Saturday, October 20, 2007

Claire Jane is over right now, and she and Claire Helen are negotiating/playing in the living room. I wish I had gotten this on tape.

CJ: I'm the fox, and you're the hunter! No, no, I'm the DOG and you're the hunter! No. I'm the hunter, and YOU'RE the fox. OK. You be the fox, and I'm the hunter. Go! OK. You're the fox! You're a fox! I'm a hunter, and you're a fox!" (makes move to chase Claire Helen)

CH: I'm a beet. (sticks up arms, squats into a ball, like a beet, I guess?)

Simon: Hey, that's mine! (runs out of room to the notice of nobody, grabs baby doll, declares himself victorious)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Quiet Time in the City

Well, not exactly quiet time, per se, so much as "Simon passed out in the car on the way home from lunch with Mat, and Claire Helen is playing with a puzzle" time. Either way, I am free to amble about on the internet.

And internet, I have a question. Why are all the animal habitats farm animals? Why are there no swamps with alligator nests or rain forests with tree houses? Simon and Claire Helen play amateur biologist with about 40% of their free time,* and seem to really want to play pretend with stuff we see at the zoo or on our front steps, wanting to know who lives in nests or burrows or caves. You'd think there would be more pretend animal habitats out there, wouldn't you? But no. If you see one, let me know. Triple bonus points for meerkats, puffins, or snails. Also, what do you do for a frustrated beginning pre reader? Claire Helen seems to be really, really annoyed that she can't sound out the words in books she likes read to her (who knew that Amelia Bedelia had such an advanced vocabulary, right?), but I am having trouble imagining an interesting book made of words with 3 letters, besides which I think what she's really looking for is success sounding out new words, not really getting whole narratives out of it yet. Games? Non electronic ones?

And for all those questions, I will give you some answers:
Number of times each child has slept in their own bed over the last week: 0
Number of times they have had a sleepover on Simon's floor: 2
Number of times they have swapped beds: 4
Number of times 1 child started out in our bed and the other went to their sibling's bed: 1

Forget musical chairs, we have musical beds. They are awfully sweet when they have a sleepover, though. Awfully. They're so close, lately. Last week Claire Helen was at a playdate when it was time for Simon's nap, and he missed her so much he made me sing her special song to him(they each have their own), and go lay down in her room while he fell asleep.

*other options include in order of frequency: lego house building, Simon plays with doll house while Claire Helen tries to convince him to do anything else(which has actually led to her declaring she only wants Santa Claus to bring Simon his own doll house so she doesn't have to share hers anymore. Despite the fact that she never plays with it.), dress up, puzzles, or art. But animals are number 1 by far.

Friday, October 12, 2007






Just dropping off some braids photos from the afternoon. Claire Helen all the sudden loves them, and wants them in her hair all the time. Simon does not get to show up in this post as he is sleeping; good thing as it's so hard to explain to him why he, too, can't have braids. Or even a sparkly purple clip, poor poppet.

He is, however, completely potty trained, and getting into Big Boy Speaking mode. Example (scintillating) conversation from our car ride this morning:

Si: I see a bus!
Me: I see a bus, too.
Si: WE see a bus! Daddy rides a bus. I ride a bike.
Me: You rode a bike yesterday, with Jack.
Si: WE see a bus!

Scintillating, like I said, but the cute part is it's like he only knows one way to intone a word. So "We see a bus! Daddy rides a bus." sounds more like "WE see! A bus. DADDY! rides. A bus." like those old timey automated customer service phone menus before they had digital voices. Please push! one? for an operator.