Pile-on Parents Day

I'm not sure what came over my children the other day, but they decided it would be fun to jump, hop and tackle both my husband and me.    We're not usually into wrestling as a family activity, but it turned out to to be lots of fun.

My daughter and my son each planned their attacks differently, but both children incorporated laughs, giggles and screams into their plan.   My husband and I tried to balance accepting their exuberant leaps onto our bodies while worrying about being accidentally and unintentionally wounded by small, excitable children.

We ran out of energy before they did...something that nearly always happens when it's adults versus children.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was playing with a stretchy toy as we got into the car.  I warned him if he kept it up, it was going to break.   A short while later I heard him say, "it broke", followed by my daughter saying, "I got it now."  (She had wanted it all along and he wouldn't share, but when it broke, it flew across the back seat into her lap where he couldn't get to it.  She was very happy about that.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My father came to visit yesterday.  He was about to leave when my daughter told him, "I want to go to your castle, Gramps."

Fitness Update:  Our trainer asked us if we were coming in tomorrow when we got to the gym today. He said he needed to know because he wanted to know if he should work us harder today or plan for tomorrow.  I was planning on going in tomorrow, and then time got away from me getting ready for our trip and going out for dinner with friends and I think I'm going to sleep in.

Blockus Towerus

That's Latin for "towers made out of blocks".   Or, at least I think it is.   Never mind, that's not important.  The important thing is my children have gotten back into building towers with blocks.  

It's one of those things with children where they like something and they they don't care about it and then later, after you put that thing away and they forgot about it, when they see it again they go nuts for it.

Aunt Adrienne and Aunt Brenda got my children some wooden blocks with letters on them.  They liked the blocks, but got tired of them after some time.   I put them away.  I brought them out and they thought they were interesting, but not that interesting, so I put them away again.   Three days ago I brought them out and suddenly, they are all about the block towers.  

My daughter will sit in the corner and make her own towers and walls.  My son likes to put the plastic container on his head, come over to his sister, knock her tower down, and then help her build it back again.    Sometimes, my son likes to take blocks into the bathroom because you never know when you're going to need to build a tower while sitting on the potty.  

Tonight, I heard squeals and screams in the bedroom: my daughter and husband were making a tower so high he had to lift her up to get her high enough to place the last few blocks.   She was very accurate at placing them, so much so that they had to intentionally knock down the tower.

The Big Boy Update:  My son likes to make towers with the blocks, but he's also interested in what's on the blocks.   There are letters and animals and colors and he knows what a lot of them are now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Mom and dad, you gotta close your ears."  (What my daughter told my husband and me when her block tower was getting tall, because she knew it was going to make quite a clatter when it fell.)

Back Coating

I used to do something called, "back coating" all the time, but times changed and I haven't done it in years.  It's nothing naughty (even though I know at least a portion of my three readers thought it most likely was); it has to do with paper.

I have done origami, or paper folding, since I was eight-years-old.  I met a friend in my twenties and we started going to the national origami convention in New York City.   Origami has been a life-long love of mine, even in times when I haven't done much folding.

I remember at one of the conventions we met a nice man who had some wonderful paper.   One of the things origamists spend time doing (other than folding models) is looking for the perfect papers with which to fold.   Our new friend told us he had back coated the paper.    We told him he was going to have to tell us more, because we wanted to be able to have soft, supple and resilient paper and we were willing to learn.

First, he helped us find the papers, which were long, fibrous tissue papers made from mulberry fibers, imported from Japan.  Then, he told us about methyl cellulose, that you use to adhere the two pieces of paper together with.

Methyl cellulose is a white powdery substance you add to water that turns into a pile of goo that looks just like the ectoplasm in Ghost Busters.  You put a large sheet of paper on a flat surface, paint it down with the goo, lay a second sheet on top of the first, add more goo and then wait for it to dry.

What you have when you're done is a beautiful sheet of crisp yet flexible paper that no longer resembles tissue paper, but has all the bendable properties of it.   It is a delight to fold with and is one of my favorite paper mediums of all time.

My friend wanted to make some back coated paper for an upcoming trip to Japan.  I hadn't made any in years, but when we got started it all came back, just like the proverbial riding a bike comparison.   There were tricks to aligning the paper, how much paste to use, how to dry the sheets quickly and how to best cut the papers to maximize the number of final squares cut.

We had a fun night.   Now, if only I could make a little time for making some truly complex and time-consuming origami models...

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to give daddy a, "fist buup" after we drove away this morning.  I know he's saying, "fist bump", but it comes out as "buup" with his tiny little guy voice.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  On the way to school this morning my daughter suddenly said, "once upon a time there was a robot who loved the woods..."   That was apparently the end of the story.

Fitness Update:   We got to chatting with our trainer at the gym and ended up with a fairly whimpy workout, but we got some good discussions in.

I'm Not a Smart Boy

Children are both tough and delicate at the same time.  Some things, you can tell them again and again and they don't get (or choose to ignore), while other things they absorb from hearing it across the room.   Say, like swear words.   Children can hear those in the next room, with the door closed and they can spit them back out at just the right (or rather wrong) time later.

My son is very resilient; but he is also very sensitive.   We've been careful to never say things like, "you're a bad boy", to him or "you're a bad girl", to my daughter.   Saying things like, "you're stupid" or "bad" are labels that apply to the child as an individual, not a particular behavior.   Hitting your sister over the head with a toy is a behavior that's bad, but the child that did the behavior isn't a bad individual.

Today while my children were at school I got a text from his teacher.   She told me she asked him to use his gentle hands.  She asked why he was using his rough hands and he said, "one day I will be a smart boy and use my gentle hands.  I am not a smart guy."

When did he hear that?  We never tell him anything negative like that.  We don't tell him he has to do things to be smart or that the "smart boys" do such-and-such or that, "smart boys do/don't do that."  She knew we didn't speak to out children that way, but she was concerned enough to let me know, and I told her I appreciated it.

I talked to him after school and he very sadly,  seemed to believe he wasn't smart.   We had several conversations during the rest of the day and I think I've been mostly able to change his feelings about being smart.

I'm not sure where this came from, but I'm going to use my, "listening ears" and see what I hear as my little guy is apparently quite sensitive.

The Big Boy Update:  My son likes to do a "fist bump high-five" before going off to school.   With one hand he gives daddy a high-five and with the other he fist bumps daddy's other hand.   My daughter is still working on the coordination to get this goodbye ritual down.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Swimming and breathing.   We went to the pool this afternoon and it's been several days since I've gone with them.   My daughter is now swimming out into the middle of the pool without a worry, because she can lift her head up enough to get a breath, and can do that multiple times if necessary, until she gets where she wants to go.

The Sushi Surprise

We like to go out to eat. We also like to take the children out to eat with us.  When children are tee tiny, they just sleep in the car seat while you eat beside them. As they get older, you strap them into a high chair and they are interested in trying to put food in their mouth.  

When they get older, as ours are now, they sit in a seat and usually don't want a booster seat. My children like to move a lot and have a surplus of energy, so keeping them at the table while food is ordered, cooked, eaten and paid for can be a challenge.   We also work hard to have our children be flexible in eating a wide variety of foods.

Overall, the children do quite well at a restaurant. They don't get digital devices to play games (which could completely occupy them and make them a great meal companion).  But we do have to work on them to sit thought the meal. 

Recently, one of our favorite adult restaurants has turned into one of our children's as well.  We go to a shush and Thai restaurant that leaves my children occupied and full every time.  First, we get edamame beans.  Both children can now open the pods and really like the beans. They like to have a bit of our salad sometimes, and then they can both demolish an order of kid's teriyaki and rice. 

It's been a pleasant surprise to have them enjoy a restaurant as much as we do. 

The Big Boy Update:  my son got ready for the pool all by himself today. He got on the wat diaper and the swim suit without any help at all.  And just to be safe, he put on a regular pair of underwear first. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  As they were driving to the pool today, my husband explained that first they would order food, then eat the food while sitting at a table and then they could get in the pool. My husband said she was great and had no complaints because she knew what was the plan was.  

The Coupon Coup

If you pronounce "coupon" queue-paun then why why would you pronounce, "coup" like "coop"?

The two words start with the same first four letters, but for some reason, some people pronounce the first syllable differently.  

Coop-awn and coop is how I say it.   How do you?

The Big Boy Update:  My son pulled out his penis at the playground the other day and showed it to three unsuspecting girls.   Fortunately, the parents didn't mind.  The next day, his teacher messaged me and told me he'd pulled out his penis at group time and showed it to the class.   She immediately applied diaper rash cream and told me my son said, "thank you Kica."   We started putting on steroid cream that night because we realized it was itchy due to invisible eczema, something he suffers from all over,  but is particularly hard to see in the genital region.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter likes to lie down on a towel at the pool or beach.  Her sitter takes them to the pool from time to time and she drew my daughter lying down on the pool lounger after swimming:

Fitness Update:  Something like four miles with friends at our girls weekend in the mountains.  It was walking, but walking and talking with girl friends is always fun to me.

The Fifteen Pound Pants

My body shape has changed a good bit with the exercising.   If you're new to following this blog, let me go back a bit and explain that historically I never exercised.   I complained that I had inherited a large stomach from my mother's side of the family, but ultimately, I was just overeating.

Two children later and I decided I had best do something about all this largeness that had happened from going through two pregnancies, nursing and oh yes, all that overeating through the years.   I started running, thanks to two friends and eventually, possibly as a result of some mental instability, I ran a marathon.

That weight I had put on, came right off and I weighed less than I remembered weighing as an adult.   I was very happy about that.   I got some new clothes and the shorts fit so nicely on my non-protruding stomach region.   About that time I started going to a trainer and things changed again: first I lost weight, and then, I gained muscle.

In the middle of all of this, I decided I had lost too much weight.   I really needed to gain some back because yes, it was nice to get that fat to go away, but with the muscle I'd built, I just looked too thin. That was a fun time.  I gained about ten pounds but did it in a slow enough way that I put on more muscle than fat along the way.

This post is about pants though and how they fit and muscle and fat.    Years before, I had bought a pair of pants that I'd worn for a short time and then couldn't, due to extra poundage I added to my body.  They sat in my closet for years but I couldn't get rid of them because they were just great pants.   When I lost all the weight and I was in the, "you need to put some weight back on because you're looking way too bony" phase, I pulled out those pants and was very happy to be able to wear them again.

Then, alas, I had to gain weight I decided.  I looked at those pants and put them back on the shelf, thinking I wouldn't get to wear them again, but not wanting to get rid of them.

Yesterday I pulled out the pants and tried them on and I couldn't believe it, they fit.  I am fifteen pounds heavier now than when I last tried them on, and yet they fit and were comfortable.   I think those pants yesterday finally made me realize and believe that the weight I put back on wasn't just chub, fat, blubber...it was muscle--and muscle in the right places.

The Big Boy Update:  My son likes, "mom-a-kneese".   Otherwise known as, "edamame beans".

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I'm not sure if my daughter's hair is wavy or curly or frizzy.   It goes through phases, depending on the weather.   Sometimes I'm not even sure the weather controls it as it might be how it was washed, dried or brushed.