Happy Birthday, Q

this is one of my favourite pictures of my brother, Q, and me. i wanted to share this on Q's birthday. we must be about how old Skye and Claire are now. those days are of course far behind us. Q is now a pastor of a church in Germantown, Philadelphia, as well as teaching at Westminster seminary, as well as father to Amoz (and a second baby on the way), as well as husband to Christe.

happy birthday, Q! i must admit i was a little shocked when i did the math and realized how old you are today, but that's mainly because i still feel like i'm in my twenties!! well, no matter how old we are, i hope we can retain some of that joy this picture shows.

Our poet

lately, Skye has gotten really interested in words that rhyme. throughout the day, if a word catches her fancy, for example, bike, then throughout the day, she'll ask, does mike rhyme with bike? does tike rhyme with bike? does jike rhyme with bike? and on and on.

yesterday, when i picked her up from preschool, her teacher said to me, Skye has been busy writing poems today! and Skye proudly showed me her first haiku-esque poem. here is a poem she wrote today. she has taken it to school to read to her class:

Four little snowflakes were having some fun
One little snowflake disappeared
Now two little snowflakes were having a race
Then one fell down
Now there is one little snowflake playing in the snow.

Benign neglect vs. helicopter parenting

a friend of mine, Erin, had an interesting entry in her blog last month about "benign neglect." she referred to another blog entry of the same name which you can read here. the writer talks about how we hover over our children too much and that we should let kids be kids. all our hovering squelches children's imagination.

i've had several conversations with parents about this and i've heard the term "helicopter parent" being thrown around. one mother i know says she most definitely is a helicopter mother.

i've been thinking about both of these terms, "benign neglect" and "helicopter parent" quite a lot lately because i've intervened in one of Skye's friendships. yes, i've actually felt like a monster mother because i told the mother of Skye's friend that Skye will no longer go to their house for playdates anymore. to give you some background info, Skye had grown quite fond of this girl who will be named Y and Skye and Y were playing quite a lot at school. of course, that led to playdates. but Y would always resort to mean behaviour when things were not going her way. never at school and rarely at our house, but at her house and whenever her mother was around. and the mother never intervenes or disciplines. i was so exasperated by the mother's lack of intervention and had several talks with her. i discovered the mother expected me to say something to her child! and she expected Skye to say mean things back at Y in the hopes that Y would finally listen. initially, i wanted to let the kids "work things out", but i've also learned that kids at the age of 4 or 5 do not have all the tools yet to work things out by themselves. Skye, for whatever reason, was enamoured with with girl and didn't question the fact that Y was being mean to her. yes, Skye would be hurt, but that didn't stop her wanting to play with Y. in fact, Y's behaviour was creeping into our household. i could see Skye treating Claire and me the way Y treated her. so i finally set some boundaries and have also been busy setting up other playdates for Skye so that she could see there were other kids she could play with who wouldn't be quite so cruel.

benign neglect? most definitely, but in the right context and even more of it further down the road. right now, though, i believe i have to be something of a helicopter parent. if i hadn't intervened, Skye would have mirrored Y's behaviour, believing it to be the way people should behave with one another. it has taken many conversations and much time, but Skye now sees Y's behaviour for what it is.

i'm trying hard to teach our girls how relationships ought to be. God knows i'm not perfect in this area and i've struggled over setting up boundaries with Y and her mother. but we've all learned from this and i hope Skye can be more discerning as she gets older.

For all you bloggers

well, perhaps i should say for all you bloggers out there who are parents. here is a fun article on why we do what we do.

Anger management

before you read what i have to say about this topic, you may want to watch the SNL clip from this New York Times article. watch for the woman wielding the pink ax!

Phil showed me this article/clip after a particularly difficult day for me. i think to the eyes of Phil and Skye and Claire, i must have seemed like that woman wielding the ax! and was it hormonal? it would be sort of convenient to blame it on that, wouldn't it? but another mother did ask me that today when i shared what kind of day i'd been having - "have you had your period since Claire's birth?" and the answer to that is, no. i would have to completely wean Claire before that happens.

whatever the cause, i've been on a shorter fuse lately. it isn't as easy to have a difficult day when you have kids. before kids, it was really easy to sort of withdraw until you felt better. now, life goes on whether i'm up for it or not. incessant questions, unending whining, constant mess on the floor everyone is stepping on and dragging all over the house...i try to remain calm, but then the ax comes out of nowhere!

let's hope tomorrow is a better day for everyone!

Trip to LA

so i had this crazy idea of giving Phil a break and taking the girls by myself to visit my good friend Mary and her husband Martin in LA. of course, i wanted to see Mary before they have their first baby next month and it would be good for Phil to get some work done, but as the trip drew near, i kept hoping i wasn't biting off more than i could handle!

the flight going out to LA was fine and the girls were fantastic. the only serious challenge was bathroom runs. Skye has a tendency to go every 20 minutes or so. "Mummy, i have to go!" "But we just went!" we'd have to drag all our carry-ons and all 3 of us squeezed into the stall. and of course, the auto-flush toilets freak both girls, so we have to scramble to dash out of the stall before the toilet flushed! but we arrived in LA still feeling really good about the whole trip. my friend Mary's parents were going to pick us up from the airport and i called them to see where we should meet. they were stuck in traffic and that was fine too. we could take our time getting our bags and making potty stops. when Mary's parents finally arrived, we piled into the car and drove out of the airport to realize the traffic was so bad the cars were moving at a snails pace. it took about 3 hrs to get to my friend's house! and she doesn't live that far! yes, i was very close to tears and we stopped at a mcdonald's for a potty stop and to get some food for the kids who were starving. by the time we arrived at Mary's house, both girls were asleep from exhaustion and hunger. Claire had been crying so much and finally fell asleep in my arms (yes, i had taken her out of the car seat - i couldn't bear to sit there next to her watching her screaming).

other than the rough start, it ended up being a great trip. nothing beats really great weather and we had plenty of that. the girls were so happy to be running around outside and Mary and Martin were so great with them. here are some shots from the trip. our friends took us to the Huntington library's grand opening of their new Chinese garden. it was beautiful. but Skye and Claire loved the children's garden best where they had lots of fountains and water and sand and rocks to make any child happy.

we were sad to say goodbye to Mary and Martin when we left, but were happy to return home to Phil. it is very cold in Madison still and absolutely no signs of spring. and i think it's crazy that we feel the weather's getting warm when it's in the 20 F! will the snow be gone from the ground by Easter? i have a feeling not, but we keep hoping anyways!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kenya update

here is an interesting article on the situation in Kenya from the New York Times.

Andy Goldsworthy

watched a great documentary on Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides. it was visually stunning and really inspiring. here are some clips of the documentary from YouTube: first, second. what i love about Goldsworthy is that all his works are temporal. he is an artist that is all about the process and all about the change that time and environment brings to the work. it was great to listen to him talk about his art.

Song for Obama

yes, if you haven't seen/heard the song/video, you can see it here. if you missed the New Hampshire speech and want to listen to it, you can find the video here, but you'll have to scroll down for it as it was back in January. the speech reminded me in many ways of MLK's famous "I have a dream speech", completely intentional i'm sure!

oh, and btw, please check out the new video of Claire doing laps around the kitchen island - see side bar on right. thanks!

Increasing violence in Kenya

i'm sure many of you are hearing about the continued violence in Kenya. i just visited the website of my old school in Kenya, Hillcrest, and someone mentioned increased future hardships for the people. because of all the violence disrupting lives and because of the lack of rain, the cost of living is increasing. it sounds like the people of Kenya are going to have a hard time of it for a long time. the economy is doing poorly since there are no tourists coming into the country. it is really sad to hear. and it's always the poor people that get hit the hardest.

Drunken sailor

yes, that's what Claire looks like these days, lurching about the house! she's getting steadier on her feet and doesn't crash into walls too much, but when she's tired, there's lots of head banging and falling on her tushie. and why is it that waddling babies look so adorable, but not waddling adults?