apparently

I saw something yesterday that I'd never thought of. There is a span of a few years where pretend cooking is a sure fire hit in the play ground. "Can you fix me some broccoli?" "We haven't got broccoli! Here's bagels!" (Accompanied with flung handfuls of wood chips).

However, yesterday, I saw a nanny that had brought a whole collection of cups and containers for enhancing this game.

It worked great, there was a knot of kids that were occupied for at least thirty minutes. She had tons of stuff, so that sharing was accomplished without overt conflict. Even my son was able to shyly ask for an ice cream and then play for a bit. They were playing in a park (Spring) with a great little kiosk type stand next to a long tube, so they had a good food prep area, and then a good selling area. Clearly the coffee-shop paradigm is well understood by area children. (I was perhaps the only adult there without a cup of joe in hand.)

However, people being people, after sometime there developed a split among the kids, with two bossy groups. I couldn't quite figure out the root of the debate, but it had to do with how to arrange the bowls of chips in the tunnel. Feelings were starting to rise, so I moved my son away. They have turned the water fountains on in this park, so I thought it would be a good chance to fill our water bottles up. I had forgotten his predilection for pouring water out, so what I imagined would be a fun join project of filling the water bottles turned out to be a tense negotiation between a person that just wanted to fill the bottles, perhaps take a sip, and move on, and a person that wanted to spend a good deal of time filling up and then pouring out bottles. So we filled them up three or four times, I just drank all the water I expected I'd need in the next hour or two and then let him empty it out again. Finally, I managed to convince him to keep some water in the bottle and to move away from the spigot. As he walked off, I tried to tighten the spigot so hard that no other toddlers would be able to open it but not so tight that other parents couldn't open it.

See the error?

I glanced up at where he was taking the water bottle as he arrived at the tense wood chip argument. I leaped forward and grabbed the bottle just as he was flinging the water at one of the children. Somehow, the water went mostly back into the bottle as I swept it forward and up. The targeted child ended up with a tiny splash, that went entirely on her hat, not on her hair or face. Her nanny saw that no harm was done, her feelings started to be hurt but then she recovered. My son was amenable to being swept up and placed in the stroller, with a few "blah blah blah" words from me about not throwing water on people in the park.

I think I will still bring containers and cups along, but we won't set up shop next to a water fountain.

Posted by Chris at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I must warn the squeamish that this article deals with a subject of professional interest to me, but not one that is generally the subject to polite conversation, namely poop.

We wanted to do cloth diapers but just were unable to muster enough time to accommodate such frequent changing. In accordance with the general idea not to let perfection be the enemy of good, we stuck with using re-usable wipes instead (and then we flush out the poop so it doesn't all sit in the landfill until my grandchildren's peers invent landfill reprocessing mining machines). I like using the real cloth because I can make them nice and warm with tap water, and I can get the baby cleaner with fewer swipes and less discomfort than the cold paper disposable wipes.

We have a drawer of cotton infant wash cloths, mostly the tiny little cute ones from Target. Now, I'd read all the cloth diapering stuff long ago (those people know laundry), so for five years I've washed these out with a cold wash and then a hot wash, and they came out clean, very clean. First cold, then hot. No stains. Years and years of this (we did have a couple of years of no diapers in between our kids, I think, but that time seems so short - the time we didn't have our second child).

Recently I forgot myself and I washed them all in hot water first. (I blame the sickness fatigue. And five years of careful washing are ruined! The cloths are all stained and ugly now! Every time I think about it I get so irritated. I'm expecting my son to be potty trained in the next 3 or 6 months, and it's not like anyone sees them and rates me on their appearance, but I was very proud of my skill in washing.

And now it's all ruined in a moment of inattention.

Posted by Chris at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I became aware of an issue that is a big deal, in particular, to parents of school age and younger children who live in the downtown Silver Spring neighborhood to be affected by the proposed purple line route. (As I understand it, whichever route they go with- the concern is the same.)

A parent I am acquainted with, Anna Howle, is much more informed on these issues than I am. I asked Anna to articulate them in a post for this blog. It would be great to hear from others who have insights or opinions on this issue...

Thanks, Liesl

Hello Liesl,

So sorry I have not written any sooner. I have been so busy with school finals,
etc...


I am glad you are interested in hearing about how parents feel about the proposed
purple line routes in our neighborhood.

My greatest concern is for the proposed route (Silver Spring/Thayer Avenues) that
would have tunnels for two trains running out of the back yard of East Silver
Spring Elementary. The latest configuration has the tunnels appear just past the
crosswalk in which children cross Thayer to ESS elementary. This is too close to
the school and crosswalk for my comfort.

Over 250 kids attend that school today. This number will continue to grow as the
school expands to other grades.

The MTA has not suggested any safety measures other than water sprinklers for
keeping kids safe and away from the tunnel. What about the wildlife? Will a
sprinkler deter them?

Speaking of wildlife...
As the train continues down Thayer, it is proposed to cross into Sligo Creek Park.
The proposed path will take a significant portion of this wooded, thriving green
space of which we have so little of in Montgomery County. This green space is our
teacher. My son and I frequent that area counting trees, nests, finding insects,
birds, animal tracks, etc... We look forward every year to returning herons and
blooms on our favorite trees and plants. This green space is more than our
teacher, it aids in the reduction of erosion, protecting the creek.

While I support public transportation, not at the cost of our children's safety
and loss of valuable green space. I support encouraging more ridership on the
buses that currently run the route of the proposed Purple Line train. For
example: Two bus routes I have noticed that run the proposed path are the J4 and
#20 Ride On bus which always have space. We are either riding these routes or
observing them. My son finds it fun to count trees and buses in this neighborhood
so we see how empty/full they are.

Liesl - Thanks so much for creating a space in which parents can voice their
concerns about issues that affect their families.

I look forward to sharing with you again soon.

Anna Howle

Posted by blogpop at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't take a parent long to learn that any seemingly good action can have subtle effects down the years. When our first born was a few months old and starting to reach out and grab stuff, we were delighted that she loved pens. This was the beginning of what in our house is a great truth: children prefer real items to toys. They don't want the pretend cell phone, they want mine. They don't want actual old keys gathered and placed on a genuine key ring; they want my actual set of keys I use to open the house and car. They don't even want my backup-spare set. They want the main set. So the pens which we so often use were very attractive to my daughter. We could hand one to her and she'd enjoy minutes and minutes of interrupted happy play, waving it around and smiling. She was far too small to take the top off, so we proceeded happy at our parenting cleverness.

Soon of course she grew stronger and one day was able to fulfill what by then had to be a long cherished ambition and took the top off of a pen. Presto! Our great solution for a 4 month old was rendered astonishingly short-sighted. She immediately copied our pen behavior by joyfully drawing marks on anything she could reach. Even now, another child and six years later, we have a very scribbly house. (Although, to prove that it's always too soon to decide if something is good or bad, our daughter can be given a few pens and a notebook and entertain herself without offending anyone else for amazingly long periods of time during what I recall as excruciatingly boring activities - long car trips, long adult conversations, even community organizing meetings).

Today's example of this principal of unexpected consequences is almost cute. My son has a great love of trucks of all sorts. Since the weather's been nice, we've sat outside and watched our trash and recycling being picked up a good half dozen times. We also sometimes watch a video of trash being sorted at the dump and then either buried or recycled. So recently, he has decided that whenever a container has a lot of stuff in it is like a recycling bin. So he runs toward the containers of stuff, dumps out the contents (on the floor or sometimes in the back of a dump truck) and then, in flawless mimicry of the people we've been watching take our own recycling, flings the container a few feet away. Interest in putting the stuff back into the containers? Zero. Interest in finding another container full of stuff? Very high.

This wouldn't be such a serious problem if we hadn't spent the last 12 months consolidating our toys into a lot of small plastic containers to keep them off of the floor (Legos underfoot at night can be shockingly sharp). And I wouldn't be so surprised if he hadn't been such a tidy person. Unlike my daughter, he hasn't really distinguished from the pleasure of taking out and the pleasure of putting away. Just two weeks ago, he enjoyed sorting the stuff into the proper containers. Now, it's just dump, pause, fling, dump, pause, fling.

Posted by Chris at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)