Just Playin' Around

Re-entering the new-mom gig after ten years away took some getting used to. I realized this the first time I went shopping. What I was expecting to see were the items of my first mother go-round--cute pieces with teddy bears or bunnies--with a little technology updating. But what I got was a surreal experience in the new world of parenting. Everything was light-up, twirl-around, noise-making and digital. I’m surprised the babies of today don’t have seizures every five minutes. I knew from that experience that the baby-parenting game had changed and I would need help navigating it. So, I signed up for several parenting email loops to see the news. And one of the things I found was more prevalent than any other topic: over-scheduled kids. It seems we have more money than time and more ambition than patience, so we put our kids in every activity under the sun (and moon, sometimes) to help them “develop” and “succeed.” Which leaves very little downtime for unstructured play. Which gets lamented in all the articles I read. And then gets excused in their own particular case by the author of the piece. It’s apparently just other parents who are doing it wrong. Well, I say, “Progress be hanged!” and I let my kid roam around the house naked with flip flops on pretending to eat plastic waffles. She’s a free-range kid. In Sesame Street’s Playtime With Big Bird, the yellow guy gets his play on. And he’s kind of naked, too.

http://www.amazon.com/Playtime-Big-Bird-Toddler-Books/dp/0679888810

http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/index.pperl

Grandma Knows Best

My grandparents relocated to towns far away from mine when I was very young, so my experience of grandparents was an at-a-distance relationship. My grandparents were never able to come to my dance recitals, speech competitions, graduations, or weddings. I never doubted my grandparents loved me, in fact I have many good memories of them all, but there is a disconnect that comes from only really knowing the day-to-dayness of family members through letters (when people actually wrote them), photos (always a bit dissatisfying in their two-dimensions), and phone calls (accompanied by watching the clock to keep expenses down). Often that disconnect leaves us wistful or even sad, but sometimes it evidences itself in circumstances that can’t be called anything but hilarious. Like gifts sent in the spirit of great love, but that don’t match the person at all. One Christmas, my brother Todd, who was twelve, got a crocheted vest from my grandmother that was only big enough for a six year-old and had a huge picture of Bert from Sesame Street on it. Now that’s funny. And absurd. But those things happen when families scatter geographically, and you can either laugh at them or feel disenfranchised. Not that having your grandparents close by means that you never get your wires crossed either. In Jan Brett’s classic The Mitten, Nicki insists the mittens his grandma is knitting be white even though she thinks they’ll get lost in the snow…which one promptly does. Maybe it’s just a generation thing.


http://www.amazon.com/Mitten-Jan-Brett/dp/039921920X

http://www.janbrett.com/

It's Complicated

You’d think being a teacher by profession would make you a natural for teaching your own kids. While it’s true those called to teach have a certain approach to the world inevitably shared with the children they’ve brought into a family, the complicated nature of formal teaching (and the complicated nature of parent-child relationships) can challenge even the most skilled educator when it comes to their own small people. Much like any part of parenting, each parent has to choose a method that works for them. Sometimes you can teach any kid anything--except your own kid. I tried to work in Keilana’s classroom from preschool all the way through sixth grade, and we never could quite make it work. There was something about my presence in her learning domain that just brought out the most frustrating aspects of our relationship. Connor, on the other hand, would completely revert to earlier days and spend the whole time being my “baby” instead of branching out and participating. Addison, my strict little fraulein, had/has such a need for control, that having another person telling her what to do during the learning process was one person too many. So, despite having taught over three thousand other peoples’ children, the first three of mine have been unimpressed with my academic credentials. And now there’s Scarlett. We’ve been working together a lot lately and I think it’s going pretty well. In Susan Hood’s The Schoolhouse, Elmo and the Sesame Street crew go to school…without their mommies.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Sesame_Street_School

http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=148275

Come And Play

I wish some imaginary places really existed. I’d like to sip a cool drink under a parasol at pre-war Tara. I’d like to get my eyes dyed to match my gown in Emerald City. I’d like to hood slide in ’70s Hazzard County. And I’d really like to be daring in my smartly tailored Federation uniform on the bridge of the Enterprise. But perhaps the one make-believe place I’ve wished I could visit most is that diversity-embracing metropolitan melting pot Sesame Street. I wish I could buy candy at Hooper’s Store and that Mr. Hooper was still there to sell it to me. I wish Maria and Luis and Gabi were my brownstone neighbors. I wish I could hang out on the stoop on bad days and out-grouch Oscar. I wish Scarlett could play fairies with Abby and basketball with Miles. I want Snuffy’s eyelash secrets, Ernie’s optimistic outlook, and Guy Smiley’s enthusiasm. I want to live in a neighborhood where numbers and letters and learning are important. Elmo lives in a place like that and sometimes I get jealous. He’s relatively new to the street, showing up in the ’80s almost two decades after Big Bird first napped in his giant nest, but has been thoroughly embraced by the house that Henson built. In Shana Corey’s Where Is Elmo’s Blanket?, the little red monster spends a day visiting his friends until he and blanket are reunited. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Elmos-Blanket-Nifty-Lift/dp/0375801383

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/media.jsp?id=304

In Living Color

Not all the books we’ve chosen for this project are profound works of literature at first glance. Many of them are pretty standard toddler fare dealing with the basics of letters, numbers, shapes and, most often, colors. Color is one of those things that, once you learn it, can be easy to take for granted. As we read Elmo’s First Book of Colors today, I went into color-noting mode for the first time in forever. I started hearing it in language more frequently than I remember. People are tickled pink and white-hot angry. You know a lot about the people around you (or think you do) just from hearing whether they identify with red state or blue state ideology. And since environmental issues are center-stage and Earth Day is so near, everyone and everything is going green. Clothes that are happy colors can lift our spirits and the colors we wear can define us. New Yorkers stereotypically wear black. Fast women wear red. Girls wear pink. Boys wear blue. And brown wants to know what it can do for you. Hair color can literally change our personalities. Think of the brunette Norma Jean versus the blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe. I’ve been every hair color on the spectrum in the last ten years from Wonder Woman black to Dangerous Liaisons blonde to an unfortunate and temporary eggplant. I hadn’t thought about the effect of color in my life for a long time before Elmo gave me a nudge. Thanks, Little Monster!

http://www.amazon.com/Elmos-First-Book-of-Colors/dp/B001GA9J32

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Elmo%27s_First_Book_of_Colors

Puppy Love

Scarlett has only lived in an apartment. Her backyard is a tiny cement patio bordered with about five feet of scrubby grass. There’s no room, or even allowance, for most pets, especially dogs. Although both Nick and I had dogs growing up, since we aren’t planning on moving (or being able to afford moving) for quite some time, it seemed Scarlett would not experience all that comes with sharing space with man’s best friend. And then, when Scarlett was a year old, her Grandpa Dan brought home a little blonde bit of scruff and needle-sharp puppy teeth named Abbey. Scarlett was a baby who didn’t realize how hard you can squeeze a puppy. Abbey was a baby who didn’t realize how little force it takes to knock down a toddler. Somehow it worked. They have a very interesting relationship of antagonism and attachment that seems more sibling than owner and pet. Scarlett insists on putting Abbey on the leash and “walking” (which sometimes resembles dragging) her, even in the house. Abbey gets jealous of the attention Oba and Grandpa pay to Scarlett, and steals binkies every chance she gets. They are lucky enough to play and fight and grow together while we are lucky enough to watch. In Susan Hood’s The Furry Arms Hotel, Elmo and Baby Natasha play hide-and-seek with a little black puppy who may or may not be in any one of the many environmentally-diverse rooms. Only Natasha finds him, ‘cause babies are meant for each other.





http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=148275

http://www.amazon.com/Sesame-Street-Susan-Hood/dp/B0006RW6YU

Monster Mash

When I was little, the “Boogie Man” was represented by the cartoon devil from the Underwood Deviled Ham package. Don’t ask me how that happened. I had nightmares of him hovering over our house in a helicopter, lowering himself down by a rope to pluck me out of bed and take me away forever. The shapeless “monster” of finding myself separated from loved ones turned into an actual dancing devil monster. I’ve only had one child given to night terrors, but that was enough. She would enter that shady twilight between waking and sleeping and begin screaming about “mah-sters.” My son potty-trained himself at eighteen months, but went right back to diapers when his sister told him that the faint clinking sound in Nana’s bathroom vent was monsters. Even though most of my childhood fears have morphed into adult-sized monsters, I still can’t stand right next to a bed while getting in and it’s not just for the kids that a nightlight gets left on. Because we all have scary stuff to deal with, popular culture often works at helping us face our fears--or at least desensitizing us to them. Case in point: the runaway success of slasher films. For the preschool set, Sesame Street has fully reclaimed monsters, turning them harmless and endearing. And Tedd Arnold hijacked the familiar song about monkeys and jumping and beds for Five Ugly Monsters. The illustrations are great but the best part is getting to open up a can on the naughty monsters.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedd_Arnold

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Ugly-Monsters-Tedd-Arnold/dp/0590222260

Go Green...It's Delicious!

Scarlett is a veggie baby. She’s never had a Happy Meal, drumstick or tuna sandwich. After she stopped eating exclusively at the Mom Café, Scarlett embraced black beans, soy milk and “fu-fu,“ usually known as tofu. Scarlett was born into a meat-free household. The reactions of people when they discover this run a wide spectrum from enthusiastic support to inquisitive interest to skeptical hostility. Whatever their take on Scarlett‘s diet, most people express some sort of concern about the health ramifications for a little person who doesn’t eat meat. This is interesting given that she is one of the most robust kids I know. More interesting than what she won’t eat is what she does eat--and love. She loves fruits and, more surprising, vegetables. Celery, corn, sweet potatoes and, especially, broccoli are in great demand. Scarlett chose “papes” (grapes) at the church Halloween party rather than eating the candy from her pumpkin bucket. None of this means that we have a superior parenting strategy, just that we’ve discovered what it seems the little ones already knew: stuff that is good for your body makes for good eating. In Sesame Street’s scratch ‘n sniff book A Sweet-Smelling Garden, Elmo (yes, him again) and Zoe decide to spruce up around Oscar’s trash can and bring more fresh produce to the street by tossing out scattered garbage and planting fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Oscar isn’t on board until he realizes that gardens mean dirt. Lots and lots of beautiful, messy, grouch-pleasing dirt. Everybody wins.



http://pbskids.org/sesame/

"C" Is Not For Veggie

Having had children in three consecutive decades, I have seen parenting techniques change significantly over the past 20+ years. One of the changes involves attitudes toward physically disciplining kids--basically, to spank or not to spank. When I was young and, to some extent, a young parent, the question was rarely asked because it was considered rhetorical: a misbehaving child needed an attitude adjustment. My dad’s method of corporal “adjustment” was a strategically-placed middle-finger thump on your head that made your body vibrate like a tuning fork. I would rather have been spanked! It seems the view has virtually completely changed now and the main reason cited for not giving kids physical behavior modification is that it teaches violence as a coping method. It makes sense, but I still never walked away from a thump thinking that I could then behave that way, only knowing I wouldn’t be doing whatever I had done to get it again. I reflected on this change the other day when someone told me (inaccurately, it fortunately turns out) that Cookie Monster from Sesame Street is now called Veggie Monster because of healthy eating concerns for kids. I’m a dedicated vegetarian but that made me feel grumpy. So, when I read Scarlett Cookie’s First Book of Numbers published by Bendon Press and part of their new 40th anniversary set, I was very pleased to see that “Monster Cookie” was his old chocolate chip-chomping, crumb-spewing self--and Scarlett didn’t turn into a crazy cookie fiend from the exposure.

Shhhhh! Baby Sleeping....

In How To Eat Fried Worms the main character, who has bet he will consume a worm every day for a month to get the money for a much coveted mini-bike, almost gets tricked into not making his midnight deadline because he is out on the town having fun. He remembers in time, wakes the neighborhood to witness, swallows a worm whole and barely squeaks in before the stroke of twelve. It was like that here today, but no one ate anything dug up from the yard. Scarlett’s grandma, Oba, came to take us to dinner and a dance performance in another town--both of which were very enjoyable, but left us with one sleepy baby on the return trip. I started to panic and was seriously contemplating either keeping her awake until we got home or pulling a “fried worm” and rousing her with the express purpose of reading her a book before putting her in bed so I could write about it. Have I lost my mind?! I am happy to report (and you are no doubt relieved to hear) that I did neither. I have chosen to review a book Oba (mostly) read to Scarlett earlier in the day while we were trying to bring her down from her televised Elmo fix. We didn’t stray very far though, since Scarlett got to hear about “please” and “thank you” and “nice to meet you” in Elmo’s Good Manners Game by Catherine Samuel. After yesterday’s disappointment, it seemed only fair.

http://www.jacquesdance.com/articles.html

http://www.amazon.com/Elmos-Good-Manners-Sesame-Street/dp/0375804137

Bait and Switch!

You know how sometimes you make a choice thinking it’s a good one and then, halfway through, you can’t remember why you ever thought it was a good idea? That happens to toddlers, too. Scarlett loves Elmo, but not in a healthy, public-television-is-good-for-my-developing-brain kinda way. No, you could more accurately call Scarlett’s relationship with the scruffy red muppet say-his-name-before-I-open-my-eyes-in-the-morning obsession. Scarlett wants all Elmo, all the time in multi-media format--she watches him On Demand thumbing through an Elmo’s Good Manners board book while singing along with him on Sesame Street.org as she waits for the day’s new episode to start on PBS. I’m telling you: obsessed. So, when given a choice of books to read for the night, she went, like a guided missile, for the Little Golden Book I Think That It Is Wonderful and Other Poems From Sesame Street, thinking, naturally, that Elmo would make an appearance. Sadly, the book was published a year before her dad was even born in about 1 B.E. (Before Elmo), meaning that, even though she asked for him multiple times per (rather boring) poetry-covered page, there was no Elmo to be had. This did not sit well, and neither did she. Before I could even finish reading the one about being new on the street, Elmo’s erstwhile love was signing and saying, “done.” I’m going to count it because I had the best intentions, but she may think twice the next time she gets lured by the siren song of Sesame Street.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/I_Think_That_It_Is_Wonderful_%28book%29