2 and a half

Beginning your day with Go Fish and ending it with Duck Duck Goose

Yesterday morning I awoke early and, when I was unable to fall back asleep, I meandered downstairs to make coffee and work for half an hour or so.

No sooner had I situated myself, though, than Audrey strolled in. When I said "good morning" I startled her - ostensibly she had the same idea I did which was to get some alone time. While the thought of my 3-year-old getting ready for the day by herself downstairs strikes me as odd, she clearly didn't expect to find me there.

"Daddy, what are you doing up?" she asked. 

"What are you doing up? It's early!" I responded. Normally she doesn't wake until 8am or so.

"Let's play Go Fish!" she announced, as if she had planned it all along.

Yes, exactly what I was conspiring to do with my morning... "Okay," I said, giving up hope for any sort of productive endeavor. "Let's play Go Fish."

We sat down at her small white table with lime green chairs and I dealt. Before I even finished doling out the cards, though, she started sandbagging. "I really don't remember how to play, Daddy." 

But as soon as she scooped her cards from the table she started laying them back down in piles that matched. I explained she needed four-of-a-kind to do that but that rule didn't sit well with her. "Here, see? I have two sharks! And two angel fish!" (The cards take a very literal approach to the game.) By the time she was done, I still held 7 cards while she showed 3.

"I guess it's your turn still," I said. "Ask me for a card." 

"Do you have a whale?"

I did, and gave her my whale card. Another match, and she was down to 2. Needless to say she won, and then convinced me to play again and won a second time. Beginning your day with a couple of victories isn't a bad way to start.

Fast-forward to bedtime - one of Audrey's favorite delay tactics is to insist on a good-natured game of Duck Duck Goose before she'll willingly go upstairs. Generally we insist that each person goes only once but she tends to prevail in that everyone goes at least twice.

"Duck. Duck. Watermelon. Apple. Horsie. Frog. Tree... Goose!" recited Audrey as she circled us, gave me a final tap on the head and then sprinted away. I get bored with it and make up alternatives to the word "duck" and Audrey has followed in my footsteps.

It was then my turn, and then Suzanne's, and then Audrey's and mine and Suzanne's again.

Thinking about this today, I appreciated that book-ending my day with Audrey's games put all the nonsense in the middle into a bit more perspective.

Audrey without a pacie?

Uttering those words once makes me want to utter them again, because I'm incredulous. Could it be true? Audrey has given up her pacie?

Repeating the phrase reminds me of the scene from 1984's Muppets Take Manhattan when Kermit and Miss Piggy are to be wed:

Bear 1: "Sombody's getting married?"

Bear 2: "Somebody's getting married? HEY, somebody's getting married!"

Bear 3: "Whoa, somebody's getting married!"

Pops: "Somebody's getting married??"

Lew Zealand: "Somebody's getting marrrieeeed!"

Group: "Somebody's getting married!" And so on. Until the entirely of the muppet world is chiming in.

I can hear it now:

Dad: "Audrey without a pacie?"

Mom: "Audrey without a pacie!"

Grace: "Audrey without a pacie??? HEY, don't take away MY pacie!"

Extended family: "Audrey without a paaaacieeee!!!"

Yes, the inveterate search for pacies in the middle of the night in our house may be at its end. The subtle but constant sucking noise may abate, and perhaps entirely if we can wean Grace off too. 

Advice to parents: Don't start your child on a pacie after age 2, which is what we permitted Audrey to do. And if your baby uses one, stop before age 2. It becomes more of an addiction versus a pacifier seemingly akin to (dare I say it?) a smoking habit. I don't think Audrey has an addictive personality, mind you - just a strong one.

How did this come about?

Yesterday Audrey announced unequivocally that she was giving up her pacie. Cold turkey, clean break, no detox required. I was taken back by her declaration since this was not to have occurred until her 4th birthday but she clearly wants to take the bull by the horns. I gave her a high-five and a hug and told her I was proud.

At bedtime,though, her resolve began to show some cracks. A great many of them, in fact. And no matter what we said to her, she cried.

"Do you want to read a book Audrey?" I asked. "A book?? Oh noooo, not a book... NO! I don't want to read a book," was her tearful reply. No distraction was good enough.

To her credit, she had overheard mommy saying that the pet dog belonging to her cousins needs to be euthanized due to illness - she picked up on that like a bloodhound and it considerably worsened her grief-stricken state.

But as time wore on she grew tired and fell asleep - without her pacie.

It may be the case that she hasn't done that in 2 years. Hard to say for sure, but I'd bet on it.

I'm proud of her. Tonight there will be tears again, but slightly less so. And tomorrow and the next day less again. Until her pacie is a distant memory.

Audrey without a pacie has a nice ring to it.

Bath time

Audrey and Grace take baths every two nights or so. It's probably one of the best bonding times they have. 

Tonight Grace thought it would be funny to take a cup and pour water on Audrey's head. Over and over. And Audrey, the sport that she is, didn't mind much. In fact she started pouring water on her own head and face. So it became a big water-pouring session.

Then Audrey decided she'd pour a cup of water on Grace's head. Tears. Not a two-way-street yet, since Grace is only 1. But Audrey didn't push it - she went back to letting Grace soak her with soapy bath water.

What happened when I tried to pour water on Audrey's head to wash her hair? Tears. "Dad, my face is getting wet!" "DAD!! My neck hurts!" "DAD!!!!! Is the shampoo out yet?" You'd think I was an abusive hair-washer. But I'm not. It's just the nature of things. Which means Audrey is a good sister and a normal child.

Ouch

That's Grace's favorite word. Bump her the wrong way, or pick her up too quickly, or even look at her the wrong way, and she'll look most offended and say, "Ooouuuch!" And her brow will be furrowed like you've never seen. You actually feel guilty.

Cinderella doll

Audrey: "Dad! I can't find my Cinderella doll!"

Daddy: "Ok. Where did you last have it?"

Audrey: "On the kitchen table. Can you check there?"

Daddy: "I don't see it. And it's not on the counter either."

Audrey: "Oh. Well, check in the corner behind my pink chair by the window where I put my other doll."

At that point, is there any question that she knew where Cinderella was all along?

The Dream Catcher

Audrey announced to me yesterday morning that she continues to have bad dreams about the evil queens in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (she calls them evil stepmothers but I think that's in Cinderella, right?) and doesn't understand why the Dream Catcher can't catch those darned dreams and do away with them.

Who is the Dream Catcher? I had to ask as well. Turns out I was the one who hung the Dream Catcher from the mobile above her bed - he's a small figurine. Duh, dad.

He's supposed to pull the bad dreams out of the ether and let the good dreams percolate about for re-use. Although that's not how Audrey put it. He has a diamond, apparently, which takes the bad dreams, and a circle, which permits the good dreams. And he just hangs out up there doing his thing while she sleeps.

Anyway, these dreams about evil queens and what not have caused her to want to sleep in our bed a bit more lately, so naturally I took advantage of the opportunity to say, "Audrey, if you're not in your own bed, how in dreamland is the Dream Catcher going to catch your bad dreams? Certainly he's not going to be able to do so if you're all the way down the hall in our room!"

She did think on that for a moment, but then slept in our bed again last night. Maybe it's time to stop watching Disney movies for awhile. And if Disney movies are causing this, what are other movies going to do? We might need more dream catchers.

A pot, a lid and a sippy cup of water

Audrey just got out of bed to come downstairs to get a pot and a lid and a sippy cup of water. She's worried she might get sick, and the whole idea originated, I think, from when my wife was sick with the flu this past winter. Audrey, of course, is not sick - she is imagining she might get sick. And even if she got sick, a pot with a lid on it isn't going to do her much good. But at least she has taste - she picked All-Clad. And at least she has her sippy cup - that means Daddy won't have to head downstairs in the middle of the night when she comes in to say she's thirsty.

What, dad?

Lately Audrey has taken to asking me, "What, dad?" when I say something to her. And then I'll repeat what I said and she'll still often respond, "What did you say?" 

The way she says the latter almost makes it sound like she heard something scandalous come out of my mouth.

So then I repeat what I said again, slowly and more loudly, often feeling like she *must* have heard me. Is she just messing with me? 

Some part of me thinks she is - you know, to test me a bit. We've all responded with, "What?" to someone, after hearing them well enough, although I'm not sure why.

But I also know she's only 3 and that I may use words she's less familiar with or speak too quickly or too softly or mumble. And this morning when she finally understood what I said she thought about it and then said, "I love you, dad!"

Messing with me or not, that's worth the back-and-forth.

Evacuated in Hawaii

It isn't every day that one goes to Hawaii and faces a tsunami threat. But that's what happened to us on February 27 when, for the first time in 16 years, authorities issued a state-wide evacuation of all coastal areas after the massive earthquake that hit Chile.

The evening before, the "warning" was just a "watch." I figured it would remain that way, at least for us, considering we were on a part of the big island that faces west, which is away from the direction the waves would come from. But the next morning sirens blared and a security guard knocked on our hotel door, telling us to board buses and head for higher ground.

The guard told us to leave everything but personal valuables behind but I couldn't help but envisage a hotel room half full of water with our battered belongings strewn about when we returned. Despite that I only took my wallet, keys, some books and our video camera and stashed my work laptop and some other items in the room's safe. If my work laptop got ruined, so what.

My wife and mother-in-law grabbed some things too but most of what we took along was to keep Audrey and Grace protected from the sun, fed and entertained. We were shooting in the dark though because we had no idea where we'd end up. The image circling about in my head was of a make-shift shelter in a deserted parking lot surrounded by fields of lava rock, with us trying to keep two little girls from baking in the sun. Staff would come by and ration us food and we'd wait and wait until finally the threat subsided, exhausted and unsure whether our hotel would still be standing when we returned. 

But that image was completely wrong - almost as wrong as the tsunami researchers were about their predictions of widespread disaster. We were re-located to a sister hotel 10 minutes inland that had inviting pools and water slides, an outdoor restaurant-bar and plenty of shade and seating. Granted it was crowded with more than 1,000 other evacuees and we were fed hamburgers and hot dogs for breakfast, but it wasn't a bad place to be evacuated to.

By 2:30pm the tsunami threat had been dismissed - the interesting part was, when we returned to our coastal resort, no employees showed up to serve the returning guests. Apparently "tsunami warning" = "vacation" for the locals. It was all my wife and I could do to find two bowls of macaroni and cheese to feed Audrey and Grace - fortunately we encountered the food manager on our quest and she obliged. It was the only complimentary gesture on our entire trip.

I don't want to make light of the fact that there was a very real tsunami warning and I'm glad we took precautions. And Hawaiian authorities reacted in a very organized manner. 

Now that I've made that disclosure, I think the lessons are - don't worry about tsunamis when you visit Hawaii because they are rare. And if you're in Hawaii and a tsunami threat occurs, bring your swimsuit and ID because you'll likely be evacuated to a place with a pool and a bar.