Crazy Busy!

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If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”
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Recipe: Squash Soup

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This is a quick and easy recipe. It’s a regular on our summer menu, especially these days with the squash we are getting from our CSA. It goes well with a nice, crusty bread and a salad.


3-4 yellow squash
2 carrots
1 celery stalk
1 onion
1 vegetable bouillon cube (you can use 2 cubes if you prefer a stronger flavor)
1 cup milk 
Salt and pepper to taste

Chop vegetables into small chunks and boil in water until tender. Put vegetables (but not water) in blender, add milk and bouillon cube. Blend until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and warm in pot, if necessary.

Telling Time

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Auntie M asked me to write a post about why I don’t want my kids to learn how to tell time. Others have also wondered about this, asking if it there is some Waldorf philosophy around it. Part of it does relate to a general Waldorf philosophy about keeping kids in the present, but I have to admit that I also don’t want them to tell time for my own convenience. 

Having my kids be able to tell time would make my life more difficult. Right now, bedtime is when we say it is bedtime. Nap time is over when we say it is over.  “Time to leave the park” is when I feel like leaving (usually for good reason, like to go home to eat lunch before there is a major meltdown). If Katherine could tell time, it would be the end of my flexibility when it comes to adjusting the schedule based on my the kids’ needs. Sometimes I really need nap/quiet time to go until 3:15 so I can finish up a work email… sometimes Dave and I need bedtime to be at 7 instead of 7:30 because the kids are exhausted, or we need that extra half hour to just sit and eat dessert by ourselves. I can just imagine Katherine calling us on that: “It’s not bedtime, it’s only 7! Bedtime is at 7:30.” That is not what we need at the end of the day. 

However, there is good reason (other than my own convenience) to hold off on teaching young children to tell time. Waldorf teachers often talk about how important it is for children to stay present in the moment. Knowing what time it is does not benefit them, it takes them out of the present and prevents them from sinking into their play. It can also add an element of anxiety. I believe it is the parents’ job to worry about the time (i.e., getting out the door on time, getting to bed on time), and this burden should not fall on the child. As I’ve written before, one of the wonders of childhood is to not be burdened with time. I would like to preserve that wonder for as long as possible.

I have no doubt Katherine is capable of learning to tell time, and it would probably be fun to teach her, and she might even get some satisfaction out of it… but then what? After the novelty wore off she’d be stuck knowing what time it is. I see no benefit in that for her, especially since she would still have a 5-year-old concept of time - meaning she would be able to tell time from a clock, but she would not really know what to do with this information. If she saw it was 8:05am and knew we needed to leave at 8:15am, would she be able to figure out that her current pace was not going to get her ready in time and then actually move faster to accommodate running behind? Probably not. Even if she could, especially if she could, I would not want to place that on her. At least not yet. I’d rather give her as long as possible to enjoy not being tied to time. Soon enough she’ll be racing against the clock to get her homework done, wishing for time to pass quickly so she can go get her driver’s license, trying to slow time down when she realizes her children are growing up too fast… 

For now I’d rather she just play happily and not worry about how much longer she has or what is coming next and when. 

A Car Rental Rant

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This past weekend we went to visit my family. It was our first time traveling with three kids and based on time constraints, convenience, and other basic logistics, we decided it made the most sense to fly and then rent a car along with three car seats.

We made the car rental reservations months in advance and three days before our trip I called Budget to confirm. I made a point of (1) speaking to a human, which is a feat in and of itself, (2) confirming our reservation, and (3) emphasizing that we needed three carseats and a car big enough for three car seats to be available upon our arrival. The human assured me a minivan along with three car seats would be waiting for us. He even read our reservation back to me word for word. I thanked him and crossed “confirm car rental” off my list.

You can guess what happened. We arrived at O’Hare, walked the mile to baggage claim, waited 10 minutes in 95 degree heat for the Budget shuttle, and stood in line at the Budget counter for 30 minutes. I actually didn’t wait in the line, Dave did. I found a nice little corner, fed the kids a snack, took Katherine and Clara to the bathroom, and changed Alexandra’s diaper, all of which also took 30 minutes. Then I was ready to get in the car and be on our way. But Dave was still at the counter talking to the woman. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, then twenty… Budget had neither a minivan nor three carseats. The woman didn’t even see carseats on our reservation. My pointing out that I had confirmed our reservation - complete with carseats - just days earlier did not help. It took an hour and a half for Budget to locate a “car of equivalent size” and three carseats. When we dragged the kids, bags, and carseats across the parking, we found an SUV with one backseat row that wouldn’t fit three carseats.

By this point we were well into naptime, melting in the heat, and at a loss of what to do next. No one was in a good place, least of all me, because not only do I lack patience and have a hard time dealing with incompetence, I really don’t care for SUVs.* We pleaded with a Budget guy in the parking lot and he eventually found us an even bigger SUV with a third row. We installed the carseats, loaded the kids, and got out of there.

An image of the monstrosity, showing the inaccessible third row, nonexistent trunk space, and lack of handy sliding door.I’ll just take a moment here to explain why I don’t care for SUVs. First of all, we are a small car (as in Nissan Versa small) family and committed to remaining that way. Second of all, if we were to be a big car family (which I admit may happen someday), we would go for a minivan, not an SUV. The monstrosity we ended up with, like a minivan, had three rows, but it was impossible to get to the third row without folding down one of the second row seats, which of course wasn’t possible when there was a carseat in it. We weren’t about to uninstall and reinstall a carseat every time we needed to get Katherine into her third row seat and we couldn’t put Clara or Alexandra back there to free up a second row seat because we couldn’t fit either of their carseats past the second row. There was probably some better way to do it, but standing there in the heat with three hungry, tired kids, we weren’t about to figure it out. In the end we had Katherine climb in through the trunk and over the back of her seat. A minivan doesn’t have this problem. It has three rows, a lovely sliding door, and a convenient aisle so everyone can get to their seat with minimal, if any, difficulty.

But all’s well that ends well: the kids held it together at Budget (more than the parents did), having to climb in through the trunk and over the seat was the highlight of the trip for Katherine (she’s still talking about it and asking why we can’t always have that “nice car”), we made it to my parents’ house and had a relaxing visit, and Alexandra took revenge on Budget on our behalf with a mighty blowout. Of course we had to clean it, but it was quite gratifying to see her poop running down the carseat and onto the seat.

Anyway, this isn’t exactly a post on parenting, but it happened while I had kids with me, so that is close enough. I try to keep in mind that as a parent my behavior should always be worthy of imitation. This can be very challenging, especially in situations like this, when I am beyond frustration and feel helpless when it comes to solving a problem that shouldn’t even exist. This time I failed, I was definitely not worthy of imitation at the Budget counter.

*Except for Sarah’s because I associate it with our weekly play date.

Princess Post

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When I was little I loved Cinderella and Snow White: the helpful mice, the pumpkin coach, Sneezy and Grumpy, even the harsh but appropriate punishment for the wicked witch after Snow White is revived… these fairy tales were magical and the far away land where they took place was very real to me. But now as a parent I find myself in the anti-princess camp. I get annoyed when Katherine admires all the Cinderella costumes at Halloween and excitedly points out the Little Mermaid stickers at the doctor’s office. What is it about the princesses, who were a wonderful part of my childhood, that now irritates me to the point of not wanting to share them with my children?

Maybe you’ve seen on Facebook the picture of the princesses with the mocking statements identifying each story’s anti-feminist message. If you missed it, here it is:

 

That’s why they irritate me.

But I don’t really believe these messages characterize the true fairy tales. Rather, they are an unfortunate consequence of the commercialization of the princesses. The original fairy tales are complex and reflect the inner qualities of human nature. They are a great way for kids to process and explore good and evil. For example, the characters in Snow White symbolize the pure (Snow White), the evil (Wicked Witch), and the will (Dwarfs) that reside in all of us. The story presents a struggle between them and in the end, a resolution. But somehow the richness of the story has been lost to an obsession with the princess. The focus on the struggle within the self has been shifted to a focus on a two-dimensional character in a pretty dress.

How did this happen?

The fairy tale books I had as a child offered beautiful artwork of a few selected scenes, the rest I had to fill in with my imagination. Today, children watch the Disney movies in which the entire story is presented visually, leaving nothing to the imagination. Furthermore, we are bombarded with the commercialized princess images: we see them on backpacks, children’s clothing, bedding, lunch boxes, notebooks, etc. Despite having never seen a Disney movie or owned any Disney paraphernalia, Katherine knows all the princesses* and she’s only five! Even worse, she only identifies with the princesses who resemble her. Just today she noticed the picture above on my computer screen and proceeded to tell me, “I can be Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty because I have yellow hair like they do. But Clara has to be Belle because she has brown hair.” Katherine has no chance to create a picture of Belle that she can relate to.

The lack of a child’s imagination when it comes to Disney princesses is probably pretty common these days. I remember hearing of a teacher who conducted a mini-experiment in her class. She told her grade school students a story in which one of the characters was an old woman. At the end of the story she asked the children to draw the old woman. Each child came up with a unique and detailed picture. The teacher then told the children the story of Cinderella. At the end, she asked them to draw Cinderella. Each child drew the exact same image.

If children don’t need to do any imaginative work, are they able to process the story deeply and in a way that allows them to relate it to their own world? Or are they stuck on the pre-made, shallow (and unrealistic!) imagery of mass media? What is lost when we don’t engage a child’s imagination in a story?

I will read the princess stories to my children. But I wonder if they’ll have the opportunity to make the stories their own, or if in Katherine’s mind, Snow White already wears a blue and yellow dress and a red hairband in her brown hair.

*When I asked her how she knows who they are, she replied in her snarky ‘duh’ tone, “I just do, mom.”

Beach (book)

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We pull this book out every summer… and sometimes in the middle of winter when we long for warmth and sunshine. Elisha Cooper perfectly captures the essence of a day at the beach - from the calm of early morning by the sea, to sunscreen, seashells, and crashing waves, to a summer sky as dusk falls and people head home tired, sandy, and happy. You can almost hear the wind and seagulls in his illustrations. This book is perfect to read before a trip to the beach, or if you can’t make it to the beach but wish you could.

Gun Play

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This post on weapon play inspired me to finally put down my thoughts on this topic. With three girls, gun play isn’t a huge issue in our home, but it does appear from time to time. For example, a few weeks ago Katherine started building toy guns out of legos and called them “shooters.” She engaged Clara as well and the two of them went around shooting things for a few days. It was pretty clear that the play came from school - with 10 boys and 6 girls in Katherine’s class, gun play is inevitable. I think she was just trying it out at home because she wasn’t quite comfortable joining in at school. It went on for a few days, then they abandoned it. I struggled with letting them be and was grateful when it disappeared.

Although my own experience with gun play has been limited, it is a common topic among parents.  Based on discussions with Katherine’s teachers and her classmates’ parents, I have formed a few opinions. Of course it is easy for me to have opinions when it is not something I really have to deal with, but I’ll share them nonetheless.

They even make beautiful wooden toy guns. Who knew?!Generally speaking, children play what they need to play in order to process their world. Most children are exposed to guns through a variety of sources, such as t.v., movies, the news, other children, and toys. Some children have parents who have to keep guns in their home because of their job, and children of military families are exposed to guns, especially if they live on a base. Whether we like it or not, guns are very present in our lives. It makes sense that children need to process this aspect of life and doing so through play is healthy.

I think it is important to also keep in mind that gun play doesn’t have the same meaning to children as it does to adults. I am horrified at the idea of my five-year-old going around pretending to shoot people. But that is based on thirty some years of experience and a mature understanding of murder and death. To a five-year-old, it is nothing more than an escalated version of tag.

As far as allowing it in my home, I follow the guidelines Katherine’s teacher uses in his classroom. I try to be aware of the effect gun play is having on the children playing it and the children nearby who are not playing it. If someone feels threatened, I intervene, but if no one feels threatened, I’ll let it go. When I do intervene, I’ll tell the gun player that the gun may not be pointed at people and I’ll try to redirect the play. Often I’ll suggest they hunt a dragon or some wild beast in the forest. Sometimes I’ll turn their pretend gun into a pretend water squirter and request that they cool me down. This usually works, but I have it easy because the girls usually lose interest pretty quickly anyway.

For parents whose children don’t lose interest so easily, I think it is possible to embrace the need for gun play. One parent I know enrolled the whole family in archery lessons. Every weekend they went into the woods together to practice their skills. They enjoyed shooting targets out in nature in a safe and healthy way. I think this approach is brilliant - it treated her son’s need and desire for gun play positively and with respect, and it brought the whole family into it in a way they could all enjoy.

As with any issue, parents need to find their own comfort level while considering their individual children. One child may really need gun play, while another child may be stuck in a gun play rut to the point of missing out on other important kinds of play. One child may play guns in a way that negatively affects others while another child may play in a way that is non-threatening. How a parent decides to deal with gun play is personal, and may change with time as the child changes.

I have to say, though, despite my views that gun play is generally ok, I still bristle every time it comes home. It will probably always be difficult for me to balance my knowledge of guns and their role in society with the need my kids have to process their world through play.

What it says about society that our kids play guns is another matter…

Mental Crowding

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In typical Type A fashion, I tend to take on more than I can handle and then get great satisfaction out of organizing my schedule to accommodate the overload. It’s a fairly predictable cycle. I’ll be floating along, busy, content. Then I’ll start to get a little restless and look for something to add to my plate. Sometimes it’s something small, like a sewing project, sometimes it’s big, like joining the board at Katherine’s school. I often feel slightly, but happily, overwhelmed for a period of time, then I find a new balance and start the cycle again. But with a new baby and now transitioning back to work, the balance has been all out of whack. I’ve been more than slightly overwhelmed… and I can’t get all the pieces to fit together.

In an attempt to manage all the pieces, I’ve determined there are the “must-dos,” (e.g., getting Katherine to and from school, making dinner, fulfilling my work commitments), which absolutely have to happen each day; the “should-dos”(e.g., cleaning the bathroom, updating the kids’ closets with summer clothes, scheduling that doctor’s appointment); and finally, the “want-tos,” (e.g., finishing Mockingjay, writing this post, going for a run), which really could be put aside, except that I look forward to these things and get grouchy when I don’t have them. So my solution is to stay up really late to try to do it all for as many nights as I can before I crash. Then I temporarily abandon the should-do list while I catch up on sleep. By the time the house gets so gross that I can’t stand it and my kids are wearing long sleeves in 90 degree weather, I’m better rested and can go back to staying up really late again. It’s not ideal, but it is working for now. And I am on my way to accepting that this is the new norm with three kids.

The part I don’t like is the mental crowding. No matter what I’m doing my mind is jumping around to the other tasks on my list, preventing me from enjoying the thing I’m actually doing. I’d like to be able to sing Wheels on the Bus to Alexandra without thinking about getting to the computer to respond to that one work email, and I might actually enjoy making dinner if I didn’t start worrying about what I’m going to do with the rotting CSA vegetables every time I opened the fridge. I don’t like when a whole day has gone by and I feel I missed out on half of it because I was always thinking about how I could have been doing something else.

It’s easy enough to turn off the technology, or at least designate time for email, blog reading, IMing, etc. so that it doesn’t invade my day (actually, this isn’t easy at all, but I could do it if I decided to). But other than that, I can’t figure out what to let go in order to clear mental space. Everything on the list seems necessary - either for general family functioning or my own sanity. I suppose something will eventually give, or it will be one of those things that works itself out.

In the meantime, I’m going to call upon the two places where I have always felt completely at peace. Places whose vastness creates a stillness and silence that puts everything into perspective (especially the above first world problems).  

Mont Sainte Victoire (view from Bibémus outside of Aix-en-Provence)

 

and the Sonoran Desert, outside of Tucson.

I can’t travel to France or Arizona, but even the pictures bring me a feeling of calm. And when their effect wears off (after all, they are only pictures), there is always Alfred Cat. Nothing like a furry friend to reduce stress. (Plus it’s about time he got his picture up on this blog.)

 

 

Granola

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I just recently started making my own granola and now wonder how I’ve survived breakfast all these years without it. A big batch should last about a week (two adults, two kids), unless you are like me and sneak it as a snack when the kids aren’t looking. Then it lasts about five days and you are stuck eating cherrios until you motivate to make it again.

6-8 cups of oats
1 cup almonds, finely chopped
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup unsalted pumpkin seeds
1 cup coconut
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 - 3/4 cup honey
raisins to taste

Preheat oven to 300 degrees
1. Lightly toast oats in large roasting pan over medium heat until fragrant (about 5 minutes)
2. Add nuts and seeds and stir continuously for 5 minutes
3. Add coconut and stir continuously for 3 minutes
4. Remove from heat and stir in cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey
5. Stir until honey is all the way worked in
6. Bake in oven for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally
7. Continue to stir occasionally while cooling
8. Add raisins (I let the kids add their own raisins at breakfast)


Having the girls scoop the granola into tupperware is a great activity. We get about 30 minutes of quiet cooperation with this task… especially if I give them little spoons.

 

Then they get to sweep… which quickly turns into a fight over who gets to sweep and who gets to hold the dustpan.

 

To settle the broom/dustpan dispute, I bribe promise a trail mix treat to girls who can sweep without fighting. (I set aside some almonds, walnuts, and seeds, and add a few raisins and chocolate chips.)

Slowing Down

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My kids are from Planet Slow. It takes us a ridiculously long time to get ready for a simple walk to the park. On the kids’ end, they only need to pee and put on shoes, but these two simple tasks take forever. Getting out the door to go to school in the morning is even worse. The more I try to hurry them along with phrases like “hurry up!”, “we’re late!”, “we’re running out of time!”, the slower they move. Probably because they’re trying to figure out what the heck ‘running out of time’ means. Even the ultimate threat, “if we don’t move faster you’ll miss circle time!”, is met with a blank stare and a marked slowdown.

I often find myself frustrated that I can’t make Katherine and Clara move faster.  I take pride in my efficiency and punctuality; the ability to power through my daily to-do list is a major source of job satisfaction. Kids are a direct obstacle to efficiency and punctuality, and their sloth-like tendencies can drive me crazy. Nevertheless, I love that they are not tied to the clock, always aware of what time it is, always looking ahead to what needs to be done next. It is one of the wonders of childhood, to not be burdened by time, and I want to preserve it for them.

But how? How do we balance this aspect of childhood with efficiency, and quite frankly, practicality? We have to keep a schedule, get to school on time, move at a reasonable pace. If we spend 30 minutes walking two blocks to the park, Katherine and Clara don’t have time to run and climb before we have to come home for dinner. And they need to run and climb at the park, because if they don’t, they’ll just do it in the living room and on the furniture when we get home. How do we coordinate our time constraints, which are perfectly valid and necessary, with a child’s (nonexistent) concept of time?  

The standard answer is better planning. “Leave extra time so you don’t have to rush,” everyone says. But in my experience, this is not sufficient. I don’t think it is possible to leave enough time for Katherine to tie her shoes at her own pace. She could probably spend most of the day tying and retying her shoes to perfection. As usual when I struggle with a parenting challenge, I consult our local experts (aka, Katherine and Clara’s teachers). They recommended the simple solution of slowing down. Here are the specifics of what I’m working on:

1. Move at half-speed. This is counterintuitive as I often think if I move faster, the kids will move faster. But frantically trying to get everything ready and calling out instructions from across the kitchen while filling a water bottle projects a sense of urgency that just distracts them. Taking my time as I get ready helps them focus on their tasks. If I slow down, they speed up.

2. Make requests slowly. When I stop what I’m doing, look Clara in the eye, and speak a request simply, slowly and deliberately, “Clara, you may put on your shoes now,” she usually does it right then and there. Magic.
 
3. Set aside time for activities with absolutely no agenda. Planning outings with no final destination gets me more cooperation on outings that are about getting somewhere. For example, I can say to Clara, “This is a park outing. You can stop and count every single flower petal on the entire rose bush on our walking outing tomorrow,” which is much nicer than “Let’s go! We don’t have time to stop.” Plus Clara knows she will get a chance to count every petal because walking outings are part of our routine.

Although these strategies are straightforward and effective, I admit they don’t come naturally and can be  hard to implement. Half-speed, slow and deliberate, no agenda… these are concepts that threaten my daily productivity. But when I make the effort to slow down, I achieve a better balance between my schedule and their pace. I even find myself appreciating their pace. It is freeing to let go of the rushing about, and when I get into the groove of slowing down, I find myself relaxing into the day and enjoying all the slow moments with the kids. Moments without the burden of time.

 

Katherine’s morning shoe routine.

8:05am

8:09am

8:11am

8:13am

8:16am

8:20am

 

Curative Story: Holding still while brushing teeth

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Once upon a time there was a bunny and her name was Molly bunny. She lived in the forest with her mama bunny and her daddy bunny. Molly bunny was five years old and had just lost her first tooth. Another one was loose and two new ones were coming in. Every night Molly bunny looked in the mirror to inspect her new teeth. She also had to brush her teeth every night. Sometimes this was difficult because Molly bunny was very hoppy and bunnies have to hold still while brushing their teeth.  

One night Molly bunny was brushing her teeth. But she was hopping up and down at the same time. “Hold still Molly bunny!” her mama said. But as much as Molly bunny tried, she simply could not stop hopping. “How are you going to get your teeth clean if you keep hopping up and down?” her mama asked. Then she said, “I have an idea.” Mama bunny went into her trunk of special things and brought out a small yellow box. “Here,” she said, opening the yellow box. “Put all your hops into this box. We’ll keep them in here at night and in the morning we will open it and you can have them back.” So Molly bunny put all her hops into the box and closed it. Then she held perfectly still and brushed her teeth.

Now, every evening before Molly bunny brushes her teeth, she takes out her yellow box and puts all her hops into it. First thing in the morning when she wakes up, she opens the box and her hops are waiting for her. And her teeth are always very clean.

Rainstorm (Book)

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Book CoverI love this book. Rainstorm is a fun adventure and I think every kid wishes for a secret passageway like the one in this story. It is a “looking book”, as we call it, because there are no words. The pictures alone tell a detailed story, but parents and kids can make up their own versions. In our home, the children’s names and circumstances change regularly. Barbara Lehman has several books and all have a similar element of mystery, discovery, and adventure. But I think this one is my favorite.