Tie

What it looks like when my son goes to church.
His bag holds, any toys he packs and his cup of water.
He has recently decided he HAS to wear a tie to church, I guess so he can be like daddy. (Who knew kids became opinionated about they wore as young as two.) We only have one tie that is black, luckily my sister in law thought to give it to me, a year or so ago, long enough ago that I thought what in the heck to do we need a tie for. Which means he has to wear black pants for my own sanity. We have no short sleeve dress shirts, he usually wears polos, so he wears his clip on tie with a polo. I went shopping for slightly dressier sunday clothes a little while ago to go with a tie, but all we found were long sleeved.

Campagin 2008

If you haven't read my blog for more than a few months, you might not know I can be very opinionated about politics. More than opinionated they fascinate me. I love the social sciences, not just political science, psychology, sociology, anything that studies people's behavior. So polsci combined to of my interests, politics and the study of people. (That's why I liked my political theory so much, reading things like Plato's Republic, and Machiavelli's Prince, if it wasn't for my offspring I would have spent more time studying theory, but I didn't have time.) I lately find this election fascinating. I got bored with back in early spring. None of the republicans were worth writing home about, so either Obama or Hillary was going to win. Really how could the republicans fight against either of those. And then everyone dropped out other McCain, and I thought pathetic, republicans got stuck with second string, that's my opinion since McCain already lost a primary. (By the way I am neither democrat or republican, I don't like either party's politics.) Then things got slightly interesting, just because I remember a professor of mine talking about the current way we do primaries is awful for the parties (it changed a couple of decades ago) because the parties members rip apart each other when, they should be building up the party so the public like them. So I found the bitter rivalry between the democrats very interesting. We (my husband and I) thought Hillary would win the primary and pick Obama as a running mate, but even beyond the numbers the primary took too much of a toll for that to happen. I kind of wonder what was going to happened, but part of me had already lost hope in our political climate. My husband didn't believe any of the polls saying McCain actually had a chance against Obama. I didn't really know what to think, I mean I did take Stats so know poll figures mean absolute nothing, anything can be proved with stats. But Obama has seemed to lose some of the fire he had a year ago. Then it all changed! I felt like a giddy sophomore studying at USU again, when Obama picked Joe Biden for a running mate. I sort had stopped paying attention to what was happening, so I was shocked. Someone to counter McCain-- old with military experience. Oh but that giddiness was nothing in comparison to when my husband sent me this article. Oh!! McCain picking a mostly unknown woman, Sarah Palin as a running mate, to counter Obama, young and a minority (female). Who could have guessed politics would get so fun again! Plus someone for drilling in Alaska. (Not that I'm for drilling, I just found it an interesting twist. I'm not really agaisnt drilling, I have no opinion except it won't fix anything.) Not to mention it made me very happy that he didn't pick Romney. Utah newspapers thought this was Romney's big chance. I had just read an article how Gov. Huntsman said it was totally Romney. (I don't like Romney because I don't want people associating my religion with his politics. I'm sure he is good standing in the church, but that doesn't mean I want people to think Mormons=Romney, because it doesn't.) Oh I wonder how things will work out. I can't wait to find out even though I want neither for my president.

Fluff

A few weeks ago my son kept touching the laptop and my husband kept telling him not to, my son was clearly trying to annoy his dad. Finally my husband said whats the matter with you, what do you got in your ears? Fluff! A few minutes later my son came over to me, and pointed to his ears and said fluff. I started laughing so hard.
Today I was trying to give him a kiss, and I said you have such soft baby skin. He said no, pointed to his ears again and said fluff. I just started laughing, and he smiled. I'm assuming he was proud that he remember what his dad told him weeks ago, that he has fluff in his ears. Ha ha, I'm still laughing.

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.

Schedule

This summer my son's bedtime has gone to pot. My son has historically in his life time gone to bed very early. The first summer he was alive he wanted to go to bed at 6:30 for the night, and then would wake up twice to eat and go straight back asleep. The following winter he went down at 5:45 to 6 (it was dark at 4:30-5ish). This summer, he figured out that he doesn't like to go to bed, if the sun is out, and daddy is playing. I am not a mother that likes children in the evening. His bed time got later and later, until he was up until 9:30, and once we moved he started walking up at 7 with his dad. I can't handle that, it wasn't enough sleep, I was fine with the late bed when he was waking up at 9. When my child is whiny most of the day, I immediately calculate how much sleep he is getting. Plus when is naps went from barely 2 hours, to 3 or 4 I knew that was a bad sign. (Although some would say that is a miracle, I disagree if the whole rest of the day is filled with wines.) As I was frantically trying to figure out what to do I remembered a thing I saw in Parent's Magazine. This mom marked on a clock when it wasn't ok for her sons to get out of bed in the morning (her kids were getting up at 4:30 and 5) and when it was ok.
I decided to try a try a variation, last night got a clock, for $3.50 at Wally world. I popped off the plastic cover, and we deocrated it all fancy like. I made sure to put the cover back on because I didn't want moving the hands.
My son picked out the stickers and we made it fun looking. I didn't really want red, I thought the blue would be nice, but I thought about my son, and I knew he would pick red, the only time he picks blue over red is if the blue has Thomas the tank engine on it. I just taped the arrows on, so they can be moved as time goes on. When it starts to get darker early I plan on moving up his bedtime, but now my husband doesn't want him in bed before 9, because he enjoys playing with him. I have been having an equally hard time with naptimes so that got an arrow too. My husband was saying maybe we should take off the minute and the second hand that way it doesn't get confusing which hand has to pointing where. Part of me thought that was a good idea, and part of me doesn't want to confuse my son when he does try to start telling time. I think he is smart enough understand its where the short hand is.
He is so happy and proud of his new clock. We hung it low on the wall so he could see it at eye level. It will also be useful to pratice numbers. (This picture was totally him, I took a picture of the clock and he wanted to see, I asked if he wanted a picture of him with the clock, and he stood there and laughed, because he was so excited.)
(I can't take a picture on a digital camera without image stablization, and when I turn off the flash so there is no glare it often is very blurry.)

Favorite thing

My favorite thing about newborns is the baby nightgowns.

I'm already starting to stock up. I got this one, before I was pregnant. Got two more the other day. That means I know have 5, because Jobo had two. The 3 new ones are unisex, so I kind of want to get a purple one or something girly. I really love the baby nightgowns. I would only put a newborn in them if I had a choice.

Thank goodness Alisa bought some for me the first time I was pregnant.

Look how cute he is in his baby nightgowns.

The saddest thing is its almost impossible to find them beyond 3 months.

Birthday Time!

For my birthday we are going to the Circus!
Now you may ask yourself why a woman turning 24, wants to go to the Circus for her birthday. I can't really explain that, maybe if you asked my husband he could. I always tell him its part of my allure, things like this and christmas, and presents. My birthday is in a month. But my parents fly in that day, so we are going 2 days earlier. My son is excited he keeps saying circus choo choo. I know he won't remember it by the time he is 10, I don't think we are going for him, I think we are going because I never remember going.