So, since Rebecca started reading she likes to try to identify all the letters (but mostly the consonants) in a word she hears.
As a result, she is quickly discovering that English is a big méli-mélo with lots of exceptions.
She gets very frustrated when her guesses are wrong, or if words don't conform to the rules she knows.
Problem words lately:
1 - Ocean (bad enough already that c can be soft or hard, but to make "sh" sound is unacceptable)
2 - Pteradactyl (the concept of a silent p annoys her)
3 - Lucy (the u that makes an "oo" instead of a "you" or "uh" sound, the soft c, and the y that is neither "yuh" nor "eye" sounding).
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Coochie coo does not fix an enraged toddler
During our visit to the hardware store I had the temerity to try to strap Lucy into the back of a shopping cart. She was not pleased.
She started squirming, moaning, yelling, crying, bawling and occasionally emitting animal like guttural noises.
I studiously ignored it, as I don't want her to get her way every time she pitches a fit. Especially when I need to strap her down to get something necessary accomplished.
I had three separate Rona employees try to cheer her up. The first one came up, waved at her, made various cooing noises and very helpfully suggested that 'all she needs is a little distraction'. I thanked her for the advice.
The second employee showed up about 30 seconds later, bearing paint chips for children's bedrooms which are shaped like a little smily face on a card. She offered one to Becca, who graciously took it. Lucy instead growled 'No' and whacked it out of the kind lady's hand onto the floor.
The third employee was about a minute later, and came along with balloons for the kids. Rebecca was overjoyed. Lucy tried to dramatically throw hers down at the ground. However it, being a balloon, did not smash to the floor breaking into a million pieces.
I gave it a couple more minutes, and as the fourth helpful employee approached, I released Lucy from the torture chair, and brought her up to my shoulder. She stopped crying immediately, looked around, and started giggling about something.
She won, and the degree of persistence and patience she showed frightens me.
She started squirming, moaning, yelling, crying, bawling and occasionally emitting animal like guttural noises.
I studiously ignored it, as I don't want her to get her way every time she pitches a fit. Especially when I need to strap her down to get something necessary accomplished.
I had three separate Rona employees try to cheer her up. The first one came up, waved at her, made various cooing noises and very helpfully suggested that 'all she needs is a little distraction'. I thanked her for the advice.
The second employee showed up about 30 seconds later, bearing paint chips for children's bedrooms which are shaped like a little smily face on a card. She offered one to Becca, who graciously took it. Lucy instead growled 'No' and whacked it out of the kind lady's hand onto the floor.
The third employee was about a minute later, and came along with balloons for the kids. Rebecca was overjoyed. Lucy tried to dramatically throw hers down at the ground. However it, being a balloon, did not smash to the floor breaking into a million pieces.
I gave it a couple more minutes, and as the fourth helpful employee approached, I released Lucy from the torture chair, and brought her up to my shoulder. She stopped crying immediately, looked around, and started giggling about something.
She won, and the degree of persistence and patience she showed frightens me.
Small booster seat update.
On day 2 of her booster seat usage, I was driving Rebecca home from Stomp. About 2 km from home I hear 'click' and look in the rearview mirror to see Rebecca scooting across the rear seat.
"Rebecca! NO! You do NOT undo your seatbelt, now I have to stop the car because that is NOT safe!"
I pulled over, got her buckled back in, and I gave her a little lecture about how if she's not buckled in, and we have an accident, she could fly around the car and get hurt. I told her how a seatbelt keeps her much safer in the car, and she should feel uncomfortable in a moving car without a seatbelt.
It must have been effective, because as soon as I was done the waterworks started. She was pretty much done crying by the time we got home, but as I opened the front door to let her in the house she let out a big wail "MOOOMMMY" and ran up to mom and gave her a big sobby hug.
We ran a few errands in the car today, and she's still excited about her booster each time she gets to ride in the car, and there have been no more unbuckling incidents. In fact she's been asking me if it's ok to undo it every time I shut off the car.
Chalk another success up to 'the stern voice'.
"Rebecca! NO! You do NOT undo your seatbelt, now I have to stop the car because that is NOT safe!"
I pulled over, got her buckled back in, and I gave her a little lecture about how if she's not buckled in, and we have an accident, she could fly around the car and get hurt. I told her how a seatbelt keeps her much safer in the car, and she should feel uncomfortable in a moving car without a seatbelt.
It must have been effective, because as soon as I was done the waterworks started. She was pretty much done crying by the time we got home, but as I opened the front door to let her in the house she let out a big wail "MOOOMMMY" and ran up to mom and gave her a big sobby hug.
We ran a few errands in the car today, and she's still excited about her booster each time she gets to ride in the car, and there have been no more unbuckling incidents. In fact she's been asking me if it's ok to undo it every time I shut off the car.
Chalk another success up to 'the stern voice'.
Rebecca got Fifth disease
Also known as "slap cheek", it is yet another virus she caught at school. The rash actually spread over her entire body, and is still dissipating, even though it's been a few weeks since its initial appearance.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Way overdue post
Rather than try to post about the weeks that have already passed, I will post about today.
Rebecca is still talking about seeing Stomp. Stomp tickets were her big Christmas present and she went yesterday with Greg. She *loved* it and she also befriended a little girl sitting beside her. I don't know how I spawned such a sociable little lady, but there you have it. Lately, all Rebecca wants to eat is Dino eggs and watermelon. She used to have much broader food interests. I don't know what happened. Now she hates yogurt. It used to be a daily (and conveniently healthy) fixture. If I had any doubts about the yogurt loathing it was confirmed when I read her "All about me" book that came home in her backpack from school today. Under "foods I don't like/yuck yuck" was a picture of yogurt. There was also a picture of "ham" (actually salmon) and "chicken" (stir fry pork) which she claims to hate. The last time I bought a package of sliced ham, she ate 4 slices in a sitting. Of course, there are any number of untruths in "all about me". For example, Rebecca says her favourite colour is green, her favourite animal is a fox, and her favourite toy is a starfish. However, she did correctly identify and draw all the members of her immediate family, and did not include the neighbour's dog (we recently had a heated debate about whether Bailey the dog was our dog or not). Recently, Rebecca has been telling me that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up because then she could make me feel better when I'm sick. I thought that was really sweet. At the same time, she has been obsessing over bandaids and insists she needs one every time she so much as bumps up against something. This evening she tried to convince me that her knees (bumped two or three days ago) was bleeding. It was not. She also tried to call Nanny and Grandpa on a plastic toy phone because she misses them and wants them to come home. Rebecca is very enthusiastic about reading. Since she can now read simple sentences, she likes to take books off her shelf and pretend read them. Tonight she read Lucy a bedtime story. It was very cute and Lucy was thrilled to bits. I am impressed with how nicely (mostly) the girls have been playing together. They seem to have a lot of fun, and they trash both their rooms (yeah!). On the weekend we were having dinner with my brother-in-law and his family and Rebecca was playing with a big Bonhomme stick. She told me she was practicing her footwork with her bokken. It just goes to show that sometimes she listens and pays attention to me, even if often it seems like this is not the case. With Lucy, the lack of listening is very evident these days. We are definitely in the terrible twos (even if two is still a month away). I am rejoicing in the fact that Becca has finally achieved a weight sufficient to allow the elimination of her godforsaken car seat. We now have her in a booster and my back is grateful. Rebecca is over the moon with this development. Lucy is such a sweetheart but she has developed a preference for specific clothing items that often leads to frustration on her part. There are two shirts that she loves better than any others. One she call "colours" because it is a stripy shirt of different colours (and while she does have other multi-coloured stripey shirts, only this one is special to her). The other shirt she calls "castle". The reason for this title is more elusive - it is in fact a yellow t-shirt (which is now too small really) from Egypt that my parents gave to her in the fall. It has a picture of Horus and a Pharaoh on it. With pants she is somewhat less picky. There are two acceptable pjs. One is called "Kendo", and it is a pink nightgown with polka dots (this has no relation to my Kendo uniform at all). The other is called "Cake", and consists of a top with a cake on it, and pj bottoms with various sweets depicted on them. God forbid that all of these items be dirty at the same time. She will rifle through the hamper looking for them. You can, of course, dress her in other things, but at this point, if she doesn't want to wear something - off it comes. She also eats my grapefruit when I'm distracted.
Rebecca is still talking about seeing Stomp. Stomp tickets were her big Christmas present and she went yesterday with Greg. She *loved* it and she also befriended a little girl sitting beside her. I don't know how I spawned such a sociable little lady, but there you have it. Lately, all Rebecca wants to eat is Dino eggs and watermelon. She used to have much broader food interests. I don't know what happened. Now she hates yogurt. It used to be a daily (and conveniently healthy) fixture. If I had any doubts about the yogurt loathing it was confirmed when I read her "All about me" book that came home in her backpack from school today. Under "foods I don't like/yuck yuck" was a picture of yogurt. There was also a picture of "ham" (actually salmon) and "chicken" (stir fry pork) which she claims to hate. The last time I bought a package of sliced ham, she ate 4 slices in a sitting. Of course, there are any number of untruths in "all about me". For example, Rebecca says her favourite colour is green, her favourite animal is a fox, and her favourite toy is a starfish. However, she did correctly identify and draw all the members of her immediate family, and did not include the neighbour's dog (we recently had a heated debate about whether Bailey the dog was our dog or not). Recently, Rebecca has been telling me that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up because then she could make me feel better when I'm sick. I thought that was really sweet. At the same time, she has been obsessing over bandaids and insists she needs one every time she so much as bumps up against something. This evening she tried to convince me that her knees (bumped two or three days ago) was bleeding. It was not. She also tried to call Nanny and Grandpa on a plastic toy phone because she misses them and wants them to come home. Rebecca is very enthusiastic about reading. Since she can now read simple sentences, she likes to take books off her shelf and pretend read them. Tonight she read Lucy a bedtime story. It was very cute and Lucy was thrilled to bits. I am impressed with how nicely (mostly) the girls have been playing together. They seem to have a lot of fun, and they trash both their rooms (yeah!). On the weekend we were having dinner with my brother-in-law and his family and Rebecca was playing with a big Bonhomme stick. She told me she was practicing her footwork with her bokken. It just goes to show that sometimes she listens and pays attention to me, even if often it seems like this is not the case. With Lucy, the lack of listening is very evident these days. We are definitely in the terrible twos (even if two is still a month away). I am rejoicing in the fact that Becca has finally achieved a weight sufficient to allow the elimination of her godforsaken car seat. We now have her in a booster and my back is grateful. Rebecca is over the moon with this development. Lucy is such a sweetheart but she has developed a preference for specific clothing items that often leads to frustration on her part. There are two shirts that she loves better than any others. One she call "colours" because it is a stripy shirt of different colours (and while she does have other multi-coloured stripey shirts, only this one is special to her). The other shirt she calls "castle". The reason for this title is more elusive - it is in fact a yellow t-shirt (which is now too small really) from Egypt that my parents gave to her in the fall. It has a picture of Horus and a Pharaoh on it. With pants she is somewhat less picky. There are two acceptable pjs. One is called "Kendo", and it is a pink nightgown with polka dots (this has no relation to my Kendo uniform at all). The other is called "Cake", and consists of a top with a cake on it, and pj bottoms with various sweets depicted on them. God forbid that all of these items be dirty at the same time. She will rifle through the hamper looking for them. You can, of course, dress her in other things, but at this point, if she doesn't want to wear something - off it comes. She also eats my grapefruit when I'm distracted.
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