I'll Huff and I'll Puff

One story we've read a few times recently is The Three Little Pigs. Penny loves that story. Tonight she was in her robot house (the dishwasher box) and she and Tray were doing a call and response version of the story. He knocked on the door and said, "little pig, little pig, let me in." She said, "not by the hair on my chinny-chinny-chin." He said very dramatically, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!" She burst out of the robot house in a panic and said in all serious desperation, "No Daddy!!! I need my house."

Helper Penny

For all the frustrations of dealing with a toddler, part of the benefit of Penny's drive towards independence is that she will often try to help us do things. She has certain "chores" that she is required to do including picking up her clothes after her bath and putting them in the dirty clothes basket, and I also have her put the napkins on the table at meal time. I always try to give her something to help me carry into the house when we get home from the grocery store (this also helps get her into the house instead of her taking off running across the yard towards the road and giving me a heart attack). She also helps us empty the dishwasher by pulling the things out one by one and handing them to me/us (I always get out the sharp knives first). If I'm feeling generous I'll let her stand up on a stool and put the silverware away as I hand it to her, but it is so infernally slow that I don't do it often. Anyway, she often looks for ways to "help" us like above (taken before Christmas when I was moving some pieces of wood into the shop/storage building. She wanted to help me carry each piece. She really likes to feel useful. :)

Here she is "helping" me balance on the flower bed edging. What? Not every task can be full of meaning.

Bear Advice

Lately, "Mr. Bear" has been telling Penny that it is ok to open her eyes at night and wake up. She tells me things like, "Mr. Bear said I could open my eyes," or, "Mr. Bear said it is okay to wake up now." My response has been, "Oh, really? Well, Mr. Bear is misinformed. Mommy says it is time to go to sleep." That bear, he's such a trouble maker. Ha!

Ballerina Penny

This is Penny after dance class yesterday. She's making her new "cheese" face at the camera. It's hard to capture a natural smile from her these days.

Class didn't go so well this week. She started crying and they brought her out to me. I tried to console her and convince her to go back in, but she didn't want to. The owner said I could go in with her, but of course she didn't want to let go of me even when we went back in. I finally bribed her to participate when the gymnastics portion started (her favorite part) by telling her we'd go next door to get some ice cream if she would go and roll down the mat.

She says she doesn't want to go back, but I think we'll try again next week and possibly two or three more times. If it doesn't work out, we'll back off and try again next year. She really likes to dance and loves to dress up in the dance clothes. I think being left in the classroom without me or Tray is scary to her since we've never done that. But then again, the owner pointed to two of the other moms there and told me that it had taken 4 times for each of their kids to get used to it. And I'd heard them talking enough to know that their kids are in daycare so I have hope that it isn't the being left alone in class so much as just the novelty of the situation.

Mr. Bear

Penny doesn't really have a security blanket/transitional object, meaning something that she absolutely can't live without. Mr. Bear comes the closest, though lately she's been favoring other animals. When she does want him though, she can be so cute about it. We'd left him out in the living room at nap time and she missed him (I hadn't been too concerned beforehand because like I said the odds were just as likely she wouldn't have noticed.) I handed her another bear of similar size to hold instead. She refused on the grounds of: Not. Mr. Bear. We didn't get up to get him though on the grounds of: stalling tactic. After the nap, she found him and hugged him and said something like, "that other bear was there, but he wasn't you." And the next day after she had napped with him, she proclaimed him to be "very good at sleeping," which I believe was meant as a jab at the other bear's lack of sleeping skills.

Imagination

I've noticed a change in Penny's imagination recently. She seems to have shifted into the realm of being able to pretend in abstract. I've read that the earliest imagination is using a phone and pretending it is a phone, but using a shoe and pretending it is a phone comes later. I've noticed her doing stuff like pretending her legos are salt and pepper shakers, and then a minute later the same lego transforms into a cup or something else.

We still have the box that our dishwasher came in because we gave it to Penny to use as a playhouse. I cut out a door and two windows for her. She doesn't play in it everyday, but every time we think about throwing it out she'll wind up playing with it that day and we end up keeping it a bit longer. Anyway, I painted the lower cabinets in our kitchen this weekend, and I'd taken the doors off and put them back on with a screwdriver. She took the screwdriver and went to work on her "robot house" (which is what she calls the dishwasher box). She was miming me screwing things into the side of her house and then she pretended to cut out new windows with it and was just doing all sorts of construction-y type things to her robot house with the screwdriver. She was really putting some imagination into "working on it." I stopped what I was doing and just watched her for a bit. It was so cool.

Mind-Changing

I read a blog post awhile back about how the number one piece of advice the author of said blog post would give to other moms is that it is ok to change your mind. In her case she was referring to the fact that she'd been letting her 4 year old daughter watch some of those Disney tv shows like Hannah Montana meant for older children, and she realized that a lot of the behavioral issues she was starting to have with her daughter were learned behaviors from those shows where parents are depicted as imbeciles and the humor largely derives from the kids talking back and so on. So, she decided to not let her daughter watch those shows anymore. And you know what? The behavior stopped over time.

It sounds like such obvious advice: it's ok to change your mind. But for some reason, it is advice I have needed since becoming a mom. Early on, I would read this or that book and think that that was the way I had to do something. It would sometimes take me months to figure out that a particular thing wasn't working for us. Recently, we felt like we'd started letting Penny watch too much television, well, movies really. It started out small. At first we thought it was so cute that she liked Nemo, or Toy Story. But then she started wanted to watch them every day multiple times. And cry if you said no. She'd also be more interested in the movie than in doing anything else, which just drove us nuts. So we decided to back off and go days or weeks without tv or movies. Now we might let her watch a short episode of something like Blue's Clues or the Backyardigans once in a while under certain circumstances. It's a special event type thing, and it is so far working for us quite well. I'm so glad that Tray and I had that talk and decided that we could change our minds.

That Blue

We don't let Penny watch much TV, but sometimes I let her watch episodes of Blue's Clues. I wasn't crazy about it at first because it is so outrageously computer animated, but all kids' shows seem to be that way now. Anyway. She likes the Blue Goes to the Beach episode. Blue hides in a basket and when Steve finds her, she jumps out and licks him in the face. Penny cackles when it gets to that part. Today we were in the car and she just started laughing for seemingly no reason. I asked her what she was laughing at, and she goes, "She's so funny, that Blue."

Clothes

When Penny and I drove to Dothan to get her dance shoes last week, we also stopped by Old Navy and I found this cute, cute denim jumper on sale. I think she looks adorable in it.

I have such a complicated relationship with clothes. It is such a silly thing to think about, I know. As an archaeologist who has spent a fair amount of time in the field, clothes serve more functions than fashion. Women who wear "fashion" clothes into the field are made fun of. If you show up wearing jeans from the Gap to dig holes all day and wade through swamps, the implication is that you aren't very smart. On the other hand, a lot of women balk at wearing "frumpy" clothes - even if they are more functional for the task. (On a side note, I read a study once that said more women would rather leave the house with no money than with no makeup. This astounds me.) When I first started working in the field, and also hiking and backpacking, there were not a lot of options for women. Functional outdoor clothes were basically small versions of mens clothes. It's very hard to be attractive in those types of clothes. Nowadays, there are lots of companies that cater to that market, but even then you have to be careful not to buy "fashion-catalog" type outdoor clothes -- all look and no real function. For the poseurs. Because that's the thing. I refuse to be cold. Or hot. Or whatever the weather dictates. There are plenty of clothing options outthere that will keep me comfortable. A woman standing outside in a light jacket, skirt, hose, and heels when it is 15 degrees does not immediately garner my respect, is what I'm saying. Dressing for fashion instead of the weather just mystifies me.

The above dress was totally cute on Penny - in the house. But she spends over 50% of her life outside. Dresses and tights don't cut it. She walked outside and within two minutes was begging to go back in. So, is that it? Are women not outdoorsy because we'd rather be fashionable? Does fashion limit us in the activities that we do? I don't want to limit Penny in that way. Unfortunately, just like it was when I first started field work, there aren't a lot of pretty, functional outdoor toddler clothes for girls. If she can't stay outside for an hour or two in 35 degrees without coming in, then it's not functional for us. On the other hand, I sometimes miss the opportunities for her to wear "fashionable" things. I suppose when she starts school, I can let her dress up, since it is unlikely they let them play outside for any extended period of time. It makes me sad to think about that too - that one day she'll be stuck inside all day at school instead of outside every chance she gets now.

Ah, well. I'm rambling. I need a new wardrobe. I think I dress like a slightly dressy college student, but suits and such would be too much. But then that makes me think about need and that episode of some kids show I saw when I was home sick with chicken pox in 2nd grade about need versus want. There are tons of people in this world with one, maybe two, outfits of clothing - period. I have a closet full. And that makes me think of lots of other things about resources and the world economy, and on and on and on. Ugh. Clothes, man.

Puzzle Master

Penny received a Veggie Tales puzzle for Christmas. It was the first jigsaw type puzzle she had. Her other puzzles were the type with the individual pieces that you put in the holes almost like a flat shape-sorter in premise. Tray's mom had saved a bunch of his old books in their attic and last time we were there, he got them out. In the box were several smaller jigsaw puzzles. These combined with the Veggie Tales one are all she wants to do these days -- which is nice because she will keep herself occupied with them for a long while. Here she is doing a 13 piece monster puzzle. I fast-forwarded the video so you could get the gist without sitting through 2+ minutes of a video. The Veggie Tales one has 20 pieces and I didn't think she could do it without asking for help at some point, but she did it all by herself this afternoon. I think she has them memorized, such that if she were presented with a new puzzle it would take her awhile to be able to do it by herself. Kind of like the difference between sight reading and actual reading. Anyway, I'm amazed. And loving the relative peace and quiet of puzzle time.

January Ice Storm*

* and by "ice storm," I mean a gentle drizzle that turned kind of icy and melted before we even all got woken up good.

So, the winter weather of last week already seems like old news, but I never got around to posting pictures of it. We were all prepped and ready for "snowmaggedon" or the "snowpocalypse," so what we actually got was pretty lame. Mostly, brown and wilted vegetation (although with a pretty crystalized tree in the background):

Up close, though, you can see how each tendril of vine looked like a strand of ice:

Even the icicles were kind of lame. I was thinking stalactites (-gmites?). Instead, we got, like, toothpicks:

And more droopy plants:

This rose bush was kind of pretty though:

Some semi-decent icicles on the woodshed:

This photo sums it up. The two dogwood trees are coated in a fine layer of ice, but you can't tell it from the photo. It just looks like an ordinary gray day -- and it was.

Wordless Saturday: Lego Camo

Tale of Two Dance Classes

This afternoon we took Penny to dance class at the clogging dance company on the square. I know, I know -- clogging?? Well, they have a big storefront and just got back from participating in the Macy's parade, and Tray stopped in the other day while downtown. Turns out they have a toddler class, and it isn't very expensive so we decided to check it out. They wouldn't let us stay in the room with Penny, but we could watch her through the window. I think she was pretty put off by that, though she did what the nice instructor told her to for the most part. Until she decided to come and hang on the window and beg us to come get her. So we did. I tried to encourage her to go back in there when the structured part of dance class ended and they were freestyling it, but even though she agreed, once we got in there the sound of the music and the loud tap shoes just proved too much for her.

So, we went and got ice cream on the square - even though it is 30 some-odd degrees outside. What can I say, the girl loves ice cream. So do I, so I can't complain.

After ice cream, I pointed out the other dance company on the square. They'd always been dark when we passed by, but as I pointed it out today we could see students inside, so we decided to pop in there and ask if they had any classes for two year olds. They do, and in fact it was going on right then. We got to go back and sit in on it with her. Their class is the more traditional tap/ballet/gymnastics combo that I did growing up. Penny rolled down the mat with the instructor's help. She sat on the bench with the other children and ran over to breathlessly report every time one of them spoke to her (even though I don't think she talked back). In short, she had a blast. Of course, now we have to buy leotards, and tights, and tap shoes, and ballet shoes. But, man, she had fun. I can't wait to take her back next week. I'm not sure if she'll like it as much next time though when we aren't in the room with her - and there it is all curtained off so I won't even be able to see. I'm nervous that she'll cry, or not pay attention and not sit when told to or what have you. Thus, I don't think we'll sink too much money into all the props until we see how it goes.

The Gators are Back

The day before yesterday there was an alligator behind the rocking chair in our living room. Penny was very concerned until I informed her that her daddy had taken the alligator outside and told him to go home to his mommy and daddy. This morning, she would not get out of bed until I forcibly removed three alligators from the edge of her bed and similarly sent them packing. She waited until she actually heard me open and close the front door of the house (in my pajamas) to get out of bed. I'm thinking we may need to arm her with some type of magic alligator repellant apparatus. Because 7 am alligator removal service is sooo not in my job description.

Southern Words

A favorite topic among some of my graduate professors (who were not from the US South) was Southern words. They marveled at things like mash a button instead of push a button, or standing in line rather than standing on line. Buggies versus carts, coke versus soda, etc. Tump is one of my favorites. If you look it up in a dictionary it will tell you that tump is southern vernacular for knocking something over. I personally believe it to be a cross between turn over and dump out. Anyway, today Penny came up with one I'd never heard before, but I love it: tumple. As in, "I tumpled over." It's my new favorite word.

Sleep (or the lack thereof)

Penny has been on a sleep strike the last few days. New Years Eve she would not go to sleep, and not because we were letting her stay up for the New Year (which in retrospect we should have), but because she couldn't sleep. She finally fell asleep about 11, but woke up like normal so I figured she'd take a good nap yesterday. But she didn't. She slept all of five minutes. And she was a royal pain in the butt yesterday evening as a consequence. She did fall asleep early - about 730 p.m, but woke up at 2 and didn't go back to sleep until 6. Tray tried to give her her nap today. He usually has good luck snuggling with her and taking a nap together. No dice. She had two hours of "quiet time," but still no nap despite all the wakefulness at night. I don't know why she can't sleep, but I guess it's her molars still. I hope this phase ends soon!