Parenting to-do list

We had our first parent-teacher conference today with Ava's play school teacher. At one point, she used the phrase "exceptional girl" with no caveats. She may have been blowing smoke, but I'll take it. And I will keep it in mind when Ava's being exceptionally cranky and exceptionally annoyed with her brother.


All in all, Ava's loving her class and classmates and comes home every school day to regale us with tales of all the great fun they had outside and who did what. I think the school and its play-based philosophy and diverse students and parents has been a great fit for her and us. We like what she's learning there and it matches and reinforces our family philosophies around independence, personal responsibility, fairness, kindness, politeness, friendship, and contributing wherever you are.


But it also reinforced our resolve to do whatever is required to raise Ava and Dylan to be productive members of society by hopefully modeling good behavior towards them and each other, and providing the guidance, structure and freedom in the correct balance to parent them successfully.


It reminded me of a great wee-hours discussion J. and I had over the summer precipitated by a news update on a local 10 y.o. gang-affiliated attempted robber and his sibling accomplices who robbed a 17 year old on a public transit bus. Egads. What happened (or didn't) in his 10 short years on the planet that led to the series of poor choices he made that day?


We had a wide ranging discussion about what we are trying to instill in our kids now to keep them on the straight and narrow. We want them to understand that there are consequences for negative actions, unlike the parent of an elementary school student taught by my friend, who informed her that they don't believe in consequences at their house. Huh. Wonder how that's going to work in the real world, seeing as how pretty much EVERYTHING there has consequences?

Topics we covered included how we can teach them to value themselves (so they'll know how to spot others who try to devalue them), dealing with and avoiding frien-emies, how we can demonstrate the value of persistence and hard work, how we can never demonstrate too much what positive, supportive love is so they don't go chasing some poor approximation of it, how to be leaders not followers, being and spotting a good friend, trusting their gut, standing up for what's right even when it's hard, sportsmanship when you're the star AND when you're not, dealing with peer pressure, being considerate of others, trying to live a moral and compassionate life: you know, the things that seem to have fallen out of vogue in some circles. That's a laundry list, and it's of course incomplete and we may not cover every item every week. Still, it's something to strive for. Which leads to another bullet on the list: setting and meeting goals.

Man, this parenting gig is tough but important work. But we're hoping that by doing the heavy-lifting on the front end and throughout their formative years, we won't see either kid in a news story like the one above years down the line.

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.

Feeding the beast(s)

Like many couples, especially those with kids, we struggle with the daily challenge of what, and when, to eat. As a working mom, my challenge is compounded by the time constraints of commuting to and from a job, picking up kids, etc.


As a lover of  the French approach to many things, I was not surprised to learn that they take their school lunches for kids, even toddlers, as seriously as they do meals for adults. Check out this CBS News story on French School lunches.


We have been very intentional and fortunate with our kids' eating habits. We buy organic where we can (milk, fruit, some veggies), and in general, we have pretty good eating habits and rather than any hard rules, try to do all things in moderation.


Despite my southern birth and family, we fry infrequently and when we cook soul food, we try to make it a bit healthier by using smoked turkey in place of pork, chicken and seafood in place of some of the pork and beef sausage, etc.


The fortunate part has been that the kids are pretty easy when it comes to food. Ava has the toddler standard 'no crusts' edict for sandwiches and over the past few months seems to have picked up the 'vegetables are yucky' mantra from some of the kids shows we let her watch. Athough she says it, she will still eat and request broccoli, carrots, edamame, sugar snap peas, corn and more.


With Ava, the bigger challenge is making sure she eats at all. Some days I'm sure she is subsisting on sunflower nut butter and jelly sandwiches (her school has a 'no nut products' rule), grapes and string cheese. Other days, she polishes off her meal, asks for more, and sneaks bites off my plate.

Look what I found! Is Magic Shell a vegetable?

One month ago, Dylan, aka The Eating Machine, had a single upper tooth. Which he promptly chipped somehow when I was away overnight. Le sigh. 


Three weeks later, three more broke through within a day of each other! And as of last night, a canine tooth is poking through too. Amazingly, despite having five teeth erupt in such a short period of time, other than a runny nose, he's shown no discomfort or discontent, other than sticking his fingers in his mouth periodically. Having read about the teething-related misery of other toddlers, I know that once again we are incredibly fortunate with this little guy.


And as I've mentioned, even before teeth, he ate at will. Now, I think we can simply stop dicing everything into tiny slivers and instead give him slightly larger pieces for feeding himself. Next up: teaching him to use a spoon and fork.

Leafy love for Nissan's new electric car

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a reservation time to test drive one of the new all electric Nissan Leaf vehicles making the rounds of the country for road tests. The key in this little recap is that word 'reservation' since in my experience it implies being assigned a time to do something. Or not.

 

Still, I was very excited when I arrived midday on Saturday for my drive at the parking lot of a local mall with my 11 month old and car seat, as instructed in the signup details. I found several temporary structures housing the reservation check-in desk, informational displays and a coffee bar for those waiting to drive.

Each person who arrived checked in and was issued a wristband assigning them to one of three groups (getting ready, almost there, and something else, which I forget) preparing for the drive.

After about 45 minutes of waiting and chatting about electric vehicles and babies with other folks milling about, including other parents with babies and young children and car/booster seats in tow, my group was ushered into the first building to learn about the car and electric vehicle market.

It came as no surprise that in the green and green-friendly Pacific Northwest, Seattle is a hot bed of electric vehicle enthusiasm. According to our Nissan presenter, 1,200 charging stations are already scheduled for the Seattle area (for Leaf drivers' homes) and this city is part of a federal electric vehicle  project bringing another 1,500 public charging stations and 44 fast-charge stations. Other tidbits: the Leaf comes with an eight year, 100,000 mile warranty, the battery is fully recyclable, and like a Prius, the Leaf will feature regenerative braking. 

In addition, it will feature cool embedded cellular components that will allow drivers to use their cell phone to check the car's statuses, set it to send you text messages about car, like how much range left on the batteries, and also allow you to pre-heat or pre-cool the car remotely, check range, and set the climate control. It will come standard with GPS navigation to helps find the nearest charging stations and get software updates, because like gas engine cousins, this one is essentially a computer that you drive. All that connection between the car and your phone does require a cell subscription, which will be free for the first three years. 

In the final building, we learned about the biggest question people have: range. On a full charge, the Leaf should get about 100 miles, but like any vehicle, that fluctuates depending on driving style, coasting, whether you're using the A/C or heater use, etc. Given those variables, the presenter said the range is 70-130-ish on average. Pretty good and useful for most in-city needs.

Charging station. How cute and Jetsons-like is that? Also, my phone's camera still stinks. Or is covered in gauze.

Whenever you get a group  of people together, inevitably there's "that" person. Either the, "I'd like to reiterate what the previous person said..." (How about you don't, since they already said it?) or the "I'm a wonk and want to show off or be difficult for the those gathered by asking a question, usually rhetorical, about an obscure element of the topic at hand. Because I don't get enough attention and need you to make up for it with your precious time." 

My group had the latter, in the form of a guy who started carping about the difference between the battery return and credit system being used by Nissan compared to the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle. Not content to note the difference, he rudely pressed the presenter on why Nissan wasn't doing their battery return system like Chevy.  Because marketing or outreach staff at the local level always know exactly why an international corporation makes a specific policy decision like that on a product, right? 

As the 30 or so others in the room looked about uncomfortably or in annoyance, the presenter finally cut him off with, "Yes, well I can't speak to why Nissan is doing it this way and Chevy is doing theirs that way, but we need to move on..." Looks of relief all around as we shuffled off to the next building.

Once there, we had a woman ask very stridently about whether the car would be using or contributing "dirty electricity." Judging by the puzzled looks around the room, even from Mr. Electric Vehicle Wonk, it wasn't a commonly known term. The presenter tried to answer, citing the car's zero emission status and the use of lots of hydro-electric power in the northwest, but acknowledged unfamiliarity with the term. 

The woman reiterated the importance of knowing whether the car used dirty electricity and finally, when pushed by the presenter and other people in the room on what exactly she meant, she said, "Well, I don't know. I could look it up (fiddling with her phone) but I've heard the term and want to make sure this car isn't using it. Or giving it off." Followed by crickets chirping and blank stares of annoyance.

Turns out (thanks Bing and Google!), the term refers to electromagnetic radiation from electricity used to power electronics. But here's my request to anyone doing any public speaking: if you're going to be strident about something, make it something you actually have the facts on. And preferably make sure it's not something which isn't commonly known and about which the jury is decidedly out and the scientific and health communities haven't found conclusive studies.

Judging by the faces of those around me, I wasn't alone in wanting people to take their questions offline if needed and just get to the test drives already. Because by this time, it had been nearly an hour and 45 minutes since we'd arrived, including trekking through three structures with Dylan in a carrier while I dragged a car seat. Although, major kudos to the young guy with the coffee cup who offered and carried it for me between one of the buildings and who apologized at the end for forgetting to do so at the end.

Our trek culminated in my group standing outside in the cold, in line again for the actual test drive of one of 13 cars. After 15 minutes of watching folks get out of line to go back to their cars for gloves, hats and jackets, I was among several people who finally gave up and left.

Me and Dylan, 11 months (25 lbs.)! As close as we got to the Nissan Leaf.

During the trip through the outbuildings, one of the presenters remarked, "Wow! You have one of the best-behaved babies to come through here! He's just hanging in there." He was. Dylan is a trouper and is happy to hang out in my Ergo carrier for extended periods. What's not to like? He's snug with mom who's got warm, comfort food on tap and who alternately provides fun games like peekaboo and "name that face part," or a running commentary on what's going on around him.

But more than an hour later, with at least 30-40 people from an earlier group in line ahead of us, I gave up and headed for my car, still dragging my car seat with cold-numbed fingers. I found the presenter to tell her, politely, why we and others were leaving.

"When I signed up for a noon test drive, I expected to be behind the wheel within 15 to 30 minutes of that time," I explained. "Holding us here then making us wait for nearly two hours defeats the purpose of reserving a time."

I suggested they might want to revamp the setup to better coordinate reservation times with the progress of each group. See? My customer service focus is applicable at work and in real life.

"Yeah, I understand your frustration," she said. "Can you wait just a little longer?" I replied, "You don't have kids, do you?" Seriously, keeping an 11 month old quietly engaged for nearly two hours without any electronic toys and no tantrums? Lady, we're well beyond "grace period."

Ah well, I tried. Despite the poorly organized test drive event, the Nissan Leaf is still on my lust list and I heard nothing but good comments from those who had managed to drive one. It's fairly roomy inside, I love the cell phone synchronizing options and it would definitely fit the bill for most of the driving I do during the week. I'll just have to curb my enthusiasm until they're in show rooms and try again. On the upside, I still dig my Nissan Murano and if the Leaf is a success, maybe the technology will be extended to larger models in the Nissan Line. Fingers crossed.

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.