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June 23, 2003
Social Butterfly in training
Last weekend we had a very busy schedule. On Saturday morning I hosted a social for my baby sitting co-op so that everyone could get together and catch up and get to know each other better so that we would feel comfortable leaving our children in these people’s care. As seems to be the case these days, very few people bothered to RSVP and I was left thinking that I had, truly, thrown a party to which nobody would come. Eventually about five or six families and their children showed up and everyone had a nice time playing inside (which I had spent the whole previous week cleaning, including fixing BOTH toilets and painting the bathroom) and then outside, even though it was cold and wet.
Then, later in the day, was our neighborhood barbeque, which is held at the private park/ playground that is owned by our neighborhood association. I had volunteered to help organize the event so spent much of the day (after the co-op social) running around getting balloons, setting up the moon bounce that was rented for the event, and generally getting things organized. All of this was under ominous thickening dark clouds but, since this was already being held on its third rain date (it’s been that kind of month), we were determined to go forward with it. And it ended up being very nice, with a good turnout and lots of kids running around and barbeques grilling away. In addition to the moon bounce, which was a huge hit, there was a bicycle parade and face painting so there was a lot going on. Since the moon bounce guy indicated he would probably pick up the moon bounce the next day a bunch of us moms of younger kids (that liked jumping but could not go in whenever there were bigger kids in it) met up at 8AM the next day and got in more private jumping. Ella was very nervous around it at first but with the help of another mom, Lynne, who I am getting to know and really like, she was jumping away by Sunday morning.
All of this socializing has been hard for me. I don’t consider myself somebody who can quickly and easily make new friends and I always feel very awkward and dorky making small talk with people. I have really made a conscious effort to volunteer and jump into these events as a way to force myself to get out there and make contacts and get to know people, with the long term hopes, of course, that this feeling of being an uncomfortable outsider will pass with time. This determination to put myself out there like this is reinforced by the knowledge that it is good for Ella to get to know all of the kids in our neighborhood since these could be the start of life long friendships. Keeping her needs in mind helps me take the focus off myself and not feel as self-conscious. And I can definitely see results. Despite a terrible inability to remember names and faces, I know almost all the moms that come to our park, as well as the kids, and most of them know Ella and me as well. It has taken over a year to get to this point, but I am proud of that accomplishment that, while might seem trivial and like nothing on the outside, is the result of a lot of tension and determination on my part.
Father’s Day
The next day, after all these festivities, was Father’s day. Father’s Day was nice, but pretty mellow at our house. I know I mentioned in a previous post that Ella hasn’t exactly been kind to her Daddy lately. Well, I primed her all up to where she could say a perfect “Happy Father’s Day” but the little stinker wouldn’t say it all day to daddy. In fact, she started the day by refusing to go in and say Good Morning to Daddy at all and then, when I gave her the bag with his gift in it, not only would she not give it to him, but she ran into her room with it and cried when I pried it out of her hands and gave it to Jamie myself. What a peach, huh? I should mention that, in one last ditch effort to get the coveted phrase from her mouth, she finally conceded as she was being led off to bed. “Night night dada. Happy father’s day”.
The day was one of the first sunny weekend days we have had in literally over two months. In typical Bonnie fashion, I screwed up the day of the River Festival so when we went down to the Charles there was nothing going on. It was beautiful out though, so we walked around Harvard Square a bit and had Mexican for lunch and then has ice cream from the ice cream truck while we relaxed down by the river and people watched. Ella eating her ice cream sandwich was a site to behold. She was just covered in brown sandwich goo and sticky ice-cream. But she plowed through the thing, pausing only to comment “yummy I-ceam” and “I wike it” every few bites.
Lately Ella really seems to have grasped the concepts of opposites. Maybe not all opposites, but she is big into up, down, open, close and in, out. The other day as I was driving her home from day care she spent the entire ride going “Open… close” and bringing her hands together and apart. It was so cute to watch and I guess she must have gotten it from day care. Either there or just made it up in her head since it isn’t something she and I have spent much time talking about. She has also been ‘spontaneously’ doing various little hand motions that I didn’t teach her when I sing her a song. It’s bittersweet to me each time she starts doing something that I clearly had nothing to do with her learning. On the one hand, I hate not knowing every single thing that is going into her little brain. I feel like for so long it was nearly exclusively my territory and now there are others in my terrain. But I also feel that it is definitely better since the only people that are influencing her (spending a lot of time with her, that is) are intelligent caring people that I have a lot of trust in. And I know that the greater her exposure to different ideas and experiences the better. Also, like I mentioned, I also have to be ready for the fact that as she gets a better and better grasp on the world and how to express herself, she is just going to have her own ideas and expressions that come from nowhere but her sweet little mind. Wow.
Am I raising a serial killer?
Ella continues to favor the dog over the cat and also continues to work on restraining herself from hitting. While she is getting much better when it comes to Jamie and myself (sometimes I will see her raise her hand and then stop it in mid air or hear her muttering to herself “no hit, no hit… mama…”) she has transferred this habit to the dog. It is just terrible to watch. She will just be walking along and come across the dog and yell out “Bad Dog!” and hit her on the back. I have been redirecting her over and over, telling her what a nice dog and a good dog we have (which we do, really!) and petting Coco and hugging and kissing her but Ella watches all this with a dubious disbelief on her face and will only reluctantly copy me if I order her too. Fortunately most of the time Coco doesn’t even seem to notice what is going on but I really dislike this tendency. I mean, isn’t this what you hear about in the childhood of serial killers?
Potty training
I am afraid I jumped the gun on this one and now I have shot myself in the foot. While I had originally mused, wouldn’t it be nice to get Ella potty trained this summer, I put that pipe dream to rest when we found out she was going to be in day care for much of the week all summer long. I would have just put the whole thing on hold except that Ella decided that she really likes sitting on the potty. I think she likes the novelty of having her diaper off and also guaranteed books read to her for as long as she sits there. So now she will often go and find her potty and drag it over, telling me “Pee pee… potty”. I don’t want to deny her of course, but 90% of the time we will go through the whole process—shoes off, pants off, diaper off, sit down, read books, etc.—with absolutely nothing to show for it in the bowl. The whole thing takes 15-30 minutes and requires me to be right there with her the whole time, which is often inconvenient if I am trying to do, say, anything at the time. And even if she does end up going pee pee, I can tell it is entirely by chance and she barely even knows what happened. It’s frustrating because I can tell she clearly isn’t ready to start, which is fine of course for her age, but I feel trapped and like I can’t discourage her when she tells me she wants to hang out on the potty. I wouldn’t feel nearly as resentful of stopping my day and spending the time with her if I thought we were getting somewhere, but I just don’t think it’s time yet. Sigh… Advice?
Well, I guess that’s all for now…
Thanks for reading!
Bonnie
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