Blue #2

It's a BOY!

We got to take a peek at our little guy on Sept. 16. That was just a day short of 19 weeks gestation, and a little early for the fetal anatomy scan. Let me back up a little bit and explain why...

Memorial Day Weekend In Estes Park

A high school classmate of mine recently said, "Traveling with a two-year-old might be a trip, but it is not a vacation."

How true we've found these words over the past 3+ years, when vacationing basically means helping the kids do all the same things you help them do at home, only in a different environment and without the benefits of your own space and your own stuff. I don't mean to gripe. I'm just saying that it's hard to really get away with small children. 

I Got Busted

Our poor dishwasher door really takes a beating. From the time Josiah could crawl, he wanted to be up on top of it. And lately, Lorien has been following his lead.

It's not unusual for me to say, "We don't sit (or stand) on the dishwasher door" a dozen times while loading or unloading. Usually it's directed at Destructo Boy and involves physically removing him from  his perch. Tonight, though, it was directed at Lorien and I raised my voice a bit.

She lost it. (Like her mama, my girl is stubborn, but tender, and sometimes she really crumbles at a reprimand.) Even after I hugged her and apologized, she couldn't pull it back together. And then she spent the next 15 minutes asking, "What did you tell me not to do?" I quickly figured out that she was referring to something that had happened earlier this evening, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was she was talking about. Let's just say we were really getting on each others' nerves.

Warms a Bookworm's Heart...

Lorien has long been a book lover, and just this past week, Josiah has become really enthusiastic about books too. He doesn't really want to finish any books. He just wants to start a whole bunch of them in a row, several times a day.

To a mommy who used to get in trouble for reading when she wasn't supposed to, this seems like a really good thing.

Reading

Maybe it's because I recently lamented the unfortunate loss of my Little House on the Prairie books. And maybe it's because I've been having an online conversation about books with one of my former students (who now has three kids to read aloud to). At any rate, I have been having fun thinking about books to read aloud to children.

Here are three lists with lots of great ideas:

http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12466

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12468

I was such a reader when I was a kid. I have great memories of my dad reading aloud to me. I used to get in trouble for reading in school when I was supposed to be doing math or social studies or something. Either Josh or I read with Lorien every night. My favorite right now is Guess How Much I Love You. Such a sweet book with beautiful illustrations! I can't wait until we are into chapter books.

What were your favorite books as a child?

Mother's Day

Spring in Colorado is always an elusive thing, and this year is no exception. It has felt like it will just never get warm. But last week, everything suddenly started blooming. It made for a gorgeous Mother's Day.

To celebrate, we took Josh's mom and dad out to eat at Tako Japanese restaurant. Yum! Josh (and Lorien) got me a little frappuccino maker too. Double yum!

Signs of Spring

Me and my girl!

Exploring

Thoughts on my first Mother's Day: Before I had a daughter, people would say you can't understand how much you can possibly love a little person until you have kids of your own. My strongest sentiment this Mother's Day is that they are so right. I love my baby girl so much that it hurts.

Tonight we had such a sweet moment. Ever since she started sleeping well at night, we have had a routine of her going to bed first and me getting her up to feed her before I go to bed. She barely wakes up, but she gets her belly all the way full, and then we all get a better night's sleep. We have kept that routine longer than I really meant to, and now it is probably time to stop doing that late night feeding. So we have been backing it up each week until it is just barely an hour after her bedtime feeding. That's kinda silly, so I think it's time to drop it completely. If all goes well, I plan to drop it tomorrow night. Which means that tonight was the last night for it.

I cried.

That time has been so sweet. She always goes right back to sleep on my shoulder after I feed her. Josh comes in and kisses her goodnight. Then I just sit and rock her for a few minutes and soak in her sweetness.

I know it will mean a better night's sleep for her if I don't interrupt her, but I will miss that time together. So thankful to be Lorien's mommy.

Not Burying My Talent

Recently, my coworkers and I read Matthew 25 together. I think it's the first time I've read that passage since Lorien was born, and it got me thinking about a conversation I had pre-kids. Pre-marriage, actually.

I was working at Plugged In at the time, and this discussion probably occurred on a day when I had put in about 6.5 hours slogging through a pile of Seventeen magazines or something of the sort. I don't remember precisely what brought on my ennui, but I know I was feeling really discouraged by the state of our culture. Now, I am not a Chicken Little, and I won't be making any doomsday prophecies here. I find plenty of things in this world that delight me. But I also find plenty of things that make me weary and sick. And frankly a little worried about the challenge of raising kids and helping them stay childlike for the duration of their childhood. It was that feeling that prompted me to admit to my editor, "I'm not sure I want to raise kids in this culture."

I have never forgotten his one-line reply: "Wouldn't that be like burying your talent?"

I didn't reply because I couldn't reply. I knew he was right. The admonition to invest my talent, rather than burying it, has been working on me ever since. Raising kids to thrive in this world won't be easy. But that doesn't excuse me from the responsibility.

I want to raise kids who get to keep their innocence for as long as possible. I want to raise kids who know how to think—not just what to think. I want to raise kids who aren't afraid to ask good questions and actively seek out the answers. I want to raise kids who have strong biblical moorings, but who aren't afraid to interact with others who believe differently. I want to raise kids who know God—not just ones who know about Him. I want to raise kids who love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and love their neighbors the way they love themselves.

All of this was part of the thinking behind Lorien's name. Josh and I love the way J.R.R. Tolkien described the woods of Lothlorien as a place of light in a dark world. It's a place of refuge. Rest. Beauty. Light. The rest of Middle Earth may be growing darker, but Lorien is a land that has a healing effect on all who enter it. I pray that if we invest our talents well in raising her (and, someday, her siblings) the same will be said of her also.

How Not to Talk to Your Kids

I mentioned before that one reason I wanted to start this blog is that I really need an outlet for processing what I'm reading/thinking/discussing with friends and students, etc. I also know that that kind of post takes more time and effort than a baby update, so I'm really going to have to discipline myself to sit down and write them. I have 3 in the queue already that I would like to write, but realistically, only one of those is going to happen tonight. Here goes..

One of my former students recently shared an interesting article titled "How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise" written by Po Bronson in New York Magazine. Bronson basically says that indiscriminately praising kids to make them feel good about themselves actually backfires more often than it succeeds. I don't agree with all of her conclusions (or, more precisely, her applications), but I do like her discussion of the research on the topic. And don't worry—the article's not preachy. In fact, Bronson herself bristled at the idea at first, and her article reads like a ideological travelogue: She walks her readers through her own learning process. The thing's about 4000 words long, but it's worth the read.

My thoughts, not organized in any kind of linear fashion:

- Huge point: though the studies discussed in this article suggest that vague, perpetual and insincere praise can actually be damaging to kids, Bronson doesn't say that parents should stop praising their kids. (Whew!) Rather, kids need sincere, specific praise for actions they have control over. In other words, telling a kid "you're really smart" may not be helpful (you'll have to read the article to find out why, because I can't do it justice in a bullet point), but saying, "You worked really hard at that logic puzzle" is very encouraging and helpful because the kid knows what he or she did right, and it's something that can be repeated if the kid wants to.

- Contrary to self-esteem movement ideology, kids can smell a phony from a mile away. I was fascinated by the assertion that

...by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism—not praise at all— that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.

In the opinion of cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further. [bottom of p. 3 of the article]

This is not a new idea. Proverbs 27:6 lets us know that honest criticism communicated in a loving way is much better than insincere compliments.

- Kids already know they're not perfect. They just need help responding well to their own imperfections. Bronson seems to be saying that a kid who is always told, "You're great. You're great. You're great" will learn to put up a front of perfection. Reading between the lines here: I think this is because the child has an innate sense of his or her own fallibility. When the adults in his or her world pretend like the child has no weaknesses, the kid thinks, "Gosh, I need to keep up this ruse," and you end up with kids who are scared to death to show any weakness in public. How much healthier for adults to acknowledge weakness and failure like they're normal parts of life (they are!) and help the child 1) humbly accept his or her weaknesses and 2) improve in those areas.

- I love the author’s closing thought that the brain is like a muscle that becomes stronger when it gets to think about hard things. And I love the thought of teaching that to kids.

Needless to say, these concepts fascinate me both as an educator and as a parent. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.