Project: Backyard Preschool: Week 2!

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Inspired Lesson: Colors, Tints and Shades
Art/Math/Science/Language... I think.

Early last weekend, it clicked.

Matthew’s at the age now where concepts are just starting to finally come together. He knows now that eleven comes after ten and that one-teen is not actually a number. He’s finally figured out that if you ask him what shape an object is, that blue is not going to be the answer, even if the object actually is blue. The world is starting to make a little bit more sense to him now. But colors were tripping him up, and I just couldn’t figure out why.

We were playing a careless little game over the breakfast table the other day of Name That Color, and it was going pretty well. It always does at first. We’ll start the game with him nailing every color the first time around -- but eventually, every time, he’ll start looking at objects the same color of something he’d already identified correctly -- and just seem lost. I’ll tell him, “You know this, Bud. You already named it once before. Just a second ago. Remember?” He’ll make a guess, and the guess will be way off.

We got to ‘Puppy,’ a plush, rag doll animal with light colored fur and dark brown patches that follows this kid around more places than his own shadow. I pointed to puppy. “Brown,” he called. Then he pointed to a different spot on puppy. “Brown,” I answered, taking my turn.

“No, Mommy,” he corrected in a very authoritative sort of tone. “I already said brown. This part is brown. I said -- what is this?” And there it was -- our ‘aha!’ moment. The difference between tints and shades were throwing him all off. To him, I realized, if a color was a lot darker or a lot lighter than something else he’d already identified as that color, than it couldn’t possibly be the same.
And so, our mission this week was born. Colors, tints, and shades.

Identifying & Sorting
First, we established a color of the day for each day of the week. Everything on that day revolved around it’s respective color. We wore that color and dressed the baby in that color. We picked bath toys that color. We ate food that was that color, and then we added food coloring to whatever wasn’t already. Green applesauce one day, blue marshmallows the next. He got a huge kick out of it.

Each day, we’d set a few minutes aside to hunt down ten objects that were the color of the day. We’ve always played a casual little back-and-forth of Name That Color, but this gave us a numerical goal to reach and a specific color to focus on.* Not only was the repetition great practice, but keeping track of the number of items we had left to find was a challenge I didn’t even intend to incorporate, but that he really enjoyed trying to keep up with. It also gave me the opportunity to casually point out tints and shades before they were formally introduced. (Ex: When he’d point out something as being yellow, I’d get to say, “Great job, that is a dark yellow strap/ that is a light yellow bird. You got it!”) It didn’t take long for him to catch on and start asking if something was dark or light before he labeled it out loud.

*That one was kind of tricky. I knew that we’d have to do some basic identification practice first, and I wasn’t sure how to make it exciting for him. Oddly enough, I remember reading somewhere that boys respond especially well to rules. (I know, who’da thought, right?) It’s actually part of what draws them into video games or competitive sports. They have a natural compulsion to ‘conquer’ goals. Adding a few simple rules can turn a task into a game, thereby turning an accomplishment into a ‘win’. So to spruce this one up, all I had to do was give him the simple rule of needing to find ten objects, and a reward (a Diego sticker) for reaching it.

Everyday we found a quick way to sort through a group of colors. In the beginning of the week, we colored little fluted cupcake wrappers each a different color. Then we sorted gummy bear vitamins into them. Another day, Smarties candy. Another day, M&Ms. (You could probably add M&Ms to hamster poop and Matthew would think it was interesting. That one was a no-brainer.)

Another day, we laid a few sheets of different color construction paper on the floor, pretending that they were “garages,” and separated a basketful of HotWheels cars onto the colored paper that matched the car’s paint. (Point of fact: Hamster poop theory also applies to Hot Wheels.)

Blending colors
Colorful (Really Super Fun to Make) Snow-Cakes
We filled a cupcake pan and a casserole dish with fresh snow to bring inside. (Fresh snow is best because they will want to eat it, even though that’s not the intended purpose :-P If it’s fresh, they actually can.)

I laid a towel down over the dining room table, and then set the cupcake pan in front of Matthew. We mixed a few drops of red, yellow and blue food coloring into three different “snowcakes” in the cupcake pan (which took to the snow so well that they practically glowed, it was really cool!). We learned that these are primary colors. Matthew had a blast mixing the coloring into the snow, so naturally, when I told him to basically go nuts mixing the colors together to see what would happen next, he squealed like a little girl. We left a few of the cupcake holes on one side empty so that he could take a little from each primary color and put it into it’s own cup to mix. The results were flawless! We had primary colors on one side, and secondary colors on the other. And with the colors turning out so bright and vibrant, it was perfect for teaching him about hues -- the purest form of each color -- before we got into tints and shades.




*Before we mixed the primary colors together I asked him to make a prediction about what would happen. His answer? “It’ll make it really yummy like a snow cone!! *chomp, chomp noise*”

Rainbow Snowman
I had Matthew pick three of his favorite color “snowcakes.” We pack the snow down into the cupcake holes a little bit, and gently (while the snow was still fairly crisp) lifted the snow out of the cupcake hole and onto the casserole dish snow in a stack. Then, decorated it like a snowman! We used chopped pecans, candy, chocolate chips and marshmallows to decorate ours. If you were to use fresh snow, all you’d have to do to turn him into a snack would be to dump him into a bowl, add a little bit of sugar, vanilla extract, and milk, and then stir!

Paper Plate Blending
This has got to be one of the easiest, no-mess ways ever to teach kids how to blend colors with paint. Just take a paper or Styrofoam plate, squirt each of your primary colors somewhere in the center, then wrap the plate in saran wrap, and let your kid squish the colors together any which way he wants. Matthew had a blast squeaking his finger across the plate and watching the colors blend together. When you take the wrap off while the paint is still wet, it dries in a really cool design that Matthew describes as looking like fire!
(Alicia: I actually thought of Jude while we were doing this, because it’s something a kid even his age would love!)

Blogger Idea of the Week: Word of the Week!
Speaking of Alicia… Loved this idea from her that she left in last week‘s comments, and it went over better than I ever would have expected. The words that we’d learned from our color experiments this week were ones that I knew probably wouldn’t stick right away, and I was fine with that. They were more of an introduction…
BUT, I am very much a lover of words. I’ve always hoped to instill in my kids a nice, rich vocabulary. The perfect opportunity for this came about while reading 'TOY BOAT' by Randall de Seve & Loren Long at the library last week. Now that Matthew’s old enough to really retain information from the stories we read, I stop every so often to ask him what’s happening so far in the story or to ask him to make a prediction about what might happen next. Recently, whenever we come across a new, but easy-to-guess word, I’ll ask him what he thinks it means. We did this with blustery. From the illustration of an impending storm and from the windy sound effects I’d just made, he was able to make a dead-on prediction, complete with his own sound effects and animated description of fierce weather. Each time we left the house and the wind blew into our faces, we used our word. The first two times I read the book at home, I’d stop at that part and ask him again what blustery meant, and he’d tell me. The twenty-some times we’ve read it since then? He stopped to ask me every time! I’d pretend that I’d forgotten and he’d very excitedly stand up on the couch or the bed or the chair and describe it, complete with sound effects and wiggly ‘wind’ fingers.

Tints & Shades

Day & Night
I wanted to find an easy-to-understand example of something that is one solid color, but that can shift from light to dark. Being that Blue was our first Color of the Day, I came up with the sky. I took out every craft item we had that was blue: crayons, markers, yarn, pom-poms, glitter, etc. and we colored one side of the paper in all tints of light blue for a daytime sky. Luckily we have an enormous and eclectic assortment of crayons, so bringing out just the shades of blue resulted in him noticing that some were so light they were practically white and others so dark you wouldn’t have known they weren’t black without the wrapper. A very befitting observation, young dude!

On the other side of the paper, we made a night sky, using only the darker shades of Blue. Then, we added glitter glue and blue confetti stars to the night side. We also added blue pom-poms for night-time clouds, and white cotton balls for clouds to the daytime side. Super easy, and turned out to have a very neat collage effect!

A lot of emotion went into this peice. He calls it, "Lines and Circles." "And a String."

Monster Buddies
This is where it all kind of came together. First we mixed our blue and yellow primary colors together to make a full sheets of green painted paper. Then, we mixed white into the green paint and painted over the green hue, with a much light green, called a green tint. We added more and more white to the green paint to see how light we could get it. Then, we did the same thing, starting with the same pure, green hue, but this time adding black in gradual increments, making a shade of green overtop. Since Matthew thought they looked like monsters, we tossed a couple of googly eyes on them, glued some accordion-folded strips of construction paper for arms and legs, and then called them Monster Buddies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this week was a complete blast. I’ve realized after two weeks of this project, though, that it’s pretty tough to leave room for our reading progress -- I’ll have to set aside a week once in a while for that alone, because reading is really what we focus on more than anything else and it’d be a shame to keep overlooking it. Either way, I’ll be starting up our reading list next week and adding it to each MM post from now on. I want to be able to keep track of all the books we’ve read together over the course of this whole thing… And eventually, all of the books that Matthew reads on his own. So far our trips to the library haven’t exactly timed themselves out in a way that allowed our weekly reading to coincide with our theme (The Very Ugly Bug was just a lucky fluke.) But since our theme for next week is already underway, and we have a trip planned for tomorrow, we should be able to rock this thing out right!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a beer. All of this parenting blogging is wearing me out.

(This post is also linked up to Home School Creations, where other moms - more seasoned at this than me(!) share what they've gotten into with their little ones this week.)

Weekly Review: Stepping Stones Together

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Weekly Review:
Stepping Stones Together

One of the most exciting elements of pre-schooling Matthew from home is being able to tailor lessons to his specific interests. It’s what the whole premise of Project: Backyard Preschool is about: Recognizing learning opportunities when they present themselves, then custom building a lesson plan of sorts geared toward what you already know your child is naturally drawn to.

The Stepping Stones Together early literacy program was built with that same basic idea in mind. That’s the first component of the program that really drew me in to tying this particular product into our Project. The specially designed reading material included centers around a group of themes children have a pretty universal magnetism to. (Transportation, dinosaurs, fairies, etc.) It’s pretty common knowledge that Matthew can fight us on almost anything -- but we’ve never had to bribe him to eat his broccoli. Why? Because those aren’t broccoli florets on his Elmo plate; they’re trees, and he’s a giant leaf-eating dinosaur! In fact, it isn’t uncommon for me to call out to everyone at dinnertime that the chicken and “tree” casserole is ready. So when we dove into the first story of the program, and Matthew was introduced to Dexter the Dinosaur… Well, we had an instant hit on our hands.

(Cute note: Since Matthew’s older sister was already seven when he was born, he’d never seen a fairy before. I was surprised when he thought a magic chick with wings was like, the coolest thing he’d ever seen! Ha!
:-P )

The program was really a home run from the first day. I didn’t have to encourage Matthew to make predictions about the story. He was excited to do that on his own. I read the first nine page story to him (which took less than a minute and a half for us to make our way through), and by the second go round, Matthew put his hand up to my lips and said, “No, Mommy. It’s my turn!” Because the sentences are constructed in a short, repetitive rhythm, accompanying very obvious illustrations, he was able to “read” the first story with almost complete accuracy. When children start showing an interest in learning to read themselves, that’s one of the first signs most parents notice: they pick up books on their own, and pretend to read by tying together the illustrations with what they remember from the last time the story was read to them aloud. With the program, Matthew was able to take a habit he was already beginning to form, and make it work. Really work! You should have seen the gaping smile on the kid’s face when I pointed out to him excitedly that he DID IT. He really, actually READ the story himself!

After such a motivating kick-off, I wasn’t surprised when Matthew blew through the first couple of stories so enthusiastically. I also wasn’t surprised when he stopped me every page or two to point out his own connections. (Ex: “Hey! That’s just like WE go to the library, Mommy!!) That’s something I’ve always encouraged him to do throughout a story (much to the chagrin of the librarians at Story Hour who can’t get through two pages without being breathlessly interrupted). What did surprise me though, was on the third day, when we finished a certain book in which a shark character identifies the amount of features it has on it‘s body. Matthew sputtered unsuccessfully through each page of his turn. Much as he tried, he just couldn’t get the hang of identifying the right numbers at a single glance. But what surprised me though, was that instead of discouraging him, it became one of his favorites! I’m not sure if it was inspired by a sense of determination, or if he just liked that character more than the others, but over the course of the following few days, that particular book was revisited over and over again at his own request.




We are working on having him point to each word individually when it’s his turn to “read.” Matthew is in the youngest part of the age bracket for a program like this, so I try to keep that in mind, but he is continually surprising me with his growing capabilities! When I ask him to try pointing to the individual words as he “reads” them, he just runs his finger in a continual, indiscriminate line from the leftmost word to the right. When I try to coach him through it, he likes to tell me, “No, I already did that, Mommy! It’s time for the next page.” But when I point to each individual word for him, he reads the right word, each time, never moving onto the next one until my finger points it out. Every so often I’ll see if he’s ready to point them out himself, and he’s getting closer. I’m sure we’ll get there very shortly.

My favorite part of the program is (kind of surprisingly) the comprehension questions at the end of every book. Only being barely three, Matthew’s too young to participate in the writing prompts, so instead, we just discuss them. In the beginning of the week, Matthew wasn’t interested in answering questions at the end. He was either too excited for us to get back to the beginning to read it again or to get started on the next new story. It wasn’t a travesty because he’d been making predictions and connections as the story was being read. Still, it helped for me to read the comprehension and application questions to myself before beginning the story -- then later on in the day, say, “Hey, do you remember our _____ story? It was pretty neat, huh? What did you think about ______?” He’d get so excited about remembering back to the story, that his answers were always much more thoughtful. I always look forward to hearing what kind of kooky ideas and explanations he’ll come up with next! Sometimes we’ll talk about a single story all through lunch.
You just can’t beat that kind of bonding time.

The last very exciting impact I’ve noticed this program making already is that he’s applying habits we’ve formed from the program to time spent reading away from it as well. The last box of Cheerios we bought came with a free paperback copy of The Purple Kangaroo, so naturally, Matthew tore into it and sat on the kitchen floor to begin “reading.” I wouldn’t have even taken notice if I hadn’t overheard him from another room, repeating that same repetitive, stop-and-go rhythm from our Stepping Stones Together stories. He looked at the illustration (of a monkey with speech bubbles coming out every which way), buried his face into the pages, and running his tubby little finger along each word, ‘read’: I-am-a-monkey. I-can-talk. I-like-to- t-t-t-t- TALK!

At story time, when I read The Purple Kangaroo to him aloud, he literally tried repeating each entire page as I finished it. Unfortunately, this particular book had a LOT of words in purposeful run-on sentence formation toward the end … He plowed through the best he could, getting awfully tongue-tied and confused…. Until eventually, he had to stop me and say, “Mommy, this one is actually kind of tricky with all the words. How ‘bout you read it to me by yourself, actually? And I’ll read to you next time.” He got a big hug out of that one.




I can’t wait to see where this week takes us…
More importantly, neither can Matthew!

Project Backyard Pre-school: Week 1

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Inspired Lesson: INSECTS
Math/Science/Reading

We had a stinkbug in the kitchen. It almost would have gone unnoticed, but Matthew had been waiting on this little guy to show up for about a week now. Lately, Matthew’s been into his exploration vest. It’s a little vest that comes equipped with all kinds of tools, like a lantern, bug jar, tweezers, magnifying glass, and compass that clip onto various ring attachments. He’s put in on probably four times in the past week, tweezers in hand, searching the baseboards for insect intruders to seize, and investigate, and squish onto my floor -- to no avail. But on this particular day, one very lucky insect had finally made it onto the counter. In seconds flat, Matthew was on the tippiest of his toes, magnifying the living, breathing crap out of that thing as it crawled over a plastic ladle.



So, we went with it. I took out my camera and I asked him questions about the bug. How many legs did it have? How fast did it move? What color were it’s wings? Matthew picked up the spoon and seemed surprised at how the insect wouldn’t fall even when he wasn’t ‘very, especially careful.’ Then he whipped the spoon from side to side, until the thing lost it’s grip and tumbled with a few little clicks onto it’s back by Matthew’s feet. You can probably imagine what went down over the next fifteen minutes and how “stink juice” made it’s way out of the bug and - yup, onto my floor.




I have to be honest, this week was a little difficult. Scarlett cried like a maniac from about this time last week until about twenty minutes ago, and what little time I did have away from her was spent on the computer doing research on how in heck to home pre-school a three year old on a budget of about negative nothing. Luckily for me, inspiration just kind of fell out of the sky and into my lap because otherwise, there wouldn’t be a post today. And that’s good, because a very large part of this project is just that: Letting the lessons come to you.

As luck would have it, one of the books we’d picked from the library last week was a little treasure called THE VERY UGLY BUG by Liz Pichon. I got it as much for Scarlett as I had for Matthew because of the bold and geometric illustrations, painted with the kind of nice, vivid color pallet that babies really enjoy. It also had nice, large, wide-spaced print, which was beneficial for Matthew - who’s learning through the *Stepping Stones Together* program to point to words as they’re being read. The first twenty-seven times we read this thing, I took mostly from it just a cute, little lesson about self-esteem. It wasn’t until after our little moment of inspiration in the kitchen that I realized the entire darn book was just as much a very real lesson in tiny science! The Very Ugly Bug goes from buggy friend to buggy friend asking why they look so much nicer than she, and each bug explains the reason for why they have the features they do -- to hide from the birds, so they don’t turn into a tasty bug snack. When the Ugly Bug tries to disguise herself, she becomes easy pray and a bird finds her immediately -- Turns out her being so ugly IS her defense mechanism.

We also had a very old, non-fiction chapter book about insects lying around. I popped it open one day when Matthew wasn’t around so that I could take from it a few easy-to-get concepts and think of ways to turn them into lessons. I didn’t have to! Matthew plopped himself on the bed with me and took over, turning the pages to the few black and white illustrations there were, asking “What’s that!… What’s that!…. Oh, what’s that! That’s ugly -- Hey, just like the very ugly bug in my book!!” And on page sixty-four, guess what they had? THE STINK BUG, in all of it’s ugly, stinkin' glory.


Blogger Idea of the Week:
A Sense-ational Read!
Dr. Madeline Boskey, an author and editor of books herself, posted an idea on her blog over at Mad for Reading about bringing the stories we read to our children to life. A few of her suggestions were lighting a vanilla scented candle when reading a book about baking cookies, or saving a book about the ocean to read during bath time, and my favorite (and one I will definitely be doing soon) is setting up a makeshift tent and reading a story about camping by flashlight. Does that not sound like the coolest story-time, ever?

Project Idea:
We made our own Very Ugly Bug, using an empty toilet paper roll, a piece of construction paper to decorate with various camouflaging techniques and wrap around, popsicle sticks, an empty cereal bag and various decorative craft items. The idea of making a bug out of a toilet paper roll is not new (I remember making an ant in second grade), but we tailored the idea to the book. In THE VERY UGLY BUG, our little protagonist tries to disguise herself with the features of her friends: tying berries to her antennae so that she’ll be able to hide in the berries; sticking leaves on her back so that she’ll be able to hide in the leaves like another friend, and using flower petals as wings to look like another. We colored our bug different colors we thought of that were in nature; then glued pom-poms to it so that it could hide in the berries, and gave it cereal bag wings, and “teeny-tiny eyes” which were another big part of the story. We also counted six legs for our insects, as we learned that all insects, no matter how different they look from one another all have in common that they have six legs. The coolest part? At the back of the tube, you can press the bottom of the popsicle wings where they overlap, and the wings flap!

On another day we made a few pattern-pillars, using a popsicle stick and colored pom-poms that we glued to the sticks in patterns.

On another, we did the same thing, but using our fingertip prints in patterns of different finger-paint colors. We put it on the fridge, as if we were done with it. Then, the next day, we transformed it from a caterpillar to butterfly by adding “wings” with his handprints!

To implement our "Sense-ational Read," Matthew acted out the story with his own Very Ugly Bug, as we read it aloud to his baby sister. We also set her musical swing to the Nature Sounds setting, so that we had bugs chirping and birds singing in the background!

~~~~~~~~~

Words like hypotheses, prediction and discovery actually aren’t new to him, although I doubt he could tell you what they actually mean. Both Sid the Science Kid and Dinosaur Train on PBS use these words in every episode. It was awesome to be able to apply it to our experience with the Stink Bug! When I asked him questions about what he saw on the Stink Bug under the magnifying glass, he’d tell me and then I would ask him why. Whenever he came up with an explanation, (even when they were completely off the mark) I’d high-five him and say, “Whoa, what a great hypothesis!!” I don’t know if it helps, but whenever I can I try to use mini-scientific terms like these so that he learns to apply them to what he knows. For instance, if we’re looking for something in his toybox -- we’re exploring his toybox for that toy; if he comes to me saying, “Mommy, look! When I bring puppy’s shadow in front of my shadow, I can’t see it anymore.” I’ll say, “What a cool discovery!”

Another idea I'd like to start with him is to create a field journal for him. Matthew LOVES taking a little notebook with him to places like the doctor's office or grocery store, so that he can doodle while he's bored. He's not able to realistically translate what he sees onto paper yet, but I think I'll buy him his own notebook so that the next time he sees something that captures his curiosity, he can doodle it into a little field journal of his own. What do you guys think?


*I was going to attach our Stepping Stones Together review to the end of this, but because there is only so much a momma can do in between loads of laundry, I’ll be saving it for tomorrow.

For anyone joining in on the project, I’d LOVE to hear what you have to say! What ideas could you come up with to tie into an insect theme? Or, has there ever been a time your kids have stumbled into something that caught their curiosity, and you were able to turn it into a learning opportunity? Please, share! I could use all of the help I can get! :-) PLUS, any idea or project left for me will be tried out by Matthew and I for the following week's post, with a link back to your blog and credit for the awesome idea. (Traffic score!)

On Daughters & True Beauty

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Dear Scarlett,
It’s still ten days shy of your next monthly letter, but I have a few things to say.

Daddy teaches him everyday, that he has a place in this family, and that that position is an irreplaceable one. He is your protector, he is Mary’s protector, and he is even mine. It doesn’t matter that he is smaller than two out of the three of us right now or that at this point he’s barely old enough to even handle you, much less fend off danger in your tiny name. That is his role, his right, and his responsibility. As your brother and as my son. Period, daddy says. I often wonder what Matthew thinks that even means at his age -- or moreover, his puny height -- coming up only to my belly-button if he were to stand on the tippiest of his chubby little toes. But he has never questioned it, only taken it on with a poised, and self-assured pride; the likes of which might seem too big to fit the muddy sneakers of a stubborn three year old boy.
But he has only ever agreed. “Yes, daddy. I understand.”

He will question his bedtime and question my authority and question his limitations. From the moment that words ever began to spring from his lips, that headstrong boy has been one to question. He’ll question the green of the grass and why day turns to night and the prayers we say over our meals, but he will not question that. To that, he has only ever agreed. Every time that he is told. “Yes, daddy. I understand.”

The two of them are so close. I have a hard time imagining any father ever took so much pride in his son before the existence of their relationship. And I wonder if that’s it. Does he just love him too much to disagree? But ask Daddy at bedtime or bath time or any other time of the day that Matthew isn’t particularly fond of these days, and the quick-draw of his belt would tell you otherwise. Nobody ever loved their daddy the way that your brother shamelessly worships the very ground your daddy walks on -- but Matthew, well he’s an equal opportunity pain in the ass.

He is a boy.

And there it is. It’s in his genes, and in the generations before him, and in the society into which he was born. He is a boy, and that is his place. You would never have to sell him on it. He simply understands. And proudly so.



So here we are, you and I. Mother and daughter, and I have to admit, I’m not sure where to begin. I watch your father with your brother, teaching him the ways of his gender, and I feel a responsibility to you tugging away at my heart. What do I want you to take from womanhood; what do I want you to understand about true beauty…



When I chose your name, I chose Scarlett first. It was beautifully strong; an epic name. I needed something to soften it, but no middle name seemed to compliment it without watering it down. I fell in love with the name Rebecca, and in a sense, you were born… you had a name. The perfect balance of strength, and delicacy. In a word: Beautiful. And when you came into this world, you embodied that - To. The. Tee. I see it not only in your blossoming personality, I see it in your physical features. I look at you, and I swear on everything I’ve ever loved, you are the perfect embodiment of physical beauty.

And then I wonder, as I tell you unfailingly how beautiful you are everyday, if I’m doing you a disservice. If I’m putting too much of a value on your physical appearance. And that, ‘Oh, God, I’m not cut out for this’ moment sinks in. I’m going to ruin this child. After all, I’ve never been one to leave the house without make-up -- who am I to speak on the evils of placing value on physical beauty? Then you smile. And I can’t help telling you that you are so freakin pretty.


But if there is one thing I’ve learned in this early track through Motherhood, it is that this body… this body I’ve spent my whole life adjusting to and accepting and growing in; this body that conceived you and nurtured you and gave birth to you -- it is not me. It is only a vessel.

When you become pregnant, you learn just how not yours your body really is.
Hell, a few years ago I couldn’t boil an egg IF I TRIED, much less create life. But there you were, cradled into the nest of my womb; growing and breathing the way real live people do. I threw up nearly everyday. I was famished from dawn to dusk, but suddenly everything I ate tasted like battery acid. And the gas -- Scarlett, if you ever find yourself preparing your life for pregnancy, be forewarned: you will fart like there is just no tomorrow. Then pre-labor symptoms came. And every pregnancy book I owned was dog-eared to the chapters on Mucous Plugs and Bloody Show and other glamorous discharges of the very vaginal kind.
It was pretty sick.

Still, if I had to use a word to describe that time, anything short of the word Beautiful would be a terrible, terrible injustice.

Then, in labor, I moaned and I sweat, and I even threw up a little. I cried, and I pushed like I was taking a shit while a roomful of strangers watched things I’m glad I didn’t see happen to some pretty private places. And in the final throws of pushing you out, I roared like an animal. A dying, helpless, angry animal.

Still, nothing in this world, nothing, was as beautiful as that day.

Then I brought you home, and I won’t go into every HORROR of a woman’s postpartum experience. But I will say that, Honey, a woman doesn’t walk away from bleeding clots the size of grapes for six days unchanged. An experience like that just has a funny little way of humbling a woman’s perspective on physical beauty. But also? It does one hell of a number on her perception of inner beauty, too.

So I won’t, Scarlett. I won’t preach to you about the evils of make-up or curling your hair. Twirl in your dresses and paint your nails in horrible, trendy shades and camp in your closet from the ages of twelve to sixteen, if that’s what you want. Paint your vessel; love it, celebrate it, decorate it, nourish it. Because, kid, YOU’VE GOT THE GOODS. But do not become lost in it. Know that in both the worst of hair days and in the most flattering of light, that it is not you. It is only your vessel.

Just as you feed your body healthy foods, Scarlett, remember to feed your soul in equal parts. Always, always take care of yourself, working from the inside, out. Because that is where true beauty is grown.

Here is where I wanted to tell you what beauty is to me, so that I might pass down my motherly wisdom.
I wanted to write this to you today so that I might teach you a thing or two about real beauty, or the things you could do to achieve it. But I realize as I struggle to pin it down with words, that I may still be figuring it out for myself -- and that maybe that’s not such a terrible thing. The day I held your brother in my arms for the first time, it grew into something epic and almost untamable that exploded into my life, spilled over into my everyday in ever-growing amounts, and peppered even the darkest of times ever since. I kind of thought that all of the beauty of the world was wrapped up in him; that it would always begin and end with him the way that it did when I was only just beginning to wrap my mind around it’s force in my life. Then, still when I experienced all of the raw pain of a natural childbirth the day you came into this world, it changed again. I learned that even the deepest of struggles and painful of experiences can be a fountain of beauty -- and that it most certainly did not end in Matthew. And now still, as I learn the ins and outs of raising a son and a daughter of my own -- I find it changing still. Beauty is so many things to me, and to be honest, I’m still sorting through it all myself. So I won’t tell you. I want you to find it for yourself. And I want you to take comfort in knowing that if it takes more than twenty-five years and a daughter of your own to figure out completely, that that’s okay. Because a life spent searching to understand true beauty would be one life very well lived.

This was written as part of the Project 31 challenge over at She Breathes Deeply.

The Green, Green Grass of Being a SAHM:

Pin It My Perspective From Both Sides of the Fence


There are just some moments a paycheck can't replace.

I watched them all with an inconspicuous envy. I sat at a Friendly’s at some random time in the Early afternoon, eating lunch with someone else’s two year old while my two year old was at daycare. I was a nanny. Carter’s mom allowed me to share with him a double scoop ice cream after we ran a few errands together. It was an awesome job. I was basically a Stay At Home Mom, except I wasn’t this kid’s mom and it wasn’t my home I was staying at nearly fifty hours a week. I did bring home a paycheck, though. In fact, it was almost the only paycheck between my husband and I, and we knew better than to take that for granted.

He was laid off, and I was doing what I could to pay the mortgage until he found another job in a broken economy. He trained for his CDL and went to work for a school bus company, picking up as many hours as a school bus driver can possibly grab in a single week. He took all the extra jobs the company offered, and he promised me it would change, while I promised right back. Our son went to daycare at my moms, at a rate that was only slightly discounted. And together, we made it work.

I looked at them all with their sons and their daughters from the corner booth, and I tried to pretend that I didn’t want what they had with every maternal fiber in my being. I loved Carter, and I honestly enjoyed my job, but I did not particularly love walking among the pony-tailed Housewives of society in the Soccer Mom Capital of the World -- or at least the state of Delaware, where everything that I would never, never have for my son and I was laid out in front of me like a hand of cards I never should have seen, every single day. I felt a little stupid, pretending to be dumb to it. Pretending that I’d rather be here, with Carter, and getting paid for it, than to be here with my son, affording not to be. But more than that, I felt guilty -- as equally to Carter as to my Matthew. So I reminded myself how lucky I was to have such a wonderful job. I ate my fries, washing down my guilt with a cold coke. I stuck my tongue out at Carter and he remedied the moment with an infectious laugh that had a way of bringing me out of my moods. And I finished my day.

Then as if by some miracle, Spencer found a job that was able to replace mine late in my pregnancy with our second child. That far-off fantasy of becoming a stay at home mom was knocking down my front door, soliciting everything I thought I’d never, never have for me and my son. Spencer got a two dollar raise and then a fifty cent raise, and then another within his first few months at the job. Scarlett was born, and those cards that weren’t supposed to be mine -- just suddenly were.

And I knew better than to take it for granted.

~~~~~~~

They say that it’s a thankless job, being a SAHM, and that it’s not for the faint of heart. Everyone agrees that it’s one we all love, but not before asserting that it’s the toughest, most lackluster job they’ll ever, ever have. I’m having a hard time relating, to be perfectly honest.

When I was a nanny, I took Carter to a health club where we’d meet up with his pre-school buddies at the jungle gym, just outside of the indoor basketball court after pre-school. Early in the summer mornings, the whole first floor pounded with the echo of powerful music that the soccer moms kick boxed to on the court, while their kids were in summer camp. They’d run laps around the building with a trainer. They’d do lunch at the café, toweling their necks and laughing about their crazy husbands. In the summer, they’d put their kids in the establishment’s daycare, and they’d lay out by the pool after lunch. Carter always recognized them from pre-school pick-up, and would ask to play with his classmates. He didn’t understand why they were in daycare if their moms were at the pool.

I didn’t either.

I guess being a SAHM kind of comes with that stigma, even though it’s not like that for everyone. I remember walking the isles of Pathmark at 9:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, collecting groceries for my boss while all of the kids in my charge were at school. The isles were empty and lines didn’t exist. Putting the groceries away in the light of day was something I wasn’t used to at home. The grocers were happy to help you to your car because there was not much else for them to do. The whole experience was a far cry from the Sunday night mosh-pit our family’s weekly trips to Wal-mart had become. We never finished up before dark and the kids were always in tow, bored and exhausted as we were, resenting that the last chunk of their weekend had to be wasted standing in a line that bottlenecked all incoming traffic. In a moment like that, you wouldn’t have wanted to know my opinion on the thanklessness of being a SAHM.

The truth is, I kind of expected to have my view a little skewed once I became one myself. After all, I didn’t live in the part of town where personal trainers and poolside cafes would fill my time “at home.” I live in a quaint, brick house where our two car garage takes up more than half of what used to be a backyard a few owners back. A lot of our life is like that; we have nice things - but only because we’ve sacrificed having others. Surely the green of the grass would wither once our stroller made it to the other side of the fence.



Pictures I would not have...

And you can believe that I’ve had my days.
Scarlett has always been a clingy baby, needing to be held every moment she’s awake. But after Christmas it took me a week and a half to realize it was the gas-inducing eggnog I was drinking putting her at the edge of the first newborn suicide, and not colic. In the four months I’ve been home, we’ve passed along two stomach viruses, the mother of all sinus infections and as I speak, are in the putrid throws of toddler pink eye. I’ve cleaned up more vomit, snot and mucous in these past few months than I ever thought a family of five was capable of producing -- let alone excreting into clothes and carpet. I’ve braved the mall in holiday traffic only to be forced back home ten minutes into our trip because Matthew’s tantrum caused a few people to threaten to jump from the second story window of Barens & Noble if we did not leave. And once, a bottle of dymatap in the medicine cabinet somehow distracted Matthew from his trip to the potty, and he ended up drinking the entire bottle of children’s cough syrup while I breastfed the baby and coo’d to her about what a good, big boy her brother was for using the toilet all by himself for the first time since she was born.
Yup. I’ve had my days.



...Had I been anywhere else.

But somehow, even as I wake up at 3:30 every morning to make a plate of eggs for my husband before work, I find it hard to complain. Before the kids wake up, I’ll spend an hour or two writing over a hot cup of coffee and the cozy hum of a thermostat set just right for a violent January morning. The toughest part of my morning will probably be the tantrum Matthew throws at snack time over having apples instead of animal crackers. The toughest part of my husband’s will undoubtedly be worse. I’ll be dog tired exhausted by 10:30 a.m., but I won’t be able to nap. I’ll be juggling a fussy infant, navigating an easily distracted pre-schooler through a bathroom trip at the library, trying to explain the difference to him between a tampon and a candy dispenser. Spencer will be dog tired too, but he will be busy doing something that is surely, much worse. My lunch will be leftover pork chops and warm green bean casserole. Or maybe a salad at the food court and a latte if we’re out. Spencer’s will be a bologna and pickle sandwich he eats out of his lunchbox, parked on the side of an icy, congested road. When he gets home fourteen hours after his day had begun, I might have play dough under my nails and spit-up in my hair. He’ll have blisters on his knuckles from freezing winds and calluses on his palms. I’ll sigh about how I can’t find the time to work off the weight from my latest pregnancy. He’ll burn fat and build muscle with each and every passing of another long, hard day of work.

Our days are both hectic and loud in their own right. But our nights are comfy and quiet. They are not wrought with complaints of thankless jobs and hard days.

I guess, we just both know better than to take it for granted, as we think back to the pale straw on the other side of the fence.

Introducing Project: Backyard Pre-school!

Pin It Brought to you by (force of his mother):



A little about my big idea…
It’s simple, really. I have a son on the cusp of learning to read, and I want to find out what it takes to get him there. With Pre-school being out of the budget, I’ve decided to take the endeavor into my own hands, with homemade games and project ideas that have brought us closer to making educational connections from our own playroom.

And now it’s time to exploit the little dork for all of the bloggable stories and gratuitous cute toddler photos I can milk him for. (After all, isn’t that what I gave birth for?)

So starting this week, I’m implementing Matthew Mondays. Once a week, I’ll be dedicating a post to something I call, Project: Backyard Preschool.

The project is a close-up peek into our (mis)adventures in learning from home. I am not a home-schooling parent, and my son is not a genius. I’m just a mom, who can’t afford pre-school, trying to make the best of the time I have with my kid. The idea of the project is to discover in our own backyard so-to-speak, ways to learn through the kind of play that doesn’t involve flashcards, but that does result in a better educated kid. I don’t have a product to sell or an idea to market. I just have a kid, a few homemade games, and a blog. The idea boils down to teaching our kids pre-school concepts without everyone of us having a PHD in early childhood education, or taking out a second mortgage to fund Rug Time at our local pre-schools.




It’ll highlight the educational activities we’ve done together over the previous week; our successes, our flops, and whatever cute little stories we cough up along the way. We’ve been at this home-schooling-of-sorts for some time now, and believe me, the stories are both hilarious and surprising, so I know it’ll make for a fun read. I’ll share the necessities, like research and resources; plus homegrown ideas; weekly progress toward educational milestones; and a review of the techniques and projects we’ve gotten ourselves into. I’ll even add a reading list for the week. Each week, we’ll keep track of Matthew’s progress toward grasping pre-school concepts.

What this idea is not, is an effort to shove him overnight into the status of toddler-genius. It is not a race toward specific results of any kind. In fact, The Pre-school Project puts Matthew in the driver’s seat, with me learning as much from him about the pace at which his little mind works, as he will from me. If at anytime he loses interest in a game, a project or a concept, we scrap it. We may come back to it, we may not. It’s all about learning through play. And not just my idea of play, but his.




(Matthew in the driver's seat -- Get it? Get it?)

But because I am so far from being any kind of an expert at this, I’m looking for other moms to follow along. I’ve networked out this blog in the hopes that other moms will offer their ideas and opinions, too, as we work our way through this project from week to week. Maybe you do have a PHD in childhood education; maybe you’re just a mom like me who wants to make the most of the time you have with your child; maybe you’ve had an awesome nanny before whose come up with unique and entertaining ways to teach your sons and daughters; maybe you love some of our ideas and maybe you think some of them are totally misguided; maybe you just think it would be as much fun as I do to learn a little more about the specific way your child learns. Whoever you are, whatever your perspective, I’d love to have you add to the experience.

So comment, comment, comment. If I can snag enough followers, I’ll be hosting giveaways with products relevant to the project. So that your comments will pay off with a little more than just my sincerest gratitude.

Also, also, also!

I am insanely excited to be a new reviewer for the Stepping Stones Together early literacy program. Matthew and I will be going through the program from start to finish, dedicating fifteen to twenty minutes a day to the special stories that the program provides their tiny readers. Each week, attached to the Matthew Monday post will be our weekly review of the Stepping Stones Together program.




So, if you’ve stumbled onto this blog and you don’t absolutely despise it, help a girl out! Make a little love to my follow button and I’ll throw myself headfirst into the task of making it worth your read. Also, if you spread the word about my blog, (and let me know about it) I’ll -- I dunno, babysit your kid or buy you a cheap drink or something. If you’re not a personal acquaintance, that’s okay, we can get creative . Not ‘World Series Ticket’ creative, but like, plug the mother-loving crap out of your blog or your business kind of creative. So use me.
Just follow me along the way.

And let me know what you think!

The Birth of a Dork

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Motherhood changes everyone. Sure. There are those who run from it, there are those who struggle against it, and there are even those who bury themselves in self-improvement projects, like an ostrich in the sand, to avoid it. (You know, the ones who spend countless hours slaving away over knitting needles making homemade cloth diapers and little headbands for their babies -- they say they do it because they enjoy the creative outlet and because they care about the environment, when we all know it’s because that deathgrip of motherhood has caught up with them -- They could probably give a shit about the environment and most of them probably know sewing is just as mind-numbingly boring now as it was before they ever got pregnant. They do it because it makes their kid look so cute they could gobble them up, vomit them out and then eat them all over again. That’s just the kind of thing motherhood does to a girl.) And if this sounds like you, I’m not making fun. Trust me. Motherhood has me right by the balls.

The truth is, it finds us all - usually before we’re willing to admit it. It’s like snow in your shoes. So delicate and unassuming, but that shit could seep it’s way through a six inch steel barricade. Yes, Motherhood seems to just be an unavoidable consequence of having children. Who knew? So, me? I chose to give in early. I chose to avoid the let down of a slow defeat. And in doing so there’s one thing I’ve found.

I am now, more than ever, a total nerd.

Now, granted, yeah - I might have been halfway there before these little B words came along, but I had my saving graces. I used to be a beer pong champ. I could ease into jeans that couldn’t get over my ass now if I had the help of a crane attached to my back belt loops. I knew my way around a few guitar chords. Once, I even skipped school and hitch-hiked to the movies with a friend. (I know, badass, right?) But these guys? They pushed me over the edge. Way over the edge.

Now, I’m a nerd. A great big, shameless lover of really stupid things. Things I know that are stupid. I’m saying I can see and hear and smell how these things are stupid. But still, they call to me like a toddler to Goldfish.

For starters, I blog. I wake up early just to do it. I love it. It’s one of my very favorite things about being a Stay At Home Mom now. I could write for forty-five minutes about how Scarlett laughing for the first time CHANGED. MY. LIFE.

Also: wanna know something kind of personal? (Of course you do, you’re on my blog.) AC/DC used to always turn me on. Always. Spencer putting it on in the garage while we barbequed almost always turned into us making out against the El Camino, and not long afterward, me blogging online about morning sickness. Now the only time AC/DC turns me on is when I find this on the Clearance rack at Target in the very sexy size of 4T. Oh yeah. THAT is hot.



(What’s worse, though, is that I actually took a picture of it to put on my blog.. But I’m not quite ready to admit it’s gone that far, so we can just skip right over that bit for now.)

And speaking of music…
What really inspired this whole post is that I caught a bit of the Regis & Kelley show yesterday wherein some young, hot actress from some show was being interviewed about her starring roll in that movie about country music. So, naturally, they had to ask her if she was a fan of the music before the roll. And naturally she said something along the lines of -- I learned to really appreciate it, which actually meant that she wanted to scream no, I’M NOT THAT MUCH OF A NERD. And I thought, well of course you wouldn’t like it. You’ve never had kids, and then had the song Tough Little Boys by Gary Allen nearly rip the heart from your chest on your drive to work. Or worse, had the song Highway 20 Ride by The Zach Brown Band make you sob at a redlight while your two year old son looked at you in the rearview mirror like you were actually embarrassing him.
Of course you only like cool music. YOU DON’T HAVE KIDS.

Come on, people, I can’t possibly be the only one who cries at the lines
somebody had a bad dream…
Momma and daddy, can me and my teddy
come in and sleep in between…
If you are a parent and that line doesn’t make you at least WANT to cry like an idiot, than either you A.)have a heart of stone,
B.)your kid is not old enough for you to relate, or
C.) you are actually cooler than me.
I will tell everyone that it’s one of the first two, though, so don’t bother disagreeing with me.

But the thing that really topped it off for me was that yesterday, I broke down and I bought one of the carriers. You know the one, I don’t even have to say it. One of the carriers that straps your baby to you like a vest. Now, I own a carrier already… But it’s one of those reversible slings that comes in all kinds of trendy patterns -- one of the ones that is advertised for it’s ability to make you the most fashionable mommy on the block rather than the one with the safest kid. That’s the one I had. But you know the expression: If you put lipstick on a pig? It’s still a pig. The same theory kind of applies. If you walk around with a kid strapped to your chest, you still look like a chick walking around with a kid strapped to her chest.

I will say, it worked wonders when she was a newborn, because it did the job of completely concealing her. Which was awesome for public breastfeeding… But if you’re smart, concealing your child when you’re not breastfeeding is the last thing you want to do because showing off your infant is not only the best excuse in the world to brag without coming off as a bitch -- but it is also the very best way to point out to everyone that the muffin top hanging over your mom jeans is actually not what you normally look like. (Even if it is.)

But this is not what makes me a nerd.
What makes me a nerd is that I strapped this puppy on the first time Scarlett cried once we got home from Target. I looked at myself in the mirror and I smiled at how adorable I was. I MEAN!, we were. I wore it for the next two hours while I cooked dinner and washed dishes, until Spencer came home and held her himself. My back killed afterward. Apparently you shouldn’t do dishes for the entire two hours you have a baby strapped to your chest, but -- I couldn’t help myself. Every so often, I’d pass by a mirror, and I’d smile and think… Ha, I look like such a mom.
(Mom being completely synonymous with the word dork.)

Then, I woke up this morning to the fussing of a precious, hungry baby. And it wasn’t a cool pair of jeans that I couldn’t wait to put on, or a cute new cardigan sweater. It was this ridiculous contraption that holds my baby so wonderfully to my chest.

And if nothing else, THAT is what truly makes me a complete, fucking nerd.
(Nerd, of course, being completely synonymous with Mom.)

Like Night & Day

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Matthew, three eternities ago

He loved to stand on your leg.
From about three months old, his legs were always jutting outward, propelling him up so that he almost shot right out of your hands. You’d go, “whoops!” as you got a better grip on him. Then he’d laugh up at you, never entertaining the thought for even a second, that you might not have caught him in time. His cheeks would pudge up into his eyes and he’d cough up his very first giggles as you got him back up onto your lap. His feet would land on your leg, and he’d stand. And he’d smile that fat, gummy smile the whole time. Sometimes his head would bob in that uncoordinated way that baby heads do. Sometimes his excitement would get the better of him and throw his best efforts at balance all to shit, but he would always smile. Stand and smile. Smile and stand.

She is different. She can stand, but she chooses not to. If you put her feet to your leg, she’ll straighten them out, just to see how it feels, then she’ll let her bum fall and her legs dangle down. Her head is much sturdier. She holds it effortlessly and it almost never bobs. Her eyes are wide and her expression is usually stoic and judgmental, watching the room. If you call her name, you’ll break her concentration. Her face softens and she turns. It might take her a minute to find you, but once she does, she’ll smile. It’s not a loud, goofy grin like her brother’s used to be. It’s leisurely, it’s delicate, and it looks just like me.



It’s hard to realize just how much of a personality a three month old baby actually has -- until you compare them to a sibling. I never would have considered Matthew’s love of standing a personality trait before his sister was born to show a complete disinterest in the exact same thing. I never would have seen his delightfully trusting nature to be anything out of the ordinary, until his sister came around, cringing and grasping the air in a panicked huff each and every time she was lowered cautiously into the bathtub. (Or crib. Or car seat. Or anything at all that involves being lowered more than an inch to get into.) Matthew was a pretty normal baby. And being the only one that I had ever raised, I pretty much figured that all babies were more or less just like him. I expected that Scarlett would remind me of him in every slobbery little baby thing that she did.

And she does. But only because she is so radically different.

Now that Matthew will be three in less than a month, I feel like I’m seeing it all come together. Things I probably never would have even looked back on, I remember now because of his sister. I remember how his pop-pop used to call him “Bobble-head,” and how he was always standing on somebody’s lap, lively and buoyant, while that ‘somebody’ did their best to hold on. How his chin lifted and his head fell back when he smiled. He’s grown into such a rough and tumble little boy that it’s hard to imagine he was ever as delicate and helpless as this brand new baby girl that sits on my lap today. And then I watch him as he hops and skips and jumps into the room all at once the way that only a three year can. He puts his hands to the ground for no discernable reason, then puts the top of his head to the carpet. He tries to stand on his head, but he kicks his legs off the ground too hard, launching his limbs completely over his head and rolling with a noisy thud onto his back. And suddenly it all kind of fits. Maybe he never actually was as delicate as her.

He’s still on the ground. His cheeks pudge up into his gleaming blue eyes. He lifts his chin and his head falls back in a fit of silly boyish laughter. Scarlett watches with those stoic, judgmental eyes and you can almost see her calling him an idiot. Then, almost in spite of herself, she cracks a smirk. And all I can think is how I can’t wait to see that very same smirk three wonderful years from now.


My boy, today

A Social Life

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So I’ve been working on getting this little dude out of the house lately.
I’d normally be a lot more into this, but I have to admit, I’m not a cold-weather person -- like, at all. In fact, I usually spend as much of the winter months as I can just getting myself from one indoor place to another, pretending the outside world doesn’t exist until the temperature gets above 50. In the summer, you couldn’t keep us inside if you barred the exits; We eat outside, we play outside, we read outside. And if we don’t feel like doing anything or going anywhere in particular, we go outside just to walk. But being that we’re just getting into January and fifty won’t be warming our toes anytime soon, I’m sucking it up and trying to make strapping everyone down in coats and hats and car seats a regular part of our day.

Like I’ve mentioned before, the Bear Library has kind of been our go-to place since Scarlett came home from the hospital. In her early newborn days, it was a nearby place where we could go to just get out of the house for a while. And picking out some new books at each visit gave us something to do with our abundance of time spent cooped up in the house the rest of the week. Once she turned a few months old, taking them both out became like second nature, and I was eager to get Matthew involved in a few activities where he could mix with some kids his own age. I kind of avoided story times for a while just because we’d already relied so heavily on books for entertainment over the past few months that I didn’t want to overload him. We got involved in Tots on Wheels (and have only not been back because each Tuesday since the first session, one of us has been bed-ridden with the fever we’ve passed around since before Christmas). I figured since he’s involved in something a little more active, I’d give the story time session at the Bear Library a shot. It was cute enough to give you a tummy ache.



We went to the Toddler Tales on Thursday last week and like Alicia said, there was definitely more to it than sitting quietly and listening the whole time. There were songs, and sign language to go along, plus dancing and using instruments, too. Then, at the end there was even a craft. And when the whole thing was done, they put together a dance that they learned with their jingle bells to a song about the New Year, and all of the parents tossed confetti over the group. It was definitely neat. Matthew made himself a little teddy bear name tag, too, (which I swear I could have framed if he’d have let it go) and had the chance to introduce himself to a few of the other kids before we left to go check out some new books.

We liked it so much that we checked out Rhythm & Rhyme Story Time at the Hockessin library the following week. I’ve always loved the Hockessin library and Matthew had only been to it once, so I was excited about taking him. It’s just much bigger, and nicer than the Bear one and now that I know I can return books to either library, I don’t mind making the longer drive up there. The children’s section is huge and has a whole play area with toys, puzzles, dress-up clothes, and keyboards at each table so that the kids can pretend they’re on the computer. There’s also a bunch of bins set up with baby board books and a huge stack of bean bag chairs for the kids to set up wherever they want and read.

Each time, Matthew took to the whole group thing better than the time before. When we went skating, he had no intention of even trying to be part of a group or participate in what the teacher asked him to do. He totally wanted to do his own thing. If I encouraged him to stand in line, he’d just look up at me like, “Fuck you. You go stand in line.” I spent a good deal of the group time mimicking what the kids were supposed to do and looking at Matthew like, “Look at how much awesome fun this is - you should totally try it with me so I don’t look like such a moron.” But all he did was start telling people he didn’t know who I was. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what he was whispering to the other outcast kids.

When we went to the first story time, he refused to sit on the rug with the rest of the kids. He either had to sit on my lap, or if he did go on the rug, he stood… almost as if he were trying to make a statement. I didn’t push it because I knew that if I embarrassed him, I ran the risk of him acting like -- you know, himself. It’s become this new defense mechanism for him or something. I normally don’t let him call the shots like that, but it made more sense to just let him feel it out at his own pace the first time or two. In no time at all, he was the life of the party. In fact, he didn’t exactly get the whole rug concept, and at each turn of the page, he’d hop in front of the group, point to something on the illustration and try to talk about it for five minutes. Luckily everyone was a good sport about it and just laughed at his enthusiasm, but I had to keep reeling him in, knowing it wasn’t going to be cute through the entire book. Plus the reader looked a little like she might hit him if he kept arguing with her that the animal on the page was not a hippopotomus, it was JUST A HIPPO.
Eventually, he got the point, and just whispered his comments to me instead of interrupting the reader. It makes sense that he would do that because at home, I encourage him to get involved in helping to tell the story. But it was really cool to watch him learn how to be a considerate part of a group.

By the next story time, he was all about sitting nicely. He sat discretely at the back of the group but still answered the reader’s questions about the story, too -- although they weren’t always the answers she was looking for. Once she asked what the kids thought the character’s plan was, and Matthew volunteered proudly that he wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. I was very proud, too.

Both times, my boy was not really into the whole dancing thing, but was super into the crafts. Matthew loves manning the glue sticks at home, so when they took out a basket of them for the kids to go nuts with - it was like he’d died and went to Elmer’s Heaven. He needed no direction. He knew to place the pieces right where he laid the glue and he had a blast putting the whole thing together. When they took out the markers, he surprised me by taking one at a time, and putting each color back before grabbing another one. And I was like, WHEN THE HELL DID YOU LEARN THAT AWESOME TRICK?? Of course, by the time we made it home, he’d forgotten it…

And can you believe… We went through all of that without bloodying a single nose. Maybe there’s hope for this kid yet.

Our Only Non-Bastard Child

Pin It Spencer and I have had two fights.



I can remember that one forth of July at his parent’s house, when we’d gone out for a walk so that we could argue without an audience. I got so frustrated with him that I balled my scrawny little hand into a first and plowed it into his shoulder like six times. Other than looking at me for a minute like I’d just grown six heads, there wasn’t much of a consequence. We continued to argue until we made up, and the whole incident dissolved into nothing more than a staple in my husband’s ever-growing repertoire of ‘things to make fun of me for.’ And then there was that one time on the drive back from the doctor’s office just this year. The first and only time I ever got mad at him- and he got mad right back. I can still feel the way my stomach just dropped the second he raised his voice, and all words died between us. When we got home, he came up behind me and hugged my waist. He whispered that he was so sorry, but this time, as much as I wanted to turn around, hug him back and laugh at how stupid the whole thing was, I couldn’t help but cry.

I’d hate to say that that’s us, because those are probably the two most pathetic examples of our marriage at work. But it’s a perfect example of how far we’ve come, and still, how far we have to go when we generally seem to think we have it all figured out.

You should know, though that my husband gives me a million reasons a day to love him. And that’s more to the point.

For one thing, his smile could kill you. I’m pretty sure I actually died a couple of times while we were dating and once at our wedding. Actually, physically, all around, he’s just… a really handsome guy. Like the kind of handsome that makes women hit on him right in front of me, while I’m pregnant, AT THE HOSPITAL. (True story.) He can also teach himself to do anything. Plumbing? Done it. Electrical work? Done it. Carpentry? Done it. Flooring? Easy. Cars? Psh. If he charged people, we could make a living off of the work to people’s cars he does just on the weekends. It’s literally harder for me to think of things he can’t do than to think of things that he can. And did you hear about the time that he saved a busload of kids from a fatal accident and the State of Delaware declared him a Hero? True story, swear to God. The detective on the case is working on putting together a ceremony to recognize his heroism. He works sixty hour weeks at a back-breaking job so that I can stay home with our kids and still gets up in the middle of the night if he hears one of the kids cry first. He cooks. He cleans up after himself better than I do. And he has never turned up his nose to a dirty diaper. He told me the week that we met that he hoped I liked him because he planned to fall in love with me. And then he smiled, and then I died.

And romantic? I can count the number of times he’s brought flowers home for no reason on more fingers than I can the number of arguments we’ve ever had. He holds me everywhere we go. He sweeps the hair off of my shoulder while we’re talking to friends. He kisses my forehead at the supermarket checkout. Sometimes he’ll just stare at me and ask the person next us if they’d ever seen anyone so pretty.


Pushing my neice Calista on the swing at my little brother's wedding.
Come on. Who wouldn't fall in love with that man??

In our four short years together we’ve moved a few mountains -- the very, very least of which were ever arguments. We’ve had to fight to keep our house in his divorce, and to get primary custody of his daughter when her mom walked out of her life (which is just shy of impossible for a man to accomplish); We managed the sudden loss of his job when I was six months pregnant with Matthew, and having our house broken into and our property stolen (twice) when I was pregnant with Scarlett. Then, wouldn’t you know it, Spencer caught the guy himself. Because that’s just the kind of thing Spencer does.

It’s been a long running joke between us that Scarlett is the only non-bastard child in our family. Even though I’m typically a pretty conventional person, I really thought that I wouldn’t mind having our first child before we got married… Knowing, after all that we had every intention of doing it shortly thereafter. But when Scarlett was born… I don’t know, it just felt right in this way that I can’t pin down with words. Before she was born, I couldn’t have imagined anything about the way Matthew was brought into the world being any better, but after I knew that feeling that came with bringing Scarlett not only into our family but into our marriage, I ended up wishing that I could have given that same thing to Matthew.


Matthew totally drinking in the moment his father and I
exchanged our vows.

I guess the difference is that Matthew was with us from so early on, we kind of built our lives with him on our hip. He is was made our house our home, he was with us before the memories of the best days of our lives were ever made, and even though he isn’t the reason we love each other, he is so much a part of why we are who we are today. He helped us to make this family what it is… what is was when Scarlett came into it. I worried a lot before Scarlett was born that her birth wouldn’t be as epic as Matthew’s because of that. Because we were already a family before she existed. In fact, we loved the family we already were so much that I was scared… really scared, of changing it.

If I’d only known.

It just brings this incredible sense of perspective, introducing this wonderful new person into a family that is already a family, (not just one in the making) and saying: This is yours now too. Everything that we’ve worked to build, we share it all with you, because you are worth that much to us. We will still grow together and our marriage will evolve over the years into something so new it may be unrecognizable to what it is now in these very early years, but we’ve laid the foundation that will keep it strong into all of our futures. We’ve built something that you can be so proud to say that you are a part of. We’ve built this family, your father and I, and now, we give it to you.