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Archives for February 2010

Saturday Feature: Mistakes

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Every Saturday I bring you a parenting mistake my husband and I have made. Please have a laugh or cry at our expense — we really are good parents, I swear.

On Tuesday evening, I put a piece of bread in the toaster and handed my toddler a jar of blueberry jam (with the lid on!). I then began making dinner and forgot all about her. When she caught my attention again, she looked like a sticky smurf. Her entire face was coated in blue jelly as were the sleeves and front of her shirt. The jam jar was nearly empty. Just then, my husband walked in the kitchen. He was not impressed.

Three Methods for Hair Washing

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I don’t know a single toddler who loves to have her hair washed. Here are three methods that may or may not work for you, depending on the day.

Take Turns

If you are bathing with your toddler, let her wash your hair first. Then you do hers.

All By Myself (Almost)

Guide your child through the hair washing process, standing by with a wet wash cloth and a dry wash cloth. Use a very small amount of shampoo. I let Nora use a cup to wet her hair and rinse it out. Be vigilant about not letting a little soapy hand find it’s way to an eye! The results will not be perfect, but at least the rat’s nest of tangles will be gone.

Just Do What I Say and Nobody Gets Hurt

Not as brutal as it sounds, this involves mustering all of your (gentle) parental authority and explaining exactly what you are going to do just before you do it. Tell your toddler to look up at the ceiling then use a cup to wet the hair down. Then lather. For rinsing, firmly hold your toddler and lay her back in the water. You’ll need to sing a soothing song. The one I wrote goes like this (Oscar Hammerstein I am not):

Your mama holds you tight, and you lean back in the wah-ter
Everything’s all right, we rinse the soap out of your hay-yer.

As a last resort, there’s bribery. But I didn’t need to tell you that.

An Open Letter to People Who Drive Like They're Trying to Kill My Family

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Yes, I’m talking to you, young man with too much gel in your hair. News flash, you are not Dale Earnhardt, Jr. A real race car driver knows the value of human life and saves the speed for the track. The roads are not your personal video game. And you are, in fact, mortal, despite the vampire hair-do. And when you kill another mortal in an accident, you will regret it everyday until you die.

And you, forty-something man in the pick-up with the “big meats,” you obviously have anger issues. I’m sure your workplace offers a certain number of therapy sessions, go make an appointment before you hurt someone.

And you, Missy. It is now illegal to text while driving in Oregon. Do you know why? Because people who text while driving maim and kill other people!

Did none of you see “Blood on the Highway” in driver’s education class? Do you really think that getting to the bar in time for the first batch of mini tacos at happy hour is worth risking the lives of others? Do you realize if you cause an accident and hurt my child I will kill you with my tiny woman hands?

Whew.

And let’s all remember to check our mirrors and use our turn signals, okay?

Thank you.

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I Love Cussing

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I am the product of laissez faire parenting. I watched many, many “R” rated movies and hours of cable television as a child. My choices were never screened or much noticed. As a result, I have an abiding love of profanity. I studied it’s use by the greats: Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Connelly, Eddie Murphy, to name but a few. My siblings and I engaged in it as a bonding exercise, and in my twenties, I became a line cook, where I honed my skills.

Now, I have a toddler. I can’t even spell curse words in my own home without having them repeated in a tiny innocent voice, which needless to say sounds awful.

When my husband and I find ourselves alone together, we curse like sailors, but it’s not the same anymore. It’s sounds hollow. On Twitter, I follow a funny, well known comedian, and every so often I am tempted to message her: @lizzwinstead, do you not know that you have 13-yr-old beekeeping follower? Can you tone down the foul language? I wince when I think of kids reading an f-bomb in a compound word.

Of course, I remember being twelve and thinking how silly it was for adults to get uptight about swearing. (But I’d never had the experience of seeing a profane rant coming from a pre-pubescent girl from an adult perspective.) You cannot prevent kids from cussing, it’s like trying to stop them from talking altogether. A favorite high school teacher of mine used to tell a joke that illustrated people need dirty words, if they don’t have them, they’ll invent them. (Sorry, can’t remember the joke well enough to tell it.)

Here’s a little speech I’m preparing to give to Nora, some years hence:

Honey, swearing has a place, but it’s limited. Not in class, not at work, not among people you think might be offended –or unappreciative. It can give people a negative opinion of you to hear you cursing before they know you well. It’s fine to swear with your friends, and we all swear occasionally, for emphasis. But remember to hear yourself when you do it. And don’t over do it.

Then we’ll sit down together and watch Ricky Gervais in the Office and laugh until our cheeks ache. Oh, bad words can be so, so good.

Waiting for Waldorf

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When I step into a Waldorf classroom my body immediately relaxes and my breathing slows and deepens. It is like stepping into a sanctuary. The color palettes are calming, the rooms are orderly and usually smell of fresh bread. All the toys are hand-made of natural materials. I want sit down with my daughter and explore for hours.

Any day now we will hear if Nora was accepted into our Waldorf preschool of choice. I am bracing myself for disappointment. Here’s why: her age only qualifies her for the three day program. Kids in the three day program are not eligible for aftercare. We have no way of getting her from school to daycare and even if we did find a way, it’s too expensive to pay for five days of daycare plus three days of preschool. One of the things that led us to this school is the aftercare until 5:45pm. We didn’t know that it wasn’t available for Nora until we showed up for the interview. Picture jaw dropping and heart sinking.

The staff said they would look into letting her in the aftercare program, as she’s already in a five day program and therefore it wouldn’t be a big adjustment for her in terms of hours away from home. And it’s a much more low key environment than what she has now.

I know we will find a place for her in a Waldorf school. If not for this fall, then for the following. This is not make or break. There may be an option of starting her in the five day program early next year when she meets the age requirement of 3.8 years. I know all this, and try to be patient, knowing that a great place for Nora exists, she just can’t be there yet.

Yellow Gummy Vitamins and Pull-ups with a Single Princess

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My daughter has recently started sleeping through the night in her underwear instead of a Pull-Up. What made her take the leap? We ran out the the Pull-Ups that featured Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella on the front. Nora deems the ones with Cinderella alone as unwearable. They are stacked on her changing table and will probably be donated to daycare.

A similar situation is approaching with a bottle of vitamins. The gummy vitamins we buy come in red, yellow and orange. Nora reaches in with her little hand and gropes around until she pulls out a red or orange bear. We’ll need to have a little talk when we’re down to only yellow, I’m not going to throw away a third of a bottle of vitamins! One strategy I use is pretending to paint the offending item a more desirable color. This has worked in the past with the plain white toilet. However, I tried it recently with white underwear and was met with a tantrum.

That’s the challenge of parenting, children are fickle and move through stages quickly. A treat of imaginary ice cream may work one day and the next day be considered a grave insult. Parents who are dedicated to non-authoritarian methods must be nimble and quick thinking. Yawn. Which would be much easier if we ever got any sleep.