Deceptions

A long time ago, Jake's cousin Paul shared with us his favorite piece of parenting advice. He explained that when the ice cream truck drives through your neighborhood, you should get excited and dance around and announce that the "Music Truck" is in the neighborhood. Make no mention of ice cream whatsoever. This worked well with his first child, although I believe it has been less successful with the later ones.

We loved the idea, and definitely instituted it, as there are at least three different, competing ice cream trucks that regularly cruise our neighborhood in the summertime. Lucy loves dancing to the "Music Truck." Awesome. Recently, a friend and parent of three of Lucy's young friends told us that his three girls think that Lucy is really deprived. Whenever they complain about something awful their parents have done (like not allowing them to eat candy all the time), they say "well, at least you know what an ice cream truck is. Lucy doesn't even know that!" This is hilarious to me, and then sometimes (briefly) makes me feel guilty about the way we've warped her mind. What will happen when she figures it out? Hmmmmm....

This comes to mind at the moment -- rather after the ice cream truck season afterall -- because Lucy has eaten 5 popsicles today. I know, that sounds absolutely outrageous. But here's what her popsicles look like:



Yes, that is one of the new Popsicle "MIGHTY MINI" pops (with Slow Melt technology!*). The Mighty Minis are awesome. I have a large stockpile in our basement freezer because I fear they might be discontinued. I don't know what will happen if Lucy actually finds out what regular-sized popsicles look like. It might be rather like what happened the first time I met an actual full-sized ("standard") poodle, after thinking all my life that the toy poodle was the only size poodles came in. Scary.

Lucy loves them. She often gets to have three popsicles. This makes her very happy. Today she had five because she had a little accident where she ran her lip into my computer (the very computer on which I am typing this). There was a lot of blood and a distraught mom and Lucy, so I swiftly decided that the way to staunch the blood and calm the child was to administer a popsicle. Actually, she got two. Then, after dinner, she got 3 more, just for good measure.

And the next day....

Jake was getting Lucy out of the bathtub. She bumped her elbow. She cried and looked sad. Jake kissed it and said he thought it would be OK. Lucy announced, through (presumably feigned) tears:

"I think a popsicle would make it better."

Oh, the deceptions.

*"Slow Melt Technology" involves gelatin being added to the pops so they don't melt so fast.

Big Girl Bed!

Lucy is officially a Big Girl. Last Friday, we let her sleep on an air mattress. It was a bit rough, but over the next few days of naps and nighttime sleep, she did pretty well. So yesterday, we dismantled the crib and in the next week or so we hope to buy her an actual bed. Right now, she is loving the air mattress. Hooray! So far, she has not attempted to get out of bed and walk around (at least as far as we know) but I'm sure it's only a matter of time til she puts it together that she has free run of things in the room now.

Update: She did fall out of bed last night and was distraught about it. But she went back to sleep.

Further proof that Lucy's a big girl: Today, apropos of nothing, she turned to me and asked "Can I have my own computer for my Birthday?"

Seriously? She's going to be 3. [There has been A LOT of talk lately about what will happen for her Birthday.] I asked her what she wanted it for: "So I can Skype with Ma and Pa."

Lovely.

Bad Parenting Commentary, by Lucy

I am guilty of some bad parenting. My guilt has been compounded by the fact that my daughter has pointed out to me the error of my ways. I stand corrected, and shamed. So I'm sharing the details with you:

While giving Lucy a bath this evening, I remembered an e-mail that I needed to write. I am fully aware that this e-mail was not super-important (no e-mail really is); I will attempt to justify it only by saying that I needed to contact a student, and that I was worried that I would forget to do so if I didn't write it down or do it (and I had neither pen & paper or the internet in the bathroom). I know what I did was wrong.

Lucy was enjoying her bath, playing and having fun. So I said "I'll be right back; keep playing," and hustled off to the front room. I sat down to start a quick e-mail so that I wouldn't forget. Thirty seconds or so later, I hear the patter of little (wet) feet. Lucy is coming to get me.

Me: What are you doing?
Lucy: I'm done with my bath.
Me: But you were supposed to wait in the bath.
Lucy: But you weren't there. So I got out.
Me: But you're not supposed to get out of the bath by yourself.
Lucy: But you weren't there.

[By the way, by now I have scooped her up in a towel and we are talking in the bathroom while I dry her off. There are wet footprints everywhere. Also note, prior to this, I don't think Lucy has ever gotten out of the bathtub by herself.]

Me: Lucy, you weren't supposed to get out of the bathtub by yourself. It's dangerous.
Lucy: You weren't supposed to be in the front room.
[Yikes. She got me there.]
Me: OK, yes, you're right. I shouldn't have left. I'm sorry. But don't get out of the bath by yourself again, OK? Promise you will ask for help next time?
Lucy: But you will be in the bathroom next time.

My child is a guilt-inducing machine. More than usual today, it seems.

Scam? Also, other random Lucy conversations

On Friday evening, at about 7 pm, our doorbell rang. A woman showed up at our door, offering us a free carpet cleaning. She claimed they were opening a business nearby and wanted to give us a free trial. She handed me a coupon, and then said it was only valid RIGHT NOW. It was 7 pm on a Friday night. Seriously? I mean, I know we're pretty lame, but are people really clamoring to get their carpets cleaned at 7 pm on Friday evening? I declined and she took back the coupon and left.

Earlier in the week, while I was taking a walk with Carter on the leash and Lucy in the stroller, four little girls came running after me. I stopped and said hello; I don't know their names, but I recognize them as some girls who live on our street. They were carrying shiny brochures and folders. The youngest one held out a pile of papers to me and said "can you buy some things?" Uh, no. Sorry. I'm out for a walk. They were not even able to explain why they were selling things, or what exactly the things were (it looked like a giant catalogue of junk). They looked very surprised and totally disappointed, but I kept walking. My mom tells me that recently in her town, a group of kids were going door to door with a flyer trying to sell cookies, but in fact there were no cookies. I think these girls might have been involved in a legitimate fundraiser for something, at least in as far as any of those fundraisers are legitimate, but man, I hate those things. And I say that as a former Girl Scout cookie seller, as well as a former band kid who sold pizzas, ham sandwiches, and candy bars.

OK, end of my scam rant. There's not much to report at the moment from 83 Durant. We're pretty busy at work, and Lucy is busy at school. Her very best friend, Ruth, is now going to the same school as her two days a week, so that has been great. Here is today's conversation:

Lucy loves my sticky notes, which are really these thin strips of paper with sticky stuff at one end, which I use to mark relevant passages in books that I'm teaching. Today she took two of them and stuck them on the back of her teddy bear. She then held him up and said

"Look Mom, he's a fairy!!"
And indeed, if you squinted, I suppose those two small tags of paper on his back might look like wings. But here's the thing: I have never before talked about fairies with her. How does she know what they are? Or how to make one? I'm sure this came up at school or in a book something, but I'm just shocked at the things she comes up with sometimes.

Lately she's been talking a lot about her dreams in the morning when she wakes up. Following is a reconstructed medley of recent dream conversations:

Parent: So what did you dream about last night?
Lucy: Crocodiles! But they were nice crocodiles! They ate all of Carter's food.
Parent: Uh oh! Well, what will Carter eat?
Lucy: They shared. They were nice crocodiles!
Parent: Oh, that's good.
Lucy: There were nice crocodiles and mice. Mice are already nice.

This is a mash-up of her conversations with both Jake and me. I particularly love the "mice are already nice" bit, which it seems is her explaining why she doesn't need to modify "mice" in the same way she does "crocodile." That's my girl.

Yard update

While Jake and I were able to make some headway in the backyard clean-up project, we decided to hire our wall-building neighbor to do the heavy-duty work. He finished the roto-tilling today! Check it out:





We're figuring out now what to do next. Roland has suggested we hire someone to hydro-seed the backyard, and then in select areas (like around the holly tree and up on one of the levels at the side of the house) we get crushed rock (rather than mulch). Any suggestions, readers?