Parental influences

Another day, another trip to the park. Thursday is library day, but the library is across the street from the best park in Ridgecrest, so I always have to do a bit of negotiating. Boo bears like the library pretty well, but they LOVE the park ("pah!"). I've learned that the best way to make library day work is to go to the park FIRST, get them tired of it (this is all theoretical, they don't get tired of it), and then go to the library.

I was thinking maybe that nice family, new to Ridgecrest, would be there again. But no. Maybe 8 or so stay-at-home mom types and their flocks of children were there instead. And they all knew each other. I think it was some kind of church mothers group, because I heard references to "Sunday." No one spoke to me, no one acknowledged my presence. The twins attempted to play with the other children and were greeted with hostile stares. Eventually a very little boy tried to take one of our shovels and that led to interaction (Baby A shouting at him: "Mine! Mine!"). It was 90 degrees again, but the wind was blowing roughly 150 miles an hour. Oh yeah, another typical day at the park in Ridgecrest.

After about 45 minutes I insisted we leave and go to the library, an unpopular suggestion. But we went, and we got lots of books, and we didn't scream TOO much.



Couldn't resist -- this photo is from exactly a year ago! But I'm still pushing them into the library in this stroller, and they still look just about this thrilled.

I was thinking about how parents impose their own interests on children. For example, I love to read, so I force my two-year-olds to go to the library. My nephew and his wife, who are big badminton players, are trying to get their kids interested in the sport (they're 3 and 1). Not sure how that's going.

I also really love to make jigsaw puzzles, and that's a pastime I've pretty much been denied since the twins started crawling and pulling themselves up on things. Sometimes I open the cupboard where the puzzles are kept and run my eyes longingly over the titles. I have puzzles I haven't even opened yet. Someday the boos will be more mature and we'll all make puzzles together as a family. And the next day they'll start high school and never speak to me again. But anyway.

To encourage them to mature early (in this respect) I keep buying harder and harder puzzles for them to do. A couple of weeks ago I bought them a big puzzle at Target: it's wood, but the pieces really fit together, it's not a baby puzzle where each piece has its own separate hole. The boos are WAY too young for this puzzle, but they adore it. They call it "ammals" (the picture is of farm animals) and always want me to get it down from the shelf for them. Then I have to make it, because they can't. They have learned how a few pieces go together, but their hands aren't agile enough to do the actual fitting.

I know I'm not supposed to compare my children! But Baby B is proving to be slightly better at jigsaw puzzles. Baby A refuses to learn the concept of an edge piece. Also, when I show him how 2 pieces fit together, he takes them apart and puts a wrong piece there instead. And he has no concept of matching the colors of pieces. Baby B is better at all these things. Interestingly, I am better at puzzles than Rocket Boy -- who is, let's face it, a rocket scientist. I'm wondering now if Baby B, who also loves dolls and stuffed animals, might have a mind a little more like mine, and Baby A, who loves anything with a wheel, might have a mind a little more like his dad. Time will tell.

Later I made mini muffins (lemon poppy seed, but I left out the poppy seeds and put one blueberry in each mini muffin instead), thus imposing my love of baked goods and fruit on the babies. And after dinner we went out to see the tortoises, further enforcing my choice of favorite reptile on them. At what point will they rebel and say "No! We like lizards better!" Time will tell.