Bede will eat almost anything if you put ketchup on it.

Faith has a new-found interest in dinosaurs. Drawing them, reading about them, singing about them… Next week we’re goin’ to SNOMNH (that’s the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.) Grrrowl! Check out the virtual tour!

Gilbert has seven teeth and is walking. And saying “A baaah? Iblet. Sork. Na na na na na. Ah!”

Abby is lately telling elaborate stories with lengthy convoluted plots involving nursery rhyme characters, pirates, our family and various small cute animals. They’re actually quite interesting to hear (compared to your regular Waiting For Godot-esque four year old ramblings, yk) and I hope she keeps it up.

That is all.

So today I thought to myself, in the midst of a kid crisis, “Don’t say what you want to say. Say what you’d want to hear.”

I’m pretty pleased with that one!

Beatrice Elizabeth
or
Theodore Daniel

As is our habit, we’re alternating between referring to the baby as “Theotrice” and “Beadore”. We think we’re so clever.

In the last few months my elder son, Bede, has begun to show favor toward wheeled vehicles. He has a collection of Hot Wheels that he enjoys lining up and vrooming about on the floor and the coffee table and the dining table and pretty much any flat surface he can find.

Tonight, for the first time in months (years?), we went to Barnes and Noble. I was looking for Without Feathers by Woody Allen (which they had but I couldn’t bring myself to cough up $7 for) and of course any visit to Barnes and Noble is incomplete without a lengthy stay in the kids’ section. That means: the train-table. The last time we went Bede was no more interested in the train-table than he was in anything else; he mostly wanted to run up and down the aisles cackling, stopping periodically to fling books. Hence why we have not been in months (years.)

But tonight… ladies and gentlemen he loved that train-table. He choo-chooed the trains around. He busily helicoptered the helicopters. He backed the engines into the roundhouse. In short the boy played the heck outta those trains!

We were floored. Who is this boy and what has he done with my dervish toddler Bede? Can it be that he is easing into rambunctious boyhood from exhausting exuberant toddlerhood? I’m not placing bets yet but I think I see a trend.

Just like every other time you went!

Actually that is not the case, as it was one of the better times. I’d put it at the fourth or fifth best time, out of twentysome visits. Much fun was had! Fatty foods were eaten, livestock were peered at, rides were ridden, balloons were bought, and we just had a great ol’ time. Sean has pictures on his computer; I’m sure he’ll photoblog later.

I was excited to discover before we got there that there was going to be a wool spinning demo in the Expo Hall, which I saw with Gilbert en sling while Sean, Bede and the girls wandered around looking at cows and chickens and sheep and ate something involving ice cream and chocolate and sticks. I talked to the spinners for a little while and got to see low and high whorl drop spindles and a saxony and a castle wheel in action. None of the spinners there had any fiber animals of their own (well, one allowed as to how she had a collie, heh) but they had roving from about 8 breeds of sheep, alpaca and llama. I had a great time, even though I didn’t attempt any spinning. I didn’t want an assist from Gilbert. I think I’ll make a drop spindle.

Now I have a sleeping boy on my shoulder who needs a bed to nap upon.

UPDATE: Photos? Here ya go.

The first little pig, of course, built his house out of .

But I just realized today that my little urban daughters think he built his house out of .

Sean requested banana bread, so the girls and I made some.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, salted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups mashed overripe bananas
1/4 cup oatmeal

Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl, combine flours and baking soda. In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar, then use the butter wrapper to grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Slowly add flour mixture to banana mixture, stir until just moistened. Pour batter into greased loaf pan. Sprinkle oatmeal on top. Bake one hour. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Wait a bit to let it cool more if you can, it’s easier to cut. I never can wait.

Yum.

I just ordered a few diaper covers from Punkin-Butt for Gilbert. I use a combination of nylon pull-on and wool pull-on covers, and all the nylon covers had lost their waterproofing or the elastic had gone out at the leg, so it was time for new ones. Some of them were purchased when Faith was Gil’s size, so I think I certainly got my money’s worth! Each cover had been washed about 1000 times in all and they cost $5 each. Go cloth diapers!

Anyway, I can’t recommend a cloth diaper and natural parenting shop more. They have superior customer service, a great selection of lots of products, good prices, numerous shipping options… the list goes on. And they also run All Natural Mamas, with even MORE stuff.

I don’t get any kickbacks or nothin, I just like to shop there with my pitiful $20 every three or four years, and I wanted you to know about them too.

(For anyone stumbling onto this post from Sean’s blog or elsewhere who didn’t even know about cloth diapers and has now has his or her curiosity piqued, I recommend Cloth Diapers 101. They’ve come a long way from flat gauze, wet pails and rubber pants.)

We’ve had a heck of a time lately - money trouble. We managed to just barely kick one of the wolves at the door in the teeth (the groceries wolf), but his packmates are slavering away still. Man!

I’m wiped tired. My legs are tired, my back is tired, my arms are tired. Hell I think my hair is even tired. I know it’s from carrying Gilbert around because he can feel me stressing so he gets stressed too so he wants me more etc etc. And the stressing itself is exhausting too! Argh! I’m sick of typing about it already!

Faith and Abby had their second ballet class tonight, and this time Sean took them. I think they need to drop back a class to the preK-K class, of younger kids - Abby is having a bit of trouble keeping up in the K-1 class. Some of those girls are nearly 3 years older than she is, and it shows. She needs teacher attention more than anyone else, and I want this to be fun and ever so slightly challenging to her, not real work. Faith I think would do fine staying in the class, but she and Abby don’t want to be separated. I’m going to call their teacher tomorrow and ask her what she thinks, and if she approves the change, get them in the preK-K class. It’s a big class so I need to make sure there’s room. (The girls really like going to ballet, by the way - I think I make this more of a thing than they do. But still.)

Doing pretty good on the communication today. Worst: I was terse and even ugly-toned with Faith when she completely fell apart when her friends left before they all got to play pirates. Best: I shut the hell up and bit back my grownup solution to the three-kids-one-computer squabble before bedtime and instead recouched their words and thoughts for them so they could figure it out themselves. Which they did, and were all laughing splendidly a minute or two later.

Here’s to striving for mindful parenting and looking for some spare spondulicks.

I’m working on relearning how to talk and listen with my kids. We had such a hugely stressful summer that I had gotten really bad about not listening, but only waiting to talk, and just being a real jerk and minimizing their troubles. I had so many big issues on my mind that their kid issues seemed to be a bothersome and overdramatic fly in my already overpopulated ointment.

So anyway, in that vein, here are my worst and best communication moments for the day.

The Worst:
Me: Abby, go to the bathroom. It’s time for bed.
A: But I don’t have any pee!
Me: I don’t care, just go in and sit on the toilet for a second. It’s bedtime
A: No, I don’t have to pee!
…this continues for a few rounds…
Me: (angry now) Go try to pee or you don’t get any stories before bed!
A: (resignedly) Sigh. Okay, I’ll go pee.

Ugh what an ass I was. I’d rather change a thousand sheets than treat my kid that way. Lesson learned - tomorrow I won’t be such a control freak.

The Best:

Faith has hurt her eye accidentally, and is whimpering a bit. I offer a wet rag to put on it, saying that it might make it feel better. She accepts, sniffling, and goes to sit down.

Subjunctive version:
F: Mama, what if my eye hurts forever?
My ususal response, of late (This is NOT what I said): Sigh. It won’t hurt forever. Just hold that rag on it and you’ll be fine soon. Don’t play that way from now on unless you want to get hurt.
F: sniffle, begins to cry softly

What a denying not-listening jerk I am! ‘Want’ to get hurt? WTH? Give me a break! WHo is this woman in my brain?

What actually happened (yay!):
F: Mama, what if my eye hurts forever?
Me: (Pause, as I bite back jerk response) That would be pretty crummy, huh?
F: Yeah.
Me: Do you think your eye will hurt forever?
F: (Pause) No.
Me: Me neither.
F: (Pause) Hey you were right Mama! It feels fine now! Thanks for the wet rag! I think I should be more careful with my pinwheel. (skips off happily)

So anyway, you win some, you lose some. I’m giving myself credit for even noticing there was a problem. Yay me!

I’m rereading How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by the way. Great book.