One Thousand Words

“Niko, did you finish your apple? Go take your plate to tata if you want bacon.”
“NO! I do NOT want… oooh! Yeah! I DO want bacon!”

“Mama, is this dinosaur a plant eater, or a meat eater?”
“Well, it’s got forward facing eyes and big sharp teeth. It looks like a meat eater.”
“No, I think it’s a plant eater.”
“But look, it’s a therapod. It’s got two feet with three toes on it, and a long tail for balance, and–”
“WELL MAMA, next time Elliot comes over I will ask HIM if it’s a plant eater or a meat eater.”
“And will you believe what he says?”
“I will if he says it’s a plant eater.”

“Ahhhh! Ahhh! Ahh! The living room is fulllll of dinosaur zombies!”
“Oh, huh.”
“DO YOU KNOW HOWWWWW to stop dinosaur zombies?”
“Do you…. I don’t know. How do you stop dinosaur zombies?”
“WITH FLOWER GUNS! pew pew pew pew pew.”

“I wanna watch that train show with that fox and that hound.”
“Oh… do you mean “The Fox And The Hound”?”
“Yes, it’s got a train in it.”

“Niko, no puppet show in the kitchen. No toys in the kitchen. You need to take that puppet show out of here.”
“TOO BAD it’s stuck to the floor TOO BAD I can’t move it OH WELL TOO BAD.”

“Hey, do you want to watch ‘Word World’?”
“Yes! They make words on that show, that word world show. Do they make the word dinosaur?”
“I don’t think so, that’s kind of a big word and they mostly spell little words.”
“What about Stegosaurus? That’s my favorite word.”
“Why is that your favorite word?”
“Because of all the S’es.”

We are ONCE AGAIN trying to transition Niko to sleep in his own little bed and not in our bed, kicking and punching us all night. The night before last he was up literally every hour, yowling and crying, resulting in three very tired people the next day. I had a headache LITERALLY ALL DAY from lack of sleep. Nesko slept in until almost 11:00, scuttling our plans to run errands in the morning. Niko was lobbying hard to go to the park that day and I told him that we’d planned to take him to the park in the morning but we were too tired to go because he’d kept us up all night. TOO BAD. He asked several times and I told him the same thing each time. Why can’t we go to the park? Why can’t we go outside? Why can’t tata play with him? Because he’s sleeping, because he’s tired, because he was up all night because Niko was being mean and unkind and not being quiet and not letting us sleep.

Last night went much better. He did wake us up with his crying once, but I think it was a legit nightmare. Nesko settled him and came back to bed. We both went to bed around 10:30 (although I had a hard time falling asleep) and woke up around 8:00 and my mood and energy levels are both vastly improved. I’ve still got a sleep deficit but am feeling a lot better. Niko and I had a talk today about his future allowance.

Basically, he gets 10 cents for each night he sleeps through the night without being a dick and if he makes it for a full week he gets an additional 30 cents, which makes a dollar. Also, if he helps us pick up all his toys and books before going to bed he gets 10 cents with a 30 cent bonus if he does it every night for a full week. This is another dollar. So he’s got the potential to earn $2.00 a week just by being a decent person and not an asshole. He wants to buy some more trans, so he’s got a goal to work toward. I’m going to make a chart so he can see how well he’s doing, including showing how well he’s working toward his goal. The train he wants costs $10.95 and I figure Nesko and I can handle the tax since he’s so young. When he’s 6 or so he can start figuring that out and accounting for it himself.

I know some people will object to “bribing” him for basic good behavior, but honestly, I want him in the habit of doing these things and I want to give him an allowance any way. Some people push for giving kids a base allowance that’s not dependent on behavior or chores. I think most people just do what their parents did, but neither Nesko nor I got an allowance so we don’t have that to fall back on.

How do you handle allowance in your household? Was it an easy decision, or hard? Is it what your parents did, or different? Is it dependent on chores, or not? What’s your pay scale? I’d love to hear more.

BTW, I wrote a post about diets, body size, and taking photos of yourself at my main blog. Please feel free to check it out.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

We dressed Niko up as a train engineer/conductor, which is a super easy costume that can be reworn year round. We slapped a white shirt and striped overalls on him. How easy is that? Very easy. He also had a striped cap from “Day Out With Thomas” that we held onto as a special Halloween costume component surprise and although he loves it (actual quote: “It THOMAS! I love it that hat! Oh! Thomas!”) he refuses to actually wear it. Also a red kerchief would have completed the look but we didn’t have one of those either… Nesko’s sister moved on the 31st and a lot of Nesko’s time was taken up with helping her locate, clean, and move furniture so we didn’t have a lot of opportunities to go bits and bobs shopping. We also had an orange jackolantern bucket (I have no idea where it came from) lying around so that was useful, too.

We went around our block and up and over one other block. There were a lot of houses that were decorated, including one that had one of those expensive inflatable decorations, but the interior lights were off and nobody answered the door. Now, perhaps they simply weren’t home from work yet or were out with their own kids, but it feels like kind of a cheat to have a decorated house and nobody giving out treats. If you don’t want to give out candy or participate, that’s fine… a LOT of houses were dark and we didn’t try them, assuming they weren’t into the Halloween spirit of things. But to decorate and then not be home? Eh. DISAPPOINTING.

I was worried that people wouldn’t know what Niko was. Would they think he was just wearing some overalls? But no, pretty much everyone got it and told him how cute he was, even when he tried to barge into their houses. He said “Trick or Treat” unprompted and said “Thank You” when reminded. One lady near the river was giving out full size candy bars; one dude was giving out pretzels. We stopped into a few shops and a nursing home/rehab center thinking they might have a program for the residents and they didn’t but the front desk had candy.

There’s this tiny house set way back from the street that looks like it used to be the carriage house or guest house or something for the gorgeous bungalow next to it. It’s surrounded by giant trees and instead of grass it’s all hosta and ivy and lilly of the valley and other shade loving plants, the long walk lined with little solar lanterns. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. It’s got a gate that is always closed, with a sign asking people to keep the gate shut/keep out, but last night the gate was open so we tried the house. The dude who answered the door gave Niko a FISTFUL of chocolates and also a bunch of pennies, and I know pennies get a bad rap as a Halloween thing, but Niko is at that age where pennies are glorious things. The guy was really nice and we chatted a bit and then we moved on; the huge houses flanking him were dark and nobody answered the door.

Our street in particular and neighborhood in general has a lot of multi-unit buildings, which tend not to be active in candy giving. Last year, for instance, we got zero callers and I didn’t see anyone out on the street, either. We’d discussed going to a different neighborhood for trick or treating, but I’m glad we didn’t; I’m glad we stuck close to home. Niko didn’t get much of a haul, but we only covered about 2 1/2 blocks and that included some businesses. He’s a toddler, he doesn’t need a lot of candy. To be very honest, most of what he got will be going into Nesko’s lunch bag.

We had fruit snack pouches to give out but nobody came while we were home, which isn’t surprising as we live in a 2-flat. We didn’t buy any Halloween candy this year because we’re boycotting slavery-produced chocolate in general and Hershey’s products specifically (they manufacture a lot of stuff that’s sold under brands other than “Hershey”). So once the chocolate currently in our house is gone, that’s it  unless we buy fair trade stuff, which on the one hand tends to be more expensive… but on the other hand tends to also be higher quality and tastier.

Niko keeps asking me if he can go trick or treating again. Sometimes he comes up to me with his orange bucket and says trick or treat and I stick something in it that’s at hand (a book, a sock, a nail file, a block, WHATEVER) and he thinks that’s hilarious. I’ve tried telling him that Trick Or Treating only happens once a year, and that next up we have Thanksgiving and then Christmas. He said “Oh, that when I get Rusty and the Boulder!” That is the Big Gift we purchased for him a while ago and stashed in the office. We have not mentioned it around him. I don’t know if he’s seen the side of the box and guessed or is just wishing really, really hard. It’s hard to tell with him, sometimes.

Technorati Tags: halloween, parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Some of you might remember a few months ago when I agonized over whether or not Niko had asthma and whether or not I should mention it to his pediatrician and then over whether or not I was a shitty parent for not addressing the situation, and his asthma, earlier.

We started treating him with children’s claritin and albuterol and after a few months we eased up on the albuterol because he was doing a lot better. Well, it’s allergy season once again, and we need to start dosing him again.

If you’ve ever wondered what an asthmatic kid sounds like when he’s having a little trouble breathing, I’m embedding a video of Niko singing and playing with his trains. The little breathy grunt gaspy thing he does? That’s a sign of asthma. If you hear your child (or an adult in your life) making that noise? Time for a doctor’s visit.

As you can see, he’s not in DISTRESS. He’s playing and singing and happy. You might not even be able to hear the grunt he’s making. But it’s there, and it’s unhealthy, and it can be treated.

If left untreated, asthma can severely affect a person’s quality of life, leaving them more open to illness and respiratory infections. The pathways of the lungs can literally reroute themselves, reducing the body’s ability to intake oxygen. When properly treated, people with asthma can lead totally normal, healthy, productive, active lives.

Technorati Tags: asthma, parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

The weather forecast went from predicting a 40% chance of rain on Saturday to a 50% then a 60% chance of rain. A few hours before we were set to leave, the heavens opened and rain came lashing down in torrents. Thunder boomed. Lightning crackled and flashed. Niko was excited.

“Go outside? Inna rain! I put on rain coat. Rain comin down! It rain on cars. Cars all wet! Tata’s car all wet! I go outside in rain coat and splash.”

We did, in fact, bundle him up in a rain coat but then we prevented him from splashing because we are total killjoys. We took our knapsack loaded up with snacks and water and changes of clothing and piled into the car and somehow — SOMEHOW– managed to get out of the house on time. We drove through the rain and I told Niko, who was yawning and also chatting happily away at us, that we were going to do a lot of boring driving so it was ok if he fell asleep. He told me to stop fooling (actual words: STOP FOOLIN MAMA) and made fun of me a little bit, but five minutes later he was suspiciously quiet. A quick peek back revealed that he was dead to the world. Score! He slept the entire drive down, including when we pulled off at an Oasis¹ for lunch and ate in the parking lot waiting for a bit of the rain to let up.

It had stopped raining by the time we got to Union, IL, home of the Illinois Railroad Museum, and we were mere feet from the parking lot when we had to stop at a small railway crossing. Niko woke up and stretched and looked around.

“What dat? Oh. It’s a train! OH! IT’S THOMAS!” Sure enough, the train came along the track, and there was a bright blue cheerful Thomas puffing away! Niko’s tiny mind was blown.

We got there around 2-ish, picked up our tickets, hit the first tent where Niko played with megablocks and wooden trains a bit, and then walked around some. We found an area with picnic tables and Nesko told Niko that he had to eat lunch first then we would go ride on Thomas. There were a million portolets (including some baby changing portolets), and also flush toilets inside buildings. Sadly, we had no cash because we live in a bright and shining futureworld where everyone takes debit cards, and the ILRR museum grounds hasn’t reached that future yet, so we did not have Lemon Shakeups or ice cream cones or corndogs or any other fair food. Niko finished eating and we walked over to the giant snaking lines waiting to board the coaches. We got there just in time, as people began boarding, and trooped on.

Niko was a little wary of the trip. This train was very different from the ones he’s ridden before. But he still had fun and looked around a lot.

We also saw a LOT of train exhibits, walked past but did not wait 20 minutes in line for a photo with Sir Tophamm Hatt, rode a red cable car, walked some more, and Niko jumped in a bounce house for the first time.

He was super wired all the way home. I thought he’d fall asleep again, but no, he demanded and ate a bunch of snacks in the car, and then sang every single song he knew in a desperate attempt to stay awake. We stopped at IHOP for dinner (a huge mistake, the food was bland and the service was… not very good. PROTIP: when you’re serving adults and children, bring the child’s food FIRST and not LAST.) and he was a real handful the whole time, very loud, very antsy. We got him home and topped him off with some more food, then into bed.

We woke up on Sunday and asked him what he’d done on Saturday. “Snakes bite [me],” he answered. Then he claimed he’d gone to the beach. When we challenged that claim, he gave us A Look and spoke very slowly and clearly. “I tooka brown train to the BEEEEEEEESH.” ² We asked him again, and he said “I ate food an then I went on THOMAS,” and then he talked excitedly about how he rode on “a red Toby.” Toby’s a tram car and we did not ride on a tram car, we rode on a street car. Gah, small child! How could you make that sort of mistake? Anyway, it’s interesting that he lumps eating lunch with the Excitement that was ACTUALLY RIDING ON THOMAS’ ACTUAL COACHES.

It seems that he’s needed to take awhile to process what happened, because he was chattering excitedly today about seeing Thomas, and when Nesko dropped him off at Baba’s, Niko was telling her alllll about it, with great gusto.

He was pretty sold on this beach thing, though. If we’d done that instead we’d have saved about $100 or so. Something to consider.

I took about 150 photos and I’ll post them later. I’m at the point where I’m considering just installing a photo album on my webspace because I have more photos than the free version of Picasa will support. If I do that, I’ll have an album just for Thomas.

Technorati Tags: parenting, thomas and friends, toddlers

Mirrored from Now Showing!.