I pushed a girl and I liked it

Well, actually, Fly pushed a girl.

And then he pushed a boy. He's equal-opportunity that way.

We were at a play area, and a girl of about four came up to him, smiling. She wanted to play. But what did Fly do? He pushed her.

(And a couple weeks ago, I was so proud of his compassionate heart!)

The girl wasn't physically hurt, but her feelings were hurt. She retreated to her mom. I walked Fly over to her to apologize and to say pushing is wrong. I did the same later after he pushed the boy.

Fly has never pushed anyone before. In fact, when other children get a little rough or grab something out of his hands, he just lets them and then backs away from them.

Now he's an aggressor?

I could say he was tired, or keyed up from playing, or overexcited by playing with the other children, or that someone pushed him and he wanted to push someone too. But pushing is still wrong.

So now, I suppose, we're at the beginning of a long line of years when children learn how to interact with one another and to treat others with respect.

That's only, what? The next 23 years or so?

Discovery in flight

Sometime a couple weeks ago at a park, Fly followed the loud roar of an airplane, looked up into the sky and noticed a jet flying overhead for the first time -- as little ones probably do. He's been frightened of whirring sounds in the past: lawn mowers, the hand mixer, a toy featuring colorful gears and, heck, even the bubble machine we got for his first birthday. So (maybe a little too brightly), I taught him the word airplane. Perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, I indicated an airplane was a good thing. Just like the big smile I put on when I vacuum and the oh-this-is-so-much-fun giddiness I display when I absolutely have to use the blender.

After that day, no airplane or helicopter has gone unnoticed by Fly.

He hears the airplane engine before I do and begins yelling, "Ay-pen! Ay-pen!"

I have never noticed so many airplanes before in my life.

Whatever we are doing, we stop and search the sky to see what is flying over. Sometimes, the airplane is gone by the time we hear it. Sometimes, clouds keep our aerial entertainment from view. But other times, we are lucky, and a small plane is flying low enough for us to see everything.

"Bye-bye!" Fly says, and waves.

If a boat zips by on the canal two blocks away, it is an airplane. A motorcycle revving down the street is an airplane. A neighbor using a chainsaw is an airplane.

But at least Fly isn't frightened.

Now, maybe I am fueling a fire that doesn't need to be tended. And Fly is likely too young to fully appreciate this anyway. But I suggested to JP we take Fly to see the real deal.


Can it be?


Is that ...?


Big airplanes?!


Coming and going

Even though Fly is too young to remember this day -- too small to grasp what an airplane really is -- I am glad to present him with new challenges, so to speak. He is little, but I am still going to draw out his interests, shepherd his wonder and help him discover this new world he is learning about more and more every day.

Rather than dismissing something as being lost on him, I want to be the one to help open his eyes. Instead of thinking he couldn't possibly understand something, I will give him a try. When Fly turns his attention to something, I want to be there to guide him and encourage his curiosity.

I want to show him the world -- and at the same time, I want to see the world through his eyes.

How does a mama be a mama?

Toddlerhood seems like shaky ground -- as though each day I’m taking careful strides with Fly, unsure of where I’m stepping.

Lately, I question just what to do with Fly from hour to hour. I wonder whether to try to make him do whatever I am doing or to let him do whatever he wants, often on the other side of the house. Usually, the latter wins, and I'm beginning to feel as if I'm not teaching him enough, or teaching him the right things. I tell myself his independence is a good thing. But I wonder if it's at the expense of ... what? Maternal closeness? A chance to share time and space with him? To share life skills with him? Lately, he just doesn't seem to want my attention as much.

One of the issues making this hard is that Fly isn't an easygoing boy. He was a fussy baby, and he's now a fussy toddler, often whining for no apparent reason. When he knows I want him to come to me, or that I'm going to pick him up, he runs in the opposite direction and laughs while doing it. I read stories about teaching your toddler to help by stirring food for cooking, putting things in the dishwasher or feeding the family pets. I have read about younger toddlers who can dress themselves, pour their own beverages or who are potty trained, and that isn’t Fly. He now doesn't seem to want to do anything I want him to do. If I try to show him things, even fun things, he turns away. I'm not saying he never wants to be around me -- and sure, there are times he imitates me. If this is what he's like at 21 months, though, I fear for age two and three. If his strong will and independence are evident now, I just worry what our relationship will be like in the near future.

Despite my worrying, Fly is growing in ways I couldn't have imagined. When he picks up something new -- like giving his grandma a kiss, or making the sound for the letter H unprompted, or saying a new word for the first time, or leaning over to smell a flower and say, "MMM!" -- I catch my breath and want to hold onto the moment forever, reveling in each new way he is developing. It's as if I wish the sense of discovery would last past the newness of learning something for the first time. But I know I have to let the moment go, so he can learn yet another new thing. He certainly has no problem letting go. Clearly, he is learning and growing, even though I don’t feel I have contributed much.

So it's obvious I love to watch him learn something new, but I feel my opportunities to help him learn are limited because of his resistant attitude.

Before Fly was born, I expected there to be highs and lows. But I didn't expect to feel so perplexed by his growing apart from me, not even two years into this motherhood gig. It could be a toddler phase, an individual personality trait of his -- or some lacking on my part for not being more persistent with him.

For now, all I can think is how does a mama be a mama when her child is growing independently of her?

Last-minute Father's Day craft, or, A card no one throws away

You know how it is when you give someone a gift and feel the need to give the person a card too? Did you ever feel like skipping the card? Because you know it's just going to wind up in the trash. But with almost everyone I buy gifts for, cards are expected along with the gifts. So you spend $2-$5 on a card, attach it to your gift, and feel a little guilty about it because you know that money is just wasted and could have helped Bono fight AIDS in Africa or do a local deliberate act of kindness or something.

Anyway.

For Father's Day, I am giving JP a Snapfish photo book of digital scrapbook layouts featuring photos of him and Fly. Instead of a throwaway card to go along with his gift, though, I made a cool layered card using digital scrapbooking tools.



But wait! Don't stop reading yet if you're not into digiscrapping, because you can make this card the old-fashioned way too. You can make it for Father's Day or any occasion. And who's going to dare throw away a card you made?

To make my card, I used a template created by Sine, a digital scrapbooking template designer. It was a freebie template that's no longer available. But you'll see you don't even need a template. You can use an alphabet stencil or even go freehand.

First, I placed digital paper and photos of Fly on the template, then printed them out on regular office paper. You need a regular-looking letter and one that's backward for each layer.



If you are kicking it old school, you can just trace letters onto scrapbook paper, construction paper, wrapping paper or even newsprint. Spell out any word that you want. For each subsequent letter in your word, extend the look of the letter by about two inches. From the picture, do you see what I'm talking about?

Then, cut all the letters out. This is a good project for older children. In fact, older children could probably do this whole thing by themselves, with a little help.



After that, I traced each letter onto posterboard. The original instructions called for chipboard, but the original intent was to make an album, and I am just making a card.

This is a letter Y below. It's the last letter in the word Daddy, so it's the longest/widest.



Cut out the posterboard letters...





...and then you can glue the fronts and backs of the letters onto the posterboard. I used a humble glue stick.





If you are making your layered card without a computer, this is when you might want to add real photos, ribbons, buttons, flowers, or whatever else to decorate your letters. If I had been smart about this project, I would have put the pictures of Fly on the front of the letters, to the left, rather than across the back of the letters, as you've seen. So, that's an idea for another time....

Once everything is glued down, arrange your letters and spell your word!





I used a regular hole punch to put two holes in each letter, stacked them up and tied them together with yarn. You could use ribbon, twine, or whatever is lying around the house.



Oh, and on the last letter, you can write "Happy Father's Day" and sign the card.

For an even easier digital scrapbooking template, check out the "Father" word album from Scrap Girls. (I used Scrap Girls' Mischief Maker digital papers and embellishments to make this card.)

You could even scrap (hee hee) the idea that this is just a card and give this as a gift! Oh, uh, but then you might need to give a card....

How I save my memories digitally

Some readers have commented on my scrapblogging posts -- wondering what tools I use and how I create the layouts -- so I thought I'd share a quick introduction to digital scrapbooking.

I turned to digital scrapbooking (the dark side, if you ask my expert paper scrapbooker friend Roo) only last fall some time. Before then, I (very badly) did regular paper scrapbooking when I had the chance, which was almost never. By the time I found my supplies and set them out, found pictures I wanted to place on the page and came up with an idea for a creative layout, naptime was over. So I put all that stuff away for another time, which hardly seemed to come. When I found out about doing layouts with a program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, I was amazed. I may be all thumbs with scissors and glue and stamps and lining things up properly in a paper scrapbook, but using a mouse click to crop a photo or undo something I messed up -- that I could do!

It started when Fly was born, as I started sending family and friends pictures of him at the end of each month using Tabblo. I would put all of that month's pictures into one of Tabblo's layouts, then send everyone a private link to the layout online. This was perfect for me at the time because I didn't have a lot of spare time, with a newborn.

Around Fly's first birthday, I found out about Smilebox. This service offers more creative layouts that you can send through e-mail, or -- if you pay a fee or buy a membership -- you can even print out the layout, add music, etc. You can use still photos or video, and use premade templates to send electronic greeting cards, slideshows and other fun stuff. Scrapblog is another great resource for creating digital layouts using videos and music, and offers more flexibility. Both are great for sharing with family and friends online.

Later, I found several online stores that sell digital downloads for scrapbooking. Now my digital life was really going somewhere because I wasn't limited to someone else's template! Some sites sell files that are for designing your layouts purely digitally, while others are what they call hybrid stores where you do the design on your computer and then print out what you've designed to make your layout or other paper craft project.

Some of my favorite digital scrapbooking stores are Scrap Girls, Scrap Artist, Scrapbookgraphics, Scrap Dish, Digital Design Essentials, Sunshine Studio Scraps and Little Dreamer Designs. There are many, many more! Digishoptalk has some really good resources to get you started and has had fun digital scrapbooking contests. In fact, most shops and designers have contests (usually called challenges) every week or every month, and winners get money to spend in their digital scrapbook store.

At these stores, you can buy entire kits, which are color coordinated and usually have a theme. Kits include background images (which is what you would use for the "paper" portion of your scrapbook layout) and embellishments to add to your page like a photo frame, ribbons, flowers, stickers, pockets, glitter splotches and other things you would use if you were doing a paper scrapbook layout. Sometimes kits include an "alpha," or files of letters and numbers that coordinate when you want to put a title on your layout. If you can think of a theme, a digital scrapbook designer has probably already designed it! You can also buy digital files separately if you don't want to buy a kit.

After I choose some digital files to work with, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0. I open up a background paper file. I choose a digital photo downloaded from my camera. I like to put my picture in a frame, which is another file. Then I might rotate it a little bit in Photoshop and place it on my paper. Then I would add some embellishments, a title or some journaling. I save the file, then also a smaller version of the file in a .jpg format (the common format used for the Web). If you don't have an idea of how to position everything on a page, digital scrapbook stores also sell templates for you to plug in your paper, photos, and other items. It's fun -- and I spend a lot less time scrapbooking than the traditional paper method.

Many designers have blogs and give away freebies through their blogs -- a great way to get started in digital scrapbooking to see if you like it. Ikea Goddess posts an excellent list of freebies every day.

At the end of the year, I plan to put my best digital layouts into a hardcover book from Snapfish. Shutterfly and My Publisher also sell photo books made from your digital photos. In fact, all of these sites have built-in design templates if you want to just plug your photos in and skip the design part yourself. I've done that too.

This is just a basic introduction to digital scrapbooking, but maybe it will be helpful to someone. If anything, I hope it will inspire you to save and share your memories!

A first on this blog! Cocodoodles

These are cocodoodles. They aren't snickerdoodles because they're made with cocoa. And they aren't labradoodles because that's a dog (but just as fun to say). They're cocodoodles.

About 6.7 minutes after I came home from the supermarket today, I heard JP tell Fly, "Darn! I forgot to tell your mom I wanted some cookies." (Nice hint, eh?)

To JP, the only kind of cookie that exists is a chocolate chip cookie. But this house hadn't seen chocolate chips since....

However, I knew we had cocoa, so I pulled out the basic things that go into cookies and made these dark little beauties.

JP approved.

So if you make these cookies and enjoy them, that's my story. But if these cookies poison your whole family, well, then, I got the recipe from some old 1970s fundraiser cookbook. And if you make them and people go wild for them -- donations via PayPal are accepted!

Damselfly's Cocodoodles

1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa (I used Hershey's dark chocolate cocoa)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add the egg and mix it until it's creamy. (Add some vanilla if that floats your boat.) Blend the flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa together, and slowly add it to the butter mixture, beating it well.

Roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls and put them on the cookie sheet, fitting about one dozen on the sheet at a time.

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes.

This cookie recipe should make about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

If you're at a high elevation, I can't help you out because that whole elevation/baking thing mystifies me!

I think these cookies would be even better dipped in chocolate, or maybe even frosted.

But anyway, these are easy, chocolate cookies to make -- no chocolate chips required!

Now I'm famous

It's official: I hack my kid.



Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The guy at the office

I am losing my cred.

When you have best-friend status with your husband (JP and I have been married almost 13 years), you tend to rely on each other a lot. Best friends do. Best friends really believe in what each other thinks. In fact, many times, you go out of your way to find out what your best friend thinks about what you should do. You know how it goes.

But lately, it seems what I say doesn't count -- unless another person can back it up. Humph.

I know this because of The Guy At The Office:

"The Guy At The Office said the way to get a baby to sleep through the night is just to pat or stroke him and not pick him up out of the crib," JP said.

"Oh, really?" I said. "That's what I told you six months ago the first time we tried sleep training with Fly. And you didn't want to do it."

Or:

"The Guy At The Office said you can use rubbing alcohol to get grease out of rugs," JP said.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Yes, I know. I told you I did that when you tracked motor oil from your boots on Fly's bedroom carpet."

That kind of thing.

I still think JP and I are best friends, but The Guy At The Office will probably continue to trump me for some time....

Well, praise the Lord and pass the biscuits!

After perhaps just having eaten too much Halloween candy, and looking ahead to extra helpings on Thanksgiving and "sampling" Christmas cookies.... Here is some good news!

Have you heard this? "Overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese," says the New York Times. If you read the whole article, it's a little confusing (and seems contradictory to what Oprah's beloved Dr. Mehmet Oz said just this week about calorie restriction being a great boost to longevity). But the bottom line in the research is "compared with people of normal weight, the overweight had a decreased death risk and the underweight and obese had increased risk."

Do you think in a few years this will be filed under "strange but true," with everyone trying to keep their weight on? Or do you think it will be debunked?

Unlingual

People tell me boys generally are slower than girls when it comes to developing language skills. (And boys are supposedly slower to potty train, too.) Please tell me there are exceptions to these rules.

Fly is a smart cookie and says a few words now, but sometimes I still worry he'll be a gangly teenager pointing and grunting at the fridge instead of saying, "Hey ma, we're outta milk."

For example, Fly still puts everything in his mouth. Including our shoes. After saying NO for the eleventy-millionth time, I started going "PBBBBBFFFT!" any time he wanted to chew on something gross. To my surprise, after only a couple days of "PBBBBBFFFT!" he started doing it too. So now when he sees a shoe, Fly first goes "PBBBBBFFFT!" and then eats the shoe.

How is saying "PBBBBBFFFT!" easier than, say, making the Baby Sign for "drink?" I'm a little disappointed that I've been doing Baby Signs with him for nine months now, and he still won't sign with me.

But I press on. Not only am I continuing to do Baby Signs with Fly, but I also read to him. (I try to get him a new book every month, and I leave books out where he can look through them.)

There's something else in my arsenal of language teaching skills: the new Phonics 4 Babies DVD, Baby's First Words. This DVD is hosted by Mallory Lewis (the daughter of Shari Lewis, the famous puppeteer many people remember with cute little Lambchop) and her baby bug, a "Tummy Tot" caterpillar named Giggles. The DVD says it will "unleash the genius" in my child and "jumpstart early language development." Aha! Fly could learn 300 words. ("PBBBBBFFFT!" makes 301.)

Mallory Lewis, Giggles and the other Tummy Tots sing really catchy songs and play word games. One of the games Lewis plays several times throughout the DVD is Can You See It? It shows three items on the screen, and Lewis asks kids to find each item as she names it. This is a good game, but many times the three items have nothing to do with one another -- there's no theme. (One time, the game displays a coat, a mother and a fish.) Other times, though, the items do have a common theme, such as they all start with the same letter.

The DVD makes fun use of music, puppets, animation and real children. Lewis is an excellent performer, too.

Overall, Baby's First Words is a fun DVD to have and is certainly more educational for Fly to watch than even most PBS TV shows, but I think it's mislabeled and is really for an older toddler than Fly (now 13 months). I'll still watch the DVD with him, though -- because I know he's capable of more than "PBBBBBFFFT!"

A Parent Bloggers Network review