Love, peace and hair grease

I thought having a boy would mean 'fewer' hair-related activities. I was wrong. I've written before about Ava and Dylan's hair care process. We added something new to the repetoire this week.

Braids!

 Ava had her first braids when she was almost two years old. So Dylan beat her to the punch a bit.

 Like father, like son with the afro pick action.

Full, post-braid, picked out glory. Like Bootsy, baby!

Baby carriers for mom's little baby

I love finding new, interesting blogs and it turns out my latest find is a fellow Clever Girls Collective member. Thanks, Mail Carrier is by a mom of two who writes:

about the love that my daughters and I have for receiving mail and how happy the mail carrier makes us when he comes driving down our street.

She does reviews and giveaways of mom- and kid-friendly products. One of her November posts made me smile: an Ergo baby carrier for kids! Or more specifically, for their dolls.

Courtesy of ErgoBaby

I have loved my Ergo baby carrier and extol its virtues to every new parent who asks about carrier options. But I had to introduce my mom to the benefits of babywearing back when Ava was an infant.

While I was busy reading reams of pregnancy and child development magazines about new research in baby development, attachment parenting and the nurturing needs of newborns, my mom and aunts were convinced that the long-since debunked advice they'd been given 30+ years ago was all that was needed to whip this new, needy (in their eyes) family member into shape.

Case in point: Ava preferred to be carried a lot as an infant (still does) and would cry a lot with my mom initially, who split caregiver duties with J. for most of the day when I went back to work after three months maternity leave.

My aunts, calling from across the country to check in on the new grandmother and new great-niece, could hear all the crying in the background, and told my mom that holding the baby would spoil her and to feed her rice cereal from birth (!) to make her sleep longer and cry less. "That's what the baby nurse told me when your cousin was born," she explained. Said cousin now being in his mid-30s.

Ahem. I was SO not cool with that and explained (diplomatically) what doctors have learned about the immaturity of the infant digestive system and I trusted my gut, which told me that Ava just needed to be held and interacted with, not left in a swing or crib for hours on end, which was the norm back in the day.

So I took a sling infant carrier I'd been using at home to my mom and had her try it. She called me at work hours later to say, "I've had her in this thing all morning and she hasn't said a peep! She's just as quiet and content, hanging here on my hip just looking around." Oh really. Imagine that. :-)

Ava - 10 months

As an older new mom friend of mine told her skeptical mother who pooh-poohed her swaddling and babywearing techniques as 'Not what we did when you were a baby': "Yeah, it's amazing what can change in 40 years!"

We tried out several carriers after the Bjorn and the sling, finally discovering the Ergo. Ava at 10 months in the Ergo weighed much less than 20 pounds. J. and I loved that we could each use it it with minimal adjustment for each of us, rather than having to use separate carriers as we'd done up until then: one for his large frame and one for my smaller one.

Dylan - 9 months, Ava - 3 years

Fast forward three years and Dylan, at nine months, weighed about 25 pounds - just a couple pounds less than his three year old sister. But he still rode (and currently rides) comfortably in the same Ergo. He's 11 months and 27 pounds pounds now and though I still carry him for short trips out and about, afterwards, it feels like I've done a major buns and thigh workout, sans elliptical.

With Christmas just around the corner and Ava in need of a doll to replace one left somewhere while spending the weekend with my folks, I may spring for the Ergo Baby Carrier and a new doll for her. After all, it's never too early to teach kids how to be loving parents to their babies.

Thanksgiving visuals

Since we didn't host Thanksgiving dinner this year, or the cleaning and entertaining hullaballoo that goes with it, I was free to grab a few shots on the big day.

My mother-in-law working her hostessing magic. Yes, those are three stacked pies, next to another pie and a cake. Altogether, there were at least nine different desserts, including bar cookies, a red velvet cake, and a 7-Up cake (so light and tasty).

Mac and cheese and green bean casserole.

Clockwise: hot croissants in the bowl, roast turkey, baked turkey, J.'s salmon, more mac and cheese, and ham. No deep fried turkey this year. :-( My arteries will probably thank me later.

A beautiful table for the grown folks.

The kids table with Ava in the back with two of her more than a dozen cousins who came.

Jones family: poorly cropped, but happy, healthy, and thankful in 2010.

City-centric toddler books and other good kid reads

Nearly a year ago, I came across this useful post by a local mom about good city-centric books for toddlers. They provide a nice contrast to the typical farm and country life themes that seem to dominate a lot of kids books, and which I realized are only relevant for us when we take Ava and Dylan to fairs, petting zoos and harvest festivals around the region.

Although I spent my first couple years and many summers on my grandmother's farm in rural Louisiana and enjoy the open space, fresh food and other benefits of country living, I've grown up in a major metropolitan area and love it here.


The article is linked below and I pulled out summaries of the books mentioned, plus a few others mentioned by parents in Amazon.com reviews as good toddler reads. I’ll be checking the library and now Barnes and Noble NOOKkids online bookstore for them soon.

We’ve pretty much run through the many books in Ava’s library and are searching for new, more “mature” additions. To liven things up last summer, we started leaving off the last word in rhyming favorites like Goodnight Moon so that Ava could fill in the blank or elaborate.

Natasha: “Goodnight comb. And goodnight brush. Goodnight nobody. Goodnight…”
Ava: “Mush! Like oatmeal. I loooove oatmeal.”

Now she's memorized favorites like most of the Ezra Jack Keats books and the Paperback Princess (my personal favorite) and she "reads" them to us, word for word. It's still amazing to me, but not surprising I guess after I read this Wisconsin Council on Children and Families PDF that found:

...advances in neuroscience have helped crystallize earlier findings, bringing new clarity and understanding to the field of early childhood brain development. Children are born ready to learn. They cultivate 85 percent of their intellect, personality and skills by age five. The first months and years of life set the stage for lifelong development...

Research shows that the richness of a young child’s verbal interactions has a dramatic effect on vocabulary and school readiness, with differences correlated to socio-economic status. A watershed study on the topic found that by age 3, the observed cumulative vocabulary for children in professional families was 1,116 words; for working class families it was about 740, and for welfare families 525.

Fascinating. And no parental pressure, right? ;-) But it just reinforces the approach I gravitated to with Ava and Dylan from the start: I talk to them using big words and concepts, even if they don't understand them now. It introduces them to new words, and in some cases, provides an opportunity to explain more advanced concepts in kid-friendly language.

Which is why Ava was using the word "awesome" in the proper context at 18 months, and now describes her brother as "mischievous," and tells us when she's "frustrated." Sure, she also asked when we would see "Appetizer" again. "Do you mean 'Avatar'?" I asked. "Oh, right," she said with a smile. But she's clearly absorbing many of the words we use with her every day.

11 month old Dylan, who is not as engaged by books at this stage as Ava was, simply sits still for four to five pages before doing his baby Hulk impersonation: "Hulk no like book! Hulk throw book, find noise. Hulk like noise!"

I'm looking for more tactile titles for him. He's clearly absorbing the torrent of words too, focusing intently as we say the word for each facial feature he points to. But he is much more physically adept than Ava was at the same age. The following titles look promising for him and Ava.

City-centric reads: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005735.html


Also, Max Makes a Million by Maira Kalman

Max is a New York dog, but his dream is to live in Paris and be a poet.

"More More More," Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams

A trio of multigenerational, multiracial "love stories" about three pairs of babies and their grown-ups.

Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang

It's sort of a "Goodnight Moon" tale, but interesting. The book combines your average counting book (or, in this case, counting backwards book) with a bedtime sleepy story as an African-American girl and her father count down to bedtime.

Can you recommend any that have become favorites for toddlers and preschoolers you know?

Post-Thanksgiving thanks

Thanksgiving itself was fairly low-key since we didn't host this year. J. did do his usual bang-up job of cooking several salmon fillets to accompany the turkeys, ham, mac and cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing, yams, potatoes, and copious desserts his mom provided. It was a lot of food but still scaled back from previous years, mainly due to my mother-in-law realizing that doling out or storing the leftovers was becoming as much of a chore as cooking it all.

So this year, the word of the day was moderation. For the first time in many years, my eyes were not bigger than my stomach and I did not over-indulge. It made for a much more enjoyable evening to not have to lay on the couch moaning with a Pepto-Bismal-stained upper lip. I simply had two plates of small samples of everything I wanted and didn't eat any dessert since I was already full. Then I packed leftovers and the desserts to take home for the next day.

My parents and I made the rounds to different relatives, so I didn't see them on the actual day. But I did see my mom's brother and sister and my cousin, as well as my husband's family, where Ava and Dylan spent hours playing with a passel of cousins, leaving them giggly and worn out by the end of the night.

Altogether, despite the cold snap we are recovering from, it was a lovely day. So I am thankful for moderation and health for myself, for family and friends, for a happy, healthy husband and kids, for a job, especially one that I enjoy and that allows us to have food in our stomachs, clothes on our back, and a roof over our heads. Which is what I give thanks for every night.

I am well-educated, self-sufficient, healthy, and I live in a developed country, so there are innumerable things for which I'm thankful and I often preface some minor annoyance with "Caution: first world whine ahead..." to make clear that I know I've got a lot working in my favor when I wake up every day (waking up: something else to be thankful for!).

But I will be striving in the coming weeks to keep that 'attitude of gratitude' as some say, as we head into the next year.

Out and about by the crack of noon should work

We've been kicking around vacation ideas since about August since Seattle got robbed of a real summer this year. Trolling around online, I found a tour that seems right up my love-sleeping-in-on-the-weekend style, courtesy of http://www.guruofnew.com/ and  http://www.springspotter.com/.

A California man (of course: the epitome of laid-back style) has come up with a new series of what it calls Crack of Noon Tours “for those who don’t consider themselves ‘morning people’.”

Always wanted to travel Europe but hate the frenzied pace of most tours? This company's guided trips in Italy and France are scheduled so that no activities start before noon.

According to the company, “We firmly believe that travel is enjoyed much more when one is rested and relaxed — not herded and rushed.”

Dylan in his favorite sleeping pose

Man, talk about a company tailor-made for us! I know some parents swear by getting their kids in bed by 7pm or so, but the related 5 am or 6am wakeup would be a major problem for us.

Ava is definitely a night owl like me and Dylan is still sleeping quite a bit, so even though he goes down at 8pm-ish, with periodic and partial wake ups for a few sips of milk, he's out for about 11-12 hours.

That works fine for us, and on weekends, Ava occasionally wakes up around 7:30 am and creeps in to our room and quietly climbs in with us for another hour or two of sleep. It's a little snug, even in a king size, but the family bed can't be beat for snuggly wakeups on cold fall and winter mornings. And I think our schedule will work fine on a crack of noon tour.

Tearful landing at Museum of Flight

J. scored a nice used two-seat stroller for the kiddos at a local consignment store and it's made us eager to hit the road for outings without worrying about how far the kids will have to walk, and who might be ready to nap when we get there and thus need to be carried.

Plus, although I love carrying either of the kids in my Ergo, they're both right around 25-27 pounds, which gets tiring over long distances. So the gigantic, kid-friendly Museum of Flight in Seattle was perfect for giving the stroller its first workout.

It's a great place for kids, although ours were probably a little young to really enjoy it. Dylan in particular is still really just in the drooling, teething, observational stage. Ava was able to try out some of the kid zone toys, like this kid-sized copter. 

There were very cool displays on women and African Americans in aviation history in particular that were educational and inspriring. But the place is very big, as is necessary for a structure housing full size jets and other airplanes on display. Even with a stroller, after a couple hours, the giant planes hanging from the ceiling and the faux air traffic control tower lost their allure and we hit the witching hour.

Ava lost her chicken when we told her something horribly unreasonable, like she couldn't keep hopping on and off the stroller while we maneuvered through the displays and had to sit down.  

Judging by her face and the piercing wails that were disorienting bats in nearby caves, you'd think we told her we were selling her into an arranged marriage to a middle-aged desert prince. And at that point in the outing, that didn't seem like such a bad idea. Note the expression on Dylan, the tempermental teflon Don: his usual picture of calm. Together, they are the perfect balance.

But next time, we're taking snacks and water bottles for everyone, which was a last minute oversight. I usually take snacks everywhere. By the time we left, I felt like we'd walked the length of Boeing Air Field, which sits just outside the museum. Treats might have forestalled the meltdown at least until we got back to the car, where they both promptly fell asleep before we'd even left the parking lot.

New gig, new challenges

On the heels of news that the Employment Index in U.S. Climbs to Highest Level in Two Years as reported by Bloomberg Business Week, I'm happy to report that I too am moving up in employment to a new position overseeing customer service for a branch of local government. Lots of low-hanging fruit, right?

I've met with my new team, who are all experienced in community outreach and helping residents get involved with their government, so that is a huge plus.

I'm still getting up to speed in the new role but I'm looking forward to the opportunities. It seems well-suited to my background in communications and social media, my interest in open government and Gov 2.0, and my customer-centric approach to public service.

I'll see how the work-life-balance adjusts over the coming weeks and months. Dylan's a month away from the one year mark, which means no more pumping during the day for me, just nursing evenings and weekends as needed. That means no more bottle washing, packing and transporting every day, making getting prepped for each day a little easier.

Conversely, he seems poised to walk/run/climb any day now, so we'll need to spend some time nailing down everything under three feet in the house.

Ava has started complaining about her brother's increasing mobility and interest in her things and everything that she was just about to play with or was playing with yesterday, with "DYL-an! I am so FLUS-trated! No! Uh-uh! No touch!"

But most of the time she's the loving big sister with him, instantly launching into Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star at the first sign of his distress, which amazingly distracts and soothes him.

So work and life are going well. I'll keep you posted on balance.