Cat's Parenting Journal

Friday, November 12, 2004

Mini-musings: Kids' stomachs

You may have heard that supposed truism that a kid's stomach is the size of one of his fists.

After feeding Otter one whole veggie burger, much yogurt, some chopped stir-fried carrots, turnips, and rutabaga, brown rice, water, and two bites of chicken, G and I agree that if Otter's stomach is the size of his fist, he's storing food in some other organ to digest later.

VMOU: I'm going to get you

Otter's newest game is to back slowly into a corner, giggling wildly in anticipation, saying "guh guh". This is his signal to me that I should stalk him slowly on my hands and knees, saying "I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you..."

As I get close, he giggles ever more loudly. When I get a couple feet away and hold up my hands and wiggle my fingers as if to reach for him it becomes too much for him, and he zooms forward into my arms where I scoop him up and hug him as tight as I can saying "I got you I Got You I GOT YOU!"

Then he squirms free and we play again.

Is it any wonder I miss him when he's at daycare?

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

A new reason to be grateful to veterans

Our daycare provider has a set of holidays for herself and her employees, which I think is wonderful. Daycare providers are so underpaid as it is...

That means Otter will be home for Veterans' Day tomorrow, which I had forgotten and for which I am very grateful. So we get the day together--us and the two cats. I'm not sure if they'll be as pleased as I am.

Musings: still missing my kid

I am still feeling Otter-deprived today. I am home working and missing him SO much. I don't know if it's being sick, or just how amazing he is lately, or that we've finally (fingers crossed) gotten his bedtime shifted to be closer to 7 pm then to 8 pm.

I dug out his snowsuit today, the one I bought too large last year (though I thought it would fit) and that miraculously fits him this year. He looks utterly bundled and completely charming in his orange pink blue red snowsuit, evoking Joseph and his amazing technicolor dream coat if the coat were a snowsuit and Joseph were a very blond toddler.

You can see one version of the snowsuit pattern here (from a completed ebay auction).

Now I just have to figure out footgear to keep his feet warm. I realized this morning that Otter has never worn boots; last year we could stuff his feet in anything as he couldn't walk during snow season.

And, while we have been much blessed with hand-me-downs from Otter's cousin Emperor K the Great (who is about to become K the Great Older Brother, a transition we all look forward to with both delight and trepidation). Unfortunately, K was inconsiderate enough to be Otter's current size during a warm season, not a cold one, so no hand-me-down boots. So G and I need to become experienced in toddler boots.

How is it that every time I think we kind of sort of maybe have a handle on this parenting thing--just for now, just for this phase--something else comes up and I realize how wholly ignorant we are?

And how is it that imagining stuffing Otter's dinner-roll feet into boots makes me miss him more?




Tuesday, November 09, 2004

MOU: laughter is contagious

I miss my kid.

Otter's off at daycare, and I'm working at home, wishing I could just ditch all this silly dissertation stuff and just be a parent today. He's so amazing these days, learning so much every minute. He loves to make you laugh, and woe betide you if you crack up when he does something you don't want to encourage, because he will repeat and repeat and repeat until you're giggling with him.

For example, he loves to put his bowl of mostly-gone yogurt up over his face while sticking his tongue out toward the bottom of the bowl. The bowl is transclucent plastic, and too big for his tongue to reach the bottom, so he just looks at you through the bowl and giggles, darting his tongue out over and over.

Of course, as an eating strategy, this is not designed to result in much food INSIDE Otter instead of ON him.

As a clowning startegy, however, it's strikingly good. Both G and I find his deep giggles as he does this irresistible.

I have no idea how we'll manage to help him learn to behave in a more civilized fashion when he's so skilled at being amusingly uncivilized.

Monday, November 08, 2004

Musings on silly parental counting and on language

Since Otter's fifteen-month appointment, when the doctor asked how many words Otter could say, I've found myself obsessed with trying to keep rough track of his new words and signs. (I also keep track so that I can give periodic lists to his daycare provider, so that they'll have a clue what he's saying.) At latest count, he had over 100: more than 40 concepts where he knows both the signs and the words, at least 10 to 20 more where he knows the signs but can't say the words, and more than 40 words where he doesn't use or know the signs.

What does any of that prove? I want it to prove that we're doing something right, and I suppose in a way it does, except that lots of parents who are doing jobs as good as or better than G and I have kids (especially boys, apparently) have kids who speak (and/or sign) a lot less than this at this age.

I pointed this out to Otter this morning when he bounced up in bed at 6 am and started conversing, one word in each paragraph being discernible, and I said, somewhat ruefully(it was 6 am, remember?) "hey, you know a lot of small children--especially boys--can't say more than a few words at this age."

I do believe a lot of it is the signing. I believe Otter has a much easier time figuring out how to remember a concept when he has both word and sign for it. We also have a much easier time figuring out what he's saying when he has both: if one is unclear, he can use the other one.

Most often, though, he uses them interchangeably but not always together. He always uses the signs for hurt and help, and occasionally adds in the words. For hurt he more often says "owww", though he knows how to say "hurt".

While eating he focuses on using signs, perhaps because his mouth is busy.

At daycare, he uses some of both; they don't know all of the ones he uses but we've given them a list of the major ones.

It does seem as if the signs and words for new concepts are coming right on top of each other lately, which would tend to support the idea that having one makes the other easier somehow. And when motivated he learns signs much more quickly than words; he learned the sign for (veggie) burger in one try, whereas the word burger has made no appearance. (Instead he says "hot" while making the sign for burger.)

Conclusions? I'm not sure. I'd heard from other parents that their kids dropped the signs once they could say the words clearly; Otter doesn't do that. It makes me wonder if the parents stopped reinforcing the signs once they didn't need them, as Otter has shown no inclination to drop any of his. Or perhaps he'll start dropping them later.

I think he enjoys signing, and I know G and I love seeing him sign. I would love for us to gradually learn enough to hold a real conversation; right now we have 150 or so scattered signs and we're doing very rudimentary "signed English", not real ASL. We (G and I) are essentially lost about ASL syntax; I want to spend some time figuring out how to put together sentences and whole ideas, not just one and two sign concepts.

Maybe on our next long car trip we can practice. Or I can practice and explain to G while G drives.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

MOU: that's my kid--or: food fanaticism pays off?

Many of my friends, family, and acquaintances think that G and I are just nuts about the way we feed Otter. He gets no juice, except for orange juice every couple of weeks; instead he drinks water and still nurses.

We feed him veggies almost as often as fruit, and give him our table food which is sometimes pretty highly spiced (garlic, curry, ginger, and so on). We give him as much organic food as we can afford, try to avoid trans fats, and try to avoid highly processed foods, most sweetened things (corn syrup especially), and minimize his soy intake. He eats lots of veggie burgers (the kind with more veggies than soy), broccoli and spinach pancakes, sundried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, roasted veggies, steamed veggies, brown rice with dressing or plain, hummus, yogurt, cheese, eggs, crackers (including my favorite seaweed crackers and his favrotie Annie's bunny crackers), cereal (especially all those unsweetened natural whole grrain ones) and so on. He does get occasional cookies, and popsicles (Edy's natural fruit kind).

We're still working out how to handle meat; he gets it so infrequently and experience seems to show that he has trouble digesting it. (Pee-yoo.)

So last night I gave him some bits of oatmeal cookie to appease him while we finished fixing dinner. He protested and pushed them away, as he had his eyes on the veggie burger cooling on the table.

This makes me happy. If we can help him love healthy food early on, and let him have control over how much he eats of the healthy choices we offer, maybe he won't have the food and health struggles I amd many of my friends and family have had.

VMOU: new words and signs (again)

New words: star (which is the first one we didn't teach him; he learned that one at daycare), light, water, apparently the numbers one and two (at daycare, not as concepts but more as in "1, 2, 3 go), wall, pillow, hug, fly (for butterfly), pop (for the popping sound they make during a song at daycare about bubbles), moon, sun, quack, pig, baa (for sheep), nana (for banana), cah-ott (bor carrot), doh-doh (for yogurt), keys, man. He's working on orange.

He can recognize Elmo, Bert, Big Bird, and Herry Monster.

Hhe can now tell that a bubble in a book is a bubble and that a sailboat is a boat.

New signs: BALL, SOCKS, WATER, CARROT, ORANGE

He can also repeat many words that you say right away on his first try: pee, poop, the letters M, T, B, C, and G are the most recent. We're working on the alphabet song.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some; he's learning so fast.

VMOU: waking up to ride

Otter woke up the other morning, and as G and I were deciding which of us would go shower first, Otter decided to intervene. He threw his leg over G, and, straddling him, began bouncing and bouncing. Oof.

I got to shower first. G got to play ride'em Otter.

As a sidenote, this may be what has inspired Otter to try to sit on the cat; when she's sitting prone on teh ground, he steps carefully over her, one foot on either side, and just as he bends to sit--she's slips out from under him, casually, as if it's a mere coincidence.

He laughs.

Sick sick sick

I am finally on antibiotics, after two days of 102/103degree fevers. So soon I should be myself again. Of course, Otter now has a developing case of croup.

Anyway, here's a set of VMOUs for you due to my time away.

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