Confession: We let our one-year-olds watch TV.

When they were tiny, I put Michael and Sophie in their Rock and Play Sleepers and played part of The Little Mermaid movie for them.  There were babies in my house and I needed to celebrate with a little Disney echoing around the place.  Not long afterwards Mike and I showed the babies a Baby Mozart video just to see their responses.  They zombied out.  Other than that, the kids didn't really watch TV until they were about one and a half.  Then I let go of the "no TV" thing. 

I know avoiding TV until after kids are two-years-old is what the whole world of experts recommends, but the whole world of experts also has the whole world of moron parents to consider.  Despite what this confession might lead you to believe, I know I am not one of those.  I can totally see how setting your baby in front of the TV for hours a day would impede his or her language and social development, and I can totally see how some not-so-bright parents might not recognize those or the multitude of other problems with that scenario.  However, I don't think a half hour here or there of mildly interactive viewing is all that bad for young toddlers.  Honestly, I think it's even a little bit good.

And here are some of our favorites:

1. Little Einsteins - Not to be confused with the Baby Einstein videos (although they're related), we watch this Disney Junior show on demand and enjoy the whole concept of these kids going on a mission with a specific piece of classical music and a work of art incorporated into each episode.  I can no longer hear Greig's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" without the words "We are here to trick-or-treat, trick-or treat, trick-or-treat..." playing along in my head. I appreciate these ways that this show makes art and music so relatable for my kids.  I also respect the audience participation that the show requests.  Michael and Sophie love patting their knees, and usually look over at me to be sure I'm doing it too, when it's time to help Rocket take off.  Now when they they want to watch an episode they start to pat, pat, pat.  I don't always indulge them, but sometimes I do.

2.  Curious George - This is PBS Kids cartoon, and we set the DVR to record episodes so we can watch at our convenience.  Like the books and their little stuffed pals, Sophie and Michael get a kick out of this little monkey and his mishaps.  In the episode we watched this morning, George learned about the number zero, how it can mean none or can be added to other numbers to turn 1 dozen donuts into 10, 100, or even 10,000 dozen donuts.  You can imagine the sort of mess he got into at the bakery.  Like all shows, the storylines and educational concepts are still above Michael and Sophie's heads, but they'll point out George, his "dada," various animals, and laugh at some funny parts.  The television show will never replace the books, but if I need some time to make dinner without toddler shenanigans to reconcile, I don't feel guilty about letting PBS entertain with this one.

3.  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - My curiosity about this show came from the reviews from other parents who said their kids loved it long before we ever watched.  Some teachers at work were even talking a while back about how each of this show's episodes includes closure, a requirement of our own lesson plans.  One teacher pretended to miss the point and said she was going to start ending her classes with the "Hot Dog Dance."  I didn't get the humor at the time, but now I laugh a little when I see Michael and Sophie dancing along, imagining my 9th graders joining in.  Just sing "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog..." in Sophie and Michael's presence, and you'll see this show isn't just about vegging out.

Michael and Sophie have also sampled Caliou, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Sesame Street, among others, but the above three are the winners around here.  I aim for no more than one show in 24 hours and am attempting to get back to far less than that.  However, on my less responsible days the kids might watch an hour total--one show mid-morning if they're tired (I swear they've never fully adjusted to one nap) and then another half-hour in the late afternoon when I'm making dinner.  That's a bad day, and I don't love when it happens, but it does.  And I must confess, I'm not totally ashamed.

Another closet transition

I managed to do some organizing with ten minutes here and there while the kids played in the playroom over the last couple of days. The most pleasing result of that time is the kids' closet.

This is pretty much what it looked like before (although the picture is from well over a year ago):

Every few months or so the kids' closet and dresser drawers need some adjustment as clothes get too small, gear is outgrown, and new things (like more shoes than ever) need new homes.

This round's changes included bringing in matching baskets for (left to right) Sophie's shoes, bath toys, and Michael's shoes. Behind them (respectively) is space for Sophie's bag of daycare nap items when it's home for weekly cleaning, the first aid kit, and Micheal's nap bag. The good children's books have been on the top shelf for a while, but I added bookends to make it a permanent home. I moved the extra diapers, wipes, and pail liners from that top shelf to behind the diaper pail (where that tub in the before picture used to live). The rest of the space up top is devoted to three diaper bags--the little everyday one, the big guy, and one just for rec. center swimming with towels, swim diapers, and suits all good to go.

The playroom got a little fix-up as well.  I finally hung the scrapbook frames on either side of the needlepoint that was in my own nursery, a gift from my mom at our baby shower. (The pics below are terrible--the lighting in that room is either cold and gray or crazy yellow.  I'll get some better ones later on for the "Nursery and Playroom" page of this blog.)

Here's a closer look at the frames:

And the needlepoint:



Ending this post with that statement is a little ironic considering my tidying up during play time, but dust never does sleep.  Sometimes a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

The pants in this family

As goofy as we surely looked strolling into Mike's parents' house and later my parents' house on Christmas day, the matching pajama pants that I made for all of us really added a special feeling to the holiday.  That feeling was a combination of cozy, proud, and mildly embarrassed by our cheesiness.

I had hoped to find a couple of coordinating winter prints for this project, ones we could wear all winter long, maybe one print for the guys and another for the girls.  Unfortunately the selection was surprisingly limited.  I opened myself up to all fabrics, Christmas and non-Christmas, and just didn't find much at all.

The red and white pattern I settled on also limited us on shirt color options, and my mostly online search for "same color but different style $15 or less tops" was also disappointing.  So the only variation in our looks was the fact that one pair of kids' pants had the print going vertically while all the others were horizontal, a solution to coming up short on the yardage.  So, I embraced matchy-matchiness.

This tutorial is the one I used for making the pants.  It was pretty simple to follow and even provided a couple of laughs.  These pants were the first garments I have ever made, and sewing up the first crotch with one pant leg right-side-out inside the other was nothing short of a miraculous revelation to me.  I was actually excited to do it three more times.

I didn't plan for us to wear our family uniforms...I mean, pajamas...beyond the couple hours at home while Michael and Sophie opened gifts from Santa, but Mike suggested we keep them on for comfort's sake, at least for the first drive.  I thought we might change mid-morning before the second leg of our Christmas morning journey, but like the Brady Bunch, we decided to keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on...(stole that reference from the witty little tutorial).

Mike and I finally put on real clothes around noon on Christmas day.  We switched the kids into their more formal attire after their naps.  Had I known we would sport these looks for so much of the day, I might have added some sweet accessories.  Like antlers.

Out with the old, in with the zoo

Before the Christmas gifts entered our house, I knew the play room was reaching its saturation point.  It wasn't completely overrun with toys, but no more cars would fit in the car cubby.  Pull one book from the shelf, and three close neighbors would escape with it. 

We know we are very fortunate that Sophie and Michael are given new toys so generously by family and friends.  Even a new neighbor said she ran into Santa and brought over a couple of goodies for them.  But in order to keep our little home functional and moderately attractive (and to keep my sanity), I knew the full load of Santa's sleigh would have to be dealt with differently this year.

Here was my solution:

Mike took some outgrown baby equipment from our basement living space and storage room (baby bath tub, jumperoo, etc.) to a local resale shop to free up some of our prized real estate.  Although I still have several bins of outgrown clothes and smaller items to sell, we just couldn't wait for a mom-to-mom sale for everything. 

In the storage room I stacked six new clear bins of toys that previously resided on shelves in the play room.  Let's be honest, this was all just another excuse to put my love of sorting and my label maker to work.  We have a bin for books, another for instruments, one for stuffed animals, and so on.  I also bought one huge tub for larger plastic toys and intend to rotate everything through the play room again over time.

New table

Old beads, meet new push and pull toys.

I should have taken a before picture.  But trust me, this is a much lighter load.

For the time being, the selection upstairs is a tad sparse.  However, Michael and Sophie seemed perfectly satisfied with some go-to favorites and a handful of thoughtfully chosen new toys this afternoon.  I look forward to introducing some brand new ones in the weeks to come and making some old toys new again after some time out of sight works its magic.

Where there used to be a jumperoo and exersaucer

While I'd love to move into a larger home, for now I'll have to keep the old gear flowing out as new items come in and find other creative solutions as needed.  Perhaps one option down the road will be to convert our basement living space into a larger play room.  Today, thankfully, out with the old and some reorganizing made room for the new.  Welcome home, horsies!

Christmas 2011

 Michael and Sophie

One and a half years old

Christmas 2011

Letter to Santa Claus

Dear Santa,

Since at 20-months-old Michael and Sophie don't really get the Christmas thing just yet, we know you'll keep their gifts to a minimum again this year. They've both been amazingly good all year long, consoling each other when hurt or sick, giving out hugs and kisses to their loved ones, and growing beautifully in all ways.  Admittedly, they are your typical toddlers who need reminders about sharing and test the limits by pushing the buttons on the T.V. and standing up on the couch, but I'm proud of how they do cooperate and respond to corrections most of the time. 

I think Sophie and Michael would love to have a pair of  Melissa and Doug Frolicking Frogs, two Green Toys Tugboats, and a pair of Plan Toys Walk N Rolls to play with together.  I checked a lot of reviews and believe these toys will be fun, safe, and are made by companies with commendable priorities, not unlike your own workshop.  My peanuts are also starting to grow out of their 12-month-sized clothes and could use a couple pairs of 18-month-sized pajamas and a couple of outfits each, fleece ones from Carters...or whatever your elves can whip up.

I'm so looking forward to seeing Michael and Sophie's eyes fill with excitement this Christmas morning.  As much as I appreciated the Atari, the Care Bear, and the Cabbage Patch Kids, I know that my kids' joy will be the best gift I've ever seen by the light of a tree.

Merry Christmas, Santa!

Love,
Michael and Sophie's Mom

Happy (but screaming in terror) Holidays!

Last night we attended the holiday party at Michael and Sophie's child care center for the second year. The center provides dinner, pictures with Santa, crafts, and performances by the kids. 

Above are the Rudolph ornaments the kids made (clearly with a lot of help from their teachers) and gave to us as gifts.  They're shatter-proof and adorable, a great little project one could even do at home with older kids.

Another cute idea I saw there was a large, cut-out paper Christmas tree on the classroom wall that the toddlers "decorated" with stick-on Christmas wrapping bows as one of the party activities.  Their teacher could hardly remove the backing from each ribbon fast enough, the kids enjoyed this so much.  One of those might pop up on the playroom wall at home over the next few days.

As we stood in line to meet the big guy, Sophie spotted Santa's face on a poster, smiled, and said his name clearly for the first time.  We've been pointing out pictures of Santa, talking about sitting with him with excitement in our voices, but every time we've asked the kids if they wanted to see him, they clearly said, "No."  Every time. Our hopes weren't very high, but we continued trying to psyche the kids up as we made our way up the line, directing their attention to happy preschoolers on Santa's lap joyfully listing their Christmas wishes. 

But our efforts did no good.  Michael clutched my sweater and squeezed my waist with his knees as we made the final approach.  He let out a whimper, and we knodded to Santa and the teacher-photographer to take a standing-up family portrait.  Even that elicited a terror that I have never seen on my children's faces.  As Sophie caught a glimpse of Santa over Mike's shoulder, her face twitched and contorted, and she squirmed to get away, presumably thinking Santa planned to eat her for dinner along with the organic green beans and whole wheat mostacolli.

Last year's picture is of Sophie and Michael stoically tolerating their moment on Santa's lap, but we're now yet another family with a kid-screams-at-Santa photo, not even one that's so bad it's funny. 

Now for the famous last words: maybe next year!

Oh, good, I'm healthy.

I guess it figures that on a day that I stay at home with Michael and Sophie (due to Sophie being sick), a study like this would be making the rounds.  It concluded that working moms are typically "healthier" than stay-at-home moms, but moms who work part-time are the big winners.

Whatever.

Although I admittedly turn a jealous shade of green around moms who have part-time and/or work-from-home arrangements, I shake my head at this study not out of bitterness.  I feel contempt because to work or not to work (like to breastfeed or not to breastfeed, disposable diapers or cloth, minivan or crossover, public or private) is a choice that ultimately comes down to what is best for your specific family in your particular circumstances.

For some moms the to-work or not-to-work choice is a no-brainer, but for many others including myself it just isn't. After a year and a half as a full-time teacher and mom, the choice I made to work still sends me spinning now and then.  Ultimately the ride winds down as I land on the belief that I'm giving Sophie and Michael the best upbringing I can with my family's arrangement.

I sort of feel the need to explain this further with our daily/weekly/yearly routines and a glimpse into our finances.  I'm going to resist that.  Those details are specific to us and probably wouldn't really offer much insight for anyone reading this. 

The fact is that this decision is a complex one.  It's not a matter of choosing to be either a stereotypically warm and nurturing stay-at-home-mom or an equally cartoonish cold and distant working one.  Nor is it between being a healthy and fulfilled working mom or a depressed stay-at-home one with heart disease. 

The conclusion of my own study conducted over 33 years of living in this world is this:  there are both stay-at-home moms and working moms who suck at parenting.  Both can also be amazing.  Generalizations do absolutely no good.  The last thing any well-intentioned family needs as they weigh the many options along the parenting journey is judgemental commentary.

I do appreciate that the study and USA Today article emphasized that part-time work for moms is healthy for everyone involved and that this option is not a realistic one for many when health insurance, career advancement, and other benefits are typically limited for part-time employees. I would love it if that was what our culture took from this research, and employers and others with the power to make this a more workable option for families would attempt to do so.

But the local news story I saw on this study didn't empasize that messsage, and neither did the people who commented on the online article.  My gut reaction to this study, the contempt, frustration, and overall annoyance is really about the divisiveness. 

It seems our society has a hard time looking at the full complexity of issues like this, and that, along with health insurance and a savings account, leads me to kiss my kids good-bye in the morning and head back to my classroom.

Must be Santa!

We're going to pretend the kids got hungry while waiting for Santa and ate the cookies and milk, not that their mother neglected to prepare those details in the staging process.  I think it's a pretty cute picture anyway, taken at Mike's parents' house yesterday while there for his grandpa's 90th birthday.  Yup, I said 90th!

This is also the debut of the Christmas morning pajama pants that I made for the kids, my first garments ever.  Stay tuned for a better shot of those after the big day as well as my future appearance on Project Runway.  I plan to rock a toddler jammies challenge someday.

She's at it again

I think this wall has been decorated and redecorated more than any other in my 50+ year old home.

When envisioning the kids' room before they were born (yep, back two years ago), the image included black and white newborn photos.  An old friend was just taking her photography to the professional level when Michael and Sophie were born and captured some remarkable images of my little buds.  I made and ordered a photo book and various prints here and there, and even included a couple close-ups of the babies' feet in the scrapbook page frames I did hang on the wall.  But that really wasn't what I had in mind when I stared at those nursery walls with my belly out to there.  I admittedly have an addiction to redecorating in small ways, but when I look at this arrangement I sigh, finally satisfied by its simplicity and the appropriate display of a couple of my favorite photos.

See more of Alison Claire Photography here.

I was happy to find frames in the same antiqued bronze finish of the dresser knobs for a good price over Thanksgiving weekend.  They look darker in these pics.

The box shelves and scrapbook frames that were previously above the dresser will reappear in the playroom in the coming days.  I do love those.