I Knew It...

I kinda figured if I posted about my routine it wouldn't work out.  Oh well.

I have had a very slow leak in one of my ties for about a year now.  It was annoying, but not too much of a problem.  However, On Monday it apparently got a lot worse and I ended up with an almost flat tire....so I had to be driven around by my aunt for two days.  I appreciate it of course, but it's hard to be in someone else's home...and two days in a row was too much for me.

The good news is I was able to knit quite a bit.  I worked out a pattern for knitted cars which I had been meaning to do for awhile.  I also started a knitted truck...unsure how that one is going to come out though.

After my car was fixed today, I did take Dani to the Children's Museum in the West End.  It was nice...we only had to ride the train once.  She played with a lot of different stuff and didn't need me at all times.  I could SIT and KNIT while she played ON HER OWN.  I was shocked!  That has to rarely happened...

Another "nice" thing about going out to places like that is it helps me realize that I am really gentle with her after all.  I often feel like I am failing at it, but then I watch other people parent their kids....oi!  It's too bad for their poor kids though...it makes me sad to watch them being disrespected so badly.  It makes me want to smack people and tell them the obvious: YOUR CHILD WANTS TO BE WITH YOU AND BE LIKE YOU!

If you do something expect your child to copy you.  Don't scold them!  Just make a mental note not to do those things in front of them.

If your child cries when you walk away, realize that they need your attention.  How simple is that to understand?

Dani is such a happy and agreeable child.  We don't have the battles I see others fighting...and I think it's mainly because I don't pick fights with my child.  Most things I can let go because they are unimportant or non-issues.  I see parents MAKING problems where there are none...and then having to the resulting meltdown.  I'm glad I'm not in that position anymore.

Oh...and the tire only cost $10!

A Short Weekend

I think I'm going to try to post more about my day-to-day stuff on this particular blog.

That being said...it was a ridiculously short weekend!!!  Didn't help that I slept through most of it.  Unsure why, but I have been insanely tired all the time lately.  Though, my child has been getting up earlier and earlier which may have something to do with it.

It was quiet here though.  We spent most of the weekend at home doing little bits of nothing.  We recently got a kitten, so a good bit of time was spent playing with her and keeping Bear from injuring her.  She adores the cat, but toddlers aren't so great at judging the amount of force they are using with small furry creatures.

I also did some small knitting projects and worked on a Waldorf cuddle doll.  Doll making proved to be more difficult than I had assumed.  Particularly all the gathering and hand sewing....oi!

This Coming Week

Monday - Lunch w/ Aunt Bonnie & Post Office
Tuesday - Library Storytime
Wednesday - Having the cat spayed
Thursday - Botanical Gardens w/ Grandma

The Move

We will be moving in under 2 months!  Horray!  Aaron picked up some boxes earlier from work so we could start packing away some things.  I think we will be doing most of it closer to the date, but right now I have some bins of stuff that already needed to be packed away (like excess toys).  Perhaps I'll start going through my stuff this week also and try to get it a bit more organized.

And now....off to relax with some music.  :)  Life is good!

The Gender Battle

I was the last person that anyone would expect to get riled up over gender stereotypes.  I'm cool with the idea of women staying home to be mothers and men being the breadwinners.  It's a mutually beneficial arrangement for the majority of families and has been since the beginning of time.  However, I realize it isn't the only way to do things...pretty much so long as one parent is home with the child, I could care less if they are male, female, or anything in-between.

My issue with gender stereotypes cropped up after the birth of my daughter.  From the moment they are born, our kids are awash in stereotypes.  Little girls have pink dresses, frilly bows, anything and everything is emblazoned with the word "princess", and certain "girly" animals or characters.  Boys likewise have blue outfits with trucks, cars, sports themes, etc...while there are a few gender neutral things available....they are few and far between in an age where the majority of pregnant women know the gender of their child long before birth.

As they age, there are gender specific toys.  Boys have cars and dinosaurs.  Girls have dolls and tea sets.

But WHY is the line drawn there?  Girls drive and like dinosaurs.  Boys will be fathers some day and drink tea and enjoy social gatherings...so why the divide?  Girls are given art sets and craft kits...but there have been tons of male artists and crafters throughout history!  Girls are also free to play with play-kitchens...but the restaurant world is full of male chefs!  Boys are given video games, yet girls enjoy them too.  Boys are supposed to like robots and rocket ships...but there have been female inventors and astronauts.

I think the MOST infuriating thing for me is that we push the girly-girl image or the macho-man image on young children, but when they get older we then do a complete direction change and tell girls that they can do ANYTHING and should have a career....and constantly bitch about how unhelpful or insensitive men are.  We raised them to do the opposite!  Why are we shocked when we reap what we sow?

Girls and boys are different, yes....but the labels we have applied to different activities, colors, and clothing are ridiculous.

This is my Bear.  At the moment I generally pick out her clothes because she can't reach her drawers yet, but I am going to start letting her pick her own from a basket in the floor.  She picks her shoes and usually a hat as well.  Yes, she is wearing Ruby Slippers and a Fedora...also a jacket on a very hot day...her choice of course.

And then a more "boyish" day in swimming trunks, purple water shoes, an over-sized shirt, and Mama's sunglasses.

Is there anything wrong with these example of what my child wears?  Of course not.  She is a child simply living and being a child.  The color of her pants or shoes does not magically change her genitals.  Why does it even matter what she is at this stage in the game?  It really doesn't...all she knows is hats of any sort are cool and playing with a garden hose is the sweetest thing ever.  There will be plenty of time later for her to figure out the differences between men and women and I'm sure manage to fit into some gender roles.  I don't really care what she CHOOSES...so long as she decides for herself what she likes, what she wears, etc...I really can't complain.

In the meantime I'll happily watch her play with cars and trucks, care for her dolls, "cook" imaginary food, serve invisible tea, marvel over planes flying overhead, watch bugs and other creatures in nature, obsess over the garden hose, ride her bike, draw, paint, and dig in the dirt.  It's all good.

The Discovery of Stickers

My 19-month-old has discovered the wonder which is stickers!  I think it's great...she really only sticks them on paper and then colors on top of them.  She has been making really interesting pictures lately and just seems like such an old child the way she does it.  She often lays on her stomach in the floor to draw and kicks her legs in the air.  I think it's adorable!

I am looking into a lot of art books aimed at the toddler and "preschool" set.  I need ideas!  Sometimes I'm just so unsure what she can handle at that age.  Being in an apartment I don't really feel like I can take a chance with making a huge mess!  I should probably try to set up an arty-park-day or something with other people....but that would take effort.  Blegh!

I have also been hitting up the library a lot too.  I have no clue why I didn't realize to look there before for picture books!  Duh, mommy!  I also want to try going to storytime....though the idea of taking my OWN CHILD is weird to me.  I guess before she was just a BABY and didn't DO anything...now that we're getting involved in actual ACTIVITIES it's like "wow....I'm a mom".  Weird thought! 

So, I realized today leaving the library that I need a library bag.  Growing up we used to go to the library constantly and usually checked out a massive pile of books each time.  For a homeschooling family, the library is a huge resource.  Of course now, we have the internet...but there's just nothing else like having a book in your hands.  I remember vividly the massive totes my mother would lug to-and-from the library...and I realized today that I need one of those myself.  I'd like to make one, I think.  And there needs to be a message on the outside....I think something about unschooling to pay respect to my mother's tote that has the homeschool group's logo on it.  I'm not exactly like her, but I still owe my current state to her in a lot of ways.  As I a friend earlier: "my mom opened the door to crunchiness....I just tore it down and burned it"

I saw a bumper sticker earlier that said "UNSCHOOLING: Live like school didn't exist!"  I like it....perhaps.

Running

I feel like I have been running non-stop for a month.  In reality, it probably hasn't been a month at all...more than likely just a week...maybe a week and a half.  There just seems to always be something that has be going or doing.

My crafting space looks like a bomb went off.  After several late nights of frantic crafting, there are bits of paper and wire scattered all over the floor.  I have stolen several cereal boxes that were still in use out of the pantry to use for varous projects.  There are piles of fabric everywhere...nothing new really...but right now it seems particularly rambling and out of control.

This is not a complaint post though.  I have enjoyed the busy week...it has been nice to go and do...to be useful beyond my normal gig as a mother.  I am tired though.  Sleep is not something to easily come by...though I have ended up napping far more than I like.

Things should slow down more in the coming weeks, but I still have a lot of things that I want to do for myself.  I am planning ahead to Bear's 2nd birthday in September.  I have papers to make invitations already.  I have plans to make some gifts as well.  Tomorrow I will be working on a new quilting project with my mother, and I have a whole pile of fabrics to sew clothing for my daughter.

Bring it on, Summer.

Unschooling & Childbirth

The internet is buzzing with unschooling discussion...and not in the usual places either.  A "report" on Good Morning America has brought radical unschooling to the attention of mainstream America...and not with the best results.

The story itself was very negative and showed obvious bias...and the comments posted following the story have been awful to say the least.  People just cannot seem to wrap their heads around the idea that you can NOT BE SCHOOLED and still come out the other end in one piece....which leads me to the realization that education is not unlike childbirth.

Okay, let me explain...in the US giving birth "needs" to happen in a HOSPITAL and be attended by HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS.  Education, likewise, "has" to take place in a SCHOOL and be facilitated by HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS.  Similar, yes?  What's also similar is the poor results this has gotten us.  When it comes to infant and maternal mortality we rank at something like 39th worldwide (might be 29th...but it still sucks either way!)....and our schools aren't ranked very highly either!  So obviously something is WRONG with both systems...but we ignore all that and cling to the "knowledge" that THIS IS HOW THINGS ARE DONE.

Hate you break it to ya...but that ISN'T how things are always done.  Some people are willing to push past the fear and misinformation and make their own path.  No, it's not for everyone....but who does it hurt if some people want to have a homebirth?  Or educate their children in a different way?  Don't say "the children"...because I think hospital birth and traditional educate can be harmful....so let's agree to disagree on that point.  What I'm doing with my kids isn't hurting YOUR kids...and what you do with your kids isn't hurting MY kids.  There ya go.

I also found it funny that in the comments so many people brought up how badly the US is doing with math and science as it is, so how dare these people do this to their children....NEWS FLASH: Those numbers have NOTHING to do with homeschooling or even unschooling.  Hell, those numbers might be WHY some parents have pulled their children out of school.

So....at this point I will proudly declare that I AM AN UNSCHOOLER.  Deal with it.

Creative Parenting

Sometimes you've gotta think outside the box to be a parent.  I think the majority of conflicts people have with their children is when they don't do this.  Sometimes it's hard to ignore your programming that children should NOT stand on chairs or tables.  Or that children should NOT write on the wall with chalk...or a variety of other things. 

Lately I've been coping with the realization that children really don't have to bathe...at least not in the typical sense of the word anyway.

My daughter has suddenly developed an extreme aversion to taking a bath.  It's not just the tub, we tried bathing her in the kitchen in her old baby tub....she screamed bloody murder.  We tried a shower.  No dice.  We tried coaxing her into a kiddie pool outside.  Still no luck.  Through trial and error we have found out that it's not the WATER she is afraid of.  It's not the tub exactly either...she just doesn't want to stand or sit in water.  No idea why!  But...we've kinda learned to work around it.

Tonight I send my husband out to purchase an inflatable baby pool.  He got one that is very shallow...only holds a few inches of water...and we put it in the kitchen floor surrounded by towels.  We stripped Bear down and let he play in it without water and then started to add some.  As soon as she realized what we were doing she wanted out.  Ugh!  HOWEVER...she would set in my lap and let us wash her down pretty good with rags and soap.  I even managed to shampoo her hair.  Eventually I ended up in the tub myself....I'm sure that was "cute"...and she happily played with the water from just outside the pool.  before long she might as well have been in the pool with the amount of water that had soaked into the towel she was standing on!  Sure, it was messy in a way...but we basically poured water all over the kitchen to let her play as well as to get her clean.

Pretty much our only other option would be to force her into a bath...and what good would that do?  It would only make her more fearful and hurt her trust in us.  We aren't willing to do that to her, so for the time being, our weird little version of a water-play kitchen bath will have to do.

Despite a bit of water to clean up, it wasn't too much trouble.  She had fun.  She tried to wash her own hair and ours.  She laughed when we poured water on her belly or splashed her toes.  It was easier than giving her a regular bath in some ways....there was more room for both of us to be in there for one thing.

Ultimately I have no fear that we'll get her comfortable with the idea of getting into a bath again.  It might take some time, but she certainly won't be bathing in a kiddiepool in our kitchen floor by the time she starts college!  Ha!