Our Cool Grade Schooler

Tough Times to be a Kid

2011-01-14T13:06:00.002-05:00

Sorry, Fiona.

Your best friend is moving away tomorrow. It's happening for the reasons these things always happen. Her father got a job offer somewhere else. This isn't something you have any control over. It's not something your friend has any control over. You two just get stuck with the consequences.

There are things we tell you to help with the hurt. You'll keep in touch. There's email, there's Skype. Your friend wants you to visit on vacations.

As an adult, I know these things won't happen. There will be a few emails and calls. We won't visit. There's really no reason we'd be in her new area of the country, and we aren't going to make a special trip.

The fact is, friendships at your age are based so much on proximity. The biggest reason you play together is that you live on the same block and are roughly the same age. Once you stop seeing each other every day, you'll grow apart. And, just like with all the other awful parts about being a kid in this situation, whether you want things to be different or not: you don't get any say. It is what it is.

If you were 8-10 years older things might be different -- or they might not -- but at your age you're going to move on more quickly than you can imagine.

But not right away. Right away, this is going to hurt. It hurts for me. I never imagined the two of you still being friends in 8-10 years, but I assumed you'd just grow apart over the years. I didn't expect two weeks notice in mid-January. Some of the hurt is selfish. It's very easy as a parent when there's a girl the same age as yours right across the street. Built-in playdates several times a week. But it also hurts because I remember times that friendships suddenly ended.

It's not enough, but: Sorry, Fiona.

Fiona in NYC

2010-07-02T14:28:00.002-04:00

So we made it up to New York after two-and-a-half days with dog and child in tow. The past three days have been traipsing up and down Manhattan enjoying the sights we've missed for two years.

What we've seen this week:

Liberty Island
FAO Schwartz
Natural History Museum (All kinds of taxidermied mammals, Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, Early Man, Meterorites)
Central Park (cousin Simon and cute little dogs)
Metropolitan Museum of Art (Egyptian Art & Greek and Roman)
Tea at Alice's Tea Cup

All in all a busy and great week! Tomorrow morning, we head up to the Berkshires!

Long Time No Video

2010-06-12T23:34:00.002-04:00

Not much posting any more since we're beyond the point of writing posts about the first time she uses the pluperfect or something, but here are some videos from the past several months, newest first.

Kindergarten graduation took place earlier this week; here the kids are getting their diplomas.

Before that, they did a poem as a group. Fiona's line got stepped on a bit, but you can still hear her loud and clear.

Kind of long, but Fiona telling a story she learned at a girl scout outing, along with her own props.

This last one is really delinquent, since it's from the holiday assembly at school, but just in case you thought Fiona's ability to project her voice was super recent...

Winter Dance Recital

2009-12-05T23:16:00.001-05:00

Fiona in a number from the Grinch at her winter dance recital. Too bad I couldn't get close enough for facial expressions -- she's a natural ham (surprise surprise).

Training Video

2009-09-23T20:32:00.000-04:00

Guess what Fiona learned how to do this week?

Mind the Gap

2009-09-08T20:14:00.002-04:00

Guess who just lost her first tooth.

First Day of Kindergarten

2009-08-24T09:22:00.003-04:00

She's grown past the point of having scheduled naps at school, the curriculum is starting to look more recognizable to a grownup (books about numbers instead of learning to share), she's even had her first homework assignment (write a sentence about what she did this summer). All aboard for the next step.

School Play

2009-08-14T14:49:00.002-04:00

Or, rather, a day camp play. Fiona's day camp did an end-of-the-session performance this morning. If I could have bottled the expression on her face when her counselor first told her there would be a performance at the end of the week...

Like a dutiful father, I took video. Now you can feel like you were there. Enjoy.

Performing

2009-06-08T12:04:00.004-04:00

To the surprise of absolutely nobody who can figure out her genetic line, Fiona loves being on stage. Here's some recent video. Warning: if you're not actually a grandparent or other family member, I make no guarantees for how interesting you'll find what's below.

This is Fiona's preschool class singing What a Wonderful World with sign language at their end-of-year assembly. Fiona spent most of May walking around the house practicing, and they stuck her in the center as one of the kids who knew the moves best.

Then this past weekend Fiona had her first dance recital. Unfortunately, the recital was in a community center that had neither a raised stage nor raised seats, so any video I took had to be done by holding the camera over my head and hoping I was getting her as best as possible (and I couldn't get a good view of her dancing feet no matter what I tried). We'll see if the "official" video the dance school made is any better.

This was her tap number early in the show:

The kids all did It's a Hard Knock Life from Annie. This was the best number of the afternoon. Unfortunately, Murphy's Law is inviolable; my camera failed during the first 60 seconds or so, so this is only verses two and beyond.

Here the kids are doing Fabulous.

And this was Fiona's number from her hip hop class. We've never understood why you would have five year-olds doing hip hop, since moving the top and bottom of her body in sync isn't a skill that's really come in just yet. What was fun to watch was that, even if she couldn't do all the steps, Fiona clearly knew what the steps were supposed to be and was prompting the other kids on stage when they got off track partway through the number.

Curtain call!

Am I At Least The Off Hours Supervisor?

2009-05-07T19:40:00.003-04:00

During a showdown between Fiona and me this evening, she tells me I have to buckle her seat belt and I tell her she can buckle her own seatbelt.

Fiona: You're not the boss of me! Mommy's the boss of me!

I gotta get an org chart.

Two Videos, No Fooling

2009-04-01T09:41:00.002-04:00

I've written previously about how Fiona's reading ability has really taken off lately. The actual content here may not make a lot of sense since it's a comic strip in one of her magazines, but she's reading every word herself and it's not memorized:

We got a piano in January. We gave Fiona a choice between piano lessons and swimming lessons and she chose swimming, so she's not getting any training yet (we'll start in the fall). But she insists on having me show her how to play songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb, and she picks them up pretty quickly (even if I can't get her to use multiple fingers).

This song comes from the Valentine's issue of her Ladybug magazine (same issue she's reading from above) and is called Can You Put Some Love in Your Pocket? I showed Fiona how to play this on Sunday. 24 hours later she announced she was going to play it, and I got ready to help her through it since she'd only played it a few times the day before and I was certain she'd need help. Turned out she remembered the whole thing.

The version below is a little sloppier than she usually plays it--she's not Glenn Gould or anything normally (thank goodness), but most of the time she doesn't miss any notes. Enjoy.

This One's for Poppa

2009-03-29T19:29:00.003-04:00

At dinner tonight, doing the every-parent-gets-there-eventually negotiation over how many more bites the child needs to eat before dinner can be considered complete:

Mommy: That's one bite so far. You need to have two more bites.

Fiona: I need to have one more bite?

Mommy: No, you need to have two more bites.

Fiona: You said one more bite.

Mommy: I said you had one bite already. You need to have three total, so you need to have bites two and three.

Fiona: How about if I just have bite two?

Mommy: How about if you stop being a little lawyer.

Fiona: Don't say that!

Mommy: I can't call you a lawyer?

Fiona: No. Lawyer is not a nice thing to call somebody!

They learn so young nowadays.

Transit from the Five-Year Old Perspective

2009-03-27T21:00:00.002-04:00

Driving down the street, Fiona often spells out the words on signs she sees and asks me what they mean. "What does S-H-E-L-L spell? What does D-O-N-U-T spell?" Sometimes she'll identify the word herself and ask for confirmation. This happened yesterday while we were stuck at a light and she looked at a road sign.

Fiona: What does E-H-R-L-I-C-H spell?

Me: Ehrlich.

Fiona: What's an Ehrlich?

Me: It's the name of the road.

Fiona: Why did they name it an Ehrlich?

Me: It's probably named after somebody. There was probably a Mr. Ehrlich or a Mrs. Ehrlich who did something important nearby so they named the road for them.

Fiona: I want somebody to name a road after me.

Me: Well, maybe one day you can get that.

Fiona: (suddenly disappointed) Oh, but they probably have names for all the roads. There aren't any more roads.

Me: Sometimes they build new roads, honey.

Fiona: They do?

Me: Sure.

Fiona: I think I'll go tell the road builders to make a new road for me. Then they can name it Fiona Village.

Floridian Allergies

2009-03-08T11:50:00.003-04:00

Apparently Tampa has a whole different breed of pollen from New York, because Fiona's getting hit hard right now. Coupled with a persistent ear infection (the persistence being a side effect of the allergies) that has us on our third round of antibiotics in the past month and a fever that kicked into place on Friday night and we've got a five year old on quite the pharmaceutical cocktail at the moment. I had to make a chart of everything she's supposed to get over the course of the day and when so we wouldn't mess up any of the dosages.

The good news is that, even with the low grade fever, she's still got her personality and most of her energy. We tried to keep her home from school on Thursday (that was before the fever kicked in) but she insisted on going; she's figured out that playing with her friends is more fun than entertaining herself while I work. Plus, it was Dr. Seuss week at school which meant different outfits to show off every day (Monday was silly hats, Tuesday was silly socks, Wednesday was polka dot shirts, etc.).

We'll keep her home tomorrow and until the fever kicks, at which point she'll be desperate enough to get back to school that I should at least get one morning where she's easy to motivate.

OK, off to give 7.5ml of Tylenol to the lil' 'un...

She Didn't Ask This About Anne-Sophie Mutter

2009-03-01T20:40:00.002-05:00

Yo-Yo Ma has crossed Fiona's radar a few times in the past few weeks (a cameo on a cartoon, a mention in a book, a picture in a magazine), and we've been looking for different music to give her for her new CD player (she likes to listen to classical music to fall asleep), so Andrea bought her some Yo-Yo Ma this weekend.

Tonight Fiona decided to listen to the CD. As she popped it in, she pointed to the picture on the album cover and said "that's the actor who plays Yo-Yo Ma."

I explained to her that he's a real person, it's not a made up name.

It actually made a nice bookend to a day that started with Fiona asking what "identity" means when she read the word in one of her books. Honey, I wanted to tell her, that's the great question of the last century-plus.

Anyway, she's in bed now, listening to Yo-Yo Ma and playing air cello.

What We're Reading

2009-02-21T10:30:00.002-05:00

And it really is "we" who are doing the reading now. Fiona has her own library card, sits in the back seat of the car reading books out loud, and even writes words on her own. She can recognize most short words (the dog and the cat went to the zoo with a pig) and can recognize many longer words from context (it helps of course that all her books have pictures). And when she sees a road sign, or the title card on a cartoon, or just a piece of mail, she tries to read it (and often succeeds).

Generally we're reading two books at bedtime (depending on length), with Fiona reading one to whichever parent is doing bedtime and then having us read one to her. If she's interested in a book she starts reading it by herself very quickly. The beginning reader books come in various levels that are supposed to indicate difficulty, but Fiona will struggle with some level ones and then tear through level threes.

We got her a book called Dogerella which, as you could probably guess, is a spin on the Cinderella story from the perspective of a dog. It was 48 pages and was marked level 3 (and there were a number of multi-syllable words). But it was a fairy tale story about a princess and a dog, so Fiona picked it up right away.

She also loves books about animals. We have a book called After the Dinosaurs about all the mammals who came along after the dinosaurs but before the last ice age. Lots of names that make me glad the book includes a pronunciation key. Fiona brought it to school to read to her friends.

And of course we have to read all sorts of insipid stuff like books in a My Little Pony series or whatever else Fiona has picked out. Painful for us at times, but less so because she's reading the words to us.

She gets tripped up on words like "why" or "where" when they begin a sentence and she doesn't have context for them. Yesterday she read me Barnyard Dance and kept struggling with the word "spin" while having no trouble with "patch of clover" (granted, she's heard the book read to her plenty of times in the past).

Now if we could just get her to understand the concept of reading a book over multiple sessions. Her parents are chomping at the bit to jump into Alice in Wonderland or Stuart Little, but we haven't convinced Fiona about this yet.

And Would Our Health Plan Even Cover That

2009-02-03T21:38:00.003-05:00

Fiona's ear was hurting a bit this morning, but only to the point where we wanted to keep an eye on it. I told her if the pain got bad to let us know and we could go see a doctor, but otherwise she should enjoy her friends.

And so she went to school and enjoyed her friends all day.

And then along about 7:15 or so, with pajama time looming, it suddenly occurred to Fiona to start complaining about her ear.

Again, the pain didn't seem genuinely bad (it was hardly distracting her from playing), but I know to keep alert when kids complain about ears, so I told her we could see a doctor in the morning if it was really bother her.

"I want to see the doctor now."

"The doctor's closed now."

"The doctor can't close!" she protested.

"The only doctor who's open is the one you see if you break a leg," I replied.

"What if you break an arm?!" she asked.

"They won't see you then."

"Why not?"

"I'm joking."

"The doctor's not open until morning?"

"Nope."

She thought for a moment.

"It's morning in China right now, Daddy. We could go see a doctor in China."

Kids come up with arguments you never would have even had on your radar. I wasn't sure what to tell her about first: the fact that it would be evening by the time we landed or that I'm guessing standards for safety in children's medicine aren't the strictest over there.

Highly Selective Carnivore

2009-01-25T09:50:00.002-05:00

Fiona knows all about the food chain and she's never had any problem with the idea that animals eat animals. Maybe it's just because she realizes the alternative would be to eat more greens, but she's a happy carnivore. Sometimes she'll ask what kind of animal makes a certain kind of food and then plunge her fork right back into dinner.

Until the other night. She asked what makes steak, and I said it came from a cow.

"You can't eat a cow!" she protested.

"Sure you can," we replied.

"But a cow's a girl!" she said. "You shouldn't kill girl animals!"

I wonder how long it'll be before she figures out what chicken comes from.

Birthday Girl

2009-01-07T09:37:00.004-05:00

The calendar says she's five years old already, but I think the math must be wrong somewhere, right?

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

What's New?

2008-12-30T22:31:00.007-05:00

Cookies.

Zoo visits.

Disney trips.

And playing with presents, of course. The usual vacation distractions. Full sets of pictures to follow once we stop running around to various events, I promise.

Childhood in the Age of Obama

2008-12-30T22:28:00.000-05:00

We're getting all sorts of fun questions lately. What are certain body parts for? Why are we at war? Here's one we got last night -- we'll just give you Fiona's side and let you come up with your own answers:

Why do people have different skin? Why is some people's skin brown? My friend Ashton at school has brown skin and curly hair. I wish I had brown skin and curly hair. Will my skin change?

Two quick notes here. Number one, being a child she's being literal on the brown skin; a month or so ago she corrected us when we were discussing something about Obama being a black man to say "no, he's brown."

And second point, with her genetics there's no way she's passing for anything but pale pale pale.

The cool thing, of course, is she still has no idea of the cultural baggage associated with any of this stuff, so we can just answer her on a straight factual level without having to work in some lesson about past prejudice or anything (obviously we still work in the "our differences make us more interesting" angle, like the good liberals we are).

It's the same thing on gender -- today when she was playing she told me I could join her club now, but I wouldn't have been able to join it back in the old days when the club didn't allow boys. Just like all the most exclusive clubs used to do, right?

We Let Her Stay Up Until About 9:45 That Night

2008-12-30T21:58:00.004-05:00

Vacation's on right now, so the usual rules are out the window. But normally Fiona's bedtime is around 8pm. She knows it, and in fact often likes to ask on special occasions when she knows she's out late if it's past her bedtime yet. That special thrill a kid gets from knowing she's up when she shouldn't be.

Fiona's birthday has been coming up and lately she's been asking questions about how she was born. Nothing graphic -- she just wants to know about the hospital, how long Mommy had to stay after she was born, how many doctors were in the room, etc.

I made an offhand comment about how she was born on January 7, 2004 at 8:45 in the evening. Fiona suddenly interrupted:

"I was born past my bedtime?"

In retrospect, I guess she was.

Willpower

2008-12-24T11:13:00.003-05:00

I remember it as a great and glorious day when Fiona found her thumb. After weeks of midnight (and 1, 2 and 3am) trips into her room to pick the pacifier up from wherever it had fallen out of her crib and slap it back into her mouth, suddenly she could self-soothe. And Mommy and Daddy were able to sleep and it was good.

As she got older she never quite gave up sucking her thumb, but it did reach a point where she would only do it under specific circumstances -- we called it "sad, mad or tired" -- and for the most part we ignored it, even as we knew in the back of our heads that each day we put off weaning her off her thumb would make the eventual reckoning that much harder. Would you rather quit smoking at 20 or 50?

A few weeks ago Fiona went to her first dental appointment. She really enjoyed the trip, despite initial trepidation. We're seeing a pediatric dentist, which means all of the rooms are decorated in dinosaurs and mermaids and butterflies and princesses and they play Pixar movies on the TVs in each room. We came out of the trip with two pieces of bad news. The first was that Fiona had a cavity, which served us right for waiting about a year too long to get her into the dentist. The second was that it was time for her to stop sucking her thumb.

The first was dealt with easily enough--they used gas, not Novocaine, and Fiona had no complaints.

The second was the reckoning. We didn't want to go straight to the foul-tasting cream that we've seen other parents put on their children's digits -- we knew we'd do it if we had to, but we didn't want her to feel punished. Instead we struck a deal, figuring we have such a willful daughter normally we might as well harness that stubbornness for positive ends. So we agreed with Fiona: for each day she didn't suck her thumb she got to put a sticker on a calendar. Get to 5 stickers, she would get a small treat. Get to 10 stickers she'd get a slightly bigger treat. Get to 20 and we'll let her know about this obscure theme park 90 miles away in Orlando where the patrons often wear rodent ears.

The first two days were the toughest. The first day Fiona bawled for 15 minutes when I reminded her about the deal. But each time we told her to take her thumb out, she did, and while she learned to hate the rear view mirror in the car, by the third or fourth day she wasn't reaching for her thumb any more out of boredom. By the end of the first week, she wasn't reaching for it when she was sad or mad (although she does sometimes cry that she can't calm down without her thumb). We still catch the thumb in from time to time when she's still sleeping early in the morning, but at this point we've passed all thresholds.

In addition to being a holiday of some renown, tomorrow will also be day 20. And that means on Monday we'll be heading up to among the more happy places on earth. And then we'll see for real if the deal we struck worked at weaning her long-term, or if she was just in it for a 3-week crash course in order to get some princess loot.

No, Please, Don't Do Exactly What I Think You Should Do

2008-12-03T20:40:00.002-05:00

This evening at bedtime Fiona asked for a flashlight in her room. A few minutes later she said that if she had trouble sleeping she could look at her books (this is what the kids at preschool do at naptime if they're not sleeping).

In terms of figuring out what she's planning, putting two and two together wasn't hard. Actually, given how transparent she was being, it was probably like putting one and zero together.

Even so, a few minutes after that when she announced that she could look at her books with her flashlight, I did remember a piece of advice I'd always liked: if you're lucky, your kid will want to read after bed, and if you're smart you'll forbid it, which will make reading even more enticing. So I tried to put on my best disapproving voice and tell her she should really try to get to sleep because it's bedtime, not reading time.

But I was definitely laughing underneath.

Last point: a few minutes ago I passed by her bedroom door and heard her voice (at her age she reads aloud). Way to go, kid. Probably a few more minutes until I open the door and remind her that it's lights out. Ah, parenting: where you do the exact same things your parents did that you thought was so foolish.

She Probably Shouldn't Watch Colbert Until She's at Least Fourteen

2008-12-03T20:37:00.003-05:00

Last night, apropos of nothing, Fiona looked at us at the dinner table and asked "who's Jon Stewart?"

We asked her where she'd heard the name but she couldn't remember. Of course, I've probably been overheard on more than one occasion over the past few years saying things like "thank God for Jon Stewart" or "I don't know how we survived before Jon Stewart" so the likely culprit was at the table.

Now I'm wondering how old I was before I asked about Johnny Carson. Or was I a Dick Cavett kid?

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-30T20:45:00.002-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving weekend up in Connecticut with Grandma, Poppa, Aunt Kathy, Uncle Dan, Aunt Carmen, and Fiona's newest relative (just born in August): Simon!

It would be an understatement of historic proportions to say that Fiona was looking forward to this visit. As soon as we got off the highway on Wednesday, Fiona started excitedly chanting "Simon Simon Simon Simon Simon Simon...!" and nearly every time Simon was awake during the next three days, Fiona could be found at his side showing him some of her old baby toys, singing to him, or just excitedly repeating his name. This is the first relative she's gotten to know who's younger than her, and what a hit it was. Here, take a look:

Or, for a less musical look at how Fiona entertained her cousin:

I'll note that I cut that video off after 20 seconds. Reality went on for several times that length, pretty much without variation.

We also got a chance to explore the city a little, including returning to Fatty's for brunch on Saturday and checking out Aunt Kathy's new place. A full photo album can be found here.

New Photos

2008-11-15T17:25:00.004-05:00

It's been a while, but we do still occasionally take photos of Fiona now that we've moved to Tampa. I just uploaded a bunch here (link in the sidebar as well).

You Can't Argue With Her Logic

2008-11-09T18:57:00.002-05:00

Bathtime: Mommy sets Fiona up with washcloth and soap and tells her she'll be back when Fiona's done washing her body so that Mommy can wash her hair. After about 30 seconds:

Fiona: I'm done with my arm!
Mommy: You still have to do the rest of you.
Fiona: No.
Mommy: Yes.
Fiona: I don't want to.
Mommy: Well, you're a big girl, you can do it.
Fiona: Well, you're a bigger girl, you can do it.

Touché.

Big Debbie Harry Fan

2008-11-09T14:27:00.004-05:00

Thanks to modern technology, it's very easy to throw the ipod on shuffle in the car and intersperse Fiona songs (Dan Zanes, Disney movie songs, etc.) with music her parents like.

As a result, Fiona's found some of our music that she likes. It usually tends to be stuff on the pop end of the spectrum, which is fine, at least until she starts getting too curious about what's being sung about (Stacy's Mom is just about a guy who thinks his friend Stacy's mom is really neat, I tell her).

She's a big fan of Blondie's version of Denis, and has even asked for that song in particular on a couple of occasions.

Thursday night as I was driving Fiona to the doctor (she's fine, she just had a coughing attack that took a while to subside), The Tide is High came on shuffle. Fiona listened to it for a minute and then asked "is that the same lady who sings the Denis song?"

Frankly, I thought that showed an even more impressive ear than the last time she did this.

All right, that concludes a post that probably made zero sense for any of her grandparents...

Unremarkable for Her

2008-11-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

Fiona came home last night running a fever and a bad cough, so needless to say we have her home today.

And because she was sick I didn't do what I wanted to do originally, which was to wake her up shortly before midnight last night to show her history. We let her sleep.

On the other hand, maybe that's for the best. I'm overwhelmed this morning to realize that my daughter will grow up in a world where a minority being chosen to the highest office in the land will always be within the realm of possibility.

Happy Halloween 2008

2008-10-31T09:30:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago I asked Fiona if she likes Halloween better than Christmas. Her instant reply: "Yes."

Voting Letdown

2008-10-28T14:10:00.003-04:00

Andrea voted earlier yesterday afternoon and took Fiona to the early voting station (where they had to spend 90 minutes in line, which may look like enthusiasm to you but sounds inexcusable to me when you're talking about something so fundamental).

Anyway, Fiona apparently did very well playing with Mommy's iPhone while the line crawled. There was one moment of letdown, however: Fiona assumed that when you vote you actually get to see the candidates and so she was disappointed to discover that John McCain and Barack Obama were not waiting by the booth.

This being a swing state, I'd almost expect to see them there myself.

Good Ear

2008-10-25T09:28:00.002-04:00

She's got plenty of musical talent in her family, so we've gotten used to Fiona being able to pick up a tune quickly. But now it looks like she has an even sharper ear than we thought:

One of her relatives taught her the "Doe, a deer" song (actually called Do-Re-Mi) from The Sound of Music and Fiona loves singing it. So, since we live in an iTunes age, I overcame my distaste for all things Sound of Music and downloaded the song for Fiona to hear.

At first, Fiona was thrilled to hear the whole thing, since she just knows the verse that everybody knows (going up the scale). Then she started to listen closer as the song continued and turned to her parents:

"Is that Mary Poppins singing?"

Our jaws dropped.

By the way, she's only seen Mary Poppins once and that was 4-5 months ago.

It Wasn't a Sentence That Would Have Occurred to Me

2008-10-21T22:06:00.003-04:00

Reading a book with Fiona this evening (and, yes, she's coming along very quickly on the reading), we spent some time lingering over the back cover which lists the various levels of books available from the publisher.

There's Pre-Reading, for kids who are just starting to recognize basic words. Then there's level one (which this book was), for kids who know basic words, can sound out some others, and can handle simple sentences.

"What's two?" Fiona asked, pointing to that level.

I read the description. It's for kids with a larger vocabulary who can handle more complicated sentences.

"Like: May I please go to a wedding so I can get married?" Fiona asked. "Is that a complicated sentence?"

Um... I guess.

Moolah

2008-10-09T20:45:00.002-04:00

OK, enough politics.

Earlier this week Fiona was offering her usual resistance to going to preschool -- or, more accurately, her usual resistance to having to get ready to go to preschool (once she's there she's always happy). She announced she wanted to stay home.

"You can't stay home," I told her.

"Why?"

"Because I have to work."

"Why do you have to work?" Have I mentioned that we're in the why phase? Why do we need trees, why do we need animals, why do we need to breathe, why do we need to exist (I love it when preschoolers start verging on profound and unanswerable philosophical questions).

"I work so we can have money," I replied. She's heard this bit before. "Do you like having a house? Do you like having clothes? We need money for those."

"I have money," Fiona insisted. "In my piggy bank. I have lots of money. We can use that and you won't have to work."

Ah, for the days when a big pile of nickels and pennies seemed like it would be enough to last for years.

Vice Presidential Politics

2008-10-09T20:40:00.001-04:00

A few days after the below, Fiona announced apropos of nothing (she was eating yogurt at the time and watching Dora):

"I'm going to be president when I'm older because I'm really smart."

Fiona doesn't lack for self confidence. We nodded and told her she could do that. 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling and all that.

"Barack Obama and John McCain are boys, but some presidents are girls," Fiona declared.

Well, here we were getting into one of those areas. We never give Fiona any of those books assuring her that girls can do anything, because it seems foolish to even plant the idea that some people think there are things that girls can't do. As far as Fiona is concerned, girls can do anything -- there's no question. We broke the news:

"Actually, there's never been a woman president," we said. "But there will be."

"I'm going to be the first because I'm really smart."

A few minutes later she saw a picture of Sarah Palin in the paper and asked who that was.

"That's John McCain's running mate," Andrea told her.

"She's running for president?"

"She's running for vice president. That's the #2 job."

"I want her to be president."

Our knee jerk liberal reflexes activated, though we tried to keep them in check.

"Why?"

"She's pretty." Fiona was getting at the crux of her appeal.

"You shouldn't want somebody to be president just because she's pretty. You should want somebody who's smart."

"That lady's not smart?"

When your kid is born you think to yourself that you're not going to force your ideology on her, that she should grow into her own opinions and you won't tell her what to think. On the other hand, the Couric interviews had been all over the TV, and surely this couldn't be a debatable point except among the lost-to-Hannity crowd. What to do?

"No," we replied. "She's not smart."

Presidential Politics

2008-10-08T22:24:00.003-04:00

Fiona's very aware that a presidential election is going on. She likes to point to pictures of Barack Obama and John McCain in the newspaper. But getting her head around what's really going on is a bit beyond a four year-old (sorry, four-and-a-half).

Recently she saw an Obama bumper sticker lying around the house (no, it's not on the car) and asked what it said. When I told her, she asked if I was voting for Barack Obama. I said I was.

Fiona likes to think that her parents always believe the exact opposite of one another (I guess part of her inclination toward drama includes a taste for conflict). So she announced "Mommy's voting for John McCain."

Andrea happened to be walking past at this exact moment and stopped in her tracks with a shocked "what?!?!"

It probably came out a little more forcefully than intended, since it startled Fiona. I explained to her that almost everybody in her family was voting for Obama. She started asking about each member of the family, including pets. She decided that Tia and Tio's dog Buddy was voting for McCain, although the other dogs in the family are all voting Obama.

A little later, it occurred to Fiona to ask why we were voting for Obama. Now, this presented me with something of a conundrum. I mean, how do you even say something as simple as "I like his economic policies better" to a child who literally (not Joe Biden literally, but literally literally) doesn't have a concept of money beyond stuff that goes in her piggy bank or gets given to people at the cash register (when we played "toy store" last weekend she charged me $5 for a doll and $200 million for a book).

So I decided to go with health care. "Barack Obama wants to make it easier for everybody to see a doctor if they get sick."

Fiona understood that, and it sounded like a good idea to her. But then she thought about what that implied:

"John McCain doesn't want you to see the doctor?" she asked.

Well...

"He must not like going to the doctor. I like going to the doctor. I'm very brave."

There you have it: health care policy for the preschool set.

Safari Expedition

2008-09-24T21:50:00.004-04:00

Fiona's class went on the zoo safari ride today, which meant they needed some parents to sit on the tram at the end of each row. Since I had no appointments in the morning and had the ability to make the time up in the evening, I took a job as tram barrier. That's Fiona with her friend Jaden.

Parents were told to arrive at 10:30. I showed up at 10:25 and was the last parent to arrive, which meant Fiona yelled at me for being late. Fortunately her teacher, Miss Holly, came to my defense by letting her know I was early.

Before I took her into school this morning, Fiona helpfully explained all the rules to me so I wouldn't get into any trouble:

Listen and do
No running or yelling (but pretend yelling is okay, and Fiona demonstrated how to pretend yell for me)
Be a friend

When one of the children breaks a rule, Miss Holly moves the child from green to yellow. A second violation moves the child to red. If you make it through the week with only one yellow, you get a treat (like a piece of candy or a plastic ring). Make it through on green the whole time and you get two treats. Fiona's gotten two treats every week so far this year; when she leaves the house on Fridays she usually announces that it's "Treat Day."

I think I managed to do the whole safari without breaking any rules, so we'll see if I get any treats.

Oh, and we saw giraffes and cheetahs and rhinos and elephants and warthogs. After the safari we stopped off to see the meerkats. And yet the children seemed most excited to alert Miss Holly to the presence of a spider web near the safari entrance. All creatures are equal, I suppose.

Sweet Moment

2008-09-22T11:00:00.002-04:00

Barring a comeback that right now stands at something like a 3000-1 shot, last night was the final baseball game ever played at Yankee Stadium. I've written about this before -- I know the park I saw was never the "real" park from before the mid-70's renovations, but it was one of my favorite places in New York City, and it was always cool to look out and realize that you were looking at the actual spot where Gehrig or Mantle (or Rivera) played. It really is time for it to go, but that doesn't mean it isn't bittersweet.

Anyway, yesterday ESPN spent the whole day broadcasting from Yankee Stadium, leading up to the last game. Starting around 7pm they had a closing ceremony in which many of the most memorable players (or members of their families) took the field for one last time in the spot where they played. I watched while I cleaned up the dishes and Andrea drove her grandmother home (she'd come over for dinner).

We were getting toward bedtime, which for Fiona always means one 11-minute (or so) cartoon before she brushes her teeth. Lots of evenings in the summer I tease her, asking if she wants to watch baseball (since I usually have a game on), and she makes a face and asks for SpongeBob or WordGirl or whatever she's into that week.

The big moment at the end of the players ceremony last night was Bernie Williams's return to the stadium for the first time since he was forced into retirement at the end of 2006. Everybody loves Bernie Williams, and even more than Derek Jeter he was the star of those late 90's championship teams. So when Bernie took the field and the stadium erupted for a full two-minute ovation, it got a little dusty in our family room. I'm sure Fiona saw me wipe a tear away.

The ceremony wasn't over yet, but the players were done being introduced, so I turned to Fiona and asked her what she wanted to watch for cuddles.

"I want to watch this," she said. "I want to watch the Yankees."

I was taken aback. "Really?" I asked.

Fiona nodded. "I want to make you happy."

And so it got a little dustier, and Fiona and I snuggled together on the sofa while I pointed out some of the players (Scott Brosius, Dave Winfield, Whitey Ford) and told her about all of the amazing things that had happened inside the stadium, how no team had ever won so much as this team had won in this place.

Babe Ruth's now 92-year-old daughter threw out the first pitch, and I told her a bit about the Babe (she liked the name, of course), and then it was time for the game itself to start, which did mean time for bed. But it had been one of those moments I always hoped to have when I became a father.

Oh, and the team won and Mariano threw the last pitch, which made the whole evening perfect.

Loving School

2008-09-02T22:32:00.002-04:00

Between Phelps and Bolt and the Clintons and Obama and Palin most of my non-work time lately has found me too distracted to blog about Fiona. But no news is good news here; we're two weeks into school and Fiona's loving it.

How can I tell? Andrea has to leave the house at about 7:05 a.m. and generally only sees Fiona for about 10-15 minutes before she leaves. That means it's just me, myself and I in the morning trying to get Fiona out the door in a timely manner. And in two weeks I have yet to have any trouble motivating her to go.

Other impressive returns on her new school:

When I dropped her off for her first day, we talked in the car about how she might cry and how that was okay. So we walked in, I put her stuff in her cubby and signed the various forms that parents have to sign on day one, and when I hugged Fiona she whimpered slightly... but no tears.
The children weren't supposed to go on a hike the first day because Miss Holly (Fiona's teacher) usually has to spend that day explaining the rules of the class. As it turned out, Fiona was the only student new to the school. And she picked up on the rules so quickly that the children were able to have a hike on day one.
Fiona occasionally will tell us about her day. This may not sound earth shattering, but it's always been a game with her to announce "it's a secret" when we ask her about her day, and then we have to trick the facts out of her. With this school, she actually volunteers information because she wants to share.
Last week I dropped her off, signed the attendance sheet, and went to the door to leave. Fiona came running over and grabbed me and pulled me back across the room because she wanted me to meet her friend Asher (a girl, in case you're wondering).
After two days, Miss Holly announced to Andrea that "this one is definitely ready to read." Fiona makes an impression quickly.
For years we've been picking Fiona up close to 6pm at her various schools and day cares. With Andrea's new job, she's able to pick Fiona up between 4 and 4:30 most days. Fiona has gotten upset with her mother for picking her up too early.

All in all, a definite win.

Last of the New York Photos

2008-08-20T09:11:00.007-04:00

These slipped through the cracks somehow--Aunt Kathy took a bunch of Fiona photos on our last weekend before we moved away from New York and you can see those here (also linked in the sidebar). That's at the Astoria Park Playground above, where you could find us most weekend mornings from May-September.

The girl playing with Fiona above is her friend Estela. We had a little going away get together at the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria (one of the area's big attractions) and we invited Estela. So I'll always love that Fiona's last NYC playdate was at the beer garden. They were the most avid dancers out on the floor that afternoon.

I Can't Remember Her Using Fewer Than Three

2008-08-13T07:58:00.002-04:00

We had our first visit with our new pediatrician last week. I liked her a lot, although I'm not sure Fiona would say the same; there was quite a bit of poking and prodding and sample taking and shot giving. Fiona got to show off her truly spooky shot demeanor--she doesn't cry at all when the doctor gives her one ("must have a very high pain threshold," the doctor said, shaking her head).

If she hears an ice cream truck go by outside and doesn't get to the window in time to see it she's disconsolate and weeps for days. Stick a needle in her arm and she looks mildly annoyed. I can't figure out my kid sometimes.

Anyway, at one point the nurse was interviewing us and asking all the questions they have to ask to make sure your child isn't facing a serious developmental delay--basically the stuff that would indicate something is wrong, so it's thresholds Fiona was expected to pass a while ago.

--Does she play in groups?
I said yes

--Does she share with others when she plays?
Yep

--Can she jump?
Fiona, show Nurse Alisha your jump.

--Does she use sentences of three words or more?

I heard that question and it was just involuntary. I burst out laughing.

To be fair, my daughter's motormouth tendencies do subside when she meets new adults, so we weren't getting the same running commentary I'm used to. But it wasn't a question I had to think long and hard to answer.

And So It Begins

2008-08-02T11:04:00.001-04:00

I was out of town on business all week, and while I was away Andrea got an iPhone (I'm hoping she raves about it so much I have no choice but to justify getting one for myself). When Andrea and Fiona picked me up at the airport yesterday evening, Andrea handed the phone to me so I could have a look, and Fiona proceeded to take it from me and showed me how to move through all the menus, take photos, review the photos you've just taken, etc.

I'm reasonably tech savvy, but I have no illusions that I'll be able to stay ahead of my kid on new technology as she gets older. Even so, I was hoping to get a little bit past four-and-a-half before she passed me.

First iPhone photo--ack, stinky toes!

My Reputation Proceeds Me

2008-08-02T11:02:00.002-04:00

At the grocery store with Fiona last week I decided to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner that night. As we walked through the aisle, Fiona kept trying to pick one out for me.

"Get the one with the kangaroo, Daddy!" she exclaimed, pointing to a brand with a marsupial logo. "Oh, get the froggie."

She kept pointing to bottles on the $5.99 shelf. I was looking for something a little nicer.

"Why aren't you getting the froggie, Daddy?"

"Well, Fiona, you keep pointing to the cheap wine," I said, trying to move her along. Fiona protested.

"But you like cheap wine!"

Phrase That Carefully

2008-08-02T10:59:00.003-04:00

Fiona knows Andrea is starting a new job teaching next week. But she doesn't really know what I do, and so she asked me recently.

Trying to keep it simple, I explained to her that I work on websites, and just like she goes to Noggin or NickJr for her websites, I do websites for grown-ups.

So now she goes around saying "Daddy works on grown-up websites."

As long as we keep using the word "grown-up" instead of "adult" I think I'm in the clear. She starts using the other word and other parents will probably keep their kids far away from me when I pick Fiona up at preschool.

Guess We Can't Spell Words Out That We Don't Want Her to Hear Anymore

2008-07-24T21:54:00.003-04:00

Since I don't want to leave a bit of a bummer post up top for too long, here's some exciting news: Fiona picked the middle of our move to learn to read.

On the Friday before we left New York, with our house covered in boxes, Fiona pulled out a few books she wanted to read with her mother. Andrea read her the first one, and Fiona "read" the second one (it was a book she had memorized and she didn't look at the words). When Andrea made a gentle comment after Fiona said she had read it, Fiona decided to prove her mother wrong (always a good motivator).

She proceeded to read the first three pages of Good Night, Little Bear, a book which was actually the subject of an old post here. It's really a book that's meant to be read by the parent to the child--pages with paragraphs full of text and words like "night" and "across." Kids are supposed to read Dr. Seuss type books first--books where the rhythm and rhyme help them find their way--but Fiona struggled through three pages until she decided she'd had enough.

The big step was recognizing how to sound out words. We've worked with her on that before, but things finally clicked in the past two weeks, and while she still has trouble with vowels (she'll sound out the word "has" as "his", for example) she's really gotten the hang of it. She can read most two and three letter words she comes across and is clearly recognizing words like "the" without having to sound them out.

A few nights ago on our way to a restaurant I made a crack about how our dinner was going to be at the "Super Store", which was the name of one of a rundown establishment along the side of the road where we were stopped at a red light. There were a bunch of other stores in the vicinity as well, but Fiona instantly replied that there was only one other car parked at that store--which means she was able to figure out exactly which store I was talking about by looking at the words on the signs.

Oh, and in an irony my family will particularly appreciate, Fiona really enjoys reading The Pop-Up Mice of Mr. Brice. The second page has 26 doors, one for each mouse from A to Z, and Fiona enjoys figuring out all the short sentences like "Ann is in" and "Waldo went." Much like her aunt did when she was four-and-a-half and had just moved to a new house, as I recall.

Adjustments

2008-07-23T22:38:00.003-04:00

A little over a week since we got to Tampa (though only about 3 days since we got our furniture). How are things going? Eh.

The good:

Fiona has moved to a twin bed with no guardrails (we left the toddler bed in a heap in NYC) and has yet to fall out (I just jinxed this evening, I'm sure). She's got a big wheel she can ride around our porch or out on the sidewalk when we're around. She loves going over to see her Tia, Tio and AJ; Tia even helped her pick out butterflies to decorate her room. She has her own bathroom and gets very upset with me when she catches me using it (I try to explain that it's a lot closer to my office than walking all the way through the house to the master bedroom, but Fiona's not buying).

The bad:

Fiona's always been so easy to adjust to things that we've been caught off guard by just how hard the move has been on her. For the first few nights in the house she woke up crying a few times because she missed her old home and wanted to go back to New York. Once the furniture arrived (and her room didn't look quite so barren) she started doing a lot better around the house, but she's not wild about the day camp we've put her in.

It's been a tough position--we had to get down here when we did because of Andrea's job, but we have a month to go before Fiona's preschool starts. So we found a series of day camps going on at one of the Tampa museums. Unfortunately, camp isn't really the same as preschool -- the programs change every week, which means she isn't getting to bond with a teacher, and there isn't the same type of free play that she was getting at her old school. Mainly, I think it's the unavoidable problem with moving with a child over the summer--during that first summer in a new home, the kid isn't going to have friends yet, which makes the waiting for the school year tough to bear.

Anyway, we're trying to walk that impossible-to-figure-out supportive line, letting her know that it's okay to miss New York, and to be anxious about meeting new kids, but that there's a lot to look forward to here and that we aren't going to be going back to the old house. Easy to say, right? Fiona will be fine (she really is resilient), but I'm sure she's not going to look back on July 2008 as her favorite month of all time.

Vagabond Shoes

2008-07-11T00:12:00.011-04:00

There's a mediocre movie Wayne Wang and Paul Auster made as a quickie sequel to Smoke in the mid-nineties called Blue in the Face. It was one of those projects where the filmmakers called up a bunch of famous friends and asked them to improv for a few days and then released the resulting mess to unsuspecting audiences.

Anyway, throughout the movie, there are snippets of Lou Reed either as himself or a character (it's hard to say) smoking and talking about the city and at one point he says:

I don't know anyone in New York who doesn't say 'I'm leaving'. I've been thinking of leaving New York for... uh... thirty-five years now.

I always liked that. If even Lou Reed (and who's more New York than Lou Reed?) can cop to a love/hate relationship with the city that validates the rest of us.

We're leaving. And saying all the things you say at times like this, and even meaning most of them:

It's the right time.
Fiona will be in school soon, and while you can get a decent education in New York, you're either going to have to be ridiculously wealthy (which we're not), or possessed of limitless energy (which we're also not) in order to navigate the public school system to make sure your kid winds up in the better schools.
The cost of living is absurd.
Fiona could use a back yard.
With Fiona being so young we don't get to go out often enough to take advantage of the amazing culture that's going on a few minutes away.

All of the above are true, and combined with job opportunities that have come up we'd be lunatics to stay. And yet.

I was born in New York and moved away when I was basically Fiona's age. My mother talks about crying when it was time to leave New York, and growing up I thought that was silly, as young boys do when they ponder attaching emotion to... much of anything, but especially a place that had dirty sidewalks and was too hard to drive.

Then I grew up, moved to New York, moved away, moved back. And there are things I'll never understand about the city and still drive me crazy. Why people will double park in front of an empty spot, blocking the street rather than spend 10 seconds pulling to the curb. Why people love sidewalk cafes and leisurely bike rides (New York is a beautiful city from a distance -- that skyline! -- but up close it ain't Paris or Italy)

But now I'm moving away again, and I have a list of all the things I'm going to desperately miss about the only city Fiona's ever called home:

Living in a pedestrian city where everybody uses public transit. In New York the bus isn't just for the poor, and when I used to commute into the city I was polishing off 3-4 books a month just reading on the subway. All that bumping into each other on a daily basis will drive you nuts, but it's good for democracy (yes, I'm serious about that).

When you live in a pedestrian city you never have to compare how much you've had to drink against what time you need to drive. You stay in touch with all the changes in your neighborhood. You make random discoveries when you turn down a side street. These things are possible in driving cities (well, not the drinking without fear part), but they're harder.
Parallel Parking. In direct contradiction to my first point, but important if you do have a car. I remember driving with my father-in-law, coasting up the street, slamming on the brakes, pulling quickly into a spot that left a few inches to the curb and on either side of the bumpers, and my father-in-law letting out a "wow" while I hadn't even thought I was doing anything unusual. This is a skill that's going to go to waste in most parts of the country.
The Natural History Museum. I've written about this before. Pretty much the coolest place on the planet.

Pizza, bagels, pastrami on rye. I mean, of course. There are a few other cities that do the first as well (or even better). No other American city does the latter two anywhere near as well. When I travel on business and the breakfast spread at a conference has a plate of "bagels," I steer clear.
The Astoria Park Playground. A few weeks ago on the first really hot weekend of the year, I watched Fiona in her swimming suit running through the sprinklers (they turn those on to spray the kids in the playground) at the same time as about 30 other kids. Back yards have their upside, but that was an image that felt very New York to me.
Yankee Stadium. This place was more fun when the bleachers still served beer and were $6 (or maybe it was just more fun to be 23 and grabbing a cheap seat). I've even come to terms with the idea that they could use a new park (not necessarily the tax burden on the city, but 55,000 people now show up every night and the park just isn't built for moving that many people in and out on a daily basis). Still, there are only a few ballparks in the country where you can count on such a large portion of the crowd really knowing what's going on, not just within the game, but with a sense of history. And when something exciting happens, the place shakes.
Fatty's. There will be other restaurants, but that was our neighborhood place, and Fiona loved it there. We're still planning to have our last dinner before the move there.
The Weather. No, really. There are many people I know, including several members of my own family, who will disagree with me, and on days where it's 15 degrees and windy or 98 and humid I might not be so enthusiastic, but: I really like being somewhere where the temperatures run across a broad range. At the very least it forces you to rotate your wardrobe regularly, and it also gives structure to the year.
The Arrogance and Kindness. There's a joy in feeling like a "real New Yorker" that you get when you know the exact time to leave and shortcut to take that will get you to BAM right at the point where parking becomes free, or being able to navigate the subway without a second thought. We'll come back a lot (we still have family here, for one thing), but there's a level of knowledge that's going to atrophy, and in a few years we won't be able to pass for local.

I've always maintained that New Yorkers generally get a bad rap for rudeness. We move fast here -- we have to -- but all a lost pedestrian or subway rider has to do is ask and five or six locals will descend to offer assistance. We all remember what it was like to arrive and spend the first few months wandering around without a clue.

Well. Our life will almost certainly get easier after the move (and the movers show up on Monday morning, so that's not long now), and there is a great deal to look forward to as we settle in Tampa. But that will be for later posts.

We moved here just before Y2K and have since dealt with 9/11, the 2003 blackout, and a transit strike, none of which I'd want to relive. But I'm going to miss the city terribly, and there's a part of me that hopes to be back again someday--one of those fools who keeps moving back and away, back and away--and that Fiona retains enough affection for the place to spend some years here in her twenties (or whenever) herself. That there's no goodbye, maybe another try at becoming king of the hill, top of the heap...

If I haven't lost you already, with this way-too-lengthy post that's only partially about Fiona, there's an short album of New York shots (mainly Fiona-in-New-York shots, since she tends to be our favorite photographic subject) here.

First Ballgame

2008-07-06T09:48:00.015-04:00

I think after the major milestones like first words and first steps what I was most looking forward to as a parent was taking Fiona to her first baseball game. Despite her vast experience playing baseball, I still wanted to play it cautious -- I knew we'd have to warm up with something minor league (no way was I throwing down Yankee Stadium prices only to have to leave when she got bored in the 3rd inning). On Friday as we were up in the Berkshires looking for a place to find some fireworks, we discovered that the New England Collegiate Baseball League* had a team in Pittsfield. And so off we trekked to watch some amateur baseball at $6 a pop (free for Fiona).

July 4th: Baseball, Mom, Hot Dogs... all we needed was some apple pie to complete the picture.

*The NECBL is an amateur summer league for college players hoping to catch the eye of pro scouts. It's like the more famous Cape Cod league. If you want to see a movie about the Cape Cod League you can watch Summer Catch with Freddie Prinze, jr. If you want to see a movie that's any good, I would recommend not watching Summer Catch with Freddie Prinze, jr.

Fiona was excited all day to see her first baseball game -- she kept saying things like "I can't wait," which were sure to melt her Daddy's heart. We arrived in the bottom of the first (my normal prohibition on missing the first pitch being suspended since a) we were trying to make sure Fiona stayed interested all the way to the end for fireworks* and b) it was amateur ball), grabbed a seat down the first base line, and instantly got to see some action. The Pittsfield player wearing #14 (we never bought a program, so we just got to know the players by their numbers) rapped out a single. I tried to explain the basics to Fiona:

"#14 is on first base now," I said, pointing to the base. "He wants to get to second and then to third and then home. If he gets home, he scores a run, and the team that scores the most runs wins."

I don't think Fiona processed any of it, but quickly enough #14 moved to 2nd on a walk, took 3rd on a wild pitch (this being amateur ball we saw several of those--plus 4 errors by the home team), and then scored on another single. The crowd cheered and #14 instantly became Fiona's favorite player. The whole rest of the game she kept asking where #14 was.

* Yes, Fiona loves fireworks, ever since she saw them at Disneyland last year. On the drive up to the Berkshires on Thursday the 3rd when she would normally have been sleeping she stayed awake pointing out all the fireworks we could see from the Merritt Parkway. The loud noises don't scare her (usually), not when she can look at all the pretty colors.

Her interest held for the first 5 innings pretty well--very well, given that she's four years old and the first time her aunt went to a ballgame (at the same age) she spent the entire game reading Mr. Brice Has Many Mice (a book Fiona owns as well, although we didn't bring it). Plus she got some of that great food we never serve at home, like hot dogs, fries, soda and Dora ice cream (right). As her interest started to flag, I told her that we were going to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame soon. Fiona knows that song by heart.

"When?" she asked. It was the top of the 6th.

"It's the sixth inning now," I started, then realized she didn't know what innings were. "Remember how each team tries to score before they make three outs?" I asked.

Fiona nodded.

"So each time they do that, that's their part of the inning. So as soon as the black uniform team," (which is how we were distinguishing the visitors from the green uniforms on Pittsfield) "makes three outs, and then Pittsfield does, and then the black uniforms do it again..."

I gave up. It's only when you start trying to explain the rules of baseball to somebody who doesn't know them that you realize the game actually doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

In the middle of the 7th, we stood up... and discovered that the NECBL, or at least Pittsfield, doesn't do a 7th inning stretch. I started wondering if the game was only going to last 7 innings (some amateur leagues cut it short), but no: apparently, they just don't do a 7th inning stretch. Maybe it's one of those "we don't want to pay the royalties" situations on a song you never think about, like how you'll almost never hear characters on TV sing "Happy Birthday" to each other.

In the bottom of the 7th, Fiona finally go to see a home run, which is one of the few plays she knows. She jumped up and down and clapped as if the most exciting thing in the world had happened.

A few minutes later, Pittsfield finished a 5-run rally to improbably take the lead and the stadium erupted. Andrea explained to Fiona that a really exciting play had just happened and now Pittsfield was winning. Fiona nodded and then pointed to the sky behind centerfield where the sun was setting.

"Look, Mommy, pink!" We all have our own priorities.

We couldn't have gotten through the game without the promise of fireworks (especially not a night game, though I hardly would have taken her to a night game if not for fireworks). And we did get a good show after Pittsfield finished the game off for the win. But Fiona enjoyed herself, and I told her when we get to Florida maybe I'll take her to a big game (hey, this year she's got a better chance of seeing quality baseball in Tampa than in NYC). And, who knows, maybe we will get to follow the further adventures of #14 somewhere down the line.

There's a full album of photos from our trip to the park here (linked in the sidebar as well). Oh, and as always, clicking on the photos in this post should bring up larger versions.

Politics

2008-07-05T23:05:00.003-04:00

In preschool on Thursday the kids learned about Independence Day and some of the symbols of America. Fiona came home with a picture she'd drawn.

"That's the eagle," she said, pointing to the birdlike object on the left. A stick figure person stood to the right. "What's that man's name, again, Daddy?" she asked.

I hadn't been there; this was the first I'd seen of the picture. "George Washington?" I guessed. "Thomas Jefferson?"

"No, it's President Bush," she responded.

Shudder. I'd always wondered how we were going to deal with talking about politicians with Fiona. Along with 70% of the country we're not so fond of the current administration, but I'd kind of hoped we could just avoid the topic entirely until after January. I'd rather not have my kid showing up at preschool parroting her parents' feelings on Dubya, even if we still live in New York (at least for another week) and those feelings are likely shared by 99% of the other kids' parents at her preschool.

So Andrea and I exchanged a look and left it at that.

The next day (July 4th), Fiona was at it talking about President Bush again. That's all she knows--his name and that he's the head cheese (not her words).

"You know," I told her, "we're going to have a new President soon."

"What's his name?"

"Well, it will either be Barack Obama or John McCain," I told her, figuring we could safely leave Nader out of the picture.

"Maybe his name will be President Bush again," she said. Kids like stability.

"I hope not," I blurted out.

"Why?" she asked.

"He can't run again," I explained.

"Is he going to die soon? Is he really old?" Electoral transfers of power don't really factor in a world view heavy on princesses and various royal lineage.

"No, we just choose a new president every four years." The way Fiona remembers things I'll probably get raked over the coals in 2012 for not mentioning the whole reelection thing, but only as much as a four-year old can handle, right?

"So who's going to be the new president?" she asked.

"Barack Obama or John McCain," I repeated. Then, figuring I could throw in a minor party candidate, if only to keep myself amused: "or maybe Bob Barr."

"Babar!" she said. "He's a silly elephant."

And so I managed to dodge politics for another day.

All I Ask Is That My Labors Be Acknowledged

2008-07-05T22:59:00.002-04:00

Fiona sits in front of her xylophone.

"Daddy, will you teach me to play Winnie-the-Pooh on the xylophone?" she asks. Yesterday I "taught" her how to play Doe, a Deer by playing three notes at a time and then having her repeat them.

I've been trying to make my way through a New Yorker article for the better part of the weekend but distractions keep popping up. "Let me get to the end of this page and we'll play something, okay?"

Fiona sighs heavily.

"I'm trying to read right now, Fiona."

Fiona crawls on my lap and cuddles up.

"It's a lot of working raising me, right Daddy?"

I burst out laughing (who wouldn't?) But I do have to ask a question. Nonna, Pop: when Fiona was staying with you for 10 days while we were in Berlin, what did she do that prompted you to tell her that?

Career Plans

2008-07-02T21:46:00.002-04:00

Earlier today, Fiona outlined the things she's going to do when she grows up. In the order in which she plans to do them:

She's going to be an astronaut and go into outer space
Then she's going to become a paleontologist to study dinosaur bones
Then she's going to become an animal doctor
And after she's done the first three things, she's going to become a waiter

It's an unusual career path to say the least. Oh, and on #4, she's very adamant that she doesn't want to cook meals for people, she just wants to bring them their food.

Depending on where she works maybe we can get a good table when we go out sometime in 2040.

Urban Child

2008-07-02T17:17:00.002-04:00

It's Fiona's first full day home (more on all that soon, hopefully) and Andrea was all set to make some pasta for her. But Fiona had other ideas:

Fiona: I want that thing with the rice.
Mommy: What thing with the rice?
Fiona: With the dark paper in a circle.
Mommy: (after a pause) You mean sushi?
Fiona: Yeah, I want that.

What 4 1/2 year old asks for sushi for dinner?

(OK, two quick qualifiers here: 1) she's actually still not yet 40 lbs., which means she can't have fish; 2) because of #1, when she talks about "sushi", she's actually talking about California rolls or other rolls with rice and veggies, plus a Japanese appetizer or two. Still, I'm pretty sure I never asked for sushi at her age.)

New Photos

2008-06-21T09:33:00.003-04:00

The Wacky Wednesday photo is just a taste--I have a new album of photos of from April and May (short version: lots of time spent at various zoos). Check it out here (and you can find it in the menu on the right as well).

Butterfly (Briefly)

2008-06-21T09:20:00.003-04:00

Not her typical preschool uniform

Thursday was Fiona's last day of preschool -- she's all done with the caterpillar class and is ready to move into the butterfly class for next year. Except that we won't be living in New York next year (this is as good a place as any to mention that we're relocating down to Florida), so other than a two week summer session in early July pre-move, Fiona's not really going to see much of the butterfly classroom. Her disappointment won't last long; she gets to go to preschool at the zoo next year (yes, for real).

Her disappointment will last a little longer when she realizes she's not going to see the friends she made at preschool in New York again. Kids at her age bounce back pretty quickly (I moved at the same age and don't remember the names of anybody in my first year of preschool, although I'm sure my parents could pipe up here). Still, it's been fun watching her make friends and talk incessantly at home about all the things she does at school with Kayla and Estela (on either side of Fiona in the picture above, taken on Wacky Wednesday in April when all the kids got to wear pajamas to school).

Andrea and I only visited the school together with Fiona on three days (not counting parent-teacher conferences): the first day of school, her birthday, and the last day. On the first day she was thrilled to be starting school but quickly gave way to terror when she realized she was in an unfamiliar place and didn't know anybody.

On the last day, we stopped by with Nana in tow (Nana now has Fiona out in San Diego as we prepare for an overseas trip, but that's really a different post). Fiona grabbed hold of Nana and excitedly gave her the full tour of their classroom, showing the kitchen, science station, etc. It was more of a tour than I ever got from her (there's nothing special about Daddy stopping by preschool), but it was great to contrast the difference between the first and last day.

We had good hopes for the school but it really exceeded all of our expectations, and Fiona has really taken to the class structure (circle time is a daily highlight). I'm not sorry to be opting out of the NY City schools game (you can get a good education for your kid, but it requires constant vigilance), but the one year we did deal with it paid off spectacularly well.

Independence

2008-06-11T08:59:00.002-04:00

Fiona is old enough now to want to do just about everything for herself (well, except clean up after herself). We have to leave the room when she gets into the bath because She Can Do It Herself. Don't you dare open the lid to the toothpaste, not when She Can Do It Herself. Don't help her with the buckle on her sandals: She Can Do It Herself. You get the idea.

Of course, there are also things that Fiona insists she can do that we're certainly NOT going to let her do, which leads to inevitable meltdowns. While I was installing the air conditioner in the living room last week Fiona wanted to put the wood blocks out on the ledge. With pictures of myself having to hop a fence to get into the alley below running through my mind, I refused. She didn't take it well.

And let's not even get started on all those times she's wanted to help with dinner when we're still in the chopping onions phase of preparation.

This morning she told me (not for the first time) that she wanted to walk to preschool by herself. I refused and she asked why she couldn't. I told her that she was too young to be crossing the street by herself.

"But David walks to preschool by himself!" she replied.

David is 3 1/2 and seems it. Your typical 3 1/2 year old can get lost figuring out how to get from the carpet to the linoleum. I told Fiona I found that hard to believe.

"He does! I saw him!" she replied.

I know I'm going to enjoy these days, when the white lies are so flimsy. Somehow I doubt that when she's 15 she'll try to convince me to extend curfew by telling me one of her friends gets to go out on Friday night and is fine as long as he checks in by sometime on Sunday.

Because I Said So

2008-06-01T08:47:00.002-04:00

I only say those words to Fiona because I've already explained the logic behind my decision to her and her resistance proves that she hasn't yet reached the cognitive maturity to grasp the perfection of my reasoning.

When my parents used to say those words it was because their decisions were capricious and couldn't have withstood logical scrutiny under my cross-examination.

Totally different situation.

Ill-Chosen Words

2008-05-27T18:01:00.002-04:00

Fiona and I normally walk home from preschool with her friend Estella and Estella's mother. They both leave around the same time, and if one parent arrives first we have to wait around for the other to arrive.

Today as I walked to pick her up the sky turned black and a gust of wind blew my baseball cap off my head and down the street. I didn't want to wait around for Estella's mother to arrive; I just wanted to get Fiona out of preschool as quickly as possible so we could beat whatever weather was rolling in home.

Even so, I probably shouldn't have told Fiona "I just want to get home before the thunder and lightning."

I had no idea we could make it all the way home from preschool inside of 20 seconds. Of course, it wasn't exactly fun trying to console the terrors of a four year old convinced that thunder and lightning were going to crash down upon the street at any moment.

Parenting. Even when you win you lose.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

2008-05-26T21:45:00.001-04:00

Fiona sings the most important song ever written:

This was the second time she sang it out of seven in a row.

Sunday School Might Help

2008-05-16T21:02:00.002-04:00

Fiona's taken to announcing that she's really 6 1/2 years old. Which would make her awfully old for preschool, but I think she's mainly telling us that as a way of convincing us that she's old enough to do something. Climb up the china cabinet. Drink a soda. See an R-rated movie.

I asked her if she knew what year it was and she responded "2008" (she knows the year, although she pronounces "thousand" as "towzand"). Then I asked her if she knew what year she was born, figuring I'd show her that she was zero in 2004, one in 2005, etc.

Fiona replied "January!"

"No," I said, "January's the month. Do you know what year you were born?"

"Seven!"

"No, that's the day. The year you were born was 2004."

As I was about to launch into my teachable moment that would have gone completely over her head anyway, Fiona asked:

"What's two thousand?"

"That's the number of years," I replied.

"There've been two thousand years?"

Well, even the intelligent design crowd gives the planet a few thousand more than that, and I told her "it's how many years since Jesus was born."

And now I was in for it.

"Who's Jesus?" she asked.

She'd been to Sunday school in San Diego a few days earlier, and she can recognize Jesus in a nativity set. "Did they talk about Jesus at all in Sunday school?" I asked. Fiona shook her head. "Well, Jesus was the son of God."

"Is he dead?

Ah, now this was getting tricky, although at least theologically speaking I was going to be talking about my own religion. "Well, he died on a cross but then he came back to life. That's what Easter is."

"He died but then he came back to life?" Fiona asked, incredulous. I nodded. Fiona thought about it for a moment.

"That's silly."

Now, how is it I went from trying to count up from the year 2004 to listening to my daughter blaspheme in the space of two minutes? Another parenting triumph, I suppose.

Reading Progress

2008-05-16T20:51:00.003-04:00

Fiona's been able to figure out what letter most words start with for a while now (obviously words like "knee" or "wrap" are going to throw her off at this point). A few months ago she started identifying some very short words on a regular basis. Zoo. No. We drive down the street and Fiona will see a sign that says "No Parking" and shout out "that says no!"

But she's on the verge of the next big leap. Last week we went to San Diego (one reason for the paucity of recent blog posts). I went online a day or so before we left and joked that we were going to drive from New York to San Diego and did a Google Maps to see how long the trip would be without highways. Fiona pointed to the middle of the country and said "That's where Nana and Pop live!"

We looked at where she was pointing. South Dakota. One word starting with an S, the other with a D. So her facts were completely wrong, and very impressive.

We have some short board books that we used to read Fiona when she was a baby that we've kept around figuring they'd make good early readers. One of the books is the Belly Button Book. Fiona sits on my lap and we read the book together. She reads all the words that start with "B" and I read everything else. She's pretty good on those, too. Belly. Button. Balloon. But. Beach. The word "because" throws her off every time.

We also got a book of fairy tales for Fiona recently--longer stories to match her increasing attention span. After we got the book, when we were reading one fairy tale before bed each night, the first thing we'd do each time we read it was read through the table of contents together until Fiona picked which story she wanted to hear. One afternoon, she picked up the book and started reading the table of contents to me. She got the first 10 stories correct, although I figured she'd heard the TOC so many times at that point she might be reciting.

So I pointed to one of the stories out of order.

"Cinderella," she said. And she was right.

I tried another.

"Rumpelstiltskin." Right again.

We went on like this for a while. There are 15 stories in the book, and I think she got 13 of them right.

On our plane flight out to San Diego, as hour four in the air turned into hour five, Fiona started getting restless. So I started writing out three- and four-letter words (not those four-letter words) on a piece of paper and asked her what they were. Zoo. Pop. Cat. Book.

She's still got one more year of preschool. She'll be reading before she's done.

Getting My Royalty Straight

2008-05-16T19:07:00.002-04:00

Fiona, as is her birthright, is making very grand gestures while playing. She holds a handkerchief up to her forehead and feints at fainting.

Me: Ah, our little drama queen.
Fiona: I'm not a drama queen. I'm a drama princess.

(Yes, we're very much in that phase, as if you didn't already know)

Science vs. Magic

2008-05-03T16:02:00.002-04:00

Last week Andrea had to be out for the afternoon, and Fiona had been asking to go to a museum for a few days, so I decided to indulge in a little borough pride and took Fiona to the New York Hall of Science. It's a very hands on place, which is great for a child Fiona's age, although I think next time I'll check the baseball schedule before I go (the hall is a stone's throw from Shea Stadium, and the Mets were home, so parking was tough to find and not cheap once obtained).

We spent some time in the preschool room, which was entirely designed for kids Fiona's age and younger, and then set out to explore the rest of the place. Like I say, it's a hands-on sort of place--there's something to touch on just about every exhibit--and Fiona had a great time even though she was too young to understand many of the displays. Two highlights:

A display on microbes had displays that you could squeeze to sniff the various smells that microbes can make. These include baked bread, grass after a rainstorm, and an armpit after exercising. Fiona's four, which means that for all her princess play, she's endlessly fascinated by anything disgusting. A week later I can still say the words "stinky armpit" and she collapses into helpless giggles.
A display on light and mirrors had one of those effects where you look through a hole and see a spring, but when you reach to touch the spring your hand moves right through it (because the spring isn't where your eye thinks it is; the trick is done with mirrors). Fiona reached out and saw her hand pass through.

"It's magic!" she exclaimed.

I knew I couldn't explain the entire effect to her, but this was the Hall of Science after all, so I figured I should at least make an effort.

"It's not magic, it's science," I told her.

"What's science?" she asked.

"The spring is somewhere else, but the mirrors make it look like it's there."

That night, after we all got home, Fiona told her mother about the highlights of the visit. The stinky armpit got the most attention, but then I asked Fiona to tell Andrea about the spring.

"You reached out for the spring and it wasn't there!" Fiona told her.

"Really?" Andrea responded.

"Yes," said Fiona, nodding solemnly. "It's science."

Getting Funny

2008-04-19T14:34:00.002-04:00

Last night as we struggled to get Fiona to put her pajamas on, I made a comment about how at the rate we were headed she was going to finish putting her pajamas on around the time I was pouring juice for her the next morning.

Now, I don't think that comment really ranks among the top dozen funniest things I've said even in the past two months, but Fiona dissolved into hysterics. "Pouring juice in the morning!" she giggled. The reason this is significant: it's the first time I can remember Fiona getting a word-based joke.

Fiona's always loved to laugh, but up until now it's been mainly silly faces and silly voices. She knows a few knock knock jokes (knock knock, who's there, cargo, cargo who, car go beep beep), but she doesn't really understand why the knock knock jokes she knows are funny.

But in the past few weeks it does seem that her sense of humor is starting to kick up a level. One Friday night at dinner we were talking about what we were going to do the next day, and I announced that we were going to sit in the corner staring at the wall all day, because that was the most fun thing I could think to do. We play these sorts of games with Fiona a lot, and usually she responds with a big smile and a "nooooo, that's silly." But this time she fake cried; it was the first time we'd seen her play along with a joke.

We're probably still not ready for the Python or Marx Bros. DVDs, and I've got nothing against silly faces, but it's fun to see Fiona learn new ways to laugh.

Her Boss Would Probably Approve It As An On-Site Visit

2008-04-15T22:50:00.003-04:00

Fiona's learning about letter V this week, which meant tonight we had a lengthy discussion about what begins with the letter V. Vegetables, violet, violins...

"What's another instrument that starts with V?" I asked. "It's like a violin."

"Viola!" Fiona shouted. "Aunt Kathy plays the viola." She knows that well; Aunt Kathy's even let her pluck the strings on occasion, which is closer than any of the rest of us would ever be permitted to get to her pride and joy.

"That's right. A lot of children know about the violin, but they don't know about the viola. But you know about violas."

Fiona nodded, and then hit upon a solution: "I can tell my class."

"Sure," I responded.

And then she hit upon an even better solution: "They have to meet Aunt Kathy!"

Makes sense to me. You've got two days left in the preschool week, Kathy. By the time they hit W, your moment will have passed.

Maybe She's at Stage Three Already

2008-04-14T20:09:00.002-04:00

During dinner tonight I was telling Andrea about a book I've been reading which talks about three stages of critical thinking ability. To summarize briefly:

The individual assumes all questions have a correct answer and that if you consult an expert or authority you'll find out what it is.
The individual realizes that some questions do not have a single answer and thinks that this means that all opinions are therefore equal.
The individual understands that while some questions cannot be decisively answered, you can differentiate between options based on the level of reasoning used to support that option.

That's really brief, obviously, and not really the purpose of this post, except that it's how we segued into the main part below. I was making the point to Andrea that a lot of our institutions gets frozen at stage two, with the prime example being the way the mainstream media will frequently claim objectivity by presenting two opposing viewpoints on an issue, whether or not those opinions are equally valid ("one group says the Earth orbits the sun, while the other group says that the Earth orbits a mechanic named Fred...")

At this point, Fiona looked up from the pattern she was making in her ketchup to ask "what's an opinion?" (I was surprised she was paying attention at all).

"It's what you think," Andrea replied.

"Do you like onions?" I asked, bringing up the foodstuff we're constantly having to pick off of her plate.

"No!" she grimaced.

"Well, I do," I replied.

"In your opinion onions are bad," Andrea explained. "But in Mommy and Daddy's opinion they're good."

"Do you like pink clothes or black clothes?" I asked, picking another easy one.

"Pink."

"And I like black," I said, being the good New Yorker who knows which color's going to hide the dirt best.

"But you're wrong, Daddy."

"What?"

"Pink is better."

Hmm. She didn't seem to be quite getting it.

"Do you like blue or green?" Fiona asked, taking the lead.

"I like blue better," I replied.

"That's wrong. Mommy, do you like blue or green?"

"Green," Mommy replied.

"Very good!" Fiona declared. "You get a star!"

So: I stand corrected. Onions are bad. Pink>Black and Green>Blue. Apparently ALL opinions can be assigned a value judgment. In Fiona's world, anyway.

I Was Twice Your Age When I Figured That Out

2008-04-14T20:07:00.001-04:00

Tucking Fiona into bed tonight, I ran through the highlights of her day:

"You had a good day," I said. "You went to the park with Mommy and got to play at the playground, and help Mommy pick out stuff at the green market, and you rode the subway, and you played a lot. That's a good day."

"Did you have a good day or a bad day, Daddy?" Fiona asked.

"I had a good day, too," I replied.

"But you had to work today!" she protested. "You had a bad day."

Touché.

This Town Ain't Big Enough for Two

2008-04-09T09:46:00.003-04:00

So, this morning, Fiona dressed herself in her usual fancy manner: Pegasus and rainbow shirt, flowery-patterned skirt, pink snowflake leggings, and sneakers. Her fashion coup-d'etat was the addition of a new pair of purple heart sunglasses. I happened to mention that she looked "stylish," and, in concordance, Fiona batted her eyes oh-so-winningly.

On our way out the door, I topped my own fashion ensemble (jeans, sweater, sneakers) with sunglasses, and Bill happened to mention that I also looked "stylish," to which Fiona responded, "Mommy's not stylish...I'M stylish." "Well, we can both be stylish, can't we?" I asked. "No," Fiona replied. "Only I'm stylish...you're not stylish." We continued this back and forth down the stairs. Finally out the door, I asked Fiona, "Why can't I be stylish?" Her response: "Because I look stylish. You only look like a plain girl."

Well, at least I still look like a girl...

I Feel Like Sisyphus and It's Only 7:15 a.m.

2008-04-08T20:13:00.003-04:00

By the time Monday night rolls around, Fiona's been home for four straight days and our home looks it. So I usually try to pick up some after she goes to bed that night, and last night I did a better job than usual. By my standards, anyway; we still had a little clutter, but the floors in the living room were clear of toys.

This morning, Fiona walked out into the living room after waking up and said "Wow, it sure is clean here!"

"That's right," I replied, "Daddy picked up last night."

"I'll probably make it messy again today, though," she said.

I know, I know--it's in her nature.

Baseball

2008-04-01T22:06:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the greatest day of the year, and Fiona and I celebrated by playing a little "baseball" (at 8:30 a.m., but you can see below for that story).

This involves Fiona sitting in a chair while holding a pink toy Padres bat picked up in a ballpark giveaway a few years back. I throw a beach ball at her and she hits it (the beach ball being big enough that even a four-year old can make contact). I field it and hope Mommy doesn't walk into the room right as the ball bounces off the china cabinet.

She swung and missed, and I told her that was called a "strike." The next time I threw, she swung and missed and shouted "yea, a strike!" I then explained that, as the batter, she didn't want to swing and miss.

A few swings later she smacked the ball over the couch. "Home run!" I shouted. Fiona liked that. Now each time I throw she says something like "I want to hit a home run" or "here comes a home run." Or, my favorite: when I catch the ball or smack it down before it can go too far she says "that should be a home run." Hey, it worked once for Jeter.

Later in the day, Fiona and I were playing again when she looked at the ball on the ground.

"Let's play golf," she said. "Make a hole with your hands."

I did, and she tried to hit the ball into the "hole." She missed.

"What game do you like better?" I asked. "Baseball or golf?"

She responded quickly: "baseball."

Good girl.

(Take that, Pop)

Cough Cough

2008-04-01T21:58:00.002-04:00

We have our first test since getting Dr. Koumbourlis' marching orders last month, and we got caught off guard. We made a rookie mistake, except we aren't rookies any more: whether due to allergies or illness, Fiona developed a stuffy nose over the weekend, but we didn't think to start her on the program in the naive hope that she wouldn't drip down into her chest.

So Monday morning rolled around and shortly before 6:00 a.m. Fiona started coughing steadily. She wasn't wheezing, but she had a backup, and she wasn't going to kick it quickly. I tried holding her up in a chair for 30 minutes or so, but the problem with a cough waking her up at 6:00 a.m. is that she stays awake, so finally at 6:40 or so I gave in and got up with her.

And she continued to cough. And cough. She complained that her chest was hurting.

Now, we're in a bind in this situation sometimes, because it sure sounds like Fiona doesn't have to cough quite as much as she does, but it's hard to explain to a four-year old the difference between coughing because you really have to and coughing because you have a bit of discomfort. We tried to ask her about it, and she told us she needed to cough. We didn't press the case.

At around 8:30 or so, she started playing (more about that in the post to follow, which you may have read already). And, lo and behold, once her attention became focused on playing... the coughing slowed way down. Almost as if she hadn't needed to cough quite as steadily as she was.

Anyway, we put her on the program, and 36 hours later we're doing much better. I'd still expect to be up at least once tonight, but (knock wood) I'm not worrying about any wheezing or worse. And Fiona went back to preschool today, where Miss Eny said she seemed "just like Fiona." Which is a good thing.

Easter 2008

2008-03-25T22:26:00.006-04:00

I had to be out of town all last week on business, which meant that Andrea had to throw Easter together almost entirely on her own this year -- which she did with great success. We had eight for dinner, including the champion Easter Egg hunter herself, at least when she deigned to speak to her public.

This year was all the more rushed, since after I got back late on Saturday, Andrea and I wound up spending the afternoon at BAM to catch Macbeth (first really good production of that play I've ever seen, but this blog isn't about my theatrical tastes, at least not usually). Which meant that Fiona got to see me for the first time in a week on Saturday morning (great excitement), then had to make do with a babysitter in the afternoon (Fiona broke her in quickly), and then saw me for another hour or so before bed on Saturday night (crazy excitement--I think she actually bounced off a wall at one point).

I spent most of the day on Saturday laughing at being returned to the insanity of life with a child. As busy as I was while traveling for work, I don't remember anybody thinking that a fun thing to do would be for each of us to take the opposite ends of a bedtime sleeper, tie those ends around our necks, and then put a stuffed animal in the middle and try to bounce it up and down just by using our shoulders. Some things people just stop even considering once they turn... six? Eight? When do you stop having those ideas for fun that are so odd they would never even occur to an adult?

Anyway, by the time Easter morning itself rolled around, Fiona was exhausted and ready to relax with a spot of tea with her Aunt Carmen (at right).

OK, perhaps not so much. What with all the excitement of having family over and enjoying her presents from the Easter Bunny (including the DVD of Enchanted, a movie that's eerie in the precision with which it's targeted at four-year old girls, and which Fiona saw in the theater when it was released), Fiona barely stopped on Sunday either.

Which made Monday an extreme day to crash. At one point in the early evening Monday I was sitting on the couch with Fiona when I realized I'd been asleep for the past 15 minutes; when I looked over, Fiona was asleep as well.

I've thrown a new album together of photos from March 2008, which you can find by clicking on the link at the top of the bar to the right. More stuff there like this photo of the family band Fiona threw together right before Easter dinner.

Mysteries of the Universe

2008-03-24T15:40:00.002-04:00

My child has three clocks in her room, but they're all analog and of interest primarily because they have pictures of princesses or Pooh bear. She can't tell time yet.

Even if she could tell time on an analog clock, the clocks don't light up in the dark.

Even if we had a digital clock in her room, she still doesn't understand what time means, and while she can read numbers she's apt to be a little dyslexic in the translation. That is, if she sees the number 23, sometimes she says it's twenty-three and sometimes she says it's thirty-two. She hasn't figured out yet about how to read base 10 numbers left to right in other words.

By rights, Fiona shouldn't have any idea what specific time it is at any given point in the day or night.

So how is it she's managed to climb into our bed at exactly 5:24 am on three successive mornings?

State of the Writing Skills

2008-03-16T14:10:00.004-04:00

We've boasted about her writing skills before; here's an example of how legible Fiona's writing is. She can write her name and Mommy's without any help. She also likes to write her friend Kayla's name on everything (we have lots of "Fiona heart Kayla" papers floating around the apartment) and is excited because Kayla has 5 letters in her name just like Fiona.

I think she knows how to spell Daddy without help, too, but since I don't have that all-important second X chromosome it's just not as interesting to write my name.

And I must say, that's a pretty solid heart drawing for a four-year old. Hearts and butterflies are big recurring motifs in Fiona's work.

Peace of Mind

2008-03-15T23:31:00.002-04:00

After various problems last month, including a relapse, we setup an appointment to go see a pediatric pulmonary specialist. We'd gone to see Dr. Koumbourlis back when Fiona was 18 months old and had her first flareups. When we got through with that appointment we wanted to hug him just for giving us permission to let Fiona cough at night without having to rush in and get her every time.

And that wasn't even the best part. I like our pediatricians fine, but they occasionally have a habit of assuming everybody in our neighborhood has an extended family living within a two house walk. If Fiona has a cold, they're apt to tell us we have to keep her home for a week (or longer!), which just isn't practical to do every time your child has even a passing cold, at least if you want to keep a job and earn money to keep your child healthy. When Dr. Koumbourlis looked at Fiona in June 2005, the first thing he told us was that we shouldn't be keeping her home from day care, and that in fact it was better to put her in day care so she could get exposed to all the kid germs she was going to have to get exposed to sooner or later anyway.

It was at that point he revealed himself as the greatest doctor in the history of the universe.

Anyway, we hadn't seen him in nearly three years, since Fiona had been basically fine since that visit; we'd followed his treatment plan for 18 months, and then after consultation with our pediatrician after Fiona turned three we moved to a less drug-dependent plan for responding to her nighttime coughs. That plan worked well for about a year, until she hit January 2008 and got a cold she couldn't shake, culminating in her February problems.

So it was back to Dr. Koumbourlis. Fiona got a breathing test, the doctor listened to her, and then explained to us in very forthright terms what was probably going on with her (nasal congestion drips down into the chest, which we'd figured), what the most practical way to respond was (i.e. according to textbook medicine she's supposed to stay on the management meds for 4 weeks after symptoms subside, but in the real world it's hard to remember to take medicine for more than a week or so when you're not showing any symptoms, and that's going to be fine most of the time), and why Flovent is fine for her at her age and symptoms despite what scare stories you might have heard (i.e. severely ill children who take a much higher dosage every day for years wind up 1/2 inch shorter than counterparts who don't take Flovent).

He wrote up our treatment plan and sent us on our way. I understand why our pediatricians usually try to come up with treatment that doesn't depend on medicine; nobody wants to wind up needing prescription drugs every time a sniffle starts, and they're generalists who can't be expected to have the same level of expertise in dealing with asthma-like symptoms in a four-year old (none of us think she has "real" asthma). But as I told Andrea as we left the pulmonary center: just for making me feel better about the way we're raising our daughter and recognizing that we all need a plan that's going to keep the household sane, I'm not too proud to say that I have a man crush on Dr. Koumbourlis.

OK, maybe that's a little much, just in case he's self-Googling and finds this post. But we're definitely grateful.

New Photos

2008-03-03T22:52:00.006-05:00

I don't maintain a photo website any more, despite what the blogroll to your right might imply, but we do still take photos. Here are some recent albums which I'll add to the blogroll as well:


Holidays 2007 (Thanksgiving in the Berkshires & Christmas at home)	Tampa Trip (New Years)

4th Birthday (and the various celebrations therein)	January-February 2008 (i.e. what Fiona's been up to lately)

She Has No Idea How Tempting That Sounds

2008-02-25T16:07:00.002-05:00

I work at home, which can be tricky on Mondays and Fridays when Fiona is home from preschool and Mommy looks after her. Just now I ducked out to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and Fiona came running up to tell me she was a brave knight in need of a mission. I told her a dragon was attacking my castle, so she charged off to do battle. Two minutes later, when I was back at my desk, she came into my office to tell me the dragon was dead and ask what else I needed.

Realizing I'd provided an opening that I shouldn't have, I leaned down to let Fiona know that I was still working and couldn't play with her right then.

"But you've been working all day!" she protested. "You must be tired."

Not wanting to let on how right she was, I broke the harsh truth to her that grownups do, indeed, work all day long.

"That's too much," she said. "Do you want to take a nap?"

Now that she mentions it...

Gargadguous

2008-02-18T21:11:00.002-05:00

Fiona just created her own board game.

It all started on our lengthy return trip car drive this afternoon. Now that she's outgrown naps, Fiona's discovered something about travelling to and from the Berkshires: three hours is a long time to sit in the car. This afternoon as we packed up, Fiona kept saying she didn't want to go home because the drive was too long. I told her we could play games on the drive to pass the time.

"We'll play Chutes and Ladders without the board," she said. I laughed; that wasn't exactly what I meant.

Fiona had some birthday money to spend, so we stopped at a store about 20 minutes into the drive and let her pick out a toy. She found a music set that included a harmonica and a kazoo, and she played those happily in the back seat for quite a while. One of the nice things about a harmonica is that even if the person playing doesn't know what she's doing, the natural harmonics on the instrument make it tolerable enough to listen to. Which is why we didn't let her play the xylophone that was part of the kit.

But eventually she got bored with her harmonica and asked to play a game. I suggested we go through the alphabet and name something that started with each letter (I figured that's about as close to an alphabet game as Fiona was ready for). We went from A to F before Fiona lost interest and wanted to play Chutes & Ladders instead. So we pretended to be rolling dice and climbing up ladders or falling down slides for a few minutes until Fiona announced that she'd won.

Bored by that, Fiona announced she was going to make up a new game about a butterfly who has to climb a ladder. If the butterfly touches the leaf, you lose.

Fair enough. What was impressive was that as soon as we got home -- about two hours later -- Fiona got out a piece of paper and drew the game board. Three different ladders with a leaf at the top of each one.

Then she got out another piece of paper and wrote the "rules". The rules looked something like this:

FIONA
MOMMY
FAO
LEBD

In other words, whatever letters she could write.

Finally she needed to make the game piece. Here's where things got really creative. She found two combs and her kazoo and put them together--each comb was a wing, and the kazoo was the butterfly's body. Impressed at her resourcefulness, I helped her attach the wings with a rubber band.

Then Fiona had me cut out a piece of paper in a circle, and she wrote the numbers 1-4 on the paper to act as a spinner.

Now, I'm not going to pretend this board game was remotely decipherable for either adult in the house. We would each take turns "spinning" and then climb the ladder to try to grab the prize (I'm not sure what the prize was). If you decided that you had grabbed the prize, you had to fly the butterfly up in the air and shout out "gargadguous!" If you decided that you dropped the prize, the butterfly fell to the ground and died. We all shared the same butterfly.

There was a trophy at the end of the final ladder. Fiona wound up winning (shocking, I know). I'll be sending the specs over to Milton Bradley later this week.

More Scientifically Observant Than I Am

2008-02-16T10:58:00.002-05:00

A few minutes ago Fiona was holding a spoon and looking at her reflection.

"Daddy," she said. "I can't get it right-side up."

I told her that because of the way a spoon is shaped, her reflection would always be upside down in a spoon. I told her Aunt Kathy could probably do a better job explaining the science, but that that was how spoons worked.

"Not in the moose book," she said.

A few Christmases ago Fiona got a book called The Useful Moose, about a girl who becomes friends with a trio of moose. The moose help around the house and turn out to be naturals at cleaning up.

I've probably read that book to her 50 times, and never once did I notice that on one page a moose is looking at his reflection in a spoon and the reflection is right-side up.

Now, technically the moose could be looking at the back of the spoon, but still... that's remarkably observant, and not just by the standards of a four-year old.

Periodic Parental Boasting in 3-2-1:

2008-02-12T21:47:00.001-05:00

Fiona can count backward from three without a problem.

Fiona can count backward from ten and only occasionally reverse a number (i.e. 10-9-7-8-6-5...)

This evening at dinner Fiona counted backward from twenty and only needed to be prompted twice.

I guess from here it's only a short way to getting her to do the alphabet backwards and then she can pass a basic sobriety test. (I imagine the police might have other concerns than DWI, however, if they pulled over an erratically moving car and saw Fiona behind the wheel)

When Fiona announced this evening at dinner that she was going to count backward from twenty, I honestly thought she was attempting more than she could handle. Shows what Daddy knows.

Daddy Weekend

2008-02-12T21:13:00.002-05:00

Andrea was out of town for the weekend so I had my first extended (i.e. more than one night) solo parenting job in a few years. Things were significantly easier this time around; it's a lot less exhausting to take care of a four-year old than a 20-month old.

Saturday we mainly stayed around the house and had a visit from Poppa and Grandma (which gave me a chance to move the car in that great New York game of finding a spot that will be "good for Monday"). Sunday we took the subway down to Soho (and walked through 40mph winds!) to go see Hansel and Gretel at the Manhattan Children's Theatre.

Fiona's seen a few plays now and has had a great time at each one. Last month she went to see Max & Ruby with her Mommy at Theatreworks, which is probably the main children's theater in the city. She had a blast at that one, and came home talking about all the silly things that Max did. But she knows Max & Ruby from the Rosemary Wells' books and the cartoons on Noggin. When I asked Fiona if she wanted me to read Hansel & Gretel to her (I once had a writing teacher who said that there are four must-have books for a writer, one of which is Grimm's Fairy Tales), she didn't want it; she didn't want to know too much before she saw the play (other than that there was a boy and a girl and a bad witch). So I didn't know how much to expect Fiona to understand about the play.

The play started... and it wasn't very good. Now, I think there are two primary rules for criticism:

does the piece accomplish what it's trying to do?
was it worth doing?

#2 comes into play less than you'd think, and generally only with stuff on the real fringes. But #1 is incredibly important, so when I say that the play wasn't very good, I'm talking about as a piece of theater for children, not in comparison to Streetcar Named Desire or anything like that.

The book writers set the play in Appalachia and put a weird framing device on the play where the brother & sister characters heard half the story of Hansel & Gretel in the very first scene, and then the framing device was more or less dropped. The rest of the scenes moved fairly ploddingly through the story points, without trying for any devices that might involve the (generally young--Fiona's was about the average age) audience. There were no lazzis involving bread crumbs or candy, the witch didn't do anything to spur jeers from the kids... to my mind, when you have a room full of four-year olds in your audience, the last thing you should be doing is training them that theater is all about sitting quietly in the dark and not connecting to what's up on stage. And the audience at the play was quiet.

So I was expecting Fiona, who's never been shy about sharing her opinion, to tell me that the play was a little boring. But she said she loved it, and when I asked her at the end of our weekend together what her favorite thing had been (I figured it was going to be our trip out to Fatty's for dinner), she said it was Hansel & Gretel. And she definitely understood what had happened in the play when I asked her questions about who had done what (even if she didn't always understand why).

Now, it's two days later and I don't still hear her talking about the play, so I think I'm right that the play didn't wind up leaving a great impression on her the way Max & Ruby did. Kids remember what they really like: you can show a group of kids Beauty and the Beast and My Little Pony's Minty Christmas and they'll swear they love both, but the Disney classic almost always winds up getting the real love. But it's clear Fiona thinks there's something great about sitting in an audience watching live people sing and dance and act out stories. Now if only we could figure out where on earth she gets that from.

Tough Tuesday

2008-02-07T20:47:00.000-05:00

Fiona's been relatively healthy this winter, at least by four-year old standards. She's had a sniffle she's never quite been able to shake, but she stopped coughing at night quite so much, and she hadn't had to miss any school since October.

On Tuesday Fiona started coughing at about 5:00 a.m. and didn't stop. We decided to keep her home in the morning to keep an eye on her, expecting that we'd bring her in for the afternoon.

She kept coughing.

And coughing.

Sometimes she'd go a minute or two between coughs, but never more. Any time she blew her nose everything was clear, so we knew she didn't have anything viral, and we were reluctant to take her to the doctor in that situation since they almost always look at her and say "it's a cold, run a humidifier, blow her nose regularly..."

She kept coughing, and now her breathing was starting to sound a little more labored. We'd reached mid-afternoon. Ten hours without a break in the fits.

We took her to the doctor.

The doctor took a quick listen and told us we were right to bring her in. Her chest was full of mucus, and if we'd waited until the next day she would have been in real distress. They had her breathe into a nebulizer and prescribed some steroids to help her get back to normal.

So now we have her on drugs that she hasn't had to take in years. It's considerably easier this time around, and her condition improved almost immediately, with steadily reduced coughing after seeing the doctor on Tuesday, and almost no coughing now. We kept her home on Wednesday but she was back in preschool today and having a great time. The only downside is that the steroids make her a little quick to anger (toddler 'roid rage!), but she stops the heavy ones tomorrow, and we're glad to have our daughter back after a rough day out of the blue.

Not Watching the Super Bowl

2008-02-05T07:44:00.000-05:00

When we explained to Fiona that it was Super Bowl Sunday and we were going to watch football during dinner, she immediately protested "but we can't watch TV during dinner!" Funny how she never brings up that rule when she's watching Noggin as we're setting the table.

So we agreed that she could watch a movie in Mommy and Daddy's room while we watched the game. Five minutes later she'd wasted no time getting comfortable. She even dragged her little table into the room herself so she could eat there.

I'm pretty sure we had better drama going on the living room TV. Wow.

A Break in the Morning

2008-01-30T22:48:00.000-05:00

Some thresholds are so major you spend months looking forward to them -- first steps, first words, that sort of thing. Other thresholds fall into the category of mixed blessing, at best -- the first time Fiona showed she could unlock the front door, or the moment last month where I was in the office and suddenly heard the sound of the refrigerator door opening.

We hit one this week that isn't quite in the category of first steps, but it was a big one for us.

Lying in bed on Monday morning I could tell Fiona was wide awake. The clock read 6:59, and just like you might buy something at $19.95 that you wouldn't buy at $20, we do our best to stay in bed until at least 7:00.

Fiona announced "I want to get up."

"That number 6 is going to turn into a 7 very very soon," I replied. "As soon as it turns 7, we can get up."

Fiona sighed heavily, and I wondered if she was going to start crying. She got out of bed and headed to her room; sometimes when she wants to cry but doesn't want us to know about it (as opposed to temper tantrums where us knowing is the whole point), she retreats to her room. I figured that she'd pout for a little bit, maybe play with some stuffed animals, and I'd get an extra 5-10 minutes.

Instead, 20 minutes later I woke from a snooze and no sign of my daughter. I got up, poured myself a coffee, and walked into the living room...

...where I found Fiona, fully dressed, lying on the floor coloring one of her princess coloring books.

Oh blessed day.

The cynic in me would point out that Fiona did this on one of those days where she didn't have to go to preschool but I still had to get up for work, meaning a day where she could have slept in and I couldn't. But then she did it again this morning, so it wasn't a one-time fluke. Two-time, maybe; we'll see.

The amusing sidenote to all of this is that she's started wearing pants again instead of tights. For months we've struggled to put her in pants from time to time, forcing her to wear pants over her tights on cold mornings with the promise that she can take them off once we're done walking outside. Now that she's dressing herself from start to finish, it turns out pants are easier to put on than tights. So it's a double blessing, at least on 25 degree mornings.

100 = Infinity

2008-01-23T23:06:00.000-05:00

Fiona's been able to count to 100 for a while now (at least with some help here and there). That's about as far as we're willing to count with her most days, so it's about as high as she can imagine numbers going.

This means that, according to Fiona, 100 is:

The total number of people in New York City
The total number of bugs in New York City
Mommy's age. And Daddy's age. Sometimes this is phrased as "how old are you? Are you ten or one hundred?"
How tall she's going to be when she grows up. Of course, she doesn't provide the units. She's getting up toward 100cm already.

Straight AS's

2008-01-23T22:58:00.000-05:00

We had our first ever parent-teacher conference this morning. We'll try to keep the bragging to a minimum here, but Fiona pretty well ran the board. Children were given a grade of AS (area of strength), AA (age appropriate), PA (progressing toward age appropriate) and AC (area of concern).

Fiona got AA's on sharing and one or two motor skills points (I one was something about using art implements, although I could go check). Everything else was AS. Of course, consider some of the categories:

Self esteem (um, she's not lacking here)
Vocabulary (once upon a time we could actually list ALL the words she could say)
Able to relate a story (ever been around for one of her songs?)

Anyway, we'll control the parental desire to crow too much, but it was nice to hear that 1) she's good at playing in groups (since she's an only child) and 2) she doesn't quit when challenged by something she can't do yet, the way she sometimes does at home.

Oh, and that she's the most special-est child in the whole history of creation. I don't think the teacher used those exact words, but we know it's true.

Polite as a Princess

2008-01-23T22:54:00.000-05:00

As bedtime approaches, we tell Fiona it's time to brush her teeth. Daddy starts toward the bathroom with his daughter.

Fiona: I can do it myself!
Daddy: (knowing the relation of the medicine cabinet to the height of a four year old) Let me just get the toothpaste down for you.
Fiona: Okay.

Daddy retrieves the toothpaste and, after some back-and-forth deliberation, leaves it in a spot that is almost-but-not-quite out of reach so that Fiona can expend the maximum effort she demands.

Fiona: Now go away.
Daddy: That's not a very nice way to talk.
Fiona: (vocal tone unchanged) Please go away.

MLK

2008-01-16T20:14:00.000-05:00

Most weeks at preschool Fiona's class focuses on a specific letter. They're up to "M" now, and with the school year probably running about 35 weeks or so (I haven't actually calculated it), you can do the math and figure that most weeks will be given over to the alphabet with a few breaks for seasonal lessons (the week on fall seemed to mainly be about convincing the kids to let their parents put them in sweaters and gloves as the weather gets colder).

Anyway, while we're always happy to devote our dinnertime conversation to figuring out which words start with the letter M (and lord knows we do), we're even more intrigued by the days or weeks where the lesson is a little more unusual. Today, Fiona learned about... "who was the person we learned about?"

Remembering the picture I'd seen up on the wall when I dropped her off that morning (not to mention having at least a rudimentary awareness of the calendar), I asked if they'd learned about Martin Luther King. Fiona nodded.

"He had the dream come true," she said.

Here are the major salient facts that Fiona took home from her lesson on Martin Luther King:

Everybody should be friends
You shouldn't hate (this might have been "hit", but hate works better)
You shouldn't fight
Don't be mean
Don't throw things on the floor

That last one really gets me; who among us can ever forget Dr. King's great oratory on the subject of litter?

In all seriousness, when I hear about lessons like this from Fiona I always get a little emotional. She's in preschool, and she's learning about all these wonderful, hopeful ideas and she and her friends are fortunate enough not to have any notion of just how hateful the ideas were that King fought. And I know sooner or later she's going to learn about all the awful things that have happened in the world, and it's both touching and heartbreaking to realize that she doesn't know about any of that yet. For a four-year old, the lesson can be as basic as "don't be mean" and part of me wishes that was all she'd ever need on the topic.

We've Got Ourselves a Four-Year Old

2008-01-07T17:19:00.000-05:00

And a happy birthday to our princess at that:

That's one hat for each year, if you're counting.

Could she be any more of a little girl?

Princess and Unicorn--a twofer!

And here's one from the Dept. of Nice Try, Kiddo:

Daddy and Mommy greet Fiona in the morning with a big "Happy Birthday!"

Daddy: How old are you now?
Fiona: I'm three!
Mommy: Only three?
Daddy: (reminding her, since we did have the party a day before her birthday, and she might be a bit confused as to whether or not the real day has finally arrived) It's January 7th now, for real, sweetie.
Mommy: You're four!
Fiona: No, I'm not four until I eat some birthday cake.

Hey, it's worth a try at 8am. Cue that Bill Cosby routine:

(For the curious and gullible, that photo is not from 8am this morning)

Christmas Singing 2007

2007-12-23T17:21:00.000-05:00

Props to the Preschooler

2007-12-19T22:49:00.000-05:00

Fiona gets a magazine called Ladybug (thanks Grandma!) which features various stories, poems and songs each month. There are some stories that run to several pages, some poems that only run to a few lines, and each month there are a few recurring features in comic strip form following the adventures, variously, of a boy and girl in preschool who are best friends, a pair of twins and their dog, and a girl and her cat (called "Molly and Emmett," and it appears on the back page of each issue).

Whenever Ladybug arrives in the mail and Fiona sees it she acts more or less the same way I acted when I discovered I got into my first choice college--she jumps up and down and can barely contain her excitement. Such are the pleasures of getting mail when you're not even four years old, I suppose.

Anyway, this month Ladybug was, not surprisingly, built around a holiday theme. When we reached the last page, we read about Molly and Emmett going to a Christmas carnival and finding the names of boys and girls who needed presents that year. Molly and Emmett each take a name (Emmett's a talking cat who walks on his hind legs, by the way) and find a gift and then wrap it and take it to the charity while talking about how nice it is to help Santa.

After we read the story for the first time, we had a talk with Fiona about what was going on in the story. We explained that some children didn't have as many toys as she did, and that what Molly and Emmett were doing was a nice way of making sure that no child had to go without a present at Christmastime.

We quickly realized that this was, as the parlance goes, a teaching moment, combined with an opportunity for us to do explicitly what we've been doing surreptitiously for years, which is to periodically clean out toys that Fiona isn't playing with any more.

We knew that if we asked Fiona to pick toys out of the blue to give to charity she'd either pick random items that would have no use out of context (the middle car of a three car train, for example), or else she wouldn't think quite straight and would suggest getting rid of a stuffed animal that was so beloved she wouldn't be able to sleep at night (yes, I know, the truest expression of the holiday spirit would be to give away the thing you love the most, but we're talking about a 3 1/2 year old here).

So instead, the night before we asked Fiona to make her choices, we laid out 12 toys and asked her to pick six that she would be willing to give to children who didn't have anything. She started by picking toys she absolutely wanted to keep, one or two of which suprised us. And, inevitably, some toys wound up in the "keep" pile, and then the "give away" pile, and then the "keep" pile. Halfway through I realized I'd better explain to Fiona that Mommy and Daddy were going to be giving things away during Christmastime as well, although I'm not sure that I did a very good job of explaining charitable donations to a kid who thinks you buy money at a bank. Still, I didn't want her to think we were just asking her to give away her stuff while we partied it up.

I'm not going to list what she gave away and what she kept since I'm sure one or two of her toys were former gifts from people who read this blog (on the other hand, if you still think a four year old should be playing with the same exact toys she played with when she turned two you might have expectations in need of adjustment). But Fiona did select six toys and even when she noticed that the toys were still sitting in our front room in a box waiting to head out for donation she didn't show any regrets.

So score one for the holiday spirit... and one for parents in a New York apartment managing to get rid of a little clutter. Analogies to scooping water out of a leaky canoe with a dixie cup might be appropriate, giving the impending arrival of Santa followed two weeks later by birthday presents, but at least we're still out there trying. And way to go, Fiona.

Big Girls Get Big Car Seats

2007-12-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

A little early Christmas present, as much for us as her: Fiona's grown into a booster seat for the car now. Here she is trying it out after I took it out of the box but before I had a chance to install it in the car. Glad to see she's treating this big moment with the reverence it deserves.

The boots are another new acquisition (and not one we held out on for the 25th--the kid needs something to wade through the snow and ice). For about the first 48 hours after she got them they were permanently attached to her feet. Pink and hearts--can't beat that!

Christmas Concerns

2007-12-18T09:35:00.001-05:00

We're hosting Christmas this year, which means for the first time Fiona is going to wake up Christmas morning in her own bed and will get to see what Santa Claus brought for her in her own living room. She's very excited, and has even started talking about how she's going to wake up in the middle of the night so she can sneak out to see Santa.

We have a non-working fireplace in our living room, so we've talked about how Santa's going to slide down the chimney and leave her presents (but first we'll have to clear her toys out of the fireplace--this being a New York apartment, we find storage wherever we can). A few days ago, Fiona was playing near the fireplace when she suddenly noticed that the flue was closed. I don't think she'd ever noticed the flue's existence before, but the consequences were immediately clear:

"Daddy!" she shouted. "We have to open that for Santa!"

I have no idea what's in our chimney after decades of a closed off fireplace, and I'm not about to find out. I explained that the flue opens from the inside as well and that Santa was going to open it on Christmas Eve when he lands on our roof. Fiona seemed okay with that.

We tried to take her to see Santa two years ago (when she wasn't quite two years old) and she was so terrified we couldn't even get close enough for a photo. Last year our schedules didn't work out and before we knew it we'd missed Santa for the season. We're planning on taking her on Friday afternoon this year; I'm sure an update will follow.

New Additions

2007-12-11T16:51:00.000-05:00

Because it can't all be about the kid.

We adopted a pair of cats yesterday. It was time.

We're not totally sure on names yet, so we're sticking with the ones they had from their last owner who had to get rid of them for allergy reasons. This one is Snowy (or Miss Snowy, or Snowball III for you Simpsons fans):

And this one is Risky (or Mister Risky):

They're siblings. And they've been hiding an awful lot the last 24 hours, but they'll get used to us. After all, we have their food.

Henry's Birthday

2007-12-10T16:32:00.001-05:00

Fiona attended her first big invite-the-whole-preschool-class birthday party over the weekend, although since the party was held in Brooklyn and you needed to drive only about 5 kids from the preschool were able to attend (the place was still packed, since the family also invited various friends, and every kid had 1-2 parents chaperoning).

Classic New York moment: the first big birthday party my daughter attended was held in a bar. In Greenpoint, for those who know NYC. The birthday boy's dad owns the place, and I guess he decided to keep the hipsters, drunks, and hipster drunks out until 4pm or so for the day (although anybody could have wandered in, I doubt they would have wanted to stick around once they saw the scene, unless they were really overdoing it on the ironic hipster act).

And from the preschoolers-can-get-away-with-this-kind-of-stuff file, my favorite moments from the party:

A friend of the family who must be a dog trainer brought in 4-5 dogs to do some tricks for the kids and then invited all the children up to pet the dogs. Fiona ran to the stage with everybody else (as I've noted before, you can suddenly tell how tall she is when you see her towering over all the other children at the party; part of that is because she'll be four next month and the birthday boy was just turning three this weekend).

One of the boys from her class, David, suddenly noticed at that very moment that Fiona was at the party. And so he started shouting "Fiona's here! Hi Fiona! Everybody, Fiona's here!" at the top of his lungs, making it impossible for the dog trainer to say much of anything. Except wait for Fiona to eventually notice that somebody was shouting her name at the top of his lungs (she was happy to see David once she stopped paying attention to the dogs).
At birthday cake time, everybody (naturally) wanted to sit next to the birthday boy. Once we got Fiona her cake and headed over to the table with the kids, Henry (the birthday boy) was already sitting on a bench next to another boy from class, Jules. So Fiona crawled underneath the table and forced herself between Henry and Jules. Neither of whom seemed to mind, or even notice.
I think the parents wanted Henry to open his presents after the party, which I'm sure was fine with the various adult friends in attendance, but not so kosher with the preschool crowd. Before we left, Fiona picked her present out of the pile and brought it to Henry (she wasn't the first kid to do this, nor was she the last). Eventually, his parents decided to let Henry open the presents that were brought to him. But as he pulled at the bow and had trouble opening the gift, Fiona leaned over and told him what was in the present. Again, he didn't seem to mind.

Now I guess we have to find a good local dive to have a bash in for Fiona's fourth...

We Know Which Grandparent This Comes From

2007-12-10T16:28:00.000-05:00

Two moments from the weekend:

Clearing the breakfast table, Fiona reaches for the orange juice container. I ask her if she wants me to take it since it's heavy. Her response: "I'll get it. I'm strong, like a wookiee."
Driving in the car to the grocery store, I search for a radio station to get us through the three minute drive. I happen across some bagpipes playing and surf on. Fiona shouts from the back seat: "don't change that, I like that!"

A Pivotal Developmental Milestone

2007-12-07T14:45:00.000-05:00

May 1977. I was about a year older then than Fiona is now. George Lucas releases a weird little space movie which goes on to be seen by everybody in the known universe over the next few months.

Except for me. My parents, no doubt cackling over the abuse they were visiting upon me, decided I was too young to see Star Wars. I proceeded to spend the next school year pretending to know what everybody was talking about when it came to Luke, Han, Leia, Vader and Obi-Wan. I experienced the phenomenon second-hand, which you couldn't help but do, what with the action figures, bed sheets, comic books and other assorted tie-ins, not to mention the fact that every single day at recess inevitably involved light saber battles as one scene or another got recreated near the jungle gym.

By the time I finally convinced my grandmother to take me to see the movie two years later, I already knew every beat, but I was still bitter at my parents for what they denied me. I made up for it by turning into a ridiculous film geek for about 15 years, seeing just about everything I could lay my hands on in some desperate effort to make up for that central childhood trauma.

And I swore I would never do the same thing to my kids.

Well, I promised I'd let my kids do a lot of things I never did like eat candy bars for dinner and never have a bedtime, and you know how most of those promises work out. But this afternoon, all I can say to my parents is... this is something we let Fiona do:

The good: she likes what she's seeing. She's actually gotten her hands on a Star Wars book for kids already, so some of this is familiar.

The bad: she keeps asking where Jar Jar Binks is. Sigh.

Each Set of Grandparents Will Say This Sounds Like a Daughter They Remember

2007-12-05T23:05:00.000-05:00

This evening at dinner Fiona asked for an apple. We told her she could have it if she was still hungry after she finished the other food on her plate, which she did, so I sliced up half an apple and gave it to her in a little bowl.

After eating a slice, she then proceeded to play with the next slice in all sorts of maddening preschooler ways that had nothing to do whatsoever with how a human being usually eats food. We've been getting frustrated with this behavior, so I picked up the bowl and carried it back to the kitchen, letting her know that if she was just going to play with her food she clearly wasn't hungry so I was going to take the food away.

Well, she turned remorseful, as she always does, and pledged to eat the apple by putting it in her mouth (imagine if you had to make stipulations on the level of "by putting it in your mouth?" with adults?) if I brought it back. I agreed she could have another chance, and went to get the bowl.

"No, I'm going to get the bowl!" Fiona declared.

We were trying to keep Fiona at the table and focused. "I'll get it," I responded.

"No, I get it!" By now she was hot on my heels, but she'd been frustrating us throughout dinner, and for whatever reason I didn't feel like giving in.

"I've got it," I said, scooping it up and carrying it back to the table. "Now come on if you want to eat it."

The results were entirely predictable. Fiona went to her room and screamed and cried and jumped off her bed a few times and then jumped off the top of her bookshelf (OK, I'm not so sure about that last one--but it sure sounded that way from the dinner table). Andrea and I had a grown up conversation about whatever grown ups talk about while pretending there's no screaming three-year old on the other side of the nearest wall.

After a few minutes, Fiona marched back into the dining room.

"Would you like your apple now?" I asked, but Fiona just glared at me. And then she scooped the bowl up off the table, carried it back to the kitchen, set it on the counter, scooped it back up, and returned it to the spot from whence it had just come.

"I get the bowl," she said.

This would be one of those moments where you're working too hard on stifling a laugh to bother holding your ground.

That Preschool Education is Tearing Her Away From Her Mother

2007-12-05T20:16:00.000-05:00

Bedtime, and it's my turn tonight. I help Fiona through brushing her teeth and then she's all set.

Daddy: Okay, now say good night to Mommy and give her her kiss.

Fiona: (running across the room to Mommy and starting to hug her) Good night, Mommy! Hey, wait! (stopping and pulling back from the hug before she's even given her mother a kiss; this is more important:) Good night. Guh guh guh... Good night starts with "G"!

Mommy: Yes! And night starts with "N".

Fiona: No, "good night" starts with "G".

Mommy: (deciding it's not the right time to try to explain that it's actually a two word phrase) That's right.

Fiona: (heading toward her room) Guh, guh, guh...

Mommy: Um, Fiona, can I have my kiss?

Ambassador for Pizza

2007-11-30T10:51:00.000-05:00

Upon returning from Massachusetts over Thanksgiving weekend, we order a pizza for lunch. After watching Fiona struggle to fold her slice just like Mommy and Daddy (she keeps folding along the wrong axis, leading to something like a pizza sandwich as opposed to a grease delivery system), I decide to instill my daughter with a little home city pride:

Daddy: You know, you're very lucky to be able to get New York pizza right at home. A lot of other places don't have pizza this good.

Fiona: Who doesn't have good pizza?

Daddy: Well, San Diego pizza isn't very good because they don't do the crust right. Or at Tia and Tio's down in Florida. (Suddenly realizing I probably shouldn't be slamming the in-laws restaurant options too aggressively to an impressionable child) They cook other things well in those places, but not pizza.

Fiona: Why not?

Daddy: They don't know how to make pizza well in those places.

Fiona: I'll show them how!

(pause)

How do you make pizza?