Competitive Potty Training

Evan loves school and is so excited about going. And his teachers adore him. We do worry that one of these days he'll show his true colors and then it will all be over. Here's the funny thing - he is potty trained in school- pees and poops in the bathroom. Won't even consider it at home. After starting out by potty training himself during a trip to Goa last spring, he stopped suddenly somewhere between Hong Kong and Hawaii. Then early this summer when we had cousin Cade here for a few days Evan started using the potty again. And now at school. Seems like he is only interested if he feels the heat of competition. One day it will become an Olympic sport and Evan will excel.

Poisonous Seeds and Lice

This morning we dropped Vivian off at school as usual. On the way back Evan said something from the back seat which caused Jo to turn and look. He had carefully chewed some seedpods and the remains were in his mouth. Vivian had picked the seedpods of a Pride of Barbados from the garden the other day and a few had ended up in the car. I vaguely recalled that they may be poisonous. While I drove Jo looked them up on my phone. One version said that the immature raw seedpods were poisonous but not toxic. Another website stated that the seeds used to be ground up and fed to criminals to kill them. So we drove on to Evan's doctor's office.

They looked him over and checked him out and contacted poison control and decided that he would live. They didn't need to pump his stomach or anything drastic. The consensus was that he hadn't ingested enough to cause a problem. We drove back home relieved and Evan put on his pirate hat and jumped in to his boat (beanbag) and screamed "Aaaaarrgh matey!!".

Later - around lunch time Jo got a call from Vivian's teacher. She thought Vivian had lice and she needed to be picked up immediately. There is a lice scare going through the schools in Austin and her teacher had informed the parents that she was going to be doing inspections every day. Turns out she spotted a couple of left-over dormant eggs from Vivian's Indian lice infestation from last year. So Jo has taken Vivian to a lice treatment place to rid her of those eggs or to certify her lice free. She got to watch an iPad movie (see iPad holder below), drink chocolate milk, eat animal crackers, and generally have a salon afternoon.

Quite a day. And it's only 2:15 in the afternoon.

Settling Down

If my dad is imperceptibly settling down I have to thank the kids. This evening Vivian fed him several fork-fulls of dinner (I had cooked one of his favorite dishes from Bengal - chingri jhinge poshto or prawns and squash with poppy seeds) which my dad ate almost eagerly.

And Evan, bless his heart, is the most loving person. He rests his head on my dad and grabs his hand and tries to be very helpful. And when my dad sits with his eyes shut and head slumped on his chest, Evan asks "Why is Grandpa sad?". 

This morning I gave my dad his cup of tea. Evan immediately yelled "tea party!!" and wanted his tea. He seemed happy enough to get a glass of milk and he clambered up on a stool beside Grandpa and sipped his milk.

Kissing

Yesterday Vivian was leafing through  a cookbook. The authors were a young couple. In the introductory section there was a photograph of them. The guy was kissing the side of the woman's head. Vivian commented "Mommy, daddy - you need to kiss more". I told her that we used to kiss a lot more before she was born. And that if we kiss a lot there is a danger of her getting new siblings.

Later that afternoon when Jo walked up to say something I decided to follow Vivian's advice. I kissed her. In a second Vivian was on top of me. "Not like that Mommy. This is how you kiss". And she grabbed a fistful of hair on the the back of my head, tilted her head a very specific angle and planted a firm kiss on my lips.

That evening was date night. When we returned the kids were in bed. As we usually do we asked Joy how the evening went. "A little strange" she said. "There was a lot of talk about kissing." Vivian asked Joy if she knew what her parents were doing. "On a date, probably getting dinner somewhere". To which Vivian replied: "No. They are kissing because that's what they do when there are no kids around".

Vivian's sitting on the couch in front of me as I type this. I asked her what she thought Jo and I did on date nights.

"Kiss" she replied without hesitating. Funny and all but I'm going to disabuse her of that idea before she goes on a date.