Category: kids

Life with Caleb, my 19 month old, can be really frustrating these days. We spent 15 minutes listening to babbling screams last night before we figured out he wanted a straw! A straw.

Well, researchers have the same trouble. These researchers were trying to figure out if babies younger than 9 months have the concept of "object permanence" or is it really "out of sight, out of mind." They were stumped because if they put an object under a cloth, if when the removed the cloth, the object was gone, babies would stare longer than if the object was there. Implying that they knew something should still be there. The researchers concluded, very inconclusively, that babies do know the object should be there. They just don’t reach for it because then they’d have to figure out that removing the cloth would show the object. Huh? I think researchers know as little about communicating with babies as the rest of us.

Kids have been losing their freedom – because we’re afraid. I’m proud of this woman for letting her nine year old find his own way home on the New York subway. She knew he was ready, he knew he was ready, and she "took the risk". Although judging from the fact that she blogged about it not only did she think everyone else would think it was a big deal, she thought it was a big deal.

When I first saw the title "Put young children on DNA list, police urge", I thought of those fingerprint cards. The ones where you take your child’s fingerprints and keep it in case they ever get kidnapped. So when I read the article, expecting to see a "keep kids safe" theme, I was horrified to see it was a "identify the bad kids" article.

The director of the Scotland Yard wants teachers to identify potential "future criminals" – kids who misbehave in elementary school. He wants their DNA recorded in a database so that they can identify them when they commit crimes later in life.

So not only would your child be suspended for carrying his dad’s Leatherman to school but now he’ll also be branded for life as a "potential criminal".

The best gift for that new geek mom or dad? A one handed keyboard.

I wish I could txt msg better – that might work too.

It’s related to when they can tell that you are lying. I knew that kids could start lying around two years old – or even 18 months. ("Is your diaper dirty?" – "No!") A new study shows that:

Toddlers as young as 19 months are able to distinguish jokes from mistakes

Before this, mistakes are just as funny as jokes. About 19 months they’ll start trying to correct the mistakes and only laugh at the jokes. And about 25 months they can start to realize you might be able to lie, and they can tell if you are making a mistake on purpose to be funny. "Oops – I put my shoe on my ear!"

Caleb talks a lot and we try hard to understand – but our lack of understanding leads to a lot of meltdowns.

Yesterday Caleb walked over to me, jabbered away and then lifted up his arms to be picked up. I picked him up and went to sit down and Caleb screamed!  So I took a sniff, made a guess and said, "do you need a clean diaper?"  Caleb was so excited he did the happy dance!  He stuck out his chin, bent at the waist, moved his arms like he was running while twisting back and forth at the waist.

I felt so proud I got it!  I also felt stupid that I so obviously don’t understand him so much of the time that when I do understand, it’s cause for celebration!

Of course, this story could be seen from a whole different point of view.  Instead of "Mommy got it," Caleb could be singing, "I co-mu-ni-ca-ted!  I can talk to peo-ple!"  The happy dance might really have nothing to do with me at all!

… would you like to hire him?  He’s quite good at redecorating the kitchen.

I really need to find a ritual to undo the "uh-oh morning."  This morning I was greeted with an uh-oh (again.)  It wasn’t as bad as last time, but it wasn’t good.

Caleb’s uh-oh was that his pajama legs had come down so far, he was tripping on them.  (Easy for Mom to fix.)

My uh-oh was the entire coffee pot coming off its mountings and spilling 10 cups of water and coffee everywhere. 

I should have known I was in for it when the baby greeted me this morning with "uh-oh." 

"What’s uh-oh?"

"Uh-oh."

When your diaper comes off under your pajamas, that’s uh-oh.  So I put him in the tub.  Turns out there was more uh-oh coming.  I know there was a Dirty Job show about how to clean baby and poop out of the bathtub but I must not have paid enough attention.  Next time.  Next time they can feature us.

On to the dishes.  It turns out that shrimp ceviche and cheese sauce do not wash well in the dish washer.  In the process of unloading the dishes to manually wash them, the dishwasher rack fell off and a margarita glass fell and … uh-oh.

It’s an uh-oh morning but since it’s not even eight o’clock, I figure we can just start over!

Have a good uh-oh morning!