A few notes

This is mostly a story about a parenting moment, but first a few links.

I was on Marketplace's morning report being the voice of a trend (Stay at Home Dad's not in the workforce) on Monday.  If you want to hear my kids being cute, the story is here.

Speaking of Links, I put together a bunch of SFF links recently.

I also tweeted some thoughts about how my reaction to reading women in fiction has changed.  Embedded after the dad story.

So, this morning I took Tadpole & Sprout (5&2) to the grocery store, and for the first time in a while they didn't want to ride in the shopping cart but instead wanted to push kid carts ... the parents among you are cringing already.

Fortunately the store wasn't very crowded on a Friday morning, so I OKed, and we went through three basic phases that had as much to do with me as them.  First, they wandered after me, enjoying the carts, occasionally bumping things or people and behaving exactly as you'd expect while I got increasingly frustrated that they weren't following directions.

Let's just unpack this for a moment: by not bringing my own cart, I didn't really leave myself much out.  I could (and eventually did) pick up Sprout & drag her cart along, but there wasn't a way to corral the girls.  The thing to do here is to engage with them, give them tasks, and focus on making them want to go where I want them to.  Praise the marching and pushing of carts, let Tadpole lead us on a circuitous route, have Sprout practice marching.  Accept that we're going slowly.

But I don't like grocery shopping.  I actively dislike it, always worried that there's going to be difficulty finding an unfamiliar ingredient, and so I tried instead to insist on obedience.  Follow me or else.

This brings us to stage 2.  I realized, later than I should have, that I was losing my temper in particular with Sprout, so I bent down, gave her a hug, had Tadpole join in, then picked Sprout up & carried her.  She didn't really like it, but I can manage a squirming 2-year-old one-handed.  Tadpole managed well enough.

So, now we're on Stage 2, the "let's get out of here as quickly as possible without more damage" phase that many parents will recognize.  The one piece of this that was absolutely good was that I've trained myself when tempted to yell to just kneel down, hug the girls, and absolutely put a stop to the thing within my control that is the most stressful.  I wish I'd done it sooner, but we all got a hug and Sprout stopped being silly with her cart.

Then a miracle occurred: walking down an aisle looking for something I wasn't quite sure was there, a dad in front of us knocked his shopping cart into a stack of soup cans knocking 10-12 over.  This was wonderful.  We stopped & I immediately sent Tadpole to help pick them up.  She's great at helping put stuff away.  (Thanks R for training her at home & her Montessori school!).  So she got to help.  I got to stop worrying about stupid groceries and instead be proud of myself for helping a stranger in need.  Sprout got to wave at the kid in the shopping cart.  Another family was walking by and praised our good deed, so two different people expressing gratitude!  More importantly, all of us got out of the semi-frustrated headspace we were in.  After that moment, Tadpole went from managing to keep up with me to actively being helpful.  The end of our shopping trip was genuinely fun for all of us.

So anyway, that's my story about frustrating shopping expeditions and the kind stranger who knocked over some soup cans and made my grocery run this morning much better.

And now on an entirely different note and prompted by reading a story where "living it up" meant two different women finding sex and a first chapter where a woman's friend was a young thing in a slinky dress is a Storify of a few tweets from this morning on casually objectifying women in fiction.

It's just so tough to be Three

We've been noticing a lot lately that it's just so tough to be three. (Which I cannot hear in anything other than the tune to "I just can't wait to be king" from The Lion King.)

It's hard when you need to go to bed and daddy's been clear that you need to be quiet and go to bed but you just pooped in your diaper but you can't tell daddy so you writhe around until he leaves and mommy comes in so you can tell her.

It's hard when daddy asks whether you remember the nightmare that woke you screaming and asking where mommy was. No! But now it's necessary to be carried and clingy all morning. Who mentions nightmares the next day?

It's hard when daddy asks if his shoulder smells like milk and so you try to nurse like your sister and you bite him and he gets mad. How were you supposed to know he was just commenting on how your baby sister spit up there earlier.

It's hard when you want a fruit bar but it's in two pieces and daddy won't hand them over. Of course screaming is the only solution here. There's no call for daddy to laugh. None.

Going on a bear hunt outside is totally awesome!!!

So awesome that you forget about potty and pee in your clothes right after coming inside.  

It's tough when you take a bath because there's all this water right there and you have a mouth plus daddy seems to want to play a game where he reacts a lot if you pretend to drink the water, but why does daddy get upset when you try to play the game? You waited until the bath was done because you've learned drinking bath water is the fastest way to get out ...

It's just so hard to be three.  And so, so hard when daddy makes the choices he does. Time to step it up and not talk hard daddy.

All the Muffins and Bagels in the Land

With apologies to Josh Lyman, had I not been leaving the bedroom of one sleeping child and walking into a room with another, it's likely I would have recreated his famous scene. As it was, I contented myself with a few fist pumps.

Tadpole's bedtime routine has been on a rocky road towards improvement, with last night a near-total disaster in which I had to call in R to finish things off.  But last night I articulated one very specific change I needed to make: if Tadpole was having trouble settling calmly after we finished books, I would default to assuming she needed to go potty. Tonight I did exactly that, she went potty, then fell asleep easily.  Hence, Josh Lyman.

Two observations and a few other nice things:

First, a successful bedtime tonight does not mean tomorrow will be easy.  After last night'a disaster, it was comforting to be able to approach tonight as a whole new bedtime. I've learned the hard way that one good night does not a pattern make, but it can get my hopes up and lead to frustration down the line.

Second, bedtime has taught me that parenting often provides many opportunities to get it right. I might be happier when I handle a situation well the first time, but as long as I can look back on tough situations and think of something new to try, I'll probably have another opportunity to handle it well later. (Any suggestions for a girl who signals she's ready to end the bath by trying to drink dirty bath water? :)

Other things that have made me happy recently:

N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy is coming out in an omnibus edition with a new novella. Jemisin is one of my favorite authors, so this is fantastic news!

In the latest "What If?", the creator of XKCD answered a 4 year old who wanted a billion story skyscraper. 

Twenty years ago this week, Internet came to NPR. Melody Kramer (@mkramer) has the initial memo. It's delightful. 

 Today, happy thoughts. Soon, why it's been so tough to be three, recently.

Lists

Parenting things I do well poorly.  A deliberately incomplete list compiled late at night while watching Star Trek.

Things I do well:

• Kneel to get at Tadpole's level when talking to her
• Involve Tadpole in household activities like laundry and cooking
• Give Tadpole intense focused attention
• Give Tadpole space to explore
• Notice when Tadpole needs some direction & help her focus

Things I do not well:

• Easily distracted by my phone
• Get impatient - not allow Tadpole to finish telling me something, and not leave enough time for 3-year old paced activities
• Not facilitate or model meeting new people 

When all you have is a tow rope ...

Tadpole's fallen for the Cars movie in a big way. She really likes both Lightning McQueen and Mater, who's always been a "race truck".  Yesterday as we were driving to school, she announced:

Mater is a Tow Truck.

Yes.

He pulls cars when they get stuck.

That's right!

Are those cars stuck?

What do you think?

I think they're not stuck. They're going.

That's right.

[brief pause]

Are those other cars going?

Yep.

Why?

Why do you think?

Because they're not stuck!

Honest Preschooler

Daddy, can I drink the bath water?

No.

Daddy, can you go out?

Why?

So that I can drink the bath water.

Later:

Do [friends we saw yesterday with a six month old] have a kid?

What do you think?

They have a baby. I wish they had a kid.

Oh?

[big cheeky grin] I wish they had a girl!

For you to play with?

Yes! [even bigger grin]

Astronomy videos: A Formula

Tadpole's been fascinated by space and planetariums ever since we got her the Magic School Bus: Lost In Space book.  Last week we took her into the city to visit the Adler Planetarium and her first big screen video.  Major treat!

After watching this video and bits of Cosmos, I've discovered the formula for an astronomy popular science video:

1. Start with people huddled around a small fire, and the notion that we've been telling stories about stars since this ancient prehistory.
2. Talk about how in the Middle Ages we didn't understand how stars work, but now we do because we're in the Age of Science.
3. Reference Native American myths about constellations.  Take the myths literally.  Show the Greek/Roman constellation names for extra insult.

Essentially, these videos and the early parts of Cosmos that I've watched seem to be taking potshots at Evangelical Christians who treat the Bible as literal truth & question scientists, via the proxy of Native American myths.  

It's insulting.  Insulting to the "primitive societies" whose stories are appropriated as stand-ins for ignorance.  Insulting to the various non-western traditions that were studying astronomy at the times when these narratives claim Medieval Europe (and by extension everyone) was not doing science.  (Check out the Islamic Sciences section on Lost Islamic History, or follow them on Twitter!).  It legitimizes a relatively small group, while also making sure that they will never accept your message.  (Well, I used to think that my religion was literally true and scientists who question it should be rejected, but then I watched a 20 minute video that told me I was thinking wrong & so I changed my mind!)

Most importantly, these videos miss a huge chance to capture the hearts and minds of the kids who are presumably the target audience.  We have built giant particle accelerators that smash things together to reveal the secrets of the universe!  We've got telescopes so big they can let us look back in time towards the big bang!  We got rid of a planet because we found so much extra stuff out there! We put telescopes up in space to get an even better view! (Aside - I remember my dad taking me to see some of the first pictures that came back from the Hubble Space Telescope.  I didn't entirely understand what was going on, but the memory is one of my earliest and strongest childhood memories).  There are people living in space.  They run! They wash their hair! They squeeze water out of washcloths, play guitar, and use giant robots to grab spaceships.  We can watch videos of all of these things in the comfort of our own home! (Aside - for definitions of the future that don't include flying cars, the future has very much arrived)

All of which is to say:

Dear writers and producers of astronomy videos,

My daughter is three, and she's pretty captivated by space.  She knows who Commander Hadfield is.  I'd love to encourage this.  I'll come visit overpriced planetariums to sit and watch a video with her and hopefully build a memory like my own memory of seeing pictures from the Hubble Telescope.  Please give me that video.  The one that reveals the secrets of the universe, black holes, pulsars, colliding galaxies, tours of our own solar system, and other wonders I cannot even imagine.  Don't sit us in front of a fire and tell her to understand "science" instead of "myth".  There's a scientific story out there every bit as wonderful as anything any other religion can offer. Give us that one.  Please?

A Day in the Life

Things I did today:

4 loads of laundry, including cloth diapers

Pulled grains previously used in brewing beer out of the freezer

Gave Sprout her first bottle

Sliced a vanilla bean and dropped it in vodka to sterilize it in preparation for trying to turn a small batch of homebrewed honey porter into a vanilla porter.

Walked Sprout into town (20 minutes-ish)

Failed to soothe her while many older ladies walked by and smiled

Walked halfway home before she fell asleep

Walked back into town to pick up canning jars for saving homebrewing yeast

Started bread with spent beer grains

Washed all of the things:

Dishes

Fermentation containers

New beer yeast jars

Walked in on Tadpole not napping but applying Vaseline to herself. Said Vaseline originally located on a high shelf which she had climbed to.

Did not take a picture of this event, got angry instead. Parenting Fail twice over.

Walked for just over an hour while Tadpole napped in the stroller

Made rice/scrambled eggs/cheese for dinner (Tadpole made rice)

Kneaded bread with Tadpole.

After sampling, added a second vanilla bean to the vodka. Primary batch will be vanilla porter, gallon batch will be the straight recipe.

Baked bread.

Now getting Sprout to sleep before I collapse in bed.

Beer and Star Trek

The last few days have been exhausting, and Tadpole's home for Spring Break all week, so the routine (such as it is) has been a bit disrupted.  Today was also exhausting, but R gave me a much-appreciated break.

All of this was helpful because Tadpole has had difficulty sleeping (with the expected evening behavior) and Sprout had an inconsolable hour today.  Sometimes parenting is about guiding your kids, or savoring the moment. Other times it's about surviving the day, which we did.

So now here I am a bit before midnight, with Sprout sleeping in her pack and play, Captain Kirk on screen, and a bottle of homebrew in front of me.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Toddler Telephone

R and I have taken to sending Tadpole back and forth with messages these days, a role she relishes.  She happily summons us to dinner, offers snacks, offers to care for her younger sister, and generally makes herself helpful.

Today, I got a particularly interesting message:
"Daddy, I get to poop with Sprout!"

Did I mention that sometimes Tadpole's messages are a bit garbled?  When I confirmed the message with R, it was closer to what I'd first expected:

"Daddy, Sprout just pooped and mommy wants you to change her diaper."

Lucky me.

Rocket Ships

This evening we walked in on Tadpole just before bed drawing on the whiteboard. "I'm drawing a rocket ship," She announced.  "With flames coming out of the back."  Further questioning revealed that the figure in the middle is either the pilot or the canopy.

My daughter is amazing.  We've got a few books about space, and watch YouTube videos from the space station, but I didn't see this coming at all. 

Sometimes developments sneak up on you gradually, little pieces falling into place bit by bit. Other times they jump out of left field.  Tonight, Tadpole's drawing, and description, leapt out of left field.

She's pretty incredible. And she's drawing rockets with fire and canopies that will carry her far away someday.

Sleeping Babies

Sprout's asleep right now. And twitching occasionally to reassure me.  We've discovered that she can manage about 20 minutes in the crib at night, or hours in my arms/lap.  So R gets some sleep to start the night, and I get snuggles, which are awesome.

Based on recent experience, things you can do with a sleeping baby late at night:

• Listen to a podcast (quietly)
• Watch John Stewart (as long as I don't mind a trek to the basement, so as not to wake anyone else)
• Read Nebula-nominated Sci-Fi book "Fire With Fire"
• Tweet snarky comments about Fire With Fire because they're needed
• Work
• Blog

Things you can't do with a sleeping baby

• Most of the house cleaning since it involves 2 hands or tromping up and down stairs
• Sleep
• Listen to a podcast while blogging
• Edit and publishable blog post

Things you can do with a not-sleeping baby

• Dance
• Make shushing noises
• Cover her eyes and then look at them every 30 seconds
• Play Rosanna by Toto on repeat (this song lulled Tadpole when she was an infant, and seems to work on Sprout)
• Try to accumulate more steps on tracking app by making circuits of the kitchen
• Hand her over to mom

And Now We Are Four

Three weeks ago we welcomed a new addition to the household.

This week Tadpole celebrated her third birthday.  I have been thinking of her as "almost three" since at least November, so it's nice to actually have a three year old.

Since Tadpole and I share a birthday (best birthday present ever!), we are now together 34.  Also, I got to have my birthday dinner at Two Toots, a train restaurant!

So now we are four.  R and I, and Tadpole and Sprout.  Tadpole's pretty excited about being a big sister.  R and I are trying to remember what sleep is like.

Also we have a cat, to complete the picture of things.

Defiance

I sent out a tweet a couple days ago:

Willfully defiant three-year old is a huge trigger for me. Any advice?
— Jonah Sutton-Morse (@jsuttonmorse) February 7, 2014

I should probably clarify a bit: Tadpole is not quite 3. She's going to be defiant, and I suspect that anyone who's got a secret to fixing that has better things to do than give Twitter advice.

What I'm really trying to figure out is how I respond to Tadpole's defiance.  The defiance of a three year old isn't something that can be reasoned with (much, although it's more possible than it was), and since her goal is usually to get a reaction from daddy, my anger and frustration don't have much of an impact besides encouraging her.  As so many parents before me have learned, I'm basically helpless in the face of a cheeky three year old.  My frustration and anger are coming from this helplessness, not what she's doing.

For other difficult interactions, I've built myself a script.  Crying baby? Start swaying and bouncing.  Fall/other hurt: hold her and ask where it hurts (because if she can show me, things are probably mostly OK). Don't want to wrap up an activity: set a timer on the phone, and end things when the timer goes off (Tadpole has learned to react well to timers)

Defiance? I have no idea.  Sometimes she's holding something/in the midst of potty so there's some urgency to restraining her, but often she's just in her head, looking to provoke a reaction from daddy because that's one of many fun activities.

Haters gonna hate, and three-year-olds are going to grin cheekily, look at the roll of toilet paper, look back at you, and unroll the whole roll because they know they're not supposed to.  That's not behavior I can control.  My response is something I can control.  What that response will be, I still have no idea.  Advice on that?