Month: January 2008

Green Baths, Thrift Stores and More Fish for Breakfast

Leilani brought me a book to read. “How Fletcher Was Hatched”. Before handing it to me she looked at it thoughtfully and remarked. “This book is really old.” I said (in German but for the benefit of my readership I’ll translate :) “Yea, it comes from the thrift store.” Leilani looked at me. “I not giving it away!” I did not understand, and she tried again to explain, until it dawned on me that she viewed the thrift stores as long term libraries – we get stuff there, and we bring it back when we are done – Andy’s and my recycling and reusing philosophy viewed through brand new eyes.

So first I explained to her that I would not force her to give away her toys before she was ready, and they were hers until she decided she was done with them. Unlike library books, that caused tears many times before. There were actually books that we renewed 3 times in a row, brought them back and checked them out with the other card right away again.

I felt the need to explain how we need to let go of old to make room for the new – if your shelves are all full of old toys where will you put the new ones – and also reminded her how sad Puff was once Jackie Paper didn’t come any more – how much better to find another child who still likes to play with dragons. She asked if Puff was a “real dragon” and I struggled some more. Some of her questions and interpretations of the world seem so far out for a 2 year old – and some are so obvious once I try to put myself into her shoes and look at the world without the big database of experience, knowledge, interpretations and prejudices that one builds up over the years.

On a lighter note: Who needs legos? Leilani, advanced as she may be is a little behind in her fine motor skills – tested by “Tutu and Me” because she can’t build a tower from 7 blocks less than an inch (2.6cm) side length (and no, I don’t worry about it.) But she sure can build high lego towers and even higher cat food towers. (Disclaimer: She picks out her own clothes.)

Poor battered child. Actually these were 3 different incidents. She threw a tantrum, and while still raging with anger, not paying attention to anything, she ran into the kitchen in socks, slipped, and fell against the “Learning Tower” (her chair like super high steping stool). The very next day, while walking Maka the dog, she ran down the hill on the pavement, I warned her to run slowly, carefully or walk, but she did not listen. Got up, cried a minute, ran again, and fell less than 70 feet (20 meters) from the previous spot. She then ran much more cautious, in a jogging pace.

Andy took her to the coconut marketplace:

She likes colored baths a lot.

Oh, and some last links for advertisement purposes: don’t click this one but, that’s a good one.

Christmas Tree Undecorating and Parenting Theories

Yesterday Leilani and I took down all the christmas ornaments off the tree. Leilani was extremely good and very careful, but still one ornament broke. That brings the toll from this entire, long-lasting Christmas season up to two, and I broke the first one. This time it was one of her favorites, a Santa with 2 little dogs and it broke after it had been taken down and put away safely because Leilani wanted to look at it one more time and dropped it while unwrapping. She was very sad (at least she said so) and did not touch any of the thin glass ornaments after, which was just fine with me. She then sorted the other ornaments into wooden stars and shiny small things and put them in 2 separate bags. After about 10 more minutes she lost interest and ran off.

She had taken down about a dozen or so glass balls before the Santa broke, and I was in another one of my parenting conflicts. The main stream parenting magazines advise to keep Christmas trees away from toddlers and preschoolers (fences in your living room yay!) and even my own mom was angry at my grandma for letting me play with glass christmas ornaments, some of my friends and acquaintances don’t let their kids handle any glass or china including dishes (never mind the orange juice on the carpet, as long as it’s spilled from a plastic cup)… you get the picture.

My own theory is, that she needs to learn at some point, preferably at exactly the right time. I do not want to discourage her from things she thinks she can do herself, that are not likely to land her in the emergency room. Think about it: how dangerous is glass break if you are right next to it and watch carefully? At least compared to a typical 2 year temper tantrum that makes them throw themselves against or at random things, or running at full speed and in socks around the kitchen corner, or swinging, or jumping on the trampoline with 4-year old friends or sitting in a car. Or living and breathing in a polluted, contaminated environment or talking to strangers…

Leilani knows since she is less than one year old what glass is, and that you’d better not throw it. She knows that fragile things break even when we squeeze them too hard, and she remembers these things. I don’t believe the theory that toddlers can’t remember; maybe if you only tell them, but if they experience the sound of glass breaking (terrifying to Leilani btw), the sadness of a toy being crumpled or stepped on to breakage they do remember.

And no, Christmas Tree Undecorating is not one word in German, but two :-)

Jet Li the dragon

Leilani is into naming and personalizing her things. She has lots of easter bunnies, named Didi and Mimi and Papa… a fairy was recently named Klezila.

All nice. Then she named one of her Chinese New-Years dragons Jet Li. In case this does not ring any bells google “Jet Li dragon” for a list of bad movies with a good martial artist. Andy immediately contested the name, and said it was spelled Chetly.

I think it is pretty amazing. I’m also sure Leilani could never have seen even a minute of his movies at babysiters or friends homes, she doesn’t even watch Snowwhite, and makes me skip great portions of the book now, because it is too scary, but maybe one of the kids in preschool talked about Jet Li?

Or maybe I, Andy, heard her say “Chetly” and said “Hey, that sounds like Jet Li, how appropriate for a Chinese dragon.” Anyways, all of these names, including the dragon’s change each time she plays the naming game. Some of the bunny names are consistent, but they are never for the same bunny. But it’s still an interesting phase, combining both her discovery of the “power” to name things and the ability to create words.

Oh The Thinks You Can Think!

There are so many THINKS a thinker can think!
Would you dare to yank the tooth of a RINK-RINKER-FINK?
And what would you do
if you met a JIBBOO?

Just a little quote from the “Oh The Thinks You Can Think!” book by Dr. Seuss. Leilani loves this one as much as all his other books, and recently started to make up Dr Seuss words. Had I thought about this before I’d have hidden the book for a few more years.

“Are you a plaza?” I answered that in German “Pluzer” is close enough. Italian Plazza might have worked too. But then she came up with more elaborate and longer words like “Lilyupdadidi” or … I’ll write them down right away next time, I forget them too fast… clearly happy about her brand-new and fresh words – I mean it’s not like Lisa’s de-lumpify or just verbing something, Those are brand new words, not related to anything else, thrown into a conversation by someone who still insists that it is a perfectly acceptable to pronounce spoon “Foon” and who, if a word seems too long in English just switches to German in the middle of the sentence… But it still is funny.

Another funny thing: We make her ask before she can get up from a meal. “May I get down please?” is the magic formula. But then it’s boring for a while, so sometimes she tries to make us get up too and play with her. Today she took my hand, looked me in the eye and asked “May you get down please?”

Computer games, iMovie and Poipu beach

Leilani started to play computer games recently: I had been sick with the worst cold I have ever had since I am an adult, almost 3 weeks of totally stuffy nose, throat and headache, cough… worst of all no energy to move, it made me tired to walk to the neighbors house and back, or even up the stairs. Andy watched Leilani most the time, and when it was my turn, I had no energy to chase her around, and no voice to read to her, so there was a lot of DVD watching and computer (practice) games. Click here and watch some fireworks, make the goldfish swim left and right and leap out his bowl, scratch the kitty – all teaching her to move the mouse pointer.

But as of today, her new favorite game called Kwala’s Birthday involves double clicking, drag and drop, and precise positioning:

She is working very focused, and the expression on her face shows it too.

Hard work. Notice the left hand gripping the keyboard shelf…

The game starts out with an empty room that needs some birthday decorations:

Curtains, tablecloth and wall border as well as the center cake are put in the right place with just a click, but all the other items have to be taken off the shelf and draged to exactly the right location:

After it’s all finished Leilani clicks on the blue phone and watches how Boowa and Kwala are praising her decorations. She also learned quickly how to click the “Start Over” button afterwards.

She got more and more coordinated – and more color coordinated too – the longer she played. Funny thing about the hovering blue bottle: I watched her place the bottle like a balloon above the table and told her to put it on the table – I thought she wouldn’t know how to grab it again with the mouse and did it for her. Leilani gave me a blank look, grabed the bottle one more time, put it exactly in the same spot where it had been before I interfered, took a second one off the virtual shelf, and placed it where I had put it before. She looked at me again, and smiled…


With movies and books Leilani is a lot more scared now, and also anticipates scary situations (Andy adds: because I think she understands the stories better now). I need to fast forward through a lot of scenes in Nemo (sometimes a minute before anything scary starts), and hold her during others. When we read Peter Pan for the first time recently we only got to the page where Tinkerbell tells Captain Hook where the hideout is, and the picture shows a frightened and surprised Wendy and the mean looking Pirates… Leilani said it was too scary and was very happy when we switched to Winnie the Pooh. Her new favorites are the Dr Seuss books, especially the Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and Hop on Pop (should I be worried about that last one). Cinderella is still going strong, and Arielle the mermaid is coming up… It’s funny, from Christmas until just a week ago she wanted to hear Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer over and over again, and also listened to the corresponding songs ad nauseam (mine not hers) – and from one day to the other it’s over (and no, we have not taken the Christmas tree down yet :-). Her new song of choice is “Haeschen in der Grube” about a sick bunny, that’s sitting and sleeping, and then the doctor gives it medicine and it gets healthy again.


Her cough is not 100% gone, but a lot better, so we let her in the ocean again. Her nose is still runny, but it doesn’t seen to bother her. She seems to be done with one molar, still 3 to go though. Maybe that’s what’s making her nose runny?


I had wanted to install new software called iLife ’08 on my Mac for a while, which would update iMovie, the movie making software I used on most my home movies. Having worked with Computers for a long time, I knew not to expect to be able to finish my started movie projects with the new version of iMovie, so I spend most of the last week’s sick time finishing up old, unfinished projects. It was fun and resulted in 2 new DVDs. Leilani got to watch lots of her old movies too. Once I upgraded I also found out that I had been right – the intro proudly announced it “can import movies that were made with older versions of iMovie” but much later and quieter said “it will delete all transitions and all music and all added sound,” in other words all the work of making a movie. I was pretty happy that I had the right foresight. So far the new software works great, only the new photo organizing software (iPhoto) does not live up to my expectations (but is still a lot better than the old version).


Yesterday I felt better and we went to Lydgate for a while, and today we discussed where we wanted to go swimming. Hanalei was mentioned among many other places, and Leilani told us she wanted to see the dragon. Then she started singing “Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Hanalei…” (I find it incredible that she can memorize words and sentences that she probably doesn’t understand—they must just be sounds to her). I showed her photos of the Hanalei mountain ridge that looks like a dragon – she said she wanted to see a REAL dragon and was disappointed that there was none. Then we read the surf report and told her about the big waves on the north shore, so we all agreed that Poipu would be the place to go.

We snorkeled while Leilani napped, and later she got to play in the sand and climbed on rocks and threw lots of coral pebbles in tidal puddles. We aso had a picnic at the beach (but forgot the camera in the car). Leilani told us she wanted to go surfing(on a body-board we found at Lydgate one time), but we told her she needs smaller waves to practice. She is pretty brave playing in the water and doesn’t mind the waves, but still does not put her head under water, and can’t really swim (she did float with her dolphin tube today for about a minute but was very tense about it eventhough I held her firmly the whole time).


In other news, the guy who broke my video camera still has not paid me, even though I have a judgement against him. I am pretty upset, and need to take him to court again I think for garnishment.