Accentuate the Positive

Back Story -

Several months ago, Wynn and I got home from school and found that our dog (Shadow) had chewed her stuffed horse and left its mangled body all over the living room. I scolded him and told him he was a bad dog. It made quite an impression on Wynn, and she has mentioned the time I called Shadow "Bad Dog" several times since.

Our Conversation in the Car Tonight -

Wynn: Do you think Shadow was a good dog today?

Me: Yes, he was probably a good boy.

Wynn: Well, you know, when he is a good dog, you should say good things to him.

Me: Really? What kind of things should I say?

Wynn: Like, "Oh, Shadow, you are such a good dog, and we love you."

Me: Yes, that would be nice to tell him. But what should I say if he was a bad dog?

Wynn: Well, when he is bad you should still say good words to him. Because sometimes he does bad stuff like chew on toys or Baba's blanket, but you should still say good words. Not bad words like, "Shadow, you bad dog!"

Me: But shouldn't I tell him that what he did was bad?

Wynn: Yes, but use nice words like, "Shadow, you good boy, why you do bad things?" That way you won't hurt his feelings, because when you say bad words like, "You bad dog!" you might hurt his feelings, and then he will say, "You hurt my feelings."

Me: You're right. I wouldn't want to made Shadow sad, but he needs to know that I don't like when he's bad. Wynn, what would you say to Shadow if he chewed up your gecko?

Wynn: I would say, "I love you, Shadow, but don't chew my gecko."

Me: What if he got your alligator and ripped its head off and threw the stuffing all over so you could never play with it ever again?"

Wynn: Oh, no! No! That would make me SO sad.

Me: Me too. So, what would you say to him?

Wynn: I would use nice words. I love Shadow and don't want to hurt his feelings.

At this point I'm thinking that Wynn is the kindest, most forgiving soul on the planet.

Me: Oh, Wynn, you are such a sweet girl for not wanting to hurt Shadow's feelings.

Wynn: Yea, 'cause if I use bad words and hurt his feelings, he might bite me.

There Was Sun. There Was Fun.

Easter weekend was one big Wynn-o-centric photo op.

Here are some highlights ...

Where Bubble Blowing Meets Tai Chi

Highly-Focused Bunny Coloring Time

Getting Smooched by a Pooch

Hunting for Eggs

Finding a Basket with Enough Candy to Feed a Family of Five

Flying a Kite

(She's pointing her finger to tell Grandpa and Uncle Paul

where to run next.

She loves giving orders.)

Looking Cool on Her Tricycle

Con Artist

Wynn and I have been playing with her Disney Princess Memory game a lot lately. She's graduated from Chutes & Ladders and has moved on to games like Memory that require a bit more sophistication (Crazy 8's and Go Fish are also in the new line-up.)

The Memory game, which we used to call Concentration, has emerged as her favorite, so she and I sit on the floor together after dinner many nights and spread the cards out on the floor.

Because she is a kind soul who revels in everyone's success, she likes to help me out when I get stuck. If I hesitate the slightest bit before flipping the card for the match, she points to it and says, "That one." When I flip it for the match, she gets all excited and cheers for me. She has done this for several weeks now, so I've gotten lazy about trying to remember where Mulan or Cinderella or whoever is hiding; Wynn will show me the way.

Yesterday, we were playing again, and, true to form, she steered me to the winning card a couple times. The third time I hesitated, she pointed to a card and said, "That one."

When I flipped it over, it was NOT a match.

What?!

I looked up at her in confusion, and she was beaming with the most magnificently mischievous smile ever.

She'd done it on purpose.

"You told me to flip the wrong card!" I said in surprise.

"I know," she giggled.

"Now I won't know if I should flip the card you point to anymore."

"I know," she said again as she tipped over laughing.

She's four years old, and she worked the long con. She strung me along to get me to trust her, and then she pulled the rug out from under me.

We've started referring to her as Little Danny Oceans.

What's Big & Green & Came Out of Wynn's Nose?

Wynn's had a cold for the last week or so. We all have. But hers was getting progressively worse as the week went on.

Last night she was doing these monstrous sneezes and coughing constantly. Scott and I agreed that if she didn't start getting better over the weekend, we'd take her to the doctor.

Well, this morning as I turned off the hair dryer, I could hear Scott yelling, "Ann! Come up here! I need your help!" He had that tone in his voice where I could tell it was serious, so I sprinted up the steps and found him holding Wynn in his arms on the bathroom floor. He explained that she was bleeding - a lot - and that he was having trouble getting it to stop. He told me to go strip her bed while he worked on getting this super-soaker of a bloody nose under control.

Her bed looked terrible. A big pool of bright red blood, soaked through both sheets and the mattress pad. And she was still bleeding.

Every time he'd get the bleeding under control, she'd sneeze and start it up all over again. She was covered in it, Scott was covered in it, most surfaces in the bathroom were covered in it. It was officially bad, so we both quickly called in sick and got her the first appointment of the day at the doctor's office.

She was in good spirits on the ride there and wasn't bleeding anymore. She pitched a fit in the waiting room when we wouldn't let her play with the germ-infested toys, but they got us back to the room quickly. The doctor looked up her nose and asked, "Is there something green up her nose?" Scott and I looked at each other, unsure of how to respond.

"Um, is it dried snot?" Scott ventured.

"No, it's bright green. She's got something up in there."

A walk upstairs to the ENT was next on the agenda. Nose-numbing spray was shot up her nose, and the ENT, who wore one of those old-school round mirror things on his head, brought out a nose-opening device and some long forceps. Then he extracted a bright green plastic bead from her right nostril while she sat on Scott's lap. (He held her head still, while the other doctor and I took care of the hands.)

Where did that bead come from?!

Wynn played dumb.

She shrugged.

She got quiet.

She'd never seen that thing before in her life.

Only in the car on the way home did she admit that she'd found it by her cot at school - several days earlier - and had put it up there for reasons she couldn't explain.

So, that's how our morning that started in panic ended up being kinda funny.

And that's Wynn's foreign-object-up-the-nose story, certain to be told and retold for years to come.

Getting Ready for Xmas

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we took Wynn to (what we stubbornly continue to refer to as) the Dayton's Holiday display in downtown Minneapolis. This year's theme is "A Day in the Life of an Elf", and Wynn was totally into it. Her favorite character was an elf who'd gotten his head stuck in a box and was blindly twirling in circles. (Her sense of humor is a bit twisted sometimes.) She still mentions him every now and then - and then bursts into fits of laughter.

Having your picture taken with Santa was an option, but we chose to whisk her past that line and go to the table where you could write him a letter instead.

She sat herself down, grabbed a crayon and a postcard, and proceeded to write W-Y-N-N. (Scott and I both got all teary-eyed and blubbery with parental pride at that point.) She didn't know how to write what she wanted to ask for, so she drew a picture instead: a Santa hat (?!) Apparently, she likes his hat and wants one just like it. Go figure!

Thanksgiving was a fun, low-stress event. Wynn loaded up on turkey and stuffing; then she helped her uncle Paul assemble the gingerbread house kit he'd brought. She had a blast, but it's a frosting-lacquered mess ...
She insists that we have to keep it until Christmas, but even Wynn admits that it's not fit for consumption. "We'd get sick," she says, "Too much frosting." When I asked her if we should put it out in the yard for the squirrels, she got all serious and warned, "Oh, no. It make squirrels sick too." So, for now, our kitchen has the overwhelming smell of canned frosting and commercial grade gingerbread lingering in the air, but Wynn beams with pride at the little house and says making it was her favorite part of Thanksgiving.

Tired, Busy, Happy

On this, our first full day in Tokyo, we made a pilgrimage to one of the most important landmarks in this great city ...

The Big Ol' Hello Kitty Statue

Honestly, Wynn worshipped at that thing as if it were an altar. She somehow managed to be both reverential and giddy at the same time. The Hello Kitty store it's attached to is, obviously, super cute, and we had fun looking at all the things you can emblazon with the likeness of a cartoon cat. We managed to escape with minimal damage to our pocketbook, but Wynn and I both own Hello Kitty purses and cell phone charms now. (She also got some clips for her hair. They didn't come in my size.)

The Hello Kitty Store

We had our first experiences riding the Tokyo Metro today. Slick and quick - everything's labeled well, tons of entry and exit points. We took the Metro to the section of the city called Shinjuku; this is where we were originally scheduled to stay until the lightning strike changed our plans and hotel reservations.

Anyhow, Shinjuku is a bustling part of town, filled with shops, traffic, and people. I believe I read somewhere that as many as two million people per day go through the train station at Shinjuku, and it is considered quite possibly the busiest place on Earth. Yeah, it was crowded.

Shinjuku Metro Platform

We spent quite a bit of time in Tokyu Hands, a big department store that feels a lot like Target in some places - and more like Ace Hardware in others. But then it also has departments such as "Laboratory Equipment", a name that made us curious enough to ride up eight floors worth of escalators to have a look. (It was beakers, models of the human brain, telescopes, educational games, etc.)

A Rainy Morning in Shinjuku

We walked around Shinjuku for most of the early-afternoon, peeking in the windows of Tiffany & Co., Chanel, Balenciaga, etc. but actually shopping in a small boutique that sells hand-dyed fabrics to use as wall hangings.

Scott and I spent the day pushing through the exhaustion of jet lag - and marveling at how it seems to have absolutely no effect on Wynn. Or seemed to have no effect on her. As we walked to dinner tonight, Wynn was suddenly struck by jet lag. She'd been great all day, but then it hit her like a ton of bricks. She passed out in the carrier on Scott's back and then slept on his lap through about half of dinner. She'd come to every now and then, looking around in a haze with this "Who moved everything forward fourteen hours?" expression on her face. She's passed out on the bed now, but Scott and I are still up and moving around; we're quite proud of the fact that we're up past 7:30 after the way we crashed last night.

For dinner tonight we found an amazing little restaurant about six blocks from the hotel. It's called Lotus Palace and is, seriously, about the size of our living room. The menu is in English (and even has pictures), and the features fresh, homemade Vietnamese food. I had spring rolls and pho ga (translation: the best bowl of chicken noodle soup in the world), and Scott had banh something, which was enormous, brightly colored, and involved shrimp, eggs, and bamboo shoots. Yummy, and amazingly inexpensive. One of the nicest meals I've ever had, and it was less than $30.

I mentioned how we were supposed to be at a hotel in Shinjuku but ended up in Akasaka instead. Having seen both parts of the city, I have to say I'm glad it turned out that way. Sure, Shinjuku would have given us greater variety of things right outside our door, but Akasaka feels more like a neighborhood. There's greenery around our hotel, and the pace here is a bit slower - and Starbuck's is only three blocks away.

Walking Around Akasaka

How We Get Under the Freeway

and to the Metro in Akasaka

More of the Streets of Akasaka,

Our Quiet Little Neighborhood

Holiday Preparations

Wynn wanted to make sure the Easter Bunny 

felt welcomed and appreciated.

The carrots are "bait". 

She claims the part that she wrote (behind her) says 

"Easter Bunny hop".

A New Car!

We got past the playing with the cardboard box stage and finally unveiled the super-cool plasma car.

Wynn's reaction? 

"A new car!!" 

How very Price is Right of her. 

She understood to sit on it right away, but the lack of pedals threw her, so she scooted it along Flinstone- style on the carpet for a while. Then I had her take it over on the linoleum in what used to be our dining area. (It's now Wynn's Play Space, which is what she calls it too.) 

On the smooth floor, the car moves much more easily by just moving the wheel from side to side. Of course, Wynn yells, "Wiggle! Wiggle! Wiggle!" as she moves the handle back and forth, and she pretends the yellow button in the middle of the wheel is a horn and honks it constantly. 

She rode around on it in the Play Space while wearing her p.j.'s right up until it was time to go to bed. 

Fun! Fun! Fun!

And She Hasn't Even Seen the REAL Toy Yet

The plasma car is still hiding downstairs, but we've gotten a solid hour of play out of the canoe-sized Amazon box it arrived in ...

Twirling Elmo of Death

Yes, we are one of the millions of families who have obtained lead-contaminated Fisher-Price toys, in this case, an Elmo lawn sprinkler. (Whomever gave us this, you're a good person and it's not your fault!)

Ann followed up on the recall instructions - there is a multi-page form we need to fill out, then we need to box up Elmo and mail him back to Mattel. At least they are picking up the cost of the postage.

We haven't even had a chance to use him yet ... watering restrictions due to the drought here in Minnesota, you know. We're only permitted to water on even-numbered days, between 6-10 am and 6-10 pm. However, we can fill the kiddie pool any time we like -- that's a permitted use.

Saw a piece on TV tonight where an activist said, "well of course it's from China" with the implication that everything from there is suspect and anyone dealing with the Chinese is likewise guilty of poisoning our children, pets, and air. Folks, it's not as simple as that.

We don't have to look very far to see where decisions to cut corners, scale back inspections, manage to ever-tighter budgets and letting things slide can lead to. I've eaten lunch several times in the past week at a park which overlooks downtown Minneapolis and watched the helicopters circle the 35W bridge collapse. There weren't evil people plotting for this to happen, there weren't evil people at Mattel, and there weren't evil people at the manufacturing facility in Guangdong. Just folks trying to get a job done with what the resources and time they had; a series of tradeoff decisions innocent enough in isolation, but in combination deadly. People must take responsibility to be sure, but I can't imagine our governor or a purchasing manager intending through their actions for anyone to get hurt.

We saw and met all sorts of people in China working their tails off and doing their best to do a good job as they understood it and were trained to do. Reminded us of a place called America. The smog in Beijing was really bad, and it leaks over the Pacific every now and then. But we put those factories there, by our choices of where we shop, what brands to buy, and at what price points.

And I happen to know we have a little Chinese import sleeping in her bed right now who is as pure, and good, and wholesome as any child from any place could be.

--Scott