Bear-crawling along the blue line
There is a long line of blue tape that runs across our living room. It looks like a very, very long “I.” It’s only been there for a few days, and I’m already forgetting that it’s a weird look in a house. Blue tape? Across the floor? What’s so weird about that? Doesn’t everybody have a pretend balance beam running across their rug and wooden floor?
Well, as long as it makes sense to my toddler, it’s all good. It’s there because when I started taking her to gymnastics class a few weeks ago, I realized she had some room to improve when it came to things like… walking straight haha. So I set down a blue line and did exercises with her every day, and the following week, she showed tremendous improvement in class! Bonus, it got her as good and tired as a good romp around a playground would have done… without stepping foot outside of the house! This is always a win when you’re holing yourself up at home for the afternoon so the baby can get a good nap in!
Here are some of the exercises we’ve been practicing. If you’ve got a toddler in the house, try ’em out! You can use an existing straight line that goes across the kitchen or put some blue tape down to make it feel official. It’s amazing how many activities you can build around a straight line!
“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” he’d say, not even lifting his head off his pillow to face me.
“…Sure,” I’d say, dejected as I flopped my face away from him.
“You really want to talk about this now?”
“No.”
“It’s fine. Let’s talk.”
I hear him turn his head slightly.
“No. I don’t want to. Night.”
“Are you sure?”
OF COURSE NOT! But I’m not going to be all needy now. Humph.
“Yes. Good night.”
He snores. I simmer and sigh and feel my “love tank” approaching empty.
Well, it’s not like he cares. He’s sleeping.
It’s a lie, I know, but when it’s late at night, those are easy for me to dwell on. This is probably because late at night is not really the best time for anything except sleeping, even for night owls like me.
A couple months after our youngest was born, my mom offered to watch the kids so we could have a date night.
…COOL! DATE NIGHT!
It seemed like a nice idea, so we decided to do it.
Wednesday night found us in the car: baby in the backseat, baggy-eyed parents in the front.
“So I thought we could go on a dessert tour,” Ben began, as he took off his glasses to rub his tired eyes.
That was nice of him. Because I like desserts. He thought of me. Sweet. But I could read his body language loud and clear.
“We don’t have to do this. You should sleep,” I said.
“No, no, it’s okay… it’s DATE NIGHT!” he said, forcing a smile. He had caught a cold and was still recovering, yet was determined to make this happen.
“Really, it’s okay,” I yawned.
“No, let’s go!” he said, squeezing excitement into his voice. So we went.
I have a semi-candid picture of it.
Magnatiles are magnetic tiles. They are one of the hottest STEM toys out there!
Last week, I sat my daughter down with her box of Magnatiles. Then I went to go clean up in the kitchen. A few minutes later, she called out, “See, Mama, see! Don’t destroy it!”
I came to see. It. Was. Spectacular.
I mean, she’s not even 2.5 yet. I’m over 30, and I’m not sure I could make something that cool. Half serious.
To be fair, I don’t think she sat down and thought, Hm, I think I’m going to create an awesome mansion castle building thing. Let me create a solid foundation using a combination of squares and right triangles. Now I will build a spire with these isosceles triangles, and mini decorative towers here with four equilateral triangles… ah. Yes. My vision is complete. Mother, come hither.
I’m pretty sure her thought process was more like, I’m going to build a crib. And when she ran out of squares to build up the sides of the crib, she made some out of right triangles. And when she ran out of those, she started sticking other triangles here and there and then she ran out of tiles and lo and behold… her creation looked cool, and her mouth said, “See, Mama, see! Don’t destroy it!”
If you asked me five months ago if I thought she’d be able to make that, the answer would be a clear, flat, no. Because five months ago, she had just opened this box and could only figure out how to play with it in 2D. I was a little disappointed, because this thing is not cheap and I had been hanging onto it for months in anticipation of the time when she’d be ready for it, and it seemed like she still wasn’t old enough to really make something of it.
But then the teacher in me kicked in, and I decided to give her the tools to do more with it. Of course these are open-ended toys and part of the beauty of it is to not make it too structured and instead allow for open-ended play. There’s a lot to be said for letting her just explore and learn things on her own, too. But I felt like if I didn’t intervene and start giving her some “building blocks” for new ways to use these, she’d lose interest and we’d miss an optimal window of learning and she’d put them aside and forget about them.
Teaching philosophies aside, I figure some of you might have some Magnatiles at home and be thinking, “Okay, my kid’s kind of played out with these. Now what?” So I thought I’d share the steps we took in teaching her ways to play with Magnatiles that led, five months later, to her building this all on her own!
Morning sickness is a unique kind of nausea that goes on well past the morning, and is supposed to go away after the first trimester of pregnancy. Unless you’re like me, and you have it for all nine months of pregnancy. Through my last three pregnancies, I have spent about two cumulative years of my life in miserable, gut-wrenching nausea. That’s ~700 days of throwing up and feeling awful all the time.
Morning sickness sucks. I could go into endless detail on just how sucky it is, but if you’re still reading this, I’m guessing you’re here because you already know how awful it is and you just want to know how to make. it. stop. I’ve been there. I’ve read all the websites and tried all the tips, and now I’m here to offer some of my own! Because even though I had a stash of bland crackers at my bedside and tried ginger everything, the nausea prevailed. So here are some tried and true tips (and my weird guesses at why it worked) for you to try!
- Get a ton of sleep. For me, that meant 8-10 hours at night, and a 1-1.5 hour nap in the afternoon. I only learned of this during my third pregnancy, when I was a SAHM and could actually nap in the afternoons when my toddler napped. Tiredness = nauseated.
- Don’t get hungry. All the websites say to snack frequently, but I needed to give myself a concrete number so I wouldn’t get lost in an activity and forget to snack. That meant no more than 2 hours without food.
- Don’t eat too much at one time. Eating up to 60% fullness was just about right for me. More and I’d lose it all.
- Proteins as part of breakfast! It will keep you fuller longer.
- After eating food, don’t follow with liquids (including water). I think it got all sloshy in there and made me throw up.
- If you must have liquids (to take pills, for example), then remember to do it before eating. This goes along with point #5.
- Wait 45-60 minutes after your last bite of food before driving anywhere. This is probably why I threw up as soon as I parked the car at work every morning when I was still teaching. I’d eat breakfast, hit the road, and get super queasy all the way to work and then lose it as soon as I parked. I also couldn’t not eat breakfast before driving (see point #2), so the best solution was to get up exxxxtra early, eat first, and then do the rest of my morning routine and make sure it was at least 45 minutes post-breakfast before getting on the road.
- Limit smartphone screen time. Looking at my smartphone for too long made me queasy.
- Don’t get out of breath. It made me gag and then vomit. Sadly, that meant no walks after meals. #outofshape
- Have fizzy drinks (ginger ale, coke) to help you burp (instead of vomit).
- The common wisdom about eating bland stuff was not true for me. I liked to eat crunchy and salty things. Think potato chips and a panini with a nice crispy crust. And cheesy bread (like pizza) also worked well for me.
Other things that likely helped:
- Taking 25mg vitamin B6 3x/day (talk to your doctor about this).
- Taking prenatal vitamins that didn’t have iron in them (talk to your doctor about this).
- Avoiding sugar (milk tea, cookies, etc.(SADFACE)).
Of course, talk to your doctor about any big changes you might try. Hopefully you will never need to do the things on this list… but if you do, I hope it brings you comfort to know that it does end, eventually. The day that baby comes out, you don’t have to worry about this discomfort anymore! Yes, you will be sleep-deprived and tired and feel beat up, but man, I’d take that exhaustion over the nausea any day.
Let me know if you have more tips for beating the nausea in the comments below (or if any of my weird tips helped you!).
This is a basic instructional tip that teachers and parents need to master. NEED. It’s very simple: When instructing your child, frame directions positively. That means tell them what they SHOULD do, not what they shouldn’t do (unlike my image title…). For example, it will be more effective to say, “Keep your food in your mouth!” instead of “Don’t spit out your food!”
Framing things positively helps your child focus on the words and actions they should do. Not only does it keep the image of unwanted actions out of their heads, it replaces them with positive desirable actions. One of my teaching instructors once put it like this: “Okay, I want you guys to do exactly what I tell you. Don’t think of the color blue. NOT blue. NOT BLUE. NOT BLUE. DON’T THINK ABOUT THE COLOR BLUE. ANYTHING BUT BLUE– you’re totally thinking about the color blue, right?”
We laughed. It was true. He kept SAYING blue, so even though we were trying to follow his instructions, the color blue kept cropping up in the visuals of our minds. Even when we had pink or red or yellow passing through our minds, blue kept flashing through as he kept saying it.
That’s what comes to mind when I hear myself say to my child, “Don’t spit! Don’t spit! DON’T SPIT OUT YOUR WATER.” I watch in horror as water, seemingly involuntarily, comes dribbling out her mouth, down her chin, and all over her shirt. Perhaps she’s being disobedient, or perhaps I’m just making it hard for her by using the very verb I’m trying to have her avoid. Instead, I try to remind myself to say, “SWALLOW IT! SWALLOW your water! KEEP IT IN YOUR MOUTH!” I often find that this results in her making a concentrated effort to swallow and keep it in her mouth.
The other night, a few of us got together to celebrate A’s birthday. You could tell we were all moms, because as we all gathered at the dessert spot at 9:20pm (after every last child had been put to bed), all we could do was remark at how busy this place was at such an incredibly late hour. I mean 9:20PM. Geez. Party animals.
As we chattered away, someone mentioned that according to my blog, it appears that Ben loves EVVVVVVERYTHING I make. EVERYTHING.
Well of course he does. I’m a perfect wife. Aren’t you?
Yeah, that’s a lie. I mean, I don’t think I would keep many readers if I just kept blogging about all the things I did wrong every day. Maybe that’s fun to read about here and there… but probably not the best long-term strategy. However, in my attempt to share good things with you, I’m afraid I may have given the false impression that everything I do is a win. Hah.
So let’s change it up! Today I thought I’d share some things lately that have been a big fat FAIL.
Today, I was randomly thinking about how my dad used to cook dinner for us every night. (Of course, this happened as I was driving to get my free burrito from Chipotle for our lovely family dinner. Hah.). And I thought about how in high school, I used to just watch TV and not even offer to help all those years! I frowned at Younger Me, and thought, Man, if I could have a word with younger JoEllen. I’d have some things to say.
It got me thinking about a number of things I’d want to tell my younger self. So I thought I’d share with you:
If I could go back and tell younger me a thing or two…
About Family
Eighteen years at home is actually not a lot of time. Especially because during the last four, you will spend most of your waking hours out of the house or busy with homework. And then whoosh. You’re never really coming back.
So hang out with your parents more. Go take more walks with Mom, and make Dad take you on a few more dates. Show up to more family events, and stop prioritizing your friends over family so much. Trust me, you’ll have PLENTY of time to hang out with friends after this. But being a daughter living at home? Not so much. Milk it while you can. It’s a luxury.
Hang out with Brother more. You don’t realize this now, but when you’re sixteen, he’s leaving for college and you two are never going to live under the same roof again. You’re going to miss him. A lot. And your relationship will never be quite the same after you get married, so enjoy the special friendship you have with your brother while you two are still uniquely brother and sister growing up together in the same house. Not everyone grows up getting along with their siblings. Your friendship with him is superspecial, and you should appreciate it.
The other day, I thought we’d make some memories. The weather forecast promised heavy rains, so on Friday we geared up and got ready to frolic and play in the rain. It was great fun! She splashed and ran in the huge puddle/lake we found, and laughed and screamed and spun around. She even sat in it.
Yes. She sat in the great big lake puddle. Oh dear.
I thought I had planned out the morning so well, packing snacks, a towel, a change of clothes, using the baby carrier, and waterproofing her as well as I could.
Hello Readers! Hilary Smith is a writer and parent who specializes in spreading positive parenting techniques, focusing on the use of social media and new technologies by tweens and teenagers. These are hard topics that I hardly know how to talk about, but I’m glad someone is! I think you will find this information very useful if you have a child with access to technology!
Like what you read? Follow her twitter @HilaryS33.
Did Your Child Receive a Smartphone Recently? What You Need to Know
Guest post by Hilary Smith
Digital citizenship comes with a price many of us don’t realize until after we hand our kids a Smartphone. Lurking behind the glow of their screens and friendly social media apps hides an underbelly of cyberbullying, sexting, oversharing, and predator grooming occurring right under our noses. If your son or daughter has recently acquired a Smartphone, there are a few things you need to know to help protect your child.
Meet JoEllen
Subscribe via Email
Top Posts & Pages
Categories
