narrating kayoz

Managing the toddler's 'negative' behaviour

I've been re-reading bits of You are your child's first teacher, by Rahima Baldwin Dancy. I have to return it to the library today, but I'll be getting it back because it's full of good reminders and information. It's written by a Steiner teacher, but what I like about it is that it doesn't just rely on Steiner's ideas, it backs them up (and occasionally updates them altogether) with more contemporary research.

This is the sort of book you can just dive into anywhere and find something good. I opened it first (randomly) at a section called 'Dealing with Negative Behaviour' in the chapter on 'Helping Your Toddler's Development'. It starts out "One of the challenges of living with the child from eighteen to thirty-six months is dealing with the 'negativisim' that he manifests. If you can recongnize your child's emerging sense of self and power as something positive, you won't fall into the trap of thinking that you have done something wrong..." (or, I would add, that the child is somehow 'wrong').

She talks about the importance of being loving but firm, providing limits and corrections in calmness (not anger) but with 'absolute certainty' that there is no other choice. She goes on to suggest that you

...set up your house so that the child has the maximum freedom and requires the minimum of no's, and then you are firm about what is not allowed. It is wonderful for your child to be curious, but he doesn't have to play with your makeup, which can be met with a stern no, removing the child from the scene, and then putting the makeup in a less accessible place. There is no need to punish the child, because a toddler is unable to understand what he has done or to remember the next time.

This idea of then making it inaccessible is the key. Why set yourself up for conflict? She goes on (a bit later)

Many two-year-olds hate change and fall apart during transitions between activities. Everything has to be a certain way or pandemonium breaks loose. This doesn't mean you need to give in each time or put up with whiny behaviour, but understanding this aged child's attachment to order can help you avoid problems.

Of course, knowing something is age appropriate and acting that way are two different things. I find it a whole lot easier to accept Kaely's two-year-old age appropriate tantrums than Liam's six-year-old ones - even though I know in my head that his behaviour is just as understandable as hers. Head knowledge doesn't stop me feeling cross about it. But - and this, I think, is the important part of Dancy's comments - knowing what's normal can help you avoid problems, for instance by putting the makeup out of reach, or in the case of transitions by creating set routines and rituals that the children know and even enjoy. She gives an example of a bedtime routine:

One mother I know lights a candle while she sings a song, and then lets the child blow out the match, which is an exciting incentive to get the child to go into the bedroom. Then they go into the bathroom to put on pajamas and brush teeth. The mother has turned off the bedroom light, so when they return, they have to tip toe and be very quiet as they enter the softly lighted room and lie down together for songs and playing the children's harp.

Of course, sometimes it's not that easy:

...sometimes your child will just be negative, and she may astonish you with the force of her refusal...

One of the most effective ways of handling negative behaviour is removing the child from the area of activity. With a young child, this requires going with her and staying with her until she is ready to return. For example, fussiness and throwing food at dinner can be quickly handled by taking her down the hall, telling her what when she is a happy clown the two of you can go back, and then standing there like a stone until she comes around. It usually takes about one to three minutes, because it's very boring being out of the action with a deadpan mother or father who won't interact with your until you're ready to do what is expected.

I'm not sure how I feel about the 'happy clown' idea - do I want to teach my kid that 'happy' is the only acceptable emotion? But the idea that you removed the toddler from the situation, stay with her, and remain impassive - that all makes sense to me. There's no point in getting upset or angry. She's only two after all - but there is a point to firmly enforcing acceptable limits. She needs them enforced in order to learn them.

Oh dear, I'm going to have to take this book back to the library now, and I had so many other bits bookmarked.

Meditations for kids

Following a post from Trish a while ago at Imperfect Parent, I borrowed a book from the library called Meditations for Kids, by Kids. It's not the book Trish was talking about (which was The Wishing Star: Meditations for Children) - they didn't have that one in the library. But I liked the idea of reading a meditation with Liam each night before he went to sleep, so I thought I'd try the one they did have.

It's been a good experience. We've been right through the book once, and are half way through again. Sometimes Chris reads him a meditation after Liam and I have finished our 'book & chat' time and I have gone off to nurse Kaely and put her to bed in our room. Or sometimes if Liam is still awake when I've got Kaely down, I read him one then.

Each of the meditations is written by one of four kids in a family. The youngest was, I think, four at the time of writing (he's only got one or two in there) and the oldest was about ten (she has a lot). They all have the same basic structure - you go into your peaceful garden, hang your worries on the worry tree, take a few deep breaths, let go etc. - and they tend to have lots of comments about being safe and loved.   In the middle of that, some are rather quirky. But all are engaging, as far as Liam is concerned. One includes a dolphin ride into the quiet depths of the water. Another involves Pixies. Many involve friendly talking animals.

At first Liam said he wasn't going to 'do' the meditation, he just wanted to listen. Now he tends to close his eyes as he listens and take the deep breaths when instructed, but he still often bounces up at the end to ask for another one. Recently when he did that I told him the idea was to stay relaxed afterwards and let himself drift off to sleep. I don't know if he took that to heart, because I haven't read him one since then, but last night after our goodnight kiss and cuddle he said "I think I could just lie here and drift off to sleep now," so maybe he did take it in. Either way, I think we'll keep up the habit of bedtime meditations. It's a soothing way to end the day (and lets face it, the pre-bedtime part of the end of the day is usually anything by soothing), and I like the idea of Liam gradually developing the skills of mediation, or at least of relaxation.  It's something we could all do with more of.

Night weaning progress

Well, we started night weaning Mikaela on Saturday night, that is, two night ago. So far it's going well. Last night I *think* she woke up once before Chris came to bed (but after I was in bed), and then she didn't wake up again until 5:10am. That's not particularly unusual, she has phases where she'll do that for a few days or a week, and then she'll go back to waking at twelve or one or two or three or some combination there of. And 5. And it sounds good (sleeping from 12-5am being the very definition of sleeping through the night, oddly enough), but actually it's a bit annoying, since usually I am then up with her until six, when she may go back to sleep, but I know the alarm will be waking me up in perhaps half an hour. So basically, when she wakes up at five, my night usually ends at five.

Not so last night. Night weaning means that when she wakes up, Chris gets up to her. That's only temporary, once we've got it into a routine we'll take turns. Probably have three nights on (with both kids), three nights off and then alternate Saturday nights, or something like that. But back to the point, last night she didn't wake up until 5:10, when Chris went down to her. But was he up with her for the better part of an hour (or more)? No, he had her back down within ten minutes. And then she slept until 6:45. So like I said, so far it's going pretty well.

I forgot to prepare her the way I did with Liam (I'm sure I've talked about that here, but can't find the post to link to). I think I mentioned it, almost in passing, on Friday night when we were having our last nurse before bed. Then all day Saturday I meant to remind her with each feed, but all day I forgot. So I told her before bed on Saturday night. I said that we wouldn't be having mummy-milk in the night any more after bedtime. If she woke up in the night she could go back to sleep by herself (I always tell her that!), or Daddy would come down and rock her to sleep. And in the morning, at breakfast time, we would have mummy-milk again.

She woke up twice on Saturday night, once quite early, when Chris would usually be the one to go to her anyway, but she cried each time. Chris was able to settle her though, and in the morning she slept in till almost 7:30, which was lovely.

Then on Sunday I reminded her a few times during the day, while she was nursing. And Sunday night I reminded her again, and finished by saying "And if you wake up in the night, who will rock you back to sleep?" "Daddy!" she replied, quite happily. Tonight we went through the same routine. So hopefully, tonight will be as easy as last night. And after a couple more days of this, I will try going down and soothing her to back to sleep, without breastfeeding, and we'll see how that goes.

Right now though, I am going to bed.

From Hi-5 to Finn Brothers - which would you prefer?

One of the great things about having a six-year-old child, as opposed to a four-year-old, is the music.

When Mikaela was born Liam was right in the middle of an obsession with a single Hi-5 CD, which lasted several months. We heard that album over and over and over again. So did my mum and step-dad. Poor Mikaela, it was her main introduction to the world of music!

But later that year, he has developed a taste for adult music.

In quick succession, Liam decided he liked Indigo Girls, Crowded House, Victoria Stanborough, Tori Amos and others. His latest craze is with the Finn Brothers (Neil & Tim Finn).

There is a down side to this, which is that we are 'forced' to listen to the same albums and some times the same songs, over and over, before he gets sidetracked by something else and moves on. For instance, he's been in love with one of the Finn Brothers' albums now for several weeks, and so while I occasionally manage to get something else into the car CD player, that one CD has been in their on repeat for most of that time. And it's only a relatively recent preference for Liam. Even one's favourite music can eventually get worn out under those circumstances, but on the other hand - it's still better than listening to Hi-5!

Kinder chat - creative discipline

On Monday night Chris and I went to a 'kinder chat' at Liam's school, given by a kindergarten teacher, Riita, who was one of the founders of the school and has been teaching kindy there for twenty-five years.

There wasn't anything especially new, but there were a few good reminders for me. Some of them were around basic stuff like needing to have good routines, a beautiful/not chaotic environment (we fall down on that one), good food, proper amounts of sleep and so on. Others were perhaps slightly less obvious:

• This is the age of imitation. Therefore how I want Liam (and Mikaela) to be, is how I have to be. That includes how I want them to talk, how I want them to deal with anger and frustration, and whether I want them to yell (at me, at each other).
  
  • Riita said at school they talk about inside and outside voices, and when the kids yell in the classroom they say to them "That's your outside voice Johnny, it's time for your inside voice now." I've done that with Liam, but somehow I don't think we (he or I) have ever made the connection which Riita made, which is to me also having an inside voice. So I told Liam on Tuesday that I am going to try to keep to my inside voice in the house too. We'll see how I go!
• She talked about concentrating on the positive behaviours and accomplishments. As an example she said at school the children pour their own water from the jug. The only time a teacher will help is if the jug is so full it's too heavy for a child. And when they first do this, they tend to over fill and spill. Then they learn to go and get a cloth and wipe up the water. Next time they pour the water, they will often pour too little, and need more. So when the jug comes back around again the teacher will say "A half a cup is a good amount." And then, when the time comes that the child can pour half a cup successfully, they will say "Look, Johnny can pour a half a cup of water now." (Or something, I don't remember exactly, maybe she says it directly to the child, rather than in the third person.) But they don't ever comment on the times when the child pours too much or too little.
  
  • I know this is really pretty obvious stuff, but I am belabouring it a little because I realised that I am forgetting to do it. And I also notice that once I am a little cranky or impatient, if, for instance, it has taken me 20 minutes of nagging to get Liam to clean his teeth after dinner, then I am even less patient with what are merely a child's normal accidents, like squeezing out too much toothpaste from the new tube, or accidentally wiping it on a towel. Or even things that aren't accidents, like walking around the house with the toothbrush in mouth instead of standing at the sink, as per our rule. It's not an accident, but it's only a minor infringement. Yet I can become quite, quite cross about it, mostly because I am already cross from the twenty minutes of nagging. Anyway...

• Creative discipline. Riita talked also about when a child is having a tantrum (this is a kinder aged child - around 4-6 - not a one-year-old, for instance, though no doubt this approach could be modified), and how you can distract them. She suggested: You might cup your hands together around something special - maybe a gold ring, or even your watch - and you look into a small opening in your hands to see what is there. You might put your hands up to your ear and pretend your special gold ring is talking to you "Oh," you say to your ring, "I can have three wishes?" By this time the child just has to come and look to see what is inside your hands, and you might engage them in the conversation too. "well," you tell your ring, "I wish that we might go to the playground later today," or "I wish that we might go to Grandpa's house this weekend," or whatever. But mind, you then have to follow through on the wish, so that it is "true" and not just a trick.

Basically it gave us a few new ideas, but mostly some good reminders about our own modeling of the behaviour and values we would like to see in our children, and about using distraction rather than chastisement, and acknowledgement of good behaviour and successes rather than failures, as ways of discipline.

Now if only I can get better at putting it all into practice!

To night wean, or not?

I've been thinking about night weaning Mikaela for - oh, a few months now I suppose. I decide to definitely do it this weekend and then she gets sick/I get sick/we forget, or something. And we don't do it. And the thing is, I am conflicted about it, and yet I so long to do it as well.

We night weaned Liam at eighteen months. At that point he was still waking every hour or two to nurse, but he had stopped going back to sleep afterwards. It felt like an open and shut case. Also, it was very easy. I told him we were going to do it. On the 'last day' I reminded him each time we nursed, and again with the last feed before bed (which we did in the living room, as was our habit - Chris then taking him to bed and lying with him till he fell asleep).  Then the night in question Chris slept in the bedroom (our bedroom) with him, and I slept in the study. The first and maybe second time he woke up he cried for me, and Chris took him into the ensuite to distract him (he loved looking at all the stuff on the window sill in there). After that he was fine, and it really only took that one night, though I spent another four blissful nights sleeping in the study. The only times we went back to night nursing was when he had a vomitting bug, and it wasn't ever hard to reinstate the rule afterwards.

I think I first started considering night weaning with Mikaela at about the same age, and for the same reason - she didn't seem to be going back to sleep easily any more with the nursing. But with one thing and another it didn't happen then, and then things improved. But they have unimproved again several times in between. She's now twenty-three months old (moreorless - I've lost track of what date it is). Part of the issue is, I don't think it will be as easy with Mikaela as it was with Liam. For one thing she sleeps in a cot, so no-one can lie down with her. We have a rocking chair in her (our) room, which is where I nurse her, and where Chris rocks her. But when she wakes after midnight (and she almost always does, at least once) she tends to chuck a wobbly if Chris shows up instead of me. And by that I mean she gets totally hysterical. Ditto if I show up but refuse to nurse - as I have done on occasion when she has chewed me raw or just worn me down with too many wakings, though admittedly I haven't tried that in a while.

There are two good reasons for doing it though. No three.

1. Often it seems as though the nursing is keeping her from re-settling properly.
2. I suspect that like Liam, she might start sleeping through the night more often if there wasn't the promise of mummy-milk in the middle of the night.
3. I would like to be able to just snuggle with her like Chris does.
4. I would like Chris to be able to take responsibility for her for whole nights (or series' of nights) (though admittedly she may still resist that even without the nursing), especially if I am going to be trying to get pregnant again in the not-to-distant future.
5. I forget what five was.
6. She was up from 2:30 to 5:30 last night, and again at 5:45
7. (Okay six is not really relevant, as I don't think it was a nursing issue - it;s just to show that I do have more good reasons but I am too sleep deprived to remember what they are. Which is also the reason I have given up on trying to re-write my essay half an hour before my work time is up.)

So, more than three then. Actually I think only 1. (one) above was one of the three I had in mind when I started writing that list, but as I said, my brain is mush.

So what are the reasons against?

1. I think it will be really hard.
2. I think she may cry a lot and indeed get quite hysterical
3. I think it will be really hard.

I think there are some other reasons, but again, I cite my mushed brain.
I may come back to this if I can, but now I have to go pick up Liam from school.

Sleep deprivation. Will it never end?

Trying to remember the effect of exhaustion on children's behaviour

Liam's in the middle of a big weekend.

Yesterday after school (which finishes at 12:30 on Fridays in the kindergarten) we had his friend R over until his Dad could come get him after work, which ended up being about 6:00. Then we up and decided to go out to dinner,  despite still being on a spending freeze, despite Liam being of course quite exhausted. I don't think Kaely's ever been out to dinner before, that's how often we do this (Liam might have been out two or three times in his life before). But she'd had a long nap - normally I wake her by 3pm to ensure an orderly bedtime, but with R here all afternoon I decided to cut myself some slack and she ended up sleeping until 4:15! - so she was fine.

Then today we had another friend, S, in the afternoon. When her mum came to get her (shortly after five) she and Liam were just about to start colouring in*, so her mum dashed off to the shops and they ended up not going till I guess fairly close to six too. We also had visits with my mum and from Chris's dad today, so it's been a social sort of day.

And finally tomorrow - forecast to be the coldest day of the season so far, truly wintry - they have the autumn picnic on at Liam's school, which is the big family event of the season. I'm not going, because it's my writing day and I only have three weekends left before it's all due in (gotta try doing a substantial re-write of the essay tomorrow). I was feeling quite sad about missing it, but now I've seen the forecast, I'm feeling sort of lucky. Chris and the kids will still go though. And I imagine they'll have lots of fun.

But, even this morning Liam was already showing signs of being tired, after his big day yesterday. By this evening he was getting quite annoying (though he was fine up until the moment S left), and I really had to try to remember that he's overtired. By tomorrow night I hate to think what he'll be like. And unfortunately he has swimming after school Monday. After this sort of weekend I would probably keep him home from that, but it's the last class of the term, and he doesn't go back until Spring as the centre is closing down for the winter to do some work. I'm almost wondering if I should keep him home from school Monday instead. I guess I'll play it by ear, but either way I must remember: Liam is tired, and tired children find it hard to behave 'well'. Must remember!

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*Before this, in the three or so hours S had been here, they had built a boat (a box with a small broom for a mast), played with cars, done chalk drawing outside on the driveway in the freezing cold (but under cover from the on-again off-again light rain), rolled wool into small balls suitable for making gods-eyes, started making gods-eyes, and very briefly played with lego. S had also had fun playing outside with Mikaela, and told me several times she wished Kaely was her little sister.

Free play builds intellect

After school yesterday we had a play date with one of Liam's best friends, B, who doesn't go to 'our' school, but goes to one nearby, and two other mutual friends (twins) who used to go to B's school but now goes to Liam's.

The kindergarten playgrounds are enclosed, but the class one & two playground is out in the open, so we sometimes go down there after school finishes for a play, and that's what we did.

The boys (and one girl, B's four-year-old sister) played really well together, for over two hours. By the time we finally dragged them away it was getting dark and I had to call Chris to warn him that he'd be home before us, and could he please get something out of the freezer for dinner.

They played with sticks and logs and rocks and dirk (mud, really) building a 'dam' below a pond that the class-two children had built during the day. They filled it with bore water from a tap, using a big saucepan they found in the sandpit. It did leak a bit, but overall I have to say they did an amazing job, working together with virtually no supervision (their mum's being busy talking and supervising the toddlers), and no noticeable conflict.

One of the things their mum's were talking about was the importance of free play. B's mum, S, (one of my S friends) was telling us some recent research she'd heard about, that found that at this age free play is the most important factor in developing intellect.  And as we watched them 'working' none of us found that at all surprising. S's kids don't go to the Steiner school (though she's torn about it), but since free play is what they are doing a good 80% of the time in the Steiner kindy, the other two of us were able to feel quite smug.

Turning a corner (Liam at six)

The other week (month) I was saying to my Dad that the toddler age is so much fun because they are developing and changing so quickly, but it's not too hard yet to figure out what to do (not like with a five year old, let alone - oh the horror - a teenager).

But you know what? Watching a five/six year old develop is really fun too.

Liam seemed to take a big leap in his social development in the first term after school went back this year. At almost exactly five & and half we started having trouble knowing what to do with him - he started throwing tantrums, which he'd never done before, and just generally being difficult. Then I read that that's pretty normal at five and a half (the 'new tantrum age') and OMG it gets worse at six.

But when Liam was almost six things started looking up, and they are still good two months on. Not that everything is peachy all the time, of course not, but it seems to me that he has come through to a new place. He is one of the 'big kids' now at school (they have two years in together for kindy, instead of having four/five-year-old preschool and five/six-year-old kindergarten separately), and he seems to be taking to the role with surprising - well, it's a weird thing to say about a six year old, but - maturity. He's starting to get into being 'good', for perhaps the first time in his life. And boy it's nice to see.

For instance, last year after school he and two of his (older) friends would put their backpacks on their front and 'boom' into each other. Their teacher (J) repeatedly told them to keep their backpacks on the back, but it had no noticeable effect. Then one day last term I got to school and Liam and two (new) kids were doing this. I said - quite mildly - "What does J say about having your backpack on your back?" Liam immediately took his off and put it on his back, and told the other kids to do the same.  This is not the same child who finished up his first year of kindy in December, it's just not.

Another example.  One morning we got to school and Liam's friend R called him over to help them 'make poison for B'. B is a child Liam has mentioned a number of times as mucking up, being 'naughty', etc. In fact he bit Liam one day a few weeks before this incident (Liam was trying to take something from him at the time). But when I got there in the afternoon Liam ran over to me saying "Mummy, I have some really good news!" He was so excited to tell me that he is now "helping B be good." He's being friends with him, and showing him how to look for bugs. What more could a friend want?

The problem of unrealistic expectations

Sometimes lately I seem to be yelling at Liam all day. Not screaming, angry yelling, but definite voice raising and frustration. And the subtext, I think, is often "Don't be so stupid!" Not that I would ever say that to him: I wouldn't. But that's part of what I'm feeling I suppose. Quite aside from the fact that I don't think yelling is a great parenting tool, the fact that this is happening a lot leads me to think - either he is stupid (and he's not) or I must be expecting too much.

I know that in fact I do expect too much, I've been catching myself at it ever since he learned to talk in reasonably coherent sentences. His language skills trick me into thinking he's rational, even though I have read over and over that rationality, logical thinking, and understanding of consequences, is all very slow to develop, and really only just beginning at the age he is now - six. So why do I have so much trouble converting this intellectual knowledge into practical parenting?

An aside about blogging every day: one of the effects of this is nothing-posts like yesterday's, but a good effect is posts like this one. I was just thinking about this while I prepared dinner (while the kids are in the bath), and normally I'd think - 'I should blog about that' - but never do it. Because I'm trying to post everyday, this time I decided to take the couple of minutes I have before the kids emerge to post something. Not a long, thought-out analysis maybe, but at least the kernel of thought, and the record of a parenting challenge.

The longevity of labels

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about her experience of being given a label as a young child, and how she wants to avoid that with her children. I'm not talking the extreme sense of labeling with diagnoses, but in the more general sense - he's such a bossy boots, she's just like her aunt.

My friend had had this label applied to her at a young age (just like your aunt*), meaning she was the selfish, self centred one in the family. She carried that label through into adulthood (as had her aunt), and anything she did that supported it was remembered, anything she did that negated it was ignored. Which of course is the normal way we humans approach life generally. We notice and value evidence which supports our beliefs and disregard that which doesn't. She told me that after several years in a caring role (living with an elderly parent), she finally shed some of the stigma of the label, yet it still comes up from time to time. It clearly was a big deal for her earlier in life, and still affects her now.

This made me think about the labels Liam is given. I have always tried to avoid them, but the older and frankly more challenging he gets (while remaining a lovely child really), the more I find myself thinking them, at the very least ('little brat' comes to mind, though I've never actually said it!). And people certainly do use them to his face - bossy, is the one I am particularly thinking of, though no doubt there are (and will be) others.

I guess it's inevitable, to some extent, that accumulate labels as you age. Extrovert, introvert, confident, shy, funny, serious, active, musical, whatever. Of course it's the negative ones that I particularly want to avoid. But others can also be molding and limiting: shy, serious, even funny. Even labeling a child as confident could limit their ability to show their vulnerabilities and ask for help when they need it. I don't know how to completely avoid those labels - even for myself - but I guess it helps just to be aware of their power.

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*Co-incidentally one of my sisters-in-law had the exact same label given to her, and was even named after this aunt, and still, as a women in her fifties, suffers the stigma of that label within her family.

The natural approach to change

Sometimes when I can see a change coming up in one of the kids' routines, I wonder: will it just happen naturally if we leave it long enough, or do we need to be more proactive, in order to head off a resistance to change that can come with a long held habit?

For instance, at some point in the next few months (I think) we will be wanting to move Mikaela into a bed, from the cot. This never happened with Liam, since he slept with us. We moved him to a mattress next to our bed when he was about 13 months old, after going on a trip for my cousin's wedding and having that system work well in the motel. Then he moved to his own room by his request at a bit past two. So if we leave Kaely in the cot for a while longer, will she be asking to move to her own bed in another few months?* We already talk to her about how one day she will sleep in Liam's room - it will be her room too.

So maybe that's what will happen, maybe she'll decide she wants to move in with Liam. But I think she probably needs to move to her own bed - and get used to going to sleep on her own instead of being nursed or rocked to sleep, which is what happens now - before she can share a room with her brother. But maybe that will happen naturally once she has the motivation of wanting to move in with Liam. It's not something I want to rush, because I know once we stop spending that extra nurturing time with her in the evening, we'll never go back.

Our bedtime routine has already begun to change though. Only a couple of months back, when we first got Lochie, we thought giving him at least a short daily walk would be no trouble, because Chris and Mikaela went for a walk after dinner every night while I read to Liam. This was a lovely quiet time for me and Liam to read stories, or sometimes I would tell him a 'made up story', and have a little chat about our respective days. And it was a nice time for Chris and Mikaela too, and later for Lochie. But, I started to feel a little bad that Kaely didn't have any regular book time in her day. Back when Liam was her age we usually looked at books before naps and before bed, but Kaely had never been very interested in books until recently, so we hadn't incorporated them into her routine.

I needn't have worried. Not long after Lochie arrived - maybe a month - Kaely started to refuse the walk routine. First it seemed to be because she was tired, after a long day and a short nap, or a late night the night before. So my reading with Liam would be curtailed and I'd take her to bed early. But recently she's made it clear that she doesn't want to walk, whether she's tired or not. Because she doesn't want to miss out on book time. Liam gets his book and climbs into bed to await my attention, and Kaely runs off to the living room to choose a book (or two or three) off her shelf, and then brings them down, climbs onto Liam's bed, and demands book time of her own. Or, I take her into her room (our room, supposedly), but she insists on looking at a book together in the rocking chair, before she begins to nurse.

Mostly, this seems to be how change works with the kids. I might worry at it in my mind for a few weeks or months, but eventually change just happens. I haven't learned to count on it yet, I guess I am too much of a planner. But I am getting there. And as far as the move to different beds and bedrooms goes, I won't stop thinking about it, but for the moment I won't do anything either. I'll just wait and see what happens naturally.

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*This is assuming it's safe to leave her in there for that long - already she can only be in the cot unsupervised if she is snug in her sleeping bag, otherwise she attempts to climb out. And once the weather warms up again, later in the year, she won't welcome a sleeping bag for nap times.

protecting privacy

Last night I cooked dinner from a recipe I found on another blog. Later I heard Liam telling Chris this on the phone (Chris being in Melbourne for work), and I starting thinking about Liam and blogging.

I remembered that Dawn mentioned a while ago that Noah wanted his own blog, and I thought - that will be Liam one day in the not so distant future. I've already started talking about blogging to him, a very little bit, so the idea that I am talking all about our lives on the world wide internet won't come as a shock down the track!

But then I started thinking: if Liam will want his own blog, probably some of his friends will as well. Which means they'll be reading blogs. Which means they could, conceivably, come across this blog. With funny (and not so funny) stories about Liam from the moment of his birth (leaving aside for a moment the unlikelihood of a prepubescent boy reading the blog of a boring middle aged women, with no sexy photos or nothin'). And while I haven't put many photos of Liam up since he was about three, it wouldn't take long to figure out that it was him I was writing about. So maybe, I thought, I should have used pseudonyms for the kids.

So I'm wondering, if you blog about your kids - do you use pseudonyms? And why do you, or why don't you? And are you happy with that decision?

Difference - and the lack of it

We went to the birthday party yesterday of one of Liam's (new) school friends, whose mother I only know a little. Meaning we've introduced ourselves at school and say hello to each other but that's all. The invitation had the parents' names on it, and one of them was a gender neutral name (is there a better way to say that?), while the other was the name of the mum I knew. I confess I was hoping the dad would turn out to be a second mum. He didn't.

Even though my best friend is one half of a pair of mums, we don't have any two-mum (or two-dad) families in our immediate circle here in Canberra. Similarly we don't have many people of colour in our immediate circle. Hell, we barely have any single parent or 'melded' families around us. Though I'm guessing that that, as least, will change as the kids get older (not that I'm wishing divorce on anyone! Just being realistic.) One of the downsides about living in Canberra - it's overwhelmingly made up of middle class, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexuals. They're also largely educated and left wing, which admittedly is quite nice, and probably largely 'tolerant' of difference. But then again it's easy to be tolerant of difference when you're rarely confronted with it.

For this reason I try to surround Liam with books and TV shows that show people who are different to him. Happily, Liam's teacher is of a different ethnicity  I'm very bad at even noticing, much less picking this, but I guess of Asian descent? And another of my best friends is half Japanese. She and her extremely cute one year old stayed with us for a few days in January, but unfortunately (for us, and not just because she's Japanese either, I hasten to add!) she lives overseas most of the year. But all in all I feel like I need to make more of an effort to expose Liam to difference - different families, different looks, different cultures. I'm just not quite sure how to go about it. Short of moving to Melbourne of course.

Nonsexist books - where they succeed and where they don't.

In "Learning to Be Little Women and Little Men: The Inequitable Gender Equality of Nonsexist Children's Literature," Amanda B. Dickman and Sara K. Murnen found that "Nonsexist books succeeded in portraying female characters as adopting the characteristics and roles identified with the masculine gender role, but they did not portray male characters as adopting aspects of the feminine gender role or female characters as shedding the feminine gender role" (381).

(Lisa Rowe Fraustino, 'The Berenstain Bears and the Reproduction of Mothering' The Lion and the Unicorn, 31.3 (2007), 250-263, p. 257)

I'm sure I've said this before, but there's no harm in repeating myself - any recommendations of children's books that succeed in doing any of the above (better yet all, but as the authors note, that is rare), I am all ears.

 

Where have all my friends gone?

Liam had his first day in full kindergarten on Tuesday.

It's not much different to last year - same classroom, same teacher, same routine - just more days, and different kids.

The different kids is the hard part right now. Liam loved school last year, and was really looking forward to it starting again (for weeks he's been telling me to call his teacher and ask if they can start NOW). But I big part of his excitement was caught up in playing the same games with the same kids. So when he got there on Tuesday and most of his friends weren't there - having gone up to class one, after doing their year of 'full kinder' last year - he looked very lost.

To me that is. I watched him, standing in the middle of this huge sandpit, waiting for his best friends A and G to show up, and almost got teary. Actually I did. I wondered whether I should have told him, even just that morning, so that he wouldn't be waiting and wondering. His teacher had said not. She said if you tell them they will just worry. Let them enjoy their holidays, and when they get here they'll find out, and they'll be fine.

When I picked him up I asked him how it was, and he, as usual, said it was great. I asked if it was as good as he remembered and he said no, because it was different kids. But he said it quite cheerfully, and he was just as keen to go to school today as he was Tuesday (Wednesdays he has off still).

But today I ran into the mother of one of his old friends in the car park, and saw another but only at a distance. And on the way home I felt all sad again, but I realised: this time I wasn't feeling sad for him, I was feeling sad for me. These mothers, my friends who I hung out with at drop off and pick up last year, have moved on without me. Sure, I'll still see them around, we'll still have a few play dates (when they can be fitted in around school - weekends I suppose), but it won't be the same. They've moved on, and I'm still in kinder. And I'm going to miss them.

Rules of an infantocracy

"The most important was this: If both children are crying, no adults can cry. Hard to follow, but vital." (Kim Todd of the period after her twins were born, in 'Under the Skin, Lesson's in Transformation' at Literary Mama)

Infertility and /or new parenthood in fiction

There seem to be plenty of memoirs being published, not to mention other forms of life writing (blogs included), either about or incorporating narratives of infertility and new parenthood (achieved via infertility or not). For example: Child of Mine: Original Essays on Becoming a Mother, Waiting for Daisy, Mothershock, loving every (other) minute of it, A Little Pregnant, and In Vitro Fertility Goddess, among others. But I can't find much contemporary fiction covering the same areas. (By contemporary in this case I mean the last decade or less.) Why is that?

The fiction I have turned up so far includes Ben Elton's Inconceivable (which I'm in the queue to get from the library), Tick Tock, by Jane Freeman and The Woman Next Door, by Barbara Delinsky. I've read the Freeman book and from memory it didn't do a lot to challenge the normative narratives about infertility, and I haven't been able to get hold of the Delinsky book.

Edited to add: I have found a few short stories in Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, and on the Literary Mama site. But is this the only source of them?

Stepping back

In allowing them to learn simple tasks and to feel their way into responsibility for the groups and for the camps, thereby making them their own, she had to break a lifelong habit of organizing chivvying and taking over. She had to let them blunder; she had to wait while they did in hours what she'd do in minutes; and she had to accepts that some would fail. (Drusilla Modjeska, Poppy, McPhee Gribble, Ringwood, 1990, p. 146.)

When I find myself at a loss in my writing I sometimes pick up Poppy, or some other novel I admire, and read a bit to see what inspiration it might give me. But in this case I am more reminded of parenting than inspired in writing. I'm not terribly good at this part of parenting - stepping back and letting Liam do in hours what I could do in minutes, without "chivvying and taking over". I need to get better at it.

Sibling fun

I love that Liam frequently says to Mikaela "Kaely, Kaely, do you want to come and play in my room?"
They are starting to have some jealousy between them (over Mummy-time), but still, Liam is really into her. And she adores him.
I just wish I could bottle this time for her, so that when in a year or two she is tailing after him and his friends and he is telling her to "Go away Mikaela!", she could take a swig of it and feel all better again.