I Love You

Penny has lately been telling Tray and I, "I Love You." It comes out more like, "I lovf you," but still it is very sweet. Right now she seems very sincere when she says it. This evening at dinner she kept giving me hugs and telling me she loves me. You just can't beat that kind of confidence boost!

Gymnastics

One of the things about Troy (and really Alabama in general) is the lack of public space. As a geographer, this is interesting to me. As a mom, it's annoying. In Tallahassee there were lots of parks and playgrounds and public activities like concerts and outdoor movies. I was a member of a meetup group that had regular play dates and was even getting a homeschooling preschool co-op going. In Troy, not so much. There's one playground built adjacent to a housing project which means the "kids" playing there do stuff like hang out on the equipment shooting bottle rockets. Or we took Penny there last weekend early one morning and there was a grandmother there with her 4 year old and 13 month old granddaughters. She was holding the 13 month old while helping the older one play - and chain smoking the whole time. While HOLDING the baby. I have this theory that small towns in Alabama don't have public parks for the same reason that they don't have public transportation - because white people would have to interact with black people. So the only park Troy has was obviously built with grant money next to the projects and that's the only reason there is one at all. All of this is stuff I did not miss about Alabama - although it may be more of a city/town thing. But.
In trying to find something for Penny to do activity-wise, I found out that there is a parent and tot gymnastic class at the recreation center. It meets on Thursday afternoons and is very unstructured. The little ones just run around on the equipment, and the "instructor" stops by periodically to encourage them to try something or another but doesn't stay long before moving on to the next kid. It's very laid back. In addition to getting Penny some interaction with other kids, it's always nice as a mom to be around other kids to compare/contrast (in a good way) to make sure we're on track with things. The class Penny and I are in is for kids up to 36 months. There was a 3 and 4 year old class going on at the same time and they were much more structured. None of the little ones in our group were interested in each other much at all whereas the 3 and 4 years olds had no problem being part of a "group." Anyway, I was glad to see that this seems to be normal childhood development and not something particular to Penny.
So, the one thing that I was worried about physically with P is that she hasn't jumped yet. I know there is a range of time when kids do stuff like that, but I couldn't help but notice that all the other kids, some much younger than she, could jump in the trampolines and loved to bounce around. She'd maybe bend her knees if I asked her, but her idea of bouncing was to high step one leg at a time. The instructor got her up on one of the small trampolines and held her arms, but Penny just sat down. But, she is awesome on the thing where they climb up the wall on the rope net and slide down the other side into the ball pit and she was great at the balance beam. You just have to barely hold her hand and she can walk all the way across with little effort or concentration. AND, the next day at home she "jumped" outside in our yard. She didn't really get off the ground much, but she's clearly working on it in her head and I bet when we go back on Thursday, she'll be trying to jump on the trampolines and other equipment.

Blast from the past

Today one of our old friends, Amanda, came over to visit. She has a 7 month old, Anna Claire, who also came over. We knew Amanda when we lived in Troy before. She was an Anthropology major, but was just starting as I was leaving. Penny really liked her. I told Tray though that Penny is like a cat in that she prefers when people only mildly pay attention to her. If you show up excited to see the grownups and showing concern for your own child as Amanda did, Penny will warm right up. She was sitting in Amanda's lap with Anna Claire and showing her how her legos work and actually talking. In sentences. The only person she really talks to besides Tray and me is my mom, and she has kind of the same laid-back approach to interactions. So, I've decided that Penny is a cat.
It was great seeing Amanda and meeting Miss Anna Claire. Such a blast from the past. And for her too. Turns out the house we bought used to belong to her great aunt, so she'd actually been in our house many times before. I'm sure it was really weird for her. It would have been for me. Also, what a small world. Crazy how things happen like that.

Pirates and Brothers

Penny loves to pretend to be a pirate. She'll hold up a napkin or something to her face and say that it is her "eyepatch." Or she'll take a piece of newspaper and put it on her head and say it is her "pirate hat." We have a large-ish empty box in our kitchen from unpacking that she loves to climb in and out of and from what I can pick out of her talking to herself, she mostly pretends it is a pirate ship. Today though she said something while sitting in the box that seemed to me to be completely out of the blue. She said, "Where's my brother go?" I tested her to see if I heard what I thought I heard. I had. I said, "you don't have a brother, Penny." She said, "well, we'll just have to get one." She may have to wait awhile. :)

Scale

Well, today went a lot better with Penny. She did still try to go naked several times, but I decided to just let it go on the theory that my being concerned about it is what's making it interesting to her. Even if it isn't, letting it go is still better for me anxiety-wise.

I'm really busy with school and prepping lectures and dealing with the culture shock of being back in Alabama. It's strange, but there's a lot of stuff that I forgot about living in this area that is just a lot different in Tallahassee. Not totally alien, mind you, but just that subtle bit of "off" that is just enough to be disorienting. It's hard to describe. Actually, I could describe it, but won't. I also feel disoriented because everything is the same like I just left Troy last week instead of eight years ago, but then again everything is just slightly different. Not a lot, but enough. It's like if someone you hadn't seen for eight years just ran up to you and started up a conversation like you had just seen her yesterday, only you were standing there going, "Dude. Eight years."

Anyway, I just finished reading my students' current event assignments for my online class. That's so fun, because even though it is a pain to grade 39 assignments plus replies, I learn so much without having to go and search out current events in the news myself. Did you know, for instance, that the wildfires raging in Russia coupled with the drastic heatwave being experienced there has decimated up to 20% of the wheat crop. And that Putin is considering halting all exports of wheat? That plus the floods in Pakistan (where people need food like, say, wheat) = not good. Just saying.

Defiance

I don't know if it's the move or what, but Penny is being little miss defiant. Yesterday we were all in the back yard and she kept trying to run around to the front. Since our yard is not fenced in and we live on a rather busy street, I didn't want her doing that. I asked her to stop, then told her to stop and she kept on doing it. She'd pause mid-stride, look back, laugh, and keep right on going. Like it was a big game. I told her we'd have to go inside if she did it again. She did it again. So we went inside, whereupon she cried. I let her cry for a minute (while comforting her a bit) and then told her we could go back outside if she stayed where mommy and daddy were. She made one more attempt to go back around, but did stop and come back when I told her to (and threatened to take her back inside).

The other thing she's doing, and she did a lot of it today, is to take her pants and underwear off and just run around half naked. I'll catch her taking her pants off and tell her to stop or tell her no and she'll just keep right on going and then I can't get her to put them back on, or let me put them back on. It becomes this giant battle of wills and I usually end up trying to physically force her clothes back on. But I don't want to hurt her and she's really squirmy and I end up just so frustrated and feeling like an idiot 32 (almost) year old who can't control a 2 year old. I can handle a lot about motherhood, but I swear the defiance stuff just really gets to me. Unfortunately, from what I understand, that's pretty much what life is like with a 2 and 3 year old. I hear 4 isn't so bad, but 4 seems a long way off.

Well, we're here.

We made it to Troy and have moved into our house. We still don't have much in the way of amenities - one bed for the three of us, no living room furniture, no microwave, no dishwasher, no internet, no fence for the dogs. It's almost like being on vacation at the beach or something, only no beach to make up for the other stuff. I hope to have some photos and things to upload some time. I don't have a computer yet at work (which is a whole other story), but I have my laptop here today and just wanted to update the blog briefly. Penny is doing well. When I first left my job to stay home last month before we moved, she starting having more stereotypical toddler tantrums and we figured out that it was because her routine had changed. Or rather, that she had no real routine because I was home and we could just go and do whatever, whenever. Her constantly asking us, "what's next?" clued us in. So, we started a system where I went to "work" from 8 to 10 in the mornings (upstairs to prep my classes or work on my online class) and then we had lunchtime and then nap and etc. so the days always went the same and she knew what was happening next. Her tantrums became largely non-existent once we did that. Not to say that we didn't still get out and go to the store or the park or whatever, but there were certain times of the day that we did those things while other elements of the day stayed the same. Anyway, since we've been here, the level of tantruming has increased again and I realized last night it's because she doesn't have a routine right now with the move and going back to Georgia for the party and my schedule being wonky with meetings and such. I figured this out because of her behavior, and also because she must have asked me "what's next?" eight hundred times yesterday. Once our weeks settle down into a routine though I think she'll settle down like she did before. I'm thinking of making her a what's next chart or something so she can always know what is going to happen next and not get frustrated.

Because it was there

We are moving tomorrow! Spent the day packing the u-haul trailer and running errands. As long a day as today was though tomorrow will be even longer. 2 p.m. faculty meeting and 3 p.m. closing, both preceded by actually getting ourselves to Troy and followed by, um, unloading the u-haul we spent all day loading. And the next day is my first day of classes. *gulp*

So - funny story. We had the baby gate at the bottom of our stairs taken down while we were carrying stuff downstairs so we wouldn't have to keep stepping over it. Penny was very good all day, but late this evening when Tray and I were each occupied in other rooms, Penny decided to climb the stairs. She knows she isn't supposed to go up by herself. Tray found her about half way up and she said, "I not s'posed to climb stairs, but I just had to."

So, I was just calling...

Penny loves to pretend to talk on the phone (she won't actually talk if there is a real live person on the other end, but she loves to pretend. Also right now she is experimenting a lot with the word "so." She likes to string two or three sentences together with the word so - even if the sentences bear no causal relationship. Sample sentence: "I was just running, so I was just coloring." Her phone conversations are like this (actual conversation that occurred as I was typing this): "Hi! Good morning! I'm eating teddy bear cookies. They're good. I was just eating some, so now I'm all done. [pause] Ok. Bye, bye." Then, to me, "I was just talking to Jake, so I'm going to sleep."

Moving! (-ish)

We are scheduled to close on our "Alabama house" on Wednesday at 3 p.m. (central). We are going to take a load of stuff up with us in a u-haul, but by no means all of our stuff. Since we still have a "Florida house," we can leave a lot of the non-essentials here. We aren't sure of our actual schedule yet, but it looks like we'll be packing on Tuesday and leaving bright and early Wednesday to get up there. This style of moving - a little bit at a time in the middle of the week - means we are largely going to be moving by ourselves despite lots of people offering to help. We could have waited to do a big move over the weekend, but our nephew is having a birthday party on Saturday evening and logistically it is just too crazy to think about driving back to Tallahassee on Friday and then back up to the farm Saturday for the party and then back to Tallahassee on Sunday, load a u-haul and move to Troy on Monday. Or - load the u-haul in advance of the party and bring our u-haul, two dogs, a cat, and four chickens with us to the party. As it stands it is going to be like move to Troy, then come back to the farm for the party, and then either back to Troy or back to Tallahassee to get more stuff and/or clean for a maybe showing. Ugh. Life is crazy right now!

"Fell"

Fell is like a four-letter word around here. Ok so, yes, technically it is a four letter word, but you know what I mean. Penny does not like it when somebody or something falls down. Some time ago I rented March of the Penguins thinking she'd enjoy seeing the penguins. About five minutes in, one fell down and that was the end of that. When my friend Kelly came over last week and brought her daughter Kate (age 21 months), Kate tripped on Penny's tractor and fell down in the living room. Kate jumped up completely unscathed and batted nary an eyelash. Penny was almost inconsolable. She apparently witnessed her cousin Owen fall down on the carport in Georgia because every time we are up there and walk past that spot, she'll say, "Owen fell down. [pause] "But he's okay." (because I've said that enough). And if she ever falls in the yard, for a good couple days afterwards she'll walk past that spot and point to it and say, "I fall down right there."

Yesterday she and I walked outside to discover that an oak limb had fallen on some elephant ears we have planted near the house. I said something stupid like, "Oh look, an oak limb fell out of the tree." I think Penny expressed her concern for that tree limb probably twenty or thirty times over the course of the morning. "That tree limb fall down?" [pause] "It's okay?"

*sigh* Yes, Penny, the tree limb is okay.