Spring In the Air and other Misc. Thoughts

Over the weekend, we played in the snow for what I kept thinking might be the last time this winter. We met Pete and Megan and Lucy for walk in a little park near their house. It was awesome to see Laurel explore the frozen creek bed, and to see all the chunks of ice jammed up where it flooded during the last thaw. I'm pretty sure we only walked about a half a mile, but between that little hike and building a snow man, we were outside for a while, enjoying the warming temperatures. I think it was about 30 degrees that day. It was -2 on Friday, but right now it really feels like spring is in the air. I even have my windows open! I am really looking forward to hanging out outside with the kids without having to worry about frostbite.

Whoever invented Daylight Savings Time hated toddlers. And their moms. Marko is absolutely nuts right now. I had a friend over for tea and world domination plotting. I carefully set up some activities that would keep hiim busy while we visited. He helped me bake muffins before she came. He was fed. His diaper was changed. And yet, he behaved as if he had been awake for 24 hours. Tantrums, trying to eat from the sugar bowl, moving from one toy to the next and then demanding that I get out all the rest of the toys.  Not his usual laid back personality. (I'm kidding about the world domination, although we are in the beginning stages of planning a project to serve youth in our area.)

This story about screen time and blocks for little kids was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago. We received a big set of wooden blocks from M's parents a few years ago and they continue to be one of the most popular toys in our cupboard. The kids build towers and castles, but they also use them in imaginary play - they pretend they are food, or use them to build little beds or tables for their stuffed animals.

Snow Day

There really is nothing
cuter than a small girl
using trek poles. 

It's March and I have Springer Fever. Not to be confused with Spring Fever. It is probably highly unpleasant for any thru-hiker starting out in Georgia this week. M and I spent only a few unpleasant days breaking trail on the AT and it was exhausting. And cold. Do you know how hard it is to stop and pee in snow? Nonetheless, I do have that urge to start walking and keep walking. I've been watching this movie on Youtube while I wash dishes. Daydreaming and scheming. Anything is possible. In the meantime, we live near a 500 acre park, and Laurel's school was closed today. When I am working, snow days are the pits. Two hour delays, too. That's one thing I think a lot of working parents don't budget for...the layers and layers of backup childcare you need to keep your days flowing. And when you don't have anyone to cover you? Then comes the laughable "work from home" scenario, in which one attempts to follow conference calls while on mute because, while your children are mesmerized by Wild Kratts 99% of the time, the ONE time you need them to shut up, they refuse to watch it, and instead insist on wrestling around at your ankles. But I digress. Today, the snow day was cause for celebration and some much-needed outdoor time. It was really cool to hear the spring songs of some of the birds who have started returning.

Dress for success. Layer it up.

 Last week I read this article about German parenting, taking special note of the following quote: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”

I disagree with the Germans to some extent, or perhaps we actually have crappier weather than they do, but if it is below 10 degrees or freezing rain or lots of ice on the ground, we stay inside and watch Netflix all day. (But also, if we just had heavier coats, ponchos and crampons we probably could go out then.) Balaclavas and windproof/waterproof gloves have been key in taking our outdoor comfort to the next level. I haven't found good gloves in Laurel's size yet, so I just carry a spare pair in my pocket so she can swap her fleece ones out when hers get wet. There was a lot of ice underneath the snow today, so we took trek poles. Marko rode in the backpack. We headed through the park with the plan to obtain a few groceries and stop by our usual Thursday morning playgroup. Having everybody bundled up is very important because kids walk slow and want to stop and look at a lot of stuff. Therefore, you can't rely on body heat to keep you toasty, the way you might if you were just going out running or something on your own. 

We saw several people cross-country skiing in the park, as well as a few hard-core dog-walkers out. Everyone who was outside today seemed to be very happy to be outside. "Lovely day!" neighbors called to us as we passed. The woods were serene, with all the branches covered in snow. Every sound was muted. Our stop at the neighborhood store warmed us up. Maggie gave us free samples of the wedding soup and she put on a fresh pot of coffee for us. 

A few people have recently asked me about our ability to get up and out of the house in time to do morning activities. For instance, I regularly take the kids to Phipps before school starts, when there is a two hour delay. We also walk or take the bus a lot of places, which takes some added time and so people see us out and about, throwing snow balls and playing tag. They admire our lovely Facebook photos of Quality Family Time. It is true...we really are having an awesome time together. But I must dispel the myth that we must be superhuman, super organized, or have super well-behaved children. It is just a matter of prioritizing. When you prioritize, something gets neglected. In our case, we tend to just leave the house a total wreck and worry about it later. I feel bad about our filthy habits. But not enough to sacrifice my outdoor time to actually clean up before we leave. You can't have it all, friends.

I'm assuming no children were harmed
in this toppling of the high chair. If they
were, they did not tell me about it.

This doesn't actually look too bad, but it illustrates my point. If you zoom in, you will see sandwich crusts everywhere, and smears of what is hopefully peanut butter. Notice the toppled over high chair. We are the type of people who will pick up the high chair the next time somebody wants to actually sit in it. Until then, it will remain tipped over as if our house is part of a wax museum display about an earthquake that suddenly struck and caused the residents to flee. The dishes have been cleared, but unfortunately they are sitting in a half-full dish pan. Not pictured, because it's disgusting. The kids got the memo to put their dishes in the sink, but not to scrape them first, so when I return home, there's always a pan full of disintegrated bread and yogurt cemented onto cereal bowls. I curse myself and swear that the next day I will wash the dishes before we head out, but....yeah, it never happens. 

Also, we miscalculate sometimes. Stay out too long. Read the wrong weather report. The kids cry. Marko was out in a sleet storm without a hat the other day, super miserable and with good reason. They get hungry and we don't have a snack with us. They have to pee and there is no place to go. They fall down and we don't have a bandaid. Nosy old ladies admonish us for their snotty noses and red cheeks. Every moment is not magical. I just don't usually pull my camera out then. 

I only put this out there because some moms feel bad when other moms are doing awesome things. They worry that there is something wrong with them because their day unfolded differently. No you aren't doing it wrong. Jealousy is a misguided beast. Usually when that feeling tugs on my heart, I realize that the person who has something I want, has given up something else to get it. 

How Do You Make Your Kids Sit Still For So Long?

Also, they're strapped in.

Obviously M and I love a good long distance trip - whether by foot, bike or car. We have this map hanging in our dining room with a sharpie line drawn for every route we've taken. We love seeing how the terrain and vegetation changes. When you travel through rural parts of our country, you also get a sense of the sheer volume of land and resources that are taken up by our consumption. Oil refineries line the coast around Houston and into Louisiana. Massive barges are loaded down in the Mississippi. Trains pass by constantly. You see pipelines and towering electrical lines, and a steady stream of 18 wheelers. Soybean and corn fields stretch to the horizon. 

Sometimes great clouds of migrating birds pass by overhead. Mountains loom in the distance. The land and sky change color constantly as the sun moves. In other words, there is a lot to look at. All of these things make us ask questions and then we look at maps and look stuff up online if we have a connection and talk about it. Honestly, the hours passed quickly for us. Six hours of driving per day seemed to be a good limit. Breaks - long ones - every 2 hours also helped. We would look for a playground and a running trail. We had the kids' bikes in the very back, so they were easy to get out. This is not to say they were perfect angels. At the end of every day, the backseat was a sodden mess of sandwich crusts and orange peels. The magazines were wet. Everything was wet. We could never find their socks. We always ended up carrying some of our stuff into the hotel in garbage bags. And we often seemed to be driving just a little too far, a little too late into the night. 

Travel Bingo Cards!

I just read this essay in the Washington Post about a family that banned screen time during their cross-country trip. Our DVD player stopped holding charge, so our trip ended up being sort of screen-free too. At least for the kids. (We were on our phones all the dang time, reading Yelp reviews and looking for road food.) I don't know if this is good or bad for them, but I do think it forced them to look out the window at least, and for better or worse, we were together and present as a family for a loooong time. A long time. Luckily, we all like each other.

I know a lot of people looked at us like we were crazy when we said we drove 3,000 miles with our kids. I don't think that my kids are any better behaved than anyone else's, and they were crappy sometimes on the trip. I think it sounds ten times worse to go on an airplane where other people can bear witness to your family's craziness.

This is what I brought for the kids: 

A small box of Duplos - big enough blocks to not actually get lost in the car

Magna Doodle - a favorite for Marko

Sketch pad and colored pencils - markers and crayons are banned from the car because they melt

Lots of magazines (Baby Bug, Highlights, Ranger Rick - thanks everybody for sending these!)

Lots of books - I went to a couple of Little Libraries before we left to get new-to-us books

Travel bingo cards - a gift from Grandma a few years ago, they love these!

Maps of the US to color 

Magnifying glasses

Four matchbox cars - banned from circulation because Marko chucked one at my head

A small pouch of very tiny animals - inspired by Leah

Tangos - too hard for them, actually. Plus the pieces slid around.

US State flash cards - they destroyed these and that made me super sad

Delicious Strip Mall Food in Alabama and Other Travel Delights

Boudin balls. Fried Shrimp.
More food than we can possibly eat!

Boudin balls and cracklin. Po'boys. Gulf shrimp. Torchy's tacos. One of our favorite things about road trips is finding the regionally unique...well, cuisine is maybe the wrong word, since a lot of what we love is food truck or little country diner type places. I love that segment on The Splendid Table with the Road Food people. However, their web site is sort of hard to use along the way. We relied on our friends and family for suggestions and sometimes used Yelp. I really like the feature of the Yelp app that allows you to pull up a map of your location (or someplace you might be later in the day) and search for all the nearby restaurants. You can also filter by places that are currently open or if they are good for kids. What I did was scroll past all the Arby's and Applebee's that would show up along the interstate and look for something with an original name. Then I would run a search to see if any local food blogs or magazines said anything about that place.

PBandJ - the other road food.

That is how I found the D' Road Cafe in Montgomery, a tiny little place in a strip mall next to a dollar store. They were busy getting ready for Puerto Rican night (each Friday, the owner features a different Latin American style of cooking). When we came in, after fussing over our kids, she said, "chicken or pork?" And then returned with plates laden with roasted potatoes and rice and meat in interesting sauces. She also told us about the detoxifying health benefits of various herbs and spices that she uses. An excellent choice for us since we had been feasting on barbecue and oysters in Mississippi. And while the food was good, what I really enjoyed was watching the other table...a group of ladies finishing up lunch, who clearly knew the owner and came in all the time. That was a rough day. Just after leaving Montgomery, we drove into freezing rain and snow that lasted pretty much the entire rest of the trip. We had the good sense to reserve a hotel room, because when we finally got to the exit, all the rooms were sold out, and every restaurant but the Waffle House was shut down. We passed dozens of car accidents that day and the next. Luckily, we had our trusty jar of peanut butter and squeeze bottle full of jelly.

Should you ever find yourself in Ocean Springs, MS, you must try a Tatonut. It's a donut that has potato flour in it. Apparently the townspeople were getting a little too rowdy during Mardi Gras, though. The Tatonut closed up shop in protest.

You will probably never find yourself here on purpose, but Ronnie's is a good place for lunch, provided you are not a vegetarian. You should probably try the cracklin' just so you can say you did.

M says there is some kind of secret menu at Torchy's. But I was so fond of the Democrat, I ordered it twice. Street corn is good, too.

Ghosts on the Coast

I became a little obsessed with Katrina history when we stayed in Ocean Springs, MS. This whole stretch of the Gulf coast was pretty much destroyed in that hurricane. As we drove there from New Orleans there were places that still, and this is 10 years later, seemed devastated. Old debris was tangled up in the marsh grass and rusting-out boats lay on their sides next to concrete pads. Not a structure to be seen anywhere. And then there are towns like Biloxi and Ocean Springs that look really charming and shiny. I'm used to Pittsburgh, where lots of things - bridges, light posts, etc.  - are rusty and old-looking. And that's pretty much the way the rest of the south looks as well. But I had a

M and I were paying a lot of attention to the coverage of Katrina in 2005. We were living in Phoenix, where I had been assigned by TFA. New Orleans was the second choice on my application, and we wondered how things would be different if we had moved there instead. A year later, we drove through the area and briefly volunteered with an eclectic group called Emergency Communities.

I noted a selection of hurricane themed children's books in the library we visited. Plaques on the sides of buildings. As we walked to the beach, an occasional bare concrete pad sat between two carefully manicured yards. A shadow of a gravel driveway leading to nothing. A tiny local museum featured Katrina art.

I read this thorough account of the storm surge, which included lots of NOAA maps and before and after pictures. So much of the disaster was made worse by poor handling of it. People unprepared to fend for themselves and the government proving that it was not something to be relied on. The feelings of betrayal linger even a decade later. But most of the rest of the country has forgotten.

Marko learned to talk, Laurel learned to read

In two weeks, they both blossomed, Marko looking more and more pleased each time his request was intelligble to us. Laurel prolific from the backseat, cranking out pages of cartoonish, captioned drawings. A girl crying because she lost her hamster. Aliens, no kids dressed as aliens, but in a real spaceship. A map of our neighborhood. I wonder how much of my recognition of each small milestone helps propel their development.

They spend a lot of time wrestling, though. Dumping stuff out for no reason I can figure out. They yell at each other and tattle. Which is why this moment of listening to recorded books and coloring felt so unexpectedly peaceful.

Chattanooga

Sometimes things don't go as planned.

It is winter, though. Not totally unexpected. But the ice/snow/rain today offered up the opportunity to check out the aquarium in Chattanooga and it was awesome. When we get home, I'll write more on the jellyfish exhibit, Montgomery, AL's Venezuelan restaurant, jalapeño sausage Po'boys, and how two small children can utterly destroy the backseat of a car.

Snow Birds

No matter where we go,
they just play in the dirt.

I hesitate to call this a vacation, because M was working pretty much the whole time, and the rest of us were doing pretty much what we always do...playgrounds, libraries, walking in the park, etc. But it was definitely nice to walk around in the sunshine. It was close to 80 degrees the day we hiked in Balcones Canyonlands, just northwest of Austin. We did see some of the Golden Cheeked Warblers, as well as great views of Hill Country. It was the first place where it really felt like we had come west. I wanted to keep on going through Texas into New Mexico, but we had other plans.

M and I have had to really adjust our expectations when it comes to hiking. Marko can be carried, but often doesn't want to. Laurel can really move when she wants to, but Marko's slow pace seems to sap her zest for hiking. So, we look for trails that are under 2 miles long and we take our time. The kids spend a lot of time stopping and looking at the things that we don't necessarily think are interesting and if we point out something that is rare and awesome (i.e. the endangered golden cheeked warbler) they are like, "Whatever, here is a piece of wood mulch that I found on the trail and is not even part of the native landscape, but was trucked in to keep the trail from washing away and it is way cooler than the golden cheeked warbler."

This is a fact about parenting that could really drive you crazy if you forget that (1) kids are people and are going to have their own opinions, desires and interests that may not align with yours and (2) when you go someplace it doesn't have to be all about creating magical experiences for the kids. Maybe YOU want to see the golden cheeked warbler and their lack of appreciation for the rare opportunity need not ruin your experience.

Laurel: Much happier on the
OUTSIDE of the Arch.

I think the Gateway Arch is one of the prettiest monuments in the country and I've always wanted to go up to the top. The weird, little tram cars that take you up were a unique design to accommodate the curve. The kids and I watched some videos about the design contest and the construction, before we left on our trip. Laurel recognized it as we were driving in towards St. Louis. Unfortunately, she hated going up to the top. I don't know exactly what her limit is for going off the ground, but she's always climbing to the highest point possible on the playground and giving me a heart attach by dangling upside down from it. It might actually have been the sway of the structure that freaked her out. It was built to sway up to 18 inches. While I don't think it was that windy the day we were there, it was definitely moving a little bit. 

We had to arrange our travel days to accommodate M's work schedule, which was a little challenging at times. Being in the Central Time Zone helped a bit, since he got an earlier start. But it would be one thing for him and I to hit up a Starbucks for a couple of hours. (Or 8, as it were.) Quite another to figure out what to do with a two year old and a five year old for that amount of time. Luckily we had some seriously generous family and friends to stay with for much of the time. Thank you Heather & Lisa, Joe & Donna, and Kristi-Jo and Brendan! I love getting to visit with my far-away friends and family. Email and Christmas cards are one way to stay in touch, but there's nothing like sitting around with a cup of coffee in the morning and catching up. Or driving around the city of Austin and cheering on marathon runners, including M! And we loved wandering the campus of LSU and checking out Mike. Tigers are a thing in Baton Rouge. There was even one at the gas station we stopped at. Not kidding.

Tigers. Everywhere in LA.

I had to keep the kids occupied. We brought their bikes and they rode those a lot. We hit up every playground we could. I also prepared a series of geography lessons for Laurel. Driving the route we did gave us a perfect opportunity to look at the features that give the states their borders. Particularly along the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, the land is a constantly changing thing. We read books that we brought as well as the pamphlets from the places we stopped at. We also looked at coins, restaurant menus and maps. Laurel is really driving her reading and writing development right now and has grown in leaps and bounds this month. She spends a lot of time sketching and writing sentences. I don't interfere unless she asks me a question.  One thing I am doing is helping her with penmanship practice. I also brought some recorded books, including a pretty long chapter book. Marko had Duplos and matchbox cars to play with, and he often joined in for coloring.

The best part for me has been the days - and it's been most of the them - when the kids got plenty of running around time. They are so much easier to handle when they play enough and get plenty of exercise and fresh air. 

Winter Reprieve

Sometimes you want a little sunshine on your face and are willing to drive a thousand miles to get it.

Daily Life Here

They experiment with many
techniques. Sponges and craft
sticks are among their favorites.

Marko is using his newfound verbal ability to protest. "Stop it, mama!" and "I don't want it" are his favorite phrases. Yesterday I asked him to put these plastic letters away so that we could get out the art supplies - he and Laurel had just asked to paint. He looked right at me and dumped them on the floor. I wanted to tell him that he was being a jerk, but he's two. That would make me even more of a jerk. Instead I told him it was probably going to take longer to clean up now. He responded by kicking them all over the kitchen. We sing a little song now, "Everybody cleans up, what they dumped out, everybody cleans, cleans up."

Laurel made up a second verse about little brothers dumping everything out but not picking it up. I heard her quietly singing to herself while she was cleaning up one of his messes. I have a newfound appreciation for the maturity of five year olds. She has great economic sense, by which I mean she knows what it will take to get what she wants.

We have a yelling problem here. I think part of it is we are just a very loud family. We like loud music. We shout at each other from upstairs when we need something. We talk very loudly at dinner, especially when we are excited. When we argue, we yell at each other. We yell swear words. And sometimes the kids just shout really, really loudly for no apparent reason. Rule #2 in our house is "no yelling" and we spend lots and lots of time talking about this one, brainstorming ways we can be quieter with our responses. But we never change our ways. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. We live on a loud street, we're hardly bothering the neighbors. Perhaps it's just in our nature and we should revise that rule.

Marko builds letters.

Laurel is learning to read. To clarify, she's teaching herself to read. Rereading the same books over and over again. Using recorded books to memorize text and then repeat it back to herself. Reading board books to Marko. Carefully sounding out words. Copying words from books. She stays up very late in her bed with a flashlight and practices. We could be firmer about making her go to sleep, but school doesn't start until after 9 and I'm not inclined to yell at anyone for reading. Marko copies everything she does, so often I'll find him in a corner with a book, "reading" it to himself. He stops and starts with his babbling in a way that sounds just like Laurel blending sounds together. 

Watching my children develop language and literacy is one of the most fascinating things I get to do these days. It's also very interesting to see how having an older child influences the sort of books you keep around and the complexity of the texts the younger one ends up hearing. I have always been a big fan of mixed aged classes in schools, which is how Laurel's school works. The first school I taught at also had mixed grades, which also helped in keeping kids from getting held back. Marko doesn't have many friends his own age, but I actually kind of hate playdates with a couple of 2 year olds. They are horrible at playing with each other. If you get a couple of older kids around, the dynamic changes. An alpha emerges and the group knows what to do.

When I found out I was pregnant with Laurel, I spent way too much time on the internet researching how I was going to handle the first year of her life. Breastfeeding, diapers, vaccines, co-sleeping, etc. It was all terrifying, because every person writing about these things is basically telling you if you pick wrong, your kid will not love you or will get autism. In reality, this is not how attachment or developmental disorders work. Also, in reality, they are a baby for like a minute, and then you have an actual person to deal with for many decades to come.

Several years ago, I realized I needed to decompartmentalize my approach to parenting and I wrote the following....philosophy? Manifesto? Now I read it on occasion when my toddler is glaring at me and my five year old doesn't want to go to school anymore and we are spending a lot of time breaking Rule #2. 

All members of the family deserve equal respect.
Behavior is motivated by needs.
Practicing to identify our needs so that we can ask for things directly from our loved ones is a great thing.
Everyone's needs matter. When someone is asking for something that they need, and it interferes with something someone else needs, compromise is required.
Everybody messes up, gets mad, says things they don't mean, acts out in inappropriate ways and can be otherwise unpleasant to others from time to time. The role of the family is to love unconditionally, speak up when someone's actions interfere or are hurtful, and to guide by example.
One of the greatest lessons we can learn from each other is how to recover, repair and heal from mistakes.
As parents, we have a responsibility to teach kindness, social norms and manners, self-care, tolerance and knowledge about the world.
We do this through modeling these behaviors ourselves. Like all the things that we as adults learn, some lessons take longer than others to learn. There's also a lot of gray areas that need to be explored.

The daily work of caring for children can be rather monotonous at times. Virtually everything I do in a day has to be repeated the next day. While I actually do enjoy the work of taking care of the house and kids, it's a tough blow to my ego to no longer earn a paycheck for my efforts. And while this parenting philosophy is not specific to me being a stay-at-home mom (I was always a full-time mom - it's not something you leave behind for eight hours a day), I do have significantly more time with them each day for all of this life stuff to play out.