Did you notice what was going on in the background? As Clara and Grandpa came towards me I heard Clara yelling "let go of me, let go of me!", and I looked up to see this:
This was Clara's first long (5-10 second) stretch of unassisted riding! She was really proud of the feat, as you can see from when we reached the corner below:
I guess Oscar noticed it too, because despite his height problems on his own bike he REALLY wanted to ride on Clara's! (That photo was taken just before a tantrum, but you can already see the direction it's going)
After the first, short block, Clara had three more blocks to practice, and she did amazingly!
Although she did keep Grandpa on his toes...
Meanwhile, Oscar kept at it:
And eventually decided that there's more than one way to get from A to B with a bicycle...
Clara was in a fantastic mood after her feat:
INTERLUDE
Back in the winter we were having real problems with Clara having tantrums, and exploding over seemingly nothing. Tanja bought us a book called "Playful Parenting" to help us get ideas about how to deal with it. The main idea behind the book is that children need to play in order to deal with things happening in their lives (so if someone in the family died, then their play typically incorporates death, and rather than stopping it, you should probably encourage it and play dying games with them). Another important theme is that children aren't able to express feelings well, so instead of coming to you and saying "Dad, I've had a hard day at Kita, I was frustrated a lot, and it would sure make me feel better if you would play with me to help me feel better" they go and do something annoying, like hit their brother.
The idea of the psychologist who wrote the book is that you need to play with kids in order to help "solve" behavioral problems, sometimes directing the play towards the underlying emotional stress you guess that they might be dealing with. One of the suggestions from the book that worked really well with Oscar was to play a game where he pushes over me or Tanja and we fall to the ground dramatically. The idea there is that he's frustrated because he's smaller, and adults are always telling him what to do, and by pushing over his parents he gets the chance to be the biggest and strongest.
Another major theme in the book was the tears that come "out of nowhere". You have a great afternoon at the park playing with your child, and then at some point you pick up the wrong toy and suddenly they LOSE IT! And no matter what you do about the toy, it can't be fixed, and perhaps a tantrum ensues. What the author thinks is going on there, is that there are hundreds of little moments in a day that frustrate kids, but they aren't able to express their feelings right at that moment. Someone takes a toy away, they get yelled at, they can't reach something, adults are always making them get dressed, sit up, stop playing with your food, hurry up, etc. So when they are feeling really wonderful and close to you, they take the opportunity presented by a minor disappointment (picking up the wrong toy, or bumping their knee) to "let out" all the tears that had built up during the day (or week!). This is why huge tears always seem to follow really nice things, like eating ice cream or visiting someone or having a birthday. (The idea of the author here is that you have to let the kid cry it out while cuddling them - or trying to cuddle them while preventing them from kicking you, as the case may be.)
Since we read the book Clara's tantrums have gone away. I'm not sure they wouldn't have gone away on their own, but in addition to a lot of strategies to deal with and head off tantrums, the book gave me a better idea about what might be going on in her head. No matter what you think of the author's ideas on the nature of play, I would recommend the book simply for all of the amazing strategies for playing with kids, for changing your own mindset in stressful situations (to avoid yelling, nagging, or spanking, which probably just make both of you feel worse and don't change behavior), and for strategies for what to do when your child is mid-tantrum.
Shortly after we got to the park we had a textbook example of the kind of tears discussed in "Playful Parenting". Oscar was going down a slide, and somehow his foot bumped the side and he landed awkwardly. He started wailing (although he wasn't really hurt), and as Tanja cuddled him he angrily yelled "CLARA!" At first, I thought he was blaming Clara for bumping him, although she was about 20 meters away, but then he yelled "Clara BIKE!" and we understood that he was using his accident as an excuse to shed tears over his sister's beautiful new bike that he's not allowed to ride. While this was happening, I heard Clara screaming at her Grandpa, and as it continued for a bit I ran over to her. to see what was up She was screaming at him because he "wasn't watching me the way Daddy watches me" as she spun on a ride. Okay... So we sat on a bench and talked about how exciting and emotional it was to ride so well on her bike, and after that the rest of the day was tear and tantrum free for both kids.
At the park Oscar kept doing a loop walk with Tanja culminating in a big slide (Clara used to do the exact same thing). I was catching him at the bottom, and I managed to snap this right before I had to reach for him:
Clara joined three other girls on a group swing while Grandma pushed them all. Clara had a huge amount of fun making up the silly things she'd turn herself into if she was a sorceress: "Jetzt verwandle ich mich in eine Spinne!" "Jetzt verwandle ich mich in eine Schaukel!" "Jetzt verwandle ich mich in einen Spielplatz!" (Now I'm turning into a spider/swing/playground). The two older girls eventually got a bit tired of the Quatsch, but the other four year old loved it.
There are a bunch more photos from Oscar at the park that will probably find their way into a post sometime soon. Clara's improvement on the bike from Saturday to Sunday was incredible. She can ride an entire block without any help (although she needs help starting, and doesn't quite have the hang of stopping). We'll try to get a video soon.
Happy Mother's Day!
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