Nashville, a Basement Flood, and Rainy Day Play

Posted on April 19, 2013May 4, 2013 by Amy

Well. I haven’t written a real post in over a week. Sorry.

I’ll spare you the details of why I haven’t written.

Like the fact that I’ve spent several evenings this week cleaning up the mess left behind from water than got into our basement while we were out of town.

Of the fact that I spent one evening filling out an application to adopt a puppy from a local shelter. He was the perfect puppy found on petfinders.com (a mixed lab, husky, and mastiff, blue-eyed little guy), and I was convinced that I had to fill out the application right away so we would be able to get him. Only to realize the next morning, through discussion with the husband, that this is really not a good time for us to get a PUPPY. Duh.

Or the fact that my youngest child is barely napping more than 30 minutes a day.

Or the fact that, becasue I finished weaning Sis last week, I spent all of last evening sitting with heating pads on my boobs, alternating sides with heat and kneading out knots from clogged ducts. Ouchie. I was sort of successful, as I ended up with two big wet circles on my shirt (clearly didn’t think that one through ahead of time), but I’m still trying to get it all worked out.

Anyway. I now have a little bit of napping from Sis, so I’m trying like heck to get this post done before she wakes up.

A quick catch-up on our happenings:

Last week, I spent the most awesome 24-hour period ever. In Nashville. Over night. With my husband. My mom watched the girls. We splurged on a fancy hotel.

Did I mention it was awesome?

We relaxed and went out for a nice dinner. Unfortunately it was slightly marred by the fact that the cab driver who took us to the restaurant was a “Too Much Cologne Wearing Man” and had apparently not only doused himself but also the seat of his cab with his chosen scent. I ended up with Eau de Bad-Man-Smell in my hair and on my dress (all I did was sit on the seat, I swear!), and my husband and I kept catching whiffs of it throughout dinner, making “ew, that stinks” faces, and then smelling ourselves, our hands, sleeves, etc., to try to figure out why the smell from the cab was still lingering. We both noticed it on our hands and made trips to the bathroom to wash, but it didn’t help. It wasn’t until we got back to the hotel that I thought to smell my hair and realized that I reeked of this guy’s cologne. And then I found that the back of my dress did too. Weird. And gross. And oddly sort of funny.

It was okay, though, since we got back to the hotel to find this lovely turn down service, complete with chocolate cookies that we were both too stuffed from dinner to eat.

I have to admit, though I love to stay in a fancy hotel sometimes, I always feel very awkward around the staff of such places. I never know when I’m supposed to tip, how much, and how to do it. I always end up averting my eyes and shoving some wadded up bills roughly in the direction of the person to whom I want to show appreciation while grumbling, “Uh, thanks a lot” or something like that. I think I was a little better this time than the last time we stayed at this place (mostly because I made my husband tip the valets and wrote all other tips on receipts), but I still always feel like a total hick in these situations.

The best part of the trip? We slept in and woke up to a room service breakfast and leisurely morning.

No one yelled, “I’m huuuuungryyyyyy!” No one spilled her milk. No one complained about the breakfast food offerings. It was lovely.

We topped off the day with a walk around downtown Nashville, some visits to art galleries, and lunch at a place called the Back Alley Diner.

It was a funky little place with a fun atmosphere and very good food. It made me feel young and hip again. Yes, I was once young and hip…

Our little side trip was an amazing perk of the visit with my parents. The girls did great while we were gone, as I knew they would, and I had some wonderful QT with my man.

It was a great visit with my parents. The girls had a great time, and they came home saying new things like “Doink” and “Big Honkin,'” as in “I doinked my head” and “Don’t take big honkin’ dragon bites [of food].” If you know my Mom, this will make perfect sense to you.

We were all sad to leave my parents’ house, but glad to be getting home.

Our travel day turned out to be a long one, with a flat tire on the way home and water in the basement once we got here.

But we’ve had a wonderful relaxing week at home.

Lass has been saving up her allowance money and finally got to order her “Rody” toy. It came in the mail the other day and she was so excited.

She has barely stopped bouncing on it and has even asked to take it to bed with her. I’m pretty easygoing about letting them take books and toys to bed, but I’ve drawn the line at that one.

So she bounces during nearly all of her waking moments.

We brought up Miss’s Rody from the basement, which she got for Christmas two years ago from my in-laws. The games they are playing with these guys and the stories they make up are priceless.

They even hold them during their special time watching “animal shows” with their Dad in the evening.

The weather is still awful here. It’s snowing as I type this, and yesterday it rained all day. I used the weather as a good excuse for a lazy jammy day. We didn’t get dressed. We didn’t go anywhere. We did school in our pajamas, which the girls think is hilarious.

And they played and played and played.

Getting back into our home routine and hoping for better weather soon.

Happy weekend!

On Sharing

Posted on March 26, 2013March 27, 2013 by Amy

Yesterday I read an article called “Why I Don’t Make My Son Share.”

It was an interesting read. For the most part, I like what this mom had to say. I agree with a lot of her points. In a nutshell, she talks about her son’s school’s “sharing policy” in which kids are not required to share an item while they are still playing with it. If a kid wants a toy that someone is playing with, he or she has to wait until the playing kid is done. Makes sense. I’ve never really thought of myself as having a “sharing policy,” but I do typically use this rule with my kids (except for the few hot items that we only have one of that they occasionally both want to play with NOW, then we have to take turns).

Reading the article got me to thinking about sharing. The author of the article mostly wrote about the disservice to children if we give them the idea that they “can have something that someone else has, simply because [they] want it,” and the title says she doesn’t make her son share.

As I said, I mostly agree with what she says about not making kids give a toy that they are actively playing with to another child just because that child wants it. But there’s so much more to sharing that I want to teach my kids.

Example:

If I was using something, say my sunglasses on a really sunny day, I would find it odd if another adult came up to me and randomly asked me to wear them. And in many instances I probably wouldn’t give them up, particularly to a stranger. But, sometimes I have an extra pair in my bag or car. I’d happily lend those to someone else who forgot a pair. In fact, I’d probably offer them without even being asked if I saw that someone needed them. That’s sharing. If I decided to put on a baseball cap (which I never do, it’s just not a good look for me, but for the sake of example…) and didn’t need my glasses anymore, I’d surely let someone else use them. Thats sharing. And if, for some reason, another person needed my sunglasses more than me, I’d most likely give them up. I always offer my sunglasses to my husband when he’s driving my car and he’s forgotten his. He never takes me up on the offer. I can’t imagine why.

But even so, that’s sharing.

To me, teaching my girls about sharing doesn’t mean that I tell them that they have to give a toy that they’re actively playing with to another child on demand. It means that I teach them about the basic concepts of “this is mine, but I’m not using it right now, so you can play with it,” and “let’s play together,” and “here’s one for me and one for you.” It’s helping them to see that other people have feelings and wants and needs, and learning ways that we can share what we have with others. It’s learning to not being greedy and selfish and self-centered, which is kind of hard for them right now because they’re naturally egocentric at this age.

I think sharing is a big part of what helps my girls to play so well together much of the time. Not that I have the answer to sibling harmony, because we certainly have our fair share of fights here.

But I think not forcing them to give their toys to each other arbitrarily helps to minimize resentment. In addition to not making them give each other the things that they are playing with at the moment, when they buy something with their own money or receive it as a gift, they are allowed to think of that thing as their own and to decide whether or not to let others play with it. Miss saved her allowance money and bought a Snow White dress last summer that Lass loved. At first when Lass asked to wear it, Miss said “no.” I didn’t force her to let her sister wear it, but the same rule applied to Lass’s Cinderella dress she had gotten for her birthday. After a very short while, Miss began allowing Lass to wear her dress, and vice versa, and it ceased being something to fight over. It’s not a big deal at all now, and I think this is partly because they were allowed to make the decisions for themselves that they would share their dresses with each other (that and the fact that the dresses aren’t the hot new items anymore).

At the same time, encouraging inclusive play, the idea of “some for me and some for you,” and empathy helps them to have good feelings towards each other. And when sharing is a point of contention between them (or whenever they’re arguing), I try to stay out of it and let them figure it out themselves to the extent this is possible. Sometimes if I just wait a minute, they come up with a solution without my “help.” Letting them decide when and how to share with each other helps them to feel good about it and about each other.

Tonight we went out for dinner and ice cream. Miss chose to have her usual chocolate ice cream flavor. The guy scooped it out for her and then Lass chose something different – chocolate ice cream with a raspberry swirl. Miss nearly had a fit and wanted to change her order. Of course I told her that she couldn’t this time, but that she could ask her sister for a taste of hers and maybe order it for herself next time if she liked it. So she did, and at first Lass said, “no.” No one said anything in response to her refusal to share. A few minutes later she said, “Here, you can have a taste of mine,” and held out a spoonful of her ice cream to her sister. She enjoyed sharing it so much, she gave her several bites and offered some to my husband and me too.

I do sometimes “make” my girls share. Almost never in the sense of making them give up a toy they’re playing with, but sometimes they need encouragement to let other kids play with their stuff even if they’re not actively using it. Sometimes my kids need a reminder that sharing is an act of kindness and we want to be kind to people whenever we can. Sometimes I have to set a limit when one of my girls lets out a blood curdling scream because her sister (or friend) picked up a toy that she was no longer playing with, and then tries to snatch it away. I try my best to do this without being too pushy or authoritarian. It doesn’t always work out that way, but I try.

I think parents can get quite anxious about wanting to demonstrate that we have taught our kids to share and have manners and be empathic and all the other qualities that are socially desirable in adults. In fact, I have never had the experience of seeing another mom pushing my kids to share with hers (as in the examples from the article I linked to above). Usually I see parents bending over backwards to try to make sure their own children are sharing. And then there are the times when I see other parents standing by and watching, not doing a thing, while their kid forcefully takes something from mine, but that’s a whole different post…

Anyway, I’m kind of rambling now. What was my point? Sharing is good? Let’s teach kids to share without forcing them to be doormats? Don’t let your kid be a bully? Something like that. I don’t have a terribly coherent take-home message, I guess. I just got to thinking after reading that article, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here.

Sorry 🙂

‘Night.

“Spring Forward” is Way Better than “Fall Back”

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Amy

Before I had kids, I loved the “fall back” time change, and hated “spring forward.” I don’t know why really. People always talk about “getting another hour of sleep” in the fall and “losing an hour” in the spring. Which I guess is true if you have to get up for some reason on the Sunday morning following the change, but I rarely did. Actually, the time change hardly ever affected my sleep. Sure, I might have thought, on Saturday night in the spring, “Ugh, it was 1:59 and now it’s 3 am. I guess I’d better get to bed.” It might have been a bummer to wake up at 11, only to find that it was actually noon. But since I pretty much never had anywhere to be on Sunday mornings, I didn’t ever give up an hour of sleep. Oh heck no. I just lost an hour of day. But, I still preferred “fall back,” when I could wake up at 11am and find that it was actually 10!! I had another whole hour to watch Golden Girls and work on my dissertation, or whatever I used to do on weekends.

Now that I have kids, I’d really rather that we never had to go through this silly time change thing. Really.

But, since we must still change the clocks twice a year, I’ve learned that now I much prefer to “spring forward.” Now that I do have a reason to get up on Sunday mornings (three cute little reasons, in fact, who insist on waking up early in spite of my attempts to get them to understand that Mommy really loves to sleep in). In the fall, on that Sunday after the time change, my little darlings still wake up at 6am or so. Only it’s actually 5. And that Sunday after the “fall back” time change? It is the longest. day. ever.

But yesterday was a breeze. When Sis woke me up at 6, it was actually 7. And by the time her sisters were up and breakfast was done, the morning was half over. The day flew by! And a little extra bonus? All of my children slept past 7am today. Even this little one:

At some point, I’m sure they’ll adjust to this change in the clock and go back to waking at 6. But 7 was nice this morning.

And “springing forward” comes with all sorts of other nice things. Like above freezing temperatures and three days of rain that have begun to (barely) melt the mountains of snow we have.

Like St. Patricks Day fun. We made our annual yogurt covered pretzels shaped like shamrocks the other day. They were for a play date with our friends, and Miss worked really hard on them, making special ones for each of her friends who were coming over. Unfortunately our friends were sick, so we didn’t get to share with them. I was sad that we couldn’t have our play date, but on the bright side, that meant more treats for me. I mean us.

I bought some green peppers to do what I thought would be a totally awesome St. Patty’s Day craft with the girls. I made sure each of the peppers had three lobes, cut off the tops, put out green and white paint and green and white paper, and showed the girls how to make shamrocks using the peppers as stamps. They started to do the stamps, but as soon as I got out the little paintbrushes so they could paint stems, the stamping idea went right out the window. So they just painted.

Lass painted the peppers…

Oh well. We do have several lovely green and white paintings.

Before the rain came we got some time playing in the snow in the relatively warm weather on Friday.

At least we started out playing in the snow. The girls thought the snow was great at first, but as soon as they found the puddles on the driveway, they didn’t care one bit about the snow anymore.

I am so ready for spring.

9 Reasons I’m Not a Feminist (and Maybe You Aren’t Either)

Posted on January 29, 2013February 25, 2014 by Amy

This is an issue that has been on my mind lately for various reasons. It has repeatedly come to my attention in the past few weeks, like when I recently read this article about women now being allowed in combat. Or when I read the book “The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say,” which has a stupid name and some real problems in its writing and plenty that I don’t agree with, but is nevertheless an interesting read. Or when I read this blog post in which a woman wrote about how offended she was as a mother and infuriated as a feminist that her son’s preschool teacher was encouraging the little boys to be gentlemen. For real.

I have never identified myself as a feminist. I was lambasted by my professor in an undergraduate women’s writing course when I wrote a paper disagreeing with a feminist book we had to read (I don’t remember which book it was). Though I spent many years in school pursuing an advanced degree to become a psychologist, I always knew that what I really wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom.

So yes, feminism annoys me. Of course I want equal rights for women and men. I have three daughters for pete’s sake. But I think feminism takes things too far. Feminism comes across as angry and hostile and lawsuit-happy. And here are some more reasons I’m not a feminist:

1. I believe in equal rights for all people, not greater rights and entitlements for women (or any other group).

2. It is my fervent hope that women and men will never have equal pay (on average). We already have equal pay for doing the same job (according to the law). We will probably never have equal average pay, because women often choose to work fewer hours and at less demanding and dangerous jobs than men in order to be more available for their children. I hope this doesn’t change.

3. I think feminism is partly to blame for much of the “Mommy Wars” and “Mommy Guilt” women struggle with nowadays. Women of my generation have been inundated with the idea that it is our “duty” to follow in the footprints of the women who “forged the path” for us to have the opportunities we have today to work outside the home. If we don’t want to work and would rather stay home with our children, feminists view this as not living up to our potential. And all this stuff about “having it all,” i.e. working full time and being available for our children as much as we want or need to be while remaining gorgeous and stress free, is crap. I wish feminists would stop putting this junk out there so women can stop feeling guilty if they don’t live up to this impossible ideal.

4. I think Title 9 is BS. If you have to take away from or put down others in order to get what you want in life, you ought to reevaluate what you want in life. Of course women should have opportunities to play collegiate sports. They should not take away opportunities from men in order to do so. Also, see #1.

5. I think staying home to raise her children is the most important and fulfilling job a woman can do. I do not think that it is a waste of her intellectual abilities (though I too had to battle this feeling within myself when I stopped working).

*Note: Having said that, I want to clarify that I don’t think that working makes someone a bad mom, or less of a woman, or not important, or anything else like that. I’m all for a woman being able to choose what is right for her family, and I’m not trying to fan the “Working Mom vs. Stay-at-Home Mom” flames. I’m just trying to shoot down the feminist idea that a woman staying at home to take care of her children is “less” (important, fulfilled, smart, capable, etc.) than one who chooses to work.

6. Women and men (girls and boys) are different. On many levels. Period. Our differences are not just caused by the ways we are raised. I wish feminists would stop trying to say that we’re the same. The differences between men and women are a good thing.

7. Along those lines, I think chivalry is great. My girls will be encouraged to seek relationships with boys/men who are gentlemen. They won’t feel entitled to have a man open a door for them, nor will they feel offended when one does.

8. I don’t view women as victims, and I think it is harmful to my gender to continually harp on the idea that we’ve been oppressed and victimized. Women can be strong without needing to take away from or attack men.

9. I have every intention of raising my daughters to be strong, independent, loving, non-feminists. I will tell and show them that choosing to stay home with them is the best decision I have ever made. I will encourage them to pursue whatever goals they set for themselves, but I will also let them know that it’s okay for them to pursue their goals in stages and to plan for the possibility that they may someday want to leave their careers for a while to be home with their kids.

If I’m honest, I wish feminism would just go away. I don’t think it’s necessary, and in fact I think it is harmful to women and families (and men too). I think it just stirs up resentment among women and between women and men. Calling it “Women’s issues” or “The Women’s Movement” or whatever other name tries to present it as being representative of the views and needs and wants of all women is incorrect and annoying. It’s feminism. I am not a feminist. Are you?

A Little Bit Political

Posted on November 5, 2012January 3, 2023 by Amy

I almost forgot that tomorrow is election day. Not because I haven’t been thinking about the election (I have). Not because I don’t care about the election (I do). In fact, I already voted, by absentee ballot, last week. I almost forgot simply because we’re at the Farm since last Wednesday night. When we’re here, I have a very hard time keeping track of what day of the week it is. So I forgot, briefly, that tomorrow is Tuesday. The Tuesday.

Luckily for me, I looked at Facebook tonight. No chance that I would fail to be reminded of tomorrow’s importance after that. Have you checked it out recently? All the political ugliness is enough to make someone (me) feel ill.

I never get political on this blog. I’ve thought about it a few times, when something really fired me up. But I’ve always decided against going there. I guess I’m not really getting political now, except to say this:

I hate this election. Truly. It’s so ugly.

Four years ago, I happily voted for President Obama. I was thrilled when he won the election.

Because pictures of my girls enjoying their cousins make me smile, even when I’m thinking about this election.

Unfortunately, in the past four years, President Obama has done some things that I really don’t support.

Ugh.

Obviously I’m oversimplifying the issues here. I’ve struggled with the decision of whom to vote for in this election for months.

I’m feeling anxious tonight about what will happen tomorrow.

I wish this wasn’t an election in which I had to choose the candidate I find less objectionable. I wish I felt passionate about my vote and fully supported the candidate I chose.

I don’t. I feel kind of ill.

But I still voted.

Incidentally, this post is not meant to be insulting to anyone or spark a debate. I’m writing about the election because it’s what’s on my mind tonight (naturally). I’d love to hear whom you will/did vote for and why, if you choose to share, but please refrain from ugliness. Thanks.

Pigtails and Stuff

Posted on April 7, 2012December 31, 2013 by Amy

I got both of my girls to wear pigtails in their hair for a brief time yesterday. Miss usually won’t let me do anything with her hair except a ponytail, but when I put Lass’s hair in pigtails yesterday, she was suddenly interested. I just had to get a photo of the two of them together.

Preferably with both of them looking at the camera…

I love Miss’s posed smiles for photos.

Close enough!

Miss really wanted to put her Baby Sis’s hair in pigtails too.

We’ve had a great week.

Almost every day we’ve gotten out of the house at least a little bit. Yesterday we stayed home for a lazy day, but otherwise we’ve been out and about. I already mentioned getting out for gymnastics class on Monday. Tuesday I got the girls up and was determined to get Miss to school on time. I got them all ready to go and we got out the door only a few minutes late for the 25-minute drive to Miss’s school. We got there and I got Miss up to the door, only to realize that I had completely forgotten it was Spring Break this week. Miss didn’t really get what Spring Break is, but we had a good laugh about going to school when it was closed.

The girls love playing with their Baby Sis’s stuff. The photo below looks a bit hostile, but Miss was just showing Lass how to cover her mouth when she coughs.

Sister hugs.

And kisses.

Nothing like playing soccer with sparkly Mary-Jane-ish shoes on.

Baby Sis is sleeping and nursing like a champ. She wakes up once at night and then sleeps late. All of my girls have been sleeping a little bit late this week (except Tuesday when I had to wake them all up for “school”) so I have been thoroughly enjoying sleeping until 8. And my husband is off work for the next week. I’m loving this and the Easter festivities coming up this weekend with dyeing eggs, hunting for eggs and baskets, and meeting the Easter Bunny on Sunday. I’m a happy mama.

One of My Favorite Things Also Drives Me a Little Nuts

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Amy

My junk drawer. It is one of my favorite things, and also the bane of my existence. Okay, I’ll be honest. I don’t just have one junk drawer.

I have many, many junk drawers.

Oh, how I love junk drawers. It’s so great to have a place (many places) where it is easy to dump things you aren’t sure you can get rid of but you don’t know what to do with. Camera charger? Pretend grocery list that came with Miss’s toy shopping cart? Part of a toy set that was chewed on by our dog? Instructional DVD for a sling carrier? Book with a seriously obnoxious song that I had to hide from Miss or risk losing my mind? Right on. Pile it all right in there.

Unfortunately, as much as I love my junk drawers (and cabinets, and cupboards…), they also drive me a little crazy every time I open one of them. I mean, what the heck is this stuff??

So. Recently I made a goal to clean out all of my junk drawers, cupboards, and cabinets, one at a time, over the next several months. I started with my main junk drawer in the kitchen today. Above is before. After:

Admittedly, there is still some junk in there that I’m not sure what to do with, that could probably be thrown away or put in a more designated space. But I wasn’t sure about some of it because I cleaned the drawer when my husband was at work and some of the stuff is his. So, I just took one of the organizer baskets and put all of his stuff into it. Thus, it’s organized, right? And really, the whole purpose of a junk drawer is to contain random things for which there isn’t another, better place. That’s the beauty of it, after all.

I was pretty proud of this little accomplishment today. Now I just have to tackle about 6-10 more drawers and several cupboards and cabinets. Yikes. Is there a support group for this?

In other news, my girls are on the mend, finally. The poor things still have runny noses and coughs, but they are perking up and seem to be feeling much better. Especially Miss, who got sick first.

I’m so relieved they’re feeling better. I hate when they’re sick.

Little Sis is still breech. I’m still trying things to help her flip. I’m getting a little discouraged at this point, to be honest. If she’s as big as Lass was, she’s probably already 8-8.5 pounds, so I’m not getting my hopes up that she’ll turn without some help. I’m still trying though.

Next week is my husband’s big week off, when we will finally get the things done that we need to do before she arrives. I’m so excited to see her room start to come together. I started packing my hospital bag a little bit today. Won’t be long now!

Quickie

Posted on February 4, 2012December 31, 2013 by Amy

Just returned tonight from another week in the blogging black hole (my parents’ house). We had a great visit, and I’ll post about that soon. But tonight I’m tired from a long day in the car and little sleep last night, so here’s a quickie with a few photos from last week.

Miss has gotten into wearing dresses to school. This is because she likes to wear tights, not because she really cares about dresses. I don’t have a ton of dresses for her, since she’s never really been into them before, and I tend to think they’re a bit impractical for an active girl. I didn’t want to spend a ton on new dresses for her, but I found this amazing online consignment store, where I got her three dresses for under $25. Cute, name brand dresses in great condition. I love a great deal (have I mentioned that before?).

And somebody got her very own ballet shoes to be like big sister.

Now they dance together.

No words needed for these next three photos. I’ll just say I love them.

And in closing, Miss’s new thing (besides dresses) is to inspect her feet for toe jam. It makes me chuckle just to type that. She almost never finds any. I do wash regularly between her toes. But she likes to look for it. Whatever floats her boat, right?

There. A quickie. Night.

Can’t We Just Play?

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Amy

I think sometimes the best opportunities for play and learning come from the simplest things.

Like a bowl of gourds. A couple of hedge apples. An acorn found.

Recently I had a conversation with some people about their experiences and thoughts on their childrens’ educations. The children of these other folks are older than mine and most of them are already in school. It was kind of shocking to me that these other parents were talking about the importance of sending their children to the right private preschools and grammar schools so that they would be able to get into an Ivy League school when the time comes for college. These are kids in kindergarten, maybe second grade. I had never really heard of such an idea before. I was surprised to hear that some people think that going to *gasp* public school is practically a death sentence in terms of one’s later educational and occupational opportunities. My husband and I both attended public schools growing up, public universities and public graduate schools, and I think we’re both doing just fine. We both have successful, fulfilling careers (though my professional career is mostly on hold for now, of course). I don’t think anything would have been significantly different for either of us if we had attended fancy private schools and/or obtained degrees from Ivy League universities in terms of where we find ourselves professionally and intellectually. We would probably just have a lot more debt.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against private schools. Lots of people send their children to private schools for lots of different reasons. Some for religious reasons. Some are not fortunate enough to live in a place where the public school system is good. We happen to be lucky that where we live, the public schools are great, and I fully intend to send our girls to them. I’m not trying to pass judgement on public versus private schools. I think as parents, we just try to make the best of what we have. I know I want to give my kids every opportunity to succeed and excel. But I personally believe that much of their success and happiness is going to come much more from what my husband and I teach them about life and working hard for what you want than about any particular school we could send them to, or thing we could buy for them, or whether they know their multiplication tables by age six.

After I started thinking about this whole idea, I saw an article that my cousin posted on Facebook. It’s from Scientific American and is called “Preschool Tests Take Time Away From Play — And Learning.” It’s a great article reminding us that the best way for young children to learn is to play and cautioning against too much stressful testing and direct instruction for preschoolers. Again, this type of super-focused preschool is not something I had ever really thought of before. One of the things I love about Miss’s school is that they have time for open play and exploration every day. And they color, they paint, they manipulate water and sand and flour, they glue stuff, they grow plants and have a worm composter, they do yoga. They learn mostly through experience rather than sitting and listening to someone teach them about the geography of Asia or the different periods of Picasso’s art. They do preschool at her preschool. She’s allowed to go only twice a week and it’s fun for her.

I love to watch my girls play. They are so amazing at it. And another thing I love? What I think is the best “school” for little minds? This:

No worries, this nest did not have any wasps in it!

Taking my girls outside and to other places to experience things hands on is the best thing ever. This week Miss has found walnuts and acorns, some whole and some eaten by squirrels. She has gotten to hold some cool fossils that have been found here (in case you’re wondering, we’re at the Farm for deer hunting). She has seen lots of deer running, some bucks chasing does. She has seen an almost completely eaten squirrel (she said, “Yuck”). She has held deer antlers. Lass has filled and dumped the bowl of gourds over and over. She has picked up rocks and sticks, and both girls have sat and jumped in leaves. With each of these experiences, we have talked to the girls about what they are seeing. Miss asks questions. Their time here and in other places where they can see and touch and play with the things around them provide such rich learning experiences.

My girls don’t have to go to Harvard. They can if they want to, but it’s not necessary. We will stress the importance of a good education, sure. But they will also learn that the best education comes from embracing life and the world around them and learning from every experience. And for now, we’ll play.

The Well-Dressed Belly

Posted on October 12, 2011January 11, 2023 by Amy

This is what Miss wore to school yesterday.

Adorable, yes?

Why is it that I can find such wonderful clothes for my children, and yet it is so difficult to find simply practical, comfortable, and attractive maternity clothing for myself? Set aside the fact that I spend much more time and am much more interested in finding fabulous things for my kids. That’s a given. But, I should still be able to find decent stuff to help me look nice through the 6-ish months of my pregnancy when I can’t fit into my regular clothes anymore. Right?

Now I will concede that I have found some nice casual and everyday work clothes for this pregnancy. I refused to spend much money on maternity clothes when I was pregnant with Miss, which resulted in me buying mostly junk that is no longer wearable this time around, and the clothes I have from my pregnancy with Lass are mostly not appropriate because of different seasons. So, I had to buy some new maternity clothes recently. Plus, with this being my third pregnancy in three years, I really was just sick of looking dumpy. This time I invested in a few nice new items, and some great jewelry (check out this Etsy shop), so that I will be a little more comfortable and stylish for the next 5-6 months.

Unfortunately, I have never needed, and have not wanted to invest in a maternity business suit, so when I got the call two days ago that I needed to appear in court to provide expert witness testimony today, I had nothing to wear! I went to every maternity store nearby and several department stores with pitifully small maternity sections. I couldn’t find a suit, though I’m not sure I really expected to. I would have settled for a nice blazer that I could wear with the black maternity pants I already have. But no. I found one jacket that was horridly ugly and much too short to wear over any other maternity shirt without it hanging out the bottom (and one can’t exactly tuck a shirt in to maternity pants). I didn’t have time to find and order anything online. I was frantically searching the stores for other nice business attire and was shocked to find how casual most of the “business” maternity clothing out there is. Now, I suppose for many work situations, the things I saw would be fine. But surely there are pregnant women out there who have to wear a business suit or at least a jacket to work on a regular basis. Right? Where are these elusive suits? Why is a maternity blazer so horrid-looking? These are the questions I was asking myself as I walked into court this morning wearing my black pants, a button up shirt I purchased when pregnant with Miss (couldn’t even find a nice one of these in the past two days!), and a black cardigan sweater that sort of, very loosely, approximated a business-jacket-type look. I felt woefully underdressed.

Fortunately, my testimony went well. I’m sure no one else was nearly as concerned about my lack of a suit as I was. And most importantly, my girls looked adorable today.

Motherhood and Miscellany

Miscellany