Coordination

While it feels sometimes like I am living life through the eyes of someone reading a child development textbook, this summer in particular Ms. Crazy Preschooler has changed in two major ways.

First of all, her hair is growing . . . more crazy every day. Dr. Pediatrician called her Medusa this evening on our walk through the marsh, and I think it might stick. There are strands of hair on her head that constantly shift in an indescribable fashion.

Second of all, she has suddenly, right before my eyes, become amazingly coordinated. At the beginning of the summer, her running would barely keep up with my walking. She'd tentatively climb the slide at the playground and delicately slide down the slowest one. Now when she runs ahead of my I'm not so sure I could keep up even if I were running myself (something I avoid at all costs) and she bounds up the slide at the playground zooming down the biggest, fastest one she can find. She jumps off furniture constantly (which drives me crazy, but I am certain has a lot to do with this sudden leap of coordination)
and climbs up contraptions that make me queasy.

This evening on our walk through the marsh Ms. Crazy Preschooler was bounding ahead, lagging behind to gather selective pieces of foliage and bounding ahead again as I took these pictures. She is a regular foliage packrat, always searching out sticks, leaves, rocks, feathers, and other treasures which she stores in the newspaper mailbox outside the side door of our house.

Marsh

This evening we took a walk on a trail through our local marsh. Before I moved here, no one told me about Wisconsin producing the largest cranberry crop in the United States, or that the state has a plethura of marshes, but every time I turn around in central Wisconsin, there is a marsh. I knew about the local marsh, only about two miles from my house, but I don't go that direction very often. Because everything in Wisconsin happens between trees, I am forever discovering some new place I haven't been that is just next door to where I am. It unnerves me.

I had read once that there was a long bike trail through the marsh, but I just sort spaced it out until this evening during a hairy supper hour. I realized that I needed to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and that it was a beautiful evening for a walk. Like a light bulb, my brain just flashed "Go to the marsh!" before my thoughts, and so we did. Although the marsh is only 2 miles from our house, we drove about 10 miles getting to the marsh because we missed the sign the first time, but that ended up being alright too, because we landed up on a beautiful little gravel road that wound through a small, fall colored forest.

The sun was setting during our small trek down the trail. We only went in just a bit because it was getting close to bedtime for Ms. Crazy Preschooler and Gus. It was a great walk. Some of the marsh grasses have started to turn colors, and the ground was dotted with late fall wildflowers. I stopped to take a picture of one of the wildflowers because upon it were resting three large bumble bees, possibly still reeling from the cold weather last night since they were hardly moving at all, but slowly feasting on purple nector.

First TV

Yesterday Gus watched his first sign language DVD on my computer. For the first 15 minutes he was transfixed. For the last 10 minutes he did a lot of exploring and crawling around on the floor, which was just fine. We've been signing several signs with him for about a month or more. He hasn't signed anything back to us yet, but that is completely normal for his age. It is obvious that he recognizes several signs. When he watched Signing Time, Sarah would sign with the kids on the screen and he would wave his arms around like he wanted to sign too. It was cute. He's a bundle of cuteness, that Gus. 8-12 months is my favorite age of child development. I love a crawling baby that can't say anything mean yet.

Busy

Notice

If a sopping wet hot pink sticky note that has been immersed in a toddler's mouth and completely soaked with saliva is left unattended while an unaware parent dozes on the couch at 5:30 a.m., it is likely to leave a dark splotchy stain on honey colored hardwood floors.

Vomit

Ms. Crazy Preschooler got the flu.

I've never been afraid of vomit. The only time that another person throwing up has sent my stomach into lurches was when I was in the early stages of pregnancy (the only thing that made me sick when I was first pregnant was other people throwing up). If people throw up at the dinner table, I've been known to just go on eating, as long as my own food has not been affected.

I actually think regurgitated food is quite interesting. I like examining it on the floor, in a bucket or wherever it has landed. It is very interesting to me to see how food looks when it starts to digest. Which foods digest the fastest? Which foods are most recognizable? Which foods still smell like themselves? Which foods are overtaken by the odor of stomach acid?

My interest in vomit has come in handy. When I was a teacher, I was beautifully calm in the face of puking children. I maintained classroom order with ease until the janitor arrived with a mop. When Ms. Crazy Preschooler in her baby stages threw up all over my favorite orange sweater at a restaurant on the way to a wedding rehearsal in Nebraska, I calmly carried her to the restroom and changed into a different sweater (and in the process of trekking through the restaurant to the restroom probably ruined a great many people's lunches). And yesterday, when Ms. Crazy Preschooler threw up all over the hardwood floor in the hall, all over the bathroom sink, rug, toilet, a sleeping bag, her clothes and my clothes, I just washed her face with a clean washcloth, tucked her into bed with clean pajamas and blankets, and went on with life while Dr. Pediatrician turned green and sneaked outside for some fresh air. And while I was cleaning up the acidic chunks with my little rag, I had plenty of time to contemplate the digestion of corn, peanut butter bread, raisins and bananas. I won't go into more detail here for the sake of my readers.

And Oh, the Feet You'll Meet

Gus the Explorer, hard at work.

Silage

Saturday we went to a picnic at a dairy farm sponsored by the hospital Dr. Pediatrician works for. Every September they hold a magnifiicent picnic, with fantastic door prizes, pumpking painting, and other fun festivities for families. This year the picnic was at a large, large, large dairy farm. Ms. Crazy Preschooler rode a wagon pulled by large horses to a pumpkin patch to retrieve pumpkins to paint in the hay loft of a wonderful, wooden rustic red barn. We crawled inside the trauma airlift helicopter. We rode a school bus to and from the picnic (getting the stroller on the school bus was an adventure in itself). It was a hot, sticky day, but magnificent fun.

My favorite part of all, however, was the scent of silage. Upon disembarking from the bus when we arrived at the dairy farm, the soft, comforting aroma of silage hung in the air around me like a thick and fuzzy blanket. It grew stronger as we passed the tall silos, nearly empty from last season's corn, I would imagine. Corn chopping season was always my favorite time of the year when I was a child an lived on a farm. When my dad would start chopping the corn I'd arise at the crack dawn, put on my hooded, zip up sweatshirt and swing on my swingset all day long, coming in only to use the bathroom and eat. I'd watch the tractors pulling wagons filled with freshly chopped corn down the driveway, around the corner and in back of our trailer house to the silage pile. They'd dump the silage in little heaps and my papa would smash it down tight with his green Oliver tractor. I'd pretend that the harder and higher I'd swing, the faster the corn would get chopped, and this made me feel useful. The farmers that came to help my dad and papa would wave at me as they drove in and out of the farmyard from the field from sun up to sundown. I'd wave back cheerfully.

My mother always hated living next to the silage pile, particularly on the third day after corn chopping had begun, when the bottom of the silage pile started to ferment. But I always enjoyed the stench. Later it came to represent the beginning of school, comforting homework, the relieve of academic busyness and the onset of crisp fall air.

First Sprinkler

It was almost 90 degrees outside today. Ms. Crazy Preschooler played in her pool, and then the sandbox. Gus the Explorer was busy consuming twigs, leaves, pieces of park and potting soil. When Ms. Crazy Preschooler asked me to turn on the bug sprinkler so she could rinse off the sand from her swimming suit, Gus the Explorer couldn't resist taking part. The brief rinse off lasted more than an hour.