Eri's first trip to the dentist

First off, Happy 2009!

So, now that Erin has turned three, she gets to experience the joys of going to the dentist.  Emily suggested I take them both at the same time, which was a revelation to me because I wouldn't have thought of that myself.  The appointment was on Monday February 2, 2009.  We are lucky in that a. our dentist is just one block away, and 2. our dentist is the wonderful doctor Vivian Lopez, DDS, who specializes in pediatric dentistry.  Oh and c. she has a couple of great technicians/hygenists who really work hard to relate to the kids and put them at ease.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Erin got to watch Katie go through the whole routine first, which in her case really seemed to help.  There was one point when it was Erin's turn to get into the chair so that Tanya, the dental technician, could check her teeth and polish them that a flicker of fear went over her face--but it passed quickly as I put her in the chair, and Katie jumped on to go for Erin's inaugural ride up and down in the chair (3 times since she is 3).

Going to the dentist, in the end, was more like going to a party, with all the presents and balloons they got at the end.  In fact on the walk back home we passed a man who said "it looks like you just came from a birthday party" which of course seemed strange since it was 11 AM on a monday morning.  "No, dentist", I said.

Katie's Alarm Clock

Now that she's a big kindergartener, Emily set Katie's alarm clock to go off in the AM to help her wake up before Mamma goes to work, thus avoiding meltdowns and tears at the start of the day. The first day of this new regime, Emily went up to find Katie on the floor staring at her alarm clock (music playing). Asked how she liked it, Katie replied, "I like it, but it waked me up before I was finished sleeping".

Get out your handkerchiefs

Today is Katie's last day of pre-school.  She's been going since she was 2 years and 9 months old, and she's 5 years and 7 months now. We will be attending her "graduation" ceremony this afternoon, and yes, I will be bringing a supply of tissues.  As well as the camera and video cam.  Emily and I are taking turns fighting the urge to choke up--how could this all be happening so fast?  Looking back, it all seems like a blur, and now Erin is getting ready to go to pre-school and Katie to Kindergarten.  Thankfully they both are more forward looking and eager than their parents who are sentimental saps.  Pictures and video to be posted later. 

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers

This book is one that Katie and her friend Julia have built an entire fantasy play world around. I love the description by the author of the article on "100 books every child should read":

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, by Beatrix Potter(Frederick Warne, £4.99)Tom Kitten learnt nothing from his parents about the consequences of curiosity. Abducted by a psychotic rat, he comes within a whisker of being turned into a pudding. Nightmares guaranteed.

100 books every child should read - Pt 1 - Telegraph

In fact, Katie & Julia have never lost a wink of sleep over this story.  Katie is Annamaria, and Julia is Samuel Whiskers, and sometimes, if she's lucky, little Eri gets to be Tom Kitten, and J & K turn her into a "rolly polly pudding".  More often than not though, it is just J & K running around gathering food for their rat dinner, and finding sticks that will be useful in constructing infinite rat houses.

Our Katie

Just received from Katie's teacher. That's our girl on "hat day" with a princess crown that she made at a classmate's birthday party last year. It's held up amazingly well. Last night as I was putting Katie and Erin to bed I was reading them books. Max's Valentine to be precise. Erin wanted it "again, again" (a very common request about anything that is enjoyable) and Katie didn't. "Why not?" asked Erin. "Because it's my body" replied Katie. OK then!

Christmas Cookies

So far I'm a failure at capturing events in realtime. So here's installment 1 of a semi-irregular report on what we did over the holidays.

Christmas Cookies

In honor of MeanLouise who says she was cookie deprived this holiday season, here's a view of one of several Christmas cookie events in our neck of the woods.



Naked chef, watch out!

BTW, these Gingerbread bears were made from a kit from Crayola.

Thank you Grandma, they were a hit--at least the making of them. Neither child seemed to actually enjoy eating them. The cat enjoyed playing cat-hockey with the gum-drops that were deposited on the floor however, and I believe Santa had one too.

First achievement of 2008

I received this exciting call while I was out to lunch:

Katie zips her coat, alllllll by herself!

New Years Eve with Anderson Cooper

CNN was the only channel we could find here on the West coast broadcasting the EST New Year's ball drop in Times Square, New York in real time. None of the 3 broadcast networks bothered. I guess they think we enjoy watching the taped version here in California better than the live version, and Shrek 7 and Dr. Phil would bring in more viewers on New Years here in the 7th largest economy in the world or whatever we are.

But we needed a 9 o'clock New Year.

It was a necessity seeing that we had 3 children of ages 4 and 5 who we wanted to take part in the celebration of year 2008. Despite our best planning, said children either broke down or got hyped up beyond put-downable states just as the EST New Year rang in. Pajama sharing, red vs. gold party crowns and New Year's kisses were all in dispute. At least the 2 year old was asleep--the house might have exploded otherwise.

Some bright spots of 2007: Little Erin, who despite being a home wrecker extraordinaire, has learned to charm the pants off us, even as she nearly sets the house on fire. Katie who never ceases to astound me with profound statements of sensitivity, like last night when she said, as she fell asleep holding her sister's hand "Next time Clara [her friend] comes over, I'm going to tell her that Erin can join the game". The tension between big sisters/little sisters and their friends cannot be underestimated, and the generosity of Katie's statement therefore touched me.

Erin will finally sit down in the bathtub, hallelujah--from ages 1-2 she refused to as I traumatized her one too many times with hair washing. The trauma still happens once a week, but at least she can finally enjoy her bath when it's not hair washing night.

Sleep: we are getting more of it, though still not enough. Erin generally only wakes up once a night between 4:30 and 5:30 AM, coming to our bed to nurse, and Katie has stopped coming up at 6 AM to wiggle me into a caffeinated, toothpicks holding up the eyes, state.

Hopes for the New Year:

• An end to far-right-wing, religious-fundamentalist, corporate-pirate rule of our country.
• An end, or at least an end in sight, to a war that's been going on since Katie was two months old.
• More hope, happiness and love for all of us.
• May we actually send the Thank You cards for Erin's Birthday.
• That we provide Katie with an enjoyable 5th birthday party which will not result in us, her parents, filing for divorce.
• Oops, never mind, we can't get a divorce because we're not married.
• Exercise more and eat more fruits and vegetables (and convince the children that foods besides pasta can be tasty).
• Pick the best public Kindergarten for our firstborn.
• Take more vacations.
• Do more good things.

Crabby

Katie's preschool asked for a volunteer to watch Crabby, her classroom's pet hermit crab. Crabby has a comfortable home on our dining-room built-ins in her terrarium, or whatever you call it. Crabby spends most of her time in her little cardboard house. We take her out a couple times a day and spray her with a little water bottle and put her in her water dish. She then has to make her way back to her little house, and on the way, if she's hungry, she can munch on her little hermit crab meal, pellets, cakes which sit in the upside-down crab food jar insert.

So far, it's been mostly Momma who tends to Crabby, though she asked me to do the duties tonight. I asked her if it wasn't true that somehow Katie was supposed to be involved in Crabby's upkeep, and yes, she admits this is true, but it's easy to forget about Crabby until the kids are fast asleep, the cat's been fed and the dishes are done and the latest batch of Christmas presents has been processed. Oh and there's still Thank You cards to send out for Erin's birthday gifts, and a couple more x-mas presents to buy, the house is a wreck and so on.

Poor Momma is quite worried about our ability to keep Crabby alive until it is time to return her to preschool. I try to remind her that Katie's teacher let us know, via a wink and nod, that it would be "OK" if Crabby didn't make it, as she would be relatively easy to replace. Still, it would feel like a failure not to be able to keep such a low-maintenance creature alive for 19 days.

What are you thankful for?

This is a placemat that Katie made in preschool. It is a picture of Momma. As she described it, "here's your eyes, your nose, your mouth and your breastes."

It is interesting in that Katie can't even remember nursing now, while Erin, who calls these "no-ni", is quite a little no-ni girl. It seem s that despite the lack of regular contact with them, the no-ni's still appear to be a prominent part of Katie's internal picture of Momma.

Pretend I got flat and died forever

"No, I died more than you and forever and ever."
"OK, I died forever and forever too."
"OK, pretend you saw me hanging from the edge of that rock."
A few more exchanges like this and then the two victims, one five and one four lie dying, writhing and crying on the floor.
Little sister: "Why is she crying?"
Mama: "She's just pretending."
Little sister: "I wanna have a turn too!"
And the game of death and danger continues.

Future Ballerina Astronaut

Future Balerina Astronaut
Originally uploaded by fastkittykat

Katie's preschool went on a field trip yesterday and I was a chaperone. It was fun, yet, not stress free to be in charge of three preschoolers who seem to have a perfected a system of 'divide and conquer' where they split up and go in 3 different directions and challenge you to reassemble them back into a group at regular intervals. It's good for the brain though, keeps you alert.

Katie had her perfunctory turn in the space capsule--she was the last in line due to the activity describe above. She seemed somewhat interested though even I could see how it could be hard to concentrate. One of the other girls I was in charge of skillfully cut in line about halfway up, and the other lost interest after about waiting for five minutes. So, Katie gets points for good manners & patience.

Fairyland and Halloween 2007

We went to Oakland's Fairyland the weekend before Halloween. Katie & Erin loved it. Lots of fake spiderwebs, other kids in costume and fairytale characters dressed up. That's the girls and the pumpkin. Katie in particular was mesmerized--it was hard to drag her away. Notice Erin with the phone. Anyway, after we parted ways with the pumpkin, Katie interjected: "A walking pumpkin--that's disgusting!"