12/1/08 Quotes

Katrina: "I want the GREEN placemat!"

I remember now reading advice, in a desperate search for help with Gabriel's tantrums, about dealing with 2-year-olds. The first line of defense is to let things like mismatched socks or short-sleeved shirts go. Toddlers are striving for control, so give it to them for things that don't matter. I didn't understand this on two counts. One, I never had a toddler who cared all that much about particular items. Two, the tantrums were never about anything as simple as the color of a placemat. And they're not now either, because I sure as heck know better than to pick a fight like that!

Gabriel, who has to come up with 7 words with "it" in them, then write a sentence with one of those words: "Is 'tit' a real word?" He knows the answer too, he just wants to see how I'll react. (I told him evenly that it's slang and that it's not appropriate to use for homework.)

Julian: "The life cycle of a butterfly starts with the eggs. Then it turns into a caterpillar and then it wraps itself up and wiggles and squirms to come up, then it's a butterfly that lays eggs and starts it all over again!" As usual, nothing about friends or anything else that happened at school. Just a science snippet.

Mom: That cough medicine knocked me out today, I'm going to bed!

12/1/08