So I joined a new club...

I am typically not a "joiner" but I did become a member of a new club this past weekend. That club would be - "Parents Who Have Had a Sick Child in the Hospital".

I have felt my heart drop at the words "Oh wow. Yeah, we're gonna have to admit him." from an ER doctor. I have held down my terrified, screaming child while nurses inserted an IV in his arm. I have spent the long night alone in a hospital room, rocking a crying, squirming baby with multiple tubes and wires connected to him, trying to keep everything from being tangled or ripped out. I have experienced the frustration of finally, finally getting him to sleep only to be woken by a nurse minutes later, to take his temperature and blood pressure. I have laid awake on an uncomfortable fold-out couch in a hospital room, thinking of all the other Mommies and Daddies who have also laid awake there, worrying about their little ones - many of them having to deal with much, much worse than the comparatively minor problems that my Bug had. I have handed my precious baby over to a nurse to be carried away from me and operated on and I have waited in a surgical waiting room, queasy with anticipation for it to be over and for all to be okay. I have experienced reaching the end of my limits and receiving help from a dear loved one just as I needed it, in my sister-in-law showing up after her 12 hour shift as an ICU nurse to rock my unconsolable baby for two hours. I have waited through those slowly ticking minutes and hours for the healing to be going along well enough to be permitted to go home...

...and I have felt the relief, the sensation of a huge weight sliding off of my shoulders, as I walked out of the hospital with my little boy in my arms.

Miscommunication...

This morning, Grandma & Grandpa came over to have coffee & hang out for a bit. I was making breakfast for the kids and I asked Max if he wanted a bagel or toast. He said, "I WANT TOOOOOOAAAST!" and Grandma corrected him: "Please." Max ignored her. She said, "PLEASE may I have some toast?" He ignored her again and she repeated it a little more sternly - "Max! PLEASE may I have some toast?"

Then he said... "Mom! Grandma wants some toast!"

Happy Birthday to my little archaeologist!

Max recently had a birthday, and one of his favorite presents was this Dinosaur Adventure Excavation Kid Kit from Usborne Books & More. (You can find it here.)


The kit consists of: a rock containing plastic dinosaur bones inside it, a small metal hammer, a chisel, a dusting brush, and some safety glasses. As the stone is chipped away, the dinosaur bones are revealed, and once they are completely freed from the stone they can be assembled to form the skeleton of a stegosaurus. Here he is diligently working on it:


At first, I left the rock in its protective plastic shrink wrap because I was trying to minimize the mess (there were going to be about 25 people arriving for his birthday party in an hour), and I didn't know if pieces were going to be flying off in all directions. It turns out that the stone pretty much just turns into dust - no projectiles or baby choking hazards, which was good. He was really into it and I decided, well what the heck, it IS his birthday, so I unwrapped the rock and put a smock on him. Here he is dusting around the bones with the little brush:


After a good 30 minutes or so of work, this is what it looked like:


And here's a closeup:


I will post an update when he makes some more progress. I can't say enough about how impressed I am with this kit, and how much he liked it!

Today's memorable comments

1. Today - totally out of the blue - Max looked at Emmett, shook his head, and said to me, "I don't know how he got outta your belly!"


2. I am currently suffering from a bad cold. Here's the conversation Max & I had while I was tucking him into bed tonight:

Me: I can't stay long because I need to go lay down.
Max: Are you gonna feel better tomorrow?
Me: I sure hope so.
Max (hugging me): I'll take care of you.
Me: *heart melts*

Guest Post

"Dear Mom,
Thank you for your cooperation in the cancellation of my aforementioned weaning. I don't like incessantly screaming at you any more than you like hearing it.

Sincerely,
Emmett"

True Story From My Public School Experience, or: How I Saved My House By Peeing My Pants

One day in second grade, I was sitting at my desk and suddenly I had to go. I was just about to ask my teacher, Mrs. Sparhawk, for permission, when another child raised his hand and asked if he could use the restroom - and was completely berated for not going during the regularly scheduled bathroom break, which was just a short while before. Like that boy, I did not yet need to go at that time, so I didn't avail myself of the opportunity. Big mistake. After hearing the other child get yelled at, I was now too terrified to ask. I tried to hold it. The harder I tried, the worse I had to go. Finally, I could wait no longer. I remember I was wearing a short corduroy jumper and tights - an outfit that did very little in the way of liquid absorption - and I could hear it loudly trickling onto the floor. I remember seeing kids' faces as they turned around in their seats and stared at me. I was then marched down to the office, and the secretary called my mom to bring me a change of clothes. I sat there, wet and uncomfortable and humiliated, for what seemed like hours. What was taking her so long? Finally she arrived with my clothes and with a story that made me feel much better about what had happened. She had left work to go home and pick up some clothes for me, and when she got there she discovered that the house was on fire! The fire had started in the chimney and just that one fireplace wall was burning yet. So she was able to call the fire department, and they arrived and extinguished the fire before much damage was done. If I hadn't had my accident, the fire would likely have progressed much farther before anyone noticed. So instead of being upset with me, my mom was overjoyed! I was a hero! I had saved the house!

What got me thinking about that experience was a book I just finished reading called "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto. He was a public school teacher in Manhattan for 30 years, who won multiple "Teacher of the Year" awards, and he wrote this book as sort of a whistleblower to the public school system about what really goes on in a classroom. He says that he teaches children emotional dependency:

"By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestinated chain of command."

and intellectual dependency:

"Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. It is the most important lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. The expert makes all the important choices..."

As I read these descriptions, my mind instantly went back to my memory of this event. Thinking back on it from my current point of view as a parent, I am appalled at that teacher's behavior. I understand that in order to manage a room of 30 children, there has to be order and routine, but a person's biological needs can't always fit into a prescribed schedule. To berate and terrorize little kids for needing to use the bathroom at an inconvenient time for her - well, shame on her. I asked my mom about it the other day. I said, "What did you do? Were you livid? Did you give them an earful or what?" and she said she had no idea about the cause of my accident. Maybe I was too ashamed, or maybe I just didn't know how to put it into the right words at the time, but she didn't know about it until now.

I refuse to hand over control of my kids' education to the "experts." I choose to let my kids learn in an environment where they may attend to their bodily functions whenever their bodies dictate. I'm not saying that all teachers are bad, and I know they have an incredibly hard job... but not all of them are great. In the 12 years I spent in the public school system (I was moved up a grade in elementary school and therefore graduated a year early) I can count the "great" teachers I had on one hand. And whether a given teacher is good or bad, the deeply flawed system they must work under is unacceptable to me. Here's another illustration: at my local Barnes & Noble, there is a wonderful section of educational materials. There is also one shelf of books for school teachers, and one shelf of books for homeschoolers. There is a stark contrast between the two - the overwhelming majority of titles for school teachers are about managing children and keeping order in the classroom, and the ones for homeschoolers are actually about how to facilitate learning. Do I want my kids to be trained automatons who can mindlessly obey orders, or do I want them to actually use and expand their minds and enjoy doing so? For me, there's really no question.

Why it's time to wean the 15-month-old

Because after going through two kids, my nursing bras are falling apart! I just put on one of my regular, comfy, pretty bras and it feels SOOOOOO GOOOOD! (Sorry if that's TMI). I gave Emmett a bottle before his nap, expecting a fight from him, but he was fine with it - hooray! Thank you boobs, you've done a great job of nourishing my babies, you are now relieved of duty.