7/10/09 Capture the flag

Katrina and I arrived about 40 minutes early at Julian's daycamp today, to watch him play. He really wanted me to watch something, and even made sure to ask the coaches if it was OK (I knew it was). I got to see the whole group play Capture The Flag, which despite the herding-cats aspect to organizing this many young children in a game, was a ton of fun. I loved running and chasing games like this as a kid, and clearly Julian did too. He seemed to understand the rules overall, though it was hard to tell at first with all the kids getting lost in the fun of running around.

Julian steals a blue "penny" from the other team, after stealthily sneaking up and then attacking.


Running after an opponent. The teams were "shirts-tucked-in" vs. "shirts-not-tucked-in."


Out of bounds!


You can't get me!


After the game, the kids all got a "Merit Award" and an ice pop. During the ceremonial proceedings, Katrina surveyed the troops.


Later in the afternoon, I took Katrina with us to Julian's swim class. As usual, this requires planning many hours back: I took care of a big Trader Joe's shopping during Julian's daycamp, then zoomed them home after daycamp and wasted no time with lunch. The goal was to settle Katrina down for as early a nap as possible. I would have to wake her at 3pm, which often these days she's just barely falling asleep then. Fortunately she did go right down at 1pm, though I did have to wake her out of a sound snooze to go to Julian's swim lesson.

She was fascinated by the pool, and even said she wanted to go swimming too. I'm glad to hear that, though I'll still face her first swim lesson (as of yet unscheduled) with some trepidation. Adapting easily to new activities has not yet emerged as one of her strengths.


This morning, she provided some amusement, as Facebook followers already know. As we were getting ready to leave for daycamp dropoffs, I heard her call from upstairs, "Mommy, I'm putting away the stinkie!" I sprinted upstairs, and found her naked from the waist down, carefully carrying a pair of underpants into the bathroom -- but they were Julian's underpants. They were soiled, but empty. Great....I traced her steps and found a little brown lump on Julian's pajamas, not having been sufficiently contained by the underpants as she tried to carry it into the bathroom for proper disposal.

I cleaned her, the floor and the clothes up quickly, but couldn't understand ... what was she doing pooping in Julian's underpants? Dave dressed her this morning, but he'd have put her own underpants on, as I'd set out. After a few minutes of looking around and trying to piece this together by asking her, I found her underpants and shorts together on the floor in her room, clean. Got it: she didn't want to poop in her own underpants, so she took hers off and put on a pair of Julian's instead, and pooped in those!

The boys were beside themselves. They talk poop all the time; for them, it doesn't get any better than this. They crowded eagerly to see the evidence before I succeeded in chasing them away as I cleaned up. And Katrina was actually pretty proud of herself! "I pooped in Julian's underpants, Mommy!" I've had a lot of success this week getting her to pee away from home, by putting a piece of toilet paper in front of her and getting her to pee on it -- maybe I should try that for problem number two.

7/10/09