TV vs Reading

Found this lovely Roald Dahl poem that neatly sums up the questionable value of television for children:

Television

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Roald Dahl

Colored Toys-Tagore Poem

Colored Toys

When I bring to you colored toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colors on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints ---when I give colored toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance I truly now why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth ---when I sing to make you dance.

When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands I know why there is honey in the cup of the flowers and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice ---when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.

When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight that is that is which the summer breeze brings to my body ---when I kiss you to make you smile.

Rabindranath Tagore

Baby's Way-Tagore

Baby's Way

If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment. It is not for nothing that he does not leave us. He loves to rest his head on mother's bosom, and cannot ever bear to lose sight of her. Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can understand their meaning. It is not for nothing that he never wants to speak. The one thing he wants is to learn mother's words from mother's lips. That is why he looks so innocent. Baby had a heap of gold and pearls, yet he came like a beggar on to this earth. It is not for nothing he came in such a disguise. This dear little naked mendicant pretends to be utterly helpless, so that he may beg for mother's wealth of love. Baby was so free from every tie in the land of the tiny crescent moon. It was not for nothing he gave up his freedom. He knows that there is room for endless joy in mother's little corner of a heart, and it is sweeter far than liberty to be caught and pressed in her dear arms. Baby never knew how to cry. He dwelt in the land of perfect bliss. It is not for nothing he has chosen to shed tears. Though with the smile of his dear face he draws mother's yearning heart to him, yet his little cries over tiny troubles weave the double bond of pity and love.

Tagore

Benediction by Tagore

Benediction

Bless this little heart, this white soul that has won the kiss of heaven for our earth. He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his mother's face. He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after gold. Clasp him to your heart and bless him. He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads. I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door, and grasped you hand to ask his way. He will follow you, laughing the talking, and not a doubt in his heart. Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him. Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves underneath grow threatening, yet the breath from above may come and fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace. Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your heart and bless him.

Rabindranath Tagore

Baby's World by Tagore

Baby's World-Tagore

I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's very own world. I know it has stars that talk to him, and a sky that stoops down to his face to amuse him with its silly clouds and rainbows. Those who make believe to be dumb, and look as if they never could move, come creeping to his window with their stories and with trays crowded with bright toys. I wish I could travel by the road that crosses baby's mind, and out beyond all bounds; Where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms of kings of no history; Where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, the Truth sets Fact free from its fetters.

Rabindranath Tagore

Halloween

To celebrate my favorite holiday this year, we dressed up like pirates and went to Burgerville for breakfast. Then we did the usual low-key Halloween thing over at Gladstone. The kids dressed up like firefighters (thanks to a firefighter jacket the pre-schooler borrowed from his classroom over the weekend). I dressed up like a pirate (for the first time since I met my husband) which was fun. ;) The weather was actually nice too--no rain! So we did a little bit of trick-or-treating at the town square, the kids got to go in the fire engines, and we came home and carved our pumpkins.

Last chance

Taking a baby to the beach isn't the worst idea, but it's not exactly easy. I've been dying to go, though, and with the the tyranny of the nap schedule, ABA appointments, school, speech, and so forth, it's not easy to just run away for a day...but I've never needed it more.

The Oregon coast is so beautiful, it was hard for me to leave it, and every time I go, I never want to leave. No matter how cold/windy/stormy it gets, it sucks me in. It's my spiritual home, I suppose. When I die, I want someone to give me a Viking funeral.

As much as I wish I still lived in Waldport at times, the pragmatist in me knows that the drives to Corvallis for EVERYTHING would have sucked, so we must love each other from a distance, I guess.

So once in awhile, schedules and routines be damned. I'm gonna have to blow an afternoon and listen to cranky children in the car, put up with traffic, and just drive. If you can't get a wild hair once in awhile, what's the point of living?

Cannon Beach Blues

The itch,
87 miles,
Another year,
The immense pull of the ocean,
2 cranky kids,
Driving too fast,
Mushrooms and salal cheering me on through the pass,
Hit the junction,
And jump south,
And hit the gas,
There's sunshine up ahead,
I was born ready to go,
Painfully white sand,
The litter of seagull feathers,
Sea grass like some improbable Medusa's hair,
2 huge rocks,
A laughing boy, and crying baby,
Calm blue seas,
Mussels and razor clams,
Jellyfish and sand dollars,
Balm for my soul,
I never want to leave

Fun with Jaundice

Looks like we're doing the jaundice thing again around here. I guess there's a tendency towards jaundice, now we've had two kids with that issue. On discharge, Riley was a little jaundice-y but nothing too exciting. He looked basically fine. But the poor kid hadn't pooped in a couple of days. We took him in for a routine blood test in the afternoon.

There's nothing like getting that alarming phone call, in the middle of dinner, saying that you need to bring the baby back to the NICU for in-hospital phototherapy.

Great.

We were pretty stressed out to hear that. For one, I don't generally like being in the hospital, and at this point, I'd already been away from my three-year-old for several days, and neither of us were coping well with that. Plus we were both very sleep deprived, and to be honest, completely freaked out by the idea of having to go to the NICU. But off we went...

Fortunately, I kinda knew what to expect (phototherapy isn't that alarming), and the nurses and the pediatricians were super-reassuring. They were fine with us staying in there with Riley the whole time (we did sleep shifts so one or the other of us could get some sleep since it was the middle of the night and he had to stay for about 15-16 hours). There was a reasonably comfortable chair in there, and curtains for privacy.

The night passed peaceably enough, poor Riley finally pooped, his billirubin levels went down quite a bit, and we were able to leave the following afternoon. Needless to say, breast feeding in public is getting a lot less weird for me at this point.

Talking to Kids

"I love the way you talk to your son..."

I've been told this several times recently, and I had no idea what it meant. I really didn't know I was "doing anything" all that interesting. I also tend to be pretty wrapped up in my own life, and rarely am all that aware of what other people are doing. But after spending some time in settings around other parents of small ones, I think I have a better idea of what the people who said this meant by it. I do tend to do things a bit differently, and I guess in something as ordinary as talking to my son, this would come out as well. As to why that would be the case, I think it is a side-effect of teaching, and relates to my overall philosophy about communicating effectively with students. Parents (and other people who spend time around small children) tend to use pronounced speech patterns when communicating with infants and young children that are a bit different than what they use when communicating with other adults. It's instinctual. It usually involves the use of simplified vocabulary, a different pitch of voice (higher), increased use of questioning, and a slower rate of delivery. Popularly called "motherese", the formal term is "child directed speech". This makes sense, you don't talk to your child the same way you talk to your coworkers, and if you talked to your coworkers the same way you talk to your 2-year-old, they'd think you were batty.

Rather specifically, child-directed-speech tends to look a bit like this: The speaker usually gazes into the child's face and raises the pitch of her voice to a higher register. The speech itself features dramatic changes (low to high, from soft to loud)--in other words, it almost always sounds like someone reading aloud a dramatic story. The speaker exaggerates consonant sounds, and stretches out vowel sounds, uses shorter sentences, with few words, and uses dramatic pauses and longer wait times. It's a kind of scaffolded conversation that adults do instinctively to help children learn how to speak.

But I've noticed there's also strange but very common variations on this concept.

There's variation #1 that I call "cutesy-wutsie baby talk", where seemingly sane adults talk to children like they're brainless small fuzzy stuffed animals incapable of forming an intelligent thought. It sounds like the verbal equivalent of syrup poured over a deep-fried candy bar with a dusting of powdered sugar on top. It grates on the nerves, and frankly comes off as totally degrading...to the point where you start thinking, "If someone talked to ME that way, I'd stab my eyes out." Dramatic intonation, and simplified vocabulary, yes. Scaffolded conversation? Not so much.

Variation #2 is what I call "the dog trainer", where people talk to kids like they would a dog: lots of short bursts of one or two-word commands. "sit down." "shut up." "quit it." (these are actually the polite variations--often they're laced with profanity). Reduced speech and simple vocabulary, yes. Scaffolded conversation? Not so much.

Variation #3 is what I call "parents as peers", where parents talk to their child (you usually only see this one with an only-child) like they are a miniature adult (peer). Seriously. If you overhear the conversation it usually sounds like a verbal equivalent of the New Yorker, and tends to be a monologue (since few kids can respond/converse in this fashion). So you get a steady stream of narrative or exposition, that sounds so utterly pretentious that it's ludicrous. (Living in Portland, when I see this, I expect to see the film crew for Portlandia jump out from behind the bushes and yell "Cut!" every time I overhear this kind of dialogue in parent/child interactions.

Now let's leave the volatile world of parenting behind for a moment and jump to teaching, and how verbal communication works in that setting:

Talking to students is a bit different from talking to your own child. For one, the student/teacher relationship is a less personal kind of relationship, so it works best if most of the communication is positive in tone, brief, and relatively non-emotional in content:

"We're on page 47." (versus "Why aren't you doing your work, I told you five minutes ago to get started, let's get going buddy!") "Cool car!" (versus "Oh my goodness, that's a really wonderful red car you drew there, you are the best artist ever!") "Not a good plan." (A student is caught doing something she shouldn't be doing in class.)

According to kids, most teachers err on the side of talking a lot, maybe too much. Many have told me they appreciate the fact that I don't do that. As a teacher, you really don't have the luxury of talking one-on-one with students a lot, so you either tend to talk to all of your students at once (lecturing), or lean towards using a variety of non-verbal behaviors to show your attention. Most students seem to respond better to less verbiage (blah blah blah).

As a teacher, most of your communication is largely focused on persuading entire groups of people to cooperate and do something as a group, against all their natural inclinations, so your conversations tend to be far less personal, and more like directing traffic. It's the verbal equivalent of conducting an orchestra, so you tend to develop a number of lines that you use for the sake of efficiency, and through repetition, they develop meaning to your audience.

When you DO talk with students one-on-one, you can only do it in brief snatches, rather infrequently. So when you do have time to talk to a student one-on-one, it pays to be honest (authentic) and direct, but non-emotional (I call this "being real"--you say what you have to say, but only what's important and worth saying). Kids and teenagers hate "phony" conversations, lengthy explanations, rhetorical discussions, sermons, scoldings, advice, etc. Often non-verbal gestures work even better than words: high-fives, fist bumps, and a smile work better than flowing words of praise. Instead of nagging/lecturing, a simple shake of the head, or if necessary, "the look of death" often gets the job done nicely. (If you have some praise, and need to say something more in depth, it's often better to write a note!)

Things that do NOT work with students include telling them how they should think or feel about something, what lessons they should be learning, and giving ultimatums. Often it's best to say less, rather than more, and let them feel the weight of their mistakes and the inner joy of their successes.

Now back to the original subject, talking to one's own children:

Naturally, you can do this anyway you want, but in my own particular case, being a teacher for awhile has probably influenced how I talk to my son. For starters, I think overly-syrupy baby talk is degrading to the intelligence of children, and dehumanizing, so I don't do that with children of any age. I operate on the assumption that children almost always understand far more than they can say, so I talk to them like they are human beings with feelings, thoughts, and motivations of their own. As humans, we tend to equate intelligence with speech prowess, so the tendency to "talk down" to children, people with disabilities, and people who speak another language is very strong. Until children are talking well, conversation is difficult, and a bit one-sided, but there are ways to talk to babies that still respect their dignity as small people.

Children are small humans with feelings and ideas of their own, so I find the "dog trainer" style of speech aversive because children are cognitively much more advanced than dogs, making them worthy of complete sentences. Granted there are times when short and sweet is best, but using a variety of words and mixing short and long sentences together when speaking is helpful to a child who is still learning how to speak. I think the people who tend to use "dog trainer" style language with children do it because unconsciously they believe the child is incapable of understanding anything more advanced. You see this most often with people who are communicating with a non-verbal child (or adult), which bothers me because it's often the case that the speaker assumes the listener is mentally incapable of understanding regular speech. I have found that this is rarely the case, even with severely disabled children or adults (if you remember to give these folks longer wait time for processing verbal information, you will often find that they understand you just fine). However, even with a toddler or child who usually speaks only in one or two word phrases, you can elaborate on them, or ask questions in order to help the child develop more sophisticated sentences of his or her own.

Generally, it's good to talk to children as much as you can. Speech, like any other skill takes practice. The more adults talk to children, the more words and sentence constructions (syntax patterns) children hear (and learn to use). Before children learn to speak, this conversation will be fairly one-sided, but you can narrate your daily routines, read books, or tell stories to babies. As they get older, you can leave spaces for them to "add" to the conversation (scaffolding).

It's good to talk about all kinds of things, because the more we describe things and extend our speech about things, the more names for things and the more kinds of logical structures between ideas children learn. A good way to do this is to go for walks (and talk about the things you see out in the world), through reading books together (good for experiences and situations you don't have in your own environment), and so on. With children, speech/experience/cognition are all highly linked, so the more concepts the child is exposed to, the more speech has a context and makes sense.

I think it's important to use rich language with children, so I do that with my students, and I do that with my son. I think in both cases, it's best to use a variety of words (simple and complex), so that vocabulary development happens in a natural context. My students are always telling me I use "big words", but they don't complain about not understanding them. With my son, I use a judicious mix of simplified and more "adult" vocabulary, so that he'll be used to hearing it, so that by the time he goes to school and starts learning to read in earnest, he'll be familiar with a wide variety of words. To do this, I try to make sure I'm not overusing the same adjectives (big, pretty, etc.), and using both simplified and precise names for things (train -vs- diesel locomotive).

Other principles of communication that I use with my students (and my son) are:

Stick to the message: with boys in particular, it's often best to leave out the emotional overlay, and deliver messages directly but neutrally. For instance if my son starts throwing his toys, I usually say (in a pretty neutral fashion) something like "Those are not for throwing", or "You can throw your ball if you want to throw things." Leaving out the emotional overlay (anger) makes it more likely that he will listen and respond appropriately. In a classroom setting, it always seems to work best if you deliver most messages with a positive but neutral affect.

Judicious use of Logic: I know this doesn't work with all kids, or probably even most kids, but my son has always been a rather "logical" character, and very interested in figuring things out on his own, so a lot of times, if he can't have/do something, I will provide information on what that's the case: "If you run in the street, a car might hurt you." "If you touch that, it will hurt you." "You are welcome to do that outside where there's more room." "You need money to do that." "You have to take a bath because you got very dirty when you were playing outside." "We go to sleep because it's night time." etc, etc. It seems to greatly reduce the arguing. In a classroom setting, this works surprisingly well at reducing arguments because it's harder for kids to argue with facts/logic than ideas/preferences (although there's always a few kids who will try their best).

Input: Kids like to have input (or choices) whenever they can. Starting in toddlerhood, this becomes a real issue and often leads to dramatic power struggles and a lot of frustration on both sides. Since the urge to self-determination is impossible to extinguish, I find it works best to give kids choices (and practice making them) whenever humanly possible (they don't have to be dramatic ones--small choices seem to work wonders). In terms of communication, it means that I frequently ask my son (and students) questions that require them to make choices; if he wants to do something one way or another way (both alternatives being perfectly acceptable to me). Instead of making demands all day, you find yourself asking a lot more questions. (Note: this only works if you have a child who is capable of making choices).

Interest: the more you know about a child, the more you are aware of what they're interested in. Talking to children about their interests is a great way of building relationships and rapport. The only way to know what children are interested in is to invite conversation, and pay attention to what they have to say, and use the information in your conversations. Depending on what it is, the area of interest can be expanded into a variety of different contexts, and you can use it metaphorically to explain other ideas/concepts in a more concrete fashion. This sounds obvious, but it's amazingly effective, and sometimes hard to remember to do. In a classroom setting, it's invaluable when you have to explain difficult/abstract ideas to kids because you can compare them to things the child is already interested in.

So, I don't think there's anything that profound in all of this, but maybe it's not that typical to talk to kids like they're human beings, or treat them with respect, but I think it's pretty easy. I do it all the time, so I don't think it's all that magical, but apparently it's less common than it should be. For the record, I don't think most kids are any more mysterious than most adults, and certainly talking to them isn't any more difficult (at least not for me).

Life with a newborn--it's coming soon...

Why else would I be up at 4:30 in the morning, wide awake?

For now it's just the myriad joys of the third trimester--the inability to be comfortable (ever), the constant stretching and kicking of the small alien who's taken over my abdominal cavity, and the inability of my brain to shut up and go to sleep.

Soon enough though, it will be because the small one who is causing enough discomfort to keep me awake without any crying whatsoever, will no doubt be awake at this time of night on numerous occasions in the future. I haven't done the infancy gig for awhile--not for about three years. That's plenty of time to have blocked out the worst recollections of it, and to have conveniently forgotten how truly awful it can be (in the moment).

In case I needed any reminding on how it felt the first time around, here's an excellent summary:

"To practice living with a newborn: set your alarm to go off every 15 minutes all day. Every day. Forever. Every time it goes off, completely change what you’re doing. If you’re eating, stop and go do jumping jacks. If you’re showering, jump out (shampoo and all) to make a sandwich. If you’re sleeping, pop up and recite concrete poetry. The inability to do anything for more than 15 minutes (and that’s generous) is your new life."

Yep, that sounds about right to me.

To read more, go here: Living with a Newborn, Naptime Writing (http://naptimewriting.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/living-with-a-newborn)

This parenting thing

"The Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart...warns young couples talking excitedly about becoming parents that they are in for the best and the absolute worst time of their lives."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Oh how true this famous line feels some days. Okay--many days. Parenting of one (or more) small critters is a bit of a bi-polar rollercoaster ride. There's really nothing you can do to prepare for it, and no well-meaning advice can quite do it justice. The "good" moments are so amazingly deliriously wonderful--and when it's "bad" it's so incredibly awful, and draining, and no doubt shaving years off of my life--bad. Really. And you never know from one moment to the next which version you're going to be experiencing, and when. There's a reason why preschool sounds so attractive at times....

"I have never felt more moments of pure, warm bliss than I do sprinkled throughout every week with little family. And I genuinely relish them, bask in them, luxuriate in them. I process every nanosecond of joy...because those moments feed me. They have to. The rest of the week is a big bunch of physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting bull puckey. Because as intense as the radiant joy can be, I have also never been more frustrated in my life than I am every single day..."

Really. Some days, parenting a small child can be more frustrating than even my absolute worst days of substitute teaching (or student teaching) ever were. Seriously. (There are days when I would trade my dearly beloved child for a position working in a state prison for violent offenders because it would actually be less frustrating/stressful.)

"If parenting was all playing and tickling and teaching I’d be ALL over it. But it’s not. It’s planning and whining and cleaning and cooking and getting several times at night and staying intently focused all day and ignoring impulses to direct energy into personal needs (sleep, bathroom, showering, exercise, quiet, books). And I don’t like that. I just don’t."

The tickling and teaching are the fun part. Sitting outside on a sunny afternoon watching my son play in the front yard is fun. Going for walks over by the river and finding ladybugs, rocks, bottle caps, pine cones, sticks, and worms is fun. Climbing all the stone steps at the Japanese Garden is fun. Reading books together in bed every night is fun. Seeing the world anew every day through the eyes of a small curious critter is so fun it's amazing. But unfortunately mixed in with all the fun is a good heaping dump-truck-load of endless whining, irrational resistance, incredible neediness, the need to do incredibly unpleasant but totally necessary things all the time (enforcing personal hygiene with a small child definitely tops the list). To keep doing, and doing, and doing, day in and day out, whether one feels like it or not with the vague hope that it will pay off sometime. It's the ultimate gamble, really. To put in a ton of effort and time into something so utterly unpredictable as another human being, not knowing how it will all pan out. The ultimate act of faith, is the raising of a child, through all of the darkness and lovely despair, and the radiant hope.

(Quotes from: Parenting ambivalence, 28 July 2008, Naptime Writing) http://naptimewriting.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/parenting-ambivalence/)

Take it Outside

“Given a choice, young children will usually choose to be in a natural environment. They want to be outdoors, in the fresh air and sunlight, barefoot and naked, surrounded by grass, trees, and flowers, hearing the birds and the wind, playing in water with sticks and rocks. If you ask most grade school children what is their favorite part of school, they say outdoor recess. When children spend time outside where they can run, jump, climb, swing, swim, and play, they eat better, sleep better and are happier. We all know that children thrive in the outdoors. Yet we often forget how much the environment can affect a child's mood and behavior. When children spend too much time inside breathing stale air, hearing the hum of all the lights, electrical appliances, and the television, surrounded by synthetic fabrics, playing with plastic toys, eating foods that contain artificial coloring and preservatives, they get cranky and disagreeable.” -Pam Leo

From a very early age, I could reliably calm my son and smooth out his rockier moods simply by taking him outside. As an infant, when he became “fussy”, (and all the usual suspects were exonerated) I would throw him in a baby sling and go for a walk around the neighborhood. I figured if nothing else, a “break” and a change of scenery would sooth MY nerves and restore my ability to meet his needs, but he almost always settled down right away when we went outside for a while.

As he got older, the walks became longer and longer because he clearly enjoyed them. When he became mobile, his enthusiasm for walks increased tenfold because now he could interact more directly with the world. These days, I can always count on enthusiasm about going outdoors. Now that he’s a toddler, it’s a lifesaver because the outdoors is a better forum for his boundless energy and endless curiosity. This morning, for example, I told my son we would be going outside later, and he RAN to grab his shoes. He was ready to go!

My son seems to have developed a strong preference for being outdoors. Even though he usually brings a toy or two with him on our trips outside, they are usually quickly forgotten (and go in mama’s pocket) as soon as he catches sight of the green grass, interesting leaves, bright yellow dandelions, acorns, rocks, and sticks. He likes watching the birds and squirrels, spotting airplanes flying overhead, and walking along familiar paths stopping to smell the flowers along the way. He’s a much happier critter when he is able to spend time outdoors where he can run around, jump over cracks and puddles, walk backwards, and climb on every bench and playground structure. So almost every day, we go outside for at least 20 minutes for some “nature therapy”.

Nature therapy works pretty good on teenagers too, by the way. I remember fondly doing these kinds of daily walks with my health class students at Job Corps. We had this great outdoor trail we could use, and I took generations of incoming students on a 20-minute nature trail walk every single day (unless it was pouring rain). By the time they arrived in my classroom, these students had been at Job Corps for a month, and were at a critical stage of adjustment to the program. They had been away from home for a month, disconnected from familiar people, eating unfamiliar foods, dealing with unfamiliar routines, and sleeping in dormitories for the first time in their lives. Usually the magnitude of changes in their lives started having a visible impact on their coping skills and overall mood. I figured the best thing I could give them during health class was a 20-minute break from all of that, so every day for two weeks, we went outdoors, looked at plants, watched the clouds, enjoyed some exercise and light conversation, and enjoyed whatever surprises nature had to offer.

Books are Good for Kids...

Books are good for kids. There’s no shortage of studies that confirm being read to as a child is enormously beneficial. Yet another study was published in the month of October by Brian Avants, who is assistant professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

What makes his study a bit different is that instead of focusing on the act of reading, per se, it addresses the stimulating effect that reading-friendly environment has on childhood cognitive development. “The amount of mentally stimulating content in a child's home — such as the number of books that are around — may predict the structure of the child's brain later in life.”

While this study speaks mainly to the growth and organization of the brain during early childhood, it speaks to the importance of reading itself, and the positive impact of providing an “enriched” home environment on a young child’s overall cognitive development. The results of the study showed that people who grew up in enriched environments during childhood had thinner cortexes later in life which correlates with a higher IQ. In a nutshell, this happens because their brains get used more.

One can’t help but wonder if it’s not simply a question of intelligent parents, but the study's finding held even after the researchers accounted for the parents' IQs. It seems fairly self-evident, but the early years of childhood are an important time for cognitive development. The research suggests that the overall environment is very important, and that it’s a worthwhile endeavor for parents to provide mental stimulation in the environment itself (such as children's books and toys for learning).

Implications:

1. Get some books! Great books for children are easy to come by. Run, don’t walk to the library. If you aren’t sure what to check out, ask a librarian, they know what kids read, and can help you find something good. Invest in a few of the best books out there (ask other parents what their kids read again and again). Hit the thriftstore or a yard sale, you don’t need to buy kids books new. Also be aware that many programs exist that provide free books to families with young children, you simply need to ask around to get connected with them. A good person to ask is your child’s pediatrician, or daycare workers. If you have friends with kids, consider having a book swap—kids get tired of books after a while, and you can trade for something new.

2. Toys: Developmental toys (toys for learning) are not to be confused with those shiny noisy flashy things that clutter up the toy aisle at your local store. We’re also not talking about “computers for kids” (e.g. Leapfrog). Real learning toys are toys that require the kid to do something to make something happen. In other words, the toy doesn’t entertain the child, the child entertains himself by using the toy to accomplish something. Examples of learning toys are puzzles, shape sorters, ring stackers, etc. Some of the best learning toys are not toys at all: they’re ordinary household objects that a child re-purposes. The beauty of learning toys is that most are very open-ended, meaning a child can use them in multiple ways. Because learning toys are fairly simple, they usually aren’t expensive, but sometimes can be harder to find than the flashy noisemakers. Best of all, they don’t require batteries.

3. How to set up the environment: You don’t have to do anything real fancy, or recreate a classroom in your living room: just make sure these two categories of items are accessible to your children so they can help themselves at appropriate times. Most children don’t need to be shown how to play with toys—but if you want to demonstrate how something works, go for it. For the most part though, it’s better to let the child explore toys by themselves. If they’re not ready to use the toy in the way it was designed, they’ll come up with their own way of using it, and that’s fine.

4. Books, of course, require a bit more modeling. The best model is reading to your children regularly—a short daily session is best. If you can do it more than once, even better. (It’s a good pre-bedtime ritual). Almost ALL kids enjoy being read to. If you do it enough, and provide the books, toddlers and young children will often take the books and “read” to themselves during play. Once you see them doing that, a good thing to do is have a set of books handy that they can read or at least look at on their own (without having to ask an adult for help). For most kids, a mix of stories and picture reference books works best. Feel free to let young kids explore books intended for older children-it won’t hurt them any.

How Books at Home May Affect Child's Brain Later, Rachael Rettner, My Health News Daily, 15 October 2012

http://www.livescience.com/23981-parenting-child-brain-development-reading.html

a devil of a bargain

“When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families' tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable.” ― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

A rant about "learning toys"

It probably would surprise no one to hear that I think that children and teens spend far too much time immersed in electronic realities. Granted, I’m more of a Luddite than an early adopted when it comes to technology, but aside from my own biased opinion, there’s numerous studies that prove that electronic media is neither a necessary, nor particularly beneficial ingredient in early childhood development, and may in fact be quite harmful.

Casual observation makes it clear that the marketing of electronic distractions to small children has been quite effective. It seems like everywhere I go, young children are glued to some sort LCD screened device. A recent study published by The NPD Group notes that “the average age at which children begin using consumer electronic (CE) devices has declined from 8.1 years in 2005 to 6.7 years in 2007” (NPD Group, “Kids and Consumer Electronics Trends III.”)

As a teacher, it appears as if the rising numbers of electronic users correlates almost exactly with the rising percentage of students I have each year who have a prescription for Adderol or Concerta…in other words, I’m implying causality here, ladies and gentlemen. If this were not the case, and one wanted to make the case that all of this electronic immersion resulted in smarter children, I would expect to see large numbers of children who show up to school ready to learn, an armada of small geniuses, with test scores to match. Needless to say it ain’t happening folks. And until it does, I reserve the right to be wildly skeptical about all this emphasis on the desirability of providing children with electronic toys.

It’s really sad to me, but by the time they're teens, they honestly go through technology withdrawal symptoms when they’re at school. They have no idea how to entertain themselves without batteries. Their media-deprivation is torture to them, and the idea of doing “real” things is completely alien. They’ve never played a board game. They have no idea how to have a real conversation. They completely lack a sense of imagination. The only kids who aren’t like this tend to be recent immigrants, or have “kooky” parents who don’t let them watch TV and (gasp) made them play outside as kids. I’ve made a note of it.

So needless to say, I’m not in a big hurry to expose my own child to a lot of the electronic noise that passes for entertainment these days. But given the current trends in product marketing to children, it’s actually become incredibly hard to find toys (and other products for children) that aren’t electronic gadgets.

Want a simple swing to rock a colicky baby in? Apparently it’s almost impossible to find one that doesn’t come with flashing lights, electronic jingles, and other annoyances. (If I was a baby who didn’t feel good, I think all that noise would just make me cry even harder!) Anything you might purchase to put a baby in when you can’t physically hold it comes equipped with enough gadgetry to require an engineering degree to assemble. Apparently manufacturers think that babies require vast amounts of stimulation—the same amount that would probably induce anxiety disorders in lab rats! Developmentally, it isn’t clear that all of this “improvement” results in positive outcomes in learning and behavior.

Given that you can’t hardly buy toys for a baby that don’t come with flashing lights and electronic noises, by the time they’re toddlers, forget it. Apparently manufacturers are convinced that kids can’t possibly be expected to enjoy something unless it comes with strobe lights, a constant barrage of sound effects, or a constant stream of inane electronic narration. Everything has been made-over to require batteries and earplugs. Given the state of toys in this day and age, I’ve made it very clear to everyone in my life that I would prefer not to receive any toys that make noise and require batteries.

My mother –in-law reported that she had a rather interesting encounter with a toy store employee while shopping for birthday/Christmas presents for the babe (who is now 2). I imagine the exchange went something like this:

Toy store employee to Grandma: “Can I help you find something?”

Grandma to toy store employee: "I'm looking for toddler toys that don't require batteries or make weird artificial noises and books that don't require you to push a button or record a message".

Toy store employee to Grandma: "Well, what does the kid do???"

(I wasn’t there, but this is what I would have said in response): “Here's what my poor electronically-deprived toddler DOES:
• He brings me things all day long so I can confirm their identity.
• He builds imaginative monuments out of my recyclables.
• He giggles and laughs at his own private jokes.
• He loves flashcards.
• He knows his colors, most of his shapes, several numbers, and quite a bit of the alphabet.
• He picks up every shell and rock on the beach and gives them to me as a present.
• He points out every street sign we pass. His favorites are the stop signs.
• He pushes his toy trucks around on every horizontal surface in the house.
• He puts all his stacking rings (and any other ring-shaped object he can get over his hand) on his arms and shows off his collection of bracelets.
• He rolls all my old coffee cans across the kitchen floor in a glorious orchestration of synchronized movement.
• He showers us with affection, giggles, and smiles.
• He sits in my lap and listens to me read (and points at everything on the page).
• He turns eating into a comedy routine.
• He thinks plastic lids are awesome.
• He loves splashing in water.
• He walks backwards whenever possible.
• He watches airplanes and birds fly overhead.
• He will run around for hours up and down a pile of sand.

What does he do, indeed! What any normal toddler would probably do—play!

Almost all children are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves with very few props. Most kids under 5 would be perfectly happy coming up with their own new and imaginative uses for ordinary household objects, or things you find outdoors (mud/sticks/rocks/puddles). Combined with physical activity for it's own sake, and all you have to do is sit back and watch the show.

It’s my observation that all of this “playing around” is far more educational than anything you’d find in the section of a store devoted to “learning toys”. I’m glad there are a few people out there bucking the trend, people who still make “beloved objects” and toys for children that have stood the test of time…the kinds of things that deserve to be around forever, and passed on down to one’s children and grandchildren. Finding these kinds of gifts in a mainstream store is very hard, and the people who make these things are competing with forces who are much more organized and have a much louder message.

It’s very clear to anyone who pays attention to such things that our very DNA is hardwired for experiential, direct, hands-on-learning, and yet toy manufacturers seem to think that to circumvent this is desirable. Part of the joy of parenting is helping children discover the world around them, but that’s being lost in this flood of electronic distractions that encourage the depersonalization of human connections and reduce the child (learner) to the role of a passive observer. The cynical beast within me is convinced that it’s all a sinister plot to create an army of passive consumers. I’m inclined not to do them the favor of paying for the ammo myself.

Cedar's 23 months old today

Cedar is 23 months old today
Cedar is 23 months old today, next month, he’ll be two.

Thankfully teething is in abeyance at the moment. Since he's not teething, he's been less cranky/bitey.

He's getting better at using a spoon these days. He’s never been that interested in using utensils or even feeding himself, but he’s finally starting to want to do it himself. Using his hands is still more efficient though.

He still likes his stackable cups, jar lids, and coffee cans. He spends a lot of time building things. He’s also taken more of an interest in his colored blocks and duplos, and sometimes can put them together on his own. Other toys he likes are balls. The other day I had a flashlight out and he was chasing the light like a cat would.

He's as passionate about reading as ever—I’ve noticed he’s starting to recognize individual letters. He’s been pointing at them for a month or two, but it didn’t appear that they had any specific importance to him—just another object in the environment. Now it’s clear that he recognizes them as having a distinct print function, and he appears to remember a few (o, b, t, y, c). He's still interested in and getting good at recognizing colors. Now I definitely wish I had access to DT cards! I need to get some flash cards pronto.

He still takes the huge afternoon nap that lasts a couple of hours, but it’s definitely getting harder to get him to settle down for naps/bedtime. He plays by himself in the room for awhile before he falls asleep. He also seems to do a lot of babbling to himself, so we assume he’s practicing talking in there.

He still thinks everything's funny. The sound of his laugh is changing a little bit and he sounds less like a baby all the time. Now it’s starting to sound like a little boy laugh.

He's still very easy to take places. His behavior is good in public, and even when he’s down out of the shopping cart, he stays with you.

He’s getting more affectionate all the time. He has always let you know when he wants a little emotional refueling—drive by snuggles; for example, he runs over to you because he wants to be picked up and held (then he snuggles into you for a minute, then off he goes again). Then he started doing what I call “forehead kiss” where he comes up to you and rubs his forehead on your forehead. Now he’s decided he likes kisses too (merely tolerated them before), so he’ll come over and collect kisses several times a day. It’s cute. He also constantly climbs in and out of your lap. I still love how he comes running up to the door when he hears my keys in the lock when I come home from work. We have this ritual where he shows me his toy, and then off he goes, but then a minute later (once I’ve put all my teaching crud down), he wants me to pick him up and hold him.

Lately I get home after dark, so we can’t do beach walks like we had been. Between the shorter days, and return of winter weather on the coast, outdoor activities on weekdays are pretty much done for awhile. So we hang out in the living room and play until it's time for bath and bedtime. He still goes to bed around 8pm, and although he doesn’t necessarily fall asleep until 9pm, that seems to work well.

He's usually a happy mellow kid, but when he doesn't get something he wants, he cries like all get out. Preview of the terrible twos??? He does NOT enjoy the word “No”.

He's still not talking. He makes some random noises, but other than dada and mama isn't talking, just babbling a bit. The other day, he said “hi” but that was an isolated incident. His repertoire of sounds is getting bigger, but he’s still not producing much in terms of actual words. He definitely doesn’t have 20 words, or produce phrases/sentences. When he “pretends” to read his books, he just makes a random sound for each picture/word. In other words, he might have a speech delay. I waffle between being overly concerned (a relic of my time in SPED), and not (we both had speech delays), and since he does do a lot of the communication things that kids normally do otherwise that show signs of receptive language acquisition (points at things of interest, makes a variety of sounds, responds to directions, imitates your behavior, points at the correct pictures in a book, etc. I’ve decided that whatever the cause is, it can only be but so bad.)

He was slow to sit up, slow to crawl, and slow to walk, but he did all of those eventually. I guess speaking is going to continue along the same lines. He does not show any signs of intellectual impairment, and isn’t oblivious to people/situations in a way that suggests autism. So most of the time, I don’t worry about it.

It’s been an interesting journey so far. And it gets a little easier all the time as we leave infancy and the needs become less intense/more predictable.

Cedar is 20 months old today

Cedar is 20 months old today! Almost closing in on the terrible twos!

He's all boy now. No trace of baby left here.

Thankfully he's mostly done with teething, he's kind of having a resurgence (molars), but for several months has been free of this menace. Since he's not teething, he's been less bitey, thankfully.

He's still an awesome eater, and will eat anything as far as I can tell. He can feed himself for the most part, but is still funny about using utensils. He can do it, but often chooses not to. Guess using his hands seem more efficient. He loves fruits and vegetables.

He's pretty good at walking now. He can walk on the sand without falling down most of the time. He can walk backwards (which he thinks is hilarious), and likes to twirl around a bit if he's in the right mood. He runs away if he knows you want him for a diaper change or a bath.

His favorite toys right now are stackable cups, and he's still a really big fan of jar lids. He also likes his duplos although he hasn't figured out how to put them together yet. Other toys he likes are balls, cans, and rattly things.

He's as passionate about reading as ever--if I had the stamina for it, I think he would sit in my lap for hours and be read to. He's going through a stage where he wants to know what things are called, and points at whatever he wants to know the name of. He clearly remembers this because if I ask him to point at something specific, he usually can, although with less familiar items, he needs a wait time of about 5 seconds.

He still likes his "specks", but he's also into sticks and rocks now. When we go to the beach he will try to pick up all the rocks and give them to me. He's also really fascinated by holes, and will poke any he finds.

He gets pretty splashy in the bath.

He still takes the huge afternoon nap that lasts a couple of hours.

He still thinks everything's funny. The sound of his laugh is changing a little bit and he sounds less like a baby all the time.

He's still very easy to take places. He likes the stimulation of being out and about, although he not crazy about being in the car for any length of time. He likes to hold your hand while you drive.

He's really into the dog. Brian's taught him how to feed the dog a treat, and he likes that. They go for walks together a lot, although, now I can't take them both to the beach by myself because of the logistics of keeping her on a leash and carrying him at the same time.

He's still not talking. He makes some random noises, but other than dada and mama isn't talking, just babbling a bit.

I love how he comes running up to the door when he hears my keys in the lock. It's almost always time for dinner by the time I get home. It's still pretty nice out, so I take him and the dog for a walk over to the bay after dinner. When it's too windy, or I'm too tired, we just hang out in the living room and play until it's time for bath and bedtime. He still goes to bed around 8pm, and that seems to work well. He's currently into watching football with daddy when he's home. Otherwise, I chase him around the living room and throw his balls for him to chase.

He's usually a happy mellow kid, but when he doesn't get something he wants, he cries like all get out. Preview of the terrible twos???

He had to give up his beloved pacifier...he had taken to sticking the whole thing in his mouth (to chew on with his incoming back molars) so we had to take it away, and he's had to give it up cold turkey. As a result, it takes him longer to go to sleep at night, but I'm hoping it will also encourage him to work on talking.

Cedar is 17 months old today!

Cedar is 17 months old today! Almost to the year and a half mark.

He's turning into a little boy right before my eyes. Still got a tiny bit of baby fat left, but most of the baby-ness is gone now.

He's still an enthusiastic eater, when he's not teething horribly. He's been much more into feeding himself during the past couple of months. That didn't really take off until around March or so. He'll eat just about anything, and is really into vegetables at the moment.

He's still teething away. It's been non-stop for most of the past 6 months. I think he has nearly all of his teeth at this point, the last few are coming in now. Poor guy, he's a toothy kid, a regular shark, this one.

He figured out how to walk a few months ago, although he still prefers to crawl if he's in a hurry. He is enjoying turning around, and thinks that's a blast. Also, since he's more mobile, he likes to run away from you.

He's going through a phase where he likes to throw his toys, rather than play with them, per se, which I'm not that crazy about. He still likes to read a lot and will sit still for that. He's been into "specks" for a few months now, and still likes to show them to me. He also loves to play with water in the bathtub.

He takes these huge afternoon naps that last a couple of hours. That's handy.

He's still giggly, and laughs all the time. I just love his cute little laugh. He's still very social--too bad we don't see other people much.

He's still very easy to take places. He likes the stimulation of being out and about, although he's less enthused about being in the car than he used to be and gets antsy. He doesn't pass out like he used to.

He's really into the dog. They go for walks together all the time, and he spends a good bit of it watching her. In fact, his only word (besides "mama" and "dada" is "dog"). Still not much of a talker, he's more excited about making noise, but does babble quite a bit.

His eyes are mostly brown, but he's still got that grey ring around the outside, and that hasn't changed a whole lot. They're kind of a hazel grey/brown. They haven't changed in awhile.

Our current routine is that he squeals with excitement when he hears my keys in the lock, and I play with him after I get off work. If it's nice, we eat dinner, then go for a walk with the dog. If not, we just hang out in the living room and play until it's time for bath and bedtime. He goes to bed around 8pm, and that seems to work well.

Cedar is 1 year old today

Cedar is one year old today. Sadly, we'll be spending it moving.

He's starting to look less like a baby and more like a little boy. He's got a lot more hair now, and since he's been busy crawling around, he's really leaned out.

He's been eating solids for about 5 months now. He's still a good eater, but hasn't shown much interest in feeding himself. He has gotten over a lot of his texture issues, and will eat a wider variety of things. We're still doing purees, though, because I'm desperately trying to clean out the freezer before we move, so I don't have to throw away a bunch of food. I made a ton of baby food from scratch, not anticipating moving, so I've got a ton of fruit blends to get through ASAP. His current favorite food seems to be bananas, but he's gotten a lot more open-minded about food in the past month, and really will eat just about anything.

He's still teething away. He's been working on his molars for a few weeks, and since we're in the process of moving, it looks like he's going to start teething again. Fun. He currently has 8 teeth. Four uppers, four lower. Poor guy, he's a toothy kid. We used to say 12 by 12 (months), but fortunately I think it's not going to be quite that bad.

The past month has been a whirlwind of development. He learned to crawl about a month ago, and since we have hardwood floors, he's gotten away with more of a sliding type of crawl, where he pulls forward with his hands and his legs just slide forward, but hey, whatever works. Man, he is fast now! He will come a flyin' when it's time to eat! He's also been pulling up a lot more, and towards the end of the month, he got to be pretty good at pulling up on the gates. For about a week, he couldn't figure out how to get back down (once he stood up), but now he's figured that out.

Since he's so busy working on gross motor skills, he's usually content to work on that by himself, and thankfully is more able to entertain himself for pretty long periods of time. That makes my life a whole lot easier, since I really didn't have a lot of time to attend to him with all the packing that had to be done.

He really likes to play. His favorite toys currently, are plastic lids (I have a pretty good collection) and containers. He's currently really interested in dropping things, or watching things fall. He likes to drop them from above and watch them roll around until they come to a rest. I guess he likes the noise. He'll do that for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. I rounded out my collection by picking up some stuff out of the plastic bin when I was at the recycling center.

Aside from that, he likes things that rattle, so he's really into this one ring that's got rattly balls inside. He still likes to chew on his caterpillar rattle (that Deb gave him). In general he's pretty happy playing with ordinary objects, so I'm quite happy to let him. He loves to play with toys in the bathtub, and occasionally he will hand me his toys.

He no longer takes his second nap, now it's just one long one that he'll take around noon, that can last up to 2 hours. Unfortunately, he's been waking up in the middle of the night a lot more this month. It could be the teething, or something developmental. He's stopped breastfeeding, so that makes things both easier--and harder.

He's still Mr. Smiley Face. He has been very giggly, and has the cutest laugh, that I just love hearing. Still no signs of stranger anxiety, or separation anxiety. We haven't been apart much, but the few times we have been, he's been fine.

He's still very easy to take places. He likes the stimulation of being out and about, and loves flirting with everyone he meets. He still falls asleep in the car, especially if you're on the road for more than 15 minutes. Since we've had to do several long road trips back and forth to our new home, he's learned to just sleep the whole time (instead of complaining about being bored).

He's really into our dog right now. He sees her and just smiles and laughs. In fact, his only word (besides "mama" and "dada" is "dog"). He also is really fascinated with Margo's cat.

He still thinks his daddy is the coolest thing ever, and likes to grab his beard and play wild games with a willing party.

His eyes are mostly brown, but he's still got that grey ring around the outside, and that hasn't changed a whole lot. They're kind of a hazel grey/brown. They haven't changed much lately, and I'm not sure that they're going to.

During the course of this month, he's had to endure being ignored a lot because we've been so busy packing for the move. I feel bad because I haven't had time to do much with him besides the absolute necessities. I keep telling myself this is temporary and that I can make up for it once we get through this yucky time, and get settled in our new place. He'll be a lucky kid because we'll be living right by the beach, and we can go really fabulous places on our walks.

Now it's back to packing. We're loading up the truck today, and we'll be moved into our new house just in time for New Year's Eve.