Punitive · Sibling

I've been meaning to write this for awhile now, that for the last 4 months or so, the rank in our house has been dominated by the little reddish chappy from Sesame Street. It started as a joke--M. wouldn't climb up onto the changing table so I grabbed the small stuffed Elmo from the crib and put it on the changing table, telling M. that Elmo wanted him to climb up. It worked. Really well. In fact, I can ask M. to do things and be met with utter feet-planted, stiff-bodied resistance that if I then have Elmo ask him, he will do with cheer. Elmo can ask him to go for nap, lay down for a diaper change, settle down and go to bed without another story. The only thing that keeps Elmo from seizing the reins completely is that we don't allow him to be at the dinner table (and M. will eat any vegetable if there is something to dip it in so we don't need Elmo as much as we need ketchup). I'd feel insulted if it were just me but it is the same for E., although since E. is more willing to use the "Papa is all done with nonsense now" voice, I think he gets more mileage before he needs to resort to Elmo. But he is certainly not above using the fuzzball. I think we both wish it would work though without imitating the high-pitched squeal.

Most nights, I say goodnight to Elmo, Ermie, and then M. It seems only right.

So one of the PS's favorite books right now is the children's classic, Danny and the Dinosaur, by author Syd Hoff. It was published originally by Harper and Row in 1958. The hardback we have is from my childhood, so printed ca. 1974?, given when my dad worked for Grolier and brought us home lots of cheap books and factory seconds (books put in their covers upside-down were the funniest thing when you're 4.).

We have been reading it to M. and it is a hot favorite so he has it completely memorized (along with Go Train Go, Where the Wild Things Are, and parts of many others).

Recently, in our bookshelves, probably purchased when B. was a child, was a paperback copy of Danny and the Dinosaur. It has the advantage of the more sophisticated color printing of the 1980s. It is a new copyright date, listing the old as well, so I assume Syd Hoff renewed his copyright. Since he lived until 2004, I can hardly begrudge the man the right to control the income of his imagination.

But I really must protest.

The second edition makes three small changes.

1. Instead of lifting telephone wires for the Dinosaur to go under/get tangled in, Danny lifts clotheslines (a change clearly made because each of the little shirts could be a different color and thus more visually interesting). The text has been changed from "wires" to "ropes".

2. At one point a dog chases after the pair. The original reads "Bow wow! said a dog, running after them." The new edition drops the clause, because clearly the words "running" and "after" do not fit the level 1 reading category.

3. In that same exchange, Danny reveals that the dog thinks they are a car, to which the dinosaur replies that he can honk like a car. In the original, there are 2 honks. In the later edition, there are 3.

Small changes can reduce a toddler to utter sobbing, quivering jelly of fury. "Read it right, Mama". He will stop me and say "No no no." and then repeat the line as in the original book. (And, one assumes, had we first had the second edition, I would be reading it wrong as well. This is not about Mama winning ever.)

That's my boy, future continuity editor...

These are two writing samples from B.:


10/17/09 Timed Writing Prompt Assignment: Write an elaborative segment of the character below. Tell specifically what she looked like (hair, eyes, clothing) and how she behaved. Do not write a grocery list. Use interesting words and make it entertaining. "Everyone's eyes turned as the queen stepped outside."

"She strode slowly towards the throne as everyone bowed. The air smelled of the most fragrant roses. Her gown of pink and purple made a striking couple with her long, golden hair. Her golden crown seemed to glow."



Undated but October 2009 Same type of Assignment using the sentence prompt: "I stared at the wild think standing before me."

"The wild thing slowly reached down with one twisted claw and grinned fiendishly. It spread its giant wings and bared its grotesquely yellow teeth. I gasped in horror as poison glands leaked poison to its claws, mouth, tail, and feet. Its eyes gleamed and I could only watch as it lunged for me."



Now, looking at them, the spelling is only about 80% accurate and the handwriting is awful but the vocabulary is all her--she talks just like she writes, believe it or not--and the punctuation here is also her grasp of the way it marks the sound of the sentence. She just failed to be able to take a standardized test correctly. We'll work on testing strategies but as for vocabulary, I think she's fine.

Going through my head:

I don't really have to sit in this tiny chair, do I?

M. needs a toy to keep him busy. E., genius Papa that he is, provides him with a hand-pump with a balloon over the nozzle, and M. goes off happily puffing up the balloon and watching it deflate.

What are you supposed to do with your kids while you have one of these?

M. is back, for a new balloon. B. trots after him so all conferencing must stop.

Instead of baking for the PTO so that we can "support" the faculty with treats, how 'bout if the PTO supports me with half-hour child care slots?

How come it's so quiet where the kids are?

Don't let on to B.'s teacher that you don't like her much.

Do we have any questions? No, our child is amazing. Everyone says so.

WHOA! Did she just say that B. took a standardized test that resulted in her needing intervention on vocabulary?! Does she mean B., the child who knows more words than some grown-ups? The child who spontaneously on our Halloween walk reflected that she felt "The harvest moon adds to the spooky atmosphere of this holiday"? Maybe she means some other B....

Nope. Our B. Her teacher fortunately adds that the faculty discussed her in their recent meeting and concurred with her assessment that there was something else going on; her assessment was test anxiety that resulted in panic or similar. She felt--and B's other teachers agreed--that they would simply use this as a baseline to watch and actually address test taking more with B. That she doesn't think it would be a good use of resources to intervene with B.

Thank god, someone is being sensible here. But...the heck? I knew testing made B. anxious but that bad?! Must ask her about it when we talk about her conference results.

M. comes back looking for another balloon.

Teacher reads us a B. story about a wild thing that is absolutely to a T a reflection of B., complete with dripping poison glands and grotesque yellow teeth (yes, these are words from her story, my child with the vocabulary problem). It's a hoot.

M. is back and does not want a balloon.

Is this almost over? M. is clearly all done. And me too. Who knew these were such a wilting combination of boring and intense?

So when we return home and are chatting about things her teacher has said about her, we bring up the areas to work on. Her organization is the pits; neatness is in no way her forte. In fact, her desk is readily identifiable by the things flapping out of it. So we casually mention that we know she gets anxious with tests and maybe we can do some brainstorming about how to help her not feel like it's such a big deal.

B. replies, "Well, I didn't want to say anything but I know I didn't do well on one of the tests we took already. I didn't realize the pages got stuck together and so I got a whole bunch of answers in the wrong spot. And I didn't want to tell you. And I'm always worried that I don't have all the bubbles filled in all the way 'cause I know that it's graded by machine..."(and on she babbles about something more, no longer in anyway concerned that she isn't making sense or conversation).

So am I worried? Not about her skills. A little about test pressure and the need to perform. Eight is too young for ulcers.

Yesterday, I took a mental health afternoon off and went to our local art museum to see the Rembrandt exhibit. I took E. as a date-like-thing-that-parents-who-hate-springing-for-childcare-on-top-of-pricey-tickets do, which meant we also took M. (as B. was in school and in after-school rehearsal for her first school play). True to form, instead of the lovely crisp fall day I had hoped for, it had progressed from drizzle to buckets of rain. True to form, we got lost/turned around driving to the museum. But we aggressively maintained cheer--nothing will stop our fun, dammit. So we park in front of the museum and I volunteer to go to the parking kiosk and get our ticket while E. gets M. out of the car. I turn back to see E. standing by the door, chatting with M. who is still in his seat.

When I return to the car to see what's up, I discover that M. is not wearing any shoes. His papa has let him walk from the house to the car in his socks and buckled him for an afternoon out and he is not wearing any shoes. It's 40 degrees and raining out and M. is not wearing any shoes. E. explains what happened--he went to put M's shoes on and smelled...that smell...and they detoured to the changing table. Late to pick me up, he hustled M. out the door and M., happy to go and see Mama, went.

And the thing is...we laughed. I totally get how this could happen. M's feet were strangely not totally soaked so we carried him in to the museum and let him pad around in his socks for 45 min. and then carried him back to the car. It was a very nice day out.

I'm in a different place than where I was when B. was 2. It would never have happened to B.--we would have checked a hundred times before leaving the house that she was all set and we had everything. We had a very well stocked diaper bag at all times--complete with everything from antiseptic cream and band-aids to yogurt and zwieback. If the unthinkable had happened, we would either have gone home or found a ubiquitous Payless and bought her a cheap pair of shoes. And I would have been mortified about how my husband pays so little attention that she could have walked off without shoes. And that would have been one way to do it. This was another. M was happy. I'm relieved no strangers asked why my child was not wearing shoes. I pray he doesn't catch a cold. But we're good.

I guess people are different one to another and sometimes people are even different from themselves. And that is what makes the world interesting and fun.

Sorry for the silence--new computer wrangling.


In return I will relate an anecdote about my children. The scene begins with me in the kitchen cooking and B.&M. in the living room, playing.

B: OW!!!

I come running in. B. is massaging her head and tells me that M. has just hit her with the toy telephone receiver.

Me: Did you just hit your sister with the phone?

M.: No.

Me: Then why did she say "OW!"?

M.: She meant to say "Wow".



So all of that training to get M. to say "Wow" instead of "Ow" when he was playing/wanting attention but not actually hurt did, on some (nefarious and evil) level, sink in...

Oh how my words come back to bite me on the ass...

B. comes home from school all day and wants nothing more than to go to a quiet spot and read. She has been all day doing things that she likes less--math and writing and lining up. She can put her nose in a book and be completely oblivious to the world around her.


M. has waited all day long for his sister, his best playmate, to come home to him. He has even wandered around looking for her. He will say "Hi Bean" over and over til he screams and shrieks but be frustrated because he has been ignored. Then he will haul off and hit her and climb on her, hurting her and finally eliciting screams and attention.


Parents will spend all their time trying to foster nice play, enforcing time outs for hitting your sister, and eating ibuprofen like M&Ms for the splitting headaches. Just praying for bedtime. And finally the kids are in bed and we turn to each other, and talk about the kids.

At the grocery--
Papa: Let's get hot dog rolls, M. Do you want hot dogs for lunch?
M.: Yeah! Hot dogs!
Papa then puts a frozen pizza in the cart.
Papa: Or do you want pizza for lunch?
M.: Hot dogs on my pizza.

M. has lately started starting conversations with "Mama, I have a better idea." It's terribly cute even if he doesn't get that then you have to articulate this better idea...

It's one of those picked-up phrases that makes me wonder if there's too much sarcasm used in our house. But at least he's stopped with "I have a joke", which inevitably runs as

M: "knock knock"
Me: "who's there?"
M: (straight to the punchline, sorta) "Funny you look like shoe"

M. apparently forgot that what the first day of school means is that your best playmate, the sister you love so much, goes away for 7 hours and you can't go with her.

I had to be in a meeting this morning so I missed first day of school festivities but when I picked up B. after school, all the other moms made sure to tell me how crushed M. was and how bad they felt for him (and for E. who was parent-in-charge).

Lately, M. has begun playing. Not just moving beads around on the wire thing or throwing a ball, but what I think of as kid play.

Last night, he had his pirate ship out and was moving the Duplo characters onto it and off, talking to them. This probably started as direct imitation of what his sister does with her Playmobil figures but it definitely continued as his own play.

Over the summer, with C. and L. here to provide him with more examples of child's play, he watched them tuck Barbie-style dolls into the Barbie-style bed and now tucks his own stuffies and dolls in, often singing his own bedtime songs to them. And C. had an elaborate game that she played with him, where they went home (or sometimes to work) by climbing upstairs and then coming back down to see the parents in the living room and get imaginary hot chocolate or breakfast from them. The game largely consisted of walking upstairs and then coming back. So now, M. will play a similar game, often exactly the same, but last night involving all kinds of ice cream, brought down to share with the family in the living room.

Clearly children learn to play by watching each other.

M. has started really enjoying singing. He has long enjoyed music--in fact, he insists on both the cd and the music box at bedtime, creating a wall of sound; if he doesn't fall asleep before the first iteration, he will scream for more music. He has definite requests--Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions is a consistent favorite, along with kid favs They Might Be Giants (1-2-3s and A-B-Cs and sometimes, No!) and (shudder) Raffi (The Baby Beluga song mostly as he has an Elmo book about going to the aquarium to see the belugas). His first singing was Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, mostly with us singing the words but leaving off the end word for him to shout and with an enthusiastic "Fire, Fire, Fire!" at the end. But now, as a direct consequence of C.'s visit, he has really glommed on to the A-B-Cs and will sing with little prompting. Of course, there is no "I" in his alphabet, and there are a variable and inconsistently appearing cast of L-M-N-O, but he's sweet when he sings it. Also in his repertoire is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which we have been singing to him every night practically since he started sleeping in his own crib.

Undoubtedly, the best, though, is to hear him sing the Sh'ma (important Jewish prayer: "Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One"). We also sing that to him at bedtime (adopting a different tune for him than the one we sing with B. at bedtime). Some nights he is content to listen, but some nights he will insist (volubly) that he wants to sing it. He waits after each word, so as to confirm that he's both said it right and that we are paying attention. It's a pretty sweet way to end the day. (If only the day didn't go on for another couple hours after that...)

Today we pulled up the carpet in the dining room (For the record, who the heck carpets a dining room? Area rug I get because you can use it as decoration and you can take it out and beat it. But wall-to-wall carpeting where children eat? Insane.). Part of me wants just to brag about having done it and how much better the dining room looks (even though the hardwood floors will need refinishing).

But the part about children is that BOTH children found it a stressful change. B. found it stressful mainly because I had said I wasn't sure what we'd find underneath and I think she imagined huge gaping holes for children to fall into. But she was also stressed because there wasn't much she could do to help--the carpet tacks were too sharp and prying up staples too much precision and labor and dragging remnants out to the garbage required strength. But M. was stressed from the moment the project began--the vacuum cleaner came out and he ran (as always); he consented to come back when I held him as I did it but then while I did it, he kept saying "All done vacuum now". And then cried because I was going to leave the vacuum out in the living room since I would need it later; he insisted it be shut back up in the closet. Then he was chased away, thankfully before stepping right on a strip of carpet tacks and without taking all our tools for his "turn". He came back to find the carpet pulled up and in disarray, the chairs in the study and the birdcage in the living room. And still we kept working at it. I took a couple of short breaks to read to him and instead of standing on the ottoman or wandering around, he curled right up in my lap. The power tools were scary. The broom was not his to use exclusively. I talked about vacuuming again.

He came down from nap and seems oblivious that the dining room was ever different so I guess children adapt quickly to environmental change (on a minor level).

I didn't mention one of the excitements of Auntie S.'s visit. On Wed. morning, as all the children and grown-ups are in the flurry of dressing, getting breakfast (and my not getting it on the table fast enough to suit M.), yelling over who's taken who's toy, wailing over hair being pulled while brushing, (you get the idea...), C. locked herself in the bathroom.


Now, til it happened, we'd assumed that it would be easy enough to get in if we needed to. E. used to card his dorm door all the time (whoops, said the quiet part loud again). The hinges (located on the inside of the jamb so completely inaccessible had we thought of it) were the kind that are easy to lift the pin in. It was just a push button lock so we could shove a piece of wire into the opening and push the tumbler/button open again.

It's all well and good until you have a pre-schooler locked in the bathroom, needing personal care assistance from Mommy who cannot come. There's a moment when you wonder if the silence is terror, sulking, or fascination with the bath toys in a big bin with no other kids around. You try to explain about turning the handle while she howls on the other side. And how many parents do you need to get one locked-in child out? The answer is 3--one to keep her calm, one to keep trying to jimmy the lock, and one to feed and occupy the other 3 kids so they don't "help".

E. then scaled the outside of the house while I footed the ladder. And there he stood, 15' up, talking through the screen, prepared to force it and move the venetian blinds out of the way and shimmy in on his belly, while I prayed that he wouldn't come tumbling down on top of me and that the children would stay inside and eat their breakfasts obliviously. We are one step away from calling a locksmith. And at that moment--Auntie S. was able to push the tumblers hard enough to push the lock open, freeing the distraught toddler.

And all's well that ends well, right? C. freed and cleaned up. I even made a new plate for her after I cut the bagel wrong, a palliative I would not normally engage in. And we bought new doorknobs to be installed because C. is nearly 4 and M. is far more active, far more inquisitive, and only 2. Talking him through the hysterics or trying to cajole him into turning the handle (while hoping that he doesn't actually learn this skill any time soon) is not something we wish to do any time soon.

Something we didn't think about when we bought the house was that the previous owners, who had two very active boy toddlers, had taped their bedroom door latch with its push button lock so that it couldn't be latched or locked. We blithely removed the tape but perhaps they knew something we didn't about locks and toddlers...

My son likes to stand in the center of the room screaming "OW!" at the top of his lungs.


No one has touched him.

No one is near him.

God forbid he should ever say it and mean it. Because I have stopped listening out of self-preservation.

Auntie S. and her daughters, C. and L., were our recent houseguests for the second of two extended visits this summer. And I obviously did not have time to live blog the whole week, I did save some especial nuggets.


1. I urge you--if you are local or come to CT with children--to go to Kid City in Middletown CT. (http://www.kidcitymuseum.com/). While the space ship was cool and using the ice cream shop dispensers to dispense dry-ice steam was novel and the egg Pachenko was unusually loud, nothing really compared to the fishery. Our kids spent 45+ minutes in there--sorting the red, blue, and yellow fish into baskets, cranking them up fish elevators and having them drop from the hopper (above their heads with a resounding thunk as they hit the turntable below), and attaching them via metal discs in their mouths to various magnets. It has to be seen to be believed. The children had loads of fun at Kid City and only one of them (B.) had to be reminded multiple times not to hoard carrots.


2. All three grown-ups wrote "muskmelon" for an M in the Fruits and Vegetables category of Word-a-Rama (played over ice cream as soon as the big girls, sleeping together in the basement playroom where it is cool, had been suppressed for the night).


3. While playing with C. and M. over play-doh, Papa made little figures in cups, which Auntie S. clearly claimed as Endgame references. Beckett for babies will be our next commercial venture.

4. In a long discussion, with musical renditions, of the musical, Annie, C. says "Annie couldn't find her real parents because they died in a car accident." to which E. replies: "If she had found them, that'd be really gross."


We also had a surprise birthday pot-luck for E. and B. with lots of food and leftovers, dozens of zucchini muffins which 3 out of 4 children recommended, 2 trips to the pool, a trip to the park, and a trip to the Children's Museum in West Hartford (which was fun for children and depressing for anyone who is aware of the problems of non-profit funding in a mismanaged organization during a recession). Soon school will start but we had a really good visit for our summer.

Me: Breakfast is ready!
E.: C'mon M. Breakfast is ready.
M.: I poopy.
E.: Thanks for telling me. Let's go to the changing table.
M.: I all set.
E.: No, let's change your diaper.
M.: Uh, maybe I all set.

So, in the battles-not-worth-fighting-about, I let M. take both Pooh Bear and his beloved ermine, Ermie, in the car to the grocery store. And when we arrived at the grocery store, I managed to wrest Pooh Bear from him so that he stayed in the car but M. would not be parted from Ermie. So I gave up and Ermie got to go in to the grocery store.

And he held her with a death grip until somewhere...

We returned home and he comes out of the car seat with "Where's Ermie?"

You guessed it, the ermine he loves with a passion surpassing sense was lying face down in the meat aisle, alone and besmirched.

Yes, I called the store. No, no one had turned in a stuffed rat-thing.

Yes, we threw the cold groceries in the freezer and bundled everyone BACK into the car for ermine hunting.

Yes, we searched under the car which had pulled in to the space we had vacated.

Yes, we searched through the returned grocery carts and asked the oblivious cart shagger if he had seen a stuffed animal.

Yes, we asked again at the service desk. Again, no idea, no stuffie.

So we retraced our steps...deli, bakery, hot dogs...HOT DOG! There, under the edge of the processed chicken case, was Ermie.

M. picked her up and kissed her, announcing "Ermie's nice and clean".

So all's well that ends well. We didn't lose the beloved...which couldn't be replaced even if we wanted to. And M. is sleeping happily.

As your children get older, it is sometimes harder to spot developmental changes. When M. was learning to talk, you could hear the changes with the acquisition of each new word. Now that he's a big guy of 2, the language changes are more subtle. He will respond to questions with more detail, "Are you listening to music?", "I listen Ol' Dan Tucker." There's a new learning level we've hit.


But more amazing to me was B.'s recent change. My big girl just turned 8 so there's sometimes when we look at her and notice her new height or the changes in her face that make her look less like a child. But I took her to the movies yesterday, to see the hamster secret-agent-action thriller, G-Force. This is part of a plan with her papa to take time to be with her separately and intensely so that she feels special and loved for herself, as well as part of the family. Last week, E. took her to the local children's museum. I swore off taking her to movies for a while: 1) I resent not seeing movies with my best friend/husband because I have kids, 2) I can't take M. to most movies as he has the 2 year old attention span of a hyper fly on a sugar rush, 3)and for a few years, every movie we went to had to be explained in tedious detail moment by moment. She couldn't follow the plot; she barely recognized the main characters. It frustrated me no end, especially since she was so good at reading, her complete movie-failure was sad because I like movies. But this movie was very different. She followed both plot and characters. She told me as we left that if she were reviewing the movie, she would say it was about friendship, betrayal, and teamwork. I added, and stuff blowing up. We had a long talk on the way home about which character we would be and while she had to be prompted a little to remember all their names, when I said them, she knew who they were. The movie was tolerable (has a good solid sound track), and the mole turns out to be the mole, but the best part was watching it with my daughter who is turning into a reasonably sophisticated viewer! Now if only she weren't interested in movies where cockroaches go on a special mission to recover the hamster sized pda...

So this is what arrived in the mail for B. today (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62201888@N00/3771860461/)!!


She sent a letter, right after the election. It came back because GWB's staff were petty and wouldn't forward it. So we sent it again. And today, she got a letter back!


( And yes, it's a form letter. And signed by machine. And he never saw it. But she thinks it's so cool! So we're framing it and putting it over her bed, as she asked. Because we have HOPE.)