on language

On Language -- the title of both a Julie Ruin song and a Noam Chomsky book -- was my email address for many years, beginning in, like, 1997, when my family had AOL and I was a teenager trying to figure out the world through punkrock and discussions of semantics. Language and its use (not to mention misuse) fascinate me, so the way my kids communicate is both an endless source of interest and worry of mine. Watching vocabularies develop, seeing conjugation begin to make sense, helping with the sounding-out of words, and noticing colloquialisms creep in are some of my favorite things about parenthood. I've never been concerned that my children won't be able to express themselves, given that their mother is one of the most direct people I know, but this morning while getting ready for preschool, George said he was nervous.

"What's making you nervous?" I asked.
"The boys make me be a bad guy, and I'm not a bad guy; I'm just George."
"Well, do you tell them you don't want to be the bad guy?" I asked.
"I say honk, but they don't listen!"

Now. George has a sort of punchline to everything, and it is the word 'honk.' It ends several songs in the way that a knee slap and jazz hands might, and it also serves to express confusion (...honk?), appreciation of something amusing (*satisfied smile* honk!), and punctuate human contact (*poke* HONK!). I'm not sure when or why it started, but it's at once a funny quirk, and not exactly my favorite thing he does.

"You can't say 'honk' and expect people to understand that you mean, 'I don't want to play like that' or 'please use gentle hands,'" I told him.
"But mama," he said, plaintively, "if I tell them 'gentle hands' they will feel bad, so I tell them 'honk' but I say it like this, with a sad face: 'ho-onk'."

I'd just like for you to imagine the sad, sad face of a three year old disappointed in his playmates' misunderstanding of the blow-softening "honk" meant to deter them from pretend-demonizing him. It was so unbearably cute and funny and sad, and awesome to see his understanding of social conventions developing. I understood; we've been working on saying excuse me rather than get out of my way! And I don't care for that rather than this food is yuck. I was heartened that he cared so much for his friends' feelings that he didn't want to upset them even though he felt they were kind of terrorizing him, but passivity is not something I ever expected would come out of my household.

I gave him some useful phrases like "I don't want to play like that" and "I don't like those touches; do you want a high five instead?" and "I'd rather play on the same team" but he was skeptical. Meanwhile, his sister threw across the room the shoes I'd picked out for her and staggered over to the shoe basket, retrieving her own choice. She thrust them at me, saying firmly, "SHEES." Shoes, these? Who knows, but it certainly wasn't unclear what she wanted.

These little people are so different: from me, but not me, and that's something I relearn on the daily. I think about my struggle to understand language -- to harness its power -- at seventeen, when Noam Chomsky and Kathleen Hanna felt like they were speaking to my very soul, and I want to do that for my kids. But I know they'll find their own versions of those angry songs and dry, plain reading. Until then, I guess there'll be a lot of honking.

my son, the weaner

Oh, this poor, neglected blog. The winter of 2013 will forever be remembered as The Great Nose-Wiping, I'm afraid. Alternate titles: Downton Crabby; The Winter of Our Discontent (With Rhinovirus). We are all sick all the time, and George has been afflicted with the worst of it, thanks in no small part, I'm sure, to his relatively recent weaning. Something I've been meaning to talk about here. Now -- while the boy coughs and watches Shaun the Sheep and the rest of the family buys logs at the farm store -- is as good a time as any. 

When I was pregnant with Zelda, put off breastfeeding by a serious case of the nursing heebie jeebies, I was determined to make it to George's second birthday before I cut him off. This turned out to be an unnecessary goal, since the return of my milk in the third trimester marked the end of my discomfort, and we happily resumed our normal nursing relationship. I look back on the final month of my pregnancy so fondly, remembering George's little toddler belly pressed up against his still in-utero sister, feeling her kick as he nursed to sleep. Hindsight being what it is, I can see that was the first real, tangible bonding they did, and I was so glad that my body did us all the solid of letting nursing happen pleasantly, as it had before. Our nursing relationship enabled him to experience my pregnancy from my side, not the opposing side to which most siblings are relegated, feeling mama's belly when invited and perhaps thinking about the time when they had unrestricted access, too. 

When, right after Zelda was born, we were spending a majority of our days in the house, often on the couch, nursing, George was free to nurse as he needed to, also, rather than being put off in favor of the new addition. We didn't suffer from any sibling rivalry until much later, and I attribute some of that to the fact that he didn't feel entirely usurped by the baby. At a time when my toolbox was running low, nursing was still my cure-all for sadness, a late nap, a fall, or need for reconnection. When your sleep is interrupted, you've just experienced a pretty big blood loss and you're trying to remember how to take care of a newborn, you don't necessarily have the resources available to think up creative new techniques for dealing with toddler behavior. Thanks, term breastfeeding, for keeping the peace when I didn't have the energy to respond as sensitively as I should, or playfully parent through adversity. 

I wish I had a better weaning story. Or, I guess I should say: I wish I had a more riveting weaning story. But, I don't. One day, George just stopped asking. He was 34 months old (nine months after his sister was born), and I waited a week before I brought it up. Are you all done with nummas? I asked him, and his response is forever etched into the mama part of my brain. The part that stores photographic memories of first steps and the first time he said I love you, unprompted. 

Nummas made me so happy, he said, but now they're for Zelda, and now they're called na-na. 

Na-na, what his sister has called mama's milk all her life. 

As simple as that, with no tears or strife. I never suggested he stop, and yet: he did, when his body told him it was time. When his heart told him he was ready. I didn't directly experience a terrible lot in the way of criticism about our term breastfeeding, but, nevertheless, ours is a story for the critics of child-led weaning. For those who argue that it creates whiny weirdos who suckle until pried off the boob sometime before middle school. For those who think it makes unhealthily dependent kids. For those who caution that weaning will be arduous when the child is old enough to articulate his need and the hurt that comes with refusal to meet that need. For those who think children are born manipulators. 

There are times, like now, in the midst of a slog through illness, when I am trying to find ways to boost my poor little guy's immune system as it struggles, and I wish breastmilk served as the cure-all it once did. There are times when my toolbox is as empty as it was when I was newly post-partum and I wish I could pull him close for a nurse instead of trying to comfort him with words or hugs that fall short. Our relationship is different now, and that change is natural, healthy, developmentally appropriate, but difficult all the same. When I'm lonely for the fat little baby in old pictures, I look at the goofy, gangly preschooler in front of me and am comforted that I didn't force him out of his sweet babyhood too soon. I'm glad that he shared a bit of that babyhood with his sister instead of being metaphorically dumped out of my lap in her favor.  

Though it was not always fun, I don't regret a single second of our term breastfeeding, and its effects are still making themselves known. When I find myself telling the doctor I'm not sure if George has ever been on antibiotics before. When I see him guilelessly look on at our friends' children as they nurse. When he nurtures his own sister or plays the role of caretaker with his toys. When he suggests that crying toddlers and children his own age might need some nummas. I'm proud of myself for those 34 months, and the 12 and a half I've spent breastfeeding Zelda. We've nursed on lawn furniture for sale in the middle of Target, at the zoo and at the park, in bed, all night, at strangers' houses and on walks, while I looked at the internet with one hand and he slept in my arms, for hours and hours and hours - an unquantifiable amount of time, of such enormous quality. I hope that, should he choose to have children, he carries these memories with him, whichever ones (if any) last to adulthood, and they influence the way he parents. Regardless of whether or not he winds up with kids of his own, I hope he remains a nurturer. And, I hope that this, among all my failings as a mother, serves as a reminder that I was -- and am -- in it for the long haul. 

we already won the sweepstakes prize

I'd tell you why, but I don't know.

three

Happy third birthday to the coolest, funniest, weirdest king of non sequiturs and detail-related putzing around; lover of cars and rock & roll; grilled cheese enthusiast and inexplicable sports aficionado. The Sagittarius I was afraid of. You are the kid that made me a mama. Thanks for whipping me into shape and rendering me incapable of watching Law & Order. We love you. 

for set-up parents of knock-down kids

Some might argue that all toddlers are "knock-down" kids, but I know for a fact that this isn't true. Some of George's friends are, as I was, setter-uppers: delight-takers in all things organizational, gods of tiny, curated kingdoms where giraffes and camels and crocodiles are placed just so, inside the fence borrowed from the Breyer stable, where Playmobil families stand calmly by with their arms at their sides. The unsuspecting kid sets everything up, then looks benevolently at their creation with satisfaction. Until, that is, George comes along (delight-taker in all things crash-boom-smash), and obliterates the unlikely plastic animal peace brokered by his now-pissed little friend. 

It's hard to watch, and hard to participate in this kind of play when you're a setter-upper by nature. No amount of oohing and aahing over another child's train table masterpiece matters to a knock-down child such as mine. He won't take a hint. He simply loves to see things fall, hear them hit the ground, and detail to you what just happened with plenty of sound effects. 

It's taken me awhile -- and I'm still working at it -- but after some reframing, I'm beginning to enjoy this aspect of my son's personality. Though it's easy to see it as such, this way to play is not entirely destructive; he's actually really interested in the mechanics of falling, of crashing and coming apart. That's something I appreciate and an interest I want to enable in constructive, educational and fun ways. To that end, I've been trying to come up with some activities that we can do together, that are cool to him but aren't grating for me, as it is still pathetically painful to watch him tear up the perfect track I'd just laid to optimally make use of the entire surface area of his train table, when he asks me to "play trains."

The following are just a few ideas, and most are probably obvious to less uptight parents or caregivers, but I don't figure I'm the only one out there at a loss for how to have more boisterous fun. 

1. Dominoes. We set them up in different configurations -- letters, shapes, snakes, spirals -- and then George knocks them down. He's learning several lessons during set up (spatial stuff like how far apart the dominoes can go before they break the chain reaction; letter/shape identification; delayed gratification, etc.) with the added bonus of a big payoff at the end. Often he can't wait and "accidentally" knocks over the unfinished set-up, but he's beginning to gain some patience around that.

2. Jenga (or, around here, "Jenga" since we don't actually own the game). The same idea can easily be accomplished with some regular blocks of different shapes. I quickly build a tower of layered blocks and we remove one by one from the middle. Again, he generally knocks the whole thing down "accidentally" but not before having a few turns of genuinely trying to choose wisely.

3. Natural disaster. Admittedly either poorly or excellently timed, this game is exceedingly popular, since it's basically what George was doing already. For whatever reason, I find the destruction more palatable when I think he's learning something, so when he asks me to accompany him in some duplo play, we build up a city (his favorite thing to build) using every last one of the blocks. Then, Oh no! hurricane/earthquake/tsunami George strikes, devastating the place. Who will help these people rebuild their homes? As we rebuild, we talk about what makes the natural disaster of choice happen, and ways we can actually help people in these crises. He usually humors me and seems to be retaining some of the information.

4. Watching Mythbusters. I know, I know. But! Several seasons of Mythbusters are available on Netflix streaming and Amazon Prime, and while we are very choosy with the episodes we watch (no guns, no violence, nothing too bloody or gross), I will totally and shamelessly confess that George has gotten a lot of inspiration from Adam and "Janie." The show covers simple physics in ways that speak to kids, and incorporates plenty of harmless crashy/splashy fun by way of non-"accident" car myths, waterslides, and George's personal favorite: an episode wherein a batting machine knocks the hide off a baseball. He is forever making his own contraptions that will drop pretend toast to see if it lands butter-side-up, or measure how high his "humid" baseball bounces, as he's seen on the show. It's refreshing to see some of his more destructive urges routed into scientific play. 

5. Splashy bath. When all else fails, I throw George in the tub and let him splash away. He has a stash of different sized cups in addition to his bath toys, and the inclination to crash around seems to be satisfied in short order when there's water involved and he's allowed (almost) completely free play. My only rules are no purposely pouring water out of the tub and no standing. I don't participate much, but do watch him and give an occasional thumbs up or validation when he asks if I saw the huge splash. 

Of course, free play outside is always preferable, but with a bad weather-averse kid, we don't get out as much in the rainy months as we do when it's clearer. These five things have been working for us lately, and I hope to stumble on some more to add to our repetoire. Do you have any knock-down games that both you and your child enjoy?