Postcards from the Mothership » Mothering without a licence

So, talk to me about skateboards

DaniGirl — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:24:29 +0000

Bloggy peeps, I need some advice. There’s a 10 year old boy in my life who is dying for a skateboard.

I am nervous about this whole concept for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t know anything about skateboards. My childhood experience included many trips to the ER due to spills on toboggans, bicycles and falling up the stairs, but I have no experience with skateboards.

Second, we have a very steeply pitched driveway that dumps into the road at a spot well-hidden from oncoming drivers by a giant cedar hedge. I don’t worry so much about the 10 year old here, but I do worry about the four year old who THINKS he’s a 10 year old.

I don’t want to be overprotective. A skateboard is really not that different from a bike. Is it? But how do you get a good one and am I insane if I make him wear elbow, wrist AND knee pads in addition to a helmet? (And, erm, a full suit of bubble wrap?)

I have some serious misgivings, but I want to be convinced. Help me, bloggy peeps. Tell me what I need to know to make Tristan’s dream come true!

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The kiddie “bucket list” – 50 things kids should do before age 12, with an Ottawa-centric twist

DaniGirl — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:16:42 +0000

Okay, this? Best parenting advice I’ve read in a long time, and very in line with my ever-strengthening philosophy of giving kids room to be kids. Thank you to my friend and longtime reader Kim for sharing this article in the weekend Globe and Mail: Bucket list for kids: 50 things to do before they’re 12

I love this, because I think each and every one of these is an excellent activity — and yet it makes me sad and kind of tired. Do we as parents really need to make an itemized checklist of experiences our kids must achieve? Meh, maybe the grey Ottawa skies and cold, damp temperatures are making me cantankerous. It actually sounds like a road map to a pretty great summer, if spring ever decides to return.

Here’s the official list, editorialized with my own local spin:

1. Climb a tree

2. Roll down a really big hill (Mooney’s Bay has a great one for this!)

3. Camp out in the wild (did you know there’s a campground on Prince of Wales just north of Hunt Club? Practically downtown!)

4. Build a den

5. Skim a stone (I recommend Britannia Beach for this one!)

6. Run around in the rain (or puddles, maybe?)

7. Fly a kite

8. Catch a fish with a net

9. Eat an apple straight from a tree (we love Kilmarnock and Cannamore orchards)

10. Play conkers

11. Throw some snow (can we wait until December for this one, please?)

12. Hunt for treasure on the beach

13. Make a mud pie

14. Dam a stream

15. Go sledging

16. Bury someone in the sand

17. Set up a snail race

18. Balance on a fallen tree

19. Swing on a rope swing (the rope swing is hands down the kid-favourite feature in our backyard)

20. Make a mud slide

21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild (there are – or were – wild raspberries growing along the boardwalk at the Chapman Mills Conservation Area)

22. Take a look inside a tree

23. Visit an island

24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind

25. Make a grass trumpet

26. Hunt for fossils and bones

27. Watch the sun wake up

28. Climb a huge hill

29. Get behind a waterfall (or maybe go caving?)

30. Feed a bird from your hand (bring some seed to the Lime Kiln Trail or Hogsback Falls for this one!)

31. Hunt for bugs

32. Find some frogspawn

33. Catch a butterfly in a net

34. Track wild animals

35. Discover what’s in a pond (Mud Lake is great for this!)

36. Call an owl

37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool

38. Bring up a butterfly

39. Catch a crab

40. Go on a nature walk at night

41. Plant it, grow it, eat it

42. Go wild swimming

43. Go rafting

44. Light a fire without matches (um, no thanks)

45. Find your way with a map and a compass

46. Try bouldering

47. Cook on a campfire

48. Try abseiling

49. Find a geocache

50. Canoe down a river (although you might want to wait until they’re older than 3 and 5 yrs old!)

I figure the boys have a good half of the items crossed off, and I can tell you for sure I won’t be taking them abseiling any time soon – although the zip-line at a local aerial park is not out of question. What do you think? Is there anything on here a child of 12 can or cannot live without doing? Something you’d add to the list?

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A hypothetical question about an acorn that fell not far from its tree

DaniGirl — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:18:25 +0000

So let’s imagine a hypothetical boy. He’s plenty bright, and gets reasonable marks in school. He’s a little scatterbrained, though, and a bit of a daydreamer. It’s quite possible that he has the same inability of his hypothetical mother to hold a thought in his head, except for when he’s exhibiting her other hypothetical tendency to obsess on things.

So our boy has just brought home his report card, which shows he’s doing well academically, but has for the first time been graded with a couple of “needs improvement” in some behavioural categories: responsibility and self-regulation. The hypothetical teacher has made observations along the lines of “difficulty assuming responsibility for and managing his own behaviour” and “he is encouraged to approach learning with a positive attitude” and “requires some reminders to fulfill classroom responsibilities and commitments.”

If he was having (hypothetical) trouble with academics, I would know what to do. Devote more time to study, help him, even hire a tutor. But what do you do with a child who can do the work, but only works hard enough to do the bare minimum required? How do you motivate a child to govern his own behaviour when you have to stand over him and nag to make sure the bare minimum gets done? And how the heck do you correct a behavioural problem that you yourself suffered through most of your own (hypothetical) academic career?

The hypothetical teacher and I will meet to discuss, but I’m thinking this problem may be inherent to a lot of boys. How do you work on focus and motivation and initiative? When learning comes easy, how do you get kids to put in more than the minimum effort required?

Any tips from the trenches on this one?

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Kids and technology: how old should they be?

DaniGirl — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:32:30 +0000

This is yet another blog post inspired by a twitter conversation. (And they say twitter killed blogs!) The twitter conversation itself evolved from a conversation about bullying, and about Rick Mercer’s eloquent rant, and included this post by my friend Angela on how her 12-year-old daughter was being harassed by text messages. (It’s a good post – you should read it. I’ll wait here until you get back. Her message is important, maybe moreso that whatever I’ll come up with here, so if you only have time for one post today, read hers and come back to this one tomorrow!)

All of which brings me to what I’m wondering about, which is this: at what age do kids start getting their own cell phones? What about their own social media and online accounts? Obviously, the answer is going to be different for each family and each child, but I’m curious about your thoughts. My boys have only recently “discovered” Club Penguin and its very controlled online interactions – and this has been pretty much the extent of their interest in connecting with their peers online. I’m thinking this is a bullet I can’t dodge for long.

Really, I guess I’m just curious. I was a little surprised to hear that kids as young as 10 or 12 are carrying cell phones, to be honest. I thought this was a conversation we’d be having when the kids were approaching high school, not smack in the middle of elementary school. I asked the boys if any kids in their class have mobile phones or talk about Facebook, but they seem to be blissfully oblivious — so far, at least.

What do you think?

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In which she uses neutering the cat as a cautionary tail

DaniGirl — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:00:53 +0000

So we’re emasculating poor Willie the Cat today. Or, as Simon so eloquently put it, “he’s getting his neuters taken out.”

This whole neutering thing has provided an unexpected wealth of teachable moments. We’ve recently had conversations with the boys about the responsibilities of pet ownership, about the differences between males and females of various species, and even some rudimentary sex education.

I think the big takeaway, though, is this one: don’t mess with mom or she’ll have your balls cut off. That’s a good message for three boys to internalize, don’t you think?

(Photo caption: “You’re gonna WHAT my WHAT now??!)

Sorry, Willie. But thanks for the cautionary tail — erm, tale.

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Five reasons why guitar lessons are better than hockey

DaniGirl — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:16:15 +0000

August was marked by much anxiety about sports. I googled, I asked friends online and IRL, I blogged, I tweeted, I wrung my hands in anxiety. To hockey or not to hockey, that was the compelling question.

Do you like how I just turned hockey into a verb? If ‘friend’ can be a verb, so can hockey. And we, as a family, have decided not to hockey. At least, not yet.

When I realized that I was projecting many of my own innermost anxieties about social acceptance and peers onto the situation, I realized I had lost all perspective and sought the opinions of others. (The irony does not escape me that even in this, I seek external approval for my actions and validation of my decisions. Don’t judge me.)

There were many factors that informed our decision to not hockey, and many voices. On the pro-hockey side there were those who shared their own childhood hockey experiences, those who loved being a hockey parent (see, if hockey can be an adjective as well as a noun, surely it can be a verb as well!) and those who saw hockey as a natural right of passage for their sons and daughters. On the con side, there were those who expressed reservations about the cost, the culture and the violence. Annie of PhD in Parenting wrote a post that helped me crystalize my own reservations – read it here, because it’s worth seeing the other side even if you’re a rabid athletic supporter.

I was so torn that I first registered and then a week later de-registered one son from our local minor league team. The money and the time commitment were just too great, and I couldn’t rationalize the benefit against the costs. When I told said boy that we had in the end decided it was best for our family that he not play hockey this year, he looked at me mildly with this thoughtful brown eyes, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Okay.’ For this I lost hours of sleep.

The absence of hockey gave us room for activities for two boys. One will join Beaver Scouts, something I find endlessly delightful. And, it’s around the corner on Thursday evenings instead of all over the eastern half of the province at wildly unpredictable times. The other was given a choice of activities, and he chose — be still my heart — guitar lessons.

There was more googling, more researching, more consultations. A school was chosen, a guitar was acquired, a teacher was hired, a time slot was secured. In the end, the total cost for the first year of lessons and the guitar may yet exceed the cost of the damn hockeying.

And you know what? I am happy with that. Moreso, I am delighted with this turn of events. We are artsy, musical people. (Well, Beloved and Papa Lou are musical. Me, not so much. Despite seven pathetic years of school band, I remain largely tone deaf and unencumbered by any sense of rhythm whatsoever.)

Here’s five reasons why guitar lessons trump hockey playing:

1. We do not risk growing out of this guitar in mid-season.

2. Guitar lessons do not take place at 6 am on a Saturday, or in damp, dank 12C arenas.

3. There is little to no risk of a concussion in guitar lessons.

4. Other parents do not yell angrily at your child during guitar lessons. (Although the jury is still admittedly out on whether we will yell angrily at our own children in the act of encouraging the practicing of said guitar lessons.)

5. Chicks dig guitar players.

We start our first lessons this week. I can barely wait!

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In which she accidentally registers her boys for dance camp

DaniGirl — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:22:54 +0000

I‘m thinking maybe I need a new category for the blog: “Notes for future therapy sessions.” That way, the boys’ future therapists will have an instant body of research from which to draw.

You can’t really blame me, though. I mean, I had a COUPON!

Like so many of the misadventures in my life, it started with the best of intentions. I needed child care for the last week of August for the big boys. Late in the spring, I received one of those group buy e-mails offering half-price day camp. I checked the location and it was literally around the corner from where I worked. I checked the ages and they qualified. I checked the description and it said there was a circus theme with juggling and acrobatics. Circus camp? PERFECT! Clickety click, and they’re registered. Oh how I love the Interwebs.

Life is funny, yanno? You register your kids for a summer camp right around the corner from your work, and then six weeks later when the camp week comes up, you’re not working there anymore. You’re actually working way downtown, and what was right around the corner is suddenly a 20-minute detour out of your daily routine. Oops. If only that were the worst of it.

Beloved usually handles the morning routine, and so he was doing drop-off duty the first day of camp. He called me in mid-morning to check in, and reported that there was some apprehension when he pulled up the driveway and the boys noticed the sign for a dance school. A what now? Oh well, they’re probably renting out the space during the summer for extra income. That makes sense.

I should interject here with a little anecdote. Three years ago, one of the boy’s teacher called me to let me know that she had put him in the equivalent of a time-out during gym class. They were doing some sort of dance, and he had dug in his heels and abjectly refused to dance with a girl partner. It was one of the few times I got a call from the school that year, and I was more entertained than concerned. He doesn’t like to dance with girls? Meh, that will change.

Ahem. It took until the end of day two for the reality of our camp crisis to become apparent. It was not Circus Camp at all – it was Dance Camp. *dun dun DUNNNNN* Not only was it dance camp, but the ratio of girls to boys was about 15:1, which will be great odds later in life, but for your average 9 year old is one of Dante’s circles of hell. Even one whose best friend happens to be a girl.

And, true to his earlier self, it seemed my boy was rather, shall we say, resistant to the idea of dancing. I spent most of the drive home that day reassuring him that if it was truly that bad, he only had to tough it out two more days – I was scheduled for a day off that Friday anyway, and he could stay home with me. But he did have to suck it up for two more days, so we talked a bit about the value of trying new things, maintaining a positive attitude and making the best of a bad situation. And the whole way home, I was kicking myself. Dance camp? Really? How did you miss THAT one? Ugh.

(For the record, the other boy was all over the dance camp idea. I’m being vague on purpose here, because they’re getting to the age where their stories are their own and I am making some efforts to protect their privacy while still milking these stories for all they’re worth. If you know my boys IRL, you’ll have little trouble guessing which was which.)

Then a funny thing happened. On day 3, the boys were cheerful and full of stories of the adventure of their day. The boy who wanted to quit the day before said maybe it was not so bad, and he’d tough it out for the week. And oh, by the way Mom? There’s a show on Friday, can you come and watch us? And the day after that, there was question as to whether they could register for another week of camp next summer — or maybe even for the whole summer?

Huh. Turns out when you stop sulking and actually participate, you end up having a much better time of it. Who woulda thunk it?

Which bring us to the Friday show. Lucas and I both attended, and all four of us were surprised when Beloved managed to scootch out early and make it to the show, too. It wasn’t exactly Broadway, but we were well entertained nonetheless.

So that’s the story of how I accidentally registered the boys for dance camp, and how they overcame the adversity and managed to have a good time after all. And now I can take full credit for my actions and say with a certain smugness that I knew it would work out fine, and broadening their horizons was my goal all along. I totally intended this as a life lesson on keeping an open mind and trying new things.

At least, that’s what I’ll tell their future therapists…

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Hockey mom angst

DaniGirl — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:53:26 +0000

With three boys, it was inevitable that the hockey issue would come up sooner or later. The time I have long dreaded has arrived. One of the boys wants to play hockey.

I am totally torn about this. My Official Canadian Parenting Handbook says that any boy child must ~~endure~~ enjoy at least one season of playing hockey in his lifetime. My Official Lazy Parenting Handbook says that a hockey rink is a hell of a place to spend two perfectly good hours every week. My bank account shudders at the idea of $550 just in registration fees alone, to say nothing of gear. My husband thinks I’m insane for even considering it, and although is opposed in principal, will likely be swayed if I set my mind to it. My barely repressed rejected inner child thinks this is the key to popularity — or at least, of not being marginalized among his peers. My already insanely busy life has no room for up to an hour of traveling to various rinks throughout Eastern Ontario on game day, to say nothing of practices that may run any time from 6 am to 8 pm.

Most importantly, though, my boy asked for it. This is the boy who gamely endured two years of (expensive, lengthy) skating lessons and can still barely stand on the ice. The one who is already reasonably popular among his peers. The one who would rather sit on his hiney and play video games than do just about anything else.

I had no idea this choice — to register for hockey or to not register for hockey — would be so filled with angst. And that’s if you can even find the information you need to register. Thank goodness for this great post for rookie hockey parents from Kids in the Capital and a little handholding from a BTDT friend of mine, because you can’t find ANY other useful information online.

What I’m realizing is that really, it’s not even about the hockey. It’s about being part of the team, and the status that somehow infers on the rest of his life. I come from a place where I was the odd kid out, and still bear the scars today in an almost unreasonable anxiety that the same things may happen to my boys. Six hundred bucks and a couple dozen hours out of my year seem like a small price to pay to mitigate that possibility.

And then, my stubborn side kicks in and voices agreement with Beloved, who is vaguely resentful of the implication that you must join the giant hockey machine and fork out that ridiculous sum of money just to be part of some intangible club. I think of all those hours of lacing skates (OMG how I hate lacing skates) and lord knows I probably won’t escape without getting sucked into some infernal volunteer role with the club.

I wonder if he’s totally forgotten the tears, the cold, aching feet, the crazy rush through dinner to make it to the rink on time. I wonder if he, so like his mother, likes the idea of hockey more than he will enjoy actual hockey. I wonder if we’ll get as far as October and face a twice-weekly battle of wills, where I have to battle both my own inertia and his reluctance to play. I wonder if I’m overplaying the importance of this silly game in his peer culture. I wonder if I’m doing the other brother a disservice by not signing him up while I’m at it, which would be twice as awful all-around, unless I was wrong and it is that important.

I dithered about this for a month, and finally found the right person to ask about registration for our league. To my relief, she promptly replied that the novice level is completely full for the season, so very sorry. I breathed a huge and regretful sigh of relief. The decision was no longer mine to make, it was out of my hands.

Until the e-mail she sent just now, saying they just had some spaces free up. Did I want to register my son now, before they disappeared again?

I honestly don’t know. Do I?

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The end of a decade of diapers

DaniGirl — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:41:13 +0000

With the exception of a brief and glorious six month break in late 2007, we’ve been changing diapers in this house for a rather astonishing nine and a half year block. Assuming a reasonable five diapers a day, and nearly two years of double diaper duty while Tristan was a toddler and Simon a newborn, that’s conservatively just a little shy of TWENTY THOUSAND diapers.

*pause for thoughtful consideration of the mountain of time, money and mess that comprises 20,000 dirty diapers*

And so, we embark upon our last potty training voyage. I have to admit, we’ve been a little laissez-faire about the whole thing. The idea had been that we’d approach potty training while we were both home on vacation this summer (the other boys were successfully potty trained in the summer around age 3.5 as well, so we really haven’t even thought about trying before now) except with the French test and the photography and everything else, we sort of forgot to get around to it. So with just a few days of vacation left, I decided rather abruptly this week that it was time — no fanfare, no breathless bloggy updates, and no frantic googling of tips and tricks. I bought a pack of underwear, and dug out a bag of skittles from the treat box. We were good to go.

It was my friend UberGeek, also father to three boys and just far enough ahead of us on the parenting curve to be full of great advice, who suggested the disposable underwear idea. Given that the first few days and weeks would inevitably lead to accidents, he suggested when we were potty training Tristan way back in the day that we acquire the biggest bag of cheap underwear we could find for the training period, and save the fancy Sponge Bob and Spiderman licensed stuff for the longer term. Sometimes, it’s easier to toss a mess than to deal with it. Hey, it’s cotton, it will biodegrade far quicker than those 20,000 disposable diapers!

Lucas did great for the first day. I sat him on the potty a few times and nothing happened, but to our great surprise and delight, late in the afternoon he rushed frantically into the bathroom saying, “I gotta go! I gotta go!” and he did – in the toilet. That’s one clear advantage of big boys who potty train well past the toddler years — we’ve never bothered with an actual potty and for the last two boys didn’t even bother with special seats for the regular toilet. I’m all about the convenience and path of least resistance, and this definitely qualifies!

The next day, we had mixed success. He did well all day until the big boys reported he was hiding shortly before dinner, his telltale sign that he was busy filling his diaper — except he wasn’t wearing one. So we’re down one pair of underwear but more importantly, I was abruptly and unpleasantly reminded of my least-favourite aspect of this whole potty training deal: the wiping. I seem to manage to erase the ugly details from child to child, but it seems to me in retrospect that the period between graduation from diapers to potty and the ability to wipe one’s own tucus is interminable. It’s actually way easier to wipe a prone butt with a diaper wipe than an upright butt with toilet paper. Way easier. #357 on the list of things they forgot to put in the parenting manual.

And now here I am at the point of this long and rambly potty post. There is one key difference between potty training this child and his two older brothers — a septic system. The potty training part doesn’t worry me at all, but in my less enlightened pre-septic years, I found those so-called “flushable wipes” a godsend. Butt! (ha!) Consumer Reports found that while TP disintegrated in a mere 7 seconds, a flushable wipe did not even start to break down even after 30 minutes of agitation. Do a quick search on “flushable wipes septic system” and you’ll never flush one down again, I promise you.

So, enlightened bloggy peeps, any ideas to make the interminable stretch of butt-wiping a little more bearable? I’m thinking maybe dampening the TP first? Using the wipes but bagging them and throwing them out? Is there something simpler that I’m overlooking?

Feel free to share your potty training travails and successes as well. I think I may need the inspiration in the days, weeks and *whimper* months to come…

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Around the corner

DaniGirl — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:52:17 +0000

It continues to amaze me that the most remarkable milestones in the boys’ social and emotional development seem to happen unpredictably and completely without precursor and, even more astonishingly, with pretty much no intention or intervention on my part.

It’s early Saturday afternoon and I’ve just returned from my weekly grocery adventure. I’m unpacking cereal and pickles and red peppers when Simon asks if I can call A’s parents to to ask if A can come over. A is Simon’s school chum, and lives down the block and around the corner.

Because I’m concentrating more on the task of fitting an 11-inch long bunch of celery into a 10-inch crisper, and because we have had this conversation many times before, I don’t give Simon my full attention. “Not now, Simon,” I begin, ready to put off yet again the coordination of a playdate. “We still don’t have A’s phone number, and I don’t know what their plans are today…”

Then I stop, and think. We know kids in the neighbourhood but not on the street, and I’m vaguely annoyed on an ongoing basis that I have to act as social coordinator any time the kids want to play with a friend by setting up play dates in advance via telephone or e-mail with the parents. Why am I doing this? When I was a kid, if I wanted to go out and play with a friend, I’m pretty sure my mom never called ahead to arrange things. I just went. I knocked on the door, and if the friend couldn’t come out, I’d wander off and find something else to do, maybe try another friend or maybe play on my own. The only thing even remotely resembling a scheduled play date was either when friends who had moved out of the neighbourhood got together, or when we visited my parents’ friends who happened to have kids, and then we all played together while the parents ~~drank and played cards~~ discussed important parenting issues.

I take a long look at Simon, who is looking at me and my derailed train of thought with curiousity. I don’t consult with Beloved in advance, but he’s sitting right there listening and I know he’ll speak up if he’s concerned.

“Do you want to go ask A if he wants to come over to play?” I ask Simon, and he lights up like a pinball machine.

“Oh yes!” he exclaims, dropping the video game controller in his hand.

“Tristan, will you walk with Simon down to A’s house and walk back with them?” There is safety in numbers. It’s only about 10 houses, maybe less, and one very quiet residential street to cross, but I feel better if they’re together. It’s only a little bit further than our community mail box, to which Tristan regularly walks alone. Tristan, always up for any perceived gains in independence and who also likes A, is amenable to the idea.

I figure it’s vaguely more polite to invite A back to our house than for both boys to show up uninvited expecting an invitation in, even though that’s exactly what I would have done at age seven. I look at Beloved, but he seems fine with the idea. I briefly talk them through any potential pitfalls in the plan: if A is not home, they are to come straight back. If they get invited in, call home to let me know. No talking to any other grown-ups on the way, no stopping, no wandering.

They scamper off across the lawn and I watch them go. I’m smiling and anxious at the same time. They deserve this freedom, I know, and I truly believe it’s important. Still, I can’t help but worry. I wander back inside after they disappear from view, and ask Beloved if it’s wrong that I’m more concerned about my mother’s reaction to this abdication of parental responsibility than I am about the risk of child abduction or other unspeakably remote horrors.

Enough time lapses that I have put away the groceries and kindled a small flame of anxiety wondering why I haven’t heard from them when they come rambling back up the street with A, A’s older sister who happens to be in Tristan’s grade, and their father in tow. Waiting on the porch as they round the driveway, I feel the tiniest flicker of something that is not quite embarrassment, not quite shame, wondering if A’s parents are agog that I’ve let the boys venture out unshepherded like this. He seems content enough to leave the kids to my care, though, and after a few hours I lead a rag-tag parade of all four kids, plus Lucas and the dog, on the expedition to return A and his sister home.

The boys are seven and nine, and this is the first time they’ve ever simply walked over to a friend’s house and knocked on the door. I’m proud of them, but a little bit sad, too. How did we get to a place where this is a milestone achieved so late in the kids’ lives? I clearly remember running in a pack of neighbourhood kids that included an unsupervised three-year-old, bane of the existence of us older kids. I know this isn’t the 1970s anymore, but really, is the world so different?

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I should have thought of this years ago

DaniGirl — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:13:26 +0000

I used to hate bringing the boys for their swim lessons. The swimming lessons themselves are a good thing — I see them less as weekly exercise and more as a fundamental survival skill. Swim lessons are not really an option, they’re a necessity. And I didn’t begrudge the time, the cost, or the shuttling them back and forth to the community centre.

What I really hated were the change rooms. I hated the fact that the alternate use (aka “family”) changerooms were always so crowded. I hated trying to yank dry clothes onto damp, wriggling boys in tropical humidity levels. I hated the fact that the tiled floors and walls made even the slightest noise an echo chamber from hell. I hated the fact that I never came out of the changerooms without being damp and sweaty and cranky.

At the beginning of this most recent session of swim lessons, I noticed the sign on the wall outside the family changeroom at the community centre. “This changeroom is for the use of parents with opposite-sex children under the age of seven.” Hmmm. Simon is seven, Tristan is nine. I’ve noticed this sign before, but always justified my willful ignorance of it on the fact that at least one of the kids was under the maximum age.

The idea of sending them into the men’s changeroom unattended made me uneasy. Would they be okay? Would they comport themselves in a manner fit for public consumption if I was not there to glare them into obedience? And, on a more practical level, would they be capable of drying themselves off sufficiently to get themselves dressed? Would they have enough attention to the task at hand to come out without leaving their bathing suits, towels and/or pants behind?

Faced with the choice between willfully ignoring the family changeroom policy for yet another three months or giving the boys the benefit of the doubt, on the first day of the session this year I sent them into the changeroom on their own and hoped for the best. (This seems to be how I make most of my parenting decisions lately. Perhaps this is a blog topic we should explore soon.)

Who knew swimming lessons could be so pleasant? Turns out the boys are entirely capable of getting dried and dressed without me shepherding them through every stage. Swim lessons are now the highlight of my week, a chloriney oasis of serenity in the madness of daily life.

We show up at the pool and I hand over their bathing suits, pointing them toward the men’s changeroom. I meet them on the pool deck, and minutes later relinquish them to the care of their instructor, while I sit quietly and read, or play with my iPhone, or stare at a place somewhere in the middle distance and breathe for minutes on end. Some days I even have time to chat idly with a friend.

At the end of the lesson, I meet them as they come dripping out of the pool and tousle them briefly with a towel before sending them back into the men’s changeroom. I then retreat to the hallway and await their transformation to moderately dry and fully dressed. WITH NO INTERVENTION ON MY PART WHATSOEVER.

This has been a transformative experience. They don’t need me to do stuff for them? They’re capable of not only behaving but staying on task for up to five solid minutes? This changes everything!

The cruel irony in all of this is that Lucas is about to start his own swim lesson journey, and my reprieve from the sweaty, damp and overcrowded hell that is the family changeroom is to be short-lived at best. But I’m thinking by the time he hits preschool, he’ll be drying his own bits and pulling on his own drawers. This mommy has had a taste of the cool, dry air of freedom, and there’s no going back now!

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Talk to me about kid bedtimes

DaniGirl — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:43:50 +0000

Anybody want to compare notes on kid bedtimes? I’m starting to get the “Awwww, we have the earliest bedtimes in our whole class” whine from my big boys, and I thought I could thwart the complaint with a little ammunition from the bloggy peeps. “Sorry boys, the interwebs say that 6:30 is an entirely appropriate bedtime, and you know that everything on the Internet is true.”

Okay, so I don’t really put them to bed at 6:30, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do have an earlier bedtime than a lot of their classmates. Right now, the call for jammies and teeth-brushing usually goes out between 7:15 and 7:30 pm, and it takes about 20 minutes from that to get everyone under the covers.

Beloved and I take a divide-and-conquer approach — one of us shepherds the big boys while the other puts Lucas down. Bedtime stories for Lucas (age 3) usually takes another 15 minutes, so he’s lights-out at around 8 pm every night. It usually takes a little bit longer to read to the big boys (ages 7 and 9) especially if we’re reading from one book for each of them. Most nights, it’s a single book for both. (Pending blog post: book club for boys. Stay tuned for that one later this week!)

Regardless, they’re usually lights-out around 8:15 or so, and they chat and giggle for another 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the day. Simon usually conks out first (he’s like his mother that way) and I often find Tristan reading to himself by the light of his nightlight after 9 pm.

(This picture is from the archives, circa 2005. Oh how I miss the afternoon car naps!)

The routine seems pretty reasonable to me, but their bedtimes haven’t changed in years and they’re getting to the point now where they think they should be able to stay up later. And of course, the nine-year-old thinks he deserves a later bedtime than the three-year-old — and I can’t say that I blame him. But honestly, I simply can’t imagine letting them stay up any later at this point. I get up most days between 5:30 and 6:00 am, and I am done for the day sometime in the middle of the afternoon. It’s only thanks to a continuous flow of coffee that I manage to stay vertical until 9:30 pm or so, and I simply can’t end the day without reading for another 30 minutes in bed.

If we let the boys stay up any later, Beloved and I would never have any quiet time together. And really, do we need the nine-year-old watching Glee or Survivor with us? Even the Amazing Race is a little, um, racy some weeks, and I think the Big Bang Theory is still a little beyond their comprehension. I don’t watch a huge amount of TV anymore, but I do value the nightly hour or so Beloved and I watch together.

And yet, I can’t keep putting them down for 8 pm forever. The weather may not be signalling that summer is nigh, but the days are unquestionably getting longer, and nobody likes to go to bed when it’s daylight out. And of course, there is a time in the not-too-distant future when they’ll be keeping their teenaged selves up until midnight, hours after I’ve crawled into my own bed. At least Beloved is a night owl, so someone will be able to keep an eye on them if we ever do let them stay up.

So let’s compare notes. Am I really a bedtime ogre, or does this schedule roughly match yours? Do you have summer versus winter bedtime rules, or weekend versus school night, or are you as resistant to change in the routine as I am? Speak up, bloggy peeps, and save my kids from yet another potential humiliation from their peers!

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This is how they grow up, quietly and quickly and right under your watchful eye

DaniGirl — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:08:53 +0000

I am standing at the fence as I do every day, waiting for the bell to ring and the tsunami of energetic children to come spilling out of the school. I brace myself, as I do every day, for Simon’s enthusiastic hug that will one day knock me clear off my feet. Tristan too still hugs me, but in a more reserved and shy way that leads me to believe that while third graders still bestow public hugs upon parents, I’d best be prepared in case fourth graders do not.

We’re headed toward the car together when Tristan stops. “Mom, can I walk home by myself?” he asks. We’ve talked about this a few times before. We live exactly 0.9 km away from the school, down one reasonably quiet and safe street with a sidewalk and two very quiet streets with no sidewalks. We’ve walked it together on many occasions, and I know Tristan prefers to walk. Most days, however, we have to drive as I make it to the school from work with barely a few minutes to spare, and we still have to drive over to pick up Lucas from daycare a couple of blocks in the opposite direction.

I take a searching look at his face, weighing in my mind the walk, the traffic, the buses, the snow, his relative trustworthiness, how long it will take me to pick up Lucas and make it home, and my mother’s reaction if and when she ever hears that I’d let him walk by himself. Another part of my mind is busy admiring the fat snowflakes caught in his gorgeous eyelashes and how his gray-green eyes mimic the stormy clouds above us. He looks so grown up to me in that heartbeat of a minute, pleading his case not with words but by simply returning my gaze. It’s the briefest of exchanges, and yet it resonates with me as a milestone in progress. I can trust him or not, trust the world or not. The choice is mine.

“Are you sure you know the way?” I ask. I make him describe it to me, each corner and turn. We’ve walked it a dozen times and driven it a hundred — I’m pretty sure we could both do it blindfolded. I briefly wonder if we should ponder this more, hold a family council and debate the pros and cons, but in this moment I trust my instincts and acquiesce.

“Okay, but you go straight home,” I tell him. “And if you get lost, I want you to step back from the road and just sit down on someone’s lawn, okay? No wandering around. If you make a wrong turn, stop moving and I will come and find you.” It’s less than a 10 minute walk with three intersections. There is really so little chance of him being lost that I can only laugh at myself and the lasting impressions of the time I got lost the first time I walked home by myself from a new school back in 1975. Remember that one, Mom?

As expected, Simon also wants a piece of the deal once it’s brokered, but I’m having none of that. First, being older must come with some privileges, and second, I think walking home is enough of a test without being responsible for minding your little brother at the same time. Simon, who generally prefers driving to school over walking anyway, is easily persuaded that walking alone is more of a second or third grade sort of activity.

As we pull out of the parking lot, I scan my rearview mirror for signs of Tristan and can see him bobbing along in the stream of children burbling down the sidewalk. It takes me only a few minutes to retrieve Lucas, and although respect all traffic laws regarding speed and full stops, I do forgo the usual end of day chat with his caregiver in my haste to pack him up and get him out.

We pass by the school, and I begin scanning the sidewalk and snowbanks for Tristan’s blue snowsuit and black watch cap. There’s no sign of him on the way home and as I pull in to the driveway I catch sight of him, swinging gently and patiently on the porch swing, with not even a self-satisfied grin on his face.

The next day when I meet them at the fence, I expect Tristan to ask to walk home by himself again. I’m secretly pleased when he does not. He may have trod a few more snowy footprints on the road to independence, but I’m glad he still knows I’ve got a warm car standing by for those most bitter and blustery days.

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Simon and the Sparrows

DaniGirl — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:08:48 +0000

I‘d heard through the parent council that the boys’ school had a special music instructor, but I didn’t know much about it other than he was in the school each Friday, and that he spent time with each of the classes. The boys talked about the tick-marks they got for good behaviour, and some of the instructor’s antics that kept their attention. I’d figured it was similar to the music programs I remembered from my own school days — jingle bells, rhythm sticks with ridges, sand blocks and folk songs.

Then one day a few weeks ago at dinner, the boys started comparing notes (ha! pardon the pun) about their experiences. I was impressed when they started talking about works by “Mr Beethoven” and was gobsmacked when Tristan opined that while he liked the first and second movements of Moonlight Sonata, he definitely favoured the third. I nearly fell off my chair when Simon asked if we could put “Mr Beethoven’s” Rage Over a Lost Penny on his MP3 player. My six-year old wants Beethoven on his music player?!

And then they burst into a harmonic version of Jubilata Deo. They have beautiful, soft singing voices and while they were not perfectly in tune, the spontaneous burst of sacred music at my otherwise chaotic dinner table shocked me into fat, proud tears. What wormhole has opened up and deposited me into an alternate universe?

Simon came home a few days later with a permission slip that said he has passed the audition to the Sparrows choir, an extension of the music program. He could find his place in a sheet of music (no small feat for a Grade 1 who can barely read a handful of words) and could differentiate between whole, half and quarter notes and rests. I was delighted until I found out that the choir practice was outside of school hours. Simon already has skating one night a week, and another evening of rushed dinners and hustling out into the dark evening did not appeal to me. However, Simon was keen and so I said we would try it for a month.

The first practice was this past week, and I was enchanted. The maestro, Uwe Lieflander, from the Sacred Music Society, seemed to place equal import on music and discipline. The children were made to queue up outside while the parents settled in the library, and then they filed quietly in and sat down around the piano in a semi-circle. When the maestro waved his arm, they rose quietly to their feet. The maestro wasn’t quite satisfied, and they did it all over again. He then played a few bars of music and paused, and 30 excited hands shot up begging to be given the chance to name the music. I don’t know if I was more surprised by their enthusiasm or the fact that a gaggle of six and seven year olds could differentiate between Mozart and Chopin.

And then they sang. High, sweet voices, a little ragged and out of time, perhaps, but simply beautiful nonetheless. I could detect an audible improvement by the end of the first session, too.

Simon loves it, and I’m still in awe that my kids have a program like this in their school. And, to be honest, given the choice between a cold bench in a dank ice rink and a warm library full of singing children, I’ll take choir practice over skating lessons any day!

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Brothers in the school yard

DaniGirl — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:01:45 +0000

So here’s an interesting situation that I did not see coming. The boys have been discouraged from playing together in the school yard. Apparently, a Grade 1 student is not supposed to play with a Grade 3 student at recess, even if they are siblings.

In their old school, we would have been facing a similar sort of problem had the boys stayed. Tristan’s best friend was in a grade ahead of him, and when they were in Grades 2 and 3, they were allowed to play together at recess. However, the school has a rule that forbids primary kids from playing with junior kids, and even allocates separate parts of the yard for them. While it was fine in Grades 2 and 3 when they were both in the primary grades, once they reached Grades 3 and 4 they’d have an invisible wall between them. Seemed rather silly to me at the time, and I’d been steeling myself for an argument with the school to allow it.

Well, I solved that problem rather unintentionally by yanking the boys out of their comfortable friendships and dumping them into a new school. I was very surprised, though, to hear that brothers were being discouraged from playing with each other. In fact, I ended up speaking to both their teachers this week on a separate issue, and both teachers emphasized the importance of each of them playing with their same-grade peers.

On one hand, I get it. They’re new to the school, and it’s important that they make friends with their classmates. They need to be open to the other kids of their own age groups. On the other hand, I’m concerned about the idea that they are not “allowed” to play with each other, and that cross-grade friendships are discouraged.

It’s the elder who seems to be having the most trouble settling in, and the one whom I think would most benefit from making an extra effort to make his own friends. And it’s the younger who is most resistant to the idea. Just in the past week or so, the elder has found a little niche of friends and I’ve heard happy reports of recess shenanigans revolving around playing characters out of Super Mario Bros. The youngest is desperate to be included, and in fact has always seen himself as his brother’s peer.

For all I know, this rule is universal and would have been the same at the old school, and we just never encountered it because Simon was only in afternoon SK the year we left. I’m curious as to whether any of you have experienced a bias against cross-grade friendships in your kids’ schools? What do you think of the idea of kids being discouraged from playing with kids outside of their grade? Should exceptions be made for siblings? Is it healthier to encourage them to form separate peer groups, or to let them rely on each other? While it might not seem it at the time, elementary school is really just a tiny portion of a child’s life — but siblings last forever.

What do you think?

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Taming table manners

DaniGirl — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:06:34 +0000

This blog post was inspired by a conversation on Twitter. Canadian Family asked its followers “On a scale of 1-10 (10=very), how important is it to you that your kids have good table manners?” I replied that while I rate the importance of table manners at a 10+, I rate my actual accomplishment at instilling table manners a rather measly 3 to 3.5, tops.

I try, I really do. Family meal time is incredibly important to me, and we dine together each night. I love the idea of raising polite, respectful, well-mannered little Stepford boys who know which fork applies to which course, and who can carry on a polite mealtime discourse on the use of the Oxford comma. Each meal together brings yet another opportunity for new lessons and gentle correction. And? Horrendous failure on the manners front. Sadly, I am vastly outnumbered, and it is an uphill battle where concessions are made rather gratuitously and despite my best intentions.

I found the following list of North American table manners on Wikipedia. I’ve added our interpretation of each “rule”.

Dip your soup spoon away from you into the soup. Eat soup noiselessly, from the side of the spoon. When there is a small amount left, you may lift the front end of the dish slightly with your free hand to enable collection of more soup with your spoon. We are satisfied when soup is not lapped from the bowl in the manner of a dog.

If you are having difficulty getting food onto your fork, use a small piece of bread or your knife to assist. Never use your fingers. Fork use writ large is the exception rather than the rule. See above re: soup.

There should be no negative comments about the food nor of the offerings available. Vigourous and entertaining if not tedious campaigns are regularly mounted with regard to the consumption of vegetables and other suspicious foods. When relenting to consumption, energies are then expended on bartering required quantities.

Chew with your mouth closed. Do not slurp, talk with food in your mouth, or make loud or unusual noises while eating. I truly believe they are incapable of surviving a 15 minute period without making loud or unusual noises, while eating or otherwise.

Say “Excuse me,” or “Excuse me. I’ll be right back,” before leaving the table. Do not state that you are going to the restroom. Usually, one leaps from the table with a look of panic and darts from the room hollering, “Make way, make way, I gotta go peeeeeeee” as they run down the hallway. As long as no mention is made of draining the main vein or seeing a man about a horse, I’m okay with that.

Do not talk excessively loudly. Give others equal opportunities for conversation. Ha! ’nuff said.

Refrain from blowing your nose at the table. Excuse yourself from the table if you must do so. Frankly, I’m happy if they blow their noses with a tissue at the table. It’s the gratuitous use of sleeve that rankles me. Especially when it’s MY sleeve.

Burping, coughing, yawning, sneezing, or flatulence at the table should be avoided. If you do so, say, “Excuse me.” If you say “Excuse me” in burp language, does that count?

Never slouch or tilt back while seated in your chair. At any given moment of a meal, I am quite sure there are at least four chair legs out of contact with the ground. I’m beginning to believe the house is tilted.

Do not “play with” your food or utensils. Never wave or point silverware. Does stabbing someone in the back of the hand over the last piece of pie count? Because Beloved has done that. To me. More than once. And also? Does playing with someone else’s food count?

You may rest forearms or hands on the table, but not elbows. I’m okay with elbows on the table, not so much elbows or foreheads on the plate itself.

If food must be removed from the mouth for some reason, it should be done using the same method which was used to bring the food to the mouth, i.e. by hand, by fork, etc., with the exception of fish bones, which are removed from the mouth between the fingers. What, simply opening your mouth and letting gravity pull half-masticated food back on to your plate is not an acceptable way to register that a particular taste does not suit your palate?

Gentlemen should stand when a lady leaves or rejoins the table. Yeah, and the whole table would be bouncing up and down like their chairs were pogo sticks. “Mom, I need a drink.” “Mom, can you get the ketchup?” “Mom, I dropped the dipping sauce into my lap!” “Mom, did you forget my drink?” Gah.

The Canadian Family peeps said that on their informal Twitter poll, respondents ranked the importance of table manners at 9.8 out of 10. But here’s what I’d really like to know: how do you rate your own kids’ table manners on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “My children could teach the Queen a few tidbits on etiquette over tea at Buckingham Palace”?

And really, is it a boy thing? Cuz that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.

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The first day of school

DaniGirl — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:15:52 +0000

Although it had been raining all morning, when we loaded ourselves into the car for the new commute to the boys’ new school in Manotick the sun was thinking of peeking through the clouds. The boys were boisterous — even more so than usual — and their excitement about the new school swelled up and carried us all down the road on a sea of enthusiasm.

We parked near the school and chose a spot to meet up after school. We walked the long way around the building, pointing out climbers and hopscotches and picnic benches along the way. The boys chose a spot to meet during morning recess as well.

We moved from one taped-up sheet to another, searching for the Grades 1 and 3 class lists. We found Tristan’s class and a cluster of eight year old boys standing nearby. “Are you in Mrs Lee’s class?” I asked them. They regarded me with a universal indifference but indicated a vague affirmative. “This is Tristan, it’s his first day!” I said with bright and perhaps over-the-top enthusiasm. They took a quick look at Tristan and returned to their conversation. I forced a bright smile at Tristan, who looked very much like a turtle trying to pull back into his shell. “Do you want to wait here, or come with us to find Simon’s class?” I asked, and felt heartened when he chose to stay near his class list.

Simon bounced along beside me as until we found his name on a similar list. I approached a teacherly-looking woman with a clipboard in her hand. “Are you Ms Edwards?” I asked tentatively, and breathed deeply at her welcoming smile. I introduced Simon and she swept him up in a sea of happy chatter, welcoming him to the school and exclaiming that he was the very first check mark on her very first attendance sheet of the year. Simon ate it up with a spoon and I knew he would have no trouble with the many transitions he was facing, both into a new school and into a new full day of classes. Simon, my gregarious little flirt, would be fine.

I walked back over to where I’d left Tristan, and watched relief wash over his face when he craned his neck over the heads of the kids around him (not much of a stretch, since he stands about a head taller than most of them) and met my eyes. I moved to stand beside him, and ended up in a convoluted conversation with a rubber-boot wearing, curly-haired boy who regaled us with tales of his summer vacation while Tristan looked at his own shoes. Eventually I found Tristan’s teacher and introduced him to her. She tried to engage Tristan in conversation about his first day, but Tristan’s shyness made him nearly mute. Instead, she and I chatted companionably about the school (she’s been teaching there for more than a decade) and the neighbourhood while Tristan listened without seeming like he was listening.

I wanted to tell her that he’s just shy, not rude, and that he’s such a fantastic kid. I wanted to tell her that he’s an artist, and smart, and loves school, but that he needs praise and positive feedback to warm up. I wanted to tell her that he’s bursting with affection, and has loved each of his teachers to the point of tears at the end of the school year, but that he’s overwhelmed and tongue-tied and she’ll have to work to draw him out but that she will reap huge rewards when she does.

But I don’t say any of that. I just stand with my heart in my throat and one hand on Tristan’s shoulder, feeling like I did on his first day of junior kindergarten, wishing I could infuse him with just a touch of the easy gregariousness that smooths his brother’s social interactions.

I remember all to well facing the first day in a new school, the seemingly impenetrable barrier of previously forged social bonds. It was tough, but I never imagined I’d be feeling it so sharply all these years later, by proxy.

Eventually, the teachers led straggling queues of backpack-laden kids into the school. Tristan tried to step near the front where he’d been standing, found his way blocked by chattering kids, and instead worked his way to the back of the line. He shot me a grateful and painfully grown-up smile as I beamed 10,000 volts of my very best “I’m so proud of you” grin at him, and turned to follow his new classmates. I turned in time to see Simon leading his class behind his teacher, already so engaged in conversation with the mother of the brown-eyed girl behind him that he almost missed my vigourous kiss-blowing as he walked past.

This mothering thing will either break my heart or cause it to burst from pride one of these days. Or maybe, both.

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On censorship and potty talk

DaniGirl — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:56:39 +0000

How can you not roll your eyes at this story?

Apparently, Ottawa author Kevin Bolger, who wrote a kids’ book with the snicker-worthy title of Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger, was stopped a few minutes into his reading at an Ottawa elementary school yesterday and pulled aside by the principal, who then canceled the rest of the reading entirely. According to the school board superintendent, “the principal was concerned about a character in the new book called ‘Mrs. Imavitch’, which rhymes with a derogatory word.”

The superintendent went on to say, “[The principal] was a little concerned about what might be interpreted by the kids of the language. They’ve been working hard this year on their character initiative … [on] respectful language to one another. She just felt that with the age range of the kids it was better that they not discuss that today until they could put the whole thing in context.”

Seriously? I mean, for one thing, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of words that rhyme with “Imavitch” starts with a W, not a B. And for goodness sake, the school didn’t get the hint that there be potty humour ahead when they signed on for a book reading that had both farts AND boogers in the title?

Okay, so I’m biased. In a house with three boys ranging from two to eight years of age, I have come to realize that there is no higher art form to a young boy than a well-worded fart joke. You should hear them howling with laughter when Beloved reads them Captain Underpants, or even the How to Train Your Dragon series. It’s the sweetest sound in the world, and it makes them love books even more. I say, if it gets them reading, I’m fine with a little potty humour here and there.

CBC.ca notes that Kevin Bolger is scheduled to read at seven more Ottawa schools on his current reading tour. I only wish our boys were lucky enough to go to one of those schools, and I dearly hope the next seven schools show more sense than the administrators at Manor Park Public School did. Lighten up, people! A little silliness is a wonderful thing.

What do you think?

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The blog post that wasn’t

DaniGirl — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:29:02 +0000

I have a lot of blog posts in my head, a few in my drafts folder, and one scrawled on a receipt from the post office and stuffed into my wallet. And you won’t be treated to any of them tonight because I’ve decided that rather than stay here with my nose pressed to the monitor where I would prefer to be (it’s a hell of a lot less work to just wag my fingers over the keyboard than to actually get off the couch and take care of all the things that are demanding my attention) instead I’m going to shut it down and go take the boys for an after-dinner walk.

Before I do, though, I have a quick question about my poor Lucas. We went back to the doctor today, and despite his having a clear chest and ears on Sunday, now he has an ear infection and some kind of chest infection. I wanted to ask you guys about something: the doc (not his usual) said: he has asthma caused by an allergic reaction to a virus. WTF? Not bronchitis, which is what it sounds like to me, but asthma, even though he has never had any sort of similar thing. ??? I asked if this was now a chronic condition and she kind of shrugged and said it’s the first time, we’ll have to see if and when it shows up again.

He’s got antibiotics for the ear infection, and two different puffers. Yeesh, just when you think you’ve got it all figured it, something new to contend with.

Anyway, your puffer and asthma and “allergic reaction to a virus” stories are welcome. Thanks!

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Compelling parenting issue of the day

DaniGirl — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:56:49 +0000

Okay, bloggy peeps, here’s your compelling parenting issue of the day. This one is on my mind as I cycle through the boxes of boy’s clothes that I have stashed in big blue plastic bins in the closet, each carefully labeled with season and size:

Hand-me-down underwear? Yay or nay?

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