January, 2010

burning rubber, originally uploaded by fubuki.

It seems like it’s been awhile since I’ve written about Eliza. Probably because she’s been healthy since Christmas. When Eliza is healthy, she’s Eliza – fun, easy-going, into everything, bright, little Eliza.

However, Eliza is a force. A very powerful force. We are not used to this and although at first I wasn’t sure if our quiet house was able to adjust to this pint sized tornado, it has become more and more amusing each week.

Well, not amusing when she wrote in permanent ink all over one of our Swedish (not IKEA), 1960′s dining room chair. Not amusing when she holds up her glass, looks at me, says “No!” and then proceeds to pour it all over the table. Not amusing when she wakes up in the middle of the night not to drink milk, not to be cuddled, not because she’s in pain, cold, scared… but because she wants to talk to you and dammit, you must answer back (as I lay on the floor, mumbling, “Please stop talking, please go to sleep, please… Mommy needs to…zzzzzzzzzzzz”
“WAKE UP, MOMMY!”

Sorry, wasn’t I saying that she was a bright, shining star?
Of course, I was.

The little darling.

Aside from the glaringly obvious statement that my two children are total opposites, we are really and truly experiencing another being in this house. Someone told me less than a month after Eliza was born that I was lucky to have my second child a girl because they were so much easier as toddlers. As well, by the time they reached the age of a teenager, I would be a practiced mother with Franklin.

And to that I say, “HA!”
“HA!”

We are in the full swing of The Terrible Two’s over here and she doesn’t turn two for another bloody month.

I know what this is. This is fate. This is karma. I tried my best not to be a judgmental mother when Franklin was little but when your first born is a gentle little lamb that prefers to quietly run his trains over his track than run away from you eating play dough, you tend to think you might have some degree of parenting skill. Not so.

My friend Hayley has a spirited child. I think he’s probably one of the cutest, most loving characters I’ll ever meet. I love him to bits but when he was young, he tortured Franklin. He (God forbid!) purposely placed a giraffe on Franklin’s train track – over and over and over again. He Upset The Balance Of the Trains. It was horrifying to a 3 year old Franklin who only wanted everything to be correctly ordered. I couldn’t understand why a child would want to do this to another child.

Now I see it happen all the time.
And I see the glee…

I also get to experience the limp noodle of protest, the scream of torture in public, the demand of particular outfits/juice containers/method of helmet fastening. I have been put in my place. By my not quite two year old girl.

Dickson and I talked about this tonight and I think my memory of Franklin may possibility be a little more rosy than actual fact. Franklin was our world and I was determined not to spoil him. However, he was also our world and I catered to his every need before he even anticipated it. He was never tired or hungry in the store. He was on a very consistent schedule. He was never left to his own devices unsupervised for longer than 30 seconds. He also always knew the drill and I never wavered from my decisions.

All of those things are recipes in disaster for a toddler if done only half-assed. That said, hind-sight is always twenty twenty and no one taught Eliza the wet noodle of protest but us. For instance, who let her ride her tricycle to school today and then had to suffer through an excruciating wander up the hill after dropping off Franklin because “someone” felt like walking? Me. I can’t get mad at Eliza for this behaviour. It’s all me and my seemingly weak spine when it comes to this kid.

But this chaos we are living? The one with occasional over-tiredness, compromising schedules and opportunities for sneaky destruction? The one that seems to choose fewer and fewer battles to fight? This chaos is merely a fact around here these days and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t really want it to change back to our ordered existence for anything.

A Varied Lawn, originally uploaded by ZhivanaDesigns.

`I would allege to you that the ultimate pollution is pollution that affects the cognitive ability of future generations.´
- Dr. David Carpenter

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There’s a lot of “meh” that goes around these days. I think much of it stems from the overwhelming barrage of information thrown our way as a parent – research about immunizations, vaccinations, allergies to peanuts, floride toothpaste, organic food, formula, breastmilk, ADD, ADHD, capital versus small letters of the alphabet, PVC, and Phathalate in raingear…oy, the list goes on and on.

I think it’s basic survival “meh”. I think there is only so much we can take before we give up with the pathetic, “My parent’s fed me Chef Boyardee everyday and I’ve turned out just fine” excuse. Of course, if you take a step back and take a look at us, we aren’t “just fine”, are we? Rates of cancer are increasing (and not just with our baby boomer parents), allergies and sensitivity to nuts are everywhere (we can’t always blame the over-protective mothers), the amount of children with ADHD is higher than every before (it can’t all be chalked up to more accurate diagnoses). When do we stop and wonder if what we did as children was actually healthy? When do we finally admit that the adage “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” is actually quite inaccurate in that it only makes you die… slower?

I’m a doomsday kinda person. I’m sure you’ve realized this. David Suzuki and Micheal Ruppert are not doom-and-gloomers in my eyes. Instead they are loraxes and how-to-manuals. I eat their stuff up. Suzuki take less chewing on, mind you, but I’m a firm believer that things are happening to the general population not because we don’t care but because there is a business out there to make sure we can’t absorb the information in order to make an informed decision.

Thus, the “meh”.
It’s the equivalent to the white flag of surrender.

Sometimes this “meh” is a survival tactic. We can’t always know what to do. Even the experts are fed erroneous information. Facts change. We interpret with the only history we own and often we can’t see the forest through the trees.
Sometimes it’s too difficult a battle. We see the problems and we can only shake our collective heads and worry about the world we’ve brought our children into. Will they survive this? Can we change it before it’s too late?

Many times I sit myself down in front of this computer and research issues until the wee hours of the morning. Then I go to bed feeling defeated. Sure, I can make sure my children wear PVC free rain gear and eat organic food. I’ll also charge through breastfeeding and immunize for all those forgotten diseases. I’ll even teach my children about where their food comes from and the importance of recycling. Nevertheless, there are things that no matter how many safe choices I make and how much information I give them, they will be in danger.

But right now! Right now we have an amazing opportunity. We can read, become informed and then act on an issue that we would normally have very little control over. These times don’t come all that often!

Last Thursday I went to a screening of the documentary, A Chemical Reaction.

The reason why the documentary is so important is not only because the issue is vital to the health of our world, most especially to our children, but because the BC government is considering “new statutory protections to further safeguard our environment from cosmetic chemical pesticides.” Canada’s two largest provinces, Quebec and Ontario, have already banned the use and sale of many landscaping pesticides. This is our chance to be heard – but we have only until February 15th, 2010 to tell them!

Read about how pesticides can be associated with serious illnesses, including cancer, damage to the immune system, and neurological problems. Children and pets are particularly vulnerable.

David Suzuki Foundation

The Canadian Cancer Society

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

Toxic Free Canada

The New War on Cancer: Against All Causes – Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD

A Silent Pandemic: Industrial Chemicals Are Impairing The Brain Development Of Children Worldwide – chemicals in some pesticides may be linked to lower intelligence, behavioural disorders, autism, ADHD and asthma in children, even in low-dose exposures.

Please send an email to the BC government to tell them how you feel. You can bet that there are corporations, the same ones who are suing Ontario and Quebec for breach of NAFTA due their provincial bans, who will make their voices (and money) heard.

Do it for our children.
Do it for June, my hero.

Blast-Off! No.I, originally uploaded by Devpow.

A little while ago, Franklin and I were trying to decide what he would do as his science project this year. Last year he and Dickson presented on the science of air pressure by threatening to dump a glass of water on Dickson’s head. It was fun. His class got a kick out of Dickson’s facial expressions. I also got a sense of how wonderful Dickson was a teacher. He’s pretty mesmerizing in front of a group of kids.

Or perhaps that’s just me.
But I don’t think so.
(and I’m willing to bet Mom Kent believes the same)

But I digress…

Franklin is getting into science more and more. He comes home explaining the different states of matter with jumping enthusiasm – as in acting out what heated molecules act like all over the place. This year, in keeping with the obsession with everything Star Wars, he wants to examine the science of jet packs – as in Boba and Jango Fett.

Because why not, right?
Here’s to a 7 year’ old’s refusal to be bound by the limits of reality and his parent’s Humanities degree.

So the science of propellants…

We watched this:

and looked into the science of Hydrogen peroxide decomposition using a catalyst like Manganese dioxide. Much like this:

Now, he had a hard time understanding that this could become forceful enough to be used in a jet pack so we watched this with a higher concentration of H2O2:

Now he gets it. In fact, now he wants to build a jet pack and see if the 30% hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide we got from the university lab will actually life him off the ground.

Cue in the discussion of pressure tanks while trying to avoid the basic ingredients on how to make a bomb…

Never mind, my co-worker has just explained to him how to mix dry ice and water in a bottle, screw on the cap, bury it in the ground and run far, far away.

Wonderful.

Stormtroopers’ Picnic, originally uploaded by smokebelch.

Sometimes I wish parenting were this easy. Plug into your child’s interests and run with them. Set up a few mini-figs, make a few lego creations and pretend you’re having a picnic with Stormtroopers after an eventful journey through space.

I can do this. This has never been a problem for me. Many times, our house is like an episode from Toopy and Binoo where we are all pretending our way through a day. Dickson is Donatello, I’m Leonardo, Eliza is Raphael and Franklin is always Michelangelo. Bedtime is run like a scene from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Things get done, but it’s fun.

Other times, this is not the case. Other times… many times, I feel like a crappy Mom. I say things that make sense in my head but once they’re said out loud, it is crazy. Things that make Dickson and I laugh later in the evening but which stick with me and remind me that I’m not doing this parenting thing all that well.

For instance?

For instance, I know – from experience and from research – that praising your child for the result is not teaching them how to believe in themselves. Rather, praising them for their effort is what makes them understand how to navigate life successfully – to be able to trust in yourself enough to try, to try harder, to be comfortable with failure, to get up and try it again.

But can I trust myself enough to do this?
Apparently, not.

And this is where I break my rules for blogging. This is where I become vulnerable and think about my own happy but nervous childhood and I start trying to type through watery eyes. Blech.

I don’t think I was taught about effort – more likely, I was too caught up in my own self pity to hear anything about effort. I certainly remember being taught about success and I certainly remember my brother being incredibly smart. I also remember being told that I was expected to rise higher than my parents. My father was a doctor – a surgeon. My mother was a politician, ran an office, a nurse, a Mom to 5 kids… I was to do what?!? How?!? I felt crushed under the weight of that expectation. All I could see was my older and incredibly intelligent brother so I figured, “This just isn’t going to happen, parents. You guys are going to have to depend on the other kids in the family” and subsequently bowed out of the success game. One assessment of my brother by…. pretty much everyone around, was all that was needed to ensure that someone was going to do my parents proud. Of course, my parents are going to be shocked to read this. It’s gotta be a little crappy to find out goes on in your kid’s head years after the fact.

I don’t blame my parents for any of my failures. I know they love me very much and parented me the best way they knew how. I know this. But have I learned anything? Even though I recognize much of Franklin in that New York Magazine article, can I change my behaviors and outlook to benefit my son? Am I just doing the same thing over again? Incredibly, I have even told Franklin the same line about rising above his parents. WTF?!?! Where did that get me? With a perfectionist that is horrified to get less than perfect on his spelling, that’s where.

I always tell Franklin how much I love him and what a wonderful human being he is – smart, caring, kind, funny… I mean, I’m his mother! My parents love me too and would have naturally believed that all of their children could do anything they wanted – that we had the entire world in the palm of our hands. Sadly though, I don’t think I ever knew how to grasp this world. The result is that even though something they tried to teach me got through my thick head and I find myself living a wonderful life, I’m lost as to how to teach my own children. How do you close your fingers around your goals and squeeze? How do you calmly step through life without fear? I truly have no idea.

How do I teach my child that he’s not perfect? It’s not as easy as it seems. As widely read as that article is about the problems with superficial praise, the world doesn’t work this way. Franklin is told he is smart all the time by well meaning, loving people. Effort is not a valued commodity. In fact, if someone were to tell me that it looked like I had put a lot of effort into my painting instead of praising its final product I would take it as thinly veiled criticism and ask them why they didn’t like it. Obviously, I still feel the need to be perfect and frustration is too bland of a word for how I feel about this.

A solution? I really don’t have one. I’m learning as I go that all is not really lost. Franklin is only 7 years old. He’s only just started to navigate the world of timed math exams and weekly spelling tests. I need to listen to him and understand that he is not me. Even though I see so much of him in me as he grows older, I need to realize that my memories are not his and he is not seeing the world through my eyes. I wish I had something more as a conclusion. Something better. Something that made sense.

Instead, I have the following: Franklin and I are laying in bed this evening. He has just finished telling me a few stories that they are listening to in class, one about a Mexican boy and his grandfather needing to lie to get work and another about a boy named Elmer Elephant who wants to free a dragon. Franklin has an amazing memory. He can recall the tiniest details of a story just by listening. I am in awe – like always. When he’s done I make the effort not to tell him how amazing his memory is but remark on how much I enjoyed hearing the stories and I thank him. Then I mention that today I read an article that the brain is a muscle that will make you smarter when you give it a work-out, just like your arm muscle or your leg muscle. He asks if solving his rubix cube will make him smarter at math and I say, excited because he is easily discouraged by this particular puzzle, “Yes! Exactly!”

And then he’s sad.
Why?

Because he wants to take the stickers off the cube to solve it “just like you did when you wanted to show Uncle Sami (my older brother) how you solved the puzzle”.

Excellent.

Ah, Jenn.
You shit disturber, you.

Things were just a little too rosy around here. Everybody was loving everybody. Vacations were relaxing and peaceful. Wonderful plans were being made. Children were being enjoyed. We were content and settled and basically looking forward to the future.

Then my friend Jenn sends me this documentary. She knows that I love this kind of stuff but I guess I’m just a little NIMBY about it – at least when it involves disaster, death and my children.

No, no, no I’m not going into a tizzy. Sometimes I think people read this blog with their inside voices a little too much. When I write in all capitals and go on about my worry about Eliza and my concerns for Franklin, I’m actually quite fine. I’m sorry for this realization as I’ve heard blogs just aren’t all that fun if you are a calm and normal person.

It’s taken me the good part of a week to get this post up. The documentary, Shockzone, (trailer above but click on the link for the actual film on the original site), was hard to watch. It wasn’t that I would get too scared to continue, it was that the unanswered questions and the lack of data had me calling around for information and doing my own research. I still have a list of things to check on at my desk at work – call Saanich Search and Rescue for water prediction lines is at the top.

It’s not that I think I can prevent the earthquake or the tsunami. My reasons for being prepared is because I’m quite certain we will survive the actual quake (at least, I’m quite sure Franklin, Eliza and I will. Dickson works in an old garage in the harbour. If I had my way, he’d be outta there yesterday.) So I’m prepared for what everyone “thinks” will happen. Of course, we don’t know for sure about anything, right?

For instance, after watching that documentary, what about Titov’s research on how a tsunami works? What about the way tsunamis round corners and hit the back side of an island with even greater force? We all assume Victoria is so well protected – that Tofino will be “hooped” but we’ll be okay. Maybe not?

But if we do survive? Everyone in James Bay, all those living in 1906 brick houses that have collapsed, all those people trapped by the fallen bridges… where will they go? What about the looting and the fires? Will little, old Victoria be a very high priority among all the other cities that will be destroyed by this – Vancouver, Seattle, for example?

Nevertheless, there are reassuring parts of the documentary, and not where I would have expected. The fact that a woman named Yvette Gaetz survived the 1964 Port Alberni Tsunami while 9 months pregnant (due that night) and three other kids under 3 years old. The fact that she was laughing about the absurdity of the whole experience. Her resilience and attitude helps me to realize that crap happens and it’s up to me to be prepared and deal.

So thanks, Yvette. I’m not going to sleep any easier but at least I know that life marches on whether you live in one of the most beautiful, and yet potentially dangerous, parts of the world or not.

Space Helmet Bubble!, originally uploaded by rachel_titiriga.

I’m choosing to believe that this was a photo shoot with her 7 year old son. Blowing bubbles at each other and laughing so much that the occasional snort would leak out, making them laugh even more. And she didn’t care that the soap was landing on the unprotected teak dining room table top or the camera or her skirt that she was hoping would be clean enough to wear to work the next day.

julie, originally uploaded by Ada I dirtyolive.

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Taking down the Christmas tree always has a purging effect on me. Once the needles are all swept away and all that’s left of the decorations are a few boxes and tins, everything feels so.. spacious.

- and I loooove spacious

I don’t love spacious in the sense that all our furniture is pushed to the sides of the room (that’s actually a strange annoyance of mine) but I love spacious in a totally opposite of a hoarder kind of way. I love minimalist, simple, uncrowded, room to breathe, everything has a purpose, no superfluous decorative what-have-you’s.

I love space and room to breathe so much that I’m almost going insane over this hair of mine. I have to face it. While I can appreciate the lovely locks on other people, such as Cathrine Zeta Jones (I would practically kill for thick long dark waves like that), I can’t handle it on myself.

Even if I did dye my hair and blow-dry it so that I had volume, I would still hate it. I think I’ve finally realized why: it is decoration. You have to bunch it up with goo to make it stay curly. You have to continually brush it to make it stay sleek. To ever have a consistent style from morning until night I would have to return to my hair choice from Grade One and refuse to brush it. Then it would be a tangled mess from the moment I woke up until I went to bed at night – combining both the volume with the curls!

At least, that was my hairstyle until my mother decided enough was enough and I became Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music. At the time, I was devastated. About 2 hours after that, I loved it.

This might explain my delusion toward having long hair (“It will be so easy!”) and my excitement to cut it short every time it gets to a stage where people start to remark, “Wow, your hair is getting so long” and where I notice that my head actually feels physically heavier.

I’m trying to get Dickson to cut my hair. I tried last night. I tried tonight. No dice. I may have to resort to a stylist but the only one I actually liked and who “got my style” (and whom I met through this blog) went MIA once her salon changed hands.

In other words… this is a long and elaborate way to plant a google seed of sorts for someone who may or may not be reading blogs any longer and who I completely blank on the last name.

Renee, from The Fix.
Where are you?

I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who was attached to a stylist but there you go. The woman was good at her job. Also, she was super nice and her daughter was a cutie.