SortaCrunchy

Well, that is one way to meet people . . .

The other day I was rushing down our stairs when the thought occurred to me, "What if I fell down the stairs and knocked myself out?  What would happen to the girls?  How long before Kyle came home and found me lying sprawled at the bottom of the stairs?"

From my first days as an at-home mom, I've been terrified of what would happen if something majorly bad happened to me while I was home alone with my children.  So of course, as soon as I felt like Dacey was old enough to understand, I started teaching her how to call 911.

The hurried trip down the stairs inspired me to run a refresher course with Dacey on the logistics of the 911 call.

Me: Dacey, do you remember what to do if there is an emergency and you need to call 911?

Dacey: First, find the phone.

Me:  Where is the phone?

Dacey: On your nightstand.

Me: Good.  Then what?

Dacey: Dial 9-1-1.  (She picked up the phone and showed me the numbers.)

Me: What button do you have to push first?

Dacey: The green button.

Me:  Good!  Okay, now remember, you should only call 911 if there is an emergency in our house, like if Mommy fell down the stairs or fell off of a chair or a stool (we have high cabinets, okay?  Kitchen acrobatics are not unusual around here) and if it looks like I am asleep but you can't seem to get me to wake up . . .

Dacey: Or if you have pink eye

Me: Or if I . . . wait.  WHAT?  No!  No, you cannot call 911 if I have pink eye.

My mind flashed to our first accidental 911 call.  The child who called 911 was not the one who had been instructed in the ways of 911.  No, it was the newly one year old Little Sister who adores the phone and who, in an unsupervised moment, had managed to push just the right buttons to summon a nice-looking young officer of the law to our home in our new community. 

My face had flushed bright red as I stammered out that we were all quite fine and it must have been my daughter and I'm so very, very sorry.  He narrowed his eyes a bit and asked, "Are you sure?" as if to make sure that I wasn't hiding some horrific catastrophe behind the only partially opened front door.  Truth be told, there probably was a horrific catastrophe in our living room, but it was more of the stuffed-animal-littered-floor-and-piles-of-clean-folded-un-put-away-laundry-everywhere variety rather than anything involving blood, weapons, or paraphernalia of one kind or another.

I returned to the moment at hand and explained with more detail and more emphasis to Dacey exactly what sort of situations merited a call to 911.  When I felt slightly more comfortable with her grasp on the concept of emergency, I changed the subject, but not before wondering how long it would be before our address was flagged as The Cry Wolf House.

Meeting people and making friends in a small town can be an overwhelming and intimidating task. I suppose, however, if worse comes to worse we could always resort to summoning new friends via an "accidental" call to the good people of 911.

This post is my submission to my friend Jamie of Steady Mom's 30 Minute Blog Challenge.  Post time, start to finish: 28 minutes (with much gratitude to Sesame Street).

photo by EMS_EMT

From the Archives: On Raising Girls

In the past ten days, two of my most dear long-time friends have welcomed new baby girls into this world.  One of them stalwartly refuses to blog, no matter how much I prod her; the other is friend Laura whom you may know from the Peacoat Papers - proud new mama to Pigtail.

All of the baby girl sweetness is triggering some major pink bundle nostalgia for me.  I flipped back through my archives and found this post from November 2007 (the only month I tortured myself with NaBloMoPo - oy! Never again.). 

Thoughts on raising up these little girls:

What worries you most about raising daughters?

This question, from my sweet friend Corey at Living and Loving Every Minute of It, has prompted a lot of reflection for me.

I remember with vivid accuracy how elated I was when the ultrasound tech moved the wand over my belly and proclaimed over D, "It's a girl!" Over the moon, I was. Visions of sugar and spice, of tutus and dress-up heels, of shopping for prom dresses and a wedding dress, began to dance in my head. "A girl baby! A girl baby!" my nieces shrieked when they were told our happy news. Little girls and grown-up girls alike go a little ga-ga over brand new bundles of pink and sweet. Gazing into those baby girl eyes, we imagine a sparkly future replete with all the glittery memories of our own girlhoods. Pigtails and baby dolls. Slumber parties and puppy love. Phone calls and pom-pons.

As a mother to not one, but now two, little visions in pink, I daydream those sunny futures for my girls. And as a mother, I am sometimes gripped with extraordinary fear when my thoughts take a turn down darker paths. Sometimes it's a story on the news that triggers a nearly paralyzing reaction in me as I consider what evil could be waiting to prey on my precious daughters. Other times, a flash of memory from my own past takes my breath away as I consider how painful it can be to grow from girl to woman. So yes, in the midst of the ribbons and bows, I worry.

For I know all too well the sting of a best friend's rejection . . . She doesn't want to be my friend anymore.

I know the heartache of not being good enough . . . My name wasn't on the list.

I know the sorrow of a broken heart . . . He just wants to be friends.

I know that even if I confined my daughters to our house, that somehow the hurt and the sad would still find its way in. I guess what worries me most is that I am helpless to protect them from the scrapes and stings and tears and blue that are all part of being wrapped up in this skin called woman. I am as helpless as my own mother was to protect me from the many dramas (both real and imagined) that she walked me through and talked me through. As each of us know, those lows that come with the highs and the pain that comes with the joy are all part of what makes us who we are as women. I'll always be fighting that urge to protect them, even as I loosen my grip on their hands to allow them freedom to experience this life for themselves.

There is so much to be tempted to worry over. In the face of that worry, I am reminded to pray. I pray so much for my daughters, but my most earnest request for each is that the love they fall for first would be the ever-pursuing, ever-steady love of The Bridegroom. For if each of my daughters is rooted and established in the love of Christ first and foremost, I can be sure that when the day of hurt and heartbreak finds them, they will have a safe place to land . . . in His Arms.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL POST COMPLETE WITH ALL COMMENTS

photo by D Sharon Pruitt

Abudance of Gratitude and an Invitation to Give

I had sorta planned on an As He Leads Us post for today, but in all honesty, my heart and head are just reeling in the wake of the news of Gabriella Vega's stroke last week.  Every time I type or say that word - stroke - I just cannot believe this is really happening to sweet Princess G.

She is four years old. 

I've watched that sweet girl with the blond curls grow from darling little baby to vivacious preschooler, and to see her confined to a hospital bed without words and with little movement overwhelms me with crushing sadness.

My every other thought is of her and her mama Kristi and daddy Paul and little brother PJ.

I've found solace in the practice of gratitude.  With every laugh and through all the chatter and amidst the wrestling rough-housing from the girls, my heart stretches and snaps to Arizona, to Kristi at Gabriella's bedside, praying that she'll hear Gabriella's voice again soon.

I'm slowing down to listen and hold close and soak up the rhythms and routines and blessed normalcy of each day.

I'm

17. getting lost in the zen-like calm of snapping green beans at the sink.

18. grinning big in response to Aliza Joy's "dank you, Mommy!"  Oh, now that child has a heart of gratitude, to be sure.

19. indulging in a few extra moments with my fingers dug deep in appreciation of that mystical feel of flour and butter which have become one in the moments before the buttermilk splashes and reminds the buttered flour that biscuits need making.

20. happy sighing over biscuits that rise up and come out just right.

21. so, so, so grateful for an old friend's thoughtfulness in passing on something that met a need at the exact moment we needed it.

22. overjoyed to spend a Saturday afternoon on a quilt under the canopy of a pecan tree whose paternal arms have shielded decades of seekers-of-the-slow.  Markers took to journals while the last of the summer cicadas sang.

23. aching heart over the joyful innocence of Dacey's art where the sun shines always and every face beams with smile.

*****

I can never, ever put words to my gratitude for each and every one of you.  When I think back on the humble start of SC, I just shake my head.  At the start, I was just gonna talk about some cloth diapers a little bit, and now look at this place.  Just amazing.

Over the weekend, I hatched a plan.  I have been praying unceasingly for the Vega family, but I feel so helpless to help all these miles away.  But then I thought maybe . . . maybe I can help.  Here's the plan:

I'm going to put together an online raffle to be hosted here at SC.  All of the proceeds from the raffle will go to the Vega family to bless them and help ease some of the burden of the many expenses they are accruing in the midst of this circumstance.

To host a really great raffle that honors a really amazing little girl, I need some really big help.  That's where you come in.  I know there are some wonderfully, tremendously gifted people that hang out here. 

Would you like to join me in this by donating a prize to the raffle?

Here are some ideas:

* Anything handmade or created by you - knitted, crocheted, letterpressed, photographed - any kind of handwork or art
* Services you might offer - digital card creation, mama card design, blog design
* Products that you want to purchase for donation

The details are very loose right now.  I've never taken on a project of this size, but I've got a team of friends from the mothering community through which we all know the Vegas who have stepped up to help pull this thing off.

So this is our invitation to those who want to be directly involved in the creation of the raffle prize packages.  If you want in, leave a comment here or email me at sortacrunchy at gmail dot com.

*****

If your Monday promises nothing but the usual, hold your dear ones close and offer a breath of thanks to God for normal.

You can join others on the path of gratitude each Monday at Holy Experience.

two years of our Joyful Joy

Exactly two years ago today, I took this shot of our snuggly two week old Little Sister:

Oh, what a difference two years can make.

It's almost impossible to find words to describe our Texas Tornado.  Aliza Joy - the baby who revealed her name to us only moments before she was born -  spent the entirety of her first three months of life asleep.  I was deeply concerned - I had never seen a baby sleep so much.  In retrospect, I can see that she was simply preparing for a life of perpetual motion.  

If we could pin AJ down long enough to stick a this-statement-sums-up-my-life-bumper-sticker on her, it would speak of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's statement that "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History." 

When she is in rare form, she bursts with energy and effervescence and joie de vivre.  In fact, joie de vivre is the essence of our Joyful Joy.  Never was a child so aptly named.

Two weeks ago today, we had a simple little family party for AJ. 

We had a little Peppa Pig cake

and it was thoroughly enjoyed.

My heart aches with that bittersweet thrill of watching my baby grow ever more into her Big Girl Shoes.  Of course I am only speaking metaphorically of those Big Girl Shoes, because if there is one thing AJ deplores, it is wearing shoes.  She comes by that honestly, that's for sure.  Keeping her clothed around the house is a battle I've long since resigned to losing.  She just will not be contained.

At two, AJ is fully day-trained in potty learnedness, wearing diapers only at night (and thinks it is hilarious to say "goo goo ga ga" and act like a baby when I put her nighttime diaper on her).  She loves to paint and color and create.  We keep the marker bin on the table all the time now so that she can indulge her every creative whim.  Last week, she drew her first smiley face:

(you do see a smiley face there, too, right?)

Dancing, gymnastics, running full-speed, jumping up, jumping over, climbing on, crawling under, grinning, laughing, shrieking, singing, telling stories, reading books, resisting sleep, rising with the sun, picking flowers, collecting rocks, tormenting Dacey, and running into Daddy's arms the moment he hits the door at the end of the day.  It's all in a day's work for our Curly Girl.

 Happy birthday, Little Sister. 

Can't wait to see what the next will bring.

Sometimes I catch her dreamin' and wonder where that little mind meanders
Is she strollin' along the shore or cruisin' o'er the broad savannah
I know someday she'll learn to make up her own rhymes
Someday she's gonna learn how to fly
Oh that I won't deny
-- "Little Miss Magic," Jimmy Buffett

There Will Be Poop

I'm just going to warn you right here, right now, this post is all about poop.  Humiliation and poop.  If such things are offensive to your delicate sensitivities (what on earth are you doing here?), you'll need to move along now.

Something you might not know about me is that in real life, on the other side of that screen, I actually get embarrassed quite easily.  You wouldn't guess that, I'm sure, considering that I have discussed everything from cloth pads to my monthly cycles (and many other mildly embarrassing topics) here, but it's true.  It doesn't take much at all to make me blush, and so the events that have transpired in the past few hours have left me nearly catatonic and in hiding in the corners of my own home.

Why share it publicly?  Because this, my friends, this is a cautionary tale.  It is a story - an absolutely true account - that serves to remind you that when one has a child still mostly in diapers, no matter how many times or how often the potty is used at home, one must never, never, ever ever ever leave the house without a back-up diaper.

This story begins with AJ.  Of course it does, because even on Dacey's most outrageous days, she's got nothin' on a typical day with Aliza Joy.  In the past week, AJ has decided to learn the potty.  She'll be twenty-two months old next week, and this step towards independence is entirely her idea.  I don't even actually practice potty "training" (that's another post for another day when I'm not contemplating a name change and plastic surgery) (and considering that I contemplate plastic surgery daily, it could be a while before that post gets written), but I've been trying to just go with her sudden interest and determination to use the potty all the time, every time.  Dacey did not potty learn until she was nearly three, so the thought of impending freedom from diapering was hard to resist.

So within the first five minutes of waking this morning, AJ told me she needed to poop.  She went to the little potty and poop she did!  And continued to do this, I kid you not, every fifteen to twenty minutes.  She would produce a little tiny poop, triumphantly dump the contents into the big potty, and stand waving joyously over the swirling waters saying, "Bye bye poopie!" 

I had to make a quick trip to the library, and it had to be done today.  I've been leading the baby/toddler story time at the library on Wednesday mornings this summer, and Last Minute Lucy that I am, I still had not chosen the story for tomorrow.  A series of events put us running behind, so it wasn't until I pulled out of the driveway that I realized I hadn't grabbed an extra diapers and wipes.  Oh well, she's been pooping all morning.  What are the odds?

The odds?  The odds?  Were not in my favor today, friends.

So we picked out a nice little stack of books, and the girls played with puzzles and trains while I tootled around on the card catalog computer.  (Or whatever that new-fangled book-looker-upper-thang is called these days.)  It wasn't too long before I realized AJ had pooped again - in her diaper.  The only diaper I had on me.

As I took her to the bathroom to change her, I debated about what to do.  Do I just leave immediately with no stack of books, no plan for tomorrow?  Do I just chance it for a few minutes - just long enough to check out the books and then high-tail it for home?  It was a classic Sliding Doors moment.  I went through the door only idiots walk through - the Door of the Diaperless Toddler.

As we walked back out into the library, I saw that a family of five had come in and lined up at the check-out counter to get library cards.  Each one needed one.  Okay.  So we'll hang out here in the kids' section for a few minutes while we wait.  Maybe it was thirty seconds, maybe it was three minutes.  I couldn't tell you how long in actual time increments we stood there, but I can tell you this: 

It was exactly long enough for AJ to let loose with a week's worth of buried treasure that slid quickly and efficiently right down her pant leg and piled up there on the floor of the public library.

I wanted to die.  I wanted to run away.  I wanted to run away to a quick, painless death.  But I couldn't because if I did, I know she would have started playing in it.  What transpired next is the part that is so humiliating, I'm still not able to put words to it.  Hurried trips back and forth to the bathroom with AJ tucked under my arm, Dacey standing in the children's section loudly declaring, "oooooooooooh, that poop STINKS," glares from the library staff . . . Awful.  Just awful.

You either laugh or you cry, right?  Well, I cried all the way home, and then some more once we got home.  When Kyle came home at lunch, I moved forward to the laugh-cry.  I haven't cried while writing this, but I am surely not to the point of laughing.  Maybe in a year or two, I'll read over this and giggle, but I'm not there yet.

The worst part is I have to go back there in the morning - not even allowing 24 hours to expunge a little of the memory of The Poop Incident from the minds of the library staff.  Thank goodness they have a back door and thank goodness the children's librarian is also AJ's Sunday School teacher and so she knows a little bit of what it means to experience Aliza.

And you'll notice, won't you, that there is no picture to illustrate this story.  Posting about poop is a time-honored tradition in the Sorority of Mommy Bloggers, but taking the time to grab my phone to snap a picture of the mess would have definitely earned me a public excommunication from the library.  Plus, that's just gross.

So go ahead.  Poke fun.  Laugh it up.  Just don't forget the lesson to be learned here: when the question "what's the worst that could happen?" arises, just remember the answer is always "poop on the library floor."  Because that's exactly what could happen.

7 Quick Takes: May 15th

May 15th?  Seriously?  I'm still thinking in April.

1. I'm still rather swamped - so behind in emails, blog reading, and other obligations.  I have to tell you something I find to be pretty hilarious.  You know the bird in that swamped picture?  My friend Paige informed that it actually is a quite exotic and rare bird - the yellow-crowned night heron.  He ususally lives "along the Gulf coast, Florida, and along the south Atlantic coast. It also breeds along the coasts of Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Central America, and the north and east coasts of South America."  How on earth did he find his way to Oklahoma?  The best part?  The part that really got Kyle and I to laughing?  These herons like to call wooded swamps and marshes home.  I told you we've had a lot of rain!

2. Notable news in our family this week - AJ is putting two word sentences together!  As you know, Dacey had a severe speech delay, so to have this development happen at this point for AJ has been very exciting.

3. Evidently, we scarcely missed being in the path of a twister this week.  We had no idea.  Just thought it was another thunderstorm.  Clearly, Kyle and I have forgotten how to do spring in Oklahoma.  Guess we need to reaquaint ourselves with Gary.

4. I've been up way too late for too many nights this week, mostly catching up with some friends (JLB, I'd link to you, too, but for reasons I know not, you don't blog).  Said friends all live on the West Coast, therefore, normal chit-chat hours for them are past my bedtime.  (It was all worth every stinkin' second!)  Anyway, I think Dacey has been reading the blog behind my back, because she has taken a sudden interest in helping me clean house.  What a help to her no-one's-fault-but-her-own-sleep-deprived-mother!  

5. So, over at Simple Kids this week, I asked for everyone to share their unsung favorites of children's lit.  WOW!  What an amazing list that has been generated!  If you are looking for new books to check out, this is an incredible list to reference.

6. At Modern Media Mom, Karla shared a super helpful and inspiring post on setting up a home office.  (Here's another great home office view - link via Laura.)  Reading in Karla's recent thoughts on working at home helped me to realize that with the writing and the Simple Kids gig and my other endeavors, I really need to claim some work space.  I was so inspired by her article, I started snooping through Craigslist and dug out a tape measure and marked off spaces around the house, and I made a plan.  If the darling desk I found on Craigslist pans out (it will be my first CL furniture purchase, so I'm a little bit skeptical), I am going to be on my way to clearing a spot in which to work.  Pics and details to come! 

7. Thank you all so much for your words of support and prayer for my friend Kristi.  They had a difficult and sobering meeting with the transplant nurse this week.  I am just heavy with grief for them.  Please, please continue to pray for them and for Princess G.  I believe God is in this, but these circumstances shake my faith in monumental ways.

So that's where we are as this week draws to a close.  What are you all up to this mid-May weekend?

More 7QT at Conversion Diary!

sweet reading picture courtesy of indiewench

Encouragement for the frustrations of nursing a toddler

As I've shared in my SortaWhat? post, I practice child-led weaning.  Dacey weaned just after her second birthday, and at twenty months, Aliza Joy is still breastfeeding.  AJ is, in fact, a much more enthusiastic nursling than her big sister ever was as a toddler.  When Dacey was this age, she nursed only before nap and bedtime; she was never what you would call a comfort nurser. 

(She was however a total paci addict and didn't give up her paci completely until she was nearly three and a half.  Clearly the need to suck was still there, it just manifested itself in a different way.) 

AJ is very much a comfort nurser.  She wants to nurse before nap and bed, when she is hungry, when she is thirsty, when she is hurt, and a lot of the time I think when she is just bored.  Lately this has become quite physically and emotionally exhausting for me, and I've been seriously considering initiating the weaning process with her.

I asked some friends for advice, and my mothering mentor Karen (wise and gentle mama of six) offered me some helpful insight.  I wanted to share parts of her response with you:

As someone who has been a human paci for 6 kids, I can relate.  Sarah and Amanda didn't really have that problem, because they weaned around fourteen to fifteen months because I was pregnant. But the boys (and now, Hannah) all went through a phase like that. It will pass, but until then, what I would do when I couldn't (or just didn't want to) nurse, is tell them - "Mommy is busy, now. When I am done, you can have milk." And follow through.

What this most likely is, is that you are her security blanket in the ever-widening world, and she needs to touch base every so often. It's not about the milk - it's about her feeling safe. Does she have another comfort object that you can offer her, maybe? Some of mine did - some didn't. Hannah hasn't attached onto anything yet, and it's frustrating me.  You could, when she asks to nurse, offer her said object, and tell her, "Here. You can have this until Mommy can give you milk, but I can't give you milk right now." She does need to learn that she can't have everything she wants all the time, so a few tantrums aren't going to be the end of the world.

If you are starting to resent the time she's taking from you, it's perfectly okay to put limits on things. Just make sure you understand that she is most likely doing this because she still needs that security from you, and be mindful of that. But she's old enough that you don't need to be held hostage by her endless demands for your boobs, either. One of those lovely situations where you need to balance your needs with hers... It is okay to NOT give in every time she wants a nip, though... Just make sure she understands that you will be there when you are able.

And she will mature a bit, and she'll no longer need to have you so close. This stage won't last forever. And by gently encouraging her that she can get by without Mommy every other second, she'll become more and more confident, and the need should diminish. But it's perfectly acceptable for you to want to be DONE. And if you want to work in the direction of weaning, that's okay, too.

This was exactly the feedback I needed at exactly the right time.  Her words brought me such comfort and understanding.  I still haven't decided where I am in this process; there are days when I lean heavily towards weaning, but at the same time, I'm not 100% sure I am quite ready for that next step yet.

Anyone have any insight you might like to add?

lovely photo of mama and toddler by edenpictures

Giving No-Cry A Try

Because of our As He Leads Us series, Laura and I get emails from time to time from mothers who need to find a sleep solution for their little one but are hesitant to follow a cry-it-out approach.  Both Laura and I usually recommend to readers that they look into one of Elizabeth Pantley's No-Cry books.  What began as the No-Cry Sleep Solution eventually led to more books in the series including No-Cry Nap Solution (her newest book), No-Cry Discipline Solution, No-Cry Potty Training Solution, and the No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers.

Although I have the No-Cry Sleep Solution, I haven't found it necessary to practice her strategies because we generally practice part-time cosleeping in the first year without much need for a change.  Laura has modified some of the approaches in the first No-Cry book to use in their family and has found success with that.

To be honest, I now find myself in desperate need of a sleep solution with our AJ.  She is twenty months old and for various reasons, she cannot/will not sleep in bed with us at night.  (It's crowded in there already, too.)  She still wakes up no less than twice a night, which on its own is not fun, but additionally bedtime has been turning into a battle with her.  We have never had bedtime problems with Dacey.  She honestly has always willingly and happily drifted off to dream land.  AJ, who is of course her exact opposite, knows that bedtime means she's missing the party and is becoming increasingly resistant to calling it a day.

Last week, I ordered the No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers, and I have to tell you that I am super impressed.  First of all, there is a ton of information packed in its nearly 400 pages.  Pantley provides some great sleep basics, expands on eight sleep tips for every child, and then goes into how to find gentle sleep solutions for twenty-five unique scenarios.  She covers everything from children who are resistant to bedtime to transitioning from family bed to independent sleep, moving from crib to big kid bed, and even covers sleep transitions when adopting a toddler or preschooler and how allergies, asthma, and GERD situations can be dealt with.

I so appreciate Pantley's approach for several reasons.  First of all, she advocates gentle solutions.  Secondly, she is compassionate towards families who practice shared sleep and continue with nighttime nursing.  Her attitude towards parents is never harsh, critical, or judgmental.  She never implies that the bedtime problems have arisen from poor or weak parenting skills; rather, she is encouraging, motivating, and empathetic.

I love what she says at the beginning of the book

Your child is getting enough sleep, you're getting enough sleep, and everyone in the household is happy with how things are going.  The problem is that your in-laws, your friend, or your neighbor is telling you that something in the way you are doing things is wrong and must be changed . . . Here's the bottom line: if your child is getting enough sleep, you all are sleeping well, and the people who live in the home are happy with the way things are working out, then nothing needs to be fixed, regardless of what anyone else has to say about your family's sleeping situation (p. 14).

How encouraging for families who take up an "alternative" approach to sleep!

But, as I said, we are at a point where we do have something(s) that need to be fixed.  So I am in the process of working through the book to see what sort of solution will work best for us.

One side note - as I was skimming through the various scenarios that Pantley offers solutions to, I found a chapter on "The Night Visitor: Trips to the Parent's Bed."  One of the approaches is to create "The Weekend Promise" where kids who sleep in their own bed throughout the week get to sleep with the parents on the weekend. It made me smile, thinking of my own childhood where a Friday night campout in our parents' room was always a special treat.  We made up pallets (makeshift beds) on the floor and watched TV and movies as a family, and stayed up late (probably more fun for us than for my parents!).  My mom was always an advocate of the family bed in many ways, and another  treat for us as children was getting to sleep with mom when dad was away on business trips.  Come to think of it, my mom has always championed my inclination towards gentle sleep solutions!

I'll keep you updated on our No-Cry work with AJ.  She's a leetle bit on the stubborn side, so I know we have our work cut out for us. 

I'll be out of town through the rest of the weekend, so here's wishing you an early Happy Mother's Day!

Turnoff Week: How It Went

I've been dreading this post.  I even toyed with the idea of not even sharing this - ever.  Just pretending I didn't agree to the challenge last week and proceeding with regularly scheduled programming.

I went back and looked at the directions given at Unplug Your Kids for this challenge.  I noted that Phase Two of the Turnoff Week was:

Do your best to meet your goals from April 20-26. If you aren’t successful, it’s OK. What is important is to try, and to learn something from the experience.

Okay, so that gives me a little more freedom to be honest here.  Because Turnoff Week for us was mostly a gigantic FAIL.  Not a complete fail, more accurately a 60-65% fail.  Monday, Tuesday, and even Wednesday went great.  Monday and Tuesday we were my parents' house, and as I suspected, neither girl was interested in TV.  Of course, they had grandparents at the ready who were all-too-happy to read to them, color with them, and go sit outside for them for hours at a time.  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were not great.  As in, I just gave up even trying to count the hours the TV had been on.  Yesterday was better, but we had church in the morning and evening to keep us pretty busy, too.

I've thought a lot about why this was so hard for us last week, and these are my conclusions:

1) bad timing - like I wrote last week, the past few weeks have just been enormously busy for our family, and we were out of town for days at a time.  By the time we finally landed mid-week, the house was a wreck, no one had clean clothes, and I simply didn't have the time or energy to devote to creating distractions to keep Dacey's mind off of the turned-off TV.  (As usual, AJ didn't care one way or the other if the TV was on or off.) 

2) poor planning and lack of discipline - this all ties in to the bad timing, too.  I had it in my mind that Turnoff Week started today, so I hadn't done anything concrete to prepare for a week of reduced TV time.  And so when Dacey was insistent on watching "Dacey shows," I caved pretty easily.  Additionally, towards the end of the week, I had a bout with monster headaches which happens to me every now and again.  This did not help or encourage me in my resolve to limit our TV time.

3) I realized throughout the week, I don't know how to do this.

(This is the part that is hard for me to share.  In my quest for ever-more authenticity, I know I need to write even that which makes me feel squirmy to deal with.)

There are just some parts of effective parenting that I don't know how to do.  I don't know how to go about doing the tasks I have to do to keep our home running without relying on the TV as a distraction for my children.

When I was preparing to be a classroom teacher, I got to spend a whole semester under the guidance of a veteran.  By the end of the first week of student teaching, my veteran had turned over five of her classes to me to teach on my own, but she was ever present in guiding and directing me.  We planned and talked through lessons together, she showed me the most efficient and effective ways to grade papers, she gave me feedback on classroom management and stepped in when it became necessary.  Every bit of that last semester of preparation I had before I was released into the wild was about collaboration.  She offered and I readily accepted her tried-and-true wisdom on how to be an effective teacher.  I learned so much more than I could have ever learned in textbooks on pedagogy.  I left student teaching with a model in mind of how to teach language arts to high schoolers.

I don't feel like I have a good model of what day-to-day effective home management (minus TV) looks like.  I most certainly can devote hours of my day to art projects and nature walks and trips to the library and imaginative play.  Those are the most favorite parts of my job.  But I cannot do that all day, every day.  I must also make time for cleaning house, the constant clutter pick-up, paying bills, making and returning phone calls, meal planning, cooking dinner, washing dishes, keeping up with laundry and ironing, and the other myriad of responsibilities . . . all of which is completely common to the average homemaker.

The problem for me lies in that when the TV is off, I have children at my feet, getting out what I put away, undoing what I have done, begging me to play, asking to get paints out or dreaming up any other number of things to do while I work, all of which makes getting my work done take about ten times longer than it should. 

Truth be told, I really do not love the housekeeping part of homemaking.  I just want it to be done.  To do it quickly as possible, I turn the TV on to keep them distracted.  My daughters are four and twenty months, so having them go read quietly or make up games to play doesn't last very long.  I can remember when I was growing up my parents had limits on TV, but I can't remember what we did prior to being school-age.  I also grew up in a time where parents could turn their kids outside to play for hours on end with little fear of anything horrible happening.  Our yard is not fenced in, and even if it were, I don't think I could turn them outside without me being there to keep an eye on them.  Horrible, horrible things happen even in small town Oklahoma.

Wow, this is getting a lot more whiny and rambly than I thought it would be.

Here's what I learned:

1) I don't think the TV has been excruciatingly negative for my children.  Dacey is completely on-track in social, cognitive, and physical development.  A friend emailed after my challenge post last week and shared some ways TV has sparked learning and conversation for her family, and I have to agree with what she said.  In some ways, TV has played a positive role in our family.  This could change, certainly, but I don't know that we will ever be a completely TV-free family, and I am okay with that. 

2) I do want to work towards less TV on a regular basis.  I want to learn how to go about my tasks as a homemaker without resorting to TV for babysitting.  I want to learn here, but I don't know where to start.

3) Even though I didn't meet the goals for my Turnoff Week challenge, I am glad I participated.  It caused me to do some heavy critical thinking and self-analysis about myself and our family that I probably would not have engaged in if it weren't for Turnoff Week.  Thank you to Unplug Your Kids for hosting!

I'm open to any feedback on this.  I know most all of the Turnoff Week participants live mostly TV-free lives, and I'll happily accept any insights you can share.  For those who also struggle with the TV time, just know you have a fellow struggler in me.

five senses friday

This week.  This week feels like a good time to indulge in a Friday feature I've long enjoyed at abby try again: five senses friday.

 

smell
- wildflowers. 
- the newest shave soaps to find a place in kyle's ever-expanding stash. yummy.
- non-smell of fresh laundry a la charlie's soap (which i am running dangerously, treacherously low on.  must re-order today)

taste
- pizza dough- made twice this week, once for pizza, once for breadsticks.  made the remarkable discovery that it does not, in fact, need two hours to rise.  twenty minutes in a warm oven, punch down, thirty minutes covered with plastic wrap in the fridge, and you are ready to roll (it out).
- cheese grits

sound
- that dog up there, the dog named Dufus.  he lives next door to my parents and barking is his love language and boy, does he love my girls.
- Dave Ramsey's message of hope last night.  so inspiring and encouraging. and I totally saw my high school friend trisha in the audience several times which was pretty much just as exciting as hearing dave's wise words.

 

touch
- creamy, soft, kissable baby skin. my mama holding my newest niece, kadence.

 

sight
- i always make the most unexpected discoveries at my parents' house.  the wall hanging now sitting on our mantel was collecting dust in their office.  mom sent me home with it.
and that bib? my grandmother made it for her little tribe of grands so many years ago. i am in love with it. little cap sleeves! and that crumb catching pocket is divine.  it's completely reversible, too.  they do not make bibs like they used to, no ma'am they do not.  my mother suggested i cut it apart to use it as a pattern to make my own (or have some made, more likely), but the thought of taking scissors to this treasure nearly broke my heart. we'll have it on long-term loan before taking it back to grandma's.
- a wardrobe of spring and summer clothes for AJ once worn by her big sister. i was quite actually in tears unpacking them from the bins, calling to mind the spring/summer/fall Dacey wore them - the things we did, the places we went.  Mistress Size Six (!) couldn't fit her big toe in them now.  looking forward to those t-shirts and sundresses appearing in a whole 'nother summer's worth of memories.

this was nice.  hope your weekend is restful and lovely.