More WTHWIT?!

Item No. 3 in the "What-the-Hell-Was-I-Thinking" Department: Forgetting to shut the basement door, after which Colin went downstairs and proceeded to empty an economy-size bag of dog food on the floor and then mixed it with the entire contents of our tool box. I'm sure the dog will be thrilled.

The first thing you might be wondering is why, with two small children in the house, do we own 10,000 tiny screws and nails? A very good question. We now own only 10 screws and nails.

Secondly, you might be wondering where I was while this transpired: Putting Archer to sleep. Hey, can't be in two places at once, you know.

Finally, you might be wondering how I managed not to hear this? Well, because I was running the washer, the dryer, and the dishwasher all at the same time in preparation of our trip to Calgary this afternoon. This is significant because we have faulty plumbing, which causes water to pool on the basement floor. So, you guessed it: soggy dog food!

Miraculously, I did manage to clean it all up before we had to leave town, including the dog food he put in the dryer along with my wet clothes.

But the real question is: How did I manage not to kill my son?

What was the worst thing your kid ever did?

I (Heart) This Boy

A recent conversation overheard between Colin and his daddy ...

Colin: "Does Colin have heartbeat?"

Kevin: "Yes, Colin, you have a heartbeat, right here." (Kevin points to the left side of Colin's chest.)

Colin: "Does Daddy have heartbeat?"

Kevin: "Yes, I have a heartbeat."

Colin: "Does girls have heartbeat?"

Kevin: Yes, girls have a heartbeat.

Colin: "Does Urmila have hearbeat?" (Urmila was one of Colin's favourite caregivers at his daycare.)

Kevin: "Yes, Urmila is a girl. She has a heartbeat."

Colin: "Does Fanny have heartbeat?" (Fanny is the cat.)

Kevin: "Yes, Fanny has a heartbeat." Colin pauses for a long moment and looks up to Kevin with concern.

Colin: "... Does Mama have heartbeat?"

I'm glad to know that in Colin's taxonomy I fall somewhere between girls and cats.

One Father's Day

On Father's Day, Kevin woke up at 5:00 a.m. (or maybe earlier), to take over the fussy newborn. By 6:00, he was preparing cereal for the toddler. And when I woke up around 8:00, he was cuddling Colin while rocking Archer to sleep. At 9:00, he took Colin swimming, to give me a little bit of breathing room. At 11:00 he ran out to pick up lunch, because there wasn't any food in the house. At 1:00, he put Colin down for a nap and spent the next two hours cleaning up our flooded basement and running four loads of laundry, because we had neither clean clothes nor clean diapers in the house.

I don't really remember what happened the rest of the day--it was a bit of a blur--but somewhere in there he made dinner (shishkabob on the grill, in the pouring rain), kept Colin in smiles and giggles, and later persevered for over two hours to get that same child to sleep (final bedtime: 11:00 p.m.). He received neither gifts nor breakfast in bed nor a single moment to himself, but when I apologized for the lousy Father's Day as we finally fell asleep sometime after midnight, he said it hadn't been such a bad day. But he "coulda done without the flooded basement."

Happy Father's Day to the best father in the world!

Do Cooking!

In addition to his love for "art," Colin has developed a love for cooking lately that warms his mama's heart. So now, once or twice a week, Colin proclaims it time to "Do Cooking!" and we break out my mixer and get to work.

I was a little reluctant at first to let a two-year-old participate in what can be a messy, and sometimes dangerous, endeavour, but so far he has been very good at following the rules: no touching the spinning paddle and only one cup of flour at a time. (In fact, I've developed this nifty little trick of restricting Colin to the quarter cup, even if the recipe calls for a whole cup or a tablespoon. The quarter cup is just the right size for his little hands, and, if it takes four times as long to add the flour, he's happy with that. Besides, he calls it the "baby cup," which I think is charming.)


The only drawback is that we've been eating a lot of home-baked goods, although I suppose that isn't really much of a drawback, is it? Lately, the frequency of our little cooking sessions means that we haven't eaten store-bought bread in months--and I'm not sure I can go back. The other downside is that Colin often wants to "do cooking" when I have real cooking to do--cooking he can't participate in that involves chopping vegetables and heating oil. And with a new baby soon to arrive, I've got a tall order of meals I want to cook and freeze for those first few weeks. Fortunately, Colin received his own play kitchen for his birthday, which now sits in the dining room just outside our kitchen. So when I need Colin out of the room so I can sauté vegetables or boil a chicken, I just send him to his own kitchen and ask him to do the same.



Of course, Colin is no short-order cook,so this doesn't always work. Half the time he uses his kitchen as loading zone for his cars and trucks, but who cares? As long as it buys me a little time...

Do Art!

In our house, the fastest way to turn a bad day into a good one (and a cranky mama into a happy one) is for Colin to announce spontaneously, "Mama, want do art!" Oh, be still, my poor old art major's heart! And unless it's very late at night, or this mama is very, very tired, you can bet that I will drop whatever I'm doing and comply, because I love that Colin likes creating "art" and I want to encourage it as much as possible.


One of the reasons, I think, that he enjoys "doing art" so much is that we use really nice art supplies. It's just so much easier for him to create something bold and colourful when he's using rich, artist-quality paints and thick, velvety papers that work with his uncoordinated toddler hands rather than against them. I noticed that when we were on vacation, and using printer paper and some cheap paints I picked up at the grocery store, that he became easily frustrated when the paint ran and pooled on the page.

Fortunately, I didn't have to go out and by a lot of expensive art supplies for my toddler (even I would balk at that). I have tons of supplies left over from my student days--and a few favourite paints and brushes from my childhood, which I got second-hand from my own very artistically inclined grandmother. I can't wait until Colin gets a little bit older. Then we can start using up my horde of inks, pastels, oil sticks, acrylics!


Of course, making art with your toddler doesn't have to just be about paint and crayons--or the fun-but-murder-on-your-carpet Play-doh. Lately, I've been experimenting with other media: noodles, textured papers, fabric scraps. Colin's favourite--by far--has been the "bean tray." Basically, I fill a muffin tin with different kinds of beans and grains, set the whole thing on a rimmed cookie sheet, and let him go to town. The first time I tried this, I included a piece of paper covered in Elmer's glue, thinking it would be fun to see what came out. The result was only a huge mess and a sticky, frustrated toddler. Turns out, just touching and sorting the beans is enough fun for him. And the best part is, he likes sorting them, so I can put them back in little jars and use them over and over.


I'm hoping that next year, when I'm on maternity leave and Colin is home with me all day, that we can do regular art projects--not just for his own development but also to keep me sane. At Colin's day care, they "do art" nearly every morning, and I think the day care workers do it as much for the kids as to find a way to fill the time. I'm hoping that before Colin finishes at the day care in May that I can glean a couple of new crafty ideas from his caregivers there.

What are some of your most successful artistic experiments with toddlers?

Trains, planes, and automobiles

Our trip to Little Rock has been filled with all of Colin's most favourite things: planes, trains, and automobiles, thanks to his wonderful Mae Mae who know just what her grandson likes.

Last week, she took us to visit my junior high school guidance counsellor, who just happens to have the world's most amazing electric train set in his backyard--in his entire back yard. The "garden-scale" train comes complete with a high-level bridge, a fishpond and waterfall, and a train station inside the garden shed. I have never seen Colin so impressed with anything in his entire life. He looks a little blasé in these photos, but that's just his intense concentration. Trust me, a few minutes earlier he was full dimples and smiling from ear to ear.


A few days later, she took us to the Little Rock Aerospace Museum on it's last day of operation. It's closing in 2011 due to insufficient funds. It's not hard to see why. It's small and a little shabby. But Colin didn't care. It had airplanes, and he is obsessed with airplanes these days. The museum has a small space shuttle capsule, half a dozen World War I-era propellor planes, a few antique cars, and dozens of display cases full of model planes. Unfortunately, Colin really, really wanted to get inside those glass display cases and play with the planes, and he found the upside-down astronaut hanging outside the space station to be very upsetting, but, boy, did he love those "big air-panes."





However, the real excitement of the week has been my brother's collection of matchbox cars, which my mom fished out of the attic. Those old cars--all from the seventies and early eighties (and no doubt made in China and covered in lead paint)--have been more popular than any Christmas present. He plays with them for about six hours every day, racing them along the couch and lining them up end to end, and insists on having one or two in each hand any time we leave the house. In fact, a typical "conversation" with Colin goes a little something like this: "Cars, choo-choo train, airplane, cars, helicopter, cars, cars, big cars, big-BIG cars!" So clearly cars have been the BIG hit of the week.

My only concern is how he'll manage to leave them behind. I think they should stay at Mae Mae's house for him to play with whenever he visits, and the only cars he has at home in Edmonton are wooden toddler cars. Fortunately, Mae Mae thought of everything and for Christmas gave him a small starter set (complete with play mat) of matchbox cars--big, BIG boy cars!