The girls have been singing for quite some time now, but we haven’t really gotten good videos until just recently. These videos are from the end of last month. Miranda and Eleanor each know “Twinkle, Twinkle”, “A, B, C”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, “Where is Thumbkin?”, “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, “Ring Around the Roses”, and a whole bunch of other songs from different CDs they listen to in the car. Many of these songs have hand motions that go with them. In general, Miranda tends to be more in tune than Eleanor, but she can sometimes trail off. Eleanor sings more loudly. Sometimes they argue about who gets to sing a particular song.

In this first video, Miranda is singing “Twinkle, Twinkle”. She occasionally trails off, and Agnes prompts her to continue. I like that Miranda repeats “Up above the world so high” a second time and then gets distracted. I guess she lost track of where she was in the song.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (2.69MB).]

Eleanor is usually in tune enough for me to recognize what she’s singing, but on this day, I had no idea what she was singing or which hand motions these were. Part of it at the end looks a little like “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, but I don’t think that’s it. Maybe it’s just some song from daycare that I haven’t heard. The video starts out tinted a little blue, but clears up.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (1.77MB).]

One of the things that I’ve found surprising about parenthood is how easy it is to find myself doing things that I know aren’t good ideas. In the last week or two, I’ve found myself on the receiving end of three different Eleanor meltdowns, and in each case it’s pretty clear that I was asking for it. What is strange is that when you’re in the moment, it’s hard to do the right thing.

Agnes already talked about how I turned off the Miffy video on the computer that Eleanor was watching, which made her get upset. I was also trying to keep her from pulling things off of the desk. In retrospect, I probably should have given her something from the desk to hold, let her know that we were going to turn off the video soon, let her watch the next segment, warn her before it was going to end, and then tell her that it’s time to turn it off before turning it off. Instead, I took several things out of her hands, and turned off the video. Screaming ensued.

Another time we had to wash Miranda and Eleanor’s hands. Miranda was first, and she climbed the step stool to wash her hands. We let her run her hands under the water for a minute or two and then I told her that it was Eleanor’s turn, gave her a towel, and said “good job”. Miranda dried her hands, handed it back to me, and stepped down to let Eleanor have her turn. Eleanor also washed her hands, and I said that it was time to turn off the water. She said “no”. I turned off the water, and handed her the towel and she pushed it away. She tried to reach for the faucet. I said “Eleanor–we’re all done washing hands”, and she again said “no”. I lifted her off the step stool and set her down. She tried climbing back up while I put the step stool away. I repeated that we’re all done, and carried her out of the bathroom. She tried to go back inside, so I carried her back out, closed the door, and locked it from the outside. She tried the door and got upset. I left her at the door and she cried and screamed until Agnes came over to distract her. It’s pretty clear that locking Eleanor out of the bathroom wasn’t the best option here.

The third instance came during a morning last week. After she wakes up in the morning, Eleanor has been reluctant to do anything but just sit there and watch Sesame Street. This means that she doesn’t want her diaper changed, and she doesn’t want to change out of her pajamas to get ready for daycare. On this particular day, Agnes and I both needed to get to work a half hour earlier than normal, and Eleanor was refusing to get changed. I ended up pinning her to the changing pad while taking off her pajama bottoms and diaper, wiping her, and then pinning again her to keep her from twisting as I tried to put a new diaper back on. Then there was more manhandling to get her out of her pajamas. At each step, Eleanor fought me. She kept her arms bent so I couldn’t get them out of the sleeves. Then she held onto the bottom of her shirt so I couldn’t pull it up over her head. While getting dressed, she kept pushing the shirt up as I pulled it on, and she kept on trying to take off the pants that I was pulling onto her legs. Twenty minutes later, she was dressed for school, but we had both worked up a sweat. Naturally, Eleanor was crying. My takeaway: manhandling is bad.

This morning she refused to get changed, so we gave her a cup of milk and let her get settled a while before asking her to get on the changing pad to get changed. It was much quieter.

As I said at the beginning, I could have told you that none of these ideas were good ones. Watching TV? Turn it off with no warning. Washing hands too long? Lock her out of the bathroom. Won’t get ready for school? Wrestle her to the ground and forcibly change her clothes. What was I thinking?

Thanks for the email and comment feedback on my tantrum piece. Now that I’m calm, I can start thinking about the areas of improvement when it comes to discipline:

1. Consistency. There’s been a lack of it in our house. I tend to be a little more lenient than Bernard, so of course, they’re going to get mad when he stops them from doing something. For example, I let them wash their hands at the sink for as long as they want–this could mean ten minutes. Bernard gives them a reasonable half a minute or so. I need to set some rules like, I can’t hold both of the kids at the same time, period. Also, both kids have to watch the same DVD.
2. Tantrums are inevitable. I’ve been really afraid of tantrums, so I think I tend to give the kids what they want to avoid the blow-ups. But I think this just leads to more whining and crying since the kids will keep pushing the limits. If I think I’m going to do something that will lead to a tantrum, i.e. bring them inside, then I need to give them adequate warning, and then just do it.
3. Tantrum prevention. I neglected to mention that Eleanor was sick with a viral illness on the day she had the tantrum. I’m sure that made her already short fuse even shorter. Also, she was probably getting hungry too. Definitely, avoiding overtiredness and hunger and sticking to a schedule should help prevent tantrums. I also need to realize there’s a “point of no return”, where the kid almost needs to tantrum to let off steam. Being aware of this “point” will keep me from running around frantically trying to do everything I can to try to please the child.

Hopefully, these ideas will help. The problem is that when these situations actually happen, my rational thinking goes out the window. Anyway, I will update this blog with how the discipline is going.

I started a tantrum log last week because I started feeling like there was an almost daily blow-up from the kids. I also started to dread picking them up from daycare because of the tantrums. I guess I was hoping the log would reveal what I was doing wrong. Well, the log was okay for minor events like “didn’t want to get dressed–had a fit”, but a real tantrum involves an escalating series of events that involves several paragraphs. Doesn’t work for a log.

Here’s what happened yesterday:

I arrived at home at 6pm after picking up the kids from daycare. On the ride home, the kids were pointing out all the stop signs, and when we got home, Eleanor wanted to go look at the stop sign across the street. I decided the three of us would go for a nice walk and look at the stop sign. Well, Eleanor didn’t want to walk, she wanted to be carried. (I think so she would be higher up to get a better view of the stop sign.) So I tried carrying Eleanor and holding Miranda’s hand. When we got to the stop sign, Miranda wanted to be carried too, but I can’t carry them both anymore–I have wrist and shoulder pain–so I tried putting Eleanor down, and picking up Miranda. This, of course, resulted in Eleanor getting upset, so I put Miranda down and picked Eleanor back up. Then, Miranda got upset, so despite searing pain in my arm and back, I grabbed both of them, and started walking home. Eleanor started crying, “Stop sign! Stop sign!” and when we got home, I made the stupid decision of letting Miranda go inside the house, closing the door, and turning around and taking Eleanor back to the stop sign.

Eleanor was happy to be the only child for a little while as the two of us went back to look at the stop sign. After a few moments, we said, “bye bye” to the stop sign and and I started to head back to the house, only to turn around again because Eleanor wanted to go back to the stop sign. The second time we went back to the house, I could hear Miranda crying from behind the door, so despite Eleanor’s crying, I rushed inside the house to make sure Miranda was okay. Miranda was just inside the door, bawling because she thought she had been abandoned. I also noticed that the bathroom faucet was on, and there was water all over the floor. I didn’t even want to think of the horrible burning/drowning that could have happened since I left Miranda in the house alone. I checked Miranda all over to make sure she was okay. She stopped crying and wanted me to read a book to her.

Since I felt extremely guilty towards Miranda, I let her sit in my lap while I read a book to her. Meanwhile, Eleanor was standing next to us screaming, “OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE!” and pointing at the front door. By this time it was 6:20, and I really needed to get dinner started. I decided to put a Richard Scarry DVD on. Miranda sat quietly on the couch waiting for the video to start, but Eleanor started yelling, “MIFFY! MIFFY!” She wanted to watch another DVD. I said, “Okay, we can watch Miffy,” and started to change the DVD, but then Miranda said, “Scawee! Scawee!” She wanted the current DVD. I then grabbed Eleanor and put her in the office while I tried to get the Miffy DVD to play in the office computer. I was having a bit of trouble, when I noticed that Miranda had come in to the office. Suddenly they were both playing with the revolving chairs in the office and I was about to lose it. Then, I heard the front door open, and felt extreme relief because Bernard was home earlier than usual.

I picked up Miranda and brought her to the kitchen, and Bernard promptly turned the Miffy DVD off and stopped Eleanor from playing with everything on the computer desk. She started to go ballistic. I started Miranda with her dinner, then picked up Eleanor to take her outside. When she realized we were going back to the stop sign, she stopped crying. We went back and forth a few times to look at the stop sign, and then I brought a calm Eleanor back to the dinner table. However, a few seconds after I put her in the high chair, she started screaming, “OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE!” again and blew into a full blown tantrum. Now she was bucking in her high chair and throwing food on the ground. Bernard took her out of the high chair and let her tantrum on the rubber mat in the family room. After a few minutes of lying on the floor screaming her head off, she moved into a sitting position and started crying, “Milk, milk!” Bernard gave her a cup of milk, which she drank quietly while sitting on the floor. Note that I had offered her a cup of milk twice before, but she threw the cup away both times.

Reading over what happened, I can’t even begin to figure out how to fix things. I think in some twisted way, I am reinforcing Eleanor’s tantrums, and basically teaching her that if she cries hard enough, she’ll get what she wants. I know that I will never leave one of them alone again. I think I need to think about this some more and see if I can figure out what to do.

We are soliciting guesses as to what creature this stuffed animal is supposed to be.

We received it as a gift last year, but we’ve never been able to figure out what it is. Miranda dug it out of a bag of toys yesterday and asked, “What’s this?” I said I didn’t know, maybe a cow?

“No, no cow,” she said, “Dog!”

“Okay, okay, it’s a dog.”

Well, Bernard and I don’t think it’s a dog, but we don’t know what else it could be. Any guesses?

Miranda and Eleanor like it when we blow bubbles, but recently, they’ve been more interested in learning to do it themselves than having us blow the bubbles. They’re not very good at it, though. Eleanor brings the wand to her mouth, but hasn’t figured out there’s blowing involved. Miranda knows she’s supposed to blow, but doesn’t quite connect the concept with holding the wand close to her mouth.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (1.6MB).]

Miranda’s demonstrating how she blows bubbles. I think that soon after this she accidentally dumped the soap solution into her lap.

Over the fourth of July, we met up with Anna, Shane, Kali, Susan, Jeremy, Sarah, and Maya at the Redondo Seaside Lagoon. The lagoon is heated by a nearby steam-generation plant, and has lots of sand and water to play in.

Neither Miranda nor Eleanor have had swim lessons yet, but they do play with water each week at daycare. Miranda walked right into the water up to her chest. She mostly liked playing with the mud in the shallowest part of the water though. Eleanor may have put her toe in the water, but that was about it. I carried her out over the water to talk with others for a bit, but the whole time Eleanor was holding onto me very tightly.

We’ll probably post more pictures of this trip to the lagoon when we reach the end of the month, but here are a few of them:

This is Miranda playing in the mud with Agnes.

Eleanor was mostly content to play in the sand. She sat by as Jeremy dug a hole for our umbrella.

Maya seemed to be practicing her swimming in the very shallow water with Susan.

Anna is wrapping Kali in a towel after she got out of the water.

Sarah was buried in the sand.

Kali and Shane were sitting on a wall, chatting.

It was nice to see everyone again, and we all went to lunch at the nearby Cheesecake Factory.

We just posted our twenty-three month photos. This month we seem to have fallen behind in writing about things as they happen so there seems to be a lot to catch up on.

Here’s a quick picture from one year ago:

We were in Massachusetts for Sean and Peggy’s wedding and we were visiting Anne, Terry, and Jack. The girls were playing with Jack’s toys.

This month, Eleanor has learned to love the word “no”. She uses it in several ways. When she’s upset, the answer to every question is a very short “no”.

“Do you want some milk?”

“No.”

“Do you want to eat?”

“No.”

She draws out her “no” a little more when she really means it though. When she’s playing, she’ll sometimes use a singsong “no-no-no-no-no-no” to say that she doesn’t want something.

Eleanor has been stringing out longer sets of words and syllables. Sometimes she ends up with sentences that make sense. Often it sounds like “Mommy jegebevede there!” It’s almost like she’s stumbling over the words in the middle.

While Eleanor is still mostly interested in using language to name things, Miranda tries to convey what she wants. Sometimes we can understand her, sometimes not. One we still haven’t decoded sounds like “dju?”. She hasn’t figured out how to come up with multiple words that mean the same thing when we don’t understand her. She’ll say the same thing over and over and when we don’t understand, she gets frustrated.

Miranda has been doing a lot more naming of what belongs to whom. She’ll say “daddy shoes” or “mommy pants”. Apparently, all khaki pants are “mommy pants”. She also likes naming big and small items as “daddy turtle” and “baby turtle”. Sometimes it’s “mommy” instead, and we haven’t figured out how she assigns gender to these things.

Miranda knows what hot and cold food is now, and she knows to be more cautious when we give her something that is hot. She’ll also say when something is wet (like her shirt after a failed attempt to drink from an open cup).

Both Eleanor and Miranda know how to recognize an E or an M on something to identify it as theirs. They’ll pick out the E in Eleanor or M in Miranda in their otherwise identical juice cups. When Eleanor wants her cup but she currently only sees Miranda’s, she’ll say “E– Eleanor”.

Eleanor has been eating a little better this month. She seems to understand that we want her to eat certain things, which she’ll do reluctantly. If she’s being sufficiently entertained, she’s more willing to eat what’s in front of her. It takes quite a bit of energy to get her to eat dinner still.

Bath time has become harder with Eleanor. She wants only me to give her a bath, and she seems scared of getting her hair rinsed. It’s only through a combination of being assertive with her (to get her into the bath) and soothing (when rinsing) that we get through a bath without an upset Eleanor. Agnes does still give her baths, but she’s definitely more uneasy about it.

We’ve had two diaper incidents with Eleanor this month. The first was due to Eleanor not wanting Agnes to give her a bath, even though she was already naked. I came home from work to find Eleanor completely naked in the living room while Agnes gave Miranda a bath first. Unfortunately, she really needed her diaper during that time. About a week later, Eleanor had another incident where she took off her pants and her diaper during her naptime and proceeded to poop in bed. That took some cleaning.

Miranda’s been more opinionated about her clothes. She likes certain shirts, pants, and socks, and if you’ll let her, she’ll pick out what she wants to wear for the day. This rarely matches–she likes to wear one red and one green sock. She likes a lot of colors and patterns. Sometimes we let her get her way. Sometimes we make her choose from reasonable options. Sometimes she just wears what we want her to wear.

That’s it for this month. In another month, the girls will turn two. We’ve updated their wishlist with some ideas we have for their birthday.

Last Thanksgiving we went to Atlanta and visited the Georgia Aquarium. One of the souvenirs from that trip was a magnet of a turtle.

Eleanor has been taking this turtle magnet to bed with her ever since.

One day this past month, we couldn’t find the turtle. The girls have been throwing things out of their cribs recently, so it’s not unusual to find things on the floor when we get them in the morning or after their naps. We didn’t see the turtle on the floor. We looked under the cribs. We looked under the sheets of the crib mattress (where we once found the turtle inexplicably jammed). We looked in the drawer under the crib, in case it had slipped into the drawer somehow. We looked under the dresser. It was gone. We were in trouble.

Albert had previously visited the Georgia Aquarium again to see if he could buy us a spare turtle, but they were sold out. He did find out that the magnets sold at the Aquarium are made by Clay Critters. We found the turtle in their extended catalog (Sea Turtle MJ0026) and placed an order for two replacements. In the meantime, we appeased Eleanor with her previous transitional object, a blue star from the shape sorter toy. She looked at the star curiously, and seemed tentatively satisfied.

Fortunately, we found the turtle the next day. It was under the dresser, but in the very back, near one of the legs. I can only imagine that Eleanor threw it across the room, where it landed on the floor, slid under the dresser, and ended up in the back.

The new turtles arrived a few days later. Their coloring is a little bit different, and they lack the “Georgia Aquarium” text. The original turtle also differs from these new ones in that the magnet has come unglued. We may try to swap the Georgia Aquarium turtle for one of these newer ones since we have a spare, but we haven’t gotten around to doing that yet.

Oops. I meant to include this picture in the last entry but forgot. Eleanor was playing with the blocks while Thomas the Tank Engine was on TV. We don’t often watch this show, but Eleanor does like trains. Agnes suddenly noticed that Eleanor was making train noises with the train she had made out of blocks. Soon after this, we went out and bought the girls two toy trains to play with.