Merryhill Carnival

All last week was "Week of the Young Child" at Merryhill.  Each day was a different theme--Pajama Day, Safari Day, Crazy Hair Day--culminating in the school carnival on Saturday morning.  Lulu was awfully excited to go to the carnival and see her friends and it worked out nicely because Daddy had to go in to work that day, so it gave Lulu and me a reason to get out of the house and have something to do.

They had several different tents and activities set up that mirrored the various aspects of their curriculum--Sensory Play, The World & Me, Music/Art, etc.

Lulu built and decorated a bean shaker/musical thingie with her teacher, Miss Carmelina:



Then she headed over to Miss Hilda's tent where she "planted" a radish seed inside a balloon. This particular event is also known as the how-to-make-mommy-paranoid-that-balloon-will-pop-in-her-new-car-before-we-get-home.

 

Afterwards, we headed over to Miss Lisa's face-painting tent. Lulu requested to look like a butterfly, just like her friend Adena. I was amazed that it lasted all day long, but those Crayola watercolor pencils are pretty good stuff!

 

rockin' the Frida Kahlo look....

And we also had fun building a Barbie Dream House out of recycled boxes with Miss Kim:

 

As you can see in the background of this photo, there were LOTS of other tents set up, but these were the ones I managed to snap photos of. Lulu also had fun playing in the blow-up caterpillar with her friend Stella (Stella's daddy, Ross, and I went to German class together and they came over for Thanksgiving this past fall). Once Lulu was done, she was pretty tired, so we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed home for a well-earned nap!

First Trip to the Dentist

Lulu and I went to the dentist together yesterday morning.  I took her to the dentist that Mommy and Daddy use (not a pediatric one), which I think helped to up the cache of the trip.  They have studied teeth and discussed taking care of their teeth in preschool, so she was very excited to go.

After a round of no-you-are-getting-dressed-I-don't-care-if-you-think-all-your-clothes-are-too-big fun for ~30 minutes, we managed to make it to Starbucks (around the corner from the dentist) so Mommy could have some coffee and Lulu ate some chocolate chip banana coffee cake--a treat she would never get at home due to Daddy's banana aversion.

We waited a bit in the waiting room for Lulu's name to be called:



and then we were ushered back into the examination room:

 



The dental assistant showed Lulu all the neat stuff she gets to take home--a children's toothbrush, some toothpaste, floss, and a small, hot pink hourglass timer that she can use to tell how long to brush her teeth. Then, the dentist arrived and she showed Lulu how the equipment worked--the water gun, the vacuum nozzle, etc. Then, they set about "counting" Lulu's teeth:

 

And by "counting" I mean, a quick examination for cavities, etc. I brought up our concern that our water isn't fluoridated and that the pediatrician had prescribed fluoride drops for her to take once a day. The problem is that you're not supposed to give her the drops within an hour of eating dairy products and Lulu is constantly eating yogurt!! So, Dr. Whitten suggested switching to a fluoridated toothpaste instead and not worrying about the fluoride drops. And our final concern was the light grey front tooth and the dentist confirmed our suspicions--the tooth was dead. Apparently, when Lulu fell in the backyard, she damaged the tooth and it died. But, Dr Whitten doesn't think that she damaged the adult tooth underneath it, so her advice was to let it stay where it was and let the adult tooth push it out in a few years. She said the only thing that would cause her to want to pull it out early would be if it got infected, so we are to monitor it for signs of infection in the meantime. On our way out, the receptionist gave Lulu two balloons, so she thinks the dentist is pretty awesome! She has an appointment to come back in 6 months to have her first cleaning. I hope it goes as well as this visit.

 

And once we got home yesterday afternoon, Lulu wanted to bust out her new toothbrush and give it a spin! Whoo-hoo!

Difficult days....

Big Spoon fro-yo with hardening chocolate syrup, gummi worms, jelly beans, and strawberries
because that's the way she rolls....

Lulu and I have been having a series of difficult days recently and we have yet to establish a new equilibrium in our dealings with each other. She is pushing against us, both physically and mentally, and I am trying my best to not get carried away in the moment of parenting to study the pushing and figure out its pattern.

But, man, oh, man, is it hard to not get caught up in the self-righteous indignation against an upstart questioning your authority. Or against someone physically acting out their frustration with you on your person.

I take comfort in the fact that we are not her only targets--she is refusing to eat lunch or snacks at school, too. Everyone is communicating about the problem, so I'm not worried that something has changed at school to make her act this way.

I think it's in her head.

And we're trying our darnedest to figure out what's going on. I have tried responding by giving her more freedom to make choices, thinking that she is digging in her heels in opposition to our demands/requests/pleading to do something. But, she doesn't seem to particularly relish having choices and appears to resent being forced to choose.

For example, I don't care what she wears anymore, as long as she's wearing SOMETHING. Anything. But, last Friday morning, she decided that ALL of her underwear was too small and refused to wear any of it. At all. We finally had to physically force some on to her because it was time to go and we couldn't afford to wait her out any more. So, she arrived at school in her underwear--after I gave her two more chances to get dressed, in the parking lot at school and once we were inside the building. Her "principal" told her that she would have to sit in the "trouble chair" next to her in her office until Lulu decided to get dressed, so Lulu sat down.

And didn't say a word for 40 minutes.

She sat there as other kids were arriving at school, and she didn't feel any compulsion to get dressed. Her principal reminded her twice that she only needed to get dressed and she could go eat snacks and play with her friends in her classroom. According to Bridget, Lulu finally turned to her and said, "Miss Bridget, I want to get dressed now" after 40 minutes of sitting there.

I guess I should feel reassured that social shame and stigma aren't denting the self-confidence of this kid, right?

So, someone is clearly trying to make a point, and we're trying hard to understand what it is. But until we get the message she's sending LOUD and CLEAR, it's going to be a rough time for all of us.

Lulu's First Movie

The weather turned hot (but not hawt) in Sacramento this weekend. The projected highs were for the mid-80s, but the humidity made it feel closer to the mid-90s. So, we decided that the rainy season was over (or at least on the decline?) and busted out our patio furniture:

Gropius cut down the table to make it coffee-table height, perfect for holding drinks!

That's such an awesome photo, isn't it? But, as you can tell from the shirt, someone decided to be a bit um, ornery and dressed herself that day, so we weren't going to mess with her mojo.

And this is an even better photo (not!) from earlier that morning at the movie theater:

I tried getting other shots, but shooting with a flash in a darkened theater is NOT appreciated!
(not during the movie, of course!)

I took Lulu to see her first movie! Disney Nature studios released a 1 hr, 18 minute film on chimpanzees, particularly the plight of an orphaned chimpanzee named Oscar, that I thought Lulu would enjoy. I was a bit worried about the orphaned part, but luckily, they didn't show any of the "darker" moments on camera (just talked about it in classic documentary voice-over style). So, she thought the baby monkey was cute and enjoyed watching him learn how to crack nuts, etc.

And best of all, Disney is donating money to the Jane Goodall Institute based on the first week of ticket sales (full disclosure, only $0.20/ticket, but every little bit helps, right?). I had the opportunity to meet her when I lived in DC and I've had a soft spot in my heart for her chimps ever since.

Now, if only part of my $9 for a small popcorn and bottle of water went to protect chimp habitat, I'd be MORE impressed.....

Hoch in the Air

Lulu busted out this little ditty to us earlier this week at bedtime (as you can tell by the pajamas).  For the non-German speaking readers, "hoch" means "high" and "alle" means "all."  So, she's singing "high in the air, all-all-all."



On a (un)related note, whoever said that a bedtime routine and a quiet bath would calm down children was sorely mistaken!!

Playdate with Max

Our friends from Grass Valley drove down for dinner yesterday afternoon. While dinner was in the oven, we all headed over to the playground at the park to burn off a little excess kid energy. Lulu and Max were pretty adventuresome yesterday (as you can tell from the photos!).

dress, patent leather shoes and leg warmers = perfect outfit for the playground, right?

not quite ready to try swinging from bar to bar

Daddy apparently could push the swing better than Mommy
(and notice the lost shoe--very upset at that!)

dropping the shoes appeared to be a fun new game

I was pretty surprised with Max's relative daringness--to date, he has not been particularly risk-loving, but yesterday, he was definitely a risk-taker!

climbing with Daddy's help...

distracted by the water fountain on our way home

And then, we all walked home and had a nice dinner.

the kids' table.

Easter Egg-Hunting

Clearly, the Easter bunny needs to be more devious in his/her egg-hiding abilities next year....

Happy Easter

Our Easter celebrations started off quietly at home--we ate a quick (i.e., regular weekday) breakfast so that we could be dressed and ready to go to church by 11am.

Lulu was excited to go to church and wanted to wear her "white dress." It took us about five minutes or so to figure out that she meant her white baptismal dress (she played with it back in January when Onkel Stephan was here visiting and has referenced it several times since then). After I showed her pictures on the blog of her as a baby wearing the dress in question and explained that it was for babies, not big girls, we were able to persuade her to wear the white, pink, and green dress from her third birthday party. It still fits her around the chest and the skirt is a little short (but not too bad--still hits just above the knee).

So, once we were all dressed and ready, we had to go down the street to give Scooter (our neighbor's dog) his medicine and let him outside before we could get to church. The other young couple down the street has had a bad run of luck lately--Tim has suffered two brain hemorrhages since mid-March. He had surgery to remove the blood clot last Friday at UC San Francisco and we are hopeful that they will be allowed to discharge today and come home. In the meantime, we (mainly I) have been giving Scooter his medicine twice a day and letting him outside to go to the bathroom because *he* had surgery on March 31st, too. Like I said, a bad run of luck.

Adding to the excitement was a loose lab-mix mutt running across Cap City Freeway, causing cars to slam on their brakes at 70 mph (and causing at least one major accident). So, we were quite relieved to finally make it to church. And on time no less.

When presented with the option after the children's sermon of staying with Mommy and Daddy and having to be quiet or getting to go play with some new friends, Lulu took the predicted option. I won't lie--it felt really weird to be able to concentrate on the sermon without having to simultaneously entertain (and keep quiet) a restive toddler. And Lulu had a great time in the preschool room--they had an Easter egg hunt during services, so when we picked her up, she was proudly showing us all the candy she'd already eaten.

Sigh.

When we got home, we told her that the Easter Bunny would come while she was asleep. I thought for sure that information would cause the shortest nap ever, but she was actually down for ~2 hrs. Heaven! In the meantime, the Easter Bunny visited and hid eggs all over the garden....



Once all the eggs were found, we had some fun sorting the various candies into bowls and chowing down on our chocolate bunny that Siggi and Snorri gave the Easter Bunny to bring for Lulu....









Lulu found Reeses peanut butter cups, Hershey's kisses, and jelly beans in addition to the play-dough filled eggs that the Easter Bunny put in her basket!

Later that afternoon, once we'd had a nice family walk around the neighborhood and played in the park a bit, we came home and dyed Easter eggs together. Daddy blew out the eggs and then Lulu and I dyed them yellow and purple.





And in related news, we had a Spanish tortilla for dinner with all the eggs while Lulu had a couple of scrambled eggs and some bacon.

First Birthday

Lulu was invited to one of her Merryhill classmate's fourth birthday party this past weekend. This is her first (real) invitation to a birthday party, not her own--"real" in the sense that she understood that it was someone else's birthday and was genuinely excited to attend the party. We went shopping the weekend before for Maddie's birthday present(s) and Lulu picked out the wrapping paper and "helped" me wrap them. Ever since, she's asked me everyday if she was going to Maddie's party that day...matters weren't helped any by the news that Maddie's parents had rented a bounce house!!

And finally the big day came! It was a great party in the sense that Lulu was surrounded by other little girls that she already knew from school, so she felt right at home, even though she'd never been there before. The girls loved the bounce house and ate pizza before enjoying cake, ice cream, and present-opening. As you can see, Lulu had a wonderful time:

Birthday girl, Maddie (in black and pink),  Lulu, and BFF Sam

Hello Kitty cake and cupcakes

It helped that her BFF (BestFriendForever), Sam, was also there with her mother, Laurie (who I know from Junior League).

Hmmm, what's this I hear about cupcakes??  I'm intrigued!

seriously Hello Kitty cake!

Lulu was quite excited to show Maddie her birthday card that she decorated, just for her, with LOTS of stickers.

look at all the stickers--you must admire them before you can open your present!

Maddie and her mom handed out thank-you goodie bags with Hello Kitty glittery nail polish that Lulu insisted I paint on just her right hand that afternoon. And each fingernail had to be a different color.

Flower Power.

Inspired by this photo from Pinterest, I decided to try doing this with Lulu yesterday:



Our experiment worked out pretty well! I forgot about the spreadage factor of baking, so our "flowers" sort of looked like multi-colored fried eggs, but they were tasty just the same. To simplify things, I just used the Pilsbury sugar cookie dough that comes in a tube from the grocery store and Wilton frosting colors. We got to roll the cookie dough like it was playdough to mix all the colors in well. And Lulu ended up with blue lips and teeth when she stuck the toothpick I was using for the food coloring into her mouth!

Lulu thought they were beautiful. And the food coloring wore off by the time she went to bed, so no awkward conversations about why she looks like she has hypothermia at daycare this morning...

The best part of the day was at the very end when I was tucking her in to sleep last night and as she was giving me a hug, she said, "Thank you for making cookies with me, Mama."

Playdate

Lulu and I joined up with Shaya and her daddy's girlfriend, Renee, at McKinley Park this past weekend for a play-date.  It was my first opportunity to meet Renee and I have to agree with Tina's assessment of her, "She's the best 'other mother' a girl could ask for."  She was very friendly and open and we had a good time getting to know each other and letting the girls run around and play.

Unfortunately, I don't have any shots of Lulu and Shaya together (I was too busy chatting!), but I do have a few to share of Lulu playing on her own before Shaya's arrival.

McKinley Park's playground is a nice one in that it's a HUGE wooden structure with lots of nooks and crannies for kids to explore.  Lulu had a great time climbing, crawling, jumping, swinging, and balancing her way through.



This particular "bridge" posed the greatest difficulty for her of the stuff that she was tall enough to reach (there were also hanging loops to swing across like a monkey, but she's not tall enough to reach them on her own yet!).  It took quite a bit of encouragement to get her up onto the platform, but she was so proud of herself when she managed to wiggle her away up that final step!





As she practiced on it several times, there were older (~7 yrs?) boys who climbed over and around her. She didn't let it phase her at all--I was so proud--and I didn't say anything to them because they were just being kids. So, it's actually unusual I was able to get this shot of her playing on it by herself:



I mention the older boys because I had an interesting experience on that playground myself--my first instance of helicopter parenting. Renee and I were chatting while following the girls around the play structure--generally keeping our distance and letting them play while simultaneously keeping an eye on them. Given that McKinley's play structure is wooden, that makes it hard to always have a good vantage point, but we were always aware of where they were and what they were doing (for the most part).

Imagine my surprise then when a man comes over on his way to another part of the playground and asks if Lulu and Shaya are ours (as they were running by us). We responded, "Yes," and he said, "Well, they're mean. And you need to keep a closer eye on them because they almost hurt my little girl." Renee asked what he was talking about (I didn't have any clue either) and he said that one of them had her hands on his daughter's shoulders and was telling her, "No." According to him, if he hadn't intervened, then he argued that she would have pushed his daughter down and hurt her. (I honestly didn't know what he was talking about because I could see that they had been at a low slide across the playground, but I couldn't see them that well through the wooden timbers). Renee responded that she had been watching them the entire time and that she/we would have intervened if his daughter had been pushed. He said, "Well, she had her hands on her shoulders and was telling her no," and Renee argued that, "She has every right to tell her no." He walked off muttering that anyway, *she* was mean to his daughter.

At this point, I turned to Renee and asked, "Was it Lulu or Shaya?" And it was Lulu. Renee said that he was right--Lulu did have her hands on the other little girl's shoulders and was telling her no, but she did not in any way push her. As Renee put it, "She could tell that if the other little girl hit the ground, it would've been bad."

As a mother I have a couple of reactions:

1. I'm reassured to see that Lulu has no problem standing up for herself and letting others know what she thinks/feels about something. I think that's a positive trait and one that I hope to encourage in her through adulthood. It's hard to handle when you're on the opposing end of something she doesn't want to do, but objectively, that's a characteristic that will help her become a self-assured, confident young woman.

2. On the other hand, I also don't want her self-confidence to turn her into a bully either. It's one thing to stand up for what you think and another completely to run roughshod over others who don't feel the same way you do. I will say though that the guy is clearly overly protective--it didn't help his case any that every time I saw him after that exchange, he was *carrying* his daughter (who was perfectly capable of walking btw).

3. I wonder how old he thought Lulu was. I told Renee that I was chalking it up to another instance of people expecting Lulu to act differently because she's taller and heavier than other little girls her age. When your 3.5 year old is over 40 inches tall and over 40 pounds and wears size 6 clothes and 11.5 shoes, people expect her to act like a 6 year old. But, she's 3.