FOURTEEN

Big handsome Theo

 2016 week fourteen

First week with our pup and eating outside for every meal: Spring is magic.

Easter photos from a few weeks ago.

She's all AKC registered now. Surprisingly there were already 35 miniature schnauzers registered under the name "Frida" and 3 under the name "Frida Kahlo", so her registered name is "Frida Pie" and she's the only one. :)

The lion statue that roars was the most fun part of the zoo,

UNTIL we got to watch a giraffe pee. Then that was the most fun part.

And he's the cutest. Veronica was probably just as cute, but I have no memory of it. 

He's discovered his tongue and he entertains us all sticking out his pointy little tongue all day. 

She cried when I made her come out of the dog enclosure. Anything and everything can be a fort or some sort of dress up.

King Theodore. With the constant wardrobe changes, my life always looks like a princess rapture. :) 

Even walks in the blustery afternoon (which could be considered perfect in their own right) can be improved upon with the addition of princess attire.

Quotes:

Me, "Who loves you?"
V, "Poop."

"Little town, full of little people waking up to saaaaaaaaay, 'oh sure! oh sure! oh sure! oh sure! oh sure!"

Overheard her telling giraffe, "It's my 100% three birthday!"

"Grandma! They have hippos at the zoo! THAT is SOOOO crazy!!"

"Mama, playing Sophia (Sophia the First apparently. She's never seen the show) makes me just feel so sick!"

And welcome toilet humor. Vera is saying "poop" and "pee" about everything. She inserts the words into songs, and just randomly interjects them into conversation. And naturally, she thinks it's HILARIOUS!

Stories:

It took Frida a whole week to find the compost pile. So today she needed a bath, and now Matthew has to finish our compost bin asap. V just stood in the grass watching her roll in the rotten vegetation.

Vera's nursery leaders love her. They love her and indulge her naughty behavior, because she is cute and she is clever and she reads people well. They laugh when they tell me that she knows each individual child's buttons and how to push them. I feel exasperated but I'm glad she has opportunities to learn that all adults have similar standards and expectations for her. A child who is well-behaved in isolation is not truly well-behaved. But, please, don't laugh at her and show her approval for making children around her frustrated. I don't want her to develop and learn to wield that power!

And so it begins. Vera is picking up habits from friends. Some are fine. Some are... well, less than stellar. Recently she has started to call things "weird" or people "weirdos" in a derisive tone. I absolutely hate it. Though it's not blatantly mean, it lays the groundwork for thinking it's ok to dismiss people, or people's interests and diminish them. It is becomes a tool of exclusionary behavior. But this is all a bit ethereal so it is hard to explain to my still 2 year old why we shouldn't call people weirdos. I don't want someone to do something silly or creative and for my daughter to think she is in a position of power to put down that person who didn't meet an imaginary standard of cool or normal behavior, and to dismiss them in a sweeping cut of "weirdo." Weirdo means you aren't like me. You aren't like the group. You stepped out a bit too far in a behavior or affinity for something that I dont care for or don't understand. It does not teach her to love others and learn from differences or to embrace her own unique ideas or her conscience. It teaches her to evaluate her behavior and her interests by the standard of those around her. It teaches her that it is better at all costs to stay "normal" and worry and wonder what others are thinking around her, and if they think she is weird. It gives me a panicky feeling when she says it. Maybe this is taking it to an extreme, but it is a behavior I don't condone. And I'm now entering into a phase of not just teaching her "this is how we do things" but teaching her "some people don't do things this way, I'm going to try to teach you why we prefer this method." Now comes comparing. Now comes fighting the influence of other people who she may look up to. Now comes teaching her nuance of appropriate behavior.  So I'm coaching her that it doesn't make people feel good about themselves when we say things are weird or call them weirdos. And I remind her that at our house we want people to enjoy themselves so they come back again, so we want them to feel good and comfortable around us. Obviously, I feel there are pretty strict standards of right and wrong, but being silly does not devalue a person. And calling them "weirdo" is once quick way of saying just the opposite.

Less dramatic but equally annoying: She's learned to say, "eww gross" about food. We have never ONCE said that food was gross, but now she says it. She doesn't know what that really means, but there is a power behind the tone of those words that is teaching her to be discriminatory about certain foods. I also feel panicky about this. I find myself saying with escalating frustration, "We don't say foods are gross! Food is not gross. Food is food and it is delicious! You maybe don't like everything YET, but there is no reason to think that it is gross. You are lucky and we are grateful that we ALWAYS have delicious food to eat that fills our bellies and helps us grow and feel happy. And eating food is fun! It's fun to try new things! STOP SAYING GROSS!" I don't even want her to think she has a right to not try something because in the past she didn't love it. I know it's more polite when people say "I don't prefer that, or it's not my favorite" as an excuse to not try something, but even that makes me crazy. Especially when kids say it. I don't think anyone should ever stop trying things, and I especially think kids shouldn't have the power to say they don't have to try something. I'm digressing. This is a pet peeve of mine. I'm definitely going to blame the amount of Calvin & Hobbes that we read to her, though. I think she likes to live vicariously through his naughtiness. At any rate, it's all she wants to read these days.

Last Sunday we had everyone over to our house for family dinner. We had make your own BLT sandwiches, chips, white bean salad, and mangoes and pineapples. The food was great. But even better than that was the weather. We all sat outside so the kids could eat on a picnic blanket and enjoy the freedom and novelty of that and we didn't have to police them, so we could visit and enjoy our food. The weather was gorgeous. Some kids were swinging, others threw the ball for the dog. And as the sun went down and the clouds lit up orange and purple, we sat in the warm breeze drinking tea and visiting. Every moment of it was just perfect. And I have a proposition for Matt's siblings. Let's buy like 10 acres, each build a house around the perimeter and have communal garden/back yard/play area. We can build a huge pavilion in the middle and all gather there for dinner frequently. Someone can keep horses and a cow, I'll volunteer for chickens and a garden, someone else can have a crazy play ground. Then our children can all run free outside and feel that autonomy of walking places by themselves or being in a slight wilderness, but we can know they are relatively safe. Andrea? Melissa? A family compound? What do you think?