Monkey and Turtle turned 4 on October 22. Seems a little negligent to forget to post about their birthday on a blog devoted to them doesn't it? We did manage to get them gifts-new big girl bikes with training wheels-and it was really cute to watch them ride their bikes around the culdesac a few days later, singing "It's the Hard Knock of Life" from Annie at the top of their lungs. Riding brand new bikes around a safe culdesac in a nice neighborhood with a doting mother watching over them. Hard knocks indeed. Then Turtle started singing Miss Hannigan's "Little Girls," verbatim, including the following: "I'm an ordinary wo-man, with feeeelings; I'd like a man to nibble on my ear! But I"ll admit; no man has bit; so how come I'm the mother of the year??"
I suggested we start a new round of "Hard Knock."
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It seems like the day Turtle and Monkey turned 4, a switch turned on inside my brain and everything they did that seemed tolerable when they were 3 was suddenly completely innappropriate and driving me insane. It felt urgent to turn them into civilized people immediately, so we began a series of talks about "what 4 year olds do." I knew I couldn't present them with, "now that you're older, you have to do this, that and the other." Monkey, especially, can't stand the idea that anyone would have the nerve to tell her what to do (which is exactly what I was like as a kid), so I went with the more neutral, "Now that you're 4, would you like to know what 4 year olds do?" Yes, they did want to know, very much so. Here's what we talked about and what we are working on:
Four year olds:
- use a utensil for every part of their meal. (Monkey, who seems content to eat rice, beans, and just about anything else by smearing her hands around her plate and then licking her fingers, was introduced to a fork after this conversation.)
- take their plates to the sink.
- flush the toilet!!! I cannot stress this enough.
- use a tissue for their nose, rather than a finger and a mouth. Please, I beg you.
- get themselves ready on time for school in the morning.
The getting ready for school on time piece is a good example of the switch in my brain. Suddenly, I'm leaving the breakfast table after 20 minutes and getting myself ready for work, rather than sitting and coddling Monkey, the slowest eater on earth, through her breakfast. One week I can't stand the thought of my poor baby finishing her breakfast alone, the next week I'm setting the timer and totally out of there when it goes off, sure she can handle it. And she can.
So there is the "what 4 year olds do," conversation that I had with them, and then there is the "what 4 year olds actually do" experience they are demonstrating to me. Some parts of it are awesome. Complete conversations, logical reasoning, understanding safety issues, responding to consequences. Then there are things that throw me off. Like when Monkey asked me, "Do 4-year-olds get to have their own phone?" When I said "no," she began asking, and asking, when, oh when, could she get her own phone? Then there is Turtle, who won't get off my back with the questions about Santa. I swear that girl is on her way to being a trial lawyer. I don't like making up lies in response to her reasonable questions, so I'll admit that I won't be sorry if some other savvy kid spills the beans in a couple of years. But not this year, please.
**************************************************************
It seems like the day Turtle and Monkey turned 4, a switch turned on inside my brain and everything they did that seemed tolerable when they were 3 was suddenly completely innappropriate and driving me insane. It felt urgent to turn them into civilized people immediately, so we began a series of talks about "what 4 year olds do." I knew I couldn't present them with, "now that you're older, you have to do this, that and the other." Monkey, especially, can't stand the idea that anyone would have the nerve to tell her what to do (which is exactly what I was like as a kid), so I went with the more neutral, "Now that you're 4, would you like to know what 4 year olds do?" Yes, they did want to know, very much so. Here's what we talked about and what we are working on:
Four year olds:
- use a utensil for every part of their meal. (Monkey, who seems content to eat rice, beans, and just about anything else by smearing her hands around her plate and then licking her fingers, was introduced to a fork after this conversation.)
- take their plates to the sink.
- flush the toilet!!! I cannot stress this enough.
- use a tissue for their nose, rather than a finger and a mouth. Please, I beg you.
- get themselves ready on time for school in the morning.
The getting ready for school on time piece is a good example of the switch in my brain. Suddenly, I'm leaving the breakfast table after 20 minutes and getting myself ready for work, rather than sitting and coddling Monkey, the slowest eater on earth, through her breakfast. One week I can't stand the thought of my poor baby finishing her breakfast alone, the next week I'm setting the timer and totally out of there when it goes off, sure she can handle it. And she can.
So there is the "what 4 year olds do," conversation that I had with them, and then there is the "what 4 year olds actually do" experience they are demonstrating to me. Some parts of it are awesome. Complete conversations, logical reasoning, understanding safety issues, responding to consequences. Then there are things that throw me off. Like when Monkey asked me, "Do 4-year-olds get to have their own phone?" When I said "no," she began asking, and asking, when, oh when, could she get her own phone? Then there is Turtle, who won't get off my back with the questions about Santa. I swear that girl is on her way to being a trial lawyer. I don't like making up lies in response to her reasonable questions, so I'll admit that I won't be sorry if some other savvy kid spills the beans in a couple of years. But not this year, please.
Monkey tells me about once a week she is going to marry this boy she knows, Vishnu. Today I asked her, why Vishnu? She said it's because he wants to marry her. I almost tried to explain that you don't marry someone just because he wants to marry you, but I let that go, for now. But I do take every opportunity to remind them that the right age to get married is about 29 or 30, and when they ask when they will get to have their own babies, I say, "oh after you're married and you're about 31 or 32, maybe, if you've finished graduate school and started your career." I have no doubt this will totally backfire but I can't help myself.
So one last story. Today I took Turtle and Monkey to Target to buy a birthday gift for a boy in Monkey's class (not her fiance), and when I asked her what she thought he might like, she said, "maybe a race car!" Monkey seems really into race cars and I thought about getting her one for her birthday but never got around to it. I decided I'd let her pick one out for herself after we found the gift for her friend, a rare treat because I never buy them toys when I take them to the store with me. Anyway, as soon as we got near the kids' area, Turtle saw a pink sweater dress with silvery thread and asked if she could have it. I said, "Let's go look at toys first, and then we can look at clothes."
Monkey browsed all the cars and then we moved on to action figures. She eventually settled on a talking Spiderman for her friend. When I told her she could get something for herself too, and tried to take her back to the car section, do you know what she picked out instead? A walking Ironman! She said, "I like robots and I think Daddy will like it too." So, she got herself a robot that just happens to be named Ironman and she likes to watch it walk around. (She was watching so intently this evening that she literally just pooped in her pants rather than tear herself away to go to the bathroom, but that's not part of this story). Then, in the middle of the toy section, where I was nervously watching Turtle eyeing all the Disney princess stuff, I said, "ok, Turtle, you can pick something too." And she said, "I want clothes!" and ran straight to the pink sweater dress we'd seen earlier. I honestly did not know it was possible for a preschool-aged child to pick clothes over toys, but there you go. We came home with an Ironman and a sparkly pink sweater dress.
My 4-year-olds are awesome.
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