Pretty Much Sums it up

I have been pondering educational options for my child, since before he was born, I think in fact before I was married to his father. I'm pretty such I remember talking education options with his father before he was my husband, before we had confessed our undying love for each other, and before we ever started dating. I'm not sure if I got that order right, maybe we confessed before dating who can remember. Anyway, so this post from Pioneer Woman pretty much sums up everything I've ever thought.
Here is the short of what she said,

What I think is this:

1. Some people COULD homeschool who don’t think they can.
2. Some people DO homeschool who probably aren’t the best suited for the job.
3. Some people think PRIVATE SCHOOL is the answer to all their prayers, when really, the public school in their area is just as good.
4. On the other hand, some private schools do provide a great education.

If we buy a house in this part of this valley, then for my son we are swaying toward Spanish Immersion Charter School. I asked my husband what if the next child isn't as smart and doesn't know how to read before kindergarten than Immersion wouldn't be good. He said than we won't put her in it. My husband is so sensible always pointing out the obvious I can't see.
According to my husband he does not speak spanish well enough to teach our children. Understandable, I don't think I read well enough to teach my child. Luckily he is learning to read himself. But at the same time, my husband has plans of us all living abroad in a spanish speaking country somewhere south of here. (Which country has yet to be determined, we have lots of options.) My husband doesn't set very many goals, the ones he does set he accomplishes, I'm pretty sure even if my children don't live abroad, I will spend many a year in a country other than this. Even if we do live abroad I don't think my children really have to know spanish, just a bonus. So we figure since my son seems to be smart so far, why not try his hand at spanish. He is already doing quite well. We checked out Little Pim Spanish Videos from the library. They are FANTASTIC! We have dreams of buying them, my son does so well with them. After watching the first two videos, he was already repeating the third video. There is a lot of "educational videos" out there these days, and Little Pim is the only one I've ever seen my son interact with. Loves any and all the spanish videos he has gotten from the library. He also has a few spanish books, mostly thanks to the cheerio boxes, but I've also bought a few, and he learning all the vocabulary in the little dictionary. He hasn't mastered it, but he is picking it up way faster than I would have thought. He already knows more than me, which is easy to beat. But I did take Spanish from 3-8 grade, so when I watch the videos with him, it starts to come back. He also tells me when I pronounce it wrong. My brother reads my kid's Spanish dictionary in Portuguese. Anyway, this is a long post about nothing.
So far educational choices are not needed yet. But I fear them, like really nothing else. My greatest fear is than one day I will feel inspired to change my children's educational location, to a place I don't want. That might make no sense to anyone, but in my mind my sister understands. Really the world is filled with endless possibilities. Everyone on one side of the family homeschools, almost every female on the other side has taught public school, and so we think we should go middle ground with Private. Unfortunately we will probably never be that rich, and currently that's not really an option where we live. We like charter, in our last town we worked with kids, and we were always impressed with the kids that went to Charter schools. Not that the kids that went public were bad, some were in fact super smart. That would be the nature of children, and any education choice. Really it all has to do with strengths and personality. Some kids excel in public, and some don't. Hopefully I'll have the intuition to know where my children will excel. And hopefully it matches with what I want... but nothing in life ever does.

Mean nights

Yesterday while my sister was visiting...

...she mention a friend of hers who said my babies sleep through the night from six months on because they know I'm not a nice mom in the middle of the night. I've been thinking about that since then. I think that girl has a point, I think my children realize that too. My son started sleeping through the night at about 3 or 4 months, sort of. He would go to bed at 7 pm, wake up around 2ish, absolutely ravenous, eat and then sleep until 7 or 8 am. Not to mention I'm rather sterile to my children for night feeds, I pick them up, sit up, and only feed them. If they slow down they get their cheek rubbed, the bum patted to wake them up to feed. If they don't start feeding they get set back down in her crib, whether they are a sleep or awake. Unfortunately these lessons have just started with my daughter, we were smiling at her, talking and kissing her, during night time wakings for diaper changes and things. My son never got that luxury, I was always too tired, from the get go of his life. My daughter's lessons is starting. My husband and I have gotten too tired to change her unless she stinks, we are too tired to smile, and are starting to be too tired to care if she is crying. Last night she ate from about 8-10:30ish. At that point my arms got to tired to hold her, so I put her in her crib. She started to cry, even though her crib is less than an inch from my bed, I didn't care. She cried for probably a half an hour or so before she fell asleep. Part of the reason she got to cry in her crib is she wasn't tired and didn't want to go to bed, she wanted to play. I don't play at 11 pm, I want to go to bed. She finally went to sleep, then woke up a half an hour later to eat, I fed her quickly, and my husband laid her next to him, she started to fuss. He said if you cry you are going in your bed, I don't know how a 3 week old understood english, but she stopped, and went to sleep immediately. She only woke up once more for the rest of the night. Hooray for sterile parenting at night. Today she woke up, ate, played, fussed for 5 minutes and fell asleep on her own, for a nap.
One word... SUCCESS!
I fully expect my daughter to be sleeping as well as my son at the same age.
Although it might take longer, she hates her porta crib, and a full size crib doesn't fit in our room. (My son went into his own room at 3 months.) So many nights she is in our bed, I hate babies in my bed, but at least I get sleep. Plus we don't cuddle her, so hopefully it won't have too many negitive effects on her sleeping through the night. I'm a big believer on crying it out, I need sleep, and sleep does not come if I'm holding a baby. Thank you authors of Babywise.
My husband and my son seem to think I'm a push over, I fold easily, but only in the day. It is all about displine at night. I get to tired to not have displine at night, ironically enough, because that is why I'm a push over during the day, I'm too tired to fight.

Baby Love

As I have mentioned my son sometimes gets in bed with me in the morning. This morning I woke up before him, but was afraid if I moved, he would wake up, so I laid there watching him. Its moments like that when I fall in love with my baby again, who isn't so much a baby. But when he is sleeping, and sucking his thumb he still looks like a baby instead of a big boy. He still has that perfect baby complex (I don't know how long little kids keep it). His skin looks soft and even. (Nothing like mine. His pores are invisible at his age.) Still free from freckles that he will inevitably get after summers in the sun like his parents have. His eyes closed with long black eyelashes sweeping at the bottom. (Something he inherted from his dad, not me.) You would think he would be perfectly still since he is asleep, but his thumb sucking is quite the process. Which only intrigues me more. When he is in deep sleep he doesn't suck his thumb, but if I've woken up, that means he is no more than a half an hour behind, so he is no longer in deep sleep. He sucks his left thumb, which to me was an early indicator he was right handed, because he could suck his thumb and still do things with his dominate hand. While he is sucking his left, his right hand is busy rubbing his blanket seam, and feeding the edges of his blanket through his left hand, as his nose smells the blanket. I almost wanted to time him to see how long it takes him to make one complete round of the blanket through his hands. It fascinates me that his hands can be so active, while his little body is still asleep. It during these times, I soak up the last remaining moments of having an only child. In a month or so, it won't just be him, he won't be the center of the universe anymore, and all although the new baby will change our lives for the better, things will never be the same anymore. I have loved having an only child for the year and half after college graduation until my son becomes a big brother. (Sure he was an only child before my graduation but he didn't have my undivided attention.) Although I never expected to space number 1 and number 2 by three years, I in no way regret all the time, I've had just one, to break me into this whole motherhood process slowly. As I stare at his sweet face, with soft skin I'm reminded that theses are my last few mornings of just him, soon a little girl will dictate our schedule and my son will have to adapt. We won't have leisurely mornings in bed, because the new one I'm sure will want to eat somewhere in between 8 pm and 8 am, and probably want to eat every two hours, in between those times. I have to soak up these moments of falling in love with my first baby now and remember them, so when I am so tired and too busy to notice them in the following couple of months, I'll always have the times when it was just me and my bud, Jo----. Because who knows, maybe by the time I have energy to notice them again, his cheeks will be gone, I can hope not, I hope they aren't gone in less than 6 months, but every day he gets skinnier and taller, so life at this point is unpredictable. It seems like these last almost three years have gone by too fast, I'm always surprised at how excited I can be when he hits a new milestone like pottying completely indepent or actually coloring pictures instead of randomly using a writing utensil, but still at the same time wanting him to never grow up past where he is now. And while I always want him to stay this sweet boy who has the cutest little voice and can remember something that only happened once, over a month ago. Like when his daddy was writing on a little piece of paper with a little pencil while looking at a computer in the library, and then tell me what he is doing, and what he saw daddy do. While I want him to stay like this forever, I can not wait to see what new things my baby boy will do in the future.

growing up

My grandfather gives a word of advice to new parents, "Don't teach them to walk or talk." Most of the time I totally disagree, first off, I doubt he wants to be in charge of his three grown adult children's every need, especially since the oldest is 60. (I do know he is joking.) Like today when my son decided he wanted to wear jeans instead of the easy potty trained sweat pants. I warned him they might be hard to pull off, an hour later I found him in the bathroom finishing his duties with no problem with jeans. Yeah, for big boys is what I thought. But then later I decided I agreed with my grandpa. I don't know about this growing up business. My son pulled a chair into the kitchen, climbed up, got a mini box of fruit loops, took it to the table, opened it up, pulled out the bax, broke the down the box, put the box in recycling, got a bowl, a spoon, and started to open up the fridge to get the milk. Since when does my baby have so much automony?! I don't know I feel about this. My husband would say, he isn't your baby anymore, that is why you are pregnant. He hasn't been your baby for a long time. In response to stories like this, my father will say, what you didn't expect to him to grow up? I think I agree with my sister's answer, I did, I just didn't expect it to happened this fast.

My bed

I love my bed, it is mine and my husband's, not my children's. I learned early on as a mother, I hate having a third member in my bed. My son rarely slept in my bed as an infant, he would eat and then go back into his bed. It was amazing, it took a lot of work, but by the time he was 9 months he was sleeping on his own, through the night. I loved it. Occasionally that didn't always happen, I recall a few nights when my son woke up and was scared for whatever reason. I would hold him for over an hour trying to rock him to sleep in a computer chair. Seems like some work, but it was worth it to get an full 8 hours to sleep without him 99% of the time. I totally think it was worth it, to teach him to put himself to sleep as a young baby. But now, he is in a big boy bed, and is spending most of his life being fussy for whatever reason, I am tired, and pregnant. Recently, my bed has been shared more than I like to admit. My plan was if my children woke up in the middle of the night, I would go back into their room with them, until they fell asleep, but when my son wakes up at 5:30 and comes out of his room, I don't have the energy. He gets in my bed with my husband and I, and sucks his thumb. I can't believe I've given up so early, I like to believe in another 6 months from now, I won't be so lax. Who knows?! I really do not want 4 people in 5 square feet of my house for half the night once the baby comes. If my son woke up at midnight, I would go in his room, but when he wakes up at 5:30 I don't have the energy to get in his bed for two more hours of sleep. Here is the problem, my son doesn't sleep with blankets, he still sleeps in sleeper pjs when its cold. So to get in his bed, I have to get warm pjs and a quilt before getting in his bed. Here is the other reason I've become lax, when he was a baby I couldn't sleep if he was in our bed, I was scared to death he would be smothered by blankets, or my husband or I would roll over him. Then he got bigger, and he was too kinetic of sleeper, rolling around in circles, body slamming my husband or I, it was just plain annoying and I couldn't sleep with him. Now he has sort of grown up, he just lies in between his parents, cuddling up between us, and once I fall back asleep, I don't even notice him. And since I'm pregnant, and tired after chasing him around during the day, I sleep like a rock at night, never even moving.

Me as a Mother

I always assumed I would be a micromanager mother.  My kid was always going to be real fashionable, clothes always match, etc... Turns out I'm not that way.  Who would have know? I use to like to have every part of my life micromanaged by myself, but I never liked to be a terribly involved babysitter, so...  Anyway, I'm glad to say I'm not a micromanager mother.

Yesterday we were at the library for storytime, and in the end the kids made fall necklaces. They strung beads on strung paper leaves. Some kids necklaces looked very uniformed, and followed a strick pattern.  Then came my sons, it looked like a two year old made it, there was no rhyme or reason to how he put the beads on or the leaves.  Unlike many of the others who had 5 beads a leaf, and 5 more beads. Well I'm sure there was actually a lot of reason to where he put things, he is very determined. 

Most of the children lost interest very quickly, I assumed it was because that is a difficult fine motor skills for young preschoolers to thread small beads on a piece of yarn.  Obviously that plays a factor but also maybe its because some got bored of listening to their parents tell them how to put beads on. I heard one mom say, why is it always the mom that has to finish the craft? I thought why are you finishing it?  If she doesn't want the necklace she doesn't want the necklace.  Who cares, it will eventually end up in the trash or lost anyway, if she doesn't want it today, she is definitely not going to want it tomorrow. My child's didn't look at nice as some others, but there was no doubt my child designed it himself. After a disaster project the previous day with pom poms, I left the library feeling good, that I didn't tell my son how to create something.  

Can I cry?

Shopping today was nightmare of nightmares for me. We first stopped at Kid to Kid, to get elastic waist band long pants for my boy. Button and pottying will have to wait until at least next winter, at least only twice a week not every day. (I love baby jeans.) My kid was playing in the walled off play area, and I was shopping in ease, sort of, I never find searching for second hands that fit shopping in ease. When I came back luckily no other kids were playing in there, because there was a huge wet puddle and my son pants were soaking wet. I cleaned up, we bought the pants, and went to the car to change. I changed him, and his shoes and socks were also soaking, but I didn't have extras of those and put him the carseat to drive off. He cried the whole way to the next store, which mind you I got lost on the way because I just moved. He wanted to go play at Kid to Kid again. We went to the grocery store, and he refused to sit in the cart, he kept trying to climb out, I didn't want deal with him falling out, so he won, he got to walk along me. Then he decided he wanted to hold on the cart where I was walking so I lift him up so he could ride on the outside, unfortunatly I hit his lip, so then he was crying because mom hurt him. He didn't care that it was accident. So then I put him sitting on top of the handle for pushing, so he could hug me while I kept pushing the cart. He did want to hug me but this didn't stop him from crying. The whole time I'm having extremely painful braxton hicks. It killed if he even touched my stomach because of the contractions so I'm leaning way far back so he can't reach my belly, which makes my bum stick out far, because I need my neck close to him. And with my maternity jeans that are falling down my stomach lower and lower, I was a sight. Everyone that didn't have kids which was every other customer but one, keep looking at me with this degrading look in their eyes like you chose to be a mother. Finally we finish our shopping trip, and we ran across the street (actually drove, I don't run across streets with a 2 year old) to look at paint chips for my living room. When we get back in the car I wiped something in my eye, or something blew in my eye, I don't know how it got there but boy did it burn. The whole way home my eye felt like it was on fire, and it was watering up the wazoo. At one red light I try to find what is bothering my eye, and I manage to pop out my contact. Then I really started getting worried. Luckily I got it back in before the light turned green. Once we get close to our house, I took the wrong turn lane so I was about to turn into Firestone tires instead of my neighborhood, luckily I was able to get on the road. But then when I did turn for my street, the 2 1/2 dozen eggs sitting on my back seat, went sliding, and start to fall on the ground out of the container. Oh at the point I though please someone either shoot me now, or hire a nanny for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily the eggs didn't break, I don't think I could stand that, the smell of raw eggs in my car for months, so I am very extremely gratiful they didn't break. And the other luckily is that we were home, so life went on, needless to say when my son went down for his nap, I also took a nap.

Must Read

One of the blogs I frequent currently is Crabmommy, I love her sarcasm, her wiliness to admit she is not super mommy. That seems to be the current fad in parenting try to prove to other moms how we are super mommy. I am not super mommy, nor do I want to be. She had this interview, at the bottom of her blog, this is how she phrased it, "As many of you know, I've been quite taken by this recently published book, Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting. So I interviewed the author, Hara Estroff Marano (who is also the editor-at-large of Psychology Today), about her thoughts on child- and teen-rearing gone wrong." I started reading it and it was exactly what I need to read. Monday I was freaking out because my son was bored and this must mean I am a bad mom. Remember how unpleasant it was to be bored as a kid, I wanted to save my child from that. My husband in perfect Brentness said if you don't want him to be bored buy cable tv and let him watch it all day. I was horrified, after reading this interview I understood what he meant. Apparently its not bad for children to be bored.

I regard boredom as an important event. It's an aversive, uncomfortable state. People don't like to be in it. The value of aversive states is that the unpleasantness forces people to experiment and/or explore to find things on their own that they do like to do. And so if you're bored you discover something you like and you also gain the mastery of yourself and know you have the ability to handle all kinds of unpleasant situations. So a lot goes on when you're given the opportunity to be bored sometimes.

The interview continues here for part 2 and here for part 3.
Here is some more fascinating information,

To adults play looks like a waste of time. And to kids it's extremely important.
To the point that there are psychologists theorizing that a lot of teenagers diagnosed with attention deficit disorders might actually just be play deprived. There's considerable evidence for it. And I don't think parents are particularly receptive to it. They'd much rather, somehow, give their kid a drug. ...they haven't stimulated that portion of the brain that develops in response to play. They haven't had the experience of regulating themselves through free play, so their circuits of attention are not developed. And we know from studies that attention can be trained. And so play is one of the ways that attention gets trained.

I can't wait to get the book. Thank you public library. (If you want to read the interview in one complete piece, I copied and pasted it to my mom, so I already have it on my email.)

Here is my thing about boredom. I think part of being a parent is wanting to give your child a better life than you had. Well last time I check most people in middle class grew up never wanting. I mean you know sometimes I did want that pair of Gap Long jeans and my mother told me not this month, and well also my parents only spend a $100+ on me at Christmas, not a $1000+ like most kids I went to school with. But I was never hungry I went to college via my parents help. So when I think of how to be a better parent, the only thing I can get rid of is boredom, I'm not going to take away chores, because heck if I want to clean the house all by my lonesome. I already say the same thing as my mom did to my son about the Gap Jeans, except his jeans, was the toy jelly fish at the Michaels, because I'm not about to raise a child that uses credit card debt as a surrogate parent in 20 years. So the only thing I can get rid of boredom. But apparently that is not something good to do for my child. Not that I'm trying to purposely make him bored, but if sometimes he doesn't want to do what I'm doing, and he doesn't want to play with his 50 million toys, then oh well.

To end this was my favorite line which is also how the interview ends. "And knee pads? Knee pads for what? Bike riding? Absurd idea. They actually interfere with agility. Children don't die from scraped knees." Which is the same reason I kept letting my son roll off the couch on purpose. The first 50 times he kept his roll so it didn't hurt, the 51st he didn't and it hurt, has never done it since.