iTunes on fire!

Posted By SLK on Friday, July 30, 2010   { 0 Comment(s) }

Kat is now totally hooked to her iPod when we go out for long drives – this Apple wonder has been lying around uselessly for the last 3 yrs but has only just been rediscovered here at our house! She is also now beginning to understand iTunes, how to sync songs etc and is generally becoming more computer savvy – as opposed to letting Papa be the computer geek every time.

So yesterday when Kat when to the library, she very excitedly came back with an audio book The Lightning Thief and decided to play it on her computer while sketching. Unfortunately I wasn’t home so excerpts of my conversation with her when she called me on my cell in panic:

Kat: “Mummy, when I put the audio book CD in, it comes up with an error message!”

Me (thinking it has something to do with the Dell guy who tinkered with the system the day before): “Just press Cancel if it asks you to do anything. Wait for me.”

Kat (really panicking now): “But it has no Cancel. Only OK button”

Me (hating putting you in the corner situations like this): “Right. Just read the error message to me”

Kat: “It says it’s trying to open iTunes and some files for CD burning software are missing from registry.”

Me (phew! Not that bad): “Just OK it and see”

Kat: “Yes it works! Thanks mummy and…”

Me: “Yes? Quick. Hurry”

Kat (whispering in the phone): “Its not going to burn iTunes, is it?”

Me: “What?” (Then finally realising that children take words for their literal meaning so very easily) “Burn means to copy. No, nothing will burn” (hopefully!)

Kat was relieved then and I came back home to find her glued to the desk happily sketching with the unscathed iTunes playing the CD in the background…

Tags: learning new words, silly talk with kids, teasers

Panda Victory

Posted By SLK on Thursday, July 29, 2010   { 0 Comment(s) }

Every once in a while, Kit Kat have these ownership issues with their soft toys. They have bigger, even more critical issues with their dolls but that can come in a separate post – too overwhelming to combine all in one!

Kat, being the older one is manipulative. She has all the nicer soft toys neatly stacked on the top of her study desk (she thinks this will keep them away from Kit’s reach?). Kit on the other hand has no preference – anything that Kat likes, she likes by default. It’s as simple as that! The instant Kat expresses feelings for any cuddly toy (and she does have preferences now that she’s 10!), Kit will immediately drop whichever one she’s holding and bond with the one Kat wanted saying “I love it so so much…”

Predictably, this will lead to arguments, snatching, tears…and even more online shopping!

Kat will always say something like “This is the only soft toy I love…so and so gave it to me and I really value it and now SHE has taken it” (glaring at Kit who will blissfully ignore her and whisper sweet nothings to her newly acquired victory and dramatise the whole thing to possibly anger Kat more?).

Every cuddly toy has a sentimental value for Kat – I wonder how she’ll ever get rid of them…

Today Kit has won a big Panda from Kat. To keep it safe, it has been further gifted to me (it gets very complicated to work here from home in the holidays!) – I have been given 2 pets to look after right next to my desk – Panda and Toot (some name for their baby elephant). Every now and then, Kit comes in to make sure they are safe with me and that Kat has not taken them away…to make her victory even more profound, she has Kat’s scarf around the Panda’s neck!

Tags: fighting with each other, growing up, how children copy, working from home

Jump rope Stunt

Posted By SLK on Wednesday, July 28, 2010   { 0 Comment(s) }

After kissing some/any available part of Papa’s face in the morning (he’s in such a rush – tilting the Starbucks mug to pick the newspaper or leaving it altogether, taking the spare house keys when he shouldn’t, fighting with the main door unnecessarily!) I finally land on my office chair, slave to my desktop for the next several hours…and guess who wakes up at 6:45am to give me company? KIT!! No matter what time I put her to sleep she’s nice and early to start her day. No caffeine needed – fully recharged after sleep – just like that!

After several unsuccessful attempts at getting my attention, she decides to go back to her room. I keep the video monitor on (it’s comforting that way but now that she’s out of range it is beginning to worry me!)

Kit comes running to me finally (panting): “I need a jump rope.”

Me: “Why?”

Kit: “So I can practice jumping”

When you are on the phone, you are really not in the mood to get into an argument with a 3.5 yr old that 7:30am is not the best time to practice jumping with a jump rope and definitely not inside a house! So I give in and this is what I see when I go to the cupboard to get the jump rope…

The step stool which is kept in the kitchen has been carried all the way to the storage cupboard and Kit has tried to stand on it and has even used her Tinker Bell brolly (usually hanging in this cupboard, now lying alongside the box at the top!) to bring the box with the jump rope forward. Maybe her aim was to somehow get the box down? And then what? Have it land on her head? This box at the top is quite heavy – thank God for little mercies!

Jump rope is down, step stool back in kitchen and Kit can be seen jumping in the video monitor. Phew! I’m left wondering if I should just forget about it all and drink that Baileys we have chilled in the fridge – it did say ‘With a hint of coffee’ on the bottle…I do feel I need a different sort of caffeine this morning!

Tags: morning with kids, working from home

Death & Dying Fear

Posted By SLK on Tuesday, July 27, 2010   { 1 Comment(s) }

In our family, Kat is the (only other) worrier. She is overly sensitive by nature and will worry about anything and everything – school, friends, best friends, activities… By far, the most critical of all fears has been the death and dying fear. For several months, Kat believed that someone close to her would die and she would not know how to cope/deal with it. It was a very trying time for Papa and me. Every night she would be scared to go to bed as she feared bad dreams – fully aware that this was her alone time where she thought about all the bad things that could happen to her loved ones (mummy, papa, sister, grandparents).

Papa, our massage therapist, would sit by her bedside soothing Kat to sleep for as long as she needed him (some days sleeping with her when she was so very scared) while I read books or put Kit to bed early to make time for Kat (every little helps!)

After some CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) sessions to overcome the fear, we broke through. Little did we know that few weeks later we would be faced with a real situation – Kat’s best friend’s father was diagnosed with malignant brain tumour and we kept this from her for as long as we possibly could. Heart breaking it was but there was no way we could break the news to her – we just could not gather the courage to do it or face the consequences.

We finally broke the news to Kat over the weekend and her reaction was surprisingly calm. Maybe we underestimated her resilience? Was it our own feelings that we were worried about dealing with? Of course, she had some questions but they were the ones we could answer.

Kat still is sensitive and will worry but she is over the dying part – she does not get upset anymore when the fish die (so that’s also a good sign I think!) while Kit is constantly on watch for the fish to die as the lone survivor (our last fish) we have now is Kat’s and Kit is not happy!

At the back of my mind I know these worry genes in Kat are mine. Its interesting how being a mother changes everything…I can never show MY fear – I cannot tell her that I was too scared to get on a plane for a holiday alone with the girls with the fear that someone would blow it up and Papa would be left alone!

Tags: fear, therapy

Mozart, Bach or Brahms today?

Posted By SLK on Monday, July 26, 2010   { 0 Comment(s) }

For the last 3 years or so, our piano has become a distinguished feature of the living room. Maybe it is this state of permanency that has given Kit the power to play it (or rather ape Kat and me) with such poise and ease? Whenever Kit gets a chance (especially when she hears Kat), she will overthrow anyone on the piano bench, seat herself, open her favourite piano music book (the one with pictures) and will start playing (she makes it a point to play with both hands so as to copy Kat and me to perfection) a melody while humming. All this is impromptu and the music and song have nothing to do with the open book as Kit cannot read music (yet!).

Last evening when a similar scene as above was enacted (Kit always likes an audience):

Kit: “Mummy, you like my song?”

Me (while clearing the room of toys, papers, dresses…): “I love it!”

Kit: “Does it make your heart come out?”

Me (now stopping to think): “What do you mean?”

Kit: “I mean does it make the pain go in and heart go out?”

Me: “Oh yes! It does”

Kit: “Good”

Kit, then very satisfied with the success of her concert, finished her piece and came back to me to help me clear the remainder of her stuff while I wondered if it would be simpler for the pain to go out and the heart to stay in? Or maybe it’s just an adult thing – we always complain!!

Tags: how children copy