A Dilemma and a Cute Story

First, the dilemma:

We have a birds nest on our trellis over our patio. It is an obvious location, and Pumpkin (who has always liked birds) noticed the mother bird sitting on her nest. She was curious, so Hubby told her about how the Mommy bird was sitting on the egg, and the baby bird was still in the egg but would come out later. Pumpkin loved looking at the Mommy bird and telling us how the baby bird would come out later.

Well, now the Mommy bird is nowhere to be found. We suspect that the egg was stolen by a crow or something- the nest was very exposed. Pumpkin has noticed that the Mommy bird is gone. So far, we have avoided telling her where the Mommy bird has gone. This can't last though. What should we say? I'm inclined to tell her the Mommy bird moved her egg to a better nest. I suspect Hubby will want to tell some version of the truth. What do you think?

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Now for the cute story:

Pumpkin has once again been having trouble with biting at day care. We're not sure why she's biting (or trying to bite- most times, the teachers catch her before she actually bites) again now. It could be because she's getting one of her final molars in, it could be because of the developmental leap she's working on now, it could be that one of the other kids at day care started biting and reminded Pumpkin of that method for expressing her displeasure... who knows. We know it is not because she doesn't have the words to express herself. She certainly has the words now. The teachers say that after she bites she pretty much gives herself the lecture about not biting, using her words, etc. She clearly knows she is not supposed to bite. I think she just doesn't yet have the necessary impulse control to stop herself.

Anyway, today after dinner she was playing with her baby dolls ("big baby" and "birthday baby", being her biggest baby doll and the baby doll she was given for her birthday, respectively). She looked big baby in the eyes and said "No biting, big baby. Don' bite . Use your words. You're in trouble." And then she marched big baby into the kitchen and put her down by the dishwasher, which is where we have her sit when we give her time out. I was surprised to see her do this, because she hasn't had to sit there for quite awhile- her more recent at home time outs have all involved putting her feet on the table during dinner, and she just gets moved away from the table for those. Clearly, the dishwasher time out spot has made an impression, though.

Next, she came back and picked up birthday baby. She delivered the same lecture, and took birthday baby to sit in time out, too.

She forgot about her babies for awhile, and played with me instead. At some point, I started bouncing her on my knees. She would laugh and then immediately say "more!" when I stopped. Eventually, I got tired and said that I wouldn't bounce her anymore. She pouted a bit, and got down off my lap. Then she turned to me and said "Use your words, Mommy. No biting. You're in trouble." And she held out her hand and led me to time out next to big baby and birthday baby.

She let me out of time out after just a little bit, though, because she wanted me to come outside and play.

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Thanks for the words of encouragement on yesterday's post. Pumpkin actually slept really well last night, once she finally went down. She didn't wake up until after 5 a.m. When Hubby brought her in bed with us to finish the night, she was saying "Don' kick Mommy", which was what I told her when I put her in her crib last night. She went back to sleep easily, though, and slept until almost 7. She woke up, sat straight up, climbed onto my lap, pointed at some shoes on the floor, said "Oh! Those are Mommy's shoes!" and then launched into a description of the morning routine that we were about to start. I think the poor girl's brain is just waaaaay too busy for sleep right now. Still, we're hoping tonight's bedtime routine goes more smoothly.

No Rainbows Here Tonight

Bah! Sleep seems to be harder and harder to achieve in our household these days. Well, except for Hubby. He still falls asleep pretty easily. But Pumpkin and me? We're both struggling. I know why I'm struggling- I'm pregnant and I still have a lingering cough from that cold Pumpkin gave me a week and a half ago. Nothing like itchy legs and a hacking cough to keep you awake at night. I'm not as certain as to why Pumpkin is struggling, so I'll blame the old "developmental leap" standby.

Tonight started off well enough. She was cuddly and sleepy towards the end of her stories. She didn't protest when I turned off the light. But then she just would not go to sleep. She wasn't comfortable rocking in the chair, so I put her in her crib. She thrashed and whined and kicked and eventually put her hands up to get out. Usually, she then snuggles in and falls asleep in my arms. Not tonight. First she cried for Daddy. When he came and I left, she screamed for Mommy. But when I came back, she didn't want me to hold her, didn't want to lay down next to me on the floor, didn't want me to sit next to her crib. So I tried taking her into our bed. She kicked and squirmed and sang the last lines to "I'm a little teapot". (It took me a while to decipher what she was saying: "pour me out", over and over.)

I confess I lost my cool after a particularly vicious kick and took her back to her crib. Besides, I was hungry. She was quiet for awhile, and Hubby and I were thinking maybe we'd just hit on a magic new technique. But then started crying again. Hubby is in there trying to close the deal now. It is a good hour after her usual "go to sleep" time. It is in fact MY bedtime now.

I am convinced that a big girl bed would help. I could have read her stories in bed, and she would have just drifted off to sleep at the end. (A Mom can dream, right?) The bed is on order. It should be here this week. I hope I'm right, because if it doesn't help, I don't know what we are going to do. Please, can I be right? I promise I won't gloat to Hubby and blame him for not agreeing to get the big girl bed earlier.

Zenbit: Rainbow View

Location: Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii, USA
Date: December 28, 2008

1,2,3,4... Pumpkin is Talking Even More

Pumpkin seems to be going through some sort of developmental spurt having to do with memory. We have all the usual signs of a spurt: sleep is harder to get, incident reports from day care are up, tantrums are more frequent.... We suspect this one is about memory because she is suddenly talking about things that aren't happening right at the moment. One night this week, she sat up in bed at about 3 a.m. (she had already joined us in our bed by this time) and started talking about what she eats for breakfast ("fruit and oatmeal", with oatmeal pronounced "oatme-al"). That was definitely one of those "cute in retrospect" moments. At the time, we were just incredibly annoyed to be woken up again.

Today, in the car on the way home from day care, we talked about the following things:

1. Motorcycles make noise, but they won't hurt you unless you get in their way. Pumpkin volunteered that if you do get in the way of a motorcycle, you will get a "big owie".

2. Doggies don't come in Pumpkin's yard. They stay in the neighbors' yards.

3. She kissed a baby at day care.

4. She saw a train at Mimi and Boppa's house. It was long, and had black cars.

5. She and Daddy went swimming (also at Mimi and Boppa's house, but this knowledge was assumed). Pumpkin pushed Daddy under water, and people laughed.

6. 1,2,3 penguins at the door.

The last one should really be "1,2,3,4 penguins at the door" and is due to the fact that Hubby has finally found a children's song that he likes, and he has been singing part of it with her. It was from Feist's appearance on Sesame Street. Now Hubby, a man who insisted on rocking Pumpkin to sleep to Suzanne Vega because he didn't like lullabies, sings this song with Pumpkin all the time. Or he sort of sings it. They've made up new words: "1,2,3,4 penguins at the door, 5,6,7,8 monsters at the gate".

This has also pushed Hubby off the fence about Sesame Street. You have to admit, Elmo gets some top notch musical guests! My personal favorite of the ones on YouTube is the one where Andrea Bocelli sings Elmo to sleep.

Well Baby

We're all feeling a lot better here. I am unfortunately still prone to coughing fits, and when the one brought on by my attempt to unload the dishwasher combined with my lingering evening "morning sickness" to actually make me throw up for the first time in this pregnancy... well, I took the hint and decided to retire to the sofa with my laptop.

Right now, Pumpkin is having her snack with Daddy and demonstrating the new rhyme she's learning at day care: I'm a little teapot. She can do most of the rhyme with very little prompting. It is unbelievably cute. (Yes, grandparents, et al., we'll get this on video at some point.) She's also telling her Daddy that he should "be happy!" He's trying to extend that to "don't worry, be happy", because he loves the 80s.

Earlier today, we took her to the doctor for her 2 year well baby check up. It seemed like a bit of a misnamed appointment, since the entire family is still suffering a bit from colds, but Pumpkin still did great. She took her own shoes off for her height and weight check. She stuck her tongue out as requested, and let the doctor check her ears and listen to her heart without struggle. She also impressed the doctor with her words and phrases- her language skills have really taken off lately.

The doctor gave us a picture book for Pumpkin, as part of some campaign someone is running to encourage parents to read to their children. It is a worthy goal. It is very easy to forget just what a privileged upbringing Pumpkin is getting. She has shelves full of books and parents who are always happy (OK, at least willing) to read to her. She, in fact, has pretty much anything she needs. She's lucky that way.

The fact that other kids aren't as lucky as Pumpkin has been on my mind lately, due to a recent Economist article on the impact of childhood stress on later life. The Economist article is summarizing a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Evans and Schamberg. The PNAS stuy concludes that childhood stress correlates with reduced working memory later in life (working memory is an important component of intelligence), and strongly implies that a causal link is likely. This is far from my field of expertise, but I wasn't completely convinced by the PNAS study that the working memory reduction was caused by the stress. It certainly seems like a strong, plausible hypothesis, though, given everything we know about the effects of chronic stress (the summary of these are far beyond what I have the energy for tonight- check out Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert Sapolsky for a good book on the subject).

However, I certainly don't think that the conclusion the Economist article reaches is supported by the evidence. The article concludes by referencing studies that have shown that social position is related to stress (the lower your status, the more stress you have in general), and extrapolating:

"So, it may not be necessary to look any further than their place in the pecking order to explain what Dr Evans and Dr Schamberg have discovered in their research into the children of the poor. The Bible says, “the poor you will always have with you.” Dr Evans and Dr Schamberg may have provided an important part of the explanation why."

I think this lets those of us who are higher on the "pecking order" off the hook far too easily. Leaving aside the fact that wealth is not perfectly correlated with status, there is no reason to assume that the stress-related effects seen by Evans and Schamberg are entirely due to low status. There are many other sources of stress in a poor person's life. Not having enough to eat is stressful. Being too cold because your family can't pay the heating bills is stressful. Having parents who are stressed and worried about meeting the family's basic needs is no doubt stressful. Being sick and unable to go to the doctor for treatment because your family does not have adequate health insurance is probably pretty stressful, too. All of these things could be at least partially addressed by programs to alleviate the effects of poverty. We do not know if such programs will help to break the cycle of poverty, but we certainly cannot conclude from this study that there is no point in trying.