Wind

Some mornings Lilli and I go over to the playground across the street to exhaust some of her endless energy. One morning, as she laid in the grass playing her favorite game of organize-the-leaves-sticks-and-mulch, Lilli watched as some leaves blew across the parking lot towards her.

At first, she looked a little startled and confused. She watched as the wind picked up and her hair swirled around her head. She squinted her eyes and smiled like she does when you blow on her face and hair. I picked some leaves out of the grass and placed them on the bench near where we were playing. I took a deep breath and blew the leaves away. She laughed and looked at me with wide eyes as if to ask me to do it again.

She learned about wind that day. Now when the wind blows she stops what she is doing, squints her eyes, and smiles.

"Indie Song of the Entry"

Kanske är jag kär i dig by Jens Lekman

Educational push

In today's world we have every resource available at our fingertips. Videos, flashcards, classes, and even video games all geared towards babies and toddlers. There are entire industries dedicated to making our children smarter than we were at their age.

I won't pretend like I don't take advantage of the colorful videos. One particular sign language video has saved many car trips from many potential meltdowns that would have otherwise prolonged a trip. We have tried all of the different kinds:

Baby Einstein

Brainy Baby

Your Baby Can Read

Classical Baby

One time or another for one reason or another she has watched all of them. There are some that she gets excited about, especially those with colorful puppets and classical music. Some are fun, while others seem like homework. Pushing material such as reading, math and logic on her before she understands the concepts behind them. Some suggest using flashcards to aid in learning, others have fun songs, or classical music. None of them have made her any smarter than she could be with some extra attention and care.

I am not dead set against these learning aids, I don't have a strong opinion about those who use or don't use them. However, I won't spend hours a day forcing her to learn to read before she's learned to use the bathroom. I'd rather spend that time playing with her and introducing these concepts through interaction. Now is not the time to buckle down and study hard. It's time to be a child, learn through play and experience.

"Indie Song of the Entry"

Stella by Ida Maria

Fetch

Up until very recently, Lilli could not understand the concept of having a catch (or roll). She loves to play with the ball but instead of rolling it back, she gets up and brings it back to us. Basically, my daughter plays fetch. *sigh*

I really shouldn't have been surprised, she learns best from observation. The majority of our ball-play is with our dog, so she only knows that when the ball is thrown that she is supposed to bring it back. At first I was pretty upset. I felt like a bad parent for not spending more time teaching her how to roll the ball back and forth. After all, every child development book/article/website I read says that she should have been able to roll a ball back and forth between us for quite some time.

I talked to some other parents who were kind enough to admit that their kid also played fetch with them at one time. We bought her some new type of balls, some smaller, some bigger, some rubber, and some plastic. We practiced and played but she just wanted to run after it and hand it back to us. It wasn't until about a week or so ago that she got the hang of it... kind of...

She skipped right over rolling and went straight to throwing... at your face. Unfortunately, she gets about a foot and a half away from you before tossing it. Fortunately, she doesn't put full force into it... yet. She still loves to run after a ball with the dog, but I guess it's not the same as being raised by wolves.

"Indie Song of the Entry"

Sixteen by The Indelicates

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is an event but more than that it's a spirit of the season. Some may say that it begins when the leaves change or when the kids go back to school. For me, Fall begins when we hang up the decorations and plan out our costumes. When we drag that big tub out of the closet and sort through the different holiday decorations, it marks the beginning of another year of traditions and togetherness.

The morning of Halloween started off full of excitement and energy. After some breakfast, Lilli tried on just the hood of her costume. We didn't want her to get tired of it early and miss out on the nighttime fun. So we gave her a mirror for her to checked herself out.



She walked around making elephant noises and playing in the mirror for a good part of the morning.



After we ran some weekend errands, we came home to get ready. Even at night, after a long hot day in October, it was entirely too warm to be in full costume. We tried to dress her light and hoped for the best. After we suited up we took some pictures and headed out.





She was strapped into her car seat and the A/C was on full blast, we went to a friend's house for a bit before heading to another friend's house. After second the trip across town, Lilli started to show signs of a soon-to-be meltdown. Maybe it was the heat, maybe she was tired of sitting in a car seat, but whatever triggered the waterworks, it was clear the night out was over. We skipped out on the mall trick or treating and opted to head home to relax instead of trying to force Lilli to enjoy herself.

When we got home we had a record total of two trick or treaters that were lucky enough to get our entire bag of candy (minus a few pieces of me). Since it was still early, we decided to played with our costumes for a while before bath and bedtime.



So many people look at these holiday seasons as one day, ignoring everything leading up to and following the specific date on a calendar. If I were to look at things that way, it may seem like Halloween wasn't all it could have been. However, I choose to look at all of the things we did in honor of the day itself. When I see things as a whole instead of a fraction of it's parts, I feel like we had a very successful second Halloween. Score. :)

"Indie Song of the Entry"

Skeleton Man by Evangelicals

Halloween part 5

Aside from the great pumpkin of 2007, that lived from September to early May un-carved on our kitchen counter, we usually carve pumpkins every year. We search high and low for the perfect pumpkin to mutilate and destroy. The one good thing that came out of the Boo Fest was that it was a hydroponic farm and their pumpkins were incredible. The most beautiful orange coloring, hardly any marks or damage, and perfect for carving.

Lilli was a little apprehensive about the whole thing. In order to keep her interested, we gave her some markers and crayons to decorate her pumpkin from the Soho festival.



Then we got started on the perfect-for-carving pumpkin:



Lilli wasn't too happy about gutting her new toy:



But when it was all over, she seemed to really enjoy the end product:



Our best pumpkin carving yet*:



*The cat design was chosen because it is Lilli's favorite animal of the week

"Indie Song of the Entry"

Fool by Heidi Happy

Halloween part 4

We had no idea what to expect this Halloween. I had never had to entertain a toddler without the help of a handful of older siblings to take them trick or treating. Times are different now... We don't have a tight knit family community that we grew up in to parade her around. She's the first grandchild, so there are no older cousins or siblings to drag her around establishing old traditions in a new generation. It's too dangerous and kind of pointless (given that she doesn't eat candy) to take her door to door in our neighborhood. Our experiences proved to be very unhelpful...

We spent a lot of time trying to find something to do for Halloween. We researched and investigated festivals, parties, pumpkin patches (a rare find in Florida), and kid-friendly events. Unfortunately, kid-friendly does not mean toddler friendly. We wanted to find things that would be fun for her but festive and different from the day to day. At first we had a hard time finding something suitable. Then, as Halloween drew near, the calendar began to fill up with plenty of (what seemed like) fun things to do.

First, a small festival in the Soho area of town. It was crowded and the parent-to-kid ratio was in favor of parents socializing and drinking expensive coffee. While older kids ran amuck (I hope someone gets the Hocus Pocus reference), the younger bunch stood in a long line to have their picture taken with clowns on stilts. There was a toy store, filled to the brim with toddlers playing with a train set in the back. A perfect place to let Lilli enjoy some freedom and finally be allowed to interact with her surroundings instead of just being a spectator. She had enough of being carried and swung her legs around to get down, booting a poor little girl in the head. After ensuring the little girl was unharmed, Lilli toddled over to play area. Parents hoovered over their little ones, watching warily as the kids attempted to share (and by share I mean steal each other's objects). One mother took her baby away when the crowd go too much, mumbling something about her child not being a stable walker yet. I could swear she gave me a dirty look...

Then, when the crowd started to clear, Lilli was left with a little boy and his fancy-pants parents. They commented about Lilli's candy corn hat, to which I responded with the story of how she wouldn't take it off in the store. Then I made my social-economic mistake "It was a dollar at Target! How could I say no?!" So proud of my find... Well... this is Soho... Dollar deals are not nearly as impressive to the fancy-pants as it would be to a typical mom. After a polite/mocking smile, they quickly engaged in a private conversation about the expensive gifts they planned to buy their toddler. We made one last loop around the festival and hit the road... without a single picture and feeling a little out of our element.

Next, The Boo Fest at a farm about a half an hour from our house. We thought it'd be fun for her to see a farm. Some cows, horses, maybe a field of pumpkins or other vegetation. It had to be better than the Soho fest... Well, they had pumpkins...



After the farm-bust we had planned to take her to a party at Gymboree. The Pumpkin Patch Party was an hour and a half of toddler madness.



Lilli got to decorate a pumpkin and show off her dancing skills. She hammed it up when the entire room of parents watched this tiny girl dance like a pro. She rolled around, went up and down slides, climbed over and under and through, and even got to eat a sugar cookie at a big kid table with the rest of the kids.





Finally! Something that she could enjoy without being carted around and held back from interacting because of rough kids and engrossed parents not paying attention to their own kids, let alone mine. The parents were understanding of "toddler sharing" and the kids not really getting the concept of personal space. There were no awkward situations, no one smiling politely, we hardly felt out of place at all.


Most importantly, she had a great time.



"Indie Song of the Entry"

All Nothing by The Good China

Halloween part 3

Once I had ordered her costume, it was time to start decorating and getting into the spirit. We placed the tiny fake pumpkins around the house, hung up the mummy on our door, and put the scarecrows out on our patio. Lilli was scared of some of decor at first... now we have to say hello to every single scarecrow we see. When her costume arrived, I let her check it out on her own:



Now if only we had something to do or somewhere to go...

"Indie Song of the Entry"

How Now by Get Set Go

Halloween part 2

The first thing I had to do was find a costume for Lilli. She went as a pumpkin last year because she was too tiny for most of the costumes. I'll admit, not my most creative choice. I would make up for it this year.

There's no denying she has an opinion. If I was going to pick something, she had to at least make the final call. It was down to two choices:

The Hippo or the Elephant:



I was pulling for the Hippo. After some obvious consideration, she had made her decision:



"Indie Song of the Entry"

Machine by Anni Rossi

Halloween part 1

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday (if you can call it that) ever since I was very young. My mom always made a big deal about all holidays, but Halloween was a production. I always looked forward to the start of the holiday season, the big box of Halloween decorations, and especially the smell of Fall even if it was just the Pavlov response to all of the sugar rushes to come.

In elementary school we used to trick or treat in my grandparent's neighborhoods. We would visit their houses for candy and pictures. Then we'd go to the houses from my mom's childhood, her friend's parents who still lived on that street (and quite a few still do). We would visit a haunted house that was owned by friends of my step-grandparents. We would walk around tight knit communities where everyone watched us grow up.

By middle school we had moved to the suburbs and were gaining some freedom. We were allowed to trick or treat unattended and were lucky enough to expand our damage to those of our friend's neighborhoods. We had early curfews, had to check in often, and I'm pretty sure some of the parents stalked us a little in their cars (something I can now completely relate to doing). We sang show tunes and ate all of our favorite candies before we even got home. When we finished, we would sit around in a HUGE circle, dump our haul, then organize into each candy. Then we'd make trades as we sat around talking way too fast, about the people we saw along the way and started planning next year.

Last year was a blur. Not that Lilli would have noticed, but I was not in my element as usual because of being a new parent and the whole almost dying thing. This year I was ready. But what to do as a parent of a toddler... This is uncharted territory.



"Indie Song of the Entry"

Dance Dance Dance by Lykke Li

Endless energy

Lilli is on. All the time. From the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep, she is ready to take on her day. She is constantly investigating every aspect of life and taking it in all at once.



Climbing, spinning, running, walking, investigating, pretending, playing, and learning. It's exhausting to watch, it's more exhausting to follow her around. I don't know where the energy comes from, the food intake to energy output ratio is baffling.



It reminds me of something one of my younger brothers used to say as a kid...

"Run, run, run, run, run, FALL DOWN!!!"



"Indie Song of the Entry"

Half My Heart Beats by The Smittens

A mother's guilt

I grew up in a pretty big family, compared to Dave's at least. There was no shortage of mother's guilt in my life. Sometimes the guilt was used for simple things like doing the dishes and other times big things like which college to attend.

Allow me to give you an example of such a situation. Say you're busy one day that your grandmother needs a ride to the store. Your plans aren't incredibly important, but you have made a commitment to your day and changing your plans would be inconvenient. A mother's guilt is not direct, it's not obvious and it will almost always work. It starts with her mental list of other options she might have: "well, I guess I could call your brother, but he's working until 6 p.m.... I guess I could wait to pick up my creamer and just drink my coffee black. Although, that usually upsets my stomach, so I guess I could just skip coffee all together today." :::loud sigh:::

I had always resented this guilt. I never understood how someone could be so passive aggressive and yet, somehow, I felt compelled to do whatever it was that was being requested. It wasn't until I had become a mother that I understood from where this power stems.

I now understand that the mother's guilt is perfected from spending every moment of your life feeling guilty. Guilt for making a bad decision that could potentially change the course of a child's life. Guilt from spending an extra five minutes in the shower instead of playing another round of wheels on the bus. Guilt from making the husband take out the garbage when he clearly thinks isn't that bad and it could wait until tomorrow morning. Guilt from neglecting another unanswered email, that plant that's been dying for a few weeks, the piles of paperwork that needs to be filed, that pile of crumbs that has been passed over a few times but would be cleaned up when the list of to-do's was finally finished.

I don't think that these moms intentionally ever guilt-ed anyone into doing their bidding. I believe they were generally just thinking about their options aloud. Trying to find an answer to the endless stream of questions, problems and challenges that come up every single second of every single day. I believe comes from years and years of pros-cons, decision making, planning, and simply just trying to get things done efficiently.

It's difficult to run a family, a house, and the life a parent chooses without weighing all of the options. It feels like every decision you make could have a terrible consequence. (Flu shot or No flu shot? Early nap or late nap? Chicken or Pizza for dinner? Preschool or home school? Jacket or sweater? Stay here or go there?)

I think moms are good at guilt because they spend their life feeling guilty. We are just trying to find the best option for our kids and our families. We're trying to get our damn coffee so we can make it through the day.

Dear Moms in my family,
I appreciate your guilt, I love you too. Sorry I gave you so much crap, I'm happy to pick you up some creamer. Enjoy your morning coffee. :)
Love, me

"Indie Song of the Entry"

Down and Out by The Displacements