Tag Archives: preschoolers

into the deep end

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This weekend was so busy that I’m going to have to cut this into two separate posts. The most important news item first… (dun-dun-DUUUN!!!)

Catie is no longer afraid of the swimming pool.

Trust me, this is huge.

A month ago, I had to bribe her to just to get her to stick her feet in the water. We’ve been to the pool a few times since then, and each time she’s gotten gradually a little more comfortable, but she still wouldn’t go past the two steps that lead into the pool. I didn’t push it that much. I figured that this was all just practice, and that next summer she’d be more comfortable.

Yesterday, we had my cousin and her gang come swimming with us. Elizabeth is probably just about as chicken as Catie is about the water. But you can use logic with Elizabeth (a skill Catie has yet to master), so I stood in the two-feet deep shallow end of the pool and showed Elizabeth, “Look, see, the water only comes up to here on me? And you’re way taller than this, so the water won’t be over your head if you come off the steps!” It worked. Elizabeth stood up in the pool, and she realized that I was right.

Catie stubbornly stayed on the steps and insisted the water was too deep. I pointed out that she’s actually a little bit taller than her cousin, so if the water was an ok depth for Elizabeth, it would definitely be ok for Catie. Catie finally eased herself off the second step into the water. And once they were both off the steps and in the pool? They were unstoppable. They hopped all over the shallow end like tiny kangaroos, they had us carry them out into the deeper water and spin them around, give them “horsey-back” rides around the pool, etc. It was great.

This afternoon, even though it looked like it might rain, Catie and I decided to quickly throw on our swimsuits again and go back to the pool. I thought we’d probably be there for five minutes before the storms rolled in and we’d have to leave, but we lucked out. The weather held out, and we spent an hour and a half at the pool, just playing in the water.

At one point, Catie was watching a couple of boys who kept jumping in the deep end. She wanted me to carry her over there so she could watch them. (There aren’t any diving boards, they were just doing cannonballs from the edge of the pool.) She watched for a few minutes, then said, “I can do that?”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, so I asked her if she wanted to jump in the pool. She said yes. So I helped her up onto the sidewalk, and she walked over to the lounge chairs, turned around, and ran to me. I caught her around her mid-section as she jumped so that she wouldn’t hit the water too hard. We repeated this about 25 times. (For the record? That’s a pretty great upper-body workout.) A few times I didn’t catch her quite in time and her head went completely under water for a split second before I pulled her back up, but she came up laughing every time.

I’m just stunned. A month ago, she cried when I mentioned going to the pool. Today, she jumped into the deep end.

I don’t know when this kid is going to stop knocking my socks off with the things she does. But apparently it won’t be anytime soon.

Catie's Feelings

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Catie made a “book” at daycare last week, and this is too good not to share. So, I give you….

Catie’s Feelings

Catie's Feelings

The cover is a picture of her and a little boy in her class named David. They were playing basketball together. Do you see the hoop in between them that’s at their shoulder height? Aww yeah, my kid can slam dunk.

So, apparently the idea was to pick a few emotions, and the teacher asked them to draw it. Then she said, “So when were you happy/sad/whatever?” and she wrote on the page what the picture was supposed to illustrate.

Important to note: Catie’s drawing skills are, uh, less than stellar. She has a hard time pressing down the crayon hard enough to even make a visible scribble. We’re working on that.

"Catie is sad when Mommy said I didn't get a treat"
“Catie is sad when Mommy said I didn’t get a treat.”

See the misery and woe in those sad scribbles? That’s all because I didn’t let her have a York peppermint patty five minutes before dinner. Yep. Worst mother ever, that’s me.

"Catie was happy at the beach with Mommy and Daddy"
“Catie was happy at the beach with Mommy and Daddy.”

I love this one, not only because the sentiment is so sweet (aww, she remembers our fun trip to the beach!), but also because her drawing almost makes sense. Those scribbles actually look like wave lines in the ocean, right? Kinda? Maybe?

Whatever, *I* can see it.

And now, for our big finale (seriously, this is the last page of the book)…

"Catie was lonely on the playground"
“Catie was lonely on the playground.”

WTF? I have to be honest, I laughed when I saw this because it just doesn’t seem like her at all. I’ve never seen Catie lonely on the playground. This is a child who runs up to stranger-kids and says, “Hi, kid! Wanna play wif’ me?” So… uh… when exactly did she go all emo-kid on me?

I showed her the picture and said, “Sweetie, when were you lonely on the playground?”

She said, “Because, a mosquito landed on me, and it bit me, and it HURT!”

I said, “Well, baby girl, that means you were upset. Lonely means that you were sad and all by yourself. Have you ever felt like that?”

Her: “No, that’s silly!”

Right. That’s what I thought.

There you have it. Catie’s Feelings. Or something that she thinks means the same thing. Close enough.

Our Weekend

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This weekend, Dave taught Catie how to develop game apps for the iPhone.

Catie's really into learning how to develop iPhone game apps

She’s totally into it, and taking it very seriously.

I love this because it looks like Catie has a freakishly large man-hand

She’ll probably design the greatest app since “Words With Friends.”

Oh, and I got an iPhone 4! Which shoots video! Related: we sang happy birthday to my sister, and filmed it since Tracy is currently celebrating her birthday with friends in Italy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_dJWOwLBBU

Of course, it didn’t really occur to me until later that my sister can only access her email on her Blackberry, which doesn’t have YouTube capabilities, so she won’t actually see it until she gets back to the US. Oh well. Happy birthday, Tracy!

We also watched a heck of a lot of Xanadu. (And I learned that if you turn the phone to a landscape setting, it automatically adjusts when you copy it over to your laptop. Nice job, Apple! I won’t make any more oddly narrow videos.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF38NO646cg
(I’m still trying to get a video of her really singing it. So far, she kind of goes quiet as soon as she sees the camera. You can still see her lip-syncing it, but hopefully I’ll get a real video of it soon.)

(Also? This is how she always watches Xanadu – with lots and lots and lots of random questions about the plot.)

Sunday afternoon, we went to see the Wiggles in concert.

Catie & Dave at the Wiggles concert
At first, Catie wasn’t too sure what she thought about the whole concert thing. But she took the popcorn very seriously.

Honestly? That might’ve been one of the most fun kids’ concerts we’ve been to (and I’ve been to a lot of them). You can tell that these guys have been doing this stuff for 20 years, and they just have fun with it and throw in all kinds of improv lines here and there, which makes it really funny for the adults in the audience.

That said, I’m glad I didn’t take advantage of the chance I had to get closer seats, because Catie got a little claustrophobic from the crowd, so we spent a lot of the show toward the back where it was emptier. She usually reacts that way in crowds, same as Dave, so I wasn’t too surprised by it.

I did manage to get one decent picture of all three of us, although the weird iPhone flash thing makes it look like we’ve been dousing ourselves in self-tanner.

Catie, Dave & me at the Wiggles!

Also? Sweaty. It was HOT in there. I don’t know how those guys on stage do it.

Catie with the Wiggles

Overall, though? A pretty great time was had by all. But I can’t quite believe it’s Monday already.

a million lights are dancing, and there you are, a shooting star

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Last night I was looking for something to watch on TV that didn’t involve either Caillou or Dora. Catie was still awake and I was trying to get her to eat a pre-bedtime snack since she’d hardly eaten any dinner. It’s our typical Nightly Bedtime Struggle.

I happened to see on the cable guide that over on HBO, Xanadu was on. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Between Xanadu and Grease, I wanted to be Olivia Newton-John. All of my toys were named either Sandy or Kira. Because of Xanadu, I roller-skated in a dress while wearing leg warmers, and I had my mom braid ribbons into my barrettes. (If you haven’t seen the movie, that probably makes no sense to you.)

And yeah, I’ve seen Xanadu again as an adult, and I’m fully aware that it is not exactly a high-quality film. In fact, I’m pretty sure the people involved in the production were doing massive amounts of cocaine. (It was the 70s, after all.) It’s cheesy as hell. The acting is terrible, the storyline is convoluted and bizarre, and the weird “dissolves” between scenes look SO corny now. But whatever, I still love the music. In fact, I still have the whole soundtrack in iTunes.

Catie is just getting to the age where she likes musicals. The kid-oriented ones, of course, like the Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and the Wizard of Oz. And she’s seen a couple of (not risque) songs in Moulin Rouge and really liked them. So I thought I’d click it over to see what she thought of Xanadu. We missed the first half of the movie, and came in right around the beginning of the “All Over the World” song.


If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to watch that to get an idea. It’s supposed to be a simple, “Let’s take Gene Kelly shopping to find him a snazzy outfit for his nightclub opening” montage, and instead it turns into… that. I don’t even know WTF that is, 30 years later.

(Also? Poor Gene Kelly. The guy is probably one of the most talented dancers of his generation – he did freaking “Singing in the Rain,” for God’s sake – and to get a gig in his old age, they put him on roller skates. Did your investments really turn out that badly, Gene?)

Catie was absolutely riveted, because… well, probably because it looks completely surreal and bizarre.

And then, there’s the finale. Oh, the finale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr6WidQqhu4
(Apparently if you want the full 8-minute finale and not a chopped 3-minute version, you have to deal with poor video quality. Oh well.)

Y’all, I couldn’t get Catie to sit down and eat her snack because she was too busy dancing around the living room (while keeping her eyes glued to the TV the whole time). As soon as it was over, she kept saying, “Again! Again!!” I had to search for the videos on YouTube for her to watch a couple more times.

This morning, as soon as she woke up, she asked, “We watch Xanadu again?” I said, sorry baby, it’s not on-demand and I don’t have the DVD, so we can’t watch it now. She said, “We can buy the DVD?” I told her I’d look to see if I can find it.

Since we couldn’t watch the movie, I turned the soundtrack on my iPod in the car when we drove to daycare. I had to explain to her daycare teacher why Catie might be singing, “Xaaaa-na-duuuuu” all day today. (Her teacher is in her mid-20s, has never heard of the movie, and likely thinks I’m completely insane based on my explanation.)

But you know I’m totally ordering the DVD on Amazon today, right? The only problem is that I’m not sure if Dave will ever forgive me for turning our daughter into an Olivia Newton-John fan.

bring you to your na-na-na-na-na-knees

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Backstory: the radio stations in the Raleigh area? Are pretty sucky. You basically have a choice of the pop station (which is ok, sometimes; I have no shame about the fact that I sing along with Britney Spears) or the rock station. And the rock station is more “classic rock” in that it plays a lot of stuff from 15-20 years ago.

For example, when we’d been living here for only a couple of months, my friend Kris came to visit and we had lunch together. I was still going through a bit of culture shock after moving here from Seattle, and we talked about how different North Carolina was by comparison. I told her how the radio here was so random, and that I’d heard “Love Bites” by Def Leppard more in the past 2 months than in the previous 15 years combined. After lunch, we got in my car to leave the restaurant, turned on the radio, and – no exaggeration – “Love Bites” came on before we’d even pulled out of the parking lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7NkYu6SaPo
I know you wanted that earworm. You’re welcome. Also, how much hair spray and back-combing do you think was involved in the production of that video?

Sometimes I remember to bring my iPod and my little FM adapter thingy in the car, so I can listen to my own music, but the majority of the time, I forget it at home. And you know, it’s fine. Most of my drives are within a 5-mile radius of my house, so it’s not exactly worth shelling out for satellite radio. We have too many other things that require a monthly fee, I don’t need one more.

So, the point of all that? Is to explain this story about what a horrible parent I am and how I’m going to be responsible for my kid’s ensuing nightmares.

Honestly, I don’t know why it still surprises me when Catie suddenly catches on to something. I mean, she caught the lyrics to Lady Gaga. The kid notices everything.

So, we were in the car, and we happened to have the rock station on the radio. “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns ‘n Roses came on – which, really, is another good example of the kind of thing you hear on the rock radio station here. I left it on because Catie likes “Paradise City” (another song we’ve heard several times on that station) and you know, the lyrics are kind of screechy and hard to understand, and it’s not like she’s going to really understand what it’s about, right? And besides that, *I* happen to like the song. Heck, I like that whole album, seventh grade flashbacks notwithstanding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1WUMRgbPR0
I love that Axl’s version of “acting” is to comb his hair down & wear a baseball cap. And that he has that freaking piece of hay in his mouth. Because I’m sure he’d still be chewing on that after the 2000+ mile bus trip from Indiana to Los Angeles. Whatever, Axl.

So we’re rocking out in the car, and then we get to this one part toward the end of the song…

“You know where you are? You’re in the JUNGLE, baby! You’re gonna DIIIEEEEE!!!”

I didn’t even think anything about it, but then suddenly I heard this very worried voice from the backseat:

“Mommy? Why the baby gonna die?”

Oh, shit. I mean, what do you even say to that?

So I quickly tried to do some damage control and I said, “No no no, he wasn’t talking about a real baby, he was just calling somebody baby, you know like how I call you ‘sweetie’ and I call Daddy ‘hon’ and that kind of thing? It’s just a nickname. And nobody’s really going to die, he just meant that… uh… that something they were going to do was going to be really, really hard. He was just using an expression.”

So! Lesson learned. From now on, I’ll remember to keep the iPod and the adapter in my purse so I always have it with me, and we’ll listen to nothing but the goddamn Wiggles until she’s in high school. Because I’m pretty sure they don’t have any songs about country bumpkins that go to the big city seeking fame and fortune who end up as drug-addicted whores.

I mean, unless “Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy” has some hidden subtext that I’ve never noticed. I suppose anything’s possible.

Bratty kid, or parenting fail?

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When we were at the pool on Sunday, I noticed this stark contrast in child behaviors.

First, we met a little girl named Sophia. She’s 4 1/2, and apparently this is her first year taking swimming lessons. Her dad was in the water with her (along with her big brother, but he was 8 or 9 years old, and off in the deeper part of the pool with his friends), and she was practicing putting her face in the water and kicking. She came over to Catie and the two girls shyly introduced themselves. Sophia said to Catie, “I like your name,” which made me melt because I’m sure that an adult told her that’s a nice thing to say to make friends, but it was so sweet. I knew Catie wouldn’t know how to respond, so I said, “Well, I think Sophia is a beautiful name.”

She and Catie played together for a while, she showed Catie how she could put her face in the water, and Catie was duly impressed. Her dad was friendly and chatted with Dave and me while the girls played, and it was great. Soon they had to head home, and that was that.

Here comes the contrast.

Right as Sophia and her family were leaving, a new family showed up at the pool. Again, it was a dad (it seems the moms in our neighborhood get the day off on Sundays; I wish I’d gotten that memo), and there was an older brother and a little sister, but this time, the dad parked himself on a chaise lounge in the shade and started talking with another dad. The older boy jumped in and started playing with the older kids, and the little girl came over to me. Not Catie, just to me. She told me her name was Sarah, and that she was 4 years old. I did a kid introduction, “Hey Catie, this is Sarah. Sarah, this is Catie.” And I thought that maybe they’d play together nicely like Catie had just done with Sophia.

Um… not so much.

It became apparent pretty quickly that Sarah was in dire need of parental attention, and since her dad never once even glanced in the direction of the swimming pool to make sure that his kids weren’t drowning, she latched on to me. It started with her asking me a million questions and making me feel like I was in that Monty Python sketch about “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Then she wanted me to watch her while she did all kinds of pool stunts… which, oooookay, but shouldn’t your dad be watching you?

Also, I don’t know what the heck this kid does in her off-time, but she clearly is not supervised nearly enough, because she was covered in band-aids, which kept coming off in the water. Every time one did, I’d point it out to her and ask her to please go put it in the trash can (which she did). Then I’d look at Dave and make gagging faces. Band-aids floating in a pool is just about one of the grossest things ever. And this is why Dave and I started referring to her (after we left the pool) as Open Wound Sarah.

Then she started to get a little obnoxious. She and her brother had brought a ton of pool toys with them, but every. single. item. warranted this high-pitched, eardrum-piercing “THAT’S MINE!!!” shriek from her – and I’m not even talking about Catie, I’m talking about when her brother tried to use the toys. Even the things they’d brought two of (like, say, beach balls or pool noodles), she insisted that they were both hers, she didn’t want her brother to touch any of them. And I think it’s worth noting that none of her shrieking fits warranted even a glance from her dad, who was still engrossed in his conversation.

Next, she turned her attention back to us. Catie was playing with her inflatable pirate ship, putting her toys in it and pushing it out to Dave and me in the pool. Sarah asked if she could ride in the pirate ship. I said sure, if she wanted to share one of her toys with Catie. She gave Catie a beach ball (which Catie was happy to play with), and we let Sarah play with the pirate ship for a while. That’s fair, right?

About ten minutes later, Catie decided that she didn’t want the beach ball anymore, she wanted her pirate boat back. Sarah refused to give it back. I kind of stumbled with that one while Catie gave me this, “WTF, Mom?” look. I honestly wasn’t sure how to handle it at first. Then I decided that you know what? These are not communal toys, we are not on a playdate, and this kid has about a bajillion things of her own to play with. So I said, “Sarah, you know, Catie brought this pirate boat to the pool, so it’s hers. And if she wants to play with it, she should be able to play with it. You have a lot of your own toys here, so maybe you should go play with them instead.” Sarah gave back the pirate boat, then turned around and kicked the water to splash both me and Catie in the face. I said, sharply (and loudly), “Ok, that’s not nice, we don’t do that.” Her dad? Yeah, he still didn’t notice.

Sarah took off for the chaise lounge where her dad was sitting, rummaged around in their bag o’ pool junk, and came back with one of those Super Soaker water guns. I looked at Dave and muttered, “Great. Now she’s armed.”

And as I predicted, she spent the next few minutes filling up the water gun and spraying it into the air so it would come down on Catie’s head (which, hello, I barely got the kid to go down to the 2nd step, don’t get her head wet or she might freak and never come back). I told her to stop a couple of times, then finally said very loudly, “Ok, Sarah, that’s enough!” Apparently that was loud enough to get her dad’s attention, and he looked over just in time to see me making a face at Dave that probably indicated I was about to throttle his kid. He called for her to come put away the water gun. Finally. But that was basically his only parenting contribution for the hour that we were there.

But she still wouldn’t leave us alone, she kept trying to boss Catie around and take her pirate boat away from her, and it was just aggravating. Finally I said, “You know, I think it’s time to go home for lunch!” By that point, all three of us, even Catie, were happy to leave just to get the heck away from that kid.

I still can’t decide, though. Is Sarah just a bratty kid? Or is this her parents’ fault for not paying enough attention to her, and causing her to seek attention in negative ways? I was only around the kid for an hour, so I probably don’t know enough to judge, but I’m leaning toward the latter.

I just really hope we can avoid that family at the pool in the future. I have a feeling I’ll end up snapping and yelling at the dad to pay attention to his children if we have to go through that again.

First Dentist Trip

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I have been procrastinating about Catie’s first trip to the dentist for ages. I know how she freaks out when presented with something new and unfamiliar, and I was dreading it. But we’ve been talking about it for a while – how the dentist cleans your teeth and makes sure they’re strong and healthy, and there are NO BOO-BOOS (read: shots) at the dentist, so it’s great! fun! times! Yaaaay, dentists!!!

She didn’t buy it. I can’t say I blamed her. I hate the dentist myself. But she should’ve had her first dentist appointment ages ago, so I finally sucked it up and made the appointment.

We talked about it a lot ahead of time. I told her that she’d get a prize afterward if she was good – I remembered that her cousin’s dentist had a treasure chest of prizes to choose from, and I assumed that our pediatric dentist would be similarly hooked up. And then afterward, we’d go out for a special Mommy & Catie lunch, just the two of us, and then she could go to daycare and tell all the kids about her exciting morning. She seemed sort of cautiously ok with that plan.

I have to say, I think we had the nicest dental hygienist on earth, and I will praise them to the skies just for this one lady alone. She was great with Catie, showed her all of her tools ahead of time and explained what each one did and reassured her that nothing was going to hurt. I kept waiting for Catie’s freak-out, and it never happened. She lay down in the chair, she wore the little light-blocking sunglasses, she opened her mouth like a good little patient, and she giggled through most of the appointment. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.

The hygienist did her thing, the dentist checked her out and said she looked great, and they sent us on our way. And that’s the one part of the trip where things started to fall apart. Catie wanted to see the prize chest. There wasn’t one. There were some dinky 10-cent plastic rings and some funny pencils, but that was about it. Catie was not happy. I whispered to her to just say “no thank you” and that I’d take her to the store to get a prize when we left. I mean, seriously, it’s my own fault for talking up the prize aspect so much, I felt like I had to follow through on my end of the bargain.

There’s a Wal-Mart down the street from the dentist’s office. We headed over there, made a beeline for the exact toy that I knew Catie wanted (for those of you who’ve seen Toy Story 3, she’s been asking for Buttercup, the unicorn, ever since we saw the movie), and I bought it for her on the spot.

Out for pizza after her first trip to the dentist
I love this picture of her because she was trying to show off both her unicorn and her “pretty white teeth!”, but the lighting is horrible because the sun was behind her & the iPhone doesn’t have a flash. Sigh.

Then, since she’d asked for pizza for our Special Mommy & Catie Lunch Date, I saw that there was a pizzeria a couple of doors down from Wal-Mart. We walked over, bought 2 slices, and had a lovely lunch.

Out for pizza after her first trip to the dentist

She was so excited to go to daycare afterward to tell all the kids about the dentist. I tell you, that girl never ceases to amaze me.

================================
Total non-sequitur conversation in the parking lot after her dentist visit. (This doesn’t relate to anything, I just think it’s hilarious.)

Me: …blah-blah-blah’ing about what a good job she did and how brave she was and how I’m so, so proud of her…

Catie: Yeah. [pause] Pop-Pop is my friend.

Me: [kind of thrown by the change of topic, but ooookay] Yes, sweetie, Pop-Pop is your friend, and he loves you very, very much.

Catie: Pop-Pop and Mimi are gonna come to our house.

Me: Well, I hope they can come to our house for a visit soon. That’d be nice. And you know, hopefully soon, they’ll sell their house in Mississippi and move up here, and then we’ll be able to see them a lot more often. That’ll be great when that happens, huh?

Catie: Yeah! Maybe we can share with them!

Me: [confused] Share what with them, babe?

Catie: We can share our house with them!

Me: [thinking: yeah, except then your Daddy will divorce me] Well, you know, sweetie, Mimi & Pop-Pop have a lot of stuff, and I don’t think all their stuff would fit into our house with all of our stuff, so they probably need to have their own house.

Catie: Oh. Ok.

Hopefully that’ll settle the issue of my parents moving in with us, because as much as I love them, and I really really do… no. Just no.