Quote of the Day

About dancing outside on a wet day: "It's fun dancing out there and shaking my booty at the sky!"

Above Average

In response to my last post, a friend recently told me that researchers say an average preschooler makes three demands a minute. I am happy to note that my children are above average.

Homeschool Math Quiz

Q: If it takes me 45 minutes with 15 interruptions from 3 kids to make 4 sandwiches for lunch, how many caterpillars are in the jar on the counter?

A: Which jar?

I am certain that our architect would cringe to know that our kitchen pass through counter, which he designed to be so elegant, is the home of two fancy goldfish, two betta fish, two pygmy frogs and their tank-cleaning snail friend, and two jars of caterpillars. I insist upon keeping the three containers of garden snails outside on the porch. I do have some standards.

Time To Screen My Daughter’s Books

I asked my oldest child if she had any ideas about how we could help support her younger sister, who has been having trouble controlling her temper lately. Angry feelings from little sis were coming out as physical threats, like hitting or kicking, and I was feeling frustrated and hopeless after a couple of weeks of dealing with this problem to no avail.

“I don’t think there’s much left to do other than to give her a grounding,” said my oldest child.

I could not have been more surprised by her choice of words. Not only did I not know that she even knew that word, but we live in a family where we try to avoid punishments whenever possible. We try very hard to work with kids in other ways to teach them how to be most successful in interacting with others.

“What do you mean by grounding?” I asked.

“It’s when you get put in the cellar for a day and a night with no food,” said big sister very matter-of-factly. “That’s a popular type of grounding. I read about it in a book.”

Love

I never want to
know what I would do with lead
shoes or without you.

Descent Into Madness

Always feeding some
one - or cleaning up after
tornado of kids.

Haiku

Fragility of
Pregnancy is obvious
Only after loss.

Listening To Your Sisters

Have you all seen the Birth Survey? I think it's brilliant. I wish everyone had access to information about how women feel about health care providers, because that's a good indicator about how you will feel about your health care provider!

Yet, I also sort of wish that the Birth Survey did more. I worry that surveys like this will only collect people on the far ends of the spectrum. Those who had wonderful experiences and those who had terrible ones. I also worry that folks may feel good about their experiences, even when their experiences could have been far, far better. For example, most people don't even know that a newborn exam could be done while the baby is in a parent's arms. Most don't realize that you don't have to put a screaming baby on a scale immediately. Most don't get the option of food during labor. Most who receive medication don't have a nursing staff that helps with position changes to facilitate progress during an otherwise sedentary labor.

What I would like to see is accurate reporting by health care providers of their statistics. How many of their clients receive epidurals? How many have surgical births? How many VBACs? How many trials of labor? How many women show up later with complications from labor or surgery? What's the breastfeeding initiation rate of their clients? What is the rate at which their clients continue breastfeeding past 3 months?

These are the kinds of things that mattered to me when I was pregnant. I wanted to know what my health care provider would do in the event of surprises in my labor. I wanted to trust that I would be given honest options, that I would be in control of the decisions, that I would be given accurate information. And while this kind of care often leaves women feeling more satisfied with their birth experience, I also know that there are lots of women who don't even realize they can ask these questions or that options exist for them. I know that sometimes women feel like the frustrations they experience in their labors are their own fault - that their bodies don't work properly - rather than the result of a flawed system or a defensive health care provider.

So, bravo for The Birth Survey. And I hope that more can be done to create transparency in the health care system, so that women can truly be informed, and that they will have as much control as possible ove their reproductive lives.

Worms

Our already marginal yard suffered a great deal during the remodel. With the piles of bricks from the demolished chimney laying on the grass for a couple of weeks, the workers tromping around to get the work done, and the siding and supplies that laid in the beds for months on end, only the heartiest things remained when we moved back home. We have slowly been planting grass and other things to bring our yard back to life, and spent a bit of sunny time this weekend working to revitalize the space.

As I was planting a new little seedling, I discovered a particularly juicy worm and shared it with the kids, who enjoy meeting friendly creatures in the yard. It was baby V's first time enjoying the garden on her own feet, with her hands in the soil, and she was intrigued by the little worm. Delighted in her interest, I moved it to within her reach so that she could get to know it a little better. She reached for the worm. I thought how wonderful it was that she already felt comfortable with the friendly garden creatures. She picked it up. How delighted we all were that she could reach out and touch the natural world.

And, quick as a flash, she popped it into her mouth. Just as quickly, I retrieved it while her sisters screamed, "Ewwww!! Yuck!!" and convulsed to show their disgust for the idea of the taste of worm.

Poor little V cried and cried, confused about what she had done wrong, frightened by the strong reactions her action elicited. I felt terrible because I didn't recognize that she might try to eat the worm if I offered it to her, while at the same time I wondered why she thought that it looked like food.

All I can say is that I plan to be very careful about how I introduce her to spiders and ladybugs.

Another Gem

Four year old daughter is on a roll.

Out to dinner tonight. "I don't know what they have, but if one is chocolate, I'll take that one!"

Quote of the Day

From 4 year-old daughter: "I can't share all of my secret thoughts with you!"

Boredom Cure

We rarely hear the "I'm bored" in our house these days. Because it is followed quickly by an offer of something to do. If a kid is really bored, she just might do one of the things I offer. If she is not interested in the job, she quickly finds a way to not be bored on her own.

Try these:

"I have some laundry to fold. You can help."

"It's a good time to go and pratice piano, then."

"Let's practice spelling."

"You can pick up the toys in the play room."

"You can put the books back on the shelf."

"You can help me put away the dishes."

I call it the magical boredom cure.

The Past Few Days

Fever croupy cough,
Mama's milk the only cure,
All day and all night.

You Know You're at a Homeschooling Event....

My eldest child was in a play recently, with a bunch of other homeschoolers. It's one of the community's favorite events because the kids get together to put on two very high production value plays - one for the older kids and one for the younger kids. It's fun to watch and fun to participate in the plays. A feel good event all around. The audience is full with young and old, friends, family, and other homeschoolers.

At the end, a friend came over and said, "You know you're at a homeschool event when there is a baby sitting on the potty." She was smiling and feeling nostalgic for the times when she carried around her kids with a potty everywhere they went.

She was far more committed to elimination communication (EC) than I am. I rarely bring a potty along and just let baby use the potty whenever she wants when we are home (which is more and more often). But at homeschool events, there is another baby, younger than my own, who always has her potty along. And because she is on the potty, my little one wants to do it as well.

So, imagine this scene at the play and consider whether it would happen at a school play.....

Two little ones - 14 and 18 months respectively - bottoms off and sitting on potties in the aisle while the kids put on a play on the stage.

Of course, my child refused to put her pants or diaper back on. Then she found that the shirt was superfluous. So, that came off as well. I didn't let her take off her shoes, insisting on some degree of decorum. Actually, I just didn't want her to step on anything dangerous in the dark theater.

We received a variety of reactions. Some know my little one and expect her to be running around with her pants off and the potty nearby. Some smiled at the cuteness of a naked baby. Some (all guests that I didn't recognize) looked a little less approving. Which made me realize this is probably not a mainstream experience - a naked baby in the audience.

I think that I could take my friend's observation a bit further and say, "You know you're at a homeschool event if there is a naked baby in the audience." Not every community would feel so comfortable about her way of learning to use the potty. (She almost never misses when she is naked, by the way.)

Note to self: Put her in a dress next time and hope she'll keep it on, even after the diaper comes off.

G's Story

From my middle child (and it harkens back to my skeleton joke last fall - amazing that she remembers):

A skeleton walks into a mop shop. He buys a lot of clothes, a mop, a bucket, and some beer. He put on the clothes, put the beer in the bucket, drank it up, used a mop to mop up the floor because it was dirty, and fell down dead.

The end.

You Can Count On It

Children grow so fast. When you are a parent, there is one thing you can count on, and that is that whenever you get used to a new thing developmentally, you can expect it to change momentarily. Except for the things that really drive you crazy, and those seem to endure endlessly.

Gender and Media

I watched two films on gender and media this evening with a group of homeschoolers. Generation M - Misogyny and Media Culture and Killing Us Softly (3).

If you get a chance to watch these, please also rent Disney's The Little Mermaid. As this justifies my position on Disney movies, I particularly enjoyed having this example shared by the host of the evening!

In short, the whole exercise demonstrated that the media is pervasive and powerful, and that power is used in ways that are harmful to women and other minorities. Media tells our girls that they are to be passive, silent, victims whose appearance is key and who must strive to attain an impossible image of beauty. Girls are expected to be sexually attractive and accommodating. In contrast, media tells our boys that they are to be aggressive and violent. Boys are expected to be sexually dominant and aggressive. When media does recognize other minorities, the images are generally unflattering.

Sadly, the influence of media is so pervasive that it actually creates a culture that is difficult to extract from the media influence. Ultimately, that's my concern. I feel pretty good about my ability to protect my children from negative media influences. (Yet, I will admit that I am not perfect. For example, they know far more about Disney princesses than I would ever wish them to, and even have some Disney princess as well as Barbie books and toys given to them as gifts by others.) However, there is no way to shield them from the world, which is molded by these media influences.

Culture dictates that my girls get positive reinforcement for acting girl-y. And so they do. Subtle gender biased messages abound, even from well-meaning, loving intentions on the part of others.

We have all heard of the researchers who find that people assign masculine characteristics to a baby dressed in blue and assign feminine characteristics to the same baby dressed in pink. I wonder how much of our children's gender identity and gender-based characteristics are based on their biological differences and how much is based on subtle cultural messages. I know people who believe that a lot is biological. But I have such a hard time swallowing this. I really think that we are blind to nuances and don't give babies and children enough credit for absorbing every single detail.

Me, included. I try really hard to emphasize the strength and intelligence of my children over their appearance. I work to expose them to a variety of activities and experiences. Yet, I am very comfortable giving in to their desires for pretty dresses and dolls. I don't hesitate to sign them up for dance classes and don't fight too hard when they don't want to participate in a sports class.

I also don't think that everyone appreciates how deep gender bias runs in our culture. Most don't have concrete examples. Yet I know people who have been hired for jobs because they are attractive. (I have been in the meetings where the fact was discussed openly.) I have received lower compensation than my equivalently performing male colleagues (even when I arguably deserved more for my unprecedented contributions to my firm's income by generating one of the firm's biggest clients). I have observed supervising lawyers joking with a woman associate about her breasts. Sadly, I even know women lawyers who will manipulatively cry in a meeting with their peers because they know that is the only way they can win an argument.

As a result, I want to prepare my kids for the world where they will sometimes find themselves in these untenable situations. There is simply no way to protect them from it entirely, much as I would like to do so.

For now though, I am going to stick to my position on Disney movies.

April Fool

I hate April Fool's Day. It just strikes me as mean to play tricks on others, and I personally don't feel good about doing it. It doesn't do anything for me.

But yesterday, someone taught my kids about April Fool's Day, and 6 year-old D was particularly enamoured of the idea. Her delight at the idea of tricks to play on others, her laughter at the stories told by her friends of tricks they have played or intend to play - it all reminded me of a time when I was her age and how much I loved April Fool's jokes. I remember perusing the novelty shops for fake vomit and cling bullet holes for the car window, whoopie cushions and plastic spiders. I, too, was delighted that I could make someone believe something that wasn't true. I loved the idea of having that kind of creating an illusion, of having that kind of power.

So, reluctantly, I agreed to both support my kid in playing a practical joke on someone. Moreover, I agreed that I would do an April Fool's trick on her. She begged. How could I resist?

Still, it's a difficult balance between doing something that is lame and something that is mean. I wish I would have had more time to plan. It's hard to creatively strike that balance in less than 24 hours.

I finally settled on something. This morning, when we were getting going for the day, I said, "Look! It's snowing!" It's April, right? Snow should be a surprise.

Her eyebrows raised, she ran to the window, and said, "Yep. It's snowing."

Can you believe it? Mother Nature must be playing a joke on me. It actually WAS snowing. I guess I'll have to be more creative next time. And only joke about things I can control!

Peace

Sometimes the only time I can think is when the house is quiet because everyone is asleep. The cat and the fish keep me company and I suddenly feel very clear and cogent. Unfortunately, it inspires me to stay up too late.

A Dead Horse

We heard recently that a friend lost an old horse. She invited the kids to come and watch the autopsy if they were interested in learning more about anatomy firsthand.

D instantly covered her ears and listed her reasons for not wanting to do it. Too much blood, she said. And she didn’t want to be around death, which I can totally appreciate.

G had a different perspective. “I want to see the dead horse,” she explained,” because I don’t know what it means to be dead and maybe I could learn more about death if I could see it.”

You can see how my kids process information just from this encounter with them. One of them memorizes poems handily. One of them examines and recalls every image in a picture. One of them will trip over toys, books, clothes that she scatters around the house. One of them has remarkable hand-eye coordination for her age. D learns primarily with her auditory sense and G with her visual. Interesting that it permeates even their perspective on death.