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.

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: Say Sorry!

In 2007 I first heard the notion that we should not tell/force children to say sorry.  It was vaguely explained (or vaguely understood) that it is forcing a disingenuous response from the children - that they might not actually be sorry when we are telling them to say it and that they might become resentful or jaded when we force them to say things they do not mean.  I nodded my head and tried not to fall back on that deeply rooted reaction to transgressions.  "That hurts when you hit," I would say, or "we do NOT hit."  And off the hitter would scamper, leaving the hit child crying or angry and me frustrated that the hitter was "getting away with hitting."

At the lecture by Kathleen Duvall, she revisited this confusing concept, and it seemed much clearer the way she explained it (both philosophically and practically), and perhaps I was just a more open to hearing something different this time around.  She made the case that we have to consider our real goals for the children - do we want a pavlovian "sorry" response to crying?  do we want children to "use words" when they have a problem?  what words do we want them to use - have we modeled the words to them and do we continue to encourage the use of clear language?  do we want our children to care for people enough to work toward a solution to a problem?  There is so much to consider!  I certainly do not want my sons to feel helpless if their needs are not being met, or to spit out a response "because I said so" while they continue to stew with anger.  I also do not want my children to willy-nilly say "sorry" about everything:  "Excuse me, may I pass?" "Oh, sorry!,"  "Why did you wear that shirt?" "oh, sorry," we live in a culture of people who are sorry for everything and nothing all at once!  As parents, we feel that we are expected to tell our children to "say sorry" at the playground if they bump another child, or we have a guff if another parent does not tell her child to apologize to our child.

What, then, are we supposed to do?  Our goal is to have conscious and considerate children, so we have to model the way to be conscious and considerate and guide them in the way to care for others.  For example, my son pushes his baby brother and grabs all the toys away to a far corner of the room, leaving the baby crying and toy-less.  There are a few things to consider (in the instant... I know... more challenging parenting work!):

1. Why did Dominic push the baby and take the toys?  Is there a need that is not being met - to have space to play, to have respect for the work he did to set up the train track?
2. What need is Liam trying to meet as he encroaches on Dominic's play - relationship with his brother, inclusion in play?
3. What is going on right now?  Liam is hurt (emotionally or physically) and Dominic is herding his toys into a coral away from the baby instead of playing with the toys or the baby.
4. What needs to happen next?
• to meet Liam's needs:  to feel included, preferably by his brother, to get some comfort for his hurt feelings
• to meet Dominic's needs:  a way to play with security that his toys will not be destroyed by baby-zilla, to build a good relationship with his baby brother

Now that I've considered all that, my goal is to help Dominic to comfort his brother, "what does Liam need to feel better?  Can you pat his back?  Could you choose one toy to offer Liam?"  If Dominic is not ready for any of that, I will model the way to care for someone who is hurt "Liam, you look hurt/sad, I am going to rub your back.  Do you need someone to play with?  Let's roll this ball together, Dominic needs space to play with that other toy set."  Once Liam is no longer upset, I can talk to Dominic.  I want to validate and empathize with his feelings of frustration or anger, and model that there is a different way to address those feelings (instead of pushing):  "Were you so sad/angry/frustrated when Liam wrecked your train track?  You needed space to work, and he knocked down the bridge.  You wanted Liam to move away and give you space."  I'll also point out that Liam had different needs:  "Liam wanted to play with his big brother because he loves you and looks up to you, he needs to feel included.  Is there a way he can play with you/ is there a toy from this set that you could offer him so he feels included?"  If that is way too much, perhaps I'd just leave it at, "you really need some space to fix your toy right now," but more often than not, Dominic is very willing to care for his brother and even if he cannot share the toy, he is usually willing to find another toy for Liam to play with.

So instead of ignoring all of that stuff that was going on (feelings, needs, relationship, etc) by just saying, "you say you are sorry right now and give him that toy," or "you go to a time-out while your brother plays here," we addressed all of those needs and feelings and included all involved parties in reaching a solution.  If there was a real injury, Dominic could certainly go get some ice from the freezer, or a washcloth to wipe a scrape - children are so attuned to the needs and comfort of others when they are just given a chance!  With older children it is very helpful to give each a chance to talk, and elicit the feelings/needs from the children because they have some vocabulary and understanding of what is going on.  By giving each child a time to speak and listen to the other, the children gain experience in listening to others - once they each vent "what happened," they can be asked, "what is the solution? do you have any ideas?"  For older children, it is even worthwhile to ask questions like, "what could have prevented this problem?  what could we do differently in the future to care for each other's needs?"  Often with the older crowd there is a simple misunderstanding, that needs further communication instead of an absolute judgement/sentence from an adult.

Working with children at the elementary level this year, in an after-school setting, I've observed that a pretty "stock" answer to those questions is "I don't know," followed by the expectation that I will dole out a judgement of who is right, who is wrong, who has to stop doing xyz, and who gets to continue along, etc.  For a while I was exasperated talking these things through, until I started asking the children to take a moment to think, "because I don't have a solution to every problem, and I know they can work it out."  It amazes me the solutions they come up with and how nemeses can turn into friends after just a few minutes of working through an issue.  If I take these observations to the larger social arena, it isn't difficult to notice areas that people want and expect someone else to "fix" an issue while they completely shirk personal responsibility - the heads of major banks participate in risky lending practices, cost us billions in tax dollars, and then continue to have our support in our patronage of their businesses!  It is as though we are conditioned to accept a "sorry" without any real reparation.  We allow someone else to "handle it" instead of taking a proactive approach to our needs, and even worse, we assume that because someone utters the word "sorry" at the ring of a bell, that the truly mean what they are saying.  I'd be inclined to think that actions are far more meaningful than words, as Eliza Doolittle put it, "SHOW ME!"

Perhaps tomorrow I'll ponder the ways some of these strategies work in a classroom setting - in some ways it is more challenging, while in other ways it is much easier because of the assistance we get from the children.

What have I done?!

This morning as I drove home from the Starbucks drive-thru, I became overwrought with loathing for the number of times I've been to Starbucks in the past week.  Not really because I've totally relapsed on my horrible eating habits (curse those cake pops and my lack of will), but because I can count on one finger the number of times I've visited my favorite local coffee shop in the past few months - yeah, one finger.

Not only is the coffee more expensive and the treats mass-produced, but I don't know the people in that electronic ordering box, and they really don't care who I am beyond an arm passing them a handful of cash.  Fioza, on the other hand is a retreat-like experience every time I go.  The owner and the baristas (are they baristOs if they are male?) all know me and my ordering tendencies.  They know my children who did not even exist when I first started going to their marvelous establishment.  They play Pearl Jam, they play Uncle Bob (Dylan), they play reggae, they play soul, they play jazz.  They play "Daft Punk Radio," one of my all-time favorite Pandora stations, that I listened to at home long before I knew they were playing it.  I was loyal to them through the panna cotta discontinuation and the dessert "shots" discontinuation.  They ask about my family when I am there alone.  They ask about me when Ryan goes without me.  They look simultaneously shocked and encouraging when I order something other than a tapioca milk tea, sweetened - and I have never been disappointed when I stray from the usual.  They bring out an extra piece of toast for my kids when we order curry soup or panini - heck, they make the kids toast even when we aren't ordering food!

I feel like I am cool enough to be friends with the hip coffee shop guys, even though I am a mom of two who often forgets to grab a straw.  Even though I once dropped my drink in the parking lot immediately after buying it, for which I was told "shit happens," and handed a new drink free of charge and with a chuckle.  Even though I always have to run back in for "one more thing," sometimes two or three times.  Despite pestering these hip coffee dudes with millions of questions about what drink they think I might like, or questions like "what drink would be refreshing, decaf, non-coffee, not too sweet, iced, and not too girly for my husband?"  That minty hibiscus tea, although flamboyantly pink, was exactly what he wanted, by the way!

BUT I DRIVE THRU AT STARBUCKS NOW!!  I EXPECT MYSELF TO BE FIRST IN LINE AT CONFESSION THIS WEEKEND!!!  RENEE, YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!!  YOU WENT THROUGH MOST OF HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE BOYCOTTING STARBUCKS FOR SOME NOW-FORGOTTEN PRINCIPLE!  WHAT GIVES?!?

What is wrong with me that I forfeit the best coffee moments available for a long line at a drive-thru?!  In the mornings, the Starbucks drive-thru isn't even faster than going to Fioza and unloading my kids and loading them back into the car!  Friends, I admit to this because this has to stop right now.  I will not forego relationship for convenience - especially a convenience that may not even really be convenient.  If I am going to spend $6 on something that I could kind of make at home, I damned well better be hanging out with cool people and enjoying the experience when I do it!  I'm off to give myself dirty condescending looks in the mirror right now... as I finish my last Starbucks pumpkin spice latte... I'm probably going to flip myself the bird, too.  Starbucks, you are no longer my mistress.  Fioza, please take back your prodigal daughter.  I am ashamed.

Human Tendencies: Exploration

Maria Montessori observed over the course of her life's work that children in every culture and in every time exhibit basic human tendencies.  These tendencies are for exploration, orientation, order, communication, abstraction/immagination, exactness, repetition, self-perfection, self-control, control of error, work/purposeful activity, and movement.  If you take a moment (or 20 minutes) to observe a child it is impossible not to see one of these tendencies in action.  Perhaps you will say, "what?  Order?  Self-control? WORK?!  Renee, you've never met my child."  In this series I hope to give some insight into the most basic driving tendencies of childhood that help our children adapt to their time and place as well as ways to foster our children's development by utilizing these innate tendencies.

Exploration is a tendency our "helicopter" generation of parents is likely stifling.  Initially this tendency would have been necessary for survival - to explore the environment for food, to seek shelter, to find water. With basic needs met, the child can explore for the sake of exploration rather than for the sake of survival.

Exploration, of course, lends itself to discovery.  Within the house, discovery of the cookies on the highest shelf behind a wall of non-cookie items or discovery of the sharpie that was left within reach.  Outdoors, the range of discovery is boundless.  The cooler temperature of the shade trees, the insects that live under stones and boards, the movement of the wind in the trees, the changing of the seasons, the life cycle of plants in a garden, birds, sticks, pebbles, rain... boundless discoveries, I'm telling you.  I've never noticed any boredom in children who are allowed to freely explore outdoors!

Exploration is both deeply satisfying and deeply enriching.  With summer upon us, here are some considerations for allowing your child space to explore outdoors:

• A safe area that can be "supervised" from a distance.  Other tendencies (self-perfection, exactness, control of error) will help your child to largely self-regulate in regards to his own safety.  I am not saying put the kid outside and go take a bubble bath with your martini - although that seemed to work fine for my grandmother's generation of parents!  Be close enough without being an interruption - become a part of the furniture, as Montessori might say.
• A rich environment to explore.  A gated expanse of concrete would hardly offer much opportunity for exploration.  Consider elements that will appeal to all the senses.  
• For the auditory sense, helicopters/planes, trains, the nearby high school band practices (for you fellow urbanites), birds, rustling leaves, wind chimes, running water, etc.
• For the gustatory sense (taste), an herb garden with a variety of flavors to sample and fruiting trees and vines to get a simple snack.  Of course, you should present these to your child, so he is not eating poisonous leaves/berries/etc - show him the specific plants and how to identify them; it may be helpful to have a clearly delineated herb container/garden.
• For the visual sense, varieties of trees and flowers, bird and butterfly habitat, flowing water, perhaps a fish pond or some backyard animals, a "bug box" to allow a closer look at insects, snakes, frogs, and lizards (as a temporary observational tool... not as a permanent "pet" habitat).  
• For the olfactory sense (smell) flowers, herbs and compost.
• For the tactile sense, a variety of textures of leaves, sticks, gravel, sand, soil, water, flowers, etc.  The opportunity to go barefoot enhances tactile awareness as well.
• Finally, give the children a little space to just be - did I already mention that... it can use more than one mention.  Don't get fussy about getting "dirty" or playing with sticks or crawling under shrubs.

In a later post I will offer more bountiful ideas for "purposeful activity" or "work," but the tendency I'm focusing on is related more to a richness of surroundings and freedom to meander.

That said, purposeful activity is an excellent opportunity for observing this (and all of the) tendencies.  Consider a watercolor painting - the first attempt is almost certainly ends in a shredded, sopping wet, sheet of grey-brown paper.  As the child explores the activity, she may discover that subtle and light colors can be achieved with more water and less paint, or that rich bold colors often require far less water.  She might explore possibilities for brush stroke - fluid strokes or staccato taps of the brush to the paper.  She may discover that her yellow flower turned orange when she added a red center!  She may discover that her sopping wet painting from yesterday is now a permanent part of the wooden table she left it on to dry - or that she can only successfully lift a painting that has not become wet enough to soak through to the table - or that the paint runs when she lifts the painting immediately.  Other tendencies are certainly at work in this process - repetition of the activity, order of the steps for painting, control of error in realizing the outcome was more of a wet pulp than a painting, self-perfection in noticing (self-perceived) imperfections and working toward improvement on the next try, self-control in physically mastering the strokes and steps.  Some of these things will simply not come to fruition if the exploration is blocked.

Allowing a child to experience these things - some exciting, some frustrating, some beautiful, some dare-I-say ugly to the adult eye - is a far greater opportunity for learning and development than a parent-child lecture about "how to draw a flower" or grabbing the child's hand and directing it from the water jar to the paint cake to the paper to the water jar.  Would it be easier, cleaner, "prettier," on the first try for you to do it for your child?  Almost certainly.  Will the satisfaction and wonderment be that much greater when she discovers independently the technique that works best for her after multiple attempts and repeated striving?  Absolutely.

Living Close to Where I Live

Something that has long irked and confused me is the cultural move toward the suburbs. That looming question mark comes from a lifetime of living IN the city limits in a moderately sized one-story house, within about 15 minutes of anything I could possibly need or want. I did live outside of the outer loop for about 9 months of my life right after I got married, and I tried my hardest to convince Ryan that we should find an apartment closer to our families and workplaces before he signed the lease (which he did a few months before we got married... sneaky bugger). He was unconvinced until he saw our monthly toll-way bill and our monthly gas expenses! At that point we were locked into a 1-year lease, though, and committed to look closer in for the next place.

What shocked us was how much more the apartment ended up costing us out on the beltway than an apartment inside of the inner loop! Factoring in the travel expenses for work and visiting our families, we could have lived somewhere pretty ritzy in the city or paid a whole mortgage payment each month from the start! I had to commute daily on the toll-way and the commute took between 20 and 35 minutes each way... longer than I had ever driven to get to work or school in my entire life. It may be hard to believe, but we were spending between $150 and $250 each month on the toll-way and the same amount on gas money as well! EVERY MONTH! It was uncanny how much money we watched leave our account unceremoniously on a monthly basis!

The second crazy side-effect of living way out there (shockingly, still in the "city limits") was that I was wasting 5 hours a week on the freeway. Ryan would spend 2 hours a week commuting (since he works 24-hour shifts). 7 hours of time wasted away from the love of my life a week! Over the course of 9 months on that schedule we spent 10.5 whole 24-hour days on the road. TEN POINT FIVE WHOLE 24-HOUR DAYS ON THE ROAD!!!! Shout it with me!!!! No wait, I have to run to vomit! WHAT THE HECK?!?!

I could have spent those 10.5 days doing any of the following activities: catching up on my DVRed TV because we used to watch TV back then, going on dates with my husband, taking a long vacation to ITALY with the money we could have saved in travel-to-work-expenses, sleeping, learning how to sew, coming up with ways to be thrifty, cleaning our apartment that was always a mess (probably because we never had time to clean it because we spent so much time sitting on our hineys in the car!)... etc... etc... etc...

We started house hunting. The hunt started in the heights... still a 20+ minute commute from where we were both working, and 20-45 minutes away from our families. We quickly got real and started looking in SouthWest Houston, where we work. We found a house that is 7 minutes from my work with no freeway time, and Ryan works about 12 minutes away from our house with no freeway time. My family is about 8 minutes away and Ryan's family is about 25 minutes away. The days of the longest commutes are the days that Ryan works because I have to pick up Dominic from his favorite nanny in the afternoons: his NaNa. So now we spend 1.5 hours a week in the car to and from work and none of that time is spent on the freeway. SO over a 9-month period... for comparison's sake, we spend 2.25 days in the car. LESS THAN A QUARTER OF THE COMMUTE WE USED TO DISDAIN!!!!! Oh, and the money? Well, we don't pay for the toll-way any more, and the gas bill is probably a quarter what we were paying in gas expenses when we drove 4 times as much! So that is about $400 a month that goes toward our mortgage payment (which we will eventually get back in equity when we are ready to move). The time and money savings alone are enough to encourage me to sell my soul!

Then there is the ever-popular rebuttal: "but the houses in the city are old and gross" or "but you can get twice the house if you buy in the suburbs." Twice the house, four times the commute?! What?! Pass. I will definitely agree that it is easier to move into a house that is new, but the trade off seems ridiculous. It definitely took some sweat and tears to get our 65 year-old house up to our standards, but we gained the luxury of 8.25 additional hours every week to work on the house or spend time as a family!! Knowing my taste, we would still need to make a TON of modifications to a "move in ready" house in the burbs in order to meet my standards... and we'd have to make those modifications without that extra 8.25 hours a week!

Additionally, the size of our house works beautifully for us. We can work in the kitchen with Dominic playing in the back yard or take a little nap with Dominic playing in his room. In the mornings we can set him up with some breakfast and run back to our bedroom to get dressed to take him to school without needing a monitor or without undue worry that he might endanger himself while we are down the hall. Our JBL speakers can pump tunes to our whole house without difficulty, and there are no unused nooks that get dusty and need lots of cleaning attention despite their lack of use. BRILLIANT. This is a pretty sweet deal. We have less cleaning to do AND more time with our family?!? File that under "awesome."

Maybe this is related to the American sense of independence, but we seem to have a cultural attachment to having loads of personal space. There isn't any time to spend with the family because the time is spent on the road, and then when the family gets home the goal is to get to the most secluded personal spot in the house to spend time decompressing and watching a personal TV with my own TV shows or time updating my facebook status and checking in on people that live across the country (even though I haven't seen the people down the hall all day). I am SO GUILTY of this. It is so simple to hop onto the electronics and isolate myself from my husband and my son. It is also simple to admit that we have WAY more fun when we choose to do something as a family: step out to the back yard to listen to the High School band playing in the distance, turn on Pandora and listen to the funk station, go for a walk through the neighborhood, drive a couple miles to a fun family activity, etc.

Oh, and that is without even mentioning the benefits of living really close to everything we like! With the zoo only 15 minutes away from the house, we can pop over with our zoo membership (that costs less than one month of driving on the toll-way) and spend 30 minutes bumming around. Maybe we'll see a few animals while we're there or maybe not, but we definitely won't be sticking around in a bunch of crowds. This is TOTALLY guilt-free and hassle-free, zoo-tripping! Since it is so close to our home we can easily pop over to the zoo and change our mind about staying without any worry that we've wasted a trip or wasted money on the visit. We also enjoy loads of parks, museums, and nature areas within the city that do not strain our budget and that keep us entertained without having to make a big production out of a trip. It is easy to just say "hop in the car, we're going to the art museum," and head out. No diaper bag, no problem... it is only 15 minutes away... huzzah!

Welcome to LIFE!

Our family has more fun than I can begin to tell you. We (usually) opperate on an organic schedule, spend lots of time together, and genuinely enjoy each others' company.

When Ryan and I got married, we got the uber cable and dvr package and we were "living the life." We never missed our shows because they were recorded and waiting for us. We never had to choose between Rachel Ray and Ninja Warrior because we could watch one and record the other. We enjoyed marathon after marathon of our favorite shows! We spent our weekends catching up on hours of television, and our weekday evenings on the couch getting up to date on the latest home colors for fall (even though we lived in an apartment) or trying to guess which house that family was going to pick of the three options. Actually, the television was running our lives. We still spent time with friends, we still went on dates, but the MAJORITY of our time off of work together was spent looking at a lighted screen. There were some weekends that we "HAD TO STAY IN" because our dvr had 20 backed up episodes of shows that were about to be deleted. We didn't have time to read books for leisure. We were slaves to the TV.

We moved into our house and decided to try living without cable for a while, but the TV company could only set up our internet if we ordered a cable package for at least a month. So we ordered the cable and kept it for the required month. When we got rid of the cable we hooked up the television to the behemouth antenna the previous homeowner had left attached to our chimney. After "putting up with" the local channels we did something really crazy. We swapped our living and dining rooms to have a larger living space. We disconnected the massive antenna and moved the televison to a wall with no antenna jack. We freed ourselves from the television.

At first we still spent a lot of time watching movies or playing the Playstation 3. We gradually started spending more time at our parents' houses. Soon we started wondering what we had been wasting all of our time doing! We started picking up little house projects here and there. Our house started to settle into a liveable space. Our floors were refinished, the nursery was set up, the broken oven was replaced, the yellow 1972 toilets were replaced, the bathroom floors were tiled, the remaining rooms of our house were painted, the garage slowly emptied enough to fit one car, the living room got fresh and inviting furniture, the china was moved out of my in-laws upstairs closet and into our china cabinet, window treatments started going up, our son's room became orderly (and stayed orderly!), my Montessori work started coming together. Life was getting GOOD!

Life was getting so good, that we had forgotten about our previously life-consuming enterprise of television watching. I had shed a television addiction that I've carried since my childhood. Family gatherings became less about the golf tournament or football game and more about time with our family! We started to feel a little weirded out when we'd go places with a television just running in the background. We were noticing how much we had been missing! Suddenly there were a few more hours in every day or a few more hours of sleep to get every night. We started taking Dominic out to the park as he became more confident with walking. We bought a zoo membership and started taking regular family outtings to the zoo (sometimes only for a quick 30 minute trip before nap time, but with a membership... no fret... we'll see the okapi next time if we don't see it today!). I actually completed my Montessori training, without a very serious mental break-down that I had procrastinated beyond recovery... astonishing!

A noteworthy realization was that we didn't need constant entertainment anymore. We weren't missing all that television at all, and in fact, we really enjoyed getting netflix so we could watch a series of a television show here-and-there or to have a movie night every once in a while. Ryan and I started having more spontaneous "dates" and started having deeper conversations. Sometimes the drive home from the zoo would get us into such a rivetting conversation that we would stop off at Fioza (our favorite local coffe/tea/sandwich shop) and spend a few more hours laughing and debating and whirling off into other conversations (with Dominic asleep in his stroller or engrossed in observing his surroundings, or reading a book from the diaper bag). We played trivial persuit! We stopped using the board for the game because we had so much dang fun answering the questions and getting lost in conversation about the questions.

Our life became rich because of the time we spent with our families, because of the time we spent with our son, because of the time we spent together in silence reading, because of the time we had to be a family! Often we will sit at home and each of us (Dominic included) will be doing our own activities. He doesn't demand that we be with him all the time, and we are not locking him into a playroom full of stuff or putting him in front of a television to "keep him busy" so we can check the latest facebook debate or finish the laundry. He will bring us a book to read him every now and then and we'll end up reading four books a couple times each. Or we'll play some music, and end up having a family dance party for an hour. Sometimes we just take a nap in the afternoon.

When television left our list of "needs," we quickly forgot about it and quickly realized how much we had been missing. We have not felt bored for a moment. We haven't had to spend a ton of money on other activities or items in order to fill a void. We've carefully selected a few activities that work well for our family for days that we just need something to do (the zoo, library, and park), but those activities are free or nearly free. The change was a big one when we first made it, but in retrospect, it is one that I cannot imagine living without. We save tons of money that used to go to the cable company, we have freed up hours and hours a week, and we are genuinely enjoying the precious moments we have as a family. It is a change that I would encourage anyone to try for a couple months (Ryan dares you to try it for a year!). It is a change that has improved our lives a hundred fold!

Changes at the Casa Kitchen

After reluctantly watching the documentary films "Killer at Large" and "Food, Inc.," I've taken a radical plunge in my thinking about the food I put into my body and the bodies of my family members. I highly recommend the films, and I will be taking the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan from the library today to read it for more info.

The changes will include the following:

1. Only eating organic, free-range, grass-fed meat. This means we will be eating much less meat because I am sure it is not cheap to eat the new standard.

2. Eating fresh, organic, locally grown vegetables. We will be shopping weekly at the farmer's market for produce, and supplementing with produce from Whole Foods or Central Market.

3. Decreasing our intake of processed foods. Instead of packaged mixes, I'm going to be packaging my own convenient mixes to keep in the pantry (so long "blueberry muffin" mix that doesn't have blueberries on the ingredient list). Maybe I will post these "recipes" here if I get it worked out to a well-oiled homegrown machine.

4. We will be gardening. I have put this off since we bought our house. I have a few bags of soil in the garage and enough seeds to feed a village. I'm thinking that perfect is a lower priority than I've been making it, so I might just be going into the backyard, pouring the bags of soil on top of our "garden" space that is currently grassy and weed-riddled. Then I will plant the seeds... at this point I think our only crop will be Okra, but I will be looking into a timetable for planting a fall garden as well.

5. This one probably goes without saying, but we will be eating at home. The only person I can trust to care about the food that goes into our mouths is me, so I am going to be cooking more.

So there it is in writing. I will be posting updates, and I will probably not follow through on this stuff 100%. I know it is going to be more expensive, but I'm also confident that it is the right thing to do for my family. If you have some suggestions for "follow-through" on these items, please let me know. If you are in Houston and want to start a veggie co-op so we can buy in bulk and get better prices at the farmer's market, let me know that, too! Happy and healthy eating to you and yours!

A Day in the Life of a Busy and Independent Toddler

Yesterday, I watched the film “Eddison’s Day,” and I was absolutely shocked by the capabilities of the 20-month-old “star” of the film, Eddison. The film was made in one day following his activities from waking up to reading a book for bedtime; his mom is an AMI-trained Montessorian for the 0-3 age range. His environment is impeccable. He is happy, confident, independent, and very connected to his family and world. I was so shocked by the film that I watched it 2 more times and furiously scribbled notes (the third viewing I realized I could press the “pause” button). I’d like to share my notes from the film to offer some guidance about appropriate activities for toddlers that may shock you into finding this film at a local Montessori school parent library, so you can “see it to believe it!” I've broken the activities down into a "time of day" format, and within each section I list the activities first and then the considerations a parent should make to facilitate the activities.

Early Morning Activities

· Activities

o Going outside to retrieve the newspaper (with parental supervision).

o Setting the family table for breakfast and eating breakfast independently, even spreading jam or peanut butter on his own toast with a real child-sized knife and pouring a pre-portioned amount of milk out of a small pitcher into a drinking glass.

o Clearing breakfast dishes from table independently.

o Feeding the cat a pre-portioned amount of food, and giving the cat water from an accessible (low) water source.

· Accessibility Considerations

o Dishes should be low enough for the child to reach without adult help, and open shelving is best for young children to see everything they need;

o The child should be allowed to use real dishes and flatware (breakable, beautiful, stainless steel, child-sized);

o The child needs a chair that he can climb into on his own that pulls up to the family (adult-sized) table;

o The parent will have to pre-portion drinks and spreads into small containers that are manageable for the child: a small “sauce bowl” for jam, or a coffee creamer sized pitcher for drinks. There will be slightly more dirty dishes.

o A low, accessible place to put dirty dishes, like a small cart or bin; later the child can help rinse them at the sink. If this seems superfluous, allow the child to wash dishes after each meal in the sink and load dishes into the dishwasher by himself.

o For animal care, the child needs manageable containers with the correct amount already measured out or a built-in control for the correct amount (one cup full, or one small pitcher of water). The child needs access to a low water source, like a glass crock of water on a low shelf. The animal care tray should be as simple as a tray with a cup or pre-portioned container for with an easy-open lid for dry food and a small pitcher for water.

Getting Ready for the Day

· Activities

o Brush teeth, looking into a low accessible mirror, mom squeezes toothpaste.

o Use a small potty independently (managing pulling down and pulling up his own pants)

o Choose own outfit from a limited selection of clothing.

o Undress from PJs and get dressed with some, but very little, adult help. Admire himself in a mirror.

o Carry his own backpack with a change of clothes if leaving for school (toddler community in the film) or going for an outing.

o Walk outside independently, even down steps, and to the car.

· Accessibility Considerations

o Low mirror in the bathroom.

o Small potty-chair with spare/dry changes of underpants and books close at hand in a basket or small cubby.

o An easy-open closet or wardrobe with a low clothing rail with two tops and two bottoms hanging (for a girl maybe a dress and a separates option?). A couple bins or baskets below the rail with staples like socks, accessories, and underwear (yes, they can be potty trained this young, with minimal accidents).

o A hamper in the dressing/undressing area. A simple and small basket is sufficient… they have little clothes!

o Hooks near the door with hats and coats (that can be offered upon leaving) and a backpack with spare clothes or diapering essentials… toss the diaper bag and let the kid carry his own stuff!

o Step-stool to get outside if the drop is too steep.

At School

· Activities

o Enter the school walking with or even ahead of Mom.

o Open the door to his class, and separate from mom without tears or trauma.

o Simplified table-top hand-washing

o Do activities independently and with concentration and repetition.

o Do activities in the company of a small community

· Accessibility Considerations

o Security that parent will be picking him up on time, a cheerful and trusting parents who separate in a matter-of-fact, “see you later, I love you” kind of way.

o Handwashing setup: Terrycloth apron, small bowl (that can fit both toddler hands), small pitcher that can fill the bowl in one go, and a smaller bowl with a small bar of soap. A hand towel for drying. This activity can be set up on a low table at home as well; children LOVE this.

On a “Play Date”

· Activities

o Share outdoor toys and tricycles with a friend (of the same age)

o Harvest fruit from the yard (or veggies from the home garden, or herbs with some help).

o Eat lunch with a friend at a low table; they pass each other the small pitcher with water to pour their own drinks, and have simple (toddler) conversation “you want some?” “thank you” “mmm… pears”

o Attempting a low balance beam (2x4 plank on the ground secured with small supports along the board)

o Share toys indoors with a friend.

o Return toys and musical instruments to their places on the low shelf in the family room.

o Dig in the sand at a beach and use a pail and shovel.

· Accessibility Considerations

o Freedom to play independently with adult supervision (no hovering! They can do it!).

o Accessible dishes (as with breakfast), and a low picnic table outside is a nice variation to eating lunch.

o Clear and orderly toy layout (see below “At Home” for more details)

o Freedom to get dirty (play in sand, pick up insects, and explore).

Out and About

· Activities

o Help pick out flowers, fruits, and vegetables at a farmers market. Place the veggies into bags, smell the fruits and vegetables, use basic language for the items in the market.

o Wash the car in the driveway with dad. Spray water with the hose, wash the car with a soapy sponge, apply wax or polish with a cloth.

· Accessibility Considerations

o Let the child walk as much as possible, holding hands, and let the child take a little detour every now and then to check something out.

o Give language for EVERYTHING and allow the child to have a sensory experience of the things in his world.

o Provide child-sized (real, not toy) activities that are part of home life. Small sponge and cloth for washing the car, for instance. Live with the child, not around him.

At Home

· Activities

o Read books with mom, selecting books from a limited supply on a low shelf.

o Work with modeling clay (or play doh), using simple clay tools and cleaning up independently.

o “washing” windows and play equipment (tricycle, wheelbarrow) outside with a wet sponge.

o Name items in nature and in the home.

o Handling and returning items in nature: snails, leaves, flowers, pears (from the tree in the backyard… sweet!).

o Simplified flower arranging: placing flowers cut by parents into a pre-filled vase.

· Accessibility Considerations

o Low bookshelf with a few books displayed clearly on it; rotate books as interest wanes, but keep the selection to a few books at a time.

o Activities should be self-contained and clear in their setup/use: A tray with a small board for rolling the clay, a small (child fist) sized ball of clay, a couple simple rolling and cutting tools. A tray with a few crayons at a time in a small dish and a fresh piece of paper. A tray with a sponge and a drying cloth for wiping the table. A tray with a watering can and small cloth for watering plants and drying small drips of water.

o The activities should be displayed on low open shelving, within the child’s reach. Each activity, toy, or instrument should have its own clear space on the shelf; “catch-all” bins or baskets are great for “easy” clean-up, but they do not provide the same clear and orderly presentation that the shelf provides. With an orderly and consistent layout, the child is able to choose activities and put things away himself. It would probably be surprising to see that a child this young is EXTREMELY orderly in a well-prepared environment. It is rare a child pulling many things out at a time when things are set up as above, and it is amazing to see the level of concentration and engagement a child can exhibit in working with one carefully selected item at a time.

o Access to the outdoors with purposeful activities such as a balance beam, tricycle, sponge for cleaning, a broom for sweeping.

Cooking Dinner

· Activities

o Pouring pre-portioned ingredients into a mixing bowl, dry and wet ingredients.

o Mixing ingredients with a child-sized spatula, with limited instruction from mom “let’s try to keep it in the bowl.”

o Kneading dough.

o Brushing pizza dough with olive oil.

o Assembling pre-sliced ingredients on a pizza: mozzarella, tomatoes, basil

o Preparing dessert batter as above, and spooning dessert batter over a cobbler, with limited direction from mom, “can you add some over here?” Taking turns and accepting help.

o Washing dishes at the sink using a soapy sponge with dad. Wiping dirty or wet counter tops.

o Distinguishing trash and recyclables and putting them in the appropriate containers.

o Setting the table for the whole family and eating at the family table.

· Accesibility Considerations

o Child-sized aprons (made of two large hand towels sewn together with space for the head are great for absorbency!).

o A kitchen tower that elevates the child to counter height to work with the parents (learning tower, or kitchen helper… I’ve heard there are some platforms available at home depot that may work just as well).

o Small versions of cooking utensils.

o Constant supervision; this is a “doing with” type of situation.

o Child-sized brooms on low hooks for clean-up.

o Small sponge at the sink.

o Low trash and recycling bins, if the child will help take out trash and recyclables, the indoor bins should be small enough for the child to carry (even with some strong effort it is ok, but not so huge that he cannot manage).

Before Bedtime

· Activities

o Take out a small bin of recyclables to the large bin. Climb up on a step stool to put the recyclables into the bin. Walk with dad to help take the garbage bin to the curb.

o Add bubbles to bathwater with a little direction “let’s save some for next time.”

o Choose two bath toys from a low cabinet.

o Undress with a little bit of help from mom.

o Put clothes into hamper.

o Wet his own body with a cup and a washcloth.

o Bathe with a washcloth and some parental help to get the hard to reach places (behind ears, back, etc).

o Asked for help to wash hair, but closed his own eyes to have his hair rinsed.

o Put on robe with some help from mom (after mom dries him off and gives some snuggles). Hang towel on a low hook.

o Remove robe and hang on low hook in his room.

o Dress in PJs with minimal help from mom.

· Accessibility Considerations

o A step stool to reach the outdoor recycling bin, adult help to open and close the large bin.

o Small manageable container with bubbles for the child.

o Expectation of a limit to the number of toys that can be taken into the tub (one per hand makes a lot of sense). The child is then able to return the toys to the shelf without having an overwhelming mess or large number of toys to clean up.

o Freedom to do for himself.

o Low hooks that the child can reach to hang up towels, robes, re-wearable pjs, etc.

How to Pick a Good One

After 18 months of parenthood, nearly three years of marriage, six years of partnership, nine years of friendship, and 11 years since our first (extremely awkward) meeting, I am pretty amazed by the way things have worked out! Based on our experience and a lifetime of Fr. Bill homilies, I have some thoughts about marriage:

Marry your best friend... and stay best friends!

Know that the person you love is a person, who will only change because of a conscious personal choice, not because you want him to change (Ryan, I wouldn't change a thing about you, and I am trying to make that choice to put my clothes in the hamper).

Put your dirty clothes in the hamper when you take them off. It is simple, and it will make Ryan... er, your husband or wife... very happy. And also clear your own dishes from the table.

Remember 1 Corinthians 13, and remember the parts that aren't quite as easy as "Love is patient, kind," etc. "We see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully as I am fully known." This rocked my world when I heard it at a wedding after I got married (it was not a reading at our wedding, but I have grown up with this passage, and will never forget Aunt Char reading it at that wedding). How clear does this passage get in reflecting back upon the wedding day and the entrance into the sacrament?! This is one of my favorite lines about marriage and one that is challenging if you are imperfect like I am.

Marry the person that will die for you. Marry the person that you would die for.

See humor in each other and in yourselves... and laugh about it together. Embrace the wrinkles you will have later in life because of the laughter!

Marry a good father or a good mother; see how the person treats his family and how his family treats each other. That family is going to be your family, and I could not be happier to have my family grow in such a wonderful way by marrying Ryan. He is also an amazing dad, and I saw that in him a long time ago!

Date each other after you get married.

Serve each other.

Turn off the damned television and talk to each other! And then maybe enjoy some tv time together.... or just leave it off.

Prepare for marriage with a sponsor couple. Skip the engaged encounter retreat, and find a sponsor couple. (Ok, I haven't been on the engaged encounter retreat, so maybe it is pretty cool.) I have worked with a sponsor couple in marriage preparation, and it was my favorite part of the weeks leading up to the wedding (more than trying on the dress, more than luncheons and parties, more than meeting with the caterer). Our sponsor couple meetings were a set date to talk about the rest of our lives with a couple who is living their life. We had a workbook (chuckle away) that raised interesting questions, we had amazing discussions, and we shared wonderful stories with people who know how it all works. It was intimate and refreshing, and it wasn't at all hokey or fluffy... it was real and it was about keeping it real.

Get a life... your own life... and let your spouse have his own life as well. We often go out together, but it is equally important to have a guys night or ladies night.

You have got to get one (or a few) of these! I cannot believe how my love increased when this guy came along.

I often reflect on the homily Father Bill offered at our wedding, and the readings we chose for our wedding mass. We chose Ephesians 5: 20-33; the one relating marriage to Christ and the Church. I am so glad to have a husband who makes that passage easy to live by; I remember thinking "you have got to be kidding me" when I heard the verse that says women should be subordinate to their husbands, but now it is a pretty simple task. He has to love me enough to die for me, and we have to live in mutual admiration and respect for each other. Check, double check! It is so easy to live that challenge with someone who loves you as much as you love him. Father Bill gave a beautiful reflection on Humility, saying "If you really want to love your husband, ask him, 'how can I be a better wife to you;' if you really want to love your wife ask her, 'how can I be a better husband to you,' chances are she will run to print a Word document." I could not feel stronger that this would solve so much of the marital strife we have in our society; it is so easy to focus on being wronged or being the winner, but it takes resolve to be humble... especially in those moments that I feel like I've been wronged.

And now a bit about the wedding: If you want someone phenomenal to say your wedding mass, may I recommend Father Bill? I had heard all kinds of stories that he "won't let the father of the bride escort the bride into the mass" or "he'll embarrass you in the homily," and all I can say to those claims is "HOGWASH!" He prepared us in the most amazing way I can imagine: he met with us, asked us challenging questions, set us up with a phenomenal sponsor couple, and gave us wonderful suggestions. The myth about not letting you walk down the aisle with your dad goes something like this, in Father Bill's words: "The gold standard is to walk into the wedding together, as a couple, because you are the ministers of the sacrament. (I had never thought of this before in my life) The silver standard is to walk into the wedding with both of your parents; they have shown you everything you know about marriage and we don't want to stuff mom into the pew to be lonely through the processions. (awesome, I love this!) The bronze standard is for the bride to walk in as the center of attention. It isn't a 'look at me' event; it is an us event." I'm pretty convinced by the gold standard, but because we both come from traditional families, we opted for the silver standard to honor our parents. There were never any negative feelings that we made that choice. As for the homily, I have never felt more edified and challenged in my life; it was personal, it was far-reaching, it was moving. The number one comment at the reception was, "AMAZING SERMON. And this risotto is delicious." THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! A healthy dose of truth at my wedding and about three quick bites of that tasty risotto

What makes marriage tick for you guys? Favorite date night ideas? Favorite date night ideas that do not involve leaving the sleeping toddler home alone? Any amazing pearls of wisdom from your own weddings or experiences together? Post it as a comment... on the blog... not on facebook...