Transitional Objects

Lamby was my special "lovie" when I was a baby. I don't know what ever became of my lamb but I can tell you that from stories it wasn't good. Lamby had at least one bout with the toilet and won. They told me that Lamby was loved to death.

When Madeline was 11 months old we anxiously started shopping for her next carseat. During the process we happened upon a bear that had been placed in a carseat, presumably by an exasperated parent. Being the newbies that we were we handed the bear to Madeline. I had recently read in my book of everything-a-parent-could-everp-want-to-know-and-some-things-you-don't that Madeline was ripe to find a transitional object. The transitional object was supposed to help relieve separation anxiety. Never before had she taken a liking to a stuffed animal but she hugged and loved that bear every minute we stayed in the store. We were suckers and purchased the bear. On the way home we had a discussion on what to call Madeline's new transitional object. At the time Ryan's little sister was dating a boy named Teddy. We didn't really care much for Teddy so we decided to call the transitional object "Bear" versus "Teddy" for obvious reasons. It took quite awhile to train ourselves to NOT call the bear Teddy but lo and behold we broke the habit and to this day I call bears "bear". We never told any of Ryan's family about this. I can divulge this fact now because Teddy, aka Ted, is no longer a prospective member of the family. When we were assured of Madeline's taking to Bear, we went back to the store and purchased another. I had read too many horror stories of lost lovies. To this day we still have two bears.

Annalise is now 19 months and I can't believe she has not yet selected a transitional object. We've tried many times to find her true love, but to no avail. We even purchased a bison from the zoo gift shop but she loves bison no more than any other stuffed animal in our house. Annie is not prejudiced against her stuffed friends. She loves them all. She has shown a slight liking for a bear that was given to us after Madeline's birth but she doesn't need him to go to sleep and will in fact go to sleep with no stuffed animals at all. I'm not sure what to make of her lack of desire toward transistional objects except that maybe I am the biggest fool of all: I am her transitional object.

The Politics of Gardening

My mother always told me her favorite season was spring. As someone who loves fall, I never really empathized with her opinon. She always told me that everything was leafing out, flowering and coming to life, whereas during the fall everything is going dormant or dying. It's an interesting metaphor and as time goes on I lean more and more toward favoring her opinion. It could be that during my youth I yearned to be older, and now as I grow older I cling to youth, renewal and rebirth. Or it could be that I just like pumpkins and apple picking. At the heart of it, I think it goes deeper and is much more psychological than we even realize.

During the spring it's hard to think about much other than our garden as everything comes back to life. Madeline is usually put-off by the hustle and bustle of the gardening, which I never recall doing as a child. "Gardening" defined by my parents was simply the process of growing fresh tomatoes for vine-ripened harvesting. It may be that due to a lack of taste for tomatoes I never noticed the garden. Or I was simply too busy playing TV or Cartoon Tag with my neighbors. Madeline's new Tag Line is "If we don't do it, we won't die. We can just go to the store", meaning we don't need to garden because we can just purchase our produce at the grocery store or farmers market. While gardening began as a hobby, it's become so much more and even a political statement. I shrugged off Maddie's original comment until she said it again the following day. I couldn't ignore her statement the second time. "Madeline" I said. "You're right. We can just buy our food at the store but we don't because it's healthier for our environment and someday, if we don't, we could die". She was perplexed by this retort, so I continued. "The price of food is going up very high and there are people all over the world right now who cannot afford to buy food at the store." She asked why. "Because there is getting to be more people than food and because a lot of our food is being used as fuel for vehicles". She thought about this for awhile and even had some excellent ideas to solve the problem. I told her that we can afford to buy food at the store, but that we'd rather grow our food and use the money for fun instead of food. It definiely made her think a lot about the balance and economics of life and perhaps a little beyond the confines of our property lines. Maybe next time we ask her to plant a seed, she'll take us up on the offer. After all, she knows as well as anyone in our family that almost nothing beats popping a freshly picked raspberry right into your mouth.

Firsts

Madeline experienced a couple of "firsts" this week. First (ha ha), she had her first kindergarten music program where she performed an alphabet worth of songs. She was, in fact, the only kid of about sixty who chose to sit for part of the program. Asked about it later that night she exclaimed she "was tired". Aparently it's quite exhausting standing upright for about 30 minutes while singing and having fun. I chalk it up as another of her non-conformist displays. She enjoyed having Grandma JoLene watch the show and share ice cream afterwords.

Secondly, she rode on a school bus to her first kindergarten field trip. She went to a local greenhouse and learned stuff and potted a marigold to bring home. She ripped all the flowers off her marigold and played with them for most of the night. Later that night she picked all of my tulips. I think this was a novel idea since we can't see them when they're sticking in the ground in the backyard. Thankfully the "vase" (drinking glass) gets to sit on the table for all of us to enjoy.

It's dreary, drizzly, cold and overcast here. We may need to burlap the peach tree to make sure the blooms are safe.

Speaking of the garden... Ryan planted more strawberries last night. I picked another bunch of asparagus and the berries are leafing out nicely. The peach tree has a lot of fantastic looking blooms which hopefully produce some lovely peaches this year. The seedlings look good too. They are getting quite large and are almost ready to plant. I'm crossing my fingers that the garden does well.

As for Madeline's ear appointment with the otologist. He believes that the problem is either her eustation tube is too narrow and she'll outgrow the problem or that she was born with the problem and it's permanent. He wants to retest her in August to check her progress. Needless to say this wasn't a very informative or reassuring appointment. His response to our questions was essentially "well some kids are born entirely deaf in one ear and grow up just fine". Okay. There you have it! After that we went to a fun center where we mini-golfed, drank sprite and ate nachos with cheese. Maddie was ubber excited. We raced home just in time to get Maddie to her Daisy's meeting.

18 month checkup

It's hard to believe my little mini-munchkin is now more than 18 months old. Annalise had her checkup on Monday where she weighed in at 22.10 pounds (23rd percentile - up from the 21st percentile last time) and somewhere around 31 inches tall. She still hates the doctors office. She had ONE vaccination and has not shown any reaction. I really think the doctor was shocked that she actually GOT a vaccine. We're considering another vaccination in about a month. We'll see. We have lots of time before kindergarten! She still loves her mommy cuddle time. She is growing fond of Grandma Jolene who has come over often to help watch the girls. She has a vibrant personality that shines when she's with her family. Her vocabulary is growing rapidly. She regularly says: more, up, 'elp, puppy, go weeeee, outside, mommy, dada and cookie (she knows what is really important). She will call Maddie to help set the table for dinner. "MADDIEEEEEEE" really loud. She must know Madeline has a hearing problem! She is so much fun and always busy.

Book cozy

The new book cozy in our spare bedroom closet.

For now there's my mom's CD/tape player. We're getting a wall-mount CD player soon.

An oversized bear serves the function of a nice pillow/chair to lean against. Madeline prefers to lay on her stomach facing the speakers though.

It's always nice to turn a non-functional space into a useful area. Our spare bedroom only gets used for a few purposes: jumping on the bed, late nights with Anna, and for storage of extra junk. Oh and the occassional visitor! I decided it was high-time to get rid of the junk. I cleaned out the room and made a book cozy for the girls. Here are some in-process pictures of our new book cozy. I'd been thinking about doing this for two years. Madeline spent quite a bit of time in it this weekend. My hair-brained idea started to become reality on Saturday afternoon and by Sunday morning, it was ready for operation. Maddie can enter the room, select a book and pop in the CD independently and enjoy following along in the book. It's intended to be an independent space where they can enjoy pre-recorded readings with page turning prompts.

In the next few days we're going to buy a wall-mounted CD player, Ryan will make wall-mounted shelves to hold the books with attached CD's and we may paint the inside of the closet walls with something fun. I plan to read the books into my MP3 player and attach a CD to each of the books. It's fun to borrow them from the library too.

Can you hear me now?

Madeline had a follow-up audiologist appointment yesterday. As we suspected, the hearing in her left ear has worsened. We are now being referred to an otologist. We assume that she has a structural defect in the left ear, which will continue to worsen until Maddie has surgery. We do not know the actual cause of the loss yet. Her nerve is healthy, which is good.