Mixmaster Tessie

Evidently no longer satisfied with straight-up deliveries of songs and nursery rhymes, Tessie has started to mix things up a bit.

Mary had a black sheep, black sheep, black sheep
Mary had a black sheep
Gently down the stream.

Tessie's Dad and I burst out laughing when she came up with this one in the car, so she spent the rest of the ride coming up with other new combos and laughing hysterically at herself. "Tessie funny!"

Brand recognition

A couple of days ago, while running errands, Tessie and I stopped at a Bank of America ATM to make a few transactions. Today, as we left the grocery store, we passed a different branch of the same bank. Tessie pointed to its ATMs and announced, "We went to there yesterday buy money" (followed by "Mommy needs money").

Other kids recognize Disney, McDonald's or Nickelodeon logos. Our kid: Target, Bank of America, In-n-Out Burger, and the Red Sox. That's our girl.

Performance review

In my former life as a management consultant with a Firm that shall remain nameless, I both appreciated and dreaded the all-too-frequent performance reviews. In no job before or since have I received such a thorough and unflinchingly honest evaluation of my strengths and weaknesses -- excuse me, "development opportunities." So the "Child Skills Checklist" that Tessie's Dad and I reviewed with Tessie's pre-school* teacher at our first-ever parent-teacher interview looked awfully familiar: a list of evaluated skills, with Xs on a grid denoting observed performance levels. (Mind you, the first skill evaluated at the Firm was NOT "Shares when asked.")

(*Is it a day care? Is it a pre-school? Now that she's in the two-year-old class, it's more like the latter. You'll probably note some inconsistencies in our terminology for the place.)

I'm happy to report that Tessie's performance was rated as "Age-Appropriate" on most of the list, with weakness only in the areas of circle-drawing, and standing on one foot. More importantly, her performance in "Enjoys school" was rated as "Fully mastered."

Thorough though the evaluation was, I don't think it fully captured what Tessie is accomplishing these days. Some recent highlights:

Geography - world

Tessie's Dad and I happened to mention Germany over dinner recently. Tessie immediately piped up with "Katarina is in Germany. She has a backpack." Sure enough, when we met Katarina's dad at a birthday party, he confirmed that they had recently been to Germany. (And Katarina was indeed wearing a Hello Kitty backpack.)

Tessie also knows that her Babi and Děda live in "Candada" [sic] (and proceeds to very excitedly retrieve her ABC of Canada and Canada 123 books whenever the topic comes up).

Geography - US

Tessie has known the name of her home state for some time now. "Tessie lives in California and Mommy lives in California and Daddy lives in California." She can find California on a US map and points out its silhouette on billboards. She also knows about New Mexico thanks to my trip to Albuquerque last month ("Mommy went New Mexico"), and about New Jersey because her friend Nikolai moved there in September ("It's too far to walk").

Geography - local

Tessie is becoming very familiar with our commute, anticipating landmarks ("We go up the hill to the fire station! Fire truck lives in the fire station!"), giving directions ("Daddy's office that way!") and remembering previous day's stops ("We buy shoes there!").

Music appreciation (or not)

Tessie and I came home from the park the other day to find Tessie's Dad playing The Who's Quadrophenia at high volume. While her initial reaction was positive ("Moozic!" followed by exuberant dancing), she soon announced "I want real moozic. Tessie moozic!" (meaning her Toddler Tunes CDs). I guess Pete and Roger just can't compete with the likes of Sharon, Lois and Bram.

Language arts

At 13 months, we were thrilled when Tessie demonstrated an understanding of language by pointing to specific body parts when asked. (She particularly delighted in showing off her belly button.) Just over a year later, Tessie:

• Knows most of her alphabet. She sings the alphabet song, and will spell out loud any word she sees written in all caps. We've learned most of her classmates' names through statements like "L is for Lauren and Lucia. S is for Samuel and Sofia."
• Can spell her name. While Tessie is far from writing letters, she can pick out "TESSIE" on a computer keyboard (Notepad, 72-point font -- our teaching tool) or in fridge magnets.
• Names book parts. "This is the front cover this is the back cover this is the title page this is the spine." (This surprised and perplexed me till I stuck around for Circle Time at pre-school the other day and watched the teacher point out these features.)

Creative play

Just in the past few weeks, Tessie's imagination seems to have blossomed. Sand from the park sandbox becomes "chocolate birthday [cake]" served proudly, with the caution "It's not real food, mommy." At home, she organizes simple wooden blocks into a farm. "This [small blue block] is the little doggie and this [larger blue block] is its mommy." And any sequence of similar objects (e.g., boxes, blocks) becomes a "train."

(If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering if we have video of any of the above. Probably. And I'd love to share it. But first I have to (a) screen through the tapes to find the good bits, and (b) get Tessie's Dad to show me how to get it off the tapes and onto the computer for editing and uploading. Bear with us!)

Conversations with Tessie

Hello -- Tessie's Mom here. Long-time reader, first-time blogger. (I'll be chipping in from time to time.)

Most of my own travels with Tessie consist of our daily commute to work and daycare, respectively. But even that routine drive along the surface streets of the San Gabriel Valley takes on new meaning with a toddler in the car. Topics of "conversation" range from the mundane to the sublime...

Observations and color commentary

Is every small child fascinated by large vehicles? I never realized how many garbage trucks drove the streets every day till Tessie started pointing out each and every one of them. And thank goodness there's a fire station en route so that I can virtually guarantee at least two fire truck sightings each day!

Other exciting sights are parks and schoolyards ("Swings! Slides! I want to go swings slides.")

Then there are traffic lights: "Red light STOP! Green light GO!" and, more recently, "Red light is on top. Green light on the bottom." "Where is the green arrow? There's only a red arrow. I want to see a green arrow!" Me too, kid. Me too.

Recaps, reflections and recollections:

Tessie is beginning to give meaningful -- and possibly even accurate -- answers to questions like "What did you do today?" When the answer is "ate snack" or "played with toys" or "read books," chances are it really happened. More specific answers ("We painted with yellow paint!") are often corroborated by teachers' accounts and/or incontrovertible physical evidence (where else would that yellow paint on her clothes have come from?).

More remarkable to me is her ability to reflect on what's making her upset, or recall something that did. One day, a bird got into the day care building and it took some time for the staff to get it back out; Tessie's teacher said that this brought Tessie to tears. For the next few weeks, she would remind me, apropos of nothing, "I cried about the bird. He wants his mommy and daddy." (I'm expecting to hear a lot of "I cried about the chocolate cupcake" during this week's commutes.)

Metaphysical questions

Yes, it's begun. The dreaded "Why?" phase.

"Where are we going, mommy?"

"Home."

"Why?"

"Because it's time for dinner."

"Why?"

"Because it's dark outside."

"Why?"

"Because the earth rotates around its axis and the sun is on the other side."

"Why?"

"Umm...."

Songs and soliloquys

Sometimes I have no idea what Tessie's saying as she rambles on happily to herself. But if I listen closely, I recognize phrases from various songs. (Melody is not her strong suit, making her renditions a little Shatneresque.) She recites old standards ("Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Wheels on the Bus"), songs new to me ("Slippery Fish", "Buenos Dias" sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques"), and, my personal favorite, a variant of a classic:

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Ha, ha, fooled you!

I'm a submarine.

Out of the mouths of babes

Loyal blog readers know of Tessie's fascination with trains. Apparently her experiences in Europe left quite an impression on our California girl. The first day back from Copenhagen, as I drove Tessie to day care, she had two things to say:

"Where is the train?" and

"Everybody's driving!"

Indeed. Nobody walks (or bikes, or takes the train) in L.A.

Flower Child

Here's a bit of video from our recent trip. This was taken atop the Petřín hill in Prague on the day described in this earlier post. The sneezing gag is something she picked up from her cousin Andrejka; as you'll see, Tessie thinks it's hilarious. We think it's pretty darn cute.

Par-tay!

Tessie was invited to attend a birthday party for one of her day care "classmates" who had recently turned three. It was held at a party facility in South Pasadena that we can wholeheartedly recommend. We rode the Gold Line train down to Mission station and walked a short way to the party.

Amy's Playground has all sorts of toys and fun things for the kids to do. (So does her day care, though. It's not like all the kids do there is just lift weights in the yard and create an underground economy by furtively trading juice boxes.) Tessie spent lots of time in a little play house, cooking pretend meals and serving me pretend coffee, and doing small repairs:

Before long, most of the kids arrived, and the place became pandemonium. It was fun to see Tessie interact with all the friends she tells us about over dinner. The change of venue from the day care also gave them the opportunity to try new things, and there was none of the structure of the day care day. It was two hours of pure self-directed fun.

There was a bouncer, among plenty of other ways to burn off extra energy:

Then, disaster struck. After requesting a chocolate cupcake, Tessie received a pink one. It landed on her plate, and she exploded into tears:

The server was made aware of the error, and a chocolate cupcake was delivered:

Tessie began to realize that the situation might work to her advantage. She now had a chocolate cupcake in hand, and a pink one in reserve:

So, after dispatching the chocolate cupcake, she decided that maybe pink wasn't so bad after all:

Then the trauma was forgotten, and it was time to go back to playing. Here she is sliding down a long chute at the end of a play tunnel:

To prove to us that she had a wonderful time, Tessie followed up her afternoon with a lengthy nap once we got home.

Hallowe'en!

To Tessie's great relief, Hallowe'en did eventually arrive. The anticipation built up in her so much that every evening for the last week she stated, repeatedly, "I want to go to Hallowe'en!"

Well, Hallowe'en came to her, and she made the most of it. Her day care had a costume parade and sent her home with a bag of treats, but the majority of her trick-or-treating was done closer to home, in the downtown business district of the Undisclosed Location.

Dressed as a Pumpkin Fairy, she charmed most of the local merchants out of candy as she walked through town. Here she is getting her first-ever Hallowe'en treat:

That was followed by many more, and then it was time for the costume parade, as all the local children followed behind one of the city's fire trucks on a short walk from downtown to Memorial Park. Memorial Park was the site of the costume contest, and Tessie entered in the 0-2 age group. Alas, she didn't win, but surely this was due to the preferential treatment given by the judges to those toddlers wearing homemade costumes. Tessie's was not made by an immediate relative, and we can only hope that the nimble-fingered Chinese adolescents who did create it aren't offended by the judges' blatant disregard for their efforts. (Hey, Judges: you try churning out hundreds of identical "Pumpkin Fairy" costumes in one sixteen-hour shift before discounting the effort!) From there we returned home so Tessie could make one last stop before bed. We took her across the street to our neighbors to trick-or-treat one last time. Tessie's request sounded more like "twinkle-twinkle" than "trick-or-treat," but it had the desired effect and several pieces of chocolate landed in her plastic jack-o-lantern bucket.

Pumpkin Festival

Now that we're all caught up after our European extravaganza, it's time to get back to writing about our more mundane activities near home.



One of the ways in which we in southern California become aware of the approach of autumn is through the appearance on the calendar of pumpkin-related activities. (What, you think we see leaves change color or something? Palm trees are green year-round, my friends.) Last weekend we attended the Kidspace Pumpkin Festival near the museum grounds by the Rose Bowl.



Kidspace is a children's museum, and the pumpkin festival is an annual event for children. We went last year, but this time Tessie was big enough to enjoy more of the activities. I think she even managed to find the stage act, a clown trio singing inane songs, to be condescending. She did enjoy the pumpkin patch:

She also enjoyed the bounce houses, and she's seen here atop the slide with an unknown acquaintance:

But the highlight of her day was her first-ever pony ride:

She was simply beaming atop her mount as they circled under the tent. Look at that posture, by the way. It seems we have an equestrienne in the making. This can't be good.