Parenting Tip: The Power of Eye Contact

The power of eye contact is, I think, widely under realized. As the parent of two kids (and a former, some would say still current child myself) I have long recognized the power of "the look"!

It is the visual embodiment of hearing your entire name screamed from down the hall. It is what a parent pulls out when you have lost your mind but are right there in the room.

We all know the power of the Oh-No-You-Didn't look. We were all kids once and we all did stupid things that we should be grateful to our parents for not killing us for.

But, that is not the eye contact that I am talking about here. I have long known that one of the most important things to have for your children is compassion. The ability to get down on their level and see the world from their little 2.5 feet tall perspective. Physically speaking, both my husband and I try to do this with our kids. We were much better at it with Ella, mostly due to the 2:1 ratio. Now that we are in the man to man defense mode of parenting, its a little tougher, but no less important.

Last night I was responsible for picking up both kids and was running a little hectic at home trying to get dinner (I actually cooked!) on the table. Max has a 30 minute window typically wherein if he doesn't ingest food it will not be pretty. The 5:30-6:00 pm range is critical. So I am boiling the water and heating the sauce and feeding the dog and helping with the homework all while thinking surely Hung will be home any second and Max I think was feeling a little lost in the shuffle. He started to crank up. A bit early. It was only 5:15 and all my usual bag of tricks were not working. You want juice? NO. You want crackers? Usually greeted by a loud, enthusiastic "CrackA", all I got was a frowny face and a foot stomp. A car? Usually my ACE IN THE HOLE, a defiant NO!

He keeps looking at the stove. So I know he's hungry. And the prospect that I have actually cooked a hot meal for him is perhaps more than his little brain can handle. He keeps walking up to me saying, "mama" and I say "yes" and he says "ummmmmm." So I stopped what I was doing and I got down with him face to face, and he looks at me and steps forward and melts into a little hug.

And then all was right with the world. He ate 2 times what his sister did for dinner by the way. He likes mama's pasta.

Happy Birthday to my BEST MOM ever!

My mama and I are very, very close. So close that I often totally take her for granted and we sometimes completely get on each other's nerves. Still, there is no single person in the world who is more responsible for the person I have become or to whom I am more grateful. After all, she brought me into this world!

My mama is the middle of three children, with an older brother (affectionately known as UJ, or Uncle Joe) and a younger sister, Sherry. She was born and raised in Springfield, Illinois. Her father died when she was a very young child and her mother worked incredibly hard to raise 3 kids who were all under that age of 6 (I think).

She did not come from much. My mom is living proof to me that some people are just born good, hard working, and determined. She has overcome unbelievably difficult challenges to become the woman she is. She raised my brother and I alone from the ages of 7 and 3 (though some would argue she really raised us alone from birth). How she afforded to feed us is beyond me!

If I had to choose one word to describe her, well ... I couldn't. It would be impossible. Loving, loyal, giving, deep, funny, friend. She is not perfect, but she is always there. She is by far my best friend in the world. She is the one who knows in 1 second on the phone if I am sad, mad, happy, frenzied! I also cannot begin to imagine all of the things I have faced in my life without her. When I think of my mama, I think of copious amounts of food (I still think my husband may have married me for this reason alone), lots of laughs, and feelings of warmth and coziness.

When we heard the news about Max she hung up the phone and got in the car. I don't think I even choked out the words on the phone. I remember the sound of her and Jen in the hallway after Ella was delivered via emergency c-section - both had held it together for me until I was out of sight and then cried together in the hallway until they heard Ella's first cry. She is the person I never have to ask to come, she just knows. I try to be the same for her, driving through the night to Illinois the night word came that my gramma had died to be with her. I will never forget the look on her face, relief mixed with grief, that greeted me when I arrived. I hadn't told her I was coming until I was about 1 hour away because I didn't want her to worry.

She is the most amazing mother. She kept my brother and I fed, clothed and in school practically single-handedly. She was the one who started telling me from a very young age that I could (or was it would) go to William and Mary. How it would be paid for was never an issue, that I would have a college degree was a given. I remember late night rides home from my brother's basketball games. She attended every single game either of us ever played from YOUTH league on up. If she missed a game, I surely don't remember it.

She is an even more amazing grandmother. My daughter is who she is in large part due to her relationship (or genetic connection) with my mother. They are peas in a pod. There is a sweetness to their relationship that is indescribable. Max is just recently falling in love, but he's fallen pretty hard. Finally, I thought I was gonna be the favorite of SOMEONE ... nope, I think she's won out. I try to emulate her as I raise my kids. I imagine what incredible stress she must have felt worrying over the bills, doctor's appointments, school commitments, all without a partner. The beauty of her parenting was that, while surely I knew times were a bit lean, I never wanted for anything. I was oblivious to how hard it must have been until I had children of my own.

Mothering is a job that never ends. Some are far better at it than others. My mom could teach a class. I often find myself thinking what would my mama do? She wouldn't cry over split milk that is for sure!

Little Man

Yesterday we decided to take Max to get his first real haircut. I had attempted a trim here or there, but was reluctant to actually take him for that first official cut. Somehow its a little like admitting he isn't a baby anymore.
I know I need to get over it. Here he is looking like the little man he's becoming.

Last weekend, innocently or not, a family member had asked Why his hair was long like a GIRL! AS IF. Of course, my first reaction was you want to see a girl, I'll grow it out all Ryder-esque (that's Kate Hudson's kid who I think is 4 and hasn't had a hair cut yet) on you. Then cooler heads prevailed and I admitted to myself it was time.

Learning how to Learn

It was not my intention to create a non-disney friendly family environment. It wasn't really an ethical, anti-corporate greed stance or anything so lofty. It was more out of my personal dislike and annoyance of the disney-fication of EVERYTHING child related. I did make a conscious effort to not encourage it. If she fell in love with Snow White or Poohbear it would be an obsession of her own making, not because it was all she knew. I wanted her to know that there is more in this world to obsess about than princesses and Barbies. Perhaps it is the feminist in me. I don't know I haven't really thought too much about it.

Sure she's received disney stuff and barbies for birthdays and Christmases, even indulging in minor infatuations from time to time with Dora and the Little Einsteins. By and large, however, her interests lie in stuffed animals, drawing, and nature.

Mornings like today tell me I've done the right thing. She woke me this morning (letting me sleep until 9 - thanks Ella) to say, "Mama, when you come down stairs I have a surprise for you. I made an exhibit!" An exhibit. She's 6. Yes, she's a little bit of a brainiac, though its not really showing itself in school yet. It is only the first grade and I think she is already bored. She's always been kind of a late bloomer, never wanting to do anything until she was sure she could do it right. She gathers all of the information, examines it and turns it over in her brain until she's figured it out and then dives in. This is the EXACT opposite of me. She gets this from her father. I dive in thinking I'll figure it out along the way. Luckily I am good under pressure and typically excel in this kind of by the seat of my pants approach. Just as I can't imagine thinking the way they do, I am sure my way is odd to them.

Her intelligence is something that is not easy to discern with a standardized test. Her vocabulary - off the charts, her imagination - beyond anything I've ever seen in a child her age, and she asks the most probing questions that just leave me thinking, "WOW." And I am not all that easily impressed. When people say to me you need to advocate and get her in a GT program, I say I'll let the school sort that out. I KNOW she is gifted and talented and creative and will excel. I don't need her 1st grade teacher to tell me that. Though, she has already referred to Ella as Einstein and made the statement that she thinks she can't challenge her enough. Though I am insistent, brilliance aside reading and writing are fundamental and thus whether they bore her or not, she must master them. But I know her. I know what makes her tick. How she works. She is doing what she's told to get by all the while thinking and overthinking it in her head. One day she'll look around her little school table and see that the other 3 kids write more legibly or quickly and she'll step it up. She may not excel at what is on the lesson plan for that day, but she will excel in a true, honest intellectual curiosity kind of way. I am ok with this, in fact, I prefer it. I will ask for nothing more.

When her teacher said to me Ella's strongest aspect is her creativity and thought process I was proud. You can teach someone a mulitiplication table, but you can't teach creativity. You have to set the right environment and hope it flourishes. With Ella, I think the last 6 years have been about that process. Not telling her what to be interested in and signing her up for soccer and dance because that's what all the other kids are doing, but asking and listening when she says what it is that she is interested in pursuing.

I was in GT, I was a GREAT test taker. A pleaser. I had very few teachers who actually challenged me. I got straight As through all of high school. Maybe a B here or there but never anything less than an A for a final grade. I never felt particularly smart though, I knew I wasn't dumb but I also knew I was coasting. My skills served me well and I ended up 2nd in my high school class and was able to get into William and Mary because of it. It wasn't until I got to W&M did I truly begin to realize what true learning was. Studying, memorizing, replaying was no longer enough and it was a huge adjustment for me. At first leaving me feeling completely overwhelmed and out of my element.

It was in the depths of my feelings of "I am not cutting it here" thoughts that I remembered the one teacher, Mrs. Soucek, in 9th grade who made me work for a grade. Really work. She was the first teacher who ever told me something specific about me in an academic sense that stuck in my mind. She said I was a great writer and that I was able to say more in 3 sentences than many can say in 3 paragraphs. (Not that this is evident in my blog ... which is far more a stream of consciousness, messy and rambling entity).

For me, it is far mpre important that Ella is really learning, not just learning to churn out what is expected of her. That she is learning how to learn. I am not sure what that says about me or the way we are raising her, but for now I am pleased with the results.

Word of the Week: Deciduous

At the bus stop one recent morning.

Ella: Mama, do you know what all those trees are?

Me: Losing their leaves.

Ella: No, not what they are doing. What kind of trees they are?

Me: (its early) pause.........

Ella: Deciduous. They are deciduous trees. They lose their leaves. They are the opposite of evergreens. Does that make evergreens indeciduous?

Me: ...stunned silence.

The Boy: 21 Months (the age of the car)

You couldn't tell it from this picture, but Max is a pretty happy contented boy, except when he isn't. Lucky for us he is happy most of the time. MOST of the time.

This month we have continued development in the area of speech though he is still no where near the level his sister was at this age (think full sentences with much detail) he is working on it. I am still waiting for a sentence. He is way to focused on things like throwing and playing with his cars to worry about silly things like speech!

He is still pretty sweet but his love and devotion is now almost exclusively reserved for gramma. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? He was a mama's boy! He still likes me well enough, but nothing like gramma. I am so bitter.

He will eat anything. He loves boy stuff. Particularly cars. The more the better. I can't believe in less than 3 months he'll be 2!!!

Election Night Text Messages

My good friend, KK, knowing she would be in a meeting late into election night, asked me to keep her posted via text. I just read through the messages and wanted to share.

Nov 4, 2008 8:16 PM
MSNBC just called PA for Obama - MC has to win every tossup to have a prayer

Nov 4, 2008 9:37 PM
Still no call in VA or NC or IN - but huge call for Obama OHIO

Obama just pulled ahead in VA - it is extremely tight but only 30 % are reporting in NOVA

Nov 4, 2008 10:00 PM
Iowa to Obama

Nov 4, 2008 10:25 PM
KK: How many electoral votes does he have?

ME: 207
VA NC IN all 50-50
4000 votes apart in IN
Up almost 50K in VA with 90% returned

Nov 4, 2008 10:48 PM
Up 58K now in VA with 91% in

Fox is calling VA for Obama but no one else is yet!
He just went on top in IN by 7000 votes there, still NO CALL
With CA and VA he is at 275

Nov 4, 2008 11:00 PM
Fox calls election for Obama
And CNN just called it for Obama
And NBC just called it

KK: AMEN!!!

ME: Amazing!!!!!!!!!!

Yes We Can

I look forward to a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

JFK

The dream is alive.












And thank you to to the following state's citizen's for choosing to protect our right to reproductive freedom.

Thank you...

California voters for rejecting a proposition to require parental notification.

Colorado voters for rejecting a "personhood" amendment to define human life as beginning at fertilization. Had it been approved, the amendment could have provided the foundation for a ban on abortion in the state.

South Dakota voters, two years after rejecting a nearly total ban on abortion, for rejecting another sweeping but less restrictive ballot measure to outlaw abortions except in cases of rape, incest and pregnancies that threaten a woman's health.

Thank you for leaving these matters in the hands of women in concert with their doctors.

Change

Somewhere along the line they have tried to change the words Change, Hope, and Inspiration into something naive and negative.

As Robert F. Kennedy said, “Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.”

Those of us voting for change are not naive, uninformed sheep. A spirit and movement for change is more than a presidential hopeful's promise, or a specific policy, or a change to the tax code. Much much more. I see a man who every day has risked his life quite literally to bring a new message and a new hope to this nation. Will he be a perfect president, should he be elected, definitely not. No one is perfect. He is human. I know that, his supporters know that. Howver, when they try to demonize him they lessen the argument against him. McCain would have been so much better off to keep arguing about his experience or his tax plan instead of trying to paint him as some sort of radical.

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”

No matter what the outcome, it was with pleasure that I took my daughter to the polls today. To be able to cast a ballot that redefines the American dream for millions who never thought the day would come in their lifetime, was beyond beautiful. I have never seen so many smiling faces exiting the polls as I did today.

Turn Virginia Blue

Halloween Photos - Cat & mouse