A Trip to Jupiter

A few days ago, my 6-year-old was reading about storms.  He is incredibly fascinated with weather.  Maybe it’s because it’s so powerful, something he can’t control.  Whatever the reason, it’s been one of his interests for years.

He was sitting on the couch, a book in one hand and a DVD in the other.  He announced to his 4-year-old sister (who was busy coloring; and did I mention she doesn’t care about weather?), “Did you know there’s a hurricane on Jupiter?”

Without even bothering to look up from her coloring book, said 4-year-old replied noncommittally, “Then I guess you shouldn’t go to Jupiter.”  Well, there go the summer vacation plans!

That exchange served to remind me just how different my children are.  On the one hand, we have our practical, down-to-earth boy, who loves non-fiction and embraces the world of facts and rational thinking.  On the other, we have our imaginative girl, for whom a trip to the stars isn’t barred by time, distance, and the limitations of 21st century space travel but by inclement weather.

Sesame Street

I am just finishing a great book, Street Gang, by Michael Davis, about the history of Sesame Street.  As I read, I was reminded of my own childhood.  I loved Sesame Street.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that my children (or the other children of their generation) are benefiting from Sesame Street in the same way that my sisters and I did.

My oldest sister was a preschooler herself when the first episodes aired.  My other sister watched in the early 70s and I tuned in in the late 70s and early 80s.  Big Bird and Kermit were my favorite Muppet characters, while Bob and Maria were my favorite humans.  And who could forget such gems as the pinball number count or the baker who fell down the stairs?  I learned my letters, numbers, and a handful of Spanish words.  Sesame Street, and in particular the Muppets, had such a profound effect on me that I cried when Jim Henson died–I felt like I’d lost family.

I do not for a moment claim that these early years were the best ones and the show was never again that good.  Those feelings are natural, but they are mere nostalgia.  In fact, Sesame Street remained consistently good enough that I occasionally tuned in all the way through high school.  The reality is that the Sesame Street of the new millennium really is not as good as in any other decade preceding.

What made Sesame Street great was not just the characters, or the simple situations, or the humor.  As a matter of fact, those things are still present in abundance for the better part of each episode.  I appreciate the addition of new and interesting characters, both Muppet and human.  As much as I loved the grown-up humans who populated the show during my early childhood, I think that it is great to see new, fresh faces.  Of the new Muppets, I particularly like Rosita, the Spanish-speaking, guitar-playing blue monster.

Bear with me, I need to sidetrack for a moment.  At our church, we’ve recently been talking about the concept of it.  Now, in church, that carries with it the understanding that the Holy Spirit is the source of it.  But there is such a thing as it in a secular sense, too.

Back to Sesame Street:  On the rare occasion I have allowed my kids to watch, I have had this sense that something is missing.  As I read and study more about this concept of it, I have come to realize that Sesame Street has lost it.  The mere fact that any one character has more than a third of the show devoted to himself is an indication that someone is trying too hard to recapture it.

I understand that lots of kids adore Elmo.  And I’m actually not picking on our poor, maligned red friend here.  As a matter of fact, I like Elmo.  Yes, you heard me right.  In small doses, he is a welcome friend.  Elmo has been around for many years.  We have a DVD entitled “The Best of Elmo.”  It really is Elmo at his best, and it represents what Elmo should be–a cute, furry,child-like Muppet who is learning about the world around him.  His duet with Ernie, “One Fine Face,” is a favorite song in our household, and his talk with Whoopi Goldberg about wanting to trade skin is pricelessly precious.

The problem is that Elmo has gone from student to teacher.  He now represents everything that is currently wrong with Children’s programming.  There is a pervasive mistrust of adults, an attitude that kids are right and adults are peripheral.  Not only that, but this child-centric (not child-centered) universe takes up nearly half of each episode, crowding out better material and greater opportunity for appropriate learning.

There was a time when Sesame Street was more than just another kiddie show.  It was smart, innovative, creative, and cutting edge.  Sesame Street, please return to your roots!  Get away from this new child-in-charge attitude; be different, like you once were, and give our kids a real reason to tune in.

Influencing Our Kids

I took the plunge.  I signed up on Last.FM.  As I was adding music to my library, I started thinking about who (and what) had influenced my taste in music.

When I was growing up, there was almost always something on the radio, stereo, or tape player.  I remember summers most vividly, spending 8 or 9 weeks listening to the strains of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach from my grandfather’s shop.  He introduced me to opera, which I didn’t appreciate as a child, although I did grow to enjoy it.  My grandfather knew the names of all the pieces and often who was performing.  Sadly, like my mother, I often hear some piece of music and it sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.  Still, I love what most people loosely call “classical” music–both to play and to hear.

My grandmother had very little influence on my musical taste, although she did introduce me to some of my favorite country singers.  Similarly, my father’s taste in music left little impression.  My dad taught me to dance to the sounds of early rock ‘n’ roll: Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and the Comets, early Elvis.  Other than that, I don’t recall that my father ever listened to much.

My mother, on the other hand, had as varied taste in music as I do now.  She listened to everything from old-time gospel to folk music, opera to the Beatles.  Like my father, she enjoyed early rock.  But she also appreciated darker sounds of the 1960s.  When listening with my mom, I might hear the Beach Boys, or I might be in for Woody Guthrie or the Weavers.  Mom also enjoyed newer country music and through her I began to appreciate some of it as well.

My sisters both had an impact on my taste.  The older of my two big sisters introduced me to CCR, the Moody Blues, Elton John, and Billy Joel.  My other sister got me hooked on women’s folk music and alternative rock.  My cousin liked bands such as Metallica and REM, and we spent a good part of each summer enjoying whatever tapes he had brought along.

I remember enjoying some of what was popular among my peers for a short time when I was in school, but I never really got into pop music.  There are a few songs that I still enjoy from childhood, but very little has remained as a staple in my music diet.  It wasn’t until high school that I found myself really interested in what my friends were listening to.  Through my friends at church, I began to enjoy the likes of Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Sandi Patti, and Twila Paris.  Some of my friends had other interesting taste in music and through them I learned to appreciate Weird Al and They Might Be Giants.

I find myself now open to a wide variety of music.  I don’t necessarily have favorite artists so much as favorite songs.  I prefer songs that make me think and feel.  It isn’t just background noise, it’s an extension of myself in some way.

So what does all that have to do with parenting?  As I put together my library and recalled (mostly fondly) the people and the music that have shaped me, I realized that we now have the chance to do the same for our children.  My son already has the same relationship to music that I do; it’s in his blood.  For him, it is so natural to move to the music, to express with his body what he is hearing.  It might be a ballet to Rich Mullins’ “Awesome God” or interpretive dance to Jars of Clay’s “Flood.”  Watching him, I feel inside that intense longing that C.S. Lewis described as “joy.”  My daughter is still very young, but for her, it seems to be the message, the words, that she relates to.  Perhaps this is because she herself is already a proficient communicator.  I wonder what she will use that gift for.

In the end, my hope is that my children will grow to appreciate a wide variety of music, rather than locking themselves into one genre.  And I hope that, in some way, I will be part of that process.

Potty Training or Potty Learning?

I’ve got potty training on the brain these days.  This is in part because I’ve been able to do the “No More Diapers” dance in my own house.  My daughter’s been fully potty trained for about 3 weeks now.  Many of my friends, both in cyberspace and in real life, have kids who are potty training.

Which brings me to the title of my post.  I really prefer the term “potty learning.”  I took it from an excellent book by William and Martha Sears called You Can Go to the Potty.  The book is aimed at children, but there are excellent tips for parents.  As I mentioned, I prefer “potty learning” to “potty training.”  Our children are not pets who need to be housebroken.  They are young people who need to learn how to do things.

I know there are people who will be horrified to learn that my son was nearly 4 when he learned and my daughter is 3 and a half (that half is very important to her).  Nowadays, I see so many parents anxious to get their under 2’s to use the toilet.  If you can do it easily, then more power to you.  But I very sincerely doubt that most kids that age are ready.

With both of my kids, it took less than 2 days for them to be able to consistently use the toilet during the day.  (My son still isn’tdry at night, but this is very common, especially in boys.  But that is a post for another time).  I didn’t have to bribe my kids with toys, candy, stickers, money(!), or other prizes for going to the bathroom.  We haven’t had weeks or months of working on it, only to have them regress.  In fact, I didn’t “train” them at all–they figured it out all by themselves, for the most part.

When I mentioned this to the pediatrician, he was pleased that we had chosen this gentle method.  He said that children should not be coerced or pressured and that most children are not ready before age 3 or 3 and a half.  This was the same thing my daughter’s occupational therapist had said.  And in my own experience, the parents who have had the most success have waited until their children are a bit older.

Like with other things, I prefer the low-stress method of parenting.  I also chose not to “sleep train” either of my children.  I found listening to them cry stressful, so I used other methods of getting them to sleep.  I don’t know whether the now sleep better than their peers, but I do know that bedtime has always been pleasant and calm in our house.  (I should write about this sometime, too.)

In the end, my recommendation for parents is that if potty learning is not going well, your child seems uninterested, you constantly find yourself offering rewards, your child seems to do well and then regresses, or you and your child are frustrated, then back off for a time.  Give it awhile, then revisit.  It doesn’t have to make you crazy.

Assessing Parents

Yeah, I haven’t posted anything in awhile.   That’s how it goes, being a homeschooling mommy.  And now I’m here to vent about one of the things I hate most about being a parent.  Strangely, it doesn’t actually have anything to do with the kids or their behavior.

I took my daughter to the dentist today for her annual check-up.  Of course, poor thing has a mouthful of cavities.  Now, I think I can guess what some people are thinking: “Why didn’t you brush her teeth?!” or “What did you feed her, straight-up sugar?” or “That’s what you get for putting your kids to bed with a bottle!”  And of course, those people are wrong on all counts.

Which, naturally, brings me to my point.  Her dentist kind of assumed the same things.  Now, I’m sure it’s true that we could have done better with brushing.  But we don’t just feed her junk food, and my cavity-free 5-year-old eats pretty much the same diet.  And she has never, ever in her entire life been to bed with any kind of bottle (she’s never used any kind of bottle, period).

What bothered me, though, was not that the dentist (or anyone else) would make an assumption.  It was the fact that I was never asked the questions.  I was given a hand-out explaining why my kids shouldn’t eat a laundry list of “bad” foods (which includes even bananas!) and instructed not to give her juice.  But at no point did anyone even bother to ask what I actually DO feed her, or how I care for her.  I just got dumped in the bin with the “bad mommy” label, and given the “get it right next time” pep talk.

This is not the first time that has happened, and I’ve seen it happen to other moms.  I think that this is the result of medical/health offices becoming bogged down with paperwork, overbooking, and complex patient problems.  The professionals we trust to take care of us and our kids no longer see real people, they see faces and numbers.  If someone has several more patients to see before lunch, and they can get away with passing out a sheet of paper “explaining” the problem, then why bother really assessing a family to see what’s going on?  No one even considered the fact that I have a kid who has been on inhaled steroids for the past two years (there is a link between steroid inhalers and dental decay, although it is unclear why).

All this makes me not so much sad or frustrated or angry on our behalf, or even on the behalf of the many other paretns experiencing the same judgments.  It really makes me fear that if we don’t see a change in the healthcare system soon, not only will this problem persist, it will worsen.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I hope we find one soon.

A Letter to Santa

I realize that it is pretty early to be thinking about Christmas.  I’ve been trying to reserve holiday preparations for after Thanksgiving.  We haven’t put up our tree yet, for example.  But in the mind of young children, it is never too early to start thinking about Christmas.

We have some books that were given to us by another homeschooling family with older children.  Among the stash, my 5-year-old found a book of Christmas cut-outs with a page at the back for writing a letter to Santa.  My son is just learning how to write and was very excited by this development.  He sat down and got right to work.  When I finished my morning chores, I checked in on him.  He was just adding the finishing touches.  I asked if he’d like to read it to me.

He read, “Dear Santa, I love you.  Love,” and he had signed his name.  I have to admit, I was surprised.  I assumed he would write a letter about what he wanted for Christmas, like most kids.  I asked him, “What do you love about Santa?”  He replied, “I love that he eats the cookies we put out!”

Not to be outdone, my 3-year-old piped up, “I wrote a letter, too!”  She showed me a paper with her scribbles on it and told me it said, “Dear Jesus, thank you for Santa.  Amen.”

Their beautiful innocence is so precious to me.  That sweetness will carry me through all the rush and bustle of the season, reminding me to take the time to consider what’s really important.

I have the script memorized!

I’m beginning to understand just why we need to be careful what we say around our children.

My kids have this amazing ability to remember, with frighteningly accurate detail, every scene from their precious movies.  Today, while waiting for the kids at dance class, I was chatting with my friend.  She and I share the driving, as our children have class together but the classes don’t start at the same time.  I drive the big kids early, and she arrives later with our little ones.  She told me that my daughter provided the entire script of an episode of “The Magic School Bus” in the car.  Apparently, she was explaining how digestion works.

Now, why doesn’t this amazing memory apply to other things?  Say, putting dirty laundry in the wash bin, or washing up before dinner, or not hitting each other on the head with plastic sticks?

Slime!

I thought it was time to post a fun little project you can do at home: homemade slime!

I recommend that you do this in a large bowl in the sink, or else pretty much tarp an entire room.

Put a lot of corn starch in a bowl.  Add water a little at a time, mixing with your hands, until it feels right.  It is done when you try to pull your hand out fast and get clumps, but pull your hand out slowly and it runs.  Add a few drops of food coloring and let the kids go to town.

I suggest you strip your kids down at least to the waist, maybe more if they’re under age 4 and prone to fingerpainting.

There are recipes online for slime using Borax.  I think that for kids under age 5 or 6, you should just do the corn starch one, especially if they try to eat science experiments.  With the safe slime, all that will happen is they will think it’s yucky and maybe get a green mouth.

Enjoy!

Out to Lunch

Is that what we did today or my perpetual state of mind?  You be the judge.

I took the kids to lunch today with some friends.  First of all, I should make a note that I do enjoy taking them out to restaurants.  My kids are very well-behaved, by anyone’s standards.  When my husband and I take them out, we all have a lot of fun.  I suppose this is because of one of the best pieces of advice I ever read.  In one of those child-rearing books that are so popular these days, the author was commenting on restaurant behavior.  He said that the children whose parents were really enjoying their company were behaving far better than the kids whose parents were mostly paying attention to each other.  When we take the kids out, alone or together, we give them plenty of our attention.  This pays off for everyone, including the other (grateful, I’m sure) patrons.

Today was another story.  I took them out with three other moms and their kids.  I try not to do this, since I know what will happen, even without the aid of a crystal ball or the Psychic Friends Network.  What prompted this temporary lapse in good judgment was this morning’s play date.  The other moms said they were going out to lunch, would we like to join them.  I wasn’t in the mood for the meltdown that would have occurred, in stereo, if I said no.  So I agreed to go along.

As predicted, my son kept annoying the boy seated next to him, while my daughter tried to sit on her brother’s head.  One of the other moms kept telling my kids to settle down.  To be fair, the other boy was definitely baiting my son, but that is no excuse.  They somehow managed to eat their lunch, after which my daughter asked for ice cream.  Now, I had no intention of buying ice cream, but she did ask nicely.  Besides, they had both had a pretty good lunch.  So I agreed, of course.

It turned out that was the best decision I made all day.  Because the other moms didn’t want to buy ice cream too, they all left.  I was alone with my kids at last.  It could not have been more fun.  We laughed and talked, sharing the ice cream.  It was amazing what a difference I saw in their behavior.

Never discount the time spent with these little ones.  Even if it’s just cheap ice cream in a semi-fast food restaurant, they’ll thank you for the moments you took to nurture them.

Signs of Life

My son has a new hobby.  He likes to make signs.  For absolutely everything.  It started one night after dinner.  He was in the bathroom and my daughter kept trying to go in with him.  This was bothering him, especially when she ignored his repeated requests for privacy.  When he came out, he decided that we needed a sign for the bathroom:

(The extra drawing is my daughter’s artwork.)

Next thing I knew, he was making signs and hanging them up all over the house.  We have the “ghosts” in the kitchen doorway, the “cool tool” sign in the kitchen, the “in” and “out” signs by the front door and on the porch.

Speaking of ghosts, apparently we have a “nice” haunted house.  My son made a new sign for the bathroom:

As a result of the original “PRIVIT” sign in the bathroom, my daughter became quite distressed.  She wanted to be able to join her brother in the bathroom.  Being the sensitive boy that he is, he didn’t like seeing her so upset.  So he decided to remove the original sign.  I suppose he figured it might not be enough just to take the sign down.  After all, he hadn’t informed his sister of the change in the rules.  So he produced yet another sign:

There is peace in the land at last.