Let Me Play

I am 3. I am not built to sit still, keep my hands to myself, take turns, be patient, stand in line, or keep quiet. I need motion, I need novelty, I need adventure, and I need to engage the world with my whole body. Let me Play. Trust me, I'm learning.

I saw the above photo on Facebook yesterday and it was just what I needed. LB and I have our good days but some of his behavior has really challenged me lately. On numerous occasions I have asked myself, "What am I doing wrong?" "Am I too lenient?" "Am I too strict?" I have just been doubting myself and some of my parenting decisions. The whole concept of sharing and taking turns has taken a serious nose dive. I used to think LB was good at that stuff and even patted myself on the back a few times for a job well done. I won't do that again! He has definitely become more territorial about pretty much everything. This morning at the park he was playing in a puddle. He was jumping in it and throwing rocks in it and having a great time. Another little boy wanted to join in the fun and LB shouted, "This is mine!" Geesh. I know it's normal and all part of development but it's so frustrating.

LB also has been struggling with the little baby I am watching. (I am struggling too.) It's not been easy. In part, because it's been a bit sporadic so settling into a routine has been difficult. The baby's mom takes random days off here and there and the baby's grandma comes into town for several days. I like having the break but it also makes getting into a flow really hard. And LB gets really distressed when the baby is distressed so then I have two crying kids to contend with. A few nights ago, LB was in the bath and he threw his soaking wet washcloth at me. After I talked to him about it he said, "It's hard to share my mommy with baby B." From my point of view, it was so out of the blue. Her mom had picked her up several hours ago and we hadn't been talking about her but clearly he was still thinking about her. It was also a relief to know that a lot of his negative attention seeking behaviors have been for good reason. Yesterday, we were sitting on the couch and he asked, "Baby B is coming tomorrow?" When I told him she wasn't he paused and then looked at me and said "Just Mommy and LB." It was so sweet. It's not like he's getting a life long sister out of this gig and so I really do sympathize with him. Luckily, my commitment is over at the end of the month and then we can go back to "just Mommy and LB."

As the above picture states, LB definitely needs a lot of motion and movement to help him stay calm and regulated. I'm really looking forward to this summer when we can spend most of our days in the backyard, at the park or at the pool. One of my goals for this summer is to get LB more comfortable in the pool. I've started re-familiarizing myself with all the great parks in our city and hope to explore some new ones. LB loves nature trails and collecting objects like pinecones or rocks so that's on our agenda too. As much as a I want to let him explore and engage, I find it difficult to balance that with keeping him safe and setting limits. He has the tendency to run off and that's been really tough to manage with the baby in tow, especially since he might be the fastest three year old ever. We've started talking about strangers and car accidents and I hate that I have to do that. He's still so little. But I also feel like he needs to know the consequences of running off and understand why I have to keep him close to me in certain situations. He desperately wants to be independent and I want to encourage that but safety has to be first, right? Yesterday, we went on a walk and I had the baby in the stroller and I let him walk ahead on the sidewalk. We practiced letting him run ahead a bit and then I would say "freeze" and he would have to stop and wait or run back to us. It worked pretty well and I hope with more practice he will get better at it.

I'm holding tight to the really good moments and trying to remember that in the tough moments he is still learning and developing. Oh age three, you are not easy but your good moments are so joyful that I know I'll survive.

No-Natal Yoga

I started getting interested in yoga about eight years ago. I was going through a period of my life where I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. Most of that anxiety was related to unhappiness at work and the high levels of stress that went along with that job. I hope to one day soon work up the courage to write about that time and my struggle with anxiety but that's for another day. But I consistently went to a yoga class on Saturday mornings during that time and it was like going to therapy for $15/session. I still remember some of the things the instructor would say about letting go, being kind to yourself and living in the moment. Fast forward a few years and I was handling my anxiety much better and D and I were ready to start a family. One of the things I remember being most excited about when we decided to start trying to conceive was signing up for a pre-natal yoga class. It felt like a right of passage. You go buy the "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book, you start reading up on baby names and you sign up for pre-natal yoga. That's what you do when you get pregnant. I was ready. As the wait to do all those things continued, I would still go to the websites of my favorite yoga studios and check when their next round of pre-natal classes would be. I remember thinking to myself, "Maybe I'll get to sign up for that session." It was a form of a self torture. I don't know why I did it to myself.

When we decided to put an end to the roller coaster of trying to conceive and made the decision to adopt I knew I would have to work through the emotions of letting go of one dream and moving on to another. I had to spend some time grieving those losses so that I could face the adoption journey with an open heart and mind. Most of those losses are what you would expect. I wouldn't get to experience the excitement of a positive pregnancy test or feel my baby kick in my belly or experience breastfeeding. I mourned those losses. Thankfully, I got to replace them with other amazing memories like our referral call and meeting LB for the first time. But I specifically remember telling my therapist, "I'm a little sad I'll never get to do pre-natal yoga. I was really looking forward to it." Even though I felt a little silly saying it she assured me that's is just part of the letting go process. It was something I wanted to do and now I had to set it aside.

Fast forward again to a few months ago. I had signed LB up for pre-school gymnastics and that met meeting some new moms. One of the new moms I met happens to be a yoga instructor at a studio that I've been to several times. After realizing that I thought she was pretty cool, as most yoga instructors seem to be, I went to the studio's website to look up when she taught. I clicked on her bio and learned that she teaches most of the pre-natal yoga classes at that studio. And there it was. I hadn't thought about pre-natal yoga in years. I truly had put it behind me. But there was a reminder and I found myself exhaling deeply and remembering how much I wanted to do that someday. I wasn't overcome with a deep sadness or anything, no tears were shed, but it was just a reminder of that time and how hard it was. Last week I went to a really great farm in our area with LB and two other mom friends and their boys. One of the mom friends is the yoga instructor I met through gymnastics. We were having a great time and our kids were running all over the place and us moms were chatting about this and that when all of a sudden an idea came over me. I started to tell them about my previous desire to take a pre-natal yoga class and how I used to torture myself by looking up classes and wondering if I would ever be able to sign up. I told her how I do still wonder what it's all about and what kinds of things they do in class. I asked her if one day she would be willing to do a mini pre-natal yoga class with me even though there is nothing natal going on with my body. She didn't hesitate and said "Absolutely!" I was touched. It meant a lot that she was so willing to help me check something off my bucket list even though I don't technically fill the criteria. But who cares about criteria, right! Who says I can't do pre-natal yoga! So we're working on a time and she is going to reserve space at the studio and I am going to experience pre-natal yoga. Healing is a good thing. So is asking for help.

I'm so grateful for my little yogi and all the healing he has brought to my life. These days I will ask him, "Who made me a mommy?" And he'll answer with a big smile on his face, "I did."

Namaste.

Letter Recognition

The teacher in me is very proud of LB's ability to recognize most of his letters. It's not something I have specifically told him we are working on but have just tried to make it a part of our play. I have no intentions of pushing this school stuff on him but when he shows an interest then I want to jump on it. The same way if your kiddo shows an interest in peeing on the potty then you encourage them to use the toilet. (Will that day ever come?) Anyway, when LB started his preschool program in the fall one of the goals they had was that by the end of the school year each child would be able to recognize their own name. So it's been at the front of mind as something to try and reenforce since he only goes to school one morning a week. Here are some easy and fun things we have done to help him identify all the letters, outside of obvious stuff like reading ABC books, and specifically to help him recognize the letters and sequence that make up his own name. Most of the ideas I stole from other people. I would link to the original sources but I've doing most of these things for the past year and I've forgotten. Oops.

1. Whenever we do coloring or a craft, I write his name on the completed work and tell him what it says. He's known for a while the first letter of his name. A while back the librarian at story time mentioned that it should be the most important letter to a young child. I took that heart and would point out that letter whenever we saw it and say "look it's your letter."

2. He has a great puzzle/matching game from Melissa and Doug that is all about matching letters to spell a word. They are all short words like duck, cat and boat. He likes puzzles and matching games so this has been a good fit for him. He'll do several of the boards in a row and is always proud of himself. As he goes through each one, I just make sure I say the letters out loud. Now I can point to the letters and he'll say most of them. The great thing about this puzzle is that all the letters are lowercase. At some point in the past year or so I realized that I was always writing in uppercase and that most signs or other letter related games, books and puzzles seemed to be in uppercase. I recently saw an activity on No Time for Flashcards that was a spring themed matching game for lowercase and uppercase letters. I think I am going to try it with LB and see if he can match lowercase "a" to uppercase "A." It will be an interesting experiment. Sometimes LB gets mixed up on distinguishing between lowercase "b" and "d" and lowercase "h" and "n" are hard for him as well.

3. We play a hide and seek type game with the letters of his name. I have some alphabet magnets so we use those. LB will go wait in the guest room and I'll "hide" the letters in the living room and kitchen. And by hide I mean mostly put out in plain sight but he has to walk around to find them. I've been impressed because I'll say things like "Okay, you have x and y letter so what other ones do you need to find?" And he'll answer correctly. (His name is only 4 letters.) It's been a fun way to talk about the letters in his name. We'll do several rounds of this game. It helps him learn and it saves me from playing chase, which is a current favorite game. Not a fan. We also play with his letter magnets and that play doesn't last too long but I have to think that every little bit counts. He knows that "D" is for Daddy and "P" is for Poppy (his grandpas). He also knows "P" is for other words. I'm less proud of that.

4. Ipad Apps. I try and limit LB's screen time but I do think there are some educational games for the Ipad, if you have one. LB's favorite's are Fish School and Word Wagon. Fish School has some letter games but Word Wagon is the best for letters. It works in the same way that the Melissa and Doug puzzle does but he gets to pick the words to match and then he gets a star after completing 3 words and he gets pretty pumped when he gets a star. There are also more advanced levels where they take away the matching component and the child has to actually spell the word. He's too young for that but I like that hopefully he'll be able to utilize this app for a while. I recommend both apps highly.

5. One of the placemats we use a lot for LB is an alphabet placemat. Every now and then if we are short on conversation at the table then I'll try and incorporate some letter play to help him to stay at the table a little longer. He tends to prefer his world map placement but that's okay too. He's got some strong opinions.

A few months ago, we stopped by his preschool to pay the monthly tuition and I was talking with the director while LB was chatting up one of the assistants. She was letting him play with a label maker, which was highly enjoyable for LB. He can't resist buttons. At one point, she spelled his name with the label maker and printed it out for him. She asked him, "what does this say?" And he blurted out his name proudly. The three ladies all started clapping for him and it made this mama proud! At one of his first soccer classes he was running around and doing what they were supposed to until he saw the sign advertising for the Columbus Crew MLS team. He ran away from the group and went to look at the sign. He then yelled across the field to us, "Look! It's a C!" I gave him a thumbs up and then pointed towards the coach to draw his attention back to soccer. I was a little embarrassed but had to smile.

I'm hoping to expand on his letter recognition over the summer, as long as he continues to show an interest. There isn't really time for letter of the week and I know he'll be doing that in preschool in the fall but maybe we could expand on the letters of his name and do letters of the week that way. We'll see. I just love teaching him and seeing him make connections and associations, even when it's about the letter "P" and all the bathroom humor associated with it. Stories for another day.

Stick Gathering

As D and I went through the adoption process, I had several little panics and one major panic along the way. We'll save the major panic for another time. But one of the smaller panics came about as I was reading through several of the questions we had to answer on one of the initial forms. It was something along the lines of listing how you and your spouse are involved in your community and what activities you are a part of. I sat there and started to rant to D about how we aren't involved enough and that we had failed our Earlham College educators. He may have rolled his eyes. And I guess I didn't think we would get denied because of it. (Okay fine, maybe I did a little. I was fragile.) But that one little question was really eye opening and it reminded me of Earlham years and what we'd experienced. Obviously, Earlham sets out to help their students become better readers, writers, scientists, etc. but I really think one of it's main goals is teach young people the importance of community and to encourage them to go out into the world and create that space for other people. "They gathered sticks and kindled a fire and left it burning" is engraved on the fireplace of the cafeteria for a very important reason. Yes, it's in honor of the early Quaker founders of the college but it's there to remind us that community is a very sacred and spiritual thing. I think about all the people that rallied around my family when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and how night after night someone else brought us dinner and reminded us of all the friends and support we had. That's because my parents had created several communities for themselves and for my sister and me over the years. Yes, D and I had wonderful, close friends living near us and D had been at his company for several years and was close to many co-workers and I remained in touch with many of my former co-workers and we had our Earlham friends that were spread out all over the country but we weren't doing what Earlham had encouraged us to do. There wasn't a lot of fire building going on. I think we had gotten stuck in going through the motions of daily life as a double income, no kids couple. D played on an over 30 soccer league and I had gotten involved in some political campaigns but really it was minimal. We went to work and came home and watched tv or read or talked and then we woke up the next morning and did it all over again. On the weekends, we got together with friends and watched Buckeye games together and of course that friendship and those gatherings had meaning. But overall our life was lacking something. We weren't really reaching out. And it wasn't just because we didn't have kids. We simply weren't gathering sticks. We were having fun but we were stuck.

I've been reflecting a lot lately on how that has changed since we started the adoption process and how I feel a part of so many little but glowing fires here locally. Becoming active members in our adoption community has obviously been a big deal for us. I've rambled many times in this space about how beloved and important those people are to D and me. I'll spare you this time. But becoming parents in this new neighborhood of ours has also played a major role in our stick gathering and fire building. I feel surrounded by people who also recognize the importance of gathering for a purpose.

For example, do you see the mom and daughter that are in between LB and the librarian? The mom is wearing a purple tank top and has dark brown hair? Well, that is Jodi. She is a community builder in the truest sense of the word. LB is about 17 months old in this photo and Jodi's daughter, Cora, is probably just over a year old in this photo. We've been going to story time at the library since our kids were little and that's where we first met. We would also often run into each other at the farmers' market where our kids would dance along to the live music. Jodi is an art educator and through her connections at the Columbus Museum of Art has started a toddler time art class for several of the families she knows through music class and story time in our neighborhood. LB and I are lucky to be a part of it. In just two sessions, I've learned a lot from Jodi about doing art with LB at home and in our day to day activities. (Her blog, Outside the Lines, is listed on my sidebar. Check it out.)What I think is especially great though is that Jodi has brought together families from our neighborhood to utilize a resource in our city that we maybe didn't realize was available to us. Yes, when we took the kids in to one of the galleries yesterday it was nerve racking because they couldn't really run and touch and do all the things toddlers do. LB was not on his best behavior. But we've been welcomed. And our kids are learning and exploring together. Jodi's created a community of little, budding artists. For a parent, it doesn't get much better. 

Our museum also has a room designated for kids. Maybe your's does too? Check it out. Here is LB playing with all the magnets. He was very serious about his creation. I accidentally touched one of them and was firmly reprimanded. 

Do you ever let yourself think stuff like, "what if we had just gotten pregnant right away?" Or "what if we hadn't decided to change neighborhoods?" "What would my life look like?" I like to think that my parents' influence and my Earlham education would have eventually worked it's way to the surface of my mind and that daily grind, isolated feeling would have gone away. Who knows. I do know that I am so glad that we didn't get pregnant and that we did sell our old house and move. In the end, that's what matters.

Go out and gather some sticks and build a fire. It feels good.

Superhero Sunday

We think he's pretty super!

Crafting Lately

LB and I have been having so much fun with crafts lately. The website, No Time for Flashcards, has been my big inspiration. I want to do everything on her site. Seriously. And I love that she has lots of crafts that are really minimal in the mess department. This babysitting gig is definitely a little more exhausting than I predicted so the less the mess the better. Crafts have been a good way to fill the time after LB wakes up from his nap and we're waiting on Baby B to wake up. One thing that NTFF has inspired me to do is to try crafts that tie in to favorite books we've been reading. I think it makes the craft more fun and meaningful and it's always a good thing to help your child make associations. I also let favorite movies be an inspiration for crafts too.

Several weeks ago we went to the conservatory because the butterflies are now in bloom. When we were there they were selling caterpillars that you could take home and watch them form their chrysalis and then turn into a butterfly. LB was beyond stoked about it! At first, he wanted the caterpillar to turn into a butterfly RIGHT NOW. It took explaining several times that we had to wait and we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to help emphasize that it would take some time. He showed my mom the caterpillar one day over Facetime and he said to her in a stern voice, "But we have to wait." Ha! Thankfully, it eventually sunk in. It was cool to watch it crawl around in it's little plastic cup and then slowly make it's chrysalis. There was something about hearing LB say the word "chrysalis" that made me really happy. He just sounded so grown up and studious. And it made me feel like I was actually teaching him something worthwhile.

I wasn't sure if LB would be sad about letting the butterfly go but he was excited and had a good outlook. His friend had a caterpillar too so LB decided that his butterfly was flying off to find his friend's butterfly. I like the way his mind works. He still talks about how his butterfly flew up into the sky. We had also checked out the book, Ten Little Caterpillars, from the library so that was a fun one to read while we had a caterpillar in our house. Of course, NTFF has some great craft ideas for caterpillars and butterflies. We did 2 butterfly crafts and I only took pictures of one of the butterfly crafts we did.  I took pictures of the caterpillar one but since we used LB's actual name for that craft I don't want to show it. But here are the links. They were all fun!

Handprint Butterfly

Coffee Filter Butterfly - *We didn't do this with glitter. I feared the mess. So LB just used pastel markers.

Custom Caterpillar  - *This was great for us because LB is starting to get really good at recognizing his name and knowing the letters in his name. So I loved testing him on this to choose the letters in his name and to put them in the right order. Thankfully, he has a short name.

Here is LB's handprint butterfly. He was proud of it. I wasn't a huge fan of the addition of airplane stickers but whatever it was his vision. I suppose airplanes and butterflies are both up in the sky.

Ever since Christmas, LB has been a big fan of Finding Nemo. He loves the part where Dory and Marlin come across all the jellyfish and Dory calls the jelly fish a "little squishy squishy." He laughs every time. So I found a great jellyfish craft and it was a huge hit! Here is the original link.

Cupcake Jellyfish

First, I had him color the cupcake liners or the jellyfish bodies and then he colored the ocean where they live. As a side note, LB has me a bit confused when it comes to his handedness. He kicks exclusively with his left foot, uses scissors much better with his left hand and swings a bat left handed but when he eats and uses markers he goes back and forth between his hands. Or as you can see he does both at the same time. It's baffling.

He struggled a bit with the tape and getting the stingers on. I didn't have double sided tape so I just had to hold it for him and then it was fine.

As soon as D got home that day this was the first thing LB showed to him. I love it when he gets excited about his creations.

The last one I'll share is LB's spider. Another recent library check out favorite was The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. He was sad to "give another kid a turn" when it was time to take it back. I was looking for paper plate crafts and came across the spider one so I knew we had to do it. This one was also another reminder to me to respect LB's vision when it comes to art. As LB was putting the stickers on the paper plate I kept encouraging him to put them "all over the spider." But he wanted nothing to do with that. So I dropped it. Once he glued on the eyes he said, "It's my happy spider." Oops. He was making a happy face. Silly Mommy.

Don't you love how he's smiling at his happy spider? The photos are crummy but you get the idea. The only thing I had to do on this one was punch the holes in the plate and then he did the rest. I like to think getting the pipe cleaners through the holes was good find motor practice. He enjoyed doing that part too. He did it "all by myself!"

Although, I look at his baby pictures and get sad sometimes this preschool stuff is so much more fun. Sure babies are cute and sweet and don't talk back and you don't have to play chase with them but there is nothing like hearing him say, "My going to tell my daddy about this." That's validation at its best.

No More Lists

Have you noticed all of the lists online that start with, "What not to say to X type of mom" these days? You can fill in the blank with working moms, adoptive moms, stay at home moms, moms of kids with down syndrome, moms of twins, breastfeeding moms, moms who need chocolate to cope, etc. It's pretty exhausting. All of those lists actually exist. Well, maybe not the chocolate one. Sadly, I am guilty of sharing the "don't you dare say these things to adoptive moms" list. It is one of the first lists I read and I related to it so I hit the share button. Looking back, I wish I hadn't but oh well. Live and Learn. But I get why we do it. I get why I did it. Some of the things  people have said to me or my adoptive mom friends have been down right infuriating. Like the dental hygienist who told my friend, "Well, if adoption is good enough for Angelina Jolie then I guess it is good enough for anyone." Yes, someone really said that. It was a dumb and insulting thing to say for sure. I've received an Angelina comment too. It's annoying. But the person who said it to me was trying to be funny and even though it wasn't I know that person and know they weren't intentionally trying to insult me.

I also think the lists come about because we all make choices in our lives and those choices are dear and important to us. And add our kids in to the mix, who mean the world to us, and it's a recipe for passionate cries. That's not a bad thing. When we feel like someone has questioned or insulted our choices or said something we don't like about our kids then we want to stand up and tell the world that it's not okay. And it isn't okay. But something is off about the tone in these lists. Is that just me? And now I have become annoyed by the whole thing. You know what I think these lists do? They pit us against each other. And by us I mean women and moms. They put us in camps and say to people on the outside of the camp, "Don't even try to understand what I go through and you better watch what you say." The lists make us feel like we can't say anything to someone who is walking a different path than us. Should we do our best to be kind and sensitive and think before we speak? Absolutely! Yes! But sometimes we are going to say something stupid and insensitive. And that's okay. We're all stupid and insensitive sometimes. I haven't received too many annoying comments about adoption but when I have I know that in retrospect the person was well intentioned or just not fully thinking through what they were saying. We can't all be held to such a high standard. There are times when I have just smiled and changed the subject or walked away and there have been times when I have tried to educate. It depends on my mood or if LB is close by or if the person is a friend or a stranger. Someone said something to me yesterday that hit my infertility button. I got the sense she felt badly soon after it came out of her mouth. She didn't mean to insult me. I let it go. In that case, I think she knew right away and that was enough for me. I truly hope that if I say something dumb to a mom with twins or a working mom that the person would kindly explain to me that what I have said was insensitive. And I pray that I will have the strength to not get defensive but to open my mind to someone elses' experience and perspective. We lose our power and strength as women if we are always trying to put ourselves into various cliques and excluding those who don't belong.

So I'm going to work on being more inclusive. I want my actions to say "pull up a chair and have some chocolate" not "you couldn't possibly understand so don't say x,y or z." In the same way I need to remind myself that I can't be perfect, I need to remember that for my friends, acquaintances and strangers in line at the store. Let's get rid of the lists and just recognize we are all unique and all equally deserving of respect.
Amen to that.