained that it was important to share, and that she had another large turtle she could play with.

"No, dis MommyDaddy turtur!" she explained, pointing at the baby and the large turtle, who was now apparently a single parent.

Well my heart just melted into a puddle right then and there.

Luckily the other girl soon lost interest, and the turtle family was reunited.

A day at the zoo

A couple of weeks ago we hit the local zoo on a playdate. The last time we went, Sophie barely noticed anything besides the turtles. This time turtles still seemed to be her favorite, but she enjoyed the other animals a lot too. She and her friend had such a fun time together.

Sophie's new favorite toy

I could just box up all of her toys in her room now that Sophie has a wading pool. Since we've started using it, she spends every free minute when we are home playing in it. Sometimes she'll put in so many water toys that there's no room left for her.

A trip down to Indianapolis

We went to visit some friends in Indianapolis this weekend. Although this is Sophie's third trip down there, in many ways it was more like her first. She had an awareness about her that she didn't have in previous trips. Last time our friends saw her, she was just learning how to walk and was figuring out how to crawl up one stair. Now she runs after cats and tells you that cows say moo.

Our first day there, we went to Conner's Prairie, an interactive historical park, a place that was never on my radar until this trip. We ended up there because the one day we had free to go to the zoo, it was closed for the public-grrr. So we ended up going to this living museum of 1800s villages. It was strangely uncanny to see a group of Amish girls visiting. The humidity was 98% and we were about to melt after a couple of hours walking around the houses and buildings so we returned to the welcome center and fully embraced our modern roots in the air conditioned building.

The second day we went to a PBS fair that was held in a park. There were free bouncy castles and visits with PBS cast members, like Elmo. This event has reassured me that paying for events isn't all bad. Free too often means long lines. I apparently won't wait 30 minutes in very hot weather to let Sophie jump in a bouncy castle with kids mostly bigger than she, even if it's free. We did, however, find a free inflatable caterpillar to crawl through with a relatively short line, so we did that twice. I was willing to wait in line again, but apparently she figured twice was all you could go because she just moved on.

The really insidious part, Elmo and Abby balloons. I saw kids walking around with them, a lot of them, so I decided PBS must be giving them out free. When we got close to the balloon area, I saw the price $3.00 each for an item that has been designed to appeal to my daughter and goes against my environmental beliefs. That's a low blow, especially coming from PBS. I was willing to shell out my money, but noticed Sophie wasn't even noticing them so we just kept moving. This fair was like a mine field, dodging and weaving all of these temptations.

We check out some booths, many of which are offering organized activities for children, none of which were too interesting since we don't live in the area. Nonetheless, many of them had an interactive area for kids, so we'd let Sophie Tegel play around while we found out more about the organization. More than one was for daycares. I've come to realize that daycares are tiered. There is the first tier that always has a wait list so they rarely attend events like these--why bother paying for a booth, when there's no need to advertise or recruit new students. Then there is another tier of daycares that sets up booths and tries to cajole you to attend by offering free candy. I'm struck by why a daycare, of all places, thinks it is either safe or healthy to offer my child a sucker. I'm not a total jerk about food, but Sophie doesn't need to know what candy is yet, especially suckers. After a couple of hours of this we are all melting because of the humidity, so we head back to our friend's house. As I am putting her into her car seat she states: "It's so hot in here." It was very articulate for her and so very true, it was way too hot. We headed back to find some lunch and take a nap

The literal period

Sophie takes things very literally now. Today in the office, I told her to say hi in Spanish to a new employee. Sophie looked at the woman and said, "Hi, in Spanish."

beep, beep

This morning Sophie and I fought over diapers—I thought it would be a great idea if she wore them; she believed the contrary. I tried cajoling, bargaining, trickery, none of which worked. After a struggle, I managed to slap a diaper on, and she proceeded to try to pull it off. At that point, I was exasperated with her. It was too early in the morning for this. I tapped out and left her with Mike. Later that morning, I told her, “You were really pushing my buttons this morning,” and she responded, “Beep, beep.”

a day at the hippy-dippy-richy school

Today we went to an open house at one of the local private schools. If we were sticking around, we might just see if we could swing sending ST there.

The school takes a naturalistic philosophical approach: there was no plastic anything and computers aren't allowed for children to use until they reach 8th grade. Cool, I'm down with that. Lots of wood carvings and playground equipment that encourages creative play. Yet many of the parents were whipping out their iphones to take pictures of their kids making jump ropes out of yarn or milling wheat to make bread. This reliance on technology is incompatible with the school's philosophy, but for most of these parents to be able to afford to send their children to this outdoorsy nature school, they earn their living developing or working with quite sophisticated technology. There were no sustenance farmers among the parents.

Pics: Sophie volunteered to go play with the wooden dance man. I suspect he has some better name. Then we went out to play outside for a while. For snacks they offered apples and rose water (how wholesome).

Paper Towel

Sophie has an antagonistic relationship with bugs. This is almost certainly because her mother and I have antagonistic relationships with bugs. At least with bugs in the house.

Sophie is now hyper-sensitive to the presence of buggies, inside and out.

The other day, she saw an ant on the sidewalk. Peered at it for a moment, and then stomped on it.

Then she turned to me and said: "Paper towel!"

Her sweet sweet blood

Sophie's face looks like she's prepped to play the part of a plague victim in some History Channel Docu-Drama.

She's got bug bites, and lacks any inhibitionary mechanism that might stop her from scratching them until they are angry red suppurating masses.

This is not a look we want to keep.

So we're keeping a closer eye on her and the mosquitos in the yard. This evening we called it quits when I saw a mosquito buzz up behind her.

When I called the mosquito to her attention, she demonstrated her continuing mental development and increasing ability to think about cause and effect.

"Buggy eat me!" she said.