Moment of the Week - 8

"Mine!" and "No!"  These are favorite words around here.  Clearly the most important of human phrases.

I also won this yesterday:

Thank you, Fair and Fine!

I would like to forward this award to a few of my favorite bloggers:

Sparking the Pavement
The Copyverse
Accidentally Mommy

Toddler Tricks - 8

Ways to trick your baby:

Problem:  You have too many toys.  Your mother in law gets you stuff, you have hand-me-downs from friends or family, you've bought a few things and, of course, over the holidays you collect baby knick knacks given with love.  Your kid, though, is only interested in about five things at a time.  The rest clutter your space, for, apparently, no reason.

Solution:  Keep toys your kids have seemed to lose interest in inside a closet or storage space.  On days when they are particularly cranky, go into the "special closet" and give them a "new toy."  You can keep most baby and toddler toys evergreen for years because your baby will have exceptional expertise in finding new ways to play with it and use it.  In my house, we just did this with a Leap Frog table.  The babies loved it when they were 9 months old and learning to stand and walk.  They could balance on it and slam the buttons in celebration of their accomplishment.  In taking it back out, at age two, they're making up dances to the different musical selections, and repeating the colors and shapes after the toy says them aloud.


Ways your baby can trick you:

Problem:  Some of the new uses they think up for those old toys may not be particularly safe.  At nine months, my babies balanced on the table to steady their unused feet.  At two years, they balance on the table - on top of the table, in preparation to jump onto the furniture, of course.

Solution:  Keep a close eye on your toddlers.  No matter what you give them to play with, if it gets too quiet or too loud, they're doing something you don't want them to do.  And usually you won't have even thought of it, until you see them do it.

Problem Solvers

As I write this, I see two sets of big brown eyes staring at me intently.

"No, mama.  No.  Go.  Go. GO!"

The problem with this picture, of course, is that my babies are upstairs.  My babies are upstairs, meaning they figured out how to hop the baby gate and clamber up, most likely in an unsafe fashion.  Climbing is their passion right now.  That and causing problems.

We have to remember, as parents, that a problem made for us, is a problem solved for toddlers.  We're simply coming at life from a different perspective.  A gallon of milk on the floor is a huge problem for me, but the mental logistics that went into getting that milk on the floor is a major accomplishment for my two year olds.

First, they had to find something they could easily climb onto.  They used their green bumbo chairs.  Which means they had to determine that a seat can be used for more than just sitting.  They are using their brains to assign different definitions to objects that I already gave them the definition for.  Then they had to climb on the back end of the chair and balance while reaching for the counter.  They had to use their gross motor skills in order not to fall.  Then they had to grab the milk, I assume because they were thirsty.  Really, the only part of this project that failed was that they couldn't get a cup to pour the milk into, and the milk was too heavy for them to do anything but drop it on the ground if they were going to keep their balance.

Once they figured out that chairs are not only for sitting, they were able to apply that to all chairs.

Exhibit A: The ottoman.  By turning our ottoman upside down and standing on it, they can turn the television on and off.  A problem made for me.  A problem solved for them.

Exhibit B: They climb the dining room table chairs with ease, giving them access to salt, and butter, and glasses and books and any other errant thing I've left there unwittingly.  How else would they be able to feed Elmo the butter he so clearly needs to survive?  Problems made for me.  Problems solved for them.

So, really, the more troublesome your toddlers, the better off they may be.  They're constantly accessing each situation and coming up with ways to solve their perceived problems on their own.  It only just so happens that the problem solving often involves a huge mess.

A Real Friend

Do you have a real friend?  A friend close by with a kid close in age that you can call or visit with or without baby in tow?  They're hard to come by, and even harder to keep, but it's worth it to try.

When I became a parent, I gradually lost most of my childless friends.  Sure, we still chat once in a blue moon.  One of us will make a point to write on the other's facebook wall or send a chain letter email every once and again.  Some of them would even stop by for dinner after my babies went down for the night, which used to be quite nice.  But it's hard to keep up adult relationships with those who like to have a conversation consisting of real sentences and maybe even paragraphs once you have a child.

Communicating in sentences, telling stories, learning about the other's day in fluent conversation is simply not possible with a toddler around.  Friends without children can get frustrated quickly.  New friends you try to make will lose interest or find you rude when, just as they're telling you something close to their heart, you need to interrupt them to stop your two year old from licking a DVD.  They'll give you another chance, sure, but when they've gotten three words more into the story, and you have to, again, stop them to coerce a pen out of your baby's hands that she had set her heart on destroying your furniture with, they'll start to lose steam.  By the time they have to shout the end of the story over your toddler screaming about nothing in particular to nobody in particular, well, you've pretty much lost them.

Unless you've found a goldmine of understanding within them, they'll feel like a heel, and you'll feel like a bad friend, all while your babies happily sip away at a 50 percent grape juice water mixture you just handed them before they decide it would be more fun to turn the cups upside down and "water" the carpet, so that you can't even properly walk your disgusted friend to the door when they leave.

This is why it's important to at least attempt to find a mom friend.  Mine found me, and I have a feeling I will be forever grateful.  We were at the pool a few months ago, and she was very friendly.  She gave me her number.  I didn't call.  Sometimes, you're just so overwhelmed with your family, your cleaning, your routines, you feel like you just don't have the energy to even make a phone call.  And if you do make that phone call, then what if you actually have to meet that person somewhere?  The effort can be too much.  Make it.  I'm telling you.  It ends up being a relief in the end.

In my case, she eventually called me.  She stopped by.  I still didn't call.  We ran into them outside in our condo complex a few times and chatted while our babies played.  I still didn't call.  She dropped off presents for the babies, randomly.  Okay, okay.  I called. 

The babies and I traipsed over there this afternoon, and as the stay at home mother of a singleton who is only 14 months old, her house was veritably spotless.  The babies promptly wrecked it, pulling out toys, exploring off-limit areas and generally being a nuisance.  She didn't mind.  She wants a mom friend, too.  She made me coffee, and we got about two dozen half conversations in, which has got to be a record of some sort in mommy friendom.  Of course, I have all sorts of questions for her that are unrelated and split because of the way in which we had to talk, but that just gives us all the more reason to get together again.

It was really worth it.  I often feel too tired to try to coordinate anything with anybody.  Getting the three of us out of the house on just the small adventures we have to the library and the Walgreens is stressful enough.  If you've got a friend who's willing to put up with your children, you've got a keeper.

And you know what I said up there about childless friends not understanding?  That's not true.  Some of them will, just as some friends with children won't.  If you've got a friend who's willing to put up with your children, you keep that friend close.  Age doesn't matter, whether or not they have kids doesn't matter.  A kindred spirit is a kindred spirit, and we all need one of those.

Abortion, Eugenics and Parenting

The abortion debate rages on around us.  The ethical issues of life and death are potent enough to break families apart as members line up on either side of the great divide.  Neither side will budge.  Both sides feel they are protecting the core of human rights.

And then, every once in a while, someone comes along who says something so completely atrocious that the bickering enemies find themselves tossed into the river together, struggling to find a way back to their noble shores.

Glenn Beck found his way back masterfully, by pinning the opinion of one pundit on every so-called progressive towing the picket line or simply holding their views quietly in their homes.

That pundit is named Virginia Ironside.  Her statement?

"If I were the mother of a suffering child - I mean a deeply suffering child - I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face... If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would."

As much as I blanch at the thought of detailing for you my own views of abortion, I think I can safely say that the only battle this woman won with that statement was to horrify everyone and anyone who heard her.

To mention something so casually that would sicken so many is no boon for her cause, which was, based on the article I read, pro-choice.  The comparison of killing a living, suffering being without their consent to killing or terminating (depending on your definition) a fetus in the womb is an argument many pro-lifers make and with much success.  Most pro-choice people that have any shred of sanity would not liken an abortion to murder, especially in a public forum.  It goes against the very basis of much of the pro-choice stand.

Should we kill all those who suffer?  Would the world be better off?  Absolutely not.  What of the Stephen Hawkings of the world?  And, I know, I know, here is the slippery slope.  What if someone aborted a Stephen Hawking, and the world will never know his greatness?  And really, do accomplishments really even matter when it comes to whose life or death you mourn?

Still, while the definition of a fetus as a being with rights remains up in the air to be fought for and against, the definition of a child is a living, breathing, separate being with rights that would be alienated should he or she be murdered.  We can at least agree on that.  Living children have rights.  And living children under a certain age cannot even give consent to have sex, let alone be killed.  That makes it murder, by law and definition.  Our feelings may differ on whether or not that label should be applied to a fetus, but in the case of a born child, there is no feeling in the matter.  The law stands.

And what of the mother?  Ironside basically called mothers who struggle with disabled children, mothers who made the right choice for themselves and their families, irresponsible mothers.  Irresponsible for not killing the child they wanted, the child they love and the child that loves them.  Even if we pretend she didn't advocate killing born children, and we take this back to the abortion debate, that is not pro-choice.  That is pro-abortion.  Again, she hacks away at the very base she's claiming to fight for.  The implication in the term pro-choice is blatantly obvious.  Women have the choice as to whether or not they would like to abort their fetus or carry it to term, regardless of circumstances, regardless of medical tests - tests which are fallible.  Ironside has no right to attack any woman who chooses to birth a baby who may have disabilities.  That is a woman's choice.  Pro-choice.  Choice.

To view it in such a black and white manner as to say a woman with a disabled child should abort or must abort, and then to take it further to compare it to murder as a compassionate alternative, well, a few more steps and you're talking about eugenics.  And I'm fairly certain even most foes over the abortion debate can agree on their feelings about that (of course, there are exceptions.)

Really all I'm trying to say here is that Ironside made no friends with this statement.  She clearly does not represent the pro-choice cause.  She clearly does not represent pro-life cause.  She speaks for no one (one can only hope) but herself.

As conservatives bustle to blacken the eyes of progressives over this statement, they should count their blessings that someone so ignorant as Ironside stood up and made such a statement to begin with.  I can only say, it is not the progressive stand.  It is the opposite of the progressive stand.  It is not the conservative stand. It is the opposite of the conservative stand.

Bravo, Ms. Ironside.  You've got us talking about you.  Surely that must have been your only goal in making  that comment.



Article linked above:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317400/Virginia-Ironside-sparks-BBC-outrage-Id-suffocate-child-end-suffering.html