Intimations of Maturity

Grace to Jazz: I know you want very much to do that, but it will make Poppy sad, so you just can’t, understand?”

Her tone of voice is gently encouraging, but firm. I hear her mother — and myself — in her small voice.

But really? Is that not SO IMPRESSIVE?? I’m impressed. (Also, aaawwww, the sweetness.)

Honesty compels me to note, mind you, that she is less adept at making this distinction when the sad-making thing is something she wants to do…

But it’s progress, and I am proud.

🙂

The moral of the story

Grace springs through the front door.

“I have Princess Shoes!!!”

We look down. Bright silver, covered with sequins. Those are some fancy shoes, all right. Wooo-eee. The other children make all appropriate noises of wonderment. Grace prances about, delighted.

Emma and I are less so. We had a long-ish walk planned for the tots. Emma checked Grace’s bag for the sports sandals that her sensible parents usually send along on the days Grace demands frivolous footwear. None. Not a sensible shoe in sight. Hm.

“They are my Princess Shoes!” Grace declares again, so very proud. We agree that yes, those sure do look like princess shoes! And wow, are they pretty! And sparkly!!

“The problem is,” I say, easing her off her peak as gently as possible, “that princess shoes are not always very comfortable to walk in, not for a long walk.”

We consider her feet.

“I can walk!!!” Grace, supremely confident. Grace, of course, has no idea. In her four-year-old mind, her Princess Shoes make her happy, so her shoes will be fine, just FINE! Mind over matter!

The question is, will those shoes still be making her happy after 3 km? Pfft. Showing appalling lack of faith, I, unlike Grace, am quite confident those shoes will be contributing to acute misery within a kilometre and a half. I note to Emma that we can always take them off and let her go barefoot if they start creating problems. Grace resists this notion.

“No, I can wear these! They are my Princess Shoes!!” Her lip starts to quiver.

Emma kneels down in front of Grace. “They sure are. That’s sort of the problem. Princess Shoes don’t act like real shoes, you know. Remember Cinderella? As soon as she started running away from the ball, what happened?”

Grace pauses, then her eyes widen.

“One falled off!”

“Exactly! Princess Shoes are like that. They’re very good at looking pretty, but not so good at acting like real shoes. So. As long as your Princess Shoes act like real shoes, you can wear them. But if they start acting like Princess Shoes, we’ll just put them in your bag and you can go barefoot.”

Grace nods.

“Okay!”

Emma? Is a genius.

And Grace? Walked home barefoot.

😀

Vanity, Self-esteem, Tactlessness and more Self-esteem

I hear a roar of Righteous Indignation from Jazz.

“Grace! That is not a very nice word to say!!!”

Then pounding footsteps. Jazz thunders into the dining room, where Poppy and I are colouring. Jazz has been into the dress-up basket. She’s draped in two deep purple satin capes, tied at the middle to make a ‘dress’, with a shiny gold scarf wrapped around her above that, a bodice. It is her Princess Dress, of course.

Obviously, she did not get into this rig by herself. I’d helped tie the capes and wrap the scarf some while earlier, at her careful direction. Since then she has been alternatively gazing at herself in the mirror rapturously and wandering about the house rhapsodizing, “I am such a beautiful, beautiful girl!!”

Me, I am of two minds about this sort of thing. A basic part of me wants to repeat my grandmother’s words at her: “Beauty is only skin-deep, kiddo”, and expound upon the more important inner beauties to which we should aspire. But at the same time, I am aware that this is simply an unsophisticated version of self-esteem. It’s crude, it focusses on the wrong thing, perhaps — certainly the lesser thing — but she’s only four. She’s not denigrating anyone else, she’s not being rude or superior. She’s just feeling beautiful.

And really. Wrapped in a purple-and-gold Princess Dress who wouldn’t feel beautiful??

Which is why, even though I’m finding it pretty over-the-top, I let her keep on with it. Little ones are unsophisticated. This isn’t conceitedness, quite. I’m not entirely comfortable with it, though. A half-step in that direction, and she’ll be way over the line. Still, I’ve let her admire herself senseless for the past 20 minutes.

Apparently her own adulation was insufficient, because after a time of happy self-admiration, she sought some from her peers. She presents herself to them, whirling in her princess glory.

“Don’t you love my princess dress?”

They look up from the puzzle they’re doing on the floor.

I confess to a certain amount of wry gratification when, obviously far more interested in whether the piece with the blue bit goes with the piece with the yellow bit, they look up briefly. Grace is the one who speaks. Glancing quickly at Jazz, she says with minimal interest, “No, I don’t.” Then returns to her puzzle.

Ouch.

The score so far:
Tact: 0
Honesty: 1
Vanity: swift kick in the butt

Hence the Roar of Indignation, and the thundering to Mary for Justice! and Retribution!

“Mary, Grace said she didn’t like my dress!!!”

My tone of voice is emotionally neutral. Calm and matter-of-fact. “Well, maybe she didn’t. She’s allowed to say so, if she doesn’t.” (Because, my precious princess, you did ask.)

Jazz huffs in still more indignation.

“My mommy and daddy say you can’t say ‘no’!!”

Now, I don’t believe that for a minute, certainly not in the sense Jazz is using it. Jazz is simply using the age-old strategy of citing other authority figures in her life to try to get the world to cooperate with their whims and desires. (Of course Jazz cites me similarly when she’s at home. You would be astonished at what Mary thinks is A-OKAY!!!) It’s a red herring, and I know it.

“You know, sweetie, it really depends on why you’re saying ‘no’. If Grace said no because she’s feeling grumpy and just wants to be mean, that’s not okay. But if she really just doesn’t like that dress, she’s allowed to tell you so, especially if you ask.”

Jazz is not pleased with this dictum. “She was being mean! She said no!”

“No, I don’t think so. I was watching. Grace wasn’t making a mean face or using an angry voice. She just doesn’t like your dress, sweetie. Different people like different things. That’s okay.” Now, I may choose to address the whole concept of ‘tact’ with Grace later. Or I may not. For now, that’s not of great concern, and I’m certainly not going to reinforce Jazz’s idea that people MUST say what she prefers to hear.

“I want her to like my dress!”

“I understand that. However, it seems she doesn’t like it. That’s just what it is. Different people like different things. That’s okay. The important thing is, Do YOU like the dress?”

“Yes! It is beautiful!”

“Well, that’s what matters then. Grace doesn’t have to like it, so long as you do. So you can say to Grace, ‘You don’t like my dress? That’s okay! I do!’ ”

Heavy stuff, for four years old. Complicated, and Jazz is obviously dissatisfied with my pronouncement, my refusal to DEMAND that Grace stroke her ego.

It’s pretty tough for some adults, come to that. You know what it is, don’t you? It’s self-esteem. Real self-esteem, the type based on what’s on your inside, not your outside. Self-esteem grounded in your confidence in yourself, your worth, your decisions, not based on other people’s opinions and reactions.

I’m raising the bar for Jazz. She doesn’t get it yet, but hopefully, if everyone works at this for the next ten years, she’ll have it when she’s a teen.

When she’ll really, really need it.

Changing Dynamic: the prequel

Today will be the first day without Jazz.

Jazz is having her family summer vacation now, and from there will be heading off to Big Girl School. Jazz has graduated Mary’s. No, I do not do a cap-and-gown ‘graduation’. You get one of those when you graduate university. As in “have done something to merit the ceremony”. A ‘graduation’ that requires nothing more than reaching legal school age? Not even to have stopped picking your nose and eating it? Pfft.

Now, she got a trip to the local gelato store, and had an ENTIRE small serving of chocolate ALL TO HERSELF. (The small servings are quite large enough that two kids can share, and so they do. Always.) An ENTIRE cup of gelato, and to NOT SHARE?!? Is a Big Deal. Specially when the other kids still did have to share. “This is Jazz’s last day, so she gets a very special treat.” (Which was accepted with nary a blink. They’re such good well-socialized sweet well-trained all of the above little kids.)

So there was that.

And she got a big card that all the children had decorated. And t-shirt that we all made together. And, best of all!!!! (at least as far as Jazz was concerned) a mermaid doll. OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG! MERMAID! DOLL!!!! (To say it was ‘a hit’ rather understates the case. Hee. Go, Mary!)

So, it’s not as if her departure had gone un-feted. But cap and gown? Puh-heeze. No.

Off she goes, then. Some quality family time ahead, and then the big, broader world of Junior Kindergarten. Where I have no doubt she will thrive. A fish to water. All that.

And meantime, back here?

Well, though I will miss her endearing giggle and impish sense of humour, her funny turns of phrases and her mothering of wee Rosie …

I will not miss the petulance. The tattling. The constant jockeying for top dog position. The whining. The insta-tears. The flouncing. The righteous indignation. Many of those are pretty common to four-year-olds, of course, but all of hers were exacerbated by her state of near-constant sleep deprivation. She’s four on steroids, that one.

Grace is with me for another couple of weeks, before she heads off to her own Big Girl School. Without another four-year-old to bounce off and react to, and, in particular, a four-year-old dedicated to the pursuit of being the first, the best, the strongest, the prettiest … I predict Grace drift away from certain contentious patterns and will happily settle into her more-natural state of easy-going placidity. I predict this will happen pretty much instantaneously.

Except for the whining, mind you. Grace does have a tendency to whinge. But she does not have a tendency to push to the forefront, to trample others to achieve superior status. Not at all. So I predict a lovely, lovely summer wherein I do not hear “Why does SHE get to…”, not even once.

Aaaahhh.

What of the others? Poppy and Grace will continue to mother Rosie. Rosie will, for a short while at least, continue to allow it. Soon enough her two-ness will have reached the point where she will resist such importunity, but for now, it’s all good. Poppy and Grace will play as they do when alone together: calmly, cooperative, and with a constant, never-ending, ceaseless stream of happy chatter (90% Poppy’s).

Daniel? A bit of a wild card. He hasn’t been around much this summer, it being the final couple of months of mom’s maternity leave. The two 4-year-olds tended to resist and exclude him. With a certain amount of just cause, mind you: the boy is loud, very physical, and blundersome, but there was an edge of social cruelty to it I didn’t like to it. They weren’t objecting to just his behaviour: “Don’t push me!!”, but his person, “You go away. We’re not playing with YOU.”

Ick.

Without the four-year-olds, will Poppy pick up that torch? I’m hoping not. She’s more physical, for one, and finds Daniel’s physicality less troublesome. She’s also more cheerfully social. She’s also not four. Without the fours to lead the way, and in particular, Jazz, I’m hoping she will — or can at least be taught — to engage with Daniel in a way that’s satisfactory to both of them. And of course we’ll be steadily teaching Daniel to not bang, bump, blunder into, blunder through and otherwise manhandle his peers.

(Good luck with that, I sez to myself. Nonethess, ‘gently, gently’ is going to be a prime interaction with that boy for the foreseeable future, I’m quite sure.)

So.

Those are some predictions and some concerns. Some will manifest immediately, some over time. I’m sure there’ll be surprises.

I’m looking forward to it!

Another passage

So, when I return to work from my two weeks off in August, Grace and Jazz will have gone on to kindergarten. I am often asked if that bother me, the departure of a child. Surely I get attached. Are there tears and heart-wrenching goodbyes?

Will I be sad when they leave?

It’s true, I get attached. Of course I do. I couldn’t do the job well without that! Still, I enter into this knowing my tenure with them is of a specific duration. Only once in a while do I get so very attached to a child I’d happily adopt them. Even then, so long as I’m confident they have a loving parents, I can relax in the knowledge that the child will be happy and thriving without me, and I can wave goodbye with nary a tear. A small lump in my throat, perhaps, but no more.

I never have been one for riotous displays of emotion. Not that I don’t feel things deeply, but I’m not much of a weep-er and a wail-er.

Yes, there are changes afoot, but over the years I’ve noticed I have a minority attitude to change. I don’t resist change on principle, as so many seem to do, mindlessly. “If it’s new, it’s bad!” is the mantra. I’ve never felt that way. I don’t just endure change because I must, I actively enjoy it. When I have to let go of one thing to make room for a new, the appeal of the new thing is enough of a positive that the letting-go is (virtually always) done without overwhelming anxiety/regret/pain. Change is refreshing, energizing, exciting.

(Do I like change for change’s sake? Do I think all change is good? No. I’m quite content to let things chug along in established and traditional ways, so long as they’re functioning well. But when change is inevitable, or necessary, I can and generally do embrace it. With enthusiasm.)

Add to that, that I’m an optimist. I see the positive in pretty nearly every situation.

So this situation, where two long-term children are off to new things?

Yes, they will be gone. Yes, I’ll have days without Jazz’s effervescence and Grace’s kindliness. I won’t see them learn to read and write; I won’t be there when they master the ‘pedal bikes’ they’re working on these days.

But! I’m happy that they have new experiences awaiting them at their respective new schools, each well-suited to the child in question. I’m happy that they have received some solid social grounding here. I can see their strengths: Jazz will dive into the social, and probably be a leader in three weeks. (And I will hope her teachers can manage her queen bee/diva tendencies.) Grace will please her teachers enormously with her conscientious approach to tasks and her intelligence. (And I will hope they’re not too exasperated by her spacey-ness, her tendency to be a beat or two behind a group.)

In the meantime, I’m quite unapologetically happy to be sending the four-year-olds off to school. Because they’re four. They are Rules People. Will I miss the contentious, pointless, reflexive competition and the tattling? Not for a second! Oh, to be free of it!!! … For a year or so, that is, until Poppy turns four.

I am curious to see how Poppy will develop, now that she’ll be The Biggest Kid at Mary’s. I foresee lots of kindly mothering of Rosie … who will put up with it for maybe another three months before the burgeoning two-year-old in her will resist and rebuff such attempts at Control and Dominance. (Because that’s how she’ll see it, I bet, when she gets to be a full-fledged Two.)

I am eager to take on Daniel’s little sister, and to see Daniel for more than the occasional visit he’s had this summer, the final two months of his mum’s maternity leave.

So, I bid the two big girls a fond good-bye, and look forward to a new dynamic in the fall. A fresh start, it feels like. A fresh start … of the same, happy, comfortable thing.

I’d call that a win-win.

Romp!

Want to give the kids a Fun New Exploratory Experience?

Just move the furniture. It really only takes one piece. Take one piece of furniture, put it someplace unexpected. A chair to the middle of the room. Upend a small table. Line the dining chairs down one wall of the room. Do one small thing. I like to do it when the kids aren’t watching, then watch them as they discover it.

Because they will, you know. They’ll be drawn to it like flies to honey.

Here, I shifted bench, that wooden, wavy one. Moved it 90 degrees and nudged it up against the under-the-window bench. Took less than two seconds.And suddenly, it wasn’t a bench any more, it was a Climbing Structure! Much noisy, clambering, jumping, crawling, scrambling, follow-the-leadering fun was had, for at least half an hour.

I watched, monitored, and enjoyed a cup of tea. Can’t say as it was a peaceful cup of tea, but it was hot, right down to the bottom! Which is not something you can take for granted, in this biz!

No-Snacking Check-in

A few of you have asked how it’s going since we quit morning snacking in the daycare.

In a word: Terrific!

There was an adjustment period for Rosie, at 17 months the smallest both in age and physically. Promptly at 10, our former snack-time, she would run to her high chair and bang on it. When that got no response, she’d wallop the fridge. (Not a lot of words for our Rosie just yet, but she communicates just fine, thanks!)

Was this genuine hunger, though, or just habit? Even if it was hunger, was it mild, so she could wait till lunch, or severe enough that I should feed her? I wasn’t sure how the non-snacking would go with the under-twos, after all. I was willing to bend on this one for them.

Yes, this would mean different expectations for different groups of toddlers, but we already have that, don’t we? The Big Kids use the toilet upstairs. The Middles use the potty in the living room. The Babies are in diapers. Big Kids don’t have to hold on to the stroller when we walk, Middles do, and Babies ride. Big Kids put on their own snowsuits; Middles need more help, and I put the Babies snowsuits on them. There are lots and lots of these types of distinctions in a day. I wasn’t worried about perceived injustice. Which is not to say a three-year-old might not see injustice, of course, but I was quite prepared to defend the difference in just those terms: “She’s a baby. You’re big.” And, secure in my role at The Boss At Mary’s House, I didn’t worry about a whole lot of back talk, and tantrums? Don’t happen here. (Well, with very, very rare exceptions.)

Still, I wanted to know if this was just habit. My compromise was to give her one of her sippy cups of milk at the prior snack-time. Rosie is quite the milk baby. Left to her own devices, I’m sure that her diet would still be 90% milk. (The remainder being comprised of crackers and pasta, natch.) Her parents and I have talked about her minimal ingestion of solid foods, but they were not quite ready yet to reduce her milk intake. So. Milk at 10:00, and water with lunch at 11:30.

It worked like a charm. She’d suck that milk back in two minutes, and then be on to the next thing. The added bonus? With milk separated from meal by an hour and a half, and only water in her sippy cup, she was eating more.

On the second week, she had stopped asking for milk. (How does mostly non-verbal Rosie ‘ask’ for milk? She runs over to her backpack, hanging from its hook in my front hall, and pounds the wall beneath it, yelling “MUH! MUH!” Crude, but effective.) No more running and pounding and yelling. Just play.

What to do about that milk? I now give it to her after lunch, during the snuggle-and-story time that precedes nap. Perfect! Added bonus: she doesn’t always finish her milk. This has been the nudge she’s needed to make the mental transition to viewing solids are her ‘real’ food.

Grace, who has been going through a major growth spurt (2 cm between Christmas and Jan 25), was also asking with more than normal intensity after snacks. She, however, being three and a half, could understand my explanation. She’d have a drink (of water) at ten, and then a good, solid lunch. Either she’s accustomed to the new pattern, or the growth spurt has tapered off — likely both — but after three weeks she was no longer mooching for food mid-morning, either.

I know I had parental buy-in from her parents, even with the growth spurt factored in, because when I explained it, mom’s response was, “Great! She’ll be nice and hungry for dinner!” Which got me thinking: “nice and hungry” is an expression I heard routinely from my parents, and from the parents of my friends, when I was a child. But it seems to me that these days, you don’t hear that very much at all. Instead, you see parents scrambling for the crackers. Hmmm…

Another bit of parental feed-back came in last week. I thought I’d told all the parents of the change in eating patterns, but it seemed one had missed it. (Probably I told dad in the morning, and he forgot to relay it to mom.)

Mom asks me at the door: “How’s Jazz’s eating here? Because she’s eating WAY more at home, and with WAY less fuss.”

HA! An unaware subject validates the experiment! Or at least, confirms that the results extend beyond my home. Woo!

So I explain the new no-morning-snack regime, and mom is very impressed. “Excellent! We are absolutely going to do that at home!”

It’s been four weeks now, and I declare the experiment a success. It is no longer an experiment, it is simply How It Is. Children in my home will get a three-course lunch, and then a light, healthy, sit-down late-afternoon snack. That’s it, that’s all.

Love it.

It is Friday, after all

A wail from the kitchen. A very dramatic, full of pathos wail. A wail of utmost tragedy.

It’s Jazz, of course.

“Grace ate my cake, and it was for AZERT!!!”

I look at the toddler table. On it I see a drift of cotton balls and a sparkly plastic star.

“Where is the cake, Jazz? I don’t see a cake.” (Before you all hurt yourselves rolling your eyeballs at me, I know it’s a pretend cake. I have a plan.)

“It’s right here!” Jazz lovingly taps a piece of empty air about a centimetre above the table top.

“It is? I don’t see it!” I affect great puzzlement. I get down on my knees, tip my head at a dramatic angle and peer intently into the space. “Where is the caaaaake?”

Jazz giggles. “You’re silly, Mary. It’s a pretend cake!”

AHA!!! My plot is working!!! a) She’s slipped off her high dudgeon, and b) she’s admitted it’s imaginary. I let the puzzlement leave my face, and burst into a beaming smile of comprehension.

“Oh! It’s a pretend cake! Well, if it’s a pretend cake, it can be anything you want! So you can pretend it’s still there, for dessert, and Grace can pretend she’s eating it, and IT DOESN’T MATTER!” Because, while yes, it would be nice if they were playing a cooperative game, and I could guide Grace into playing along with Jazz’s game, this little dynamic happens far too often. Jazz, you see, is Queen of Making Rules, but not so good at following them. She’ll set up a game for other people to play, but go with the flow? follow someone else’s play thread?

She! Thinks! NOT!

So I’m playing with her world view, just a bit. Indirectly, in a way deliberately intended to bemuse. Because it’s Friday, and I feel like being a little radical. Mwah-ha.

Jazz’s face grows cloudy again. Grace can have a different idea about the game??? Clearly, I am not with the program.

Ignoring the threatened return of High Dudgeon, I proceed, cheerfully oblivious. “Grace can eat it, and you can still have it! In pretend you really can have your cake and eat it, too, Jazz!” (Yes, way over her head. I am entertaining myself here.) I grin at her. “Grace can pretend it’s green, and you can pretend it’s red, and you’ll BOTH BE RIGHT! Isn’t that cool? Grace can have one pretend, and you can have another pretend, and they’re both right! That’s the fun thing about pretend!”

Jazz is slowly coming around. She’s not convinced, but she’s not complaining any more. I proceed, like the kid on Mulberry Street, snowballing this thing for my own (and, increasingly, Jazz’s) amusement.

“Grace could pretend a chocolate cake, and you could pretend a strawberry cake! And you’d BOTH BE RIGHT!”

“Grace could pretend to have cake for dinner, and you can pretend to have cake for dessert and … ” I pause.

“We’d BOTH BE RIGHT!!!” Grace gets it, at any rate.

“Grace could pretend take her cake right away, and your pretend cake would still be there!”

Jazz is reluctant to give up her dudgeon, but I don’t really care. I’m not coaxing her, I’m playing with the idea.

“Grace could set that silly cake on fire and PEE on it, and it would still be a good pretend cake for YOU!”

Well, now. Fast forward ten minutes. Four toddlers, Grace, Jazz, Daniel and Poppy, thunder from one end of the house to the other, all joined in THE VERY SAME PRETEND!

It goes like this:

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

“Pee! Pee! Pee!”

Shrieks of hyterical laughter pound their way into the kitchen.

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

“Pee! Pee! Pee!”

Shrieks of hyterical laughter pound their way into the living room.

“Fire! Fire! FIRE!”

“PEE! PEE! PEE!”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
“Fire! Fire! FIRE!”

“PEE! PEE! PEE!”
SHRIEK! Gigglegigglegigglegigglegiggle!!!
“Fire! Fire! FIRE!”

“PEE! PEE! PEE!”

And me?

I laugh. Because, hell, I started it.
And they? Are too damned cute.

It was a moist day at Mary’s

Baby Josh reels by. He’s still not walking anything like steadily, that boy. The girls knock him over just by passing too quickly. They don’t even have to pass close, just whip by fast on the other side of the room. Maybe it has more to do with him looking one way — at the racing children — while attempting to continue in a different direction. Or maybe it’s just vagrant thoughts, neurons colliding in his wee head, which are knocking him over. The boy is unsteady, I’m saying.

He’s also, at this moment, foul. There’s a thick green cloud of toxic sludge wafting from his butt end, I’m sure. So nasty in the air you can practically taste it. Gah.

When I lay him down on the floor — all diaper changes happen on my hardwood floor, easy to access, easy to clean — I discover the foulness has escaped the confines of the diaper. Out the legs, up the back pretty much to his armpits. It’s gross, and it’s everywhere. Really, he needs a bath, but that’s very hard to do with four other children toodling around.

(And if you think I could just bring us all up to the bathroom, you have not been around long enough to have heard me note how very small my home is. There is not room, and I do mean that quite literally — there is not sufficient floor space in my bathroom — for four toddlers and an adult.)

So, no bath for Josh. Just diaper wipes. Lots and lots and lots of diaper wipes. Well over a dozen. Five for the butt. Three for the stomach. Six for the back. Oh! One for his left armpit. So charming. They just keep piling up on top of the diaper that lies on the floor beside me, off-gassing toxic fumes into my home.

If you’ve been around for long enough, you also know that Grace and Jazz are poo-vultures. The are drawn to the stuff, in an utterly morbid (and revolting) way. Usually I shoo them away before I begin with a poopy diaper, but for some reason, this time I didn’t. So there they are, peering in and chatting about it between themselves.

“Josh has a big poo!”
“Does Josh have a big poo, Mary?” (This, I ignore.)
“Look! He has poo in his bellybutton!”
“Oh, no! He stuck his foot in the poo, and now his sock gots poo on it!”

Yes, indeed. Rivetting stuff, poo. The fascination never ends. In fact, the fascination of Josh’s shit-smeared body became so engrossing for Grace that she managed to sit in the growing pile of excremented diaper wipes on top of the poo-filled diaper.

“GRACE! Don’t move!” Because there’s nothing I can do about it right now, is there? I have Toxic Boy in front of me, and if I let go, he will immediately make his speedy and shit-strewing way across my home. Immediately.

Grace, however, is capable of sitting stock-still for a couple of minutes. Bless her heart. Not so blessed is the smear of poo on the side of her tights. Urgh.

Josh de-toxified, I turn my attention to Grace. We peel the tights off, thankfully the only item of clothing befouled, and as I lift them away, she pauses, her face twitches, and she sneezes. Directly onto my shirt. A fully loaded sneeze. Yellow snot adorns the black wool.

Charming.

And if I’d had time to write this post yesterday, that would be where it ended. You’d think that was enough, no? Poo in glorious abundance, with a chaser of snot? I’d say that was enough.

The Fates disagreed.

Later that same day:

Baby Josh discovers the potty. (Poppy is being potty-trained; more on that another day.) There is not much in the potty. With two dogs, three toddlers and couple of 14-month-old babies in the house, I’m careful about these things. But the last pee has not been dispensed with yet.

The last pee was, thank GOODNESS, a small one. (Most of them are. Poppy very quickly registered that if you dispense your pee in many small increments, you get MORE SMARTIES!!!) THANK GOODNESS, I say, because Josh has not only discovered the potty, which he has never really noticed before, but he discovered that “HEY! This inside part LIFTS RIGHT OUT!” Whee!

So he whips out the pee-laced bowl and waves it about a bit. With predictable results. Waves it and, because he’s sitting right there, his kicking feet smear the small puddle around a bit. It is my sudden dart across the room that catches Jazz’s attention, and I’m sure that’s why she had to run in the same direction. Only, starting from a different angle, and a little closer, she got there first.

And soaked one foot of her tights. Happily, Jazz does not have a cold. So I managed to change her without getting further besmirched.

Pee, poo, and snot. All over bodies, all over clothing, all over my living room floor. Guess I should be grateful no one added vomit to the day, huh?

There are no secrets

Three-year-olds are fascinated by genitalia.

What they have, what the other guy has. It comes up in conversation, casual conversation, all the time. I don’t get flustered, I just deal in facts. Well, facts and appropriate social boundaries. Truth be known, I actively enjoy these conversations. They’re funny and sweet, charming and utterly innocent.

The cutesy-prudery that is endemic in our society irritates the ever-loving crap out of me. We cringe at the thought of having “The Talk” with our kids. We wince when they mention their genitalia. We moan together about how embarrassed we are about our children’s perfectly normal (and perfectly innocent) curiosity about their own bodies.

“Oooooo!” some mommy-blogger writes, “My little boy asked how long it takes to make a baby!” (The child, elementary school age, I gather, had enough of the facts that he wasn’t asking about gestation, you understand. He wanted to know how long The Act took.) This mother dedicated a thousand words (some of them, I admit, kind of funny) to describing how she didn’t answer her son’s honest question, but did manage to convey a whole lot of embarrassment, unease, and shame.

Oooooh, lovely.

Or the daddy-blogger who waxed lyrical (and, yes, he was funny, too) about how HIS precious angel is not going to be allowed to have a boyfriend until she’s 30, and that all prospective suitors will have to run the gauntlet of his protective manliness to achieve their virgin princess in a tower.

Irritates the SHIT out of me, people.

Because God forbid we produce children who grow up into ADULTS. Adults who have the information, attitudes and resources to have, among other things, a healthy adult sex life. They don’t get there because we had one squirming, cringing, stilted conversation, aka “The Talk”, or, worse, just had a leaflet thrown at them when they were thirteen or so.

Do we want kids who have confidence and self-respect? Teens who will see us as trustworthy resources, and come to us with questions and concerns? Adults who choose loving and nurturing partners? Then get over yourself and talk. to. your. kids. Talk sanely, calmly, sensibly, respectfully. Your children is much more likely to achieve healthy sexuality when their parents answer straight questions with age-appropriate information. When their parents are relaxed and matter-of-fact about this topic.

Our children stand a far better chance of getting to be healthy adults with healthy sexuality if we act like adults ourselves, instead of sniggering 9-year-old boys or simpering 9-year-old girls. Grow up, people!

So when the topic of genitalia comes up here, and it does, routinely, we use medically accurate terms. No “pee-pees” in this house. “Down there” means “on the floor”, not a body part.

Boys have a penis and testicles. Girls have a vulva and a vagina. Those are the words we use. We use them quite a bit these days, because there are two three-year-olds in the house.

Jazz and Grace stand over Josh, who is being changed.
“He has a penis,” Grace observes.
“Yes, and tessacles,” Jazz adds. They nod, sagely pleased with their observations.

When Poppy is being changed,
“Her vulva gots poo on it.”
“Yes, Jazz, it does. I’m cleaning it now.”
“And you gots to be careful and not get poo in her vagina,” Grace adds.
“Smart girl! You’re absolutely right. I have to make sure her vagina stays clean.”

See how easy it is?

I have done my best to put this exciting vocabulary in the appropriate social context. These are private areas of the body, and so we don’t talk about them just anywhere. I’ve explained that it’s okay to talk about these things with me and with mummy and daddy, but not just anyone.

This morning I had some wiring replaced in my basement. The electrician is also a friend, so he stopped to chat with the tots. Being a sensible man, he admired Grace’s dress.

“Yes, I have a pretty dress, and Mary has a skirt!”

“So she does,” he nods.

“Mary has a skirt and she has a shirt and she has a sweater and she has tights and she has unnerwears, and”

Uh-oh. “Unnerwears” was already too much information, and my electrician friend is snorting into his beard. He thinks that’s the punch line. He thinks the joke is over, but I know better. I can see the trajectory here, and it’s not heading in a G-rated direction. I don’t interject quickly enough, however.

“… unnerwears and she has a VULVA!” Grace stops, pleased to have gotten the Topic of the Month into conversation.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Only a three-year-old could put you in the position of encouraging your electrician to consider your nether regions. (Is it better or worse that he’s a friend, I wonder?) So much for “private things talked about in private”, huh? Except, from the perspective of a three-year-old, we’re IN THE HOUSE, and he IS A FRIEND, so we’re discussing private things in private, amongst friends. What could possibly be wrong with that??

What’s a little genital consideration amongst friends, anyway? We do it ALL THE TIME around here!! Hee.

Thankfully, my friend the electrician is, like me, a grown-up about these matters. He also has children of his own (children old enough to be producing grandchildren, but still, children). He’s been here. He barely blinks. Well, unless you count the wink he threw my way.

“Medically accurate, huh? Good job!” He raises two thumbs as he heads out the front door.

Me and my vulva, we go make lunch for the children.