Archive for May, 2009
“Where’s my boo boo?”
Tonight after we said good-night, Natalie came to the gate at the top of the stairs and said:
“Mommy, where’d my boo-boo go?”
“What do you mean?”
“My boo-boo’s gone. Where is it?”
“Your boo-boo healed, sweetie.”
“Hee-yoled? Whhhyyyyy?”
“Your boo-boo is healed, that means it’s all better now. That’s what boo-boos do. They don’t last forever.”
“Did you take it away?”
“No, sweetie, it just got all better. It healed and now it’s all gone.”
“And then you took it away?”
“Yes. Now it’s time for bed. Go on back to your room and go to sleep.”
Finally satisfied with the explanation of her missing boo-boo, she turned and trotted back to her room.
“Good-night, honey. Love you.”
“G’night”
The boo-boo she was referring to was a nasty skinned knee from a little over a week ago. As Natalie tells it, she “ran and ran and ran and then fell down.” One knee was pretty badly bruised and the other knee had a big scrape and later a scab. She would ask to take the band-aid off, but then as soon as she saw the injury, she would start screaming about her knee hurting and request another band-aid to cover the reminder of her fall. I didn’t realize she’d gotten so attached to it—and certainly didn’t think that she would be upset by it’s absence. I guess even though it was painful, it must have felt like a part of her by the time it healed, and when it was gone she was obviously confused. It’s overwhelming to think of all the things we know and take for granted as adults that toddlers need explanations for!
EPILOGUE: This morning, Natalie looked at her knee and saw that the skin under her scab is still pink and looks different than the rest of her knee. She said, very excited, “I think my boo-boo’s still here! You didn’t take it away!”
Friendship on the Farm
Natalie had a great time strawberry picking with her buddies Clara and Olivia. After all the strawberries were picked, they had lots of fun just goofing around in front of the farm store being 2-year-olds:
A Happy Mother’s Day
We took our third annual trip to Sayan Gardens for the Mother’s Day Azalea Festival. We lucked out with gorgeous weather for the third year, too. I realized that a big reason that it’s hard to get Natalie to pose for pictures is that she’s freaked out by all the people. Maybe next year we’ll go during the week for a photo shoot so that we can relax during the festival.
Library Books Review #1
Meema and Pop-Pop have been taking Natalie to story/craft hour at the library every Thursday for a few months now and always bring home a stack of books. We’ve been wanting to keep track of our favorites, and finally I realized—what better way than to blog about them?
While I love the library, it’s not set up to browse as well as bookstores are. All the shelves are at kid level, which means that adults have to crawl on hands and knees to look through the books. I used to scour amazon and online forums for recommendations of great books for toddlers and go to the library with a list. Now we go and grab. Meema often chooses books that the librarians put on display on top of the shelves. Natalie sometimes chooses her own books, also at random. It’s like a treasure hunt that way…sometimes we end up with great books that we renew over and over, and sometimes we bring home books that are either boring or too long or wordy to hold Natalie’s attention.
Here are some recent favorites:
Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette
by Frank Asch
Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette tells the story of a man who uses his baguette to solve all sorts of problems, from rescuing cats to stopping muggers. In this book, the baguette is the hero and Monsieur Saguette is like MacGyver, but with bread as his only tool. Appealing for everyone, no? Natalie really likes this book, especially after Pop-Pop took her to the bakery to buy her very own baguette. I like the book because of its message of ingenuity and introduction to a different language and culture. Last night at dinner, she looked at me and said, “Mommy, can you say ‘boulangerie?’”
Tanka Tanka Skunk
by Steve Webb
It’s too bad that this book is “currently unavailable” on amazon….it’s such a treasure! It uses names of animals to teach syllables and rhythm. The illustrations are bright and bold and reading it aloud was a bit of a tongue-twister, but lyrical and fun. We all loved it. Hopefully your local library will have it!
What are your favorite children’s books?