morning play group at the park
Joan, Sofia and Mia
hanging with Julia
with Lisa
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
play, play and more play
we don't go anywhere without the blue cart...NOWHERE!
morning play group at the park
Joan, Sofia and Mia
hanging with Julia
with Lisa
morning play group at the park
Joan, Sofia and Mia
hanging with Julia
with Lisa
Friday, October 24, 2008
Lisa
A super aunt coming from Brussels just to play with our little princess :)
Mia with her new Super dog cape (made by Lisa), and new super sock rabbit (made by, well, the mommy who isn't so handy with needles and threads)
Mia with her new Super dog cape (made by Lisa), and new super sock rabbit (made by, well, the mommy who isn't so handy with needles and threads)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Playground Follies
Sorry for the silence, everybody.
We´ve been under the weather, and just now, barely coming out of everything. The extended summer (Indian?) is killing us, all the bugs keep on reproducing and eating us alive, and the sudden changes in temperature and pressure make one´s body feel like it´s going schizo.
M has had a few hard weeks. First, she caught a cold from the playground when kids were blowing in her face, in turn, teaching her to blow in other kids´ faces. For a few days, she was not sleeping well at all, thus we didn´t sleep, period. Then she was attacked by a ferocious tiger mosquito in her sleep, and woke up looking like she had the chicken pox. Apparently, it bit her on the eye, and the eye ended up swollen so big that she couldn´t open her eye. The stupid pediatrician gave her a cream to put on, and it´s a good thing I looked it up. She (Dr.) wasn´t quite sure why her eye was swollen so she gave her cream for, get this, psoriasis. Imagine that...and then she said that if within 3 hours, the swell didn´t go down, I should then RUSH her to the emergency room. It´s a good thing that I never listen to doctors. After 24 hours, the swell went down, and she was fine. No psoriasis cream on the eye, no frustrating hours of wait at the emergency room, which would have invariably brought out more psoriasis cream. WHERE DID THESE DOCTORS GET THEIR DEGREES? While we´re on the topic, I find it so unprofessional when the doctors look up your symptoms on their computers while you´re sitting in front of them. Honestly, shouldn´t they be looking at YOU, instead of on their computer screens? I mean, really, excuse yourself and look it up while you´re pretending to go to the bathroom or something...
To make the matter worse, while M´s face is slowly recovering from all the bites and scratches, she met a boy in the playground. I have always thought Mia would be the bully, so whenever we´re with other children, I´m always keeping an eye out that she doesn´t accidentally hurt another child. Last time we saw the boy (2 year-old), he threw a bucket of sand in her face and hit her
in the face with a toy. Yesterday, he took a metal toy full of sand and banged in straight in her eye. It happened so fast, first I gasped, then I realized that M was so shocked she didn´t cry. Then in one sec, blood started to trickle down her face, and a few hours later, the nose was purple. Now, I´m not experienced with bullying, bullies or the whole topic of bullism. It was something I´ve always been afraid to confront, but secretly worried about. I held her while she screamed and sobbed, all the while, trying to get the sand out of her eye. I was about to cry myself when I noticed the mother of the boy was speaking in Spanish with him instead of German (German mother). I can only imagine this was for my sake, and not for the boy. So I looked at the boy straight in the eye and spoke to him in Catalan (his other maternal-paternal tongue), that we don´t do things like these to each other. The mother told the boy to apologize, the boy cried, apologized, and got some time out. I took M home and cleaned her up. She was very distant from me all day, and would periodically remember the incident and starts to cry. It was the first time she was hit. Her niceness to other kids was not rewarded, but rather, punished. I don´t really know quite what to do about this. Children learn by imitating. I see only aggression in the park, both from the parents, as well as the kids. I wonder what it´s like in another culture, since I´ve never spent any time in childrens´ parks in another country. Oh wait, that´s not true, while we were in France, we met some lovely French children, and although we didn´t speak the same language, they were more than respectful.
I wonder about this ´free education´ that we´re so interested in. Schools like Montessori and Waldorf, that stress individualism, independent thinking and creativity. From some of the successful adults I´ve seen, what I find is a huge lack of compassion. Sure, they´re independent thinkers, confident and creative, but when it comes to working or living in a group, it´s all about taking care of oneself. I don´t know if that is enough to build a new generation on. Perhaps the world is what it is today because we´ve had too many ´free thinkers´ who were only interested in taking care of themselves.
Mia playing by herself in another playground...
photos taken from H´s new iPhone...just experiementing.
We´ve been under the weather, and just now, barely coming out of everything. The extended summer (Indian?) is killing us, all the bugs keep on reproducing and eating us alive, and the sudden changes in temperature and pressure make one´s body feel like it´s going schizo.
M has had a few hard weeks. First, she caught a cold from the playground when kids were blowing in her face, in turn, teaching her to blow in other kids´ faces. For a few days, she was not sleeping well at all, thus we didn´t sleep, period. Then she was attacked by a ferocious tiger mosquito in her sleep, and woke up looking like she had the chicken pox. Apparently, it bit her on the eye, and the eye ended up swollen so big that she couldn´t open her eye. The stupid pediatrician gave her a cream to put on, and it´s a good thing I looked it up. She (Dr.) wasn´t quite sure why her eye was swollen so she gave her cream for, get this, psoriasis. Imagine that...and then she said that if within 3 hours, the swell didn´t go down, I should then RUSH her to the emergency room. It´s a good thing that I never listen to doctors. After 24 hours, the swell went down, and she was fine. No psoriasis cream on the eye, no frustrating hours of wait at the emergency room, which would have invariably brought out more psoriasis cream. WHERE DID THESE DOCTORS GET THEIR DEGREES? While we´re on the topic, I find it so unprofessional when the doctors look up your symptoms on their computers while you´re sitting in front of them. Honestly, shouldn´t they be looking at YOU, instead of on their computer screens? I mean, really, excuse yourself and look it up while you´re pretending to go to the bathroom or something...
To make the matter worse, while M´s face is slowly recovering from all the bites and scratches, she met a boy in the playground. I have always thought Mia would be the bully, so whenever we´re with other children, I´m always keeping an eye out that she doesn´t accidentally hurt another child. Last time we saw the boy (2 year-old), he threw a bucket of sand in her face and hit her
in the face with a toy. Yesterday, he took a metal toy full of sand and banged in straight in her eye. It happened so fast, first I gasped, then I realized that M was so shocked she didn´t cry. Then in one sec, blood started to trickle down her face, and a few hours later, the nose was purple. Now, I´m not experienced with bullying, bullies or the whole topic of bullism. It was something I´ve always been afraid to confront, but secretly worried about. I held her while she screamed and sobbed, all the while, trying to get the sand out of her eye. I was about to cry myself when I noticed the mother of the boy was speaking in Spanish with him instead of German (German mother). I can only imagine this was for my sake, and not for the boy. So I looked at the boy straight in the eye and spoke to him in Catalan (his other maternal-paternal tongue), that we don´t do things like these to each other. The mother told the boy to apologize, the boy cried, apologized, and got some time out. I took M home and cleaned her up. She was very distant from me all day, and would periodically remember the incident and starts to cry. It was the first time she was hit. Her niceness to other kids was not rewarded, but rather, punished. I don´t really know quite what to do about this. Children learn by imitating. I see only aggression in the park, both from the parents, as well as the kids. I wonder what it´s like in another culture, since I´ve never spent any time in childrens´ parks in another country. Oh wait, that´s not true, while we were in France, we met some lovely French children, and although we didn´t speak the same language, they were more than respectful.
I wonder about this ´free education´ that we´re so interested in. Schools like Montessori and Waldorf, that stress individualism, independent thinking and creativity. From some of the successful adults I´ve seen, what I find is a huge lack of compassion. Sure, they´re independent thinkers, confident and creative, but when it comes to working or living in a group, it´s all about taking care of oneself. I don´t know if that is enough to build a new generation on. Perhaps the world is what it is today because we´ve had too many ´free thinkers´ who were only interested in taking care of themselves.
Mia playing by herself in another playground...
photos taken from H´s new iPhone...just experiementing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
