“R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me!”

(From July Montana Woman)

We decided early on in the parenting journey to define and emphasize respect with our children. We saw respectfulness in our friends’ children that made them a pleasure to be around; and we saw disrespect in other children that exhausted and frustrated those around them. For some families, respect means calling adults, “Mr.” and “Mrs.”, or sharing favorite toys. In our family, respect starts with speaking respectfully and seeking forgiveness when we don’t.

These habits start with us, the parents. Dr. Kevin Leman, a prolific author and parenting expert, writes in his latest book, How to Have a New Kid by Friday, that the golden rule of parenting is to “treat your kids as you would want to be treated.” Children learn more from what is caught than taught he says, so, “Model respect by being respectful toward your children.” For example, my husband and I make it a point to use please and thank you when asking our children to do things. We even say, “No thank you,” to correct behavior rather than, “stop that!” In fact, we rarely ever raise our voices; we’ve found it more effective to get very close and talk lower and slower when a child needs correction. And we try not to argue with our children about little things, such as what to wear and what to eat (of the healthy options); but we will go to the mat over respectful, kind voices.

Children can start learning respectful behaviors earlier than we think. Our babies learned simple sign language for please and thank you in their high chairs. Today, I can still use the sign for thank you to give a quiet reminder when needed. When our children were toddlers, respectful voices meant practicing volume control –“use your inside voice”— and saying please and thank you. In addition, tantrums earned our toddlers a time out in their crib for a minute or two with a soft reminder along the lines of, “Uh oh, you may join us after you pull it together.” It did not take long for them to figure out that tantrums were not respectful and not effective for getting what they wanted.

Along with using respectful voices, we’ve trained our children to apologize and ask forgiveness when they hurt each other, just like my husband and I do with each other. They’ve done it so many times that when I tell them to work it out, the perpetrator will say, “I’m sorry for … (then they name the action: hurting you, breaking your toy, etc.), will you forgive me?” The victim will say, “Yes”, and off they go to the next activity. It’s more satisfying to them than the command to just, “Tell your brother you’re sorry!” because it requires the perpetrator to verbally confess what they did wrong and seek restoration of the relationship with forgiveness. In other words, they have to show respect for each other.

Finally, Dr. Leman, writes, “training a beagle and training a child have a lot of similarities. You have to tell them to do the same thing over and over until it sticks.” His comment is obviously a simplification, but in my experience, it rings true. This doesn’t mean training with shock collars, but it does mean giving simple directions for expected behavior … over and over and (deep breath) over.

Now, my children don’t always come when they’re called, say thank you when served or clean up after themselves, and neither do I! But I expect them, and myself, to try most of the time. My husband and I model respectful behavior to our children, prioritize a handful of respectful habits, and practice, practice, practice. Hopefully, we won’t have to spell out R-E-S-P-E-C-T in the future because our kids’ attitudes will already reflect the meaning of the word.

The Things I Make My Kids Do

Today, I made my kids do something I remember thinking I would NOT make my kids do when I grew up.

We rode bikes home from school. I do remember loving to ride my bike, and I remember riding my bike to and from school as I got older. We lived across town from my school so it seemed like a long ways to me. In reality it was about 3 miles; the same distance we live from our school now.

But to get to our "neighborhood school" today, we have to parallel a major highway, navigate through the great American shopping center (Costco, Home Depot, Walmart and Target), cross a river on a busy arterial bridge, cut through two neighborhoods and skirt around a gated dirt road that looks like the product of an easement argument.

This is the part I remember telling myself I wouldn't make my kids do someday: walking and biking when it wasn't cool (maybe it was just junior high) and taking unconventional routes to do it.

To get home with the kids today, we navigated all of the above including a mud path behind the new Walmart landscaping and a weedy field between the shopping center and the community college. And the kids loved it, especially the part behind Home Depot where we stopped for a snack. We got to watch a truck driver unhitch a trailer and add another set of semitruck wheels (Brian says this is a dolly) so the truck could pull two trailers. I used to think driving a truck looked sedentary - no more! You try pulling four giant wheels attached to a huge steel hitch around a parking lot - with just your one human body.

So hopefully the kids will keep thinking mom's bike routes are an adventure for a few more years ... or until junior high at least.

The Friend I Thought Was An Enemy: Routine

(from the April Montana Woman)

The first few pages of my family heirloom 1961 Betty Crocker cookbook include tips on household management such as: “Have a weekly plan for scheduling such tasks as washing, ironing, baking, shopping, cleaning the refrigerator or washing floors. One task done each day provides a sense of accomplishment and keeps work from piling up.” And, “Every morning before breakfast, comb hair, apply makeup and a dash of cologne. Does wonders for your morale and your family’s too!”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I thought the first time I read those tips, thinking they were just an amusing glimpse of the ‘olden days.’ Now, after 14 years of marriage, working from home and the office, moving several times and having two children, I see the practical truth in them. Planning what needs to be done, accomplishing a few life chores, and doing a little something for myself every day, keeps me and my family sane.

Now, scheduling a routine is my friend. Routine is my compromise between forcing my children and me into a strict schedule or being dominated by the tyranny of the urgent, dealing with whomever or whatever is crying loudest at the time. Routine gives me the structure to face the never-ending cycle of making clean things dirty and dirty things clean again. Our family routine helps the kids know what to expect and helps the parents accomplish the chores of life.

As Kathy Peel says in her book, The Family Manager Saves the Day, “Hundreds of tasks are required to keep a family going, and many of them can be fitted into routines that make everyone’s life easier. Once you decide how, when, and by whom something should be done, you eliminate questions and arguing—and you stop wasting time on the trivial. … Routines help replace time-stealers with time itself – the most precious commodity. They free us to stick to our priorities, doing what we truly feel is important and essential, and they give family members security because everyone knows what to expect.”

Routines help me with everything from paying bills and serving meals, to training and disciplining children, to deciding what we’ll do for fun this weekend. One of my most useful routines, planning a weekly dinner menu, saves me because I can’t think when I’m hungry. And here is the trick to the menu: you don’t actually have to plan seven dinners! Mondays at our house is enchilada night. Friday is pizza night. Sunday is grilled cheese. And now I only have to come up with four more dinners … that I pick off the list I have scribbled in the front of my recipe box for when I need inspiration.

Routines help me schedule day to day and month to month. On a weekly basis, my routine includes laundry and planning on Monday, a trip to the library for story time on Tuesday and church night on Wednesday. My weekly schedule gives structure, but nothing says that it can’t be changed to take advantage of events that happen sporadically.

There are slushy spring days when I think I cannot possibly hang up one more pair of wet snow pants, build one more train track in our cramped living room, or make one more healthy dinner! And then the sun will come out. Then riding bikes to the nearest playground to bask in the sun becomes better than any routine I had planned for the day, especially if it includes picking up hamburgers for dinner on the way.

The beautiful part of routine is that I have time to take advantage of “unplanned” sunny days because my chores are generally under control. Who would have thought that a Betty Crocker cookbook from 50 years ago would have such helpful advice for today?

Turn and Pivot

While reading Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families, I found a familiar moment mentioned in several essays. It's the dead spot in the conversation after meeting someone and asking each other what we "do."

"I'm home with my kids," I say. "Oh that's nice/great/important," they say. And then ... there is nothing else to say. Turn and pivot.

One writer/mom, Page Evans, found herself at a Washington, D.C., party. "'I'm basically a stay-at-home mom,' she tells a fifty-something man next to her.
'Oh, well, that's such an important job. Kids grow up so fast, don't they?'
'Yeah, they do,' she says.
And that's the end of it. Turn and pivot.
But wait. Wait! Don't you want to know what I think about what's going on in the world? I want to scream out. I've spent the past seven years trying to improve my mind, to prove that I'm more than "just a mom." I see more plays, read more op-eds, take classes, visit museums. ... Driving car pool and discussing favorite food groups is not all I'm about. Yes, I'll gladly discuss those things, but I don't want to be defined by them."

Another writer/mom, Catherine Clifford, writes, "I don't understand why taking care of one's own children is considered hopelessly tedious or brain-deadening. I know well how quickly a new cocktail-party acquaintence needs a fresh drink when he finds out I'm a stay-at-home mother. I find it odd that I'd generate far more interest if I said I raised dogs or horses or chinchillas, but saying, in effect, 'I raise human beings,' is a huge yawn.
It might, in fact, be that boring if child care were simply a series of pink-collar tasks -- bathe, dress, feed, repeat. But observing and participating in a little Homo sapien's development is fascinating to me. Furthermore, being a mother isn't just a 'job' any more than being a wife or daughter is; it's a relationship."

Story Time Makes Me Cry

Every Tuesday, Ethan and I go to the library for kids' story time. And every week, they sing their welcome song ...

"We're all here for story time, story time, story time, so let's get ready."

And every week, it makes me cry.

The circle of toddlers and preschoolers all cup their little hands around their ears to turn them up high and twist little hands in front of their mouths to turn them down low. And I get weepy standing in the back of the circle of watching moms. Especially if my son looks over his shoulder to check that I'm still there. I stand in the back so the others don't see me wiping the tears away. There is just something about the sweet voices all following the librarian's hand motions that just gets me. I think it's one of those moments that I just want to stamp on my mind and heart to treasure when my kids are not so sweet or not so near, like when they're teenager who don't want me around or when they're all grown up with their own families.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Well, happy St. Patrick's day one day late. I make a big deal of St. Patrick's day for several reasons. One is that I've been to Ireland so it's a chance to get out the pictures and tell my kids about it. We get books from the library about St. Patrick and Ireland. We cook green treats like cookies or cakes. We cut out shamrocks. And we pretend fun things about leprechauns - for the last couple of years the wee ones have gotten to the children's breakfast cereal and turned their milk green when we weren't looking!

And, every year, I tell them St. Patrick's explanation of the trinity. According to legend, St. Patrick held up an Irish shamrock and said this is a picture of the trinity. Each petal represents one part of God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - all separate but connected. Who knows if St. Patrick actually did it, but it's one of the clearest explanations of three in one that I've heard. So either my kids will get it, or they'll wonder why they think of shamrocks whenever their Sunday school teachers mention the trinity!

Sundays

Did you know that it takes 107,000 frequent flyer miles to fly from Montana to London? I am 77,000 miles short. Do you know why I know this? Because it's Sunday afternoon ... in January ... in Montana. And there are four people in my house rattling around in about 300 square feet. So I am looking up how far I can get on my meager miles.

When my husband and I are feeling sorry for ourselves, we think we might as well live in a one-room shack in a third-world country with kids and chickens underfoot. Except we're nothing like that for a million reasons, not the least of which is that there are way more toys than chickens spread across that 300 square feet. I wonder if the kids will still want to play at our feet when we live in more than 900 s.f. (really), in which case, why bother heating and maintaining 1000 more square feet? Or will they actually play in the family room while my husband and I read the paper two whole rooms away in the living room or even in, be still my beating heart, a dining room?

New Parents in a Foreign Land

From Anthony Doerr's memoir Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

"Maybe being a new parent is like moving to a foreign country. There is the Before and the After, an Old Life and a New Life. Sometimes we wonder who we were before. Sometimes we wonder who we are now. Sometimes our feet get tired. Sometimes we find ourselves reaching for guidebooks.

We are humbled over and over—humility hangs over our heads like a sledgehammer. Oh, your novel got a nice review? That's great. You can read it after you scrub the feces out of your child's pajamas. Oh, you think you've been here long enough to barter at the street markets? Guess what, you just spent 8 lira on three plastic clothes hangers.

Every few days there are moments of excruciating beauty. We are simultaneously more happy and more worn out than we have ever been in our lives. We communicate by grinning and pointing and waving food in the air. We don't sleep as well as we used to. Our expectations (today I might take a shower; the #75 bus might actually show up) are routinely dashed. Just when we think we have the system (two naps a day; Shauna finds a rosticceria with chickens on spits that is open on Sundays), the system collapses. Just when we think we know our way around, we get lost. Just when we think we know what's coming next, everything changes."

Isn't that a beautiful description of parenthood? I haven't lived a foreign country but when I came home with a new baby I might as well have been sent to Mars! No amount of 21st century preparation (read the books, take the classes, search the web) provided any guidance on how to really live with a tiny being that didn't gain weight or sleep or speak up about how to fix it. I remember the biggest difference between baby #1 and baby #2 was that I knew we would all probably survive those early months of baby #2 - the first time around I absolutely did not know how it would all work out. And now, sometimes, I feel like an expert - at least with my two children - until the system collapses and everything changes ... again.

Secrets to Succeeding at Skiing with Kids

Before my husband and I had children, we went skiing. We went from lying in bed to standing on skis in an hour flat– plus or minus driving time. We got up, got gear, got parked and got skiing with, in retrospect, laughable ease.

Then we had kids.

Now our ski season begins in September, on that first cold morning when someone needs a hat. Then someone else needs mittens. Then begins an annual inventory of all things wintery, of coats and snow pants, neckgaters and goggles, helmets and skis, boots of all kinds – snow boots, downhill ski boots, cross country ski boots, ice skates, snowshoes – and sleds.

So here are some secrets to snowy fun that I've learned somewhere between the minivan and the mountains.

Secret #1: Follow the child's lead. If your child is more interested in eating snow than sliding down it, maybe that should be the big achievement of the day. So relax, count snowflakes, throw snowballs, and try not to think of the time, money and effort it took to get there.

Secret #2: You set the tone, for better or worse. That's why it's okay to throw snowballs, especially at dad. While searching for ski gear in the fall, practice saying, "Isn't this an adventure?" Or, "Whoa dude, that was a really cool wreck!" And, "Let's see how long we can stand on one ski while waiting in this lift line."

Secret #3: Sleds, or how to actually get a Sherpa's worth of gear to the chairlift. Before children, I didn't give a moment's thought to walking a quarter mile across a parking lot and stomping up stairs to the ticket office. Then I had to get a five and a three-year-old from the car to the lift … by myself. How? A sled. A cheap sled … because you're going to leave it in a snowbank by the chairlift until the end of the day.

But first, pile skis into sled, pile duffle bag/backpack on top of that, and pile children on top of that. Pull sled across parking lot. Stop for a snack. Finish expedition through parking area. Reach the lodge steps. Unload children. Balance four little skis in one hand and take smallest child in other. Shepherd bigger child in front of you and tackle the stairs. Drag empty sled behind you with your teeth. Put it all down to purchase tickets. Pick it all back up to continue to staging area. Stash sled. Then go throw snowballs and follow rabbit tracks in the snow.

Secret #4: Glove gators. I saw these little fleece gizmos in a gear store and ran right home to make my own. It's a tube of fleece with a thumbhole that goes over mittens and jackets sleeves to cover that crack of skin in between. They keep snow out and mittens on.

Secret #5: Quit before the crying. Do not continue until children (or parents) are crying. Always quit at the halfway point of the energy so that there is still some left to return home on. It's sort of like flying to the moon and not saving some fuel for the trip home. If you pass the point of no return and are still on the slopes with a kid in a total meltdown, you'll wish you were on the moon where there are no witnesses.

Secret #6: And finally, as with any outdoor activity with children, the more the merrier. Other kids and/or grandparents promote more playfulness and just enough competition to help everyone go a little faster and a little further. Lots of prep work, especially the night before, also increases the merriness for everyone. Though there are times I wish for the simplicity of skiing before kids, I treasure the sight of my two kids gliding down the bunny hill holding hands and laughing together. Someday, hopefully, they will be hauling their own little ones up the hill to ski with me!