Not Quite the Police Blotter
Please, sir, I want some more.
We first tried suggesting that she not toss food around, but given her still-tender age, we decided that we should pick our battles and not worry so much about this one yet. (The parenting books apparently agree with us—not that parenting books know anything, that is.)
So, this means that we tend to be a little laissez faire about food on the floor during meals. Although SFDad absolutely hates crap on the floor in general and he tries to sweep it up quickly, it’s not uncommon that we have half a cup of food lying around (either deliberately or by accident) at the end of mealtime.
Give that, it’s not surprising that SFBaby sometimes gets to the food before we do. When we think of this, our minds immediately flash to Dickensian novels, police blotters and incident reports that we’ve seen published in the newspaper. In our minds, they go something like this:
“The mother, who was arrested for running a crack den, [...insert references to rap sheet, probation officer, mention of three-strikes law, the meth lab in the bathtub, etc. ...], and even worse, the children were running around half-naked and eating off the floor!”
When reading these reports in our pre-parenting years, our minds immediately conjured up images of beggar children living in rodent-infested houses with nasty stained carpets.
Now that we have a child, I admit that we’re starting to wonder: what’s so wrong with a few stale Joe’s O’s, anyway?
Tags: bad dad, boundaries, confessions, eating, joe's o's
The Best Dad Is…Your Mom?
If you don't like your parents' rules, act cute and dial 1-800-GRANDMA.
From all reports, the time with the grandparents was a smashing success. Not only did they feed, change and entertain SFBaby for the entire time, but they also cooked all of the meals and kept the house immaculate. SFBaby was very sad to see them go…and SFMom probably was too, given that SFDad doesn’t usually have dinner ready on the table when she gets home!
We had previously received a (free, thankfully) crazy talking globe. While SFDad was away, SFGrandma would ask the little one: “Where is dada?” Grandma then taught her how to answer the question by spinning the globe around, finding the location where SFDad was, touching it with the stylus, and saying the name.
And it gets better: we have a couple of books that SFBaby loves to read, including one where the character in the book touches or wriggles various body parts. As SFDad read this particular book to the baby this morning, he noticed that she was now doing all of the motions on her own. SFGrandma also somehow trained her not to stand up on the sofa. (SFDad wonders what other tricks SFGrandma was teaching while he was away.)
In other news, we are pretty sure that SFBaby grew an inch or two in the last few weeks. She’s definitely eating enough for two right now, and when SFDad got back from his trip, he found that he no longer had to stoop over to hold the baby’s hand while walking.
With all of this, SFDad is starting to think that the SFGrandma is a better dad than he is…!
Tags: books, boundaries, grandparents, reading, teaching, Travel
If It Walks Like a Duck
Duck...duck...duck...goose?
At one point, we encountered a gaggle of geese sitting around on the grass. We’ve been teaching SFBaby how to identify ducks (”quack”, she says) in her bathtub and in books, and since geese looks a lot like ducks, that was her response here too!
She was both enthralled and terrified of the geese. She loved to laugh and point when she saw the geese moving around, but when they started to waddle toward her as you can see to the right, she was a little less sure of herself.
Guilt by Association
Just suppose that Pavlov had access to an MP3 player…
We wrote previously that parents have great power when it comes to teaching things to their kids: we mostly try to use this for good, but every so often, an opportunity presents itself that is too good to pass up (and we try not to feel too guilty about it).
For two or three weeks, SFDad has been playing a song on his phone whenever SFBaby engages in a certain type of activity at the playground. We figured that she would probably associate the song with the activity, so this was our first test to see what would happen if we played the song when she was just standing around doing nothing…
Baby Security, Part II
We asked her if she preferred cross-cut or diamond-cut.
On the flip side, SFDad had a flash of inspiration earlier today and he “solved” the climbing-on-sofa problem mentioned in the previous post. We could not get SFBaby to obey using all of our usual tactics (telling her “no”, picking her up and moving her away, making stern faces, and so on) so it was time to pull out all of the stops.
When she tried climbing onto the sofa this afternoon, I first told her “no” and gave her a stern look…but she kept going. I then asked her, “Do you want me to turn on the Roomba?” At that point, she whimpered and ran into my arms. She’s tried to get up on the sofa once or twice since then, but her advance was foiled using the same method.
The hardest part about this technique is trying to stay serious and keep a straight face while “threatening” her with the Roomba…
Tags: baby, boundaries, roomba, shredder, sofa
Baby Security
We thought maybe we could just lock her up, but our plans were foiled when SFHoudini ate through the lock.
Of course, SFBaby thought that this was funny and now she deliberately tries to get up on the sofas and run around to catch our attention. We’ve tried directing even more “stern parental attention” her way, but that just seems to make her want to do it even more.
All of the baby experts claim that she is still too young to understand this form of discipline and that if we ignore the situation, she will tire of it. So, we tried that…and a few falls and one big tumble later, she is still going at it. Although she emerged remarkably unscathed from all of this, we need to come up with some other options. Maybe turning the sofas around so that they face the wall? We’re at a loss.
Tags: baby, babyproofing, boundaries, climbing, discipline, locker, locks, security, sofa
In One Ear
As with any 14-month-old, SFBaby gets her fair share of gentle lecturing and being told not to do certain things.
On the other hand, she still has a 14-month-old brain. This is what we imagine SFBaby must be hearing when we ask her to do certain things…
Tags: baby, boundaries, lecture
Passport to Canada
Not old enough to buy beer.
We were in Canada earlier this month, so after completing the passport application, we were able to drop it off at the office of our local MP (Member of Parliament) to be included in their Ottawa courier bag. I don’t think this sped up the process, but it did save us the postage fee.
We got it back a few short days ago, with the cutesy photo you see above. For those wondering about the passport timeline:
- 5/6/2009: Submitted passport application at MP’s office in Ontario
- 5/14/2009: Passport issued by Passport Canada
- 5/20/2009: Received passport in San Francisco (by courier!)
Tags: canada, passport, processing time
Doing the Rainbow, Part II
While flying home from our recent Canada trip, we had the fortune to connect through the Detroit airport. We’ve heard that Detroit itself is not all that exciting of a city, but as far as airports go, we really liked DTW.
Aside from some decent food options, this airport is also the location of the infamous rainbow tunnel that SFBaby visited last December. As you can see here, she got a second chance to do the rainbow with SFMom (as well as an assist from the Detroit Police Department).
Tags: airport, canada, detroit, police, rainbow tunnel, segway
Ten Tulips on Parliament Hill
O, Canada?
Loves me, loves me not...
This doesn't look at all like the real thing.
Last year, based on past experience with traveling during blizzards and other forms of crazy December weather, we decided to opt out of potentially getting snowed in at the Denver or Colorado airports, so we simply postponed Christmas to April of this year. (Since the “Christmas in April” nonprofit renamed itself to “Rebuilding Together” a while ago, we felt that this was fair game.)
We flew into Ottawa and we had a great time hobnobbing with relatives. We ended up doing our Christmas gift exchange at a restaurant in a small farming town outside of Ottawa, and I’m certain that we surprised the local residents when they saw us exchanging our stacks of red-and-green Christmas presents in early May.
One of the other highlights of our trip was our visit to Ottawa’s Parliament Hill. SFMom and SFDad had been there once before as a family in the pre-baby era, but it was freezing cold (think -20°C) and we didn’t spend a lot of time on the hill. We had pleasantly warm weather for this last trip, so we were able to spend more time exploring.
It so happens that, many moons ago, friendlyneighbortothenorth got SFBaby a cute little board book called “Canada 1-2-3″. One of the scenes in the book shows ten tulips growing on Parliament Hill. We happened to be visiting Ottawa during tulip season, so SFBaby tried to reenact the scene all on her own! The only problem is that there were way more than ten tulips…
Tags: canada, christmas, ottawa, parliament hill, tulips