Speak Up

Ever since Finley started speaking, we’ve been anticipating that next word.

We’re always wondering what she will say next. And almost every day, it seems like Finley comes up with some new word or phrase that makes us laugh.

Of course most of what she says comes from what she picks up at school. Then there are the things she can only have heard at home. Case in point: Last week, Finley was VERY busy doing important doll-related business, when I was trying to get her attention. I decided to try some funny voices and after a few seconds of silence, she didn’t even look up and said, “You know what? You’re a freak!”

Obviously, this isn’t something she got from me. And obviously, it was something she’d heard at home. That leaves only one person responsible. The same person responsible for many of the little smart alec remarks Finley has been spouting these days.

It’s funny how you really don’t realize how much you say something until a two year old repeats it back to you. And although it’s usually something funny, you start to realize how much you need to watch what you say.

And lately, as I’ve been thinking about what NOT to say, a funny thing has happened… I’ve been noticing all the things I HAVE been saying. As Finley’s speech has evolved, so has mine.

Maybe not evolved, but I find myself saying a lot of the same phrases over and over. In fact, I’m pretty sure my daddy-daughter dialogue is really only five or six phrases that shift and expand, according to the subject. And the majority of subjects center on some sort of deal-making or coercing.

Lately, I’ve been saying things like “Here’s the deal” and “Why don’t we do this?” or “What did I just say?” and “If you do X, I’ll let you have Y.” Counting seems to be very popular, too. Somehow we expect her to understand that by the time I get to three, whatever it is she should be doing or not be doing should either happen or cease to happen. Of course it seems like it takes us longer to get to three than it used to.

Then there are the things I know I will eventually say, but I’m fighting. “Because I said so,” is one I’m trying to avoid. There are others. You all know them. You’re parents said them. Their parents said them.

The good part about all of this is that there are other things she’s picked up. “Please” and “thank you” are becoming more popular in her vocabulary. But the best part is the random “I love you’s” that pop up from time to time.It’s interesting how we spend a good portion of our lives making sure people hear what we have to say, only to edit ourselves when little ones are around. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we should always speak to others as if a toddler was listening. A few more “please” and “thank you’s and “I love you’s” might make life a little more enjoyable.

Happy Halloween!!

Baby Spice

"Sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of.”

That’s part of the classic poem. There’s more about “sunshine and rainbows and ribbons for hair bows,” but it seems lately we’ve been getting a little more spice than is called for in the recipe. It seems like we’re having a bit of a sugar ration at the old household.

Now I know two-year olds have their “terrible” stages and it’s just a part of what kids do, but I’m really beginning to wonder if there is some sort of curse your parents cast on you as you get older that manifests itself into your own kids. Some sort of payback. And when do I get to cast it on MY kid?

To be fair, Finley really is a good kid and she certainly doesn’t have the typical toddler temper tantrums. It’s just that she goes through modes and moods where she likes to test us… all the time. Sometimes she’ll climb up on the coffee table and wait for us to tell her to get down… and not get down. Or she’ll run into the living room, knock over a chair and wait for us to tell her not to do that and then run back in the living room and knock the chair over again.

And it doesn’t matter how many time outs we give her or how many times we try to explain to her how important it is to listen to Mommy and Daddy, she just likes to push our buttons.

Maybe that’s her job at this point. And maybe it’s not really about how she learns to listen and obey. Maybe right now, it’s all about how WE deal with it. Nah, she’s just being a brat.

But for all the table standing and chair tipping and all the other million things she does to drive us crazy, every once in a while she brings us a little taste of sugar that makes everything all better. Now and again she’ll randomly come up and want to hug me or even crawl up on the couch and lay her head on my shoulder for no reason except to be next to her Poppa. Sometimes she’ll lean over and kiss me on the cheek and even say “I love you, Daddy.” It doesn’t happen all the time, but it doesn’t need to, really.

It’s just nice to know that as I’m carrying a kicking and screaming table-stander to her room for a time out, all I have to do is wait a little while and I’ll have my cheek smoocher nearby.

And over time, hopefully the level of spice and sugar will begin to level out. That is, until the teenage years. But for now, I’ll take what I can get and start practicing the incantation that will put the curse on her kids.

Fall Pictures

Time to clean out the camera!

Helping Hand

There’s no doubt that the average toddler is curious.

Heck, Finley has been curious from the beginning. But, recently I’ve noticed that she’s not satisfied in just wondering how things work or what things do. She wants to make it all happen.She doesn’t want to just push the buttons on the remote just to push the button on the remote. Now she knows that if she hits enough buttons, Barney will show up. And it’s not just the remote. It’s anything that makes her think she’s grown up.

When the vacuum comes out, she wants to make it go. She knows where the broom is and wants to sweep the deck. This weekend, she was all about mopping the floor. And she loves to wipe the coffee table. Of course, her expertise at these cleaning skills has room for improvement.

And there are other things she’s learning to do or wants to do by herself… with absolutely NO HELP from us. She can slide on shoes and socks (somewhat) and get a coat on, but if she gets stuck, she gets frustrated fairly quickly. It takes a little convincing from us, but after a while she gives in and lets us help with the Velcro or zipper.

Then there are the other ways she wants to help out. There’s “helping” momma bake and decorate cupcakes. That’s when she hasn’t eaten most of the frosting.

But I guess it’s all about the effort. I like the fact that even though it’s really curiosity and play that are motivating her, she thinks she’s helping.

The bottom line is that she is not afraid to figure out how things work. She wants to learn and get her hands on whatever it is that has sparked her curiosity. It’s a first step to even more learning. Now, the trick will be to get her to sweep, mop, and clean ten years from now.

Building Blocks

It seems like just about every day Finley amazes us.

It’s probably because a toddler’s brain is a great big sponge. And everything they learn is repeated right back at us, so we think they are the smartest kids in the world. Even when it’s stuff we take for granted as grown ups.

And there are certain achievements and milestones we seem to measure as more important than other things. I’m talking about the first smile, the first word, and the first step. But along the way, there are a bunch of smaller steps that we help her take and every one of them seem pretty big to us.

Case in point: We bought Finley some little wooden alphabet blocks. They’re the standard brightly colored ones, with every letter and number on them. Over the past few weeks, we’ve played with them, stacked them and learned about each of the letters. She’s been able to associate words and names to each letter – “A” is for apple, “D” is for daddy, “F” is for Finley, “M” is for momma. So, we get to play and learn at the same time.

Now she’s learning that the letters can be combined to make words – the first steps to reading. I actually wasn’t planning on working on words for a little bit, but she’s always asking how to spell names or animals. Somewhere in that mix, she got stuck on the fact that her name ends in “l-e-y.” I started working on the “F-i-n” part. She was having a little trouble connecting them, so we took a break for a bit.

I don’t know if they’d been working on names at school, but suddenly Friday night, while playing with her blocks, Finley started calling out “F-i-n-l-e-y!” Of course, to be sure, we had to ask her what she was spelling, and she said, “That’s my name.”

Maybe I’m a little biased, but I’m thinking that’s pretty cool for a two year old. She’s taken a very big step toward a giant world of reading and writing. Again, as adults, it’s something we take for granted, but it really is amazing how big of a deal making that first connection is.

As I mentioned before, it’s just the beginning steps of reading, but it’s much more than that. It’s realizing she is building a foundation of learning. She’s making connections and setting off the little light bulb of discovery in her head. It’s not so much that she can spell her name; it’s that she realizes she can spell her name. That she understands how she got there and what it means.

Hopefully, this will lead to a need to learn more. For me, I’m hoping that she’ll learn how wonderful words are and all the things that can be done with them. I’m also hoping she can learn and understand math better than I ever could.

Ideally, she’ll be well-rounded and enjoy learning about everything. And I can’t wait to help her along the way. There are plenty of books I can show her and music to play for her. I’ve got stories of history and maps for her to explore. But, I’ll have to wait just a bit longer.

There will surely be moments of frustration and anxiety, which will lead to the most important things I can teach her… patience and trust. For now, we’ll stick to the blocks. Maybe “daddy” will be the next word we spell.

All She Wants

Heather and I had two major discussions well before Finley was born.

Both were pretty much about the same thing and both can be summed up like this: I am a sap. My daughter will have me wrapped around her finger. I won’t be able to say no. We were talking about discipline and how much of a Daddy’s girl Finley would be.

To be fair, most of those statements are true. But as we got closer to the birth of our daughter, I resolved not to be a pushover. And I held true to my resolution – mainly because the first year or so, there’s not much going on in the way of discipline. It really doesn’t kick in until they figure out how to say “no.” And even then, it’s all about distraction. If you can quickly get their mind off of whatever it was they were whining about, then they forget and move on to the next thing. The problem is, at about two, they start figuring out that trick.

Which brings us to a particular two-and-a-half-year-old and her constant desire for food, drink, toys, and any other thing that happens to land in her line of sight. The distraction game only lasts so long and you find yourself either saying “no” or bargaining for some future and/or non-existent alternative. Mostly you’re bargaining.

Depending on the mood of the child, this can be a fairly reasonable discussion, or as we have seen lately, an exhausting, drag out, knock down battle. It’s not so bad when the battles are at home. If things escalate to tantrum levels, you can always call a time out and send them to their room. But when you’re out in public, say at a grocery store, then the current outing come to a sudden halt.

Which is why it is very important to gauge your child’s mood and fatigue level well before heading on these outings or you’ll be running for the exit of Target with a screaming, kicking girl in your arms, while Momma tries to check out.

Which brings me back to the original discussion, which was my resolve to not be a pushover. I actually think I’m doing fairly well. The good thing is that most of the things she whines and cries for are relatively small in nature – not much more than the occasional lollipop or toy. And in those cases you really have to pick your battles and think through your strategy.

You have to decide if getting her the lollipop she is crying for is worth the five to ten minutes of silence or if it is just setting a precedence of giving in that she will latch on to for the next several weeks. The answer really depends on how many people are within earshot of her screams or how quick of a run it is to your car.

But really, these are fairly easy decisions. Not letting her have candy or a toy is pretty straightforward and you can bargain treats and toys waiting for us at home. What makes the overall process difficult is when she’s not acting like a devil spawn and actually being the nice, sweet girl you’ve come to know and love.

It really is amazing how she can go from tears and cries one second to hugs and kisses the next. The great part is that she hasn’t figured out quite yet that this can be a tactic. She is honestly being sweet and nice and not trying to leverage anything out of me… yet.

I think at this point it comes down to the fact that the act of performing her tragedy wears her out and when she is done with the drama, she wants a shoulder to lay on. Nothing is better than when she walks up with her sad little eyes and says “I want to hold you.” It’s like snuggling recharges her batteries and after a few minutes she’s ready to play with blocks.

Of course it’s just a matter of time before she realizes that she can work the tears AND the hugs to get what she’s after. THAT’S when I’m not sure my resolve will hold up. Right now, being smarter than a two-year old is an advantage. The smarter she gets, the dumber I get and the more of a sucker I become. I know, deep down, I won’t give her everything she wants. I’ll give her just enough to keep me on her snuggle list.