Harris

(this is life with Harris- he's usually upside down!)

I grew up in a household of all females (my Dad died when I was 3 months old) and I didn't have a strong, influential male presence in my life to speak of.  So when Harris was born I wondered if I'd have any idea of what to do with a boy.  However, it turned out to be a non-issue.  In fact, we used to joke that if I could unzip my skin he would crawl right in!  He was always a cuddler, loved to be held, and would tell me 20,000 times a day that he loved me.  And I loved it.  Harris has always been my baby and I think I've treated him as such instead of noticing that he's getting big and his world and interests are changing.  And while he will always be my baby there are a few things that I'm trying to adjust in my parenting of him...

He's still a loving child (most of the time!) but at 9 I've definitely noticed that he usually prefers his Dad to me.  Bryce is the first one that he asks to go outside and throw a ball, to read to him, to ask a question of, etc.  Also, the hand holding doesn't usually happen in public any more.  It's made me a bit sad but I've decided to try to do something about it instead of feeling left out.  First of all, I think it's great that he connects so much with his Dad and I know that it's important and necessary, but I also think I've contributed to it.  I got in the habit of saying, "Go ask your Dad" or "Maybe later I'll play" and I think I said it so many times that he just stopped asking.  So my goal this spring is to get out there, stretch myself a little more and learn to throw a ball!  I've realized that as a Mom to a son the only way I'm really going to keep a strong connection is to show interests in those things that interest him even when they don't hold much interest to me or are out of my comfort zone.  For me this is going to mean working harder to be involved in what the children are interested in doing (hiking, sports, music, etc.)  instead of letting it always be a "Dad thing."

Harris is not always a big sharer of information, after school we will often get the "fine" answer to the "how was school today" question.  I'm trying to do better about asking more specific questions and then being 100% attentive when he answers instead of trying to multi- task (which I'm really not very good at doing!).

Also, Bryce and I have inadvertently gotten in the habit of doing gender specific things with the children!  I take Grace to ballet and he takes to baseball.  Bryce learns what computer games the children are playing while I... don't.  Some of this is just the way things work best for us, but I think we could do better and mix it up a bit more.

Tell me, how do you keep a strong relationship with your children?

A Gift

This is one of those posts that makes me a little nervous to hit the publish button; I'm worried about sounding judgmental or preachy.  In reality, I just want to share where we are in this part of our parenthood journey.  There are a million different perspectives and this is ours.

(picture has nothing to do with post but I always like to add a picture)

When we moved Grace to the Waldorf School, I anticipated that it would be a great move for her and it has been almost every step of the way.  What I didn't anticipate was the gift that it would give our family by taking the pressure off of us to purchase Grace a phone.  In our town (perhaps it's this way everywhere?) it is a common practice for incoming 6th graders to get a phone, and smartphones at that, and it's for sure trickling down to younger children too.  However, at Waldorf, none of Grace's classmates have a phone and whereas she has asked when she might be getting one, we don't have the pressure to buy her/supply her with one yet because she doesn't feel that she is missing out nor does she need one!

In fact, the only times a phone has come up are the times after she has spent time with peers that are not
at Waldorf with her.  She has complained that she has nothing to do during these times because "everyone is on their phone".  This concerns me.  How are our children going to learn to negotiate the social minefields of being a teenager/tween if they don't actually communicate with each other live and in person?  And are our children really prepared for social media (Instagram, Twitter, etc.) and all the potential baggage it can bring along?

Also, I have moments of worry that by not providing Grace a phone she is missing out on a lot. Certainly, she can't keep in touch as easily with old classmates.  She isn't able to know what everyone is up too (but I tend to believe that this is a good thing - who wants to know what and when we are missing out on something?).  She might not be invited on impromptu meet ups.  Will she be uncool socially because she doesn't have a phone?

I realize that if she were at our public schools I would have the choice to get her a phone or not but, honestly, it would be a very difficult decision to not get her one -  even if I thought it was the right thing to do.   Ultimately, I am so thankful that Waldorf has given us this backup and breathing room to wait just a little bit longer.

I'm not naive, I realize that there will come a time where she will need a phone but I'm so thankful for this extra time where she is given a chance to grow and mature a little before being given this little device that is slowly but surely changing the way our children engage with each other for better or for worse.

I would be really interested and curious to hear where others stand on this issue.  Please share your thoughts!

Grace Kelly- A Mother/Daughter Date

We had a lovely weekend that included dinner with new friends for Bryce and I and a family dinner with old friends.  It also included a strings concert for Grace where she, along with her class, played so well that I was astonished!

Perhaps the highlight though was taking Grace on a Mother/Daughter date to see a Grace Kelly exhibit. It was such a wonderful thing to spend the day doing together!  I was happy to take Grace to see an example of a "star" who always looked classic, classy and beautiful without seeming to try too hard (I'm sure it takes effort to be that effortless!).  In a day where more skin is shown, hemlines are high and necklines are low it's important to me for Grace to see that that is not the only way to present yourself to the world.

And oh, the clothes!  They were so, so beautiful and lovely!  I wish I could have taken pictures but the exhibit did not allow photography.  Suffice it to say, it reaffirmed my desire to continue to work toward a classic wardrobe.  

P.S.  They had her Kelly bag and not only was it beautiful but also pretty dinged up from so much use!

Rules for Ballet (and Life)

This year Grace is participating in ballet classes that the director of the ballet school teaches.  She absolutely loves her and declared after her first class that she was, "inspiring."  Her teacher handed out a sheet of rules for classroom behavior and etiquette. Looking over the rules,  I can't help but wonder if all of our children's teachers, leaders and coaches expected (and demanded) such basic good manners and respectful attitude how different, or not, our society as a whole would be?

Cranes for Japan

I, like most everyone else, was horrified to hear about the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crises that took place in Japan last month.  We spoke very candidly with the children about the disaster and also discussed ways in which we, as a family, could help.  One of the organizations that I discovered was Students Rebuild who has partnered with Do Something.org.  They organized a drive for people around the world to make paper cranes for Japan.  Once 10,000 cranes are received a $200,000 donation from the Bezos Family Foundation will be made for reconstruction efforts in Japan. Also, Students Rebuild will take all of the cranes sent in and make a art sculpture out of them.

We made paper cranes for Japan and in order to help the children understand the significance of the paper cranes in Japan we read the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr.  This is the true story of a young girl who became sick from radiation following the drop of the atom bomb in Hiroshima.  The book is a beautiful retelling of her story and while I would normally not have read this story quite yet to Harris, I felt like it was appropriate in the context of our discussion.  It deals with some heavy topics, including death, but in a straight forward way.  The children actually handled the book very well- it was myself who cried the last third of the book!  In our reading of the story the focus was on Sadako and her efforts to make 1,000 cranes.  However, it's a story that I would hope my children will read again because as they get older they will take more away from the story in a larger context as to the long term affects of war.

As a Mom, I often find it difficult to find the balance of giving my children too much information about scary current events or not enough information.  We've always erred on the little information side of things, but as they get older we are trying to have more conversations with them about our world and what is going on.  How do you find that balance?

P.S.  We followed the instructions in the back of the book to make our paper cranes.  It turned out to be a great family activity and the children (especially Harris!) loved doing it.

Allowance

I've always been a bit stumped by how to best give an allowance to the children. I feel strongly that they should contribute to the household simply because they are a part of the household and not just because I am paying them. On the other hand I believe that giving them an allowance is a great learning opportunity for them. It seems that a lot of our perceptions and how we manage money is set up in childhood. Up until now the children have not needed or asked for money nor have they really understood it. In fact, until recently Harris would take money out of his piggy bank to play with it as a pirate!

Grace began asking how she could earn some money a few months ago. She doesn't have any lofty goals of buying something fancy but I believe that she likes the idea of being able to purchase something (in the dollar isle at Target) with her own money. I recently read about the book Three Cups by Mark St. Germain. Its purpose is to teach children how to save, spend and be charitable with money. It outlines (through story form) how to set up a system of dividing your allowance into these three areas- week after week.

We've been using this system for several weeks now and it is going really well. We only give the children $2 per week and they lose 10 cents every time they lose a ball (have I talked about our ping pong ball system?) so the allowance can be anything from $0 to $2. I've told the children that as soon as their saving jar gets to $10 I will take them to the bank to set up a savings account. I'm hoping that this system will prove to have longevity and will prove successful in the short and long term.

Does anyone have a great method for giving an allowance? Is $2 overly generous or too miserly?

Anticipation

I worry about our children's generation and how they have so much at their fingertips all the time.  I'm sure that every generation of parents have worried about this (walking to school in the snow, uphill both ways, etc.) but it seems that as the world has gotten smaller and technology has made things easier we have lost something even as we have "gained" so much.  

I really love this article out of Cookie magazine.  As I read it I couldn't help but exclaim how true it all is!  I believe if you click on the article it will be big enough for you to read.  Let me know what you think!

House Rules

We skipped church this morning.  We had good intentions when we got up but the windy, gray skies and cold temps deterred.  Bryce and Grace suggested that we have church at home.  Grace ended up leading the "service" and she started us out with music from Vacation Bible School and then read us a chapter from her children's Bible.  It was about the Ten Commandments and we went through and discussed the meaning of each one.

We had a great discussion and I have to admit that I think I got more out of our service at home than I might have at church.  What Grace picked was very timely for our family.  Bryce and I have been a bit frustrated lately because we don't feel like the children have been behaving as we think they should.  Also, we have not been reacting to this in a very constructive way.  We've gotten a little lax about enforcing our house rules and it has started to show.  Reading and discussing the Commandments (which were simplified for children) helped me to realize that we don't need elaborate rules because they have already been written for us.  We revisited our house rules and made a new commitment  to try to live our life as God would want us to.

P.S.  We decided that if we all followed rule #4 we wouldn't have to worry about the first three!

Conversations....

As I was downstairs in the office today, the children were up in the attic doing a craft.  I was on my way to join them but I got involved in an eavesdropping activity.  I love listening to their conversations!  Here's what Grace said to Harris, "I can't wait until dinner tonight when I can tell everyone about how I played violin at school."

Now I know that there is nothing earth shattering about that statement but it made me really happy because that is why we eat dinner together, at the table, every single night.  It often seems like we eat too late but eating together is something that I simply cannot give up.  I think that it is too important to our family.  Grace inadvertently confirmed that something Bryce and I hold dear is also meaningful to her and that makes me happy.  It's nice to think that every once in a while we might, just maybe, be doing something right.