Science!

 

We found a bunch of pupae when we were working up the garden, so we decided to hatch them and see what they would turn into. We kept them in a jar for several weeks. Finally a big fat grey-brown moth hatched out of one a couple days ago. Two more hatched this morning. We let them go outside.

I'm still not sure what kind of moth they are, but it hardly matters. The important thing is that Conan got to watch a fascinating natural process up close, and loved it.

Update 5/28: Another one hatched this morning!

Mother's Day Massacre

Yesterday tragedy struck.  It started out a perfect day, warm and sunny, blue skies with a light breeze.  We went out to a lovely Mother's Day brunch, never suspecting the carnage we would find on our return home: a raven killed all our sweet innocent ducklings.

I saw the raven perched in the tree above the duck pen, and then watched as it flew a short way and landed at the end of the driveway.  I realized that it was carrying something, but it still took me several moments to comprehend that it was a duckling.  Ravens were simply not on my radar as a potential predator.  I was dumbfounded as I watched it tossing the limp fuzzy yellow body around.

Conan saw it too, and realized at about the same time I did what it was.  He shrieked and ran into the house sobbing. My heart broke knowing that I couldn't shield him from this grief, but I went after him and held him as he cried.  I didn't think it could get any worse than seeing him realize that there was nothing we could do to save his duckling.

But it did get worse.  Cary had gone out to chase off the raven and check on the rest of the ducklings.  He returned with the simple, dreadful news that there were no more ducklings.  None.  We hadn't lost just one duckling, we had just seen the last duckling die.  We had fundamentally failed to keep those sweet, tame baby ducks safe.

"Ravens are BAD! They stealed all my baby ducks and eated them! I hate ravens!" Conan sobbed.

I held him close and we talked about predators.  We talked about how lions eat zebras, and the zebras don't like it, but that doesn't mean the lions are bad.  They are just lions.

We talked about sharks and seals, T-rex and stegosaurus, cats and mice, robins and worms.  Animals have to eat other animals, but it doesn't make them bad.  They are just animals, doing what they have to do.

We talked about how the raven probably has a nest with baby ravens in it, and the baby ravens are happy now because their tummies are full.  And the baby ravens aren't bad, they are just hungry babies.  And the mama raven isn't bad, she is just a raven mama who has to feed her babies.

Once we had worked our way through the basics of predation, I said we would get more ducklings.  "No mama" Conan snuffled.  "The raven will come and eat them too."

So we talked about netting, and how papa was outside Right Now putting netting over the duck pen so when we got new baby ducks they would be safe.  Because even thought the raven wasn't bad,  we sure didn't want it to eat any of our baby ducks ever again.  (No no no no no!)

We've ordered more ducklings from the farm supply, and on Wednesday or Thursday we'll have ducks again.  We've learned some important lessons about life and death and daytime predators, so things should work out better.

And just to be on the safe side, we won't name the new ducklings after desserts.

5/15 Update:  Conan told me this morning that he dreamed of the raven that killed the ducks.  In his dream, he caught it "and it didn't even try to bite me!"  I asked him what happened after that, and he said "Nothing.  I letted it go.  And it is my friend.  All the ravens in the whole world are my friends now!  All of them.  And they are good, not bad.  All the ravens in the WHOLE wide world are my friends and they are good."  I asked him if he was still sad about losing his ducklings and he said he was, but "not as sad anymore now that I have raven friends."

What a sweet heart my little boy has.  It seems losing our ducklings, though painful and sad, has taught us a thing or two about forgiveness as well as life and death.

Spelling Game

One of Conan's current favorite games is "spelling" words with the alphabet magnets on the fridge.  He chooses a word, and I write it down in block capital letters on a scrap of paper and put it up on the fridge (with a magnet, of course).  Then he finds the letters and assembles them in order to spell the word with the magnets.  He can spend quite a long period of time at it, and he's really creative with the words he chooses.  It's lots of fun, and pretty impressive for his age.

I Get Mad

Whew.

I'm not even sure where it started.  We had finished dinner, and Conan was playing with his horsies.  All was well... and then suddenly it wasn't.  I asked him if he needed to go potty, and then just like that he was stomping his feet and screaming at me, "You don't talk to me! You don't look at me! Auuughh!" and we were in full battle mode.

I tried to calm him down.  I tried talking to him about what he was feeling, what had upset him.  I took him to his room and firmly told him he needed to stay there until he was ready to be calm.  He did not stay.  We went a few more rounds, until finally I said, "OK, that's it, it's bedtime."  I took off his clothes to change him into his jammies, but had to give up.  It's possible to remove clothes from a writhing, screaming preschooler, but it's really not feasible to dress one.

All this went on for a while, although I couldn't say for how long.  Even 10 minutes seems like an eternity with a kid in full meltdown.  Toys were thrown and confiscated, feet were stomped, words were shouted, ultimatums were given and ignored.  I can't really recall in detail the exact progression of the fight, but the play by play doesn't really matter.  Every parent has been there.  We certainly have, with more regularity than I'd like to admit.

But then he attacked me, swinging his little fists and kicking, tears streaming down his beet-red face, screaming incoherently.  He didn't land any blows, but his fury was overwhelming, escalating everything to a new level.

I got mad.  Really mad.  I was literally overheated, instantly sweating. I wanted to stomp my feet and throw things.

I didn't know what to do with myself or Conan.  I told him again, through clenched teeth this time, to stay in his room, closed the door, and then... I hid.  I darted into the bathroom, without turning on the lights, and got into the tub, behind the shower curtain, and held my breath.

Conan, of course, slammed open his bedroom door almost immediately.  I'm sure he expected to find me standing there, waiting to tell him to get back in his room and stay there.  But I wasn't there, so instead he stood at the top of the stairs and screamed "Mama! Mama!  MAAAAAAMAAAAA!" for several minutes.  I didn't move, or make a sound.  I calmed my breathing, cooled down, and started to wonder what I was going to do next.  I was (and still am) pretty sure that hiding  in the bathtub from your enraged three-year-old is not a parenting technique recommended by any of the experts.

After a few minutes, he decided to go look for me downstairs.  I thought at first that this might be a good thing.  For one thing, he seemed to be calming down - no more shouting.  For another, if he couldn't find me for a bit, maybe he'd make a connection with his actions (trying to hit me) and my disappearance.  I thought maybe it would be good for him to get a little worried about where I had gone. (I was still pretty steamed, and as much as I don't like to admit it now, I wanted him to suffer a little.)

But then I heard a loud crash, followed by another and another.  He had called my bluff.  I ran downstairs to find he had overturned his art table, sending pens and crayons and other supplies flying everywhere.  He had knocked over all four dinner table chairs, tipping them backwards until they crashed to the floor.  He had taken several of the plastic toy organizer bins off the shelf and dumped all the toys onto the floor, then thrown the empty bins across the room.  He was standing in the middle of all this destruction, naked, with tears streaming down his face, still kicking things.

I wanted to both laugh and cry, I was so angry.  I sank onto the couch, and just stared at him.  Neither of us said anything for several minutes.  And then, finally, in a tiny little voice, he said "I'm cold, mama".

Everything changed with those words - suddenly he was just a cold, confused baby, not the destructive menace he had been.  The rage left me, and I asked him if he would like to cuddle with me.  He nodded and flew into my lap for a big, long hug.  I told him I didn't like how mad we had both gotten, and that now I felt silly and embarrassed.  He agreed that he also felt bad for having been so mad.  He apologized for yelling and for trying to hit me and for making a big mess.  I apologized for yelling and hiding from him.  I got him dressed in some jammies (finally!) and he very willingly helped me pick up all the toys and chairs and art supplies.  I put him to bed, and he was asleep in moments.

Thinking about this whole incident, I have come to a conclusion that surprised me at first - namely, that losing  my temper in front of Conan was a good thing.  For the first time, he saw that I could really, really get mad, and more importantly, he saw me get my emotions back under control. I'm not going to stop trying to keep my anger under control, of course, but I do think it gives him some more clues about how emotional control works to see examples of both losing and regaining control.  And while hiding from him was a reasonable tactic under the circumstances, it's not one I'd recommend.  Stripping the kid naked so he gets cold and calms down though, that might have a future.

*****

Since the above incident occurred, we've implemented a new, structured, timer-controlled "cool down" regimen that seems to really be helping all of us.  It's somewhat similar to Time Out but with some significant differences. We got it from a book called "Four Weeks to a Better Behaved Child" which seems to do exactly what the title advertises.  A big part of it is teaching the child to control his anger (clearly something we need help with), heading off the major explosions like the one described here, and of course reinforcing good behavior with lots of positive rewards.  And best of all, it's a really short book, so it didn't take forever to find time to read & understand it! 

Preschool

Conan started preschool at A Step Ahead in July, and he is loving it. It was a big transition for all of us, but we've adjusted now and couldn't imagine life without it. The school we chose is a really neat bilingual (spanish-english) language emphasis program, and Conan is learing spanish so fast, it's really incredible. The words just seem to magically appear in his vocabulary! So far, he has learned

• hola
• amigo
• adios
• por favor ("bor pabor")
• muy bien
• buenos dias
• mamacita
• agua
• leche
• manos
• azul
• and he can also count to ten!

Little children are natually attuned to aquiring language skills, and beyond the obvious benefits of simply being bilingual there is also a lot of evidence that early secondary language learning helps prime kids for better academic performance later. Not that it's all about the academic benefits - there's also a lot of fun to be had! The kids sing songs, play, eat snacks, play outside on the playground, paint pictures, and make whole hosts of things out of paper plates, glue and construction paper. (That's an octopus he's holding in the picture.)

Even more exciting than seeing Conan learning spanish, however, has been the improvement in some of his behaviors.  Prior to starting him at the preschool, mealtimes were a constant struggle for us.  Conan didn't like to sit still and eat, and when he would sit at the table he would fidget and play with his food, often knocking over his beverage and/or dropping food on the floor "accidentally".  At the school they make the kids all sit down together for snacks and meals, and they all have to be seated before the food is given out.  Then they have to wait until everyone has been served before they start to eat.  After just a few weeks, Conan started announcing proudly "I gonna sit at the table the WHOLE time!" when we'd sit down for a meal, and it just keeps getting better.  He now eats his food calmly, says please when he wants more, and asks to get down when he's done.  Most shocking of all, he often says "Thank you for making dinner, Mama!" without any prompting. 

He also has  gotten better about taking turns, made more progress in potty training, learned to put on and take off his own shoes, and generally learned a lot about social interactions.  He scolds me for not drinking up all my water, because "if you don't drink it, that's wasting it" and councils himself "you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit" when we're out of his first choice of popsicle flavor.  He's proud to tell us fun facts that he has learned at school, such as "fish breathe water" and "big trees grow from little seeds." 

He still frequently cries when he's dropped off in the morning on school days, but the teachers assure us that he stops after just a few minutes.  He often tells me in the morning that he's not going to have ANY fun, but then when I pick him up he tells me that I was right, he did have fun.  Some days he doesn't want to leave, or wants to go back again after we get home.  All this is perfectly natural, but that doesn't mean I won't be releived when he is consistantly cheerful about getting dropped off!

It's a little bit of a struggle for me to come to grips with the fact that my little baby is grown up enough for preschool, but overall I'm really thrilled with how well he's doing. He can't stay a baby forever, and I'm glad we've found such a great preschool program for him. 

Bragging

Tonight at bedtime as we were picking some books to read, Conan started pointing to the letters at the top of one of them. I was astounded when he read off to me "A-L-L A-B-O-A-R-D R-F-A-D-I-N-G". Ok, so he made one mistake, calling the E an F. But for 2 1/2 I think it's pretty impressive, and I just had to brag. :)

Alphabet Puzzle!

Conan really loves this puzzle. He's completely mastered putting it together, and can do it all by himself now. Although there are still a few mysteries about the puzzle design for him - such as why there's a "beaver" on the W piece. (What, you think it might be a walrus, not a beaver? Pure nonsense.)


It also seems kind of odd that there's a "Polar bear caught in a net" representing the letter 'i'. I guess Iguanas are hard to draw, or something. And seriously, if you'd never heard of an igloo before you saw this picture, what would YOU think that was? I think a net is a pretty good guess.


Whew, this Alphabet Express is finished and ready to roll!

More Words

Conan's vocabulary has suddenly expanded again. It's really interesting to me to see what words he picks up, because it's a window into what he sees as important and neecessary to communicate. His new words include the following:

Up
Hat
No
Owie
Happy
Jus (juice - this is a big favorite)
Bouh (book - another favorite thing)
Bampah (Grandpa Dave)
Wower (flower)
More (now spoken along with the hand sign)
Tancoo (Thank you)
Moo (moon - this one surprised me. If you ask him where it is, he'll point to the sky. It's very cute.)

He also knows the names of several cats, both at home and at friends' houses. And when he wants milk, he points to the fridge and says "Muh!" which is not exactly a word but it is a start...

We actually had our first verbal argument the other day. He wanted juice, but he'd already had enough in my opinion (and mama's opinion is pretty much law). So I offered him a cup of water. Our exchange went like this:

C: Jus?
M: Water.
C: Jus!
M: Water.
C: Juuuusss?
M: Water.
C: Jus.
M: Water.
C: Jus?
M: Water.
C: Jus!

Then he went and asked Papa, who also gave him a cup of water. Foiled again!