Ella's First Bicycle Ride

Anyone who knows me knows I just like to be outside and active.  Two of my favorite activities since becoming a mom have been running with a kid in the BOB and riding my bike with a kid in a seat on the back.

At three and a half, Cal’s pretty much outgrown the BOB; so my running this year has been exclusively spent with Ella. The first time I ran with her, I felt like I was cheating on Cal. Afterall, he had been my running partner for more than a couple of years by then.  Sensitive to the “unfairness” of my always choosing to run with Ella, I will tell Cal that he can go for a bicycle ride either with me or with Daddy instead.  This works.  Cal is happy.  And I think that’s fair.

But then I started thinking, what about Ella?  At 17 months, Cal had already ridden on a bike.  She’s being cheated out of that.

So last week on my “off” day (from planned exercise), I decided I’d take both of the kids for a bike ride. Ella took an early nap, so I took Cal out for a ride on the path first.  6+ miles of good riding fun, which started with this picture (yes, Monkey came along for the ride, too):

A bike ride with Cal is filled with conversations and observations.  Riding on the prairie path near our home, we talk about bridges (there are four) and caterpillars and crickets (“where?”) and birds and alligators (naturally!) and creeks (“what’s a creek, Mommy?”) and donuts (we’ve ridden to get some) and Gatorade and airplanes (“Denver, Colorado” types, among others) and… you get the gist.

Then it was water-bottle-toting Ella’s turn: another 6+ miles of good riding fun much different than it was with Cal.  Whereas complete sentences are used when riding with Cal, I found that a ride with Ella is a little chatty but with single “words” like “Weeeee!” and “Ooohhhh!” and “Yaaaaayy!” repeated throughout the ride.

And that water bottle? Ella didn't drop it (or share it with Mommy) once.

A Typical Conversation with Cal

A typical conversation with Cal, if you can stick it out, is pretty long and covers multiple topics. Here’s an example from last night:

Me: “Cal, starting tomorrow we’re going to really work at no thumb sucking. So we’ll start the star system again and we’ll probably put something on your thumb to keep you from sucking it.”

Cal: “Yeah, we’ll put pizza sauce on it.”

Me: “Well, not pizza sauce because that tastes too good.”

Then somehow we transitioned to the topic of pumps because Cal remembered the “pump” at the dentist’s office this morning.

Cal: “We have a pump. Here’s my pump <sitting up in his bed, facing the railing>. And <pointing to the rocking chair in his room> there’s the squishy thing.”

Me: “Hmm.”

Cal: “We use a pump on our bicycle. But we don’t pump too much because it will blow up. But we don’t put gas in our bicycle.”

Me: “That’s right. Do you know how we make our bicycle move?”

Cal: “No.”

Me: “Mommy pedals it like this <I move my fists and arms in the motion of pedaling a bicycle>.”

Cal: “Yeah, and we don’t drag our feet on the sidewalk because we’ll get splinters.”

Me: “Well, you don’t really get splinters from the sidewalk… you get splinters from a tree or from a wooden deck.” (Obviously, I’ve gotten a splinter from a wooden deck before.)

Cal: “What do you get from a sidewalk?”

Me: “Well, you get scratches and scrapes.”

Cal: “Scrapes? What’s a scrape?”

Me: “A scrape is a BIG scratch.”

Cal: “Scrape… rake… that rhymes.”

And it went on from there and ended at him muttering some nonsensical non-words. That’s generally my cue to exit the conversation.

If You Can't Wake Her, Join Her!

We started closing the door to Ella’s bedroom when she sleeps as a deterrent to Cal loudly barreling in and waking her up before she naturally woke up.  That’s how I remember it, anyway.  Both of our kids are good sleepers and are generally not awakened by the typical noises of the house.  But Cal had started to develop a habit of running into her room and waking her up prematurely exclaiming things like “Elly Belly!” or “Elly Bo Boobers” or “Wake up, Baby Girl!” ... and, of course, tossing stuff animals into her crib.  It’s not that she minded it.  Ella loves basically anything Cal does.  Dan and I minded it.  A closed door might make him think twice about it, and it did and continues to do so.

As a general rule, I don’t ask Cal to go wake Ella up in the morning because I don’t think he’s able to distinguish when it’s okay to wake her up versus when it’s not.  (It’s only okay when Dan or I say it’s okay.) Feeling a little lazy this morning and recognizing it was time to wake her up and get her ready for school, I gave in and asked him if he wanted to wake Ella up today. I barely had the question out of my mouth and he was running toward her room.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into Ella’s room to this scene:

Well, that's a new technique!

Monster Cal and Snow

On our fridge hangs this picture of Cal from this past winter, in his early days of being 3.  He’s wearing his blue “monster” jacket (so named this morning), his monster hat (with big eyeballs and dragon-like red fins) and his monster (with red claws) mittens.  Not a high-quality picture, it looks like it may have been snowing or drizzling a bit when it was taken -- Cal’s squinting.  Either that or he was doing one of his imitations of a monster.  Afterall, he was going through his “I-love-monsters” phase at around that time.

This morning, Cal saw this picture and started talking, telling me about his being a “monster” and that it “snowed a lot” and that he was “eating a lot of snow.”  This led perfectly into the question I really wanted to ask him:

Me: “So, Cal, do you eat EVERY kind of snow?”

Cal <smiling>: “Nooo.”

Me: “What kind of snow DON’T you eat?”

Cal: “YELLOW snow… <pause>… because it’s REALLY sour.”

Atta boy, Cal!  He may not really get the reason, but he knows the rule!

Thumbs Down

Cal first went to see the dentist about six months ago.  He handled the prodding, sticking and cleaning really well, certainly better than I ever have.  He also took this news pretty well: his thumbsucking was starting to cause problems with his teeth, and he needed to start working on not sucking his thumb. The dentist gave him a Lightning McQueen battery-operated toothbrush as an incentive to stop.

Now Cal’s been a pretty good thumbsucker since he was probably 5 or 6 months old.  His style has always been put left thumb in mouth, begin sucking and then gently pinch top of right ear with right hand’s fingers.  In his bed, in his carseat, on our laps… basically anytime he’s not talking or eating, he’s instinctively sucking his thumb and pinching his ear.

When we first received the orders from the dentist to stop the thumbsucking, he did a respectable job. We’d catch him in the act and remind him to stop; and he would stop. Of late, however, he no longer responds to the reminders to stop. So we’ve implemented some basic rules – no thumbsucking when we read to him, no thumbsucking in our bed, no thumbsucking while watching a movie. He has to comply, otherwise we end the fun. Not great, but they’re steps in the right direction.

Earlier this evening, I had this conversation with Cal, naked buns and all, after his long visit with the toilet:

Cal: “Mommy, I want to go to the dentist.”

Me: “Well, that’s good timing because you have an appointment this Friday.”

Cal: “After my nap?”

Me: “No, first thing in the morning.”

Cal: “Will I go to school?”

Me: “Yep, after your appointment. And you know, the dentist is going to ask you how your no-thumb-sucking is going, and I’m going to have to tell her, ‘not so well.’ So maybe you should practice not sucking your thumb this week.”

Cal: “You know what I’m going to tell her?”

Me: “What?”

Cal: “I had a GREAT, BIG, GIANT POOPY!”

I sure hope not.

Bye!

Ella is 17 months old now. Typical of most 17-month olds, her vocabulary is pretty limited – she’s been signing the words MORE, EAT, MILK, PLEASE, THANK YOU and ALL DONE for several months and is now saying variations of those words as she signs them. I probably wrote it down somewhere, but I’m fairly certain “Mama” was her first clearly vocalized word, probably first uttered shortly after her first birthday; and since then she’s added “Ca” (Cal), “Da-dee” (Daddy), “Cacker” (Cracker), “Kee” (Kitty),  “Soo” (Shoe) and “Bye” (she says it to people, the cat, the toilet, air) as well as several animal sounds, “Baaaaaa!” being her favorite judging only by her enthusiasm and volume in saying it.

Her first word being “Mama” would probably be a surprise to no one.  Ella is and has always been a Mommy’s girl.  If she wants to be held, she wants me to do the holding. If she needs to be consoled, she wants me to do the consoling. If Dan and I are standing outside her room at school to pick her up at the end of the day, she runs to me.

At the end of the kids’ bath tonight, Dan came into the bathroom, ducky towel in hand, to get Ella out of the tub first. As has been typical of late, she put up a bit of a fight – she wanted Mama to dry her off.  Dan battled through it and quickly dried her off and got her into her jammies. He then brought her back into the bathroom, still crying, to give me kisses good night.

Instead of just giving her a kiss, I took Ella from Dan’s arms and starting going through my good-night routine with her. Kisses.  Hugs.  Little message.  At one point, she laid her head on my shoulder and nestled it tightly under my neck. I am a sucker for this. I could’ve stood there holding her like that all night. Fortunately for all of us, she lifted her head up, looked straight at Dan, and with her pouty pucker lips said, “Bye!” as she waved to him in what I will forever recall as being a shoo-ing sort of wave.

We laughed, which probably took the edge off a bit as he took her from my arms and carted her off to her room for books and bedtime.

Water, Sir?

We do workweek, pre-bedtime evenings pretty well in the Leatherman household. We have to -- there's just not enough time to dilly dally.  It typically involves fixing dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner, hanging out for a few seconds, and heading upstairs to get ready for bed with some orneriness and moodiness throughout.  Tonight was no different than the typical, except for one thing: Cal set the table… without my even asking and without seeking any praise for having done so.

It was fun to watch as I fixed dinner.  He started with the stack of little plastic plates.  Then he brought out the fish plate for himself, bee plate for Ella, white plates for Dan and me… doh, scratch that, white plate for me, big green plate for Dan.  Bib for Ella.  Little big-people forks for everyone placed on each plate.  Ella, wanting to be a part of this, added the heart plate, which Cal promptly put back into the cabinet.  Then, perhaps most impressively to me, he grabbed a couple of glasses off of the counter, filled them with water from the fridge and placed them at Dan’s and my spots at the table.  And eventually he added the play fishbowl as a centerpiece for our enjoyment.

I don't know.  Maybe I should expect this out of my 3-1/2 year old. Stuff like this makes me proud.  I mean, just check out this table: