Kid Anecdotes

Last night Baby E picked up a piece of dirt she found near someone's shoe and ate it. I think she thought it was chocolate--a food she tried for the first time a couple of weeks ago and LOVED. (Yes, she's certainly her mother's child.)

By the time I got to her she was sticking her tongue out, trying to scrape the mud out of her mouth and gagging.

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I took her to the sink and washed her mouth out, saying, "That's not food; that's dirt. Dirt is yucky, isn't it? Yuck! We don't eat dirt."

Later, I was telling DH about the incident. Every time I said the word "dirt" Baby E would stick out her tongue and make a wry face.

I said to her, "You had dirt on your tongue, didn't you?" and she touched her tongue as if she was trying to scrape dirt off it.

I said, "Was it yummy?" and she shook her head vehemently no.

I said, "Dirt doesn't taste very good, does it? Dirt is yucky."

She gagged.

Now if I talk to her about eating dirt she sticks out her tongue and makes gagging noises. I don't think she'll try eating dirt again.

We've had the gas fireplace on several times recently. Baby E hasn't even tried to get close to it after being told. "That's hot. Ouch! Don't touch, okay? Fire is very hot."

She has an amazing grasp of such concepts for her age. We can put hot food on her high chair tray and tell her, "Be careful; it's hot. Wait a minute before you eat that," and she acts accordingly.

She'll look at the broccoli and say, "Hot. Ow." Then she'll hold her hand near it but not quite touching it. If she can feel steam rising from it she'll say "hot" again and wait a bit to try picking it up.

Once it's cool enough to touch, she'll feel each piece carefully to find the coolest one. Then she'll take it to her mouth and carefully touch it to her lips to see if it's cool enough to eat.

We never have to worry about Baby E burning herself when we give her hot food with a warning "That's hot!"

I know 3-year-olds who have trouble with that concept.

I've also been amazed at how well AJ and M&M are doing with their reading and math.

AJ just picks up and reads things like informational fliers from the doctor's office, without even needing help pronouncing words like diarrhea. M&M is reading lots of children's books from the library, such as "Where does it belong?"

Last night I fried the chicken in a stainless steel pan instead of cooking it in water. Even with nothing added, it's delicious that way. The frying makes a nice crispy brown coating on the chicken.

As the girls and I devoured the meat, we did math problems with it.

"There are two pieces left here on the plate, but four of us here who want some. What do I need to do to make sure everyone gets a piece?"

AJ: "Cut them in half!"

"If I cut each of these two pieces into four pieces, how many pieces would each of us get?"

M&M: "Two!"

They really enjoy those on-the-fly math lessons. I think they find those even more fun than their math workbooks, which they also enjoy.

I'm just glad they enjoy math so much. Math was probably my least favorite subject in school.