I was sitting with my daughter in a mommy and me class when I noticed a peculiar thing. There are kids who sit in the front, there are kids who sit where they were placed and there are kids who go to the back and play with the toys unrelated to the program or lesson.
My kid is the first kind: no matter where I sit in the room, she will go to the "front row", stare at the teacher for 45 minutes of class and soak in every word. She won't look back at me, she knows I'm there. I'm glad she inherited this trait from me, although I wonder if this is a real trait of just a passing phase. I'm glad she didn't inherit her father's class-attending methods - taking a snooze in the back rows.
The most peculiar thing is that I never encouraged or taught her to do this. I never said, "listen to the teacher". So one has to wonder, was she born with it? What happens to the kids who aren't interested in the teacher or the lesson at hand? Do they grow up to be those kids passing notes and texting in the back of the classroom? Do they do poorly in school? Do they reform? Do they learn differently?
If we assume that there are at least 3 different kinds of learners, can we have a one-style-fits-all education system? I wonder.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Family Adventure in the Poconos, Take 2
Several months ago, I wrote about our family adventure in the Poconos. Little did I know that only a few short months later I would be adding a sequel posting.
It's December 24th. We're heading to the Poconos for the Christmas holiday. This is an all day affair - we start at 6am when our daughter gets up. Judiciously pack the car. Leave 1/2 the things we need while driving in the truck and curse ourselves for it all the way to the first rest stop.
Fast forward 6 blissful hours, we've finally arrived at my parents' complex in the Poconos. It's 3pm. We're all cranky. We've been in the car for far longer than is necessary, we're tired, we're cramped, we want to get there already and unpack and rest. We come to the turn for my parents' road and we make 5 attempts to climb the hill. These fail due to a nice cover of ice on the hill right at the turn, covered by a nice thin layer of water mist. Needless to say, this makes conditions rather slippery.
After the 5th attempt, I take my frustration out of the car, grab the shovel that my husband put right at the top of our junk in the trunk (what good foresight!) and start shovelling piles of dirt, slush and ice from the bottom of the hill onto the hill to create 2 tracks for the tires.
You have to imagine this. I am dressed in corduroy pants, in hiking boots which are slippery and not meant for iceclimbing, and a ski jacket that matches neither the hiking boots nor the pants. After 10 minutes, I am splatted in mud, my pants are wet up to my ankles, I am muttering curses under my breath at the association, at our timing and at our stupidity in arriving at this place first. Finally, as I am about to finish this job and we are about to undertake our fist attempt, we see a gravel truck from the association making the rounds. After a little more muttering from me, the truck finally gets around to our section of the road and heads up the hill.
It's now 4pm. We follow. What meets us at the driveway is even less inspiring. The hill there is completely frozen over with a nice layer of ice and there is no gravel or dirt that we can throw. We quickly abandon all hope of getting the car up the hill and park at the culdesack. My husband takes the shovel and makes heads up the hill to try to make a path for us. 5 minutes go by. 10 minutes go by. We start to approach 15 minutes when I start thinking of a contingency plan. What if he'd fallen on the ice and can't get up. I'm in the car, so I won't hear him. It's starting to get dark, so soon enough I won't even be able to see the small path he's managed to crack in the ice. I have a baby with me. Do I leave her in the car, and go by myself or do I take her with me?
Finally, I see the careful descent of his black boots, and I make a mental note to take our walkie talkies in the future when travelling in the winter.
And, so, we make it into the house, we unpack and then my parents arrive and my dad makes it up both hills without much trouble, because, after all, it's not his first ice storm.
It's December 24th. We're heading to the Poconos for the Christmas holiday. This is an all day affair - we start at 6am when our daughter gets up. Judiciously pack the car. Leave 1/2 the things we need while driving in the truck and curse ourselves for it all the way to the first rest stop.
Fast forward 6 blissful hours, we've finally arrived at my parents' complex in the Poconos. It's 3pm. We're all cranky. We've been in the car for far longer than is necessary, we're tired, we're cramped, we want to get there already and unpack and rest. We come to the turn for my parents' road and we make 5 attempts to climb the hill. These fail due to a nice cover of ice on the hill right at the turn, covered by a nice thin layer of water mist. Needless to say, this makes conditions rather slippery.
After the 5th attempt, I take my frustration out of the car, grab the shovel that my husband put right at the top of our junk in the trunk (what good foresight!) and start shovelling piles of dirt, slush and ice from the bottom of the hill onto the hill to create 2 tracks for the tires.
You have to imagine this. I am dressed in corduroy pants, in hiking boots which are slippery and not meant for iceclimbing, and a ski jacket that matches neither the hiking boots nor the pants. After 10 minutes, I am splatted in mud, my pants are wet up to my ankles, I am muttering curses under my breath at the association, at our timing and at our stupidity in arriving at this place first. Finally, as I am about to finish this job and we are about to undertake our fist attempt, we see a gravel truck from the association making the rounds. After a little more muttering from me, the truck finally gets around to our section of the road and heads up the hill.
It's now 4pm. We follow. What meets us at the driveway is even less inspiring. The hill there is completely frozen over with a nice layer of ice and there is no gravel or dirt that we can throw. We quickly abandon all hope of getting the car up the hill and park at the culdesack. My husband takes the shovel and makes heads up the hill to try to make a path for us. 5 minutes go by. 10 minutes go by. We start to approach 15 minutes when I start thinking of a contingency plan. What if he'd fallen on the ice and can't get up. I'm in the car, so I won't hear him. It's starting to get dark, so soon enough I won't even be able to see the small path he's managed to crack in the ice. I have a baby with me. Do I leave her in the car, and go by myself or do I take her with me?
Finally, I see the careful descent of his black boots, and I make a mental note to take our walkie talkies in the future when travelling in the winter.
And, so, we make it into the house, we unpack and then my parents arrive and my dad makes it up both hills without much trouble, because, after all, it's not his first ice storm.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Baby How To: Subways
As a mother who is permanently attached to a stroller, I've formed a new appreciation for those members of our society who are bound to a wheelchair. Naturally, I have it much easier - I can pick up the stroller with all my might and carry it up stairs, if need be. A handicapped person cannot.
So, here is a little bit of how-to on taking babies on a subway:
(Some background on my perspective: I'm not talking about subways that have elevators, drive-on platforms, and such. I'm talking about the old trolley cars that have 3 stairs at all entrances and exits, so you MUST negotiate stairs with a baby, a stroller and a diaper bag.)
1. Start with a plan. Make sure you know where you are going before you get to the train station so that you're not checking the subway map as you're trying to negotiate the train car. And get your money out in advance.
2. Once you get to the subway, scope out the surroundings. Check if there are any strapping men around who seem like they would be helpful in getting the stroller up the stairs. Make eye contact and smile at them in that damsel-in-distress sort of way. Best if you select someone who is married and will have little interest in you sexually, otherwise they may get the wrong idea.
3. If you are successful in getting a fellow passenger to help you, thank them profusely, and if possible in a way that the rest of the passengers can hear. That way, others may feel guilty for not helping you and will do it for someone else at a later date.
4. Once you reach your destination, thank your lucky stars profusely for the fact that strollers come with wheels and straps and that just this time, your child was kept from sticking her tiny little hands into all the dirty crevasses of the subway car by those magic things called straps.
So, here is a little bit of how-to on taking babies on a subway:
(Some background on my perspective: I'm not talking about subways that have elevators, drive-on platforms, and such. I'm talking about the old trolley cars that have 3 stairs at all entrances and exits, so you MUST negotiate stairs with a baby, a stroller and a diaper bag.)
1. Start with a plan. Make sure you know where you are going before you get to the train station so that you're not checking the subway map as you're trying to negotiate the train car. And get your money out in advance.
2. Once you get to the subway, scope out the surroundings. Check if there are any strapping men around who seem like they would be helpful in getting the stroller up the stairs. Make eye contact and smile at them in that damsel-in-distress sort of way. Best if you select someone who is married and will have little interest in you sexually, otherwise they may get the wrong idea.
3. If you are successful in getting a fellow passenger to help you, thank them profusely, and if possible in a way that the rest of the passengers can hear. That way, others may feel guilty for not helping you and will do it for someone else at a later date.
4. Once you reach your destination, thank your lucky stars profusely for the fact that strollers come with wheels and straps and that just this time, your child was kept from sticking her tiny little hands into all the dirty crevasses of the subway car by those magic things called straps.
Ms. Right or Ms. Right Now
So, you are all thinking that I'll spend some of your precious reading time espousing on the value of a good relationship and the importance of choosing the right partner? Well, sort of.
It's not the romantic relationship that I'm talking about. I'm talking about a business relationship. A friend who is expecting recently mentioned that she had discussed doing part time work with her boss post baby and was flatly turned down. The reason?
Well, it's more complicated than one sentence can really describe. I can see the scenario here and this is complete conjecture. A busy boss, gets out of an exec level meeting, walks back to her set of offices/cubes to dish out work to her minions. She needs them right there, right now. Or does she? Could she perhaps put together an email and send off specific duties via the web to be completed by clearly stated deadlines? Of course, she can. Or she should be able to do. (As a side note, I am using she here, but it's really meant to be he or she.)
I think that we're still a couple of decades away from being able to work in such a virtual environment. Of course there are plenty of companies that operate virtually already, but it's not mainstream yet. It won't be until The Boss starts being able to type just as quickly as she can speak and minions start being just as responsive to written orders as they are to verbal ones. How long do we have until this virtual world takes over? I'm not sure. Probably at least another decade.
So, what does this have to do with being Right or being Right Now? I think, and hope, that in the virtual world, more and more women can work part time from home and thus be Ms. Right and not Ms. Right Now. With the baby boomers retiring we'll need all the extra manpower, or womanpower I should say, that we can get. Also, I think that it will be liberating for the generation of moms who had to choose and for those who will follow them.
I am lucky enough that my work can be done from my computer at home, part time, when I get to it and in a big part that's because I work for myself. Most others are not this lucky. They require actual employment at, as James Bond said "an honest job". With benefits. And a steady paycheck.
So, the next time you snub at someone who works part time, give some real thought to how much time you are really needed at your job and how much time you surf the web. I'm guessing it's only 60% or so.
It's not the romantic relationship that I'm talking about. I'm talking about a business relationship. A friend who is expecting recently mentioned that she had discussed doing part time work with her boss post baby and was flatly turned down. The reason?
Well, it's more complicated than one sentence can really describe. I can see the scenario here and this is complete conjecture. A busy boss, gets out of an exec level meeting, walks back to her set of offices/cubes to dish out work to her minions. She needs them right there, right now. Or does she? Could she perhaps put together an email and send off specific duties via the web to be completed by clearly stated deadlines? Of course, she can. Or she should be able to do. (As a side note, I am using she here, but it's really meant to be he or she.)
I think that we're still a couple of decades away from being able to work in such a virtual environment. Of course there are plenty of companies that operate virtually already, but it's not mainstream yet. It won't be until The Boss starts being able to type just as quickly as she can speak and minions start being just as responsive to written orders as they are to verbal ones. How long do we have until this virtual world takes over? I'm not sure. Probably at least another decade.
So, what does this have to do with being Right or being Right Now? I think, and hope, that in the virtual world, more and more women can work part time from home and thus be Ms. Right and not Ms. Right Now. With the baby boomers retiring we'll need all the extra manpower, or womanpower I should say, that we can get. Also, I think that it will be liberating for the generation of moms who had to choose and for those who will follow them.
I am lucky enough that my work can be done from my computer at home, part time, when I get to it and in a big part that's because I work for myself. Most others are not this lucky. They require actual employment at, as James Bond said "an honest job". With benefits. And a steady paycheck.
So, the next time you snub at someone who works part time, give some real thought to how much time you are really needed at your job and how much time you surf the web. I'm guessing it's only 60% or so.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The secret life of babies
I want you to think back a little bit. When was the last time that you went to sleep parallel to your bed and woke up perpendicular to it? It sounds like an odd question, doesn't it. I'll get back to it in a little while.
I went to a La Leche League meeting when my daughter was about 2 months old and one of the leaders, when asked whether one baby's frequent nursing at night was a symptom of co-sleeping, answered that it's perfectly normal for babies to wake up at night frequently to nurse and that as a mother you don't want your baby to sleep through the night anyway because you'll miss out on the bonding of nursing at night. That's total crap.
From the moment a new baby makes it into the life of a family, the mother, father and everyone who hears that baby crying at night - the neighbors, the neighborhood cat, the cops driving by on night patrol - want that baby to sleep from 8pm to 6 am at least. Continuously. Without crying or needing a diaper change or nursing.
I can appreciate the challenge here. Dr. Sears says that babies love to practice their newly acquired skills at night. They wake up and sit if they've just learned to sit up, or walk around the crib if they've just learned to walk. They roll, turn over, play with their pacifier, play with the crib bumper, kick off their blanket. Sometimes they bang their pacifier against the crib bars, reminiscent of the way prisoners bang their metal cups along their cell bars. This problem of playing at night is exacerbated by the short sleep cycles that babies have, and so if it seems that your infant is waking up every hour, it's because they probably are.
As I write this post, the clock reads 4:53am. My daughter is sound asleep after her now-all-too-regular 4 am feeding and I am wide awake. In fact, she fell asleep while nursing in my arms, warm and snugly. I'm debating the benefits of using the same remedy on myself - a warm glass of milk and a cuddle with something warm. I've nixed the idea of the milk and settled for water off my bedside table. The computer is really warm and I'm snuggled with it in bed. And now that I've put the post to electronic memory, I'm hoping that I won't be staying up much longer, placticing my newly acquired skill of blogging.
I went to a La Leche League meeting when my daughter was about 2 months old and one of the leaders, when asked whether one baby's frequent nursing at night was a symptom of co-sleeping, answered that it's perfectly normal for babies to wake up at night frequently to nurse and that as a mother you don't want your baby to sleep through the night anyway because you'll miss out on the bonding of nursing at night. That's total crap.
From the moment a new baby makes it into the life of a family, the mother, father and everyone who hears that baby crying at night - the neighbors, the neighborhood cat, the cops driving by on night patrol - want that baby to sleep from 8pm to 6 am at least. Continuously. Without crying or needing a diaper change or nursing.
I can appreciate the challenge here. Dr. Sears says that babies love to practice their newly acquired skills at night. They wake up and sit if they've just learned to sit up, or walk around the crib if they've just learned to walk. They roll, turn over, play with their pacifier, play with the crib bumper, kick off their blanket. Sometimes they bang their pacifier against the crib bars, reminiscent of the way prisoners bang their metal cups along their cell bars. This problem of playing at night is exacerbated by the short sleep cycles that babies have, and so if it seems that your infant is waking up every hour, it's because they probably are.
As I write this post, the clock reads 4:53am. My daughter is sound asleep after her now-all-too-regular 4 am feeding and I am wide awake. In fact, she fell asleep while nursing in my arms, warm and snugly. I'm debating the benefits of using the same remedy on myself - a warm glass of milk and a cuddle with something warm. I've nixed the idea of the milk and settled for water off my bedside table. The computer is really warm and I'm snuggled with it in bed. And now that I've put the post to electronic memory, I'm hoping that I won't be staying up much longer, placticing my newly acquired skill of blogging.
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