MotherPie

Motherhood: A State of Always...

A is for Always, because that is what motherhood makes you.  Always changed, Always a mom.

Twenty five years ago I held my firstborn child in my arms, discovered what unshakable bonds motherhood creates and wondered, about six weeks later, when "things would return to normal."

Just as quick as I wondered that thought, I realized that the State of Normal had changed. Motherhood creates a new normal, a new forever state of being.  Just like I wondered what this child would look like, what this child would be like, I remain amazed, always amazed, how she has grown up. 

A is for always, the state that motherhood creates.  Always entwined, always there, always, always and forever, a mother. 

Snort Like a Pig: Kids & Cars...

Last one buckled has to snort like a pig.
It worked.  No more nagging, no more frustration trying to gain cooperation so mom can put the car in gear.  It worked for years and years.
Learning letters and phonics: The Letter of the Week taped to the dashboard.  Spot everything you can starting with that letter. 
My children became good readers.
Raffi songs and other catchy tunes that we could all sing together and still can.  Nursery rhymes on the go.
We all can burst into a shared commmon thing.  Years later, still.
Mind Time for Important Lessons
Periodic required audio book time on long trips.  Who knew that Steven Hawking used a voice synthesizer?  Who would have ever thought that a daughter would know Maya Angelou's voice before she ever saw her in person?

That was before the children signed driving contracts, and I had to resist the urge to slam my foot into the non-existent brake on the passenger side as they learned to drive.  That was before the driveway crashes and teaching responsibility for the upkeep of a car and all the lessons to be learned from that big step to independence. That was before I coordinated the DA to come talk to highschool students about drinking and driving and went to funerals for kids that were killed driving. That was before we walked to a wreck of a teenager racing down our street in Atlanta, killed by his own carelessness.

Funny, but it has been a long time since anyone snorted like a pig under threat.  I guess kids do finally learn things without mom reminding them.

Learning to Read...

This has to rank among my favorite books if only because I learned to read with the rhythm and rhymes of the words of Dr. Seuss. cuh aaaa  tttt.  cat.  This book was published in 1957 and Seuss wrote it specifically to teach children to read.  My mother (who is now on her 88th book this year) took me to the library every week as a child.

It still lingers in the minds of many and was even quoted in the Senate (Harry Reid used the line, "'That is good,' said the fish. 'He's gone away, yes. But your mother will come. She will find this big mess.'" to describe the immigration impass).

Books can also teach you how to live... A Happiness project writer notes these lines from Seuss, saying that you do have to know how to have fun and enjoying life is a key to happiness:

Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me NOW!
It is fun to have fun
But you have to know how.

 

After taking my children to hear Texas author, cowboy and rancher John Erickson perform one of his readings from his series, Hank the Cowdog, my children began reading his books to his tapes.  I think I could thank Erickson's literal readings of his Hank yarns with his own music and character voices for the excellent reading skills of my son.  Erickson had tried to find a national publisher but wasn't tremendously successful until he published regionally.  I'm not the only mother to credit a son's reading skills to Hank the Cowdog.  The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog has been re-released as a special 20th anniversary edition.  Read the Amazon reviews.  The Hank tales are a grassroots publishing success story.

Dogs and cats and the love of reading.  Yee-haw, giddyup page turnin' fun.

Seuss honed his cats and talents as a political cartoonist during WWII,  for a NYC tabloid, writes Shamindar Dulai, a student writing about photojournalism on his post about truth and posting this Seuss cartoon, left.

Erickson didn't write children's books at first, either.

Parents are discouraged that their children don't take up reading as we did. Don't lifelong readers make life long learners?  Does reading Facebook count?   

Babies and Sign Language...

Are we losing our ability to read gestures and facial expressions with our culture and society depending less on face-to-face communications? Some of the latest thinking is that speech evolved from gestural endeavors. Babies can be taught sign language.  My cousin used this to communicate with her baby.  Hand gestures, the most basic forms of communication, might have preceeded spoken language and if you can see how babies learn this, signing before the ability to say the words, it makes sense.

Laura Berg, a teacher in Canada, has worked with her baby, Fireese, to teach her signing.  In giving me permission to use her video, Laura told me that she lectures on the topic of using sign language to promote literacy at universities in Canada.  She also, as a teacher, uses signing in her "mainstream" classes.

Laura's videos are fascinating to watch and she has a website, Smart Hands. Here is a video of the signs she taught her daughter before Fireese could master talking.
 

Another interesting video of signing to the song, Son of a Preacher Man, is below the flip.

Imaginary Friends...

My grandmother had imaginary friends named Hallelujah and Mr. Sand and I enjoyed it when she would talk to me about her childhood in a small rural town. Neither I nor my children had imaginary friends, but I've always thought this intriguing, the idea that children can have an imaginary playmate.

How common is this?  I wonder if others have stories to tell.  I wonder, with television and dvds and structured play, do children have more or less experiences with imaginary friends?

Photo: Worth1000 by Downside.

Prince Charming: Wrapped Around Her Finger...

"I've got her in the palm of my hand (and she has me wrapped around her finger)," writes Mr. Romantic himself, Prince Charming Dave Garr, on the birth of his baby daughter.

This principessa, left, is here due to the great modern romantic (award-winning) story of how a woman was courted, proposed to and married.  Geeky Dave read Parenting for Dummies to prepare for Daddyhood. 

It is not a snoring boring story although Prince Charming did snore in his marriage bed once wed.  I picked up on Dave Garr's romancing when his story/site won a Webby Award and wrote about it here, dubbing him a Prince Charming.  I had to go back to see what Prince Charming was up to these days.  He's still falling in love, but now with his daughter.

Don't you love how Daddies fall in love with their baby girls?  (((sigh))) Love stories. 

mom mom mom mom mom mom mom...

Inspired by headline from MetaFilter.  Only this headline is more literal.  If you are a mom.  It does begin to diminish.  I don't know if it is less children around competing for attention or maturity.  It certainly isn't a growth in my capacity for paying attention.

Women of the World, Stand Up...

Take five minutes to stand up for children on Mother's Day...

Webkins...Taking Kids to a Virtual Life Level...

Kids are being enticed into virtual living, blurring the lines between real and fantasy.  Webkins are like Beanie Babies but with an online virtual life component and the marketing has kids buying into the fad like they did for the Beanie Babies about nine years ago.  This is a hot trend. Parents can feel good about giving in to the strong marketing element because unlike Beanie Babies, the virtual component lets children supposedly learn to spell, type and think logically and encourages reading, writing, creativity, and problem-solving and also teaches about money, encouraging the commodity culture (according to their website with parent information).  And learning should be fun, right? 

At the same time adults are finding alternate lives online through Second Life, which has nearly doubled the number of participants just since January (61% of users live in Europe and 39% are female). Virtual living takes life to another dimension.  There are examples where boundaries are being blurred, for example, with the commodity component. Virtual life crosses into real life and visa-versa.  Who one is and how one plays becomes a thing of creation.  Bigger kids and young adults already do this with MySpace and Facebook.  They can change their likes, their profiles and their friends and their groups and associate entirely online.

While visiting my cousin last week in Connecticut, I was intrigued by the Webkins thing.  My cousin's daughter had her little animals lined up in her room with their noses in their books.  By her desk area she had a list of all of their names and their "occupations".  She and her brother (who is into Webkins, too) had built a little area out of blocks for their "real" Webkins.  While joining them for lunch at school, this is all the kids at school talked about.  The boys we met were excluding another boy from their "Webkins Club" because he liked Beanie Babies.  All the girls lined up their two or three Webkins beside them as they ate lunch.   I said I would check out this online Webkins site where you can earn virtual Webkins but was told that I had to buy a real Webkins to obtain a password to then be able to have a life in the virtual Webkins world.

My MySpacing, Facebooking 18 year-old didn't know what to make of this evolution of little stuffed animal play that was way beyond her Beanie Baby experience.    I went to NYC's famed FAO Schwartz knowing they would certainly have this fad toy, but NOOOOO.   You can buy them at Webkins-Pets-Online for $12.99.

Blogging is about as virtual as I get.  Even there (here), the lines are blurred between private and public, real and virtual. I've enjoyed studying the merging of media and technology so I get it.  With this new fad, little children will demand to play this way.

The Art of Children: Alexandra Nechita...

Some of my favorite art has always been the art of children, including the art of my own children.  One artist, Alexandra Nechita, started her art career at the age of two.  Although some of her art looks childish, like this very early one pictured at right, her style has been consistent (the work, below left, is a 2001 signed and numbered lithograph available for $3,800 from Double Take Gallery) reflective of cubism and similar to Miro and Picasso - a blend of modernism and expressionism and cubism.  She has been touted as the first child prodigy in the visual arts. Art is said to spring from the soul as an intuitive gift.  At age 20 she had moved into sculpture. At one time she was one of People magazine's 100 most interesting people.

Her works are priced as high as $155,000 or more for originals and are sold in galleries around the world.  There are lots of her works on the market because she produced many works in lithograph.  She took a five-year hiatus to attend UCLA to major in art. Some of her latest works show adult themes such as Forbidden Fruit and Fragrance of a Happy Home.   Now 21, she'll be showing the world that she is a true master.  She's been appearing in galleries in Denver and Houston and now she's headed to Dallas.

On Saturday, May 5, she'll be in Dallas at Reflection Fine Art and she'll do a drawing session with children.   I had a child inspired by her talent, once upon-a-time.