Where's My Head?

It's spring break, and Joel has a friend over today. They are both in 5th grade. They just asked me to play Where's My Head? with them, and I was once again marveling at how popular this game I somehow invented is. So, it occurred to me to post it here so that others could have fun with this game, too.

It's simply a game of having some blankets and pillows and hiding in amongst them in a way that makes it more difficult for someone to know where your head is in the jumble of things. We've played it with just 1 person hiding and to 4 people hiding. (Joel has a LOT of blankets in his room.) It has the same flavor as hide and seek. But, I think it has quite a few advantages over hide and seek. I think that must be why it has great appeal. It's because it has the same fun to be had as hide and seek.

What happens when the banana splits?

I scream!  (Ice cream!)

This was Joel's joke today that my parents were eager to share with us when handing him off to us.  It's been great fun to have the joint project of doing Joel caregiving that we now share. There's the fun things like this to share with each other, and there's the all getting to scratch our heads over an issue when we find ourselves running up against the same Joel issues.

A gift to help me with something I struggle with

Joel gave me a Mother's Day gift that I was particularly touched by. I was telling him recently about how I don't have space in the house for all the stuff I'm keeping. I told him in particular I have lots of notes that I've taken. So, when he was up at my parents' house he made me something to hold my notes in, and he told me that I can get the notes to take up less space if I fold the note holder up. Then they can fit in a very small place!

Drawings

Joel asked me to draw what he was drawing (while he was drawing it). This is one of the set of things we drew at the same time. I really appreciated this way of getting to be with him and to see how these drawings unfold. I've seen lots that look like this only after he's already all done. So, it was neat to get to see oh this is how these things come about.

I'm looking forward to doing this more with Joel. It brought about similar qualities as some art exercises to do that I wrote some notes about here:
http://e-a-s-e.blogspot.com/2015/12/deliberately-doing-activity-that-will.html

Joel's asleep right now, so I can't ask him to tell me about this drawing that my parents just emailed me. We'll see if I end up getting around to updating this blogpost with thoughts on this drawing after I get to talk to Joel about it. :)

Pictures for Mother's Day

Here are some photos that Damena Karoly from Hearth in the Hills Day Care sent me for Mother's Day. The top one was one that Joel'd told me a story about that day about how the baby didn't cry while he was feeding him. I learned from Damena that he initiated the activity. I've learned other things from the photos that she sends.  Like that he won't freeze even when I'm delinquent about packing his bag because they suit him up with spare hats and mittens when his can't be found. :)  It's a helpful lesson for me in how the world won't end if I'm not hypervigilant and that I can relax more instead.

Making a rainbow

After Joel spontaneously told me that he was making a rainbow, it was very satisfying to be able to capture him saying so again in the same sweet voice by asking him to tell me again what he was doing in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHU6ONKx1zs

Don't press my buttons

Not surprisingly, Joel is interested in interacting with computers...which causes me to fear for the damage he might deal to them...  So, it's great that he recently came up with a computer that doesn't cause that kind of fear in me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJt4KyYIo8Q

Mommy, can I talk to you?

Today, for the first time, Joel said to me:  Mommy, can I talk to you?  He then, again for the first time, told me a story. 

(I've recently been able to prompt him with "Then what happened" over and over again to lead him to telling me something like a story, but this was the first time that it was a monologue.)

He said he went somewhere and saw a few things...I think there was a cow...and then he said I saw a rooster...and it bit me!  It was a short sequence of things he told me.  So, I'm surprised I can't remember more of it, and I wish I could.

The feel of the story was very similar to the one he's been having me repeat over and over again.  I was finding that I could keep him from getting into something I didn't want him to by telling him about some fairly mundane things that happened to me that day...and he'd look at me very intently and become very engaged in what I was saying...  So, one day, I told him this story.  I was walking Quartz...and I saw that coming behind us, there was another dog.  So, I crossed the street.  But, Quartz got scared anyway.  So, I pulled him towards Nancy's house...and Nancy's cat felt trapped...and it went "hiss."

So, "Mommy, were you walking Quartz?" is an oft heard question these days, and it's his way of requesting the telling of this story.

Thoughts about 塞翁失馬 (Sai weng shi ma)

Just had an interesting discussion with my brother about the story of the man that lost his horse, 塞翁失馬 (Sai weng shi ma). If you don't know the story, click here to see several different versions of this story.  Basically, it's about having things that happen that seem terrible or seem great and being able to say "Who knows."

I was telling him about a situation where I was dismayed with myself for being late to an event (which seemed terrible) and then, at the end of the event, getting to have a particularly satisfying conversation with a friend (which seemed great).  I was telling him about how that led to thoughts like "Well then how do you have any basis for learning and decision-making?"  More on that in a moment. At one point in our conversation, my brother pointed out that there was a part that wasn't getting addressed in what I'd been discussing, and that was that I was feeling really disappointed about being late and that there were reasons and feelings behind being disappointed.

My response to this was to say, yeah, sometimes it does seem like what I'm doing is using 塞翁失馬 to tell myself not to feel my feelings, and that doesn't seem like something I want to do.

Okay, so now back to the thoughts about learning and decision-making. So, saying could've, should've, would've is something I do often, and 塞翁失馬 can help me let go of doing that. But, I then took things to an extreme, which led to thinking:  What about learning from what happened and making subsequent changes in your behavior?  Is this at odds with 塞翁失馬?

Brian's take on this was that it's not about thinking of decision-making as arbitrary.  This led me to thinking that perhaps 塞翁失馬 isn't just about not evaluating outcomes (e.g., losing the horse) but also about not being so outcome-oriented.  It can serve as a reminder that, no, I don’t have that much control over outcomes, but what I do have more influence on is my process.  Process over product is how my friend put it the other day. Take care of the process and let the outcomes/products/results be however they turn out.

As a result, I'm finding it helpful to think of 塞翁失馬 as helping me let go of all the could've, should've, would've, and all the if only this and if only that...and all the thoughts about things that are all in the past...and all the feeling a deluded sense of control...such that, of course, I'd be able to prevent the loss of a horse, and obviously that'd be a good thing.

Perhaps if 塞翁失馬 can get me to let go of this kind of ruminating, then that opens up the possibility of sitting with the uncomfortable feelings I'm having about things not going my way.  So, instead of using 塞翁失馬 to deny my feelings (as I mentioned above as something I've been doing), I can use it to help me hold the space for sitting with my feelings.

What's in the bag?

Watch this video to find out!  Want more?  Here is a prequel that you can watch, too.

Squirrels should eat slowly, too

Peter likes to feed squirrels on the window sill next to our kitchen table.  So, we get to do a lot of great close up squirrel watching.  Man man chi (eat slowly) is something that my mom often says to Joel, and that's what Joel had to say to a squirrel who was eating squash seeds the other day.

Tofu that grows on trees

One fun thing that we've been pantomiming is collecting food from trees and eating it.  We have some wallpaper in our entryway with a tree pattern on it.  Here's a picture from when Joel was a newborn that has the wallpaper in it:

We started out by picking berries off the trees.  After picking a few berries and eating them, Joel suggested that we also pick tofu off the trees.  We already suspected that tofu was a big favorite with Joel, and this confirmed it for me.

Writing this has made me realize that before all the recent pantomiming we've just discovered we can do, we already were pantomiming taking baths with laundry baskets.  The first time I did this was with a doll.  After doing all the things that I could think of that Joel did in the bath, Joel made me realize that I'd left out an important activity.  He put the doll's face down to the level of the pretend water to pantomime having it drink the bath water.  No bath is complete without drinking bath water for Joel!

Water! Water! So much!

We woke up the other day to find snow on the ground for the first time this season. Joel responded by pointing out the window excitedly and saying "Water! Water! Hao duo! (So much!)" He also pointed to different spots and counted 1, 2, 3, as he often does after saying hao duo.

How on earth did he know that snow was made of water?!?!?

We went outside to play with it. I was excited to make snowballs for him, but then realized that he didn't necessarily think that much of it. So, we have a ball to play with now, that's not that impressive to him. It reminds me of being excited to take him to a petting farm because I had been so impressed when I visited a farm as an adult with how similar the way my uncle imitates them is to the real sound. Well, we've been making that sound while pointing to pictures of roosters ever since Joel was born. So, he again wasn't at all impressed like I was hoping he would be. Of course, that's what he expected to hear when he saw one in person, no big deal.

There was just enough snow to make a little teeny snowman for him, that was maybe 6 inches tall. Up until that point, I hadn't been sure whether he'd been saying snowman or shang mian (on top). But once I made the snowman, he yelled "Snowman!" and ran over and smashed it, so I knew that the sound he'd been making was indeed snowman.

Before the day was done, there was no more snow. But, Joel was still talking about making snowmen. So, I pantomimed making one, which we then did over and over again because he found it so engaging.

This has opened up a whole new world for us of pantomiming doing things instead of actually doing them. Which is fabulous, because it even satisfies his desire to look at things on my computer. I just make a laptop out of my hands (one for the screen, and one for the keyboard), and I point out imaginary pictures of things that he likes to see.

I've been anticipating the challenges of having a two year old with much trepidation. Maybe this new world of pantomiming might make this all seem less terrifying to me. I sure hope so...although, often the new tricks only work while they're still novel...

Happy Halloween!

Joel's a climber, that's for sure!

As if there were any doubt that Joel was a climber, what he had to say yesterday made it absolutely clear.

My mother reported that when he was watching a squirrel outside our window, he said "Squirrel climbing tree" and then said "Joel" indicating that Joel also wanted to climb trees.  He then climbed up onto the back of our couch.

Later, he also climbed a chair onto the very narrow ledge of our light wall and announced that he wanted to walk the length of it.  We've definitely got a fearless thrill-seeker on our hands...and one that we really need to watch out with, because he's also taken a keen interest in head diving off of our furniture!

Noooooo

Click here to see a video that speaks for itself. 

Fun stuff

The other members of our household have been up to some fun stuff, too.

"A Book of Sounds" and "What Did You Find?" kids' books: I found myself inspired to create some kids' books...which led me to a website where you can not only easily create books but also record sounds for each page. (Update: Sadly, this website for creating books, Tikatok, is no more. They closed without much explanation.) Click here to see "A Book of Sounds" to see what having the ability to add sound led me to come up with. Being able to add sound also facilitated some great interactions at a family gathering recently...so I was able to capture lots of great audio...that I'm still in the process of organizing into a book... Fortunately, for the first book I completed, I kept things simple and was inspired by knowing the pictures would be easy to generate...otherwise I'd probably still only be in the process of creating books rather than having two books that are already shareable... This first book is called "What Did You Find?" and you can see it by clicking here.

"Patient zero" blog post: Click here to read about the self-experimentation with "patient zero" that Peter has been doing with inserting DNA into his skin cells. At least two other people have expressed eagerness in being "patient one" after all has gone well with patient zero.

"Fun at camp" video: "Camp" is our euphemism for the place we board Quartz when we travel...at least it's a cage-free environment where he gets to play with other dogs. Click here to see a video of Quartz playing with a dog named Puzzle. The person who filmed the video said that the dogs usually stop playing whenever she gets the camera out, but this time she managed to get quite a bit of good footage.

So that's why my nose runs...

when I am out in the cold...and especially when I come in from the cold.

Recently read in a book a similar explanation as the one you can read here in the Wikipedia entry on mucus. But, it didn't have the part about the mucus thickening and then thawing before the cilia start working again that the Wikipedia entry has.

Hands on

What fun! A place where Joel can play with water where we don't have to be holding him up to the height of the sink! The preschool gallery at the Hands-On Museum had lots of great kid-sized, kid-friendly stuff for Joel to play with.

He seemed quite taken with alternating between dunking and splashing his hands in the water and running his wet hands through his hair.

Here is a picture of the new Engineers on a Roll exhibit that they now have in the preschool gallery.

By looking at this picture you'll see that Joel is not the only one who found this to be a "mouth on" exhibit as well as a hands on exhibit.

This is where Joel was grabbing balls as they came down the track and putting them in his mouth before putting them back into circulation in the assembly line-like exhibit. Perhaps this made it more likely that stomach flu was one of the things we brought home with us from the Hands-On Museum (and that perhaps more other people also brought home with them because Joel was doing this...sorry!!!). :(

When we first started going to a toddler playgroup, catching more things did make me reconsider whether or not I wanted to keep going to the playgroup...but I decided just to go anyway...and then added two classes to the things we regularly go to, too...

This was our first experience with stomach flu, though...which caused me to seek out sites like HealthMap...seems like sites like these will be much more useful if people post more data to it...so I'm planning on contributing mine... But, do I really want to be checking it a lot and deciding whether to go to the Hands-On Museum or not based on it...

95th percentile in height

and 90th percentile in weight and head circumference are the stats that our pediatrician gave us on Wednesday for Joel's dimensions.

Joel just demonstrated what he is now able to do with his 32 inch height. He just opened his bedroom door and escaped! We're in trouble now...