Saturday Spotlight on Multiracial Families: Balancing Jane

I can't express how much I am enjoying reading about each family that has volunteered to be in the Spotlight and how excited I am to introduce their stories. Folks, please meet Michelle of Balancing Jane and her beautiful family! When you are done reading today's Spotlight, check out Michelle's blog, where she writes intelligently on a wonderful mix of topics from parenting to Kanye and Jay-Z's latest video.

On behalf of the crabs

Summer has officially begun! For most families around here, that means at least one trip to the beach - New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland. More than a few will return home with a new pet. Because if you take your kid to the boardwalk, there is a decent chance you'll be talked into buying a hermit crab.

It happened to us. My childhood memory of hermit crabs involves finding them buried in the sand on the Cape and using them to populate the string of sand castles we had built. Zip's memory will probably be the cages of hermit crabs on display in gaudy shops along the boardwalk of Ocean City, Maryland. (Which is not my favorite beach destination, but that is neither here nor there). Cages full of crabs in unnaturally colorful shells call to little kids, Take me home! Take me home!

Zip HAD to have one. So we made a deal. If he behaved well during our trip, we would buy him a crab before we headed home. Of course, there was some sort of smiley-face-chart involved. This is us after all. Zip totally rocked it, and so on our last night we acquired Hermie:

Gouda-Cheddar Mac-n'-Cheese {aka Heaven in a Pan}

I swear I'm not going to turn into a food blogger, but with summer upon us and cook-outs ahead I thought I'd share one more recipe. Because I looooove mac-n'-cheese. Or, more accurately, I love this mac-n'-cheese. I save this recipe for when we are invited to a pot-luck or have a house full of guests, because I am the only one in my house who will eat it and I WILL EAT THE WHOLE PAN! And now I am sharing this with you. So that YOU CAN EAT THE WHOLE PAN! (Okay, I'm done shouting at you now.)

Our Very Hungry Caterpillars

When my niece turned 3 this spring, I wracked my brain for gift ideas. I try really hard to buy gifts that are gender neutral and foster learning or creativity. (Consider it my one-woman protest against our culture's tendency to overemphasize gender in childhood and the predominance of toys that do all the playing for the kids.)  I love the gift we settled on and so did she: a butterfly hatching kit. I loved it so much that I also bought one for my boys. The whole experience was like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, brought to life!

When your kid won't hug Grandma

What should parents do when their kid chronically refuses to hug his grandmother? Seriously, someone please tell me! I have this half figured out, but I've felt caught in the middle and ambivalent about the best way to proceed, so if anyone has advice on this matter please weigh in!

Zippy has never been a "huggy" kid. At home, he is Huggy-Galore. (Yes, I just called him Huggy-Galore. I have no idea where that came from.) He's super-affectionate with Hubby, Bee, and me. But when it comes to anyone else, he's a reluctant hugger at best. And when my family travels 500 miles to visit, Zippy pretty much refuses to indulge anyone in a hug.

Bug Camp! {DailyBuzz Moms 9x9}

I am thrilled to be a part of the DailyBuzz Moms 9x9 challenge for June, which features 9 ideas by 9 bloggers for "Summer Camp at Home."  You can check out all nine posts on June 28 at DailyBuzz Moms!
 
When I shared my idea for Bug Camp with Zip, he gave me the thumbs up - literally speaking. Probably because his mouth was full, but I was relieved and also a bit proud of myself. Besides suggestions like "Let's go for a walk" or "How about playing in the sprinkler?", I rarely do much planning when it comes to activities at home. I'm not a crafty kind of mom and anyway Zip is full of a bazillion ideas of his own. Any idea I come up with usually gets the "Zippy-twist" which means it turns into a way bigger project than I intended! Last week he was busy building a dinosaur out of a cardboard box on the patio. He had blueprints and everything.

Oh, so back to Bug Camp! I'm a big fan of "child-led learning" at home, which to me simply means building on the kids' own interests and passions. Zip loves all things animal and nature-related, so when it came to the Summer Camp at Home challenge, I knew we needed a plan that involved getting outside. I also included his love for learning new things and his new-found passion for drawing.

So without further ado, welcome to Bug Camp!

I think my kid just potty-trained himself!

It's official: I have two kids in big boy undies! I am excited and totally surprised! We weren't planning to potty train yet. Zip was in underwear at 28 months, but since he seemed to be on the early side compared to other boys we knew, I figured we wouldn't even worry about it with Bee until he was at least 2 1/2. We've been laying the ground work - we had a potty for Bee, talked about using the potty, let him watch us use the toilet - but nothing more. Then we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of this:

I am a firm believer that kids will potty train when they are ready. I realize it is easy for me to be so relaxed about the issue when I have two kids who potty trained on the early side, and I've never been in the position of desperately wondering, When on earth is this child going to stop using diapers?!  Still, now that I've been around this block twice (woohoo!) and I've also seen some kids with significant toileting issues in my clinical practice, I'm feeling pretty confident about this one.

Saturday Spotlight on Multiracial Families: A Family Founded In Faith

 
I am so excited to present our inaugural Spotlight on Multiracial Families! I "met" April from Dr. Momsie after discovering her blog. I was delighted to find another psychologist-mom married to a black man and raising a darling little boy. Yes, I found another blogger whose family looks a lot like mine! (She also has a great blog, so be sure to check it out!) I hope that you enjoy getting to know this great family as much as I have. 

Cherry-Blueberry-Orange Muffins

I love our cherry tree. It's gorgeous when it is covered in ripe, red cherries. The kids love picking the fruit off of it. And it gives me an excuse to bake. (The cherries are sour, so they aren't for eating by themselves.) Yep, it just makes me happy all around. There is something so down-home about baking food with cherries the kids picked from the backyard.

The thing with having fresh fruit in the backyard is we have to do something with it quickly, before it gets overripe and ends up rotting in the grass. So this week I've been busy baking up a storm - cherry-blueberry crisp, cherry pie, cherry bread. We'd all need new pants if we ate everything right away, so most of it is going in the freezer.


I'm no food blogger, but in honor of the cherry tree I thought I'd share a new recipe that got the seal of approval from the whole family.

What my husband has taught me about parenting

A couple of years ago I read an article in a parenting magazine (I can't remember which one) about differences in how men and women parent. The article talked about things like dads not being able to multitask and not sticking to schedules like moms do, and then wrapped up with "how to get your husband to change."

I don't know how accurately the article portrayed men vs. women. It seemed awfully stereotyped. Regardless, what bothered me was the idea that because dads sometimes do things differently, they need to change. That dads could be better parents if they were more like moms. I read that article a long time ago, but I didn't forget that - maybe because it seems to be a common conversation in our culture. 

Back in the very early days, multitasking was not in my husband's repertoire the way it was in mine. (He's made big strides in this department, all on his own.) I would come home from work on a day that he had been home with Zip and I'd find the kitchen sink full of dishes or wet laundry still in the washer. I would wonder why he hadn't done those things, like I would have done had I been home all day. But if I stepped back, I'd see the reason he didn't do those things: Our son had been the object of his undivided attention. Isn't that a good thing?

Guest appearance at Mastering Mommy Brain

Today I'm making an appearance over at Mastering Mommy Brain, a new blog that I came across just a few weeks ago when a friend shared this fabulous post with me: My Letter to the Working Moms Who Came Before Me. You all might remember that MMB is one of the blogs that I nominated for a Liebster Award not so long ago. It's a good thing I did, because a Liebster nominee should have fewer than 200 followers at the time of nomination and MMB quickly flew past that, just as I predicted!

Anyhoo, MMB does a fun feature called The Real Mom Chronicles where real moms open up through a series of Q&A. Being a real mom (I am!) I joined in the fun. You can read all about it right here. And while you're at it, be sure to do a little exploring around MMB's site. Lots of good stuff there!

Love, Ellie

Me & Bee {Just Write}

We walked down the narrow road. It was just the two of us, which is rare. After a week of hot, hot weather it was finally a comfortable day. I breathed in the fresh air and gazed at the blue June sky. We stopped to say hello to the cows, of course. Bee waved at them from his stroller, inviting them to come over. "Come here cows!" he called. He loves those cows. A calf wandered toward us, but stopped to hide behind its mother. We returned to our walk.

I  noticed the road farther down has been widened, in anticipation of a subdivision expanding. Bee wondered at the long row of bulldozers and scoopers waiting to tear up the earth. I wondered at the small farm across the street and the people who lived in the brick farmhouse. Were they grieving the loss? The loss of overhanging trees that had lined this road and the unobstructed view of fields and sky, which will soon be replaced by houses up on houses? I thought about the view of mountains in the distance we had when we bought our house five years ago. Now we have a view of two new houses instead. Thank goodness for the farm behind us. But I imagine someday that will be gone too.

We reached our destination: The Goats. Bee wanted out of his stroller. We wandered closer.  A few goats lay near their barn, but none rose to greet us today. I warned Bee about the electric fence, told him it would hurt if he touched it. "Zap!" I told him how our dog had touched it once and cried, "Owwwwww!" Bee pondered this.

A fresh perspective on my very messy eater

A few weeks ago I came across a great new blog, Darlingest Dr. Momsie, and quickly became a follower. April, a.k.a. Dr. Momsie, is a psychologist and a mom. I love reading about how she applies behavioral principles to all kinds of kid dilemmas. Plus she posts pictures of her son who is so freakin' cute!

April recently started an Ask Dr. Momsie feature on her blog and I jumped at the chance to pose a question. The problem I asked her about is not a serious one, but it is a daily issue - Zip makes a hot mess of himself and his place at the table every time he eats. We want him to learn to eat neatly, as part of good manners, but I wonder if we're fighting a losing battle. So I asked Dr. Momsie her thoughts on whether this is normal for a 5-year-old and ways we can encourage him to be neater without nagging him throughout meals.

Although I'm a psychologist, too, I know that I don't have all the answers. It's one thing to learn about attachment theory and IQ testing and diagnosing ADHD. It's another to get into the nitty-gritty day-to-day of parenting. And especially when it comes to my own children, it takes an extra effort to step back and look objectively at the situation. I loved the chance to hear another psychologist-mom's insights - I think her advice is spot-on and I can't wait to try her suggestions!

You all will get to meet April and her fabulous family on Saturday, in the our inaugural Spotlight on Multiracial Families. In the meantime, hop on over to Dr. Momsie to read my question and see what she has to say!

Love, Ellie

How does your garden grow?

I love how kids can offer up a fresh perspective on things and get adults out of our "boxes," if we let them.

Last week, I brought Zippy with me to buy flowers for the front of the house. It's an errand I usually like to do by myself, but on this particular day Hubby had Bee at the pediatrician to check out his perpetually runny nose. It's been running for a month, so being the attentive mother that I am, I had stopped noticing and resigned myself to buying stock in Kleenex. Fortunately, Hubby thought it was worth a doctor's visit and just one day of antibiotics later Bee is snot-free! Woo-hoo!

Anyhoo, so Zippy and I were off to the local nursery. It was 10:00 on a Monday morning, so besides the two of us the other patrons were mainly the senior citizen crowd, who apparently got a big kick out of my child. Zippy had some surprisingly strong opinions about which flowers we should get and debated with me all through the greenhouse, insisting that I get three of these, and not those, and we must have red geraniums. He did offer me some choices, which was very kind of him. Like we had to have a plant with purple leaves, but he presented me with three to choose from. I'm not sure if the people chuckling at him thought he was darn cute or really bossy. (He was in fact both.)

Free-range Momma {how we decided if Zip was old enough to roam the neighborhood}

I love the sight of elementary school kids roaming the neighborhood together. Seriously, is there anything cuter? This is what I remember childhood being all about. Bouncing from house to house, impromptu kickball games, building a fort in someone's backyard. Kids still do that, right?

I am in love with the concept of free-range parenting. Kids learn just as much from being with each other as they do from being with adults and probably more. A little freedom gives them space to discover new skills and talents, to build independence and self-reliance, to learn critical social skills, so much more. It all sounds so good. When parents are around we have a hard time butting out and letting kids figure things out on their own. But how do we let our kids roam free without giving them more freedom than they can safely handle? How do we figure out where the limit should be, based on our child and not on media hype?

From only child to big sib: The power of support {Point 8}

We are coming to the end of our series on what the research says about the transition from only to big sib. So here is the final point.

Point 8: Identify sources of help and support - it will benefit you as a parent and your child too!

Unfortunately, research suggests that experienced moms (that's you, if you are on to #2!) feel just as stressed as newbies during pregnancy and the first month after the baby is born, but they receive less support than first-time moms. That's too bad, because research also shows that second-time moms are happier and less stressed when they have a strong support network. Let's face it - having a newborn is tough and so is figuring out how to juggle the needs of a newborn and an older child. We can all use some help! 

Another behavior chart...

We just started another behavior chart with Zippy. I hope Zippy's strongest memory of his childhood won't be "My parents sure did a lot of behavior charts!" Although we haven't had a chart in a while, it seems we've had many over the past couple of years because they really seem to help when we hit a rough patch. Zippy responds well to the clear expectations and incentives that a chart creates, plus the structure of the chart keeps me from reacting based on my mood-of-the-moment.

Over the last couple of weeks my sweet Zippy has had a lot of energy and has struggled with some of our basic rules, especially don't argue. His arguing skills would rival the best lawyers. I think he might be able to pass the BAR exam if he tried. So, here is our latest chart:

When your child is afraid of the water

Last night Zippy arrived at his first swimming lesson of the summer nervous but excited. No sooner had he gotten into the pool, he informed his teacher, "I'm up for a challenge." She looked at us and grinned. I'm up for a challenge?!

Is this the same little boy who, almost three years ago, spent his first swimming lesson crying at the edge of the pool, pleading with me to take him home? He was terrified back then. Absolutely terrified. At age 2, he had slipped in the kiddie pool one day and fell under the water for a few seconds - which is what can happen if momma is sitting 2 feet away but gets lost in her thoughts for just a moment. Since then, Zippy has had a precarious relationship with swimming pools. 

Taking a Momma Day

Every once in a while, I take a day off. Weeks in advance, I mark the calendar: Momma Day. Tuesday, June 5th, will be a Momma Day and I can't wait! Momma Day is all about taking the time to retreat, relax, and spoil myself.

The very first time I took a Momma Day was just before Zippy's first birthday, and I spent the day shopping. When, in the previous year, had I shopped without squeezing into the changing room alongside a stroller and making faces at my baby to keep him from crying while I tried on clothes as fast as I could? On this magnificent day, I walked leisurely through my favorite stores, lugged armfuls of clothes into the changing room, and took my sweet time. I love to clothes shop. I was in heaven.

At lunchtime I settled into a booth at a nice restaurant and ordered a frozen bellini with my meal. I don't mind eating out or going to a movie alone. In fact, I kind of like it once in a while! I sat there grinning ear to ear like a fool, I was so darn happy. I was alone. With a drink. Eating delicious food. Quietly. For the first time in for-ever! Fortunately, my server was also a mom with a young child at home, so she didn't think I was totally weird to be smiling at nothing while sipping cocktails alone at noon. At the end of the afternoon I found myself trying on cute new undergarments at a certain lingerie chain. Yes, by stepping out of my momma role for a day I actually got my sexy back! (And what better way to encourage Hubby to support future "Momma Days"?)

From only to big sib: Good friends make good siblings {Point 7}

This is the seventh in a series of posts on what research says about how kids handle the transition from only child to big sibling. To read the other posts, click here. The series is based largely on a summary by Dr. Brenda Volling published in the Psychological Bulletin on-line in January 2012, but this post draws mainly from "The Sibling Effect" in Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman's bestseller NurtureShock.  

One of the reasons that I wanted a second child was so that Zippy would have a partner-in-crime at home, someone who would understand his life in a way no one else quite could, and who would share his memories of what Christmas is like in our home, how Momma would suddenly break into a goofy dance in the kitchen, or how Daddy inaugurated them into the world of Star Wars. I wasn't so delusional as to expect my kids would never fight and that it would be giggles and snuggles 24/7, but I definitely hoped they would like each other.

I imagine all parents hope that if they have more than one child, their kids will not only get along but also have a close relationship that lasts into adulthood. A big fear for many parents is that, rather than developing a close relationship, their children will despise and resent one another and wallop each other on the head with wiffle bats whenever they turn their backs. How a sibling relationship turns out surely depends on many things, but here is an interesting finding from the research.

 

Point 7: Kids with close friends make good siblings.