Kiddisms and Single Parenting while Cassandra back in den USA

JASPER AS CLASS CLOWN

Jasper is concerned about his perception as a funny person. He loves entertaining people and making them laugh. Yesterday he mentioned something interesting:

"Since I learned German I think I am not as funny as before." What?? He went on to relate how he was much more humorous when he first showed up in Germany than he is now. I asked him to explain. He said that before he knew German he would say things in English and everyone would crack up.

"What sorts of things did you used to say in English that were so funny?" I asked.

"Well, I would say 'yes.' And 'no'."

"And the kids thought that was funny?"

"Yes, when I said said 'no' one time they all laughed so hard that their pants fell off!"

I agreed that was quite a trick. I told him that he is just as funny as before, but if the only way to be truly funny is to try to interact with kids who don't speak English or German then we will have to move somewhere else, like Poland. He considered this for a second, then asked about the blue wig.

The Blue Wig is a picture of Jasper looking like Cookie Monster. He presented it to me as a Father's Day present and I took it to the office to keep on my desk. He wanted to know if people thought it was funny. I told him yes of course everyone thinks you are quite a funny person! He was very happy to hear this. So the kid potentially has a career in entertainment coming up.

Daddy's work desk.

Other shenanigans include dinner gymnastics. For some reason it is super fun to hang upside down on the chair and explore the world underneath the table. This picture is a common view an adult who is dining with Jasper might see: a plate and the bottom of feet. Cody also lays on his chair and interacts with Jasper underneath the table, making strange noises and chirps until they are convinced to resurface and finish dinner.

A common dinner scene.

The children also enjoy exploring the flat. The other day they discovered the small slot in the closet between the clothes dryer and where we store the vaccuum cleaner. Not only is is valuable for hide and seek, but also a fun challenge to see the small places where you can stuff your body.

Of course, we were on our way out somewhere. Let's go! Let's go! Jasper goes into the closet to get his shoes. Five minutes later we are all but walking out of the door and there is no Jasper. I open the closet and there he is, lying on the floor, half in the new cubby hole and half out, just staring at the ceiling.

He went in to get shoes and coat, got distracted by the hidey-spot, crawled in, played, crawled halfway out, got bored, and lay down to contemplate the coat rack. Meanwhile parents are uttering serious-sounding pronouncements that they hope will be motivational (I'm leaving now! See you guys later! I hope you'll be ok here alone"). To no effect.

It is quite refreshing really that someone can be so in the present that they truly forget anything going on around them.


CODY NIGHTTIME TRAINING

Cody is still working out nighttime training, or getting through the whole night without soaking his bed. It varies, but he has gone a week at a time with no accidents, but then two of the next three days there are big accidents. The thinking is that once you get away from the nighttime diapers, you can't go back because it is like starting over for the kid. The process lately has been to make sure he goes before bedtime, then go back in around 11:30 and take him again to increase the chances of him getting through the night.

Those 11:30 pm trips are slightly heartbreaking, since the kid is a sack of potatoes and you must physically hold him upright or else he will fall into the toilet. I hate waking up sleeping kids, it really goes against parental instincts. But doing laundry every morning also goes against parental instincts and desires, so we get him up.

This morning Jasper got up at 6am and crawled into bed to snuggle, which is pretty rare. Usually Cody is the first one up, and he is motivated to find the iPad and watch Wild Kratts or Feuerwehrmann Sam. But this morning Jasper came in and promptly fell asleep. Then around 7 woke up and requested my presence in the front room to join him and play Legos. I took a shower then went to check on Cody. He was still sleeping peacefully. But as he stirred he looked up at me and said,

"Daddy I'm soaked."

Agh. Off with the sheets, comforter, everything. Into the tub for shower spritz (we took showers last night, sigh, unnecessary). Back in their room Cody is huddling on the floor in tornado-preparation pose underneath his towel, muttering that he is cold. I am trying unsuccessfully to inspire action that will lead to dressed children, and hopefully, breakfast at some point. I can't just leave without howls since Cody is convinced there is a ghost in the flat and he should not be left alone.

Jasper comes in asking why it is taking me so long to come out and play legos. I show him the stripped bed and tell him about the Cody shower. He is annoyed.

"Cody should just go back to diapers, this isn't working!"

I explain about how THE THINKING is that once you stop doing the nighttime diapers you can't go back to them later as you will lose all the progress you've made.

"The only progress he's made is to soak more pairs of underpants," Jasper quipped.

Cody, still huddling under the towel on the floor, whimpered pathetically. "Cold!"

I agreed with Jasper, ok let's go play Legos. There doesn't seem to be any progress with anything so might as well go play.


KIDS PLAYING

The kids are amazing playmates. While they are getting strong enough now to significantly hurt each other with a kick to the head or by bodily dragging each other into a thick wooden table leg, this doesn't happen too often. Most of the time they just wrestle and make lots of silly Minion-sounding noises. Since the floor wrestling likely creates a racket for our downstairs neighbors, this is a little stressful. But overall the fact that they play together so well is really cool.

https://youtu.be/sk_52mhMhjk


Also, Berlin's playgrounds are sandy instead of woodchipped, like those in Seattle. This creates lots of sandy shoe situations.

This morning Jasper was dumping out his shoes in the wastebasket before putting them on. He asked if anyone wanted to hear a little rain storm, since that is what it sounds like when shoe-sand cascades out and into the plastic trash bag. So we put the morning "get out of the house and start our day" energy on hold to sit and listen to Jasper's little rain storm. Cody sat close to the wastebasket to get the best seat for the show and was clearly enthralled.


ADRIAN COMES OVER

Saturday afternoon and we have one of the kid's friends from Kita over for a couple hours of playtime. This is Adrian, his mother Astrid is German and dad is Spanish. They are moving to Madrid in a year.

Anyway Adrian comes over and the three kids enjoy showing off toys (Jasper & Cody) and exploring new ones (Adrian). And then there is the running: children in our flat seem to enjoy running back and forth back and forth from the front room to the bedroom in back. They can't help it, there is just a need to sprint loudly on this course in spite of parental objections and obstacles placed in the way such as closed doors, overturned furniture and authoritative yelling.

I've learned that children are animals, not far removed from their cave-people state by the experience of years of culture that adults have. Children are therefore wild, feral beings. Just when you begin to despair about all this, you notice suddenly that the place has been absolutely quiet for the last five minutes. What are they up to??

I look around the corner and the three of them are sitting on the floor in the front room playing cards with a new ninja game that Jasper received for Easter. They are trying to figure out the rules based on other card games they've played since they can't read any directions. But they are doing this in a calm manner, and all in German. Even Cody, who frequently feigns ignorance of the language, but who chatters along effortlessly with the rest of them.

Soon they tire of this and return to running pillow-fight battles, but now it doesn't seem as big of a deal.