Why water?

Many of my friends have seen my Charity: Water post on Facebook. I thought I'd tell you a bit more about it here because it might take more than the 140 characters Facebook allows me to use.

First of all, I'm not only a mommy, but also a teacher. Each year our school does a "World Tour". Sort of a way to maintain focus at the end of the school year and to bring the world to young people who may not get to see much of it otherwise. I personally love this time of year. Partly because of all the crafting and project-based learning, but mostly because it isn't about any test.

Anyway, my third graders study Kenya every year. I have a very good friend from Kenya who comes every year to talk to the kids. I always love his visits because he really helps the children to understand that even though we do things differently, people are all very much the same. The Kenyan children don't go to a school like ours, but they are learning.  They don't have the toys and games that our children have, but they play and have fun all the same. They don't live in houses like ours, but they love their homes and families just like we do. I believe it's important to teach children that we are all more alike than different.

But what does any of that have to do with water?  During the course of our Kenya study there is a video that we watch called "Africa's Child: Living with Lions".  It documents the life of a young Maasai boy and his family. One of the things my students are struck by is the fact that the boy's mother and sisters have to walk every day to fetch water from the same water hole the animals use.  The boy talks about how many people get sick and die from drinking the water.

At this point I have the students brainstorm all the things we use water for in one day. Drinking, washing, brushing teeth, flushing toilets, watering our lawns and gardens, swimming, bathing...
What would we do if that water wasn't there?  Millions of people in developing countries are living like this every day. Can anything be done?

Enter Charity: Water. Our class began a fundraising campaign to help bring clean water to a developing country.  We shared this video to explain why we were collecting coins:



Day by day our water jug filled with coins.  In the two weeks we had to raise money at school the students collected $285.40.  Some of the students were disappointed that we didn't raise more, but I was proud. Every time I saw a child make the choice to donate change to our water project I knew we made a difference, not only to the people who are going to receive our donations, but also to the children who are donating. They are learning compassion. They are learning generosity. They are learning to help others. These are the important things no state test can measure. I am proud of my students.

Our online fundraising campaign is open until July 29th. I plan to share it every day until it closes. Here is the link to donate:
http://my.charitywater.org/desgives

Feel free to share the link with family, friends, church members... anyone who might like to donate to our cause. Donations are tax deductible.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read our story!  Thanks for helping us reach our goal.

I care about Nutrition

"At least I give a shit about the stuff I eat, Yeah I care about nutrition!"
(A line from the song 'Nutrition' by The Dead Milkmen.)
I sing this song on every grocery trip.


I try to eat right. I really do, but if ever there were an enigma wrapped in a mystery it is 'good nutrition'.

We've gone from this:

To this:

To this:

According to this, I should eat a lot of grains. Eating a lot of grains exposes me to gluten. Should I avoid gluten? How do I know if I should avoid gluten? I've heard rumors of gluten being linked to autism, but I don't really know if that's true, because I've also heard that gluten isn't linked to autism.

Besides that, I've also heard that carbs are bad.

Ok, I'll eat a lot of vegetables. Does it matter if they come frozen, in a bag, covered in a "cheese flavored sauce"? What is that, really? My kids really dig on the "cheese flavored sauce", but I don't think it's good for them. However, they won't eat broccoli with out it. The canned vegetables are full of sodium so buy frozen ones. Without "cheese flavored sauce" or "butter flavored sauce". Unless you want the kids to eat them.

Protein. Meat, cheese, and nuts.  Grass fed beef is best, but have you seen the price of that stuff? Would you like your ground beef with or without pink slime? That chicken you're eating lived an absolutely miserable existence. Don't you feel terrible about that?  I would, but I can't afford to eat the happy, free range chickens or eggs. I've adopted a 'don't ask, don't tell' relationship with my meat.

Then there is the ubiquitous evil, high fructose corn syrup. This is one I do try in earnest to avoid. It isn't easy! I'm an avid label reader. This works great at home, but not while dining out. Unfortunately, being a busy working mom means we eat out more than we should, and we eat a lot of 'convenience' foods. 

With every meal I think to myself, "Ok, I may have lost this battle, but in the long run, I'll probably lose the whole war as well."

Bon appetit!

Do I have to take a bath?

Or perhaps the title should be, "Do they have to take a bath? Really?"

I've never had a problem getting my boys to take a bath. They love it!

I don't like bath time. Not one little bit.

Bath time is a nightmare for me. Every night.

I give the kids a bath most nights because it's part of their bedtime routine, and I believe very much in routines for my kids. I also believe in cleanliness (believe it or not!).
I have such grand delusions about bath time. I remember when they were little babies, and would splash and play so gently in the water. It was precious. Then I'd get them out, lotion them up, put clean PJs on them, and put them to bed, plump, soft, and sweet-smelling. Ah, I was such a great mom!

My boys are bigger now. Bigger and rowdier. And I swear my house is shrinking.

This is our new nightly routine:

Bath time! With bubbles, of course, because they like them and I do like to see my kids happy. And toys, too, because despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believe this bath will entertain my boys and occupy them for forty-five minutes so I can floss and brush and get caught up on my Words with Friends.  I find my naivete endearing...

SPLASH! Here comes the tidal wave! They are no longer little boys, but sea monsters. Writhing, splashing, spitting, urinating sea monsters. And I'm shouting orders amid the chaos.

"Stop that!"
"No you can't wash his winkie, just wash your own!"
"Get your nose out of his rear end!"
"Why didn't you pee before you got in the tub?"

They are spitting on each other. Big Brother is pointing at Little Brother's rear end and laughing hysterically, "Butthole!! Butthole!!", because for some reason they both think butthole is the funniest word in the world to say. I swear I don't know where they learned it.

So my dream bath comes to an abrupt end. I quickly wipe them down and get them out of the tub. Their forty-five minute bath has been shortened to ten minutes. A very loooooong, messy, violent ten minutes.

But the fun doesn't end there. No, after bath time is run-around-like-a-naked-lunatic time. The chase is on. Catch Little Brother and get a diaper on him before he pees in the floor. I have found him before, splashing in a puddle of his own urine, which he made while I was getting the diaper. He's an animal.

Catch them, comb their hair, brush the baby's teeth (which is another nightmare), and prepare them for bed.
Ah, bed time! The storm is over.

I fall into bed, punch-drunk and exhausted. Asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

I'm trying to learn to embrace the chaos. To take pleasure in the unbridled joy they experience in the water. A wet floor is not the end of the world, and they will grow out of this phase (I hope). And as much as I try to plan ahead, to arrange things in a way that would prevent many of the problems, I can't seem to do it. This is our nightly battle, and I will fight valiantly. Or at least try to suffer through it without so much screaming and yelling and threats of violence (from me).

Maybe I will start bathing them every other day. Or bi-weekly.

Frustration. In haiku.

Sick baby vomits
big boy wakes up bed all wet
mommy gets no sleep


bed FULL of vomit
changing sheets in dead of night
MOMMY GETS NO SLEEP

Alarm clock blaring
babies sleeping soundly now
makes me want to cry

If I fall asleep
do not wake me up or else!
angry grizzly bear

Let me hear your body talk...

Body talk. More specifically, talking about the body and its various parts with my four year old. The age of four is an age of discovery, I'm finding. My son is fascinated by his body. Not surprising, really. But he's also fascinated by MY body. I guess that's not really surprising either, seeing as I'm the only female in the house. Vive la difference!

My son, like most males, is obsessed with his genitalia. He is recently potty trained, so he's also obsessed with toilets and the activities surrounding them. He likes to point out that he pees standing up because he has a winkie.

**Side note- I am a full grown, educated woman, but I can't say the word 'penis' with a straight face. I used to feel bad about it until my son's pediatrician told me (in reference to a question I had about penile adhesions due to circumcision), "Don't worry about his weiner. When he grows up and starts getting woodies it'll all work itself out."
If a medical professional cannot say the word 'penis' either, I don't feel so bad anymore.

Back to the story. My oldest likes to point out that he pees standing up because he has a winkie.  He also likes to note that I don't have a winkie. This observation has spawned hundreds of questions over the course of the last two years. He has deduced that girls don't have winkies, but they do have holes out of which they pee.

All in all I've found the potty training bathroom conversations to be very awkward and uncomfortable.

But nothing prepared me for what came next. My dear son, having found my anatomy lacking, said to me, "You need to get a toy winkie and put it in your hole."

(I'll just give you a moment to ponder that.)

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor and tamed my giggles, my mind quickly flashed over the contents of all my drawers and closets to see if there was ANYTHING in there he could have found that would have given him the idea of a 'toy winkie'.  There was nothing. He has conjured up in his imagination a 'toy winkie' that has a button I can push to make the pee come out.

As mortifying as this is, I think it's sweet that my little boy is trying to help me. He's so sweet and thoughtful! I did explain to him that I'm able to use the bathroom just fine on my own.

My only hope is that he doesn't take this conversation to school.

To spank, or not to spank...

I read an article the other day that linked spanking to mental illness. Read all about it here.

I'm not sure what to think about this.

I was spanked as a child, and yes, my mental health has been questionable at times. But it's impossible to say if I would have turned out better or worse had I not been spanked. At any rate, this blog isn't about the physical punishment I endured as a child.

It's about the physical punishments I administer to my own children.

Ok. I admit it. I have spanked my children. And I have to say that the results have been less than satisfactory. They still misbehave in the store. They still jump on the furniture. Big brother still torments little brother. They both still defiantly shout "NO!" at me.

So I have to question the effectiveness of spanking as a means of behavior modification.

 Maybe it works for some people, but it hasn't worked for me.

The only advice I have gotten from other mothers is that I need to spank them harder, or more often, or hit my children with objects (i.e. belt or paddle).

I can't do it.   I'm not here to judge any other parents' discipline methods.  Clearly I don't have all the answers. (Have you met my children?) I just don't feel good about spanking my kids.

It all boils down to this- when I stop in the moment when I am about to spank my son, and I really analyze the situation, I realize that my own feelings of anger, frustration, my need to "win"- these feelings are driving me to try to beat (and by beat I mean smacking their backsides with my hand. I never hit them anywhere but on the bottom, and only with my hand) a small child into submission.

And I have to ask myself, "Really? Thats all you've got?"

I feel like a failure when I resort to spanking.

So I don't think I'm going to do it anymore. I want my children to behave (by behave I mean things like use their manners, be respectful, play in a safe way, be kind.. that kind of stuff) because it's the right thing to do, not because they're afraid of what I'll do to them if they don't comply.

Yes, I'm sure I'm being idealistic here. And I do use other disciplinary measures, like time out and a reward system. My kids are pretty awesome most of the time.
But when they aren't, I'm not going to hit them.

I don't want my children to be motivated by fear.

(Now, let's see how long before I have to eat these words!)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This is only a test...

I don't know why I take my children to the store. I guess I'm just an incurable optimist.

I've been working with children for most of my adult life. What I've learned is, managing children is a lot like playing chess. A good chess player thinks several moves ahead of his opponent. One would think that an adult, especially one with specialized training in behavior management, would easily be able to outwit two small children.

One would think...

I do pretty well at home. I set up the parameters for all of their activities. I provide them with choices. I use operant conditioning to reinforce positive behavior.  My children are fairly well behaved outside of the occasional tantrum.



But somehow they always get the better of me at the store. Or the restaurant. Public places in general.

I know that it is the nature of children to test boundaries. And I do set boundaries for my children. I do. But I think that my oldest one is learning that I react differently to his behavior at home than I do at the store. I can do and say things at home that I can't do or say at the store lest I be accused of child abuse.

What amazes me is the outrageous things my 4 year old can come up with. I've had the talk with him about playing with his body parts in front of other people. So in the middle of the drug store he sticks his hand down his pants and yells, "I'm playing with my butt, Mommy! I'm playing with my butt in the store, Mommy!"  And of course the unsaid but understood, "What are you going to do about it?"

Just walk away. This is only a test...

I'm learning that sometimes walking away is winning. I am the grown up, after all.