flea

Casper got her first Barbie yesterday (choosing that over Hannah Montana jibbetz for her knock-off crocs), courtesy of Grandma. She chose a black Barbie. Now, the Barbie is Halle Berry black, not Alek Wek black - I can't tell if she's got the same face mold as white Barbie (not having any other Barbie to compare) but her features are pretty caucasoid, her skin is coppery, and she has waist-length straight hair. (Also, she's got ACTUAL FEET, and much less boobage than I remember on the Barbies of my childhood, which I gather are brand-wide changes.)

Casper also got to choose her own doll in January or so, when mr. flea accidentally broke one of her little dolls, and she picked a new Polly Pocket. Interestingly, she also chose the black Polly Pocket.

I bought myself a black Sasha doll when I was 11 or 12, but I think I was already enough aware of race at that time to be all White Liberal Girl about buying myself a black doll. Casper's too young for that, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I'm fascinated that twice in a row now she's chosen the black doll.

What about you? Multi-ethnic doll collection?

Casper cut a doll's hair again last night, and she was upset that I got upset at her for it. As she put it, "It's MY doll!" It is her doll, but I find the cutting of dolls' hair, or coloring on toys, horrifying. I'm trying to wrap my brain around who's right here, and what I should do, since I think both of our viewpoints have validity.

As I explained to Casper last night, for me it is about respecting one's toys. I used the example of Sid from Toy Story. I can remember one time when I deliberately damaged a toy as a child - my sister and I used straight pins to poke holes in the breasts of the vintage Barbies we inherited from my mother, thus giving them nipples. I remember at the time knowing I was wrong (I was probably 8 or so) and have since read suggestions that girls are likely to damage Barbies in particular as a reaction against the patriarchy (stop laughing, it kind of makes sense!) The other times I can remember damaging something as a child were accidents, and very traumatic - I cut a triangular flap out of my hand-made smocked party dress by accident, while cutting princess crowns from paper (aged 6), and I pushed a rude playmate and her head went into the plaster replica of Greek horsemen from the acropolis that my mother had, breaking it (it was never able to be repaired (aged 8).

Casper sometimes draws on herself, and occasionally has drawn on her stuffed animals. Most of our markers are washable, so we discourage this drawing but have never freaked out about it. It's only recently that she has cut hair - in the last month she has cut the hair off a knock-off purple my little pony (basically a trash toy; I said that wasn't good but didn't make a big deal out of it), trimmed the braids on a Polly Pocket borrowed from a friend (which got a lecture about respecting other people's things and we went out and bought a new doll for the friend) and then last night she cut the hair of her 6-inch plastic Madeline doll.

Casper seems to feel that these are her toys, and she is free to play with them as she wants, and if that play involves cutting their hair, that's fine. The one thing I have impressed on her, twice now, is that if she EVER EVER cuts the Sasha dolls' hair (our special dolls from childhood, some of which she plays with in a special play space that isn't her room, and one of which I gave her at Christmas) they will be put away and she will never play with them again. I'm a little worried I'm setting myself up for deliberate damage with my vehemence here, and considering pre-emptively putting the Sasha dolls away until she is older. It would KILL me to see those dolls deliberately damaged.

Did you damage toys as a child? If you have kids, do they? Does Toy Story make you cry? What's your policy?

The kids are making an incredible noise, but it is mostly happy. They are running around yelling, listening to They Might Be Giants, pretending to be fairies. Casper is in her ballerina suit and new Hanna tutu, and Dillo is naked except for his star cape. They both are using sparkly pencils as magic wands and turning us into monsters.

We had a horrible night last night, mostly with Casper. The day started okay, but Mrs. B talked to mr. flea about Casper at pick-up time. She has not been filling out her daily calendar project since April 8, and she did not do the three works she agreed to do in her daily contract. (I know, 4 years old, but this is the routine at school.) Then on the drive to the YMCA Casper and Josie got into huge fight over identical cups of cheddar bunnies. mr. flea decided Casper was having a hard day and took her home with him. He called me at about 4:10 to touch base and I could hear Casper screaming in the background about the fact that there was no ice cream. We did a pick-up of me and the Dillo and went to Locopops (thin mint sadly a little disappointing) and then home. Played okay at the park (shirtless Casper), but then begging for treats before dinner, stealing from the sugar bowl under my eye, freaking out at dinner over her inability to perfectly roll spaghetti on a fork, freaking out over I don't know what when I put Dillo in the bath. We'd alternate 10 calm minutes, achieved by much effort, with 20 minutes of screaming freakout. We did get her in the bath, but then she wanted to watch a movie or a cartoon, or anything, and we said no because it was a school night. That freakout went on and off until she fell asleep, naked, in mr. flea's arms, in our bed.

At 11:30 she woke up screaming, woke the baby. I nursed him, couldn't get him back down, much tagging in and out by mr. flea and he got Casper to stop screaming after about 20 minutes and I got the baby to sleep, lying on my chest on the couch. He woke up at 4:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep after nursing (very jolly but AWAKE); I tagged out with mr. flea at 5:45 and got another 45 minutes falling off the edge of the bed with Casper pressed against me tight and whimpering in her sleep. Then Dillo started freaking out and came and got me (waking Casper, who, you guessed it, screamed) and I had to hold Dillo the entire time I got him and me ready to go.

This after the morning Casper had on Tuesday, this via mr. flea:
"just had the morning from hell with Casper. I had the kids ready to
go except shoes on Caspern at 8:40 AM. She wanted to change her
shirt. She couldn't decide on shoes. She didn't want to go to
school. She wouldn't put on her shoes. I lost my patience. I got
Dillo in the car then I had to drag Casper out of the house and
literally stuff her into the car. Dillo starts crying because Casper
is crying. She is hysterical and screaming at this point. We drive
to school unbuckled [only two blocks] screaming at the top of her lungs about it the
whole way and stop at the church next to school to try and calm down.
Which isn't happening so much, so I offer to take Dillo to school
first as I don't want her to go into school crying hysterically. This
calms her down some.

We drop Dillo off and it is around 9:25 AM by the time I get her back
and checked in at the school office. I get her down to her class room
and she doesn't want me to leave. So I stay and do her journal with
her. She did the day and date then we made up a sentence together.
She is wearing your broken watch and the letter of the day is "Q." So
we came up with, "My watch is quite." I wrote in her journal, "I
liked helping you with your journal." She is interested in "$" so I
showed her what one million dollars "$ 1,000,000.00" looks like.
Then I got her working on to her math assignment and managed to leave
at 10:00 AM. So I guess we recovered but man what a morning .... she
really took it out of me."

Casper and I talked some last night (in a quiet sobbing phase between the screaming) about whether she was afraid about us moving, and what she might be afraid of. She said she doesn't want to leave her friends, especially Stephen, who has red hair and likes Spiderman and Power Rangers. Mrs. B suggested she talk to the school counselor (she talked to her once before when she said she hated school; the counselor wrote us up a long note, and frankly she doesn't seem very bright.) I don't know how to help this poor bunny.

mr. flea called me at the desk at 8:30, saying Casper told him she thought she had a fever and needed to stay home from school. He'd taken her temperature and it was 97.2 in the armpit (=99.2) and what should he do? I asked if she seemed sick and he said no. So I said to send her to school and if she felt sick at school she should talk to Mrs. B and ask to see the nurse.

At about 10 mr. flea got a call from the school nurse. Casper has reported her tummy wasn't feeling well. The nurse took her temp and it was normal. She seemed fine. The nurse sent her back to class. mr. flea just started laughing.

I tell you what, at 4 I was nowhere near this creative and daring.

Of course, fate being what it is, she will now develop pneumonia again to punish us for not believing her.

We're having trouble with Casper at school. Last week she got in trouble in her classroom when Mrs. B was at a meeting and there was a sub. She wouldn't listen and ended up having to sit in a chair, their version of "time out." mr. flea had a talk with Mrs. B the next day (Friday) and learned that Casper had also been physical with some classmates. mr. flea was pretty concerned about this and had a serious talk with Casper in the hallway about not headbutting people.

I went to Open School night Monday in part to touch base with Mrs. B about this issue, although since Casper was there I felt I couldn't speak too openly about it. But Mrs. B said that Casper had had good days Friday and Monday.

Today Mrs. S the music teacher called mr. flea to say that Casper wouldn't tidy up the materials with the rest of her classmates at the end of class. Instead she way lying on the floor and rolling around. Mrs. S said she spoke privately to Casper about this both yesterday and today. (Obviously it didn't take yesterday!)

Casper also basically ate no lunch Monday or Tuesday, unless she bought lunch from the cafeteria which she is not supposed to do. Unfortunately there is no way to prevent her buying lunch; the system is set up so that anyone can choose to go through the lunch line, and if they have no money on the account the parents are billed. I think it's not appropriate to let 4 year olds choose to buy lunch, which is usually things considered 'treats' in our family, like pizza, chicken nuggets, etc. But I did not design the system and have no control over it. The whole reason we send her lunch is because I think the cafeteria lunches are not healthy. Monday night I had Casper help me make her lunch, hoping that by allowing her to choose what was in it and make it herself she would then eat it. Didn't work.

Mrs. S. implied to mr. flea that we are too lax in our parenting; she seems like kind of a law and order type. When Casper doesn't want to do something at home, we try to negotiate a compromise. If we are unable to - if it's something where there is no compromise position - Casper has a tendency to throw a fit. We put her in her room to calm down (stop screaming) when this happens. I don't think we're being ridiculously lax, although god knows we aren't disciplinarians.

Anyone have thoughts on how to handle the issue of disobedience at school? Casper is 4 and a quarter; she's among the youngest in her class, but Mrs. S at least doesn't think it's an immaturity issue - more a testing of boundaries. I plan to have a chat with Mrs. B by phone tonight if possible, so see if she has any suggestions on how we can reinforce listening and cooperating at school.

Are we raising this kind wrong? Is she too wild? Is it our fault, or is this who she is?

Casper didn't eat her lunch, and probably as a result she was not cooperative at dinner, and refused to come to the table, and then refused to eat. mr. flea said she'd have to eat dinner if she wanted to come to Math Night at her school, but she didn't, so he went without her.

She then screamed more or less continuously for the next 45 minutes. That was fun. She was mostly shut up in her room, but she came out periodically to see how Dillo and I were taking it, and needed to be bodily returned to her room, because she's start kicking us or something.

Then we had the long slow process of returning to civilization, which included crying, wanting to be hugged, changing into pajamas, attempting to nurse and being sad because she can't remember how, and wanting me to teach her how, asking for various special toys (geomags) and jellybeans, asking for toenail polish.

In the middle of all this, Dillo fell off the bench in the breakfast nook into the leg of the table, using his head to break the fall. It was the most immediately ugly bonk either of my kids has ever had, though he didn't break the skin. I usually don't get all het up about the kids' bonks, but this one got me, probably because the evening had already been rather trying. He seemed fine very quickly, actually - amazing what a few strawberry jellybeans will do. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/2085426708/)

mr. flea returned with a lot of learning materials (he made an abacus of pipe cleaners and beads, tangrams, worksheets) from what seems like it was an excellent presentation. Casper was very excited and kept saying, "I have so much to learn! I have so much work to do!"

It's Scholastic Book Fair week and of course Casper being four has "pre-picked" some very poor choices, including a My Little Pony book and a Strawberry Shortcake book. So mr. flea is going to go over during her class' book fair session (2pm tomorrow, good thing he doesn't have a job) and help her make some slightly better choices, or at least choices we won't be suffering through reading to her repeatedly.

mr. flea also brought home a lengthy PTA newsletter. I feel sort of on the outside looking in at the ways of public schools. The very very long "wish lists" of supplies the teachers need makes me sad. And how do these parents have the TIME to do so much?

Casper was uncooperative again this morning. We were going along
pretty well, but when it came time to shut the TV off and get cleaned
up things broke down. After my patience was exhausted, I asked her
to chose between the nice way and the hard way. She chose the hard
way and ended up not liking it very much. She cried all the way to
school.

When it came time to drop her off she got really small and didn't
want to leave my side. Just minutes before as we were pulling in she
was going down her list of my transgressions and exclaiming that she
didn't like me. As she clung to me, I explained to her that I love
her very much even when we aren't getting along. We went back inside
because she wanted to be changed into her bathing suit like the other
kids running around this morning. We cooperated and by the time I
left her things were pretty well patched up. Tough morning just the
same.

In double-barreled ARGH news, the rabbits came back and ate the stems that were left in the picture I posted. They HATE me.

And my stupid breast pump motor stopped working. This is the one I just replaced maybe 4 months ago! I guess Ameda has gone down hill. I like their design better than Medela, but I don't think I'll buy from them again, if it comes to it. I was going to cut down to once a day next week and stop the week after that, but I guess I'll just stop. Miss Jackie says the Dillo is drinking well from a sippy (just water so far), he's eating tons for them, and he's had cottage cheese and ice cream enough that I think cow milk won't be a problem at all. I have enough bottled up to last the week, so we can start next week. Now I just have to watch myself and not start leaking like a maniac at 3pm.

I have spent a fair amount of time being depressed this last week. This is a big change, since my general mode for the several weeks previous had been anger. So.

I am finally almost over any sort of snot in my head. The Dillo is also fairly clear - he has been relatively un-goopy in the eyes for several days now. Of course, Casper has developed a terrible phlegmy cough, and we are once again worrying about pneumonia. Once bitten, forever shy, it would seem.

In accomplishments news, I listed our backcountry backpacks on Craigslist. I hope they sell. We haven't gone camping since Casper was born, and we (well, mr. flea) had basically decided that backcountry camping wasn't really for us, anyway. I would like to get a biggish tent and go car-camping with the kids; if the packs sell we can use the $ for that. mr. flea grew up traveling a decent amount, but they never camped, since his mother refused to sleep outside. I camped a fair amount as a kid, and I value my related accomplishments such as peeing in the woods with aplomb and being able to start fires from scratch.

Casper has been fragile and difficult and generally a total pain in the ass about 30% of the time lately. Jealous, a lot, of Dillo. Lots of thumb-sucking and pretending to be a baby, but also lots of general frustration and not being able to settle on anything. She's not able to make a decision, and some times everything is just wrong. For example, this morning I put milk in her cereal and apparently I didn't put enough. I added perhaps a tablespoon more, and that was fine. I am torn between sympathy for her - we have spent a lot of time cuddling - and wild annoyance. I am not sure what to do to help her - sometimes we (her stupid parents) can't do anything right. And she isn't afraid to tell us so. Poor bunny. Again I reminded of the way early teenagers are just ANNOYED at EVERYTHING and NOTHING is RIGHT.

It's huuuumid - 71% humidity in the house, due to morning thunderstorms, so the AC has gone on for the first time this year. We needed the rain, but feh anyway.

I need to do some garden work this weekend. We have been havesting peas, which didn't do that well this year. It has been dry and hot alternating with dry and really cold. Last year we had a long cool moist spring and happy happy peas. I've eaten some lettuce, mostly from thinning the larger head lettuce. Everything else is doing appropriately but not thriving unusually. So far, my first planting of peans is uneaten (this is very unusual.) The climbing rose and clematis are both in full bloom right now, but the thunderstorm meant a lot of petals off the roses. The iris are mostly gone by, many gone to mush in the rain.

I am still sick, Dillo is coughy and very annoyed (an hour of crying, unsoothable, in the night), Casper is still pushing my buttons in an extraordinary fashion and making me marvel at her focus and will. Last night she asked for an extra cup of milk every 30-90 seconds for nearly 2 hours straight. We said no every single time, and explained out rationale (lots of bed-peeing lately), and withstood torrents of tears, whining, screaming, and demanding. She got up at 7 am and said, "I want some milk now!"

We are now 1 minute late for our lunch date already, but the Dillo just fell asleep half an hour ago, poor noodle. I guess I should call them and say we'll be late.