Journey to Dork-dom.

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When I went into this, I never expected it to flourish into what it has. I was quick to point out when I started blogging about our pre-k activities that I was not officially a ‘home-schooling parent;’ that I had no intention of continuing to home school past pre-k, and that I was ‘just’ a parent looking to make the most of the time I have at home with my kid. Well, things have changed since then. Matthew’s gotten so much out of the experience, that it’s evolved on it’s own into something pretty solid -- something I was almost trying to avoid.

Matthew has really started to blossom over the past few months, time and time again blowing me away with the things that he’s capable of really absorbing. I thought that most of what we were focusing on with each week’s “inspired lesson” would make for good exposure, but that most of the information we found in our little investigations would probably blur together and scatter away once the week was over and a new topic was introduced. I was thrilled to notice him developing a real love for exploring his interests -- but it wasn’t until I gave more traditional teaching tools a shot that I realized just how much of this stuff he’s actually digesting. All of those flashcards and workbooks and puzzles I said that I hoped to avoid leaning on? Well, they’ve definitely found a place in our hearts. Matthew eats them for breakfast, almost literally! Since we’ve introduced them, he’s asked for them every morning before even getting up from the table to get the oatmeal wiped from his chin.

So it makes sense that we’d adapt. I guess you could say we’ve turned a little mainstream with our home schooling. Charts and stickers for good work, schedules and lessons planned ahead. Flashcard games, math and science tools… yup, even workbook activities.



Here are a few ‘For Examples’ of our newly integrated daily or weekly activities:

We’ve gotten into the habit, for example of taking baths with measuring cups so that we can experiment with how to measure out tablespoons and cups and quarts of soapy water. We add and subtract and we make predictions about how much more or less we’ll have in the end.

When we eat our snack, we take out the scale. He measures out a group of crackers, nuts, etc. on each platform until they equal the same weight and the scale settles decidedly into balance. One of my favorites is the kinder-calendar.

Every morning we start the day with an oversized calendar. We make a prediction about the weather, and we choose from 3 stacks of weather-themed date cards that we tape to each new day’s calendar square. If it’s a cloudy morning and we predict rain, we take out our rain stack. Then we find the day’s square on the calendar and we decide from the pattern of numbers so far, what number today is. I lay out an option of 3 or 4 numbers for him to choose from, and he picks the correct date number. He practices using the tape himself to tape it to the calendar. Even though we've never tried to explain concepts like yeterday, tomorrow, or next week to him -- he's learned them in the first week of having this thing. It also helps that my birthday is marked on the 17th, so everyday we reference how long it's been since my birthday has passed.

Starfall.com. I would marry this website if it were legal. Or I weren't already married.

Our computer time has shifted a little, too. We still do all of the same phonics games (though we’ve graduated from simple pre-k stuff into the Early Readers games!) but now, he’s in control of the curser. Matthew has excellent hand/eye coordination, which until I looked into the hole gifted thing and took more notice of his abilities compared to his peers, I hadn’t realized was such a skill. But when I showed him how to navigate the cursor on my laptop and let him take hold of the reigns, I realized it’s something worth letting him have the extra (albeit VERY closely supervised) practice with.

I also made it a point to get him doing more creatively than just arts and crafts. We took out his instruments and I let him goof around on his sister’s giant keyboard a lot this week. I’m too musically inept to actually teach him anything regarding music, but I want him to start learning to explore other facets of creativity, too.

Recently, for instance, he’s been very into fixing things. When he broke a hanger trying to get a pair of pants down over the weekend, he begged me to fix it instead of toss it out, and I realized that it was the perfect opportunity to give him that experience. I handed him a few strips of tape, some glue and the broken hanger, and I watched as he tried to reassemble it himself. Even though it only held the pants for a few hours, he actually WAS able to reattach the hook to the base. I think it was a great learning experience. (His dad has this uncanny ability to fix virtually anything. I’d be doing my future daughter-in-law someday a huge disservice by not nurturing this interest as much as possible...)

Lastly, I'm getting him involved, once a week, in helping me make simple treats. If there’s one downside to having an insatiably creative kid, it’s that his willingness to follow directions… um, SUCKS. But if he can see (by me reading the directions, even if he can’t read them himself) that following specific steps in a recipe can produce something awesome, maybe he’ll learn to apply that somewhere (ANYWHERE!) else. Having him navigate around the computer has helped with that already. There are plenty of buttons to click and explore when he wants to poke around -- but he learned quick that if he wanted to accomplish something specific (like highlighting a sentence one word at a time) he was going to have follow very particular steps in exactly the right order.


Nerd-dom, Ahoy!

A note about this ultra-cute video: Matthew is NOT big on being put on display… (I know, if he only knew :-P) In fact, most of the pictures I do have of him doing something I’ve written about were taken in secret. BUT I did manage to capture this absolutely adorable video of him completing an alphabet maze in his workbook completely on his own… obviously pretty proud of himself (-- and apparently giving in to my obsession with taking pictures of him while he learns. I knew we’d get there someday… ) Also, he is very nasal-y from a cold, which (even though it's disgusting because it's snot) kind of makes it even cuter.

Gifted.

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A real possibility?

Not long after he turned one, Matthew began holding his crayons the way that an adult would hold a pen to write. It was such an anomaly to us that I remember huddling over him with a camera snapping pictures and literally laughing at how silly he looked holding a crayon with such refinement to scribble on junk mail.

The three-finger-grip is what it’s called, and when I came across a website one day while browsing something unrelated, I found out that children usually aren’t even taught to do this until the ages of 4 - 6, when, even then, it takes a good bit of practice.

Since then, Spencer and I have always joked about Matthew having an adorable knack for art. The scribbling stage for Matthew was almost non-existent. From the time he was two he’d draw insects small and spiky, and elephants large and round. Everything that he drew had distinguishing features -- giraffes had long necks and dogs had tails, and people had hair. Before anything was recognizable without a description, he’d explain what he was drawing as it came to him, always bit by bit; rarely in that adorable free-spirited zig-zag children usually make. He had this habit we loved to watch of peppering the page with these small, rapid markings that looked remarkably like stars all over his pictures. Every mark was intentional, and he could usually tell you what he was drawing without even stopping to think. Shoes, smiles, toys-in-hand. He had an amazing knack for picking up on details.

About a week after his third birthday, he drew us a picture of Scarlett. It was a picture that I had to drop everything to take a photo of when he showed us (the one shown in a previous post from sometime last week), because it was so unreal to me. She had a distinct torso and head (remarkable enough on it’s own!) but also a short neck, two long arms and two long legs, each jutting out from just where they should. He even gave her a little wisp of hair at the top of her disproportionately large head.

Ever since, I’ve been paying more attention to his drawings. This week he drew a picture of me in the kitchen one morning while I threw together his oatmeal. Again with the round torso and the head connected by a neck, but this time decked with a noisy tangle of long, blue hair. He drew me some arms and some legs, but THEN proceeded to pop two feet at the end of my legs, and then hands (HANDS!) at the end of my arms, with five stickish fingers poking out from each disk-shaped palm. He gave me eyes inside of my head, with pupils. AND A SMILE. I swear that if I hadn’t been standing right there, watching him make every strategic, narrated mark, I wouldn’t have believed that he’d done it himself.

Spencer’s shrewdness about the whole thing kept my overzealousness in check -- until Matthew drew him a Dump Truck. This was what did it for Spencer. He literally snatched the Magna-doodle out from under Matthew to show me, calling for me to grab the camera.

I looked it up, and these are things that children don’t learn to do until they’re 5 or 6.
Gifted children (showing a 30% advancement): 3 and a half to 4.
Drawings, according to more than one source, are one of the most useful tools in aiding the recognition of giftedness in preschoolers.
~~~~

Within a month of turning three, Matthew started showing me that he knew how to write letters without me ever showing him how. He literally came pulling at my pant leg in the kitchen one day to show me a letter S that he’d made totally freehand on his dry-erase board. I flooded him with praise over it - assuming completely that drawing it was a fluke - but thinking the fact that he recognized the design he’d accidentally snaked down the board was really very impressive. I was in the middle of telling him how great it was that he’d recognized it, when he placed his board on the linoleum floor, and hovered over it, sticking his rear-end way up in the air, then proceeded to draw a procession of Esses from the left end of the board to the right…

s SsS ss sSS sS s S s s

“Look, Mommy!” he squeaked. “I made you one, two, three, four, five… (etc.…) of them now.”

By the end of the next day, (after some prying that I didn’t want to be too obnoxious about - being that Matthew will get real turned off real quick if he thinks you’re putting him on display), he’d shown me how to write eight letters by request: C, O, Q, little i, T, A, V and S. To be sure that they weren’t accidents, I decided not to include any letter he wrote until I’d seen him make it with clear intention at least three times.

The very next day I decided that it was time to head down to our local Becker’s Parent/Teacher store to pick up some workbooks and other tools I’d been waiting for him to show a readiness for. I came back with fifty dollars in games and tools and puzzles and activities for children of early handwriting-capable age, which I was shocked to see on the boxes and workbooks and packages was around age five!

The first day I set him down with a workbook a pen, I didn’t get the chance to open the workbook with him right away because the baby was crying in my arms. I went into the other room to change her diaper and set her in her swing, and when I came back, surprised that he was even still sitting there, Matthew had already started and completed six pages without any direction at all.

That morning, he blew through nearly every activity in the book -- though there were some he said looked “too tricky,” that he refused to even try, telling me he’d mess it up. A true testament to the nut-job perfectionist in him -- another personality quirk that red flagged itself throughout everything I’ve read.

Finally, this morning, I battled my inner crazy and just decided to give researching this whole giftedness a shot. And I nearly fell out of my chair. I had eleven webpages on the subject and a couple of blogs that belong to women with gifted children up at once, and I started feverishly, but considerately compiling the list below.

Although Matthew didn’t exhibit many of the early signs of giftedness found in infancy -- I struggled to find a single characteristic found in gifted children his age that didn’t fit him to a Tee -- even and especially the behavior issues and personality quirks.

According to what I’ve read Matthew’s had the vocabulary of a four-to-five-year-old since he was two, and now, at age 3 for the most part basically has the vocabulary of a ten-year-old, really only lacking the regular use of transitional words like, “however” or “although.” He’s able to use all of the sequential time markers in line with other gifted children his age as well as multisyllabic words like, appropriate, ridiculous, hideous and apparently -- some of which he uses as often as I do.

Suddenly all of the dozens of strangers and parents of his peers who’ve gasped at his ability to speak so clearly and so descriptively for the past two years came flooding from the back of my mind. Maybe it hasn’t been just an isolated “knack” all of this time. Maybe the drawing isn’t either. Maybe the letter recognition and the fact memorization and the handwriting ability aren’t either.

Maybe he isn’t just “sharp” like we’ve always joked.

Maybe he really is gifted.

~~~~~

I compiled a list THREE PAGES LONG yesterday of every characteristic of giftedness that unquestionably fit my son (keeping in mind, of course, that these are only guideline tools at best, and not any kind of diagnosis). I condensed it for this blog post into only the most concrete, cut-and-dry indications, as apposed to anything that could be potentially left open to interpretation (especially the interpretation of… well,… his MOM) or that I felt needed to have examples presented -- which got really long, really quick. -- I.E. abilities a gifted child typically has by a specified age vs. personality quirks that gifted children tend to possess. And here they were:

For reference, Matthew just turned 3 last month.

Uses simple sentences by 17 months
Uses pronouns by 17 months
Using multisyllabic, transitional, and time sequential words by age 3
Ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy/fiction and non-fiction by 2 and a half
Ability to form at least 3 word sentences by age 2
--He was able to hold full conversations
Forms grammatically correct sentences compared to peers
--He’s been correcting peers who say ‘hers’ instead of ‘she’ for months. It frustrates him that other kids don’t seem to care.
Early artistic ability, (giving people hands, necks and clothing before age 4)
Early interest in keeping track of numbers
--If I had a nickel for every time Matthew counted something intangible (like how many more t.v. shows Mary watched than him, or number of time-outs) on his fingers in a day, I’d be rich.
Ability to memorize and recall facts easily by age 3
--When someone Matthew is comfortable with asks him what he knows about bones or thunderstorms or dinosaurs, he runs off at the mouth for fifteen minutes sometimes, spitting out fact after fact after fact.
Ability to do one-on-one counting of small numbers by age three
--He can count up to about sixteen objects (more or less) without getting tripped up. He can also count by tens (sometimes mixing up 30 and 40).
Recognition of own written name by age 3
Ability to write letters, numbers, words and their own names between 3 and 4
--He can write about eight letters totally freehand; and he can copy more if he has the letter in front of him to reference. He can trace any letter or number flawlessly - without straying from the dotted line virtually at all.
Ability to draw shapes by age 3
Ability to read easy-readers by age 4
--He’s read 28 of the easy-reader books from the Stepping Stones Together early literacy program already.
Ability to tell jokes/use sense of humor in general conversation by age 3
--Matthew jokes all the time. Just the other day, I was riding in the car with the kids, and Mary asked me who my favorite child was, and before I could answer, Matthew yelped out, “I AM mommy’s favorite!!” Then he quickly chuckled and said, “I’m just kiddin’ Mommy…”
Demonstration of musical aptitude (remembering lyrics, mimicking pitch variations and melodies) just after 2
--Spencer and I have always taken note of how he picks up on and mimics pitch and melody in songs phenomenally well. He also makes up his own songs all the time and remembers lyrics well.
Rather independent on the computer by age 4
--His favorite activity is typing on my laptop in Word Processor and watching the matching letters he types on the keyboard come up in different fonts, or watching me go to a website, asking me which “dot com” I’d like to go to today.
Ability to do simple addition and subtraction by age 4
~~~~~~~

So there it is. I don’t know what it means and I don’t know what to do with it. But I think I just learned something new about my kid. Hopefully a trip to the library early this morning will offer some sobriety to all this noise of information I’ve been up all night clumsily trying to pull together myself.

I don’t know. I’m just gonna put it out there...

What the hell do you guys think?

Both Sides of Peter Pan

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Whenever we have a minute to ourselves, Scarlett and I love our Mother-Daughter story time.

I drop down onto the cushion, crossing my legs in front of me; her in one arm and a small, green book in the other. This is to me what late night chocolate is to other women. This is like my indulgence. Instead of bubble baths and romantic comedies and shoes - my greatest treat is curling up with my daughter at the end of the couch for another chapter of Peter Pan.

Nestling her into my lap, I wrap my arm around her middle so that she’s pressed into my tummy. I swing the open pages out in front of us and she LUNGES at the book. She’s slapping her arms on the thirteenth chapter and screeching like she’s splashing into water. At story time, for some reason, my kid comes alive.

This isn’t like our morning story time, where she chomps on the corners of board books and whacks herself in the face trying to pull Goodnight Gorilla into her jaws. Matthew isn’t trying to pry his favorite illustration out of her slippery, saliva-clothed death grip… Matthew is off adventuring like little boys would rather do. This is probably more for Mommy than it is for her - and sometimes I’m not even completely sure why I do it. It calms her, for sure, which is a nice change from the bundle of temper and noise she typically is - but I think I like how it calms me; to just be able to sit with her and experience something together that’s just ours -- you know, other than the undoing of my bra. Then again, I guess another part is because I always had this time with Matthew as a baby and I feel like of all the quiet, just Mommy and Me time that Scarlett misses out on being the second/third child, it would be a shame not to give her at least this. Yes, this story-time is different. For this, and only this, she will sit docile and oddly attentive, though she might scratch at the type with her little nails from time to time in that cute, little kitten-like way that she does. And, of course, every once in a while when my voice jumps or rumbles or sings in the pitch of a character much different than me, she’ll twist her whole body around to look up into my nostrils with a look of momentary panic. Almost as if to check that I’m still there and that Tinker Bell hasn’t actually taken my place.

Last night Wendy grew up right in front of us. And when she started to tell her daughter all about Peter Pan the way that she often had, little Jane had already met him, and was ready to fly away herself. I had to stop and laugh to myself when that part crossed my lips, because - wouldn’t you know it - I started to choke on the thought. And as if she’d noticed the break in the rhythm of my voice, my daughter twisted herself around and she looked up at me very much concerned. Eyebrows pursed together and lips a little open.

And the weird thing is, I don’t think I would have missed a beat in that chapter if Matthew were the one on my lap. The whole story would have been a different experience altogether. Louder in some parts and deeper in others, while some parts that seemed to make the story completely with Scarlett as my focus audience might have passed with the turning of the page almost unnoticed. I would have gotten higher on sword fights and crocodile smiles than I did this time, and I would have skated through the part when Wendy’s mother said to her “Sweetheart, so do you.” completely unscathed.

I almost didn’t read Scarlett this book because Alice in Wonderland seemed such a better fit for Mother Daughter story-time. And when I had little interest in reading Alice in Wonderland all the way through, I almost chose not to read to her at all.

But just like sometime last year, when I almost decided I never needed any more children -- that having a son was all this Mommy was every going to need -- I’m so glad I opened up my heart to the abstract possibility of loving a daughter as fully and deeply and explosively as I have loved having a son. Both bring to my life a side of every experience I never would have known to even miss. And they are so worth missing.

This morning Matthew climbed into my bed, yielding a foam sword in one hand and his trusty stuffed Puppy tucked under the opposite arm. Within minutes of waking up I know my son will be up adventuring from one corner of the house to the next, so while I have them both tucked into my arm, I take a quick minute to pray. As weird as it sounds, all I can think to say as I lay my cheek to the top of his head, is that I am forever thankful for having the privilege to know both sides of Peter Pan.

The Underdog Holidays

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One of the things I love most about having Matthew at this age is building up the little holidays with him. The underdog ones. The ones we didn’t have to get a day off from school to look forward to when we were three.

Making fruity-pebbles cereal bars for breakfast

This was actually part of our weather theme -- mixing "raincloud" marshmallows with "sunshine" butter to create "rainbow" bars. Glad we didn't get around to making them until yesterday, because they were a fun start to the day.

Even Scarly got in on the green...

I’d spent the last decade and a half of my life forgetting to notice these holidays until they passed, yet oddly enough, these were the ones I looked forward to the most when my firstborn was small enough to cradle in my arms. More than white Christmas mornings or black Halloween nights, it was busting out the green undies and little clover socks on St. Patrick’s Day; plastering sugar cookies with icing on an Easter afternoon; taking fresh baked, basket-weaved-crusted apple pie to great grandma’s pool and lighting sparklers on the 4th of July… these were the promises I watched flash between us the day he was born.

Yesterday, he stood on the balls of his feet, trying to reach into the top draw of his dresser for the greenest pair of socks he owned. And when we found them together, he bounced onto his bed, flipped around with an untamable grin and seesawed his legs off the edge of the mattress so I could put them on.

He hasn’t let me pick out his clothes or dress him myself since he learned how to get in and out of his own sleeves and pull his favorite racecar shirt off of the hanger himself. He’s been perpetually clad in backward pants and mismatched colors for three and a half weeks now. But on St. Patrick’s Day of this year when I told him we “get” to wear green because TODAY day is St. Patrick’s Day! -- a name that has no more meaning to him than Geraldo Rivera -- he couldn’t wait.

Yesterday was our first time acknowledging the existence of the holiday, probably even saying it’s name out loud. But last night when I carried him off to bed and kissed his warm, soft cheek in the dark; tossed his green cargo pants and clover-clad socks in the hamper by his night-light, I put him to bed with memories stained in rainbow, gold and green washing over his dreams. Little as they were, I put him to bed with tradition in his veins.

But more importantly, at least one matching outfit in the hamper.

Me-friendly on my Birthday

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Today I am 25.

Let's face it; I'm a pretty emotional person on this blog and if you’ve read my little corner of the internet for any length of time, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. But today, looking out into the dawn of my twenty-fifth birthday, sentimental just isn’t in my repertoire of thoughts. Today I feel surprisingly grounded in who I am.

And this is surprising to me, being that it comes so close still (has it REALLY been five months!?) to the completion of what we’re planning to be the last of my pregnancies. And coming from someone whose a sentimental sap by nature, I can tell you that the subject of children to someone like me is like a drug to our emotions - it just takes them over completely and spins them blindly out of control. For the expectant mother, whose all hocked up on hormones to boot, you can only imagine how fearful I was about losing my senses over my pregnancy with Scarlett - my very last baby - coming to a close. Even though it was what I wanted, I knew myself well enough to expect that living through the day to day experience of having my body transform back from the miraculous, life-bestowing force that it was to that of just… me… again, might be tough.

But you know how it feels?

Fucking AWESOME.

Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten back into the swing of working out. I’m doing the Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred -- though to even attempt doing this everyday I’d have to pretty intentionally neglect my kids, so I’m on an every-other-day schedule with it. Still, I’m rocking a size 8 in American Eagle jeans… and even though that’s two sizes up from the ones I wore the day I snapped my first spawnlett-in-the-oven photo - I’ve gotta say I’m really kind of loving the body I’ve got right now. It isn’t exactly bikini-ripe, but you know what? It’s mine -- and, surprisingly, that feels good.

Right now the only thing about my body that is still a vessel to motherhood are my breasts. I’m still breastfeeding around the clock -- after hours included, on demand. Although you won’t hear too many complaints from me in that regard. You might remember a post I did about a year ago, called Pregnant Boobs Are All Sorts of Awesome. Well, turns out, (a few months of related discomforts aside) breastfeeding ones are even better, at least to a girl like me who hasn’t exactly been gifted in that area all her life. Plus, about two days ago something incredible happened that has endeared these babies into a whole new realm of awesome for me. My breast stopped leaking in the middle of the night. And so for the past two nights I’ve been able to do something I haven’t had the luxury of doing in FIVE BLASTED MONTHS: I slept with-OUT a nursing bra. (!!!) Can I get a hallelujah! Yeah, I’m still going to bed late, waking up twice in the night, and then getting up at the ass-crack of dawn -- but the cycle just got a little less torturesome.

Now that I’m feeling more myself, these days, I’ve started to get back into the habit of thinking about myself, too. I’m basically living my life out in hour-by-hour increments these days, none of which have anything to do with me. For instance, my schedule looks like this:

3:00 a.m. - Bfeeding
5:00 - (my) computer time
6:00 - Bfeeding
7:00 - Wake kids; breakfast; Mary gets ready for school
8:00 - Mary bus stop; Matthew lesson & craft
9:00 - Matthew computer time; Scarlett cereal & Bfeeding
10:00 - Snack time; Story time; Scarlett play time
11:00 - Matthew clean-up time; lunch time
12:00 - Quiet/nap time; Scarlett Bfeeding
1:00 p.m. - My work-out/shower/computer/housecleaning time
2:00 - Outside/Activity time; snack time
3:00 - Clean-sweep of house; Mary comes home; Bfeeding
4:00 - Start dinner; check homework
5:00 - Dinner; Scarlett cereal feeding
6:00 - Dishes; bath time
7:00 - Bedtime routine; Scarlett Bfeeding


And since I can’t change most of them (and don’t want to change the rest), I’ve decided that instead of trying and failing to bleed “me” time out of whatever gap in responsibility I'm lucky enough to trip over once in a while, I’m just going to try a little harder to enjoy the things I’m busy doing for everybody else by making them more me-friendly.

For instance, if I’m going to be grocery shopping with two small kids more than once a week (which we have to do to avoid the use of two carts, which would be impossible for me to maneuver on my own), then I’m getting myself a latte for the trip. And if I’m going to have to tote my kid around to activities outside of the house, then I’m going to allow myself the freedom to feed my daughter wherever I please without feeling embarrassed about being in a public place. And if Spencer needs dinner/bedtime to be pushed up to some impossible hour because of his work schedule that day, then I very much reserve the right to have Mary help me out around the house instead of playing with her friends on busy days after school. And finally, if I feel like taking a bubble bath at the end of a rough day, than no matter how filthy, stinking, nasty my kids are -- I get the tub for the last hour of the day while Spencer puts them to bed.

Today I woke up really wanting to pull together some last minute St. Patties Day crafts with Matthew - but I decided to write this blog post instead, brew some extra coffee and enjoy my birthday.

Which got me wondering:
What kind of things do you do to make life more you-friendly? And are you able to do them without compromising your day-to-day schedule?

I’d love to hear what others have to say!

~ Meanwhile, Happy St. Patties Day!

So Just The Beginning

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Scarlett bounces on my knee like a lively plate of jelly. She babbles like a goon and once in a while takes a stab at trying to get her mouth over an object just out of her reach. I’m sitting there, supporting her so that she doesn’t topple forward as she works hard to get her foot close enough to eat. I’m drinking in her wild-eyed curiosity and her every gawky, spontaneous movement. Then, all at once it really hits me how much Matthew has grown… I mean, really, really grown since he was this small.

I looked down at him, playing with Power Ranger action figures at my feet, maneuvering noisy, impossible back-flips out of them… remembering a time when getting his fist into his mouth was an achievement all it’s own. I thought about the events of this week, - all of the fences he’s climbed, the friends that he’s made, the milk carton projects we’ve thrown together, the vowels he’s learned to identify… and what a testament they were to all of the growing this boy has actually done.

For one, the boy is plowing his way through our Stepping Stones Together reading program. This week I mounted his progress chart onto a bright piece of scrapbook paper, dolled it up a bit with some Hot Wheelz stickers, and posted it onto the side of our fridge so that he could help me to put the smilies on it himself the next time that he finishes a book. I realized after looking over all of the smiley face stickers running down the section reading Series A, that he’s read 23 of these books. Not completely without guidance, but ultimately on his own.

Wow, I thought. My boy did that.

We spent a lot of time splashing through puddles this week, learning and experiencing the cycle of rain as hands-on as we could for our pre-school matter. We flew kites to watch the way the wind behaves just before a heavy rain, we pulled up weeds and ran our fingers along the dusty roots to learn about how the plants sip rainwater from the ground. We watched the birds flutter into their little wooden houses and squirrels bounce into their trees to get out of the rain; we picked up twisty, knotted worms that washed up on the curb and drew them in our field journal. We played computer games that taught us the sequencing of plant life and we did science experiments to make our own clouds inside of a plastic water bottle; blew bubbles to make our own rainbows; popped balloons to create our own thunder with the rapid movement of air pressure. While other children that stormy night were taught that angels like to bowl above the clouds, Matthew was gaining a basic understanding of how water molecules in the clouds hold small electric charges that build to create the bolts of lightning we see during a thunderstorm -- not because I planned it into his curriculum, but because this boy just DOES NOT STOP asking questions. And because of that, he knows that the air pressure inside of a dark storm cloud can be strong enough to tear the wings right off of an airplane. He knows that pipes can carry electricity from a bolt of lightning right inside of your house.

My boy knows that.

Then, I thought about how a few months ago for the first time, my son took a crayon to his bedroom wall. If I’d have caught him in the act, I’m sure it would have been a different scenario, but (luckily for him) I happened to stumble upon it one night after I’d carried his heavy, sleeping body off to bed. I stood there for a quiet moment before shutting off the light, following these loopy, jumping angles he’d brought to life in green and blue just above his building blocks, in a space on the wall between his dresser and the rocking chair his pop-pop painted for him just after he was born. And I loved what he created on that Crayola covered wall more than anything I’d ever done myself. A little bit of practice later and it wasn’t long before he was puling on my jeans with one hand, holding a sheet of paper in the other last week, telling me and Daddy to look at what he drew:

“Holy shit,” we said, exchanging glances of total disbeleif, “Our son drew that.”

I could see the drawing on the fridge from where I was sitting on the couch, and I looked back to Scarlett after smiling for a minute, trying to imagine all of the wonderful things this daughter of mine is going to do before she ever, even turns four.

Then all at once my heart stopped for a minute when suddenly my mind wandered into the idea that four years old is so only the beginning. That their accomplishments and their knowledge and their creations won’t stop at milk carton crafts and crayon drawings on a wall. Their potential is limitless.
And that at the rate these children are growing, their imprint on the world is shaping up to be a mighty, mighty beautiful one.


Scarlett let out a pitchy, exasperated squeal as one of her feet fell out of her grip, and Matthew dropped what he was doing to answer the call. He made a few silly faces and kissed her on the cheek, taking her tiny little hand in his and helping her grasp a Power Ranger toy. “You don’t play with your feet, my silly girl, you play with a toy -- like this.” Scarlett promptly chewed his head and giggled in gratitude. To which Matthew giggled back.

I looked at the two of them, and I thought, Wow. I did that.

On The Days That We Don't

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Some days we learn how to run into the wind with a kite and watch it rip through thick, grey clouds.

Some days we don’t.

Some days we get our hands all sticky with homemade paste and cotton ball fuzz and we go to bed with die underneath of our fingernails and paint on my camera.

Some days we don’t.

Some days we learn about condensation and counting by tens and what words begin with K.

Some days we don’t learn much more than what words not to repeat while Daddy puts up a new door in the hall closet.

Some days I sway with the baby to a soft, lazy rhythm long after she’s fallen asleep, and I talk into her dreams.

Some days I can’t wait to put her down.

Some days I reach out for him and against all of his big, angry feelings, he hugs me anyway.

Some days it’s all we can do not to lose all control.

Some days we lose time sitting criss-cross-applesauce in a sea of hardcover stories way past our bedtime. My kids meet the Long Leg Lou and Short Leg Sue of my childhood, and we forget the T.V. entirely.

Some days we don’t.

Some days we build character and patience through tough, nap-less afternoons and long, feel-better talks in the car.

Some days we don’t.

Some days we pounce into warm, spring puddles with rain boots on and spin our umbrellas like tops on the pavement. The baby swats at a raindrop on her nose and everyone laughs together.

Some days couldn’t be turned around with all the sunshine in the world.




One of the most frustrating realities about parenthood is that compromising is a constant. Every time that you choose to do one thing, you’re making the choice not to do another. All of the prioritizing and organizing and scheduling in the world wouldn’t allow a mom to accomplish everything that she wanted or needed to do in a single day.

Every day that I choose to take Matthew out to play in the rain is a day that I choose not to take the kids somewhere exciting where he could interact with kids his own age. Everyday that I choose to take Matthew out to Story Hour at the mall is a day that I choose to shower instead of dig holes in the mulch at a playground. Any day that I choose to spend navigating my way through a hardware store to save my husband from having to do it over the weekend is a day that I probably didn’t craft with the kids. An afternoon that Scarlett spent engaged and entertained while I interacted with her one on one for a decent amount of time is probably an afternoon that Matthew spent playing with Matchbox cars in his bedroom rather than exploring bird nests in the woods and recording little drawings in his Field Journal for our preschool activity.

And on the days that we don’t, I wonder if that effects the kind of mom I am. I wonder.. if I don’t spend everyday crafting with my toddler, does that strip me of my right to declare myself the kind of mom who does; the kind of mom I’ve always wanted to be? If sometimes Scarlett spends more time than I’d like strapped into a stroller or a car seat or a swing on busy days, than am I no longer the kind of mom I was yesterday - the kind of mom who makes giving her baby physical and mental and emotional stimulation a highest priority? I wonder.. when Matthew pushes his boundaries as far as they’ll go and he hits me in the face for the first time - and against everything I feel is right - I choose not to pop his rear-end because a stranger is looking, I wonder if I’ve become that mom; the kind of mom I’ve always made a concentrated effort not to be. The kind who chooses being perceived as a good mom over actually being one.

I wonder, through all of my mistakes and my triumphs; my shortcomings and my priority choices; my efforts and my principles… what kind of mom have I become?

This year for my birthday my parents gave me a gift certificate to American Eagle. She said that she wanted to give me a gift card to Michaels because she knew that it was important for me to get back into my art again -- something I’ve deeply neglected since about the exact moment in time that I found out I was pregnant with Matthew; which is a reality I’ve become terribly ashamed of. When I think of my negligence to that core part of who I am, and I think about all of the statistics my teachers threw out in college (that statistically speaking only one person in any given class would go on to actually accomplish something in that field) and how I was the one they thought would do it, a part of me is really disappointed that I’ve become that kind of mom. The kind who let motherhood push her dreams aside. A statistic of a mom.

Then my moms said, “I decided not to because your father and I knew you’d just spend it on craft supplies for the kids.” But instead of feeling that small twinge of shame… in that moment, I felt really god damned proud.

I thought, wow, she thinks of me as THAT kind of mom. The kind of mom who would put her children first. Even when given a generous amount of money to spend at will at one her favorite places on the planet. She didn’t think I would. She said she knew. Coming from the woman who has been there for every question or mistake I’ve ever had or made regarding medicine, diet, growth, purchases, discipline, morals, education, faith, bonding, cleaning, healing or anything and everything else under the sun related directly or indirectly to parenting -- that was quite a compliment. Even though she’s told me a hundred times over that I’m a great mother (because she’s a great mother herself, and she would know) that was one of the hardest-hitting compliments I’ve ever received.

I’m that kind of mom. A statistic of a mom: One of a billion who’ve gladly taken a backseat to the lifting up of their children. And after that conversation with my mom yesterday, I did Mary’s hair for school this morning, and I thought about how her mom hasn’t seen her in more than two months. And how her hair has grown since then.

And I thought that maybe this is the kind of statistic it isn’t so bad to be a part of. That even on the days that I don’t, I’m still doing a whole lot worthwhile.

Not Just The Baby

Pin It Letter to my Lollipop: Five Feisty Months



Dear Scarlett,

This has been one of those milestone months. The kind of month you have with a new baby that leaves you feeling like you’ve really finally met them. Not just the physical, baby them. But the real them. The them they’ll be for the rest of their life. Only, in smaller packaging.

And your packaging is small. It’s packaging so small I have a hard time believing it fits all of you in it. While most babies at five months are plumping up like Pillsbury dough, you seem to grow UP faster than your OUT can keep up with. Your limbs gain steady reach and your neck gains strength; your toes outgrow one precious baby shoe after another and your jammies pull at the neckline more and more from one kick of your legs to the very next. And at the rate your piano fingers are growing, kiddo, you’ll be able to pick up the guitar in less than a month and master every cord. But your little tummy, even at it’s very plumpest, leaves a gap in the waistline of even the jeans your legs have outgrown weeks ago -- a gap that quite frankly my dear, makes me a little jealous. Since I'm the one working off all the ice cream you made me eat for breakfast when I was pregnant with you.

And Lord KNOWS it is not from any lack of eating. Child, you eat my poor breasts out of house and home. In fact, Matthew very appropriately calls it ‘Eating My Boob.’ As in, “Mommy, Scarlett’s crying. I think she needs to eat your boob.” He doesn’t know how right he is. Or maybe he knows too well. Sometimes I’m surprised you leave any mammary glands left at all.




It’s all just part of your feisty personality. And feisty it is, my love. For everything you lack in physical bulk, you make up for with BIG personality.

To prove it, you have -- at only five months, mind you -- officially been dubbed the UNbaby-sittable child. That’s right. Both sets of loving, devoted, notorious-for-spoiling-rotten grandparents (to a dozen grandchildren between them before you even came along), have all but banned you from being left at their houses anymore. At least until they’ve had a good few months to recover from your last visit. Why? Because the only few times you have been, you have screamed bloody, violent murder the entire length of your stay. You’ve refused to eat. You’ve refused to sleep. You’ve refused to exhale without vocally shattering windows with each shrill breath. You’ve practically been thrown back at us upon each return and frankly, I wouldn’t have been shocked to look back and find that the windows had been barred shut after we left.

And guess how much I blame them, Scarlett? Not much. And guess how surprised I’ve been at your behavior, Scarlett? Not. Much. Because guess how much more civilized you are at home? NOT MUCH.

I’m pretty sure, Scarlett Rebecca, that if you don’t go on to achieve some kind of great position of authority (like maybe global domination) someday, it’s not going to be from any lack of potential. Your presence is a powerful one. Which is surprising for someone who could easily fit into their own diaper bag. But, believe me, (and anyone brave enough to baby-sit you - or the crowd of strangers that flock around you anywhere we go) it’s true.





I think it's funny how both mom-moms made it a point to say as we were leaving, "Oh! It's not that we don't love her dearly -- don't get me wrong..." Daddy and I find ourselves saying the same thing to eachother after complaining about what a pain in the ass you are for some length of time, too.




But you know what makes it all worth it? The fact that there is one anecdote to your rein of terror joy and sunshine: And that is me.





I thought that Daddy was just trying to butter me up to hold you the first few times he pointed it out. But I started to notice it too -- until it became downright unmistakable the way you react to me walking into a room. Your head pops up in my direction like a kernel of hot corn, and your little arms fling themselves into this totally uncoordinated flurry of action, as if you might be trying to swim to me or something. It’s a tactic that works too. Who could refuse a greeting like that?

More than once your father has thought that you might actually be crying out in pain while waiting for me to get you… only to be shown that, yes, that is simply the way that you cry when you want to be held. You should hear the way that with one good sigh of relief once you’re lifted into my arms, ten minutes of gut-wrenching wails are tucked away like they never even happened. You’ll even pepper me with smiles as if to say, “Me? Upset? Never! I’m such a delight!” That’s usually when Daddy calls you a nut job. And usually when I say, “Yes, but she’s Mommy’s little nut job.”

Whoever said you can’t spoil a baby, by the way, greatly underestimated you.

You have somehow managed to wrap every last one of us so tightly around your little finger that this house has become nothing short of a puppet show. (That, or maybe a dictatorship.) You run us ragged from dawn to dusk (and SOME OF US from dusk to dawn) -- still, all we want to do is kiss your feet. And amazingly, Matthew and Mary haven’t shown any signs of minding the attention-hogging-vortex you’ve become to this family. They fight for your attention as hard as any of us. Earlier this month, Mary playfully teased Matthew over you loving her the most -- to which Matthew furiously seethed, “Nu-uh, MARY!! Hers is always looking AT ME more!”



Judging the daily Lets See Who Loves Me More competition between your siblings

I think it’s safe to say you have groupies for life.

And it’s no wonder. You are a delight. Nutjob or not.

There are, of course, the adorable things you do just like any other typical five month old baby. You greet us every morning with gaping, contagious smiles. You gurgle and coo and you kick your little legs in this spectacular show of gratitude for changing your diaper. And you love us so deeply that you almost have us convinced that: yes, the world might just end if we don’t stop what we’re doing to hold you in our arms and love on you at once.

But then there are the things that are all you, Scarley. Like the way that you have been vocal from the day you came home. While most babies are almost silent still at this age, you’ve already mastered the noisy grunt, the happy squeal, the roll of your gargle, the Eeek! of a fun surprise, every array of hoot and holler known to mankind, and the sputter-y beginnings of your first few laughs. This month you’ve also discovered how to whisper. We listen to you practice every morning to yourself:
“Whish, whish, whoo… hhhhhhaaaaahhhhhh, sssssshhhhhhh, bahhhhhh… whish, whish, whooooohhhhh…


For a while, I started to call you Little Hoot. Until, of course, you learned to roar. At which point you were re-named Little Dinosaur. If this doesn’t sound as cute to you, you obviously have not heard yourself roar. There is nothing cuter on the planet than watching you crinkle your nose into a tiny knot above your gummy grin and hearing you let our a wispy, sometimes throaty “roa-aaarr!” in between tickle attacks, as if you are actually playing along, preparing to attack us if we don’t tickle you into submission.


And there are your hands. You have amazing hands. You move them with this fluidity that is downright impressive for a five month old. While most babies at this age usually have their hands clenched into perpetual fists, always grabbing and pulling… you prefer to reach and feel. Your hands are almost always open -- unless they are weaved into one another in this way that I didn’t even know babies your age were coordinated enough to manage -- and you reach for things with this gentle cautiousness. You are intensely curious; you love to study every inch of the things we put in front of you -- but careful at the same time. Our favorite, favorite, favorite part of this month with you has been - hands down - the special way that you reach for our faces. You hold us above your eyes with one still hand, running your other delicately along every dip and curve of our skin, whispering to us while we whisper to you. It is amazing to watch you soak up the life around you.




This month’s letter to you has been the most difficult to end. There are too many sides of you to describe, too much love for you to put words around, too much wonder in your eyes and color in your personality to capture in a handful of photos. I could write for days about the relationship each one of us has built with you already. Daddy says that it’s as if you were born knowing and feeling like were always a part of this family, and that’s why you’re never content to just sit in your swing or play in your highchair when the rest of us are gathered together in a room. You want to be with us, in the middle of all the action, all of the time. Whether we’re gathered at the breakfast table on a weekend morning, or finishing dinner over the stove and making our plates in the kitchen -- at the busiest and most inconvenient of times you always need to be held the most. And I think he’s right. Putting you down so that we can be a family while you rest somewhere just being the baby isn’t something you’re content to do. In fact, when we call you ‘the baby,’ Matthew corrects us everytime: “She is not The Baby. She is just Scarlett Rebecca.”

And I think that more than anything that pretty well sums up what we’ve learned about you this month.

You are not just the baby. You are all Scarlett, all of the time. And we wouldn't have it any other way.