Category Archives: At Least Mildly Sappy

A room of her own? Earplugs. I’ll settle for earplugs

Suess Landing at Universal Studios' Islands of...

I didn’t turn on the radio; that was my first mistake–should have let CBC Radio One fill the void of noise, or the latest BBC Horrible Histories CD. But even though it was only 10 a.m., I had had my fill of noise, and so while we drove through the snow-covered streets, I didn’t turn on the radio.

And so. First, Cinder:

“Um-ta-um-ta-um-ta-um-ta…”

To the beat of some YouTube video… I bet you know the one. I don’t, because I’m a negligent parent, and no longer supervise my 10 year-old when he youtubes (look, I made a verb. Take that Oxford Dic). And Flora joins in:

“Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist.”

If you watch How I Met Your Mother, bet you can name the episode. Yes, my eight-year-old watches How I Met Your Mother. On Netflix. Unsupervised. And while I’d love to claim that this experience will ensure she will never date a man like Barney… I have to confess, she’s got a thing for his pecs. And I suspect she thinks she might be able to reform him. Sigh.

“Um-ta-um-ta-um-ta-um-ta…”

“Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist.”

And now, enter Ender.

“Fox in Socks! Fox in Socks! Foooooooox! Iiiiiiiiin! Sooooooooocks!”

Dr. Seuss? I hate you. And I particularly hate you in this car, and if this goes on much longer, I will hate you on a star, and I will hate you here and there…

Cinder’s chants morphs into:

“I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the mooooooves like Biscuit.”

(If you’ve got a Minecrafter in the house, you’ll get the double-reference; if not, don’t worry. But yes, this version is just as annoying as the original.)

Flora morphs How I Met Your Mother and Dr. Seuss and starts chanting:

“Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box.”

Ender starts free-forming:

“This is my song and I am singing! I am singing! AS! LOUD! AS! I! CAN!”

And me? Well, it’s been 10.5 years of sometimes-screaming children and 3.5 years of three of them howling in the car at the same time. I’ve got coping strategies. The best one, frankly, is noise-cancelling earphones (earplugs will do in a pinch). But I ain’t got them one me right now, so instead, I leave only a small fraction of self driving the car–just enough not to break any major laws or rear-end any bad drivers. The rest… the rest is in a bathtub. Gloriously alone. In a gloriously silent bathroom. Underwater… disassociating…

The cacophony continues. I’m now not just in a gloriously silent bathroom, but in a gloriously silent hotel room. Oh God. Yes. Please. Silence envelopes me, surrounds me. The outside is snowy and quiet. The inside–can’t even hear the central heating. The phone’s unplugged.

“I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the mooooooves like Biscuit.”

“Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box.”

“This is my song and I am singing! I am singing! AS! LOUD! AS! I! CAN!”

Silence. Oh yes. It’s a beautiful thing.

I try not to resent the happiness my children–most children–take in creating cacophony. If it’s noise of happiness and joy, I can usually ride it out.  Feel fantasy water fill my ears; disappear into my head. But sometimes… oh, the real thing is the only thing that will do. Silence. All around me.

“Mom?”

Flora breaks with the noise. We’re parked in front of our destination.

“Mom? You have that horrible creepy look on your face, like you’re not here. Mom? Mom?”

“Sorry, babe. Just thinking.”

Liar. I’m not thinking. I’m just listening to… silence.

I’ve been away wallowing in silence–just me and my laptop and no Internet, in the mountains–for a glorious interlude and thus a bad citizen of the blogosphere. While catching up is impossible–I’ll be around more this week so if you’re a new visitor and commentator, I will pop by your cyberplace soon. Unless I get swallowed up by silence again. It was… glorious. Simply glorious. I’m jonesing for it already…

“Boy, you sure have your hands full”: the rebuttal

This isn’t what I usually write, or how I usually write. It’s actually a really great example, from the point of view of a professional writer, of why you shouldn’t write when you’re all het up—or why you shouldn’t press “send” right after you’ve written something that had you all het up. Think on it a bit. Emotional angst makes for great drama—it rarely makes for great writing in the moment. Too much confusion, cloudiness… self-absorption.

What the professional writer in me wants to do is to file this under “bad drafts,” come back to it three or four months hence when I don’t remember the incident that fired it, take the nugget of insight from it (generally found in the second-to-last one-sentence paragraph), and build a proper essay around it.

My inner child wants to publish it as is, because she’s wilful and has poor impulse control and it’s her blog, goddamit, and she’ll write what she wants.

The wilful inner child takes charge, grabs the lead and starts to write this:

I was rude to you the other day, I realize, and the soft, peace-making, acquiescing part of me wants to apologize. It’s not nice to be rude to people and I should have made some effort, taken the high road, etc. Etc. Especially as you weren’t malicious—nor rude to me, particularly. I was just tired of mediating with the world, and you were just… stupid, I think is the word I’m looking for.

The adult within asserts a little and starts to edit a little:

Damn, this apology is not going well. Stupid’s unfair. You may have been a perfectly intelligent, thinking person under most circumstances. With a flaw, perhaps: the desire to talk to strangers about the first thing that occurred to you. There’s probably nothing wrong with that trait. Probably helps you make friends in new places. You just had the bad fortune to select the wrong mother at the wrong time to talk at. I’m sorry.

There, that’s a better shot at an apology. And now, the inner child and its super-ego start to compromise and work together… They write this:

I suppose before I go any further, I should recap what you said—and what I did. So there I was in the library on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, with my three kids. The seven-and-a-half-year-old (“I’m actually closer to eight, now, Mom, shouldn’t you say that?”) was checking out our stack of books at the self-check out. The ten-year-old was amusing the not-quite-three-year-old (“Amusing? Well, that’s one way of putting it, Mom.”). And I was lounging against the wall between them, occasionally toning down the volume on the amusement, and occasionally helping my checker-outer when the machine didn’t read the book codes properly. Last book went through the check out. I divided the books between four sets of arms, and said, “To the car, dudes.”

Arms full of books, the kids ran joyfully—and noisily—to the door. I followed more slowly.

And, somewhere from the periphery of my vision, you let out a (well-meaning) chuckle, and said, “Well, that’s what your day off looks like, doesn’t it.”

I half-turned my head to ascertain that you were talking at me, and then I said…

 Nothing.

I tried to offer one of those smiles of acknowledgement, but I suspect it didn’t come out genuine, because I didn’t particularly feel like smiling. I thought what you said was really silly—and I didn’t feel like offering any of the conventional responses you expected. What would they have been, anyway? What were you looking for? “That’s the way the cookie crumbles?” perhaps? Or “Good thing we love them?” Or something else that would validate your assumptions that a) this was my day “off”, b) that I’d rather be doing something else, c) that spending a Sunday afternoon at the library with my kids was somehow hard? I’d had a really tough, exhausting week, and this Sunday afternoon was, frankly, one of the week’s jewels, one of those moments in time that underscore just how good my life is. I wasn’t frazzled or ticked or yelling at the children (that was Thursday afternoon, but you weren’t there… wonder what you would have said then? “That’s what your day on looks like?”). My children were by no one’s compass behaving inappropriately or in a demanding, taxing manner (though by Zeus’ third testicle, on Tuesday they did). What the hell were you commenting on?

And as all this flew through my head at lightening speed, the fully rational part of me also knew I was completely over-reacting, because it had been a tough week and because I was tired and my defences were down, and you did not mean to be in any way rude, —you were just a friendly stranger trying to make conversation, and you said the first thing that came into your mind. So I tried to force that smile to be a little less fake, but I still said…

 Nothing.

You were a few steps behind me in the parking lot as we both walked to our cars. My children had raced ahead to mine. They opened the doors, and loaded themselves up into the card. You caught up to me. And said:

 “My daughter’s thinking of having a third, but looking at you, I don’t know—boy, it’s a lot of work.”

And I turned my head again, and looked at you, and said…

Nothing.

But I gave you The Look. I know I gave you The Look, because you took two steps back, and then almost ran to your car without half-a-backward glance at me. It’s possible I made you cry. I’ve never seen The Look on my own face, but I’ve bequeathed it to all three of my children, and I’ve seen it there, and it’s a pretty terrifying thing; it’s a “You’re too stupid to live, and you should leave my sight before I do something about it” kind of look, and apparently it frequently creeps onto my face during business meetings, and my colleagues, as well as the people who have the misfortune of being interviewed by me live and repeatedly, live in terror of me one day turning The Look on them (and my husband and children treat it as a sign of my undying, clearly unconditional love that no matter what they’ve done or said, I’ve never turned The Look on them… yet).

Anyway. I gave you The Look. You skedaddled. I got into the car.

“Can we put one of the new books on tape in?” the 10-year-old asked me, as the seven-year-old finished buckling up her little brother in his car seat. The books were piled around them.

“Sure,” I said. I started the car. He put the CD in.

As we drove home, I tried to parse what it was that you had done that ticked me off so.

 “Well, that’s what your day off looks like, doesn’t it.”

“My daughter’s thinking of having a third, but looking at you, I don’t know—boy, it’s a lot of work.”

Two sentences. Kindly meant, really. What’s ticking me off here? Is it that you interfered in a moment I was having with my children. Sunday afternoon. At the library. The four of us. Chilling. Not performing for you, or awaiting your commentary.

Mothers today live essentially in constant defensive mode from verbal assaults—er, commentary—from well-meaning strangers.

This mother’s tired of it, and is done responding to it. See me in the park or the grocery store with my kids? Whether we’re in a moment of bliss or a moment of strife, it’s our moment, and it’s none of your business. The only two acceptable comments from a stranger to a mother (or father) in a public place are:

 a. What a beautiful family you have.

and, its more effusive variant,

 b. How lucky you are to have such a lovely family.

Feel compelled to say something else? Shut up.

Was that it? The above rant notwithstanding, no, not really. A little—it sure didn’t help—but not really. It wasn’t even that your comments were so completely… inaccurate. I mean, there are plenty of times when I’m out in public with the brood when it does look like hard work. Like the time I had to get Cinder to sit on Ender at the deli while I paid so that I wouldn’t have to buy $200 worth of broken jars of imported honey and olives. Or the time… well, anyway. There are times. This wasn’t one of them.

But even if it was—here’s what really got me—even if it was. Even if it looked like hard work. You vocalized the thing that I’m convinced will be the reason Western society collapses:

 You think if something’s a lot of work, it’s not worth doing.

Is having three children hard work? A lot of work? Having any children? Yes. It requires effort. But everything worthwhile does. My work requires effort. Living in my community requires effort. Maintaining relationships and lines of communication. Eating well. Learning a language. Unlearning bad habits. Cleaning house. Gardening. Fixing your car. Making supper. Some days, getting out of bed in the morning.

It all requires effort. And it’s all worth doing.

If I didn’t do things that were hard work, I’d… I don’t know. Sit on my ass watching bad tv because it was too hard to find the lost remote and too hard to get off the couch? Watch life and opportunity and everything pass me by because it was too much work to seize the moment, make the change, do the thing I wanted to do?

My fingers pause over the keyboard. I’m not sure how to end this rant, which isn’t quite going where it started out heading. Then Ender putters in. He’s carrying a giant, giant rock. Into the kitchen—which means, he must have lugged it in from the garden, up the two flights of stairs.

“This hard work,” he says, with an oof, as he plops down for a rest beside me. “This hard work for a little me.” And I look at him in awe, because what’s the first thing that I was going to say in response to this amazing feat of toddler strength? I think it probably was going to be, “Then why did you do it?”

Ender gives another oof. “This hard work for a little me.” He looks with pride at the stone. “Me did it.”

You did it, dude. And that’s that.

Inner Child Art --Rescued!

Inner Child Art –Rescued! (Photo credit: Urban Woodswalker)

Post-script: So. The writer in me sat on this draft long enough that my seven-and-a-half year-old is now eight and change. But the inner child still wants to share it with you more or less in its original form. And she still has poor impulse control. Plus, her super-ego is rather tired this week.

♥

Blogger love: I got the nicest cyber ego stroke from one of my absolute favourite daddy bloggers, @PapaAngst last week, in his post Balsa Wood Forever, and you should wander over to meet him if you don’t know him already. Actually calling him a daddy blogger does not do him justice: He’s a daddy and a blogger, but what he is, on line, is a story-crafter and talented writer. Who knows how to work his inner child just right.

Good Daddies are hot

Romantic Heart form Love Seeds

I’m a wee bit cynical about most things. Not the least bit romantic about Valentine’s Day. But you know what? Good Daddies rock. Nothing sexier than a good Daddy. Carrying a diaper bag, changing a diaper, pushing a toddler on a swing, running behind a six-year-old on a bike, supporting the teenager through her first broken heart… good Daddies make the world go round. And they deserve a massive shout out.

So:

To Ross, who can make Baby M smile no matter what, and who’s made sure his kids know all the words to Little Black Submarines.

To Bill, who looks for recipes and homeschool projects on Pinterest. And then, like, cooks!

To Richard, who knows how to talk and listen to his kids. No matter what.

To Carey, who’s so in love with his girls, it makes my heart sing every time I see it. ♥

To Chris, who said he’d never be the dad who posted about “that stuff” on Facebook… but is and owns it. Cause he’s so in love with his son.

To the other Chris, who was clinically the most qualified of us to be a parent… and as it turns out, intuitively and practically rocks at it.

To my third Chris, who’s the most amazing single dad one could ever imagine.

To Steve, who’ll do anything for his boys, even when they destroy all his nice things.

To Tyler, who can’t stop smiling whenever he looks at his beautiful daughter. Even when she’s trying to stab him in the eye with a steak knife…

To Norm, who likes to pretend he’s a tough guy but pampers his boys ever-so-tenderly. And hooks them up with the best hair cuts.

To Barnabas, who makes his boys the best weapons. And sets off firecrackers. And builds insane fires. But worries that  they might drown…

To Mark, who builds the best train tracks. And, of course, draws the best cartoons.

To Dave, who adores his little girls so much I already pity their future boyfriends. (And they’re gorgeous, so there will be a lot of those, Dave. Sorry…)

To Kelly, who takes his kids on the best adventures (and makes really great suppers).

To Adam, who hasn’t slept a night through in two and a half years. And knows it’s all worth it.

To Paul, who built a store with a killer play space.

To Ben, who turns off the Blackberry when he’s with his boys.

To Martin, who washes the dishes. Every single night.

To the other Martin, who’s never missed a game or tournament—if at the price of an awful lot of speeding tickets…

To Rob, who’s always made sure his girls know they’re the centre of his universe, no matter what’s going on with other relationships. And who knows the difference between an elf and a fairy.

To Garth, who knows exactly what he needs to do the moment he walks through the front door.

To John, who answers the phone when it’s one of his daughters’ numbers on call display–be it 2 a.m. or the middle of the most important client meeting, because it could be an emergency.

To all the rest of you, who change diapers, wipe snotty noses, fiddle with snow suits, look for lost mittens, run out for milk at 11:45 p.m., get up at 3:15 a.m.–and again at 5 a.m.–push strollers in slush, hold tiny hands when you cross the street, swear when you fiddle with car seats, make mac’n’cheese, PVR Blue’s Clues, take time for bed time, give out goodnight kisses and good morning hugs, and do the other million and ten things that good Daddies need to do.

And most of all, to my Sean. With whom I fall in love, all over again, every time he changes a diaper. Reads a bedtime story. Instals a mod for his Flora. Plays Munchkins, Stratego or Primal Carnage with his Cinder. Takes Ender for a long walk on the hill, even when the weather’s bad. Makes French toast for second breakfast and peanut butter and jam sandwiches for third supper. Builds a train track, fiddles with Mindstorms, or listens to stories of ponies and unicorns. Thank you, my love, for my beautiful children—and for being their most awesomest Daddy.

Ladies—if you’ve got one of these amazing dudes in your life, wear something skanky for his pleasure today. And make sure he enjoys it.

Gentlemen—underwear models, movie stars, super athletes, my ripped 26 year-old boy toy of a personal trainer—cute, gorgeous, symmetrical, whatever.  Eye candy’s nice, no question.

But there be absolutely nothing hotter than a good Daddy. 

Truth. You’re the stuff dreams–and better yet, the best quotidian moments–are made of.

xoxo

“Jane”

Add a toast to the good Daddies in your life below. It’s Valentine’s Day. They deserve a shout out.  

Photo via Zemanta: Romantic Heart form Love Seeds (Photo credit: epSos.de)

More proof we all raise the children we deserve…

…or, at least, proof that I’m raising the children I’m raising. You know what I mean:

I.

Cinder: Here, Mom, eat this.

Jane: Oh, sweetie, chocolate. Thank you. What’s this for?

Cinder: Well, you look kind of sad and cranky, and I thought I’d apply the chocolate proactively instead of after you yell at us. Clever eh?

II.

Jane: I’m sorry, Ender, I’m just not myself today. A little sad.

Ender: Oh, don’t be sad, my mama, I love you too much.

And yeah, she’s a little better right away. Who wouldn’t be?

III.

Flora: Mom? You know what we should do tonight? Leave the boys to watch a movie with Daddy, put on some lipstick and go to the library.

Jane: Oh yeah?

Flora: Yeah. I think it’s what we both need. Now, where’s your lipstick?

Jane: This isn’t just a plot so you get to put on some lipstick, is it?

Flora: No. It’s a plot to get away from the boys. Have you not been here today? They’re freakin’ annoying!

Box of Chocolates

Sort of like this, but not really: Are your children the way they are because they’re unschooled?

AND DID I MENTION (oh, yes I did. Well, here I go again): I’ve got a guest post today at Oh Boy Mom, Go have a peek. It’s about learning to value gender stereotypes… when they happen to be true for your children.

Gender-bender: is that a boy or a girl?

Do your children fit visual gender stereotypes―people’s expectations of what a girl, a boy should look like? Mine didn’t, especially when little, long-haired, and sporting Princess dresses and combat boots.

One of my most vivid memories about this mis-fit takes place at a swimming pool in March, 2007. Cinder is not-quite 5, Flora is 2.3. Ender’s just a speck of unclaimed cosmic dust.

Setting: swimming pool in Banff National Park. The story unfolds thus:

My long-haired boy and long-haired girl, wearing identical great white shark swim shorts and shirts (they insisted on identical ones–Flora tried to sell Cinder on pink mermaid bikinis, but he said mermaids weren’t real and sharks were, and that was that), had spent the last few days (in said swim outfits) being variously and randomly called boys, girls, boy and girl rightly and wrongly. None of us really reacted much, because, well, whatever, right? Finally, here and now, after a lifeguard told Cinder and me to “make sure she could touch the bottom when the waves came,” Cinder tossed his head, looked up at her, started to say, “I’m a bo…” then turned to me, and said,

“Mom? Shouldn’t there be a word that means both boy and girl? You know, like she and he, but one that’s both she and he, so that people can use it when they don’t know if someone’s a boy or a girl or when it doesn’t matter if someone’s a boy or a girl?”

There should.

But there isn’t.

2013: Flora, 8, is ultra-feminine now, hair to her waist, and almost always in a dress these days (with pants or leggings underneath, “In case I need to kick someone’s ass in a hurry, or run away from Aunt Josephine.”). No one’s taken her for a boy for a long time… Cinder, 10.5, has always been such a boy-boy in behaviour and choice of clothes (or weapons), but he’s got blond, curly hair that he keeps long (if never brushed and generally, frankly, dreaded) and eye-lashes to die for. He still gets called a girl on average once a week. One day, I will capture the resulting eye-roll in a video. Wonderfully, he still doesn’t care. And Ender, 3 and change, is just where Flora and Cinder were in the shark suit story: he’s got long hair, so it doesn’t matter how butch he looks or acts, he gets called a girl. Especially when Flora dresses him in some of her favourite “hand me down” clothes. Or the Princess dress.

There should be a word that means boy or girl (man or woman) that you can use when you don’t know the gender of a child―or when you just don’t care.

But there still isn’t.

More like this: The Return of the Princess dress.

You can still talk about play: What is play?

Waiting for the right time: why you should stop putting it off and have your babies now

English: Babies are always the same.

I spent a fabulous weekend recently partying with some fabulous people in their mid-to-late 30s who were all childless and waiting for the “right” moment to start their family. At the end of the fabulous weekend, I went back to my partner and our three squiggly kids, who covered me with sloppy kisses, and they went back to… waiting for the right time.

It’s a very popular notion among in Western society today—waiting to have children until the time is right: until you have your career at the right point, the right house, the right car, the right balance in your bank account… I personally believe there are few cultural fallacies that as potently contribute to people’s unhappiness. What point in your career is the right point? What amount of money is sufficient? You could always make more (and spend more)…

But then, we’re a family where the money comes from freelance writing and film-making, so really, waiting for financial stability as most people define it was never in the cards in the life plan. And if I were to do it all over again—if anything, I would have had the little bums sooner and closer together.

If you’re reading me, you’re probably not waiting to have children—you’ve got them. Do you think they came at the right time? Do you think they came too early? Or did you wait too long?

The adjustment to parenthood and familyhood is never easy. Is it easier if you go straight into it after a short period together as a couple… or after years or decades of “couplehood”?

Life happens as it does, and so many of our life choices aren’t really choices. Ya’ can’t have them babies until you find the right partner. Ya both need to want them… ya both need to be on the same page… ya both have to think it’s the “right” time.

But if your idea of the “right” time is the “perfect” time, the “ideal” time… well. There’s no such thing.

(Creative Commons photo with the tag: Babies are always the same. Ha ha.)

Hey, if you’re in your twenties and cringing at this, visit The Rambling Amazon and read why she doesn’t want to have kids right now for a counterpoint.

Defining family-centred, in pictures

If there is indeed a permissive-to-authoritarian parenting spectrum, I  fall, by conscious choice, closer to the P than the A. But, the phrases “child-centred” and “child-led” raise my hackles. I’ve  always liked “family-centred” or “whole-family focused” for those moments when absolutely pressed to slap a label on us. But those terms are pretty hard for me to define (although, in the past, I’ve tried to do so here, Finding Your Family’s Harmony, and here, 10 Habits From the House of Permissiveness).

Except on New Year’s Eve 2012. The way we sent off 2012 and brought in 2013 was, to me, the perfect illustration of a family-centred life… and a rockin’ party. The party was so good no one took the time to take pictures. But here are a few pictures of the aftermath.

First view of the kitchen in the morning:

Aftermath1

The Perplexus in the remnants of the cheeseplate:

Aftermath0

Ender posing in front of the “Kids’ Art Wall” in the kitchen:

Kids Wall 2

This was the little kids’ art wall: the toddlers went to town on it with tempera paint, and then the older kids came and added their handprints… they got a little over-enthusiastic and started to mark up our map, at which point I redirected…

Kids wall 1

The older kids and adults put their marks here:

Whole Wall

This wall is the view that greets you when you walk up our entry way stairs into our main living area. It’s the wall that gets diritiest and most marked up in life. We were planning to repaint it at some point this year… in the interm, it’s our wall of awesomeness. Here are some close ups:

Wall Peacock

Wall 2

Wall Organs

Wall Classic Mark

And in the morning, we cleaned up the debris mostly together:

Child Labour

And that, from the kids-and-adults party through to everyone working together to clean up the mess–and everyone working together to create the art (and mess)–is family-centred living to me.

What is it to you? And how did you bring in 2013?

(By the way, if you didn’t visit Cloudy With a Chance of Wine’s Best of 2012 Blog Hop on New Year’s Eve–pop over there sometimes this week when you have a chance. People linked their best posts of the year, and there are some absolute gems to be discovered. I’m still working my way through the posts, because there are so many excellent ones to read one doesn’t want to just skim.)

Quote This: Pam Laricchia on expressing parents’ needs while affirming kids’ needs

English: A jar of coffee-covered chocolate beans

We can express our needs and choose to gift our kids with extra attention, extra supplies, extra anything. Expressing our needs helps them understand when we’re going above and beyond so it doesn’t become an expectation.

Pam Laricchia, Living Joyfully

This is an excerpt from Laricchia’s very thought-provoking post, The Unschooling Family: Considering Everyone’s Needs. You might also want to check out its sister post, Unschooling and the Power Paradigm. For non-homeschooling/unschooling readers, don’t let the label keep you from taking a gander: both of these posts are essentially about respectful parenting. Agree with her point of view, disagree, or fall somewhere in between–I bet her take on power within the family will make you think. And thinking’s always good, right?

Photo (A jar of coffee-covered chocolate beans) from Wikipedia… combining the two elements that are essential to fulfilling my own most critical personal needs… 🙂

English: Weighing scale, Galicia, Spain França...

More like this: It’s not about balance: creating your own family’s harmony.

Why so serious today? Sorry. Want to laugh? How about this one: Mom? Have you noticed I’ve stopped…

And if you want to read more about unschooling, pop over to our new Undogmatic Unschoolers blog. It’s very new and so very thin, but that means you can read everything on it really, really quickly.

Quote This: The universe’s random messages to you

Awards

From my fab friend and neighbour Crystal Moontree, who needed to hear this yesterday and thought someone else might too:

No heavenly being is waiting at the end of the line, giving out awards for sadomasochism. Give yourself a break.

Read In Praise of Calling It Quits at the Gala Darling Radical Self-Love Project for the full  context.

English: A Swingline-brand Stapler

From my “how could you move so far away from me” friend LD, via Unlawful Humour:

Whoever said nothing is impossible has obviously never tried to staple water to a tree.

I’d add… or clean a house with a three-year-old awake in it…

Agatha Christie

From Agatha Christie, via those annoying quotes WordPress chucks at you each time you post:

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.

No, Agatha, it’s not. But the kitchen sink’s not a bad place at which to rough draft blog posts.

Octobers of the past retrospective

Pumpkins, photographed in Canada.

Ender turned three this month, and when I started this blog in the Spring of 2012, I created a “fake” archive going back to October 2009–the point of his arrival. (I had to start somewhere, right? And where better than with a birth story?) So as October wraps up, I’m looking back at the highlights from three Octobers past:

Three years ago in October:

Any Way They Have to Come, October 21, 2009
The Last Three Minutes, October 15, 2009

Two years ago in October:

Why Ender’s Ender, October 14, 2010

One year ago in October:

Cinder and Flora Become Hellenic Pagans, October 25, 2011
Emergency Pig’s Ear, October 21, 2011
Don’t you know skin falls off? October 5, 2011

…and sending out belated Canadian Thanksgiving “thank you’s” to the universe for Ender, Flora, Cinder–Sean–and my entire, ridiculously privileged life.

Quote this: A.S. Neill on parents and the yearnings of childhood

Parents who have forgotten the yearnings of their childhood—forgotten how to play and how to fantasize—make poor parents.

A.S. Neill, Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993 [1960])

Paques01

Discuss. Do you think your recollections of childhood, of how you felt, what you thought, as a child (and a teen) are accurate? Do they help you be the parent you want to be? Or is Neill off base here? What do you think?

P.S. Happy third birthday, my sweet Ender. xoxo Mom

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My current favourite: The Authoritative New Parents’ Guide to Sex After Children (of course)

Serious: When toddlers attack (surviving “That Hitting Things”) • Searching for strategies for Sensitive Seven • Five is hard: can you attachment parent an older child • It’s not about balance: Creating your family’s harmony • 10 habits for a happy home from the house of chaos and permissiveness • The ultimate secret behind parenting: it’s evolution, baby

Funny: Floor peas • The rarest song of all • Sarcasm, lawn darts, and toilets  • What humanitarian really means  • The sacrifices mothers make for their children (Warning: grossness factor uber-high)  • It’s all about presentation  • Anatomy talk, now and forever  • Want to hear all the swear words I know?  • Of the apocalypse, euphemisms and (un)potty training  • Mom? Have you noticed I’ve stopped…  • Poisonous Volvo

Quote this: A Mother’s Prayer

I don’t pray… and I don’t really like reposting sappy “picture” quotes, but sometimes, one pops into an in-box or a feed at a time that you really, really need to hear it, and so it was with this one:

Oh give me patience when wee hands

Tug at me with their small demands.

Especially when I’m sitting at the computer desperately trying to meet yet another deadline… give me patience with those wee hands…

And give me gentle and smiling eyes.

Keep my lips from hasty replies.

I don’t want to ask for too much here: gentle and smiling eyes would be bonus, but let’s just focus on what comes out of the lips. Words are important. Words are important…

And let not weariness, confusion or noise

Obscure my vision of life’s fleeting joys.

Life’s full of weariness, confusion and noise. So be it. But yeah, let me keep half-an-eyelid and a quarter of an ear on the joy behind the noise and the weariness. Always.

So when, in years to come my house is still–

No bitter memories its room may fill.

If this were my poem, I’d end it differently. Because it’s not about what it will be like in the future, is it? It’s about how we want it to be now. And I want to be patient now, and talking-not-yelling now, and focused on joy now because… well, I’m living now. And this is my life now.

Via my friend Liz’s Facebook feed via Ask Dr. Sears via Mothering Magazine. Author unknown.

MOST POPULAR POSTS

Serious: When toddlers attack (surviving “That Hitting Things”) • Searching for strategies for Sensitive Seven • Five is hard: can you attachment parent an older child • It’s not about balance: Creating your family’s harmony • 10 habits for a happy home from the house of chaos and permissiveness • The ultimate secret behind parenting: it’s evolution, baby

A Quiet Moment

Photo (A Quiet Moment) by Glen Johannes Photography

Funny: Floor peas • The rarest song of all • Sarcasm, lawn darts, and toilets  • What humanitarian really means  • The sacrifices mothers make for their children (Warning: grossness factor uber-high)  • It’s all about presentation  • Anatomy talk, now and forever  • Want to hear all the swear words I know?  • Of the apocalypse, euphemisms and (un)potty training  • Mom? Have you noticed I’ve stopped…  • Poisonous Volvo

Sharing Allison Tate’s The Mom Stays in the Picture

Super quickly popping in to share Allison Tate’s The Mom Stays in the Picture, from HuffPost’s blog. Get the camera-shy, post-partum mother in your life to read this piece, and then take lots and lots of photos of her with her children.

The best quote from the post:

When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don’t look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her — her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That’s the mother I remember. My mother’s body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn’t care that she didn’t look like a model. She was my mama.

Now off to dress the toddler, clean the bathroom, feed the children, meet a deadline…

Quote this: Daniel Greenberg on patience

‎Of all the virtues required in the art of child-rearing, none is more important – – and none rarer — than patience, in parents, in family, in friends; patience to allow the miracle of human development to unfold according to its own internal laws.

Daniel Greenberg, Child Rearing (1987)

From my friend Swimming Through Stars.

Photo (Patience) by normalityrelief

Patience

“How to help 10-year-old boy with existential angst”

That’s the top search landing people on Nothing By The Book this week, but I’m not sure that you’re all finding the post that you’re seeking for. I think it’s this one: A love letter to the boy who’ll set the world on fire. I also think How I got deprogrammed and learned to love video games might contain some insight for some mothers of 10-year-old boys trying to understand what is going on inside their game-controller wielding sons.

I’m processing a bigger exposition on the changes my own 10–almost 10.5–year-old is going through, because it’s massive. The biggest one since five/five-and-a-half (I wrote about it here, Five is Hard: can you attachment parent the older child), and just as part of the solution at five was to make his world bigger, that certainly seems to be part of the key now.

But, that later. For now, I hope the love letter and the video game piece help you–spark off some ideas for what your little man is going through and how you can support him.

Jane

Game controller

MOST POPULAR POSTS

Serious: When toddlers attack (surviving “That Hitting Things”) • Searching for strategies for Sensitive Seven • Five is hard: can you attachment parent an older child • It’s not about balance: Creating your family’s harmony • 10 habits for a happy home from the house of chaos and permissiveness • The ultimate secret behind parenting: it’s evolution, baby

Funny: Floor peas • The rarest song of all • Sarcasm, lawn darts, and toilets  • What humanitarian really means  • The sacrifices mothers make for their children (Warning: grossness factor uber-high)  • It’s all about presentation  • Anatomy talk, now and forever  • Want to hear all the swear words I know?  • Of the apocalypse, euphemisms and (un)potty training  • Mom? Have you noticed I’ve stopped…  • Poisonous Volvo

Nature wins again

Party, party, I going to a party! My first party! I love parties!”

That is Ender, dancing in the bathroom while I try to de-grossify him. Four weeks short of his third birthday, he’s just been invited to his first official “tea” party. Flora’s friend Moxie is putting it on; Flora’s already there, and Ender can’t wait to go.

I’m struck, yet again, how different each of my children is from the others–the girl from the boys, the boys from each other. At age three, Cinder would never by his own choice go to anything that looked like a party of a crowd. I remember his analysis of his third–and for a long time, his last–birthday party:

It was ok. It would have been better if all those people hadn’t come.”

Cinder made his first friend when he was… 7. (And, oh, man, what a relief that was to me! Look! He does want to play with others!) He’s still very selective about who he spends time with. He’s got three close friends, and no room in his life or needs for more. Flora is “lonely” if she’s spent the day playing with just three friends. She just started a new music class–seven little girls, all new to her. She’s thrilled. “I wonder which of them I will like best, and which ones I will become good friends with?” she muses at the end of the first day. “Junie is really, really pretty. And Billie Joe is a little shy, but I think she’s really sweet.” In the same situation, Cinder would be … if not petrified, then immensely uncomfortable.

Ender is more on Flora’s end of the social spectrum. Everyone he meets is a friend. A new baby is crawling around at the back of our Tang Soo Do gym. Ender crawls with him. Tickles his tummy. (Thinks about pushing him over–fortunately, I catch that in time.) The baby’s not there next time:

Where my friend? I miss my friend!”

We walk home in the dark from the firepit, and a bike whizzes by. “Who that?” Ender asks. I’m not sure, I didn’t really see. But he saw enough to identify the person:

That my friend Mingo! He play ball and trampoline with me! I love him!”

“Was that Mingo, Cinder?” I ask my eldest. He looks at me. Shrugs. “Dunno. Some guy on a bike.” Mingo, incidentally, is closer in age to Cinder and more Cinder’s playmate than Ender’s. But, but–them two boys, they relate to the world in such different ways.

It’s at moments like this, when the contrast between these two boys–or all three of my children–is so pronounced, that I almost give up on investing anything in nurture. You know? Nature just seems to trump everything. Cinder is Cinder; Ender is Ender; Flora is Flora; and there’s nothing I can do to affect their essential nature.

Except, of course, that nature needs nurture. If nature is the raw material, the unalterable building block, nurture is the sculptor. Nature is the inclination and the impulse; nurture the habit and inner–first outer–“discipline.”* Nature makes Cinder an ever-moving ball of energy; nurture’s given him the tools to channel that energy. Nature’s given Flora the universe’s most tender heart; it will be nurture that will help her find ways to protect it when she must.

(I’m afraid to pontificate on what Nature’s determined for Ender. Let’s leave that one be for now, shall we?)

Party, party, party!”

Ender hollers. “Let’s go!”

I don’t have to come, right?”

Cinder checks in. Nope. Not this time. And off we go.

The Agile Gene, by Matt Ridley (book cover)

If Nature versus Nurture is an argument that keeps on popping up in your head, you might enjoy Matt Ridley’s The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture (originally published as Nature via Nurture). It’s an interesting read–and here’s a video of a Ridley lecture at Princeton if you just want a sample, and here’s Matt Ridley’s blog.

From Ask Moxie: Free But Not Cheap

A very interesting post about motherhood as job versus relationship, Free but Not Cheap, at Ask Moxie. Moxie’s post in a nut-shell:

If we think it’s a job, then nothing makes sense about it. How is it possible that it’s so important but also so undervalued? How is it possible to be a good mother if you’re with your kids 24/7 but also be a good mother if you leave them to go work for a good part of the day? How can we take such satisfaction from being with our kids but be so bored by all the stuff we have to do for our kids?

But motherhood makes sense when you realize that it’s a relationship. Loving and nurturing your child is the relationship you have with your child. That’s why when you have a bad day as an adult, you still want your mom (if you have a good relationship with your mom) even though she isn’t making your meals, changing your clothes for you, driving you to work, or doing any of the stuff moms of kids do.

(Italics mine.)

My sister-in-law and I were talking yesterday, as our little Neanderthals threw rocks at each other at the playground, about the cost of childcare and the paradox that this thing we say is the most important thing in the world–raising children, creating the new generation of citizens etc. etc.–is hands-down the worst paid job in our society… and at the same time, “too expensive”–with a price tag that makes even high-earning people gag. We pay people more to clean our houses than to watch over our children.

What message does that send to any parent contemplating pausing career-building or bread-winning in favour of being the primary caregiver for their own children?

That thought threatens to take me into a digression, and I need to “be with” my children, as well as “do stuff for” ’em, so I’ll just end with this: Motherhood. A relationship. A state of being. Not a job.

Motherhood.

Sunshine of our lives, or, how toddlers survive

Sunshine, morning, so slow, so lazy… do we get out of bed or not? I guess we should. I tousle the toddler’s head.

Jane: Ready to get out of bed, little Ender?

Ender: Ready. Not ready. Ready. OK. Let’s go, Big Mama.

And we roll out, slowly, and fat sweaty hands wrap around my neck, and we gallop down the hallway. Everyone else is up already. I poke my head into the Lego/Computer Room/Sean’s office, where Cinder is already hard at work… er, play.

Jane: Good morning, little love.

Ender: Good morning, little love.

Cinder: Yo, Ender, how are you doing this morning?

Ender: Me happy, little love. But me need to pee.

And we gallop down the hallway the last two feet to the bathroom. Make it. Relief. We poke our heads in through another door. See the Sean.

Jane: Good morning…

Ender: Good morning, our big love.

And kisses and tousles and sunshine. And Ender is ready for a day of action and destruction. There are things to shove down sink drains and toys to put in toilets, there are pictures to scribble on and books to tear up, there are milk jugs in the fridge that need to be poured onto the floor, pots to bang and rearrange, boxes to squash, a dog to terrorize, a fish tank that desperately needs a bar of soap added to it, a sister’s hair to pull, a brother’s Lego creations to destroy, food to smear on walls and throw on the floor, bathwater to drink and pour down the stairs… Oh, it’s a full, full day for an Ender and he lives each minute as fully as possible, and at day’s end, everyone exhausted to bed goes, exhausted by the pace of life set by the Ender.

And Ender falls asleep, exhausted too and so happy and so fulfilled, and already, I can tell from the cast of his eyes and lips as they close, planning the next day’s mischief. And so we all fall asleep too, so we can keep pace with him.

We yell at him, you know. Snap. Complain. Sometimes, run away and hide (even me). But, boy oh boy, we love him. And when he wakes up the next morning, sunshine of our lives, we forget all the “I want to throttle Ender!” moments and just drown in his sunshiney love.

Ender: Good morning, Big Love Mama.

Jane: Good morning, love of my life.

Ender: No. I not love of your life.

Jane: No? What are you then?

Ender: I littlest love in the house.

Jane: Good morning, littlest love in the house.

Ender: Let’s go play. Outside?

Jane: Let’s pee and have breakfast first.

Ender: Let’s pee. Then me put something in toilet. Maybe Lego. Maybe car. Maybe… pee! Hee hee hee hee.

And the day begins anew.

Sun

The problem with environmental education

A trail at Jacobsburg Environmental Education ...

Wondering why your uber-environmentally aware kids don’t like to play in dirty. Read Look, Don’t Touch: The problem with environmental education, by David Sobel in Orion Magazine.

“FOR SPECIAL PLACES TO WORK their magic on kids,” wrote lepidopterist Robert Michael Pyle, “they need to be able to do some clamber and damage. They need to be free to climb trees, muck about, catch things, and get wet—above all, to leave the trail.”

…and then take your kids to some wild, wild spot where they can climb, run, catch things, get wet and dirty… and fall in love with our planet.

via my lovely friend Brooke and her awesome “leave the trail” family.

Photo: A trail at Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Between the carrot (cake) and the fork

The stream from the watergun catches me under my skirt and I holler. And then the little bum shoots again. “Cinder!” I yell, tossing my own empty water gun far, far away from me. “Look, no weapon! I’m out!” He blasts me again.

“Dude! Remember that carrot cake we’re planning to get when we go to Eau Claire? There are two distinct futures ahead of you. One of them involves eating a delicious carrot cake. The other has me poking you in the bohunkus with a fork. Which one are you going to choose?”

My friend Neela, skirting the edges of the water gun fight, laughs. “That’s an interesting parenting technique,” she says, half-serious. “You should blog about it.”

“And call it what, how to disguise threats, punishments and rewards with words?” I ask. I’m soaking wet. Cinder’s backed off; he’s chasing Flora and her friend Jenny now. They’re still fully armed and firing back.

Neela gives my flippant statement serious thought. “Words are powerful,” she says. “Syntax, semantics, all that matters. I’d never say, ‘If you get into your pajamas, girls, I’ll get you ice cream.’ But I do say…” she thinks for a moment… “Oh, ‘Girls in pajamas who report to the kitchen will get ice cream.’” She laughs. “Because, you know, ice cream before bed is a routine snack in my house.” (I leave it up to you to determine if she’s joking or not… or if it matters.)

Neela and I round up the combatants and take them to Eau Claire. The moms get coffee; the kids sweets. Cinder gets carrot cake, not a fork in the bohunkus. Flora gets a lecture about gratitude, and Neela and I talk about … gratitude, entitlement, and the too-easy-too-cross line between coercive discipline and … what? we’re not quite sure what to call it. Words, words, words. But as Neela said before, and says again, words are important.

Cinder’s running around, stealing Jenny’s shoes in order to lure her off the blanket where she’s chatting with Flora and get her to chase him. Then he plays Frisbee with Ender. Then returns to “annoying the girls.” Later, he’ll tell me, “Well, the trip wasn’t a total loss. I got to annoy the girls.” “D’you have to do that?” I’ll sigh. “It’s sort of my job,” he’ll retort.

And my job, as Cinder’s mother, is to… well, to make sure that the “annoying the girls” doesn’t cross a certain line. To encourage peace and harmony when possible, and to minimize the bloodshed (usually metaphorical) and help negotiate truces and separations when necessary.

And to muddle along that path the best way I can, on any given day, in any given moment. And yeah, sometimes it means waving the carrot (cake).

(You know I’d never really poke him in the bohunkus with a fork, right? He knows I’d never do it. I’m pretty sure he knows… hold on. “Cinder? Do you think I’d ever poke you in the butt with a fork?” Pause. “Probably not. Um… Well, you might.” “Really? You think I’d…” “I think if I poked you first, you might.” “But you’re not gonna, right?” “Well…” Fuck. Not exactly the reassurance I was looking for…)

The muddling continues.

English: Carrot cake Deutsch: Rüeblitorte, Kar...

For “Neela.” Based on events of August 1, 2012.