On staying focused: a Dialogue

Elliot: Mixer! Mixer!
Elliot: [farts]
B: Do you need to poop?
Elliot: No, that's a mixer.

Ill Communications

This is the kind of kiddie blog material that's very hard to make interesting for those who don't already happen to have toddlers around. It's about wee childish sniffling, pitiful coughing, soughing, wheezing, the having of a reddish, heated hairline, a warm smooth back, a feverish glint in the eye and a sweaty forelock. Also: sullen pink blotches in the cheeks, unstable sleeping patterns and caterwauling at 2, accepting mildly (or strenuously rejecting) a rectal thermometer. It's those rashes around the nose and mouth from being wet too often and wiped too often. It's the too-short nap (making for a bitter and unstable afternoon) or its cousin, the over-nap, which makes, in turn, for a long and weird evening. It's the doctor telling you it's "probably a virus" and sending you home with bupkis.

Longstanding, inexplicable illness and general sorry-assedness like this makes human experience unpleasant by the yard, by the hour, by the week. It turns the fun-o-meter down on all things. It makes me think of what most of human history must have been like. All that nursing, being nursed, all the slowly getting worse.

Pox of all sorts has been coming and going in our home since before Thanksgiving. It's gone back and forth between me, and Sarah, and Elliot -- briefly affected Ada -- and even struck Elliot's Mimi (who lost her voice for Xmas). The glands in my neck STILL don't feel like they're the right size (or the same size as each other). We've all been a right mess.

We thought it was just a basic holiday virus extravaganza, and it probably is, but I noticed something else yesterday that goes a long way in tying together some of the phenomena we've been seeing. While Elliot and I were in the shower together, he was opening up his mouth wide to get a stream of water, and I discovered . . . .

MOLARS!

(cue video)



Two sharp, white, splendid, well-crested, well-earned upper back molars. These things are like Moby Dick (in stereo) to Elliot's immune system (how quickly we forgot).

Only two more such monsters and he will have a complete set of baby teeth.


Those grippy gums I loved to have chawing at my thumb are well and truly gone.

Elliot's sleeping arrangement

From Sarah's mom:

What we had to do for [Sarah] might still be possible with the Plum’s crib:

We took the springs out, kinda dismantled the bed. Put the MATTRESS on the FLOOR, INSIDE THE FRAME of your bed! Then lowered the side to the top of the mattress—so it added the height of the mattress to the height of the side, thus making it harder for you to pole vault out. plus when you did (as you inevitably did) you started from a lower spot.

Yup, we ended up doing exactly that, because Elliot started being a climber. It's working really well.

Sippy Cup Design Study: We Have Our Winner

After 2.25 years and numerous sippy cups, it's become clear to me that the Playtex sippy cup variety pictured above is, for our purposes, the big winner. And now that they are sold without BPAs, I can recommend them with a clear conscience.

A design review:

• Handles essential. Hook side-handles rather than closed rings highly preferred. So you can hook the sippy cup in your pocket while you carry a yodeling toddler down the hall. So you can hook it in the seat pocket on an airplane. Et cetera. We've had various kinds, and this arrangement just seems more handy, more often.
• Translucent plastic, rather than opaque. So you can see in there! Are there dried-on milk rings that need to be scrubbed? Floating crumbs? Toy soldiers? Translucence is key.
  
• Wide and sturdy rather than tall and narrow. If the valve is leaking, or missing (an inevitability, eventually), the cup is just a bit less likely to tip over and make an issue of itself. If the lid happens to be off, for grown-up style drinking (also know as "going commando"), the wide base makes it easier for little ones to successfully pick the sippy up and set it back down. And it's easier to clean with a regular kitchen sponge (rather than a wee bottle brush), because you can get your hand in there. It can also fit a conventional kitchen brush . Or even a rag on a stick . (Rag-on-a-stickers, you know who you are.)
• Since toddler hands can fit into this cup as well, it can be used in a pinch as a to-go container for Cheerios, goldfish, or their organic, whole-wheat-based, non-hydrogenated equivalents.
  
• The sippy can be dropped, but the valve will generally stay snugly in place. One higher-end BPA-free brand of sippy cup has a white plastic valve piece (nestled up under the cap) that tends to fall out if the cup is dropped, leaving the valve floating around in the beverage. Sippy cups get dropped constantly, of course, so this is super-lame. The cute Sigg aluminum bottles that everyone is buying like crazy happen to dent and ding like crazy. And their cute Swiss paint jobs start to flake off rather quickly (yikes).
  
• It's not only possible to clean the very inventive, very simple Playtex valve assembly (one gold star), it's actually sort of easy to do so (three gold stars!). The otherwise stellar reputation of Avent products does not make up for a valve design that is fussy and really tough to clean. Born Free cups : basically uncleanable. If used for milk, liable to start smelling quickly. The Siggs are worse here: I was amazed at how quickly milk (and toddler-backwash) sours in contact with the metal of those bottles. If the breakfast-time Sigg bottle happens to be left sitting out in the few hours til lunch, trying opening it up and sniffing the rim of the bottle. Not good. If it was accidentally left in a diaper bag overnight (which does happen from time to time)...."it would be bad.")
  
• This sippy involves 3 pieces, sum total. (see also: easy to clean; easy for family friends and relatives to figure out without instructions; easy to keep track of.)

Downsides of the winning sippy cup

• Not dishwasher-safe. But nothing in this category is, really; and the aluminum Sigg bottles aren't, either. We bought one, and I read the instructions very closely. Hand wash! Hello, wee bottle brush.
  
• Relatively soft plastic on the mouthpiece. As a sort of absentminded tic, or perhaps a hobby, Elliot gnaws, digs at, penetrates, and generally destroys mouthpieces and straws, whether they are hard or soft plastic. In end, the result is always the same; the softer plastic just means we have to get rid of the sippy head sooner.
  

Elliot is getting on in years, so some may be wondering why, or if, we still need sippy cups.

We so do.

As an example, I flew four flights on Northwest Airlines over Thanksgiving, in the company of my very milk-oriented son. On none of those flights was there any milk available for purchase or barter! I guess Northwest has stopped serving milk, even with coffee. Adapting to this, I brought along, for the 3-hour flight from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City (a leg where I flew solo with him), an eight-ounce cup of milk I purchased from the airport Starbucks -- clear plastic cup, clear plastic lid, green straw.

What was I thinking??

The crawling, the peekaboo (the tipping over), the bumping around; the accelerating during takeoff (the tipping over); the banking; the rolling around; the giggling (the straw getting bent down and then flipped up repeatedly, flinging dots of milk on the walls, on the seats, on my glasses, in his hair). The crushing of the crushable plastic sides of the cup (the spilling on the seat). Have we ever mentioned that Elliot cries over spilled milk? He does. He says (in a mournful, drawn-out kind of Eliza Doolittle elocution), "What haaaaappened?" over and over. Our standard answers ("Well, buddy, some expensive organic dairy product got spilled on this here naugahide seat cushion/flotation device") don't seem to satisfy the question he's actually asking. So he takes my chin in his hands (he does) and looks me full in the face and asks again, forlornly, "Wha'huuuappennned?" and a big pearly tear is stripped away from the corner of his eye.

And a little drop of my soul (of the same size and shape) goes spinning out the back of the plane.

We got two new sippy cups at Target today, and I feel great about them.

Overheard

(ELLIOT absentmindedly squeezes the mole on SARAH's neck, as she carries him around Target.)

ELLIOT: What's that?

SARAH: That's my mole.

ELLIOT: That's a pomegranate.

Toddlers are awesome!

I mean, they are not always awesome.  Often they totally suck.  But mostly they're awesome.  For instance, this morning I was unwrapping a new book sent to Elliot by his mimi (thanks, mimi!!).  I held it up for Elliot to see, and said, "Look, Elliot!  A Christmas tree!"  And he said, "OH!!!!  A Christmas tree!  WITH MONKEYS IN IT!!!" and grabbed the book and ran off.  

I don't know where he got the idea that christmas trees come decorated with monkeys--certainly there are no monkeys in the tree on the book's cover--but I must say I think it's a fantastic idea.  

well.

we continue to be just...busy.  but that's boring to talk about.

i did want to pop up, though, and ask, "how do we do this crib-toddler bed transition thing?"  Elliot tonight almost successfully plunged out of his crib, which to me is the clear sign that we need to break the fourth wall, as it were, and admit that it is full-on toddler bed time.  I mean, that's what this toddler bed thing is for, right?  But on the other hand, Elliot seems in no way ready for a toddler bed, and I don't say that in a nostalgic, "oh, my baby!" kind of way.  I say that in a "but really, he doesn't know how not to kill himself kind of way."  

If we take off the side of the crib, what will he do in the morning when he wakes up?  this is a VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION.  I am partly worried about my own sleep, of course, because there are days when elliot still wakes up inordinately early, and he sort of rely on that crib to contain him while he (hopefully) goes back to sleep. 

But even if he wakes up at the right time, what if he decides he wants to do something besides wake us up?  what if he decides that first thing in the morning would be a great "dive bomb off the couch" time?  this is entirely likely!  I don't want him up and loose when I'm sleeping anymore than I want him home alone.

But maybe this is fine?  maybe they just always always wake you up?  Reassure me, fine people.

in other news, I talked to a friend today who is just home from the hospital with her newborn baby.  she is in that Very Tired Place.  Send her thoughts of good sleep, and easy nursing, poor dear.

  

Nov 4

VOTE!

Everybody's doing it!

Autumnal stuff

After a hiatus of about a month, we're back in the picture-taking business. It's really fall now. We've got haybales, snuggly robes, apple-picking, apple pies, butternut squash soup, apple cider donuts, and some Mario Kart Wii: these are the things of autumn.



Sarah is busy, busy every night til bedtime, with her books and papers, job applications, letters, writing samples, second writing samples, and marked-up drafts of all of these, in a revolving cycle of edits. What with that, student papers to grade, Elliot trying to climb on the counter to get to the blender, and an election to win, Sarah is totally booked. Good thing there's a set of grandparents on the way in less than 24 hours.

Elliot is booked, but in a different way. He has a new jones for reading books. In bed. Alone. It's the darnedest thing.

He simply informs us sometimes, out of the blue, that he wants to get in bed and read books. (Seems to have cooked this idea up on his own at some point.) So we obligingly drop him into the crib, and he points out the books he wants, and we slip them through the bars of the crib. Then he asks us to leave, so we leave. He reads silently for sometimes as much as half an hour. Meanwhile, Sarah and I tiptoe away and open the champagne.

Our burning glee is tempered by the nagging idea that he will try to climb out, unassisted, and that it will go poorly. It would definitely go poorly. Maybe he needs an actual bed now?

Famous Plum

UPDATE: Here's the official press release. Note my weird blinky photograph eyes. Elliot is definitely the star around here.

UPDATED AGAIN!: Okay, here's our 2 minutes of fame, and never say I don't tell all. Things to note: Elliot being totally overwhelmed and exhausted; Brandon being confused because he was not, originally, supposed to be on air and thus hadn't showered; Alexi being super suave; and me being all shiny (I don't really own much make-up? so just put on extra tinted moisturizer, which I sometimes use instead of foundation? but which apparently, under bright lights, makes you look like a greased pig?); and especially me being all, um, what's your question? when clearly the question was supposed to be totally vague so I could give whatever canned sound bite I was evidently supposed to have ready.

I will tell you that immediately upon leaving the studio, Elliot really perked up and was all, "I was on tv!!!" And this morning he said, "I on tv? again?" So apparently he felt that it was, overall, a positive experience.

---

OK, so. . . . the State of Illinois runs a college-savings program, called a 529 plan. To promote the program and encourage people to save for college, they held a contest. Our friend works for the state treasurer, and she prompted us to submit something. So we submitted a classic Elliot video, which was shot about 6 months ago with a beat-up little pocket camera. (We had blogged it here:
http://thelittleplum.blogspot.com/2008/05/few-elliot-video-tidbits.html)

The next thing we know, #1 sweet-potato-smearing son is going to be part of a statewide marketing campaign. He also won $1000 for his 529 account (to be contributed post-crash -- whew!). (Barring further crashes.) (Try not to think about it.)

I don't have the footage of us on the local news today (except on our Tivo). But we do have the TV commercial spot which they created around our home video. It's at

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/146180/BrightStartCommercial.mov

Request from the commercial universe

[Note: this post was all small and tidy, and then I started adding pictures and it got all big and complicated. Ah! Irony!]

So, Whitney just posted a NYT story about the number of families who are choosing to live, with their children, in small, dense spaces. The story is particularly about people who choose to stay in Manhattan, but I like to think there's a larger trend (maybe not much larger, but still) of people who are realizing that having a huge huge house is not necessary for family happiness. One of the things I like about my life is that it doesn't involve a lot of suburban sprawl: there are lots of reasons why I've made that choice.

But what I now need is some toy companies to understand this.

We just got a toy catalog in the mail yesterday--back to basic toys. It's a perfectly fine catalog, successfully walking the line between practical and affordable (it's not all hand carved wood or something) and aesthetically reasonable (it's not all battery-powered elmo toys). Most of the toys seem designed to ellicit activity and imagination. So, good, right?

But what I need is a "back to basic" toys that is filtered down for small spaces.

As I see it, small spaces need toys that have at least two qualities:

1: even if they get big, they can be stored in small containers

2: getting the toy out of the small container and putting it together is PART of the fun, and something kids can do themselves.

So, for instance, Elliot's wooden train stuff. This is not ours, but you get the idea:

Elliot has a mix of Thomas, Brio, and Ikea railroad tracks and trains, but they all fit together and they're BRILLIANT. When he's playing with them it is a BIG IMPRESSIVE TOY--they cover the floor of his whole room--but they store really compactly. He can put them together in any number of ways, and no one way is wrong or right, and then when he's done he loves to throw them in a box--they're basically indestructable.

Also, here's one that Nana got Elliot for Christmas last year, which has been a hit. It is BIG and exciting:

But it folds up really small! Really small. and then when you untie it, it pops out all excitingly. Great.

Compare to this:

Which I'm sure Elliot would love. But it's huge! And it's always huge. It is one big huge thing, always the same big huge thing. There's no stowing it away and bringing it out later when you need something new and exciting. It's just always sitting there, all huge, in my living room.

Anyway, perhaps there are already a number of "cool toys for small spaces" catalogs out there, and if there are, I wish someone would let me know. Because Elliot loves toys and I love to buy them for him, but I'm not willing to move to accomodate them.

"I go see it"

A couple things Elliot doesn't quite understand:

A hissing, steaming radiator.  He knows that it's a hot thing, and hot things are dangerous.  Because they cause ouch.  He knows that he's being "carefully", as he puts it, by not touching.  His deference and respect are a little bit comical.  But it's the noise that bewitches him, the rumblings, hissings, and poppings.  He says, "What's that sound make?"  He knows something powerful is happening, and he's not convinced that where he is is where the action is.  "I go see it."

The moon.  We all four trundled downstairs into the street to see the (full?) moon rising over the lake a few nights ago, just after I got home from work.  Ada was all stirred up and dashing around -- we never just stand in the middle of the street like that.  She was acting like it was fire drill day at school and she'd just eaten a whole box of Nerds.  Elliot was placid in my arms.  We talked in circles about how the moon was coming up and the sun had gone down -- a familiar theme for us, these days, because little boys go to sleep when the moon is up, and they play with trains when the sun is up.  He liked the enormous yellow moon, but were we there yet?  "I go see it."

It's fall

It really is: today was so chill and sideways-lit. The afternoon was lovely, but there was a lot of bluster and I wished I'd had a scarf.

Which makes it hard to remember that just last Sunday we were doing this:



Because it was SO SO WARM. Everyone was out sun-bathing by the lake. And me, because I am the daughter of one Barbara Mesle, which means that I am hard core, did this:


I enjoyed my swim, though maybe not as much as enjoyed the idea of my swim. It was cold out there.

Chicago weather has a terrible reputation, but it always sort of irritates me to hear people complain about it. There are always these great warm days interspersed through things, and I love the fickleness of that, just like I love cold days in summer.

Anyway, this second video is unrelated to weather or swimming, but I suppose it does have a tenuous beach connection. Here's Elliot's current version of "row, row, row your boat." In it's own way, it too is rather hard core. I love the idea that it's sort of pump-up football music.

Art Appreciation for Toddlers

Well, because we are our demographic (and because it's good) the Fleet Foxes album is getting a lot of play around here this fall. It's really excellent kitchen music, and I recommend it.

But this album has a special bonus for us, because Elliot is fascinated by the cover. I had never thought about it, but it makes sense that he'd love Pieter the Elder--big crazy scenes, so much going on, animals and interactions of all kinds.

Things he likes best about this picture:
Birds
Boats
The man who spilled his soup
Windows
Fish

His favorite thing is clearly:
THE BUTT!!!

Thing most confusing:
The saint. How to explain this one? Difficult.

Things he has not yet noticed and thus we have not yet had to explain:
What the man is doing on that ball?
The pig butchering (which I think we will fold into the catgory of "sheep getting a haircut" for a while yet)