September September 1 - 23, 2006 School season starts; Tom keeps talking back; granny flies away to the cold regions for the winter.

	Lisa has been a very attentive pupil, and takes Tom's lessons to heart

	Artistic focus

September traditionally evokes start of a new school year. Our children don't go to school yet and Tom's daycare operates the whole year around, so we had not counted on any changes in this aspect. However, Tommy came from school bitten -- again -- which made me quite cross. I understand if such thing happens. I can see how it can occur twice. But five times within three months? I personally think that a teacher should recognize an imminent problem and intercept it before "it comes to blood". So I underwent two talks with the principal, I raised my voice a bit to the teachers, and we gave it some thought at home; it seems that the situation has two causes. New children were added to Tom's class, most of them two years old. For some of them, a school is a new thing, and a stressful one, too. They have no experience with a collective and resolve all problems with physical force. On the other side, Tom is relatively intense and strong-minded in pushing his own agenda (especially regarding his convictions that exactly this one toy belongs to him and him alone) -- and his negotiation skill are almost none. He speaks English in basic sentences, cannot use any fine wording yet, and does not always understand things said in English.

Eventually we agreed to let Tom try attending a class with older (three years old) children a bit ahead of his age (he shall be three by end of October). This would allow him some distance from younger mates, and mix him among the "sophomores" -- he knows the whole class of three year olds from last year. "Sophomores" deal better with common social interactions, and usually at least try to resolve a conflict verbally first. Tommy would also have an opportunity to hone his English. And we like the teacher in the class -- a strict young woman.

	Lisa takes her own development in strides -- (magnetic) fishing became her favorite game

I had a few worries how Tom would cope with being separated from his friends, the twin brothers, but since both classes spend time together in the yard, he did not lose running around with the boys. He also seems to be happy to go to school with kids he remembers from last year. The teacher praised him how well he can count from one to ten and that he knows all letters, so it would seem that all shall turn out well and our expectations will be fulfilled. I have the impression that Tom actually looks forward to going there more often; perhaps he's glad to be among smarter kids -- after all, he has the opportunity to play with a baby anytime at home.

	The most significant benefit of the swimming class is: balls

Lizzy has been giving Tom hard time lately. She advances at lightning speed, changing from a featureless infant into a strong competitor regarding skills -- and Tom's freaking out. At least that has been my theory justifying his ever culminating phase of rebellion. Tommy has decided to stand up to authorities in all aspects and at any cost. I have begun to see why in the nature some mothers eat their young.

This we have at home now in various forms practically every time I open my mouth -- whether we deal with going to the playground, on a trip, have a lunch, take a nap... we fight a hard fight over everything. I found that it's best to give him a choice of MY options. Like, "here's your lunch on the table and if you don't want it, you will go straight into bed and sleep." He has so far not discovered that it's possible to refuse BOTH choices. A few times I was forced to fulfill my threats -- for example we were, both Lisa and I, all gone outside of the house, while Tom fumed inside that Lisa was rattling on his push car under the window. I also had to seriously put him to his afternoon nap without lunch. Two things frighten me -- the idea that within a year, Lisa shall enter this cute phase; Lisa has already developed much stronger weapons in her psycho-war, compared to Tom -- and the outlook to some ten years later, when both enter puberty.

	Tom has been promoted to a class where he can be in the pool without a parent present

	With granny at the ZOO

Lisa has already become a child considerably... ahem... particular. For some reason she had decided that se did not care to walk just yet. She walks behind a stroller or a push-car; when led hand-in-hand she musters staircases. On her own she makes a few steps, if she's in a good mood and of the impression that it must be some new game. Once she realizes that we might impress any new self-reliance on her, she shows us. When urged, "Come on, Lizzy, by yourself now" her legs turn to rubber, she collapses on her belly and she begins to weep desperately. A little heap of a disaster has been her usual blackmailing posture -- whenever we don't perform our parenting duties snappily (e.g. leaving her to play with remote controls, splash in a toilet bowl, read to her a Thomas the Tank Engine book for the five hundredth time on that day, or even forcing her eat indigestibles like apples), she serves us a wronged, dying cry-baby.

Despite that, Lisa has been awfully skillful. As one of my adrenaline surge sports, I issued my kids water color paints -- Lizzy understood right away how a brush works, and promptly turned into an artist. After a few days of figuring out, she worked the magnetic fishing pole, she enjoys to browse through books at length and can communicate everything she needs. Nevertheless she apparently intends to make it to the preschool crawling on all four.

September begins a new semester at the swimming school as well. Tom has been promoted to a class where kids can "swim" without their parents being present in the water, only with teachers; Lisa is a beginner. Our first session was a bit confused - Sid, who was ill, skipped out and with the help of granny I managed to take two swimmings back-to-back. Lizzy started by being not sure, but when the teacher pulled out colorful plastic balls, all was clear -- this was the kind of game exactly for her. Tommy has always been very careful about water and won't get caught by a surprise. When his teacher spread some toys on the bottom to make the kids bend down and make their faces wet, Tom has immediately figured a way to grab the toy with his toes.

	Tom back at this role of a teacher

	Our stereotypical kids Lady Lisa makes sure everybody is admiring her pretty car, while Tom the engineer explores the mechanism of the bell.

We have also been to our mini-zoo named Happy Hollow with our granny. It's been one of the few places where I can still take advantage of the twin stroller. Not that Tom could not march, but still sometimes he marches in a direction quite different from the one I'm taking Lisa. With granny, this problem does not exist -- we simply each grabbed one child and our fugitives were out of luck. Both children liked the animals, although Tommy was mostly interested in (his classic) storm drains. Later we advanced to the amusement section of the park, to the merry-go-rounds. Here we could clearly observe differences between the two kids. Lisa enjoyed the rides, waved to us and smiled to the wide public, making carefully sure everybody could see how beautiful horse or car she was currently riding. In contrast to that, Tommy uses the opportunity to ride in the park to perform serious scientific studies. There is no time for any frivolities such as waving or smiling -- he intently observes moving mechanisms of the carousel, and sometimes utters brief comments regarding technical details of the entertainment equipment.

By noon Lisa began to fade and whimper; it was clear that the hour of withdrawal had arrived. Alas, Tom refused to leave the ZOO -- he cried hysterically that he would "run far away, ride a train", and really ran away into the maze of little paths winding throughout the park. I left Lizzy in the clutches of her grandmother and began to track my rebelling youngster. Apparently next time I shall need to tie him up to the stroller before announcing that we would leave.

Tom's anger and refusals are tiring me considerably. I must admit, however, that his fate with us is not easy either. The other day granny decided to use the sugar method and during departure from a playground she promised Tom a present. From her trips around Monterey, she brought him some pamphlets about his beloved lighthouses, and some fish stickers. Tommy ran back home enthusiastically and right through the door announced that he was getting a present. Its handing over was a disaster -- Tom beheld the stack of papers and began to cry that "this is no present, that's just some mail". His disappointment was so great and so heartbreaking that I had to quickly hand granny some puzzle, which I had saved for some future opportunity, and thus she could repair her reputation.

	Granny on the carousel

	Our this year's last trip with granny - to our favorite beach.

It's interesting how peculiar ideas come to Tom -- even in his dreams. The other night he woke us at three o'clock with yelling about a train ride, about which he probably dreamed. It took us a while to bring him to some senses and explain that trains, too, sleep at night and we want to sleep, and he wants to sleep as well, for sure, etc., etc.

Well and then came the day of granny's farewell. Tom was besides himself with glee for he completely focused on the fact that we would drive out to he BIG airport where they have TRAINS. I don't think he found the parting strange -- granny would often leave us for days and always come back, so perhaps he did not understand why it should be different this time. I think he envied granny that she was going to fly in a big blue airplane (he owns a model of Air Force One -- we so far we were not callous enough to tell him that granny was not going to take this particular aircraft -- just like most of the other mortals).

Given the increased departure hassle we promised to stay with granny until she's through all the check-ins, lest there be some trouble. We got one right on the first contact. The counter clerk insisted that my mother could not take her carry-on luggage (purchased explicitly to meet carry-on size regulations) on board, as the London limit was newly lowered. They stood there and gazed at each other -- the clerk claiming it was not possible and my mom wondering how to "juggle" her things along for an almost 24-hour trip. I had to resolve it myself -- by cramming the unfortunate bag into their wire form and stuffing it all it would take, which made it meet the limit. It's interesting that no one else from a long line of passengers was ever bothered about their carry-on luggage -- and people there were pulling pretty large pieces. Since that one incident, no one ever again would notice granny's bag -- not even in London. I don't get it. We must have encountered a classic situation of a proactive moron empowered with a function.

Granny was so unnerved she refused to spend the remaining two hours till her boarding with us in the lobby. We waved her across her last checkpoint, impenetrable for us, and I rolled on, with my two kids and a stroller, up one floor. There's an automatic shuttle train connecting individual terminals at the airport. Because it has no driver, one can sit on platforms right behind the front and rear windshields. Tommy watched the "rails" and switches and signal lights and storm drains; Lisa paid most attention to airplanes taking off and landing. After some time I declared our afternoon program to be completed and drove back home. Now I only hope that our kids would understand that their grandmother flew far away, and will be extremely nice to me. We shall all get used to one less pair of hands.

Copyright © 2006 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.