Tag Archives: kids

Please don’t get C a blanket she can draw on for her birthday.

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This parenting thing is a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants affair for me. I’ve got enough maternal intuition to get me through the day with my child essentially unscathed. For instance, she narrowly escaped eating goose poop yesterday thanks to my stealthy ways. I’m a pro. But when it comes to the details, I am learning as I go and making decisions as challenges arise. I am not a child psychologist, and I am sure I will make some totally intentional weirdo choices during the next 17 years regarding C’s upbringing. In the last year, I’ve learned that you make concessions and just do what works to get everyone to the next nap time without crying too much.

I have caved and bought her Made in China, BPA-laced plastic trinkets from the dollar store against my better judgement. I have given her deceptively sweet Multigrain Cheerios because I didn’t want to cut up something more healthy. On uncountable occasions, I have forgotten to wash her hands – fresh from a trip to the playground – before she eats. These are my confessions.

I will make a lot of mistakes and I am no expert nor a mastermind. But there are some things I don’t think I’ll ever do for the sake of easiness.

Take this product I ran across today: it is a duvet cover that your kid can draw all over. The product reviews were glowing.

“I am for sure going to get this for Timmy!”

“We got it for my daughter and she loves it! Now she can express herself on her bed!”

“What a wall-saver!”

Something about this item left me a little uneasy. It seems like as parents, one of the things we should be doing is teaching our kids boundaries. I don’t have to tell you that I am all for creativity and teaching children to draw, read, color, create, and express themselves with their words. It’s their nature to do so and the best thing we can do outside of loving them and giving them security is fostering an environment for them to explore the world safely. But drawing on the bedsheets? Um, no.

Call me old fashioned, but I think duvets are for sleeping on. They are not disposable. Kids will make messes and some of them will draw on walls, but the idea of intentionally buying something for them to write all over and likely destroy does not sit well with me. I had one comforter growing up. It was purple and frilly. I picked it out at Goldsmiths when I was seven and it was not updated in my room until it was totally worn out when I was 13. I had ceased liking it when I was ten, but I knew that it was my comforter so it would be used to completion. It was my job to keep it clean and neat and not spill nail polish all over it. Our parents expected us to make our belongings last and to understand that the furniture and fixtures in our home were there to stay and not be used for whatever whim we thought up.

I realize I just got a little “in my day” there. But at some point “my day” was phased out. There are many, many advantages C will have by being born when she was, but I’m not too keen on the consumerism that is so prevalent now. It is way too simple to go out and buy a new item that will make yours and your kid’s life more fun and/or easy. But will purchasing your child a bedspread she can draw on boost her self esteem in a real way? Will it give her the edge on getting into art school when she’s older? How much time will it really buy you when your child is driving you nuts while you make dinner and you just need her to have a brief diversion? Is it really worth it to teach your kids that the possessions you work to provide for them can be appropriated for whatever purpose their minds can think up?

This is a tricky one, methinks. Thoughts?

A Plea To Young Parents

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I am knee-deep in presents today. I’m laying them all out nice and neatly under our Festivus pole for the big exchange on Friday. So today my practically-Aunt Ellen (she’s actually besfrinn Cameron’s aunt but who’s splitting hairs?) is here to entertain you with a little holiday PSA. Enjoy and I’ll see you Friday! -Emily

Once again it is the festive time of the year. There will be conviviality. There will be good cheer. For the health and well-being not only of yourselves, the parents, but for the safety of your young ones—Please Do Not Drink and Drive. The consequences of doing so could be severe and everlasting.

I myself have followed this wise maxim for years. It is only recently, however, that I have discovered an excellent unintended consequence of a strict adherence to this regime. My children are older now, and they often have to be ferried to and from various events at later and later times of day—or I suppose I should say night. And guess what? I don’t have to do said ferrying because I don’t drink and drive.

Herewith I offer for your delectation some real life examples. Quaff your preferred alcoholic beverage as you peruse.

Situation #1

Time: sometime after 6 pm

Son: Mom, may I spend the night with Andrew?

Mom: Sure! His mom will have to pick you up, though. I’ve had a glass of wine, and Daddy isn’t home yet.

Son: OK.

This exchange exemplifies with laser-like precision how this premise operates in the field.

Situation #2

Time: sometime after 6 pm

Daughter: Mommy, will you take me and Zoe (sic) to the store for ice cream?

Mommy: Nope. I just got through having a glass of wine with dinner. Maybe tomorrow.

Daughter: Rats! Okaay…

This episode earns double points as  children were saved from their unhealthy snack urges!

Situation #3

Time: Approximately 6 pm

Mom: Son, what time will the wrestling match end?

Son: I dunno. Around 8.45 or 9 pm, I am guessing.

Mom: Well, you’ll need to find your own ride home unless you want to wait for Daddy to get out of his meeting. I’ll be putting your sister to bed, and I know I will be having a glass of wine then.

Score triple points for this encounter. Maternal bedtime duties remain sacrosanct while affording an adolescent the opportunity to take responsibility for his own life!

Free at last! Free at last! After all those long years of mommy taxi duties, I am free at last!

I promise this approach can work for you too. It will not be effective, however, to suddenly develop this good driving habit when your child reaches the cynical age of 9 or 10. No. It must be drilled into him from a very early age that Mommy (Sorry, dads. You’re on your own) does not drink and drive. This way your calm statement that you cannot drive them to or fro will be accepted as calmly as it was stated. For so many reasons, I urge you now not to drink and drive.

***

About Ellen: Ellen is a total bookworm and bibliophile completing her first semester of library school in the great state of North Carolina. If you live in or near NC, please check out the North Carolina Literary Map which has all kinds of links and info all about the literary life of the state. For those of you wondering whether you can trust the advice she offers in this blog post, it is based on 21 years and counting in the trenches!

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Hate Photo Shoots

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Remember a few months back when I shared a picture from Miss C’s photo shoot in Memphis? Today I’m handing over the reins to the lady who made that happen – my friend Melissa! You’re in for a treat. Enjoy! -Emily

Hello to all of Emily’s wonderful readers! I feel like I know so many of you from the comments section, so I know that a lot of you have kids. Emily asked me to guest-blog today about the kid-related topic nearest and dearest to my heart: the family photo shoot. Whether those words give you post-traumatic flashbacks or make you say “aww,” it’s hard to discount the power of a great snapshot of the happy moments in your life. I’ve been photographing families for almost four years now, and I’ve picked up a few tricks for ensuring that I never take a shot that ends up on Awkward Family Photos.

My own earliest photo shoot memories are of my mom desperately begging my brother to sit still for a “decent” Christmas card photo, because everyone else in the park was staring. As her desperation grew, his incentive to act like a wild hyena only increased. Year after year this happened until I finally stopped agreeing to participate.*

* He was 19 at the time, and I was in grad school. At that late age, we probably both shouldn’t have been acting out.

So where did we go wrong? Photo shoots are about energy—everyone feeds off each other. So if Mom and Dad are worried that the kids are misbehaving, that they’re embarrassing themselves in front of the nice photographer, or that they’re not making the “good” cheese face, the kids are going to get grumpier and grumpier. There are many expressions that lead to fantastic, moving photos, but “stonefaced death glare” is rarely one of them. Which brings us to…
The Number One Rule of Surviving Photography with Kids

We didn’t plan on running around in a spray park, but this little guy couldn’t have been happier about it.

Unless it’s a safety issue, there are no rules.

Photo shoots are pretty much a discipline-free zone, unless someone is contemplating doing something like hurling rocks at their little sister’s head. Don’t worry about the kids getting out of control and running amok—that’s often when they make the expressions that are most “them.” Kids can blow bubbles in my face, chase me from here to kingdom come, pull my hair, spray me with a water fountain, or tell me to lie in a pool of mud. My motto: “If I don’t come home filthy, I didn’t work hard enough!” On a related note:

It Is Okay if Your Kid Pees on Me. Really.*
If your heart is set on the classic naked-baby pose, some pee (or its smellier cousin) is probably going to make an appearance, and it’s probably going to get on either my hands or some of my blankets. This is not a big deal. I was going to wash them anyway.

* Preferably, we’re talking infants on this one and not 9-year-olds. If a 9-year-old is making like a Calvin decal during the photo shoot, we’ve really gone off the rails.

Shoots often go better if there’s something to do other than just sit and smile. Go for a ride, visit a fair, eat some ice cream.

Drive Them to Distraction

As anyone who’s ever watched the proverbial birdie knows, distraction is key. Ideally, a family is so busy interacting with me, and with each other, that they forget all about that bulky contraption in my hand. Especially if you have very young kids, it’s good to come armed with some favorite toys so I can catch their wandering eyes. Horrible singing also is generally good for a laugh. My best weapon to date, though, has been the chase scene. I have yet to meet a kid who was unwilling to chase me for 10 solid minutes, and who didn’t loosen up and laugh while doing so.

Yes, You Have to Be in Some Photos.
I think this is one of the most important things I can convey, and if I know my subjects well enough, I will push them around about it. iPhone cameras are fantastic for capturing everyday life, but my guess is that you’re in about 1% of those photos. Your hard work, your overwhelming love, your joy at being a parent…that’s something that deserves to be preserved.

The older I get, the more I realize how fleeting life is (not to mention youthful skin!). I know you’re tired, you’ve been doing 3 a.m. feedings for what seems like forever, and you feel like you’ve seen better days. I can’t guarantee that on the day of your photo shoot, you’ll look the best you ever have in your life, but I can promise you a couple of things: you will never be any younger than you are today, and you will look back on this time with your children as something so precious. Take photos with your kids. If only so they can look back on them in 20 years and ask, “OK, Mom, WHAT are you wearing?!”

Parents—give yourselves points for being awesome! In 15 years you can say, “See what we did for you?”

Melissa’s Bio: Melissa is based in Memphis, Tennessee. You can follow her photos at www.melissamcmasters.com. 

Emily’s Bio of Melissa: Melissa is awesomesauce. She’s as good (if not better) a friend as she is a photographer, and that’s saying something. Love you, Friend. 

 

Walking Mad Libs

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I have a confession to make: the reason we decided to have a baby is so our lives can be a walking game of Mad Libs, which is possibly the best game ever. No, really. I will sacrifice myself to dirty diapers, $8,000 braces, and parent/teacher conferences if, every so often, my child just walks into the room and describes her new set of  (adjective) blocks as making her feel like  (gerund)   (adverb)  whenever she (verb).

Source: LA Times

Par example:

The Set-Up: My brother was six years old, and for probably the fourth time in his life he was making a trip to the ER for a gash/infection/broken extremity. The doctor entered the consulting room where Trevor and my dad were waiting to see him. The doctor was of Middle Eastern descent and wearing a Kelly green blazer.

My Brother’s Response: Trevor looks straight at the doctor and asks him, “Do you speak Irish?” What makes it best is that he said this in a highland twang.

Y’know, so the maybe-Irish doctor could understand him were he not yet acquainted with a southern American accent.

***

The Set-Up: I once worked with a guy whose girlfriend was a first grade teacher. On the first day of school, the teacher asked the students to draw a picture of what they wanted to learn to do that year. One child was hoarding all the gray crayons, so the teacher came over to investigate the situation.

A Student’s Response:  When she asked him what he wanted to learn to do that year, he looked straight at her and said, “I want to learn to cut metal.”

Well, YEAH. Me too, come to think of it.

***

The Set-Up: The year was 2003 and newly-coupled B and I had just seen The Lion King Broadway musical with my family. It was a-ma-zing. We were struck with how well-staged and moving it was, and based on the comments of other theater-goers who filed out of the theater with us, they did too. In the crush of the crowd, we were caught behind a dad and his little boys, probably ages three and four. The dad was pumping them for information on how much they loved the show.

The Boys’ Responses: The three year old glowed, as the dad clearly wanted. The four year old?

“I have earwaxes in my ear.”

NICE.

***

The Set-Up: B was teaching social studies to a classful of first graders in Korea at our English academy. The text was an American social studies book and included a brief explanation of slavery in the US. B did his best to give the kids a rated-G version of this pretty sensitive topic that these kids could have very well never had any exposure to before. He explained that slaves were people who worked in the houses or farms of other people for no money, and who often lived in those homes as well.

One Student’s Response: “Oh yes! My mom is thinking about getting one of those!”

We think that maybe the girl’s mom was looking for an English-speaking au pair.

But still.

***

And the creme de la creme:

The Set-Up: 2000 was the year that brought the world my awesome cousin Maddie. She was the most awesome baby EVER. I am crossing my fingers that Bebe takes after her. But I digress.

So, Maddie couldn’t've been more than a few months old when one day my mom, Trevor, and I went over to my Aunt Jaye’s house for an afternoon visit. We were all sitting in the living room watching Miss Maddie coo and be generally adorable when Trevor sneezed.

Maddie’s Response: This tiny little thing said, “Gesundheit!” I swear on all that is holy that she did.

We all heard it.

All our jaws dropped. We looked at each other to confirm what we had just heard. The blank, astounded expressions on our faces affirmed that we had just heard a German word pass through the lips of this tiny person.

And of course Maddie then went back to blowing spit bubbles.

Introducing: Dung Chim

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Being a little kid is the absolute best (and sometimes, worst) thing possible. Yeah, you don’t have a lot of control over your life, but that frees you up to unabashedly explore all the weirdness you’re surrounded by without being self-conscious about it.

You can watch your Barbie video four times in a row, loving it ever more upon each viewing, and then demand it be shown again right then, oblivious that all the adults around you are losing their minds preparing taxes or doing laundry.

You can go in your backyard and pull up monkey grass and other strange roots, mix it with a little water, serve it up in a Frisbee to your brother and call it Mongolian beef. Who cares if that one fungus you added was potentially poisonous? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it. Or, more likely, your parents will.

That stuffed Humpty Dumpty toy you were given? Hmmmm, it looks like it would be a perfect fit for the commode. Let’s just test this and see if our predictions are correct.

Being a kid is awesome and bizarre wherever you go, and it can be even better to see Kiddie Culture at work in a whole other country. In America, cootie shots are standard-issued upon entrance into the second grade and MASH is the go-to game when you get a bit older and desire to see whether you’ll be living in a shack with the smelly kid from your class yet somehow affording a Ferrari, or jet-setting with your crush du jour and returning home to your Tercel. When we arrived in Korea, we quickly began to see how a major facet of their kiddie culture is centered around the butt.

Yes, the butt. Now, growing up in the US, I can remember a huge amount of humor being gleaned from the posterior, but in Korea it is taken to a level beyond what we have here. The comedy of the rear end permeates almost all stratum of the World of Child, and it is wholly acceptable and deemed cute and childish. A Barney-esque television show starring an orange character with a lettuce leaf on his head produces what can only be called “magic farts” that sparkle and introduce new elements in the show. In the Korean version of Crayon Shinchan, the trouble-making main character Jongu regularly drops his pants and moons unfortunate gazers.

Kids were always doodling in-between classes at our school, and no matter what the subject of their art, there was a butt and/or a coil of poo integrated into the design. Apparently, the proprietor of a convenience store we frequented felt so much pride in the artwork of his child that he felt the need to hang this piece of work up prominently on the wall of his store:

Poo galore. And there are no boundaries! When my friend Paul ordered a tiramisu at a cafe, this is what he received:

With sugary flies to complete the deliciousness. Follow Paul on Twitter: @adayinkorea

But the king of all butt jokes in Korea is the dreaded dung chim. Literally translated “dung needle”, the dung chim is performed by holding one’s index fingers together, coming up behind the unsuspecting receiver, and stabbing the receiver in his bottom.

Here’s what makes the dung chim the prank of all pranks: although it can be performed on one’s peer, its target is almost always a male adult. So if you’re a male teacher, that pretty much means that, yeah, at some point or another, a student is going to stab you in the rear, laugh, and think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. All the while, you are going to be thinking one if not all of three things:

1. Ohmagad what just happened?

2. What universe am I inhabiting in which small children poke me in my rear and don’t run right away and instead hang around for my reaction?

3. Am I going to get deported for this?

Something magical is going on under there.

As a foreigner, you’re going to be even more shocked when you notify your Korean co-teacher of said incident, hoping to get some advice on how to deal with the miscreant; nine times out of ten, your co-teacher will laugh and see no problem in the assault. Eventually, you’ll realize that getting dung chim’d is a rite of passage for almost all male (and sometimes female) kindergarten and elementary school teachers in Korea and the trauma will begin to subside. You finally have your own war story to tell when out with fellow teachers and the conversation inevitably turns to this strange habit.

And yeah, for a second, you will feel jealous of these over-worked, under-played, adorable little kids. Why? Because they get to grow up in a culture where stabbing their teachers/dads/uncles/authority figures in the bottom is somehow acceptable and chalked up to innocent impishness. You realize that it would’ve been pretty sweet to have had dung chim in your arsenal of trickery as a youngster yourself.

*******

I want to take a moment and congratulate Miss Demure Restraint on being Freshly Pressed! She has been a supporter of my blog from almost the beginning and has always left kind and constructive comments that I value a lot. Her blog always makes me laugh and think (a nice little pair!) If you haven’t already, check out her post that got her some attention. Congrats, Miss D!