I’m tinkering!! I’ll let you know when I’m done!
Talk to me about sleep training
First, I loved your comments on my last post, where I asked you your thoughts about letting my five- and seven-year-old boys walk around the block together alone. For now, we’ve decided to hold off, and I swear it’s not because my mother called me up the night I posted it and more or less told me I was free to support the idea of free range kids but I was not free to subject her grandsons to the philosophy. Well, not entirely because of that, anyway… (*waves to mom*)
So today, let’s talk about what psychological damage I can wreak on her youngest grandson instead. Yep, I want to talk about sleep training. Ah, the controversy never gets old around here.
Lucas is fifteen months old, and for pretty much each night of those fifteen months, he’s been cuddled to sleep. I think it’s time he learned to start falling asleep on his own in his crib. Can someone please flip a magic switch so I can get him to do it immediately, without any stress to him or extraneous effort on my part? No? I didn’t think so.
I’m not opposed to letting him cry it out, if I must. It worked with both Tristan and Simon, although they were each a little less than a year old when we tried it. It took about five nights of fussing with Tristan (you can read my CIO diaries in the archives) and about twice that long with Simon, but in the end, it was soooooo worth it to just be able to put the baby in his crib, kiss him goodnight and walk away.
It’s not that I begrudge Lucas his nightly cuddle, either. I’d still cuddle him before hand, but I still believe that it’s important that they learn to sooth themselves to sleep. He’s not a bad night-time sleeper overall, but he’s been waking in the night a lot lately, and I think he’d be less fussy when he wakes up if he’d put himself to sleep in the first place. A couple of times in the past week, instead of dropping right back to sleep when I re-insert his soother, he’s been wide awake in the crib. He’ll stay in the crib and eventually drift off again, but only if I’m standing there. While I’m pleased with this development, I’m not overly fond of standing stock-still in his room for fifteen minutes at a time in the middle of the night, pining for my bed the whole time. I’m thinking I can somehow parlay this into sleep training, but not quite sure how to do it or if I want to start down that road.
This is, after all, my last baby and I’m coddling him for all he’s worth. As much as I’m a fan of Ferber’s ideas and I totally agree with the theory — I just don’t want to put either of us through it all and in my experience thus far, there’s been no middle ground. It’s either CIO or cuddle to sleep, and I’m not sure either extreme is where I want to go next.
This is where you come in. I don’t particularly want to debate the merits of CIO, and you should know up front that I am deeply offended by Elizabeth Pantley so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t drag her into the conversation, but other than that — what have you found works or doesn’t work in sleep training? How did you get your kids to start falling asleep on their own? How old were they? As with all things mothering, I know I won’t still be rocking him to sleep when he’s on his honeymoon, but even on the third go-round, I’m still not sure how I want to navigate this one. And you know I get all my best mothering material from the bloggy peeps, right?
Growing boys, growing freedom
We’ve talked about this subject before, but it’s always an interesting conversation to me. Mom, don’t read this post. You won’t like it!
Now that the weather is fine, the boys have started playing outside every evening after dinner, and they’ve made friends with the family that lives across the back fence. Their kids are a little older — ages eight, 10 and 12, I’d guess — but they seem to enjoy playing with Tristan and Simon. They’ve been playing catch over the back fence (it’s one of those 6-foot wooden plank fences) and Tristan has clambered up and over once or twice — until I firmly and unequivocally forbade him from doing that. Even so, the kids on the other side (and it’s one of those yards that seem to contain almost all of the neighbourhood kids) climb up from their side and sit on the top to chat with the boys.
I like this family a lot, but I don’t know them very well. Just a kind of “Hi” over the back fence thing. I think Tristan is old enough to play with them as a peer, but they’re tolerant of Simon as well. I’ve debated pulling out a plank or two to give the kids access through the fence, but worry about (a) damaging the fence and (b) the dog escaping. Last time we talked about this, someone suggested adding velcro to a couple of the planks, making them removable. This seems like a neat idea, but I really don’t want to muck too much with the fence — a replacement fence is simply not in the budget right now, nor is building a gate. Plus, I’m just not sure how long this fledgling friendship will last — I figure the older kids will lose interest pretty quickly.
After a couple of evenings of watching them play and holler across the fence, I started thinking about walking Tristan and Simon around the block to let them play in the other kids’ yard. This poses a couple of inconveniences, including what do I do once I’m there (with Lucas) — do I sit on the deck and supervise in someone else’s yard, waiting to walk them back home again? Knock on the door and ask the mom to call me when they’re done? This seems to me to be a big imposition, because her kids are old enough to play unsupervised.
So I started thinking about letting them walk over by themselves. There’s lots of reasons why it would be okay. It’s a single block — no streets to cross, and they live on a cul-de-sac, so it’s pretty safe all the way along. Tristan is fairly responsible, and there is safety in numbers. I could see them when they get there, and they could come home whenever they wanted without having to call for me and I wouldn’t have to wait for them. Plus, I do believe in giving freedom where freedom is earned. The drawbacks are that if they left the yard, I couldn’t see what they were up to, and I don’t know that any progress is made if I spend the whole time hovering at the window spying on them.
Late last week, I took an informal poll on Twitter, asking this question: would you allow your five and seven year old to walk around the block, unescorted but with no streets to cross, to play with the kids who live behind you?
The results were split pretty much down the middle, with most of the “yes” answers having the caveat along the lines of “as long as they’re together” and quite a few “as long as I could see them” or “I’d creep along behind them” type of answers.
I’m a huge believer in the idea of “free range kids” and I wish there were more (heck, any!) kids on our street for the boys to play with. Not to haul out this old song again, but really — when I was four I was walking to and from school by myself, and when I was six I used to walk down to the corner store and the park by myself all the time. I really don’t believe the world has changed so much in 30+ years that it’s any different now.
In the last year, the boys have been earning more and more freedoms. They’re now allowed to play in the front or back yard unsupervised (unless I leave the front door open or watch from the bedroom, I can’t see the front yard from the house) and they’ve been allowed to walk to the mailbox around the corner unescorted to get the mail by themselves. There’s a park across the street and down a bit, just out of my line of sight, and I think next summer they’ll probably be allowed to go over together and without an escort. (Although by that time, Lucas will be old enough to demand that he go to the park with them, and perhaps two is a little young for unescorted trips to the park…)
So what do you think? Would you let your five and seven year old walk around the block unescorted to play outside? Not a supervised playdate, just neighbourhood kids running around together, just like I remember doing back in the golden days of my childhood. If not five and seven, then what age? And is it really so different now than it was in 1975?
Random bullets of Mother’s Day
In lieu of a coherent blog post, which I promise you is forthcoming one of these days (ahem, weeks) here’s a few random bullets of Mother’s Day.
- It started early as Simon woke me up at 5:25, clutching the Mother’s Day present he brought home from school on Friday anxiously as he stage whispered in a near shout, “Mom! Are you still sleeping yet?” Um, not anymore I’m not!
- Barely a couple of minutes later, Lucas was awake as well. We’re early risers, but for the entire family to be awake and downstairs before 6 am on a Sunday is not only mostly unprecedented but bodes for a very long day. (On days when I’m not working, usually Tristan and I are up a good hour or more before everyone else, giving me precious time to have a coffee or three and peruse the morning paper before the rest of them tumble out of bed in all their needy and noisy glory.)
- The coffee was still percolating as I opened the Mother’s Day gifts the boys brought home from school on Friday. Simon had asked several times over the weekend if I could please open my Mother’s Day gifts NOW, please please please, and each time I gently put him off and said I wanted to save the surprise for Sunday morning. Imagine the guilt I felt when I opened the beautifully-decorated brown-paper-bag he’d been clutching to find a small planter of annuals — inside a sealed ziploc baggie. Poor things were traumatized yellow by the weekend without air, but they perked up a bit with some water. We’ll see if they survive to be transplanted into the garden.
- Tristan’s gift was instructions for a foot massage and a little bottle of lotion he’d decorated himself, and a cookbook of his classmates’ favourite recipes. Tristan’s pizza recipe:
1/2 cup of pineapple
5 pieces of pepperoni
a bag of cheese
some sauce
one piece of wheat breadPut sauce on bread, add cheese, place pepperoni and pineapple and bake for 8 minutes at 20 degrees.
(How cute is that?)
- The day was already feeling a little long when I stepped out of the shower and in the midst of towel-drying my hair felt an unbearable wrenching pull in my back, just off my shoulder blade. It was so painful I could barely draw a deep breath. I’m not sure if this is what people mean when they say, “I put my back out,” but holy god in heaven does it ever hurt. Even 24 hours later, I’m holding myself stiffly to avoid the wrenching spasm that shoots across the upper right quadrant of my back if I move the wrong way. (The wrong way being just about any extension of my arms, turning of my head to the side, or looking down in the slightest bit.)
- It’s still painful enough that I’d debated a bit about the merits of coming to work versus staying home, but with a houseful of kids and nanny, I thought work might be the more peaceful option. After just about a half an hour of typing and mouse-clicking, though, I’m beginning to think it was a bad choice.
- Any insight into whether this merits medical attention or a wait-it-out approach is appreciated, as is your anecdotal experience with back pain. This is a new one for me.
- The good news is that Beloved was a darling throughout the day, and the pull in my back forced me to pretty much take it easy the whole of Mother’s Day, something I might not have done otherwise. I didn’t change a single diaper all day, and read the last half of a photography book that was due back at the library this week. Of course, I also emptied the dishwasher, picked up some clutter and did a few loads of laundry — because I think I’m now physically and mentally incapable of actually doing nothing for a day.
- After Lucas’s nap, Beloved took the whole family on a trip to Henry’s camera shop where he let me pick out my Mother’s Day gift. I waffled for a bit between a set of reflectors, a Gorillapod, and a neutral density filter, but finally settled on a circular polarizing filter. A polarizing filter is cool to have because it balances the brightness of the sky against a landscape while bringing out details and colour saturation, and cuts down on reflectivity of water and glass. A fun new toy to play with!
- To finish off the day, we had Granny and Papa Lou over for takeout fajitas from Lone Star, and they brought cheesecake from Costco for dessert. Five-star seal of approval on that meal!
Aside from the wrenched muscles and the fact that it was grey and just about subzero all day, it was a lovely Mother’s Day. You?
Project 365: Pretty colours
It’s been a crazy week, and I feel like I’ve been neglecting the poor blog lately. Blog makes a good argument for being the favourite child over Project 365 because it is not demanding and simply waits for me to be finished gallavanting and come back to lavish love and attention on it, while Project 365 relentlessly demands my attention every single day.
But the 365 has been rewarding me with some beautiful images this week, which makes me a little bit less resentful of the time I didn’t get to spend, um, ironing or emptying the dishwasher or picking up dirty socks.
Come to think of it, sometimes the blog AND the 365 are the golden children, and it’s the actual children who are cramping my style!
I’ve been enjoying having a discussion theme around the 365 posts lately, but as you can see I’m a little scattered today, and frankly still really really short on time, so let’s just move on to looking at the pretty pictures, shall we? Rational thought and reasoned discussion may or may not return next week.
I loved this picture of Tristan for several reasons, not least of which it was the first time I’d seen him spend any length of time curled up reading a book all by himself. Be still my heart! He read the whole book that afternoon, and I could practically feel his world expanding.
I’m getting pretty good at photographing stuff, but am still intimidated by portraits. This one was a candid shot (I’d been turned around, photographing the trilliums in this little copse of trees when I turned around to see him with a piece of bark most of the way into his mouth, and that cheeky grin is a result of me playfully scolding him “ah ah ah!” as I pointed the camera at him) that turned out to be a pretty nice little portrait. He should be just a little bit less centred to give more room on the right side of the frame, but the darn kids never sit still long enough for me to get through my entire composition checklist in my head before I snap!
I’d walked past this triplex on St Patrick Street in Lowertown a handful of times and always loved the multi-coloured doors. I called it “primary entrance” and really wish the guy in the first apartment had a better aesthetic sense and had painted his door navy or royal blue instead of that bluegrass slate colour!
This was an idea for the monthly scavenger hunt. The clue was “out of roundness.” Get it? “Out of” in roundness? The crystal ball is from a gift my parents gave me for my birthday last summer, and it hangs in our back window. (My very first 365 picture features it, in fact!) I’d taken it down to play with the light, and noticed the magnification effect. The book idea and the scavenger hunt clue kind of coalesced from there.
This was yesterday’s picture. Yesterday was not my finest day. An all-day meeting off site (so no computer access! ack!!) followed by a very long evening with all three boys because Beloved was working late. I snapped this in the backyard, in between dinner and packing the boys’ lunches for school and cleaning the kitchen floor not once, not twice, but three times as the dog and the boys tracked mud in from the back yard. The year we moved in to this house, the baby crab apple tree the previous owners had planted died. Three years later I noticed that it was re-growing — about three feet over from the original tree and less than six inches from the back fence. I haven’t had the heart to cut it down — partly because of it’s stubborn will to survive and partly because it’s simply magnificent in the spring when covered with blossoms, but I’m afraid it’s going to take the fence out as it grows. Anyway, all that to say, I’m not totally satisfied with this picture and would have liked more time to play with it but at least I can look at it and say that my “hurry up and take a damn picture and post something so you’ll have a picture for today” pictures are a lot better than they were a couple of months ago!
(That’s a lot of stress for a couple of pretty pink blossoms, isn’t it? It’s been that kind of week!)
Speaking of pretty, stay tuned for some big changes around here in the next little while. I’m not sure exactly when I’ll get around to the big reveal, but here’s a hint. Very, very exciting!!
Social Media for Mothers Seminar
This is a neat idea I wish I’d thought of myself. An Ottawa company is offering Social Media for Mothers seminars, just in time for Mother’s Day.
From the press release:
This unique seminar will show moms how to use social tools like blogs, Twitter, social networks, YouTube and Flickr to share their experiences online with family and/or other moms on the web. Moms will also learn how social media can help to nurture existing relationships and build new friendships in a global web community.
This seminar is for:
* mothers-to-be
* new and seasoned moms
* grandmothers
* great-grandmothers
Neat idea, eh? And if you go, you get to see me — on YouTube, blathering on about social media and motherhood. Natasha, the brains behind the operation, approached me a month or so ago and asked if I’d be interested in being interviewed for her seminar and being the shy and reticent person camera whore that I am, of course I said yes. You can see the clip on the social media press release. It`s a little drawn out, but she didn`t give me the cut sign so I just kept talking and talking and talking and talking. (There`s another familiar face there, too!)
Good luck, Natasha! Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
It’s Tulip Festival time!
I’m not much of a Winterlude girl, but I do love Ottawa’s Tulip Festival. (How can I not love a festival that’s mere steps outside my office door, jam-packed with gorgeous subjects for my 365 project?)
There’s some cool stuff going on in the Tulip Festival this year, too — truly a little something for everyone. You’re too late for Margaret Atwood (one of my heroes) or Rick Mercer (my old nemesis from year one of the Canadian blog awards), but there are plenty of other intriguing presentations as part of the Celebridée speakers’ series. You can also see an acrobatic troupe or even try out the trapeeze yourself. Or, you can do what I’ve been doing and just wander around and enjoy the vibrant colours that the tulips splash throughout our winter-dulled city.
I love playing tour-guide when we have visitors, and I always tell the story of why Ottawa has a tulip festival in the first place. During World War II, the Dutch royal family stayed in Ottawa, and Queen Julianna’s daughter Princess Margriet was born in Ottawa’s Civic Hospital. For her birth, the maternity ward of the Civic (where Tristan and Simon were both born) was declared “Dutch soil”. After the war, the Dutch people sent 100,000 tulips to the city as a thank you, and now more than half a million tulips bloom here each year.
This is my favourite tulip festival picture so far. (Hey, we still have more than 10 days to go!) I’m riding on the vintage ferris wheel, circa 1917, and used the bars to frame the National Gallery of Canada. A little something different from your everyday tourist shot of the Gallery! (Just don’t tell my mom that I practically fell out of the chair trying to get a low enough perspective that I didn’t cut off the top of the Gallery. Shhhh!)
The Canadian (I like to think of it as the Ottawa) Tulip Festival runs through May 18, and there are some reasonably-priced and even free events for a wide range of audiences. It’s worth the effort to come downtown for this one!
Happy Star Wars Day!
What, you didn’t know it was Star Wars Day today?
Look at the calendar, isn’t it obvious?
(wait for it, you’re gonna groan)
May the 4th be with you!!!!
(I couldn’t possibly resist this one. The intersection of embarrassingly bad puns and hopeless geekyness is my happy place.)
So since we’re talking about Star Wars, I thought I’d share this article from Slate with you (waves to Holly, who sent me the link in the first place) that asks, “Why does Star Wars still take over the minds of young boys?”
The author ponders: “Maybe it’s the combination of simplicity and multilayered detail, good vs. evil in a world of interdependent yet rival creatures. Maybe it all comes down to Darth Vader, with his fearsome helmet and the voice of James Earl Jones. Or maybe the magic element is the open void of outer space as a backdrop.” (It’s a fun article, well-written and wry, but the comments afterward served as an unpleasant reminder that the Internet is a largely nasty place and maybe I should rethink my goals of ever wanting to be published in something like Slate!)
Whatever it is, there’s no doubt that a love of Star Wars is entrenched in the DNA of our family:
For when there’s just not enough Mom to go around
I’ve often said I could use an extra wife or three around the house. I think this would just about cover it!
(Props to my friends on Flickr and this guy’s tutorial.)
Save the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography building from the bureaucrats!
(cut and pasted with vigour from the Save the CMCP Web site!)
The Government has announced that the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) building at 1 Rideau Canal in Ottawa will be taken over by Parliament for office space and meeting rooms. The CMCP is the only museum in Canada devoted to the photographic image. It was created in 1985 after intense lobbying by the photographic community and opened its $16M state-of-the-art facility in 1992.
We are firmly opposed to this arbitrary decision, delivered by the Government and National Gallery without warning or consultation. This is not just a photographic community concern. The loss of this public art space concerns us all.
To join the fight to save the CMCP, please take a moment to sign the petition:
www.ipetitions.com/petition/CMCP/
For background information on this announcement, please visit: