parenting

First day of school

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Yesterday, our big boy had his first day of school.

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It’s so funny how each kid is a little different. With Evie, she didn’t want us hanging around, she wanted us to get out of the way so she could start meeting people. With Ollie I’m definitely experiencing a little bit of the “how am I going to leave this poor, little boy on his own?” On the other hand, I never really had one of those, “Oh my little boy is growing up!” moments. Maybe that’s because the whole thing was just too chaotic, with so many people starting today and figuring out a new school, etc. Or maybe that’s just being the second kid again.

I do know that Ollie is going to have a BLAST at school. I’m so excited for him to have so much dedicated playing time. This boy *loves* to play. I’m so glad he’ll finally have a chance to make some friends of his own (as opposed to Evie’s friends), explore his own interests (as opposed to Evie’s interests), and just to be his own person. I just know he’s going to grow and blossom so much this year, and that’s really exciting.

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At this point, the whole thing was kind of old hat to Evie. Yeah, yeah, kindergarten, so what.

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She might have acted blasé, but I could tell she was excited based on all the extra energy she had. She’s always excited to meet new people, but I think she was actually more excited about Oliver starting school. She was a little disappointed that she had to go to her own class this morning, rather than watch him. But she did meet some other kids, and her and another girl “robbed a bank”. So, you know, I guess the teachers know who to keep an eye on now.

I’m not sure how different kindergarten is going to be from preschool. But her classroom definitely seems more like a “real” classroom, with a lot more responsibilities for the kids, and her teacher seems a little more old school. It seems like a really good environment for Evie, but then again, school just seems like a really good environment for Evie. She’ll just absorb up everything they throw at her, and then re-forge the entire school the way she wants it, like she always does.

I think I’m doing something wrong

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I am at the bottom of a big black hole of parenting badness lately.

I have been losing my cool multiple times a day for weeks on end. 0 patience, end of my rope, etc. etc. etc. I am not being the parent I want to be.

Logically I can look at the situation and say, “All of this is typical behavior for their ages. This will pass and they really are good kids.” However, illogically I have two little tyrants who know every possible little way to get under my skin and no ability or desire to restrain their use of said irritating power. Every possible minute of the day is a power struggle; from getting them dressed, to getting out the door, to picking things up, to any other possible required action. All of this on top of a heaping helping of constant meltdowns and you have a recipe for disaster.

Each of them have their own fun little twists. Oliver is in a “no!” phase, as well as an “I didn’t do it!” phase. He’s also emotionally raw, with his heart on his sleeve and ready to sob at a moment’s notice. I think this last is part of just going through one of those phases where he feels like he’s having trouble expressing himself properly, or he’s not understanding why he can’t get/do whatever he wants. So I think he’s feeling a lot of frustration and not knowing exactly what to do with it.

For Evie’s part, she’s going through a phase where she feels like the queen of the world (well, she’s kind of always going through that phase, but it’s a little more right now). It’s like she’s just realizing how much power and control she has and just reveling in it. This is both power over her brother (usually physical power in the form of violence of some kind) and power over her parents (usually in refusing to do what we want her to do, especially if it prevents us from doing something, like going to the store).

Of course, when the two of them get together, it’s multiplicative. And with all this summer we keep having, they’ve been spending a LOT of time together. Always in the past, only one of them has gone through a difficult phase at a time, which is apparently within my grasp as a parent. Two at the same time is apparently not.

Parental authority relies on an elaborate series of bluffs. As soon as one of the children starts calling you on those bluffs, you both quickly realize that you have practically no leverage over them. We really can’t MAKE the children do anything. We try, oh do we try, but actually what do you do?

I make a lot of threats, which I absolutely HATE and always try to follow through on, but the problem is even with the follow through, the threats just don’t work. There’s nothing that we can threaten with. Our children already live a practically monastic existence to begin with; no tv, as minimal possessions as possible, no junk food, etc. We accidentally made our lives very difficult by already removing anything we could possibly use as a threat. And we’re very averse to using food as either a punishment or reward if at all possible (enough food and body issues in this world as it is).

So often I resort to “making” them do something, which is ultimately “defeating” them physically and not something I would like to set a precedent for. I would much rather reward than punish, but that’s not really helpful in the middle of a confrontation. It is very difficult to out-maneuver Evie, because she is so quick and perceptive. I feel like I’m stuck in a maze where every turn is wrong and every choice is a dead end!

Sara: “Just remember that you’re smarter than her. Er, well…at least you have more experience than her.”

Starting today we have a new strategy: Evie gets a sticker each day that she’s “good”. If she gets 5 in a week, one of her parents will spend a little special time with her (i.e. play a game or read a book). If she gets 6 stickers in a week, she gets to pick the parent (i.e Sara). Hopefully this will be rewarding (get it? rewarding?) for everyone and help us get through until she grows out of her current difficult state, rather than just turning into one more thing to threaten her with. For now it’s just Evie; Oliver’s a little young for that, but he’s a little easier to manage when he gets in an obstinate mood (basically you just have to distract him for 20 seconds or find the right way to word it, and he’s putty in your hands).

I’m hoping it will be enough to break me out of my parenting funk and get back to where I’d like to be.

Sheltering our kids from future weight issues

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Something that Sara and I have always been extremely conscious about, is the way that we address food with the kids. Our goal is to be nonchalant about food and try to set a good example with our own choices. You would think that this would be easy, but it is extremely difficult. So often we have to walk a tightrope between making sure the kids get enough to eat and not scolding them about food. Between encouraging them to try new things and not praising them for overeating. Between wanting them to enjoy food and not using food as a reward.

Many years ago, we made two key, inter-linked (and apparently controversial) decisions regarding food; our kids are not required to clean their plates, and we have dessert with dinner every night (even for those who don’t clean their plates). To be fair, dessert is mostly healthy (usually fruit), and skipping dinner to get more fruit isn’t exactly beating the system, but still. These were not light decisions, and they evolved over time. The important tenant we try to hold to is, “Listen to your body. You’re done eating when you’re full.” You can’t argue with that, right? But again, food is such a charged topic in our society and there are pitfalls almost no matter which way you turn.

Good intentions aside, right away we started taking flack for these decisions. People absolutely feel that they need to get kids to eat, and that it is somehow un-American to not clean your plate (apparently it is un-American…have you seen America lately?) The dessert thing is mostly okay now, but at first people were pretty upset about that too. However, now that we have been observing this rule essentially all of their lives, the kids don’t know anything different. They think cake and cookies are special occasion only (and someone coming to visit or going to someone’s house is not a special occasion, because that’s basically every weekend for us).

In fact, because Sara and I are being so conscious of this issue, we can’t help but notice how food-obsessed society in general is. I’m guessing it was always this way but I never noticed it until I had kids. However, because I’m trying so hard to protect my kids from it, it makes me very uncomfortable. Almost every minute of the day, we are surrounded by an avalanche of food and body image comments.

I’m not kidding. You probably have no idea how many of these fly by you a day. Pay attention some time and you’ll see. People talking about diets, about losing weight, about how many calories this or that is. When people see you they say, “Did you lose weight? You look good!” or they say, “Come on Shane, clean this up, there’s just a little left!” And I’m positively struck dumb when people come up to the kids right before dinner starts and say, “Guess what? After dinner we’re going to have cake and ice cream!” as if the kids will just be able to forget that and eat something wholesome first.

Everybody rails against “society” and the “bad body image” it puts out there, but I don’t think anybody realizes how much we’re all a part of that. It’s not Hollywood. It’s all of us, all of the time.

Each of our kids has their own food issue. As many of you are well aware, Evie is extremely picky and eats like a bird. Ollie is the photo-negative; he eats and eats until there is nothing left in sight, like a plague of locusts. These are their natural inclinations, and it is very difficult to not play into them. With Evie, food is very much about control, and for Ollie it’s not hard to imagine a lifetime of struggling with weight issues.

And yet, how many times has Sara or I repeated, “Evie won’t eat anything, but Ollie will eat everything!” Enough that Evie says it now too. How many times has someone commented at dinner, “Wow, Ollie really does eat everything!” or cajoles Evie by saying, “Is that all you’re going to eat? You’ve got to eat more than that!” How damaging is that to her, to hear how great her brother is because he eats so much? As if that makes him better somehow. How damaging is it to Ollie to be praised for overeating, rather than for stopping when he was full, like his sister?

Sara and I are some of the worst offenders as far as comments go. However, we’re pretty good at pointing it out to each other and trying to make an effort. Unfortunately, there’s just so much of it out there, that I worry even if we were perfect it wouldn’t be enough. And we’re certainly not perfect. Thank god the kids don’t watch tv, or we’d have the endless food and weight commercials to go with it.

I’ve struggled with my own weight issues, which is probably why I feel like I’m seeing into Ollie’s future. First off, I was always an obsessive plate cleaner, and portion control is something I don’t think I got the hang of until my 30’s. Even now I tend to clean everybody else’s leftovers like some kind of human garbage disposal. I also spent most of my life being very proud of my ability to eat, since it was something I was tremendously good at, and always won me a lot of praise. Even now, when I know in my head there are many things I would rather be known for, I still feel proud on some level when someone comments on how fast I ate something. What an awful thing to admit.

Please don’t try to force Evie to eat more. Please don’t praise Ollie for eating so much. And on a larger level, please try to be aware of how you talk about food, and how that subconsciously affects the world around you.

Ballet Recital

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie is still loving ballet, and was very excited about her big performance (although possibly not as excited as she was about missing swim class). This being her second year, she was even less phased than last year. I can definitely see her improvement, and the way she does the different moves and poses really starts to look like a ballerina.

If nothing else, she certainly has the smoldering look down:

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This year, Sara volunteered me to help out backstage. I was more than a little nervous about this especially since I normally have no involvement with ballet whatsoever, so I had no idea what I was doing. Not to mention the fact that I would undoubtedly be the only daddy involved, so any stupid mistakes would only be magnified. I felt like I was representing my entire gender. My volunteer duties covered both the actual performance and the dress rehearsal, for double the fun.

However, the whole thing was a breeze. The kids pretty much take care of themselves at this point, so we really only needed to help them with their costumes and herd them in the right direction. Sara gave me tissues and lipstick to take in my pocket (I’m told all the best backstage mommies have lipstick in their pocket), and I managed to be Johnny-on-the-spot with both items, impressing several actual backstage mommies (thanks for making me look good Sara!)

For the actual performance, I couldn’t have had a better seat. I was just offstage, maybe 10 feet from the action. It was so much fun to see Evie performing. She just absolutely nails everything, with her usual meticulous attention to detail. You can see in the video that she is exactly on beat with the teacher on every step. One of my favorite parts of the video is right at the start of the free dance, about 2 minutes in, when Evie launches into it before anybody else even moves. I know she’s been thinking about this for a long time and practicing, so it was nice to see all of her hard work pay off.

Evie is such a little ballet teacher. When we were backstage, she was stressing over when we were going to go, warming up, and making sure everybody was lined up properly in the correct order. She was assigned to be the “caboose”, perhaps to make sure everybody in front of her was doing the right thing. Well anyway, that’s the way Evie took it, and she planned to do her job properly.

You’ll see what I mean at exactly 1:02 in the video. When Evie sits down, she catches the eye of the boy across from her, and then quickly demonstrates to him on how he should be holding his arms. This cracked me up so much, because it’s just Evie in a nutshell, knowing every single piece of the performance and “teaching” everyone how to do their part. You’ll also notice at the very end, when they all line up, she quickly corrects her feet to their proper position.

So anyway, without further ado, I give you the Dew Drops:

ETA: Since I wrote this post, Evie has informed me that she’s started a “dance school” for her classmates. She has choreographed a “tulip dance” (because “our arms look a tulip when we do the circle”) and she is teaching her pupils in preparation for a performance she’s arranging on the final day of school. She demonstrated a little bit of the dance for us, and I assure you it is as fully featured as the one performed above.

Ollie, Ollie, Quite Contrary

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Ollie’s contrariness has slowly been on the rise, but I think it’s safe to say it has finally arrived in full force. Up is down, black is white, and Oliver absolutely did NOT get dressed this morning, despite what your eyes tell you.

I mostly think of the automatic disagreement as a 2 year old thing, so Ollie is perhaps a little late to the party, though I do specifically remember thinking that 3 was a more difficult age than 2. So maybe I just don’t remember properly. But seriously, who is this surly, disagreeable, grumpy boy and what has he done with my Oliver?

The hardest part about dealing with a kid this age is that it takes *so* *much* *effort*. Aside from Gandhi-esk patience (which I do not possess), you have to have an unlimited store of creative ways to convince him to do things. You simply cannot force him to go to the potty, or get in the bath, or stop goofing around and eat his breakfast. You really can’t. Instead, every event becomes a test, not of your willpower, but on your ability to trick someone.

The main technique is to distract him. This is a surprisingly easy task with a 3 year old. If you just start talking really fast, it usually only takes 30 seconds or so to find a topic fascinating enough that he will forget you are lifting him on to the potty. Stories work too, or doing something goofy to make him laugh. These things are ten times more effective than bribes, which makes them about a hundred times more effective than threats.

Making threats? That is…not so effective. Unfortunately, that’s kind of where your brain goes naturally, so you do spend a lot of time either backpedaling on those, or trying to make good on a lot of ineffective threats.

And in the meantime? Just keep muttering, “It’s just a phase. It’s just a phase.”