Category: family life

Posted in family life

Library time!

Posted on by kristinabean

I think I’ve finally figured out how to make the best use of our local library! We have always enjoyed visiting it, but finding good books to read there or take home with us was always fairly unpredictable and dependent on what other patrons had been leaving out – it’s hard to browse the shelves with two babies/toddlers wanting to get out and play and read RIGHT NOW MOMMY!

So over the past couple months I’ve been doing a lot of preliminary research online, finding 5-10 books at a time that fit a theme of interest to either myself or the boys, placing a hold on them all, and then making a trip to the library when they’re ready for pick up. The library gives me a week to pick them up after they’ve been set aside for me, which helps when some are ready earlier than others for various reasons, and gives me some flexibility with actually getting over there.

At the end of September we found 3 books on apples and apple pies to celebrate fall and complement our apple activities (apple-printing in the archives, apple-pie baking at Grandma’s house, and apple fizzy painting coming soon!), as well as 5 dinosaur books to accommodate Rondel’s recent enthusiasm. All the books lived on our new display shelf and so were pulled out constantly to be read, re-read, and thoroughly enjoyed during their 3-week stay.

(Have I shown you the new shelf yet? It is one of the best simple changes we’ve made to the house:

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It lets me get books off the bookshelf – where the boys can’t see them well or find what they’re looking for easily – into a visible space, and has encouraged significantly more read-aloud time! In fact, I liked it so much that we put a smaller one in the boys’ bedroom for their bedtime books.)

Today we took all of those books back to the library and were able to pick up another batch of books, mostly fall-themed this time, with a few extras that had caught my attention. Rondel especially is going to miss the books we had to return, but I’m hoping the excitement of the new books will help 🙂 This serendipitous timing did require me to be proactive enough to start finding and requesting new books about 5-7 days before the old books were due 🙂 I think a trip to the library just for returns would have left me with two very sad little boys, so I’ll need to continue to stay on top of the library cycle for this to keep working… we’ll see how that goes.

How do you all integrate the library into your family’s reading? Any great ideas you’ve implemented or challenges you’ve faced?

Posted in family life

being cute

Posted on by kristinabean

Most of our park outings involve a snack; I’m not sure if it’s actually needed, but it’s become a habit and I don’t feel like poking the bear by trying to change it!

Anyway, the boys were being pretty adorable the other day during their snack:

I’m not sure why, but they couldn’t stop laughing about something! It was one of those moments that makes all the hard days worth it, when we are all just enjoying being with each other without anything special going on at all.

Posted in family life, Uncategorized

to my sons’ grandmothers

Posted on by kristinabean

One of the greatest gifts my children have been given is the chance to know both of their grandmothers well and form deep, personal relationships with them. There is something special about the unconditional love and care of a grandma, particularly when coupled with their wisdom, experience, and maturity. When I am concerned about a certain behavior, my mom or my mother-in-law can provide the perspective her own years of child-raising have given her; when my patience has run out or my tank is empty, they can support me with their time and prayers; and when I worry more about my parenting or how people judge our family, they can simply give their love and acceptance to my children.

At family gatherings, I often notice some of our relatives looking askance at Rondel, for his odd physical behaviors (spinning, licking, etc.), or for his intense emotional reactions (especially in the uncomfortable, overstimulating environments that often surround family events), or for his particularity and attention to detail (which he hasn’t yet learned to express gently…). And it hurts me a lot. I want to go into “Mama Bear” mode and totally destroy the people who judge my son poorly, especially when they go beyond glances and start making snide comments. I try not to because that’s not the example I want to set for my children on how to interact with the rudeness and criticism of the world, but that’s my visceral reaction…

And so it means so much to me when my mother-in-law comments on how fascinating Rondel is, how sharp and attentive he is – when she notices his quirks and differences with affection and love instead of judgment. She’s not oblivious to his sensitivities and struggles, but she simply accepts them and loves him not despite them but because of  them, in a way, because they are a part of who he is. I don’t think I can fully express the gratitude I have for her because of that, despite all the differences we have in general about raising children 🙂 And because I’m apparently ridiculously blessed, I know I can count on my mom to have that same attitude and perspective towards my children.

So thank you, wonderful grandmas 🙂 Our little family is so much richer, emotionally and relationally, because of your presence and your love.

Posted in family life, Uncategorized

sensory bedtimes

Posted on by kristinabean

After a grueling bedtime battle a couple nights ago, I decided our bedtime routine needed some adjustments, for Rondel’s sleep and my sanity.

Rondel has a history of sleep troubles. As a baby, he became overstimulated extremely easily and had difficulty calming his mind and body back down, even when he was very tired. We would mostly just have to pace back and forth holding him to help him slowly ease down into sleep; I could recite poetry to him but singing almost always made him cry. We could snuggle together lying down if he was in just the right mood: otherwise it was either not enough stimulation (and more pacing was needed) or it was too much stimulation (and the end of the world was at hand until exhaustion won out, since he panicked if he was left lying alone on the bed). Despite my personal fondness for co-sleeping, Rondel transitioned to his own bed early on, because any movement or noise during the night would wake him up, which would make him want to nurse, which would make him pee, which would wake him up again in a vicious cycle.

As he got a little older, we had countless tear-filled nights where we tried to separate the bottle from his sleep associations, hoping that it would help him self-settle after a midnight half-waking, and also reduce the peeing problem noted above. It did help – he doesn’t wake at all anymore to pee, and has only had two or three nighttime accidents since he learned to use the potty – but it was a long and painful process. We installed blackout curtains in his room to try to help him stay asleep longer and fall asleep more easily; we have either the ceiling fan or the humidifier on every night to create enough white noise that the sounds of the house or the nearby roads don’t wake him up. I even tried various essential oils, though I didn’t notice that they had any impact.

Lately, he’s been sleeping fairly well, and I had been happy with how things were going. We’d finally established a consistent routine that worked for both boys together without being overly lengthy or complicated, and while Limerick had been waking up with bad dreams or wet diapers, Rondel had mostly been sleeping through the night (a good 10 hours every night at that!). But that bedtime a couple nights ago was an entirely different beast – yelling, roaring, tears, and a very sleepless Rondel until about 3 hours past his typical bedtime. I knew none of us could handle that happening on a regular or even semi-regular basis, so I spent my down time at work the next day researching sensory/Aspergers/ADHD bedtime tips (not that he fits under any of those labels overall, but his sleep issues have some overlap). We already had the basics covered, with the blackout curtains and white noise, but one idea that I found intriguing was using some sort of a nightlight, particularly a non-constant one like a lava lamp, to give the mind something to keep it occupied in a monotonous way until it can wind down into sleep.

Tonight, by somewhat of an accident, we ended up with a flickering electric candle in a cut glass box, up on a shelf where Rondel could see it lying down, and he fell asleep with fewer random sounds/questions/comments/dinosaur roars than he has in weeks. He seriously just lay in bed, watched the candle flicker, and fell asleep in less than 20 minutes. I couldn’t believe it.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I’m going to try it again just in case!

Posted in family life

Preschool aggression

Posted on by kristinabean

On the way home from church on Sunday Rondel very seriously let me know that he needed to talk to me about something that happened; having had such talks after Sunday School in the past with him, when I could tell something was bothering him, I expected it to be a story of some social altercation that didn’t end up going well, and I was right.

First of all, he told me that another boy had kicked him.

“What happened right before he kicked you?” I asked.

“I kicked him!” he announced.

Cue head shake. Of course a preschooler is going to kick you after you kick him!

After some more probing we unearthed that the other boy had gotten close to Rondel while he was playing, and Rondel didn’t want him to be there and so kicked him to make him move. Ok, fairly typical of a 3-year-old, but not ideal. I wish one of the leaders could help guide him through those situations instead of letting his insecurity and overstimulation get the better of him and turn all his social interactions sour 😦 I just don’t know whether to laugh because it’s normal behavior, or worry about his aggression and his potential to make friends!

Posted in family life, Uncategorized

more pancakes!

Posted on by kristinabean

So, I know I’ve posted about pancakes before. What can I say, they’re still a hit around here 🙂

I am on the search for a good pancake mix, though, too simplify the process even more; I’ve tried the recipe from Like Mother, Like Daughter but it wasn’t our favorite, and I’m planning on trying the whole-grain mix from King Arthur Flour next.

In the meantime, however, I used up all my wheat berries and haven’t made it out to east Mesa to buy more… so the other night when I planned on pancakes and hadn’t yet realized my critical shortage, I had to find another recipe ASAP (it was either that or come up with an entirely new dinner plan thirty minutes before everyone was going to need to eat – yeah, not happening).

I ended up using Mark Bittman’s recipe from the New York Times, which is a very basic white flour pancake recipe, but I made it special by adding some small diced pears (which we needed to use up anyway) along with some cinnamon and cardamom. I don’t think anyone else in the family gets bored of eating the same pancakes every time we make them, but I always want to try something new or different, and the King Arthur Flour mix recipe had provided some add-in suggestions that got me thinking. And ever since I discovered Smitten Kitchen’s pear bread recipe I’ve been unable to separate pears and cardamom in my mind, so I added some cinnamon and cardamom to these pancakes as well! (Incidentally, the pear bread recipe doesn’t actually call for cardamom, and I don’t remember why I originally added it – but it makes the bread really stand out from otherwise similar applesauce/spice cakes. What can I say, I modify all the recipes I touch.)

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Lightly drizzled with maple syrup (for Limerick and I) or just butter (for Rondel, who thinks he doesn’t like syrup), and accompanied by hash browns and sausages, they made for an incredibly luxurious dinner 🙂 Even my picky eater didn’t seem to notice or mind the small pear chunks scattered throughout, which was my main concern, and the sweet tooth of course thought they were a step above normal pancakes.

So – if you’re looking for a special occasion pancake, that may be more of a treat than a seriously healthy food, I would recommend this one! Once I get more wheat berries we’ll go back to our whole-grain pancakes, but these are quite good and, at least with the add-ins, don’t leave me missing the rich depth of the others. I’m already starting to plan different fruit and spice combinations to play around with – maybe something with cranberries and apples? Any suggestions?

Posted in family life, links

thoughts on connection from the Read Aloud Revival podcast

Posted on by kristinabean

One of my current favorite parenting/homeschooling podcasts is the Read Aloud Revival podcast; the host is an upbeat, faith-filled mom who manages to be idealistic and practical at the same time, and who together with the rest of the podcast team puts together a deep line-up of interviewees for each season of the podcast (they’re on season 9 now, so they have some experience!). Topics range from reading with toddlers, to exploring the world of fantasy literature, to developing high school curricula, and more.

This most recent episode, #50, was ostensibly about building upon picture books with simple and natural projects for young children, but what stood out the most to me was the emphasis on connection with your children, and using the books and the projects as a means to that end. The guest, Jennifer Pepito, said among other things that

I feel like connecting with our kids is probably the best antidote to any of the social ills that people struggle with… when kids aren’t well-attached to their parents, they’re not interested in carrying on the values of their families. Projects serve as a starting point for that attachment.

We get so busy with the planning and the researching that a lot of the time that we could be connecting with our kids is lost. Your kids are really better off having you look them in the face and chat with them about what they’re doing… they’re better off having you than all the fancy ideas.

I am definitely guilty of being an obsessive researcher and planner; I get lost in the world of my ideas, too wrapped up thinking about what I could do with the boys that I lose the time I have with them in the present. So it was a really good reminder to me to hear this veteran homeschooling mom say that no matter how good a project is, if it requires you to spend a whole day researching, planning, and preparing, it’s made you lose a whole day of connecting, a whole day of spending time with your children, a whole day of showing them just how valuable and precious they are to you – and that’s just not worth it.

In the end, what I took away from this episode was that it’s better to just read good books together, and play the simple pretend games or do the basic activities that naturally spring from the stories, than to make everything as perfect and wonderful as possible, because nothing can replace the love and connection you have with your children. And that is something I can totally get behind 🙂

Posted in family life

problem solving as a preschooler

Posted on by kristinabean

Rondel’s always been a bit more of an abstract thinker than Limerick. You can explain something to him in terms of concepts and principles and he’ll get it, whereas Limerick will simply stare at you blankly until you end up just telling him what you do and do not want him to do in this situation right now. (This has been a huge help in dealing with his sensitivities, since he has the capacity to discuss them rationally and reason out ways to cope with them.) As he gets older, he’s been able to use this framework of concepts in his mind to network facts and ideas together and come up with some pretty creative solutions to problems.

Lately, one of the problems that’s been on his mind is Limerick’s chair. Limerick has a booster seat buckled to a kitchen chair, and has a tendency to push it away from the table with his feet while sitting in it, as well as to stand up in it if he’s not strapped in. Both of these things make me really nervous that he’s going to tip over, and so we’ve been talking about some different options for our kitchen dining area. Rondel’s been listening to these discussions and adding his own thoughts to the mix.

First, he noted that his own chair won’t tip over because there is a wall right behind it. So, he said, if Limerick sat in his chair and he sat in Limerick’s chair, Limerick wouldn’t be able to fall over and hit his head. But then he, Rondel, might fall over and hit his head! (Gesturing with his hands on his head and a sad face to accompany this statement). So that wouldn’t be a good solution.

A day or so later, he brought up the subject and suggested that we simply build a wall behind Limerick’s chair so that he would be protected from falling over in the same way that Rondel is. He showed me where the wall should be, and presented the idea as a fully logical solution to the problem – which I suppose it is, to someone who has no concept of the time or expense that goes into building a wall, not to mention the spatial ridiculousness of a wall in that location! But I was impressed that he had made the connection and come up with an idea.

I was even more impressed a few days later, when, I suppose unable to understand why his parents hadn’t yet build said wall, he told me that he was going to build a wall, using blocks, because “Blocks are especially good for building!” And a few minutes later, there behind Limerick’s chair was a little wall, and a very proud big brother wanting to show me what he had made:

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I asked him if I could take a picture of it and he got so excited! I love his initiative in doing something to solve this problem instead of waiting for the grown-ups to fix it, as well as his ingenuity in coming up with a solution and figuring out how he could implement it with the resources he had on hand.

Posted in family life

Being three

Posted on by kristinabean

Three is such an interesting age.

The three-year-old is developing his sense of self, expressing his own opinions, exercising his will, and pushing for the things he wants. The easy compliance of the 1.5-2.5 year-old child, who occasionally tests boundaries but in general finds happiness in doing the will of the parents with whom he’s deeply attached, fades away. And the (sometimes difficult) thing to remember is that this separation of the child’s self from the parent’s self, as expressed by defiance, disobedience, or a different of opinion, is a good and healthy thing: a necessary part of growing up and becoming an individual. It is good for a child to begin to ask why a certain behavior is prohibited while another is encouraged, so they can develop a conceptual of morality and ethics instead of thinking of right and wrong as no more than a list of arbitrary rules. It is good for a preschooler to begin to process and understand his own emotions and desires, as distinct from his parents’ emotions and desires, as a first step for perceiving and responding to the emotions and desires of other people.

(As a note on that last point, the 3-4 year old child does not yet have a true sense of empathy; they just haven’t learned to observe other people’s feelings and mirror those feelings back in a compassionate way. Neither the brain development nor the social maturity is there yet! This is the time to begin overtly teaching the principles of empathy, however, building on the foundation of emotional connection and unconditional love that we have hopefully laid during the first few years of life. Learning this information consoled me greatly after I observed Rondel and another little boy at church engaged in an angry shoving and spitting match…)

But while all this development is going on under the surface, it tends to manifest itself in a huge variety of behaviors. Pretend/imaginative play soars to a new dimension: Rondel, always a storyteller, has now taken to creating whole worlds in his play, with characters who persist from day to day and whose relationships and interactions mirror what he himself is learning about friendship and kindness (as well as whatever frustrations he may be feeling…). On the flip side, controlling behaviors can also escalate, as the child finally has definite opinions of his own about what is the correct way to play with a certain toy, for example, and lacks the empathy to understand that different people may enjoy different ways of playing with the toy in question. As their emotional perception grows, they see and understand when others are upset but usually can’t guess why, and aren’t sure how to respond to the emotions that may scare or confuse them. Rondel tends to lose his cool completely when Limerick starts crying about something, screaming at his brother to stop crying and please be happy again! The intensity of the emotion, coupled with his own inability to understand it or do anything about it, overwhelms him. But when he’s simply presented with sadness, minus the raw intensity, he genuinely wants to help and will come over to give hugs and kisses to the person identified as sad.

It’s difficult to deal with at times, because the three-year-old is changing so fast in so many ways, and acting out in response to those changes, but at the same time fascinating and exciting to watch that development take place! I also like to think it is giving me some practice for adolescence 😉

Posted in family life, musings

brotherly harmony

Posted on by kristinabean

I’ve had a lot of ideas for blog posts – and inspiration always seems to strike when there’s no chance to write, and then disappear when I actually sit down with a free moment!

Lately I’ve been thinking about Psalm 133, in the context of the affection between my own two boys.

How good and how pleasant it is,

When brothers dwell together as one!

Like fine oil on the head,

Running down upon the beard,

Upon the beard of Aaron,

Upon the collar of his robe.

Like the dew of Hermon coming down

Upon the mountains of Zion.

There the Lord has decreed a blessing,

Life for evermore!

The analogies amaze me, as I come to understand them more deeply (oil running down someone’s beard was admittedly a strange image before I learned more about it!). The harmony and unity of brothers (whether actual brothers or spiritual brothers) is compared to the oil of consecration used to sanctify and set apart the high priest, and to water in the desert. In other words, it isn’t a trivial or an inconsequential thing, but rather one of the sources of life and flourishing.

Earlier this evening I told Rondel that I was going to wash up the dishes before bed, and that he and Limerick could either play alone or play together while I did that. Instantly, he replied, “Play together!” and to make sure he realized I wasn’t going to be playing also I queried, “You want to play with Limerick?” Again instantly, he answered, “You do!” (meaning “I do!”). And off he went to find Limerick and play with him.

While the boys have the inevitable quarrels that any two people have, when different goals and ideas collide, they play together remarkably well (especially considering all the sibling horror stories I’ve read about). They would almost always rather find a way to work out their differences and come to a renewed unity than take the easy route of just playing individually, and I love that about them. I love how Rondel, after losing his cool with Limerick and yelling at him about something, will feel the tension in the air and seek to heal the relationship by giving Limerick a gentle hug and kiss. I love how Limerick will imitate Rondel’s play even when he doesn’t fully understand it, just so he can be a part of what Rondel is doing.

And my hope is that their growth in unity now, together, will prepare them for the difficulties of community throughout life and for holiness – that it will equip them to be a source of pure water in the dry and thirsty land they’re growing up to inherit, where relationships are utilitarian, selfish, and broken.