october quotes

"i wanna go poop again!" 10-01 (after getting a vitamin reward for going poop in the potty.)

the neighbor girls (twins) are about 4 yrs old and they NEVER say hi or smile. they always just stare and sometimes make comments about us like we're not even there. the other day sparrow went out into the courtyard where they were playing with dolls, and she asked me: "can i visit the girls?" i said "i don't know, you'll have to ask them." she bravely goes up to them and says, "can i please visit you?" they said nothing. but sparrow would not be intimidated. she hovered close by and inched ever closer. soon she was sitting happily on the steps next to them. they pretty much ignored her but were not mean, as i had feared, and even let her touch and play with some of their dolls. she is so brave!

i was talking delightedly about new baby golden and how little she is. sparrow cuts in:
"and i'm OLD!" without missing a beat. her eyes were wide and round. 10-01

lately, sparrow is sooooo funny with baby golden. she rushes up to her, gives her a huge, in-the-face smooch, then without even watching her for a reaction, shouts out immediately "LOOK AT THAT SMILE!"

"mom! the girl doesn't want me!" 10-03 (about a little girl at our 'growing times' class who would yell "NO!" every time sparrow came into her vicinity.)

(arranging the 3 cars of her toy train)
"you first and you first and you first.." 10-06

(looking at a book about parades. the st. patrick's day parade page comes up.)
"just like we went to irish!" 10-06

(looking at a picture of strep throat bacteria in a magazine. it was purple and green.)
"oooh! look at that! ...we're gonna eat it!" 10-07

(singing to the tune of "pony boy"):
"sippy cup, sippy cup, won't you be my sippy cup. don't say no..." 10-08

"bougainvillea!" 10-09 (yes, she knows the bougainvillea plant. she also knows other flowers by name like morning glories, except she calls those "morning glorias," and now i do too!)

(watching "24"--yes, we did let her watch one episode with us.)
thomas: "oh no, what a hag!"
sparrow: "wook! another tag!" 10-09

"honey! i made art project!" (yelling into the phone at thomas) 10-09

(pics of sperm on computer) "looket! bugs!" 10-11

"does kristy have a butt?" (she fell in love with kristy maligro when we saw her briefly, and now continues to think about her...) 10-12

(playing with sand and a funnel.)
she comes up to me with a funnel full of sand and says,
"i'm havin' some wine." 10-12

(sees rattle in a book.) looks for awhile, then says
"einstein!" (reminds her of the einstein videos i guess!) 10-12

(me kissing golden numerous times on cheeks.)
sp: "are you gobbling her up?" 10-12

(drinking water)
"it smells like avocado." 10-15

(finishing breakfast.)
sp: "all done! can we go to oregon?"
me: "well...not today, but maybe next year!"
sp: "i wanna go to it!" 10-15
(because i had told her a few days ago that kristy had gone back to oregon to be with her kids.)

thomas: "so...what do you think? should we go to oregon?"
sparrow: "can i come?"
10-16

"mom, can you talk to the words?" (when she wants me to start reading a book that she has opened.)

"oh! lion dandies!" (dandylions) 10-16

"maybe in a couple of days i will kiss her." (because sparrow has been sick and i haven't been letting her kiss golden.) 10-16

"the alligators were sick, and i haven't didn't kiss them." 10-16

sp: "this is baby jeremiah. i wiped his bum." (with a tiny doll after we visited new baby jeremiah. then,
sp: "here's his sacrum." (pointing to the correct area on the doll.)
me: "oh! yeah! good job! ....and here's your sacrum." (i point.)
sp: "no, this is not my sacrum."
me: "where's your sacrum?"
sp: "here." (points to her ribs.)
me: "oh! ...well, where's baby jeremiah's sacrum?"
sp: "his sacrum is in the house."
(she meant "in samuel's house. duh, mom! that's where baby jeremiah is!) 10-16

(singing to herself after we put her to bed)
"daddy's in the living room and he's not coming back. he's not coming back. and he's done teaching the girls...and miss paula..." 10-21

"did we get some ganic milk?" (organic) 10-22

(singing)"i don't like feathers, and the mountains are playing dress-up, and we're going to mops, and i'm singing." 10-22-08

"i bedda get ta sleepin'." 10-22

"the balls are fighting!" (see-thru rain stick) 10-24

slightly butchering the title of a book called big time olie, where rolie polie olie messes with a shrink and grow machine, sparrow said,
"rolie polie time eater!" 10-25

she dropped my bobby pin into the toilet. she knows better than that. i asked her, "why did you drop mommy's bobby pin into the toilet?" she said happily, "in the water!" i couldn't be too bummed. 10-26

sp: "mommy, are you sleeping?"
me: "not yet, but maybe if you stop talking, i can fall asleep."
sp: (whispers) "i stopped talking." 10-29

me: "stop pushing that button, or i'll have to take it away."
sp: "just a little bit?" (pushes again) 10-29

reading a book where a dog knocked over a bowl of balls and a man slipped on them, sparrow says,
"maybe i can be a doggy and maybe i can be a man, and maybe i can go in the book and slip on the balls!" 10-29

(she was playing with daddy making a tent with a blanket. she stuck her head out but the rest of her was still under the "tent.")
"it's so warm for my butt!" 10-31

sparrow doesn't really love peanut butter but i have been trying to encourage her to eat it. i made her a dip with peanut butter for her lunch today, but she wasn't touching it. at some point she said, "i was eating my ice cream!" just playing, i guess. i took a little carrot stick and dipped it in the peanut dip and said, "mm, i'm eating my ice cream right now!"
sparrow: "but i'm not eating it!" (she won't be fooled!) 10-31

"it's singing a song about my lunch!" (she was playing with a little musical toy during lunch.) 10-31

me: "we should get some snap peas to put in the salad tomorrow."
sparrow: "and roly-pops!" 10-31

(today she got her first candy ever: a lolly pop. she kept calling it a "roly-pop," it was so cute! in the car she was saying, "isn't it beautiful?" she was truly in love with her roly pop.)

sp: "oh no!"
me: "what's wrong?"
sp: "it just got an owie."
(then i was recording what she had just said onto my phone, and she heard me talking ahout how her roly-pop just got an owie.) she says,
"no! you forgot the kiss!" (her roly-pop needed a kiss on its owie, apparently.)
10-31

sp: "mommy, are you really sad?"
me: "yeah."
sp: "it's gonna be alright." 10-31

sp: "i'm talking to God!"
me: "oh yeah? what are you saying to him?"
sp: "hey God! i got letters!" 10-31

sparrow's avant-garde pumpkin

we are going to a little class every friday called "growing times." it is put on by sbcc adult ed and is a fun preschool-style setup, except all the moms are there too. (which is why it's so cheap!) it has been saving my sanity cause i don't have to come up with the activities! the one drawback is that of course the discussion topics are from a liberal standpoint, and i get no say in the kids' crafts.

october is here, so of course the crafts involved black spiders and jack-o-lanterns this past week. but sparrow, she has no respect for the traditional jack-o-lantern. she pasted those eyes, and mouths every which way, and kept on pouring the glue on top as if it were paint. hah! that's my girl. all the other moms were strictly directing their toddlers where to paste the shapes--doing it for them, in fact, but hey. i figure, it's sparrow's craft, and she should paste the shapes wherever the heck she wants. hers was the only avant-garde jack-o-lantern in the room. making mama proud!


she loves this thing, and even tried to take it to sunday school to show miss paula today!

quotes galore at 2 1/2

"i did sleep good." (we didn't ask!) 06-08-08

"daddy, mommy did get my tutu." 06-08 (i love how she substitutes "did" when she is not sure how to conjugate something into past tense. she is so smart! she goes with "did" and keeps the tense as she knows it.)

"yes, jesus! yes, mommy and daddy!" 06-14

"oh my goodness. that's nasty. my ice cream is nasty!" 06-27

"grabioli." (ravioli) -sometime in june or july

we were looking at a book with a drawing of some goats; they had scraggly little beards which she looked at and said:
"the goats are eating some spaghetti or something!" -sometime in july

there was a homeless man in the parking lot of albertsons. he had a big old hat on and a big old shopping cart piled with stuff. sparrow, seeing him, said,
"look! the farmer is here!" 07-03

"i got my fingernails in the bagel store." 07-03

"i wanna play with the burst-a-bulb. i wanna read about the burst-a-bulb." 07-03
(this was in reference to a story book that talked about the sun that burst a bulb.)

"night-night, belly. night-night, tatas. night-night big belly." 07-31

"it's morning time! ...uncle's still sleeping." 08-04

"God makes GREAT popsicles!" (miracles) 08-04

when she prays at night nowadays, she prays gibberish a lot. baby tongues? we do trust she will be filled with the holy spirit!

"i will see a bangeroom in this book." (boomerang) 08-17

"i need to crash (crush) my mountains." (trying to flatten the bumps her zipper makes on her pajamas) 08-17

me: "it would be good if you could walk."
sp: "it would be good if i could be happy." 08-18

"the goats are eating some spaghetti or something." (august)
(she was looking at a book. the goats had stringy beards!)

"he's sitting down like a tall tree." 09-01

sp: "is she still sucking on your finger?"
me: "no."
sp: "is she still sucking on your eyebrows?" 09-01

she is saying "kay" before speaking, because that is what i do!!! so funny, i noticed that i usually start with K (as in "OK"), like "K, we're gonna have to go pretty soon," or "K, be really gentle with that." now she is speaking similarly!

"god loves my tea. god is gonna taste it too." 09-03

"mama, can you teach me how to make an ampersand?" 09-03

sp: "i want normal milk."
me: "you have normal milk."
sp: "no, this is water milk." 09-24
(during a stage where i was trying to save money on almond milk by watering it down slightly. she will not be fooled!)

"mom, are you burping the child?" 09-10

me: "are you a birdie?"
sp: "yes, i'm a birdie!" (runs off to play.) later:
sp: "hey mommy birdie!"
me: "hey baby birdie!"
sp: "baby birdies is in the bedroom."
me: "well what are you?"
sp: "i'm still a bigger birdie."
me: "oh."
sp: "where's daddy birdie? where's rick birdie?" 09-10

"my hands are all prinklied." 09-10 (after a bath)

"here goes a storm!" (dumping water in the sink) 09-10

because sparrow loves to climb and bounce on me when i'm nursing, i have been telling her, "i'm not a jungle gym!" the other day she realized it before i could tell her:
"mom, are you not a jungle gym?" 09-10

sparrow playing with a cutout character she got from a craft at sunday school.
sp: "here's a bath for jesus. i'm gonna get his nice long hair wet." (dipping him into a toy bread pan.) "he's crying."
me: "oh yeah? what does he sound like?"
sp: "he sounds like...a weasel." 09-10

sp: "people ate derika, mama."
me: "what? people like derika? people like her?" (trying to hear correctly)
sp: "no. derika got eaten." 09-10

"can i come up here? i still need lots of love." 09-13

me: you're gonna grow up and leave the nest...
sp: "and i got my father,"
me: "yes, and you'll get a husband and babies..."
sp: "and then, i'm gonna find an heir!" 09-17
(just kidding! what she actually said was i'm gonna fly in the air, like the ducks that were flying away in the story. but i sure was trippin' when i thought she said she was gonna find an heir!)

"oh yeah!" or "oh. yah." all the time!!

"when daddy gets bigger, he will sleep in my bed." 09-20

"the deepness" 09-21 (she kept talking about "the deepness" for some reason but i don't know where she got that lingo from!)

(hears music from swan lake on the tv)
"swan lake! swan lake is here! it's waiting for me!" 09-22

"a bat flies! but only purple bats can fly. but no gray bats can fly." 09-22

"when golden gets bigger, she will able to say bungy bungy! and she will able to take a bath and wash her hair and get her toys and go on the big potty, an dgo on the potty, and walk, and spray something, and get her spray bottle..." etc. 09-23

"when uncle gets little, he will able to cry." 09-23

(singing)
"be careful little goat where you walk...
be careful little trees where you grow...
be careful little brushes where you paint...
be careful little guitar where you sing..." 09-25

me: baby, don't put your spoon in the salsa."
sp: "it's gonna get too salsy." 09-25

responding to the question "what did you do today?"
sp: "i did sleep good and i did some food and some tea and some toys and some books." 09-27

me: "what time did you wake up?"
sp: "i woke up for 10 hours." 09-27

"my armpit is actually kinda wet." 09-29

she randomly named my big blue exercise ball "mr. jillian." WHERE do these things come from? but now she always refers to it as mr. jillian, and so do we, of course! (sept.)

(thomas on computer)
thomas: "so i'm just gonna go to craigslist."
sp: "i wanna go all together!"
(sometime in sept.)

"is jesus comin'?" (looking suspiciously around her.) (sept.)

i am usually pretty tired and monotone with poor sparrow. well one day, i decided to try to get a little more enthusiastic (was probably inspired by marylinn byers) and i started saying something to sparrow enthusiastically, with big eyes, and apparently freaked her out, cause she said immediately,
"No! i don't want a voice!" (sept.)

golden's sunny self, and discussion on baby poop

a little progress note on the newest mcdonnell! i have written about sparrow so much, and this IS supposed to be primarily a family journal, so i can't neglect to write about the cutenesses of golden as well.

she is such a precious child of God. she is clever and charming. she has gotten really smiley lately and likes to gurgle and coo gently. she smiled for the first time at 3 weeks! she is now noticing when someone comes into the room, and has started to "track" people with her eyes. Golden has slept til 5 or 6 am several times already! yessssss. it depends on how soon she last nursed or pooped before bedtime. honestly i think her bowel movements more often wake her up than does hunger.

i have been attempting to infant potty-train, which has been really interesting: I try to be in tune with her body language enough to notice when she is pooping. then i take her diaper off quickly and set her over a little pot (old yogurt container) and i say her trigger word. "doo doo!" reminiscent of a dog, i know, but this is the trigger word used by the pearls in the book that 1st introduced me to the concept of infant potty training, and well, i was too lazy to make up my own. so doo doo it is. except sparrow seems to find this word highly amusing, and now she runs around gleefully exclaiming "doo doo! doo doo!" which is obviously going to render the trigger ineffective! i have been trying to explain to her that that is mommy's word and that she should call it poopy. now she says when golden is doing her thing, "DOO DOO!... poopy! i said poopy!" hhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahaha. so accommodating.

the idea of the trigger word is that eventually Golden will associate it so much with pooping that i'll be able to set her on the pot and say it, and then she will go, not the other way around. usually she takes quite awhile to push it all out, with long breaks in between; which is why it's so challenging. (well, one of the reasons.) she tends to pee right after she is done pooping, and i have a separate trigger for peeing: "psssssssssssssss." but the pooping is the main issue.

i got a few more ideas for helping her along yesterday while reading ina may's guide to childbirth. she describes a technique for helping a woman in labor to relax her leg muscles, which in turn relaxes her sphincters. you shake or roll the muscles of her thighs and butt. germans call this "shaking the apples." i love germans. anyways, so i thought, what if it helps to relax the cervix-sphincter, it probably helps relax the anal one also! i have started grunting along with her too, because for laboring women it helps to get down and make the noises with them. bingo. now i just treat golden in her b.m. like a woman in labor and it has been much funner (and effective?) ever since.

another idea i got for saving money on diapers was to use cloth diapers and hand wash them. this was made possible by thomas' brother sending down all their daughter's recently outgrown all-in-ones. i never would have been able to afford the initial cost of buying the diapers, so i am really excited that i got some free ones. however, i am beginning to doubt that i will actually be able to accomplish this hand washing. it is already more than i can handle to spray and wash the stained clothes before it's too late. what am i thinking!?! i can't keep the bedroom picked up, the kitchen swept, or the living room vacuumed, yet i am going to sit and scrub diapers every night during my free time? ...well, i am ambitious, i guess, and eager to do my part to help save money. my excuse for not having started doing this yet is that i will need a fairly large tub where i can soak the diapers in vinegar til they are ready to be dried (so they don't get mildewy). i could do a dryer load every 3 days or so and still save a bunch of money. so we haven't gotten me my tub yet. waiting to pay the major october bills first. gotta keep these priorities straight, you know. rent before pooping gadgets.

feelings of evening

a rambling of some things i was feeling when we were putting the girls to bed/ praying. is it just a temp attack, or am i becoming somehow clinically depressed?

i am angry, irritated, or on edge most of the time. i hate the person that i am becoming. i hate that i snap and yell at sparrow so much instead of giving her sparkle and joy and song. i feel helpless in my circumstances. i feel lusterless. getting uglier. i hate that i slouch all the time, that i can't speak german. that we can't even go visit germany. i hate that i wasted away my whole interitance on everyday expenses. i hate that i haven't become a professional in anything, but am an amateur in many things. it is useless. i am afraid of profession. i feel fated and unsupported. frowny. cynical. unwilling to support my husband in his dreams. my own opportunity to work right now is next to nil. i know my job as a mother is immensely important, yet i feel like i am failing at even that. the one thing i have ample opportunity to do. so many other things i'd like to do but am crippled because of a lack of money or time. it's just not how i ever pictured my life. i feel like becoming a missionary, but only because it would give some meaning and honor to our poverty. i feel scatterbrained. unable to complete basic tasks, like vaccuuming. all day i spend trying to just barely keep the house in a semblance of livability, but while i wash dishes, sparrow is ripping up and strewing paper everywhere (for example). then i spend the next 10 mins. cleaning that up but get interrupted cause she has to go poo and needs me to sit there with her for 15 minutes while it comes out, then it takes me 5 to 10 mins. to finally get her to put her panties back on, then while i am cleaning her potty she dumps out her toys and comes into the bedroom shaking a loud rattle which makes the baby wake up and now it is noon and i haven't even showered yet. i get so frustrated. i am graceless. i feel like i spend my whole day trying to minimize fallout from hurricane sparrow and never have time to really clean anything thoroughly. anal. never able to think and do a task at the same time. lazy. unresearched. opinionated but unexcited. apprehensive of the future. self-cursed. pessimistic. losing hope for change. a permanent drain on society. a constant burden to my friends. charity case. i'd like to be the one who has money to give. the one extending blessing to others. but all i do is complain (even now) and batter friends with my issues and opinions. i feel stuck. wishing to find the reason but unable to sort through the chaos. unable to keep a schedule. unable to formulate goals. indecisive. i feel no clarity in my mind or life yet don't know what i've done to cause this.

these little people are gonna grow up to be my strong daughters. let me be a person of substance, Lord. make me like steel, nay, like gold. pliable, beautiful.

milestone

sparrow hit a major milestone today in her artistic development: the mandala! let me explain.

in the book young at art, the author, susan striker, outlines the artistic development of children in the stages through which they all progress as little creative beings. first they scribble. the opportunity to scribble--and to scribble a lot from a young age--is super important to a child's mental development. it is a stepping stone to their ability to read and write. there are several different kinds of scribbles, and children will naturally progress through all the types. (there are visual examples of these in the book.) eventually, around the age of three, a child will begin to make circle shapes, connecting one end of a line to the other. then follows the mandala. a mandala is technically two or more shapes with a common center. in the case of a child's mandala, however, it is a bit more loosely defined. it can be a circle with lines intersecting or lines sticking out of it (like a "sun"). but it can also take a "ladder" shape. at any rate, it is quite amazing because the mandala is the precursor to the human figure. the circle/outer shape will soon be made into the common head/body and features drawn within, limbs without. it is not til later that a child will make separate shapes for the head and body. the incredible and interesting thing is that all children progress this way and make these shapes--culminating in the human form--on their own, without being taught or shown.

it is thus important to a child's artistic development that she not only be given opportunity, but also be left alone to explore and progress through these stages at her own pace. it can be crippling to the creativity of the young artist to have adults draw cute pictures for her or show her "how" to draw, or to even suggest that anything the child creates looks "like" something in the real world. the early work of a young artist is more about the kinetic exercise of it all rather than the visual outcome. to encourage a toddler to create things that somehow fit into the parent's concept of artistic "product" can be detrimental to the freedom of their own learning process, expression, and emotional release. children want to please their parents more than anything, and when they end up doing art that is tailored to please mom or dad, it is a sad loss. this is why it is key to hold off on even making value judgments such as "i like that!" it is ok to encourage the child by telling them they are a good artist, but in general, the child will know they are being encouraged if the parent simply provides them with plenty of opportunity for creating, and engages them with descriptions that help them learn about what they are doing: "that is a thick, black line," "i see you made a round line and a straight line," etc.

see exhibit A for the gorgeous mandala that sparrow made today. to break all the rules, i will describe it as looking like a little amoeba or roly-poly bug. it is an oval-shape with a scribble inside of it as well as several short lines sticking out. on the same page she also made another one that is more like a big outline with a smaller shape enclosed within it. they are absolutely incredible; i snatched the paper away as soon as she was done with it and placed it on my desk where it could not be ruined. every time i walked by my desk today i simply got a bursting glow from the accomplishment of my offspring.

From artkidsblog

exhibit A

the first time i noticed that sparrow was even connecting her lines was at the beginning of this month when she produced several gorgeous examples one day of bold pink and purple circles. i saved those, too. susan striker managed to save every single drawing her son ever produced, which was a wonderful affirmation for him, i'm sure. i am not quite so realistically able to do the same, as we live in an apartment, not a house, and don't have space for a whole extra trunk for each kid's artwork at the moment. i save what i can. the highlights. and try not to ever let sparrow see me throwing anything away. i think it is more important that she be allowed the experience and that she has me engaging her about her art in a positive way. too bad she has already figured out by some outside influence that people draw "things." she asks me most every day--to my chagrin--if i can draw her something or other; a bird, a cat, a snail... but i tell her that she should draw, and sometimes i scribble with her. i hope that the sunday school coloring-book-style art is not ruining her too much either. i have sighed much about her sunday school art. it is the antithesis of everything that should be given to a toddler artistically. seriously! christians may eventually get wise to the fact that giving 2-yr-olds cute drawings of bartimaeus to scribble on has nothing--nothing! to do with scripture or helping embed a love for the Word in their hearts. it is kitschy distraction, really. in the meantime, well-meaning parents must appreciate the benefits of sunday school while undoing the creative damage as much as possible from home! but i digress. sparrow has come to her mandala despite it all. and i could not be more proud.

From artkidsblog

exhibit B--what sparrow was doing just before the appearance of the mandala

what defines me

on those grey
drafty
mellow sky
california mornings
drifting through screens
into my opened life:
me, a baby, and a cup of coffee.
it's a picture
black and white
that will stand with me
til i am grey
and drafty