SNOW!

We finally got enough snow to make snow cream. Interestingly enough Nina went out in the the snow to cut the daffodils that were blooming on the hill. What season is it again? If you are wondering where Arin is in the pictures, he is the smart one. He only went outside for a couple of minutes to appease the rest of us and get us to quit asking him if he wanted to go outside. I didn't have my camera for those few minutes. Nina, on the other hand, spent 30 minutes moaning about how frozen her feet were when she finally came in. 

We had an awesome snow. I even enjoyed a few quiet moments in front of the window with my coffee and a book. Bliss, for me.  

The Beach

We made our first visit to Topsail, and had a good time. We did the normal beachy things. Collecting shells, getting wet, salty and sandy, and then resting in between, which these days I count as a thing to do on vacation. We got to spend a little time with old friends and make some new ones. Evan and Nina learned how to dig up sand fleas (those weird clawless crab-like things they are holding) from some new friends they met. We met and rescued our first blue bottle (or Portuguese Man of War) jellyfish. And we all had a blast in the tide pools and on the sandbar for the few hours a day it was available. Enjoy the beach with us below. 

Artsplosure 2012

We just barely made it to Artsplosure this year, but it was worth it. Arin and Nina made lots of crafts, Cory danced to some great music, and Evan whipped the butt of a man we didn't know in giant metal contraption chess. Here are some highlights, so you can feel like you were there with us. 

Our Babies, Ourselves

In her book, Our Babies, Ourselves, Meredith Small drives home how unique Western culture, American culture especially, is in the independance it demands from infants. Being the anthropologist she is there are many stories about how infants are treated in other types of cultures and societies from the present day hunter-gatherer to the urban Japanese household. Most of these cultures are more baby centric than the hospital delivery intervention promoting, daycare loving culture America encourages for the most part. 

     One of her primary points is that while there may be a push toward independance when it comes to the ability to compete in a western job market, babies themselves are much more in the control of evolutionary rather than societal values. She asserts that when it comes to babies we may be providing the best and healthiest environment for them if we listen to some aspects of less advanced cultures. The scientifically proven advantages of breast feeding that many of us have heard already found their way into Small's chapter on the subject. She also posits many possible connections between infant health and co-sleeping, even going to far as to suggest co-sleeping may reduce the risk of SIDS. 

     I think there is something to be said for the creative thinking that American individuality promotes. But I can understand that babies may not yet be ready for that aspect of our culture. After reading this book I have been put face to face with how much my culture affects what I value as a parent. I saw that the neediness of babies is such an affront to our western sensibilities that we actually make things more difficult for ourselves in some ways. Did you realize that only in western modern culture is lack of milk production a major breast feeding problem? Small suggests this may be due to separation at birth, or possibly anxiety on the part of the mother, who often doesn't have a ready support network to aid and encourage her. Small also points to infrequency of feeding as a possible problem, stating that in some cultures babies feed every 15 minutes. 

     So a question becomes how much should we bend culture for the comfort and well being of our babies or do we continue to require them to adjust to our demands? I think most families are struggling to find a happy medium among the loud advice of society and family, their own instinct and the new information science is providing. I think the future will hold interesting compromises for the benefit of our babies. 

Feminine Mystique and the Single Dimension

I began thinking about putting this into words when I came back from visiting Indiana for Christmas. I had spent a good bit of time there without internet, working hard to keep my one-year-old occupied and out of trouble. After my baby turned one in October I had decided to give up my social life. Previously, I had been carting my little one around to book clubs and philosophy meetups, and girls nights out for his first year. Normally he would be cute for 30 minutes, and then sleep and I would be home free, but then locomotion began, and my sweet sleepyhead became a busy wiggly butt. I tried to leave him home, but things began coming up. Todd's schedule was unpredictable, Cory was whiny, and I decided it was better to give up than be disappointed. I was really very happy with that decision for several months, but I coasted along a few months too many before being mindful of the toll my one-dimentional-ness was taking on me. It was on the way home from Christmas that I decided I needed to salvage my social life.

The single dimension is a place a few moms can be and still be very happy with themselves. It can be rewarding when your children are young and really in need of you, making you feel important. The single dimension is what happens when you are one thing. For me it was mother, but if your single dimension leaves you with only being an auto mechanic, I can't imagine that being very satisfying either. We all are saddled with the main thing we are. Whether that be a career, or a relationship. And while many people take great pride in their main vocation, few people are satisfied being defined only one way. Take the group of people I tend to run with. They are mostly women, and a man or two, who have chosen to educate their own kids, so they are with their kids alot of the time, but rarely is "Mom", "Dad", or "Home educator " their only dimension. I have mom friends who are runners, like me, lobbyists, artists, dancers, teachers (in a classroom, I mean), and many other things. They are immensely interesting people.

Since I have become mom to yet another toddler. My "mom" dimension has become somewhat overwhelming. I can no longer have long conversations with the other interesting women at home school groups. I can't take Cory to book club, I can't take him to philosophy meetup, or a movie. I feel chained to wiggly butt. I realized when we were driving back from Indiana how much my brain had suffered from intense immersion with a toddler for just that week. It was a week after the Christmas trip before my brain could function well enough to formulate an interesting thought, let alone string a few solid sentences together to express it to others, and I felt diminished.

Which brings me to the Feminine Mystique. This is one of the key books that spawned the feminist movement in America. It was written in 1963 by Betty Friedan, and while I am rather disconcerted by modern feminism, this original feminist treatise has loads to say about my one-dimensional condition. I won't even get into most of those gems here (so please read it). Some people have said that in this book Friedan tells all women to go out and get a job. Some people have taken this encouragement and run with it, pressuring women to leave their kids and get mundane, unsatisfying jobs they don't care about, and then expecting them to feel fulfilled. That is completely missing the point. Take the quote below:

pg 344 "But a job, any job, is not the answer - in fact, it can be part of the trap. Women who do not look for jobs equal to their actual capacity, who do not let themselves develop the lifetime interests and goals which require serious education and training, who take a job at twenty or forty to 'help our at home' or just to kill extra time, are walking , almost as surely as the ones who stay inside the housewife trap, to a nonexistent future. If a job is to be the way out of the trap for a woman, it must be a job that she can take seriously as part of a life plan, work in which she can grow as part of society."

Friedan doesn't specify which kind of job or how many hours or the pay. We women, and society have put our own pressure on ourselves to be engineers and CEOs. Women should have those opportunities, but we should not have to balance out men in those positions if we choose not to. I personally would hate the life of the CEO. I know my calling is to work with kids in foster care or in the context of adoption. I want kids to get good stable homes, because I think that is vital to societies all over the world. Being a CEO of some fortune 500 company would distract me from what I feel is really important, but doing paper work for my own personal adoption, or volunteering with Guardian Ad Litem, would make me feel closer to the work I find so important. Yes, maybe when my kids are older I will get a masters in social work, and get an actual paying job in such a field, but I never see myself as a full time career person. Honestly, if I felt like I had to punch a clock and put in 40 hours somewhere in order to further the cause of feminism, I would abandon it. I think it is wonderful that women have choice these days. My husband does as well. He knows that if I do work in the future it will very likely never be full time, or normal. I want to be available to my kids, have a flexible schedule, and do unique things with my time that I feel really make a difference. I would even do without material possessions for such an opportunity. My husband is good at making money for us. I am not. It would detract from both of our lives if I insisted that I go out and have a job.

Right now making myself a multidimensional woman is having the chance to put together thoughts that I find interesting and sharing them with others on my blog. It is getting a babysitter and going to the philosophy meetup to talk about interesting things with educated people. It is running more than once a week. It is making sure I always have a book on hand to expand my knowledge of the world around me and then reading it. It is giving Todd the kids and going out with just the girls. It is making sure I know I have plans for the future, and that my toddler will not dominate my life forever. Yes, I do have to make certain sacrifices for the sake of todderhood. He will drag out all of my measuring cups just after I put away all the pots and pans he previously drug out. But his mama is not all that I am. And thanks to teamwork, with a really understanding husband, I am becoming more in touch with all of my dimensions.

Arin

Last week I sent off the final report to our adoption agency regarding the welfare of the child we adopted through them from India. We were required to send reports that would make their way to the Indian government for five years after we brought him home. When Arin first came to us that seemed like a long time. I could never have imagined then what our life would have been like when I sent off that last report five years later. I could not have imagined that concurrent with sending the report I would have been sending our I-600A to US Citizenship and Immigration in anticipation of another child or children entering our family. I would not have guessed that I would be working on yet another dossier for yet another adoption. I would not have guessed I would be presently trading e-mails with the same social worker (the best ever) whom I peppered with questions about the first batch of adoption paperwork I ever made my way through. The social worker that told me that YES, Arindam was ours, may soon tell us that another child will be ours as well.

We are getting ready to celebrate Arin's 8th birthday. At the back of my head, though I have the awareness that right now over in Ghana a child or children who will one day live in my house, and be my kid may be having a birthday now, or any day now. It is an amazing place to be. I kind of compare it to imagining the potential the baby in my tummy will bring with it when it emerges, except that my new adopted children have already been born. There is worry, anticipation, but also confidence. Arin has been through a good bit of adjustment with us. He has been basically our first born adopted child, and we all survived up until this point. I am proud of the loving sensitive, eager-to-please-others, kid he is now, and I am glad we can include more kids into our family the same way he came

Perfect Parenting Advice

I have to admit I skimmed "Unconditional Parenting". I realized when I started that it had been a while since I had actually read a parenting book, and I was really comfortable with that. I feel like I got the gist of what he was saying, and just enough of a taste to feel like I could put forth my opinion on the matter. Just as a preface, I am actually not the perfect parent. But I do have pretty good kids. All of the kids I have had have become good over time, and since three of them were not genetically mine I don't believe it was just genes that gave me the advantage. Yes, I am arrogant about this. So back to my opinion of Alfie's ideas. He does have a point. I agree that children should be respected. They deserve to know the why's of behavior and consequences. As far as throwing out punishment and praise, I think this incites paranoia and keeps people buying his merchandise because according to Alfie,the specific phrasing of comments you tell your children could destroy your child or make him succeed. One thing Alfie says is that you must always make sure your kids know you love them at all times. Sounds good. But in order to do this you must not use time outs, you must not isolate your children, you must phrase all of your statements in a way that makes sure your kids know that they are not diminished in your eyes even when they do things you don't prefer. That is a lot of pressure to put on a parent in a moment when you just need them to get a bath.

He kind of reminds me of a parenting and marriage guy named Kevin Leman. Kevin also had some great points. He promoted a thing called reality discipline where he sort of let the natural consequences of actions take care of helping kids learn appropriate behavior. I liked that idea, as well as his admonition for parents to always be calm. That is the part that is not like Alfie, but like Alfie, Kevin liked to give parents specific phrasing to use in their disciplinary statements. Kevin also used a certain amount of shock value by relating rather extreme examples of reality discipline, and held a standard that most parents would be hard pressed to emulate consistently, which detracted from the underlying good idea.

While I do try to be calm, and I do try to let the natural consequences of actions take over, I have too much to worry about in a day to adjust my vocabulary in a moment when I need to motivate my kids to appropriate actions. I try to make sure I give them hugs, even sometimes just after I have doled out a consequence. I try to make sure I encourage them when I have a good opportunity to. I try to go into the why's of the behavior I expect and how it will potentially help them in life. I actually even try to experiment with new ways to get through to them, and take teachable moments to wax eloquent on giving, sharing, good citizenship and the like. Some days, though, I just need to get the kids in the car, or in the house, or I need to keep the food off the ceiling, or I need to tell one of them they did a great job helping in kitchen, or with Cory. And in those circumstances I do what I need to do. So far my kids seem mostly happy, relatively respectful and more or less contributors to the family. I don't expect perfection from anyone, because I know that is ridiculous. That is why sometimes I have to apologize, and sometimes they have to. From the research I have done I believe that if I truly love my kids, enough to try to do the best I can by them, and I protect them from major harm and trauma, they will be ok, and I will too.

From the horses mouths:

Twins and My Dilemma

?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? So I am facing a philosophical existential dilemma. I just got done reading a book about twins and what twin studies tell us about who we are. Basically the crux being that we are what our genes predetermine us to be. When I tell Todd I fell outmoded he rolls his eyes and makes some comment about it not being that simple. I am sure he is right, but that doesn't ease my angst. Right now I am drowning in toddler. I am up to my eyeballs in developmental milestones and getting my kids to survive long enough to reach them. I have chosen to educate my kids myself because I think it will make a difference to who they turn out to be and to the world they touch.

The twin studies indicate that there is a measurable difference attributable to environment when kids are younger, but that by the time they are adults that difference has faded. They look at separated twins and how much they and their little quirks are alike when they meet as adults.

The book makes what sounds to me to be excuses as to why eugenics should not be allowed following this type of conclusion, but they seem weak and fanciful to me. After this book Aldous Huxley's world sounds like it may be the proper alternative for the human race.

Here is the thing that gets me. I think I am me. I think I make decisions that alter my life. I think I make decisions that alter my kids lives, but what if all that is just a delusion? It seems that more and more neuroscience is pointing to how much we are in bondage to our caveman brains. And when you really think about it, and look at life in those terms it can be completely understandable. Twin studies tell me that if I met my twin right now it is highly likely that our lives would be incredibly similar no matter how we were raised. The exception to this being that they have found twins tend to marry dissimilar spouses. But she would probably run, raise her own kids, be insatiably curious, volunteer, and in general try to help those she felt worthy of it, and of course she would look like me. The book said, don't feel bad that you are not original, twins say that the relationship they have with each other is very close and satisfying.

But where does that leave me, as a mom, and us as humans? How have the changes occurred that made us not cavemen, and how can we change the future? What if survival of the fittest is the proper path for humans and we should abandon all efforts for life extension and alleviation of poverty? It is easy, because we are so used to caring about these topics to dismiss the idea that they don't matter, but what if it is true? What if we are just cogs in a machine? Why should we believe the delusion that we should strive, the placebo that our life matters?

I am still planning on getting out of bed. I am still planning on raising my children the way my instinct says I should. But I am feeling a serious vacuum as to why. Obviously, I have a lot to discover.

This is the accursed, but interesting, book