Tag: preschoolers

I Gave My Daughter a Dinosaur

It all started when the Littlest Pet army wanted to steal Polly Pocket’s kitty.

In her desperation, Polly called on her big sister, Wonder Woman, to defend her from the oncoming hoard of Littlest Pets. Wonder Woman joined the battle, the tide seemed to turn, but the Littlest Pets called on their Pteranodon freed from Jurassic World for air support. Wonder Woman countered by summoning her dragon, Storm Fly, and together they defended Polly and her pets from the Pteranodon. The battle raged. A pink poodle was decapitated. Then everyone stopped to have dinner.

I’ve clearly screwed up my daughter.

I should have realize it sooner, but it only became clear as I separated the earth-toned reptiles from the candy-colored pets. My daughter is terribly confused, and I have only myself to blame.

I should never have put both super heroes and Polly Pockets in the same playroom. I wasn’t thinking. She’s a girl. It’s not enough that she likes Littlest Pets and Polly Pocket; she must like only Littlest Pets and Polly Pockets. By acting out “Polly has a new pet kitty” and “Epic Battle to the death”, I have no idea what label to ascribe to her. Tomboy? Animal lover? Warrior? Caretaker? What is she?!

If I’m confused, I can only imagine everyone else in her life. How are people supposed to know what present to get her when she’ll play with anything? I can’t ask friends and family to walk down more than one aisle at the toy store.

Also I don’t think these toys can be used together safely. Thomas the Train’s wheels might fall off if he has to pull the Littlest Pets. What if Elsa’s dress gets glitter on the Pteranodon? Dinosaurs that were bred in a lab from DNA preserved in prehistoric mosquitoes weren’t meant to be covered in glitter. Neither are the toys inspired by them. The glitter will probably erode the wings off. I’m worried Batman might combust if he’s made to ride a My Little Pony.

The effects of this cross-play on the toys themselves are actually minor concerns compared to the effects on my daughter. If I had only stuck to tea sets, maybe she wouldn’t insist on climbing the bookshelves. Or leaping off the bed. Or running. Or moving. She would have learned that girls are supposed to sit quietly for long periods of time. If I’d limited her to baby dolls, she would have learned that changing diapers is an important part of care for infants handled exclusively by females. As such, girls aren’t supposed to find poop funny. Human waste management is a serious responsibility and constantly imagining your stuffed animals pooping on your mom’s head is NOT hilarious.

I definitely haven’t bought her enough Barbies. She’s still willing to leave the house with her hair unbrushed. If I hadn’t diluted the effects of the Barbies and princesses by including some super heroes, she’d be obsessed with accessories by now. As it is, she only wants to wear a crown some of the time not all of the time. Since she doesn’t have pierced ears, how are people supposed to know she’s a girl without a tiara and perfectly styled hair?

Allowing all the violent play was another mistake. That battle the Littlest Pets engaged in was brutal and not girly at all. Parenting fail. I bought the swords and shields. My husband and I read her illustrated Greek myths that referenced the Trojan War. We were forcing her to go against her nature when I taught her how to make a fist and my husband recalled his fencing days to teach her to properly thrust and parry. We should have known that having to set the rule “You cannot actually touch anyone when pretending to fight” was an indication our daughter’s development had gone off track.

It doesn’t matter that no scientific evidence has linked war play in kids to aggression in adults. I’m sure that’s only true for boys. A girl playing war is just unnatural. No girl in history has ever wanted to punch something. Girls don’t feel frustration and anger or desire to be powerful and heroic. They only ever want to rock babies, cook dinner, dress dolls, and put someone else’s needs ahead of their own. All girls. All of the time.

As every clothing, toy, and book store here in Vitoria make clear, girls are all the same by nature. So I can only assume my husband and I are to blame for my daughter being different.

I was still reeling from this disturbing revelation when my daughter announced her choice of Halloween costume. She wants to be a knight riding a flying unicorn.

“Like the man and his flying horse,” she said.

“What man?” I said confused. “You mean Bellerophon and Pegasus?!”

“Yes, like Beliphon.”

Great. On top of everything else, we’ve turned her into a nerd.

October 19, 2015
Six Things I learned About My Daughter While Visiting My Parents
Summer in suburban Atlanta

I just returned to Brazil after spending nearly three weeks in Atlanta, my hometown and where my family still lives. It was the first time my daughter and I traveled just the two of us. She’s four. Our trip involved an all-night, nine-hour flight that was delayed two hours both going and coming. I preemptively deployed both the iPad and M&Ms and I’m happy to say that both my daughter and I are going to see our next birthdays. Although probably with a cavity or two. Sanity above cavities, I say.

I don’t know if it was being on active parent duty 24/7 or my daughter’s leap in communicating her feelings and interests since last Christmas, but I learned a lot about my daughter during these past few weeks visiting my parents. Some insights were good, some frustrating, and some have me already looking for methods other than wine to cope with her teenage years.
1. She thinks all kids speak Portuguese. In her day to day life, the only people who speak English are grown ups, specifically my parents via Facetime, my husband, and me. All of her friends, all the kids at school, her cousins in Rio, every single kid she interacts with speaks Portuguese. Naturally, when she approached kids on playgrounds in Atlanta she said “Qual é seu nome?” Every time. Even after I’d tell her “Kids here talk like Mommy. Use English,” she’d continue using Portuguese. On each playground it took a few minutes of the kids not understanding and my prompting for her to switch over to English. Then we’d stop by a different playground a couple days later and she’d say to some kids “Qual é seu nome?” So as far as my daughter is concerned English is the language of authority and Portuguese is the language of her peers. She’s getting to live her own colonial experience. I’m sure that won’t be a problem later.
2. She will eat boogers but not pancakes. And it’s seriously grossing me out. She can’t get enough boogers but she refuses to open her mouth to taste one bite of fluffy, syrup drenched pancake. It’s not just pancakes she refuses to eat. It’s also hamburgers, ketchup, creamed corn, macaroni and cheese, cereal with milk, and scrambled eggs. But boogers she pops into her mouth without a second thought. I’m beginning to think something is wrong with her.
3. She’s never played outside in the dark. I realized this watching her buzz around the Atlanta Botanical Garden while viewing a nighttime light exhibit. I knelt to point out a firefly and realized she had never seen a firefly. We live in a city in an apartment building next to a very busy street. Nature isn’t even in the same zip code. Our city also has unfortunately high levels of violence and crime making the few parks that are here unsafe at night. Running around outside after dark, playing hide-and-seek, capture the flag, or catching fireflies was a HUGE part of my childhood. But hasn’t been and won’t be for my daughter. It makes me sad.
4. If it’s not chocolate, it doesn’t count as desert. She will eat the chips out of a chocolate chip cookie. She will turn down cookie dough for lack of chocolate. She will refuse to part her lips for pound cake. And she will not deign to look at anything called “pie”. Dessert is by definition chocolate. This almost redeems the booger eating.
5. She is stubborn. I knew this about her but sending her to preschool every weekday from 10-5:30 provided a significant buffer that kept me from really understanding the depths of her resolve. If she does not want to do something, she will refuse and she can keep refusing, crying, & screaming for over an hour. I decided she was old enough to start blowing her own nose. She disagreed & snorted snot out of her nose leaving it all over her face & hanging from her chin for over an hour. I told her she had to try one bite of corn in order to get dessert. She refused and demanded chocolate cake repeatedly until long after we’d finished the meal and arrived back home. I told her it was too late to read two bed time books. She screamed at me to read her chosen books throughout my entire going to bed routine and continued after I’d gotten under the covers.
6. She is a one hell of a control freak! She has rules for everything. What cup the juice is in. What order the books are read in. Who takes her to the bathroom. What underwear, what socks, and heaven help the person who offers to put her hair in a ponytail if she’s not in the mood. Everything matters! Everything! And “playing” with her means standing quietly until you are assigned a toy, which hand to hold the toy in, a place to sit, and what you are going to say. And do not screw up your line! If she tells you to say “Hey, who stole my kitty?” do not say “Hey, someone took my kitty!” No improvising! Give dialogue exactly as assigned! She will grow up to be either an award winning director known for making actors cry or dictator of a small Latin American country.
I’m sure summer vacation in December will be full of new insights, although I’m beginning to think ignorance is bliss.
September 13, 2015
Flying with Preschoolers: It can always get worse.

My only parenting standard at airports is “don’t lose her”.

My little family of three took a trip to Rio de Janeiro this weekend. Our nephew recently had a birthday and we needed to put in some face time with my husband’s family. It’s only a 45 minute flight from Vitoria to Rio, but that was long enough to learn a valuable lesson. There is no length of time short enough a three year old can’t turn it into forever.

It’s like in Interstellar. For the pilot and crew who have tasks to complete, 45 minutes is barely enough time to toss bags of crackers at everyone. They’re the lucky ones down on the planet. The parents of small children are the ones stuck in orbit who stumble off the plane with more grey hair and beards, demanding to know what year it is. How long were we up there? Six years? Ten?

For our flight home, boarding was scheduled for 6:50pm. Right at dinner time! But my husband and I were prepared. We had packed sandwiches…which my daughter ultimately refused to eat because we miscalculated the nap.

The ride to the airport was about 30 minutes. When my daughter fell asleep in the taxi, we thought “Oh good, she can take a short nap and be in a better mood.” Only, she didn’t fall into nap-time sleep. She fell into bedtime-for-the-night sleep, and as my grandmother says, “You don’t need to step on a snake to know it’s going to bite you.” The same principle applies. You don’t need to wake a preschooler up from deep sleep to know it’s going to cry.

And cry she did. Through the whole check-in process. While we searched for a place to sit. While I bought water and snacks. Even after we resorted to the emergency M&Ms. Eventually, she calmed down and filled her stomach with 2 tiny bites of sandwich and 5 pão de queijo.

No longer hungry but still exhausted from the weekend, her emotional pendulum swung to the other extreme. We then had a deliriously giddy 3 year old on our hands. While deliriously-giddy child is less emotionally exhausting than inconsolable child, she is more physically exhausting because deliriously-giddy child cannot occupy the same space for more than 3 seconds.

Did I mention that my back locked up this weekend? It happened while checking in at the airport for our flight to Rio. For the first time in my life. I couldn’t bend over, lift anything, or even take a deep breath the entire weekend.

Because I was benched from parenting due to injury, my husband was the one running after her while I kept our place in all the various lines. He was the one who chased her through security, from the gate to the plane, and took her on the bathroom run she needed the moment we stepped on the plane.

Eventually the plane took off and everything was ok. For about half an hour.

With fifteen minutes of flight time left, my daughter decided she could no longer tolerate her seat belt. My husband and I desperately tried to head off the fit we could see coming. She was straining and arching her back against the seat belt. Her face was scrunched and turning red. She stopped speaking in sentences and devolved to “No seat belt!” Very aware of the 150 people trapped on the plane with us, I grabbed a doll and made it sing “Let It Go”. As we got to the chorus, my daughter joined in and shrieked “Let it poopy! Let it poopy!” She dissolved into a fit of laughter and proceeded to sing at the top of her lungs different versions of the song featuring everything from pee pee to smelly socks to farts.

I’m certain if there had been a vote, the other passengers would have unanimously voted us off the plane.

That was the emotional knife edge we balanced on for the remainder of the flight. We teetered between a breakdown over the seat belt and belting out classic Disney songs rewritten to feature bodily functions. “Let it fart! Let it poopy! Let it poopy and faaaaart!” The plane eventually landed three months later, and we made it home where my daughter finally ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and went to bed.

All in all, it was a pretty uneventful trip. It could have been so much worse.

June 22, 2015