Harrumph

Wall-E failed us today. T had to go in to have a "chat" with the little hellion. Wonder what/whom I should take hostage next...

Seriously, parenting puts me at my wits' end several times a week. Trying to figure out which tactics work for your child, second guessing, second guessing the second guessing... it's exhausting. 

Any ideas?

All ur naptimez are belong to us

I've done it. I've reached a new low in parenting. I have taken Wall-E hostage.

A little background, first, namely that A has never, ever been a napper. She is infamous at daycare for being a non-napper. It is her misfortune that one of her current teachers is what I consider a Nap Nazi--if A doesn't nap, NN considers herself a failure. 

Me, I'm happy if the child just lies there quietly for the requisite two hours. (Which is a hard thing to ask a non-napper to do, but rules is rules.) Lately, however, she's been acting up big-time. First, she looks to make sure someone's watching (and being told that made me feel like a stellar parent; sure, she's getting enough attention at home!), and then she proceeds to use the cot as a trampoline, play in the water fountain, hide in the cupboards, etc. They've actually assigned one teacher (keeping in mind that it's a class of 19 and there are 2-3 teachers in there at a given time) strictly to police her at naptime. They were somewhat tolerant of that until she started deliberately waking up the other kids at least an hour or more before they should have been.

She was not the most popular child at daycare that day, I will note.

Of course, my view is that they should have brought me in sooner than they did, which wasn't until the breaking point: that if she pulled the same antics the next day, I'd have to pick her up and take her home for the rest of the day. Yikes.

My mother is the one who actually came up with the (thus far) winning solution. (And I haven't yet pointed out to A that Nana is the meanie, not mommy. Yet.) Which is to take all of her beloved Wall-E merchandise (see post below)--the "computer," the books, and most importantly, the DVD--and put it all in a box in the morning. I do this very ceremoniously, by the way; I should don epaulettes or something for the routine. Anyway, I then announce that unless she has a good day at daycare, the toys/books/dvd stay in the box until she does have a good day; Wall-E is in jail until she can spring him for good behavior.

The first morning we did this, she looked very surprised. Then fairly pissed. Now, it's part of the getting-out-of-the-house drill. And proof that it works came yesterday, when she started to act up and her teacher (not NN), whom I've kept in the loop, simply said, "Wall-E," and A said, "Oh, yeah," and rolled over and went to sleep. 

Huh.

I don't expect it to last, mind you. I'll have to come up with some other hapless inhabitant of the B'burg version of Gitmo. But in the meantime... Wall-E's mine, baby.

Am I a Wall-e-holic?

I confess: I love "Wall-E." I do. I've seen the movie approximately 1,000 times at this point because A loves it, too, and it still doesn't get old. I think it's one of the best movies I've seen in ages. It actually turns me into a non-cynical being when I watch it, quite a feat unto itself.

And I'm shamelessly buying into the merchandising. A owns a Wall-E computer (well, "computer"), books, action figures, and coloring books. So yes, I'm only feeding into the machine.

I remember the first time I saw Wall-E. I'd gotten it for A for Christmas and put it on one holiday morning, planning to doze on the couch while she watched it. I got so interested that I sat up, made coffee, and watched until the end. At one point, I told her to "hush" because I couldn't hear what was going on.

As I said, we've seen it tons of times since--usually twice a weekend, at least. And I still find it just as charming. I just don't know why. Maybe I'm a sucker, maybe I'm just glad he's not Dora/Diego/typical cartoon character. And I know it's not the Pixar deal--for example, I'm the only person ever, evidently, who hated "Finding Nemo." (Well, maybe not hate, but I just couldn't get over the mother and rest of the brood being EATEN in the opening minutes. Er, spoiler alert.) So maybe I'm just relieved that no mothers were injured in the making of this film (unlike "Bambi," "Dumbo," and all of the princess movies that are haunted by evil stepmothers.)

So that's my deal. Any other parents unnaturally attached to kids' movies?

Checking in

Ridiculously busy, so just a few bullet points on things that I've observed and that amuse/annoy:

* A is proving to be very self-aware. Two nights ago, she didn't want to go to bed and was pulling her crocodile tears routine while Tom was trying to put her in her pjs. He told her to stop fake crying and she said, "I'm not fake crying, I'm whining." At least she's honest.

* About that, at least. When it comes to sweets, however, the kid would sell me down the river in a heartbeat. One time, Tom took her with him to get coffee, and they happened to sell cookies there. She gave the server a hangdog look and said--keeping in mind that it was about 4:30 pm--"I haven't had anyfing to eat all day." So they gave her a cookie for free.

* She's also invented two new words. "Recycling" is now "precycling" and "conducting" (hey, she's the kid of musician, of course she knows it) is "beducting."(One also is a "beductor" who "beducts.") I'm sure that I should correct her on these things. I don't.

* And speaking of words, we've pulled our first four-letter bomb at daycare. (Not the f-bomb, luckily.) I picked her up last week and her teacher told me that A's barrette had been falling out all day, and finally, she sighed and said, "Shit." Her teacher said, "What did you say?" My precious angel replied, without skipping a beat, "I said my barrette fell out." So... lying is good, sometimes?

* I've found a new show to hate. And here I thought I'd become hardened to such things. But no, I saw my first episode of "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" tonight. Ye gods, who is their target audience, the mentally challenged? I mean, they couldn't hammer home the moral of the episode any harder if they wrote it down, wrapped the note around a brick, and beat me in the head with it. Even the fish got it: share. It's nice to share. It's not nice when we don't share. We should encourage our friends to share. Sometimes it takes time to share. JEEBUS, I GET IT! (And yes, I know that I'm a bit older than their target audience, but still... would make a hell of a drinking game, though.) Naturally enough, A loved it. Ack.

Back to the grind...