The Many Faces of Fred

Shawn here. Fred is a very versatile guy at our house. I’ve been calling Nessa “Fred” at times for a couple of years now, often when I go into her room in the morning:

“Who’s this?”
“It’s your daughter.”
“Oh! Hi Fred!”
“No, your daughter Nessa Rose Brooks!” (usually said with a giggle, unless Daddy has bad timing or pushes it too far)

Nessa started taking allergy drops a year ago, and we need to count after placing a drop in her mouth. I soon changed the numbers to be:

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, Fred, ten”

This can be expanded if you need to count higher:

“… eighteen, nineteen, Fredteen, twenty …”
“… twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-Fred, thirty …”

and so on. For a time I would count and stop at Fred, and Nessa would say “Tehh!” (“ten” without the “n” sound because she isn’t supposed to close her mouth or swallow), but that seems to have gone by the wayside.

This has been around long enough to become a running gag. Tami counts with Fred as well, and when she received her Garmin runner’s watch she named her virtual running partner Fred, because his pace is between nine and ten minutes. :-)

Recently, Nessa decided that Fred belongs between eleven and twelve. So now when I count, the conversation usually goes something like:

“No, Daddy! Fred comes after eleven.”
“Noooh--it comes after nine!”
“It comes after eleven. You can’t just move Fred!”

Notice that I’m the one who’s moving Fred. I guess that’s a measure of my success in introducing Fred as a number. Perhaps I can use Fred to teach Nessa base eleven arithmetic in a few years.

Daddy’s Little Helper

Nessa was helping me do chores Saturday morning. No, she really was helping. You could actually tell where she had been sweeping leaves on the deck, and she raked them all into the leaf shovel by herself. She was quite a sight, maneuvering the broom and rake all by herself—I was very impressed. She also held the nails and handed them to me when I was putting up plastic over the sliding door on the deck.

All the while we had a great conversation. We talked about all sorts of things: why we were sweeping the leaves off the deck, where God is, what to do when you’re scared, why we were putting plastic over the sliding door, how many boards I was going to need and how long they should be, what she did at daycare last week, what we should do next, where we were going to put the leaves, and many other things. It was absolutely delightful to get such an extended glimpse into how her mind works and what kind of connections/comparisons between things she’s making now. Between Sunday School and what we read to her, Nessa’s been exposed to lots of Bible stories over the last year, and they often surface when she can make a connection between something she’s doing and something in a Bible story.

Afterwards we just played for awhile. I pushed her on the swing, and then we played Tag. Nessa seems to have Tag confused with Hide and Seek: she thinks that after you tag someone you’re supposed to go hide from them. Then we climbed up by the top of the slide and took the ship to Egypt, to the new playground there. Nessa has a wonderfully inventive imagination, and things from all over get conflated in her play scenarios.

Saturday afternoon Nessa helped me rake leaves. She did a good job of raking leaves into a pile…until the pile was big enough for her to jump in. Then the rake got abandoned and the pile succumbed to entropy. This happened several times in different places in the yard. She was having such fun that I was having fun watching her, so much so that I didn’t even mind raking. Now there’s a first!

Ground 1, Nose 0

Sunday Nessa was swinging in the back yard and wanted to change which way she was facing. When I put her back on the swing, she tried to scoot forward in the seat without grabbing the ropes. All of a sudden she was face down on the ground, crying. When I got her up, her nose was bloody. We started for the house, and it kept bleeding, and bleeding, and bleeding. Nessa was being very brave and following directions very well through her tears. Megan was just coming out the front door, so she got some tissues while Tami got a wet washcloth and a towel.

For a while it seemed like there was blood everywhere: all over Nessa’s shirt, on her face, arms and legs, on my hands… But after a few minutes the bleeding stopped and we were able to get her cleaned up. By that point she had regained her composure and realized she was OK, and she told us she didn't hurt anywhere. There was no swelling--mostly she had gotten shaken up and scared. She was able to have a picnic with Megan as soon as we finished cleaning her up.

Tami worked hard on the shirt and by the next day you couldn’t tell that it had been bloody at all. We have a couple of drops of blood on the sidewalk and steps to remind us, but otherwise our sweet girl came through her childhood rite of passage just fine.

All dressed up and no place to go ?!?

DCP_5033
Originally uploaded by Tami of BrooksGroth

One of Nessa's favorite things now is to play pretend, including dressing up in fun outfits. So, it was time to drag out Megan's old dress up clothes and things ...

Megan took these pictures a couple of weeks ago and I just made them into a set on Flickr. If you haven't seen them yet, take a look: at this and other sets (on the right side)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/

They've been having fun again this morning (August 19th) but no dressing up so far...

What happens at daycare, stays at daycare

With credit to Shawn for the Title.

Anyone with kids probably knows what kind of response the question, "what did you do in school today?" gets. Well, with a 2 year old there isn't much of an answer at all ... a ten year old will bestow a grand "stuff" on you and walk away. :-) So, of course I ask even more detailed questions about projects and events that I know DID happen and that usually just gets me a strange look unless said project is now sitting in front of us.

One look from Nessa was so strange it inspired the title of this post. :-)

But Nessa does do many wonderful projects at Daycare (by the way we LOVE our Daycare Director/lead teacher and feel blessed to have her in Nessa's life) and thanks to the notes that are sent home we get to hear about some of the small "what did she just say/do" moments there as well. Here are just a few from recent sheets.

• 
  Built with blocks that she could crash over -- she was looking for something to crash, so I suggested the blocks.
• Helped Jen fold washcloths. Nessa is getting very good at it. They look less "interesting" every time she helps. (Hmmm, here at home I think the things she folds still look very interesting.
• Worked on colors and counting using different colored dinosaurs. Nessa did an awesome job! She loves to show off her skills. :-) Also knew what day it was going to be on the calendar.
• Said "may I be excused?" at lunchtime -- good manners! (*this has actually been a problem area so it was especially nice to see this note ... that morning I had reminded her of the table "rules" such as "food stays on the plate" pause "well unless you're nicely putting it in your mouth" or some such jumbled mess of trying to explain table manners in simplistic toddler terms.
• Read lots of books. Nessa is very good at "I Spy" books.
  Had lots of fun playing with the trains and train tracks today. Nessa loves to drive the train and "let people get on and people get off." (It's a line from a Thomas book.)
  Nessa loves to build really tall lego towers. She said "Look at my beautiful tall tower. It's nice."
• Made an antenna headband for art. Nessa loved watching herself in the mirror with it on. she laughed and giggled and shook her head, "Jen, I'm cute." Yep she was.
• Nessa loves to get all the kitchen stuff out and fee us and the dolls. She loves to take the dolls for walks, put them in the swing, and the highchair. Very imaginative play!
  Played with the doctor set again today. Nessa enjoyed hammering the baby (!) and checking its temperature and blood pressure. She was Dr. Nessa Brooks again today. (Once Jen asked her if she was Dr. Brooks or Dr. Nessa and she said "I'm Dr. Nessa Brooks" and since then she has occasionally been Dr. Nessa or Dr. Brooks but she usually uses her entire name and will now tell you what name she is using when she plays Dr. without being asked.)
  
• Built a house with legos. Then Nessa parked the cars in it.
• Nessa was playing house and packed the backpack and purse full of food and then "went bye bye."
• Lots of singing today. We've been teaching all of the songs Nessa knows. She loves to dance and sing!
• Played construction worker and "built" the train table.
• Loved the new sandbox toys!
• Loved the water table.
• Went to Hintgen to play on the playground. Nessa got to ride in the wagon!
• Walked around the neighborhood and talked about all of the trees and flowers. Walked past Nessa's house and she said "that's Nessa's house."
  

Now just because we love Nessa's daycare and Nessa loves Nessa's daycare doesn't mean that Nessa's mom doesn't have pangs of guilt or outright guilt attacks on a regular basis. Now that we no longer live in a true village (you know the extended family and friends that are like family and jobs where kids are welcome and 9 to 5 hadn't been invented) there is no perfect solution.

And then there's Megan who complains about not getting to go to daycare enough (her friends are there, she adores Jen too, and she loves the babies/toddlers too) AND tells me that Nessa should never miss out on the activities at daycare just because I'm not working that day (there is no response that works there with a 10 year old, believe me). So, while we do refer to it as daycare (and write those big ole checks so they can stay in business), it is so much more to us than that...

Big Girl Swing

Nessa and I were in the back yard playing last Monday, and for the first time she got on the big girl swing. Tami and Megan were surprised when they got home, and we got some great pictures.



Nessa can also climb up to the platform at the top of the slide by herself now. Pretty soon there will be no stopping her!

Playing Night, NIght

Nessa loves playing "Night, Night" and we snap a few pictures of her once in awhile. She'll lay down and play it almost anywhere (in the bathroom the other day!) but her favorite is when she can find pillows and blankets to use in her play. And of course having someone to play with is always preferable. Then there is someone to cover her up and playfully say "night night" and "wake up."

Here she is recently playing in the great room with Daddy and one of her baby dolls. She recently discovered the basket of blankets and pillows in the great room so it's a new favorite place for her to play.