The problem with going nuclear is that there is nowhere to go from there, and that is pretty much the place we've found ourselves already with Norah.
Disciplining Norah is turning out to be MUCH more difficult than it ever has been with Gabe. Gabe, is one of nature's pleasers. He wants to make people happy and, when he knows there is a threat of trouble, he will try to self-correct to keep people happy. Well, in broad terms--specifically that doesn't always pan out, exactly. Gabe gets genuinely upset if he knows someone is disappointed with something that he's done. Norah, not so much. In fact, and this is the frustrating part, there doesn't seem to be much that Norah won't just shake off.
Strangely, typing this out reminded me of a scene from Malcolm in the Middle, a show that I didn't watch very often and, really, has had next to no impact on my life. I'm not sure why this scene would stick in my mind, but it is particularly relevant right now and fills me with a sort of quiet dread. The scene involves the parents and the second oldest child (I can't remember any of their names). The oldest and second oldest children are notorious problem children. When this episode takes place, the second oldest has discovered a love for cooking, the first thing he has ever truly loved doing. When he does something bad, his parents ground him from the kitchen, and he becomes genuinely upset at the prospect. And the parents become giddy and explain to the audience that this is the first time they've ever had something to hold over his head that might dissuade him from doing bad things. They sent him to his room and he just played and didn't come out when his grounding was over. They grounded him from TV or video games and he just found something else to do. Nothing they did had any effect on him until he actually loved something enough to miss it when it was gone. And they didn't find that thing until he was in high school.
I'm afraid that is what is going to happen with Norah, and we're starting to see evidence of it already.
Her picky eating has become a problem. In the good ole days, we could reliably get her to eat "things that are brown." Now, there are about five foods that she will eat--and all of them are dairy or pre-packaged and fried. And there is little that we've tried that works for changing this, but we keep trying. And last night and this morning we got fed up and went nuclear on her--choosing the most severe punishments we could think of to try to get her to eat what I made for dinner last night.
First, let me point out what I made for dinner. Specifically, something that I thought both of the kids should not only tolerate eating but should butt dig. I made fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. My intention was to make an actual fried chicken by cutting one into assigned pieces and frying them, but I'd never cut a chicken up for frying before (I've always just baked them, because it's easier and less messy--and picking meat off a cooked bird is pretty simple), and I made a terrible mess of it. So I ended up with a bunch of strips and chunks of chicken that I ended up cutting off the mangled carcass--and, really, that was probably best since the kids are reliable chicken nugget eaters.
But when I presented it to them, they both turned up their noses and declared that they hated it.
We made the standard threat that they would go to bed without dinner if they didn't eat. This really upset Gabe, and he spent the next forty-five minutes slowly eating the mashed potatoes and corn (which had to be pretty awful towards the end as neither is very good cold), but he got to stay up until his normal bedtime for his troubles.
Norah, on the other hand . . . . After threatening to send her to bed early without dinner, she pretty much jumped out of her chair and said, "OK!" and cheerfully started getting ready for bed. We bathed her and dressed her and put her in bed, and she went to sleep without a hitch. But before she went to bed, we warned her that she was going to have to finish her dinner this morning or she wouldn't get breakfast.
So we pulled it out this morning for her breakfast. And she refused to eat it again. Moreover, this morning there was a Halloween Parade at Gabe's school. We were all going to go watch him walk main street in Walton and visit all the stores and businesses in the little town (three of them). Norah seemed excited about the prospect. So, when she refused to eat her food, I said, "If you don't eat, you're not going to the parade. We'll just have to stay home and mama can go with Gabe and watch."
She acted upset at the idea, but still refused to eat. I coaxed and cajoled and threatened for fifteen minutes while she sat in her chair and resolutely didn't eat. Finally, it was too late for us to go along to the parade and we told her that we'd be staying home.
She "Ahhhhh!"ed a bit, but then pretty much took it in stride and hasn't cared a bit since then.
In other words, we dropped two bombs on her, and she just crawled into her bunker and ate some canned beans (something she'd never eat) then came out when the smoke cleared and acted like nothing ever happened. Which worries me. As a three year old, having to go to bed early and not being able to see a bunch of people dressed in costumes walk in a row are about the height of punishments. There is pretty much nowhere left for us to go at this point. Hopefully we don't have to wait until high school to find something that she loves enough that taking it away will help steer her in the right direction. Though I would definitely be OK with it being a love of cooking. I'd be happy to turn over some of those responsibilities to someone else.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Butt Bombs
At some point in the last week, Norah has started doing what she calls "butt bombs." I guess it's something they did in preschool. Although it isn't the most socially acceptable thing in the world, it is pretty funny and I love that we have her in a preschool that teaches her indelicate things. Prim and proper is boring, even if socially acceptable.
In its pure form, I have no idea what it's supposed to be. It's morphed into something 50% about farting and 50% about pretty much anything butt-related.
But, even though I don't really know what it's supposed to be about, I do know that it's fun to say.
Butt bomb. Butt bomb. Butt bomb.
Fun.
Norah has come up with a few little dances and pantomimes that she does while she repeats "butt bomb" over and over. And she's developed three or four different voices that she uses to say the phrase--including one best described as "creepy, possessed little girl," which is great.
I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about her dramatic flare. On the one hand, she's going to be interesting and, more than likely, a lot of fun if she keeps this kind of performance knack up. On the other hand, drama. I'm not great with drama. Something to better adapt to in the future, I suppose.
It's interesting, really. Both of my kids seem to have a flare for performance. It's interesting because it seems to fly in the face of any sort of "nurture" arguments that might be made. I certainly have ZERO flare for performance--unless passive-aggression is a kind of performance. Yet, despite the fact that my kids spent most of their developmental time around me, they are becoming performers in their own right.
The fundamental difference in their performance types is also pretty interesting. In many ways, they are like a classic comedy duo. Like the Smothers brothers, or Abbott and Costello (though I was always more of a Laurel and Hardy fan), or Chris Farley and David Spade. The slapstick goofball and the straight man. I guess Sonny and Cher would be a more suitable comparison (as I certainly wouldn't wish a comparison to David Spade on anyone). Gabe's performances are undirected, scattered, high-energy, and usually physical. Norah's performances are more cerebral and low-key. Both funny in their own ways. At least life should remain interesting around here.
Anyway, today I tried to get her to perform some of her butt bomb stuff for the camera, with not-great success. Still, here is what she was willing to do for the camera.
In its pure form, I have no idea what it's supposed to be. It's morphed into something 50% about farting and 50% about pretty much anything butt-related.
But, even though I don't really know what it's supposed to be about, I do know that it's fun to say.
Butt bomb. Butt bomb. Butt bomb.
Fun.
Norah has come up with a few little dances and pantomimes that she does while she repeats "butt bomb" over and over. And she's developed three or four different voices that she uses to say the phrase--including one best described as "creepy, possessed little girl," which is great.
I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about her dramatic flare. On the one hand, she's going to be interesting and, more than likely, a lot of fun if she keeps this kind of performance knack up. On the other hand, drama. I'm not great with drama. Something to better adapt to in the future, I suppose.
It's interesting, really. Both of my kids seem to have a flare for performance. It's interesting because it seems to fly in the face of any sort of "nurture" arguments that might be made. I certainly have ZERO flare for performance--unless passive-aggression is a kind of performance. Yet, despite the fact that my kids spent most of their developmental time around me, they are becoming performers in their own right.
The fundamental difference in their performance types is also pretty interesting. In many ways, they are like a classic comedy duo. Like the Smothers brothers, or Abbott and Costello (though I was always more of a Laurel and Hardy fan), or Chris Farley and David Spade. The slapstick goofball and the straight man. I guess Sonny and Cher would be a more suitable comparison (as I certainly wouldn't wish a comparison to David Spade on anyone). Gabe's performances are undirected, scattered, high-energy, and usually physical. Norah's performances are more cerebral and low-key. Both funny in their own ways. At least life should remain interesting around here.
Anyway, today I tried to get her to perform some of her butt bomb stuff for the camera, with not-great success. Still, here is what she was willing to do for the camera.
Plus, a bonus video I found on the memory card!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Power and Karate
The other day, the kids and I were driving into town and, as usual, they started to bicker back and forth. What, exactly, the cause of the bickering was, I have no idea. They are pretty much constantly at each other for one thing or another and I do my best to ignore them until their whining gets to an unavoidable volume. Usually. This time, I happened to be paying a bit more attention to what they were saying as they argued and I couldn't be happier that I did.
In counterpoint to whatever Norah had alleged, Gabe replied, "I'll get five days of timeout if I use my full power."
Which is a pretty awesome concept. However, Norah topped it with her comeback.
"Well, I have all the karate," she claimed.
Love it. ALL the karate. Gabe wouldn't hear of this, of course, since he had taken karate lessons himself and, thus, must have SOME of the karate about him somewhere, but I was too busy laughing to hear anymore of the details.
In counterpoint to whatever Norah had alleged, Gabe replied, "I'll get five days of timeout if I use my full power."
Which is a pretty awesome concept. However, Norah topped it with her comeback.
"Well, I have all the karate," she claimed.
Love it. ALL the karate. Gabe wouldn't hear of this, of course, since he had taken karate lessons himself and, thus, must have SOME of the karate about him somewhere, but I was too busy laughing to hear anymore of the details.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Full Days and Flat Gabe
Gabe started full days at school last week. It's kind of a big deal, for all parties concerned. For Gabe it represents a total shift in how his life works. He's having lunches away from home. He has no opportunity for naps. He has a full day of focusing and interacting with people. He is, in effect, growing up fast.
They are going to start reading within the next month or two. READING. In kindergarten! Everyone! When I was in kindergarten, it was a half day and we had a nap time. Only one kid in our class could sort of read by the end of the year (I won't drop names, but I can give a hint: the shortened version of his first name spells "tap" with the letters mixed up). We didn't do anything but play and color and occasionally create an art project. Already Gabe has made pretty huge steps towards reading. He's recognizing letter sounds and he's asking us to point to words as we read them so he can see what they look like. And he's subtracting and adding. It just seems impossible to me. Less than three months ago the kid was picking his nose, eating it, then proclaiming, "I LOOOOOOOVE boogers!"
For Norah and I Gabe's absence means something else. Norah is handling it pretty well. She had kind of a tough go of it the first month or so that Gabe was gone during the mornings. As it turns out, Gabe has been our activities organizer for the last few years. His high energy and need for constant movement and activity kept everyone else in the house busy and occupied, too. There was always something going on, and Norah was able to reap the benefits of that activity. Gabe thought of something crazy and usually loud to do and Norah joined in the fun. With Gabe gone, Norah was forced to rely on her own imagination--or, worse, mine--to come up with things to do. Sadly, our brains work about exactly the same way. I'm great at coming up with things for my brain to do, but I'm pretty terrible at coming up with things for my body to do. Norah is the same way. If left to her own devices, she might sit in the same chair for an entire morning, talking and singing to herself or watching TV or playing with a handful of squinkies or lalaloopsies (her two favorite toys for well over six months now, remarkably enough) and her Batmanmobile.
And the attitude. She was throwing SERIOUS attitude. All the time. Agonizingly so. Then, when Gabe came home, they were pretty much at each others' throats the entire time. That part, actually, hasn't changed all that much, but at least now there is about four hours less of it.
But this last week has been kind of different. For one, she's getting good naps again. Gabe hasn't been much of a napper for at least the last six months--probably more like the last year, really. And, obviously, if Gabe wasn't napping, then Norah felt she didn't need to either. She still got a few a week, but the days when she didn't nap, she was a terror. Now, without Gabe keeping her awake and setting an example of not napping, she's settling down easily and taking nice long naps. After the naps, she's as cheerful and pleasant as can be. And, in the mornings, she's getting better at keeping herself occupied. The nicer weather has allowed us to play outside some, which helps, but even when we're inside she thinks of things to do and keeps us both busy. So, it's been good.
We'll have to see how long it lasts, though. One of the other side effects of having Gabe out of the house for such a long time each day is that I feel obligated to work at the bookstore more during the week. Up til now, I've pretty much only been available on nights and weekends. It was just too tough to have both kids in the store for extended periods of time. I still DID have them in the store for about 6 hours a week, but god those 6 hours were a misery most of the time. Every five minutes I was going over to them and telling them to be quiet or stop fighting or stop whining or whatever. But now Norah and I are going to be spending two full afternoons together in the store--from the time she gets out of preschool until we go to pick Gabe up. They are two big stretches of time (longer than she's ever had to stay in the store) each week. I brought a sleeping bag and some pillows to put in the little "kid hole" closet we have here, in the hopes that she'll lie down for a bit and nap (which, besides providing her the nap she needs to not be a Betty the rest of the day, will also make the time go by much more quickly, for her at least). Hopefully it works and she adapts well.
In other news, Gabe has a project that he's doing for school. They read a story called Flat Stanley, about a kid who gets squashed by a chalkboard and then is sent around the world on various adventures. The class was then told that they would be making a flat version of themselves to send to friends and family members for adventures. And we heard through the grapevine (from the parent of another kid in Gabe's class) that Gabe FREAKED OUT about this project. Full on freaked out. I guess he misunderstood what was going to happen. He was under the impression that, instead of a picture being taken of his face, his actual head was going to be detached from his body, flattened, and attached to a construction paper body. Eventually it was straightened out (and he would never really admit to us that he had freaked out, though he sheepishly admitted that he thought they were going to squash his head), and Flat Gabe arrived at our house Friday.
So that project is underway and, more than likely, most of you will hear from us someway or other to find out if you want to participate in the Flat Gabe project (which is also the name of Gabe's band).
They are going to start reading within the next month or two. READING. In kindergarten! Everyone! When I was in kindergarten, it was a half day and we had a nap time. Only one kid in our class could sort of read by the end of the year (I won't drop names, but I can give a hint: the shortened version of his first name spells "tap" with the letters mixed up). We didn't do anything but play and color and occasionally create an art project. Already Gabe has made pretty huge steps towards reading. He's recognizing letter sounds and he's asking us to point to words as we read them so he can see what they look like. And he's subtracting and adding. It just seems impossible to me. Less than three months ago the kid was picking his nose, eating it, then proclaiming, "I LOOOOOOOVE boogers!"
For Norah and I Gabe's absence means something else. Norah is handling it pretty well. She had kind of a tough go of it the first month or so that Gabe was gone during the mornings. As it turns out, Gabe has been our activities organizer for the last few years. His high energy and need for constant movement and activity kept everyone else in the house busy and occupied, too. There was always something going on, and Norah was able to reap the benefits of that activity. Gabe thought of something crazy and usually loud to do and Norah joined in the fun. With Gabe gone, Norah was forced to rely on her own imagination--or, worse, mine--to come up with things to do. Sadly, our brains work about exactly the same way. I'm great at coming up with things for my brain to do, but I'm pretty terrible at coming up with things for my body to do. Norah is the same way. If left to her own devices, she might sit in the same chair for an entire morning, talking and singing to herself or watching TV or playing with a handful of squinkies or lalaloopsies (her two favorite toys for well over six months now, remarkably enough) and her Batmanmobile.
And the attitude. She was throwing SERIOUS attitude. All the time. Agonizingly so. Then, when Gabe came home, they were pretty much at each others' throats the entire time. That part, actually, hasn't changed all that much, but at least now there is about four hours less of it.
But this last week has been kind of different. For one, she's getting good naps again. Gabe hasn't been much of a napper for at least the last six months--probably more like the last year, really. And, obviously, if Gabe wasn't napping, then Norah felt she didn't need to either. She still got a few a week, but the days when she didn't nap, she was a terror. Now, without Gabe keeping her awake and setting an example of not napping, she's settling down easily and taking nice long naps. After the naps, she's as cheerful and pleasant as can be. And, in the mornings, she's getting better at keeping herself occupied. The nicer weather has allowed us to play outside some, which helps, but even when we're inside she thinks of things to do and keeps us both busy. So, it's been good.
We'll have to see how long it lasts, though. One of the other side effects of having Gabe out of the house for such a long time each day is that I feel obligated to work at the bookstore more during the week. Up til now, I've pretty much only been available on nights and weekends. It was just too tough to have both kids in the store for extended periods of time. I still DID have them in the store for about 6 hours a week, but god those 6 hours were a misery most of the time. Every five minutes I was going over to them and telling them to be quiet or stop fighting or stop whining or whatever. But now Norah and I are going to be spending two full afternoons together in the store--from the time she gets out of preschool until we go to pick Gabe up. They are two big stretches of time (longer than she's ever had to stay in the store) each week. I brought a sleeping bag and some pillows to put in the little "kid hole" closet we have here, in the hopes that she'll lie down for a bit and nap (which, besides providing her the nap she needs to not be a Betty the rest of the day, will also make the time go by much more quickly, for her at least). Hopefully it works and she adapts well.
In other news, Gabe has a project that he's doing for school. They read a story called Flat Stanley, about a kid who gets squashed by a chalkboard and then is sent around the world on various adventures. The class was then told that they would be making a flat version of themselves to send to friends and family members for adventures. And we heard through the grapevine (from the parent of another kid in Gabe's class) that Gabe FREAKED OUT about this project. Full on freaked out. I guess he misunderstood what was going to happen. He was under the impression that, instead of a picture being taken of his face, his actual head was going to be detached from his body, flattened, and attached to a construction paper body. Eventually it was straightened out (and he would never really admit to us that he had freaked out, though he sheepishly admitted that he thought they were going to squash his head), and Flat Gabe arrived at our house Friday.
 |
| Flat Gabe, with non-real head attached. |
So that project is underway and, more than likely, most of you will hear from us someway or other to find out if you want to participate in the Flat Gabe project (which is also the name of Gabe's band).
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
How I Am Unintentionally Preparing for Whichever End of Days Scenario Happens at Some Point in the Not-So-Distant Future
A month or so ago, Libby and I stumbled upon a show called Doomsday Preppers (on the Science Channel, I think--though I think that was a bit of a stretch for appropriateness). Normally, I am not a fan of reality programming. At all, really. I can't think of a single reality show that I've watched more than an episode of and thought, "I'm going to watch that again and genuinely enjoy the experience!" And I'm not one of those people who will watch a show like that Honey Boo Boo show because "It's like watching a train wreck." I wouldn't watch a train wreck, either. I would probably try to call emergency services or make my way to the wreckage to try to help people out. But that's just me.
But this doomsday show kept my attention for a couple hours--through three or four episodes, anyway, so however long that took. The concept is pretty straight forward. A crazy person or crazy family makes preparations for one of the various end of times scenarios floating around. The episode is spent describing their preparations and introducing us to the family and their crackpot theories. Then, at the end, they are given a grade based on how likely it would be for them to survive the disaster of their choosing and they are given constructive criticism on how they might improve their survivability.
I'm not sure what caught my interest. Possibly that particular kind of crazy/paranoid appeals to me. I mean, what kind of experiences must a person have endured to come under the unwavering notion that the magnetic poles are going to shift. Seriously. One of these people had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing for exactly that catastrophe. There is a one in several billion chance of that happening ever, much less in this guy's lifetime. And if it DOES happen, it's difficult to see how it is going to have catastrophic effects on much of anything. I guess his theory was that it would unleash a powerful EMP field that would kill all electronic devices? Yet he installed CCTV cameras all over his little bunker. Truly remarkable.
Apocalypse IS a kind of fun topic to think on. And there are so many options these days. Financial collapse. Asteroid strike. Zombies. Plagues. Aliens. Pole shifts? You name it and it can wipe out humanity! Really, with all the things we can be scared of, it's pretty amazing that we can get anything done in an average day.
But I have neither the obsessive-compulsive personality nor the financial means to dedicate myself to such an undertaking. Of course, I could still mentally and physically prepare for such time as modern civilization ends. I could be training my body and teaching myself valuable skills to help my family survive. But, meh. What if there ISN'T an end of days during my life time? Then all that effort would have been wasted. Better just to hope that my neighbors or someone we happen upon has been making preparations and is willing to let us join the community they have formed behind their walls of stacked SUVs and corpses.
OR I can rely on the survival skills my son is learning at the school we're sending him to.
This morning we were going through our morning routine of periodically nagging him to get ready while he distracted himself with anything nearby and then getting him ready for him after a few frustrating minutes when, rather out of the blue, he started talking about working in the school's garden and he mentioned propagation. He used that word, specifically. Libby asked him what it meant and he said, "Making a new plant by using part of an old plant." Pretty much spot on. The kid can't put slip-on shoes on reliably. He can't remember to wipe himself after he takes a dump 1 out of 5 times. But somehow he can remember this horticultural terminology. Boggles the mind.
And after he said it, after the shock of him knowing what such a complicated word meant wore off, my first thought was, "I'm glad he is learning this stuff about growing food. It will come in handy after the apocalypse because I suck at gardening." So, maybe my interest in the Doomsday Preppers show wasn't sideshow curiosity so much as it was a kind of kinship striving to come out. Too bad I don't have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around so I can build a suitable bunker.
But this doomsday show kept my attention for a couple hours--through three or four episodes, anyway, so however long that took. The concept is pretty straight forward. A crazy person or crazy family makes preparations for one of the various end of times scenarios floating around. The episode is spent describing their preparations and introducing us to the family and their crackpot theories. Then, at the end, they are given a grade based on how likely it would be for them to survive the disaster of their choosing and they are given constructive criticism on how they might improve their survivability.
I'm not sure what caught my interest. Possibly that particular kind of crazy/paranoid appeals to me. I mean, what kind of experiences must a person have endured to come under the unwavering notion that the magnetic poles are going to shift. Seriously. One of these people had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing for exactly that catastrophe. There is a one in several billion chance of that happening ever, much less in this guy's lifetime. And if it DOES happen, it's difficult to see how it is going to have catastrophic effects on much of anything. I guess his theory was that it would unleash a powerful EMP field that would kill all electronic devices? Yet he installed CCTV cameras all over his little bunker. Truly remarkable.
Apocalypse IS a kind of fun topic to think on. And there are so many options these days. Financial collapse. Asteroid strike. Zombies. Plagues. Aliens. Pole shifts? You name it and it can wipe out humanity! Really, with all the things we can be scared of, it's pretty amazing that we can get anything done in an average day.
But I have neither the obsessive-compulsive personality nor the financial means to dedicate myself to such an undertaking. Of course, I could still mentally and physically prepare for such time as modern civilization ends. I could be training my body and teaching myself valuable skills to help my family survive. But, meh. What if there ISN'T an end of days during my life time? Then all that effort would have been wasted. Better just to hope that my neighbors or someone we happen upon has been making preparations and is willing to let us join the community they have formed behind their walls of stacked SUVs and corpses.
OR I can rely on the survival skills my son is learning at the school we're sending him to.
This morning we were going through our morning routine of periodically nagging him to get ready while he distracted himself with anything nearby and then getting him ready for him after a few frustrating minutes when, rather out of the blue, he started talking about working in the school's garden and he mentioned propagation. He used that word, specifically. Libby asked him what it meant and he said, "Making a new plant by using part of an old plant." Pretty much spot on. The kid can't put slip-on shoes on reliably. He can't remember to wipe himself after he takes a dump 1 out of 5 times. But somehow he can remember this horticultural terminology. Boggles the mind.
And after he said it, after the shock of him knowing what such a complicated word meant wore off, my first thought was, "I'm glad he is learning this stuff about growing food. It will come in handy after the apocalypse because I suck at gardening." So, maybe my interest in the Doomsday Preppers show wasn't sideshow curiosity so much as it was a kind of kinship striving to come out. Too bad I don't have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around so I can build a suitable bunker.
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