How to be a Badass Dad

On Being a New Dad

2008-06-29T10:41:00.003-05:00

While my wife is pregnant with our third kid, I want to document the various stages of the pregnancy as it unfolds on this blog; how the pregnancy can effect dad and how dad can be constructive, helpful, and sensitive throughout.

But first I think it prudent to cover the most monumental change in my life so far and is sure to be until that big change at the end of my life: when my first child was born.

I liked to think that I was the kind of person who was prepared for this occasion; I was from a big family and had two younger sisters, my mom was a childbirth teacher, and I've always known that I wanted to have children. Nevertheless, when my first daughter was born I may as well have been struck by lightening while being eaten by a whale.

The Pregnancy

My wife didn't have a lot of sickness. I know that's easy for me to say. But she did have a downright magical aversion to chicken. She couldn't even see the word written without gagging. Besides this, I don't recall a lot of really tangible evidence that she was pregnant--excepting of course the gigantic test of abdominal elasticity.

When the nesting started, I was, to be perfectly honest, a little annoyed. We had to paint a bedroom and set up furniture for the baby that we weren't even planning on using since we were going to co-sleep. That said, she had a perfect vision for how the room should be (which I also found very perplexing) and all I had to do was go through the motions. The room was set up well before the baby arrived and for as long as we lived in that house, she never slept in that room.

I realize now that it wasn't unnecessary that we set up that room, though. I know now that it was something that she had to do--she felt baby inside her and she had to physically manifest a readiness for the arrival. On the other hand, despite my intellectual understanding of the situation, I had no idea what was going to happen. I had no idea we were really going to have a baby.

The Birth

I don't pay for enough bandwidth to talk fully about the birth. I could write for a month and not be half way through the experience. It was at once the most memorable day of my life and the most surreal. One memory that sticks out at me was walking down the halls at the hospital and hearing a baby cry from the room next to ours. I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever heard--for the first time it occurred to me that we would be hearing a baby cry from our room. And still nothing was real to me. Still I had no idea.

We lost the battle of our birth from the beginning. My daughter was born in the same backwards hospital where I was born. We thought ourselves a well-prepared couple, but the hospital was infamous for it's greater than 60% cesarean rate which was symbolic of their love of medical intervention. Our birth was as natural as we could have hoped for with the nurses and doctor begging us to just get the epidural already.

When my wife actually pushed the baby out, a change washed over me instantly. It was like the floor fell out from under me but I was still standing. It was like I shed my skin and was a completely new creature underneath. It was like died and was reborn. I can talk in metaphors about it all day, but the simple truth of the matter is that no analogy could possibly capture the change that happened in me. I will never be the same person that I was the instant before the baby was born.

That night, in the hospital, my wife cried like I had never seen her cry before while looking at our daughter. She didn't feel deserving of having such a perfect child. I felt the same way and the three of us--our new family--cuddled up on the narrow hospital bed together and looked at each other, trying in some way to achieve an understanding.

The New Constant

I knew, intellectually, what my parents and all those silly sex-ed classes told me a million times, that having a baby was a 24-hour commitment. But those words were shadows on the wall, mere black and white two-dimensional representations of the full color, 3-D reality of what that means.

For the first week or so, we were both walking zombies. We oscillated between giddy and thrilled and tired and overwhelmed. I had the potential to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation while sitting upright in the middle of the day. Nursing was a huge challenge, one that I have documented to some extent here, and was the central focus of my life.

No one told me that babies don't really know how to breathe steadily right away. We spent hours discussing the varied length between breaths that our daughter would take. We worried almost as much as we marveled at the little thing.

Baby Blues

My wife had a terrible bought of postpartum depression. Really, it's still with us in many ways. there's enough material in our struggle for several entries and I'm sure they will come when I feel like I could get at the heart of things.

The New Dad

I don't complain when I say that I have never been put "first" in our family since then. Every decision, from my job to my free time to what I eat has something to do with my role as father. Every fiber of my being is wrapped up in that role. I don't really know how else to do it. As I have said before, I feel lucky that I had an involved father so I know half of what I should do.

As we approach our third birth, we want to really have the birthing experience we've always wanted. This means trying to find the money for a birthing center or home birth, being better prepared with exercises and techniques, and reading books upon books to focus our wills. Throughout the experience, I hope to document what it is like being a human who will soon have made another one.

Movie Review: WALL-E

2008-06-27T13:26:00.004-05:00

**I would never put in spoilers, by the way**

We woke up this morning with a plan to go and see the new Pixar flick, WALL-E. My daughters have been looking forward to it ever since we saw the preview before Enchanted last Thanksgiving. They're big fans of the Disney/Pixar scene, as are we in general. Their favorite is probably Finding Nemo and they really didn't take to Cars all that well. But there has been constant mention of the upcoming "robot movie" since it's advertising machine started nearly a year ago.

The movie is good. The visual effects meet your expectations 0f what top-notch computer animation should be and the sound effects are very strong throughout; I'm just enough of a nerd to have noticed that the film's title character is voiced by the same guy who did R2-D2 in all six Star Wars movies. There were some new elements incorporated into the movie, too, such as a few live-action sequences, some of which staring the incomparable Fred Willard. It also has a lot of social criticism that I found interesting and exciting. It is a true sci-fi work, embodying our collective subconscious fear of technology in a post-capitalist serfdom.

My biggest criticism of kids movies is when they go on too long or have endings that have one or two too many twists and turns, milking the tension beyond what my kids can take and making their eyes wander the theater for other stimuli. It's not that I want them fully absorbed so much as it seems disrespectful to their target audience.

This movie didn't really have that problem, though. While it was long and my two year old could hardly have stayed sitting for so long without a snack and water, it didn't drag. And while there was plenty of tension and excitement throughout the movie, it was never tedious or just plain too frightening or sad for my kids, at least.

As far as movies for kids go, this one was really excellent. I'm in the minority, I'm sure, when I say that my favorite animated movie of the year is still Horton Hears a Who. But as an entertainment and artistic works go, this one was wonderful and very respectable. It is one with a light heart, but also much sensitivity.I recommend it with full confidence.

Traveling with Kids

2008-06-26T13:39:00.004-05:00

We just got back from the longest vacation that I have ever taken. Everywhere we went, be it camping on the beach, crashing in a hostel, or checking out various roadside attractions, people around us seemed to be united in one common diagnosis: we were brave to do whatever it was we were doing with a 2 and 3 year old.

Brave? Really? I thought it was fun to do these things with our kids. Even though they're very young, I think that what we were doing was enriching to them, for whatever that was worth.

Bringing Toys

When we went on our first big road trip with our girls at about this age, it was six months ago. It was a shorter trip and I think that we over prepared. We packed little backpacks for both of them filled with little toys, drawing boards, coloring books, stuffed animals, etc. Our idea was that by going through all of these things neatly packed into the bag as theirs, they would busy themselves and the time in the car would pass easily for them. Instead, it was a constant game of dropping and fetching that drove my wife crazy. There was a lot of discontent and crying when a favorite knick-knack would be lost in the bowels of the backpack.

This time, we cut toys down to a minimum. We bought generic travel magnadoodle things for each girl and invited them to bring along one favorite stuffed animal. There were also about half a dozen children's books. This time around things were easier to keep track of and the drawings got more and more creative as the magnadoodle things ended up being the best toy we could have thought of.

Special Gear

Since we were doing a lot of camping, we packed them each a small flashlight. This not only helped with the potential fear involved in camping, but it also made them feel that they held an important and self-directed role around the campground.

We packed two big sleeping bags for the girls and two small ones. We ended up camping in some remote and cold places and having them zipped in a small bag and snuggled into a larger bag with their sister was very helpful. They also enjoyed that we bought a rechargeable lantern with a little night light.

Little Responsibilities

Our kids like to feel like they're helping. We learned early on that it was best to buy two small or medium sized road atlases that they could each hold. We pointed out the grand view of our route and they liked to pretend to show each other exactly where we were, where different friends of their were, and where their aunts, uncles, and grandparents live. Using a pen, they drew all over the maps to show us where to go.

There were also lots of times that we let them decide what we were going to do: go for a hike, play with a ball, go for a drive, a swim, whatever.

Proper Expectations

Early on, we thought surprises would be the way to go. For example, on a day when we were going to go to the beach, we didn't tell them before hand. We dressed them in their swimming suits and told them that we were going to go for a swim. When we ended up at the beach, they were very disappointed that we weren't at the community pool back home. It took a good while before we could properly pump them up about the beach--usually one of their favorite things. With that in mind, we were sure to tell them the day before we went to Disneyland and talk about all the things we could do there. Kids seem to frame their world in their expectations and anticipation is half the fun--at least.

Imagination

As we prepared for our trip, everyone and their dog had one suggestion. It can be summed up by what a coworker said to me: "You've got to get a DVD player for your car, if you don't have one." I just don't know why I would take my kids on a 6,000 mile road trip if I just wanted to plop them down in front of a TV. I would do that at home and buy a more convincing TV with all the money we would have saved by not driving around the country. I wanted them to experience things. I wanted them to see the world around us: the redwoods in California, the arches in Utah, the desert in New Mexico, the Rockies in Colorado, etc. I even wanted them to experience how boring it can be for miles and miles while we try and make it to our next stop before sundown.

There's something that I think a lot of people forget: the gift of being bored. Boredom is something that is almost alien to me since having kids as every moment can potentially be filled with work, study, or dealing with the kids simultaneously. But boredom is the mother of invention. When they got bored, they started looking around more, drawing more, asking about letters and numbers more often and little stops at curio shops end up being big fun.

Our Mantra

It's about being a family together. Being in the car, in a remote campground, or at a busy theme park with your family is what the trip is all about. The night before we left, we had a tiny family conference where we said that we were going to have a "good trip." Our oldest daughter held her hand up in sort of the sign-language sign for "I Love You," (which seemed to pick up from "Yellow Submarine" or something) and said "Good Trip!" This became our mantra for the trip.

We agreed that if someone was grumpy, upset, angry, or dissatisfied in any way, you only had to lift your hand in the special sign and say "Good Trip!" and things got to start over free of penalty. You didn't need to warm up, you didn't need to hold a grudge, you didn't need to swallow your pride, it was just "Good Trip" and you're better.

This worked well for parents as well as kids. When I was upset and disappointed about something, my wife would remind me with a "Good Trip" and I was able to shift my frame of reference. And when we were having fun, one of the kids might just up and say it to remind us of what a special moment we were in.

***

Traveling with kids is fun. It's good for them, you, and it's good for your collective identity as family. There are going to be some fits and some problems and it's always more expensive than you think it will be, but it's worth it. It's one of those things that's not about time or money but transcends those things to become so much more than what you've spent on it.

Father's Day

2008-06-14T09:25:00.003-05:00

About a week or so ago, my wife and I found out we are pregnant with our third kid. Wow. We're excited and I think it hasn't even really hit us yet. It is through the lens of becoming a father for the third time that I have started examining Father's Day.

This Father's Day is the 100th such day in this country. Father's Day was first introduced as an afterthought to Mother's Day. The celebration of the man's role in parenting wasn't as natural a fit to a psuedo-holiday as to express appreciation for Mothers. Even now it seems like there is general disagreement as to how to celebrate dads--or if they should, indeed, be celebrated.

There is something very natural to Mother's Day that the Dad's day just seems to be lacking. Something I can't stand is the cliche Father's Day gifts: neck ties, golf clubs, business socks. To me, such gifts reinforce the dad's role as breadwinner and discount the idea of a dad as an engaged parent. They show that a dad's most important role is his job and his independent pastimes are his most enjoyable times--a celebration of apartness. I was at a steakhouse the other day that had a big sign saying "Open at 10:00am on Father's Day!" Yes, because my dad wants a steak for breakfast. In contrast, the cliche gifts of Mother's Day--flowers, spa treatments, etc--at least express a sensitivity to the delicate role of Mother and an invitation to put herself first for once.

The fact that there are these standby notions of Father's Day gifts (mostly given to us by the media in the first place) shows a schizophrenic attitude towards fathers in our culture; it's best embodied by the question: "What the hell is a Father supposed to be, anyway?"

I've made the argument previously that the most important role a father plays is not as breadwinner or provider, but as role model. For me, it's always been easy to appreciate my dad, but it's even more so now that I have kids. I don't know what kind of dad I would be if I hadn't seen it done right in the first place.

But how the hell do I show thanks? Do I buy a card that someone else wrote? Do I get him something for his office or his BBQ? Do I take him out to dinner? And how will my kids try and show it when they're older? It seems to me like Father's Day is a natural time to try and weave in some family activities of some kind; a trip, a visit, a picnic. A CD is as close as I can come to thinking of a gift that doesn't break the bank and can still be personal.

Father's Day will always be second fiddle when it comes to the Hallmark Holidays. But it's not because fathers are any less important than mothers. Just as the role of a caring dad often has to be invented by the one living it, so does the way to celebrate and express appreciation for a job well done have to be improvised.

I don't think that my dad will care that we don't make a big deal about Father's Day. I know that I don't care if I get a card or hug or whatever on that one day. The best way that I can think of to celebrate fatherhood is to practice it with care and understanding--to embody everything that I saw my dad do right as best as I can. That's something that just can't be expressed by breakfast steaks and neck ties.

Related Articles:
In Defense of Fatherhood
10 Rules for being a role Model
Putting Family First

Why I hate Hannah Montana

2008-06-07T23:23:00.006-05:00

Why do I hate Hanna Montana? It has nothing to do with the semi-nude pictures of her, trashy as they were.

The other day, I was in the store looking for a night light. My eldest daughter has an intense fear of the dark and what I really wanted was a regular off-white night light that has an on/off switch; not one of those flicker-in-the-near-darkness jobs. Naturally, the kind I wanted was sold out however long ago and no one knew when a new order for them would go in. But they did have the Hannah Montana night light.

They also had the Hannah Montana flashlight. And stool. And three different beach towels. And MP3 player. The Hannah Montana pajamas. The tote bag with accessories and blond wig. The charm bracelet. A Hannah Montana leather watch (in pink, purple, and black). The beauty set. Guitar. Cell phone case. Anti-static pink hairbrush. The sheet set. Umbrella. The Hannah Montana birthday cake edible image. Tatoos. Wii and DS games. Thank you notes. Drapes. Tooth-tunes (those tooth brushes that let you hear music through your teeth while brushing). 166 different books (no lie). Pencils, car decals, purses, nightgowns, panties.

All of them with the girl's face on them.

Strike that. She's not a girl; she's a product. She's Barbie. She's Pepsi. She's Coke. She's a living nightmare.

Who wants their face on a stool? Who wants a stool with someone's face on it? Why do all these products claim to have anything to do with "girl power" when all they are doing is packaging what it is to be a girl and selling the image, thus stereotyping and perpetuating what marketers feel it should be like to be a girl?

The show is about how great it is to be a "regular girl" and a "star." Yet all it does is reinforce the privilege and wonderment of what it is to be rich and famous. Hanna has a desirable life not because she is a regular girl, but because she can choose to be a regular girl or a superstar. Yet the reality is that she and her parents have let her become such an over-exposed product that there is nothing left about her that is human. She is an icon of an image and she is what every girl wants to be.

I think there's a problem when we all start dreaming the same dream. Especially when that dream is unchecked by any sort of ethics or limitations. Hannah shows children that selling out is awesome, that having your face on a bar of soap is cool, that you should put your image on every available product, that shopping provides meaning to your life. Is this what we want our daughters to grow up thinking?

Do we want our daughters to see us all clamoring for $100+ tickets to see a fifteen year old lip sync?

I'm glad that I don't have TV. I can't imagine going to WalMart or Target and having my kids beg for the bananas with her face on the sticker or the phone with her face on it, ad infinitum. We live in a world where ads and product licensing has gone insane.

The Buddha said that life is suffering and that it is such because of misplaced desires. Hannah Montana gives our daughters a lot of misplaced desires--not just toys in her image, but every imaginable product--and this trains them to be forever in the indentured servitude of the corporate machine.

Call me alarmist. But I'm sick of it.

Small Update and New Site Launch

2008-06-01T13:46:00.002-05:00

Howdy, strangers! I'm sorry that the BadassDad blog hasn't been updated for so long, but my family is now about half way through our mega-long road trip/camping/family visit vacation. We're happy and grateful for our trip and having a wonderful time. At this point in time, we're visiting family, but next week we're camping along the California coast. It sure is nice to be around people who care about us and our kids and are willing to offer entertainment and care for our kids. We've even been able to sneak out for a couple dates while we've been here!

I expect to do a much more interesting and open up some more discourse on parenting in the next week or so. Right now, I'd like to actually point you away from the site for a while. Today a new site is launching at http://www.tvfreeliving.com and it should be great. How do I know it should be great? For one thing they've asked me to participate and contribute some articles. Head over to TVFreeLiving and subscribe, if you think it sounds like something you're into.

Remember, you don't have to go so far as tossing your box out the window to live TV Free; it's always nice to learn some strategies to help cut screen time out of your life and open the doors and get out and live. Remember, we watch TV because it shows us a world in which TV doesn't exist--the paradox is that we can live in this world any time we want to--just turn it off.

Camping with Children

2008-04-30T13:07:00.006-05:00

In two weeks, my family is going to go off on a brave adventure: camping across the western US. This year marks the fifth year of our marriage. On our honeymoon, we camped across the entire country, from California to Vermont and back. Granted, we caved and stayed in the odd motel or so and surfed on friends' couches here and there, but a good deal of it was spent camping.

But things are different five years later. We have two kids and two dogs to take along with us. There's complications with eating, excessive "dark," using the potty, and a general resistance to flexibility to deal with. But saving $90 a night will help to offset the price of gas and cooking our own food will be cheaper than roadside fair as well (that's right--we really want to stretch that stimulus check we'll be getting shortly).

To explore the intricacies of camping with children--which we hadn't done for a year--we went on a short over-night camping trip to a nearby national forest a week ago. Here are some things we've encountered:

Being Outside: The kids love and treasure outside-time. We know this from playing outside and cooking outside, but it is especially evident while camping. When else do you get to spend hour upon hour solidly outside? It just doesn't happen much where we live or at least how we live. But the outside world is endlessly interesting and enriching offering us plenty of activities that don't involve much organization if any.

The benefits of being dirty: It's nice to be able to tell the kids to go ahead and be as dirty as they need to be. Especially in our 3 year old, there seems to be a resistance to--not getting dirty--but staying dirty. While camping, it's unavoidable that you will be dirty, so telling them so is somewhat of a liberation. Our eldest kept reminding us throughout the two days, "Look, I'm dirty, but it's okay." It never before has crossed my mind how much we must subtle encourage cleanliness in our day-to-day.

Hidden Dangers: Where we live, in southeastern Texas, there is a lot to be wary of. Poison ivy and oak are all around, as well as roughly 65 billion types of poisonous snake. There are insects like asps and scorpions that are better left alone. The lakes in the area house plenty of gators that would find our 2 year old a delightful snack. So there does end up being a bit much of the "stay close" and "get out of the bushes" from time to time. It didn't seem to bother them much.

Sleeping in a tent: This is fun for the kids, though a bit scary, too. We had the idea that they would sleep on one side and the parents could cuddle up in a separate area. No chance. We were a woven tapestry of humanity the night long. This is fine once expectations are abandoned. There is also plenty of need to reassure kids during sounds outside. Once in a while, I also need reassurance.

Play equipment: You don't need a lot of equipment for kids to play with. Lots of camping rituals provide structured fun; roasting marshmallows seems to be much more fun than eating them. we did bring sand pales and shovels and they chose to do a lot of digging. But exploration of leaves, bugs, and toads was more than enough for them most of the time.

Be prepared: This story is really told best by my wife. Okay, I'm the dumb one here. In the year we've had our trusty mini-van, I've never had to change its tire. Sure enough, waking up to a brisk morning, I saw that we had a flat over night. Getting that spare tire out from under was impossible--until I found out the right way to do it two hours later. There was no cell phone reception and no Google to help me out of the situation. Then, once that problem was solved, we discovered that a late-night diaper change led to a light being left on and eventually to a dead battery. When we finally tracked someone down to give us a jump (and we forgot our own cables), our German Shepard, Blitzen, threatened by the man's proximity to our daughter, decided to pounce the guy. Yeah, it was a great morning.

It's not like grown-up camping. The night doesn't get late enough before it's bed time, the little legs can limit long hikes, and you never have to remind your wife to move away from the fire nearly as much as you do your toddlers. But camping with kids can be fun and enriching. There is no limit to the opportunities for curious kids. They can't wait to go on our adventure, and neither can we. I'll be honest and update if we end up in a Super 8 due to rain or cold, but we're going to try and go all the way.

One Year Without TV

2008-04-28T12:35:00.004-05:00

This last week was national Turn Off TV Week. It happens to mark the one-year anniversary of my family being without TV. It's hard to believe that it's been only a year, and a year ago I never would have thought that it would last.

Let me clarify, though. My family does own a TV. But we've tamed it. We haven't had or paid for service for a year, but we can watch movies on DVD and shows on AppleTV, should we choose. The virtues of this are found in having no commercials and in being properly mindful about what we watch. Still, we can over do it so things like Turn Off TV Week come along at great times.

We decided to downgrade our TV to monitor status at the end of last year's Turn Off TV Week. It was an eye opening experience for us that made us a stronger family. Without shows to watch, we find ourselves with extra time. We find ourselves spending more time with each other and paying more attention to the family in general. Without commercials, we've cut begging for things out of our family experience altogether. While this year's experiment wasn't nearly as elaborate as last years--as we have cut our watching down to about 10% of what it used to be--we still took some time to ourselves to celebrate not having a light-and-sound-box communicating with us. Last week, we went to the zoo, played outside, read more, spent time at the library, fixed the A/C unit, and took care of my wife while she fought off the worst flu-sore-throat-combination-nightmare of all time. Yes, it can come at bad times, but we managed fine.

This last year without a TV has been nothing less than liberating. No longer do we watch shows that we don't enjoy, or flip channels, or have to sit through commercials while waiting to see what's going to happen to Ben on Lost. No longer do we make plans to be home by a certain time or go to bed at a certain time in order to accommodate the schedule of the small-screen. Our daughters have no idea what Bratz are, who Miley Cyrus is, or just how annoying Elmo can be. They are free from the marketing of those things, free to make a choice that has nothing to do with conformity or acceptance from people who don't know you as anything but a consumer of their products.

We are free of celebrity news. We are free of investigative reports about child predators. We are free of nasally narrators on Swiffer commercials, and Truck Month, and Gwen Stephani, and political ad campaigns, and whatever other forms of Hell that are lurking around out there.

While discussing TV as a medium of popular culture, I offered my students the idea of going without TV for a week and writing about it. Not one student took me up. They laughed and scoffed at the idea that a life without TV was somehow better.

And maybe it's not inherently better. But it's more yours. You manage time differently; watch less and do more. Your thoughts are unencumbered by commercial jingles and Family Guy reruns. Television time is time that you surrender to someone else. It's time that you give up and let someone else live for you. And, my students are right, it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

But shouldn't someone be willing to try going without it for one week? The fear that they expressed over the idea was enough to show the virtues of the project. What is wrong with us that we can't miss a week's worth of shows? What's wrong with our lifestyles if that is frightening to us?

The week may be over, but it's not too late. Try it yourself. Don't shy away from having some extra time for your family this week.

Turn Off your TV and Computer Week

2008-04-21T09:59:00.003-05:00

April 21-27th is Turn Off Your TV Week. This isn't just limited to TV, but to "screen time." So, turn off your computer now. Go outside. I don't care if it's raining, do something with your family. We'll talk about things next week.

Is Bedtime a Badtime?

2008-04-17T20:45:00.002-05:00

Bedtime seems to go in cycles around here. Just when we get in a comfortable phase of putting them in bed, all bathed and happy, kissing them goodnight and tiptoeing away to the melodious sound of synchronized snores, things change.

The change seems to happen the night after (or the minute after) one of us remarks to the other parent "Wow, they sure are good at going to bed these days." Then bedtime reverts to the all out war that it seems to be about two weeks out of the month.

I have a theory that it's not because we've done anything wrong that this change happens. I don't generally credit it to a change in diet, or a change in routine, or a change in the stars. It just seems like consistency isn't what they're looking for a bedtime--at least not long term. They want the routine changed every so often and by the time they tell you they want the change, it's too late.

We cycle through different pre-bedtime rituals to try and make the night go down more smoothly. From this following list, we mix and match until we have a mixed grill of a nighttime schedule that works for the next few weeks.

Reading at Bedtime: This is a classic for obvious reasons. It gives us some time to wind-down, talk calmly, and read something that is comforting (even though I like them best when they get just a little bit scary in there). My favorite bedtime stories are from Maurice Sendak, but don't stop with Where the Wild Things Are; also try Outside over There and The Night Kitchen.

Singing: I happen to enjoy singing lullabies. I don't think that it's a good idea to introduce this ritual if you don't enjoy it. It has staying power and you will have requests over and over again. I usually take this one out of the routine when I notice that my girls are staying awake just to make me sing more. My favorites to sing are "Feed the Birds," "Sweet Baby James," and "Pooh Corner." But they often make me sing a drawn-out version of The Decemberists "The Crane Wife" oddly enough.

Bedtime Music: We have a small CD player that we play lullabies on. This works sometimes as a substitute to singing and sometimes in addition to. We have a few different CDs and mixes to change things up. But, like all these others, their tastes sometime drift away from this ritual.

Story of the Day: This is especially good if we've had long, active days or had visitors. We sit and talk about all the things we did today, each taking turns coming up with details to fill it out. Then, we end by planning out our next day. This works really well for making our expectations if we have big plans for tomorrow.

Holding Hands: Sometimes I have to sit there and hold hands until my older daughter goes to sleep. This only works when she's really tired and had some kind of a scare. She is usually asleep pretty fast, or I just can't stay there all night and she moves into our bed. Holding hands is a last resort before:

Pulling my own hair out and screaming until I die: Sometimes nothing works. We have the girls shack up with us in our bed like we used to and hope to move them sometime in the night so that we can get some rest, too. The main thing is to realize that no matter how prepared you are, you're not always going to come out successfully. I don't actually recommend pulling out hair or screaming or dying, but it sure sounds like it would be helpful.

I always tell my daughters when they play keep-away with our German Shepard, "Don't play to win, just play." That's how I feel about bedtime. Don't play to win. In the end, they can always outlast your patients if you make it a power struggle. Just talk things out, give in if you must, but set expectations that this night is different from tomorrow night.

The Hostile Educational Climate of Testing

2008-04-04T10:11:00.005-05:00

I'm a teacher. At this point, I'm just about a year away from having earned a doctorate in Education. I can't stand the thought of my kids going to school when standardized testing is ruling the terms of the classroom.

No Child Left Behind is un-researched, underfunded, and simply senseless. I can't imagine why--despite the glittering generality of the title of the bill--people voted for it. There is no reason to believe that all children learn at the same pace. There is no reason to believe that some students just aren't ready to go on to the next grade. There is no reason to believe that every student in every corner of America should be learning the same things at the same times and demonstrate the same skills. It's nothing short of madness.

The federal government pays for about 10% of public schools. Despite that small amount of funding, No Child Left Behind intrudes upon each and every classroom and, essentially, dictates a common curriculum for all students to learn. I see three major problems with it.

Problem #1: Educational Diversity

In nature, species survive through genetic diversity. If the climate changes, a new predator is introduced, or a certain disease comes through, the variety of genetic make-up will help some of those creatures survive. Those advantageous genetic qualities will the be passed on, improved upon, and posterity will benefit. You can't expect every creature to survive every epidemic, but you can, reasonably, expect that the species will push on. This is why inbreeding is frowned upon in polite societies of animals; too much of one specific gene pool will result in decreased genetic diversity.

In Universities, they don't hire their own graduates most of the time. If UT hires only UT alumni, they will, in effect, be in-breeding. They will have a lack of educational diversity which will lead to narrow thinking. This narrow thinking will result in a lack of diversity for problem solving--all people will approach problems in the same way, drawing from the same education, and at some point, a problem will come along that will be unsolvable to them.

This is what we're doing to the nation at large. If every student is forced to learn the same materials for the same purposes, the homogeony will make the country much less creative problem solvers. We will be faced with plenty of problems that will be unsolvable.

Problem #2: Common Denominators

Many students who are behind in class are there because they are way ahead of the class. They get bored, frustrated, and end up living in their own heads rather than paying attention. Then they can't demonstrate the skills that were taught simply because the subject matter wasn't engaging to them.

This is why we push for smaller class sizes. It's not just that each student gets more attention, but that each class can move faster, or, at a pace more common to all the students. By saying that we won't go on without every last student, even the bright students might be chastised for holding the classroom back.

Problem #3: Negligence

The worst advertisement I've ever seen was for Kindermusik. It showed a girl playing a drum and said, "The same rhythm she uses for music, she'll use for dribbling down the court." So that's the value of music education? What it can do for your basketball skills?

This has been the attitude towards educating the arts for as long as I can remember. I took a lot of music when I was younger and was always disgusted when someone would mention that music was good for your math skills. I always thought that math was good for your music skills.

Arts aren't just good for learning the important stuff: they are the important stuff. By focusing testing and benchmarks on English and Math, schools neglect not only music and art, but science and history as well. These things are important. These are the way that we move a culture forward. They are what being human is about, even if they don't use it to benefit society. Or basketball.

No Child Left Behind, by focusing on the "practical skills" is, in a sense, saying that education is for making money in the future. It's not. Education is supposed to be for thinking for yourself, understanding of your place in the world, and should, ideally, enhance your creative skills. Let's see them demonstrate creativity by filling in a bubble with a number two pencil.

I live for the day when we realize that some students may not be ready to move on--even emotionally. And when we see that some students should move very much farther on. If we could take the funding for NCLB, and many other ridiculous educational programs and put it to making smaller class sizes and increasing the range of subjects that students can learn, we will make out country a stronger place.

Or, we can just give programs fancy sounding names that limit our students and look fancy to our constituents so we can stick around the beltway a little longer and increase our salaries. That's a good idea, too.

Related:
Education vs. Schooling (On Steve-Olson.com)

A Modest Endorsement

2008-04-01T10:59:00.002-05:00

In light of Badassdad's new sponser, Wal-Mart, I feel like I should say a few things to clear the air.

Wal-Mart is great. Look, who else is going to give you prices like that on the things you love? From the gasoline outside to the baby formula stocked in three different sections of the store, you can do just about all the shopping you need to do at Wal-Mart. And it takes a shrewd business mind to keep prices as low as they do.

One way they do it is this: they don't pay the employees much and they have questionable health-care packages. This way, when the employee gets sick, with their lack of money and insurance, they can easily qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid is paid for by our tax dollars, so, in essence, that thirty-seven cents you saved on roll-on came from the American people at large!

We know, trusted readers, that the bottom line is this: they are a business. Businesses exist to make money. Everything is forgiveable in this era of Machiavellian Consumerism as long as it gets the business what it wants. We've seen this time and time again.

In regards to my last post, it's true, bookstores are businesses too. It doesn't really matter if they are willing to sell cheap knock-off books of low quality and questionable content for which a writer wasn't even paid. What matters is that a) they are cheap, b) they make the store money, and c) they give our kids a good dose of what it feels like to be a good consumer. This makes the kids have wants and desires that are not particular to them at all, but are part of the mass market. And as the mass market goes up, up goes our happiness.

Look, McDonalds (which is happily placed in many-a-Wal-Mart) pays their employees the state minimum wage. They're not paying under that! They train the employee--usually coming in unskilled--and get a $6,000 grant from the government to do the training. The average employee spends less than 30 minutes training, then quits the job in 90 days. McDonald's hasn't even paid them $6,000! So they hire a new employee, get the same deal, over and over again. Why should they make working conditions better? They shouldn't! This is a BUSINESS! They want to make MONEY! They give kids a nice dose of lard, salt, and sugar and leave them wanting more. And of course they can keep prices low, they pay their average employee through a government work grant! Genius! Besides, they suport cool school fund-raisers, where if the school all eats there, half the profits go to the school! Wow! I mean, why should the parents give money to the school, when they can just give half of their money to the school? Or, they could keep it all, but whatever.

Besides, who besides Wal-Mart and McD's is going to give these people a job? They are the benevolent overlords of hospitality and community. Theirs is the good will that keeps up running, keeps us happy. So what if they put other companies out of business? They make money, and that's what matters.

So, drop by the Badass Store today and throw down your dollars on a cool T-Shirt. Or, no, you shouldn't. I'm an entrepreneur and don't deserve it. I don't make money well enough to deserve your endorsement.

Should Bookstores be Socially Responsible?

2008-03-28T09:48:00.001-05:00

We have a habit of hanging out at bookstores. We’ve had this habit since way before we had kids. In several of the towns where I’ve lived, the local libraries weren’t much to write home about. Besides being terribly under stocked and in the “wrong” area of town, they also had lousy hours and didn’t feel conducive to hanging around being semi-social. So, we got in the habit of frequenting large chain bookstores.

This isn’t anything original to us. Many people are turning bookstores into their own little living rooms. They go, have coffee, a muffin, read the day’s paper, talk on the phone, whatever. In college I often chose to study at Borders instead of the college library because it was closer to my house and it felt like I was out doing something. These places are semi-public spaces that are turning more and more into semi-private places.

This habit of ours leaked very comfortably into our lives as parents. Many Barnes & Nobles have train tables to play with, little stages to play on, and several cozy reading nooks for kids to get into. And of course, when we lived in Austin, we spent an inordinate amount of hours at the world’s greatest bookstore, BookPeople, which was so full of fun activities and a wide selection of books that there was rarely a question of what to do when it was just too damn hot outside.

But with the exception of the above mentioned independent bookseller, being at these places has always come with a challenge for us as parents. My daughters—when they tire of playing with the train or dancing on the stage—want me to read books to them. That much is great. But the problem is distinguishing between books and toys.

The basic rule I’ve come down to is this: books have an author listed, toys do not. So much of what is seemingly a book, isn’t a book at all. There are a million Princess books that have no listed author, as there are with Backyardigans, Elmo, Dora, My Little Pony, Hanna Montana, and every other imaginable character. (Now, I have a soft spot for Disney, thanks to well over a hundred trips to Disneyland, but that doesn’t change my stance about their “books”).

Even worse are the books that are actually just toys in a book shaped box. They have buttons, make noises, play songs, or are actually filled with little knick-knacks of every imaginable persuasion. They are a real and true blight on the bookstore. And, they are specifically designed to attract children.

Obviously, I can’t explain to my kids that I don’t want to read books without authors to them. But I do try and explain why I don’t want to read princess book after princess book, or why it’s no fun to hear an electronic beep play “muffin man” a billion times in a row for no particular reason. Usually, while they are involved in the initial distraction of the train, the toys, or whatever, I make a round and pick out several books that I would like to read. Some old favorites, like Suess and Sendak, and some new or seasonally exciting ones. Then, I try and persuade them to look at these books with me, as the stories are so much better than the plight of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony as she tries to throw a party for Minty.

These toy-books are positioned to be the most reachable. They attract children with familiar characters (many of them at least familiar from the grocery store, Target, and kid’s shirts that they play with). And, of course, I’m sure they sell great. Many parents are like, “Cool, you want a book, we’ll buy it.” Or hapless grandparents who aren’t sure what to buy pick them up based on accessibility. They even have line after line of these books that are supposed to teach the child to read—because the parents would have no idea how to do that without the Elmo puppet’s help that’s attached to many of these.

If you want your children to grow up to be readers, you have to look past the marketing. You have to encourage them to read books that are worth reading. In the long run, they will notice the effects of a good book versus a bad book.

On a recent trip to Borders, their seasonal wall was overcome with a new display of Disney Fairies books—all of which burst onto the market the same day as the Borders-Disney sweepstakes. The other four tables around it—together representing the five most accessible areas of books for kids—had signs attached to them as follows: “At the Movies;” “Hannah Montana;” “Make it a Nickelodeon Night;” and “Your Favorite Characters” (all of which, apparently, can be found on TV).

Should bookstores recognize their position as the new public book space? Should something be done to increase library funding for better hours, more pleasing kids areas, and better lighting? Should they lead buyer for Barnes & Noble—the single most powerful person in publishing—recognize the importance of good literature for every age? Or should we just buckle to our typical post-capitalist apathy of, “Hey, they’re a business, they want to make money, Jackass!”

Businesses run from our money. The libraries run from our money. We should expect more of them, and we should, therefore, expect more of ourselves.

Marketing TV to Children

2008-03-25T20:54:00.005-05:00

There's a channel called Sprout on many cable services now. There's also the ironically-named channel called Noggin. These are channels that are aimed at 0-2 year olds. The companies that run the channels are really biting the bullet for you here--there are no commercial interruptions on these channels. Just 24 hours a day of television for your baby. This is good, right?

If you read this blog at all, you know what my stance is going to be.

Doctors have told us time and time again that children under 2 should watch zero hours of TV a day. That's zero. Why is this? What's so evil about a channel that is benevolent enough to provide you with kids shows free of commercials?

The medium of TV is unique. The two-dimensional world of television is disorienting to our bodies. Whenever there is what is called a "formal feature," such as a cut, zoom, edit, wipe, whatever, our bodies respond with a particular adrenal reaction. It's called the orienting response. As predators, strange movements like those catch our attention. And in order to react to being disoriented, our blood pressure drops, giving us a moment of calm that last from 4-6 seconds. Yes, this is an exceptionally mild, hardly noticeable to the mind, unless they were to come in huge doses.

During most TV shows, these features occur every--you guessed it--4-6 seconds. During commercials and music videos, they come every second.

Your body knows this. This is why it's relaxing to watch TV. The content of a show itself is not relaxing, otherwise we'd be watching landscapes with ambient music. But as we follow Jack (from 24 or Lost) through a weekly tribulation, we get a dose of Soma.

When your baby sits watching Elmo or Dora and seems to be concentrating or at ease, it's not because they are learning or relaxing. It's because they are mesmerized by the most prevalent drug in history, getting dose after dose from their own bodies courtesy of the TV.

You may wonder why Johnny and Jill seem to be having a problem concentrating in school several years from now.

But we still haven't answered the question of what the channels get out of this. First of all, of course, they are selling products to these 0-2 year olds. They are selling them Dora and Elmo licensed products. And though they may not buy them themselves, and though they may even be too young to nag in many cases, their parents buy them for them. They know that their little Johnny is enthralled with Elmo's World and that the Spanglish-speaking little imp is empowering Jill by exploring.

Second, and perhaps more disturbingly, they're selling them TV. They're creating TV watchers out of them from birth. Since the late 70s, marketing companies have focused their larger clients with the strategy of "cradle-to-grave marketing" (their name for it, not mine). They know that if they can land them young, they'll be consumers all their lives. Then they can rest easy under a Dora tombstone.

When you stop watching TV, you no longer get the relaxation effects leave your body. However, this leaves you jittery and anxious. That's because while the relaxation leaves, but you are left with passivity and lethargy. Anyone who's ever been addicted knows that you don't want that kind of let-down. They know that kids will keep watching, just to stay sane.

Having your children sit forever in front of TV may seem easy. And I understand the impulse to watch hours of TV after a long day. But there has never been a force more damaging to imagination and creativity. Be a badass--turn it off.

Related:
Giving Up TV
10 Ways to Tame TV
10 Alternative to Conventional TV

Imagination and Curiosity

2008-03-17T14:25:00.002-05:00

My daughter has the most depressing imaginary friend in the whole world. Her name is Blently (the imaginary friend, not my daughter) and she lives by herself. She has no parents, no friends, no way to get across town to visit my daughter. When I ask what Blently eats, I am told that she likes pizza and macaroni. When I ask how she gets her food, I am told that “a man” gives it to her, but that he doesn’t stay to eat with her.

I don’t know what to make of Blently. She pops up in conversation every now and then. Usually it’s an announcement in the car, something like, “Blently is very sad today. She still does not have anything fun to do.” When I offer to pick the poor girl up, I am told that “She is very busy and cannot play.” I ask if there’s any way that Blently can come and play at a time when Mommy and Daddy don’t watch—hoping to bring some relief to the monotony of the poor girl’s life. But, no, she has no way to get to our house and she will be too busy at any given time.

Yet, there are some qualities of Blently’s that I’m afraid my daughter likes. For one, Blently is 4, a year older than my daughter. She could use the potty several months before my daughter could. She can also sing very beautifully, but, one supposes, to a null audience. She can write, she can read, and she doesn’t cry when she’s lonely. Their choices of food seem pretty much the same.

Could it be that Blently is my daughter’s Tyler Durden?

I hope not. I hate to think that somehow my daughter’s unfulfilled fantasies of living by herself in a kingdom of loneliness. Psychologists have come a long way in how they view imaginary friends. Even Dr. Spock said some pretty depressing things about imaginary friends in his early career and much of these have been mainly debunked by now.

I don’t think that imagination is a bad thing. I don’t think that having an imaginary friend is, for the most part, anything but fun. I don’t want to stifle any aspect of my daughter’s creativity with this whole Blently thing, though I do wish she’d let the poor girl branch out from her dungeon.

Imagination is another side of curiosity, to me. By playing through this Blently scenario, my daughter is exploring the world. She is discovering what it would be like to live by herself—even if she were a year older—and in what ways she is dependent on family for her everyday things. She is also exploring the realms of happiness that she has playing with friends and with her little sister.

And curiosity is only a good thing. Whenever someone is praised for being “smart,” all they are seeing is the level of curiosity that the person exhibits. The answers to whatever questions one may pose are out there—it’s the questions that elude most people. If someone asks you why the sky is blue and you know the answer (Rayleigh scattering), it’s only because you bothered to ask the question yourself one day.

It is an important role of a parent to cultivate a child’s curiosity. Easy answers or brush-offs are not conducive to this; don’t train your child to feel stupid for asking a question. Instead, follow them through and show them how each answer can lead to other questions.

In the meantime, I have to try and encourage my daughter to come up with someone less heartbreaking to hear about every day.

Changes

2008-03-15T10:29:00.002-05:00

The other day I was driving from Houston to Austin and I got a call from an old friend of mine. I've known her for as long as we've both been alive and she became a mom shortly after I became a dad. We were talking about potty training--the ups and downs of the whole thing--and, specifically, we were talking about cleaning out the tiny potty after, well, number two.

I broke into my own conversation, which was in a very descriptive stage, to point out that all the years we've known each other, the subject of cleaning crap out of a plastic receptacle had never really come up before; things had changed a lot in the past couple years. It was a mildly interesting interjection.

I remember when I was really young hearing my grandma say that nothing in this world is constant but change. While I feel that change is constant, the rate of change is fluctuating. If I think about the changes that occurred in my life from ages 15-17, it can't begin to compare to the changes in my life from ages 25-27.

It's like plate tectonics. Pressure and tension build up over time and then WHAM, an earthquake slaps the surface. And now, watching my daughters grow up is like having massive aftershocks every single day. They are expressions of flux, every day growing and learning. They learn more in a single day than I can take in during a semester of graduate school.

Without a doubt the biggest moment of change in my life was when my first daughter was born. It was a palpable feeling; probably something like dying would be. Seriously. Or maybe like being born, myself. I felt like I fell apart and was something else entirely. As much as I've tried to write about that moment over and over in my life, I've never found the right words. I've never come close, and I really don't expect to any more.

The earthquake of that moment is still being felt. In a single instant, priorities shifted forever, concerns toppled, things were put into focus and others taken out of focus, the world that I lived in seems silly and trifling now, and the world now seems multilayered--stratified with superficial concerns on the bottom, ideas of consumerism waddling in the muck going up to petty concerns about money, and the lightest layers floating on top; the joy and mystery of life, the feeling of a baby falling asleep on your chest.

I think it's a shame that some people are able to overcome the power of that change. Some people are able to go back to their old concerns and priorities. Maybe they've just been rooted in them for so long. Maybe they feel that there is time in their lives for everything.

The world is at once infinite and temporary to me, these days. I think it's important to take a moment now and then, see where we've been, and take note of where we are. Where are my priorities today? Have I put them in the right place, or have I fallen into really old habits again? How can I help guide the change that will happen today, push it in a positive direction for my kids? Yes, it's just one day. The world they make today, they will change tomorrow, so every single step counts.

10 Activities for Toddlers on a Rainy Day

2008-03-07T07:13:00.004-06:00

We spend a lot of time outside. For at least a few hours every afternoon, we go outside and play, either on the playground in the backyard, or ride trikes, or play with the neighborhood kids. This is addition to going on walks or feeding the ducks at the pond down the street.

The burden of spending lots of time outside is felt when the weather isn't cooperative. We don't live where it snows, and though we get a lot of rain here, it comes on a comparatively small number of days a year. If they're used to being able to run around and cut loose everyday, a couple days without it can lead to pent-up energies that can result in high octane arguments and first rate fighting. It's no fun, for anyone.

So we've spent a lot of time trying to navigate these inside times. We have a mix between old standbys and new favorites. Play around with some of these and see what works for you.

1. Playing Rice
This is one of my wife's inventions. On the kids craft table, she sets out buckets, funnels, measuring cups, spoons, and bowls. Then she fills the buckets with rice (dry, obviously, as cooked rice would have some pretty frustrating results when poured through a funnel). The kids are happy to "play rice" for up to two hours at a time. Two hours! This is a great time to clean the kitchen or read a book. You could probably also play beans, or play macaronis, or something.

2. Play dough
This is an obvious one. Play dough, or any comparable knock-off, is cheap and versatile. They really bank on you buying a lot of accessories for playing with the stuff, which you really don't have to. Household utensils work wonders with the stuff. And, if you really want to get affordable, with a little bit older kids, it's easy to find a recipe and make the stuff. They get a kick out of it. Plus, you can find recipes that harden in the oven for painting. Great for the holidays. That brings us to...

3. Painting
Watercolors are fine, and washable paint is okay. But, really, any acrylic craft paint can be washed off if caught in a relatively short period of time, and the colors are so much more bright and vivid.

4. Shaving Cream Paintings
If your kids get sick of the regular old painting, or if they like finger painting, then this is a great activity. Mix shaving cream in a bowl with the desired food coloring. Then, they can spread the colored fluff all over a page to make intricate designs that bleed into each other. Fun.

5. Shaving Cream Cleaning
Shaving cream does a great job of cleaning surfaces like tables and counter tops. Let the kids spread it all over the place, and when it is wiped off, the table is shiny clean. Pretty awesome to have fun and clean.

6. Build a Fort
The only drawback of turning the couch or the beds into a fortress is how often they'll want to do it in the coming days. Having small, cozy places to hide and stay is wonderfully comforting to a toddler. It may serve as inspiration to make a cozy reading nook in their room.

7. Throw a Party
This can be especially fun if you know that the next day is going to be unpleasant and you want to turn the tides by setting up a morning surprise. Put up streamers, hang balloons, bake a cake, play dance music, set up simple games like pin the tail on the donkey.

8. Music Time
Getting the family together to sing is engaging and very good for child development. If you're not musically inclined, look at it as an opportunity to learn along with your child. Get a used guitar, buy a book, and learn some children's songs.

9. Dress-up
We have a dress-up trunk in our kids' closet. It's full of old clothes, aprons, sunglasses, Halloween costumes, and the like. It's great to pull out on rainy days.

10. Bake something
Making bread, muffins, biscuits, or cakes can be a lot of fun for kids, especially if they know they're going to get to eat them later. This may be better for older kids, and it is best if you can find different responsibilities for the kids to be in charge of in the process.

When seen as an opportunity to break from routine, enhance artistic skills, and spend some family together time, bad weather can be a good thing. If you have some other activities that get you through a rainy-day schedule, please post them below.

Potty Party Part II: The Outcome

2008-03-05T10:32:00.003-06:00

Last week, I reported the details of my family's desperate plan to potty train our kids, the potty party. As a quick recap, the plan was to throw a day-long party to celebrate the absence of diapers in our home. The idea was that by forcing them to come up with non-diapered means of expulsion through a positive theme, we would circumnavigate all the hurt feelings and frustration that we've been experiencing over the whole idea.

The whole day was a wash. I mean, we had fun, but there was no notion of household productivity. The decorations were hung, the cake was made, and just to throw a harpoon in the whale of the notion of diet, we had homemade chocolate chip buscuits for breakfast and brought in pizza for dinner. The day was shamefully full of movie watching, and the yard rested quietly outside, escaping even the slightest effort of mantanence that I might have considered appropriate on a regular Saturday. But the pottys were set up and waiting, and that's what mattered.

It worked--mostly.

We now stand at a new and exciting ratio of potty users in the famiy; our older daughter has not worn a diaper since Friday, and it is now Wednesday. To top that off, she hasn't had even a single accident.

All we had to do was weather the first excruciating half of Potty Party Day (as it will hence be refered). She screamed. She begged. She ran in circles. She wanted a bath (presumably to be used as a covert urinal) and argued that her dirty fingernails demanded bathtime attentions. All the while, her little sister sat happily on her potty--holding everything in for all it was worth.

We almost caved at least once every hour.

And finally, at noon, she could hold back no longer. She sat on her little potty, positioned comfortably in the living room, squeezing my hand in terror. Then, finally, she looked at me and said, "Daddy, don't be happy." I assured her I wouldn't be.

"Daddy," she said, "Don't be proud." Again, pride was far from my demenor.

"Daddy," she begged, "Don't clap and say 'yay.'" And I told her I wouldn't.

"I pee-peed."

The chear that I let out instantly broke all of those forced promises, but she cheered, too. She wanted to call her grandparents. She wanted the world to know. And she pull on her panties with what can only be described as glee.

Ever since then, she has, perhaps, over-pottied. She takes such pride that if she's not fully occupied, she will choose to practice her art.

For whatever reason, our younger daughter just wasn't ready. She begrudgingly returned to diapers. Despite sitting on the potty, she just won't go in it. Her big sister is trying to teach her, with limited success. We'll try again, soon, to get her to go cold turkey like her sister, but, heck, she is a year younger.

So, if you're stuck with an older kid in diapers, the Potty Party just might be for you.

Potty Party may lead to Pity Party

2008-02-29T09:32:00.005-06:00

My daughters are ages 2 and 3. They are bright young girls with vocabulary skills that really blow my mind from time to time. And while every parent takes pride in the developmental milestones of their children, there's one that I'm just plain vexed by. That damn potty training.

To be honest, I feared it for long before I ever had kids. I have an abnormal memory, as far as I can tell, remembering many mundane events that happened before my second birthday. I remember the frusteration of not being able to communicate and I remember the dread and despair of potty training. Why in the world would my Mom insist that I try using a potty when the diaper thing was working out just fine? Well, probably because she was six months pregnant and didn't want to have two kids in diapers.

Man, do I understand that now. Our older daughter has been ready to use the potty for at least a year. She can tell you when she is planning on going pee (especially a pleasure in public) and she sequesters herself when she has to do any more than pee. Then, she gives you a report about her estimated size of the delivery.

It's heartbreaking.

And we don't know why she hates the potty so. We're sick of hearing people's advice on the subject because there just isn't any correlation between her and a potty-using child; there's no common ground on which to compare them. She just won't sit on the damn thing. Not for reward or punishment (though, I suppose, we stopped short of any kind of punishment, and maybe a taser would work wonders).

Our second daughter is on her way down the same path. She did like to sit on the potty, though there was never any positive outcome, as she would then stand up to pee. But watching and imitating her sister is the subject that she has most mastered and she can tell that this potty thing must be some kind of trick, trap, or otherwise undesirable type of monster. S she now refuses to sit.

I think this is about control. I think this is about power.

We're very read-up on the subject. We haven't taken this lightly, and all the advice we have heard and read about has been tried. But still, we can't get over the idea that they have mastered their digetive tracks well enough to do it and that we don't want to cause them any lasting emotional trauma.

With all of this in mind, we are going to try one more time.

The Potty Party. It's our last hope. After this doesn't work, I'm going to wait until they go to college and let the dean of student activities deal with the situation.

Tomorrow morning, they will wake up to a near-Christmas caliber event. Wrapped, new potties, one for each. Soli's favorite color is pink, and Luna's oscillates between blue and green. We will rid them of their diapers under the majesty of streemers and balloons. Their brand new baby dolls (today's payday, in case you didn't catch this expensive trend) will have to be potty trained. The girls will delight in this, of course, as they understand the wonderment of potting even though they haven't indulged.

Then, they will have to put things into action for themselves. There will be fancy, cute, panties at their call standing by for wearing. And there will be cake baking, should they make the big score.

It's silly. And, honestly, I don't want such a party every time I go potty (though a little more fanfare would be nice). And I just don't know if it will work. But I'm sick of diapers. I'm sick of feeling like I can't do it. In many ways, this mirrors the frustration that I had when I potty trained, only now I'm having it from the other side.

So wish us luck, because we'll be want for it. And I'll let you know after the weekend if I recommend your own potty party, or if it was a bust.

In the meantime, please enjoy an on-topic video:

9 Ways to be more Productive

2008-02-26T06:58:00.005-06:00

Yesterday I had a pretty embarrassing moment of consumer-culture thinking. My neighbor is getting a lot of yard work done and workers were tearing out the old brick on his walkway. I asked the workers what they were planning to do with the old brick, and they said they were going to throw it out.

Naturally, I couldn't see all those tons of brick going to waste while our back patio is rotting to pieces, so with their permission, I started to haul it away. I had on my leather work gloves which haven't been used in years and was bent over throwing the dirty bricks into a wheelbarrow. The smell of the dirt, gloves, and barrow suddenly reminded me of something. I thought to myself, "Wow, this smells just like a home and garden store."

My next thought was, "Man, have I gotten soft."

And later on, after all the bricks were moved, I noted to myself that I haven't been so sore since the last time I went to the gym--which was a long time ago. Too much of my life, I realized, is built around consumerism. If I'm going to lift weights at the gym, I may as well stay home and get some yard work done. Or build a playhouse, ride a bike, fix my fence. And, by God, a home and garden store ought to remind me of working in my home and garden and not the other way around!

I want to set some goals for myself that I can follow to make my life more productive and less driven by consumer culture. Following the idea of making small, measurable goals, I'm focusing on what I can do this week to set new standards for myself. Here's the list:

1. Eat Only at Home
This may be easy for a lot of people out there, but it has always been a pain for me. Through a series of financial ups and downs in my childhood, I have come to associate eating at home with stress and eating out with celebration. And when things get stressful for me now, I want to go out to eat to alleviate it. Being aware of this pattern is not enough to change it for me. So I will think day-to-day that I will have less guilt if I just eat at home.

2. Make food from Scratch
In the past, I've made the resolution to eat at home and then done something that I feel is just as bad--eat half-homemade foods. But so far this new year, I have made myself proud. I don't eat out of a box or out of a can (unless I'm using canned ingredients for something that's out of season). In fact, I haven't even bought a loaf of bread in almost three months. Instead I bake all of my bread from scratch. It tastes better and costs about 25 cents a loaf. And no, I don't have a bread machine. You don't need a bread machine to make bread at home. And you feel good about yourself when you can take something so basic, do it yourself, and have it be better. It goes from being empty filler to being something substantial.

3. Find a new way to get to work
Biking to work is an impossibility for some people. That is unfortunate. We actually bought our house with this in mind. Actually, we even moved to this town with this in mind. When I ride my bike to work, I don't stress about traffic, and though it takes a little longer, I arrive at work or at home feeling better. If you can't bike to work where you live, perhaps you can take a bus, a train, or walk.

4. Walk to the park with the kids
Where we live we're in walking distance of several parks with playgrounds. Taking a walk with the kids to one of these parks has the dual effect of getting exercise for me and wearing out the kids. It's amazing, but over half of Americans get no exercise every day. Absolutely none. When I was younger, I never would have thought of walking as exercise, but now, sure, it's more than I usually do.

5. Make a Garden
If you don't have one yet, make one now. We have a pretty big yard and get lots of rain. There's plenty of space to start growing our own food. I've never been all that fond of vegetables, but it's about time I changed my mind about that. I think that growing my own will make the whole process feel more rewarding, much like the bread making. If you don't live in a situation where you can have a garden, there is the possibility of a community garden.

6. Build Something
I don't know what I'm going to do with those bricks. I can make the new patio with it and save money, or I could see it as a gift and make a barbecue pit. Again, lifting weights is great for getting into shape, but wouldn't it be more interesting

7. Donate Stuff
It's that time again. Every so often it's a good idea to get rid of unplayed with toys and unworn clothes. My house has the tendency to fill with clutter and I just don't know how it does it. But I know the cure. Not too long ago, we sold 20 boxes of books to a used book store. It was nice to get rid of all the books we won't read again and know that they can move on to people who haven't read them.

8. Volunteer
There's a community beautification project this Saturday. Or, Habitat for Humanity is building about 15 miles away and still needs people. Next week, my wife can lead a workshop about self-esteem for preteen girls. There are tons of volunteer options out there and we don't take advantage nearly enough.

9. Make a Date with the Wife
My wife and I spend a lot of time together, but it is always family time. There's nothing wrong with that, but I do feel like it's important to nurture the one-on-one relationship. Maybe my sister will play with the girls while we go out. Or maybe we'll put the girls to bed on Friday and instate a no computer, no tv, no books night. We could play board games, work on a project together, or have *ahem* other kinds of fun. Anyway, we won't waste our night and we'll be taking time for each other.

***

It's important to take time and make it useful. So much of our time gets wasted and we feel like it's taken from us. Focus your energy, focus your time, and the resulting productivity will resonate throughout your life.

The Sex Talk

2008-02-22T07:50:00.002-06:00

A recent trip to visit our folks resulted in my three-year-old wondering where babies come from. Something had to spawn it sooner or later, and it is probably fortuitous considering all the talk there's been around here lately about a third baby. All the same, it was somewhat unexpected and really, there was no real strategy in place. Here's how it went:

Solstice (that's daughter number one) was looking at pictures of me when I was her age. This is something that grandparents love to thrill grandkids with. This information, about me being her age at one time in the universe, got her to thinking. Finally, while in the car, she quizzed her mother on the situation. "Mommy," she said, "do you remember when Daddy was a little boy?"

She answered truthfully that she didn't, but that she met me much later. This led to a series of questions getting at the heart of the whole issue. Finally, my wife told her that we had met, fallen in love, and gotten married. "Was I there?" she asked.

My wife did her best to explain that, no, she wasn't there, that it was before she was born, before she was a baby. But that we decided to have a baby. "You went to the store?" Well, no, we didn't go to the store. She explained to Solstice that Daddy put her in Mommy's stomach so that she could grow in there.

And now, Solstice had fully grasped the situation. "Oh," she said conclusively, "He used his magic wand."

Hmm. Not exactly. But the resultant laughing was enough to end the conversation without any of the more explicit details.

So what do we do about the whole "sex talk" thing? I've read a few things lately by people in the field who say that around age 8 is the right time. But by the time my 3 year old is 8, will it be too late? And if she's this curious right now, how do we put things off further? We can't really have her telling people in public that her new sibling was put into her mommy's tummy by daddy's magic wand! That would be considerable more disturbing for those listening to this astonishing fact than the gory truth of the thing.

As for me, I cannot remember not knowing. It's not due to any lack of memory as I remember my 2nd birthday. But I'm sure at that age I didn't have a lot of wonder about the subject. I imagine that it has more to due with the fact that my mom was a childbirth teacher and somewhat of a hippie. I don't remember a single time that "the talk" was delivered to me, but many instances of simple explanation that I mainly shied away from.

Conversely, there are many friends of mine who say that their parents never told them. They had to find out friends and their varying sources of reliability. I think this is mainly a selfish point of view in parenting, where the parent hopes to avoid a conversation that will feel awkward.

I wonder how our generation will handle this one. There are lots of books that explain this with illustrations and the like, but I don't know if I really want to read the book with the cartoon penis in it every night before bed. While, yes, at this point in my parenting life I hope that my girls never have any interests in boys, I know this can't ultimately be the case. And unlike people, like our dear president, who think that sex education should be about how to avoid sex, I think it should be about education. And with the curious minds I already have in tow, I don't believe in holding back truths from a mind seeking to learn something.

I am curious to know how the more experienced parents handled this and how the others plan on handling it. I don't think that by any means this is the defining issue of our children's lives, and I think that most of the drama is parent-induced. Nevertheless, all discourse is helpful.