Baby Stuff: Revisited

I know I posted a baby gear manifesto a long time ago, while I only had one child.  Now that I have two, and know friends that are having their first children, I figured it was time to update the old lists, which seem to have the worst formatting in blogging history (for what reason, I cannot begin to understand!?).

General Gear:
     1. Baby Carrier:   I have loved my ErgoBaby carrier; we got it when Liam was about a year old, but we use it all the time at the zoo, grocery store, mall, parties, etc.  The ergo is developmentally sound for the baby's spine because it offers more complete support under the baby's bottom; it is also great for mama's back because it moves the child's weight to your hips instead of your upper back.  I hear you can also nurse in the ErgoBaby, but I had already weaned Liam when we got it.  Dominic rides in it occasionally at almost 4 years old.  I loved my ZoloWear ring sling with Dominic (while he was the only child), but struggled with it when I had Liam because I worried he'd fall out while I was bending over to help Dominic.

     2. Sleeping:  I was an adamant non-co-sleeper before I was an exhausted new mom.  Once sense and exhaustion kicked in, we tended to co-sleep for ease of nursing at night - roll over, boob in mouth, back to sleep (repeat all night).  At the times I wanted my own space for sleeping or for daytime baby naps, we really liked our Amby Baby Motion Bed (the baby hammock), as pre-rolling babies were quickly soothed back to sleep if they stirred in the night.  Around 6 months with both of our boys (when the outgrew the Amby), we moved them to a floor bed (short IKEA mattress on the floor) in a thoroughly baby-proofed room down the hall - if an Amby is out of the budget or too weird looking, I highly recommend skipping the crib and using a floor bed from the start.

     3.1. Stroller (and a little about carseats):  DO NOT GET A TRAVEL SYSTEM.  I HATED MY TRAVEL SYSTEM STROLLER.  IT WAS WAY WAY WAY TOO HEAVY AND CUMBERSOME, and there are much better options available.  I wish I'd registered for something like a Phil and Teds stroller that can convert to a double when/if more children come along.  They are an expensive initial investment, but this would have been awesome to have when child two came along and there wasn't a baby shower to be seen.  You can buy a carseat converter if you like to keep your baby in the infant seat (which I didn't do with the second child... bizarre).  What we used and liked: Maxi Cosi infant seat and Pearle Stroller - it is a stroller the size of an umbrella stroller, that has clips to hold your carseat in it.  It is basically a compact make-your-own travel system that takes up a tiny fraction of your trunk space and is super easy to travel with.  A free hand-me-down double stroller that is way too heavy and takes up our whole trunk (did I mention free? priorities shift with child 2).
     3.2. Carseat:  As a first-time mom, I tended to leave Dominic in his infant carseat when we went grocery shopping, to the mall, to a restaurant, etc.  That is the whole appeal of an infant carseat, after all.  When my second came along, I rarely kept him in his infant seat to take him out of the car.  If I had a do-over, I'd probably just invest in an awesome (Brittax?) convertible carseat that will last from newborn through 18-years-old (or whatever the current carseat law requires).

     4. High Chair:  do not waste money on an expensive cushy one.  We LOVED our $20 IKEA Antilop high chair - you can hose it off on a bad day, wipe it with a sponge quickly on a good day, and easily take the legs out to fit it on the floorboard below your child in the backseat for a road trip to grandma's.  You can buy a $5 pad for it for when a baby first starts sitting up.  If money is no object, I would recommend a Stokke Trip Trap Chair or Svan High Chair, which convert to independent toddler chairs and on to an adult chairs as your child grows (another expensive initial investment that would be worth it long-term).

     5. Play Mats:  we really liked the easy cleaning and compact/simple storage of the IKEA play mats... they were also inexpensive compared to the ones that light up and "teach your infant spanish and long division"... a topic for another post another day.

     6. Changing Table:  we used a changing pad on top of a dresser, and liked having at least 2 covers so one could be washed while the other one was getting pooped on.  Ha!  When our children started rolling a lot, we just stowed the pad behind the bathroom door, and laid it on the floor to change them.

     7. Baby Spoons:  the plastic Munchkin brand spoons you can buy at the grocery store or Target hold baby food better than the standard rubber coated baby spoons.

     8.  Wipe Warmer:  used it with Dominic, could care less about warm wipes when Liam came along.

     9.  Diaper Bag:  we LOVE our black Columbia messenger-style diaper bag.  The key for us was unisex because Ryan is often out with the boys alone and doesn't want to carry a quilted pink paisley diaper bag that looks like a purse.  When we no longer need it for diapers, it will be a great multi-purpose messenger bag.

For nursing mamas:
     1. Breast Pump - thought I didn't want one with my first, ended up wishing I'd had one from day one!  I loved my manual Medela Harmony pump initially, but then I needed to pump hands-free, so I got the Medela Freestyle pump and had no complaints.  They make excellent pumps.

     2. Nursing Bras - get fitted at a maternity store (Motherhood Maternity had a TON of options) and buy several of these!  I preferred the ones that clipped open/closed on the strap near the collar bone (as opposed to opening in the front middle).  I didn't find any I liked while nursing Dominic so I only wore nursing tanktops, and looking back at pictures, I regret this decision... saggy... enough said.

     3. Nursing Tanktops - if you aren't big on supportive bras, buy one in every color, otherwise, these are great for lounging around at home or wearing under cardigans for easy nursing access while out and about.

     4. Gerber Prefold Diapers - Use these as burp cloths.  They are super absorbent for spitup and leaky boobs.  A dear friend suggested folding one up and putting it horizontally across my chest inside of my bra to manage leakage while at home or at night (best suggestion EVER).

     5. Bottles: we liked Dr. Brown's with child 1, by child 2 we didn't want to wash that many pieces each time we used a bottle and opted for the Playtex (?) ones that just had a few easily washed parts.

Montessori at Home

Montessori in the home is simple.  A couple aspects to consider for children under three ought to be, using clear and precise language, and preparing an environment that fosters independence and activity that builds concentration/work.  Montessori said, "never give more to the mind than you give to the hand," when talking about children under six, as they are sensorial learners (they learn by using their senses to take in information), and this is foundational in choosing appropriate activities for young children.

Designing the Home Environment

I’ll be the first to admit that keeping a beautiful and clutter-free environment for our children is challenging, especially since I've been rather untidy my entire life, and especially because we live in relatively close quarters... we have a tiny house!  The way I address this is: 1. starting with my sons' bedroom - if no other room is clean, that one MUST BE.  I put very little "stuff" in their room - a place to sleep, a place to dress, a few toys, a few books, and a rocking chair.  2. in the rest of the house we try to keep the children's things uncluttered and within their reach.

In the dining room we have a shelf with their dishes, child-sized real plates, bowls, cups, and silverware, and to the side a basket of spill towels, and a shelf with their art activities (their sketch books, a small basket of pencils, a box of crayons).  They also have child-height tables and chairs for eating snacks, and doing art activities, along with chairs that sit right up to our table for dinner and other family meals and activities.  In the kitchen we have a learning tower that allows them to work with us at the stove and sink while preparing dinner, and Dominic now easily reaches the water dispenser on the refrigerator if he needs a drink (you might consider a small step stool if your child is too short).  In the living room we have a shelf that has no more than 3 toys per linear shelf (9 toys at a time) and a tiny walker wagon with 10-15 library books for them to choose from.  I also have one side-table that I put out one library book that links to one of their toys (right now it is Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson, and the bucket of their building blocks, a farm book with a farm toy would be great, a book of puzzles next to a puzzle, etc).  In the restroom, we have a small baby bjorn potty chair, a step stool to climb onto the toilet, and are still hunting for a better step stool to reach the sink for hand-washing (the top step is barely too high, the bottom step is just barely too low), they also have a small shelf unit that has their bath toys, pajamas, underpants, and cloth diapers.  For a long time we kept our sons' clothes on an open shelf in their room so they could independently change or get dressed in the morning.  We’ve used a dresser for a few months now because Liam was interested in throwing all the clothes to the floor a few times a day, which Dominic never did, so this process of preparing the environment is ongoing - we may move back to open shelving as Liam starts wearing underpants regularly.

The rest of their toys are on high shelves in their closet or in an otherwise empty dresser for rotation - they do not have access to the stored toys until another toy gets put out of rotation.  I also have a hutch in the dining room that has the rest of our art supplies, a couple special paper options (including card stock for making cards and gift tags, watercolor paper, black card stock for using metallic pencils and pastels), craft paint, water color boxes (an artist friend who teaches finds Crayola to be the highest quality water colors for children - the price of professional watercolors is absurd and the quality is not *that much better* in her opinion, HEB watercolors are comparable), painting aprons, and my personal art supplies are there as well.

As far as the home environment is concerned - less is always more when it comes to quantity, and higher quality is always better when it comes to aesthetic.  Montessori always said we ought to give the best to the smallest.  Hang REAL artwork at your child's eye-level (cheap frames from somewhere like IKEA are great and glass-free, or just mount printed pictures on a neutral colored board or cut out a mat from a cereal box!).  Give opportunities for control of movement by offering real child-sized drinking glasses, real plates, real child-sized silverware; breakable is fine for children... the only way they learn to be careful is by having opportunities to exercise care!

You'll know it is time to rotate toys when a child is just dumping them all on the floor without engaging in further play or if every toy is being used as a projectile.  For Liam, who is teething again and putting everything in his mouth, we pulled out some of those plastic baby chain links from the garage and put a couple around the house to offer as teething rings: "The horse (or lego man, or train, or pencil, etc) is in your mouth, do you need a teething ring?" he immediately spits any unwanted object out of his mouth, and he knows right where to find the teething rings.

Work of the Child

First and foremost, Maria Montessori was all about children doing real purposeful work.  So... let your child assist you in the real work of the home!  Young children love to contribute and even LOVE the repetition of tedious work - rolling up the hand towels, dusting tiny tchotchkes and shelves, clearing the table one dish at a time, wiping up spills, cleaning windows, stirring sauce at a simmer, etc.  In our home, this means some things don’t always look perfect (... that’s a surprise to you isn’t it?).  In our home, this means some simple tasks take longer than if I did them myself.  

Some ways we involve Dominic (3 yrs) and Liam (20 mos) include:  

• keeping a basket of spill towels on the floor in the kitchen/dining room so they can wipe up little spills - this is Liam's, favorite practical life work right now;  
• inviting Dominic to fold the diaper inserts in thirds, to roll the hand towels, and to roll the kitchen and spill towels when we do laundry - sometimes he is all over this, other times he just throws our unfolded laundry in the air while we’re folding (so we’ll hand him the towels and underwear and let him go to town as we complete the more serious folding);  
• setting a small laundry basket in the boys’ room so they can easily put slam-dunk their clothes when they take them off;
• pulling a learning tower up to the stove while cooking dinner; I usually do the majority of the chopping and prep (though we do have child-safe knives they can use), while Dominic sprinkles the spices, grinds the pepper, and stirs the food with Liam observing on the tower;
• allowing Dominic to make my morning coffee in our single-serve coffee maker - he turns on the coffee maker, scoops the grinds into the filter, puts the filter in the maker, situates the coffee cup while he waits for the maker to be ready, presses the brew button, pours the cream, adds the sugar, and stirs it for me... and LOVES THIS.
• Other ways to involve children could include: hanging a thin rope between two dining room chairs or buying a folding drying rack to let a child hang some laundry to dry (her own underpants, socks, or shirts), placing a tray with a cup and small pitcher of water to allow children to pour their own drinks (this was too much for Liam, so we’ll bring this out again in a few months).  

For art, try to keep activities as open-ended as possible - demonstrating just the technique (holding the brush/pencil, the lightness of putting the bristles to the paper, etc) so they can freely explore different media.  I've really enjoyed buying an inexpensive spiral-bound sketch book from HEB for each child and putting the date on their work as they are doing it - it's an easy way to "archive" their work and to see their progress; the paper is higher quality than printer paper, which we had used in the past.  I have had very limited success attempting craft projects (the kind that are supposed to produce a specific product) with my children because their interest is not as great as mine, and they tend to work longer and more intently when they are just “doing art.”  Because Liam is into everything these days, I keep the paints up higher, and offer them when I am available to sit with them at the table until Liam finishes.  If Liam is napping, Dominic is completely capable of watercoloring independently, though.

Because of the innate interest in working with the family, toys are not nearly as high-priority as society would want you to think.  When bringing new toys into the house (because it is such a small house and we do not have space for loads of toys), we ask the questions: 

1. is it more entertaining and less interactive, 
2. does the toy annoy me either in sound or appearance (adults live in this house, too, after all!), 
3. is there more than one way to play with it or use it at home, 
4. do we already have something that serves the same function?  

If even one of the answers is 1. yes, 2. yes, 3. no, 4. yes, the toys do not come into the house, or if they are the same as something we already have, we choose between the old one and the new one to avoid over-crowding (and then donate the duplicate).  We prefer toys that encourage active independent and creative play or activity that is engaging for me as a parent in interacting with my children: we like blocks, train tracks, a couple farm house sets, lots of "little" legos and lego people, puzzles, a few babies/stuffed animals, and TONS of books that have realistic fiction or non-fiction subject matter (more on book selection in another post!).

I've really loved taking the kids to the library to play and look at a book or two while I comb the shelves at a distance and choose a variety of books for them to check out that I think will suit their current interests - this will be my way of fending off "junk" reading as long as possible.   For screen time, we just don’t do it 99.5% of the time.  On occasion we like Planet Earth and Blue Planet (the latter available on Netflix), as both are EXCELLENT nature documentary series by the BBC and appropriate for children over 2.5.  Liam is not yet two, and we follow the American Pediatric Association’s suggestions regarding screen time; after much research about detrimental affects of screen time in young children (language delay, learning and concentration disorders, etc), we just don't feel that it is worth the potential problems - Dominic only watches if/when Liam is asleep or out of the house.

Language

Beyond every-day family involvement and activity, clear and precise language will help your child's own communication and independence tremendously.  Naming things as accurately and clearly as possible helps him to hear every sound, and see each sound formed in your mouth.  It can be so tempting to hear a child's cute attempt at a word and run with it as the way to say that word (and we do this sometimes at our house, too).  Some suggestions from my time working as an assistant in a Montessori environment: 

• instead of "boo boo," say scrape, cut, or bump; 
• instead of any other words, say the correct words for parts of the body; 
• instead of bird, maybe say cardinal or scarlet tanager, etc.  

Not only does this approach grow the child's vocabulary, but it can diminish frustration in communicating needs.  This approach can also incite curiosity about things that we love - for me, that is birds or plants, for you, it might be cars and articles of clothing... share what you love, of course!

To share a personal example, for a while, one of my sons called every animal “woof,” and we just affirmed what he was seeing, “Oh, you see the rhinoceros?... Yes, there is a cat. ... Those squirrels are running around the tree!”  It was terribly cute to repeat “woof,” when he saw animals, but in the interest of helping him to better understand the world around him, we offered more vocabulary rather than giving in to pointing out every “woof” we came across at the zoo.  Words that describe sensory experiences are also great for enriching a child’s vocabulary: cold, soft, wet, scratchy, humid, sticky.  Along those lines, I love cooking with Dominic and letting him smell and name the spices we add to our food.

While this is a lot of information in one post, it is actually simple to implement, especially if it is addressed in phases.  As always, feel free to post comments/questions/disagreement below or in an e-mail to me!  This is a favorite topic of mine and brevity is not my forte!

On Being a 50s Housewife

I am so much happier now that I let the kids into the back yard to play by themselves.  I used to avoid letting them out unless I could be outside with them, but in some recent (meaning months ago) escapes into the back yard while the door was left unlocked, I realized the boys do not need me to be in the yard with them.  I also recall stories that my grandmother would kick the kids out of the house at a certain point in the morning.  After going with it for a few months, I see such value in the time they are spending outdoors - we have less tantrums, less indoor messes (but there are still messes), better sharing and cooperation between the boys, more time for relaxation for mom, etc.  Every person at our house is happier.

So, helicopter parents, free yourselves.  They definitely don't need you standing right next to them.  I encourage any parents to expand your comfort level in letting your children grow their independence.  I'm amazed to peek out the window and see Dominic giving Liam a brotherly "lesson" about sticks, or pulling his little brother around the yard in the wagon.  Their relationship is growing, and in many ways it is easier to let go of my tendency to hover because I know they are there together.  I have recently felt very susceptible to the "put in a movie to get some 'quiet time' for mom" suggestion, and for a while we were watching multiple episodes of Planet Earth in a day, but we're back to one episode or less per day for Dominic before bedtime, and Liam is back to no screen time at our house.

My boys are covered in mosquito bites, but they've never been happier!

Playful Learning

Friends, I am bursting with joy to share my most recent endeavor!  For the first time in my life, I have (or have made) time for leisure reading in the past 6 months - a hobby I intend to continue - and for Christmas my mom gave me the book Playful Learning Spaces by Mariah Bruehl.  I am fangoriously devouring it.  Fangoriously... gold star if you catch that reference from the early 2000s.  It is loaded with great information about stages of development in different areas of learning (art, math, writing, etc), and she offers suggestions for creating meaningful play and learning experiences for children of all ages and developmental levels.

Last week we cleared our junk room to host some dear friends who were in town from Michigan, and the guest room without guests in it, is our new family studio.  If you can imagine, the room was stacked with boxes and toys and outgrown clothes and craft supplies from wall to wall waist-high just over a week ago, and now we have a clean studio space!

Guest room from the door that we were unable to fully open a week ago.  The towels and blankets (on the shelf) will return to the linen closet in the hall until we are expecting guests.

Our expandable day bed is back to twin-size, and the shelves are ready for new activities for the children.  We'll be adding an easel and table to the space along with some playful and carefully designed art, writing, science, and math activities (some of which may end up on the kitchen and living room shelves... we can't cram everything into one room!).

View looking back toward the door (to the left out of view) and curtained closet.  The toys and books on the shelf were just a couple things to help our mini overnight guest feel at home.

A big open wall and a couple pop-arty pictures to hang on a wall somewhere.

  I already have little piles of in-progress work toward the goal of breathing life into our studio space.

The paints will likely remain in a closet with a tray/palate on the shelf, so we can be more aware of when they are ready for projects with higher potential for destroying rugs and walls. :)  They paint often, just with supervision to ensure that the paints are not being abused.

In addition to reading and enjoying Mariah's book, I have registered for her Playful Learning E-course, which should help fuel and direct my aspirations for our studio and our home.  She has a beautiful studio in her own home, and it has been a major source of hope/inspiration to me in the past year since I discovered her website and blog: playfullearning.net  Here is a video trailer for the e-course, in case you might be interested in joining... I'm already in, so say the word and we can be buddies in this process.  I hope to share some of my work for the course here on the blog!

NaBloPoMo: I Caved. I Pinned.

After declaring my resistance, I was overwhelmed by the friends who came out of the woodwork encouraging me to join pinterest... I caved to the peer pressure.  I think the clenching argument was that it is a visual form of bookmarks, so instead of ending up with hundreds of nondescript links to blog posts across the web, I can pin just the inspiring picture, and look directly at it instead of wondering, "what on earth is 'coolest thing I have ever seen'?"  Follow me there, follow me here, forgive me for falling of the NaBloPoMo wagon, and only posting occasionally (it's still way more frequently than ever before!).  Thanks for the encouragement friends, I look forward to following you all for loads of inspiration.

NaBloPoMo: Another Time-Consuming Addiction?

I am sure you have all heard of Pinterest by now.  I requested an invitation a while back, but have stopped myself from joining against every fiber of my being.  I could spend HOURS at my computer a day, and it is not healthy.  I'm wondering if any of you are on it and how you find balance.  When I first discovered blogging it immediately overtook my time on the computer (as did facebook before blogs, as did instant messenger before facebook, etc...).

Now I am fighting off the urge to join the online community of people who love to look at cool stuff, and I would be looking at more cool stuff than I was doing.  UGH.  I am feeling pulled to join today, and I am forbidding myself to join until my house resembles a home and not a trash heap.  It may be a cop-out of a blog for today, but it is what is real on my heart right now!

NaBloPoMo: Real Work, Real Helpful

So back on the topic of being more deliberate teachers at school - which only builds the parenting toolbox - I recently had a beautiful experience subbing in my own son's Montessori primary classroom.  As I probably posted recently, we have been really struggling with armageddon getting ready for school in the mornings.  I'm not a morning person, my son is not a morning person, and we are both stubborn non-morning persons - how's that for three of the biggest understatements in history right there in one sentence!?  We would fight tooth and nail before school to get breakfast into that kids tummy, to get pajamas off of his screaming flailing body, to get clothes back onto that flailing screaming tear-drenched body, and to get that flailing screaming tear-drenched furious body into the car and buckled into the carseat to go to school - oh, and I didn't even mention that there was another baby to dress and feed and a DIRE need for coffee.  I was a mess... for far longer than I care to admit... and we were consistently arriving with the 15-30 minutes late crowd, which is a BIG NO NO for children in any school setting, but especially for children so sensitive to order and ritualistic about their daily routines, as my very young son is.  I had become that parent, with the child that is always late.  Oh, that I would have known this was ahead of me when I was smack-talking about how annoyed I was with constantly tardy 3-yr-olds when I was a new assistant!

The situation was pretty frustrating, did you pick up on that?  The last day that we had this kicking screaming royal rumble of a morning, I was scheduled to sub in my son's class and we were both 30 minutes late for school because of the clothing battle.  I sent him in sniffling and went to the PSO coffee social to get a grip of myself before I had to face a classroom of 25 of his peers (many of whom were my former students... I was his teacher's assistant for a year before Liam was born).  At the coffee social, I vented the problem to the PSO president, who has a very cool 10-year-old daughter, whom I've known since she was probably 5.  She told me she was very familiar with this struggle, and that there were times that she loaded her daughter into the car, clothes in a bag, and drove her to school - one time in her underwear! - and that the problem promptly ceased.  I was impressed.  Over the course of the day, I met no less than 4 other parents who shared similar stories - getting rid of pjs entirely, dressing the night before school, wearing pjs to school, etc.  So I left work that day with some resolve to turn this mess around.  I e-mailed his teacher, a dear friend, and asked for her suggestions, to which she said she gave her full support - that she and the assistant would follow through with consistency on the issue if he did, in fact, show up in pjs.  Get to the point, Renee, this is supposed to be about school communities!

A week or so later, I was called in to sub in his class again (after only mediocre attempts at getting to school clothed and on time... we dressed in the lobby a couple times, and were still leaving the house screaming).  I walked Dominic into the classroom and into the restroom/dressing area and handed him his clothes.  I went to go get a much-needed cup of coffee, and returned to him standing on the dressing bench looking over the half-wall at me... still in his pjs, I know, you aren't surprised.  I tried to give him space and ignore him, so he could dress himself, to no avail.  He finally started calling me from across the room, and I went over to him to see what he needed, only to be met with a "NO!  I NOT!  YOU DO IT!"  So I stood up and scanned the classroom, and I called upon a child who seemed a little distracted in his work (a child I know is an expert dresser, who once asked for a full dress suit as a gift for a birthday or something).  I invited him over and asked if he would be willing to help Dominic get dressed, and he was very willing.  So I asked him what needed to happen first and asked if he could just tell Dominic each step to getting dressed, and I slowly backed myself out of the dressing area... sneakily, so as not to be noticed.

Not a minute later my son emerged completely dressed, his pjs in a bag in his cubby, and his older friend was back to work at his table.  I continued with the morning, inviting children to simple lessons, and redirecting children from silliness or back to forgotten works (I really don't do anything elaborate when I am a sub, as I want to be extremely respectful of the teacher's plans for lesson giving, and respectful of the children who I have not observed enough to give lessons).  It came time for 10 am false fatigue, and the classroom seemed to fall apart into loud, seething, chaos.  There was work on every table and mat, but not a child to be found at that work... which, for you non-Montessorians, is totally normal and tends to happen 1.75 hours into each 3-hour work-cycle; the goal is to shrink the duration of false fatigue as it usually leads into the most concentrated time of work at the end of the work-cycle.  I walked around to the loudest groups and asked that they lower their voices so others could concentrate.  It is a hard thing to be comfortable about false fatigue, especially for me, and it was a surprisingly lucid day for me to look at the clock during the chaos and realize what was happening and let it run its course.  I invited a few strategic older children to offer help to younger children who had "lost their work," and like magic, the class started to settle into "bigger" work.

Everyone settled into some work, and I sat to observe a bit and help a child with the names of countries in Europe.  About 20 minutes before dismissal time a few children had finished working and started wandering around again, so I invited them to join me in reading about the parts of a leaf (shockingly interesting to children 3-6, if you happen to have rolled your eyes at that prospect!).  As more children started to join us, parents of children in the toddler community accross the hall gathered right outside of our classroom windows waiting for their children to be dismissed - among those parents, my mom who was picking up my youngest brother.  The room started to become a little chaotic again as children realized it was "group time," and my son was getting out a knobbed cylinder block.  He dropped the block right at the edge of the group, spilling all 10 cylinders, which he proceeded to toss in the air... while the parents of other children were looking in on this display, and while I was making a futile attempt to describe the "primary vein" and the "margin" of the leaf.  Maria Montessori, who often manifests as the Holy Spirit, happened to be flying over at this moment, and zapped me with a brilliant idea (these are few and far between, my friends).  I invited another of the older children (who was causing me some trouble during the book) to help Dominic pick up his work so he would be ready for dismissal.  The child was happy to oblige and I didn't see another cylinder fly through the air; quite the contrary, the cylinders were restored to the block and the block was returned to the shelf.  We continued the book, we sang a song, and we lined up for dismissal.

I later found out that my mom was pulling some kind of Olympic ice-skating commentator move in the hallway, pointing out to the other moms, "I wonder how this will turn out; that is my daughter reading a book about... leaves?... to the seething masses; that is her son throwing those cylinders, which I am pretty sure is not the appropriate use of that material; and I know that she is pretty specific about materials being used appropriately... let's see if she lands this triple salchow..."  I think I landed it, but it was a Hail Mary pass inviting a sometimes rowdy 5-year-old to manage my always-NOy-son!

Moral of the story:  children are much more likely to listen to other children and/or accept assistance from other children.  You may be one of only two adults in the room, but you likely have 10 or more eager helpers an earshot away.  Children are naturally more gentle with their peers when it comes to assisting in challenges - often, they have only recently overcome the same challenge, making the teaching opportunity particularly poignant for reinforcing new skills.  I've also come to notice that when a child helps another child, they only help the minimum amount (in the best possible way), allowing the child who needed the help to do as much of the work as possible, strengthening his feeling of competence.  When a small child can't quite operate the zipper on her coat, an older child will put the two sides of the zipper together and zip a couple teeth up, but then turn the zipping over to her younger friend, who very-much wants to be able to do it herself.  This act of helping other children empowers the older group of students to develop a sense of leadership and a deep joy in assisting others, at the same time the younger group is absorbing the generous and patient example of the older students, which will manifest again in a couple short years when they ARE the older group!  Montessori was so brilliant in her observations of children and the application of her observations to the creation of an educational pedagogy and practice that allows for the development of the whole child, an education that allows the child to participate in "real life" from the earliest stages.  I find it humorous when I hear people say things like "well, how do these Montessori kids do in the 'real world,'" because it seems so clear that they are doing "REAL work" all the time, while their traditional school counterparts are being reprimanded for "talking in class," even if they were just asking a friend to borrow a pencil.  How silly that question is, and how silly the thought that children should be doing anything other than real work!