Week ending Aug 5, 2007:

Week ending August 5, 2007: This week the kids spent a lot of time exploring the magic of dirt. Dirt really is great stuff; you can dig holes, build mountains, burry things and make things grow. In this drought our sandy soil is as light as powder and will float on the wind when distributed. The same light soil becomes heavy when you fill a bucket with it. The powdery fineness turns to slippery sliminess when the kids add some water from the wading pool and then they can squish it through their fingers and toes and use it like paint. Dirt sticks to everything. It coats their toys and their skin, they can use a wet finger to draw patterns in the dust on their arms and legs, and it makes a colorful ring in the bathtub. All things come from dirt and to dirt all things return. I’m digging up some stumps in the back yard and have created a nice dirt pit for them to play in. Every day this week they say “can we go play in the dirt now?” The pictures this week are ones Alex has taken. We give him free run of our “old” digital camera and he takes a lot of pictures. He knows how to turn it on, set the mode to take pictures, and change the mode to look at what he’s taken. The picture of me isn’t particularly flattering, but it is interesting to note exactly what a person my size looks like towering over a 3ft tall child. The other picture Alex took is of Chloe practicing her “hand stand”. Chloe’s foul temper of last week has continued into this week. She’s taken to trying to hurt Alex while attempting to get her way. She’s been pinching, hitting, kicking, and scratching. One day she did it 8 times. I ran out ways to explain that “hurting people doesn’t get you what you want” and I ran out of toys and privileges to take away from her. I spent all evening trying to figure out another tactic. The next day I watched the kids more closely and intervened earlier when they had conflict, and still she lashed out at him 3 times. Her temper is the shortest when she’s hungry (much like her mother), so when she started to get grumpy I’d sit her down and tell her not to get up until she ate a snack. She’d usually rage for a while about not being hungry then eat everything I gave her and ask for more. She doesn’t seem to know when she’s hungry, or maybe she just doesn’t want to stop playing long enough to feed herself. Maybe it is because I still treat her like a 3.5 lb preemie who is going to starve to death if she skips a meal, so I’m always chasing her around with food and she never has to tell me she’s hungry.