Stages of Understanding a New Word

1) Fiona hears a word for the first time.

As we walk down the street I grab her hand and tell her she has to hold it.

"We're not crossing the street," she protests.

"I know," I reply. "But a lot of cars come out of the alley here so I need you to hold on."

"That's an alley?" she asks, looking to the area where I'd been pointing.

2) Fiona starts trying to use the word.

A minute later we walk past a gas station and I grab hold of her hand again. Fiona knows that a lot of cars come in and out of the station and she has to hold my hand here, but now she thinks she has the word to go with the situation:

"This is an alley," she says. "A gas station is an alley."

"No," I respond. "It's a gas station."

"It's not a street."

"No, it's a gas station."

"It's an alley. A gas station is an alley."

Anywhere that cars go that isn't a street must be an alley.

3) The word gets some further definition.

"An alley is a space between two buildings," I explain.

Fiona points to the common lawn that two adjoining apartment complexes share.

"That's an alley?"

"No. It has to be a space between the buildings."

4) The new word is seen everywhere she looks.

"Look, Daddy, an alley!" she declares, every time she sees a space between two buildings. Or a driveway.

We're making progress.

Vacation 2007--Pooh and Tigger

We've joked about the funds the Pooh Industrial Complex generated from Fiona-related purchases in 2005. For that period as she transitioned from baby into toddlerhood, she had a deep love for all things related to Winnie the Pooh and Friends. I've probably seen Pooh's Heffalump Movie more times than I've seen Star Wars at this point, and I still don't think you could open a toy box in the house without stumbling over another Pooh, Tigger or Piglet.

As Fiona has moved past early toddlerhood she's developed an interest in what groups she might belong to, which is to say she's developed an interest in what girls do, which is to say we're in the Princess phase. Which you already knew.

So we expected the princesses to be a highlight of the Disneyland trip, which they were, but in our nostalgia for how things were all those many years ago when Fiona was one-and-a-half instead of three-and-a-half, we insisted on taking her to the Winnie the Pooh ride. We knew this was the only time we could take her that she might still be young enough to like it, but we weren't sure if she would really be into it or if it would just blend in with the other fun rides like the teacups or Dumbo ride.

Nevermind.

When we rode the Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland rides, both of which are movies Fiona knows well, Fiona nodded as we pointed out many of the things she recognized, but she was still a little overwhelmed by the experience.

On the Pooh ride, however, Fiona did all the pointing, practically shouting with excitement as she recognized scenes from the movie, and laughing out loud at all the crazy creatures in the room showing Pooh's Heffalump and Woozles dream. The moment the ride was over she wanted to do it again.

Which we did. But first, I happened to notice that Disneyland had very conveniently put up a line to meet Pooh Bear himself right around the corner from the Pooh ride.

Fiona was intrigued.

Strike that--Fiona was thrilled. Imagine waiting in line for 30 minutes to meet a guy in a big costume. Now imagine that everybody else in that line is escorting at least one child no older than four, and generally younger.

Now imagine that all of those children are perfectly behaved, showing no signs of impatience.

Such is the power of Pooh.

When we reached second in line, Pooh's handler came out and announced that he had to take a short break, but that he'd be right back. Now, I can't begrudge a guy in a heavy suit in 90 degree weather needing to take a break, but I was dreading Fiona's response.

Not a peep.

And, in fact, Pooh disappeared behind the fence to take his break and, conveniently enough, ten seconds later walked right back out. Apparently somebody at Disneyland figured out how to stagger their Poohs so that the toddlers never had to be without him for long.

And so Fiona met Pooh, with none of the awe in which she held the princesses, instead rushing to him for a big hug as she greeted an old friend. She got his autograph and posed for a photo...

...and then, as we were leaving, Tigger arrived.

So Fiona got to be the first child during that session to meet Tigger as well. The first thing Tigger did when Fiona ran up to him was to take her hat and put it on his ear.

This, apparently, was the Funniest Thing That Anybody Had Ever Done. Weeks later, Fiona is still talking about how Tigger put her hat on his ear "like an earring" (cue hysterical laughter).


Years from now I'm sure we'll be back at Disneyland and Andrea and I will wind up dragging Fiona along on the Pooh Bear ride for nostalgia's sake as she rolls her eyes. In 2007, however, it was her highlight of the whole trip.

Trouper

I expected that I was going to write today about Fiona's first movie in a theater. We took her to see Mr. Bean's Holiday today, since she likes the Mr. Bean shorts. She wound up bored and I don't have a heck of a lot to report on that front.

But after the movie was over and we got home, I asked Fiona if she wanted to walk to the grocery store with me to pick up some meat for dinner. We got out on the sidewalk and played the chasing game we usually play; she chases me a bit, and then I chase her. I was chasing her when Fiona tripped and started crying. No biggie; she's a kid, she trips on the street, she skins her knee and you bandage it up and keep going.

Except this time when I picked her up she had blood running all across her chin. I scooped her up and did my best Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer, racing the two blocks home where we proceeded to freak Andrea out when she saw me carrying her bloody daughter into the apartment.

After we got her cleaned up it became clear that Fiona had cut her lip pretty badly and that she had a cut below her lip in addition to a scrape across her chin. The bleeding was significant, and the face isn't something you want to take chances with, so we headed off to the nearest emergency room for children, which is in East Elmhurst (years ago I'd actually looked this up and printed out directions which were posted on a bulletin board in our home, so the prior planning came in useful).

We probably waited at the ER for an hour, which isn't too bad by ER standards, and within a few minutes Fiona was running around, dancing and singing, so it was clear she wasn't carrying around too much pain. As a matter of fact, she even started trying to climb across the benches, which made us a little nervous since we'd already had one fall for the afternoon.

Once we got into the examining room, Fiona was amazing. She did everything the doctors asked and even as they poked and prodded and cleaned and swabbed Fiona never batted an eye. The cut turned out to be minor -- no stitches necessary, not that I regret for a moment taking her in. They put some dermabond on the cut beneath her lip in order to help it settle and let us know she may have a hairline scar for the next 5 years or so, wrote us a prescription for some antibiotics, and sent us on her way.

Fiona's going to have a swollen lip tomorrow, but things could have been far worse, and I look forward to spending the next several days pretending to be a patient on an examining table while Dr. Fiona pokes and prods at my chin and pretends to swab it with water.

School Talk

Fiona still likes to grin and say "I'm not telling you!" when we ask her about school, but we're getting more details. She's doing more arts & crafts than she did at Rita's. So far this week, the kids have decorated hot air balloon cutouts (on paper) and created self-portraits of their faces by looking in the mirror and choosing their hair and eye color and pasting those onto plates.

This week's lessons are all about the body, and in addition to the parts Fiona's known about for years (eyes, ears, etc.) they're learning about the lungs and heart.

Fiona's started learning more names for the other children. She's still very clingy when she gets dropped off, but she doesn't cry, and when Miss Annie convinces her to join in an activity and leads her away, she doesn't look back at whichever parent is dropping her off.

Oh, and the coolest news: Fiona's class is taking their first field trip. We got the permission slip yesterday and they're headed to a farm at the beginning of October! They'll get to pet the animals, pick pumpkins and go on a hayride. One of us (TBD) is going to chaperone as well, so assuming they get enough chaperones to do the trip you can expect a blog post on that sometime in early October.

Vacation 2007 - The Rides

Fiona knew what a merry-go-round was before we went to Disneyland, but she'd never actually been on one before (well, not counting this stationary display model she sat on at Grandma's office). So Disneyland was her first experience with amusement park rides. I suspect it's all downhill from here.

Before we left, Fiona and Nana looked through the website to check out which rides might be fun. Fiona decided that Pirates of the Caribbean was probably too scary and that she'd ride it "maybe when I'm older." For some reason she decided that the flying Dumbo ride was one she'd do with Daddy (as you can see to the left). I quickly discovered that meant by default she wanted to do all the other rides with Mommy... or at least sit with Mommy on rides where you could only put two people on a bench.

Day one we spent mainly at the California Adventure park since that was where the princess luncheon was going on. Fiona took her first ride right beforehand on the jumping jellyfish (right)--a quick little ride that goes high up in the air, bounces lightly for a little bit, and then comes back down. We soon found that when Fiona likes a ride, she wants to do it a second time, and so after lunch we headed back to the jellyfish.

The rest of the day was spent on the carousel and over at the Bug's Life section where she rode bumper cars for the first time. Fiona loved those, but I think her eyes really opened up when we stopped by Fantasyland after dinner so she could go on the Peter Pan ride.

When we arrived, it was already 8:00 and the line was 30 minutes long. Fiona's normal bedtime is 8:15(suspended for Disneyland, but still, she was tired). We told Fiona we would have to come back in the morning, but Fiona insisted that she could do the line. We told her that if she whined at all we were heading back to the hotel. We wound up with a perfectly behaved child for the remainder of the evening, which just shows you the power of Disney rides. And when we boarded the boat and took off through the air for a tour of Neverland, Fiona's eyes grew to saucer size. She knows the movie well, and loved recognizing all the figures.

The next day we went back to Peter Pan, hit the Pinocchio ride (where the whale was scary enough that Fiona buried her head in Mommy's shoulder, only to then declare that she wanted to ride it again so that she wouldn't be scared this time). We also hit the Dumbo ride, Casey Jr.'s train ride (that's her in the monkey cage to the left) dumped her off with Nana & Pop for teacups (below right) and the grandparental duty of "It's a Small World" (not surprisingly, Fiona wound up singing the song for us for the rest of the day, but unlike the grownups she actually loves the song). After lunch, we took her to Alice & Wonderland... and then there was the Pooh Bear ride. But that, being Fiona's highlight of the whole trip, is the subject for the next post.

Instead, check out the big grin on her first bumper car ride. As always, the photos get bigger if you click on them.

First Day of School News

Well, we didn't get much out of Fiona. Every time we tried to ask her a question about her day, she'd giggle and say "I'm not telling you," until it finally became a game. Then, when we tricked something out of her, she'd start saying "I'm only telling you one thing."

Her teacher said she did fine, although she did whine a few times. It'll be nice to have somebody else encouraging her not to whine, since we all know there's only so much that a child will listen to her parents on topics like that. Miss Annie gave Fiona a big hug and asked for a high five (which Fiona gave) when I picked her up and told Fiona that she was very glad to have her in her classroom, and Fiona certainly seemed happy with the experience.

Fiona told us that they had a lesson on the calendar which included counting to six. Our best guess means that they were learning that yesterday was September 6th, although as I've said before, details from a 3 1/2 year old can be a little spotty.

She couldn't remember any of the other children's names last night, but she also told us that when her "friend" started talking to her during naptime the teacher told them to be quiet.

She also told me this morning that "Miss Annie is a great woman," which is impressive until you consider that after I moved the bin that holds our shampoo and soap from one end of the bathtub to the other so that Fiona could use the ledge to play with her bath toys she declared "Daddy, you're a genius!" I mean, I know I'm a genius and all, but I wouldn't consider moving the shampoo bin among my top ten most brilliant actions of all time. Top 50, maybe.

On the way out the door this morning, Fiona told Andrea that she was going to cry for a little bit when she got to preschool. Sure enough, she did, although Miss Annie also pointed out that she was smiling while she did it. Our little drama queen... I suspect it's her preschooler way of covering for the awkwardness of crying yesterday, by just deciding that crying is what you're supposed to do when you get dropped off at preschool. And I also suspect that even the fake tears are going to go away soon enough.

More vacation photos soon, I promise; it takes a while to pick out the best ones, and so far I haven't been able to quit my job to blog full-time about my child.

First Day of Preschool

I'll have more vacation photos later today, but we'll take a break from that to celebrate Fiona's first day at preschool. She's picked out her blanket, folder and lunchbox and woke up bright and early this morning excited for her first day. Here's a photo from right before we walked out the door; New Yorkers will note that this is obviously the morning since you can see Pat Kiernan summarizing what's in the newspapers on the TV behind her.

We just dropped her off, and there were a few tears--which were actually reassuring. She's been so excited about this day for months and never showed any doubt whatsoever about starting at a new place that when the moment hit where we were dropping her off and she suddenly burst out in tears and clutched on to her Mommy for dear life it was like being reminded that she is, in fact, a normal child.

Her teacher, Miss Annie, let us stay with her for a few minutes while she acclimated and even made sure to let Fiona choose which music to put on for everybody to listen to. After about 5-10 minutes Fiona was playing happily with toy babies with one of the other girls in her preschool and when we told her we were leaving she gave us hugs and went right back to playing. For all I know she's bawling her eyes out right now, but she makes friends quickly and we're looking forward to hearing all about her day (garbled a narrative as I'm sure we'll get) over dinner this evening.

Vacation 2007 - The Princesses

Well, we're back from a week in Southern California where Fiona visited Disneyland, toured the San Diego Zoo, and went along with her grandparents while they shopped at Macy's for a new bed frame (I'm guessing the last one wasn't the highlight of the trip). If I try to blog about it all in a single post it'll either turn into one of those 5,000 word posts that nobody in his or her right mind reads all the way through, orI'll just never get it done. So we'll just do a series of posts and see how far we get.

Our first big event at Disneyland was to visit Ariel's Grotto for the princess luncheon. This is also known as "Little Girl Heaven." The place was swarming with girls five and under, most of them in costume. As one girl walked by wearing an Ariel (a.k.a. the Little Mermaid) dress, we watched Fiona watch her and could practically read her thought: "why don't I have one of those?" If you look at the photo at the top of this post, you'll notice that she did eventually wind up with one of those... her very own Aurora (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) to take home. Ah, parents are such suckers.

It's actually amazing to me that Disney took as many years as it did to cash in on the whole princess bonanza. It's everywhere now; any time you see a "cast member" at Disneyland addressing a little girl, it's always as "princess."

On the list of blog posts I always meant to get to and never did, Peggy Orenstein wrote a piece in the NY Times Magazine last December complaining about her three year-old's obsession with all things princess. What I found more intriguing than the actual article were the letters to the magazine after the article was published. Basically, you wound up with half the letters saying something like "as the father of an 18-month old girl, I dread the day that my baby discovers priness culture," while the other half were along the lines of "now that my seven year-old has discovered the Bratz girls, I miss the princess days desperately."

When Fiona was 18 months old herself, I dreaded princess culture, too. As a recent new parent, I can tell you that it is indeed possible to avoid exposing your child to Barney, but there's no earthly way to keep your girl from discovering princesses. But what you discover once your girl reaches princess age is that there really isn't anything to worry about. Yes, she wears a ton of pink, and yes, when we were in the store picking out a blanket for naptime at preschool there was no contest between the one with a picture of Disney princesses vs. anything else, but these princesses aren't waiting in towers for a man to come and save them. They're tough, they have adventures, and Fiona runs around and climbs all over furniture just as much as any boy playing Spiderman.

Anyway, back to the lunch. The first thing the little girls do is file downstairs to meet Ariel at her grotto for a picture. Then it's off to lunch, where the girls get paper crowns to wear. During and after lunch, the other princesses come out to meet each girl, sign an autograph (Fiona has a brand new pink princess autograph book) and pose for pictures. She got to meet Belle (from Beauty and the Beast), Aurora (her favorite princess these days, mainly because of the pink), Cinderella (from, um, Cinderella) and Snow White (who was the best of all the princesses when it came to interacting with the little kids, as she asked Fiona about her favorite color and how old she was, as opposed to whether or not she'd seen her movie).

And once lunch was over, Fiona quickly made another princess friend:

By the way, I was relieved to see the other girl in this picture a couple of hours later on the bumper cars and her parents had persuaded her to remove the Belle costume.

OK, that was already more words than I intended. More to come... And don't forget that clicking on any photo brings up a larger copy.