Completely inappropriate, but funny

How do you handle something your kid does, or says, that is really 'bad,' but at the same so incredibly funny you'd be in hysterics if it wasn't your kid who did/said it? Or the ever dreaded, you want to laugh and then they think, "I'll make mommy laugh if I say that again!" I've had a couple of these situations, like the time Abby decided to work on making an F sound. The entire drive to work/daycare one morning when she was nearly 2 she made a great "fffffffff" sound. Generally followed by 'truck.' You get my point. Seriously, try to think of an f word that she can 'practice' that doesn't have a blend at the beginning. Can't think of one can you? On the spot, while trying not to laugh out loud. Needless to say, I warned the daycare teachers about her experiment. Luckily, Abs must have decided that she knew the F sound pretty well, as she didn't say it at all at school.

Last Christmas season, while walking in Wal-Mart a man caught Abby's attention. Not that he was trying to, it's just that my kid is observant and curious. She points and says, in a voice I thought was close to screaming, but probably wasn't, "Why does that man only have hair around the sides, but not on top?"

So last night, Abby pulled another. She was helping me sort laundry. Well, as much as a 4-year-old can help sort right? Anyway, we had an incredible amount to do, and the piles were getting quite big. She was sitting between the whites and the darks, sometimes helping me toss things over to the 'medium' pile. She's not all that careful, so when some clothes would fall down and co-mingle with the neighboring pile, I'd ask her to correct the problem.

"Abby, those socks are sneaking into the black pile!"
"Oh no you whitey whites, get back there with your friends!"

No, I do not call any of the light clothes "whitey." And at the time I didn't think anything of it. She was giving a personality to inanimate objects, oh well. So we sorted and sorted and then gathered up the whites. Abby had a little bunch of whites wrapped in a towel bundle, I had the rest. She goes downstairs and starts telling Daddy. "Your white socks didn't want to stay with their whitey friends and kept trying to play with the black things. So I had to keep picking them up." She's giggling a little like she's rolling her eyes in a "can you believe it?" tone. Nathan just looks at me. "Whitey?" It wasn't me, I swear.

I just hope she doesn't go to school and start talking about the whiteys and the darkies... oh the horror!

Thumbs - again

Mavala Stop is an amazing product.

As I mentioned before, Daniel had his first coat of the bitter nail polish applied to his left thumb on a Thursday. Friday morning he was crying that he didn't like the stuff. Saturday, the day the next application was needed it took bribery to get him to show me his thumbs. Daniel is a chocoholic. We also decided to make him his very own chart. Every day he keeps his thumbs out of his mouth, he gets a sticker. We put stars on some of the boxes on his chart, and on those days Daniel will get a special treat of some kind.

Daniel has kept his thumb out of his mouth for 10 whole days and today is a "star day." I asked him what he wanted as a reward - a treat to eat, or a toy, or something special to do. "Eat a treat." Ice cream, cake, cookie, chocolate, fruit, Popsicle... "Chalk-it." Ice cream, cake, cookie, candy... "Cookie." All chocolate or little bits of chocolate? "ALL Chalk-it." So we made chocolate crinkle cookies and Daniel got to eat the first two.

He has been doing such a good job! We've been doing a lot of praising him that he's so big. Anything to reinforce that thumb-sucking is 'yucky.' I had been worried that he would have trouble falling asleep, or that he'd switch to his other thumb or something. To ward off the switcheroo, we've been applying the Stop to both thumbs. As long as he has a tag or one of his toys, he's been falling right to sleep. It's awesome.

Thumbs - part 1

Well, it's time. Daniel must stop sucking his thumb. He's only 2, and normally the dentist wouldn't worry about this now, but Dr, Morgan says that it's affecting his bite. So, rather than wait and need to spend thousands on orthodontia later, we are going to work on this now. We spent last weekend mentioning it to Daniel and asking him "where's your thumb?" so he'd start getting used to the idea.

Monday he came to me in the morning and said "I need a band-aid for my thumb mommy." holding up his little thumb. He looked like a little Fonzie in Superman jammies holding his puppy. Too cute for words. He was very excited when I put a Shrek bandage on his thumb. I also said that if he still has it on at the end of the day, he'll get a cookie. Daniel's currency - trains or cookies. Apparently he made it through most of the day but the bandage fell off just before nap. His teachers tried to pull his thumb out of his mouth, but he tends to suck very hard while he is asleep.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were repeats of the above. Bandage in the morning, but it would always fall off. I was at the dentist on Thursday so I picked up some Mavala Stop. It's a nail polish that is supposed to be very bitter. I didn't try it. You swipe a coat on the necessary digit's nails every two days. So Daniel got his first coat last night.

This morning, I asked Daniel "Where's your thumb?" and, as usual, he showed me. When I pulled out the Stop, thinking I should be sure that the first coat held well enough, he looked a little concerned and said "I don lie tat." (I don't like that.) So, maybe it's working already. I didn't do another coat today, I'll follow the directions on the bottle and see how it goes.

I really hope this works. I don't want to be a mean mommy, but we really need this habit to be over. If the Mavala doesn't work, there are a couple of appliances we can try on his hand. That being said, I am concerned that he has too small of a hand for what is on the market (he is such a peanut). There is a custom fit option, but it's about three times as expensive. The last resort will be a dental thing, but they don't usually put those in until the child is about 6, as it attaches to molars.

Watch for updates.

Daniel the Genius and the Goose Party

OK, OK, I'll admit, I'm a little tiny bit biased. But Daniel is a little genius. He is so incredibly interested in nature, it just amazes me. We'll be sitting in the dining room and he'll hear geese flying overhead, honking, and he'll try to find them outside while saying, "I hew geeze mommy!" (I hear geese mommy!) As we drive, especially at this time of year, we tend to see large flocks of geese in the fields, and Daniel always points to them. We call it a goose party.



Last weekend we piled the whole family in the van to drive to a nature park called Fawn-Doe-Rosa. A parent in Abby's class at Goddard told us about it, and I thought the kids would have a good time. We finally get everyone loaded into the car for the hour drive into Wisconsin, and the van won't start. I mean, icky clicking bad not starting. So, rather than just go into the house and watch a movie, we opted to take a walk.



Once we got to the next block, we passed the senior living facility. On the far west side of the building are two ponds. And what did we see? The biggest goose party ever! We walked around, counted geese and had a great time. Daddy even found another caterpillar. We were all quite excited at that, because the first caterpillar we found won't hatch out of it's cocoon until spring.



As we were walking back Nathan was carrying Daniel and we all came to a stop sign. As is typical, we asked Daniel to identify the letters. Daniel correctly identified all of the letters, pointing to each one: "S--T--O--P"

"What does that spell?" asked Daddy.

"OCTAGON!" shouts Daniel, with enthusiasm.



How many two year olds know "octagon?"