Upon learning I was pregnant with Ian, the first thing I bought was What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  It helped pass the time during those interminable 9-and-a-half months.  When he was a few months old, we borrowed Dr. Ferber’s sleep book to “Ferberiz” him and he dutifully learned to sleep through the night.   The same techniques with Hugh failed miserably, night after screaming, tear-drenched night.  (and yes, that was just me.)

My cousin Jane, who was done having her three boys before my first was born, sent me Penelope Leach’s common-sense book on childraising, to which I turned for episodic advice.

When the boys were older, I once bought a book on raising boys, but sent it to Goodwill after only a few chapters.  I hated the gender generalizations, the silly social-work speak,  and the faux philosophizing. 

Parenting as a verb was not something I wanted to learn from a book.  More helpful was advice from friends and family, and bitter/sweet experience gleaned from trial and error.

But I am currently loving the book Nurture Shock, which is reminiscent of a Malcolm Gladwell tome…but focused exclusively on child development.  This is a highly readable, fascinating look at how children develop, backed up by social science.  

The authors, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, look at modern “truisms” of parenting with a gimlet eye.   Take our society’s habit of heaping praise on kids.  Turns out to be a bad idea.  Telling kids they’re so smart, they’re so athletic, they’re so gifted actually undermines their motivation.  Better to say “You really worked hard at that.”  E for effort, people, not E for existing.

 The chapter is called “The Inverse Power of Praise.”  Subtitle:  “Sure, he’s special.  But new research suggests if you tell him that, you’ll ruin him.  It’s a neurobiological fact.”    As my brother Tom says about the little trophies given to every single kid on a team, “When everybody’s special, nobody is.”

I first heard Bronson on NPR back in the fall, talking about why kids lie.  The chapter’s teaser is:  “We may treasure honesty, but the research is clear.  Most classic strategies to promote truthfulness just encourage kids to be better liars. ”  It was a fascinating interview.

Then there’s Why Siblings Fight.  Very relevant reading.  Freud’s family psychodrama theory is gonged by the authors.  Sigmund’s contention that siblings fight because each kid never gets over being dethroned by the next?  Wrong.  Kids too close together?  Not a factor.  Kids too far apart?  Not a factor. 

Video game drivers.

These young dudes grew up playing video games, and you can tell that’s where they got their driving technique.  Certainly not from driver’s ed, which – done properly – would have taught them to always leave a large space between cars, to be mindful of other people, to not operate a moving vehicle demonically, and   above all, to drive defensively.

Instead, these guys in their teens and 20s drive as offensively as possible.  Coming home from a night Phillies game recently, I was driving with Hugh in the passenger seat.  Suddenly a sporty dark death car swooped and swerved in front of us, before speeding off in another lane.  We could see red brake lights brightening up ahead as this idiot picked off dozens of unsuspecting, safe drivers, one by one.  

I said “Hugh, promise me you’ll never drive like that.”

Hugh promised, and then said later, “No offense Mom, but he was in control.  He knew what he was doing.” 

I begged to differ.  While conceding the point that yes, young guys have good reflexes – thank God - quick reaction time is ultimately not enough.  Sooner or later, they’re going to go out of control. 

And unlike the times when they’re driving a fake car on a glowing screen and a wreck just means losing the game to their buddy, this crash is going to hurt. 

After years of repetitions of Curious George, Roald Dahl titles and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (all of which I loved), I miss reading aloud to our boys.  Everyone is too old now, except 12-year-old Malcolm – on rare occasions.

He’s currently rushing to finish The Hobbit before the end of school, and 40 pages of reading piled up over the weekend.  Last night he needed my help, which I was more than happy to give.  We stretched out in a quiet bedroom, and the reading began.

Reading aloud takes skill.  It’s important to modulate your voice, so you don’t become a monotonous drone.  At several points, as Malcolm’s eyes closed, I feared he had fallen asleep.  I paused to assess the situation and his lids flew open.  “Mom!  I’m just imagining what’s happening!”

We happened to be reading the exciting conclusion, when Bilbo figures out how to open the hidden stone door.  Malcolm is very fond of the homesick Mr. Baggins, who left his hidey-hole without his hankie and was whisked away on a wild, dangerous adventure without fully understanding the scope of it.  He chuckles empathetically at the descriptions of Bilbo poking his head into the dragon’s lair, or fretting with homesickness.  He anticipates that the dragon will instantly notice what Bilbo has taken from his stash, and tsk-tsks at the greed of the beast, hoarding all that gold without any use for it.

I’ve loved reading a few chapters, here and there, of The Hobbit to Malcolm.  It’s a book we’re discovering together.  And I will miss it when, in a few short pages, it is over.

Wrapping Paper

Cookie dough

Pizza dough

Daffodils

Bat-a-Thon

Shoot-a-Thon

Relay for Life

This is not a jump rope chant or one family’s shopping and activity list for the weekend.  No.

This is actually a list of ways for schools, sports, and charities to raise money through kids.  The filling out of forms is always involved as well.  Yay.

Sometime between my high school graduation and my first child’s first day of kindergarten, a sea change occurred in American public life.  Children were no longer simply kids.  They were tiny unpaid footsoldiers in massive door-to-door sales and fundraising campaigns. 

Not-so-gamely playing along, raising money for Little League and the elementary PTO, the American Cancer Society and the local basketball program, I’ve tried to avoid having our boys hit up the neighbors too often.  Godparents and grandparents, aunts and uncles are always a soft touch, but you can only go to that well so many times.

So when Bat-a-Thon time rolled around again, we suggested that Malcolm and teammates collect contributions from shoppers at Trader Joe’s.  

At first, too shy to speak up,  they stood quietly and hoped people would magically drop money in their collection cans. 

Quickly, they they learned to make the “ask” and approach people with a couple of steps.  Two of them had coffee cans, the third made a sign that said “Support our Little League.”  Malcolm even tried inhaling helium from the TJ’s balloons so he could hit people up in a Munchkin voice.  And of course, to maximize the cuteness and credibility factor, they wore their uniforms and caps.

The beauty of this system is that nobody HAS to give, and when they do, the amount they give is entirely up to them – unlike Girl Scout cookies, which now cost $73/box.  The boys became better pitchmen, and practiced math skills by counting and divvying up their take.   

They learned a bit about human nature.  Some people will gladly give special amounts like half-dollars and five-dollar-bills, some people know very nice ways to say “no,” and others avoid eye contact and take evasive action.

The results?  Grand slam!  More than $150.  And as a bonus:  no relationships were harmed in the collecting of this money.

I am so jealous of all the young moms who, through blogs, are documenting the lives of their children, from the moment of “congratulations, you’re pregnant” on through all the Firsts:  smiles, rolling overs, steps, teeth, words, day of school, sleepaway camp….  Those are the years of maximum cuteness, and how fantastic to be able to efficiently and fairly share everything with family and friends at the same time.  (MOB reader Nikki just had her first baby, a boy, in April!  Congratulations on your first Mother’s Day!)

Blogging wasn’t invented when my boys were little, but I did manage to write down some of their charming sayings, which I would crank out on the old ditto machine and send via carrier pigeon to the proud grandparents.  In honor of Mother’s Day (the title of this post came from a precious home-made card I once received and now cannot find!!!), here is one gem from each of my boys. 

10/1/97:  Ian, age 6, wants me to come help out in his classroom as other mothers do.  I told him I’m assigned to come in October 17 and that made him happy.  He said “I want you to be in my school always, even when I’m in college.” 

12/3/97:  I went to tuck Hugh, 4, in and said “Good night, sweetie.”  He replied curtly, “Call me sweet bun.”  Perhaps this was an attempt to stake out his own term of endearment, as earlier he overheard me talking to Ian and said huffily, “Ian is not sweetie.  Actually I’M sweetie.”

4/11/03:  This morning Malcolm, 5, announced that when he is a teenager, he will drive safely and have a girlfriend.  And the girlfriend will look like me.  He hastened to add, “Like you as a teenager.”

Here’s to a Happy Mother’s Day to all, whether you’re a mom, a daughter, or both.  As for me, I plan to bask in the sun on Sunday with my sons, after 9 straight days of rain.

 Finally, a portrait of me done in stamp markers, by Ian, age 5. 

From the time Ian was born, Chris and I knew we needed to pick a guardian for him, in case, you know, the unspeakable happened.   When Hugh and Malcolm came along, we still needed to pick a guardian.  But now the job was three times harder, because whoever inherited our kids in the event of our untimely demise would have to be OK with raising three kids.  All boys.

At various times, we had verbal agreements with some excellent choices.  My brother and his wife (but they were with the Foreign Service , then had 3 kids of their own), my best friend and her husband (but they live on the opposite coast), and some dear friends, a local couple (but their own kids are older than ours, and it seemed unfair to saddle them with our younger trio when they finally reached empty nesthood).

We discussed this dilemma occasionally, agreeing that whomever we chose had to be:

Not old, preferably Presbyterian or similar denomination, smart, fun, good with money, quick to laugh, slow to anger, amenable to travel, especially to interesting places.  Also, preferably, someone who loved books, movies, writing, and Scrabble, like us.

Someone who would ensure the kids saw their relatives often.  Someone who would take them on walks, teach them about baseball, and pass on the wisdom that home-made cookies are much better than store-bought.  Someone who would introduce them to Pippi,  Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and Wilbur, Charlotte, and Fern, as well as Pod and Arietty.  Yes, definitely, someone who would read to them every night.

The guardians we sought would not be into NASCAR.  They would be unlikely to move to the third world for work, which would be cool in terms of exposing our boys to other cultures, but uncool in terms of isolating them.  Our dream guardians would not dress the kids in tiny wife-beaters or Crocs.  No mullets or clothing with cartoon graphics.  Our guardians would choose Salman Rushdie over Rush Limbaugh, the New York Times over the New York Post, Europe over EuroDisney.  

We looked at each other and said “My God, we have just described ourselves.”

And who would be, if not us, exactly like us?  Nobody, that’s who.

In the words of our friend Shannon, a mother of six, ”You can’t delude yourselves into thinking you’ll  find perfect clones to serve as guardians.   You have to realize that whoever you choose will be different from you.  The trick is to find somone similar enough that you’ll be assured your kids will be in good hands.   Someone who loves them, and has good judgment.  In the end, that’s the only important thing.”

She was right.   When we finally abandoned the illusion that we could find our exact duplicates, we made a choice, wrote a will, and made it legal.  This was when Ian was 16, mind you, almost old enough to his brothers’ guardian himself.  Gambling this long is not something I recommend, but fate smiled upon us, and fortunately, our kids were not thrown upon the mercy of Orphans’ Court.

We chose someone who lives nearby, is a blood relative, loves our boys, would move into our house if we shuffled off this mortal coil, would keep the kids in the same schools, and, as added incentive, would actually have a shorter commute to his own job if he lived here.  Thank you to Chris’s brother Ken for agreeing to be the guardian.  I can’t believe it took us so long.

Before having babies, I had illusions. My children would wear hand-knit sweaters, play with wooden toys, and eat what their parents ate. They would sleep through the night at four months, effortlessly learn a second language as toddlers, shake hands and make eye contact like small diplomats at 36 months. None of this folly came to pass.

Even my small goals were stymied. Because I had loved The Red Balloon as a child, I dreamed that my kids would love it too. When the boys were preschoolers, we had these devices called “VCRs.” I would pop a tape in, hit Play, and sit back with whichever little towhead was a preschooler at the time. Wriggling would begin even before Pascal got punished for bringing his red balloon to school.

As bullies in short pants and wool socks tried to kill the red balloon on the charming cobblestoned streets of Paris, my child would be lunging to be free of my arms, craving nothing more than the freedom to go chew Duplos.

Betrayed, I beseeched the heavens, “Why? Why can’t my kid at least like The Red Balloon? Is that so much to ask, that he and I share a favorite video – one we both enjoy? How can he not be fascinated by this incredible classic that transcends language? How can he prefer Power Rangers and Pokemon?”

Friends have reported the same frustration. Lindsay was crushed when her boys didn’t embrace her childhood favorite, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Trying to whip up enthusiasm, there she sat, bouncily singing “Oh Chitty, Whoo Chitty, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!” and her boys were like, “Mom’s weird. Let’s go outside and hit each other with sticks.”

However, hope springs eternal in the human heart. There’s always the next generation, right?

We just finished the first week of school and the boys are off and running. The brothers are in third and fifth grades this year – both serious growing years in my opinion. Chase will become more of an independent learner and thinker. Third grade does that to a kid. Noah will mature in ways I’m not even certain of yet – but middle school is around the corner and some sort of metamorphous (for better or worse) will take place in the next nine months to prepare him for the challenges of lockers, algebra, braces, and no (gasp) recess.

This is going to be a serious growing year for me as well.

I wouldn’t say that I am a full blown helicopter Mom. I don’t constantly hover over the boys’ every move, but I do tend to circle around activities of my choosing. More like a recreational helicopter Mom. Yeah, that’s it. And I can stop whenever I want to. To prove it, here are a few Mom activities that I am going to try to quit this school year:

I will not embrace my children’s homework as my own. I don’t do their homework for them ever. But the actual chore of getting it done falls squarely on my shoulders. Mentally, I put it in on my own to-do list and can not relax until they complete their assignments. This year, they will learn to get it done without my constant nagging or suffer the consequences.

I will let the boys pick out their own clothes and not make them change if they clash. I realize the “matching” thing is less of an issue with boys than girls. But I have yet to let my kids leave the house wearing an orange shirt and red shorts. Dave is quick to point out that sometimes “matching” could be viewed as a weakness in young men. So, unless they are wearing stripes and polka dots, I will keep my mouth shut. The world will not end. (I think)

I will not be the lead homeroom parent. For the last 6 years, I have happily volunteered to plan parties, develop emergency phone trees and chaperone field trips. I won’t say it’s a thankless job because the kids love seeing me at school and the teachers and other Moms are really very nice. But I do too much in my life. (There – I said it!) Between working, writing and Momming, other activities cause me stress. I don’t want to be the boss of anyone or anything else at school this year. Those who know me well are probably calling their bookies right now placing bets that this is the one resolution at which I will fail miserably.

I will not work so hard all the time. I have a hard time doing nothing. I often think it’s a sickness because if something isn’t getting done, I get nervous. Why can’t I just sit on the sofa and stare like normal people? Pardon the expression but I need to get much better at just dicking around. Especially with the kids. As your children become less needy, your biggest challenge as a parent is to NOT ignore them. I think I do pretty well with the scheduled items. We go to the zoo or the park, ride bikes, kayak, spend time with family. But I need to take more time with them just talking, playing cards, or watching TV on an everyday, relaxed basis. That means letting some of the work stuff (professional and domestic) wait.

Do these sound familiar to you MoB readers? Do you have school year resolutions? If you feel like it, please share a few. Make a public commitment. Because remember, kids don’t have the monopoly on growing.

“You love him more than me!”

“No. I don’t,” I countered immediately. “I love you both THE SAME.”

But I don’t — not really.

I had defended myself with these words countless times before, almost involuntarily without really testing the sentiment. At best, it is a half truth. I love my boys immensely, but I do not love them the same. In fact, I love them very differently. Call it parental heresy, but it is impossible to have identical feelings for two very different human beings. All spawn are not created equal; and my guys are loved accordingly.

My love for Noah is incredibly intense. Every feeling I have for him, both good and bad, is super-sized. For both of us. As the older child, Noah experiences everything first and I am right there seated next to him on the roller coaster of life. Scared. Exhilarated. Elated. He feels needier to me than his brother does most days and I happily respond to those needs with an overwhelming sense of responsibility. I feel his pain and his pride deeply as if it were my own. I commiserate, celebrate, and battle fiercely with Noah. He is my physical child, always looking for hugs and kisses. I know where I can always feel unequivocally loved and that is anywhere on the planet as long as I am next to him. I am forever his protector and loving him is about keeping him safe and happy.

I love Chase mightily but often from afar. He needs me much less than his brother does as it relates to his daily happenings. Chase is a joy to watch, with a smile that never fails to melt me. He makes me laugh often, and our relationship has always been fun-loving and light. We have a secret language. We are totally goofy together, often to the chagrin of Dave and Noah. But at times, I feel disconnected to Chase and wonder if he is really, truly mine. The kid could ignore me for an entire day without blinking because there are already more important things in his life than his mother. He is stingy with affections, leaving me crave the hugs and kisses I get regularly from his older brother. So I seek him out. Sometimes I get lucky and can capture a moment with him; other times I am checked into the boards as he whizzes by, leaving me feel like a secret admirer.

So, no boys, I will never love you both “the same”. Just know that I love you. Both. Tremendously.

In the beginning, there was Baby Ian, born May 15, 1991. Happy 17th birthday, #1 son!

Everyone who had a baby that year remembers the suffocating heat of the summer of 91. If your child had already been born, he or she went semi-naked for months. This, Ian, was your everyday outfit. Cloth diapers and a diaper cover. That was it. Your downy lunago (baby fur) didn’t help in the effort to stay cool. I was sad that I couldn’t dress you up in any of the adorable tiny outfits that had been sent to you as gifts, and by the time it was cool enough for you to wear clothing, you skipped those size zeros and went straight to the six-month labels.

I was happy, however, that you were finally born, two weeks late. Thrilled that you were healthy. Relieved that I was no longer pregnant during that sweltering June, July and August. And your dad and I were overjoyed that you were “Ferberized” so quickly at four months, learning to sleep through the night alone after just one session of outraged crying. I understand Ferberizing is out of fashion now. Furthermore, we put you on your belly to sleep, because you had a major reflux problem, and this is now also taboo.

Ah, just some of the early parenting flubs we made. You’ve come a long way, baby! And so, I hope, have we.