S-M-I-L-E

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Busy, busy, busy

I'm getting so much done with my new energy!  Yes, I'm still needing daily naps, but that I have energy right up until the nap, and then immediately upon waking, is a huge change that I am not taking for granted.  Yesterday and today I have:

• cleaned and reorganized 10 drawers and cabinets in the kitchen
• cleaned and reorganized 4 drawers and cabinets in master bathroom
• completely cleaned the kitchen
• taken care of recycling bins
• done 4 loads of laundry
• taken Turtle and Eddie on a walk with Avery and her tricycle (all at the same time!)
• spent much time organizing and coordinating logistics for upcoming DC trip
• set up group for craft night and scheduled first event
• scheduled 4 different upcoming appointments
• eliminated Avery's floor potty from existence - woohoo! only the real toilet now (this really didn't take any time other than me saying, "no more floor potty," but I still took care of it). 
• set up notification process for monitoring the White House website for changes to the Easter Egg roll site (hoping to get tickets via the lottery system for the Easter Egg roll since we'll be in DC on Easter)
• ordered phone for my mom
• various other activities
• ---- above written during first half of yesterday; below covers yesterday afternoon and today ----
• walked Turtle on a full trail walk
• grocery shopping, picked up Avery, then cooked a full dinner, cleaned up kitchen entirely, put Avery to bed, and still had energy!  Woohoo!
• Despite being sick (and feeling horrible for the first couple of hours of today), today I have cleaned and vacuumed the entire upstairs, completed a few loads of laundry, and installed a toilet seat.

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Toilet Seat

I ordered a new toilet seat because ours on the main level was missing a foot and I know I can probably replace such a thing, but I wanted this one that has a built in insert for kids!  Avery doesn't "need" it since she can just sit on it on her own and hold herself up, but this makes it easier and eliminates the need to have the Bjorn insert sitting in our bathroom.  It's going to take Avery a few tries before she's comfortable pulling down the kid seat by herself, but the magnet holding it up is weak enough to allow her to do it, yet not strong enough to pinch fingers.  The only real problem is that the shade of the toilet seat cover is ever so slightly brighter than the toilet itself.  It looks worse in the pictures than in person, but screw that, I'll take function over form any day.

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Smile

The three of us were at Michael's on Sunday.  D was walking around with Avery; I was away from them.  D pointed to a sign and asked Avery what it said.  She replied, "Smile!"  It did say that.  When D told me, I asked the obvious question, "Was there a picture of a smile?"  He said, "Yes, but when I asked her why it said smile she said, 'S-M-I-L-E.'"

Monday I decided to see if she actually read the word or if she knew because of the smiley face. I wrote the word smile and asked her if she knew what it was.  She didn't.  Then I asked her to spell it.  She said S-M-I-L-E.  I gave the hint of the sound made by 'sm' and she immediately said smile.

So, I don't think this counts as reading the word smile, but, she is definitely starting to put together the fact that words are made from letters.  I read this sight word book (where the words of the book match the pictures exactly) and then I would ask her to identify each instance of the word 'red.'  She could do that.  I was pretty impressed.  However, if you ask outside that context what R-E-D spells, I don't think she's put it together and in her memory banks just yet.  Nonetheless, it's cool to watch her figure this stuff out. 

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Yelling

Avery has started to complain when she thinks we're "yelling" at her.  What's odd is that when I actually *am* yelling at her, she never says anything.  She only complains of it when I speak sternly or briskly, but rarely is it actually yelling.  It's infrequent when D or I truly yell at Avery.  When it has happened, I've apologized to Avery, explained what frustrated or made me mad, apologized, and then we talk about her part in the situation. I'm never proud to yell, but damn it, sometimes you just have yell, "What do you want?!" when she won't stop and talk.

Anyway, when I picked Avery up from school on Friday afternoon (a make-up day), Teacher Shab was the only teacher there with three kids remaining in Avery's classroom.  Shab is from the Middle East somewhere, at least I assume this based on her accent.  My best guess would be that she's Persian. She is very brisk with the kids.  Not a coddler to put it mildly.  I know she's Avery least favorite of the three teachers that rotate through the classroom.  However, after I observed Shab several times, I determined she's just not an overly warm person with the kids.  Or she's a bit unhappy.  Either way, she's not the person I'd want to nanny for my kid, but I have no problem with her being a teacher/caregiving in Avery's current school situation.

In the classroom, I overhead Shab yelling at one of the boys to wash his hands (both he and Avery had marker all over their hands).  She didn't say anything inappropriate or insulting, but it was direct order, was not a patient tone, and was loud and shrill.  I cringed a bit, but then remembered my tone of voice with Avery earlier that day.  That popped me back to the reality that me yelling at Avery has a far more detrimental effect than does a teacher who yells at Avery (assuming insults or blatantly inappropriate comments are absent). When we got to the car, Avery said, "Shab yelled at me," in a very sad voice.  I kept my tone normal and asked Avery why.  Avery replied something about her needing to wash her hands.  I asked a few more questions and determined that Shab didn't say anything inappropriate and assumed she just spoke to Avery the same way she did the boy.  Avery wouldn't drop it.  I thought for a moment, then told Avery that she should tell Shab the next time she saw her that Avery didn't like that Shab yelled at her and that it hurt her feelings.  I also said that if she felt more comfortable, she could also talk to Shab when Teacher Carlya was around.

I forgot about the incident all together until yesterday when I picked Avery up from school. As I was getting Avery's coat, Teacher Carlya told me that Avery came up to her at some point during the day and said, "Teacher Carlya, I need to talk to you and Teacher Shab."  Shab had already left for the day, so Avery told Caryla about the yelling. Carlya said she told Avery that Shab has a shrill and loud tone to her voice, then she told me that she'd talk to Shab about it because there have been comments from the other kids.

So, last night, I relayed this story to D.  At the time, I was very proud of Avery for going to Carlya and Shab (except she was already gone) to deal with the situation head-on. I hadn't thought much about whether *I* did the right thing in instructing Avery to do this.  D thought it was fine for Shab to yell (again, as long as it's absent insults) and order the kids to wash their hands.  He felt that Avery shouldn't be challenging authority so early.  At first, I disagreed and said I felt it was appropriate because I didn't tell Avery that she shouldn't wash her hands (obviously the requested task was acceptable), but rather that she should communicate that her feelings were hurt.

However, the more I think about this, the more I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing.  I know I'm very proud of Avery for handling it in a mature manner and for following through on something I instructed her to do. I truly didn't think she'd do it.  When I told her to do it, it was an off the cuff remark and, frankly, it was an attempt to bring an end to the discussion.  I am still waffling back and forth on this one.   I think this is a dose of why parenting keeps getting harder, yet easier, at the same time.  Easier because Avery can communicate better and take care of things for herself; harder because I have to respond quickly to situations in which I don't always know my own position, let alone how to explain to a 3yo how to handle it. 

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Stationary vs. Stationery and Typo vs. Error

As many (most) of you noticed on my last post, I spelled stationery wrong. Stationary means immobile; stationery refers to paper. In telling a few people that, yes, I realized it was incorrect and I intended to fix it, I felt the need to explain that it wasn't a typo, but rather an error. Amber said, "How can it not be a typo?" Which lead into a discussion about my definition of type and error.  In my thinking, a typo is something that is mistyped or misspelled, but that the writer knows how to spell correctly.  For example, if I ever switch its and it's, that's a typo.  I know the difference between those two.  If I posted a misuse of it, it's because I was going too fast or didn't reread or whatever.  However, in the stationary v stationery situation, it was an error, not a typo.  That is to say, in that instance I didn't even debate, "Which stationary is it?" I would have known taking a quiz that there were two words (stationery and stationary) and I very well might have gotten their meanings correct, however, before RHG pointed out the error to me, I would have said I spelled it correctly.  Does everyone else view typo and error the same way?  I'm just curious.