Posts Tagged "motherhood"
Make a Laptop
I’m not much of a kids crafter kind of person. My son usually likes to just do whatever he wants with the materials and takes over completely if there is any kind of agenda. For the most part we just let him do what he wants with the art materials which is usually to cut great wads of paper into tiny pieces, spread them around, declare the craft finished and refuse to put anything in the recycling. We find tiny squares of paper spread through the house for weeks afterwards and there is usually a sizable stash stored in Rain’s nightstand because they are too precious for him to part with. (My family is laughing hysterically right now about how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree or some other dumb thing about how I used to do that, but whatever. I don’t let him have the tape anyways so I don’t even know what they’re talking about.) I got the idea to make a laptop with him out of an egg carton. Of course, a power struggle ensued about how it was to be done. I won because I’m bigger but that meant that I made the craft and Rain mostly watched so now we have no In-Process pictures for the tutorial. The laptop turned out pretty darn cool. I’ll tell you how it’s done and I won’t even be there to boss you around if you want to do it your way. But really, you can’t make a laptop out of a bunch of cut-up pieces of paper so it would be best if you listened to me. Just sayin. You’ll Need: 1 Egg Carton (empty) Scissors Glue Tape Paper 1 Piece of cardstock or thin cardboard I had just received a labeller as a gift from my husband for doing the books and marketing all year for our business. I have a secret stationary/office suply habit so the labeller was like giving me crack. Pretty sweet of him. The laptop would be the first labeller project. Rain also adores the labeller because of all the tiny buttons and portability. It’s like a kid sized computer. Heck, it’s like a laptop. That’s where the power struggle started. He likes to do everything himself. He drops things a lot. I don’t like broken electronics. If broken electronics were a publicly traded commodity, we’d be one of the top shareholders. Enough is enough. You’ll need a labeller or you could just use your computer/printer combo. Or I guess you could write letters with your hand and a pen but that seems kind of old-fashioned now doesn’t it? I mean if you could use a labeller or your own hand, what would you choose? First step, open the egg carton and using your scissors or an exacto (if you’re doing this craft while the kids are in bed, which let’s face it, is a better time to do crafts), cut off the 4-5 points that protrude up towards the lid. Cut them so that they are level with the edges. Next, cut the cardstock into a long rectangle the same size as the lower portion of the egg carton. Fit it in place to check if you have the surface flat enough. Some of the edges may need to be trimmed again. Glue in place. Now the fun part!! Copying the pattern on the keyboard, print off large bold letters and numbers. You can even do the arrows and other keys if you are so inclined. I was planning to do all the SHIFT, CTRL, ALT etc keys but started to get stingy when I saw how much label tape we were going through. I did start to relax though and let Rain press the keys, the print button and use the tape cutter. The labeller was great because we could just cut them and stick them on. If you are printing them on paper, you’ll need to use glue. I hope you don’t get carpel tunnel from not having a labeller for this craft. Especially if you are...
Read MoreNagging or Something Noble
Last week, I posted another one of my son’s witticisms whereby he gave me a back-handed compliment for my nagging. I had praised Rain for having picked up the bath toys and he responded, “And I’m proud of you for asking and asking until I did it.” Truthfully, that is how it had all gone down. I had asked him several times to empty the tub. First he ignored me. Then he flat out refused. I pulled out my this-is-serious voice and told him he had to do it or else it was straight to bed. Leave it to a four-year-old to tell you he is proud of you for nagging and threatening. Essentially, Rain was jokingly pointing out that he hadn’t willfully done anything for me to be proud of. But I was proud of him. He had done a really good job despite not wanting to do it in the first place. I called the post Pride in a Job Well Done and later, I got to thinking about the whole dialogue. You know, beyond how funny it was. It occurred to me that the joke was all in whether or not I believed Rain was being sarcastic or sincere. As Aaron put it: “Either he doesn’t know what the word ‘proud’ means or else he was lying.” Maybe he wasn’t lying or joking. Maybe he was being sincere. Maybe he was telling me that I too had done my job well. Because really, if we look past the odious nature of my nagging and threatening, isn’t that my job as a parent: to ask and ask until my child learns? It’s easy to get worn down by the repetitive nature of parenting, of trying to get through to our kids, of attempting to be consistent and to follow through. Our kids are meant to learn by pushing boundaries and testing their limits. They are continually checking to see what they can get away with. I often get frustrated and I’m pretty sure I’m not the first mom to utter “You should know better!” in exasperation. My sister has pointed out to me a few times that the problem is in my expectations that it should be different. All we can really do as parents is to keep working at it: Keep reminding our kids about what is acceptable (and what isn’t) and hope that by the time our babies go out into this world they will have learned some of what we have tried to teach them. My job is just to keep showing them the way, modelling the behaviour we hope for, redirecting, and yes, asking and asking. You know the cliche about our children being our teachers? I wonder if this was another one of those cases where my son, my four-year-old, had the wisdom to see the truth in the situation. The truth that it is his job to see how far he can go and that it is my job to show him the way. I would have been happier if the whole story had involved less nagging and admittedly, a little less of me losing my temper. A couple of days later, I said to Rain “It would make me happy if you drained the tub and put the toys away” and he did it right away. I only had to ask once. Maybe we both learned a little something last week. How about you? Learned any great parenting lessons from your kids this...
Read MoreTo my babies: this year…
Welcome to the January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting resolutions! This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month we’re writing about how we want to parent differently — or the same — in the New Year. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. ****** Dear Rain and Noa This year, 2010, your fifth year and your second year with us, I resolve to: Let you help more and backseat drive less while you do Go for more walks Do my best to find the right place for you, Rain, to go to Kindergarten and Relax and give the school a chance once we make a decision Breastfeed you, Noa, until next New Year’s or as long as you’d like Shout less Spend less time on the computer during your waking hours Hold you in my arms and in my heart every day Wait and think before I react when you do something that upsets me Be patient about sleep and Continue to share the family bed with you Listen to you Never wish you were older but stay present with you right now today Take care of myself so I can be the Mama you deserve, so I can become the person you see in me Laugh more, play more, read more Teach by example and Follow your lead May 2010 be another year filled with togetherness. I look forward to learning more about you both every day. Much love, Mama ****** Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting! Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants: (All the links should be active by noon on Jan. 12. Go to Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama for the most recently updated list.) • To Yell or Not to Yell — The Adventures of Lactating Girl • It Is All About Empathy: Nurturing a Toddler’s Compassion Potential — Baby Dust Diaries • To my babies: this year… — BluebirdMama • Mindfully Loving My Children — Breastfeeding Moms Unite! • January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Resolutions — Code Name: Mama • Imperfect Mother — Consider Eden • Resolutions — Craphead (aka Mommy) • FC Mom’s Parenting Resolutions 2010 — FC Mom • What’s in a Resolution? — Happy Mothering • January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting resolutions — Hobo Mama • Natural Parenting Resolutions — Little Green Blog • This year, I will mostly… — Look Left of the Pleiades • Parenting Resolutions — The Mahogany Way • I Resolve to Breastfeed In Public More Often — mama2mama tips • Moving to Two Kids — Megna the Destroyer • Use Love — Momopoly • My parenting resolutions — Musings of a Milk Maker • Talkin’ ’bout My Resolutions — Navelgazing • Parenting Resolutions — One Starry Night • Invitations, not resolutions — Raising My Boychick • No more multitasking during kid time — The Recovering Procrastinator • I need to slow down, smell those roses AND the poopy diapers — Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma • Resolutely Parenting in 2010 — This Is...
Read MoreRested Mama
Being a parent of more than one child poses a rather repetitive problem: how to balance the (often competing) needs of each child and feel like you’re doing at least a decent (good enough) job most/some of the time? I’ve developed a cold and awful sore throat just in time for the holidays so this problem has been magnified exponentially for me this week. Lots to do and desperately in need of rest and two little ones to care for. Sleep. Rest. This is a challenge for most parents in some way, isn’t it? We co-sleep. We co-slept with our son until he was about 3 and then we gradually transitioned him to his own bed in his own room. At least half of the time, he still has a sleep partner in his room or in the living room. He rarely comes into our bed because four is just too many (even in a King size) for me to get any amount of sleep. We chose co-sleeping for a variety of reasons (and that’s probably a separate post) which were still valid when our daughter was born and thus, we did it again. However, I have found that both of my children were/are persistent night-wakers and had/have a serious habit of needing to nurse back to sleep. Was this because of co-sleeping? I don’t know. Perhaps they would have done that anyway and co-sleeping allowed me at least a bit of sleep. Or perhaps they were so used to the accessibility that a bad habit developed. I can’t really go back and answer that question. What I do know is that after 18 months of night-waking (for the second time round), I definitely feel like I need some good quality sleep. Of course, this is underscored now due to my being sick. But I digress. I do not believe in letting my children cry-it-out. Again, for a lot of reasons. Read some here. And here. It’s been important to me to try night-weaning in a gradual gentle manner. With my son, in the end, it wasn’t as gentle as I might have liked but having returned to work, I was getting desperate and overall, I feel that we did the best we could. Yes, there was way more crying than I would have liked. But it always occurred in someone’s arms. My son was never left to cry himself into a panic of puking and exhaustion-stress-caused sleep. We are trying now to night-wean my daughter. I am trying to be gentle and patient with this. One of the graces of a second time parent is the insight that things do indeed change. As a result, I am much more patient with sleep struggles with my daughter than I was with my first-born. I have the awareness that it will pass even when it feels like it will take forever. I am much more willing to applaud the small steps forward and wait it out. But I am beginning to wonder if I really have that luxury. Preschoolers are infuriating at times. Age 2-5 used to be my favourite age…until I had to live with a child in that bracket. My son is four and right now, he is pushing and challenging me like I have never been before. He needs every bit of patience, consistency, re-direction, repetition and love that I can muster. And as a person chronically sleep-deprived, I do not have those qualities in me in the quantities he needs. Daniel Siegel, author of The Mindful Brain and Parenting From The Inside Out talks about being mindful and aware in our reactions. I am paraphrasing here but in general, this involves the ability to step back and see the situation and be aware of our intentions and other’s intentions before reacting. He described it as the ability to dive below the surface where the water is calm. From that place of stillness, you can look up at the storm raging above, realise it is there but not be affected by it and not choose to have...
Read MoreFamily Christmas Photo
So it turns out that I might be really vain. We tried to take a family photo to put in our Christmas cards yesterday. Well, I tried to anyway. My husband was kind of just doing what he was told. I showered. This is a big deal since I’ve had kids because unfortunately, that doesn’t happen every day anymore. I blow dried my hair and tried to style it. I put on make up. I put cute clothes on the kids, wet their hair so their curls would come out instead of being obscured in a mat of tangles. I arranged the scene, set up the camera. I practiced a bunch of shots using various settings until I found a good one. This part seemed most important as I knew the kids wouldn’t want to sit long. I wanted to be able to just click the auto-timer 2, maybe 3, times and be done so that we weren’t fighting squirming kids. I called Aaron in from the garage. He took off his jacket and toque, put on a sweater and sat where I told him. He looks perfect in every. single. picture. It took him 3 seconds to get ready. Perfect smile, perfect hair. Argh. We took 3 shots. Rain was surprisingly into it. He usually doesn’t like pictures but he seemed excited by the race to get in position before the auto-timer clicked our portrait. Everyone looks great. But who the hell is that plastic fake mom with my family? Aaron agreed. Okay. Take Two. I put my hair up the way it is every day. I changed my shirt. There. At least I look like myself now. Grab the kids again and try again. We managed 4 shots before we had to give up because Noa was getting increasingly terrified of the auto-timer flash. In every picture she’s making this “Oh, god, there it goes again” face. And me? I tried to sit straight, smile nicely, eyes open, keep Rain’s hands from blocking anyone’s face and we got 4 shots of me (at least it’s me this time) in all kinds of contorted facial expressions. How is this possible when it felt like I just sat still and smiled right when the flash went off? Do I do these strange faces consistently every half second and the camera just captures them? Am I sending some terribly off-kilter subliminal message without knowing it, like movies that put in a flash of “Drink Coke” or “It’s all a conspiracy” so quickly that we don’t consciously notice but we still rush off to buy coke? So I had a little hissy fit. To my husband, it seemed like a gross over-reaction. But you know, it goes a lot deeper than a stupid Christmas card photo. I’ve definitely not been feeling like I look my best lately. Erica Ehm and her Yummy Mummy club can eat it because I’m the founding member of the Frumpy Mummy club. Card carrying member. And yet, God knows I don’t need that broadcast on all of our Christmas cards. It’s supposed to be like, an undercover club. Covert. I try to be a bit dignified in public. I try. Motherhood kind of sucks it out of you in some ways doesn’t it? Does anyone really consciously decide that Soccer Mom is their ideal style or does it just happen to you? Like a virus? I mean, I used to have cute short haircuts but when you lay down 2 or 3 times a day putting babies down for naps, short hair means you’re permanently sporting Bed Head. This is especially upsetting on those days when you actually manage to shower and do your hair before 10:00 in the morning and your husband comes home from work and looks at you like “Did you just get up?” So I grew my hair out but it’s kind of thick and unmanageable so that means I wear it up every day. I quit getting it dyed when I was pregnant the first time so now it’s kind of...
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