You know what I find annoying but necessary? Having to adjust my colouring style so as not to intimidate my four year old. Yesterday we were colouring in her new Peppa Pig colouring book and I found myself really having to squelsh the urge to bring some flair to my colouring. I've done it before, trying to amuse myself while colouring with her - you know, a little three-dimensional shading here.. a lot of perfectly coloured colouring there. When I do that - it irritates her to the point where she'll stop colouring saying that I do it better.
So, I've recently stopped adding my personal style (and trust me, I love to colour so this is a massive sacrifice) to her colouring books. As much as it bothers me, I've started holding back.
Just as I've started doing that - to my pleasant surprise, she's started adding things in! She's started putting patterns in her colouring, where there are none required. Peppa Pig got a lovely triangle on her sand bucket and Mummy Pig some lovely stripes on her dress. I guess I need to find a balance between tarting up my colouring in an inspirational way and not being such a fabulouso artiste that I make it intimidating. Oh the trials and tribulations of motherhood.
Mary Catherine and I have been watching a show on television as she winds down for the evening. When it was over, I started to turn off the telly as usual. And as usual, she asked for another show - which is her way of delaying bedtime. It's pretty standard fare and normally we get her down the hall to bed with very few problems.
Tonight's been different. She asked for another show and I started to make my standard excuses why we couldn't watch more. She stopped me mid-sentence and said, 'I want another show' and then added quite grumpily, for good measure so I'd realise she meant business, 'poo-poo head.' When I gave her my customary 'we don't say things like that in this house' glare, she looked me square in the eye. I could see the cogs in her head turning, concentrating on finding another really bad thing to say. After a second, her eyes narrowed and said, 'wee wee' in a very, 'well, what are you going to say to that' way.
If 'wee wee' is the worst thing she ever comes up with, we're good to go!
Interesting article I read today in New York magazine - re: Grups, Yupsters, Yindies and Alterna-Yuppies or as Adam Sternbergh writes, the obituary of the generation gap.
"Let’s start with a question. A few questions, actually: When did it become normal for your average 35-year-old New Yorker to (a) walk around with an iPod plugged into his ears at all times, listening to the latest from Bloc Party; (b) regularly buy his clothes at Urban Outfitters; (c) take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a Brooklyn bar; (d) stay out till 4 A.M. because he just can’t miss the latest New Pornographers show, because who knows when Neko Case will decide to stop touring with them, and everyone knows she’s the heart of the band; (e) spend $250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall totally apart; (f) decide that Sufjan Stevens is the perfect music to play for her 2-year-old, because, let’s face it, 2-year-olds have lousy taste in music, and we will not listen to the Wiggles in this house; (g) wear sneakers as a fashion statement; (h) wear the same vintage New Balance sneakers that he wore on his first day of school in the seventh grade as a fashion statement; (i) wear said sneakers to the office; (j) quit the office job because—you know what?—screw the office and screw jockeying for that promotion to VP, because isn’t promotion just another word for “slavery”?; (k) and besides, now that she’s a freelancer, working on her own projects, on her own terms, it’s that much easier to kick off in the middle of the week for a quick snowboarding trip to Sugarbush, because she’s got to have some balance, right? And she can write it off, too, because who knows? She might bump into Spike Jonze on the slopes; (l) wear a Misfits T-shirt; (m) make his 2-year-old wear a Misfits T-shirt; (n) never shave; (o) take pride in never shaving; (p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag, because, seriously, only his grandfather or some frat-boy Wall Street flunky still carries a briefcase; or (q) all of the above?"Read more.
Fun parenting sites: Babble ("A magazine and community for the new urban parent") ParentHacks ("Daily parenting tips and ideas from the real experts -- actual parents.")
You know what's weird? Now that Mary Catherine is four and in school (albeit her Nursery year), we're totally moving out of the whole Chic Parenting website world, from what I can tell. (Babble above, while fabulous, sort of stops at toddler .. We're not a toddler anymore, that's for sure.)
Hmm.. Surely there have to be websites that will placate my daily parenting website reading needs? Anyone have any suggestions? I know Kidley - but am at a loss for others..
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