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| 2004 |
| To view other entries, click below: Sept/Oct Nov/Dec Winter 2003 Spring/Fall 2003 |
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| March 5, 2004 Big news at the Laughlin Ferry household. For the most part, we've given up television. Until recently we all had the withdrawal symptoms to prove it. Irritability. Listlessness. Irritability. Repetitiveness. Irritability. Joshua, of course, doesn't understand, and gets very unhappy with me when I won't let him watch his DVDs all morning. This week, I've compromised and started letting him watch Sesame Street, and one DVD a day. Sheesh, you're thinking. That works out to like, two hours a day, and the American Academy of Pediatrics just put out a report recommending absolutely no television for kids under two. Well, bully for you. I'm glad you're so up to date on what the AAP is recommending. And did you get your hour walk in today? Hmm? Didn't think so. Anyway, I heard that every single member of the AAP has a maid and a nanny. So, yeah, we used to watch a lot more TV, but lets not get all judgemental with people who are trying to break their addictions, OK? I mean, there's something in the 12 steps about that, right? The point is that since we've unplugged the plug-in drug, as Marie Winn would say, I feel pretty terrible about the opportunities lost while we sat on the couch eating our meals and watching the Today Show, or Wheel of Fortune (known to Josh as the Letter Show). We've been having a great time going for walks, blowing bubbles, playing catch, etc. All the stuff we usually do, but much more often. It's very nice. January 16, 2004 I can't believe it, but I think the old standby mothering trick of counting to three is beginning to have some effect. The first time I tried it, I realized something rather important: counting to three isn't as effective if your child has no fear of being smacked for noncompliance. I briefly considered doing the traditional swat on the bottom after three, but times have changed, and I had visions of appearing on Oprah live via satellite from the county jail after some well-meaning onlooker gets the authorities involved. So we made it into a game instead: do you think you can do it before I count to three? Then, if he doesn't, I force him to do whatever the desired behavior is with me, hand over hand. You wouldn't think this would be very effective, but I hadn't counted on Josh's burgeoning independence and competitive tendencies. Just today, I got him to go to the changing table, put his blocks away and put on his shoes and socks all by counting to three. It's days like this that I feel competent. January 14, 2004 The great tragedy occurred yesterday. I pulled Johann Alligator (AKA Johann Biohazard, due to his place in Josh's heart as the ultimate chew toy, and the care instructions which don't allow for submersion) to turn on the music box inside of him, and I heard a sickenning snap. I tried pulling a little more, I tried hitting, but there was nothing to do, Johann has been struck mute. After Joshua's nap, I tried a little surgery. I'd done this once before when the music box stopped working, so I went in at the old incision site, pulled out his musical ticker, but there was no reviving him this time. I can't get to the broken spot. I was filled with dread for the rest of the day, worried that Joshua wouldn't want to sleep without his friend's singing, but it turns out I needn't have worried. Josh found a grimy bump of cloth and started sucking away. We turned on another music box (also on its last legs) and he dropped right off. Now if I could just get the damn thing away from Josh long enough to sew him back up... January 7, 2004 As usual, it's great to be back home. All three of us had a great Christmas, a good post-Christmas trip, and a fun New Year's Eve. Joshua enjoyed all the presents and continues to ask for them. His Aunts and Grandmother, have, I'm afraid given him some intersting habits. Where to begin? Well, let's see, thanks to Grandma Laughlin, he is constantly wanting to "Tickle Mama's belly" or to zerbet (respberry) it. This game is a lot more fun (for both of us) when there are a few others to share the attention. Also, thanks to Laura introducing him to the Sesame Street method of counting, he's been running around going, "One candy cane. Ah ha ha ha!" And Tracy, ah, Tracy. Well, things could have been worse. After months of coaching him to say "Auntie Tracy's Old," Josh mastered the phrase, and seemed to think it was Tracy's name. However, after she taught him "Mommy and Daddy are geeks," Jim decided to put and end to the sibling rivalry, and taught Josh, "Auntie Tracy's hot," which is how it happened that, at the mechanic's yesterday, in front of the entire staff, Joshua said, "Mommy's hot." I agreed with him and paid the bill. |
| March 6, 2004 Josh woke up this morning at 7 a.m., and we threw the whole T.V. thing out the window so we could doze while he watched Arthur on PBS. At some point, I was on the couch and Jim was back in bed, and I had this wispy, cottony thought: Who's watching Joshua? Turns out he was just doing his thing, making messes and watching TV, but I decided to take things into my more rested hands (Jim came home from work at 3 this morning.) and we went out on the town. In our errand running, we went into Scandanavian Link, our source for Brio toys. Josh played with the trains for about a half an hour, and did not want to leave. He was pretty cute, pushing the trains down hill or around a corner, going "Whee!" Josh is a great shopping companion because he forces decisiveness. I was in a different store, looking for a present for my friend Cheryl (whose jokes, by the way, can be found opening for Josh at the Apollo)) , and he started dragging me toward the door, calling "Bye bye!" to the clerk. I resisted, but when he had a meltdown, we went outside for a change of pace. Turns out, it was the perfect thing. By the time we were done with Brio playtime, I had decided which present to buy, and we were back in and out in five minutes. Also, since we pretty much made a beeline for the Brio, I didn't end up with a couple of wooden horses and an "Uff Da" trivet. |
| March 11, 2004 Frankly, Joshua's news has been eclipsed this week by the actions of our bishop. And to think that I thought my time on the vestry would be boring. Actually, I do have one story. We had to go out shopping the other day, and I told Josh he could buy some orange socks. He had asked to wear some that morning, but since he doesn't own any, this was a problem. So off we go to the mall, and we stop in at my favorite baby clothes store, and the clerk says hello, and Joshua, all on his own, with no prompting from me, says, "Orange socks." After a couple of false starts, I translate for the clerk, but she doesn't have any, not even in U of I territory. He did the same thing in the second store we tried (no luck there either). I was so proud of him. He was cummunicating with strangers like a regular little person. The other thing that happened at the mall is that Joshua sat by himself on a horse on the carousel, and not one of those wimpy, stay in one place horses, either. A tall white pony with pink trim. I stood beside him, of course, but I came to realize a few minutes into the ride, that I didn't need to hold him, in fact, he did better without me. When the ride was over, he started to cry, and wanted to go again, so I didn't have to get all weepy about our little boy growing up, but I never though these apron strings would be pulled so taught so soon. |
| March 12, 2004 Joshua is truly his father's son. Today, as we were driving Jim to work, Joshua was calling out the addresses of the houses we were passing. The most impressive to me was when he said "eight-eleven" just like I would have. This wouldn't seem like such a big deal if not for the fact that the last time we visited Jim's mom, she had some of Jim's old art waiting for us to look at. I think they were from when he was three or so. He'd drawn a bunch of houses on the street, complete with windows, doors. About what you'd expect from a kid his age--except that on every house he'd written a four to six digit address. And now, Jim's passed that, let's be nice and call it passion, on to our son. There are days when we go inside from an errand and Josh will start to cry. We are befuddled and don't understand, until finally, one of us will take him back outside and he'll touch the 608 on the house, reading the numbers as he touches them. Then he'll say "address," and he'll be ready to go inside. Soon, he'll be helping us with the licence plate game. Since we're featuring a photo of Josh with his friend Nate, right now, I think now is a good time to mention that I've grown very grateful to Nate for introducing Joshua to a life outside the mind. Nate and Josh like a lot of the same books and music, and they've worked out a good system for sharing and taking turns, but the best thing Nate's done for Joshua is to start slowly introducing the concept of what teachers now call "dramatic play," and what we all used to call "pretend." Nate's started taking his little Fisher Price dolls through his bedtime routine, and, when his parents are focusing on discipline issues, he'll give long lectures to his teddy bears about proper toddler behavior. Most recently, Joshua has discovered that not everyone is willing to share their food with him once he's finished his own. (Jim and I tend to acquiesce.) Yesterday we were visiting Nate and Lori and, after he had finished the banana Lori had given him, he looked at me and said, "Nate's banana." I said, "No Josh, not everyone wants to give you their food when you're finished with your own." At which point, Nate seemed to get a little concerned, and looked at Josh and said, "No, no, no." They're both only children, and I'm glad they're keeping each other real. |
| March 21, 2004 Hi ho, Jim here, doing a guest appearance. Kara thought the mathematical nature of Josh's latest performance made a story better told by me. We were driving to church when I said aloud "Two seventy-seven" (we're looking for 275 in the license plate game, umm, never mind). Josh said "Eighty-eight! . . . Ninety-nine!" I said, "Wow, Josh, are you counting by elevens?" (One night we'd counted by twos, threes, etc., and even elevens (up to 110)). Josh responded "twenty-two! . . . thirty-three! forty-four! fifty-five!" He got up to 99, then paused, and said, hesitantly, "tenty..." So Kara jumped in "one hundred ten, one hundred twenty-one, one hundred thirty-two." She stopped there, and we were both thinking, like, "for what it's worth..." Then Josh said, "one hundred forty-three." We both looked at each other. Then "one hundred fifty-four." At this we realized we'd heard right and started praising Josh excitedly, "Wow Josh! that's great! what a smart boy! etc." I guess this threw him off because he said, quietly "one hundred fifty-six." So I pulled the car over, got in the back seat and started yelling at him, "156!? 156!? It's 165 you dyslexic moron!!! If you're going to count by elevens in this car, do it right, damn it!!! You're almost two! We've got to have to ready for the most exclusive pre-schools or your life is ruined! Ruined!!!" Or maybe I just corrected "One hundred sixty-five". In any case he continued to himself, "One hundred seventy-six, one hundred eighty-seven, one hundred ninety-eight, one hundred tenty-nine." So yes, he still has some problems with numbers, but we thought it was pretty neat that he saw the pattern. Makes a math-geek dad proud. |
| March 23, 2004 When Jim came back home from his week long trip to the northeast, he said Joshua seemed older. He always says this after he's been away, but it does seem to be true. I don't notice the gradual changes, but his language skills or his sense of humor often will change a lot in a short time. In this case, I think it was sentence construction that Jim was noticing. One of Josh's favorite things to do now is to demonstrate his mastery of the gerund. Sometimes, this takes the form of "What's Mama doing?" to which I may reply, "I'm walking," and he'll then say, "Mama's walking." Or maybe he'll just be running or playing or singing and he'll say "You singing." (He hasn't yet mastered personal pronouns.) He also likes to say, "Mommy and Daddy kissing." But the very best example is when he's having a little tantrum and he interrupts it to tell us, "Joshua's crying." The other thing he's getting really good at is what I call the argument game. That's when one of us says a polar word, like, say, "Up," and the other person responds with "Down." His repetoire has grown considerably in the last month, which makes the game a lot more fun for me. Thusfar, we have up/down, hot/cold, big/little, on/off, yes/no, Mama/Dada, black/white, dog/cat, and for some reason he came up with grey/brown. Those last two are dicey, I know, but who wants to raise a dogmatic kid? Better for the world that he start learning to argue in shades of grey now. I also tried to start playing the quiet/loud game, but, of course, loud is just so much more fun that quiet that it seems to be defeating my purposes, which, for the most part, have to do with avoiding the typical Sunday morning shouts of "Get down, get down!" while everyone around us is trying to prepare their souls to receive the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. |
| December 13, 2004 What could happen to a kid in three months, you ask? Eh, not much. Joshua is really getting into Christmas, in a charming, non-greedy sort of way. He had a major role in picking out and decorating the Christmas tree this year. He favors one small area at his eye level, so the rest of the tree looks a little spare. He also loves the chartreuse and magenta silk wrapped balls that I bought for Jim's and my first Christmas together, when I thought the 60s look would be cool and retro rather than a jarring eyesore. I had the good sense to leave off the red glass balls that year. But not Joshua. The other thing he's loving about advent is his advent calendar. This is one of those cheapy, Bible verse ones that I picked up at church for free. Not only does it not follow any kind of narrative, but the pictures that go with the bible verses can be a little creepy. One was of eyes. Just eyes, staring at you. Judging. Although, for someone who believes in Santa, maybe that's a nice Christmasy image. He knows when you are sleeping , he knows when you're awake, he knows what you did last summer.... But, of course, none of this bothers Josh. For him, it's all about the numbers. On the fourth, when we were opening the calendar, I asked him what number we were on. I started to say, "Yesterday we did number three, so" but he had already gone into the kitchen. OK, I thought, two-year-old attention span. We'll do it later. Josh comes out and says, "It's Saturday, December fourth." Jim and I exchange one of those freaked out looks that we get from time to time when it seems like the kid has been toying with us until he's fattened us up enough to feed to whole crew on their return trip to planet Xebloid, and Jim asks, "How did you know that?" and Josh says, "I looked on the calendar." With a very Duh tone in his voice. One Christmas ritual he is not interested in at all is sitting on Santa's lap. I just can't bear to force it, as much as I'd like to have one of those cute Santa pictures with the kid crying and trying to get as far away from the guy as possible. Last night we were at the mall, and Santa was posing with dogs, and we still couldn't get Josh intersted. I think his aversion to lines is the biggest factor. September 3, 2004 Well, today's big news isn't even our news at all. Our friends Brad and Katie are new parents! Some readers will know Brad and Katie as our partners in youth group leadership, though now they're on their own. Leesburg has a wonderful baby and stationery store in town, so we stopped by in hopes of being inspired. The way we shop for babies and children has really changed since we got one of our own. These days, the main criteria for toys are: (a) no electronic noises and (b) nothing you see on TV. We stole that second one from someone on NPR after being disgusted by the shameless targeting of young people during Saturday morning cartoons. Later today, we're hoping to go to Maryland for a little walk. It's become a weekend ritual to have a little hike and take a gander at a new spot on the Potomac. There's a crazy co-housing community that I want to check out, too. September 2, 2004 We're here, and back on the net. Virginia is beautiful, and the three of us are doing very well. Every weekend we go to another regioinal park and walk around in the woods. Woods, I say! With hills. Actual changes in topography. It's wonderful. Josh responded better than we expected to the move. He came home from visiting his friend Nate for one last play date, and found the house empty. At first Nate seemed a little more freaked out than Josh, but then he saw his room. "Where is everything?" Then he just kept asking that all night. He and Nate played in the empty upstairs room for a while, and Nate's mom and dad helped us out by taking all the things that the movers wouldn't. (Hope you're enjoying that lighter fluid, guys.) Then Jim and I had to finish cleaning the house while Josh amused himself. He was wiped out, and at one point, told me he wanted to get in his crib, which nearly broke my heart, since the movers told us they'd have our stuff for a week. We treated it like a vacation, though, and checked out the Columbus Zoo, and a rug show that included some of my former boss's work. Josh has asked to go to "608 South Glover" a couple of times, but overall he's adjusting well. If only there were a playground in walking distance, we'd be all set. But I'll go into the Insights on Life Without a Second Car entry tomorrow. July 29, 2004 I've been trying to make a dent in all the sample copies and other magazines I've got up here in the office before the moving company comes in to assess our belongings, so I'll have to keep it brief. I had the experience today of Joshua reading me Green Eggs and Ham. At one point, I wasn't even pointing to the words. Of course, we have to help him with every third word or so, but I was just floored when he read "Do you like green eggs and ham?" as quick as you or I would do, and even put the inflection at the end. I'm so grateful that our child loves books. Life here has been fairly busy as we try to say goodbye to everyone we've known over the past five years. The kids in the youth group had a going away party for us, and even some kids who've moved on to college came back to say goodbye. There's now a beautiful (but simple) wooden cross in the youth room upstairs, with a plaque underneath it dedicating it to Jim and me and our "ministry" at Emmanuel. Jim and I both teared up when they showed it to us. How odd it is to be one of those people on a plaque--don't you always imagine that they're dead or very rich? I always do, and so far we're neither. Unless you count the friendships and personal connections we carry with us--in those respects we are rich indeed. May 8, 2004 Well, as those who are familiar with this site have probably guessed, I'm in the midst of working on a couple of articles, so I've not been updating. I'm still in the midst of it, a profile on Fine Craft in the State of California. So this'll have to be short. Josh has been very cute lately, manipulating his fingers and saying, "Josh is only one. Josh is almost two. Babies are zero." Thank Jim for that last bit. Number and letter continue to fascinate--this morning I heard him counting to 100 in his bedroom. "88, 89," long pause, "90. 91, 92.." You get the idea. When he got to 100, he couldn't think what went next. There was another pause, and then "10, 20, 30,..." Jim's rehearsed this with him too. When he got to the end, I swear to God, he said, "I counted to one-hundred by tens." Honest. My favorite thing he's doing right now, though, is a little gross. Three times now, he's come up to me and said, "Mama! Poop's coming out." At first I was a little nervous--out of where? I wondered. He was wearing some cute pants that day, too. Then I realized he meant out of him, and I got really excited. Because, let me tell you, I don't care how much you love a kid, two years of dumping his poop into the toilet is about two years too many. I'm trying not to get overly enthusiastic about toilet training too soon--he senses that I really want this, and I'm beginning to think it's not helping my case. One benefit of doing this craft article is that I posted new pins to the pin page. |