Halloween Costumes Part II

The costumes were completed today, just in time. The twirly skirt, as expected, was not twirly, but the poofy, orange mesh more than made up for it. The Green Puppy Dog turned out better than expected considering I put off making the ears, paws, and tail (basically, the entire costume) until late last night. 

Here they are, the witch anxiously awaiting her friend, 

while walking the puppy.

I love Halloween. I love the creativity of costume making and pumpkin carving, the magic of going out after dark, and the fact that it is totally normal to go around to strangers’ houses and ask for - and receive - candy. I love visiting neighbors and seeing friends’ children all dressed up. I love the sense of community. I love (being) the Halloween Fairy, who comes and trades most of the candy for a few special gifts. I’m not sure how long that will last, though, since Clara claimed tonight that she wanted the Fairy to visit Katherine, but not her.

And finally, I love that Halloween feels like the kickoff into the winter season. 

Happy Halloween. Welcome November.

The Challenge of Three

When my sister and I were growing up, our parents always made sure we each had one-on-one time with them. A trip (on the commuter train!) to the city to go window shopping, a long bike ride to the Botanic Gardens, a quick outing to get a chocolate malt at the best chocolate malt place ever, an evening walk. These outings were treasured time. We looked forward to our “time alone” and it provided a standing occasion for us to open up and talk about whatever we wanted. I credit “time alone” for the good relationship I had with my parents throughout childhood, even especially during those crappy teenage years. It’s important to me to establish time alone as part of the routine with my own children. But we’re failing miserably and I’ve decided that is my challenge of three.

As a friend said of having three, “Someone always needs something.” At first, this statement rang true on a logistical level.  “I need help with my socks!” “Nowww can we go biking?” “I want an apple, you said I could have an apple!” “I have to pee! I’m peeing!!” The requests come one after another, with pockets of quiet play lasting just long enough for me to start making plans. Cinnamon rolls, I could make cinnamon rolls. Tea! I’ll sit down and have a cup of tea! I may even get as far as melting the butter. Then, someone needs something, the butter hardens in the pot and the tea sits black and cold on the counter. 

But the logistics are manageable now, thanks to my excellent one-handed nursing, dressing, feeding, and wiping skills. I may not get to drink my tea, but I can meet those needs. The true challenge is that everyone wants and needs time alone with mom or dad. Alexandra, the all-night nursing monster, gets plenty of one-on-one with me. But for Katherine and Clara, it is trickier. We do find time alone with each of them - a hike in the woods, a walk to the cafe, an art project in the afternoon - but it is not regular and they can’t count it. I sense their anxiety in not knowing when they will have their time. I see, and share, their sadness when our time alone comes to an end, wondering when we’ll find another moment for just the two of us. Building it into the routine would be reassuring to them, and I suspect it would help on the sibling rivalry front, as well. 

But putting time alone for each child into the schedule is hard. Our weekday routine already feels full with work and school, which makes weekends our best bet for solo-kid outings. But I have to admit, it is hard for us parents to sacrifice the only time we have to parent together. Plus, family outings are fun, a time for us to all connect after a week of juggling schedules.

And so this is our challenge with three. Please, parents of many, share how you manage time alone with each child?

Halloween Costumes Part I

In my mind I have lots of grand sewing projects, but I never carry them out, or even start them for that matter. I blame it on the fact that I don’t have a sewing machine, or a sewing room, or a sewing day… lots of excuses. But every Halloween I pull it together and get crafty. I have this thing about making Halloween costumes and I like that once a year sewing becomes a priority. 

This year Katherine wants to be a “Halloween Witch” and Clara requested a “Green Puppy Dog” costume. Katherine picked out some fancy Halloween fabric for a twirly skirt. She’s hoping my effort this year will result in a proper twirly skirt since last year’s Yellow Fairy skirt didn’t end up twirly enough. Clara will get felt ears and paws and a finger-knit tail temporarily sewn onto a green hooded sweatshirt. She also wants a collar (made out of the fancy fabric she picked out) and a leash so the witch can “walk her.” I’m thinking about that one. Alexandra will be a cute little teddy bear and simply wear her LL Bean fleece coveralls that happen to have ears. 

I’m not sure these qualify as “grand sewing projects,” but it is fun to put them together and the girls enjoy the process. 

Here are tonight’s efforts. I can already tell the skirt will fail on the twirly front.

Pets & Owners

As a follow-up to last week’s post on Giving, I thought I’d share this wonderful new blog, Pets & Owners.

Fostering or adopting a pet is a wonderful way for children to help care for animals who need a home. It can teach children responsibility, compassion, and respect for other living creatures. Plus the whole family benefits from the joy a pet can bring to a home, from stress relief and exercise to a soft, loyal friend. I’ve always said a purring cat on my lap can get me out of just about any funk. 

Head on over and read happy stories about rescued pets and their owners. Send in your own pet’s story! You might even see this fine fellow featured there one of these days.

Giving

I’ve mentioned before that I love the blog Rage Against the Minivan. Kristen is a great writer and funny. Really funny. She describes herself as a social activist and is passionate about her causes. She is one of those people who goes out and does something. She gives. 

I am passionate about a lot of things, but it tends to manifest itself in the form of strong opinions, judgments and rants. I rarely do anything. Every once in a while I’ll have a burst of generosity and give. Like the time we sponsored a goat whose milk goes to a homeless shelter, or my occasional contribution to friends’ fundraising efforts. But these are all small-scale, one-time donations. I have never made an effort to find my own cause and really commit to it. I would like to change that, and more importantly, I want my children to feel responsibility for caring for our world.

I’m not quite sure what this responsibility should look like or how and at what age it should be communicated to children. My own hesitation stems from a combination of feeling like I can’t make a difference and feeling overwhelmed by the injustices in life. How can a parent communicate the concepts behind charity and also empower a child in a way that is age appropriate? 

I don’t want to burden my young children with the knowledge of homelessness, poverty, hunger. A child with no family. A tortured and abandoned animal. A family who has lost everything. Disease. How will they understand that? Is it right to put that on a child at age five? Six? What effect does it have on a young child to know the realities of the world? 

These early years should be filled with wonder, joy, and beauty. If children grow up to cherish these qualities in life, then as adults they will fight to preserve them - for themselves and for others. But I do think community service in some form should be a part of early childhood. How does one foster compassion and a spirit of giving in a young child without asking them to carry the knowledge of devastation? 

Kristen has each of her children sponsor a child. They exchange letters, learn about each other’s culture, and develop a relationship. This seems like a nice balance. Caring for an animal that needs a home. Preparing meals for a family in need. These seem like small, but meaningful ways to engage children in caring for our world. Perhaps it is possible to keep the reality simple and matter of fact so that the child can help give while the parent carries the burden. 

I hope as my children get older it will become obvious when they are cognitively ready to take on some of the burden themselves, and simultaneously become more capable of giving.

What do you do to foster a sense of charity in young children? How do you engage your children in caring for our world? 

Ungrounded

I’m looking for a word to describe where I am. Ungrounded is the word I think I want, but the dictionary defines it as having no basis or justification; unfounded. That isn’t quite right. The word I want is the opposite of grounded, but antonyms of grounded include afloat, adrift, drifting. Those aren’t quite right either. 

We have been in Vermont for seven weeks and it has been everything we hoped it would be. Ideals rarely live up to expectations, especially when the ideal becomes the be all end all and obscures reality. Yet Vermont’s reality matches our ideal. Perhaps we (finally) have some life wisdom and were able to manage our expectations of this ideal over the years. Or perhaps any outdoorsy place with trees and hills would have done after the intensity of our city life. Regardless, we got here and, against the odds, it is exactly what we thought it would be. 

But at the same time that I feel overwhelming relief to have finally arrived here, I find myself in that strange space in between novelty and home. The drive to Katherine’s school is routine now and I anticipate the curves in the road. If I turn down a dirt road I can generally orient myself by the main road I come out on; I have many “Oh, I know where we are!”s. People continue to be helpful, easy going, friendly, but now my pleasant surprise is an afterthought, no longer worthy of exclamation. The intensity of the newness has faded into the background. But it does not yet feel like home. 

It feels like it will be home, but it is not yet. At home I knew how our street looked through all seasons. With the arrival of fall I looked forward to that one maple tree at the playground turning a fiery red, all aglow as the sun set on it. I knew what friends to expect at the park on a cold and wet winter afternoon. I knew where all the best spring gardens were in the neighborhood.

In the midst of fall here, what was a familiar view of green from our front door two weeks ago is now a completely different scene of empty trees thinly revealing the mountains in the distance. I did not expect that. My surroundings fluctuate between familiar and novel and I have no idea what will come next, leaving me feeling ungrounded.

I find myself longing for our old apartment (the one I couldn’t wait to get out of) because it holds six years of memories. Despite all I didn’t like about city life, we were grounded there. If I could just slip back into our old living room for 15 minutes, the familiarity would steady me. My eyes would not have to adjust, I would not have to look twice at the crayon mark on the wall or the leaf collage hanging in the window. I would probably not even see them. They would not take any energy. 

I’ve been told it takes a year to adjust to a major life change. A cycle of seasons. Next year we will have memories mixed in. I will be able to look at the trees and see their beauty without it also being new. The familiar will steady me.

Slowly we will become grounded here. But in the meantime, I am left ungrounded.

BLW... a follow-up

A few weeks ago my sister wrote a guest post on Baby Led Weaning. We have been following this method with Alexandra for several weeks now. I love the idea and rationale behing BLW. It just makes sense to me. But I have to admit it isn’t quite as easy as I thought it would be. 

Our first challenge was where to sit Alexandra during meals. She still isn’t sitting up on her own - the kid crawls, climbs stairs, and pulls herself to standing using anything available, but she has never gotten herself into to a sitting position (strange, right?). Since I don’t like the idea of putting babies in a chair before they are able to attain and hold a sitting position on their own, we started off by holding Alexandra on our laps during meals. However, she is super squirmy and seems to prefer eating upside down. She will twist and turn and arch until she is leaning way back, and then cackle with delight. Plus she is strong and it takes both arms to hold her in a position suitable for eating, making it impossible for the holder to eat his/her meal. We ended up putting her in a high chair. It isn’t great since she is tippy, but tippy is better than upside down. And Dave and I want to eat too.

Our second challenge is that she gags on everything. She gnaws on her food, softening it up quite nicely just as she is supposed to, but then she gags. And gags and gags. It is awful to watch. I know her gag reflex is forward so the food is not actually threatening to choke her, and I know she’ll get it out on her own, but I just can’t get used to the gagging. It is not at all relaxing. 

Our third challenge is what to give her at the table. It often seems our meals aren’t quite right for her… nuts (we eat a lot of nuts), soup (which she can’t really manage on her own), small bits and pieces (like beans), or uncooked vegetables that are way too hard for her to deal with (although they are great for teething). We end up giving her bread, cheese, and vegetables meal after meal when we get the impression from BLW that she is supposed to be eating what we are eating. What are we missing here?

But despite these challenges, Alexandra does love mealtime. She enjoys handling her food and trying everything. That is the point, right? As for the weaning part… well, she is not leading in that direction yet. 

What are your experiences with BLW? Do you have any advice for us?

(Alexandra has no idea she has broccoli hanging out of her mouth… it was there for a long time.)

  

Too many toys!

When we were preparing to move to Vermont, Dave and I divided up the work. I declared I would pack all the toys. I packed two boxes and then decided it probably made the most sense for me to take the kids to stay with family for a week and let Dave do all the packing and moving (it’s up for debate who had the easier job: Dave packing and moving all by himself for five days or traveling for five days with three small children). Anyway, I pride myself in keeping the number of toys we have to a minimum, but those two boxes barely made a dent. So when we arrived here we only unpacked about a quarter of the toys, following Kim John Payne’s advice to get rid of half of the toys, and then get rid of half again. It has been interesting observing how this decrease has (not) affected the kids’ play. 

First, I don’t even think the kids notice that three quarters of their toys are gone. I’m sure it helps that we are in a new place so the absence of certain beloved items isn’t as obvious. The fairy wings aren’t missing from their spot because they have never had a spot here. 

Second, they seem to treasure little things even more. I didn’t unpack their collection of race cars, but two emerged from the depths of an old backpack one afternoon and Katherine and Clara have discovered the simple joy of racing their little cars for hours. I don’t remember this happening when we had the whole box out.

Third, they fight over stuff just as much as they did before. More toys, fewer toys… doesn’t matter. They’ll find something to fight about. The only time they never fight is when they are outside and there are no toys. 

Fourth, they’ll create what they need for their play out of other stuff. Like cardboard boxes and paper. Katherine has always made what she is lacking out of paper, from swords to jewelry, ice skates to scooters… all the things other kids have that we deny her (and then eventually give in to because it’s kind of sad when her cardboard scooter doesn’t hold up on the sidewalk outside). She continues her paper creations to fill in whatever she needs. Lately it has been paper money and coins for “tolls.” 

Fifth, they know there are a bunch of half unpacked boxes in the spare room and once in a while they sneak in to take a peak. If they spot something they want, they beg and beg for it. It would be really annoying, but it reassures me that my plan to swap in these toys on really cold winter days is a good one.  

Sixth, all three girls are perfectly content with their play. It doesn’t seem like the toys have a lot to do with it.

Finally, despite having only one quarter of the toys, they still manage to make a complete mess.  

Nursing Monster

If you are wondering why I’m coasting along with little stories, poems (not my own), and “this moment”s, it is because I have created - for the third time - a nursing monster. No need to go into why this happens with each kid. It is obvious. Despite having read the sleep books and watched other frustrated parents in the same situation (and generously offered my hypocritical advise), I am weak and always go for the easy, quick-fix, solution: nurse the crying baby. 

So now I can’t get anything done in the evening.

My nursing monster insists on nursing every 30 minutes from 8pm - 12am, and then every 2-3 hours until 7am. If I don’t oblige, she cries her saddest cry. She also has an “efficiency sensor.” Actually, all my kids have this, but it seems to kick in at about 6 months. As soon as I am actually getting something done, her little sensor goes off and wakes her up. Only nursing will turn it off again.

Maybe there is some kind of sleep training that would work if we really committed to it. But I already know we won’t do that. We’ll just wait it out. Besides, she is so warm and snuggly, and soon she’ll be five and all knees and elbows and snuggling won’t be the same. 

So, my sweet little nursing monster. Unproductive evenings, sleepless nights, and caffeinated days it is. And lots of picture posts.

Good thing you are so cute (even when you are blurry).

Apple Poem

This is one of my favorite seasonal poems. I first learned it in a parent-toddler class with Katherine. The teacher recited it using a basket filled with green, yellow, and red silks and apples as her props. She slowly revealed the apples from under the silks and the children sat in silence, mesmerized by the words and movement. 

There are several variations, and I think it is also a song. Here is the one we enjoy in our home.

“What hue shall my apples be?”
Asked the little apple tree.
“That is easy to decide;
Make them green,” the grasses cried.
But the crimson roses said,
“We should like to have them red,”
While the dandelions confessed
Yellow seemed to them the best.

When the apples all were ripe,
Many wore a yellow stripe.
Some were red and some were seen,
dressed in coats of softest green.

 

(Ideally one would also have a red silk and a green apple… I’ve been putting off posting this poem for weeks thinking I’d somehow acquire those things, but alas, I did not and I’m impatient and wanted to share. So here you see a quality yellow silk, green mesh, and three red apples - one with a sort-of yellow stripe. But you get the idea.)

Does it matter?

A few months ago I was rambling on to my dad about some parenting decision I had made. My dad, being generally uninterested in parenting-related topics, listened patiently, and then replied that he had never spent any time thinking about these things and did I really think any of this mattered? 

It is a fair question. I’ve been thinking about it, wondering with each post I write if and how any of it matters. I admit that sometimes even I feel like rolling my eyes at the energy we put into parenting. Who cares?! In the bigger picture, does it really matter that one mother feeds her kids organic millet muffins and doesn’t let them play with battery operated plastic toys, while another mother encourages her kids to play with the latest iPad math app while they snack on oreos? Are these parenting trends just creating a platform for bored, intellectually-deprived parents to relentlessly judge each other? Or perhaps they simply provide some sort of scale for us to assess our success in a generally thankless job.*

When I consider the bigger picture of real world problems (war, poverty, hunger) and devastating tragedies (loss of child, disease, shootings), which seem to be hitting closer to home these days, I lose interest in organic anything. We all love our children and are doing the best we can for our families. Who cares about the details? Besides, I’m pretty sure my Disney-deprived child and the 5-year-old neighbor who knows all the Disney movies by heart will have similar lives. Most likely they’ll both finish high school, have hobbies they enjoy, go to college, get married, have children, be good friends for life and look back on childhood happily, reminiscing about how crazy their respective parents were. This scenario has existed for generations, regardless of the current parenting trends and debates. It doesn’t matter. 

Except that it does matter. It matters on a global level. It matters for society. 

To take an extreme example, which probably does not apply to the readership of this blog but makes a point, the rise in childhood obesity and diabetes is a direct result of our society’s eating and exercise habits, which reflect parenting decisions about nutrition, screen time, and physical activity. 

An example that is probably more relevant is Lori Gottlieb’s attribution of the increase in depression and anxiety to protective, helicopter parents who overindulge their children. These children, who were given endless choices and had their problems solved for them, are now depressed and anxious, which, she claims, directly reflects parenting decisions. 

A recent article by Kim John Payne discusses the long-term results of super-structured kids, and warns that “subjecting a child to a life of super structured and fast-paced activity in order to prepare him/her for the world is a well-meaning falsehood and a more than serious mistake.” Extrapolating from Payne, depriving children of the opportunity to play has a negative effect on the development of creativity, which in turn inhibits our nation’s capability in innovation and problem solving. Therefore, the parenting decision to sign a child up for piano, French, soccer, ballet, swimming, and chess, in other words, the decision to subscribe to a super-structured environment for children, does impact the direction and effectiveness of our society. 

On a much darker level, allowing children to watch movies, TV, commercials (many of which show violence) and play video games in which shooting, bombs, car crashes, etc. are graphically presented (as opposed to leaving it up to the imagination of the child, and thus keeping it imaginary) may be contributing to the increase in violence. 

On a more philosophical side, given Carr’s convincing theory that information technology shapes cognitive development, decisions about if, when, and how often we allow our children to use the internet and other technological tools are already influencing intellectual and cultural evolution, and not for the better.

So, yes. I believe parenting choices do matter. This doesn’t mean any given parenting choice is right or wrong, nor does any given choice reflect how much a parent loves his/her child. It’s not about my decision to save Disney movies for when my children are much older, or let my children decorate (and eat) a store-bought, non-organic cake with m&ms for a birthday celebration. Any discussion at that level tends towards judgment, superiority complexes, friction in friendships, and mommy-wars. But we should be thoughtful about how we are raising and educating our children. We have a responsibility to consider the effects of trends on child development and on society as a whole. Discussions about parenting should continue. 

It does matter.

(And if I’m wrong, at least thinking about it will stimulate those of us who are indeed intellectually deprived in our parenting role.)

*No, I don’t think all parents are intellectually-deprived and judgmental, nor do I believe parenting is thankless. But I do believe these sentiments exist on some level at some point in time for most parents, and are therefore worthy of mention here. 

An Anti-App Rant

My sister recently asked me if I would ever come right out and write how I really feel about certain topics. In real life, I’m opinionated and not very quiet about it, but I have tried to make this space a place where I keep things neutral. My goal is to share my parenting experiences, thoughts, and challenges in a way that doesn’t alienate or offend anyone. Where I have a strong opinion, I try to express it through questions rather than statements. It is an exercise for me and I enjoy the challenge.

But… sometimes I do long to just go off on a good, old fashioned rant, complete with sarcasm and italics for emphasis. My sister’s prompting tempted me. Then she sent me a link to this article and now I can’t resist. This article is over the top and deserves an over the top response.

If you are pro-technology for young children and think apps are the greatest thing ever, go hang out with Rage Against the Minivan (she’ll provide hours of entertainment) and come back here another day. If you are anti-technology for young children, read the article and join in!

Here goes.

…………………………………………. 

This article represents exactly what I abhor about our society: technology geared for adults, packaged for kids. It’s not that I believe a young child should never ever play with an app. In certain situations it may be useful, for example, on a plane ride across the country with a two-year old (but please turn down the sound so others don’t have to listen to it!), a long car ride with squabbling siblings, or an out-of-the-blue work call from your boss during the witching hour. But Kit Eaton’s enthusiasm over apps for babies and toddlers indicates it is not a once-in-a-while-desperate-to-keep-my-kids-quiet kind of thing.  

So here are my enthusiastic responses:

…aimed at babies from 3 months up, and the interface is simple enough that older babies will be able to play by themselves.

For a three-month old?! Their eye sight is just developing and you want to put them in front of a little screen with artificial, bright light and flashing images? Infants need natural light and they need to develop their sight for the scale and distances that exist in their physical world. At least let them develop their vision before you bombard them with “rapid-fire scene changes.”

Which brings me to your next point:

Younger babies will like the rapid-fire scene changes.

Excellent. Train them early to have a short attention span and be limited to shallow thought processing. Rapid-fire scene changes do not give people, especially young children, the chance to process. If you really want them to learn, slow everything down and limit the amount of information. 

Sometimes you just need five minutes of calm while your baby settles down, so try Talking Tom Cat…It’s noisy, cute and teaches your babies about interactive graphics — certain to be a big part of their lives.

Yes, sometimes we all need five minutes of calm. But rather than distract your (probably over-stimulated) child from the settling process with even more noise, why not help him/her learn techniques to soothe him/herself? Maybe sing a quieting down song? Maybe rock your baby and let the slow motion calm you both? To put it bluntly, maybe you could parent your child instead of letting a machine do it at a time he/she needs you the most! And is it really a good time to “teach” your baby when he/she is trying to settle down?

Apps can even replace a baby rattle.

Why do we need to replace a baby rattle? It is perfect for a baby and meets them exactly where they are developmentally: they can hold it and it rattles when they shake it. If you, as a 20-30 something, are bored with a rattle, then you play with the app and let the baby play with the rattle.

For bedtime, there are many options out there. Lullaby!, a $1 iOS app, is a great bet. It’s all about soothing your child to sleep with quiet versions of classic songs, and it includes a sleep timer and an alarm clock. It also has a soundboard, great for amusing babies with calming noises before bed — older babies can probably enjoy this alone.

I’ll simply translate this paragraph: Get this app and you won’t have to do bedtime anymore! No more reading books! No more singing songs! No more bonding! Hooray!

I’ve found it best to think of the hundreds of baby-centric apps as sophisticated tactile toys for the 21st century.

Oh yes, let’s indulge our kids with hundreds… because kids need hundreds of something. And in the phrase “sophisticated tactile toy,” does ‘sophisticated’ mean ‘fake’? What exactly is ‘tactile’ about the apps?

And so as not to completely bash this article, I agree 100% with one of the last sentences:

I’ll also add one bit of advice: move your TV.

To conclude, rather than getting all excited about the hundreds of apps you can use to create a baby arcade that will get you out of parenting, why don’t you get yourself an app? I recommend “BabyApp.” This app will cry, tell you it loves you, say funny things from time to time, sleep, interrupt you when you are reading or talking on the phone, and respond to up to 10 different voices of your choice. And you can turn it off! It has a picture of a baby that is generated from pictures of you, so it really resembles you! It can be programmed to grow over time, or you can keep it at your favorite age! It only costs $5!!

………………………………………….

Whew. I’m done. 

What are your thoughts on baby-centric apps? Hopefully only anti-app folks read this, because if you are pro-app, this was a very obnoxious post. 

In Vermont...

We have been here for two weeks now and are busy settling in. We have reached the “functional” stage of unpacking and have lost all motivation to finish:

But our living room looks quite nice, if you ask me. In fact, I love the living room. Something about the blue walls (after eight years of rented apartment white walls that we never painted since we were sure we would be moving to Vermont at any moment) and the staircase that make me feel very happy. 

Here is looking at the living room from the doorway:

 

Please excuse the mess. I haven’t cleaned up yet this evening. See those stringy things hanging above the couch? Those are decorations that Katherine made to make the living room “more fancy.” Because we are only renting this house for a year before we hopefully find a permanent home here, we decided not to unpack our books and pictures. So the walls are a bit plain. Luckily Katherine is decorating for us. In case you can’t see the detail - here is a close up. They are made from wrapping paper.

 

And one of my favorites, here is the view from the kitchen window:

A dream come true. I can watch the kids play in the yard while I make dinner. In DC it was always a tradeoff: take kids to playground because they desperately needed to get out of house or stay home and get through my list of things to do. The playground almost always won because the satisfaction of getting through my list was never worth the consequences of keeping 3 kids inside a small apartment in the middle of the city all afternoon. But now, here in Vermont, I can open the kitchen door and singsong, “Outside you go, my loves!” Well, maybe it isn’t quite that perfect - I do need to go out with them, but I don’t have to pack up for a trip to the playground (water, snack, spare clothes, potty, etc.), and I can pop in to check something on the stove if I need to. 

Before we moved, I had ideas of what it would be like in Vermont. Housing is less expensive, but groceries and coffee are not. We don’t live across from two French horn players, nor are there leaf blowers roaring through the neighborhood three times a week. I love the quiet. No ants in our kitchen, but lots of Daddy Long Legs. Katherine and Clara have named them Alex. We see that Alex everywhere. I haven’t found those three extra hours in the day, so I still find myself staying up until midnight trying to get everything done. I really miss my friends, but like our old neighborhood, everyone here is very friendly, there are good coffee shops, and it has a small community feel.  All in all, we are settling in happily. Slowly we are making this our home. 

Guest Post: Baby-Led Weaning

This post is by my little sister. She recently introduced me to baby-led weaning and we are just starting it out with Alexandra. I love the concept, so I asked her to write about it, and then gave her a hard deadline and started nagging reminding her regularly. She also writes over at myrtlebird.

Eating family dinners is very important to me. Growing up, that was the one time of day our whole family came together. We had sit-down dinners every single night without fail. There were no special kids’ meals (my mother cooked delicious and complex meals every night—I have no idea how she did it), no microwaving your own Chef Boyardee if you got hungry early (not having a microwave helped on that front), and pretty much no leaving the table until everyone was done eating and talking, unless there was some serious homework that needed to be done. Those were formative hours spent at the dinner table, and I am determined to provide the same for my family. But planning ahead and following through have never been my strong suits, so when my baby was ready to eat solid foods,  I couldn’t imagine how I was going to put dinner for three on the table every night (not to mention breakfast and lunch). 

Earlier in the year I had purchased a blender because I knew that’s what people did—they made delicious and healthy purees that offered their babies a variety of colors and nutrients. Peas, sweet potatoes, avocados, squash….all wonderfully nutritious, and all things that I had never prepared for myself. Let’s be honest: if I had gone that route, I would have pureed things with gusto for about three days before I got too lazy to clean off the blades or run the dishwasher or until the fresh produce started to rot and breed fruit flies (see composting disaster). Then what? 

Luckily I found the book Baby-Led Weaning with this advertisement on the cover: No Purees, No spoon-feeding, no struggle! Right away I was hooked. I can’t say it better than the book itself, so here are some excerpts:

“This is what typically happens in BLW:

— The baby is included in family mealtimes, where she watches what others are doing and is offered the chance to join in.

— Nobody “feeds” the baby; when she is ready she starts handling food and taking it to her mouth herself (at first with her fingers, and later with silverware).

— To start with, food is offered in pieces that are easy to pick up (babies soon learn how to handle a range of sizes, shapes, and textures).

— It’s up to the baby how much she eats and how fast she eats it. It’s also up to her how quickly she moves on to a wider range of foods.

— The baby continues to have milk feedings whenever she wants them, and she decides when she is ready to begin reducing them.”

What I really like about BLW is that it gives the baby independence and autonomy at mealtime. BLW “makes picky eating and mealtime battles less likely (when there is no pressure on babies to eat, there is far less opportunity for meals to become a battleground)”. It’s important to me that the baby grows up to appreciate food as a blessing and to never use it as a tool for getting attention or control. I have known several people who, as late as college, could not stop eating when they were full because they felt compelled to finish what was on their plate. They said they had been raised to clear their plates as kids and as a result had no sense of when to stop otherwise. Other than being forced to take three bites of creamed spinach every night*, my sister and I were never made to keep eating if we were not hungry. Dinner was presented: if we were hungry, we could eat; if not, then not. I can assure you that there were battles at the dinner table, but they were almost never about food.

We started BLW at six months and the baby took to it immediately. It was as if she had been sitting down to meals her entire life. She tries anything we put in front of her and she looks at us back and forth as we converse. She has no idea that she is learning how to eat or that she is any different than we are. Sitting down to dinner as a family is my favorite part of the day. BLW even makes going out to restaurants easier because I don’t have to bring a special snack for her or hope that there is a kids menu. She just eats pieces of whatever I order, and I am forced to choose healthier options for myself as a result. So far it’s working great, but my husband points out that we have only been doing this for three months and we really have no idea how it will turn out. 

A couple behaviors (for the parents) that I’ve found helpful in this endeavor are:

— Place food in front of the baby and then be patient. If she eats it, great, if not, no problem. We don’t expect her to eat any amount—we don’t even hope that she does. It’s totally up to her. There’s no disappointment or frustration that way. Besides, for the first few months, most of the “eating” is really “playing”. Not a whole lot gets into their mouth but they have a great time exploring new textures and colors.

— Assume that it is natural for a child to eat food. It’s good that they eat, yes, but it’s not a “good job”. They are supposed to eat. As soon as they are praised for eating, they have the power to disappoint by not eating. 

*nobody else in my family remembers this.

All-time favorites

And finally, as we drive away, a few of our all-time favorite places…

At the Arboretum.

Easter morning in the Azalea Garden.

 Walking up the Azalea Hill.

At the Botanic Gardens.

Sunday morning at Fountain Park.

A winter day at Roosevelt Island.

A summer day at X-Park.

...when we live in Vermont.

We have been looking forward to moving to Vermont for years. It has lived in our minds as an idyllic, peaceful, rural place. Stars at night. Trees. Lots of trees. Real winters with enough snow for snowshoeing and sledding. Not-too-hot summers. Kind, like-minded people. It has also, over time, become the potential answer to all our current problems and gripes. 

“We won’t have to deal with traffic… when we live in Vermont”

“It won’t be so expensive… when we live in Vermont”

“We’ll be closer to family… when we live in Vermont”

These statements are actually true. But lately “living in Vermont” has evolved into the solution to everything, and I’m a little worried we got carried away with our expectations… 

…To the two French horn players who live across the street and practice the same scales six hours a day, every day we say, “Bet we won’t live across the street from French horn players when we live in Vermont!”

…To the hundreds of ants that swarm on our kitchen counters we say, “Well, our house in Vermont won’t have an ant problem!” 

…To the leaf blowers that come roaring through our neighborhood twice a week to blow the one little leaf on the sidewalk (because, God forbid a piece of nature touch the cement!) we say, “No leaf blowers in Vermont!”

…When it gets to be 11pm and we still haven’t done half the things on our to-do list we say, “There are three extra hours to each day in Vermont!”

The first two may be true, but there probably are leaf blowers in Vermont. I’m still holding on to hope that there are three extra hours to each day. But even if there are no leaf blowers in Vermont, there will surely be something else. As I prepare for my fantasy Vermont to meet reality Vermont, I wonder what I should expect. 

And now some more pictures of our lovely neighborhood, the places that can’t be matched anywhere else… not even in Vermont.

 Jay & Michael at Monkeys’ Uncle. 

Hot chai lattes.

 Eastern Market.

 “Fountain Park”

I love this building, even if the library inside isn’t living up to its potential.

Stop by Monday for the second post on Early Literacy!

Moving!

We are moving in one week. We are leaving DC, where we’ve lived for longer than I’ve lived any place other than my childhood home (and I’ve lived a lot of places). There are so many things I love about our neighborhood - our friends, the playgrounds, nutella lattes, Eastern Market, spring gardens, all the fountains, the walk to the capitol… But we don’t want to live in the city. We want to live way out in the country. And so we are moving. This has been our plan for years and we are finally making it happen. 

Right now we are in the midst of our “lasts” and our goodbyes. My last metro ride home from work, our last dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant, our last trip to the Botanic Gardens, goodbye to friends I’ve known since my first day of grad school, goodbye to dear friends we’ve known since our oldest child was a newborn, goodbye to classmates and neighbors, and the super friendly man selling StreetSense on the corner of Penn and 7th.

Even though I’m anxious to look forward and focus on the move, I’m making an effort to hold back and savor these last couple of weeks. I’m trying to let myself feel the sadness of leaving what has truly been home for seven years. 

I thought it might be nice to post a few pictures (or maybe a lot of pictures) of all the places we love here. I’ll start with a few of the landmarks. I’ll sure miss being able to walk to them!

Reflecting Pool at Capitol.

Capitol in snow.

Jefferson Memorial during cherry blossom season.

 Baseball with friends at National Monument.

Pictures from around our neighborhood up next!

Information Seeking

Someone once told be about a comic - I probably don’t have it exactly right, but here is the main idea (I wish I had the pictures to go with it):

A man and his son are in the car. 

From the backseat the son asks, “Dad, why are leaves green?” 

The dad launches into an explanation about chlorophyl, pigments, photosynthesis.

The boy responds with, “Dad, are you talking to me?” 

I often think of this comic when my kids ask me questions and I try to figure out if and how to answer them. Most of the time, I’m not convinced my kids are really seeking information, at least not when they are under five years old. If they are seeking information, it is not the adult kind - factual and complex - that best meets their inquiry.

To elaborate…

The ‘why?’ stage. Most children go through this stage. It is cute and amusing at first, then a bit tiresome, then relentless. In my experience, my answers are never satisfactory, they only lead to the next ‘why’, which can quickly turn into an empty why-because back and forth. It seems to me that this stage isn’t about information, but rather about figuring out the dynamic between the adult and the child: Does my mom really know everything? Does she start talking to me every time I ask ‘why’ ? How many ‘whys’ do I have to ask until she finally says “I don’t know!”? I often get the impression that the child is more interested in the interaction than the answer. And at some point, responding to everything with ‘why’ may become such a habit that the child says it without any interest in either the interaction or the answer — like when Katherine would absent-mindedly say ‘why’ without even looking up from what she was doing and wouldn’t even notice whether or not I responded. 

As children get a little older (though I’m still talking under five) their questions become a little more sophisticated, but even at this stage I don’t think the questions indicate a request for an answer, at least not my answer. Rather, I think it is a request to confirm what they think is the answer. I remember a specific exchange I had with Katherine (when she was about two) that made me evaluate what her questions were really about:

Katherine was gazing out the window and asked me, “Mom, where do the birds come from?” As I started organizing my response about how birds hatch from eggs, how eggs are laid from mother birds, why birds come from eggs, and the whole philosophical question of where the first bird came from, I suddenly wondered how on earth I would explain all of this to a two-year-old. Rather than figure it out, I opted not to answer and simply asked back, “Where do you think they come from?” Katherine promptly answered, “From under the fence. I think they come in under the fence from that yard over there.” 

She didn’t actually want me to answer, and she certainly wasn’t asking for the information I was about to give her! She already had the answer worked out and it was as if her question was really asking,  “Do you agree with me?” If I had answered with information that was relevant to me, I would have missed her point, and her explanation, completely. 

Of course there are times when Katherine or Clara do have a genuine question about something. For example, Clara asked me why leaves change color in the fall, and I think in this case she did want my answer. But if I were to give her my answer, it wouldn’t be anything like the creative, imaginative one she could come up with on her own. I’m constrained by knowledge, she is not. Soon enough her logic and reasoning skills will kick in* and providing her with factual answers will be appropriate. But for now I much rather my two-year-old have fun with her imagination than (try to) understand the real reason why a leaf changes color. 

So I generally don’t answer my kids’ questions. Instead I respond with “Hmm, I wonder” or “What do you think?” More often than not I get a very detailed, well-developed answer that gives me a glimpse of how their young minds work.  

*Those logic and reasoning skills do kick in. Katherine (5 1/2) now questions whether eating carrots really does make her eyes sparkle. A clear indication that she is ready for real answers to her questions. 

Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy is coming for Katherine’s second lost tooth tonight… She will probably leave this poem and a gem. 

This night it is a special night
As fairies dance upon the roof.
All the fairies must alight,
For Katherine just lost a tooth!

The Fairy Queen gives her commands-
Twelve bright fairies must join hands
Then together in a circle stands
To guard Katherine while she sleeps.

The Tooth Fairy into the circle leaps
The hidden tooth she takes
Ah, but has far to go
Before Katherine awakes.

Three times around the world she flies
Over valleys deep and mountains high;
Skirts the storm clouds thick with thunder,
Wings over waves all wild with wonder.

Deep within their earthly homes
Finally she finds the gnomes,
Who upon the tooth must work
Never once their duty shirk.

Some are hammering, hammering, hammering,
Some the bellows blow
Others sweat at the sweltering forge
And then cry out, “Heigh Ho!”

The tooth’s been turned to a shining stone,
A glimmering, glowing gem
The tooth Fairy takes the gnomes’ good gift,
And curtsies to all of them.
Before the sun’s first rays are shown,
She returns to Katherine’s bed,
And then - - - away she’s flown!

Thank you, Emily, for sharing this wonderful tradition.

Good jobbing

I’ve been planning a post on “good jobbing” for a while now, but then I came across this article, by Alfie Kohn, who says it all much better than I ever could. Plus he cites actual research to back it up. So I’ll just add in a few of my own comments.

I am amazed at the frequency with which people “Good job!” kids. It’s not just parents doing it, it’s nannies, parents’ friends, older kids (to younger kids), even strangers. I’ve had my kids good jobbed by random people who pass us on the sidewalk and apparently think Katherine and Clara are really good at walking. 

Why do people feel the need to praise kids for doing what they are wired to do? Walking, throwing a ball, going down a slide, eating dinner… these are not accomplishments, let alone accomplishments worthy of praise. These are activities kids just do.

In fact, I find “good jobbing” rather condescending. What if Dave came into the kitchen (or worse yet, called from the living room) “Good job, Karen!” as I was making dinner? It would be inappropriate, and I don’t think it is any less inappropriate to say it to a child who is going down a slide. But it has become a cultural habit, and I doubt people even think about the fact that most of the time, “Good job” is empty in content, condescending in message, and distracting to children who are just going about their play.

Please check out Alfie Kohn’s article… he discusses “good jobbing” in more depth and with more thoughtfulness than this mini-rant. Plus he talks about “praise junkies” (who doesn’t want to read about that?!) and offers alternative responses.