Eleanor had a rather interesting burp in her mathematical education. I will add that with 10 children you will inevitably bump into some odd quirk (all the time), just to keep you on your toes. (As if a mother of 10 needs anything to keep her on her toes) Anyway, she could of course use teddy bear counters and such to add and subtract but when I gave her the numerals she simply didn't grasp it. Being a lover of math myself this was something I could hardly comprehend. When out of the blue a year ago or so a lady on a list (when I was on lists, I'm not any more) brought up this exact same math problem her son had. I love not having to invent the wheel. So, using her idea of using dice I made up a math game for Eleanor and within 2 days she was able to read the math sentences correctly and with ease. So I must say thank you to Jennifer-who-I-miss-at-MO. She is one of the funniest ladies I ever "met".
And then we have of course the one who keeps us on our toes constantly. Oh yes, I'll find plenty of people who don't believe me that this charming little dolly is a pile o' mischief.
She's even a child prodigy, she can play one fingered or 25 fingered all at the same time. I know... I've heard her odes to noise.
But truly, she is the path of destruction. Now I will say that our house is never perfect but since Galadriel took over tending to the library it is nearly always neat and tidy. But in the course of about 5 minutes this is Poppy's Path.
Precious few books remained on the bookshelves. So, how did we solve this dilemma as this happened I'd say about 5 or 6 times in 2 days? There were many tears shed believe me.... while this darling 1 year old giggled and smiled with glee at her job well done and the cleaner-uppers were in tears. I cleverly rearranged the bookshelves just a little and put up a little gate. Fool proof. However being that Poppy is at the bottom of 3 mischievous boys they helped her to gain access. We just had a make-shift slide gate hooked to the railing of the loft with a playsilk (to be figured out better later on) but they showed Poppy how to pull the gate really hard, stretch the cloth (so the knot could not be untied even by Houdini) and get in where she needed to tend to important business. And all this only takes as long as it takes to peel a carrot... and I'm not talking a world record size carrot!
So at one silly time in my parenting career I thought this was child abuse, now I am seriously thinking that this was really only a practical tool to save the world from truly destructive children. But of course, after thinking for about 1 millisecond... I know full well that Poppy would just calmly peel her way out of such a contraption... Fortunately at this morning hour, she can only climb into the crib but she can't yet climb out. PHEW!
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