flea

Dillo told me in the car last night that sweat was microscopic water that gets on your skin.  So I noted what an excellent word microscopic was, and reiterated what it meant, and then we were off on a microscopic kick.  Such that when we got home and had cheese and crackers he asked for "that which cheese with microscopic dots of black in it" (by which he meant Boursin, which the children ADORE.)

At dinner Casper and I had a hilarious conversation about her relationship with Eliza, which has been making her insane and weepy all week. She was bemoaning the fact that Eliza "makes" her sit with her at lunch and I told her she was in charge of who she sits with and she confessed that she actually sites with Eliza because Eliza gives her the Ritz Bits from her lunch!  She confessed this like it was some huge dark secret and I was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud.  In general, though, this Eliza situation is maddening - to hear Casper talk Eliza is a spoiled mean girl, and while Eliza is sort of bossy, she is actually not evil, you know?  They are definitely fremeies this week, though, and I have been encouraging distance.  As I keep telling Casper, Eliza cannot actually make her do anything - she is in charge of her own choices.

Casper was hilarious at dinner tonight. She told me Aydan is suspicious of her because "he doesn't like women" and also told me that she and Thomas kissed "again" today (I never heard about the first time) on the cheek, behind a tree.

And now we are having tears and recriminations, because homework is an idiotic word search. I thought Ms. C last year gave too much homework, but at least hers generally had a point or theme (spelling words based on the sound of the week). The generic word search makes me deeply skeptical about Mr. H as a teacher. (I hate word searches, not least because Casper sucks at them. And this one has some 30 word, many long and backwards and diagonal.)

And Dillo came home DRENCHED in pee. Seriously, at first I thought he'd been caught in the downpour we had, and then I had to ask if he'd fallen in the toilet.

Oy.

I really do have kids, honestly! Sometimes I feel like I never talk about them anymore.

We are still not really getting anywhere with Dillo and potty training. Apparently he peeps on the potty at school sometimes. We have gotten to the point of getting him to sit on the potty and try. Unfortunately right now whenever he is naked he wants to spend special time with his penis (retracting the foreskin is FUN!) and that causes an erection which makes it hard to pee. Also, he is scared of the actual toilet but the plastic potty we have is a little small for him and isn't designed very well for boys sitting down and peeing. Possibly we will look for a new potty at Target (or to borrow - must ask neighbors who currently have a 4 year old boy and a baby, so are presumably not using their potty right now.)

I cut his hair again and Dillo looks like SUCH a big boy! He has such a charming open face - it's the way his eyebrows are set - I think he actually looks like mr. flea as as a baby rather a lot. He is really a small boy now and not much of a baby at all. We've been playing dress-up a lot, and he went to Casper's school chorus concert last night in pink fairy wings and a rose tutu over his Thomas train t-shirt. He's still smallish (for a kid of ours - I bought some 2T shorts at Target and they fell right off him - in general he is just fine in a 2T/Hanna 90, still! The only exception is he's quite long in the torso, so overalls don't work well. His feet are finally growing a bit, and he's now wearing Casper's old size 8 sandals (that she got when she was 21 months, natch.) So in that way he's different from 97%ile mr. flea.

Comparison:
Dillo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/3433759611/
mr. flea toddler: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/41850416/

I'm trying to get a sense of his friends at school - right now he talks a lot about Maggie, whom mr. flea says he is sweet on. Apparently she is good at sharing the bicycle with him. I asked him about his friend Adam who he used to mention a lot and he told me that Adam is a "hitting friend." Dillo does not like kids who are rough and tumble at all, and is very wary of some of our neighbors who are. Maybe we can do a little playdate action this summer. It would be nice to get to know some of the other parents, too.

Casper is all long and skinny right now, growing her hair out. I have some lovely pictures of her from the concert, not yet uploaded. She's in a 6, though they tend to be a little loose - adjustable waistbands are our friends. Has decided opinions about what she likes to wear. We had our first official mother-daughter fight about clothes in Target last weekend, as I was trying to get her to agree to practical shorts for YMCA summer camp and she wanted various other things (black polyester yoga pants, pink captain's hat - "Zariah has one!", new shoes when she has a bunch of shoes we just got her that she doesn't wear). I worry about her socially - she's a bit of a marcher to her own drummer, which is fine as long as she's happy, but I worry, because I'm her mother. For example, at the giant princess party last weekend I arrived to pick her up and had to hunt her down - all the other girls were in groups doing dress-ups and moving towards the present-opening, and she was hiding in the tent in the birthday girl's room, playing with the toys. She has an open crush on a boy named River at afterschool, and has new friends who are a bit older (Aria, Shannon) and doesn't play as much anymore with her age-mates (Siena). Still LOVES Penny, so she does have friends, just not the kids who are clearly going to grow up into the Popular Girls in 8th grade. (Yes, you can relive Middle School through your children!)