Last Day of Preschool!

Here he is in September...

 And here he is today. : )

Best part is the book tucked under his arm! Which he read this morning, almost entirely by himself!

Well, No One's Gonna Top That

Today was Cody's last day of school. Team Last went to pick him up, and on the way home Cordy and I congratulated him on a great year -- on being brave, and kind, and hard-working. On becoming a reader, and a writer. Most of all, on being a good friend. I suggested we stop at Starbucks for a little treat for each of them, to celebrate. Perhaps a cookie. Or a frappuccino. I was giddy. Then:

CJP: Could I have a cookie all to myself? A WHOLE cookie, to celebrate? (Usually I make them share one -- they're big.)
Me: Sure -- but not also a frappuccino.
CML: Can I have a cookie too? All to myself?
Me: You may. But again, instead of a frappuccino -- not along with it. 
CML: Well, I'm going to eat it all to myself.
Me: See, here's a good opportunity to practice kindness. What you could say instead would be something like, "Cody, I'm so excited to celebrate your last day of school. Why don't we share our cookies? I'd love to share with you."
CML: Well, I don't want to share. I want to have it all myself. 
Me: That's not being kind, though. That's being selfish.
CML: Well, then I want to be selfish.

At which point I just put my head down on the steering wheel and stifled a laugh. What do you say to that?

This is a follow-on to something that happened last week at the playground. Jonathan took her, and while they were there, a four-year-old girl was following her around, totally sweet and excited to have someone about her own size. Cordelia apparently looked at her disdainfully and then shouted across the (empty) playground: "DADDY! I do not like this girl."

JVL forced her to apologize and frog-marched her home. He was so exasperated: the child had been doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to warrant that reaction. Later, I brought it up to see what she would say. Here's her response when I asked what happened:

CML: Well there was a little girl on the swing, and I was on the swing, and then we were climbing up the slide and I accidentally told her “I don’t like that girl.”

SLL: You don't really say something like that by accident. Do you think you hurt her feelings?

CML: Yeah. I’m sorry for doing that.

SLL: Well, that's good. Did you apologize?

CML: No. But tomorrow when I see her I will. But if I just don’t like her when I see her again, I'll tell you. And you will stand up for me! 

SLL: Well. It doesn't sound like anyone needed to stand up for you. It sounds like she was rather kind.

CML: Yeah. She was really friendly. But I just didn't like her. 

Everyone's Happy (in this moment)

Happy Memorial Day!

The Kindness Chart

So Cody and Cordelia are having a bit of a rough patch. (For the last three years, you say? Well, yes.) They are two of the loveliest children ever -- even if one is possibly a sociopath -- but they are utterly hateful to each other right now. Also, they've started saying all that stuff that children just somehow learn, in that tone of voice- - you know the one I mean: "It's not fair! She did it first! It wasn't me! It's not fair!"

This concerns me, for many reasons. But so far, no amount of sternness or nagging or reminding or scolding or reasoning has made a dent in their behavior. So we're doing what all diligent parents do: switching from threats to bribery.

In fairness, the technical term is "positive discipline." And some doctors came up with it, so how bad can it be? The idea is that instead of nagging a child every time they do the same damn wrong thing, you try to make note of the times they get it right, and gradually reinforce the behavior until it becomes the norm. 

This takes more patience than you might imagine. Because really, you want to shout, "I don't care who did it first!" Mostly, you do shout that. If you're me. Or, if you're really lofty, "Oh, it's more than fair" in a snide voice, which, if you're really honest, you know preschoolers don't really deserve. And it doesn't actually make you feel better. Or if you're just really on a parenting roll, "I'm not interested -- WORK IT OUT! AND BE NICE TO EACH OTHER, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" And then, growing louder and louder, you scream,  "...AND STOP SHOUTING!"

It's true that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting--longing for--a different result is the definition of insanity. But it's also the definition of parenthood.

I know they are not unkind children. They're just unkind to each other. And we have a very, very low tolerance for that...especially because it makes me, in turn, respond unkindly. It's a vicious cycle, you see. So like all vicious cycles, it requires the intervention of Art.

Behold the Kindness Chart. I actually thought of this myself, which I hope earns me back a few of the points I've lost by screaming at them to stop screaming. The idea is that with each act of kindness they perform, they earn a "kindness star." After a designated amount of stars (we'll start slow, say, 5) they earn a reward. It might be ice cream, an extra-long bubble bath, a candlelight dinner, movie night, extra stories, a trip to the spray ground, Five Guys...whatever. We're hoping they come to associate positive, happy, peaceful times with their kind behavior, and then -- like M&Ms and potty training -- they won't need to earn the stars anymore. They'll just be nice. 

So I got crafty. Here's the chart. Notice that it offers the possibility of healthy competition. They'll stick their stars on their side and can see how they stack up against each other. Here is it on day one, before we've started the new approach...I wanted to take a picture of my handiwork before it became plastered with the evidence of their loving hearts.

Here's day two:

Here's day three:

As you can see, we have some work to do. 

Sigh.

Toes and Tongue

Emma's got grinning down pat. 

Her latest discovery? Her tongue. She spends all day just sticking it sideways out of her mouth. This was the most riveting thing in the world...until she found her toes!

Zoo Day

Yesterday Cody and I went on the CMS school trip to the zoo, which was awesome in its own right. But making it awesomer is that Carly was there, with her Granny. Who she calls Ya-Ya. (Real name: "Susan Weltman.") She's a lovely woman. So lovely that she very sweetly didn't seem to mind when Cody, instead of calling her "Mrs. Weltman," referred to her all day as "Ya-Yah."

Anyway, the four of us sat together on the bus ride into DC and then roamed the zoo together. Sample cuteness.

First, on the bus:

Then, at the zoo:

If you look closely, you can see an elephant in the background. But the animals were really the secondary attraction.

The best part of the day was being with his best school friend. Like Rock Hudson and Doris Day.

Lest you think there was no animal gazing, Ya-Ya helpfully compiled a full list of all the animals we saw. If you click to enlarge, you'll note the heavy emphasis on reptiles. Obviously.

Guess Who's Going Camping . . .

I've been hunting for a tent for Cody and I for . . . well, let's just say for a long time. The one I really wanted was the REI Kingdom 6 which is, as tents go, awesome. And last week, guess what finally went on sale?

 

 You'll note that it's big enough for me, Cody, Cora, and Emma. But without the girls, when it's just Cody and I this summer, it'll be like having a hotel room in Manhattan.

Sleeping Beauty

Okay, that title is misleading. Not the "beauty" part. Let's just say, she's getting there. Sleep training has been going better, and much more quickly, than I had expected, so I'm optimistic. I feel for her--she went from being a foot from my bed and nursing basically anytime she wanted, all night, because I was too tired to fight it, to having all this room to herself and no boobs within reach. On the other hand, she taught herself to roll back and forth in a day, so she's starting to enjoy her newfound freedom. 

Cody and Cordelia are having a bit of a rough adjustment to living together. Their rhythms aren't exactly in sync. He pops out of bed, totally awake, coherent, and READY at about 5:15. Until now, he's always been free to hang out in his room and play. He is working on remembering to tiptoe out quietly and into our room, because she's more of a 6:45 - 7:15 kind of girl, and takes a while to really wake up. So when she starts the day that early, it's hell. 

But on the other end of the day, she also takes awhile to fall asleep, though she rests quietly--or used to. Cody, having been on the move for 14 hours or so, is generally asleep within two minutes of putting his head down. He's been this way his whole life. But suddenly he (and we) is hearing things like...

CML: [stage whisper] Cody? Cody! CODY. Are you awake? Cody! Can you see what I'm hiding under my pillow?

CJP: Shh! I am trying to sleep. Stop opening the curtains! Get off the ladder. Go in your OWN bed.

CML: Want to be bad guys? Want to make a ruckus? [pause] I have to TELL you something, Cody! 

CJP: Tell me in the morning, Cordelia! Can't you see I am trying to sleep here?

We feel for everyone. For poor Cody, getting a sister on his second birthday wasn't bad enough: now she's been sent to live three feet beneath him. In what has always been his own private space. And Cordelia? She's feeling kicked out, summarily dispatched from the space that has always been her safe zone, to make way for someone who can't always figure out that, strictly speaking, you don't have to scream before you fall asleep. You can just, you know, sleep. 

And then, sometimes, she does. 

And PS: Cordelia gave Emma her own Hoppy! It's brown, so it's the REAL Hoppy's cousin (apparently). Emma loves it.

Cicadaville

It's been awhile. We've had a lot going on at The Last Resort, including sleep-training Emma and moving Cody and Cordelia into the same room. I bet you can't guess which one is going better. Also, all five of us got sick (well, I never really got better since my late-April ear infection fiasco). And I went back to work. Anyway, I'm not quite sure where to start, so I'll just take it one post at a time. And why not start with an incidence of great abhorrence fascination: the plague of cicadas! 

They. Are. Everywhere. I find them irritating and vaguely horrifying. Cody finds them, not surprisingly, delightful. 

Cordelia, also not surprisingly, is a little more circumspect. They're okay as long as they're not too close to her. Or if she has a golf club with which to whack them.

 

We have cicada skins literally everywhere in the yard--thousands of them. On trees. In the gardens. On window screens. Careening around the garage. Decomposing beneath the birch tree (not fast enough, thank you very much). Think I'm kidding?

We watched YouTube videos of them molting in slow motion. Cody collected shed shells and brought them to school so everyone could examine them under the microscope. I found one down the back of my shirt the other day and screamed. 

Can you blame me?

Thing Three

There is nothing, nothing good to say about Thing 1 and Thing 2 at this particular moment. And I don't say that lightly. So, instead, I give you Thing 3. We keep saying that we should have named her Joy.