Not To Be Outdone By His Little Sister

Sammy has recently reached what I would consider a developmental milestone, which is drawing figures that actually look like something versus the abstract drawings he was making only a week or so ago.

These are bats if you couldn't tell. Some are flying and some are hanging upsidedown from an invisible tree. Oh, crap, I think the picture is upside down because all the pumpkins are in the sky and not on the ground like he drew them. Oh, well...

This one is two trees and two ghosts with a row of pumpkins. Do you notice a theme here?

This is exciting for me because I love doing art projects with kids and this has opened up a lot of possibilities for us. It also reaffirms my belief that as much as possible you should let your kids develop at their own pace and not push them too much. Drawing has come quite naturally to Sammy and he really loves doing it so far, but I could see it being something stressful and not fun if I had pushed him into it.
Which gets me thinking about how much our current school system scares the daylights out of me. And how if I could fix the lottery in our school district so that my children were guaranteed a spot in the montessori program, I totally would. To quote Angela from The Office last night, "I have a very nice comforter and very soft pillows and I usually read a few chapters from a book--that's how I sleep at night!"

Happy Fall and Here's to "Being in the Moment"

Well, Monday was the first day of fall, and I did promise to return to more regular blogging once the summer was over. There have been some changes around our house recently. The most exciting is that my daughter, Abby, is now officially a walker!!!!! Yes, that really did deserve five exclamation points. She started taking her first steps in late July, but like everything with her, really took her time getting comfortable and didn't really start taking off until a few weeks ago, shortly after her second birthday. She had an Abby-Cadabby party, by the way. I am not really into anything with character plastered on it, but the name got me. My son, Sammy, turned five right after his sister and feels so big. He had his first party where we invited friends from preschool.

The other change around our house has been more subtle, but has really contributed to more of a feeling of peace and contentment in our home. Over a year ago my friend, Michelle, and I read a book together called Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. The parenting philosophy advocated by the book was a little too soft for my style overall, but I did take some good things away from it, especially where the author encouraged parents to "be in the moment with their children." Or in other words, to not be thinking and/or stressing about what else they could be/should be doing when they are supposedly paying attention to their child. The author said if you can't stop thinking about the weeds that need pulled in the garden, then go take care of what needs doing, so that you can enjoy your time with your child. That really struck a chord with me, because I am one of those people who lives inside my head way too much and sometimes feel myself acting irritated with my children when they interrupt my thoughts. So, I had been trying to "be in the moment" on and off for close to a year, with little success. Then this summer I read another book, a novel this time, called The Cure for a Modern Life. It talked about living in the present and even said that might be the key to real happiness. The concept was also mentioned in Practically Perfect. Then Michelle started talking about another book, Beyond the Rainbow Bridge, where being in the moment and focusing on the task at hand is emphasized. So there are four sources where I have heard about this concept. My husband, Jeff, says that if you hear something from three sources, or can triangulate it, then it is usually true. Well, I have just quadragulated this ( and created a new word:)!

However, reading about something in a book and feeling like it is probably a good thing to do and actually putting it into practice are two different things. I have been working on doing it more, though, and have noticed myself having more fun with my kids and being more tuned in to them. When I am tuned into them I can experience joy and wonder through their fresh little eyes and hearts. There are two reasons I think I have been able to do this more. One, Michelle is trying to do it too, and having a partner in crime always makes things more doable. Two, I have gotten to know some other really great moms locally that have shown me that "just being a mom" is a great job to have. One of them, my friend, Michele (different Michele, notice the one l), works part time at a big corporation, but I hardly know what she does there (and I have asked) because she is so focused on being a mom when she is not at work, that she hardly even wants to talk about it. She says that her other job is so secondary to being a mom. I love that! I think having a community of moms around has made me not feel so isolated and helped me to feel that what I am choosing is perfectly acceptable and even desirable to more people than just me. I am not the only stay-at-home mom that I know anymore!

Surprisingly, I am not the only one in our household practicing being in the moment. Jeff has been doing it too, although I doubt he would call it that. But he has been trying to let work go and enjoy his time with his family when he is home. He has seemed a lot more happy lately and has been more like the fun person I know he is deep down than he has been in awhile. I also don't ask him "how was work?" anymore, because really he doesn't want to talk about it when he is not there, either.

I will leave you with a picture of my little girly-girl, pushing her doll stroller around:

Wall-e Review: Moses meets Wal-Mart

Going to the movie theater is a big deal in our house--we consider it a luxury or a special occassion. So the whole family was really pumped when we went to see Wall-e last night. My son was fascinated throughout. My husband and I were both intrigued by the social commentary that was going on. In the beginning of the movie you find out that planet earth was at one time taken over by one corporation, Buy-n-Large, that not only provided for every consumer need from electronics & groceries to gasoline & banks, but also was the reigning worldwide government. Obviously the similarities to Wal-Mart are undeniable, but it also sort of reminded me of the book of Revelation where one power rules the earth. Except in Wall-e all the humans escape earth via cruise spaceships that take them on what is supposed to be a five year vacation while the earth is cleaned up by droids, but it turns into a 700 year exile. Maybe it is a wierd combination of Revelation and Exodus, but heaven is place that humans go to become fatter and stupider and the promised land is a garbage dump.

After watching the movie, I read a few reviews on-line and was surprised to find that many critics thought the plot was lacking and that the only great thing about the film was the animation. I was also surprised that the creator said he had no agenda or message concerning taking care of the planet--please.

I don't normally review movies on my blog, but thought this one was worth mentioning and also worth watching with your kids. I like movies that are smart and unique. The fact that the girl got to rescue the boy in the end was pretty cool too :)

Simple Pleasures

Here is my beautiful, blonde-haired boy thoroughly enjoying himself by pushing his bubble mower through the grass while the sprinklers were going. He was soaking wet and smiling from ear to ear by the time he was done. I sat watching him and what I ended up wishing was that he will always find this much pleasure in doing things he loves throughout his life. I hope that his love of learning continues through elementary and high school and into college and that he finds joy in studying subjects that fascinate him. I want him to find sports or activities that he does purely for enjoyment. I also hope that he will still find pleasure in the simple things, like a summer evening or a sunset or the smile on his child's face.

Let Your Kids Take the Lead

Being a former teacher, I think I have the tendancy to want to plan things with my children as if I were planning a lesson for my students. I will have a great idea for an activity or project, but then when I present it to my son, he has no interest in doing it. In a classroom with 30 kids, at least some of the kids will be interested in an activity, so it is never a complete flop, but with one kid it is a little different.

I have had to work at letting him take the lead in areas where it is appropriate for hime to do so. I believe that giving kids as many choices where you can makes it easier for them to accept the times when they simply need to do what they are asked. One thing that has worked well for us lately, is for me to keep a bunch of items that aren't accepted in our city's recycling and would normally be throw away, like used yogurt cups, empty cereal boxes, egg cartons, etc. in a cardboard box at the bottom of our pantry. My son knows that he can use these materials to create whatever he wants. Mainly he makes boats and sees whether or not they will float. I helped him a little with this one by taping the sails to a skewer he found in a kitchen drawer. He cut the sails himself and poked the skewer through what I believe is an empty sour cream container.

My two nieces spend a lot of time with me during the summer since both their moms work full-time. The other day, the younger one was in the grocery store with me and asked if we could make fruit salad. It sounded like a geat idea to me and her and my son had lots of fun cutting the fruit themselves (they actually used cheese spreaders which are quite dull but can still cut soft fruit easily) and then adding it to plain yogurt.

I know these aren't revolutionary ideas for activities to do with kids, but they have been keeping my brood entertained. Please share any extraordinary or ordinary ideas you have, the teacher in me is always looking for ideas, of course just for those times when my kids don't come up with great ones of their own :)

You Say Tomato, I Say Tamoto

So there seems to be a buzz in the air lately about immigration, or at least in my ear. Yesterday I decided to listen to some am radio while I made dinner. When I turned on the radio the first thing I heard was Mike Savage from The Savage Nation ranting about how today's immigrants don't know how to use a toothbrush or know what toilet paper is for. Apprently Laura Bush's speech on World Refugee Day set him off. He went on to say that his grandfather was an immigrant, but his grandfather came here to work and started a business, instead of raising the next generation of gangbangers. Excuse me? Besides being offensive and racist, he is also ignorant to think that none of the immigrants of earlier generations ended up in a life of crime. Hasn't he ever heard of the Italian mafia?

Mondays are also the day that Time Magazine arrives in my mailbox and the cover story this week also happens to be about immigration, more specifically the very costly fence that is going up along the US/Mexican border. I had to laugh because the Time reporters were able to easily find people simply climbing over the fence, including a 10-year-old boy and a senior citizen. Seriously though, the fence has cut down on the number of illegal crossings in many areas, but only causes them to go up in areas where there is no fence. It makes me wonder though, why are we spending billions of dollars creating a fence that is not even impermeable, not to mention the cost of all the man-power needed to patrol it, when we could use that money to better the lives of our Mexican neighbors, thereby making it less appealing for them to try and cross the border in the first place. Another alternative would be to spend that money on our education and health care systems that illegal immigrants are supposedly overtaxing.

Then this morning I remembered a documentary I saw awhile back called A Day Without a Mexican. What I got from the film was that our country couldn't operate the way it does without Mexican Americans, legal or otherwise, and that many of them are filling jobs that others simply won't do. But to me, the issue of whether immigrants drive down wages or create challenges in our health care or education systems are really moot. This country was created by immigrants, it's who we are--a nation of immigrants and their decendants. So, who are we to say that our gates our now closed? I once heard that America is not so much a melting pot, but a tossed salad--so what's wrong with a few more tomatoes anyway?

Hodgepodge

Happy First Day of SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been very spotty with my blog latley. I have been busy helping host the Little People On the Road Summer Swap, helping my husband with his business, and trying to make some friends in the community I actually live in (opposed to in the blogosphere). So, anyway, I thought I would give anyone who actually still visits my blog a few of the highlights of what I have been up to lately:

1) The other night I joined a group of moms at a local martini bar for our bi-monthly parenting book club. We discussed Practically Perfect In Every Way by Jennifer Niesslein, which was pretty disappointing to everyone, especially those of us who have read Brain, Child, which is edited by Niesslein. I think the general consensus was that Niesslein was just trying to be too cool for school, and while she was funny, she never let herself be vulnerable or dig too deep into anything. However, we did have a great time, and I was so impressed by all the amazing women I found myself sitting with--smart, funny and resilient women. I was sort of the baby of the group at 29 and was struck, and excited, by how much I still have to grow and how much I can learn from these women.

2) My daughter finally had her appointment at Shriners Hospital on Monday. She was seen by a pediatric orthopaedist and a general pediatrician. The orthopaedist said he was curious as to why she isn't walking yet, but not really worried. He said some babies just take longer to reach the finish line than others, but there is no reason to think she won't walk eventually and that once she crosses that line, there's no reason to believe she won't be fine. I wanted a quick fix like special shoes or braces to get her up and walking right now, already! The orthopaedist said that is an out-of-date practice because in the long run it won't solve anything--her feet would just turn outwards again as soon as they were off, and even her physical therapist said that they can actually weaken the muscles and cause more problems down the road. My friend Michelle was good at reminding me that my and my husband's intuition all along has been that our daughter is just a late bloomer, that she will be fine, and we should just never look at any developmental charts or pick up any parenting magazines.

3) Today was the official beginning of summer and I kicked it off by taking my two kids and my two nieces to the brand new aquatics center that was built a stone's throw from our house! It is sort of like a mini-waterpark with a big waterslide, a lazy river, and a water playground for younger kids complete with a waterslide that is their size. I plan on packing as many outdoor activities into the next 2.5 months as possible--park days, bike riding, swimming, camping, etc. I still think I am meant for living in a warmer climate, but I will make the best of what I have right now. As for this blog, I plan to keep things light over the summer and will probably post lots of ideas for crafts and activities to do with kids.