Word Vomit

by Matt

I thought I'd try something a little different today. My head has been all over the place lately. This may be a bit reflective of the 24hr news cycle-information available within seconds-culture. I'm just going to peel back my skull, and tell you what's been on my mind.

• The baby will soon be on it's way. In just about 4 weeks, I will have another beautiful girl added to my 4 person family. We're all getting very excited. But more importantly, we're getting ready. Things are not just starting to come together. We have new baby things for the room, to replace the baby things we no longer have. We'll be moving E into L's room soon. We got a new baby seat.

• And that leads me to my next thought. We are almost owners of a new minivan. We hadn't planned on it until we realized three seats wouldn't fit into our hybrid SUV. We pretty much decided on it yesterday. We scoped out one fast. We've already priced it out; test drove it; and tomorrow we'll be looking at financing through our credit union. I'm a little uncomfortable about how fast it's happening. I like the car a lot, but I feel spending that much money should take some more time.

• I'm going to to miss our Hybrid. It got great mileage. I could drive around town using no gas. It cut down on our pollution emissions. It's a smaller car than a minivan. I like small cars. They're great on gas; they're very maneuverable; and they feel like a shuttlepod. (Yeah, I just said that.) I wish my family could continue to grow, but we could all fit in a little car. Maybe one that had a pocket dimension in the trunk, so I could store stuff (including them) in it.

• I'm interested in watching the royal wedding. Not live of course, but on my Tivo. L will love seeing a real, live, princess in her wedding dress. I'm interested in the traditions & to some extent, the pageantry. If you know me, you know this would never be my thing. The idea that this family is so cherished by the British people; that their personal history and events are celebrated in such a way; I can't help but fascinated by it. I like history.

• I'm worried that I won't have a lot of work this summer. As I've stated before, I play trombone. The group I've been working with the most, is touring with a featured performer. The tour, however, isn't paying enough to support horns on the tour. So the rhythm section (drums, guitar, keys, bass guitar, & percussion) will be touring all through the month of June, and into the beginning of July. This is usually a big time for me, with all of the various groups I play with. But a lot of the outdoor festivals aren't hiring larger bands (i.e. multiples singers, horns, etc.) for their events. So my main group will be out of town; the other groups I play with have few gigs; and Carrie will be off of work for a few months.

• I'm not overly concerned for us financially. We have money put away to cover our bills for that time. But I feel a little uneasy with very little income coming in. That's probably just the dad in me. I'm considering a change in focus, musically. Maybe something that will bring in more money, and be more self-starting. The idea would be that I could create my own gigs, and be less reliant on "waiting and hoping for the phone to ring." That's what one of my music professors always talked about. I'm waiting for emails & texts, but the idea is the same.

• E, lately, has been blossoming into her own person. I see more of herself coming through. She usually has been mimicking L's mannerisms and phrases. That's all changed, though. She's more impetuous than L. And definitely more stubborn. She seems to be more mischievous, too. She likes to stir the pot. I love it. It reminds me of me.

Whew. Thanks for that. That felt great.

Montessori

When you’re checking out schools, especially at the very beginning of their education, make sure to put Montessori schools in the mix.

When my son was ready to start pre-k, I though that Montessori school was some obscure religious thing, full of spells and incantations. Which sounded great, so we checked it out. Turns out it’s none of that. It’s just a method of teaching/ learning that is different than traditional methods. On Day 1, I was hook line and sinker.

It’s far too involved to talk about everything, so here are some of the things that really set the hook for me.

The whole thing works on what they call “the whole child approach.” The focus isn’t only on academic development, though that’s strong (especially the math). The Montessori method looks to develop emotional growth and social skills too. Leadership, responsibility, teamwork (you don’t have to play sports to learn that), solving your own problems, the list goes on… even though I can’t think of any more I’m sure it goes on.

They use multi-age level classrooms. The class is made up of kids of varied ages, usually a 3 year group. I loved this. It serves a few purposes. Once an older child has mastered a task or a skill that they’ve been learning for awhile they can help to teach the younger children. Huge benefits to both kids involved.
Younger kids tend to look up to older kids so they’re often more open to what the older child is saying than to what the teacher is saying. It also lifts their self-esteem because an older kid is paying so much attention to them.
For the older child you, of course, have the reinforcement of the lesson, that’s always good. But the confidence and the feeling of responsibility that comes with helping to teach in the class is a real character builder.

The multi-aged classroom also keeps the children together longer, 1 to 3 years, to help foster relationships. Only the oldest kids, the class leaders, move out of the classroom each year. Then the others gradually move up into the leadership roles. The leadership experience was really important to me.

Self-direction in the classroom: Each class contains oodles of learning materials designed specifically for the age groups contained in that class. Children are not made to start with one material and progress to the next, they have the freedom to choose whatever it is that interests them, whatever holds their focus. They get a lesson on how that material works and then they are free to work with that material for as long or short a time as they wish.

We’ve been involved with Montessori for years now. I could go on about this stuff for a long time. But I think it’s sufficient to say that Montessori is awesome and effective and a great way to start an education.

Oh, and the name Montessori comes from Maria Montessori, the little old woman that developed it way back when.

Lovingly correcting them

by Carlos

As a Catholic, I've just entered into the Easter season after having gone through the Lenten season and the Triduum and I see that something in my parenting has changed. The Lenten season is often one where I see that I am not the good person I thought I was, but this Lenten season was also filled with the realization that Jesus already knows who I am and loves me anyway. The more that I saw that I was capable of all sorts of unloving acts, the more I saw that He loved me.

This love of Jesus is what brought about a real change in my parenting.
In the middle of Lent, it was brought to my attention that my children were less disciplined than they should be. In order to fix the problem, I knew I'd have to crack the whip; I'd have to set down the rules and correct those who broke them. And I'd have to correct the kids as soon as they broke them; no more "alright, I'll give you just one more chance." They take advantage of that line all too often.

But in order to set better discipline in the house, I thought I was going to have to get very angry and be yelling much more. I figured as they followed the rules more, then I wouldn't have to yell so much. But, thanks to this grace of Lent, that wasn't the case.
I began to see myself less as the 'police' of the house and more of a 'helper' for the kids. I began to see that they needed correction in order to live happily in our society. For instance, it would be good for my kids not to scream and cry in order to get something, but to use their words and ask politely. When I saw them throwing a temper tantrum because they couldn't watch more TV, I stopped taking it personal and started seeing that they need to deal with life's up and downs in a better manner; for their emotional health, it needed to change.
Discipline became easier. I called them on every infracture they committed and I punished them. I was able to do it calmly, and when their punishment was over, we talked about why they got punished. I'd often say that I'm sorry I had to punish them, but emphasized that it won't happen as long as they follow the rules.

And something began to change in them, too. They began to hug me with sincerity after we talked and they would make up with their sisters if they were being corrected for fighting with them.

And, I don't yell. It's really nice. I like it much better. Calling them out every time they jump on the bed or hang on the door knob gets a little tedious, but they're doing it less. The tantrums are shorter, they go to bed quicker, and... well, they aren't perfect. They're kids. But this system is much better than my last. Correcting them out of love is working much better than scolding them for not behaving.

Tower Building, The Unstoppable Impulse

by Phil

If you witness a father playing with their children and toys are involved, I'm willing to bet that you'll eventually see every one of those fathers participate in the exact same activity.

Tower Building.

If there are toys around that can be stacked, those toys will be stacked. Every father I've ever been around has done this with their child. It's a commonality that runs through the entire history of humankind, I'm sure. The cavemen fathers were out in the fields with their kids, piling rocks and mastodon bones, grunting with approval at the glorious new heights they had reached.

It's a rather strange desire. Being a self-admitted victim, I'm not sure why it happens. No one would ever describe me as an engineer. I never wanted to be an architect. I draw things. I paint things. While I can do small stuff around the house, I don't really build things. And yet, put a pile of toys in front of me and we're seeing how high we can get.

One of my standard creations as my son is distracted

by internet radio from the TV. He's thinking,

"RADIO? On the TV? Wha'?"

It's actually a challenging activity. Not only do you have to defy gravity when you put that round object right in the middle of your pile, but you're often lucky to even get past the third object at all. We can't forget that there are kids around, often infants and toddlers who can't recognize your impending genius. If you have an object, they most likely will want it too. When I put one toy on top of another, my son suddenly needs that toy. If I grab another toy to replace the second stage in my tower, he's discarded the one he just took for the replacement. Once his attention is diverted by something, I can usually make a bit of progress before he crawls over and knocks it down. While I have the inclination to build, I believe he must have an equally strong drive to destroy. So when he loses interest in dashing my creations (and dreams of breaking world records), crawling off to something more fascinating, I revel in the moment and build toward the heavens. THE HEAVENS!!!!

This actually makes me think of the Tower of Babel in the bible. For those who are uninitiated, there's a story in the bible when all of humanity spoke a single language and came together to build a city tower "whose top may reach unto heaven." God was upset and threw a wrench into the works by creating multiple languages so the people were confused and therefore couldn't work with one another. It's often read as a tale of humanity's hubris, believing that they could reach heaven with something built by their own hands.

Put into the toy stacking context, I'd like to suggest an alternate reading for the story. I think this was some sort of father/son retreat weekend. When you get that many dads and kids' toys together, you know something monstrous will result. It wasn't hubris! It was an irrepressible impulse laced with fun and teetering objects constantly on the verge of collapse.

It's strange that the drive is so strong. It's not like I sit on the floor with my son determined to make a skyscraper out of as many of his toys as possible. I just find myself doing it. Before he came along, I never did this with any of my own possessions. I wouldn't sit at my desk and pile all the objects thereon on top of each other. That would be weird.

I imagine that it will subside as he gets older and his toys are less blocky, less stackable. Action figures don't really make for good bricks. Hey. That actually sounds like a challenge. Are the toy makers defying me by introducing more difficult shapes!? Maybe this phase won't end.

No Focus

I really wonder how others do it.

How they manage to get their work done when there are so many other things that need one's attention.

I've been doing this whole stay-at-home work/dad thing for a few years now, and I've noticed one very important side effect of the whole thing:

My productivity has been getting progressively worse.

There was once a time where I could sit for hours at a stretch on a drawing, or spend all day coding. Now? I feel like I can't get into any kind of a groove because something else keeps coming up.

It could be something that needs be taken care of around the house, like laundry or yardwork. I don't think I ever realized exactly how long it takes to clean a house.

It could be other obligations that need to be taken care of, like working on the Ten Ton Studios site (and generally checking in on things there) or remembering that I'm (again) a few days late on a blog post here.

There are certainly family responsibilities that I need to make sure get taken care of. I need to make sure Brady gets to her ice skating lessons, and that her homework is done correctly. I need to make sure that Stacey has enough time to get her work done (being the primary breadwinner, she does - and should - have priority), and to be there for her when she is having difficulties with her job.

I also feel like (rightly or not) I need to make my presence known on the web. One of the things I've learned about being a freelance artist, is that the only person who can promote you is you. So, I've made sure to show up on the various social sites, and create sketches and drawings to generally let people know I exist, and this is the work I do.

I wish I could say that my time was wasted away playing video games, but I've barely touched my previous-gen systems (and I don't even own a current-gen system).

I used to be a lot more selfish about my time and my work. It used to be all about me, and my work, and my art, and nobody else mattered. Now the opposite is true: my work has become secondary to everyone and everything else. As a result, my productivity has become worse. This was not an overnight thing; it happened, slowly. This change in myself was years in the making. I just never noticed it.

If I manage to get a full day of work done, it's a miracle. My focus is gone. When I do work, my mind is constantly thinking about all of the other things I'm supposed to be doing (even now I'm thinking that there are other things that need my attention). Because I'm not focused on my art, it has not been up to the standards I feel I should be at. That in turn makes me doubt what I'm working on. I'm behind on projects that should have been done months ago.

I see other stay-at-home parents/workers getting their work done, and I can't figure out how they do it.

Worst of all? I'm complaining. I know I'm complaining. I don't normally complain. I hate complaining.

I would love to be an external person and blame all these problems on everyone and everything else. But the simple fact is that I'm an internal person. I know the only person responsible for where I am mentally at this point is myself.

What I'm doing is not impossible. I know that my time management is not what it should be, and could be a lot better. I shouldn't let doubt in my abilities creep into what time I do have to focus on my drawing. I can become better at managing work time, chore time, promotion time, and family time. I could even learn to be selfish once in a while.

In the end, the only one that can truly help me is me.

I just need to figure out how. That's what's proving to be the difficult part.

Get Us Out From Under, Wonder Woman!

by Matt

It really shouldn't be this hard.

I'm a big comic book fan, as I'm guessing a few of my fellow Knights are. I have tons of comic book memorabilia all over the house. My favorite is easily Superman. It's still my opinion that every kid should have some sort of Superman item in their possession. He can do anything! Nightmares, shadows, colds, coughs, belly aches, thunder, lightning, aversion to clowns: none of them can stand a chance against the Man of Steel. Right L, E, & Phinn?

As I've said before, my girls are almost completely Disney-ified. But over the past year or so, L & E have shown great interest into two female powerhouses: Supergirl & Wonder Woman, respectively. For Christmas, I got L a pink Supergirl t-shirt, while E got a purple Wonder Woman one. We've watched some clips on YouTube of the Supergirl movie for L. (I can't sit through the actual movie. ) And E & I have seen so much of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman show, she runs around the house singing the theme song.

I have been trying to find them both, the action figure version of their favorite heroines. I found a decent Supergirl toy at a local comic shop.


But I'm having a difficult time finding a good Wonder Woman one. I can't find an iconic one. I can find plenty of Repressed (?) Sexuality Wonder Woman.


Don't forget Wonder Stripper.



And there's always this.

How am I supposed to get any of these for E? Seriously? It's not that I'm a prude. I realize that at some point, my girls are going to want to seem attractive to another person...

Hmmm. Okay. Let's just say it's a process I'm working on.

But I don't think it's okay to give a kid a hero, and say, "Hey! You should idolize her!" when she looks like any of the above examples. And yes, I know Wonder Woman runs around in bikini bottoms, with a metal bustier on.

But she also kicks bad guy-ass. And fights for peace. And more often than not, she works on resolving differences through words first.

I want E to like Wonder Woman because she's a hero that fights alongside Superman & Batman because she's an equal, not a recording secretary. I don't want her or L to think that to be a female super hero, you have to define yourself by your relation to a man. I want them both to know that peace is worth fighting for; and that the golden lasso of truth can be our best answer to everything.

(Incidentally, this is from Series 4 of the DC Universe line of action figures. If you see it for less than $20, give me a shout!)

(Also, it took everything I had not to type, "That's what she said" after the first line of this post.)

Teachers... WTF

Teachers shouldn’t talk about politics in class. Scratch that… they should talk, responsibly, about politics, but they shouldn’t talk about their politics in class.

Here’s the inciting incident. “President Obama,” my 10 year old tells me, “is going to be impeached because he does things that are unconstitutional. You know, like with health care and stuff.”

My wife and I, who are politically on separate planets, were joined together in bi-partisan fury. We’ve had issues with this teacher before. It’s not the school. We love the school. It’s a Montessori school with the mixed grade levels and the focus on responsibility and the test free environment. The school is great. This teacher though…aaaarrgghh!

It’s not her teaching. The lessons are fine. It’s her “personal wisdom” that she brings to the class. She’s a drama queen. She loves to talk, for example, about the awesome and destructive power of storms and tornados and lightning, and all of the horrible devastation that she’s seen. Great stuff, all things that will get a boy’s mind engaged. But that’s where she stops with it.

The woman has no balance. She tells one side of everything. As far as my son’s 10 year old mind is concerned, that’s what storms are… the end of the world! He came home from school a while ago insisting that no one can use the toilet during a storm because they’ll be struck by lightning on the rear end. Seriously.

I do give the woman some credit. She is severely Christian, and it’s difficult for her to not let that influence her teaching of history or evolution or other sciences. But she needs to understand that she’s one of the larger influences in my boy’s life. [That actually hurt to write. I’m rubbing my neck.] And with hot button issues like politics, a prepared, balanced argument where both sides are represented fairly, so that the students can make up their own minds, isn’t too much to ask. Especially from a teacher, who is there to teach, not to persuade. It’s sort of her responsibility. Oh, and the teacher’s opinion on the subject should be a mystery to the children. That sort of influence isn’t their job.

I confronted her in the woods during a field trip last week. I’m not sure how it went. I made my point. I made my point for about 20 minutes. Boy, did I make my point. But I’m not sure if it was really absorbed. She’s very proud. Not one to admit fault. It was very unsatisfying. We’ll have to wait and see.

Hopefully this is an isolated incident. On everything else we’ve been giving her a pass. We’ve taken to putting things into perspective at home. My son understands the fact that his teacher has a flare for drama and takes her personal “extras” with a grain of salt.

He knows that when you hear the tornado warnings on the news, it's actually not already too late.

The chances of being struck by lightening are pretty slim. Being struck while on the toilet… slimmer.

Rock and roll music isn’t at the heart of violence in America.

And change is a good thing, it doesn’t make life a stormy sea, with nothing to hold on to. (That was actually from an e-mail she sent out that had an “I am the teacher, I am the light” sort of a theme).

I feel better now.

After Bedtime the Parents Will Party

by Phil

Steve wrote a simple and profound post a few weeks ago. He said, "It's so much better when they're asleep."

His declaration that things are better when his children are sleeping brought memories of my own childhood rushing back. I remember very distinctly lying in bed at night believing that my parents did all of the fun stuff after they sent me off to sleep. I pictured them out there in the living room throwing massive parties for all of their friends, living the full life and purposefully doing it at a time when I couldn't participate. Whenever I would hear laughter seep through my door I knew it there were only two possible explanations: 1) They were out there having more fun than anyone in the history of the world has ever had or 2) They were laughing at me for missing out on the most fun that anyone in the history of the world has ever had. I was really missing out.

I know now that such thoughts weren't rational. But how often have you ever heard someone comment, "Well, yes, tiny toddler, that is a very rational statement that you just made." And if I would have thought about it rationally for even a moment, I would have realized that my parents weren't the type of people to throw crazy parties. I vaguely remember a conversation with my sister where she confessed the same fear. I'm not sure what kind of vibe we were getting from our parents that would make us think such things. If you know my parents, you're probably laughing your tookus off right now.

Being a parent now, though, I know the truth. After my son goes to bed isn't some sort of party time when everyone goes nuts. It's the part of day when we get the most cleaning done, the laundry folded, and so on. The responsibilities continue.

At the same time, though, while the responsibilities don't end when the kid is sleeping, there is a certain peace that falls upon the household. It's a period when there won't be anything being eaten off the floor* or any licking of stroller wheels#. It's also a time when my wife and I can just be my wife and I. There is a noticeable lack of parenting happening. We can sit quietly and just sit together or have real, adult conversations about things other than diapers. And, yes, once a week we have a people over for dinner and watch Top Chefs. Watch out!

I love spending the day and playing with my son. I also enjoy when my son goes to sleep for the night. There may not be any ruckus parties but it is really nice. And I'm sure that in a few years, he will be the one lying there, wondering what kind of crazy hijinx we parents get ourselves into after dark. What he won't realize, though, is that even after he is in slumberland, most likely dreaming of amazing baby adventures, I'd love to be the one in bed, sleeping and not doing much of anything.

*Why is it that no matter how well the floor is swept, he's able to find the one piece of garlic paper that I missed?

#Yes, he tries to lick the wheels on his stroller. Weirdo.

Little Liberace

This is going to be a short one this week, but honestly I couldn't pass this one up.

So, I came home one evening to find Brady and Stacey watching the Muppet Show. Once she sees me, Brady declares, "I'm Little Liberace!" Apparently, she had been watching the episode that had (the one and only) Liberace, and was just enamored by him and all of her sparkles. As Stacey was explaining how he loved stuff like diamonds and shiny rings, she said, "You're almost like a little Liberace, yourself!"

Yeah. She took to that comparison pretty quickly. Though oddly enough, she didn't suddenly wish to play piano.

I guess I should consider myself lucky that she hasn't started asking a brother George.

Incidentally, if none of the above made sense, just remember: I'm old.

A Plague Upon My House

by Matt

(cough, cough)

I'm sick.

I have the typical change of season cold, complete with coughing, sneezing, insomnia, and hacking up of green phlegm.

(I'm going to wait while the weak hearted get grossed out, throw up, and then come back to my captivating blog.)

And we all know where it came from. It came from those dirty, little, virus carrying, snot-wiping, hand not-washing, drink sharing, petri dishes that grow all sorts of germs:


Kids.


Our story begins a few weeks ago. L was a little slow that morning. She sat at the breakfast table with a glazed look over her eyes. It wasn't a school day for her, so she had gotten enough sleep. While her & E worked on their plates, I ran to the living room to check my email. When I returned, L had her face pressed against the chair, with her eyes sunken in.

I asked her, "L...you ok?"

As she opened her mouth to respond, the previous day's dinner erupted from her face, greeting me with heat & pungent odor. I scooped her up off her chair and into the bathroom. After awhile, she seemed calmer and hadn't vomited in some time. I put her on her own couch in the living room, complete with bucket; E got put on the other couch, and I jumped into the shower.

After I finished shaving, I heard a scream from the living room. I threw open the bathroom door, and ran over to the living room.

L was throwing up into the bucket, but the scream wasn't coming from her.

I looked over at E, and saw what looked to be a person seeing a man transform into a werewolf. Her reaction was like all those blonde ladies in those '50s movies, and what they were screaming about. Only there was no Creature From The Black Lagoon, or THEM!. It was only her older sister, puking her brains out.

It took everything I had not to laugh my brains out.

I quickly picked up L (still laughing), took her into the bathroom, placed her in front of the toilet, and put her hair in a ponytail. (still laughing) I ran back, and grabbed E to calm her down. (still laughing)

This scenario repeated for three more days while L recovered. And E reacted the same way every time. I wish I could have gotten it on film.

Once the flu had passed, L & E got their 4 yr & 2 yr check-ups, respectively. They were definitely run down from these, and that's how they picked up this cold thingie.

Now when I get a cold, it hits me hard. It can linger for days. This current one is on it's 6th day. The same is true for E. She'll have a runny nose, and it will last for a week. L gets something and it seems to turn around pretty quickly. Usually, it lasts only a few days.

And when they get these things, of course we get them. Carrie & I are right there wiping noses, washing hands, and getting new drink cups every few swigs. Carrie has the benefit of super-metabolism thanks to her pregnancy. Yet even she has succumbed to her children's plague.

So here we are, two sick parents with two relatively healthy kids. I still have to wash and change our sheets so we can get rid of this bug. L & E rarely let these thing affect them. They're running around, full speed, as if their metabolisms aren't being attacked by these super destructive viruses! Where's that scientist from the first Blade, when I need her? (Shout-out, Angie!)

(cough, cough)

Whoops. Gotta take my antibiotics.

And wash myself in antibacterial gel.

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I love raising 3 little princesses. I love dressing them in their favorite colors and tying bows on their little dresses. And they love it, too. They cry when I tell them they can't wear a dress. They like being girls. It's a lot of who they are. I don't dream too far into what they might be when they're off on their own, but I figure these are the days when I am preparing them for those days.
For instance, I don't tell my girls they can be what ever they want. I think that's silly. Honestly, I would be a competitive hip hop dancer, slash, body surfer, slash, math guru and about a dozen other things that don't make any sense when you put them together. Oh, and I'd get paid WELL for all of them. I'd also be 30 pounds heavier and 2 inches taller, at least.
I think a few decades ago, some one got the idea that we need to break gender roles and tell our kids that they can be what ever they want. But that idea is now out of control.
A good portion of my life was chasing what ever I wanted to be. I really lived out what should have been a cool adventure, but none of it made me happy and none of it did anything for anyone else. In fact, trying to be what ever I wanted made me totally selfish. It hurt me and those who loved me. So I don't tell my children they can be whatever they want.
Neither do I tell my children that they have to be what I am or what my wife is; I tell them to be what they were made to be. This is more of a truth than following a generic gender role, what some company sells them, or what they can dream up. In fact, this is more of what they see me living (I hope).
I'm not what I ever dreamed to be. How many of us dreamed we would be our children's primary caretaker? Instead, we are what we are supposed to be for the benefit of the family. What we do, and what we don't do, is exactly what our family needs. In fact, doing what we are supposed to do enables our wives to do what they were made to do.
I tell my children if they want to know what they were made to do, then they need to ask the One who made them. And the Lord is already speaking to them; not only can they see that they are women, a fact which is very important, but they can see what they gravitate towards. Damai catches on to words and math quickly. Lani loves to paint. Anna loves athletics. These are things which they enjoy and do naturally. Are they the best at them? No, but they enjoy them and they do them well. You can argue nature vs. nurture, but these natural tendencies will serve to be guiding posts pointing them in the right direction towards what they were made for.
What's the whole point of telling them any of this anyway? I want my children to be happy. I want to be happy. And when I went around trying to be whatever I wanted to be, I was unhappy. This is my experience. However, the more that I give in to what I'm supposed to be, the happier I become. This is also my experience.

Dream feeding, or Babies are Weird

by Phil

Babies are weird. There’s no way around it. I know that you are most likely shouting at me right now, telling me how wrong I am. BABIES ARE CUTE! BABIES ARE ADORABLE! BABIES ARE PRECIOUS!!!

Stop yelling. I can’t hear you through your computer screen. And besides, babies are still weird.

Case in point: What is the deal with dream feeding?

I first encountered dream feeding last fall when my wife was having to travel for job interviews. She would be gone for 3 days at a stretch, leaving me alone and solely responsible for our then four month old baby. At the time, our son was still waking up for one feeding per night. Since I don’t have the proper anatomy to feed him on the spot, I was worried about the delay in warming up a bottle. My son would potentially rouse much more thoroughly while waiting and would be much harder to get back to sleep. The entire bottle warming process took about 6 minutes. That's an eternity to a 4 month old baby. Plenty of time to get nice and riled up.

So my wife suggested that I set myself an alarm and dream feed my son. He was waking up pretty consistently between 3:30 and 4 am. I could set an alarm for 3 and have plenty of time to warm the bottle in a peaceful haze of sleepiness before he woke himself from hunger. And I'd avoid a crying baby. I could then feed him, while he was asleep, and simply put him back in his crib. And he wouldn't have any idea that any of it occurred!


Just combine these two pictures and you'll get the idea.


At the time, it worked beautifully. I don't know what kind of magic babies are under but you can totally feed them while they sleep. They're like those poor shmucks with too high a dose of Ambien who wake up while eating the most bizarre things. I know someone who awoke while drinking olive oil because of Ambien. It happens. This thing with my son was totally like that except he's on some crazy baby instinct version of Ambien and he's drinking expressed breast milk.

I'd never feed my baby straight olive oil.

This past week, which is now 5 months after those first forays into dream feeding, I had the opportunity to try it out again. We think HE'S going through some sort of growth spurt or who knows what because he's eating a ton and he woke up for middle-of-the-night feedings on two occasions last week. He typically sleeps through the night now and we’re no longer accustomed to being put upon by demands of food while we’re sleeping. It’s like a restaurant waitstaff clocked out and went home for the evening only to get phone calls from customers requesting they bring an extra side of fries. No, sir. Let us sleep.

So I busted out the old dream feeding skill set and went to work. He rouses a bit more now at the beginning of the feeding than he used to but not to any meaningful extent. I can still coax milk down his gullet while he is completely out. It’s been a few nights since and whatever was happening seems to be over now. He’s back to sleeping straight through.

I’m really curious when this stage will end. I’m sure I could google it but that takes 3 seconds of effort. No matter when it does end, the entire enterprise is pretty weird. If I woke up in the middle of the night and my wife was feeding me cheerios or some such nonsense, I wouldn't be happy or satisfied in the least. First, why is she doing that? I'm old enough to make my own food choices, thank you very much. Secondly, why cheerios? When I wake up and scream in fright, the bowl is going to go flying. Then they're going to land in our bed, only to get crushed. We have cheerio dust in our bed. Are you happy now?

All About Kids

This past week was Brady's spring break. Most kids would probably want to just stay home, but when we asked her if she wanted to go to All About Kids that week, we got an emphatic "YES!" as a response.

All About Kids is a day care facility that we had been taking Brady to since she was about a year old. We wanted her to go to day care for two reasons. First, as Phil mentioned a few weeks back, it's tough to raise a child when your family is far away (in our case, both of our families are in Upstate NY, while we live in Utah). It was doubly tough when there'd be no one I could ask to watch the baby, so I could at least try to get a comic done on time.

More important than that, though, is the simple fact that Brady is going to be our only child. This is by choice; we have no desire to have more than one child (hell, some family members were stunned we were having one at all!). The problem with that choice was that she would have no other siblings to interact with. Since we wanted her to have the chance to be around other kids, we looked into day care.

We looked into a couple of different home-based day care places, but those seemed to be more of a "mass babysitting" kind of thing. Add to that the simple fact that Brady hated being there, and we realized that simply wasn't going to work for her, or for us.

Enter All About Kids. Unlike the home-based day cares, this placed was structured much like a school, with each age group separated out like classrooms, set times for activities, lunch, and so on, and teachers. Which meant in addition to Brady having the opportunity to hang out with friends, she would also learn. And while Brady was upset at first (separation anxiety is a bitch), she (in short order) got to the point where she wanted to spend all day there.

And why not? It was fun! She got to play with kids her age. She got to play dress-up. she got to play with all kinds of toys. She had teachers that she loved to be with (and who loved to have her jubulant energy around). She got to play outside on the playground.

And through this, she also learned her numbers and letters. She learned some basic math. She discovered all kinds of arts, crafts, and music. Most importantly, she was exposed to more experiences than what just Stacey and myself could provide. Her world was expanded, and that's always a good thing.

I really feel that her time at All About Kids helped her immensely when she started Kindergarten. Unlike some other kids who were just starting out at school, she already knew the routine. She had a leg up on letters and numbers. She picked up on reading comprehension pretty quickly. She was used to being around kids (unlike some who only knew their brothers and/or sisters.). And, because she was already accustomed to going to AAK, she didn't suffer from the separation anxiety that we saw other kids (and their parents) experience.

It was a natural progression from AAK to elementary school.

Now in First Grade, she doesn't have to go to AAK (technically, it's for kids up to age 5), but she still goes back every so often. Now, in addition to playing and having fun, she's become a "big sister" to some of the younger kids there.

She's even said to us (among the hundreds of things she's said she wants to be when she grows up) that she'd like to be a day care teacher at All About Kids.

That's certainly one way to pay it forward.

Boys Will Be...Boys?

by Matt

Originally, I was going to write about something that happened to us last week. The subject was also going to explain my missing post last week. (It was not, as I recall reading in the papers, a secret mission hunting Nazis in the Amazon. That's next week.) Ever since I read Steve's post, and then Phil's post, I've just been consumed with the topic of gender roles, both actual and perceived. To be more specific, how these roles affect our children. Considering the blog, I bet most of the writers here spend a good time thinking about it.

I am the dad of two (soon to be three) beautiful girls. The idea that they will grow up thinking they need to fit some kind of outside-influenced template of womanhood makes me nuts. I've said this before, but I'd like to think that having a stay at home dad and a professional working mother helps.

It did for me. Both my parents made dinner; did the laundry; went grocery shopping; worked full-time; took us to school; showed affection for us. The last may seem odd to you, but I know plenty of people that had dads that were distant and unaffectionate. And to be honest, a few moms thrown in there too.

The scenarios I saw on TV didn't fit my reality. My dad knew how to make a really good dinner. My mom brought home a paycheck. My dad knew how to use a dryer, and how to fix it. My mom was really good at helping me with homework. All the stuff that you saw on TV? My house was the opposite.

It's a disturbing trend to see the some of the apparel in Phil's post. One of the things I studied in school (BS in Marketing) was that a company is not trying to sell an idea. They're trying to tap into your ideas and sell using those, which means that there are people out there buying into this. "Hah! My kid is so lazy. He'll love this shirt!"

This is an upsetting trend for every parent, boy or girl. Boys for obvious reasons. Girls: these kids are going to be going to school with your kids. They might try to date your kids. They might try to marry your kids! AGGHHHGHGHGHG!!!

I also teach trombone, and almost all of my students are boys. I can see a few of them giving things less effort every week. It's maddening! Something in these boys is turning off. Or maybe being shut off? I don't know. Sometimes I think it's the budding hormones. Other times I think it's because the kid could be socially inept.

If you haven't read the other two posts I'm referring to, please give them a read and consider some of the info there. Spread the links around to other parents. Like Phil said, let's keep the conversation moving forward. Nothing like a changed reality to mess up an old perception.

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It's so much better when they're asleep.

Chuck E. Cheese sang me Happy Birthday

Well the count down is nearing the end; my daughter is down to less than a month to her birthday and she is much more giddy about it than when she started her count down 6 months ago. Thank you, Sr. Joy for teaching her the months of the year.
Damai will be 5 years old and can't wait for the day when she can be the official center of attention, as apposed to every other day when she is the unofficial center of attention.
My wife went online and bought her 2 new DVD's. "That's perfect,"I thought. Her presents are out of the way and we spent enough on it; no need to worry about that anymore.
But the other day, my wife and my mother were talking about the party. How could I forget about the party!?
My mother started talking about a bounce house and my wife started making a list of guests. My feet began feel heavy as I felt like I was being dragged along a runaway train. We're talking about a 5th birthday party! Do we really need to special order Care Bear napkins, meal plates, AND desert plates?! Why is the guest list half the amount of our wedding list? They're mostly adults!
Then, I took a little break in my head. On my 5th birthday I remember 2 things; somehow, that was the day that I learned to tie my shoes. I had been taught before, but that was the day that it stuck. The 2nd thing I remember was just how awesome it was to have Chuck E. Cheese, the mechanical robot, sing Today is Your Birthday. At 5 years old, that was awesome!
My feet are a little lighter now and so is my wallet. And I can't wait to plan some of the games for the kids. It's hot enough here, I think we can throw wet sponges at each other, play tag, red light/green light, and then maybe my brother-in-law and I can try to tip over the bounce house at the end of the party.
It's not too hard to make my little girl smile. And she'll only have one 5th birthday.

This Probably Isn’t Helping

by Phil

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the current conventional wisdom that boys don’t like reading. Last week, Steve wrote about how boys are having motivation problems in school and his first-hand experience with the subject. In the long term, these factors are a serious detriment to their success.

The most recent statistics I could find on college graduation rates are from 2004, when 58% of recipients to get their bachelor’s degree were female. While these numbers are now over 6 years old, I doubt they have evened out any in the intervening years. Apparently, these numbers for males have been trending downward since 1982.

In that same article I reference above from Research News out of Ohio State, Claudia Buchmann says, “In the 1960s and 70s, girls were getting better grades, but many young women were not going to college, or they were dropping out of college to get married. Now the benefits of a college education are growing faster for women than they are for men, and women are taking advantage.”

I applaud women for the advances that they have made in education. I can also recognize that there is still work to do in wage parity, since women still earn about 20% less than their male counterparts.

As a man who supports his wife and her career, this really infuriates me. Additionally, as a father to a boy, the continually growing gap in education alarms me.

A paper put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research, echoes that these have been long standing problems for boys. “Another aspect in the reversal of the college gender gap, rather than just its elimination, is the persistence of behavioral and developmental differences between males and females. Boys often mature more slowly than girls. In grades K-12, boys tend to have a higher incidence of behavioral problems (or lower level of non-cognitive skills) than girls. Girls spend more time doing homework than boys. These behavioral factors, after adjusting for family background, test scores, and high school achievement, can explain virtually the entire female advantage in getting into college for the high school graduating class of 1992, the authors figure. It allowed "girls to leapfrog over boys in the race to college." Similarly, teenage boys, both in the early 1980s and late 1990s, had a higher (self-reported) incidence of arrests and school suspensions than teenage girls.”

I think one of the questions becomes, “What do we do?” Steve touched on it in his post,talking about strategies for active learning. But honestly, I don’t know.

One of the things we shouldn’t do is throw up our hands, accept it as an inevitable outcome and then encourage it. I am continually baffled by some of the messages that companies send to boys, particularly in the clothing selection. Here are a few examples-

Anti-school, anti-studying, and anti-homework. All of these examples are from major retailers. How is this an acceptable reinforcement of what we want our boys to be? I’ve never seen these types of messages on t-shirts for girls. Perhaps smaller or fringe retailers have them, but I’ve never seen them. The fact that we are sending this message to boys (that they aren’t good as girls at school, that it is okay and, in fact, what is actually expected of them) is detrimental to their growth and the exact opposite of what they need to be hearing.

I found that last t-shirt in a post over at Achilles Effect, a rather wonderful blog discussing the issues of “boys, masculinity, and gender stereotypes.” Apparently, I’m not the only that dislikes these types of shirts.

Like I said earlier, I don’t know what the answer is for these giant gender issues. I’m just one more person trying to start the conversation about what's expected of our boys when it comes to their studies and their futures. While these types of t-shirts may be harmless fun for some kids, I don’t see how we can justify their existence while we continue to lose generations of boys to educational apathy. As the adults, we should be exercising better judgement and setting a stronger example.

On Sequels and Prequels

Buckle your seatbelts, kids...because things are baout to get geeky.

To riff a bit on the topic I brought up last week, I would like to talk about something near and dear to all of us...

What's the proper order to introduce the Star Wars movies to your youngster?

Yeah, go ahead and deny that you haven't considered that dillema. Do you stick to your staunch childhood roots, and show them the movies in the order you experienced them (or just ignore that the prequels existed)? Do you show them in order from Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi? Special Editions or (if you still have them) the original cuts? VHS Full Screen, or DVD Wide Screen?

Okay, maybe that last one was just me.

Anyway, this was something that, as geeks, both my wife and fretted over. She was more old-school, in that the proper order would be 4-6, and then 1-3. I thought, in that "using our daughter as a social experiment" kind of way, that'd it'd be cool to let her watch the series in a 1-6 kind of order, to see what her experience with Star Wars would be, compared to how Stacey and I experienced it as kids (and later young adults).

We didn't know that there would be an option three.

When we introduced Star Wars to Brady a couple of years ago, I kinda won out by showing Brady Phantom Menace first. I say "kinda," because she maybe got through half of the series before she grew bored with it, and really stopped paying attention.

I know, shocking, right?

So, it looked like Stacey was going to win out, until Brady threw a monkey wrench in our plans: she started watching the Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network.

Huh. Hadn't thought of that.

Brady dug the series enough where she knew who the main characters were (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda, etc), and she liked the lightsaber battles. Again, it wasn't something that she watched religiously, but she liked it when it was on.

So, we decided to move forward with the movies, except now we'd just skip the remaining prequel movies, and move on to the Original Trilogy. In a way, Stacey and I both won out, because she got to move forward on her idea of watching the original movies primarily, while at the same time I got my social experiment.

Brady eventually watched Star Wars, and right off the bat liked it much more than Phantom. However, things got real in teresting when we watched The Empire Strikes Back.

When the big reveal with Vader and Luke happened, it was still a shock, but in a different way than we all probably felt when we experienced it. Instead of freaking out that Vader was Luke's father, her reaction was, "That's Anakin??" She was shocked that Anakin became a bad guy, and was wondering what happened? Incidentally, this was followed by her screaming "don't do it, Luke!!", worried that he would become a bad guy, too.

As for Jedi? I think it was her favorite of the bunch. Three guesses as to why (hint: "Yub Nub!").

So, the final verdict on Star Wars? She liked it. It's not something she's been clammoring to watch over and over and over again, but she liked it. But, it didn't/doesn't hold that same level of interest and excitement that we all had growing up. Yeah, you could blame the prequels, or the cartoon, but I got the feeling that she would have felt the same way if she watched only the original ones. It just wasn't her thing.

But, to tie it in with my topic from the other week, she created her own experience in watching Star Wars. She didn't watch them in a way that neither Stacey or I thought she should have. And yet she still had similar experiences and surprises that we had, just from a different perspective.

All in all, it's a childhood experience she can call her own. And personally, that's what's important.