Lord, Give Me The Patience To Answer Questions My Child Can’t Possibly Understand The Answers To…

Tags

child development, four year old, frustration, impatience, parenting, questions, science

Like many small children, I think, Owl is a little scientist, and I’m not handling it very well.

I’ve always looked forward to explaining things to my children. When I was just a teenager I made sure to know why the sky was blue and why water boiled, so that some day I could explain it to my kids.

But I always imagined my kids understanding the answer.

For years, Owl and I have experienced mutual frustration with my inability to deliver answers that he can understand. On the bright side, his questions these days are actually coherent most of the time. He no longer asks me what a tree is doing or why I am driving him to school.

Now his questions are actually VALID, but he still can’t understand THE GOD DAMN ANSWER.

That’s not his fault. He’s FOUR. He’s a bright kid. Some day he’ll probably be winning science awards. I’m sure that no one finds it more frustrating than he does. But it still doesn’t make it easy when I’m constantly being badgered for questions that I can’t answer.

He doesn’t just want to know IF he can have a sandwich. He wants to know WHY he can have a sandwich. He wants to understand the PSYCHOLOGY behind my willingness to acquiesce to his request. He doesn’t think that “because you said you were hungry and you asked for a sandwich and it’s lunch time and we have the ingredients to make sandwiches so I considered your request and decided it was reasonable” is sufficient FOR SOME REASON.

He doesn’t just want to know how to make his little McDonald’s toy car go. He wants to know WHY pressing the lever makes it go, and any attempt at explaining physics to him will simply result in a more pressing “WHY?”

Even if he could understand Newtonian physics, asking WHY physics works that way enters a realm of science that Nobel Prize winners have not been able to answer.

This morning, he asked a series of increasingly in-depth questions which basically led to him questioning the entire fabric existence of the world as we know it, and there was no answer I could give him that didn’t involve trying to explain quantum mechanics. A lot of the time I have to settle for “because that’s how things are.”

I’m beginning to wonder if things like religion and superstition weren’t invented by harried moms just trying to shut their kids up. It’s EXHAUSTING, especially when you get to the end of a very long discussion only to feel like it was entirely useless.

Here is a sample transcript from our drive home from daycare this evening:

Owl: Mom… why do my boots fall off when I put my feet down?

Me: Because they’re loose.

Owl: But why do they fall?

Me: Why do things fall, Owl?

Owl: Because of gravity?

Me: Right.

Owl: Why does gravity pull things down?

Me: Because that’s how gravity works.

Owl: But how does it work?

Me: I… you’ll understand more when you’re older. Very big things have gravity and pull things towards them.

Owl: Yeah. And the Earth is big so it has gravity!

Me: Right.

Owl: Why doesn’t SPACE have gravity? It’s big.

Me: I… because space isn’t a THING, honey, it’s empty, it’s the place that holds everything else. Things that are IN space have gravity, like planets and the moon.

Owl: And us.

Me: We’re too small to have gravity. Only very big things like planets have gravity.

Owl: Or like those streetlights.

Me: … No… the streetlights don’t have gravity. They’re small.

Owl: They’re bigger than US.

Me: Not big like the EARTH, Owl. Only VERY BIG THINGS have gravity.

Owl: And everything on the Earth is small?

Me: Right.

Owl: Why everything on the Earth is small?

Me: Everything on the Earth is SMALLER THAN THE EARTH, because otherwise it wouldn’t fit on the Earth. Size is relative, right? An elephant is big compared to us, but small compared to the Earth. We are big compared to an ant, but small compared to an elephant. That TREE is big compared to us but small compared to a skyscraper. Right?

Owl: Right. And the Earth is big compared to everything.

Me: No… The sun is bigger than the Earth, right?

Owl: Yeah.

Me: So the Earth is big compared to you and me, but small compared to the sun. The sun is small compared to a bigger star. Stars are small compared to a galaxy. Galaxies are small compared to the whole universe. RIGHT?

Owl: Right. Because space is big.

Me: Yes.

Owl: Even a whole CAR could fit in space.

Me: …Pardon?

Owl: A car. I said A CAR. A CAR could even fit in SPACE!

Me: A car?? Of COURSE a car could fit in space, EVERYTHING is… OH LOOK WE’RE HOME NOW.

And so I am exhausted and frustrated after a mere 5 minutes with my child. And the worst part is knowing that these are the conversations I always thought I would enjoy. I worry a lot, too, that my frequent simmering impatience is going to have a negative effect on his curiosity and self esteem.

I’m hoping that I will enjoy this more, when he actually understands that street lights and cars are smaller than the entire universe. I’m sure he will.

In the mean time, at least PH doesn’t mind this sort of thing. If he were well I think I would hand all child care responsibility to him until Owl developed the ability to understand basic science. As it is, I’m just going to have to find some way to fight my constant frustration.

Any tips?

Maybe I should just introduce him to God.

But then he’d probably want to know why God exists and how God was made and why God happened to make green that particular wavelength and…

TuTu Cool For School

Tags

boy, child development, clothing, feminine, feminism, gender, preschooler, three year old, tutu

Every parent I’ve spoken to agrees – the selection for girl clothes is way better than the selection for boy clothes. The girl section is always twice the size of the boy section, and full of adorable pea coats, polka dot dresses, and bluejeans with butterfly embroideries. Meanwhile, the boy section is full of grubby looking t-shirts covered in corporate characters like Batman and Ninja turtles.

I guess Owl agrees, because one day we were trying shorts on him in the store and he looked longingly over to a rack of pink tutus and said wistfully, “Someday… when I’m a girl… I’m going to wear that.”

PH and I exchanged looks. We looked at the price tag of the tutu. Seven dollars.

“We can get that if you want,” I said.

“No, but those are for girls.”

“Yes, they are,” I said. “But you can PRETEND you are a girl. I mean, you wear a fireman suit sometimes, but are you a really a fireman?”

“No! I’m a little boy!”

“Well, you can pretend to be a girl just like you pretend to be a fireman.”

“Okay! Let’s try it on!”

He has never been so excited about a piece of clothing. He carried it proudly to the cashier, and insisted on donning it the moment the transaction went through.

We were pretty amused, and took some pictures, and tried to cherish this moment while it lasted. We got seven dollars worth of cuteness just that night at Montana’s alone, where he did pirouettes for the admiring waitress.

That was months ago.

He STILL loves his tutu.

We won’t let him wear it to school, ostensibly because tutus are dress-up clothes, and it is no more appropriate to wear tutus to school than to show up in his shark costume. The real reason, though, is that there is a boy at his school who is a little punk and would tear him a new one. This charming child introduced words into his vocabulary like “dead” and “kill” and “gun”. The same kid also taught Owl that pink is for girls, among other things. Once I took him to school with his nails painted and he came home and said “Little Punk says that nail polish is FOR GIRLS.”

God knows what would happen if Owl showed up in a tutu.

We’re not just trying to protect Owl’s feelings – we don’t like things like that parroted at him and we’re not going to set up opportunities for him to receive a lecture in gender norms from some four year old peer.

Other than that, he can wear it pretty much anywhere. He wears it to the store and playing around our complex and out to the park. He wore it to a boy’s birthday party, using the logic that birthdays are a dress-up occasion. We couldn’t argue it and so he went. No one teased him. One larger boy did see and point, but Owl didn’t notice. The other three year olds didn’t even blink.

 

He was just another boy… in a tutu.

He even sleeps in it most nights. Last night he didn’t sleep with it, but he must have put it on first thing in the morning because he was wearing it when he crawled into bed with me this morning, saying “I’m pretty now, Mom! I’m VERY PRETTY.”

We don’t know if this is a phase or not. We used to think so, when he was a baby. It was his love of pretty dresses that turned me into a feminist. We thought he’d outgrow it once he understood about gender. Now we aren’t so sure. He spotted a doll in PH’s study and wanted red lips like her, so I came home to find him wearing lipstick.

For the most part, he seems all boy. He likes to pretend he’s a super hero who fights bad guys. He likes to shoot things, and destroy things, and he has the restless energy of a male child. But he really likes to do these things while wearing a pink tutu.

Maybe these are the sort of passing inclinations that all children have, and PH and I have seen more of it because we don’t discourage it. Maybe other boys admire tutus and their parents just nod and keep walking, which is what we almost did.

Or maybe he’s a cross dresser. Or maybe he’s a trans girl (although I don’t think so, his mind is still pretty masculine). Or maybe he’s gay. Or maybe he’s just Owl, an active boy in a tutu, like Puck in the performance of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream that PH and I attended recently.

Will this be Owl in twenty years?

We don’t care.

Maybe he will grow out of this and then be humiliated by all of these photos of him in a tutu. If so, we’re going to have a word with him, and try to explain that admiring the feminine is not a shameful thing. If a girl can admire the masculine and play with tools, what’s wrong with a boy admiring the feminine and playing ballerina?

That’s the part that I don’t want him to outgrow. I want him to always know that it is okay to be whoever he wants to be.

As long as the Little Punks of the world don’t wreck it too much for him.

 

Every Mispronunciation Has A Serval Lining

Tags

cerval, child development, labyrinth, mispronunciation, silver, three year old

While playing Labyrinth…

Owl: “This is a serval ball, right?”

Me: “A what, now?”

Owl: “A SERVAL ball.”

Me: “Oh, you mean a silver ball. Yes, it’s a silver ball.”

Owl: “Serval.”

Me: “Silver.”

Owl: “I can’t say that word.”

Me: “Can you say ‘sil’?”

Owl: “Sil.”

Me: “Can you say ‘ver’?”

Owl: “Ver.”

Me: “Sil-ver.”

Owl: “Serval.”

Me: “Okay.”

I Like Three.

Tags

ages, child development, parenting, playing independently, three

I do.

At least, so far.

Owl turned three in September.

We held his party at Science World, which was expensive, but he had a good time, which is the important thing. I suffered a lot of anxiety around that party, even after it was over. Especially after it was over. I can’t explain why in any rational way.

Owl had a blast.

Watching his little friends help him open his presents while explaining and showing off their presents was TOTES ADORBS.

My adult friends stood around awkwardly until we released them to go explore Science World, but I’m glad they came.

Owl managed to bash himself in the face moments before cutting the cake, giving himself an instant and angry shiner, but that was the only set of tears that day.

And three? So far, it has been awesome.

The whining, which he had been trying out in the latter half of his twos, has cut down dramatically over the last couple of months.

I still have to remind him to say “please” fairly often, but I don’t have to keep demanding his “polite voice” over and over again ad nauseum.

His whiny voice only creeps in maybe once a day or so, and is silenced relatively quickly.

But even better, he has suddenly developed the ability to PLAY INDEPENDENTLY.

It’s like a MIRACLE.

I mean, not all the time, and usually for no more than 20 minutes or so, and not if he’s feeling hungry or tired or the wind is southerly, but you know what?

I’ll take it.

It started with Angry Birds.

I started letting Owl play Angry Birds on my iPod while I took my shower and got dressed in the morning.

I considered it a minor step up from watching On Top of Bald Mountain and the Danse Macabre on Youtube, which was my previous way of occupying him long enough to get clean and dressed but came with a much more defined time limit.

I say “minor step up” because the the jury is still out on videogames. We’re all sure in our souls that there is no way they can possibly be good for children, but the research keeps coming up indicating otherwise: improved problem solving, improved fine motor coordination… even creativity, oddly and inexplicably.

But then, on his birthday, he got the real life version of the Angry Birds game (which, by the way, is awesome, and PH and I MAY have practiced launching birds at the blocks ourselves after he went to bed some nights).

But more on that in another post.

He loves every part of that game. He likes to build the towers, trying to make them match the cards. Then he likes to knock them down.

He preferred playing this to playing the iPod version!

Next thing I knew, I was checking my Facebook, showering in a leisurely fashion, dressing, drying my hair, and all to the sound of blocks smashing downstairs and a little voice saying “oops! I missed it! I’ma try with the LELLOW ONE!” in a constant running commentary.

When he got bored of Angry Birds, he moved on to Lego.

…I like three.

All About Tantrums – A Holistic View of Tantrums At All Ages

Tags

adults, All About Tantrums, attachment parenting, babies, books, child development, crying, discipline, emotions, independence, Karyn Van Der Zwet, older children, parenting, reviews, tantrums, teenagers, toddlers

Karyn Van Der Zwet, who you will see on my blog roll as Kloppenmum, came out with a new book recently, and she kindly sent me a copy to review.

All About Tantrums is probably the only book out there that really is ALL about Tantrums. If you Google books on tantrums you will come up with a lot of books about TODDLER tantrums.

But Karyn’s book isn’t age specific.

In fact, it gives multiple levels of advice based on the age of the tantrumming person, from 9 months old to teenagers to YOUR AGE. That’s right – her book has sections dedicated to ADULT tantrums as well, and what to do when you have one.

What Karyn does is break down the word “tantrum” into (I counted them) 15 tantrums with 35 sub-categorized tantrum types. And she not only describes what each one looks like and how to tell one from the other, but how to deal with each and every kind.

It sounds like a lot of information, but it’s actually insanely helpful, because I’m betting that every kid doesn’t throw every kind of tantrum. Chances your kid only throws tantrums over a couple of things on the list. And when you realize that you’ve been following generic advice which would work great for, say, an Intentional Tantrum (subtype Entitlement Tantrum), but that your kid is actually throwing a Brain Pain Tantrum (sub type Has To Be Done Tantrum), you realize you’ve been handling it all wrong.

Even if your kid doesn’t throw tantrums, it’s a great explanation of why kids do the things they do.

In Which I Get Excited About Math For Possibly The First Time In My Life

Tags

addition, child development, math, parenting

Let’s face it, small children are not very bright.

I mean, generally speaking.

If you pitted the stupidest person at your work against a two year old, the moron who can’t do the simplest thing right would still probably come out ahead of the toddler every time.

So people without kids are pretty amused when we parents are totally blown away by our children doing simple things that even a dog could do, like identifying a ball or their own mother on cue.

But the thing is, when you’re looking at a tiny person and thinking “I MADE THAT,” then the fact that something you made can point to their own nose is incredibly exciting.

Even if you didn’t personally make the child (adoption, grandchild etc), the fact that this person couldn’t even hold up their own head a year or two ago makes the slightest achievement feel really momentous.

But to the rest of the world, we look like twits because we get so excited about our children accomplishing the most basic of skills, especially when they do so at developmentally normal ages.

I acknowledge this fact with apologies to all of the people out there who don’t get why I find this so exciting…

OWL CAN ADD UP ONE PLUS ONE!

Oh The Places We Will Go…

Tags

child development, childhood, fun, imagination

I am loving Owl’s imagination.

He was showing signs of imagination from a year and a half or so onwards – making vroom noises when playing with cars, telling us that a toy is sleeping, and so on. But in the months since he turned two his imagination has skyrocketed.

Everything, it seems, is actually something else.

His toy phone is a lollipop. A pine needle is a hockey stick. An upside down bucket is a stove. His poop is a seven. His toast is the letter C, no, it’s a turtle, no, now it’s a car, no, now it’s a dinosaur. RAAAWR!

He tells me that his toy monster/monkey/plastic toy man is a baby and that I shouldn’t touch it, because the baby is sleeping (my mother brought him my old baby doll from Nova Scotia so he can have an actual baby, which might be helpful in the future).

Driving him to daycare the other day I was told in quick succession that I was a cat, that we were both trains, that the car was a train, and then that I was a bicycle and he was a motorbike.

Last night he told me that his penis is a yo yo.

I love it.

First of all, it’s hilarious, and because he isn’t trapped by social conventions he thinks of the most bizarre and incongruous things, which I really enjoy. It’s a little like living with a crazy person. A cute one.

Second of all, it makes life easier and more fun.

One day he wouldn’t put his coat on while he kept insisting that he was a robot. I spared myself a tantrum by addressing him as “Mr. Robot”, and when thus appropriately dubbed he put on his coat and went out to the car quite cheerfully.

I’m really looking forward to when his ability to develop complex “let’s pretends” improves, so I can get him to do whatever I want by saying “Let’s pretend…”

If I want him to be well behaved in the grocery store I can invent a game where we have to pretend that we’re stocking up for a journey on the seven seas and talk like pirates the whole time.

If I want him to be quiet in a library we can pretend that the whole place is rigged for a bomb that will go off if we speak too loud.

If I want him to get dressed fast in the morning we can pretend we’re firemen, or that a dinosaur will eat us if we don’t hurry up and get out of the cave.

No only will it make things fun for him, it’ll make things fun for ME.

I spent my entire childhood in an elaborate game of “let’s pretend” which I remember quite vividly. A lot of my childhood memories have clearly fictional elements, like the memory of going out to see someone’s yacht and being followed by a large brontosaurus, or chatting with trees in the school playground.

I lost human playmates when I reached 13 years old, because everyone was too cool for let’s pretend. I had to play it quietly by myself in such a way that no one would notice.

Finally I was introduced to D ‘n D in my twenties before I found that again, and that’s not portable. I can go play D ‘n D, but then I have to go back to my boring old life.

Once Owl is old enough, life can be fun again.

Right now, penis = YoYo is the best he can manage.

But it’s a great start.

Gearing Up For Age Two

Tags

23 month old, babies, child development, growing up, parenting, toddlers, turning two, weaning

Owl will be 2 years old in ONE MONTH FROM TODAY.

Holy crappola.

I do NOT feel like two years have gone by. I mean, look how much he has grown and changed.

23 months ago he…

• Was extremely “vocal”
• Hated sleep with a fiery passion
• Got constant comments on his big eyes
• Was intensely demanding
• Nursed constantly
• Had all of his bowel and bladder movements in diapers

Now he…

• Is extremely vocal
• Hates sleep with a fiery passion
• Gets constant comments on his big eyes
• Is intensely demanding
• Nurses constantly
• has all of his bowel and bladder movements in diapers.

…Okay, so when I put it like that it doesn’t sound as impressive.

But let’s look at the nitty gritty a bit:

I Bet No One Has Ever Had THIS Diaper Problem Before

Tags

babies, child care, child development, cloth diapers, diapers, disposable diapers, health, toddlers

Our baby has no bum.

When rear ends were being handed out, Owl was at the back of the line, or possibly not even in the building. I sometimes wonder whether the reason he hovers in the 10th percentile is simply because other babies have bums.

Normally, we don’t really notice our child’s complete lack of buttocks. His cloth diapers are thick and bulky, and they hold his pants up very well, while also providing a nice cushion for landing on.

^artificial bum

But when we travel, and we put him in disposables, we REALLY NOTICE. First of all, when he topples over he is much more likely to cry, as there is very little padding to protect his wee tail bone. Secondly, his pants DON’T STAY ON.

It’s really quite ridiculous. We had to pin all of his pants at the waist to keep them on when we went home for Christmas, and my mother in law had to actually hem and alter the pants on his little suit that my mother gave him – it was a 12 month size and he was 15 months old but WE HAD TO ALTER HIS PANTS.

Altered pants: STILL TOO BIG

Even then, the pants didn’t stay on well.

When Owl is in disposables, even the pants that are normally too snug on him hang down until he looks like a little gangster.

Owl in disposables

There’s simply no way to keep them on, because he has no waist for them to hang on. His body tapers from the shoulders like a carrot.

and this is in a swim diaper, which is still pretty bulky

But we never considered that we might actually be causing his bum deficiency.

We were shown the error of our ways by the Helper Lady at Owl’s daycare.

I picked Owl up a couple of days ago and found him wearing a disposable diaper.

“Helper Lady put him in that, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with her,” said Daycare Lady. “She asked me to pass on a message to you, because her English isn’t good enough for her to explain it to you in person.”

“Oh?”

“She thinks that his cloth diapers are the cause of his diaper rash.”

“You mean the diaper rash that started when we tried using wet wipes on him, and that has been clearing up ever since we went back to cotton wipes and water?”

“Yes. It’s looking a lot better. Um, she also wanted me to tell you that she thinks that the cloth diapers are constricting his bottom, and that’s why it’s so small.”

“…what?”

“She thinks that they don’t breathe properly, and they are snug on him, and that’s keeping his bottom from growing as fast as his top part…”

Guess who has two thumbs and a corset on his bum? THIS BABY

“…REALLY?”

“You’re lucky she doesn’t speak English! She used to be a high school teacher! She’s very DEFINITE about her views!”

I brought Owl back to daycare in a cloth diaper the next day anyway, but if anyone knows a website where I can find information about the risks of disposable diapers or the benefits of cloth diapers in Farsi, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Meanwhile, I need to think about warning Happy Nappy about this unanticipated effect of their diapers on infant bum development.

Because apparently baby bums are like goldfish: they only grow if given a roomy enough container.

WHO KNEW?

The Scientist In The Kitchen: Owl Experiments

Tags

babies, child development, experimentation, exploration, learning, parenting, play, research, science, toddlers, videos

Alison Gropnik of The Scientist In The Crib claims that babies, especially toddlers, are like little scientists who constantly experiment with the way the world works. That’s why they’re always dropping spoons, smearing things on the wall, trying to provoke you with bad behavior and so on.

I took this video of Owl interacting with a new toy that I picked up at a swap meet. In under 5 minutes, I counted 14 separate scientific experiments, all unique, although some were repeats of previous experiments but with a new variable being introduced. It’s adorable and fascinating all at once. If you have a few minutes, check it out:

[vimeo vimeo.com/41460908]

If any of you have kids, I’d love to see 5 minute videos of their play. How many experiments can you spot? Post them on your blog, or in the comments here, and encourage others to do the same. Let’s observe the scientists at work!