Tag Archive | family

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

The High School Reunion: Words to strike fear in the heart of some and instill joy in others, and for me evoking a confusing combination of anticipation and dread.

My yearbook photo and comment. Text reads “On High School Reunions, Happiness, and the Road Less Traveled.”

I agonized over whether or not to go to my high school reunion this weekend. From a purely logical perspective, there were compelling reasons not to bother. Most of the people I was close to then I’m still in regular contact with now. The rest of my graduating class are for the most part very nice people but as we were fairly indifferent to one another in high school, I can’t imagine that having changed now…and in the cases where that has changed, it feels vaguely disingenuous – You’re hugging me? We hug now? Okay... <awkward>

I know I’m being unfair to the many of my classmates who actually are genuinely happy to see me and catch up. The bigger issue is that this whole reunion thing, in my irrational and emotional brain centre (let’s call it the “emoshgula”), is all tied up with all the internal and external markers by which we measure “success” in life.

I went to an all-girls’ private school that prides itself on its students’ measurable achievements both during high school and after graduation. The currency of success during my high school career was high marks, and with those I was flush. Much to the chagrin of my math and physics teachers, I took my academic prowess and poured myself heart and soul into Bachelors’ degrees in Child Studies and Social Work (Click here for appropriate sound effect).

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I then turned down early acceptance to an MSW program in order to become…horror of horrors…a stay-at-home mom (again, this requires a sound effect). In that world of titles and initials – Dr., Esq., M.Sc., Ph.D., Patron, Benefactor – Karyn Pickles, SAHM doesn’t feature highly in the alumni communiques.

***I’m going to interrupt myself for a moment for a very brief discussion of privilege. In this post I am describing, from my own perspective, the world that I inhabited in my middle and high school years and that, to a lesser extent, I still inhabit. It is a world of enormous privilege in which each and every one of us carried a huge invisible backpack containing, among other things, the knowledge that 1. We had the means to attend the university of our choice, as long as we produced the necessary grades; 2. Those grades would be reasonably easy to achieve with the extra help and tutoring available to us; and 3. Our university applications would be supplemented by the rich extracurricular offerings the school offered, ironically bolstering our chances of earning the scholarships that most of us didn’t actually need. It is a world that is unfamiliar to the vast majority of the North American population, let alone the world. This is not to belittle my fellow graduates’ hard work in earning those prestigious titles, but to acknowledge that we were very fortunate to have the head start and freedom to choose the paths that we did.*** <climbs back off soapbox>

Where I have found myself in life is for all intents and purposes the antithesis of everything that my high school prepared and expected me to do. It doesn’t even register on their scale of success because they have no rubric for joy and self-fulfillment.

The trouble is that while I know that I wouldn’t change a thing, as soon as I walk through that high arched doorway, all my self-confidence drains away like Bastian passing through the gateway to the Fountain of the Water of Life. (This is a obscure reference but it’s oh so very fitting. Here is a link to a really trippy website where you can clear up any confusion or just close your eyes and be transported straight back to the 80’s. You’re welcome!). I passed under that archway and was immediately once again the introvert who used cutting humour to hide the fact that she had zero self-esteem, and I giggled self-effacingly in response to questions, and answered, “Well, y’know, I have my 2 kids and I’m kind of a mommy-blogger…” twirling my hair like Cher in Clueless (okay, if we’re honest, I was more like Tai, pre-makeover).

Afterwards, as I exited the highway and head for home, that confidence came rushing back and I regretted the lost opportunities to reconnect as my authentic self. Even more than that, I was furious with myself for being so dismissive of my life choices when what I should have said was,

“I’m doing great! I have the two most amazing kids. I’m on a couple of boards of directors and I’ve really gotten into community theatre and music. I work from home and write a parenting blog (here’s my card!) and I’m just venturing into selling some of my handmade clothing and accessories (you should definitely check them out)! Funny, eh? It sure isn’t the path I would have imagined for myself [an undisclosed number of] years ago, but I couldn’t be happier. So what are you up to these days?”

I included 3 quotes in my graduating yearbook comment:

“Love is something if you give it away…you end up having more”

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less trodden by, And that has made all the difference.”

and “Second to the right, and straight on ’till morning.”

Full text reads: Senior- Chamber- Double Quartet- Sr. Choir 93-98, England 94 & 98. “Love is something if you give it away… you end up having more.” All my Love to my family, friends and [redacted]***. It’s been a year of beginnings, and endings, and other strange and wonderful things. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less trodden by, And that has made all the difference.” Bye [school name], it’s time to fly — Second to the right, and straight on ’till morning.

They may have been cliched****, but at the risk of sounding sappy (TOO LATE, SCREAM MY LOYAL READERS!) boy howdy, did they all prove true.

~ karyn

*Yes, I did misquote Robert Frost. I apologize. I’m as upset as you are.

**No, I did not misquote J. M. Barrie. “Star” is implied but not included.

***If there are any teenagers reading this, please take this one absolutely crucial piece of advice: I don’t care HOW much you love him/her. DO NOT mention your high school boy/girlfriend by name in your yearbook. You’ll be splitsville by Thanksgiving. I know, I know, not YOU two. You are TOTES soulmates just like R-Patz and whatshername, or Taylor Swift and One Direction, and you’re going to be together forever. Still, just to be on the safe side, leave out the name. Say, like, “My one [sparkly] true love,” or something. Just trust me on this one.

****NB: Of 112 grads I was the only Robert Frost that year compared to 3 “shoot for the moon ’cause even if you miss you’ll land among the stars”***** on one page – that was an unfortunate coincidence of alphabetical order.

*****Yes, of course I counted.

From Sulks and Sadness to Sushi and Smiles: Ben and Molly’s First Day of School

Sep4

Today was the big day – back to school for Ben and Molly!

Photo Collage: Ben on porch with Molly in background, Daddy and Ben hugs, and Molly at sushi. Caption reads “From Sulks + Sadness to Sushi + Smiles – Team Pickles is Back to School”

This summer has *figuratively* flown by. As anyone who knows me can attest, I was never cut out to be a full-time stay-at-home mom. The work-at-home/half-time school balance that I have going on with Ben and Molly works perfectly for me. Summers can throw that routine off but this summer was a really good one; we crammed in lots of fun activities but also kept up a fairly workable routine of daycamp and me trying desperately to get all my work done while also rehearsing and performing two plays (but more on that in another post).

As you may have noticed (or, you know, actually more likely not because you were also off enjoying your fantastic summers that also figuratively flew by!) I haven’t posted very much this summer, so you can look forward to some summer recap and catch-up posts over the next couple of weeks!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, Ben has a big transition this year, leaving his beloved Montessori school for Grade One French Immersion, all day, every day, and with a school bus ride to boot. Molly also has changes in store, moving up to the Casa classroom and going from four mornings a week to five. There are a few other kids at the school that Ben knows from Montessori and other places, but none in his class and none that he knows very well.

My anxiety around Ben’s new school has been through the roof – most likely because I’ve been projecting my own less than blissful elementary school experience onto him. It’s not that I have particularly horrible memories but I also don’t have particularly happy shiny ones. Mostly I remember a lot of being bored and not having any really close friends (I did have a camp best friend but she lived 4 hours away so we couldn’t do much in the way of playdates).

I vividly remember my dad bringing me to visit my senior kindergarten classroom before the beginning of the school year and forever alienating the teacher, Mrs. Lambursky, by scanning the classroom and then asking in a disgusted tone, “But where’s the Science Table???” My parents tried to make it up to her at Christmas with a lovely gift of sheep-themed oven mitts (lamb –> Lambursky –> get it? See, I come by it honestly) but it didn’t seem to do the trick.

The grade two memory that stands out most is two of us being sent to the principal’s office and interrogated and accused of stealing our seatmate’s fruit roll-up, which she later found buried in her desk. There was never any apology and the injustice still stings.

I had a love/hate relationship with grade three. One the one hand, my teacher, Miss Methven, was wonderful and kept a stash of small prizes in her desk that we could earn through academic achievement and good behaviour. One the other hand, whenever she left the room, a girl named Jerky McJerkhead* would stand on a chair and lead a popularity contest (of a sort): “Put up your hand if you hate Karyn! Everyone who hates Karyn, put up your hand!!” Not just me, of course. That would have been cruel. She had a list of favourite targets and worked her way through in rotation.

Grade four was great, in large part because I went to a new school – so I have to admit, there is something to be said for a change of scene! Twenty-four of us unsuspecting 9 year-olds were bused away to form a full-time gifted classroom across town (6 girls and 18 boys, which has always raised questions for me about gender-bias either in the gifted testing itself or parents’ decision-making around the school change). We had an amazing teacher, Mr. Keay, and were a very close-knit class. I bonded with a girl named Nicole over our mutual love of card games and we played Crazy 8’s constantly…on the bus, on the playground, in our desks until Mr. Keay figured it out and moved us across the room from each other (le sigh).

My grade 4 class picture. Can you pick me out?

After that was yet another transition, this time to the all-girls school I attended until graduation and where over time I made many very close friends and had…well…good and bad experiences, endeared myself to some staff members and alienated others, received a fine education that was probably worth every penny, and learned the most effective ways to make your kilt seem long enough and your shirt appear to be tucked in when neither actually is.

Like I said…the majority of my anxiety about Ben’s first day is wrapped up in my own experience, so I’ve been working reeeeeallly hard to keep it from impacting him.

Ben has been really excited about his new school, especially after we visited in the spring, met the principal, and had a tour. He confessed to me a few days ago, “Mommy, I’m excited about my new school, but I’m also a little nervous about meeting all those new people. Sometimes when I do something like that I get a little…shy.” I did the only thing a reasonable parent could do of course and cancelled his registration and vowed to homeschool him through to his graduate degree pulled myself together and assured him that everyone feels like that and lots of his new friends will be feeling shy too, even the ones who have been at that school who are going to a new classroom with a new teacher.

Of course, before setting foot in his new classroom, he still needed to be outfitted with school supplies. After The Conversation about backpacks, peer pressure, and bullying, Ben gave the backpack question a lot of consideration. We looked at all of his options online and in stores and in the end he went with:

Ben’s new Thomas backpack (with suitcase wheels!) and school supplies

Thomas, of course! Let it never be said that Ben is boy who doesn’t know what he wants.

He had also considered Dr. Seuss as a backpack option but we weren’t able to find it, so I offered to make him a marker roll out of Dr. Seuss fabric (let me know if you’re interested and I will post a tutorial about that). I asked him if he would like a different fabric inside where it wouldn’t show as much and he inspected my fabrics carefully and said, “Princesses. Because I like princesses, and it’s now or never.”

Ben’s fabric choices for his marker roll: Dr. Seuss on the outside, princesses on the inside.

Ian, also the veteran of many childhood moves and therefore many school transitions, planned the ultimate back-to-school day for everyone: He took the day off work, bought back-to-school gifts for the kids, booked me a pedicure (and himself a bucket of balls at the driving range), and told Ben that dinner was his choice (“PIZZA!!!!”).

The morning drop-offs started with Molly to Montessori, grumpy, but quick to cheer up when she saw her friends.

Molly and her friend Jade ham it up for the camera

Next up was Ben to his new school, where the principal made his day by recognizing him: “It’s Ben Pickles!!” but unfortunately then he was thrown off when he learned that we were supposed to drop him off outside instead of at his classroom door like he had imagined. Honestly, I’m surprised he held it together as long as he did and had expected that something would cause his calm veneer to crumble.

Sad cuddles with daddy

Daddy cuddles helped a lot but in the end it was his principal’s offer to let us go in with him that did the trick. Once we brought him in, he changed into his indoor shoes and then with a nervous smile and wave was ready to start his new life as a primary school student.

Grinning Ben on the porch ready to go with grumpy Molly in the background

After that, Ian dropped me off for 90 minutes of bliss at the spa while he hit some balls and then we headed back for Molly’s pick up time. Although the only thing she would say in response to questions about what she did was a cheerful, “I don’t know!” we gathered that she had had a good morning. Over a sushi lunch and manicures she opened up a little more, telling me that they had sung songs about “butts” that went “Poop. Poop poop poop poop.” I may have to organize a parent-teacher interview…

Molly enjoying a bowl of miso soup

Finally, the moment of truth: We returned to Ben’s school for the pick-up. We hardly recognized the cheerful, confident 6 year-old who marched out the door bursting with stories about his day. The highlights, it seems, were the special “teacher introducement” in the gym and the fact that the playground possesses not one but TWO particularly slippery fireman’s poles.

Into every life, though, a little rain must fall, and there was one sour note – When Ian asked if anyone said anything about his Thomas backpack, Ben’s response was an utterly indignant, “They took NO interest AT ALL!”

Oh well. C’est la vie.

~ karyn

*Names have been changed.

Mulch Ado About Something – Gardening post #2

Jul22

Oh my goodness…This post is very, very, very late – It’s now over halfway through July and I’m pretty sure I left it half-finished at the beginning of June. Please imagine very hard that I actually posted these next couple of paragraphs a month ago —>

Collage of pictures from post – Hanging plant, brush pile, and kids feeding goat. Caption reads “Gardening #2: Mulch Ado About SOMETHING!”

We’ve been continuing on a roll with our gardening madness. The back yard is almost totally cleared out but the bees are out in force which may *stem* from the fact that our huge privet hedge has just bloomed. The other morning I tried to edge the last of it but I got scared away by all the buzzing and just dumped a couple of bags of mulch and moved on to the front.

I tried my hand (well, foot, and shovel) at dividing my enormous hostas with limited success. I got one out, at least, and naturally couldn’t resist shouting, “HOSTA LA VISTA, BABY!” (I mean, really, who can blame me?)

After that I pruned the corkscrew hazelnut in the middle of the lawn, stopping to ask my neighbour for advice. When I get the energy later I’ll drag a bag of mulch from the back but for now I said *screw* it – this heat is *nuts*.

Corkscrew hazelnut, pruned and mulched

Then I went to town on the euanamous bushes, which have totally overgrown the front garden. My plan (Well, our plan. We’ve discussed it and it’s *euanamous*) is to cut them back drastically, disentangle them from the other hedges, give them some shape (other than, you know, “giant amorphous blob”), and mulch and plant some lower-growing flowers in front.

I discovered, to my chagrin, a huge pile of dry sticks underneath everything that on closer inspection turned out to be an entire dead euanamous bush – proof, sadly, that the gardener I was paying $50 a visit to for the last 2 years never ventured more than 6 inches into the garden. Ah well. Live and learn.

Brush pile from front garden MID-pruning. By the end it filled a small trailer.

Ben and Molly and I took an afternoon to check out the plants at our local farmers market, picking out lots of herbs (Ben and Molly are especially partial to lavender and mint), tomatoes, and hot peppers.

Plants from farmers market – experimental ground cover, herbs, tomatoes, and peppers.

No trip to that market is complete, of course, without visiting and feeding the animals there – friendly goats, geese, and chickens.

Ben and Molly feeding the goats – Molly dressed to the nines, as usual!

Ben begged for a hanging basket of flowers – “Look mommy! It has a hook, and we have hooks on the front porch! It’s perfect!” Our neighbour Walt marched over the day after we hung it with a retractable hanger – “Here, Karyn. I’ve had this squirreled waitin’ for someone to get a plant like this. Watcha do is you pull it down and lock it, water it, then send it back up.” Ben immediately declared that it is now HIS job to water it since Walt gave him the hanger just so he could reach it.

Ben’s prized hanging plant – “Look, Molly! It’s pink! Your favourite colour!”

A few days later, on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer so far, I decided to try to dig out that euanamous stump. It took me 2 hours and was the dirtiest job I’ve ever done, but boy did I ever feel like a superwoman when I finished. It’s a good think I wore gloves, don’t you think?

Dirty arm – there was dirt on my arms…in my eyes…in my teeth…in my…well, you get the picture.

I think I cemented my reputation with my neighbours, who have been watching approvingly. Ian reported when he arrived home from his 3 days away that Walt had greeted him with, “You know, that wife of yours has been out there all week working her…uh…uh…” “Tail?” “…off all week in this heat. You shoulda seen her!” Another neighbour came over one morning just to tell me how great it looked. Yay! Pat on the back for ME!

I conquered the stump!! VICTORY IS MINE!!

Once that bastard of a stump was out, we planted a cutting from the forsythia in the backyard in its place. Team Pickles has a little bit of a forsythia obsession that I can’t explain…Okay, fine…it’s my obsession. It’s just such a fun word. Forsythia. Forsythia! FORSYTHIA!!! Now imagine a 3 year-old saying it – see? Awesome. We have a car game in the spring where the first person to see a forsythia while driving yells, “FORSYTHIA!”…and then…well…uh…that’s actually it until someone else sees a forsythia and yells, “FORSYTHIA.” Oh yeah? Well, I think your car games are dumb too!

Ooohkay…moving on.

Walt was also out first thing the other morning edging the front and left me with clear instructions to “Mulch the shit out of it.”

Front garden, pruned and mulched.

Heading back to the back yard, I potted (over the course of a couple of HOT weeks) all the tomatoes, hot peppers, basil, and mint. We can’t grow tomatoes or pepper in the ground because there have been black walnut trees in the yard in the past – their roots leave a toxin that affects tomatoes and peppers for decades afterwards.

Potted plants – tomatoes, hot peppers, and basil.

Ben and Molly helped me to plant the other herbs (cilantro, lavender, and rosemary) in the garden. I even experimented with more transplanting, moving the clumps of my orange mystery flower – now identified as blanketflower – from the herb garden to other parts of the garden.

Finished herb garden – Clockwise from top left are rosemary, cilantro, sage, chives, oregano, lavender

While moving rocks around to edge the back garden, I found a huge ant colony under a flat stone and intrepid photographer Ben ran back in for the camera to document them rushing their eggs underground.

Upper left is a purple mystery flower, lower left is the overturned stone (crawling with ants), and upper middle and right you can see the uncovered tunnels and thousands of ants racing to get their eggs underground.

Finally, I planted a couple of groundcover plants in the front, and Walt assures me that all this transplanting will be fine as long as I “water the shit out of it.” I’m starting to see a theme here.

Okay, that brings us to about mid-July. I’ll try to make the next garden post come a bit sooner than this one did so stay tuned!

~ karyn

Almost finished back garden – partly mulched and edged with stone.

Back yard side garden, mulched and edged with stone.

Back yard side garden, mulched, roses and sweet pea in bloom.

Back garden, mulched and edged (once the ants were back underground). Yellow mystery flower in bloom.

How are your gardening adventures going? Do you recognize any of my mystery flowers?

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Jul18

The downside of having two very intelligent and highly verbal children is that they can and will argue you into a corner EVERY TIME. Last week Ian and I decided that it was high time we had a (somewhat) tidy house again.

Brio Peak and Brio Valley had been slowly but surely taking over the first floor. Brio Peak was very impressive, but since hitting its…uh…pinnacle around January/February, it had gone…uh…downhill, so to speak. <—- see what I did there? While it was still a spectacular installation when viewed as a whole, there were a lot of broken bits (either through accident or the frequent “bad storms” that seem to affect the geographic area of the living room). As a result, most of the living room, entranceway, and playroom was littered with pieces of wooden track, Lego, blocks, and Playmobil people and accessories.

Ben and I had had many discussions in which I had said that I was fine with Brio Valley staying out as long as the mess was kept under control – that meant that any parts that were not recognizable as built tracks had to be tidied away into boxes or cubbies – and he agreed.

When it comes to tidying up though, I have to admit I’m not a great one for follow-through – it is often easier to just do it myself than to make Ben and Molly do it. Unfortunately for all of us, this means that when I do lay down the law and try to make them do it, it’s all that much harder – and, with the aforementioned problem of intelligent and verbal children, it becomes a nightmare of:

“But I still need to play with that!!”

“But Molly was supposed to do that part!!”

“But Ben’s not helping!!”

“But Molly’s just playing!!”

“But I don’t LIKE cleaning up!!”

“I WILL help in a MINUTE”

“I DID put the scissors away – I put them away on the table so I know where they are when I need them!”

“I DID put the toys in the playroom like you said!!”

“But you NEVER SAID to put them in their CUBBY!”

“But BEN’S NOT DOING IT!!”

“But MOLLY’S NOT DOING IT!!”

“BUT I WANT TO KEEP PLAYING WITH THAT!!”

“BUT THAT IS WHERE IT BELONGS BECAUSE IT’S WHERE I WANT IT TO BELONG!!”

And so on UNTIL MOMMY’S HEAD FREAKING EXPLODES!!!

…which it did, and I had what 1-2-3 Magic calls a parental temper tantrum. I told Ben and Molly to sit down against the wall and not do anything while I finished cleaning up.

And then, because I was on a roll, I cleaned up EVERYTHING. Including Brio Valley and Brio Peak. With whispering golf sportscasters in the background:

“Ben! Mommy’s cleaning up Brio Valley!” “I know – my track-building masterpiece!” “But what are we going to do without Brio Valley?” “I don’t know!” “Is she putting it all away?” “I don’t know. I hope not!”

I did calm down, and I give myself a little pat on the back because I DIDN’T yell through this whole process, which I feel was impressive given the amount of yelling and screaming that was being directed AT me by Ben and Molly.

I think the fact that I didn’t yell helped my case quite a lot – *I* knew that it started out as a mommy tantrum, but Ben and Molly didn’t – they just saw the resulting action of me dismantling Brio Peak, and it got the message across that this was A. Big. Deal.

Photo of part of Brio Peak. Overlay reads: “Actions speak louder than words. Even really loud words.”

Ian gave them dinner, and they ate quietly and well, without as much complaining as often happens at the dinner table, and he took them up to get ready for bed while I finished the tidy and moved all the toys back to the playroom.

When I finished I joined them upstairs and then we had The Talk.

I said, “Remember when I first asked you to help tidy up and I said if you couldn’t help keep the living room tidy, you wouldn’t be allowed to play in the living room anymore? Well, you wouldn’t help tidy up, even when I gave you small jobs to do like putting away one marker and a pair of scissors, so now you can’t play in the living room.”

Ben, subdued, asked, “But can I ever have Brio Peak back?”

“Yes. We will start out by having toys only in the playroom, and if you show me that you can put them away when you’re finished playing with them, we can try having Brio Peak again. Molly, that goes for you too. What do you do at school when you’re finished with a job?”

“Put it away.”

“And what happens if you don’t put it away?”

“Can’t do that job anymore.”

“Now the same goes at home, for both of you.”

Ian: “If you finish playing with something and you don’t put it away, mommy or I will ask you to put it away. If you don’t put it away when we ask you, you will sit out AND that toy will go away for a week.”

Molly: *gasp* “A whole week??”

Ben: “What about if I want to play with something again later, like a train track?”

Me: “If it is built, and you ask permission, it can stay out. But pieces of track or blocks that aren’t built have to go away.”

Ben: “How will I know if it has to go away?”

Ian: “You tidy up what you think needs to go away, then ask us if that’s okay, and we’ll either say yes or tell you what else has to go away.”

Me: “We will try this for a little while, and if it goes well, you can build Brio Peak again – BUT it has to be kept tidy, so when you build it, you can bring your track drawers into the living room, and take the track pieces that you’re using out, and the ones that you aren’t using yet stay in the drawer, not all over the floor. Got it?”

Ben and Molly: “Got it.”

So we’ll see how it all goes. I know that for Ian and me it will be an effort to enforce the new rules rather than let it slide and pick things up themselves. I just went into the playroom and stopped myself as I bent down to pick up a train on the floor – when Ben gets home from daycamp, I’ll start by asking him to put it away and we’ll go from there.

I am a little frustrated with myself that it started as a mommy tantrum, but I’m happy with the way it turned out. Ian and I are both comfortable with my decision to dismantle Brio Peak and would have made the same decision had we taken the time to discuss it calmly and weigh the options – it seems like that actual ACTION was necessary to derail (so to speak) Ben and Molly’s knee-jerk objections to tidying up and stun them into silence long enough to actually reflect on the situation.

And I’m proud of myself for not screaming, which used to be MY knee-jerk (and not nearly as effective or productive) reaction to achieve that same stunned silence. Actions speak louder than words, even really, really loud words.

~ karyn

How do you get your kids to tidy up? What are your rules about toys? Have you had a parental temper tantrum? How did you come back from it?

I’ve been bitten (and stung) by the gardening bug!

Jun12

One of the first things that attracted us to our house was the amazing perennial garden – carefully planted to bloom all season and attract butterflies and hummingbirds and complete with pond, waterfall, and koi. I had a sort of naive belief that such an amazing garden would inspire me to become some sort of earth-mama tree-hugging wood-nymph magically endowed with the body of Gwyneth Paltrow, the fashion sense of Nicole Richie, and the horticultural knowledge of Luther Burbank.

I very quickly discovered that this was not the case and my naive belief switched over to, “No worries – these sorts of things take care of themselves, right?”

Not so very much.

Two years later, with the koi dead and my garden replaced by a waving 3-foot tall sea of something I learned was called “goutweed,” I despaired and called for help, hiring a gardener to dig everything out and restart. She has been maintaining the garden for me for the last couple of years, but this year Ian and I have decided to take a leap of faith and go at it ourselves (with lots of advice and guidance from my neighbours and my fabulous sister-in-law Mel).

This plan has been somewhat complicated by poor Ian’s debilitating hay fever, which seems to be experiencing its worst year ever! The last couple of weeks have seen him sneezing non-stop even when dosed up on antihistamines, but it seems to be settling down now. He has been soldiering on though and we can happily report major progress over the last weekend!

Here’s the situation as it stands:

The Garden

We have a fully planted perennial garden – lots of green stuff, lots of flowering stuff, lots of bulbs and shrubs.

Crowded garden – Pretty flowers, but way too many!

With all the lovely rain we’ve been having, EVERYTHING is growing and and spreading like crazy so the plants are encroaching on each other and there are no pathways to get through any of it to weed.

Plants all vying for space – lilies, blue mystery plant, and sweet pea.

Where the pond used to be is now a bog garden (layers of rock and gravel under the soil to keep it moist for water-loving plants but without standing water on the surface for mosquitoes to bred). The goutweed was never fully eradicated – it’s still in our neighbours’ yards and spreads by its root system under the fences.

Overgrown garden – clumps of lily, euonymus, clematis, and iris. The goutweed is poking through the fence into the grass on the right.

There is a section at one side of the garden that I tried growing vegetables in 2 years ago but didn’t plant last year that is now overgrown with weeds (plus a few clumps of an identified plant that my neighbour didn’t recognize but said I should keep).

The Plan

Thin everything out so there is space between plants, mulch EVERYWHERE, and edge with stones. Take out some of the repetition and experiment with new plants, especially hummingbird and butterfly-attracting plants. Plant my potted kitchen herbs in the bare (former vegetable patch) section. Prune back shrubs. Learn how to maintain everything (when and how to prune what) and weed regularly. Teach Ben and Molly to help out (if I’m not paying them, it’s not child labour, just character-building, right?).

Progress Report

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve pulled out all the weeds along the fence and taught Ben and Molly to recognize the goutweed and pull it if they see it (“See these leaves? These are yucky! If you see them, pull them out right from the bottom of the stem and say, ‘Get out of our garden, yucky plant!!'”). On Saturday Ian bought 20 bags of mulch and we spent the afternoon weeding, edging, laying stones, pruning shrubs, and transplanting the herbs, and put down one bag of mulch in the back corner. I also transplanted a random patch of wild strawberry from the middle of the lawn to what I’ll now start calling the kitchen garden. Sunday afternoon we were back at it again but my efforts were cut short by an event that can only be described in rhyme:

There once was a pretty young lass,
Who was gardening up like a boss,
When a bumblebee thought
She had disturbed his spot
And stung her right up on her upper upper thigh.

After that I took a little break to nurse my injured…dignity.*

In progress – the kitchen garden has been weeded and edged with stones and my potted herbs planted – lavender, chives, and oregano. The little green patch in the middle is the wild strawberry tranplanted from the lawn.

This section is in progress – I haven’t decided whether or not to mulch the kitchen garden (left side). My rhubarb is in the centre and the bog garden to the right.

Despite the fact that it has been a literal pain in the rear-end, I am starting to feel the earth-mama vibe… I have found, weirdly enough, that I’m more comfortable barefoot while I’m gardening than wearing shoes, though I have to wear gloves because I hate getting my hands dirty and the bugs freak me right out. Yes, the irony has been pointed out to me. I’m also starting to get excited not only about the prospect of finishing what I’ve got but also about experimenting with new plants and sharing the ones I’m digging out.

Now I’m just waiting on that Gwyneth body…

This is the first finished section! Dappled willow and forsythia bushes pruned and everything weeded and mulched. I may pull out the clump of whatever that is beside the fence (there is more of it in the bog garden on the other side of the shrubs).

Comment time: Gardening aficionados, help!!

Can you identify any of these mystery plants for me?

Mystery Plant #1 – fuzzy leaves, flowers starting but no discernible colour yet. This is the one that appeared and my neighbour said to keep.

Mystery Plant #2 – spiky stem, water pools at the base of leaves. Growing in the middle of the bog garden, so water-loving. About 2.5 feet tall and there is only one.

Mystery Plant #3 – Feathery leaves, flowers starting but no discernible colour. Sort of daisy-like.

Mystery Plant #4 – These are in clumps all over. The honeybees and black ants love them.

Do you have any ideas for other plants for me to try out – butterfly- or hummingbird-attracting, pretty, interesting? What are your favourites?

*I have since observed (and confirmed via my old friend Google), that bumblebees nest in the ground. Who knew? (Don’t answer that. It was rhetorical.) It seems that when I moved away from the clump of plants she was buzzing around, I wound up standing right on her house. Anyone know of a non-lethal way to get rid of an underground bumblebee nest in your garden?

Other parents’ judgement? That’s the leash-t of my worries.

Jun6

I love Today’s Parent. I don’t always agree with everything in it, but it’s always a good read, and gosh-dang-it, y’all know I’m a sucker for any kind of child development material!

The topic of this month’s “Debate” column is “Should you use a leash to control your toddler?” and I felt it missed the mark. I was frankly offended by Nadine Silverthorne’s assertion that “parents who use leashes look lazy,” and although Amy Morrison’s “Yes” column made a great case for leashes, I was saddened by the caveat that she never actually used one herself due to fear of judgement – a fear that was clearly justified!

Since Today’s Parent hasn’t been able to find anyone willing to admit to actually using a toddler leash, I feel compelled (anyone surprised by that?) to add my own two cents!

Although I use the term “toddler leash” facetiously among friends, it is not at all the same as an animal leash. There is no “obedience training” involved and it is not a punitive device used to jerk back a disobedient pet to ensure compliance born out of fear of a repeat performance. A toddler “leash” or harness is a safety device that allows your child the freedom of walking a few steps away from you while giving you the means to respond effectively to any unexpected danger.

Toddlers value independence above all else. The “Terrible Twos” exist because it is around that age that children first learn to do for themselves, at their own pace, and heaven help the parent who says, “Just let me do it for you!” Is it really fair to strap your fearless little explorer into a 5-point stroller harness just because he or she is too dazzled by the wonderful world around him or her to stop dead every time you shout, “Freeze!”?

Going back to the statement that toddler leash-toting parents “look lazy,” I asked my own mother, who, as a full-time doctor and mother of 3 in the 1980’s is the least lazy person I know (Case in point: She recently returned to work on crutches 9 days after breaking her hip in a skiing accident), what she thinks of parents who use toddler leashes. She responded dryly, “Karyn, if I hadn’t used a toddler leash, your brother Chris wouldn’t be around today.”

When Ben was a toddler, I kept his lightweight harness in my diaper bag, ready to throw on him any time the situation warranted. If I was going to be wandering the Eaton’s Centre or downtown Toronto, or taking a trip to a train station or waterfront with a 2 year-old, you bet your bippy I’d have that leash at the ready!

Ben, on leash, walking by a river in Germany.
©PicklesINK 2013

It was the best option for both of us – Ben was free to explore without being stuck in the stroller or having his hand held (just take a minute to imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have someone much taller than you holding your hand up above your head until it falls asleep, gripping it hard enough that you can’t pull away) and I had the security of knowing that I could stop him if he suddenly bolted towards a hazard.

And Ben, off leash!
©PicklesINK 2013

There are certain situations in which even the most anti-leash parent would be unlikely to argue that a safety harness isn’t a good idea:

Ben on a sailboat with a lifejacket and safety harness.
©PicklesINK 2013

(For the record, the harness Ben is wearing in the preceding photograph is actually an adult boating harness intended for sailboat racing – safety devices ain’t just for toddlers, y’know.)

And how about in the case of special needs children? If you don’t think that’s appropriate, take a minute to walk a mile in some other parents’ shoes by reading the testimonials on this website from users of special needs child-to-adult harnesses. Or take it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak:

I’ve got the best harness in the world. When I first got it I didn’t like wearing it, but now I love my harness. I never get lost and I don’t have to keep holding hands all the time and its comfortable to wear. Big kids and little kids should wear a harness because you are never too old to be kept safe. And I love the colours.

– Tyler, Australia, Age 9, http://www.childharness.ca/testimonials.html

There are important guidelines to follow when using a toddler harness:

1. The whole idea is to give your child the freedom to explore on his or her own terms, so try to follow at his or her pace and guide your child with your words (“Time to go this way! Come on!”). Your child is not a puppy, and the harness is not an choke-chain, so do not jerk him or her back to you.

2. If you aren’t holding the harness, tuck it firmly out of the way, and take it off completely if your child is playing on something like a climber or slide where it could become a strangulation hazard.

3. When it comes to wrist straps, just don’t: If you can manage to get them tight enough to stay on, they’re just a broken wrist waiting to happen.

4. And of course, make sure that you come prepared with pithy rejoinders for those inevitable judgments, such as,

“Well, the breeder suggested that we try this first, but if his behaviour doesn’t improve soon, it’s off to obedience school!”

“Dear God! You’re right! This isn’t my dachshund Olympus – it’s my neighbour’s kid! I can’t believe I did it AGAIN!”

Or the classic, “You know what they say about people in glass houses.”

As Nadine Silverthorne points out, it is our job as parents to teach our children “the rules,” including the expectation that when we say “Freeze,” they will. I say that even more importantly, it is our job to know our own children and to keep them safe whether they are listening or not. The call-and-response method that she describes is an excellent training tool, but at the toddler age it is simply not foolproof. There is always potential for distraction, and the use of a toddler leash can ensure that a moment’s impulsiveness doesn’t turn into a life-altering tragedy.

~ karyn (aka that horrible, lazy, toddler-leash-using mom everybody love to judge!)

To My Favourite Ben-Magoo on Your 6th Birthday

May3

Oh, my Ben-Magoo…what can I say? You have been full of surprises literally* since the day you were born! I can’t post a pregnant belly picture of you because I don’t have any. I was so busy with school and daddy with his new job that we hadn’t gotten around to taking an artsy belly picture when you decided to make your surprise appearance at only 33 1/2 weeks.

You got it in your teeny head that you were ready to be born and there was no stopping you! I was scared at the time but I should have known you had it all under control. They told us that preemies usually have breathing problems – not you! They told us that preemies usually stay in the hospital until their due date – but you made sure you were home in time for my first Mothers’ Day!

Have I told you before how smart you are? I know all moms think “My kid is so smart!” but my Magoo, your intellect continues to astound me. I haven’t been able to win an argument with you since…well, since you learned to talk…and ever since you started moving around you’ve been building and creating amazing structures – first “simple” towers and now extensive multi-level train tracks like Brio Peak.

You have what your Uncle Chris calls “the knack,” and not only that, you have the single-minded drive, when you come up with an idea, to keep working at it until you see it through. You can get frustrated when things don’t go the way you envisioned though, so don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective or a second pair of hands to finish the job, and asking for help is just a way of effectively problem-solving.

You are so kind and loving, my Magoo. We had a bit of a rough patch there for a while after Molly was born. There were times when I got really frustrated yelled too much, and I know that I hurt your feelings and made you sad sometimes, and you still loved me more than anything. But just like I said, asking for help is a way of problem-solving, and knowing how much you loved me gave me the strength to do that. Do you know what else? Me being able to talk about that hard time has given lots of other people the courage to do the same thing, and that’s all thanks to you!

I bet you didn’t know this, Magoo, but there are some kids who are unhappy or mad when a new baby comes home because they have to share their mommies or daddies. I don’t think that ever even crossed your mind, though, because you have loved Molly more than anything since the moment you first saw her.

I don’t know if I’ve seen you so sad as the day I told you you couldn’t marry her because she’s your sister! And boy, does she ever look up to you. She thinks that you are just the coolest person ever, and I think she believes you could do absolutely anything.

I know that now that’s she’s getting older there are times when she gets on your nerves, but even when you two fight you work it out together and go right back to being best friends. I hope you two keep on appreciating and loving each other as much as you do now, even when you grow up.

Ben-Magoo, one of the most wonderful things about you is your integrity. I will never, ever forget when you knocked over a pile of socks that Molly had folded, and I said, “Don’t tell Molly you knocked those over because she’ll be sad.” She overheard me and said, “Did Ben knock over my socks?” and I said, “No, monkey, I put them in the laundry basket.” You leaped up and said, “Oh Molly, I did knock them over! I’m so sorry! It was an accident. I’m really, really sorry,” and Molly said, “That’s okay, Ben.”

Then you looked me in the eye and said, “Mommy, you shouldn’t have told that lie.” You know what, Bud? You were absolutely right. It it always better to take responsibility for your actions and face the consequences then to tell a lie to get out of trouble, and you were right to remind me of that.

We had something sad happen in our family this year, didn’t we, Bud? Our Papa, your great-grandfather, died. You were so very special to Papa because you were his very first great-grandchild. The first time he held you in the hospital, he looked at me, his face aglow, and said, “Can you believe that I actually have a great-grandson?

Papa was very special to you, too. It must have been hard wrapping your head around the fact that you were never going to see him again, but you thought about it asked the questions that you needed to to understand, and sometimes I think that you understand better than us grown-ups – Like when you said, “Chris and Caitie are sad because Papa isn’t going to be at their wedding. But really he is going to be there with us, isn’t he?” and when at Christmas you said, “This Christmas our family just isn’t the same, is it, because Papa died.”

You also have real gift for creativity, Magoo. You and daddy share a special bond with your love of photography. (I know, I know, you don’t have that camera any more. You figured out pretty quickly that kid cameras just couldn’t capture the shots that you wanted and you took over mommy’s!)

You and daddy definitely share that photographer’s eye. I don’t think there are many people who could guess which of you took which of these pictures!

(Your artistic shots are great, of course, but my favourites are your self-portraits!)

And your creativity and ambition don’t stop with just photography. How many other just-turned-6-year-olds can say that they are published authors?

So, my favourite Ben-Magoo, keep on being your super-cool self, just like you have been from the day you were born, even if people tell you it’s wrong. (Except mommy. If mommy tells you you’re doing something wrong, you’d better listen. Because I’m mommy, that’s why.)

Happy 6th Birthday, our favourite guy!

~ Love, Mommy, Daddy, and Molly

Team Pickles self-portrait. Can someone explain why 3 of us look goofy while Molly photo-bombs the shot with utter adorableness?
©PicklesINK 2013

*and y’all know I don’t use that word lightly.

10 Ways to Save the Planet

Apr22

As parents, we can all relate to Kermit – It’s Not Easy Being Green. We are constantly bombarded with “BUY BUY BUY” messages — You need to get the latest toys! You need to get the DVD as soon as it comes out! Look, this one is EDUCATIONAL! Second child a boy? Well, that pink corn-popper ain’t going to cut it – better pick up a gender-neutral one!

Fisher-Price Corn Popper toy – pink
Photo: http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=2688007

And don’t forget to buy NEW CLOTHES NEW WASHCLOTHS NEW RECEIVING BLANKETS NEW SHEETS SOPHIE THE GIRAFFE NEWBORN BABY SHOES AT LEAST 5 PAIRS THE LATEST NURSERY MONITOR TECHNOLOGY AND YOU DEFINITELY NEED THAT WIPES-WARMER BECAUSE THERE’S JUST NOTHING WORSE THAN THE FEELING OF A ROOM-TEMPERATURE WIPE ON YOUR BUM CHEEKS.

Ever since my kids memorized The Lorax I’ve gotten much more in touch with my inner tree-hugger, so in celebration of Earth Day I’ve put together a list of 10 ways that Team Pickles tries to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

"I yam the Yorax! I 'peak for the fwees!" ©PicklesINK 2012

When it comes to the 3 R’s of living green, REDUCE should always be at the top of the list. We try as much as possible not to consume too much. I try to always shop with a list — if it’s not on the list, we probably don’t need it, and if I can resist the impulse to buy it right then, I probably won’t miss it!
I try to buy things used as much as I can – partly because I’m CHEAP and partly because it’s more environmentally friendly. Second-hand stores are GREAT sources of books, toys, and clothes for kids and adults. Most sports stores have swap programs which can reduce your costs when it comes to getting your kids involved in expensive sports like skiing or hockey. The exception of course is safety equipment like helmets and carseats, which it is best to buy new or receive used from a source you trust.
Make use of hand-me-downs if you are lucky enough to have friends or family members with kids older than yours, and pay it forward (or back to them) when your kids outgrow the items. For a lot of big-ticket baby items, such as crib mattresses and particle-board furniture, used can actually be healthier than new because they will have finished off-gassing their chemicals into your home’s air.
Buy local! You don’t have to follow a strict 100-mile diet, but as much as you can, buy local and in-season to reduce your carbon footprint and support your neighbours and your local economy. I try to plan meals around what is in season and to shop at my local farm stands and farmer’s markets.
REUSE containers, and use reusable containers — my kids go through A LOT of yoghurt, and I use the empty tubs to freeze things like soups, wine (for cooking! Not winesicles! I swear! Although as ideas go…hmmm), and cooking stock. And if you have the choice, store things in washable containers instead of disposable bags.
Think outside the (craft) box — before you recycle cards or paper, think about whether they might be still be useful. I keep pretty paper scraps, Valentine’s cards, post-cards, etc. in a Ziploc bag in Ben and Molly’s craft cubby for their “cutting and gluing” projects. The scraps can also find new life as grocery lists or even the rough notes for a blog post!
Rough draft of this post on remnants of a Ben and Molly art project.
©PicklesINK 2013
Be prepared when it comes to food and travel — I toss snacks and water bottles in my bag for the kids if we’re going to be out for an uncertain amount of time. Apples and bananas are grab and go (and come in their own handy packaging); bagels with cream cheese and plain waffles are easy-to-prepare favourites of my kids as well; and bite-sized crackers and cereal, on their own or in a mix, make great car snacks. (And I’m sure it goes without saying, but of course packaged in reusable containers rather than baggies.) This avoids those grouchy hungry kid meltdowns and saves you money!
REUSE gift bags. Having kids generally means working the birthday party circuit pretty heavily, and I think the same gift bags have been making the birthday party rounds through Ben’s group of friends since they were all born (the friends, not the bags)! Let’s just say I’m pretty sure Ben got a gift last year in a bag that we gave a gift in the year before, and it NOT to the same friend. Now that’s recycling!
On the subject of birthdays, get your kids to make their own birthday cards for their friends (or, in a pinch, use their already made artwork to make a card). It’s fun, inexpensive, green, and personalized. These are two of the cards Molly got for her birthday – Hallmark’s got nothing on these two!
Molly’s handmade birthday cards
©PicklesINK 2013
Instill these values in your kids as early as you can. Instead of just saying “No!” to buying that toy at Walmart, explain WHY – because they have so many toys already or because we might find it used at another store without all that plastic packaging that will just go in the garbage. Explain that you are having asparagus for dinner because it is in season, which means it’s growing fresh at the farm right down the road instead of being shipped on a big truck across the country using up fuel and making smog. Have them help you pack up the clothes and toys that they have outgrown and talk about how exciting it is that someone else is going to be able to use them now.

If you get your kids involved and invested early, you’ll soon find that they’re the ones keeping on top of you when it comes to saving the planet!

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

~ karyn

How do you reduce your carbon footprint? If you have kids, do you find it easier or harder since having them?

The Tao of Time-Out

Apr15

The other morning I watched as a parent cornered one of Molly’s teachers and asked, “So do you subscribe to that whole ‘time-out’ philosophy?” and she struggled to answer in a way that satisfied – not because one was wrong and the other was right, but because it often seems like when two people talk about “time-out” they might as well be speaking two completely different languages.

I don’t know when exactly “time-out” got such a bad rap, but I think a big part of the problem is that 99 percent of people who do “time-out” don’t do it right and 99 percent of people who don’t do it have only ever seen it done wrong. Most people who don’t believe in “that whole ‘time-out’ philosophy” have tried it out at some point – you know, the old,

“If you don’t stop that right now I’m putting you in time-out! DID YOU HEAR ME? That’s ONE! If I have to come over there, I’m going to…THAT’S TWO! I MEAN IT! DON’T MAKE ME GET TO THREE! I’m not kidding around! You are going in TIME-OUT, MISTER!! I TOLD YOU TO STOP! OKAY, THAT’S IT!! THREE!!! YOU GO AND SIT ON THAT TIME-OUT STEP RIGHT NOW!! You’re sitting there for five minutes because you didn’t…HEY, GET BACK ON THAT STEP! I TOLD YOU TO SIT DOWN! NOW THAT’S 10 MINUTES!! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO SIT THERE!! NO TALKING!! DON’T MAKE FACES AT YOUR SISTER!! GET BACK ON THAT STEP RIGHT NOW! NOW YOU CAN SIT THERE FOR 10 MORE MINUTES!”

– and found that for some reason it didn’t work. We’ve all been there. The key to time-out is no different from any other discipline technique: Discipline techniques that work are those that are calm and consistent. Even spanking will be effective if it’s done within those parameters. I take issue philosophically with teaching children not to hit by hitting, but as long you consistently follow through, it will certainly change the behaviour that you want it to change.

1-2-3 Magic devotes an entire chapter to the false notion or “wish” (which I think is a really interesting way of looking at it) that is behind why most discipline attempts that don’t work: The Little Adult Assumption.

The Little Adult Assumption is the belief that kids have hearts of gold and that they are basically reasonable and unselfish. they’re just smaller versions of grownups, in other words. and because they are little adults, this notion goes, whenever the youngsters are misbehaving or not cooperating, the problem must be that they don’t have enough information at their disposal to be able to do the right thing.

Imagine, for example, that your eight-year-old son is torturing his little sister for the fifteenth time since they got home from school. What should you do? If your boy is a little adult, you simply sit him down, calmly look him in the eye, and explain to him the three golden reasons why he shouldn’t tease his sister. First of all, teasing hurts her. Second, it makes you mad at him. Third — and most important — how would he feel if someone treated him like that?

Your son looks you in the eye, his face brightening with insight, and he says, “Gee, I never looked at it like that before!” Then he stops bothering his sister for the rest of his life. (1-2-3 Magic, pp. 15-16)

Even well into adolescence and young adulthood, our brains are still developing and changing. Children are simply not capable of understanding or thinking rationally at the same level as adults. Part of our job as parents is give your children a safe space in which to express their feelings and opinions, but another very important part of our job is to teach our children how to act appropriately – “I understand that you are very angry, but it is not okay to throw your toys, and there are consequences to that choice.”

The parent talking to Molly’s teacher said, “We do a lot of getting down to their level and talking to them.” 1-2-3 Magic explains that while one explanation can be appropriate – it could be that your child really did not have the necessary information to act appropriate – it’s attempts at repeated explanations that can lead to trouble, adding, interestingly, “too much parent talking irritates and distracts children” (p. 17). I can certainly see that – if I’m already feeling overwhelmed by a situation and consequently acting out, the last thing I need is for someone to get right in my face and talk at me! The teacher replied, “We use a lot of redirection, but then if we have to we remove the child from the situation.” Well, ladies and gentleman, in accepting this explanation that parent may not have realized it, but what that teacher described was…drum-roll please…a time-out!

I absolutely subscribe to “that whole ‘time-out’ philosophy.” It is one of the most important discipline tools I have as a parent. In a recent blog post, Alyson Schafer noted that the word “discipline” is derived from “disciple,” meaning to teach or guide. I see time-out as a tool for teaching as well as an important skill for my children to learn, and in fact part of that involves them seeing ME taking a time-out when I need to.

As I mentioned before, the two keys to effective discipline are consistency and calmness: Firstly, in order for any discipline technique to effect a change in behaviour, it must be consistent. This means that if you say, “If you don’t do/stop doing X, I am going to Y,” and the child doesn’t do/stop doing X, you HAVE TO do Y. If you don’t do Y EVERY SINGLE TIME, your child will actually not do/not stop doing X even MORE OFTEN than if you never did Y at all. In operant conditioning, this is called a variable-ratio reinforcement schedule. In fairness to anti-time-out parent, as long as he/she is consistently “getting down to his level and talking” EVERY SINGLE TIME it will also eventually work to change the child’s behaviour – the only danger is that if the child interprets this as positive attention, it is possible that the change may not be the one the parent intends.

Second, in order for any discipline technique to work the way you want it to, it must be calm. 1-2-3 Magic calls the use of too much (negative) emotion in trying to discipline a “parental temper tantrum.” When you let your emotions get the better of you while trying to discipline, several things happen: a. You show your child that he or she has the power to cause you to lose control; b. You upset and frighten your child; and c. You probably aren’t applying your chosen discipline technique consistently.

It’s the combination of parental loss of emotional control (temper tantrum) and lack of consistency that derails most attempts at “that whole time-out philosophy.” Remember that whole, “I’m telling you, IF I GET TO THREE YOU ARE GETTING A TIME-OUT, MISTER!!”?

My goal in using time-outs is to teach my children that there are times in life when you become overwhelmed by a situation or by your surroundings, and a way to deal with that instead of “having a freak-out” is to briefly step away from the situation, calm yourself down and gather your thoughts, and then return. At this age, most of time I have to tell them when that time has come – “Molly, there is no yelling and throwing. You are going to sit out on the stair for 3 minutes because you yelled and threw your toys,” or “Ben, you need to calm down. You can go and take a time out in your room and look at books until you’re ready to stop yelling and whining,” – but my hope is that they start to recognize these times for themselves.

Just think how much simpler life would be if it were socially acceptable for us adults to say, “Could you excuse me? I’m going to take a moment to gather my thoughts.”

~ karyn

Giving myself a pat on the back

Mar26

This morning was rough. Ben and Molly clearly woke up on the wrong side of their beds and everything I asked of them was met with ~~flailing, screaming hysterics~~ resistance. Now a year ago, thanks to a mild but chronic chemical imbalance in my brain commonly known as “dysthemia” or chronic depression, I would have been all:

But this morning, with the aforementioned chemical imbalance under control, a good night’s sleep under my belt, and my Supernanny and 1-2-3 Magic inspired parenting toolkit in hand, I was all:

So when I told Ben that he couldn’t have his usual morning cereal bar because I was ready to give him his actual breakfast and he screamed, yelled, and hit the table with his hand, I led him to the time-out step and calmly explained that he was sitting out because he had yelled and hit and needed to calm down.

And when I told Molly to go to the bathroom before she finished getting dressed and she refused and collapsed to the floor crying, I told her that if she didn’t go pee before I counted to 3, I would NOT take her underpants off Ben’s head and give them back to her.

Thinking back over the morning routine, of the about 40 minutes of actual routine parts — feeding breakfast, doing bathroom stuff, getting kids dressed and out the door — probably 3/4 of it was spent with one or both of Ben and Molly yelling or crying (NB – I think an early night is in order tonight). But amazingly, in that time I didn’t cry or raise my voice, and what’s even more amazing is I didn’t FEEL LIKE crying or raising my voice.

And the end result was that by the time we were ready to go, Ben and Molly were all: