Word Problems

Scene I: The Park — Thursday afternoon, I took the girls to the park for some running around time and scooter practice. I brought along my skateboard to roll around with them while Celeste used her scooter and Quinn her Skuut, but they both were more interested in lying on their stomachs and pushing themselves around on my board.

After a bit of that, however, we went about the normal sort of play. Celeste was on the small play structure that she used to call the pet store and told me that she had 110 very cute, tiny Pomeranian puppies. She gave me two, and Quinn took three. She was offering some to a little girl who was playing with us when she paused to ask how many puppies she still had.

"Well, you gave me two and Quinn took three, so how many is that?"
"Uhm, five!"
"Right, and you started with 110, so if you've given away five how many are left?"
"105!"
"Right!"

Questionable Parenting

Scene II: The Dairy — Sunday, as mentioned in an earlier entry, we went to South Mountain Creamery for their spring family farm festival.

One of the attractions were a bunch of ride-on tractors and scooter cars for the kids. Celeste and Quinn were scooting around in the barn having fun, when a kid who was probably about six or so zipped over on a ride-on tractor and started bumping Quinn from behind. She looked surprised for a moment, and then worried, and then moved away and he sought out another victim.

A little bit later, I saw him scooting toward Quinn and interposed myself between them. He circled around me and tried to ram her again, but I kept stepping in the way. After the third or fourth attempt, he was watching me and not Quinn, who all of the sudden zipped forward in her scooter car and started ramming him from the side.

I probably should have intervened, but the look of surprise on the boy's face was priceless. His mother intervened pretty quickly, and me not stopping her may well be questionable parenting, but I have to admit I was a bit proud of her for standing up for herself like that.

Using Her Invisible Friends Against Her

Quinn doesn't quite have invisible friends, but she does have lots of invisible animals — cats named Milo (after the co-lead in Milo and Otis, dogs, rabbits, the occasional pony, etc. She will run after them, catch them, pet them, cuddle them, and want you to do the same. If she forgets one in the car or outside or something, she can get quite distressed.

However, they have, upon occasion, proved to be helpful to have around.

Over the past few nights, when she's gotten a little distressed/distracted at bedtime, I've been able to pet Coll the collie and Point the pointer as they curl up in bed with her and convince her that they need her to stay still in bed because her dogs want her to make the bed warm. The coup de grace usually involves finding Milo sitting on the end of the bed, waiting for Quinn to settle down so that she can go to sleep.

Some nights it's worked better than others, but it's nice to know the invisible animals can be helpful ...

Setting an Example

Upon occasion, I get quite frustrated with myself and say unkind, self-abusive things. (Self-abusive in the "You idiot" or "I'm a frickin' moron" sense, not the other, clinical sense of self-abuse — I'm sorry, but some readers make such clarification necessary.) Anyway, Celeste was feeling ill this morning and had a bit of a regurgitative moment, so Evelin set her up in her bed for a while to recuperate. To keep tabs on her while downstairs with Quinn, Evelin set up an old baby monitor in Celeste's room.

Flash forward to the evening. Evelin's in Quinn's room getting her to sleep, I'm downstairs (having been dismissed by Quinn) going through some work e-mail and I realize Celeste is coming through loud and clear on the monitor.

She's playing one of the games on her Vtech Kidizoom digital camera. [ASIDE: By the way, that was one of the best present's she's ever gotten ... not only has she had lots of fun with the extra features, like games, she's enjoyed taking pictures, albeit very low resolution ones, and there have been some interesting bits of accidental art.] However, things weren't always going the way she'd've liked and I could hear the occasional complaint of "Oh, that's not right" mixed with lots of "Stupid!"s ... which makes me think I need to be more careful what sort of verbal responses I have to my own missteps.