====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ======================= and ====================== ======================== TWINKIE TRIBUNE ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather and Twinkie'' 2 April 1999 Vol. 6, No. 1 Joint Editors-in-Chief: Heather & Caroline Contributing Editors: John & Marie Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan -- A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR I can't believe that only one issue was published in PP&TT vol. 5 -- how embarrassing! Now it's vol. 6, because Heather turned five today! (Unfairly to little-sister Caroline, PP&TT volumes are numbered A.H. (Anno Heatheris).) Caroline's getting to be a big girl, too, though -- today she's "two and a q-Warter," as she'll proudly tell you. -- HEATHER UPDATE Heather won't be going to kindergarten until September, of course, but she's more than ready: she can count, add, draw amazingly intricate pictures, invent really creative art projects (she can cut a shape out along the lines better than most adults), talk practically like an adult, and read fairly advanced books (see BIG-GIRL LANGUAGE). She's really an exceptional child, not that I'm biased in any way: she's very musical, agile, graceful, dramatic, creative, and intelligent. She truly loves music, especially the opera (Grandma Mary bought her tickets to see the San Francisco Opera perform La Boheme next January, and she's already eagerly looking forward to it). She's also very social, gets along well with her peers, and manages social interactions very well. After a lot of conflicts last year about "I wanted to be Sleeping Beauty, but Risako said I had to be the wicked queen!" she's now able to negotiate with other kids, and is more willing to play what other kids want to play some of the time (as teacher Lena pointed out at our recent parent-teacher conference, that's a sign of real maturity for this age group). Although she can be really social and outgoing, she can also be very shy and slow to warm up in new situations. She particularly has a hard time with taking classes -- we've tried gymnastics, swimming, dance, and skiing. While she sometimes enjoyed them, she often would simply refuse to participate and get quite upset if we tried too hard to encourage her. She does want to learn new things, but only with somebody she knows really well (like one of us). We've just backed off for now -- I'd rather have her not take any classes than either be pushed too hard, or develop a habit of sitting on the sidelines instead of participating. Right now we're "taking a break" from dance class. We're thinking of trying private swim lessons this summer, since we really would like her to learn how to swim. It is a bit discouraging -- I think she has quite a lot of musical talent, and is very graceful and would make a wonderful dancer. Hopefully when she's a bit older she'll start being more enthusiastic about taking lessons. -- CAROLINE UPDATE Caroline moved into a "big bed" (futon on the floor) just before Christmas. (Heather's in a loft bed above her.) Now she comes toddling into our room just about every morning to climb into bed with us. Sadly, this sometimes happens as early as 6:30. If we're lucky, it's not until 7:30 or even 8. If we're really lucky, the girls will get up together and play in their room together for a while. Caroline is talking in complete sentences and understands/expresses a lot of very complex concepts (see LITTLE-GIRL LANGUAGE). She's getting pretty good at counting (though when she gets up into the teens she sometimes throws a few letters in for good measure). She shares very nicely and is naturally sweet and generous. She loves to eat, especially salmon (sushi, lox, poached salmon--any form will do), avocado ("mo' cado peez!"), broccoli, fruit, Raisin Bran ("raisin brown"), and anything chocolate. She loves to play with dolls and kitchenware, draw, and read. She loves *any* kind of musical activity, and will watch dance or gymnastics performances for seemingly endless amounts of time without showing any impatience or fidgeting. She's very good at doing jigsaw puzzles, and likes to play with blocks and trains. She likes to climb on things and play on the swingset, but when we go out in our yard to play, eventually she gets tired of that and wants to push her baby stroller around, taking the baby in and out repeatedly. She likes to "throw" pennies in the fountain at our local shopping center, which means she likes to hold the penny in her first, move her arm forward to imitate a throwing motion, then drop the penny in. She's very popular at "school" -- she's now in TKP (Teeny Kids' Place), a toddler classroom with kids ranging in age from almost-two to two-and-a-half. The teachers all adore her, and the other kids seem to gravitate to her as well. Last week, one of the teachers told me that Max had followed her around all day and insisted on doing everything with her. A couple of weeks ago, Emma Rose was insisting that she *was* Caroline (her parents had to call her "Caroline" or she'd yell at them!) Recently, Sandy told Caroline he needed his diaper changed -- I guess he was expecting her to take care of it. One day last fall, Richard was stroking Caroline's hair and playing with her. When her mom asked him if he was Caroline's buddy, he said in all seriousness, "I love her." Caroline and I visited Austin in January and stayed with a good friend from my December Moms e-mail list. She shared some of her impressions of Caroline with me: * her tongue - this kid has the most amazing tongue I've ever seen. If Audrey [Lynn's 2-year-old] gets milk or whatever on her face she says "Ehhhh, mama wipe my face!!", but Caroline can handle almost any spill with her tongue. And she manages to make it look so nice and polite. * "it's funny!" - if anything cracked her up, she would exclaim this over and over! * her hair - her hair is to die for. Thick, beautiful color........ just gorgeous * her lips -lots of women pay money to try and find lipstick to match the color of Caroline's lips. They are beautiful. * puzzles - she can work 20 piece puzzles in minutes! It's truly amazing. She works one, tosses it aside and moves on to the next. * grapes - I cut a bunch of grapes in half for the girls. Audrey was eating hers and Caroline put two together and said "They match!" -- PERSONALITY PLUS Both of our girls are often sweet-tempered but can truly be frightening in the intensity of their outrage when they're unhappy. Last fall, we were headed out for a day at the beach with some kids from Heather's class. When we got in the car, she started whining about wanting her pink bathing suit (which was dirty), and then howling when she asked me to pick up a book from the floor, but I was driving. (John was about to pick it up for her when she started howling that she wanted ME to do it.) We sat in the driveway for a while, and finally I pried her out of the car (she was howling "you can't make me get out of the car! I want to go to the beach!") and took her inside. I put her in her bedroom and told her she could come out, and we could go to the beach, WHEN she was done and NOT before. (She said that she'd stop when we were on our way. Yeah, right.) She tried to hit me, screamed, slammed the door, howled, ran around sobbing in there, then finally (maybe 15 minutes later) started to quiet down a little bit at a time. Every now and then I'd call in "Are you ready to stop?" which would set her off again. Eventually all was quiet, and I waited a few minutes then went in. She was lying on her bed, just fingering her blanket. I said "Do you feel better now?" and she said "yeah." I said "do you want me to hold you?" and she climbed on my lap and sat there for a couple of minutes. I said "Sometimes when you have a lot of angry feelings, it seems like you just have to cry and yell to get them out, doesn't it?" She agreed, and then we went to the beach. Lucky it wasn't a school/work morning, or I wouldn't have had the luxury of waiting 45 minutes for her to get over it. Another thing Heather does that can be frustrating is to get *very* upset when she makes a mistake or does something wrong, especially if she thinks somebody's mad at her about it. One day we were at a Chinese restaurant and she was fooling with the little lazy susan, spinning it around. She spun it a bit too hard, and the chili oil toppled over and spilled all over the tablecloth and my mom's sweatshirt. I said in a horrified voice, "Heather, how COULD you?!" and she just started bawling. On another occasion, she accidentally knocked over a stepstool and it hid John in the head *hard*. We both gasped in surprise, maybe said something like "*Heather*!" and again she lost it. I think that she gets upset at herself for making a mistake and upset that she thinks we're mad at her. But I also think that at some subconscious level she's getting hysterical to divert attention from her mistake. We're trying to work through it and get her to own up to her mistakes, apologize, and move on. Caroline can have some pretty dramatic moments too. She tends to be easier to distract than Heather was at this age, though, and they don't often last as long. Her biggest meltdowns usually center around going to bed (i.e., not wanting to). That can be really frustrating, because she's getting herself worked up just as you want her to wind down. Meanwhile, Heather starts to get upset because she can't hear the lullaby tape we always play at bedtime. -- SIBLING RELATIONS I still think the girls get along really well, though I think John would disagree. They do have a lot more conflicts than they used to, but I think considering their age, there aren't as many conflicts as you might expect, and they often do manage to work them out. It's always hard to know when to intervene -- sometimes I think we jump in too early, and that we should let them work things out more. I'm trying to stay out of it unless violence is involved (very rarely, though Caroline sometimes thinks it's funny to bop Heather with a toy -- not that hard, but Heather does get justifiably upset). I also tend to intervene when things get really heated and loud, just because I can't bear to listen to it. Mostly they're so sweet to each other. Whenever Heather's upset, Caroline always wants to try to help her feel better (though that often makes Heather madder, because she usually wants to be left alone when she's upset). Heather often reads to Caroline. Now sometimes Caroline pretends to read to Heather. (The other day she was looking through a book, and every time she'd turn the page she'd "tell a story" like this: "Once upon a time there was a guy who was a... pig!" (or whatever picture was on the page).) They sing to each other, play pretend together, do dress-ups, dance together and sit side-by-side each doing their own puzzle. Caroline's really picking up on the way Heather interacts with her, and is getting pretty good at negotiating compromise with Heather. The other day they each got a sheet of stickers, and Caroline immediately said to Heather, "Are you going to share those with me, Heather? Look, you can have some of mine!" Caroline LOVES LOVES LOVES to copy Heather, with which behavior Heather is astonishingly patient. They'll be doing art projects at their little table, and every few seconds Caroline will look up to see what Heather is doing and start doing the very same thing. If Heather says "I scraped my arm," Caroline scraped her arm too. If Heather says "I need to go potty," Caroline says she needs to go too. You get the idea. -- LITTLE-GIRL LANGUAGE Back in November we were impressed that Caroline was saying things like: "My don't want bite of dat. My want some apple." or having these conversations: John: Shall I make ramen... Caroline: Noodles! J: Yes, that's right, noodles. With eggs... C: Yeah?! I like that!! I like eggs!! John: Are you going to eat your soup? C: Maybe yes... maybe no. or this cute anecdote from Grandpa Richard: Last week, when I babysat with Mary, I read all 6 of Caroline's favorite "color books" (e.g., The Red Book, The Orange Book) to her. I especially remember the mitten (I don't remember if it was orange or another color), because I explained to her what a mitten was and that she would wear mittens when she went on the Christmas trip to Tahoe, and she would play in the snow. Well, yesterday, as John was bringing Heather and Caroline to meet me for dinner, Caroline called out "orange mitten" as clear as anything (according to John, who of course has this near-magic power to understand sub-two-year-olds' babbling). She pointed, and it turns out, she was referring to the "don't walk" sign which had this bright red (well, orange) hand up in her face. My, how quickly things change! Now those simple semi-grammatical sentences seem long ago and far away. These days, she's talking in complete grammatical sentences, using sophisticated connectives ("instead," "otherwise," "usually"), and basically saying everything a 2-year-old could possibly need to say, and then some. She's really getting the hang of causality. One day (a few months ago before her grammar became perfect :-), I was tearing out subscription cards from a magazine, and she said "You tearing the magazine, Mommy! Why you tearing it?" Another day, she said "I need my Pooh blankie, 'cause it's cold." Then she put it over her head and wrapped it around her like a Russian grandma's shawl. I asked "Is that to keep your head warm, Caroline?" and she looked at me and said, "Case it rains." Lately, she's also started asking what unfamiliar words mean. I remember when Heather hit this stage, and I found it amazing then and now: it means that her vocabulary is large enough that there are *few enough* new words in what we say to her for her to bother asking about them! She has an amazing memory and really remembers what you tell her, and the relationships between things. One night after we put the girls to bed, Caroline came toddling out into the living room. I gently but firmly told her it was time for bed and started to carry her back in. I asked her, "Why did you come out?" and she answered, "You said you would wipe my hands off." Caught red-handed! (She'd told me her hands were wet (untrue), and I'd told her I'd wipe them off after I finished singing a song, but then forgot.) She's also gotten really good at creatively using language to convey things that we don't understand right away. One night, when she was tucked into bed, after telling me her usual list of necessary dolls, she said "I want dat white thing" (pointing to her shelves). I pointed to various things, saying "This one? This one?" -- all wrong. Then she said "Next to the doggy," but I still couldn't find what she wanted near the doggy game. Finally she said "Right there -- it's hiding" and I found it, a little white puzzle tucked behind another box. My favorite recent Caroline anecdote: one day when we were driving home from the grocery store, as we were sitting at a red light, she said "I'm trying to make the other car move." "Oh, really, how are you doing that?" "I'm pushing the button!" I looked in the rear view mirror, and she was grinning and pressing the edges of her car seat. I have *no* idea how she came up with this bit of toddler magic. (Amazingly, after she'd done it for long enough, the light changed, and the other car started to move! :-) -- BIG-GIRL LANGUAGE Heather's vocabulary is immense, and her language skills are excellent. But her amazing linguistic development since the last issue is that she's reading. She'd been sounding out words for a while (Grandpa Richard had been working through a phonics book with her). But she didn't really show a lot of interest in *reading*. Then at the end of November, she started reading every sign she saw, and then read her first book, all the way through, out loud, closely followed by her second, third, and fourth books. (These were little books that had been recommended by a friend called "Bob books," with simple, repetitive words and simple stories.) It blew me away when she actually read a whole story! She went through a stage where she wanted to read a lot, but would get tired -- it was a lot of work for her. She was very eager to learn, though, and willing to be corrected -- it didn't seem to frustrate her at all when we'd say the right word if she made a mistake; she'd just go back and repeat it. She'd sometimes correct herself when she heard herself saying the wrong word, too, and would often go back and re-read a sentence to get the inflections right, once she'd figured out the words. These days she's reading pretty advanced storybooks, start to finish, at a pretty good reading pace, no stopping, and almost always gets all of the words and even the inflections right. It's quite astonishing to watch. One day, after a couple of months of reading, I realized that she was reading a book to herself, in her head. I'm sure she was actually reading the whole thing, because at one point I asked her to read some out loud, and she carefully read a whole page. This was a Disney Peter Pan book, not a toddler book -- we're talking about passages like (paraphrased, since I don't have it in front of me) "they saw the beautiful mermaids in the lagoon" and "Captain Hook was afraid of the crocodile who had taken his hand." Now I'd guess she's around the second- or third-grade level now but don't really know how to judge such things. Her Uncle David was supposedly reading at the sixth-grade level when he started kindergarten; I doubt Heather will be far behind that, at the rate she's learning! (Can you tell we're really proud of her? :-) -- HEALTH NEWS In the last issue, I wrote: Caroline and Heather are tiny, minuscule, petite people. Have I mentioned that they're smaller than average? All I can add to this is: ditto. At her two-year checkup in January, Caroline was 21.5 lbs. and 32". Heather is now about 41.5", and barely 30 pounds. (Her 5-year checkup is next week, so we'll see whether the doctor's measurements agree.) Both off-the-charts small. If anything, Caroline is smaller than Heather was at the same age. At least they don't grow out of clothes very fast, and are easy to carry! Heather had her first dentist visit in the fall, and was *amazingly* cooperative. She stood in the corner and walked around a bit while I had my teeth cleaned, and peeked in a few times to see what was going on. Then she didn't want to sit in the big chair, but she sat in my lap and lay there when they tilted the chair back. She opened her mouth wide for the dentist, and cooperated the whole time. The only two times she turned away and closed her mouth were when they brought out the mint tooth polishing stuff (they had to go dig up some cherry-flavor stuff from somewhere) and right at the end, when I think she was just tired of opening her mouth. But with a bit of persuading ("just one more time and then we'll be all done") she opened back up again. Her teeth are nice and clean, no tartar build-up, no sign of decay. They did a cleaning and polishing, plus a fluoride treatment. I was very proud of her! I know she was nervous about it, so for her to conquer her anxieties and cooperate without crying or whining at all was a big step. (Then we treated her to a milkshake -- so much for clean teeth!) -- ALL THE POOP THAT'S S*IT TO PRINT [Warning: not for the squeamish] All there is to say here is that Caroline is occasionally peeing in the potty! But we expect it will be a long time before she's really potty trained, and so far, poop is for diapers only. Except the day I made the mistake of allowing her to put her underpants on, under her diaper, and then John had to change a big poopy mess. Oops. [Toldja not to read.] -- TRIPS 'N' VISITS We've had lots of visits from Grandma, Aunt Susan, Aunt Barbara, and Aunt Maria, and lots of traveling, as usual. In October we went to Disney World with Grandma Mary, Aunt Susan, and Aunt Barbara. We had a wonderful time. Heather really enjoyed the rides and shows this time, and Caroline was especially enthralled by the performances. In November, we had Uncle David and his in-laws (the Blachmans), Grandma Mary, and Grandpa Richard over for Thanksgiving dinner. Talk about a big production! Our Christmas vacation was the most eventful. I was reminded once again that I *hate* traveling through Newark airport, especially with small children, and this trip convinced me to do *anything* to avoid Newark in the future. Our flight actually landed early, around 8:45, but it was nearly 11 by the time we were actually driving away in our rental car. (Wait for luggage, haul the carts around and through too-narrow passages, wait for the elevator to the mezzanine, wait for the elevator to the monorail platform, struggle onto the monorail with our (illegal) carts (how on EARTH are you supposed to manage two children, a stroller, and six pieces of luggage without a cart? but the signs say they're not allowed), wait for the elevator down, wait for the shuttle to the rental car place, get pushed aside by a bevy of flight attendants and pilots who want to go to the Ramada Inn so badly they're willing to totally ignore a family trying to get on the same shuttle, wait for the NEXT shuttle, shove OUR way in front of other people (our turn to be rude), wait interminably for the no-brainer at the rental car place to fill out the paperwork, wait with the kids while John loads up the car and straps in the carseats, and voila! in no time (HA), we're on our way.) Luckily, the rest of the visit was wonderful. John's brother, sister-in-law, and niece came down from Boston over the weekend. We opened too many presents on Saturday; saw Peter Pan on Broadway on Sunday; went to see "You've Got Mail" (thumbs up!); hung out with the kids; had dinner with John's cousin and his family in Manhattan; saw the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular; had a night off (a very expensive dinner, walked through a snow flurry, and spent the night at John's sister's condo in Manhattan -- no kids!); went to the Museum of National History and sawa conservatory of butterflies; and even got to see snow and roll Caroline's first snowball. We flew home on Christmas Day, relatively uneventfully except for being upgraded to first class! (They were going to bump us (would have gotten 3 free tickets!), but put us on the flight after all -- but had given away our 3 seats together, so moved us to first class to compensate. Several people very nicely rearranged themselves so we could have two seats together, and a third nearby.) The day after Christmas, we had Christmas dinner at our house and opened too many more presents with my family. The next day, we drove up to Lake Tahoe, and skiied for three days. We drove back late on the 30th, went to see the Nutcracker in San Francisco on New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, Uncle David got married to now-Aunt Nancy. The five flower girls (including Heather and Caroline, of course!) and I sang a Shaker song called "Love is Little" at the end of the ceremony, which I thought was the high point of the whole wedding! Then we had a series of trips: in January, I went to Austin on a business trip and brought Caroline along. In February, I brought Heather on another business trip, this time to Maryland, D.C., and New Jersey. In March, we had another Tahoe ski trip, then I went to D.C. all by myself for yet another business trip. Upcoming travel includes a spa weekend for me(!), most likely a trip to Boston and Maryland in May, a week on Cape Cod in June, probably a conference trip to Orlando (sans kids) in July, and planning way ahead, a desJardins family trip to Jamaica in November for my parents' 60th birthdays. -- THE REST OF US As for the other two (less important) people who live in our house, John is still working towards his Ph.D. (he's currently revising and re-revising a draft of his thesis proposal), and I'm still working at SRI. I'm trying to move into a new group here, but there are lots of organizational politics yet to work through. I'm also trying to lose weight, but that seems even less likely. On the positive side, I've been collaborating on projects with good friends (Lise and Penny) in the last few months, and it's reminded me how great it is to work with people you really enjoy! -- STAY TUNED for the next exciting installment of the dramatic lives of Pebbles and Twinkie!