Toddler Tantrums

Keegan is an odd duck sometimes; or maybe an odd monkey is more appropriate. He created quite the scene at daycare today when Lyle and I went to pick him up. He ran away from me screaming; "I don't wanna leave, I don't wanna leave. Don't take me home." Okay so I mean what do you do about that?

I tried talking to him but he was in hysterics and as if this isn't bad enough the daycare teacher is watching me chase him and I imagine she is thinking "Why doesn't he want to go home? Do they beat him, neglect him?"

So I ended up carrying him out of daycare, while he refused his normal snack of crackers, and screamed "I don't want to go home!!!!" Now despite the fact that this is embarrassing and annoying, I also found that my feelings were kind of hurt. I mean we try our best to make home a fun place but there are rules and bedtimes and stuff. You do need to eat your dinner before you get an allotment of Easter candy. You only get 3-4 books read to you before bed. But geez...I mean it's not that awful.

Finally in the car Keegan calmed down and said he wanted to be outside. After a whole weekend of camping he was suffering and didn't want to be inside. He asked to eat dinner outside but it was a bit too cold. We finally placated him by agreeing to a walk to the park after dinner.

The whole incident wasn't a huge deal and I am definitely not the first parent to leave daycare with a toddler in meltdown; it's pretty much a daily occurrence. Add to this the fact that he bit some kid twice today, again, and it was frustrating.

He in fact is biting the same kid that he bit before; we will call him Fred to protect the innocent. Keegan does not like Fred; Fred is a bit slow and doesn't talk all that much and it frustrates Keegan. So Keegan bits him to get him to move or give up a toy, it is just this one boy that Keegan has trouble with. We know it is the same boy because Keegan flat out tells us, "Today I bit Fred and that was naughty of me."

We finally checked with the teacher (they are not supposed to tell you who is the biter or bitee, but she agreed to tell us if Keegan was telling the truth). We tried to explain to an overwrought Keegan again that biting is bad. That when Fred makes him angry he can stomp his feet, he can yell, he can stick his tongue out at him, but he should under no circumstances bite him. Keegan knows it is bad and it has been two weeks between biting incidents. Hopefully he will figure it out for good.

The other thing Keegan has been doing that is not bad but just interesting, is honing in on adult conversations. I mean usually Keegan either talks directly to us or we talk directly to him and that is how we have conversations with him. Lately it has been different. Lyle and I were talking about Keegan's bike and how the box was in the garage. Keegan sidled up and said "Daddy you put my bike together, Thank you." We were both a little surprised that he had followed what we had been talking about and had his own comments on it. Lyle and I were also talking about what to do about Kee biting Fred, Kee was in the other room playing and wandered in stating, "I know biting Fred is bad but he makes me angry."

Kee is turning out to be quite the conservationist and can understand more than I ever think he can. He is also learning to label the way he feels about things and this helps us understand him better. Although I am getting a little irritated with one thing he does with regards to feelings. The other day he ran into the road and I grabbed him and yelled at him trying to explain he needs to stay out of the road or he could get a big owie from the cars driving. He calmly stated, "Mommy is mad. Mommy needs to be happy. Look mommy, daddy is happy. Mommy should be happy." The rest of the night he had to talk about how mommy got angry and he would walk up to me and say "Is mommy happy now?" I was like geez, boy, I'll show you happy :-)

I think he is way smarter than we think he is.

Bikes and Bites

Tis finally the season for biking again. It is hard over the winter to keep up the biking. The cycle trainer is a cruel and poor substitute for riding outside. I tried to bike on the cycle trainer for 30 minutes 2-3 times per week over the winter; alternating with yoga, weightlifting, and walking. It is tough though. Finally this week I have been back on the bike...outside. Monday it was 6 miles, Tuesday 15 miles, and Thursday 5 miles.

I will talk briefly about the wonders of biking outside because I always forget how very much I love it. I love the whirring of the tires on pavement, the wind slapping against my face, the rhythm of pedaling, the sensation of whipping through the world at wonderful speed, I love watching the mileage increase on my odometer, the burning of my legs as I struggle up hills, and even the fishy smell that has started wafting from the lakes. All of this means it is spring and I am riding my bike, and I love it. I was worried that riding again would be tough and it isn't, it just feels wonderful and makes me feel wonderful. After the 15 mile ride on Tuesday though I began to wonder if I did need a new bike. My $90 mountain bike from Sportmart will only take me so far. It has been having a lot of gear issues that no amount of service can fix; I was finally told that it is just a cheap bike and it operates like a cheap bike. So well...then lets switch gears (no pun intended).

Tuesday night was Bike Helmet safety night in Blaine. For $10 you or your child can get a brand-new bike safety helmet and have it fitted. The only thing you need (besides $10) is time. Keegan's bike helmet ($40)from last year broke beyond fixing. So he needed a new one. We got to City Hall 15 minutes early and the line was already to the door. By 4pm (starting time) the line was into the parking lot. Still all things considered the line went fairly quickly and by 4:20 Keegan was being fitted with a bike helmet. Keegan's only request was that the helmet be blue. So he got a super cute helmet that was blue and had dinosaurs on it. I was impressed that all of the helmets there were really nice Bell helmets; maybe next year I will get a new one there.

Keegan was thrilled and told everyone he could about his new helmet. We underestimated the kid's sense of pride in his helmet. We couldn't get him to take it off the rest of the night; a relief after last year's helmet struggles which involved hours of screaming while we tried to get him to wear his helmet. Keegan wore his helmet to the park that night and went swinging in it, he wore it in the car. He wore it everywhere. We made him take it off to go to bed, but he didn't want to.

Where does this new lust for helmet wearing originate from? Well, you can probably guess...HOCKEY! He loves his helmet because it makes him look like he's playing hockey. I guess his hockey obsessions do have some upsides.

After the park that night we went to Dairy Queen with Ruby. We all got ice cream. After finding out the small blizzard I like has 700 calories in it, I opted for a fudgesicle with 50 calories. Not as satisfying but it didn't make me feel ill after I ate it either. Then we decided to go to Pioneer Cycle right behind Dairy Queen to look and see if there were any used bikes for Keegan.

Well this ended up being the most expensive DQ trip ever. There weren't any bikes for Keegan but Lyle talked me in to (okay it didn't take much talking) trying some new bikes for me. Lyle got a new bike last year but I waited because I wanted to make sure I was going to keep riding. Soooo....I tried a hybrid bike and a road bike. And wow...that road bike was awesome. So, I traded in my $90 MGX piece of crap bike and got a $600 Giant FCR3 which is considered a low-end road bike. Didn't have time to take the new bike out for a ride on Tuesday so I had to wait to see if the bike really makes that much difference in the ride.

I really was worried that it wouldn't make a difference. But holy cow was I wrong. My normal average speed is between 13.4 - 14 mph when I am not pushing it but not being lazy either. I hopped on this road bike comfortably has an average speed between 17-18 mph (while talking on the phone with my mom). My 6 mile route that normally takes 25-30 minutes; only took me 15-20 minutes. It was amazing. The gears on this new bike shift like magic, the handlebars are gel and don't make my hands hurt, and the brakes actually work (a huge bonus when commuting)!

So in short, yes the bike makes a difference. I am not a wuss because I couldn't keep up with other road bikes on my mountain bike; it *was* my bike. I mean riding is still a lot of work but I don't feel like I need to wrench my joints out of place to get up a hill.

Riding my bike was the good part of yesterday. The bad part was a phone call from daycare that started, "Well, we have a bit of an emergency, Keegan had an accident." I swear my heart almost stopped when I heard that, I am 40 minutes from daycare and was thinking OMG what did he break. Then I found out that Keegan had slipped off of his chair and smacked his face on the table. He ended up biting straight through his lower lip. The daycare manager calmly explained that this happens to toddlers every once in a while. His teacher was trying to stop the bleeding and put ice on it. She was going to call me back in 10 minutes to let me know if I had to run him to the emergency room for stitches.

That was a long 10 minutes. In that 10 minutes I called Lyle, called my mom so that she could pick him up quickly if it was super bad, and told my manager that I might have to leave suddenly. When daycare called back they said it wasn't horrible and the bleeding had stopped and that Keegan should be fine.

I called back in the afternoon and they said that the swelling was much better, no bleeding, no damage to teeth, and Keegan could eat fine. They also let me know that doctors won't usually stitch lips on toddlers because it is just too hard and too traumatic. The whole thing made me happy I have a great daycare.

They took great care of Keegan, they communicated with me well, and they were knowledgeable enough that I didn't have to leave work and take Keegan for a needless and traumatic visit to the emergency room. Also thank goodness for my mom, who got ready to leave to pick Keegan up on a moment's notice. It makes me feel so much better to know that she is close to him.

It was a bit of scare that ended up being no big deal. When we picked him up Keegan bragged to me about his owie and then proceeded to re-enact (without actual collision) what had happened. Then he said it was a "Bad table that gave him an owie" And of course he got lots of kisses and hugs. Apparently he didn't even cry when he broke it open and was really good about letting them take care of it. It didn't bother him all night, although it bothered me because he kept chewing on it. Watching him chew on it made me a bit nauseous and my knees a bit weak but I just stopped watching since it wasn't bleeding and it didn't bother him.

That is all on bikes and bites. One more thing, Keegan's trike is too small for him. His knees hit the handle bars; so this weekend it will be off to get a bike for him one way or another.

Next week will be bike commuting time, hopefully (as long as it isn't too cold in the mornings).

Enter the Imaginary Owl

Keegan has quite the imagination. Yesterday we were at the park and he decided he wanted to go hiking. So we "hiked" to the picnic gazebo by the park. Keegan climbed up onto the picnic table bench and sat down. He started dipping his hand toward the table and pretending to eat. He said "Mama, I am eating chicken nuggets with ketchup."

Then Lyle sat down at the table across from us and pretending that he was eating chicken nuggets too. Keegan looked at me and said, "Mama, my ketchup is all gone...I'll go get some from daddy." So he got down, ran over, and stole Lyle's imaginary ketchup. Then he came back down and proceeded to eat more chicken nuggets with ketchup. Suddenly he stopped eating and looked at me "Mama, Ruby wants chicken nuggets too." How he knew this I will never know, since Ruby was at home sleeping on her dog bed. "Here Ruby!" Keegan said as he leaned over to hand imaginary Ruby, imaginary chicken nuggets. Then he sat up and giggled, clasping his hands to his chest, "Mama, Ruby like them!"

Such scenes play out quite frequently in our house and when we are out and about. We never discourage his fertile imagination and try to play along as best we can. Normally I am glad that he is so creative and has so much fun. There is one thing that is becoming kind of concerning.

Enter the Owl. The Owl appeared during dinner the first time a couple weeks ago. Keegan said "Mama, Dada, look there's an owl!" We looked and of course there was no Owl in the living room. I said "Where is the Owl?" Keegan pointed to the living room, "Mama it's right there and it says Whoo, whoo, whoo" Okay not a big deal, we talked about his owl and what color it was etc.

Then the owl kept appearing in the living room during dinner; it is an owl only Keegan can see. Okkkaayyy...so we have an imaginary owl in the living room. Well then it started following Keegan around.

The Owl now sleeps by the end of his bed and it follows us to the park and sits in the tree and watches Keegan while we play. The Owl is everywhere. Last night we asked him if the Owl had a name...we think he said it is "Hank" but we couldn't really understand him all that well.

So apparently Keegan has an imaginary owl named Hank. As if the three cats and dog aren't enough; we need an owl. I am not sure if I should be amused or dismayed but all-in-all I think it's pretty darn funny :-)

Bilingual Counting

We really like Keegan's daycare. They do a number of neat activities for the kids that Keegan really enjoys. They aren't afraid to let the kids get dirty and they let them make artwork with everything from shaving cream to pudding to dirt. They have a great indoor town where the kids get to dress up and play mailman or cook or doctor or whatever they can think up. They also have a music teacher that comes by once a week to give music lesson; Keegan really looks forward to these.

Recently they have started optional classes that you can pay for your child to attend. When we heard they were offering a sign language/spanish immersion class we were excited; of course at $30 a week it's a bit steep for price. We decided to enroll him anyway; we talked with the lady running the class and she is pretty cool and gets along with the kids really well. Keegan was sold after she signed "10 little monkeys jumping on the bed" for him.

So on Mondays Keegan goes to Spanish/Sign Language class. They learn the sign language for words in English and then repeat the signs with the Spanish words. Having the same sign language for both languages makes it easy to learn. As parents we get a packet that shows all the words they learned, the signs for them, and how they are pronounced in Spanish. Pretty cool.

Is it worth is though? I wasn't sure. He's been doing this for 5 weeks so far and it's kind of expensive. Then last weekend he was reading a book and told me "Mama the duck is yellow." He was doing something with his hand and I realized he was signing yellow. Kind of neat that he was picking up signs.

Then yesterday he absolutely blew me away. He wanted to read the book "10 Little Lady Bugs" so we sat down to read it. He knows all of the numbers really well and can count to 20 when he sets his mind to it. At the end of the book all of the ladybugs get home. We always count them to makes sure all ten made it home.

So, Keegan counted the ladybugs and sure enough (again) there were 10. I started to shut the book and Keegan "Mama stop, now we need to count them in Spanish" I was amused and opened the book for him. Sure enough he started counting in Spanish, "Uno, Dos, Tres, Quarto, Cinco" he got stuck at seven. I felt bad because I couldn't remember eight in Spanish so I couldn't help him (I took German as my language). Still though I was pretty darn impressed. I mean after basically 5 days of these classes he can count...in Spanish...I mean wow!

The downside to this all is that now I need to brush up on my Spanish. Lyle does good with him though because he took Spanish as his language in high school. I better get going on those Spanish lessons otherwise who knows what those two will be talking about behind my back :-)