House Breaking and How OCD Develops in Early Childhood

Yarden's language skills are continuing to grow. She is trying to learn the difference between "Daddy's beard" and "Daddy's beer." She has picked up a couple of things from the new daycare for better or worse. On the upside she is clearly making words plural intentionally, such as "dog" vs. "dogs," or "boob" vs. "boobs,"; and on the down side she has picked up a penchant for declarative sentences like "Daddy sit down!," (which usually includes a push); "Give me that!,"(which includes a pointing gesture); and "I want beard." (or "beer" - I'm not sure).

The outstanding highlight of the week was this morning. It started with the incomparable and delightful sound of Yarden singing to herself in her room. Aliyah and I quietly crept down the hall to peek in on her. She caught us and smiled that really awesome kind of smile that happens when she sees Aliyah or I and that lights up a room... and then she stood up. That was when we noticed she was not wearing her pajama bottoms. Or a diaper. And then we saw there was a lot of poop in places that poop should never be: on the sheets, on her hands, on Purple Monkey, and there was a vaguely cute poop-outline of her butt on the headboard. 

We know this is not a very exclusive club. (My parents have a favorite story about me painting the walls by swinging a full diaper over my head like a lasso; I love the Delvecchio's story about Lina being very tidy about the way she soiled her own bed.) Somehow we have to get Yarden to understand not to do it again, and probably to agree to use the potty before going to bed. It’s not an insurmountable challenge but Sleepy Yarden is the wildcard version of Yarden, and because of her pedigree if she doesn’t want to do it then there is no amount of dog and monkey stickers will convince her otherwise. Maybe we’ll just get her some union-suit-style pajamas until we figure this out.

 

We didn’t need any coffee that morning; the thrill of cleaning it all up was enough. And the clean up lead to Yarden’s new favorite activity: washing hands. It is difficult to understate Yarden’s enthusiasm for washing hands. We have to lock her out of the bathroom. Yarden's obsessive hand washing would test a grandparent's patience. It's a problem most parents would like to have, but the other edge of that sword is it goes hand in hand with the new streak of not listening to direct instructions. I think she's been punished more for that than anything else recently, (and, interestingly, the more she is punished the more she is affectionate; this has been one of her most affectionate weeks and I'm not sure how I feel about how that bodes for her future but right now I can only roll with it) and by "punished" I mean she has to sit in a toddler-sized chair until I get bored of watching her sit or I have taken enough deep cleansing breaths that I remember she's not even two yet and she's not doing whatever it was too purposely make me angry (and by angry I mean makes me see bright red spots and get so tense it feels like my head is literally going to pop off of my neck). 

It's really more of a time out for me.

The defiance has created an somewhat-but-not-really-irrational fear in me that she will somehow burn herself. Of course she could burn herself; that part's not irrational. In fact she has. She touched the ultra-modern built-in wall heater last week. (She's fine. It's the best technology the 1930s has to offer.)

My fear is more of a horrific "Tom and Jerry"/Vietnam napalm carpet-bombing charred-to-a-jet-black-cinder fear. I haven't gotten much sleep for a couple of weeks because of a reoccurring dream. In the dream I am sleeping and Yarden has her back to me. I smell smoke. I realize she has gotten a hold of matches and is lighting them one at a time. I yell at her to stop but she keeps lighting the matches. Usually I wake up when I'm walking across room trying to stop her. 

What does this mean? It means that it only took 22 months of parenthood for me finally go crackers. I'd love to hear other parents' reoccurring nightmares so feel free to share in the comments section.

Hell's Kitchen Update

I just heard that Hell's Kitchen will premier on June 10th, so Cathie, Margie, Vivian & Abbie...just 3 months till you can watch televised versions of the meals you ate!

Special Birthday Video for Uncle Josiah

After trying (and failing) all night to capture Yarden's spontaneous rounds of the Happy Birthday song for Uncle J'siah, this morning she made him a bath toy birthday cake.

Here's the birthday cake - and the song!

This Girl Wants to Potty!

Yarden's language skills and hygiene skills happen to be developing at the same time, which often leads to one of two conversations. 

Mommy: Yarden, are you ready to go to the the party?

[takes off pants]

Yarden: My pod-dee? 

Mommy: No, Sofie's party. We're going to see Sofie.

[takes off diaper] 

Yarden: My pod-dee!

Mommy: Yarden, put your clothes back on. We have to go.

[half naked toddler runs away]

Yarden: My pod-dee!

OR

Mommy: Yarden, do you have to go potty?

Yarden: (singing) Happy burt-day to you.

Mommy: Thank you, not it's not my birthday. Do you have to go potty?

Yarden: Happy burt-day mommy!

Mommy: It's not my birthday. Do you have to go potty?

Yarden: My burt-day pod-dee?

Mommy: Not a birthday party. Just potty. Do you have to go potty?

Yarden: My burt-day! My burt-day!

[Yarden blows out imaginary candles, then gets half naked and runs away]

Both conversations usually result in some kind of present. I'll spare everyone the sticky details, but Aliyah and I have come to understand that having a child who is marginally more independent requires both more and less supervision. Our favorite event so far is the time Yarden asked Aliyah for a sticker (we are bribing her with monkey and dog stickers for every time she uses the potty). Now Yarden still had her pants and diaper on (for once) so Aliyah was dubious that Yarden had earned a sticker, but she agreed to check anyway and mysteriously there was some golden fluid in the potty. It turned out Yarden had taken her apple juice poured some in there. 

There's other hygiene-language comedy going on. We're trying to get her to understand that while she is technically correct "wipe your mouth" does not mean she should shove the napkin inside her mouth and scrub down her tongue. This is usually preceeded by Yarden asking for one of the lingering jars of baby food, which she calls "apple sauce."  Old MacDonald apparently only has ducks on his farm.  She finally outwitted us and peed on the couch. Actually that last one wasn't funny.

Yarden's First Day at Huntley Preschool

Here's a short video of Yarden's first day at the new preschool.



I'd say now I'm officially "that mom" - except I'm pretty sure I already was.

It's also on YouTube at a better resolution.

Let's Get Down to Christmas!

My father's birthday is December 25th and this year was the big seven-oh, so we all decided to go to Simsbury for Christmas.

We flew the red eye from Burbank to JFK with a nice lady in seat A who let Yarden kick her a couple of times without complaining. Jay and Tamar were nice enough to pick us up at 6:00 AM NYC time. After breakfast and a short nap, Aliyah, Yarden, Grandma-ma Roz and I made great time up to Simsbury (except for the 5 mile traffic jam caused by last minute shoppers around the Danbury Mall). Jay and Tamar were nice enough to wait behind for Liam's last puppet show at Macy's, and Kenzie and Yoda. And then it was a very musical Christmas...

First Aliyah sang lead while Yarden kept the beat

Then there was the accapella trio:


Yarden was shy about her singing voice:


But fortunately (?) Nashville and Dr. Doctor were not. They led everyone sing-a-long.

Thanksgiving in Denver

This year Aliyah’s brother and his wife, Josiah and Felicia, bought a house in Denver and to celebrate they offered to host Thanksgiving. Flying 3 hours with a 25 pound kicking baby is about five hundred times better than 6 hours of the same so we agreed, and because my parents and Aliyah’s parents will go wherever their grandchildren are we knew we’d see them too. 

 

They day started off a little roughly - we missed our flight by about 4 minutes, briefly considered driving there (16 hours), and Yarden barfed up about a pound of string cheese into our cupped hands while we were waiting in line to re-book. But if you remain calm it turns out to be very easy to get on a standby flight, even on Thanksgiving, and showing handfuls of cheesy barf really seems to convince other people to hold your place in line, even on Thanksgiving. And on the upside our friend Elisabeth was on our new flight. On the downside someone had a cat on the flight, and my allergies made me nearly blind from breathing 3 hours of recycled cat air.

 

The flight itself was full but pretty uneventful other than a greater than usual amount of turbulence when landing, which made me think about Rosie Perez’s monologue in “Fearless” so I did my best to split the difference between holding Yarden tightly on my lap and squeezing her until she barfed another pound of cheese.

 

When we touched down I turned on my phone and surprisingly our house sitter Milwaukee Matt was calling at that exact moment. In the background I could hear the house alarm going off. I hadn’t given him the code, so I told it to him and thought that would be the end of it. Later we found out the following: (1) Aliyah’s phone was defective and needed to be replaced (2) The alarm company will try to call Aliyah if the alarm is triggered (3) If they don’t reach Aliyah, they call the police (4) Police response time on Thanksgiving is really good (5) Officers who have had their turkey dinners interrupted show up with guns drawn (6) Milwaukee Matt has a great sense of humor about being frisked (7) The City does not have a sense of humor about these things and will send you a bill for false alarms.

 

Felicia, Josiah and their son Jackson have a very nice place in suburban Denver , and they made a really great turkey dinner (and it’s not as easy as you might think find a kosher turkey in Denver ) and the night ended with Yarden and Jackson having a big splashing fight in the bath tub.

 

Next day we took a trip to Boulder . There is a promenade on Pearl Street . It was a little bit of a cat heard to try and get 8 adults and 2 toddlers all with various bladder strengths to all do the same thing. Eventually I just left everyone at a boulder-themed playground and found a specialty store offering a tasting of local wines. I did a flight of 4 for $3 and bought the last two bottles of chardonnay. We stopped for the world's smallest ice cream cones on the way back to Denver.

That night we left the kids with the grandparents and all the parents went out to bar called City Grill. They boast the best burgers in Denver , and they might be right but they were no Umami Burger. Josiah kicked ass in darts, I put some Def Leopard on the jukebox and discovered that my pool skills have not improved by not playing for 10 years, and Aliyah discovered she is a master table-top shuffleboard player.

 

The next morning my parents, Aliyah, Yarden and I met my cousin and godfather Mike Jr. for breakfast. He lives in the area, but he was in the middle of traveling around so he had to meet us on his way to the airport. It was really good to see him again. He has some work that may bring him to Pasadena next year, so hopefully we will also see him then.

 

All the men were going to get shaves and haircuts at a specialty barber’s, but they were booked so we went back to my parents’ hotel room to check them out. It was uneventful except for the opportunity to indulge one of Yarden’s constant wants: Ice.

I gave her a big hotel bucket full of ice in the middle of the floor and let her run amok. She’s mostly fascinated by how ice is cold, and her favorite game seemed to be freezing her hand and then warming it up in her mouth, or sometimes my mouth.

 

The rest of the day was spent preparing a large dinner. Aliyah had found a picture of tenderloin in GQ, and everyone agreed this would be a good plan. At the grocery store there was some confusion over the cut that we wanted so we showed them the picture from the magazine. That same page had the actual recipe on it, so it was kind of a problem later when we couldn’t find it again.  Nobody knows where it went, but I suspect that Aliyah dropped it when she caught her hand in the car door. Josiah, being the great bother that he is, took off running for help and came back with about 2 pounds of crushed ice in a plastic shopping bag. Aliyah’s hand was okay, but we never saw the recipe page again and someone wound up buying another copy of the magazine later. Undeterred by possible further hand trauma, Aliyah got up the courage to use a food mandolin again (first time since she cut off the end of her finger 2+ years ago) and put together a sweet potato and leeks dish from memory.

 

Fortunately our old Simsbury friends the Feldcamps decided to come over and help us eat this enormous meal. They live a little west of Denver . My parents were staying with them that night so after dinner they gave Yarden a big hug and left. Yarden slept in the bed with Bubbie and Grandpa that night, which meant that Bubbie and Grandpa didn’t sleep much, but they still drove us to the airport. first thing in the morning. Yarden sang for us about “Apples and Bananas” and managed to get all the way to “G” in ”The Alphabet Song,” then we flew back to LA and got ready for Monday.

Guest Blogger Yarden on Her 1st & a half birthday

Shhhhh! Mama and Dada are going to be soooo surprised I can write. Don't tell. Now that I'm a big girl I have a few questions that need to be answered: 

(1) Why does Dada call Oto "Oso"?  I think Dada needs to work on his diction. 

(2) Why can't I go to school every day? Those kids are delicious (and they have the bite marks to prove it)! 

(3) Who is this baby Mama and Dada have all these pictures of? Should I be nervous?

(4) When is this recession going to be over? It seems like it's been going on my whole life!

(5) Will the Red Sox win the World Series in my lifetime? 

Yarden is Almost 18 Months

We haven't written for a while.
It's been an exciting time, and I can't hope to recap it all.

I spent a few weeks dedicated to developing new shows with my friend Dan and we are in a good place now. Two different production companies will be taking out our projects.

I took a job through the end of the year that has turned out to be far more creatively fulfilling than anticipated, and I've had a great time writing, producing and directing a show for Spike that will air in February. It's scripted and that's been a nice change of pace.

Yarden and I went to Colorado for cousin Jackson's 2nd birthday. It was a great time and my folks, grandmama, and Felicia's folks all descended on the Soiferstein residence. Yosh and Feesh have a gorgeous new house (large enough to accommodate us all!) and a playroom so big that I'm pretty sure that Yarden thought it was a school.

Jackson (as Superman) and Yarden (as a gorilla) went trick or treating and they took to it like gangbusters. Neither of them had any interest in the candy, but they liked running up to houses to knock on doors and the accumulation of stuff.

We're heading back to Colorado for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks.

Which brings us to today.
Other than the fact that we are all sick, it's been a great weekend.
Seamus got to catch up on his sneezing, and Yarden and I have been out on the town for girl time adventures.

Yesterday Yarden, my friend Lisa and I went to see They Might Be Giants do a family show at UCLA.

It was incredible, the band was great and there was a confetti cannon, songs about science and live sock puppet theater. All shows should be family shows - 3 in the afternoon, no opening band, the lights stay up, everyone is friendly and dancing and there is zero attitude. And even if the person in front of you has someone on their shoulders you can still see over them.

Afterwards, John and John handed out stickers and then the kids all ran out in the middle of the grass and had an impromptu recess.

Then Yarden, Lisa, her son James and her mother Ruth and I went out to Korean BBQ and I got to come home in a delightful meat coma.

Today, Seamus, Yarden and I all slept in late and then snuggled and watched Australia which is a 6 act movie. Captivating, beautifully shot, heartwarming and approximately 8 hours long.

When it finally ended, Yarden and I met Sofie and Helga for dumplings (Chris is sick too).
Yarden ADORES Sofie, and Sofie LOVES being the big girl. She did a great job of herding Yarden who refused to sit still and wanted only to climb into the fountain near the dumpling shop, or run through the crowded restaurant where the overworked waitstaff carry boiling hot stacks of soup dumplings. If they weren't adorable the two of them would be in trouble.

After the dumpling orgy, we went to kidspace where the girls made bracelets and rode bikes. Yarden dumped a bucket of water on herself and Sofie climbed to the top of a rock wall.
All in all a fun day.

The high points of this week are:
1) My buddy Houman is going to come edit with me on this Spike show.
2) Liam is coming to town with Josh Ritter and will be playing the Wiltern this Wednesday and Thursday along with Swell Season. We feel hipper just by association.

It has been a long time since we updated.
Here are some new things that Yarden has started doing since the last time we wrote.
- She can do all of the hand motions for "Wheels on the Bus".
- She knows the names of all the single and double syllable kids in her class. Sorry Xavier and Francesca, maybe in another 6 months.
- She knows all her body parts (the words boob and butt make her giggle).
- She spontaneously hugs and kisses.
- She has strong opinions, and you can't phrase anything as a question unless you are prepared to hear "No".
- She may or may not understand that she can pee in her potty, but she likes to dance to the three songs it can play. She will sit on the potty just long enough to set off the sensor, then the dance party starts.
- She can mimic a lion, gorilla, elephant, monkey, dog, and a cat. There may be more animals she can do that we just haven't thought to ask yet. We assume she learned these in school.
- She's now WAY into books and will make Seamus or I read her 5 or 6 in a sitting. Her favorites are "Are You My Mother?", "Caps for Sale" and "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". She mimics the peddler and the monkey in "Caps for Sale" and - if you pause at the appropriate points during "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed"- she will offer up "head", "bed", "doctor" and occasionally something that sounds like "no more monkeys".

More later,

Aliyah

Gone Fishing - Well Lobstering

We are almost two weeks into our family vacation and it's been phenomenal.
We've hit DC, NY, Woodstock. Maine and Connecticut.

Yarden's been on a lobster boat, picked blueberries, played in a thunderstorm, played at 2 museums, rode her first carnival ride, met twins, and made friends with 5 different dogs.

We'll be posting more photos, but in the interim here's a video Uncle Liam shot of Yarden wrestling "Baby Erica", my doll from 1973.
(The doll is from 1973, not the video)