Mostly Patrick

You guys are so nice to me.

I probably should have mentioned that my real problem with flying next week was caused by my desire to catch a flight at the intersection of Spoiled and Cheap. I wanted to fly Northwest direct to National (spelled N-a-t-i-o-n-a-l, by the way, not R-e-a-g-a-n) and was miffed that they were not willing to let me do so for $300. Hence the chest-heaving and the quivering lip and the throwing myself on the ground. It was all very unattractive, actually, and I apologize.

So, YAY, with your help, I did find a flight that I can live with and I am going to go snoogle a newborn and produce freezables for a few days. Also, apparently, I am going to be canonized in recognition of this trip. So, that will be fun, as Patrick says all the damned time.

He is so amazingly cute, have I mentioned that? I love how much he is talking and how fun (and funny) it is to get his opinions on things. For the most part he is an overwhelmingly positive little person and the phrases he uses most often are all like that: "That will be fun!", "You did it!", "Great Job!", "The cats are happy!", "Hooray!", etc...

When he is playing by himself he keeps up a running monologue of self-praise that is really sweet, although I worry that he will write greeting cards for a living. Not that there is anything wrong with writing greeting cards, I hastily add. I should be so lucky that I could be paid to write anything, let alone "Happy Birthday" or "ConGRADulations!" Speaking of which, would anyone like to read my children's novel? Anyone? HELLO? I just need to write the last 30,000 words give or take but the first five chapters are all ready to go and the outline is there and I just... HELLO? 

Humph.

So Patrick is a total joy to live with all the time.

OK, most of the time. I admit that it is a little wearing to live with his unshakeable aversions to: the potty; sitting in a chair that has a towel on it; naps; keeping his breakfast, lunch, and dinner on (or even near) the table; and every food that he has traditionally liked in the past.

Steve and I go around saying, "No. Don't l-y-ike it" in imitation of the firm little voice Patrick uses to end a discussion. Do you remember that scene in "All-of-a-Kind Family" when one of the girls refuses to eat dinner so they just leave it there for her and her father says she has to take a bite before she has anything else and then she breaks down and eats some? In that situation Patrick would eventually wind up a little skeleton sitting at the table in a plain blue shirt (Patrick will not wear anything with a pattern or logo on it, nice huh? do you know how hard it is to find clothing in solid colors without a trace of merchandising?) Stubborn. The kid is stubborn.

Oh, and today he made masks for himself out of playdough that covered his eyes completely. He balanced them on his face by tilting his head up. Then he would start running and, SURPRISE, he would smack into a wall or door or bookcase almost at once. And then he would cry and I would say, "There there, let me kiss it" but I was thinking "Well, duh, cherub." 

After admitting that he was running into walls all day I suppose you will wonder why I wound up reading an essay on gifted and talented children this afternoon. Right? Well, he is DRIVING ME CRAZY with this book he has about a robot building a robot dog. Each page tells the child to identify another set of shapes (Can you find the blue half-circles? Great!) and Patrick has this book down cold but it has led him to a never-ending series of questions on the subject. Like, "That's a half circle but what is a half square?" and "What is that?" when we see a blob or a multi-sided shape that is neither a triangle nor a square nor a rectangle. He carries the book around and points to the weird shapes and asks about them OVER and OVER again.   

So I was trying to find a book for children that shows angles and polygons and hexagons et al (largely so he will shut up already, I mean learn from it) and as far as I can tell such a book does not exist (unless you know of one? I would be grateful for recommendations. Also, a book that shows how different colors come together beyond the normal ones. Patrick is always asking what green and yellow make, or orange and black and he is tired of me saying "brown" and "browner".) Where was I? Oh, yes, I was googling "advanced shapes book young children" and I wound up on a page where someone had compiled parental descriptions of their gifted children at a young age.

And, like everyone would since all kids are gifted at something, I thought Hey! That sounds like my child!

So I took some crayons and a ruler and Patrick and I went through line, angle, triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon and octagon. And he was fascinated and got it all so completely and I drew more and he identified them and told me how to draw them and I was like, oh my god, my son is BRILLIANT! He will be able name shapes for the richest kings of Europe and they will shower us with their gold! And we did a little polygon dance.

Then Steve came home from running and I asked Patrick to identify fancy shapes for Daddy and he got every single one wrong. Every single one.

Whereupon, he put playdough on his face and ran into the TV.

Comments

[Mollie]

Sorry. No matter what you counter with to soften the evidence, you will never convince me that your son is anything less than scary-smart.

My four-year-old is plenty bright, verbal, etc., but Packy is light years ahead of him in many ways. I am fascinated to read about him. He is a pretty unusual, and wonderful, boy.

I recommend the shape-sorter from Tupperware. Someone got us one of those once and even my mom, who has a PhD in Biochemistry, couldn't get them all right. I think he'd love it. There's probably a Tupperware kiosk at MOA somewhere.

[Amber]

LMAO!! I think he is a genius no matter what he walks into!

I so enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for writing it.

[cheryl b.]

Positive eh? Yesterday Xavier was playing with Buzz and Woody and Woody asked Buzz how he was doing and Buzz said "pretty shitty". I could use me a little positve on some days. It would be so much fun to get all these kids together and see what they could come up with to play.

[Louise]

A good book for learning about colours is Eric Carle's "Hello, Red Fox". There is another book I used to read All The Time to my friend Sarah, who I took care of while her mum and papa were at work (read: I was a nanny). This book had a colour wheel, and transparencies, and was really great, but I can't remember the name of it right now. If I can find the title, I will post again.

But Hello, Red Fox is a good one, and Eric Carle is always fun.

[Cat, Galloping]

So this is how it starts! Like Patrick, my husband won't wear anything with a logo on it. He once spent HOURS picking the polo player off a shirt and was surprised in the end that I turned out to be correct about the color being different underneath. Just so you, ah, know what you're in for.

[Louise]

It might have been "The Color Sampler" by Kathleen Westray, though I'm not sure that's right. But it's another good title, and will teach Patrick how colours "work."

[mary]

Don't yellow & blue make green? My dog (the smartest EVER) knows her toys BY NAME!

[Ninotchka]

He really is incredibly smart, Julia. Running into objects and all. ha!

[Abby]

OK, 2 things spring to my mind. The 1st is pattern block. Here's a web site: http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Patterns/
and if you google pattern blocks you'll get about a gazillion and 2 hits. Or try googeling math toys or math games for kids.

Here's the other idea that sprung: http://www.rabbliu.com/
It's my best friend's web page. Her kids are scary smart and she and her husband are (self professed) math geeks. If you emailed her and tell her I gave you her website I'm sure she'd love to give you some ideas. Her 6 year old solves equations for 3 variables in his head, BTW. It's nauseating, especially seeing as how I can't do that. Humph!!

[sinda]

Hey Julia - Patrick's interest in shapes made me think of Montessori school immediately. One of the things I like abuot ours is that they are WAY more patient than me about always giving things their proper names - such as shapes, and colors. And many of the materials in the Primary room (ages 3-6) are about shapes/math, like the geometric cabinet (see link http://www.bambini-montessori.com/cf-bin/prod_list.cfm?ProdCat=2)

Anyway, we had e-mailed about Montessori before, so here's another push!

Cheers - Sinda

[Karen]

Kindermuzik or some other upscale educational toy catalog has these clear "drums". They each are some sort of geometric shape and the center cut out is filled with a heavy colored film that serves as the drum. My son and I spent countless time holding these up in different combinations in front of the window to "mix" the colors and see the results. We also did food color diluted with water mixing to see what happened. The drums are a bit tiddier. I was an art major and that's as fancy as I came up with.

In other thoughts, I once read a friends great unpublished novel. I have been waiting 2 years for the final (she swore it was almost finished) chapter. I still want to know what happened to the vietnam vet that returned to Brooklyn. Imagine if I never found out if the little lost children made it home again! What if I never found out if the toddlers saved the day! I don't think I could handle not getting an ending again. As you can imagine, European movies keep me from sleeping for days.

Karen

[elisabeth]

Patrick is smart enough not to become a corporate whore, my DH would approve wholeheartedly. And sometimes the smartest ones are oblivious to their surroundings, even without the playdough mask. I hope you are taking lots of pictures for posterity!

[kj]

Mmm..books: Lois Ehlert's Color Zoo is fun for shapes, definitely goes WAY beyond square. I love Why is Blue Dog Blue for advanced colors--doesn't really go into how they go together, though. I have whole lists of color and shape books if you really want them (I'm in the midst of writing a book about books for kids 0-3, which I may have said here before, sorry).

Are you serious about the children's book? I've been thinking of starting a writing group, and an online one is probably the answer for the time-starved. Me, I have about a fourth of a novel that I might like to work on. I haven't quite decided if it's a good idea (to workshop it, not to write the novel). Email me if you want to pursue--
KJ

[Bes]

check out Amazon.com or bn.com (Barnes & Noble). If you do a search for polygon or shapes you should be able to find some books with pictures of various polygons and such. If you want something for Patrick that's more 3d then you might want to search for polyhedra--these are the very advanced shapes and such. Good luck in your search for books to challenge Patrick.

[Melissa]

Patrick sounds cute, but perhaps obsessed with geometry? I will have to stop reading your blog if your 3.5 year old understands more geometry than me.

Also, I thought I was the only person that had ever read All-of-a-Kind Family. I loved those books. Remember when the one daughter cut up her stockings so she could get a doll from the charity ladies? And when one daughter spills tea on the other daughter's dress so they dye the whole thing in tea and call it ecru? Good times.

[shannon]

I would actually love to read your children's novel and am happy to give you feedback.
No, seriously.
Email me if you are willing to share.
I am kind of trapped in bed or a rocking chair these days with a child stuck to me like a burr. Need reading material. Need to use brain.

Where's the paydough?

[Andrea]

For the color thing I would recommend:

www.orientaltrading.com and searching for color paddles. My kids think these are great.

For shapes these look right up your alley:

www.bookcloseouts.com

Geometry: 10 Posters (Teaching Resource Pack)
Author: McGraw-Hill Childrens Publishing

and

Shape Up!
Author: Adler, David A.
Tobin, Nancy

The only other thing I will say is that if your love books as much as I do beware this site! Books are so cheap it is way too easy to spend much too much money!

[stacey]

Try www.basicbrilliance.com for plain clothes. Their stuff is awesome. Hope I spelled that right :o)

[Lin]

My son loves "White Rabbit's Color Book" by Alan Baker. It talks about what happens when you combine yellow and blue, red and blue, etc.

[giddy]

Julia, I was so happy to see that you, too, insist on calling that airport "National." And given that, you probably also understand why I think the new DC baseball team's moniker sounds like a bunch of airports. (The people who live there might be used to calling it Reagan, but for ex-Washingtonians, a Washington National will always be an airport, and at least for awhile, unfathomable as a baseball player!)

I think Patrick would like the book "the romance of the dot and line" (Juster) that I described in the Book Fair post. It has lots of geometric figures to discuss, including fancy spirograph-type figures, EKG-looking spikes, plus the standard shapes..... I agree that it is hard to describe what yellow and green make--"um, that makes 'yellow-green'" I tell my daughter. Hey, the Crayola crayon says yellow-green (and I believe there is also one called green-yellow), so I can't be wrong. (In college I did a study for a sociol. class about color recognition & gender, with the hypothesis that women would use more descriptive terms--turned out not to be the case. What I learned was that everyone uses Crayola terms--so that a light green was called "sea green" by a hefty percentage of folks, despite the sea not being that color anywhere I've ever seen. For colors with no clear Crayola cognate, though, people were all over the map (one man's aqua is another's teal....and so on--but they still knew a lot of terms for green-blue and were more likely to offer a fancy color name than to say "green-blue").)

[Jamie]

You Rock!!! You are the funniest wittiest person ever!!!

[Her Ladyship]

Ha. It's almost like Patrick's toying with you. The mind games, they start young.

And THANK YOU for calling it "National" airport. I obstinately refuse to say "Ronald Reagan." I mean, please. I get around it most times by calling it DCA - its airline code - but I have had to deliver a few verbal smackdowns.

[Scully]

He's so sweet and wonderful. Just wonderful.

Can I borrow him? He'd like Canada.

[libby]

Ah, you're writing is like a spring breeze washing over me. A giggle at work first thing is just the way to start the day. Patrick is a delight to read about, thank you for sharing him with us.

A few books I like that have color mixing in them:
Mouse Paint
Little Blue & Little Yellow

These have pretty "elementary" color mixing, but are big fun to read. Color Zoo is great for non-traditional shapes, and has many colors as well. Also big fun is Go Away Big Green Monster, which has many colors, v. wacky shapes, and is v. empowering for kids - they have control of the monster, as it were. All these were given to my daughter by my mother, who has taught preschool for 25 years.

[Jenn]

Well, I don't know about books -- but there's a Blues Clues video called Shape Searchers. I think it's on the Colors, Colors Everywhere DVD. Sam is a shape fanatic. Actually, he does have a lift the flap book with hexagons and pentagons etc. as well. But itw as from the bargain bin and I think it is called something like Time for Toys.

I warn you though -- having a shape (and in my case colour) fanatic can be embarrassing. There's nothing like having your toddler yell out at the park " Mommy can I go play on the chartreuse trapezoids." Even the other two year olds can say nerd at this point!

Jenn

[mimi smartypants]

Patrick. I love him. I. Love. Him.

I'm off to put playdoh polygons on my face and run into stuff.

[Jenni F]

Hi Julia,
Patrick sounds wonderful! The book we like is Little Bear's colors and Shapes by Jane Hissey. It has all your basics (which Patrick has already mastered) plus it teaches them patterns and three dimensional shapes.

Patrick might also enjoy the Look-a-Likes books by Joan Steiner. All the pictures are made out different objects (I'm not doing a good job explainng; check it out on Amazon). My son spends hours looking at these.

Jenni

[Karen C.]

You may have had other comments on this but Montessori is GREAT for shapes, polygons, all that stuff. My son was interested as well and he loved to show me the new ones he learned. Go for Montessori based/recommended books in this area and better yet, spring for that Montessori Preschool you mentioned once. :-) What a little sweetie pie he is! I love that he's so specific on the clothes he wears. He's so aware of himself. I think that's a great thing, even though a pain in the butt sometimes. :-)

[KimN]

I love your Patrick stories. He sounds like the cutest thing ever and I wish I could just give him a big hug.

KimN (Inward Musings)

[kate]

Patrick sounds brilliant!

How about something like this to help keep him entertained:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000095S6V/qid=1114128765/sr=8-6/ref=pd_csp_6/102-9997323-3542511?v=glance&n=507846&s=imaginarium

If this did not post well, search for tangrams at amazon. You get a set of shapes and cards and you arrange the shapes to match the picture on the card. Some of them can be quite tricky

[Laura K.]

Good grief - what is up with these toddlers deciding all of a sudden they don't like something they've always liked before?! At our house, we get, "I no thank you!" quite often.

I love the part about Patrick's running monologue of self-praise - that is just precious.

Have a good trip!

Laura

[Kat]

Absolutely brilliant.

My dd's favorite thing right now is also "Don't Li-i-i-i-k-e it." Too funny.

We are also getting a lot of "Adios Mommy" (meaning get the hell away from me right now) and "Mommy, no sing" or "Mommy, no do that" and "Mommy Go away."

~kat

[Jen (yup, another one)]

Most of my book recommendations have already been mentioned, so I will concentrate on this:

Thank you for calling our lovely airport by its PROPER name. (And Giddy, plenty of us current Washingtonians are vehement on the subject, too!) It had a great name and it was already named for a President (Washington), and RR wasn't even dead yet when they named it. Not to mention despicable politics and policies... So forever it will be NATIONAL Airport for me. Glad to hear I have allies across the country!

And when you get to DC, if you need anything (restaurant recommendations, another pair of baby-holding hands, etc.) just e-mail me. :)

[victoria]

It just makes me want to cry that you wrote some of these sentences before I had a chance to and now I never, ever, will be the author of anything as cool as your blog. It's not fair.

[alextree]

Hey,

I've been reading your blog for a while (on and off) but haven't commented - when I was in elementary school I was in some sort of enrichment program that did advanced shapes - if I can find the book when I'm next home I'll email you the name & author. We got up into three dimensions, cut-out octohedrons and stuff. Though as I recall, I mostly spent enrichment hour playing with the tape dispenser. If only they'd given us playdough...