But my kid is so smart!

My stepmom sent this to me. It's been bugging me all day, in that I feel frustrated and defensive but can't see why I should. I mean, I want to be like, "Dude I was reading at age 2 and I turned out great!" but that's the dumbest thing in the world to say. I was also formula-fed, and that doesn't mean that its OK just because I got lucky and didn't suffer any problems. I am the first person to research these types of thnigs, cosleeping, nursing, letting little kids be little and all that jazz. But I'm so freaking proud that Ben is so smart and that he is not even two and knows so many letters already: B, o, f, and sometimes a and n. We read to him all the time. Isn't that what ALL the experts say? Read to your kids? Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is like his favorite book on the planet. I mean, I'm all for creative art play and playdough and stuff.

I dunno. I think I'm feeling this discontent because she's probably right and I'm probably not going to change anything which is going to make me feel guilty in the long run. I guess.

letter:

Hi Suz,
 
I found the information about early vs later reading.  It basically has to do with where the child is developmentally.  Young children are very imaginative and think in pictures – if you cut this short by moving too soon to reading and other ‘left brain’ activities, then you start losing some of that lovely, imaginative quality to their lives.
 
What I have found is that parents should ‘follow’ their child, just like you did with breast-feeding; wait to ‘teach’ reading until he is developmentally ready. 
 
Here is part of the article about Waldorf education, and more importantly, about what is going on with kids at what age.  Of course, they also don’t have kids watch any TV until I can’t remember – 7 or 8?
 
It is your decision of course – I just wanted to make this material available to you and Stephen, because the culture around us all tends to say: ‘teach em early’.  Just like it says ‘put them in their own bed from day 1’ and other stuff.

An Introduction to Waldorf Education
Don’t Rush the Young Child
Storytelling, songs, rhythmical games, handwork, painting, singing, and lots of free play with toys that lend themselves to many uses, help to develop both imaginative forces and social skills. A child lives with a constantly growing mastery of the physical world. In these early years, a young child’s thought has a pictorial and dreamy quality, quite unlike the thinking of an adult.  Formative forces are still working to mold the young body and brain.  At about age seven, these forces are freed to develop memory and intellect.  Prematurely awakening a child’s intellect by asking the child to focus on academics in what should be the imitative phase, means that full development of imaginative powers will be hampered. The child will become less truly himself.

The value of early academics has never been proven, but its harm has been clearly documented by such internationally recognized psychologists as David Elkind and educators such as A. C. Harwood.  No two children are alike in the way they learn.  Reading, like walking, speaking, and thinking, appears when the child is mature enough to integrate all the skills needed.  True, reading can be hurried, but there is a cost: emotionally, psychologically, and/or academically. 

A study by the Gesell Institute measured reading skills of children who began reading at age 3 to 5, against the skills of children who began reading much later, at age 6 to 8. The study found that by the third grade both groups of children had similar skill level, but the children who began reading later had a much greater interest in exploring reading.

Waiting until a child is in first grade before starting academic work has obvious advantages for an average or slow child who needs the time to gain maturity before beginning reading or math.  But what to do with the bright child who wants to start writing or reading at age three or four? Here is a chance to share their excitement and declare “You will be able to learn all about that when you get to first grade!”.  You need not sit down and give the children formal lessons at a young age, merely because they are interested in letters and numbers. There are many letter and number games for young children that can provide satisfaction.  Songs with rhymes counting can also be an endless source of delight to the young child.Tell a story or read from one book at a sitting, allowing the child to fully enter into the mood of each story.

It's my party, I'll micromanage if I want to

I know I said I was much more excited for Ben’s birthday than mine but that was totally back in September. It’s only 25 more days until my golden birthday! (Ever since a friend called it that, I’ve been way more giddy about turning 26 on the 26th.)

It looks like we are going to have a party of some sort. I would like to invite a lot of people, so it’s like the cool parties at Jessi and Jerry’s house. I wish I knew how to phrase things correctly though.

Here is what I want to say on the invites, but I probably need a better way to say it then this:

Suzanne is having a golden birthday party! She is turning 26 on the 26th and thinks this is the greatest thing ever. She also thinks you are a cool person and are therefore invited. Feel free to bring your spouse or partner. The party starts at 5:30 p.m. and kids are welcome.

Here comes the tricky part

However, please plan to either lay them down or leave the party when they get cranky. Suzanne cannot stand to listen to tired, crying children, especially on her birthday. It’s hard for kids to behave themselves when they are tired. And when tired kids cry and then get in trouble for doing things when they can’t help themselves, Suzanne has to go into the bathroom and cry too.

If you have reason to believe that your kids will have trouble going to sleep in a strange place and are interested in socializing with adults and having a few drinks in the later hours of the evening, please get a baby-sitter.


I know its my party, and I could just put a hard and fast rule, like many brides do, that says something like “No kids after 8:30 p.m.” or something. Or worse, “No kids at all.” But that’s hardly fair because Ben will be there until his bedtime. People will be mad if I say they can’t bring there kids and ours is there, being a ham.

Plus, I have some out of town friends with kids. I’d love to see the kids and have them hang out with Ben and stuff, but if I tell them they have to ditch at 8:30 because they brought their kids, they probably won’t come at all or won’t bring their kids at all. That’s sad. I want the kids there, REALLY! Those people are welcome to lay their kids down if they are cranky, or something.

Maybe I could hire a baby-sitter to watch all the kids together ... though that still doesn’t eliminate the cranky problem. Seriously though, when people have their toddlers up past midnight and then spank them for doing things like climbing on the dining room table, I really do have to leave the room and go cry in the bathroom. I know it’s their choice to parent however they want to and not any of my business (hense the not saying anything at the time) but I do not want it happening on my golden birthday.

Suggestions are welcome.

PS: This is an open party. If I know you, even just online, most likely you’re invited. Drop me an e-mail if you really think you might be able to come. If I know you, but you live very far away, I won’t hold my breath, but you’re still invited. :-)

the final stretch

I have graduated my first adopt a mom mentee and received a new one, with twins. She's pumping for them currently and is trying to get them to nurse more. They do nurse some, but she's having some problems with latch and stuff. Ahh. My department. Anyway, so I decided I'd better read up on twins. So I got a bunch of books at the library yesterday. It was very fun to freak out my husband. "Why are you getting books on twins and triplets?" ha ha ha.

Also, along with those books, I spotted LLL's "How Weaning Happens" and decided to grab it. It's usually out and I know its a highly recommended book. I got a few pages into it last night, but had to put it down. I know we've got a long time still, and sometimes I am SOOOO tired of nursing. But when I think about weaning, about my son being weaned, being done, no more otherside, ever, I get kinda ... you know ... sad. There were lots and lots of weaning stories. Most of them didn't affect me too much, and I totally understood the mom's reasons for weaning, whatever they were.

But there was this one story about how a mom was determined to remember the last time her daughter nursed and write about it. Well, every so often, she would realize it had been a few days and to her horror, she couldn't remember the last time they nursed. "What if she never nurses again?" the mom would think. Well, a few more days would go by and she would nurse again. This happened a few times until the mom realized it had been more than a week. Surely that was the end. But then relatives came to visit and there were kids and dogs exploding this little girl's ordinarily quiet house. She loved it, but was overstimulated big time. That night, as she was laying next to her mom drifting off to sleep, she said, "Mom, I need to nurse." And that was the last time.

Big fat tears welled up in my eyes when I finished reading their story. And if you've ever nursed, I bet you know just how I feel. I love my son so much, and I do want to see him grow up and become independent and learn new skills, but yet there's still this bittersweet aspect to the whole thing. He'll always be my baby, you know?

I know I could let him self-wean and maybe that would make it easier, but I imagine I'll be sad no matter how it goes down, and I really do want to start TTC next summer. And in order to do that, I need my fertility back. That means "all done otherside" for the munchkin. My plan is to nurse freely up until his second birthday. I will feel that I've given him his birthright (according to the WHO) at that point. Then, we will begin "Don't offer, don't refuse." I'm giving him six whole months for a gentle weaning program. If it looks like it isn't going so well, then I might have to step up my practices as the summer gets closer. I don't want to traumatize him too much, but I also would like to get my period back a few months before TTC so I know where I am in my cycle. Sometimes I can hardly remember what it was like to have a period, its been so long.

That, I don't miss at all. :-)

parenting nightmare

This is going here because I have this inexplicable urge to write about this incident but yet at the same time am so humiliated that I don’t really want anyone to know about it. I know I am often snarky about my husband’s parenting.

Yet, several times now, I, too have messed up big time. OK, yeah, my brain can say all the cheesy supportive stuff, like, “Oh, you’re only human” and “Everybody messes up sometimes” but this is my child’s well-being on the line here, and sometimes you don’t deserve a trite pat on the back, “Oh, it was an accident” you know? You deserve to be bitched out about it because you are 100 percent at fault, and that’s what you would do if the situation were reversed.

I left the bathroom door open. That has happened before. We’ve both done it. We remember to shut it like 99 percent of the time, but sometimes it gets left open. Well, my 19-month-old son wandered in there and came out chewing on something.

It was my razor.

And, what’s worse, his latest antics include running from you if you try to take something away from him. The more important it is to you, the faster he runs. I shouted, “Stop!” and he bolted. My husband and I took off after him and we both were screaming “No! and STOP!!!” at the ultimate intensity, the kind that should make your kid cry for like 10 minutes and make you feel like an ass for overreacting. Nope. My kid kept running. He even ran like he was scared of us. What on earth has ever happened to him in his short baby life to make him think that he should run from us? We don’t spank him ... we hardly even yell at him much.

We finally corner him in the kitchen and pry the razor out of his hands. He turns and looks up at me and I started bawling. Blood is oozing out of his mouth. He looks like a vampire baby from hell. Even my husband started to cry. At this point, the baby starts crying too. Who knows if he actually felt the pain or just decided to cry because we were crying.

So we went out of our way to try to make this as much of a lesson as possible. We show him his bloody face. We show him the blood on the sharp razor. We reiterate the words “SHARP” and “STOP” and “NO” and tell him he needs to listen or he could get hurt. We tell him that he got an ouchie because he ran from us. When we say “stop” he needs to stop or else more ouchies.

The problem is, he’s disturbingly fascinated with things that hurt him. He understands “hot” and will back away from something that’s very very hot, like when we were putting asparagus in the steamer and a bit of steam made him jerk his hand away. He started pitching the asparagus from afar. But within a week or so, he was back up at the stove, pulling on the oven handle and trying to reach the stuff that’s up there cooking. I’d like to think that it’s just because he doesn’t remember, but I know it isn’t true. The whole time he’s grabbing at the stove, he’s saying “hot hot hot” over and over again.

Same thing goes for when he got a slivers in his feet, just a few days apart. My husband had to use a safety pin to get them out, and the poor baby screamed and wailed the whole time. Later, we’d put a Band-Aid on his “ouchie” and he’d go off, being happy again. For days and days afterward, he’d shove his foot in my face and point to the infinitesimal scar and say “ouchie” and make me kiss it. And several times, when he’s seen the safety pin (it’s actually a diaper pin) on a table or something, he lunges for it. “NO. That’s ouchie. Sharp! Do you remember ouchie?” and he’ll make an upset face that shows me that he does indeed remember, and present his foot for another kiss. (My favorite part about this whole thing is that often it’s the wrong foot.)

But then he still wants the damn safety pin. Once, I found him with it in his mouth. (Thankfully it was closed.)

I mean, I know you have to child-proof your home when you have a toddler. But this kid can climb tables and scale walls and open cupboards and cabinets and he’s fast as lightning. You can’t leave anything anywhere even for a second.

I was also the one who left the razor by the side of the bathtub instead of putting it back up again in the shower caddy. So we fed the poor baby as much ice as he wanted (which is a lot, he LOVES ice) and he seemed to be fine. There are no scars and he hasn’t had any trouble eating.

But oh man, I just cannot get the sight of all that blood out of my brain. I’m eaten alive with guilt over an incident that produced no harmful long-term affects and my son will not even remember. Guess it comes with the territory.

read the parenting stories I’m not too embarrassed to share with my friends at thesynergizer on livejournal.