We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
Monday, Mar. 28, 2005 - (Mamma)
Metablogging I recently mentioned an article about overparenting and why it does a disservice to our kids. Several readers mentioned it, and pointed out that the link was missing.
I'm the first to admit that I "write" HTML only as well as the person I steal it from -- and evidently I didn't choose well for that particular link. let's hope that this one works better, because it is a thought-provoking article.
I also wanted to note that if you click on the photo of Jack in the left column, the link will take you to his photo album. We've added some new photos recently, so it may be worth a look.
Ostara
It was a long, and mostly lovely weekend!
I had Friday off and so Jack and I got our chores out of the way early and were free (and energetic enough) to go to playgroup this week!
It was at the home of a very old friend of mine. We don't get much chance to just chat these days, and with children to supervise, it doesn't look like that's going to change all that soon, but I always enjoy our visits.
Jack also had a wonderful time and he sang "Kendra" songs most of the way home. (Kendra is the name of the little girl we visited' Jack often sings the names of people he's thinking fondly of.)
Other than that, Friday and Saturday were pretty uneventful. On Sunday, we celebrated Ostara a week late. (Both Rod and I had a lot to do that day, so we postponed it to the end of our long weekend together.)
I never celebrated such things with TJ and Corey. They were usually with Olof over holidays, anyway. That means, that for these purposes at least, I am a brand new Mamma. I spent several days trying to figure out how I wanted our family to celebrate and I may have made some serious miscalculations....
In the end, I bought a basket for Jack, put a little "easter grass" in it, and bought him a book about Spring, a lovely Sun and Moon card, and a beautiful chocolate sun. I also filled a dozen small plastic eggs with nuts, dried fruits, mints, and other "nibbles" and Rod and I hid them all over the parlour for Jack to find.
Jack was pleased with his treasures. He especially liked the sun -- he loves chocolate. (I try to tell myself that really good chocolate contains nutrients [including magnesium, copper, potassium, manganese, and flavonoids] and is healthy for him in small doses. Jack tells me that chocolate is utterly essential to his well-being. What's a mother to do? Deprive her little boy of joy?)
I expected that the filled eggs would turn up (and the contents consumed) over the course of several days, but with a little coaching from Dad, Jack had found every last one of them within an hour.
Since he was allowed to eat the contents as he found them, that led to as serious sugar rush -- in combination with the caffeine from the chocolate, our little boy was flying high!
Chilly or no, this called for a trip to the park. Jack needed to run off some of that energy or we were in for the melt-down of the century!
(Note to self. Plan better next year. Put fewer sweets per egg and hide them better!)
The original plan was to go to a lovely park that has been recently installed in an old quarry not far from the house. It has winding walking paths through what was once the quarry, with ponds and woods. We missed the turn in for the walking paths, but they are also accessible from the play area, so were going to go in that way. But Jack is familiar with the play area and he spotted it as we drove past and started chanting "children, children" from the back seat!
Well, that changed our plans. there were no children playing in the play structure -- it was around freezing, after all. But that didn't worry jack at all! It seems he knows the word "children" but doesn't have a word for "park" or "play structure" yet. He wanted to play on the slide and run around!
We stayed fora couple of hours, taking turns playing with Jack and taking photos. While we were there, a young man brought his remote controlled airplane, which fascinated Jack. He spent quite a while following the plane as it dipped and swooped over the sports field adjacent to the play area.
Our play ended when another family arrived with three or four older children who were playing a casual game of soccer. Jack wanted to play so much! He ran toward them, chattering and stopping only to dance with joy -- only to have the Dad take the ball out of play eery time "the baby" came too near,lest he get hit with a flying ball.
Jack was crushed, but persistent. He wanted to play and he wouldn't be distracted. The only answer was to take our stubborn little boy away from the park. He cried most of the way home and sobs led to keening.
Jack was exhausted and overexcited. He was heartbroken at being excluded from the bigger kids game. He is also teething in four teeth at once, adding to his misery. We thought briefly about taking a nice long drive in hopes that Jack would fall asleep -- but it seemed unlikely that he would, so home we went.
Once we got home, I was able to get some solid food into our boy, and then he was finally ready for a nap.
He woke up in far better spirits than he had gone to sleep, but after his nap he was still pretty keyed up. That must have been some very high-caffiene chocolate! He didn't fall asleep until after midnight!
Dad says he's much better today, though he seems to have a headache. A touch of pain reliever and a nice bath seem to have sorted that out, though. |
