On the Run

As any parent knows, watching your child develop is pretty amazing. From the moment they 

breathe that first stinging breath, their little sponge brains are soaking up everything around them. I remember – when I was awake – holding this tiny girl and wondering what it would be like to see her walk and talk and become a person.

Well, I can tell you this… As wonderful as it is, it’s also tiring.

I know this is old news you seasoned parents, but this is truly a case of being careful what you wish for. I have to state out front that I’m not really complaining, rather pointing out a few things I’m realizing as Finley becomes a full-on toddler. She’s a great and amazing kid and I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

We thought it was pretty cool when she started rolling around. Crawling was a lot of fun and standing was impressive. But the world changes immensely when a kid learns to walk. Ditto for the mom and dad.

Obviously, more and more things have to be moved out of reach. Doors to bathrooms and entries to kitchens have to be shut and/or blocked. Because an upright and mobile child is also a curious and explorative child.

In the few months that Finley has become a walking and running toddler, I have learned two important tips… Wear tennis shoes and do back stretches. It’s amazing how fast she can go in just a few short feet. Depending on where we are and the safety factor of the surroundings, a Finley sprint is usually followed by the patented Daddy “Run-and-Scoop” (Which is why you need the back stretches).

And when she’s not running to get somewhere, she’s taking her sweet time looking at everything… usually when you need to get going. And then you have to chase her down when it’s time to go. (See “Run-and-Scoop” above).

This is always fun in the morning when it’s time to go to school. She thinks it’s pretty funny to go back and forth from her room while the Momma is loading up her bags and purses. And when we finally corral the little filly, Momma is so loaded down with luggage and a baby, I expect a Sherpa to pop out of the woodwork to help her to her car.

But it’s not always about chasing her down. The evolution of the child takes them from the ground, up… and when you reach the walking stage, the next step is climbing. I’m pretty sure she gets her monkey gene from me. I was quite the climber as a kid… To the point that my parents ended up putting me in a harness with a leash. It’s not actually a bad idea.

Finley has always been a little dare devil. She likes to stand on her toys or a box or anything she can climb on. She’ll pull herself onto a chair and slowly get to a standing position and look at us like she’s an acrobat in the circus, expecting us to applaud.

As much as I like seeing her perfecting her balancing skills, I know she’s going to take a tumble one of these days. In fact, we’re not so sure she won’t try to climb out of her crib. So, to be safe, we picked up a crib tent. It’s a pretty ingenious device that covers the top of the crib and not only prevents her from climbing up and out, but keeps her from tossing toys or blankets on to the baseboard heater.

But there’s only so much these preventative devices can do. They key is to keep an eye on her. And even though we try our best, we know she’s going to crash and burn one day. But as I’ve mentioned before, that’s the world of the toddler. You really can’t make it out of the toddler phase without a few skinned knees along the way.

And as far as the chasing goes... I really don’t mind. I just want her to get her speed up. Not so she can join the track team. No, I want her to get nice and fast for when those boys come around. No “Run-and-Scoop” lessons for them!

E-Z Reader

At 16 months old, it’s fairly easy for Finley to get excited about pretty much anything. She’s 

excited to see us when we come get her in the morning. She’s excited when we head out the door for daycare. She loves waking through the door to the toddler room and plopping down for breakfast. And, when we pick her up at the end of the day, she literally drops everything to come running over to us.

The excitement continues when we reach home and she wriggles out of our grasp to get to the stairs that lead to our condo. With our help she scales the fourteen steps and impatiently waits for us to unlock the door so she can burst into her toy box we call home.

But before she runs over to the bins packed to the brim with stuffed animals and all the battery-operated noise makers you could ever want, she stops at her bookshelf and pulls down every book available.  Books are her favorite things, right now. There’s no doubt that we spend more time reading to her than playing with any of her toys, and that is more than fine with me.

The really good thing about her voracious reading habit is that she doesn’t have just one favorite that we read over and over again. She has four or five that she clings to, but changes favorites every few days or so. This makes every book seem new to her and, therefore, exciting.

The best part is how she goes about her business. She’s got quite the routine when it comes to reading. The first thing she does is dump out all the books from the shelf and on to the floor. She then spots the book she’s looking for and for the last week or so, it’s one of two books; both of which are nearly as heavy as she is. It takes quite the effort for her to drag it over and drop it in front of us.

If you’re sitting on the ground, she’ll turn around and back herself into place and plop her little tush onto your lap. If you’re on the couch, she’ll reach up with both hands, pleading for a lift up. Once in place, she makes sure to help you lift the book into position. And that’s the last time you’ll have control of the book and the pages.

She loves turning the pages and pointing at the pictures. Most of the time she has something – in her own language – to say about everything. But she also wants us to either tell us what it is she’s pointing at or make the sound that animal makes. Most of the time, we’ll make it through each book. On other occasions, she may be in the mood for volume rather than quality.

There are two things I really like about her approach to reading. The first is how much she enjoys it. She’s having fun reading. It’s not a chore. Hopefully, this will help her transition into reading words and sentences.

The other thing I like is how important it is to her to sit with us and read together. She’s very good at going through the books and “reading” on her own, but she’d rather sit with one of us and read together. I hope that never stops.

It’s encouraging to see her get excited every time she grabs a book. Reading really is the first step to a whole new world of learning. It’s amazing to think how much our world changes once we learn to read and how it affects pretty much every aspect of our education moving forward.

I’m hoping that she takes this excitement for books to the next level as letters turn into words and words turn into sentences. Then, maybe she’ll learn how to see new worlds and visit far away times and places. Maybe she’ll find out all about the past and discover futures yet to be. Just by opening a book. That gets ME excited.

Water Baby

One thing we learned about our little Princess early on was how much she loved the water. 

Even her earliest baths were not that scary for her. I’m sure some doctor somewhere has figured out that a bath reminds babies of the womb – all warm and wet.
But other than the tub routine, Finley never got to experience a big bunch of water until we went to Mexico in November. After a dabble of dunks in the hotel pool, we strapped her into her personal water craft (PWC) – a small, inflatable tube – and guided her down the resort’s lazy river. She was in mermaid heaven.
So, when we got back from Mexico, we would take a day on the occasional weekend and go up the hill from our place to the local high school pool. As time went by, it was inevitable that she would get tired of the PWC and want to experience a little more freedom. Well, freedom in the form of being held by Momma or Poppa.

That need to be free has since spilled over into the tub. We used to have this little seat that attached to the side of the tub and basically forced her to stay sitting up while her bottom half was under water. And as she’s grown, the seat and her patience got smaller.
We’ve since moved on to a very secure tub traction mat and fill the tub just a little bit. This has not only increased her desire to splash a heck of a lot more, but we have to keep her from wanting to stand up all the time. She really doesn’t slip – we’re more afraid of a quick loss of balance.

So, this weekend, as we headed up to visit with Nana (Heather’s mom), we brought up a new part of Finley’s world… her very first kiddy pool! We don’t have the kind of space (we actually don’t have a yard) to keep one, so we borrowed Nana’s front grass for a few hours and watched our little otter pop go to town.
Of course, splashing was the number one on the list of things to do. And not just sitting in the pool and splashing with her hands. No, she was into the whole full-body splash… Laying on her tummy and flailing like a beached whale.
The other thing she liked was being able to climb in and out of the pool at will. The way in was always punctuated with a splash, of course. She found her biggest splash was whenever she sat down as hard as she could. This was followed by looking around at us for approval.
Needless to say, Finley is pretty much peaked out on happiness when her fingers and toes start to resemble prunes. Does this mean we’ll be watching the swimming competitions at the Olympics with a little more interest? Will I be building a 10m platform for her to dive? Probably not. Besides, a 3m springboard would be a little easier to make.

But first things, first. We need to get her swimming lessons as soon as possible… Especially while she’s really enjoying being in the water. Her diving career wouldn’t last too long if she just knifed into the water and didn’t come up! So, that’s the next thing on our list. I want to make sure she’s not afraid of water and – more importantly – a bit respectful of water and the danger that is around, even when you’re having fun.

For now, her pool may not be quite Olympic size, but I’ll bet you all the tea in China (or smog in China, for that matter) that she’s having just as much, if not more fun than all the Michael Phelpses and Leslie Joneses going for the gold. Besides, Finley would rather have a binky around her neck than a silly medal.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

As wonderful as Heather is, there is one little, tiny thing that separates us… Keeps us from being truly united (Well, I could probably name a few, but for this purpose and to keep from being beaten, we’ll just go with this one thing). What could it be? What could be this one thing that tears us apart? Roller coasters.

You see I LOVE roller coasters. Can’t get enough of them. The faster, windier, loopier the better. Heather on the other hand… not so much. She’s a fan of keeping her feet on the ground.

So, I know that as Finley gets older and the fact that theme parks are in our near future, I have some training to do. That’s right. Either I start getting Finley ready for thrill rides or I’ll be going solo.

To that extent, I have slowly been introducing Finley to the elements of speed, turbulence and g-forces…. As safely as possible, of course. And since we don’t have quite the training facility that NASA has, I have to use the tools available to simulate a ride. In fact, the closest thing to simulating everything NASA has can be found on the local playground.

You’ve got your g-force simulator in the merry-go-round, re-entry simulation in the slide and an acceleration simulator on the swings. The swings just happen to be Finley’s favorite. She loves getting as high as she can and zooming through the air with the wind in her face. She could swing all day, if she had the choice. So, now that we’re getting her used to the height and the speed, it’s time to introduce a little turbulence.

This past weekend, we hooked up the kid bike trailer and went for a little 11-mile jaunt on the Burke-Gilman bike trail, here on the east side. I have to say that despite my best efforts, it was a bit bumpy, but Finley took it in stride and was even able to sneak in a nap during the trip. She’s not a big fan of the helmet, but like anything, the more we do it, the more she’ll get used to it.

So, now my little astronaut is on her way to finding the seat next to mine on a roller coaster in just a few years. But there might actually be a downside to creating all this courage in the little one.

Every once in a while we’ll find her climbing on her toys and standing to balance without using her hands. Sometimes she’ll find her way to the top of the coffee table or flip herself over her little couch. Sometimes she’ll climb into her toy bins. And none of these compare with the nightly acrobats she performs in her crib. But more recently, her little daring dos wind up giving her a few bumps and bruises.

Just like a typical toddler, she’ll find her way to smack her head into a table leg or fall over during one of her couch vaults. In fact at daycare today, she was trying to ride a tricycle – her feet can’t even touch the ground when she sits on it – when she took a bit of a tumble and scratched her face.

But, as I’ve always said, these are just the first of many scrapes and tumbles to come. I know that Heather and I have many days ahead of us of boo-boos, band-aids and bruises. I know there will be heads to rub and fingers to kiss better. But, to borrow from a recent film, “we fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

So, hopefully, after every time she bonks her head or scrapes her knee, Finley will learn to avoid the things that get her hurt. Well, the more obvious things, anyway. Because as much as we want to, Momma and Poppa won’t always be there to kiss it better. She’ll have to learn to dust herself off and keep going, no matter how tough it may seem. At the very least, I can cheer her up with a fun ride on a roller coaster!