Category Archives: Children

Decking the Halls . . . And Our Hearts

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When you think “holidays”, what comes to mind? When we were kids we thought of school breaks and Santa, new toys and snow, sugar cookies and cousins and fun! As adults we tend to think about deadlines, budgets, endless shopping lists, travel, chaotic schedules, flu season, and  . . . oh yeah, if we have time, fun. But no matter what the stresses of  the holiday season, there is something magical about that first day when you pull out all the decorations, put on Christmas music for the first time, light some candles and stay in for a quiet evening with the family decking the halls.

It is moments like these that make you forget the cynicism that you’ve built up over the year and believe, even if only for a little while, that everyday life can be enchanting and the mundane can be magical.

Once again, it is the awe and wonder of a child that enhances our realization that we all tend to look at the world through very smudgy, care-worn glass. And, every now and then, we need to take them off and see, through a fresh pair of eyes, that tiny lights and tinsel are amazing.

So with a renewed sense of gratitude and thanksgiving imparted upon us last weekend as one holiday passed, ringing in the next, let us cling to these moments and remember that the holidays are about so much more than stress . . . not just for the children, but for us too. Let’s deck, not just the halls, but our hearts with laughter and joy this holiday season.

Surprising Indulgences

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Yesterday was a day of surprising indulgences for a working mother of a two-year old. Personal time and relaxation are both commodities that are hard to come by at this stage of my existence. Yet miraculously, my day started with a glorious half hour of quiet solitude complete with a cup of french vanilla coffee and a cinnamon bagel. This was after I had the privilege of sleeping in till almost 8:30 since both of my boys slept till 9:00. The worrisome part of me wanted to go in and check on my little man since this occurrence is so rare, but my more rational side won out as I let him sleep and enjoyed my quiet, solitary breakfast. The level to which I savored this event is almost (but not quite) sad.

Woman in Her Bath painting by Edgar Degas

This was not even my only spoiled moment of the day. After a long and fulfilling morning working outside in the yard as a family, I got Aiden fed and in bed for his nap and then drew a hot bath with epsom salts, candles, and book and proceeded to soak away all my muscle aches, tensions, and worries and simply relax. As I laid flat on my back with only my nose and mouth above water, I began to contemplate how very lucky we are. There are so many things we take for granted. Little things like being able, at a moment’s notice, to fill an entire tub with enough hot water to completely submerge ourselves. As little as 60 years ago this would have been considered decadent. The only way you could have such a bath was if you heated all the water on the stove first (after chopping and bringing in enough wood to do so) and probably shared it with other siblings or family members, hoping you were the first in line. My mother remembers living in a house with no indoor bathroom! Even today, in other places in the world, such extravagance would never even be considered. Yet I simply turn a knob and don’t even think twice about soaking my cares away. We are indeed blessed. How many other simple, everyday activities do we take for granted. How many conveniences that we see as basic necessities were never even available to our parents or grandparents? How many of them will still be available to us tomorrow? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that today I am grateful.

Convenience vs. Waste – The Journey To Cloth Diapers

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At the risk of sounding like a mommy blog (which is not my goal or vision), one of the biggest issues on my mind lately has been whether or not to cloth diaper our second baby. I know that, after the initial investment, in the long run it is cheaper and better for baby’s skin, but the real clincher issue for me is waste. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the big issue on my mind lately has been the overwhelming waste in our society as a whole. It is not just the diaper issue, although I’ll get back to that in a minute, it is all the other ridiculous habits of convenience that produce an astonishing amount of garbage which most of us don’t give even a second thought to after it leaves our house twice a week. As though the garbage truck makes all of this non-biodegradable waste just magically disappear! Even things that are degradable, like yard waste, for instance, are placed inside PLASTIC bags that won’t break down and sent to landfills where they create piles of rotten vegetation entombed in plastic bricks. I say all of this with the indignation of someone who you’d think was proactive about reducing excess consumption and waste. But I suppose that is the problem I am facing. MYSELF. I am lazy. Like much of the rest of western society. I have a hard time relinquishing convenience. In the three years we have lived in our current house we have never put forth the effort to start recycling despite the fact that our neighborhood has curbside pickup. Why? Because I don’t have a good place for the bins or the time to sort my garbage. Please! I watch documentaries that get me all fired up, but then I rarely do anything about it. We did have our own garden one year, but it yielded so pitifully that I have not attempted again. We did compost for a while, but the smell (in our kitchen and yard) was just too much. We do buy many things second-hand, but I’m not sure it’s from a sense of resourcefulness so much as budget constraints. But, but . . . BUT.  It’s time for change! This year instead of bagging our leaves and shipping them off to the dump, we are following the suggestion of woman we heard interviewed on NPR and mulching our leaves with the mower and spreading them over the grass to be driven in by the rain and used as natural fertilizer. We have gotten the recycling bins and the schedule for pick up and will be starting a habit of recycling soon (darn it!). I am making my own Christmas gifts, from the heart, instead of spending an exorbitant amount of money on a bunch of stuff that no one really needs or most of the time even wants.

But now we come back to the issue of diapers. And I have to ask myself, how far does this conviction go? I love the convenience of disposable diapers. I mean LOVE. My conscience almost got the better of me with our son, but since I work and we’ve had to have child care for him during the day, that’s always been a convenient excuse. But we have since switched sitters to someone who cloth diapers her own children. Bye bye excuse! What about time spent washing diapers as a working mom? What about the initial expense of investing in a supply of cloth? What about the added extent to which I will have to HANDLE someone else’s poo! (Sorry all you non mommies out there.) Are these inconveniences enough to allow me to ignore the fact that one child produces over a TON of diaper waste in their short time using them? Or the fact that approximately 27.5 BILLION diapers are consumed in the US alone in one year and each of those takes between 300 and 500 years to break down in a landfill! That means if disposables had been available in the 1500’s we would still see remains of them today!  Diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills representing about 4% of all solid waste! And yet I am still having trouble making this decision. As I stated above, I am lazy. Will I overcome this laziness and take the leap into the world of cloth diapers? I still don’t really know. But after writing all of this, if I don’t, I give all of you, my readers, full permission to mock me mercilessly until I come to my senses.

(The facts about diaper waste in this post are found in numerous places online, but the most succinct collection of them came from http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php)

Close to Home . . .

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Having posted a couple of times about my vague admiration for Autumn and it’s effects on the world and my own personal psyche, I decided to share a few specific examples of what Fall looks like in our home – just small glimpses of why it will always hold such a special place in my heart.

Daddy teaching Aiden to cook breakfast. Mmmm, I can still smell it!

The newest addition to our family begining to show him/her-self.

The first fire in our fireplace. Needless to say, Aiden was impressed!

Painting pumpkings! Much more enjoyable for a toddler than trying to carve them.

The end result - Mine on the left, Aiden's on the right (with a little help on the face).

Shhhh! Be vewy, vewy qwiet! I'm hunting wizzards!

A crochet project I'm working on - for the baby if it's a girl, otherwise myself :)

Getting ready for Trick or Treat! Happy Halloween everyone!

The Development of a Sense of Humor

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I am continually amazed (and amused) at my 2 1/2 year old’s development of a sense of humor. It’s astonishing to me that in such a short amount of time he has gained enough of a grasp of reality and the world in which he lives to understand irony and a sense of the ridiculous. It began with a firm grounding in language that enabled him to recognize which were “real” words and which were “siwwy.” He would then make up the most absurd combinations of words such as opisnook and manganash and as soon as he said them he would bust into hysterical laughter. He didn’t need anyone else to confirm that it was funny. He knew. And we could go back and forth for half an hour making up outlandish words in turn and breaking for bouts of laughter. It is so refreshing that something so simple and silly can make even a grown up laugh.

Then, as his handle on the world grew even stronger, he began to appreciate the foolish hilarity of slapstick. Recently, as I was making him lunch, I let him watch an episode of Sesame Street on Netflix. As I was getting everything ready I heard him start laughing in the other room. The laughter grew into a rolling, un-self-conscious, un-contained giggle as though someone was tickling him mercilessly and he was about to fall out of his chair. And what was causing this display? Grover continuously tripping on a banana peel and it eventually landing on his head – the first door leading to the world of the Three Stooges, Mr. Bean, and even Jim Carey. And as I watched him from the doorway to the room, I was struck by the independence of his humor. No one was in there with him giving him queues about what was “supposed” to be funny. No one was making him laugh with tickles or funny faces or any of the other gimics we’ve been using since before he could see our faces clearly. He just knew, deep in his belly, that Grover was being ridiculous and it was funny!

And last night, before bed, he told his first joke. Daddy read him a story that had a joke in it and he remembered it and told it to me when I came to tuck him in. “Who goes to bed with their shoes on?” I don’t know Aiden, who? “A HORSE!” Bahahahahaha! I know, I know, it’s a terrible entrance into his world of joke telling, but he was so proud of himself, I couldn’t help but laugh with him. I fear we are in for many more corny jokes before Daddy teaches him all the subtleties of a dry wit.

The development of a sense of humor is not one of those things you see on developmental milestone charts at the pediatricians office or in popular parenting magazines and websites, but it is one of the most sophisticated changes I’ve seen in him so far. One that marks him distinctly as an individual and a kid, and not just a needy baby or toddler. I am excited to see how it grows!