beth_leonard

Being three means being willing to try new things. And reject others.

Tonight I told Peter that dinner was going to be leftovers, specifically Chicken Divan (a favortie) and Kilbasa & applesause (also a favorite) with his choice of fruit or vege from the refrigerator.

This of course sent my overtired little darling into screaming fits. (Giving up naps really has improved my life. Late afternoons used to be worse.) "Nooooo. I don't want that. I want something elssssseeeee!"

In this family, the dining rule is basically "I cook it. You eat it." While I do make reasonable allowances for letting Peter suggest appropriate side dishes and help cook, I am most certainly not a short order cook and never have been. There is no past history or real reason for his reaction tonight other than he's overtired.

While I was juggling the baby in one hand and reheating with the other, Peter stood with the refrigerator door open saying "I don't want that" to everything in sight.

Except the box of baking soda.

"Mommy I want this for dinner!" he exclaims excitedly, because he knows he must eat something, and anything he's never had before has got to be better than what's in there now.

Sigh. Got to love being three.

--Beth

The One Laptop Per Child laptops arrived today. They don't come with wired ethernet (only wireless) and we don't have a wireless home network set up yet, so for this initial day I was off the main internet. In some ways, that's a good thing because instead of just using it to browse the net, I looked at the laptops themselves.

* On initial power on it asks your name, and asks you to choose a color for your person icon. I haven't figured out how to get back to this screen to make a differnt selection yet. On reboot it no longer asks these questions. The interface is not naturally multi-user.

* It is quiet. I thought my laptop was relatively quiet, especially compared to my desktop machines, but these are silent unless you tell them to play music. Maybe there is something to this solid state storage.

* The outsides have different color XO drawings for our two laptops.

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If people are interested I can post more, but I need to get to sleep tonight. I primarily posted because after going to bed and lying there half an hour thinking about what I'd post, I decided I'd get to sleep faster if I posted first.

TODO: still need to post about Peter's 3 yr old milestones. He's started counting for real lately.

--Beth

I usually keep the potty-training entries on the Peter filter, but today is a milestone that's worth proclaiming to the world.

Peter was dry all night!

Yay Peter! This is the second night we've let him choose underpants instead of a diaper at bedtime. I started because he had been dry in the diaper 5 days in a row. I don't want to add any night time pressure, but he was staying dry without any encouragement anyway so we might as well ditch the 35 cent/day habbit.

--Beth
[He's been daytime dry since about August with only 3 or so accidents in the last 3 months.]

Peter had a very rough weekend with an ear infection that was extremely painful by the time we got him to the doctor Monday morning. The doctor prescribed amoxoicilin(sp?) and by this morning we were no longer giving him supplemental pain killers, so it appears to be working. She said that it's possible that he has a resistant strain, and if he didn't improve in 2 days to come back.

I am very thankful the antibiotics are working.

--Beth

November 12: I'm grateful Peter slept through the night without waking anyone up. I'm grateful the Advil worked. And that the splitting headache I had in the morning behind my left cheekbone didn't turn out to be a sinus infection (I hope).

I'm also grateful that Peter finally did what people have been telling me toddlers are supposed to do for ages. That is, he played happily in the kitchen with the playdough while I prepared dinner in advance, so we could eat right at 6.

I'm grateful Jon had work today. All 7 clients worth. Or at least I'm trying to be. Today was a tough day. Peter managed to stall and delay his nap until after Amber was awake from hers. I guess I'm grateful that I'm trying to remember one thing to be grateful about because trying to find the good in the bad thinking about what I was going to blog about tonight helped level things out.

--Beth

Amber has been waking in the middle of the night again for food. She has a cold so it's covered under acceptable use. But I really wish she wouldn't. This is the second cold in two weeks and we only had a few days of all-night sleep (until 4:30 or 5 am) between colds.

Peter has been waking up basically every night. We've trained him to be quiet and go to Daddy's side of the bed and get Daddy. Jon goes into Peter's room and then does whatever he does with him. This is acceptable to me, but not to Jon.

We talked about what we could do about it tonight.
( this rambles too much )

This evening during family play time we ran around playing with the hose as the sun set at the end of summer time. Amber smiled in the sling with Jon while Peter and I were silly with the water misting in the yard. He heard a cricket in the rose bush and we stood still listening for it. We tried to find it and failed, finding half-moon instead.

--Beth

Peter enjoyed the minor league game and train ride so much we're going to do it again this Sunday (last game of the season). Anyone is welcome to join us, first pitch is at 5pm. We plan to get general admission seating. If it's anything like last time (hot), we'll try to sit high up behind first base in the shade. If it's not hot, we'll sit a little further down in the sun.

This is a minor-league playoff game. More info here: http://www.sjgiants.com/

--Beth

Because I know I'll never remember what life was like shortly after the birth of our newborn, here's a brief update.

Since Amber's been born we've had very generous friends bringing food so we don't have to cook for ourselves or go out. We've eaten with relatives. We've had several people come over for play dates with Peter. My father-in-law has been driving him to preschool. Joel & Melissa have taken him to the zoo. My friend Lynn came up with her 4 year old daughter Ellie for a week and took Peter out until naptime (and sometimes longer) every day. We are tired and short tempered, but functional.

We decided to buy a membership to the Children's Discovery Museum and I took both kids there for the day on Tuesday July 3rd while Merry Maids cleaned the house. The house cleaning was a disaster; I think Jon blogged about it. That night we went to my parents' house so that I could take Peter to the 4th of July parade in Danville with A. and OBeth while Jon stayed at their air conditioned house with Amber.

Jon went home that night with his parents (also at the party) while I stayed another day with Peter and Amber. Jon moved the furniture and the carpet cleaners cleaned the whole house on the 5th. It's so nice to have a clean feeling house.

Today (Sunday) I was back at my parents' house with both kids for a Girl Scout reunion of my high school troop. Jon stayed home at our house and kept cleaning. We then drove to my in-laws' for dinner.

Peter likes both sets of grandparents and gets to see them often. He didn't want to leave either house today. Amber has been giving out smiles.

I've been sleeping barely enough on paper (7 hrs last night no nap today, 8 hrs plus nap the day before), but in practice it's broken up by 2-4 interruptions so it feels short.

--Beth

Peter is so terribly cute when he's caring for Amber that I feel like I've got to catch it all on film while she's still so much littler than he is. He wants to do everything: to clean her cord stump, to change her diaper, to hold her, to push her laundry basket from room to room.

I've got all the great images (and some things captured on film already) I just need a plot. As I learned in film class, if it doesn't have a beginning, middle, and end, it isn't worth doing. I can get Peter on film doing all the things mentioned above, plus using a mouse to "pay bills" He can get the newspaper, put a key in a lock, start the dishwasher, and all sorts of other household tasks to varying degrees of success.

If you have any good ideas (or even bad ideas -- sometimes they can spark someone else's brainstorm for a good idea) incorporating some of the visual elements of Peter caring for Amber mentioned above, please post them.

I can film some of the tasks now with the intent of making it into a movie when I get an idea later, but things are so much cleaner if I can make up a shot list now, keep Peter in the same clothing for all shots, etc. I can get Peter to say just about anything in a voice over. He readily learns new words and can say 5 syllable words without difficulty -- "I see a motorcyclist!" I was trying to think of any 6 syllable words he says, then I realized I couldn't think of any 6 syllable words *I* say with any regularity.

--Beth