Ella's NOT a Caterpillar

Walking back from Walgreens on Sunday after spending some family time at a neighborhood park and then having to adjust our lunch plans when we realized the local pizza joint was closed, Cal was still exhibiting some... strike that, many of the traits of being a complete crankpot.  He hadn't handled well our plans being disrupted by an unexpected pizza joint closure, and I chose to make light of it.

"Who thinks Cal's a big crankpot?" I asked, and then I shouted, "ME!"

Ella, always game for this kind of fun, especially at Cal's expense, chimed in, "ME!"  I don't remember if Dan did (Ella and I were loud), but let's say he did.

Cal was quick to respond with a "Who thinks..." of his own.  "Who thinks Ella's a big tattle teller?" he asked.  She is.

Ella was quick to respond with an angry, "I AM NOT A CATERPILLAR, CAL!"

Behind inner smiles, both Cal and I quickly corrected what she had thought she'd heard -- we both knew the meltdown to which it could lead, and that was something that, unspoken, we both agreed we didn't want to experience.  "No, a TATTLE TELLER," Cal said; and I added, "Yeah, Ellie, Cal said TATTLE TELLER."  I think it's funny that we all knew that this was the better of the two names to call Ella, at least in Ella's mind.

But that's the thing -- it is better because Ella knows that she's a tattle teller, which is something we've accused her of being a lot recently and something that we're working with her to correct.  It's not easy -- she's really good at it, and teaching a kid to understand when it's okay to tell and when it's not okay to tell has plenty of gray area.  I mean I want her to tell me when Cal's tying a rope around her neck (it's happened... more than once... sometimes with her full cooperation), but I don't want her to tell me that he's not putting the black crayon away when he's the one who used it.

Coming up with and communicating the rules and guidelines for her to apply to her thought process before deciding to tell us something has been a challenge, and getting it right was recently exacerbated by something that I learned from her teacher that had happened at school.

Ella's teacher noticed that Ella was scratching herself around her privates on occasion.  She did it at naptime one day, and Ms. Tawania asked Ella about it.  Does it hurt?  Does it itch?  Are you okay?  Did you tell your mommy about it?

Ella at first said it was okay but then eventually said that it was itchy sometimes.  And why didn't she tell her mommy?  "Because I don't want to be a tattle teller."

Ms. Tawania and I talked a bit about this, and she said that it is difficult to teach children the difference between the tattle-tell type of telling and the for-the-good-of-yourself-and-humanity type of telling.  No advice was given, but I always feel a little better when a professional child rearer sympathizes and shares the same challenges as I, a novice child rearer, experience. But clearly I'd want to know if something was itching her, so we needed to be clearer about what qualifies as tattle telling so she'd feel comfortable telling me about it.

On Sunday, I noticed I started using this rule with Ella: "If it affects you, tell me; if it doesn't affect you, don't tell me."

"Do you know what 'affect' means?" I asked her as she gave me a blank stare.

"No," she responded.

So I proceeded to tell her.  I find myself having to provide definitions for words on a regular basis, and this is no picnic, having to avoid using a word to define itself and actually knowing synonyms or equivalent phrases that sub-10-year-olds would understand. "Affect" was a relatively easy one as I was able to use things like if it hurts you, itches you, scares you or worries you, it affects you; and you should tell me.  If it doesn't hurt you, itch you, scare you or worry you, it doesn't affect you; and you shouldn't tell me.

I then gave her an example of each, right or wrong using Cal in the example (if he kicks you, it affects you; if he sneaks a cookie, it doesn't) which led to a Q&A of what qualifies as affecting and what doesn't. For some Q&A exchanges, it was Ella asking the questions and I answering them; for others, it was Ella doing it all herself.  She's notorious for learning rules and telling you everything about them.  But she seemed to understand.

We put it into practice immediately, where she'd tell and I'd tell her she was telling.  Each time I pointed out she was telling, she grinned; and that continued throughout the rest of the week.  She seems to be on board.  In fact, at one point later on Sunday after having been told she was telling a few times, she suggested a goal for herself.  "Mommy, if I don't tell on anyone until the end of May, we'll do something special," she said, not literally, but that was the summarized version of it.  No kidding -- this was all her idea.

Being the goal-oriented person I am and really wanting to nip this tattle telling in the bud, I jumped on board immediately and agreed we'd do something special, whatever that may be.  I'm not holding her to this rule 100%, and she has slipped a couple of times since stating it.  But it's been she who catches and acknowledges it herself... and then tells me it doesn't count, which is fine with me because it's still progress.

There's a small part of me that regrets going down this path altogether, though.  It has been nice to know that if Cal's sneaking treats into his room and eating them in his closet or if he's peeing in the backyard, we'll find out about it without even trying.  With our tattle teller in the house, we know everything.  But for the good of developing Ella into a well-rounded, well-liked person, I'm willing to try a different method of finding out Cal's doing stuff he really shouldn't be doing.

So after we successfully convinced Ella that she hadn't actually been accused for being a caterpillar and instead was accused of being a tattle teller, everyone was happy, even crankpot Cal.  Since we all seemed to enjoy the "Who thinks..." banter, I continued it, at Cal's expense.

"Who thinks Cal wears floods?" I asked.  He does.

"ME!" Ella and I answered.  Cal may have even chimed in with a "ME!"  I don't remember hearing Dan.

"Who thinks Cal pulls his pants up to his chest?" I asked.  He does.

"ME!" we answered again.

Yes, finding pants that fit Cal even when he pulls them up to his chest is another Leatherkid challenge with which we're dealing.  That he's doing this and making it impossible for his pants to be anything but floods is so obvious and unavoidable that Ella doesn't even need to tell us and we'll still know it.

Computer Time... Lost

I'd say the Leatherman household is a little behind the times as far as technology goes.  Not far behind, but I wouldn't describe us as caught up.  To date, this as been a conscious choice basing our technology purchases more on need than on desire.  We don't have an iPad... don't need one.  My personal flip phone stopped working a few months ago, and Dan's Blackberry doesn't get much use.  I despise our laptop -- its usability is horrendous, I think -- and only use it when I need to.  My computer time is spent almost entirely on my work laptop.

The kids don't share the same feelings about our personal computer.  In fact, computer time is so desired and treasured around our house during the weekends that it oftentimes leads to fights... take this morning, for instance.

Dan has instituted some rules for earning computer time... for the kids, that is.  His rule is two minutes of reading time for one minute of computer time; and I typically adjust it slightly, making it one-for-one to make it a little less daunting for them.  Admittedly, I've been known to abandon the rule entirely, just to get a block of time with peace and quiet to re-acquire my own sanity; but that's a topic for another blog post.

Anyway, whether it's two-for-one or one-for-one, it seems to be a good rule and encourages reading... kind of.  Most of their time reading is spent checking on how much time they've accumulated.  Cal's buns had barely hit the couch this morning when he was asking, as he opened up his Star Wars whatever book, "Mama, how much time do I have?" I'm not sure how I responded, perhaps with rolled eyes, perhaps with a smart-ass "1 second" or perhaps with, "You just started."

Cal's asking, of course, triggered Ella, who was already a few minutes into her reading, to ask, "How much time do I have?" to which I responded, "Five minutes."  It was a rough guess as I technically hadn't started timing her, but it seemed reasonable.

It was quiet for a few minutes, atypically more than a few, actually.  Then a check happened.  "Mama, how many minutes?" Cal asked.  "15," I told him, and this is with no assessment of the quality of his reading.  For all I know, his eyes glossed over the words most of that time, if they even went over the words at all.  There's a lot of unearned trust in the current implementation of this.

Anyway, since Cal asked, Ella asked.  "20," I told her.  "Can I go first?" she asked.  I told her that, yes, she could; afterall, she was 20 minutes in and would hit 30 minutes sooner than Cal, at 15 minutes in, would.  I'm not sure exactly how the 30-minute target came about, but it did... so I just stuck with it.

Two minutes later, I was being asked again.  And again, 30 seconds later.  At this point, it was ridiculous; so Dan instituted the "if you ask how much time you have, we're going to take a minute away" rule.  Ella didn't like this and completely flew off the handle in classic Ella style, a style we really haven't seen in awhile.  It's been sooooooo nice.

I don't remember all that she said, but let's just characterize it as spewing jibberish and nonsensical statements while flailing her body onto the couch and off... and on... and off, all the while kicking and screaming her jibberish when she could.  Cal started teasing her and laughing, which garnered a "Stop it, Cal, you're making me not read!" from her.  Cal kept laughing.  I started laughing.  And then Dan started blowing her kisses.

Hindsight is telling me we probably shouldn't have teased her so much.  I mean, it was hard not to because it was amusing at this point.  She completely lost her mind.  Minutes were being taken away from her.  Couple that with not actually reading, and she fell behind Cal.

BOOM!  She technically hadn't fallen apart to this point.  But with the news that Cal would get to 30 minutes and the computer first, Ella completely lost her mind.  And once I actually got him started with his computer time, it got even worse.

So while Cal did his usual Lego video watching on the computer -- yes, he searches for Lego things and watches Lego-assembling videos -- Ella and I had a back and forth complete with me trying to be stern and deliver completely logical responses to Ella's... insanity.  Of course, this approach didn't work and eventually led to me insisting she go upstairs to calm down because "I didn't want to talk to her anymore."  Getting her to cooperate on her own at this point was like moving a mountain, so I had to up my volume and participation in getting her up there.  I helped her get her books, Blue Blankie and unicorn stuffed animal balanced in her arms and sent her to her room again.  She stood on the landing of the stairs still complaining about not getting computer time first; and I told her if she said that one more time and didn't go up to her room she wouldn't get any computer time.

I really wanted her to have her fucking computer time and wished I hadn't said that, but I did... so I had to stick to it.  She complained about not going first one more time and I said, "That's it! No computer time for you today!"  Ugh.  As expected, this didn't go over well, and she still wasn't in her fucking room.  So it wasn't over, and I had no sense for when it would end.  If I could just figure out the magic word or the magic response...

The next several minutes involved me yelling at her -- still the logical stuff (the general theme being that she chose this, not me), just at a heightened volume -- and her yelling back at me that I'm mean and she really wants to go on the computer.  I left her and headed back downstairs.  Ella stayed in her room and eventually calmed herself down... after Cal's 30 minutes were up.

Calm, she made her way downstairs and apologized to me.  This was my in!  I picked her up, set her in my lap and gave her a hug.  I spoke calmly about how she needs to learn to control herself and keep herself calm.  I told her the rules were simple and she just needed to follow them.  I told that she needed to trust me if she does follow the rules and explained what that meant.  I told her not worry about Cal.  I told her I love her and I'm really proud of her.  And then I told her that since she apologized, I'd let her earn computer time if she wanted it.  She's have to start over and could do it all at once or in chunks -- I'd keep track of it.

She then calmly went to "the library" (our shelf of books downstairs) and grabbed a book.  After 15 minutes of reading, she got excited about the proposal Dan laid out that we go to the park.  That led to another short-lived meltdown between the three of them; and, as I finish this, Ella is now sitting next to me with her toy toolbox and pounding wooden nails into wooden washers with her wooden hammer.  It's loud, slightly annoying and not great for my focus and sanity, but I'll take it over the computer time debacle anytime.

Mommy Gets Arrested (a possibility)

I generally keep this under raps, not because I think it's necessarily wrong but because it's sort of illegal, but I've been known to relax the seatbelting/carseating rules when I'm on drop-off duty in the morning before school starts.  I drive the "work car" (there are no carseats in it), and it's a five-block drive through our subdivision and one block outside of it -- my adult assessment of the trip is that it's a pretty low-risk drive.

By the way, when I say "relax" the rules, I mean flat-out just don't do.  Not one strap and not one buckle.  The kids' buns may not even be touching the seat, and I'm already backing out of the driveway.  I do make it a point not to speed too bad as I make my way down the main drag out of the subdivision, and I do pay close attention to cars arriving from side streets or even sitting idle at intersections.  Afterall, I'd really prefer not to encounter a police car.  I fear the risk of getting caught doing this more than that of the harm that might come my kids way because they're not strapped in.

Knowing how kids, particularly my kids, have no filter and tell anything to anyone, you'd think that I would not say anything to them about the wrongness... wait, strike that... the illegality of what I'm doing; but they fully know how wrong... wait, strike that... illegal it is.  But they know because I told them.  I think the first time I said something, I was highly stressed.  I was late, they were fighting, we were all yelling and I said something to the effect of not worrying about anything because we were all going to be arrested for their not being strapped in.

Yes... yes, that's right.  I told them that they had some responsibility in the decision to not only not be in their carseats but to also not be wearing their seatbelts and that they could actually be arrested for it.  And since that time, I've repeated it... on many occasions, stressed or not stressed.  Their teachers haven't pulled me aside and questioned me about it yet; so I really think that our doing this has, until now since I'm blogging about it, stayed within the confines of our car.  I'm not sure how, but I am not going to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and am just going to not question that part of it.

This past Thursday, our morning was a little rushed but not too bad.  Dan had already left for work, an unusual non-work-at-home day, so I was on drop-off duty.  My goal was just to get them into the backseat and myself into the front seat so we could just start making our way to school, so I had no seatbelting expections nor did I iterate any.  For some reason, Cal buckled himself in.  Once we started moving, he decided to tell on Ella.

"Ella doesn't have her seatbelt on!" he exclaimed.  "She's going to get arrested."

I don't know why I chose to clarify the law, but I responded with, "She's not going to get arrested.  I'm the one who'll get arrested."

Cal didn't question that I said Ella wouldn't get arrested.  He very logically concluded something, though, and responded, "But I won't be able to go to school if Daddy's at work and you're arrested."

I thought this was incredibly funny and very amusing.  His world -- and I'm sure Ella's, too -- is so small, so practical and so immediate.  His only thought about my getting arrested for not strapping my kids in to carseats was about himself and what he's supposed to do.  He wasn't worried about me being thrown behind bars and he wasn't afraid of any emotions he might experience if I were to be arrested and he and Ella separated from me.  I'm sure a lot of it is due to his just being young and selfish and some of it due to his being naive and untainted by movies and daily news.

This observation of his isn't going to change anything, of course.  In fact, today I expanded my doing this to a quick trip to Walgreens a few blocks from our house in the opposite direction of school.  This time, we didn't speak a word about the illegality of it all.  Perhaps that's what I'll encourage as we do this going forward... which we surely will because I really don't think it's wrong.  I think it's safe, practical and, to be honest, fun to joke about.

My Mini Me

I opened the door to the garage on my forehead this past Monday morning during my scramble to get out of the house.  It's really one of those things that you want to keep to yourself.  I mean, it's not like I chose to do it.  "You know, I haven't had a good headache in awhile... I'm going to open this door so it bangs my forehead really hard." Really, I generally don't like to admit I do sloppy, careless things like this.  I have enough flaws that others see; why should I tell them I actually have more? I share it because it highlighted some synergy Ella and I have had recently -- 12 hours earlier Ella did essentially the same thing when she stepped out of my in-laws' house and immediately turned left only to have the storm door which she had pushed open slam into her forehead.  I saw it.  I heard it.  I even felt it.  She cried.  I held her.  I cried when that similar thing happened to me on Monday.  And I know she would've given me a hug had she been around to witness it.

My mini me and me

Ella and I are close.  As much as we bump heads (in the figurative sense) and as much as she wears pinks, purples and tutus and I, well, I just don't and never have, we are very alike and actually seem to enjoy each other's company these days.  I say "seem to" because if there's one thing I've learned as a parent it's that any peace and balance we may be enjoying at the moment could turn on a dime.  Even if it were to turn, this does not change: Ella is my mini me and I her mega me.

As I write this, Ella is organizing the DVDs.  I didn't ask her to do so, she just did.  I'm sure my mom has a memory of me doing this when I was Ella's age, with books instead of with DVDs.

Besides inadvertently banging our heads on doors and sharing an appreciation... strike that... a need to organize things, here's how we're images of each other and/or enjoy being with each other:

We both enjoy gardening and digging in dirt.  Ella is always a willing participant in my gardening activities. Actually, I should call it "our" gardening activities.  She helps me plant, helps me water, helps me weed and helps me reap veggies from the garden.

Ella shovelling mulch

Last weekend, we had a big mound of mulch delivered to the end of our driveway.  I had a 3-hour window before I knew we had to leave for Dan's parents' house; and I chose to use that time making a dent in the pile and moving it to its proper place in our yard.  And whom did I ask to help me?  My mini me, of course.  And, as any good mini me would respond, she said she wanted to help me.

Ella filling my wheelbarrow

So we headed out to the mound, me with my wheelbarrow and shovel, she with her pink Minnie wagon and snow shovel; and we worked for a couple of solid hours shoveling, wheeling and spreading mulch.  She needed only a little direction early on and even worked independently when I took a break from spreading mulch to transplant a few lillies.

I loved sharing this time with Ella, teaching her how to do something new, encouraging her to enjoy this "chore" and not dread it and influencing her simply to enjoy being outside.

We do girl things together.  I have to admit, I like having a daughter with whom to share the stereotypical "girl things," like painting our toenails, shopping and baby showers.  It's been awhile, but we've been known to have matching painted toenails, sometimes even patterned where every other toe is pink and the ones in between are purple.  If anyone thinks this is my influence, it's not -- it's I being her mega me.  Ordinarily, I'd opt for a single, certainly non-purple color; if my following her lead with her whimsical toenail painting makes her happy, I'm game.

Ella never passes on an opportunity to go shopping with me.  That she is with me on my shopping trips is nothing short of a miracle given the many struggles we've survived on said shopping trips, maddening experiences that led to many threats that I'd never take her shopping with me again.  Unfulfilled threats.  It's not that I enjoy the fights -- I just enjoy her company when we're not fighting.  She's a good helper, and I like giving her responsibilities and choices as we shop.  And the thing is, she does well.  She chooses well.  She chooses things that I would choose myself.

Sporting our pony braids

The best is responding "2" for baby showers to which I have been invited, where she and I are the "2."  She's pretty good company for these things which I typically find, and I'm sorry girlfriends and family, painful, the explanation for which is an entirely different topic.  But it's nice to have Ella's company.  The last two showers to which we've gone, I made it a point to dress similarly.  For the first, we were wearing the same colors -- black and bright pink (yes... yes, I do have some pink clothes).  For this latest one, she was already sporting a pony braid, so I chose to wear a pony braid myself.  Many people asked me about it (I don't typically wear a pony braid), and it was fun telling them how it came about.

Ella's strawberries

We are artistic and take our time with our art.  I've done my share of drawing and painting in my lifetime.  I've got some skills and am very careful and slow about my art. I'm not sure if that's because it's not entirely natural or if it's that I'm a perfectionist. Whatever the explanation, I see similar traits in Ella.  She carefully colored the strawberries in a big coloring page over the course of a week.  She started with one or two on a Sunday and then proceeded to come back to it when she had the time and inclination.  She knocked a few more strawberries out before leaving for school a few days that week and revisited the coloring a time or two in the evenings before heading to bed.

And there's nothing sloppy about her coloring job.  She stayed within the lines.  She even colored the strawberry seeds black and the strawberry stems green.  She also colored a couple of the flowers and leaves. In the end, the page itself wasn't entirely finished; but the strawberries sure were!

Interest in gardening, sharing girl things, approach to art.  These are just a handful of things that Ella and I have in common and enjoy sharing.  There are more.  This makes me happy and proud.  I enjoy having my mini me with me as I do these things.

Ella helped me fix dinner tonight.  I had already gotten most of it going by the time she asked if she could help, so I gave her the job of setting the table.  She's a good table setter, doing everything from getting plates and forks to filling our cups with beverages to even making sure that we have lime juice (she thought it was lemon) to squeeze on our fish.  At one point, she had to get both the butter and cups on the table; and instead of taking the cups first and then coming back for the butter, she carefully balanced the cups on the container of butter and carried them together.  If I had a nickel for every time I carried more than my hands could technically hold for the sake of minimizing trips... Needless to say, without giving it a second thought, my mini me was doing what her mega me would've done under the same circumstances.