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A qualified speech pathologist who decided to spend these most precious years with her kids.
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2/5/2008
4:15 pm |
OK, it’s darn cold on the East Coast! So what did we do today in 20 degree weather? I took my daughter on a long, contemplative walk and believe it or not we did not turn into icicles. I was craving some sunshine and invited Hope to join me for a stroll through town. She is always up for anything. We decided to walk to a friend’s house on the other side of town. She did ask why we couldn’t drive, but got over it quickly. On our way, we couldn’t help but notice lots and lots of litter. We decided we would collect as much as we could on our way back home. It’s not like we never thought of doing it before, but we just haven’t. We were shocked when we came home and tallied up the trash: 19 drink bottles (water, Gatorade, coffee cups, etc), 15 pieces of plastic, 1 pencil, paper napkins, newspapers, junk mail, and the list goes on and on. She actually had a blast doing this because she really wanted to find out what was the number one winner (loser) of litter in our town. Hands down it was the disposable drink bottles. We have been carrying around our thermoses for years, but apparently lots of people don’t! Somehow we managed to fit in a math lesson, environmental lesson and social responsibility lesson all into one walk. Besides collecting trash, we found loads of things to talk about. I remembered a beautiful dream I had last night and shared the details with her. My dream reminded her of some dreams she had and wanted to share with me. We sang songs together and other times were silent. When we got to our friend’s house 30 minutes later she said, ‘Wow that was quick!’ We warmed up for a bit with some tea and both started to feel cozy. The sun would be setting soon and it was time to head back out. She protested slightly, but once we got out there time flew by. We were so much more observant of the neighborhood by being on foot. The outdoor artwork at the high school may have gone unnoticed. Certainly the adorable bunny would have been out of view from the passenger’s seat. We never would have cleaned up the trash on our street. We enjoyed this time together so much and we communicated so easily that I can foresee making these walks a habit for years to come. Hope is going to sleep well tonight! |
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1/11/2008
11:13 am |
Staying Grounded
On this balmy day in my suburban East Coast town, it seemed everyone was out and about with their children. It sure was surreal watching the kids in the neighborhood run around in t-shirts, riding bikes and tossing footballs. It just feels great to be out and about without the bulky coats and mittens. We took a stroll to the park and reconnected with some friends and acquaintances who had also been hibernating for the past week or two. As the kids were playing the moms got to talking about summer camps and school placements for next year. Many of us have children entering Kindergarten next year and I suppose we have some anxiety letting our children go. Are they ready? Will they be just another number? Will they thrive, learn and be happy? Would one more year of preschool benefit them perhaps? Should they attend half day or full day? We all just want to do what is best for our children. Granted so much of it is out of our control, but these are our babies. We aren’t necessarily willing to relinquish that control yet. We have all experienced this anxiety, especially if we are new moms with infants. What will happen if I live my baby with someone else or at daycare? Will the caretaker know when (s)he is hungry, tired or sick? The issues change as the children grow, but the anxiety remains the same.
So the moms at the park got to talking about summer camp. I am a stay-at-home mom, so I don’t need my kids to be in full day camp all summer. If everyone else sends their children to camp and I don’t will my child be bored? Do my 4 and 7 year old just need some down time? Lazy days sound good to me halfway through a school year of rushing the kids out of the house by 7:30 am. It’s good for kids to be bored sometimes, right?
After much discussion, my head started to spin as it often does when I get caught up in scheduling the lives of my children. After all, they are only children! So my mind started to wander and that’s when I saw my son’s 4 year old peer swinging up and back on the monkey bars! Oh no! Is my son monkey bar challenged? He hasn’t even reached for the monkey bars, let alone hung from it. I remember hearing somewhere that monkey bar skills predict reading success. Do you see how this kind of thinking can drive a person crazy?! Then two kids whiz by me on their two-wheeler bikes without training wheels….also my son’s age. What should I do? Call my husband and tell him it’s time to get cracking and remove those training wheels!? I think I need it to get cold again and fast! Let me go inside my house and inside myself. It is so easy to get caught up in the race of raising our children. For my childrens’ sake, I need to hibernate again just long enough to get a grip, and remind myself that I know I will do what is best for them. I will let them grow in their own time, follow their lead, and honor their uniqueness. Every once in a while I plant some seeds side by side: grass seeds, basil seeds, paper white and amaryllis bulbs. Even though I plant them at the same time, water them equally; provide them with the same sunlight and warmth they grow at their own rate. The roots have to be established before there is any sign of growth above the soil. They need to be grounded and so do I. After all, I’ve never seen a kid go off to college with training wheels…have you?
Mood: Confused
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12/22/2007
7:28 pm |
I know everyone has a different tolerance for children, but it can be so difficult when confronted by others with little or no patience for them. I recently met my parents at a restaurant to celebrate my Mom’s birthday. I had my two children with me and they are quite used to cooperating in this setting without a lot of bells and whistles. I rarely remember to bring toys or games to occupy them. They are generally content with the crayons, conversation, a game of telephone and of course the bread basket! As far as I was concerned they were behaving like angels and I have pretty high expectations for their behavior. They weren’t being too loud. The group of adults next to us was so loud we had to talk over them. They weren’t throwing food…ah, it’s nice to be beyond that stage! They weren’t even whining, ‘When is my food going to be here?’ My 4 year old’s biggest offense was occasionally walking around the table. He was giving us all kisses and hugs and whispering secrets in our ears. Yet I could sense a little bit of an attitude, discomfort if you will, from our waiter. We carried on with our meal and I was not letting this bother me. As we got up to collect our coats and bags we had to maneuver around some chairs and tables. Since my father is temporarily using a walker we had to set that up for him too. During all the commotion, Alex (4) backed into a wine cooler stand that had a few bottles of beer in it. Naturally, a bottle broke and it made quite a mess. He felt awful and immediately curled up into my mom’s legs hiding his face. The customers at that table were so gracious and kind and told us not to worry about it. They saw this was clearly accidental. The waiter approached us and was highly annoyed. I took a deep breath and immediately apologized and said, ‘I’m so sorry. He didn’t see it’. My son was standing right there when the waiter glared at me and sarcastically said, ‘Oh, sure, he didn’t see it!’ As if this happened on purpose! My son was mortified, ashamed and embarrassed. Ten years ago, the city girl in me would have engaged in an argument with this guy. “How could you make a child feel this way about an accident? We are the customers here!’ Well that was then and this is now. I have two children watching me to see how I react when something like this happens. I am their teacher. How I react will shape how they react. This guy wasn’t going to ruin this for me. I cleaned up what I could, apologized and walked away. In the car I assured my son he did nothing wrong. He asked me why the man thought he did this on purpose. Did I believe him? I assured him that this was an accident and that’s all. I told him there was nothing to be embarrassed about. The man made a mistake for losing his patience with him. There are people like that and I can’t protect him. I said, “Did you notice what Mommy did when the man got angry”? He said ‘You walked away”. Mood: Aggravated
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12/2/2007
6:43 pm |
My kids astonish me with some of the things they remember from year to year. Last year at about this time, a friend gave me some gingerbread dough and my mom gave me a gingerbread house kit. Together with my children we built the house, made a landscape and added some gingerbread men playing in the ‘snow’ outside. We added some twigs and evergreen branches and our project was complete. Twelve months later, today, we started on our new and improved gingerbread project. I had every ingredient except for…you guessed it…the ginger! So after calling a trusty neighbor we were able to make the dough from scratch. Let me tell you how therapeutic is was for my kids to knead that dough. They worked on it from start to finish. Scents clearly trigger memories because during the process Alex (4) said to Hope (7), “Remember last year when we delivered gingerbread men to our friends”? I had completely forgotten this detail! We must have had some leftover gingerbread men that we packaged up and dropped in the neighbors’ mailboxes. I was blown away that my four year old recalled this outing so vividly. I swear my seven year old can remember things from when she was one or two years old. I know sometimes our memories are refreshed by stories, photos and senses, but then there are those times when they remember something so out of the blue it seems nearly impossible. I can easily recall my yearly traditions of making butter cookies with my dad, baked apples with my mom and perogis with my grandmother. Every once in a while something will trigger a memory that seems even more remote. I recently smelled a scent that reminded me of a gymnastics teacher from Kindergarten. I probably hadn’t thought of her once in ten or fifteen years, but all of a sudden I could remember her name, what she looked like and her perfume. I wonder what our children will remember from their childhood? Certainly it won’t be all daisies and rainbows, but what kinds of traditions do we want to pass on to them?
We will start to construct our gingerbread house over the coming days and it will be fun to watch my kids’ creativity. It should be interesting to see how they incorporate the shark that my four year old insisted on cutting out! I can’t wait to see what Hope and Alex remember next year when we break out the ginger and molasses.
Mood: Hungry
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11/19/2007
8:38 pm |
Did you ever notice how children love to help? Work is not a chore for them, it’s just plain fun. We got our rakes out this weekend to do some fall cleaning around the yard. Alex (4) decided it looked like fun and got right to work. He picked up sticks, raked leaves, stuffed them into bags, and helped us haul them to the dump. No complaining, no whining, just pure excitement. As a little reward, and because we thought he would look adorable, we even gave him a turn with the leaf blower. What a sight that was, especially when he was blowing leaves in the wrong direction! He was so proud of his accomplishment at the end of the day and loved how our yard looked. I have to admit, when I hear all the landscapers swoop in and do the neighborhood yards in minutes, I feel slightly envious. “Lucky them”, I think. Those homeowners blink and their yard is transformed. They didn’t have to waste their whole Saturday on yard work. But if I look at it from my child’s perspective, I can’t imagine he thought of it as a wasted day. He got to be with us, got lots of fresh air, learned a valuable lesson in cooperation / team work, and saw how our hard work paid off. I suppose somewhere between his age and mine, something happens that makes us lose sight of ‘being in the moment’. I was recently reading a book the Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, in which he discusses walking meditations. He talks about being mindful of every step during a walking meditation, feeling your feet connect with the Earth each and every time, smiling into every cell of your being. By wishing someone would come rescue me and my lawn, what am I wishing away? I may not see raking my lawn as a meditative act, but somehow my son finds beauty and joy in this simple task. The next day we went to visit my dad, who was recently hurt in an accident. We were all shocked to see snow falling before all the leaves were shed from the trees. The kids were helping my husband haul some wood to the porch so that their Grandfather could enjoy a fire. So often we think, ‘What’s in it for me’? Kids are altruistic in nature. They really don’t need to be motivated by rewards, they just like how it feels. I don’t know about you, but I have a thing or two to (re)learn from my kids!
Mood: Energetic
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11/15/2007
4:15 pm |
Hope was explaining to me that one of her teachers used to be in the military. This led to a conversation about military, soldiers and their responsibilities. The topic of war came up. This was Alex's response:
'I wish there was no war. When I grow up I'm gonna break it down. When it's closed, I'm gonna go in with a bulldozer and crush it down'!
His response made me chuckle! A four year old's perspective on problem solving....
Mood: Entertained
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11/13/2007
9:40 pm |
If you sat down right now and wrote down the top ten most important lessons you could teach your children, what would they be? Did you write them down? Chances are your list includes lessons revolving around morals, values, respect and kindness and not math, reading and writing. Most parents make time to sit down and help their children do their homework, read and write. Do we make a conscious effort to spend equal time on more important life lessons? Teaching kindness, compassion, and confidence are skills we are working on in our home and I am curious how others address these skills in their day to day, busy lives.
One thing we do every night at dinner is to share our favorite and least favorite parts of the day. Just from those simple statements, there are so many windows of opportunity to talk about feelings, kindness and compassion. For example, tonight my seven year old daughter, Hope, shared that her least favorite part of the day was when a group of children was not listening during gym class. She has sometimes been in the rowdy group, but today she was not. She felt great about her behavior and saw how that was helpful to the teacher. She also realized how easily a few disruptions affect the whole group. We talked about how showing respect feels good and everybody wins. My four year old son, Alex, shared his favorite part of the day. It was when we sat down to play a good old fashioned board game as a family. Teaching a four year old how to play by the rules, not be a sore loser, and count spaces on the game board are lessons in and of themselves! I explained to him that we enjoy playing games with him when he ‘plays nicely’ and now that this is easier for him we can play games more often. Knowing how important quality family time is to my son will help me make a more concerted effort to fit that in to our schedule.
Another tradition that we have started is paying each other compliments. Kids are great at paying general compliments such as ‘You are the best Mom in the whole entire world’, especially after you just offered them a piece of Halloween candy. When you become more specific there is a different level of appreciation. Alex recently said ‘Dad, I would like to compliment you for letting me put the shampoo in my hair by myself”. We never knew how important it was for him to feel independent with this task. By hearing his compliment, we learned to give him more freedom and responsibility. Compliments can be so small, but so meaningful. It’s also impossible to stay angry when it’s time to share compliments, so it’s a great way to end the day.
Teaching confidence is a skill that will serve our children well, especially when peer pressure becomes an issue. Last week, my seven year old daughter and I went to a dinner to support a political candidate for State Senate. It was a last minute decision to go and I literally threw on some clothes. We pulled up to the restaurant and I said, ‘Oh Dear, this place looks kind of fancy’. My daughter asked, ‘What’s the problem’? I told her that I probably should have dressed up more, or put more thought into my appearance. She said, ‘Mom, you look great. Just be yourself. Everyone will be happy that you are here, it doesn’t matter what you look like!’ Wow, I was so proud of her and proud of what I had taught her. Clearly whatever I said to her on other occasions had echoed back at me. I remember when Hope was about three years old and she marched down our well traveled street in a Hula outfit. I silently said to myself, ‘May you always feel so free to be yourself’. Years later she is the one reminding me to be myself. I will pay her that compliment when she wakes up in the morning!
I would love to hear your anecdotes on the lessons that you have taught your children and how they have resonated with them. If you have babies, it would be interesting to see what you write down now and refer back to it as they grow! Mood: Happy
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11/8/2007
2:12 pm |
The New York City Marathon always makes me feel a little nostalgic. I never ran this race, but I did run the Rome Marathon ten years ago. Before having children, completing this task was by far my greatest accomplishment in life. I did not believe I could endure all twenty six miles. I probably would not have if my husband was not by my side. We laughed, I cried, and I even threatened to quit. We motivated each other until the last stride across the finish line. Fast forward ten years and none of that has changed, and now we have two beautiful children. Seven years ago my daughter Hope was born and three years after that her brother Alex joined us. I knew I wanted to have my babies naturally and figured if I could run a marathon, surely I could do this. With my husband cheering me on, we had two very large babies (ten pounds!) naturally. The marathon did not even come close to the mental and physical challenges of childbirth. Now THIS was my greatest accomplishment in life! Moments after my first child was born, however, my focus quickly shifted from my milestones to hers. I will always remember Hope’s first cry, her first diaper, her first nursing, her first outfit (outgrown before she could wear it!), her first smile, her first laugh, her first word (“tickle”) and her first steps. I can smell the yogurt smeared all over her face and hear my feet crunching the cereal on the floor beneath her high chair. And yet, three years later when Alex was born all of his milestones were unique and just as surprising and awe-inspiring. I can still remember the beach we were on where he took his first steps. I will never forget the first time his sister held him, rocked him, cuddled him or fed him his very first food from a spoon. To this day I recall the very first joke he played on us at ten months old by calling my mom ‘Grandpa’ and then giggling. My children are older now, yet I often reflect back upon their early milestones and share them with Hope and Alex. I was reading through my journal recently and I noticed my entry on 9/11/2001, when Hope was one year old. My husband was working in lower Manhattan that morning, and my entry was filled with raw emotion. I wrote’ I don’t know how I would ever explain something like this to you’. Six years later, on the anniversary of 9/11, we had this difficult conversation. It was another milestone we reached together. Although there are no ways to measure my accomplishments over the last seven years, parenting my children is certainly the thing that makes me feel the most proud. I am swollen with pride when I see my children reading each other bedtime stories, working out a problem, observing something beautiful in nature for the first time, or mastering a song on the piano. I am fulfilled. Mood: Contemplative
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