Patience Cake

Have you ever baked anything with a little kid?

Fiona’s birthday party is on Saturday. She’ll be turning three. Now, I’m of the variety of parent that is, if the truth were told, entirely lazy. If I had choices in the matter we would be buying a sheet cake from the local grocery store bakery and I would not be involved in the baking or frosting process, except in a debit card capacity.

Unfortunately for me, but not for our party guests, Fiona’s food allergies preclude the easy answer. For giggles some time, try telling an underpaid bakery employee that you want to order a cake with no milk, butter, eggs, cornstarch, or corn syrup in it. Their expression is worth the few seconds it takes to ask.

So, how, you ask, is a cake made with very few of the commonly necessary ingredients?

It goes like this:

You will need:

1 large bowl
Measuring spoons and cups
1 mixing spoon
1 spatula
1 electric mixer
2 9in round pans
1 small sauce pan

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa powder, plus a small amount.
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup almond milk
2 tbsp flax ground flax-seed
2/3 cup oil
2 tbsp vanilla
1 bottle of red wine

Infinite patience, a roll of paper towels, one helper under the age of six.

First turn on the oven to 350F.  Remind the small child that this means that the stove is hot and she will get burned if she touches it. Grease both of your cake pans and powder them with cocoa powder.

Combine flax-seed with 6 Tbsp of water in sauce pan. Heat on stove over medium heat, stirring as often as possible while reminding your helper not to dump the whole container of baking soda in the bowl because you’ll need some for the cake. Move the sugar so that your helper stops sticking her fingers in it. Turn off the heat and move the pan when the flax-seed goo starts to resemble the way raw egg whites separate when you stir it away from the pan. You have created two eggs.

Retrieve another bowl or convince your helper to empty her creation into the sink. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in the bowl. Measure carefully and allow your helper to dump each ingredient into the bowl. Remind your helper not to eat the sugar, because it needs to be in the cake.  Stir in milk, oil, and vanilla. Finally stir in your flax-seed goo.

Use the electric mixer to blend the ingredients until smooth.  Remind your helper not to stick her fingers in the mixer. Try not to panic when she tries to anyway. Scrap batter evenly into both cake pans. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until a dry spaghetti stick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from the oven and turn out onto cooling racks. Remind your helper that the cake is for the party and she may not eat it right now. Even if she sees the cake and immediately goes to the silverware drawer and come back with a fork clenched in her little hand and a delighted grin on her face.

Now, if your anything like me (it’s okay, I understand that you’re probably better adjusted), then by the time you reach this step you’re pretty frazzled. It’s okay. This is the last and final step, pour yourself a glass of wine and wait until tomorrow to frost the cake.

Help? I need some new tools.

I’m looking for some positive parenting advice on a particular issue. Fiona has started hitting, biting, slapping, and screaming at me when she’s directed in any way. It’s probably a three-year-old thing, but it has me more than a little frustrated.

For instance, early in the day yesterday, I asked her to climb down from the table.  “Fiona, get off the table. The floor is for standing on.”

She looked at me and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Ugh. I don’t like being screamed at. Let me help you get down and go to your room to scream.” Go over to lift her down and carry her to her room and she starts hitting me and trying to bite me, screaming and crying.

I put her in her room, set a timer for three minutes and wait until both the timer goes off and she’s quiet. Then I go in and this is the conversation that results.

“Fiona, what are the rules?”

“No hitting, no biting, no yelling.”

“That’s right, and..” I prompt, “Do what you’re…”

“…told.” she finishes.

“Was screaming, biting or hitting me okay?” I ask.

“No.” She says. “I sorry, Mommy. You forgive me?”

“Yes, Baby, I forgive you. I love you!”

And then we go back to our day, but this repeats upwards of five times a day. It’s not getting better. What do I need to be doing to teach this? I’m sick of it and I need some new tools.

(Don’t bother to suggest spanking her. It’ll only tick me off. That option is not on the table.)

Fish aren’t pets.

Fish aren’t pets. I’ve said this often over the past several years. They can’t be pets because you can’t pet them. At best they are moving decor. More or less like houseplants, you must keep them alive, but they don’t really do anything.

As it turns out, I was deeply wrong. Fish are pets and nothing will drive this home as hard as having to explain the death of a beloved fish to a loving little girl.

The week before last one of the two large goldfish that live in a tank in Fiona’s room died. I’m not altogether certain why. It hadn’t shown any symptoms, it was just dead. I noticed it before Fiona did, and was thankfully allowed a few minutes to consider how to deal with both the fish and the explanation of death.

Now, the disposal of the dead fish was a problem. We’re not talking a carnival gold fish here. My husband was given these fish as “rescued feeder fish” by his sister six years ago. We’re talking about an almost seven inch orange comet goldfish.

I’m left with very few options for getting rid of the dead fish. Burial, but we don’t have a back yard. Trash, but that seems icky and heartbreaking and Fiona would try to retrieve it. And the toilet. I don’t know about you, but I found that my faith in my septic system was only moderate when the task at hand was to accept a moderately inflexible seven inch object.

I was also left with the infinitely harder problem of helping Fiona understand death and why we had to flush her pet down the toilet!

I went with blunt. I’ve read a little about this, and most of what I’ve heard is that any pussy-footing around the subject confuses little kids and makes them worry.

“Fiona, honey, the orange fishy is dead.” I gently led her over to the tank. “He’s not moving anymore. We have to take him out of the tank and let him go.”

“He not moving?” She moves to look.”The orange fishy stopped swimming and died?”

“Yeah, Baby.” I hug her.

“He need new batteries?” She asks, but without enthusiasm. She’s learned this lesson before.

“No, Sweetheart, fish are alive, so when they die there aren’t batteries we can fix.” I say as gently as I can.

“Oh.” She says quietly.

“Do you remember Nemo?” I ask her. “How all pipes lead to the sea?”

She nods.

“Okay,” I say mentally crossing my fingers. “We’re going to send your fishy to the sea. He is dead, but we can send him back to the sea.”

“Okay.” She says, calm enough that I don’t really think that she understands.

We retrieve the fish from the tank. She asks if she can touch it and I let her. We put it in the toilet. We say goodbye to the fish. I ask her if she wants to flush the toilet and send the fish back to the ocean and she agrees. She flushes the toilet.

And the fish disappears. She looks up at me, grief written across her face, “My little orange fishy gone? All gone forever?”

“Yeah, Baby.” I nod sadly.

“Ohh!” She cries. She falls to the floor, face down, sobbing.

I hold her and comfort her and cry myself because you’d have to have a heart of stone not to in the face of her grief. She eventually calms.

She asks me questions about alive and dead and what her fish will do in the sea. I duck the last question, asking her what she thinks happens. She says that her fishy is going to look for the turtles and sharks and will swim again in the sea. It’s good enough for now. There will be time later to understand.

For the next couple days I keep close, she has questions and nightmares.

“Mommy, my little orange fish stopped swimming and died?”

“No, Baby, he died, then stopped swimming.”

“I go in pool and stop swimming, I die?”

Fuck! This child sure knows how to break my heart. “No, No, No, Baby. The fish died from something else, not from not swimming. Mommy will never ever let you get hurt in the pool. The lifeguards would help you too. If you stop swimming in the pool, either Mommy or a lifeguard will help you. You will not die.”

“Okay.” She nods carefully, her eyes full of tears. “Mommy, I miss my orange fishy.”

“Me too, Baby. Me too.” And I hold her with tears in my eyes, because her grief is just as contagious as her joy.

May I borrow your eyes?

For a while now I’ve been struggling with how I see Fiona. She has been defiant, difficult, clingy and generally a little annoying. I love her. Lately, though, I haven’t really been enjoying parenting her. It just wasn’t much fun.

For almost the last two weeks we’ve had friends in town. It’s strange, seeing the way her drama and joys and defiance and pretend games worked with them. She was still almost three, with all the difficulties that are inherent to that. (Can we say defiance?) But she was also her!

I needed new eyes. I had stopped seeing my daughter as so amazingly, unbelievably her and had started seeing her as a defiant child. She wasn’t my giggly, lovely little girl, she was a pestering, nagging, demanding screamer.

She’s still almost three, but more than that I can see her as her. She’s dramatic and loving and talkative and creative and bright and charming and funny and ticklish and sneaky and stubborn and mercurial and cuddly and just purely, wonderfully Fiona.

The same behavior that felt clingy and demanding when directed only at me was charming and warm and loving when directed at our guests.

She charmed and loved.

Fiona, Sheena, and Chris. Fiona taking pictures with Sheena’s camera.

She explored and explained.

“It say that the fish lives in the river. It say the spider is in red.”

She was her usual self.

Fiona and Chris in world market. Fiona is making her “Say Cheese” face.

I couldn’t see it though, before I saw it through their eyes. Maybe, more precisely, I saw it in their eyes. The way they lit up with affection. The way that she brings out the best and warmest in people. The way that just being her surprises laughter out of people. The way that she is joy and love given human form.

And, yes, they also got to see her scream at the top of her lungs and sit in time out and fight things she didn’t want and rules she didn’t like, but it didn’t seem to detract from the love and joy.

So, thank you, Chris and Sheena. Thank you both for letting me see my daughter through your eyes and in your eyes. She is amazing and so are both of you. Thank you.

Truth and Consequences

Fiona was throwing a hard plastic ball at the wall. I stopped her and told her if she did it again I would take the ball. She, being at that testing age, threw it again.

Follow through is important. I put the ball up.

She asked a few minutes later if she could have it back, “Mama, I have my ball back, please?”

I smile because she’s remembering to ask and use her polite words, “Are you going to throw it at the wall again?”

She looks at me seriously and nods, “Yep!”

“Hmmm…” I struggle not to laugh, “Then, no, you can’t have it back. That ball is not for throwing.”

She grumps about this for a moment then asks again, “Pleeeaase, can I have my ball?”

“Are you going to throw it at the wall?” I ask again.

“Yes.” She replies, definitively and a little sadly.

I laugh, because I’m amazed that she hasn’t just agreed yet. “Well, that ball isn’t for throwing. So if you’re going to throw it at the wall, I can’t give it back. ”

“Oh.” She says, and pauses for just a second. “Mama, I have my ball, please?”

“Are you going to throw it at the wall?” I patiently repeat, hoping the lesson will stick soon.

“Just a little.” She says. “I throw it at the wall one time.”

“Nope.” I say. “If you want the ball you have to throw it at nothing. Zero throws.”

“I could throw it at the door!” She announces optimistically.

“No. That ball is not for throwing. No throwing. Zero throwing.” I try to put this in her language.

“I could bounce it at the wall.” She suggests.

“No.” I’m aware that an attempted bounce would likely translate right into a direct throw.

“I could roll it?” She asks.

“N-Yes.” I finally agree. “If you sit on the floor, you could roll the ball at the wall. Would you like your ball back?”

“Yes.” She says with conviction.

“Alright. Are you going to throw it?” I ask with the ball in my hand to give to her.

“Yes!” She replies firmly.

“No.” I say holding tight to the ball. “The answer is no! No throwing the ball!”

She giggles.

I ask again, shaking my head slowly at her. “Are you going to throw the ball?”

“Y-” She starts and then shakes her head with me, “No. I roll it.”

I hand her the ball and she does, surprisingly, refrain from throwing it.

I’m not sure if she’s very young, or uncommonly honest. Either way, I find her blatant, self-defeating honesty reassuring and wonderful. She is, at her core, a great person. She doesn’t have a malicious, self-serving nature and, I think, she regards her world as reasonable and fair.

Either that, or she hasn’t figured out the art of lying yet.

PSA: Stay Home!

Every once in a while, I find myself very annoyed with the world. Today is that kind of day. Maybe it’s the total lack of sleep. Maybe it’s the not having left the house in nearly three days. Maybe it’s soundtrack of whining to which I am being subjected. Regardless of the source, I am cranky today.

I’m angry at people who think it’s okay to take their sick kids places. If your kid is sick, stay home! End of story.

Last night was a little better, we woke up every couple of hours because of her incredibly stuffy little nose, instead of me staying up between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. to feed her Advil and wipe her forehead with wet wash cloths until her fever came down. I’m pretty calm about illness, but once a fever hits 103 and is still trying to climb, I start to get nervous.

See, folks, unlike some of you, I stay home when my child is sick. So, for the last three days I’ve been cooped up. I’m not getting exercise and I’m not getting to do anything. Every time I try to do anything useful, I’m interrupted by a whining, cranky, sick child.

In fact, right now, she feels so miserable, that she’s whining and crying because my painting canvases are flat. She can’t, or won’t, explain what shape she wants them to be.

So, this is a Public Service Announcement. In case you missed it all the other times in your life that I know you’ve been told, if you, or you child, is sick, please, for the love of whatever you hold holy, stay at home. Do not come out until you’re well. Do not infect us with your yuck. Do not say to yourself that you’ll be a better parent if you get some exercise at the gym. Do not excuse yourself for taking them to the park by saying that the fresh air and sunshine will kill the germs. Do not take them to the grocery store unless there really is no other choice. (If you’re a single parent without a support network and you’re down to a single carton of applesauce, three beans, and a can of suspicious olives, you are excused. Or, if you lack Advil.)

If you do, knowingly, take your sick kid to public places and they make others sick, then you are morally responsible. You are making a very bad choice. If you do this repeatedly? You’re a bad person.  Your convenience doesn’t trump other people’s health.

So, the next time you, or your child, is sick, remember, even if you have to listen to whining about paintings being flat, stay home.

Needed: Babysitter

So, I thought that I had found a great babysitter. A high-school student, recommended to me by one of her teachers. I’ve met her mother. Sweet. Fiona liked her.

I hired her to come watch Fiona on Friday night. I prepped everything she would need to feed Fiona spaghetti for dinner. I made sure she knew where everything was. I told Fiona that having a babysitter was a special thing. We gave her both sets of phone numbers and told her to call us for any reason. It was just a test run. Not a big deal.

Yeah…

I need to add a phrase to my babysitter search.

Needed: Babysitter. Must prepare food for child, even if child says they are not hungry.

I came home at about 9:30 to an exhausted, unfed little girl.

“Well,” the well-recommended-sitter explained, “I asked a couple times if she was hungry, but she said no.”

“Okay.” I said, with remarkable restraint, “It’s a good lesson for everybody. Just so you know, toddlers say no a lot. She still needs to eat. If you put the food in front of her, she’ll usually eat. Next time you’ll know: Toddlers lie.”

“Oh!” She said. I think she was a little surprised that I wasn’t upset. “She tricked me!”

It’s a good lesson for Fiona, too. If she tells other people things, like “I’m not hungry”, she will probably be believed.  It’s important to know that the words that you say to people matter.

Still, I find myself unsure of whether I will invite her back. Apart from not eating, Fiona was happy and well cared for, and she, at least, wants to have that babysitter back. Truth be told, the babysitter won’t make that mistake again, and if no one ever let us learn from our mistakes, where would we be?

Really, though, who doesn’t feed a child?

To Preschool, or not to Preschool?

Well, it’s my question anyway. I kind of wonder how other parents make these choices for their kids. How do you choose whether to send your child at three or at four or at all? See, this keeps coming up as a choice, primarily because Fiona keeps asking to go. We have added pressure now because one of her friends, who’s only a few weeks older than her, is going this year.

I can see a lot of pro’s and con’s. I can also see my own inherent bias. It’s hard to argue with the idea of a three-hour break every day.

On the list of Pro’s

Fiona wants to go.
Fiona is bored at home.
Fiona wants more time with other kids.
Preschool is healthier than screen time.
Preschool will be good socialization.
The teachers have training in teaching.
It would be a three-hour break every day.

On the list of Con’s:

The preschool I’d like is very expensive (Montessori). Though there is a free option (State).
Fiona may not like it as much as she thinks.
Fiona may struggle with the other kids.
Fiona will be one of the youngest kids in the class.
Fiona doesn’t really sit still for long yet. (Though she can when she’s engaged.)
I would be shortening the part of her life where she gets to just be a baby and nothing else.
I would probably miss her.
Fiona might pick up bad habits from other kids.
Jeff isn’t at all convinced that she should go this year.

 

So, we’re left with a dilemma. Do we send her to preschool? Do I let her have another year of being a baby? What do I tell her when she argues that her friend gets to go? What is the right answer? What did you choose? What do you think?

Book People

We’re book people around here. We like books. We love good stories. We read. Jeff reads mostly for study; he’s pursuing his CCNA, and most of his time is spent with his nose in a book. I read for fun. Urban fantasy, historical romances, science-fiction, murder mysteries, and really anything with a good compelling story, good dialog, and likable characters will pull me in.

So, developing literacy is important to me. I want Fiona to like books.

Do you know what the single biggest predictor of reading enjoyment is?

It’s whether parents read for pleasure in front of their children. So much of parenting is just setting the example that you want your children to follow. Want children that read? Read to them and in front  of them. Want children that eat right? You first! Want children who are polite? Maybe a few nice words are in order.

Given my own love of reading, it’s hardly any surprise that we read every day. Naturally, we’ve developed a few tried and true favorites. These are the stories that I’ve read so often that I have them memorized and find myself watching her face as I recite them, instead of watching the page. When she catches me at this she points at the page and reminds me that, “The words there!”

With all that in mind, I’ve been a little surprised that I haven’t posted any of the books that we enjoy, yet. So, without further ado, here are a few of our favorites:

Way Up High, In a Tall Green Tree by Jan Peck

This is a wonderful exploration of a South American Tree and the possible inhabitants of it. The story takes you up the tree, greeting each animal, and back down to Daddy and a collection of stuffed animals and bedtime. One of our favorites for winding down to bed.

I’ll Teach My Dog 100 Words by Michael Frith

This is one of my favorites for language development and teaching reading. Over time she is starting to remember the pattern of all the different words and concepts that make up this fun little book. We take turns with different parts of different lines and it’s helping her develop some sight words.

Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman

A wonderfully illustrated prayer (not Christian) for good in a daughters life.  Fiona loves the pictures in this one.

It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny by Marilyn Saddler

This one is a wonderfully funny little story about a bunny who is tired of his life as a bunny. He tries joining other animal families, but each time finds something about it that he doesn’t like. This one appeals to me because it lends itself to dramatic reading.

 

and, last, but probably the most beautifully illustrated,

The Legend of the Golden Snail by Graeme Base

This is probably one of my very favorite children’s stories. It is a wonderfully written tale about a boy who sets off to find a magic sailing ship.  His adventures are worth reading and I refuse to spoil them by saying another word.

Now, those are our favorites, what are yours?

Plug it in?

Over the last several weeks we’ve had a sudden influx of moths. They were everywhere. Outside, inside, in the car, everywhere. I didn’t get any pictures of them, but I should have as, evidently, the local department of agriculture has no idea what they are.

Well, life being what it is, after about a week of fluttery moth company, they started dying off. Dead moths everywhere. Unavoidable.

This is understandably hard for Fiona. She liked the moths. Any time we walked through a fluttery swarm of them she said it was a moth party. She was very upset that they didn’t keep flying.

Finally, she asked why one wasn’t moving. I stated, calmly and without emotion, that it was dead. It had lived its whole life and then died.

She looked up at me appraisingly and said gravely, “It needs new batteries.”

I laughed sympathetically, “Well, not really, Baby. Moths don’t use batteries. They’re alive. They eat food for energy and they live for a while and then they die.”

She pursed her lips a little. “We could feed it?”

“Umm…” I trailed off a little, “Once things that are alive die, they can’t eat. It was a really old moth. It had lived as long as it could. It was all done.”

She finally left the moth alone and came inside.

Death is hard to explain to very young children. I feel very lucky that we get to start the process with moths. I think that it’s going to take a while to tell the difference between things that have dead batteries and things that used to be alive.

She came up to me a while after we had come inside and said, “We could plug it in. Then it would be live again.”