Craft Project: Will's Activity Bag

Will's getting to that great age where he wants to do things himself and loves figuring out how things work.  Snaps, buckles, zippers, buttons, twisting the lids onto his cups, everything!  After he finishes eating and we remove his high chair tray, he loves trying to unbuckle and buckle the snaps that hold him in.  He can't unbuckle them yet, but loves snapping them back into place.

Will buckles himself back into his high chair.

His interest in all things that buckle, snap and fasten reminded me of a toy we had growing up that my Mom recently pulled down from the attic.  It's a clown that has shoe-laces you can tie, a button with a flap, a zipper, and even a velcro shoe.  What better toy for a toddler who's learning to do things for themselves?

Since Mr. Clown should live at Mimi and Grampa's house for all their grandchildren to play with, I thought I'd make Will an activity bag with the same idea.

My inspiration! The clown I played with growing up.

I bought a mini tote bag from L.L. Bean for $15.95, and then went to Joann Fabrics and picked up a variety of fun things to sew on it! I used a combination of non-toxic fabric glue and hand stitching to attach everything to the bag.  The overall cost for everything was less than $25, even including the fabric glue.  The same idea could be used to embellish a doll or any other bag!  I plan to fill this one with paper, crayons, and other small entertainments for road trips and waiting in restaurants.

Here's what I ended up with:

Velcro closures

Velcro closures: I machine sewed strap material onto pieces of velcro, then fabric glued and hand stitched the velcro backing onto the bag.  I hand stitched one edge of the strap onto the bag so the pieces that velcro off can't be completely removed.

Zipper: I bought a five inch zipper, used non-toxic fabric glue to put it on the bag, then reinforced it by hand stitching each of the four corners so it'd stay on.

Buttons: I took a small piece of fabric and machine sewed a button hole.  I cut the edge with zig-zag scissors, then fabric glued the edge to prevent unraveling and let it dry.  Then I fabric glued just the top and reinforced the corners with hand stitching so the flap can be buttoned and unbuttoned.  I also sewed on two decorative buttons on the side of the bag with the buckle.  NOTE: Buttons are choking hazards for small children.  Think about getting really big buttons, sewing them on really well, checking them regularly to make sure they're well attached, and supervising your child when they're playing with the bag.  You can also skip the buttons.

Buckle: I bought a buckle and strap and followed the instructions on the belt buckle for machine sewing the strap together and assembling it with the buckle.  Then I hand stitched it to the bag.  (Did you know you can buy those plastic buckles for only a few dollars?  For some reason I find that really cool.)

The buckle is definitely his favorite!

Lecture Review: Dr. Alan Kazdin "Effective Parenting: Help with Discipline and Child Rearing"

Discipline.  Now that I have a toddler, it's the new Sleep.  The word on the street, if you will.

How do we teach our children how to behave?  It's a big question, and it takes up a lot of space on the parenting bookshelves.  We recently attended a lecture given by our local Mother's forum where Dr. Alan Kazdin, the director of the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, spoke about his recommendations for shaping child behavior.

Here's what I took away.

According to research studies, the best way to shape a child's behavior is to praise positive behavior in the right way so that the child wants to repeat it.

This can be challenging, because when we talk about teaching children to behave, we frequently focus on what we DON'T want them to do, rather than what we want them to do.  How can I keep Will from throwing food on the floor?  How can I get him to stop trying to poke Andrew in the eye?  Should I say no more firmly?  Try time outs? 

Kazdin would say I need to find the "positive opposite" of the negative behavior I'm trying to eliminate, then work to encourage it.  For example, I don't want Will to throw food on the floor.  I do want Will to keep his food on his tray, and hand me food he doesn't want in front of him or tell me he's all done when he is finished instead of systematically throwing things against the wall.  

Since I do want Will to keep his food on his tray, when he's eating his food and keeping it on his tray, I need to praise him for that behavior, but in the right way.  It needs to be immediate, either while it's happening or directly afterwards, it needs to be specific "Great job keeping the food on your tray while you eat it, that's wonderful!", it needs to be appropriately enthusiastic for the child's age, and it helps if you make light contact with the child, putting your hand on their arm, or back or giving them a hug.  

Praise pitfalls: Don't praise the child instead of the action - he's not a "good boy" because he kept food on his tray, he's a good boy because he's your son and you love him.  The action was good, comment on it specifically.  Don't mix your own feelings and emotions in as incentive - "Mommy is happy when you don't throw food on the floor."  Research shows that is less helpful than just praising the action without complicating the issue.

Finding the positive opposite of the behavior you want to discourage can be tough, and so can be finding your child modeling that behavior in order to praise it.  But over time, research has demonstrated that this is the best way of getting your child to behave differently.  "No" stops behavior in the short term, but won't reduce the frequency of the behavior in the future.  I still plan to tell Will "No" when I need him to stop something immediately, but after listening to Dr. Kazdin's compelling lecture, I no longer expect that magically on "No" number 518, Will's going to understand and stop throwing food on the floor.  I need him to want to keep his food on the tray because it feels good to get praise when he does.  (And no, this shouldn't lead to a day filled with praise for every little thing your child does right, after the behavior disappears, it usually stays gone without the need for regular praise to keep it gone.  Says research.  And you know I love research.)

Something interesting things we learned at the lecture:

It's not about understanding.  It's fine to explain to a child why they should not do something, but them understanding they shouldn't do it will not necessarily discourage that behavior.  I think every parent has seen their wonderful, adorable toddler look at them with a gleam in their eye right before they do something forbidden, even waiting so the parent can catch them doing it.  They know.  That's not the problem.  The problem is they require motivation to do differently.  We need to make them excited for the praise they'll get doing something right, rather than the attention they get when they do something wrong.

Punishment is not very effective at changing behavior, and often has negative consequences.

What if you can't find your child doing the "positive opposite"?

I want Will to stop poking Andrew in the eye.  Positive opposite: I want Will to be gentle with Andrew in their interactions.  So I need to praise Will when he's patting Andrew's head gently or making faces at him without throwing blocks at his head.  If those moments are far between, Kazdin would recommend that I play a game and set up a scenario where Will practices being gentle and I praise him.  I'd really recommend reading Kazdin's book for more information on shaping behavior in specific situations.  It's called "The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child", a title he apparently fought the publishers hard over for several reasons, and it has a lot of guidance on working to eliminate troublesome behaviors common for different age groups.  (Everything from homework refusal and supermarket scenes to swearing.)

This can be time consuming when you have a problem like keeping your toddler away from the hot stove, because it might require coming up with a game where you open the stove door when it's not hot, and praise your child for staying away from it.  "I bet you can't remember to back away when I open the stove door!  Bet you can't get far enough away!"  Blech.  I just want to make my biscuits.  It might be best for me to focus on one challenging behavior at a time with this positive opposite approach.  (But it would be seriously awesome if Will thought it was funny to run in the other direction when I opened the oven door.)

My thoughts on all this:

Will it fix your toddler, pre-adolescent, or spouse's behavior problems quickly and irreversibly?  Who are we kidding.  It takes time and patience, and it's not fool proof, but it makes good sense, is backed by research, and is easy enough to do.  Plus, I can't imagine that praising your child in a specific way for modeling a positive behavior is going to do harm.  

This is something I can do and feel good doing.  I love setting my toddler up to succeed and praising him when he does.  That feels a lot better than the idea of time outs, or perfecting my "mommy glare".  This is up there with child proofing my home and using distractions and redirection to shape my toddler's behavior instead of having to say "No" all the time.  

Discipline is a word that makes me feel nervous, there's some negative, punitive association with that word.  I like to think instead about Education.  My job as a parent is to parent myself out of a job.  My job is to teach my child how to behave and encourage him to behave in the right way.  I like any strategies that help me do that in a way that is comfortable for me as a parent, and this is one of them.

I read a lot of parenting books, in part because I enjoy it, and in part because I don't feel you need to be loyal to one set of advice, but that you can often just learn something useful to add to your parenting toolbox.  If this sounds inconsistent, let me try to explain.

In the course of the day, I expect I will try many different recommended ways of shaping Will's behavior.  When he approaches the stove I will say "No" firmly and explain that it's hot.  I will redirect him to his plastic shovel when he grabs my metal one when we're planting.  I will foster a loving connection with him and hope that his desire to please me will positively influence his actions.  I will tell him he's doing a wonderful job patting kitty gently when he rubs her fur instead of pulling her tail.  I can cite a different book recommending each of these strategies, and I think all of them have a place in my parental toolbox as I help Will learn how to behave, and get him to want to behave that way.

I think Dr. Kazdin's advice will work best for me if I focus on one or two behaviors at a time, so I can consistently look for and praise positive opposites for those behaviors.  I've been implementing Dr. Kazdin's advice and praising Will for not throwing food and dishes on the floor with some noticeable success: dinner is hit or miss (either he hits me with the food or misses and hits the floor), but when he eats his cereal at breakfast, nothing gets thrown.  And when he's done, he stacks his two bowls (one for milk, one for cereal, he gets to do the mixing) puts his metal spoon in them, and lifts them up to me with the words "All done!"  It almost makes up for getting fork-fulls of salmon hucked at me during the witching hour.  Almost.  

Why say no...

When you can redirect?

Happy Mother's Day!

My first Mother's Day after Will was born, I was awake for the day by 5:30 a.m. when Will got up to nurse and wouldn't go back to sleep.  I remember feeling like it wasn't supposed to happen that way, that Mother's Day was going to somehow be a magical day where I, as a Mom, got the day off and didn't have to do any work.  In a sense, I wanted to celebrate Mother's Day by pretending I wasn't a mother.

That's hard to do when you have a nursing baby, and when you're also expecting your husband to cook a meal for your extended family, thereby preventing him from assuming all childcare responsibilities.  (No really, stop cutting lobster meat and change this diaper, Greg, it's Mother's Day.  And get a move on those sandwiches, we need at least fourteen of them.  Have you even made the fruit salad?)  Not only did Greg make an amazing luncheon for my immediate family and both sets of grandparents, but my mother-in-law actually woke up and cooked me breakfast.  So it was a great Mother's Day, even though part of me really resented my 5:30 a.m. wake-up and stay up.

Just one of the plates of Lobster Rolls last year!

I kind of laugh when I think about it now, and have adjusted my expectations.  I've also grown into my role as a mother, and while I'd still like a few minutes of quiet to myself on Mother's Day to drink a whole cup of coffee while it's still warm or maybe knit more than ten stitches of a sock, I no longer crave a day long break from diapers.  I don't mind changing diapers.  I really don't.  

This year, I've decided to be more reasonable.  Here's how I'm planning to celebrate:  

(And no, I don't feel bad asking for what I want.  Should I?  I'll reciprocate for Father's Day if that helps!)

A Photo of Me with Both Boys: Greg takes amazing pictures, but things are so busy that we don't have many of me with both kids.  I'd love Greg to be in them too, so maybe we can set up a tripod and take some with the timer.  Either way, I'm getting up, putting makeup on, and getting some photos I'll want to look at later!

Almost a picture of me with both boys, but maybe if I looked at the camera it'd help!

Some Time To Myself: Not on Mother's Day, when I'd rather be spending time as a family because Greg isn't working.  No, I've promised myself to get a babysitter a little more frequently, starting this afternoon, so that I can get some scheduled quiet time to look forward to.  And I want to use it for more than folding laundry and taking care of things around the house.  I want to use it to work uninterrupted on a craft project for more than five minutes, to start putting photographs in our family albums, to do the things that never seem to get done because while they're important, they're not urgent.  And I want that cup of coffee I was talking about.

Yes!

No.

A New Child to Sponsor: I am ridiculously lucky.  I have two healthy boys, and not only do they have a safe place to live, plenty of food and clothing, and warm beds to sleep in, but I am also able to stay home  with them.  Many mothers aren't so lucky, and I can only imagine the heartbreak it must cause a mother to see her child go hungry.  I cannot begin to imagine.  So as a small expression of thanks, for each of my sons who have all they need, we're sponsoring a child who doesn't.  It will be something we talk to the boys about as they get older, and it's my way of helping another mother now.  We go through Children International.  The Heifer Project is another great organization to help provide food and income for needy families, and I love its focus on education and recipients sharing their gifts with the community.  Because, as much as I love jewelry, I don't even wear it around my young children.  This is a gift I really need.

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms!  Hope it meets expectations ;)

Me with my amazing Mom :)

Things That Grow

I'm not just talking about seedlings, although this is a post about gardening.  My kids are growing too, faster than I even realize sometimes.  Will is at that fun stage where he's learning to talk, and it's becoming very clear that he understands so much more of what's being said than he can verbalize.  He can follow instructions like "Go get Mr. Monkey from behind the couch!", or "Where's the red ball?  Can you bring it to Dad?"

So when it was time to sow the seeds for our summer vegetable garden, I thought we should do it together. I expected Will to try to eat the dirt and seeds, dump the watering can on himself, and wander off, but I figured I'd explain what I was doing and give him a chance to help.

And you know what?  He did!

He helped push the peas down into the soil after I showed him, carefully pressing each one into the dirt.

                                                 He watered the seeds and not himself.

He helped carry the seed packets.  He even tried to help turn the soil, but seemed to realize that the shovel was kind of heavy.

The result?  Our seed distribution may be a little special this year, and, well, there were a couple areas that got watered perhaps more than necessary.  But we had a ton of fun, and we really did do it together.  I didn't really know until we tried that Will would be able to copy me and push the seeds into the soil, or help use the watering can.  But he did, and he only ate one, even though peas are his favorite vegetable.  (That's why we're planting them.)

It made me realize that in order to find out what Will was capable of, I needed to give him the opportunity to show me.  If I hadn't thought that he could help plant the seeds, and shown him how, I wouldn't have gotten to see him push those peas into the dirt with such focus.

And now, when we go out every day (even in the rain) to check and see if our seeds have sprouted, I wonder if maybe he really knows what we're doing.  Either way, we're both having fun!

A big difference from the little guy who watched us build our garden bed from a blanket last year :)  Here's to spring, and all the wonderful things that grow!

                                                              Will and me in April of 2011






UPDATE: Our seedlings have sprouted, and the spinach definitely needs to be thinned!  This made me laugh :)  

A Letter To Myself

Andrew and I are taking a Second Time Mom's class at Isis Parenting, and during a conversation about grandparents, someone made the comment that they hoped they would remember all this when their kids have children.

This made me think about me becoming a grandparent. I am sure that I will love my grandchildren, knit them amazing toys and sweaters (hopefully in their favorite colors and not itchy yarns) and spend as much time with them as I can. I'm a little more worried about my ability to remember what it was like to be a new parent, and to be a good mother and mother-in-law.

I am lucky because I have AMAZING in-laws, and wonderful parents, who have done an incredible job at navigating between offering advice and support while simultaneously letting us make our own parenting decisions. I am truly blessed to have them, and they are, quite seriously, perfect.

Since my own slightly type A personality makes it likely that I will NOT be so perfect, I was inspired to write a letter to my future self with some things I hope to remember. I am going to print two copies, and tuck them into my sons' baby books, which will inevitably be pulled off the shelves when they're expecting their own children, so I'll be sure to find them and read them at the appropriate time.

Here's my letter.

To My Future Self
For When I’m Expecting Grandchildren
April 28th, 2012

Dear Kelly,

Congratulations, Grandma! You look great. The streaks of grey become you, don’t dye your hair. Spend the time and money elsewhere, on lattes and croissants and knitting. You’re going to be a grandmother, and grandmothers have grey hair. Remember how Mom embraced becoming Mimi, and the happiness it brought her, and do the same.

I wish you were here, and I know you do, too. I promise that when I’m done writing this, I will hug William and Andrew close, and while I hold them, I will think about how someday I will be you, wishing like anything that I could be back here with them snuggled in my arms the size they are now. Promise me that when each of your grandchildren is born, you will hold them close in your arms, and think of how excited I am to become you, and in those quiet moments of holding someone precious in our arms, we can be connected.

I am writing now because I want you to remember after your grandchildren are born, just how crazy and amazing and challenging it is to be a new parent, and mostly, because I want you to remember that you are NOT a new parent, you are a new GRAND parent. You were lucky to have parents and in-laws who made this transition amazingly. If you can be half as helpful and understanding as Barb and Bill when you are the mother-in-law, you’ll do well. I really wish this for you, but I also know how much you love knowing things and learning things and teaching things, and so I worry an eensy, tiny bit about your ability to remember to let new parents make their own mistakes, and to recognize that “mistakes” are not defined as “any parenting choice differing from how you raised your own children”. I’m serious.

There are some things you need to remember. Remember reading parenting book after parenting book before Will was even born, and taking notes, and coming up with your convictions about the type of parent you would be. Remember how luxuriously freeing it was to finally throw some of those convictions out the window. Remember how much conflicting advice there is out there about parenting. Remember watching your friends parent differently than you and still raise wonderful, happy, securely attached toddlers. Remember all the advice that could have saved you a great deal of hassle if you’d listened to it, but that you didn’t, and couldn’t, because you didn’t know which advice you should have listened to until you’d been through things and found out for yourself.

It may be hard for you to accept that your children and their partners will raise their kids differently than you did, especially since you followed so closely in your own mother’s footsteps as a cloth diapering, breast-feeding stay-at-home mom. But nursing your children was your gift to give them, and staying at home was your choice to make, and neither was always easy even though they were right for you. Remember the long days when it seemed like one or the other was always crying, and if it wasn’t them it was the cat, and how in those moments you wished you, too, could go to work because you would come home missing them so much and feeling so excited to see them, rather than having a nagging guilt because at that moment you’d love nothing more than to get away from them?

You are now the supporting actor and not the star. Ask yourself how you can best support your grandchild’s parents in becoming the parents they want to be. Becoming a parent is the scariest, most important thing that has ever happened to you, and they probably feel the same anxiety and desire to do it right. Respect that, and offer them validation and support. Ask them what they need, and how you can help, suggest ways that you’re willing to help. Child care? House cleaning? Frozen lasagnas or soups? Taking an early morning feeding so the new parents can sleep? Caring for an older child for a weekend? Remember what it felt like to have your newborn handed back to you only when it was hungry, crying, or needed a diaper. You’re probably capable of changing a diaper and shushing a baby that isn’t hungry. Do it.

Ask them how they would like you to care for their child. Don’t hesitate to say that you’re comfortable improvising, but appreciate that consistency is good for children and you’re happy to learn how they do things if there’s anything specific they want to show you.

I know you will love your grandchildren, and I know that sometimes you’ll wish you could be the mother all over again, especially since you’ll have this nagging feeling that you could do it so much better now that you know everything you learned from parenting the first time around. But that’s not your role, and things have probably changed in the world of parenting anyway. Now your job is to be the best grandparent you can be, which is a two part job. You get to have a relationship with your grandchildren, and you get to support the new parents.

Take a deep breath, remember to listen, dispense advice when it’s asked for, dispense love always, and enjoy every minute.

With love,

Kelly

Life is precious... NOT perfect.

I'm a good mom. Sometimes I'd even go so far as to say I'm a great mom. I keep my kids fed, napped, clothed, and loved. But I've got two under two, and sometimes* things just fall through the cracks.

If nobody's hurt, I like to laugh about it. And thanks to the camera on my phone, while I'm laughing, I like to take a picture so I can laugh about it again later, and maybe Greg can get a chuckle out of it too. And Nana. And Mimi. And my blog readers. All three of you.

Here are some of the keepers...**

Will finds Nemo's water bowl while I'm trying to put makeup on for date night.


Turned around to check on Andrew who was sleeping in the stroller. Heard "Hi? Hi? HI?" Rescued Will. After taking a picture.


Will decides to pull his laundry basket into the middle of the room while I'm nursing Andrew, take all of his clothes out one by one, and put them into the drawers in his closet. This is made funnier by the fact that I can't actually see his dresser in his closet, but get to hear the drawers opening and shutting in between him toddling out for more dirty laundry.


No Will! Just because it's soft doesn't mean it's yarn!!! (The cat was fine. He was trying to give her the knitting needles, not poke her with them. No really. She's fine.)


Speaking of the cat... Nemo, you're throwing my focus off. I could make an album with Christmas card photo attempts that match.


Aww, Will is playing with Andrew! Look, get a picture of him offering Andrew the pacifier! Oh wait, in the time it took the shutter to open, it transformed into a picture of Will smooshing Andrew's face. And now you look like a bad parent. Quick, post it on the internet with a disclaimer before someone calls DCF.


Looking through these pictures, they're not necessarily the ones you post online or e-mail to Nana, but there is something special about them. These are the every day photos, the ones of what life was REALLY like in the moments in between the smiles. These are the ones that are attached to real memories of my time with the kids when they're young, the ones that really will make me laugh in a year, or five years, or twenty.

Because it can't always look like this... No matter how good a parent you are.



* For the purpose of this sentence, "sometimes" should be understood to mean daily, usually multiple times a day.

** I have a couple really nasty pictures of diaper blowouts that I didn't include. (I emailed them to Greg at work instead.) You're welcome.

Just Monstrous!

What's monstrous, you ask? Well, two things. The size of my yarn stash, and this little guy.



While browsing ravelry for some new patterns, I came across an adorable monster pattern, Monster Chunks, by Rebecca Danger. (Check out her blog: www.rebeccadanger.typepad.com for some amazing monster knits!)

Not only were my fingers itching to start this cute little knit, but Greg actually thought it was so fun that he wanted one to keep on his desk at work. You can imagine my enthusiasm - I ditched him with the kids and headed straight upstairs to see if "I could find a few odds and ends in the stash to knit it with" because "I bet I already have some yarn that would work."



Gee. You think?

The worst part of the resulting stash reorg was that I didn't even manage to shut the door before Greg saw it. (He was remarkably calm and supportive... I think he'd perhaps suspected that there might be a tad more yarn in that closet than there should be. Also, some of that yarn is his. Like three skeins. And he runs a lot. So we both have our little hobbies, ok?)


My little monster, posed in Greg's car for him to discover on his way to work :)

Luckily for me, there are a lot more cute Rebecca Danger monster patterns just begging me to use up odds and ends of yarn from other projects. And I've got mittens to knit for toddlers that won't take up whole skeins, and an awesome scarf idea that you may hear about later.

Will helps pick out buttons for eyes

My yarn ended up in three categories - partial skeins to keep for little monster projects and crafts, whole skeins that may end up as mittens, hats or baby sweaters, and partial and full skeins that I never want to see again and are going to be donated to the craft closet at the center for grieving children where my sister interns.

I have four new projects lined up from stash yarn, and another one already knit. Booyah.

Plus, this made it easier to finalize my list for when Mom and I go on our annual yarn excursion to the yarn.com store in western Massachusetts next week. I can't wait to buy some yarn!

(You didn't think I'd learn from this, did you?)

Just monstrous.


Remember this guy? Another Rebecca Danger monster pattern! (Iris the Gourmet Monster)