apparently

Who knew that when you have a small child, death is a frequent topic of conversation. There's a period of time, I think around five, when the prototypical example of wit is to say something like "I'm going to kill you with poo poo!" But even at a more biting level, death seems to fascinate these drops of newly created life.

We've buried a number of fish and rodents in our backyard. In fact, we have a hamster and a mouse in the freezer right now waiting for a weekend with enough open time to have a good service. When these creatures die, my daughter always asks me, "Did [Sally] have a happy and long life?" Usually I can assert that they did. (Sally the hamster in fact probably had a happy but short life, cut short by a careless swing of a startled, bitten child's arm, so I said I hoped it was happy, but it wasn't so long.)

My own father died while my first child was in utero, right after the 18 week ultrasound. I learned that one may be overwhelmed with the great exultation of new life and the great loss of life's end and neither feeling diminishes the other, nor actually breaks the heart. The demand of the new life keeps the blood flowing. Some how, the heart grows to expand more feelings. I'm just glad I called to share our awe at hearing the heart beat for the first time, a month or so before that.

Certainly having a child and seeing their tiny fragility makes one realize how fragile our bodies are. I have always striven to live in such a way that if I died today, I'm just glad for the interesting things I've gotten to be a part of. Dieing at 22 or whatever would have been regrettable, but not really a tragedy, as they were an interesting 22 years. The last 18 years have been interesting as well, but, with these tiny unprotected beings growing around my ankles (as it seems), I just can't die this year.

And the kids better not die. What with the many articles on SIDS thrust on new parents, and the horribly ubiquitous cartoons of babies being smashed by air bags that litter today's world, the thought of death is never too far from the new parent. My daughter grew up learning how to walk on Carroll Avenue, inches from the insane Washington drivers. I curse drivers so vehemently that for a while I was about to teach my daughter that "car drivers are evil crazy people" which given that we ourselves drive and I don't want to teach about evil people so much as wrong deeds would have been very counter productive. We go hiking near the steep cliffs at Great Falls on our better days, and fear clenches and releases my heart, as people wobble toward and away the edges.

I can't talk about these fears for myself or them with the kids, of course. But death is still talked about plenty. For a while, in her never ending experimentation towards successful social interaction, my daughter discovered that asking people if their mother had died almost always produced interesting results. I winced each time, but heard so many touching stories from so many people I'd never probed so deeply into. Occasionally, my own relatives will be asked about when they will die. Periodically, I'm asked if I'll die before my daughter is married. I've been asked to predict whether I or my beloved life partner will die first (a topic I avoid thinking about by assuming I'll be the fortunate one to die first), and I had to admit that no one knows what will happen in the future.

I read "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, written after her husband died. It is a good book, wrenchingly honest about what awaits many of us. (It also inspired a bit of jealously - she and her husband were always flying off to Paris or Hawaii or California, essentially without having to save up for years. Oh well, it pays to be movie people, I already knew that.)

When we do our pet burials, and my daughter expresses the feelings in her ways, I can't help but find myself hoping that we are practicing for what will occur at the end of my own life. I will be able to assure her, and everyone, that I have had a long and happy life. Especially if I get at least the youngest one into college, and preferably much longer.

Posted by Chris at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A particularly good blog by Catherine Newman

Ironically, when I met Catherine Newman, whom I've been an avid fan of for years, I was asking her a question at the very same time my daughter was sliding a chewed piece of gum up her nose. And my question was some ridiculous feverish question, the only thing my breathless star-struck brain could churn out while I was thinking "Wow, I am asking a question of my current favorite writer!"

Luckily, the gum was relatively easy to remove. And I felt very tied to by daughter by her action. When I was 6 or so, I slid a tooth that had fallen out of my mouth up my nose, much to the consternation of my baby-sitter. That also was removed without a trip to the ER, and now this nose-object tendency has been passed on. And in one of those existential moments when you create your values by your actions, when I started laughing about the memory of my own nose problem, my daughter asked me why I was laughing, and I decided to take the risk (of her trying the nose trick with her tooth) to tell her the story of my young nose rather than dissemble some safer answer.

Posted by Chris at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The park on Westmoreland (called Urban Park) used to have excellent tall swings. They were removed several years ago. I have finally found almost as tall swings:

In a park on Sligo Creek Parkway, just the south side of the Golf course. It's just past Colesville Rd, past the Waldorf Nursery School, near a street called "Dallas". In addition to the very tall swings, which allow a proper under-dog, there are two streams that come together in a most attractive fashion and a great place for mucking and skipping rocks.

"Underdog" is a push where the parent runs all the way under the child, pushing them up with your arms. At the old swings, your kids could fly so high they touched the tree with their feet. It took me several years of watching more experienced parents do this before I dared, but my kids instantly loved it. It's one of those things I always call an end to before they do. "OK, only 5 more underdogs." It was the language used by the brave parents and kids I copied the push from.

Posted by Chris at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I've mentioned, my toddler has a tendency to hit people. One of the ways we've been trying to prevent these hits is by rehearsing before we get in a group, "No hit Ian, No hit Gracie, no hit Maeve, no hit Ruby." Sort of a mantra, it relieves my stress a tad. So we went to Florida in January. We stopped by the Everglades, which are a truly marvelous piece of the planet.

We were on a trail with exotic birds literally every 5 feet. Giant prehistoric looking Gar fish leapt from the water. Turtles here and there. In the water, on the other side of the bog, a few alligators apparently napped. The kids seemed pretty excited by all this activity (the toddler also seemed pretty excited by the water fountain, to be fair), and we walked around a bit. We were going down a path, and suddenly the toddler's bright cheery voice rang out, "No hit alligator!" He's about a foot or two from a giant living alligator, swinging his arms about, and saying, confidently, "Say hi the alligator!" My heart rate doubled, and I snatch him away from the vicious animal, saying, calmly, "That's right, no hit the alligator."

Whew, that was close.

For the record, the only strategy for hitting that seems to be working is "If there are other children around, stay within 18 inches of him at all times, and wait for him to grow up." When I see conflicts emerging, I try to provide words for him to say, and one hopes that will help him when he's able to use words more routinely. If it's a very good friend with whom we have a record of peaceful playdates, I'll relax a little bit. The rehearsal thing allows me to think he has good intentions. Although, watching him yell or wave his fist at each and every toddler that comes into his sensory range, makes me wonder sometimes. He'll throw his fist, I'll yell, "Say Hi!", he'll bellow aggressively "Hi!" And the other kid is already aware that something is not right.

So mostly we stick to child and alligator free areas, especially now that this luscious spring is here. We throw rocks in the most lovely Rock Creek (the bit just north of where Aspen Road comes into the Parkway) and Sligo Creek.

Posted by Chris at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When my daughter was a few months old, one night I lay down in the bed (no doubt exhausted but some how one forgets that) and listened to her breathing. The sound of her breathing made me think of SIDS and I realized I was looking forward to her being one year old when I could stop worrying about SIDS. I had the assumption that I'd then be, you know, done with worrying.

Having worried about walking, talking, using the potty, running, climbing, painting and reading, I even now find myself looking at older parents calmly discussing with their 13 year old what supplies need to be bought for the science project or what phoning protocol will work for the child to take the train some where with friends, and I find myself envying what looks like a worry free interaction. I think, "Well, first graders are still getting used to the big world full of our human flaws, but soon we'll be past that."

In college, a very good friend's father once drove us back to school for finals week. One of us asked at his father at what age life gets simpler. I guess all the studying and uncertainty about our future and so forth were weighing on our minds. My friend's father just laughed and laughed and laughed.

I can see now that there was really no other answer. And it does feel like my own mother does worry about me and my well-being. How much more subtle the threats she must worry about compared to my worries about the wily mean first graders making fun of my daughter, or her feelings getting hurt from the unfairness having a two year old sibling around, or my worries about my son's lingering sickness and renewed fever. Although my mom does worry about my getting enough to eat, which feels a bit re-assuring to me.

I guess there is no end to worry, except the end of life. Will my kids find it a bit familiar to be worried over when they are out in the world? I can only hope so. Will I still be worrying about mean people and sickness? I bet so.

Posted by Chris at 01:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Honor one of your favorite educators by voting online for the upcoming Azalea Awards– TP's version of the Oscars, if you can fathom such a thing.

Many staff members and some parent leaders representing Rolling Terrace, TPES and PBES are nominated this year. And you can always write in someone you believe was overlooked.

Voting ends May 10th and doesn't require you submit your email address.

Posted by blogpop at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Takoma Park has an unusually intense approach to food. There's people with all sorts of restrictions you never even thought of*. In our family, we both try to have healthy eating habits and an unrestrictive eating experience. So that you know, you can have all the food you want, as long as it fits my idea of healthy. But eating out in public with other people is tricky.

I just can't quite bring myself to be like my vegan friends that are telling their kids that they can't have any ice cream at the party. And my kids are healthy and like to try new things, am I going to be against trying new things? I who lived on PB&J for like 12 years? So after a few years of muddling through these dilemmas, I settled on what I called the Goldfish rule. If someone is offering goldfish (you know who you are) at the park, or M&Ms or whatever, my kids can have them. But we will never have Goldfish in our house. (We might have some expensive "natural" food that is in fact as unhealthy, but that's a different matter.)

We aren't going to be like those parents that are having to judge for their kids how evil each bite of different food is. We'll let them interact with the world and those funny other parents at the park. But at home I will fight like a dog to keep our habitual behavior something sort of like what one hopes for ones kids before having kids. Walking, whole foods, fresh vegetables from the farmer, that sort of thing. I thought the rule ideally allowed both autonomy of food choice in social settings and healthy habits in eating.

But that's not really the funny part. The funny part is that while I was out muddling this out, at the same time that my beloved life partner was finishing her dissertation, I was basically parenting solo. And after she finished her dissertation, various factors (post-dissertation stress recovery; pregnancy, that sort of thing) lead us to switching roles for a while. So I went back to working full time, and my wife took over hanging with the kid (while pregnant, note well).

So here I am, coming home from a hard day at the Savory, teaching myself some fancy new computer thingy, reading blogs, and telling off the crazy project managers from California, while my beloved is caring for my daughter while engaged with the sleepy task of growing a new baby, and what do I find in the house?

Goldfish!?!

I am incensed. The subsequent scenes of ungratefulness, of guilt invoking questions, of criticism of a pregnant partner, are now, several years later, best left sketchy.

But I never eat Goldfish now without a rueful laugh.

* I actually want to make up a new form of restricted eating called "Foraging." You can't eat anything that is cultivated or genetically altered (even by natural breeding) from the pre-human wild stock. So no apples. Crab apples, yes, but not the domesticated apples. And no crab apples from the crab apple mart, you have to pick them yourself. I'm not sure what I'd do with this form of eating, but I smile each time I think of it.

Posted by Chris at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The one thing about working full time for which I have unalloyed feelings of loss is sick leave. Last weeks feverish toddler developed, coincidentally or not, into three coughing cranky people this week. My daughter even has a medically diagnosed ear infection. My son and I are just writhing masses of tired kvetching coughing emotions.

Of course, we aren't quite sick enough to ask my hard-working beloved life partner to use her scarce leave, so we are stuck at home with one another and these long days trying to get enough rest and food to get better.

And I'm tormented by the memory of being sick, and longing in bed, with pay, knowing that I'd be healing quickly even as I sipped my OJ and watched boat-loads of TV and read novel after novel, only gradually slipping into the bliss of a spontaneous nap, and then recovering the next day. As a parent, I'm pretty sure I've have colds that lasted an entire official season. And it seems like adults are a lot whinier than kids, at least on the inside, especially when my mommy isn't anywhere near, and I'm the one everyone is looking to for comfort.

There are amusing stories. Earlier today my son ended up with a fair amount of egg smushed into his hair. Now, bear in mind that he is at that age where a no-cry, no-threats diaper change can easily consume 60 minutes, and he routinely delays shirt removals (oh cursed shirt removal) for a few days (in fact, one benefit of the short but crying diaper change, is that I've already lost his favor so thoroughly that stealing all his clothes at the same time isn't even noticed). And bear in mind that he slept late so his nap schedule was disrupted, and that the coughing sickness he is afflicted with has also apparently taken his appetite, so he'd really only thrown the previous meals around, not actually eaten a discernible amount. To complete the picture, since the feverish days of last week, he's been using the binky (what we call a pacifier) about 100% of the time. I'm ravenous, having in my sickened state driven all the way to Bethesda Bagels, ordered two bagels and two bagel-dogs, watched them being made, and then discovering that I'd left my credit card on the floor where I paid for the last-minute-tax-prep software I bought last night. So we drove on home, after mourning the loss of OJ and bagel dogs.

I am in the kitchen, having sold my son on the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and looking forward to having one or two myself. But something went wrong. I started cutting the sandwich and then asked if he wanted it cut. Now, this cut-food dilemma is one I can easily handle when I'm well. Unlike my first child, who was asked at each sandwich cutting event which of eight distinct cutting methods she preferred, my second child only gets sandwiches cut already in half. It's not been in the realm of choice.

But, deliriously tired, I started to cut and then showed him the partially cut sandwich. He was tipped over into a paroxysm of grief which lasted, unintelligibly, the entire time I sat and ate my own yummy sandwiches. The eggs from the earlier thrown meals, his binky alternately hurled in anger and then desperately chewed on, his red and tearful face, his down coat, it all got rolled around into one big messy ball, yell, "no ***binky mumble*** cut sandwich *** want *** waaaah!" Despite offers of variously cut and uncut sandwiches, nothing soothed him. "No lap *** no chair *** no dad *** wanted *** sandwich."

The thing that I felt marked me as an experienced parent is that while I continued periodic attempts to see if he could accept some comfort and to see if his tearful words were in any way intelligible, my own eating wasn't slowed down nor even rendered less yummy.

When I was done, I slid him out from under the table and plopped him, still sad, into the car seat and went for a car-assisted nap initiation. He fell asleep before we crossed Piney Branch, still with egg mixed into his hair. We've been averaging about 1.5 baths per day this week, and this with some days of no baths because of no clothes coming off.

Posted by Chris at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When we had our first baby in the house, I was (as well as being quite surprised that they let us go home with a baby with so little testing or teaching) full of how we love life, and are so excited at sharing all the goodness with a new being. Here's Spring! Here's Love! Here's Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches!

After a few years, I find myself sharing things of myself that perhaps could have been left behind. Here's procrastination!

I'm one of those people that had to turn in an art history paper the day before high school graduation, and wrote one of my best papers on Latin poetry between 3 am and 5 am. But I don't really recommend this mode of academic life, and will indeed be horrified if my kids fall into a similar pattern.

Nonetheless, during the first "science project"* that my daughter had to do, we traveled a lot in the weeks before the deadline, so instead of working gradually on the project, we were packing and unpacking.

Fortunately, the very day before the deadline, school was out.** So there we are, working 11 hours in a row on classifying rocks. We started with a fun part, gathering rocks near the Potomac River, and using hard rocks to smash the softer rocks. That only took about 2 hours though, leaving us with about nine hours of classifying and writing. It was just me and the kids. She had to label the rocks, choose characteristics for sorting the rocks, and then sort the rocks, and then write up the results of the sorts, while my son was trying to play with her or the rocks. She finally got graduated to her own private work area, with hot chocolate and CD player, and parental work to ban the baby.

By the end, I was plying my daughter with cups of hot chocolate and inspirational talk, "There's nothing to do now but write. I know you are tired, but it is very useful to be able to keep working even when you are tired. You just have to sort the rocks by hardness now and then we can rest! Here, more marshmellows for the hot chocolate?" It wasn't exactly pulling an all-nighter with a coffee pot and cookies, but it was certainly the six year old equivalent. However, she finished, and we practiced telling the story of the rocks and the data, and I think it went as well as a science project as it went as an introduction to the procrastinator's lifestyle.

--Chris

* At TPES, they have these very fun but very labor intensive science projects. I know one parent that claims that their child does them on their own, but I suspect that is a bit exceptional. I know a number of moms that have managed to convince the fathers to ensure the kids does these projects. So far, in our house we are taking turns. On my turn, I didn't touch any of the materials, but I did provide a sort of quality control, and a sort of Socratic method of leading her through the intended steps of rock classification. "So, what's another thing about rocks?" "Color?" "We just finished color. Are there any more?" "Size?" "Ok, what categories of size do you think we'll find among these rocks?"

I also carried the very very heavy rocks from the River to home, and then again to school.

** The Montgomery County schools miss days a lot. Working parents find the schedule amazingly irregular. i sort of like it, since the main thing I'd change about the school is to make it slower and easier. I felt very lucky: during my daughter's first half of Kindergarten there were almost no five day weeks in a row at all. Between teacher work days, the Jewish High Holy Days, and a few other fall holidays, she got to gradually ramp up to a five day "work week."

Posted by Chris at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Backhoe paddling on a barge

If you have a child that loves back-hoes and boats, they will love this video. It has a back-hoe being used to paddle the water, and thereby moving the barge in which it sits through a water way. There's even a train going by in the back ground.

Posted by Chris at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before:

grow grow grow unseen
mom is eating sleeping lots
when is who coming?

Getting closer:

tiny wriggling blob
wavy screen fluttering heart
ultrasound thrills me

Birth day

a giant belly
sweating pushing exertion
tiny peaceful life

Welcome!

sleeping, heavy babe
cooing warms heart, calms baby
what will his words be?

Nothing quite like a newborn:

one two three four five
lots of beds for family
still, so, so, sleepy

Thank heavens for Medela:

smile, little frog
see my face - grab my finger
now drink sleepily

Posted by Chris at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

www.mommazen.com/MAY07SUN.pdf

That is by the woman that wrote a book I find hysterically funny (funny like Brain, Child, where you laugh and tear up at each chapter/article), Momma Zen. (more...)

I didn't actually tear up at the Barbie article, but then body loathing a la Barbie isn't something that men worry so much about.

I think we only have about 5 or so Barbie type dolls, but then I force my daughter to pay for them herself, and it competes with gumballs and now canned soft-drink-style drinks, which I also force her to pay for.

I've given her 1 quarter per year of age per week for this stuff she likes so much, since she could count to ten or so (which was probably much older than when your kids could count to ten, since I don't really teach all that sort of thing when we could just be picking up car parts on a long walk).

My son probably could count to ten now, but he likes "8 9 10" so much that he just can't tolerate the lower numbers long enough to qualify. And actually, his sister will buy him candy when she's purchasing for herself. This generosity surprises me, and is totally un-prompted. I just asked her why, "Because I want to be a big, nice sister."

Another surprise is that he really likes playing with the Barbies now. It's almost as horrifying for a man to grow up thinking Barbie's are realistic as for a woman to grow up thinking that, but he's so cute with them, I can't summon up some correct and kind way to stop it. And why shouldn't Barbie get to operate the backhoe, anyways. (And the backhoe is tenderly driven around in a stroller at other times.)

My goal in feminism is that the full spectrum of human behaviors and characteristics are available to my kids when they need or choose them. That goal has some surprising repercussions.

Posted by Chris at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Voice has a new columnist, Sue Katz Miller, a journalist who has been very involved with local schools as a mom and has written about education professionally for a while now, from what I know. This is the first piece she's written for the Voice and I found it very informative.

I think it's a great starting point for a discussion about neighborhood schools. Check it out: On Walking to School.

Posted by blogpop at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My toddler is feverish today, one of those things I won't even bore the nurse screener at our pediatrician with. (With our first, we'd show up for every cold; by the time the doctor found us in the sick kid exam room, she'd be laughing her head off, as I muttered that she seemed very ill when I called; with the second, I don't even especially notice if he has a cold. For fevers, I might call, but I'm always being told "If that goes up to 105 degrees for about 3 days, then call us again" in a voice impatient at my worry.

But really, we are very lucky with our sicknesses. They generally appear as a strong but not painful reminder to slow down. My toddler slept all morning, then we went out to infect a few people at the Savory, and now he's sleeping all afternoon. He wants to be near me, having a foot touch me, or lay on my belly for a while, but he doesn't really get unhappy.

I remember days spent when my first was sick, just holding her in a rocking chair all day as she slept. These kids don't seem particularly sad or fussy when they are sick, just busy and tired, and wanting that ineffable parenting of being held or touched.

I get to alternate holding them while paying attention and holding them while reading. I've schooled myself to believe that in fact the nurse is right, there's nothing to be done and not much to worry about. Just hold them and allow the kids to heal on their own.

Posted by Chris at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)