Progressive Wednesday

Monday Morning Motherhood: Rockin’ & Learnin’

In this column, I have often exhorted the pleasures and benefits of being a parent. One that particularly enthralls me is getting to relive certain things from my childhood that I enjoyed. My daughter has many of the same toys I did when I was her age — the 1980's, my friends, are back. Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch Kids, Fraggle Rock (there's a new Fraggle slotted for 2009), the Gloworm, and many others have reappeared, and our children are now enjoying the same toys and characters we did.

I find it pretty cool, if only for the fact that it gives my daughter options for toys other than a doll that looks like a dominatrix or stripper. Well, that and the fact that I don't have to learn the names of the other 8 bazillion toys out there. This is much simpler.

This weekend, since I'm still a bit under the weather, I decided to get a few movies and have some stay-at-home time with Grace. While searching for something that looked interesting, I discovered something that brought back a flood of memories and practically made me giddy: Schoolhouse Rock, the 30th Anniversary Edition DVD! When I saw this, I actually jumped up and down in the store, whooping. (I'm not sure I'm allowed in there again– ¦.) I grew up on Schoolhouse Rock and memorized the songs: I’m still able to sing them at 20-something years old. The songs are not only catchy and enjoyable, but they always impart a lesson of some kind, teaching children and allowing them to have fun while doing so. “Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?– is one of my all-time favorites: “Conjunction Junction, what’s your function? Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.”

I bought the DVD, hoping that Grace might enjoy it as much as I had (and, okay, because I really, really wanted to hear the song “I'm Just a Bill– again). What I didn't expect was how relevant the songs still are, even after 30 years. They're grouped into categories — America Rock, Grammar Rock, Science Rock, Multiplication Rock, and Money Rock. One song in particular grabbed my attention: “Energy Blues.” Here at Progressive Wednesday, we're outspoken proponents of energy conversation and finding alternative sources of energy. If you'll allow, I'd like to show you some of the lyrics to make a larger point:

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Monday Morning Motherhood: Handle w/ Care

The first draft of this week’s column was written in the surgical waiting room of Women’s and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, and not because it has good lighting, which, you know, it does.

As I wrote, my little girl was in the operating room, having a tonsillectomy, an adenoidectomy, and an OtoLam procedure. I don’t think I’d been this scared before, ever. My baby, my little 4-year-old, was under anesthesia and someone was going to cut her with a knife and a laser. Even though this particular doctor had literally performed this surgery over ten thousand times, I was still a nervous wreck. She performed those surgeries on other people’s kids, not mine.

I had assumed this surgery would take place in a few months, not less than a week after my own surgery, the second in less than two months. Not the day after her first appointment with the ENT doctor. I was supposed to have at least a few weeks to freak out about my child having surgery, not a few hours. After examining Grace, the doctor put it this way: “Her tonsils are taking up around 80% of her throat, her ears have fluid that needs to be drained and her adenoids are enormous. I have an opening for tomorrow and would like to do the surgery then.– With that, all my hopes of waiting were thrown to the curb. Several surgical procedures to be done on my daughter at one time — tomorrow at 9am.

It’s a strange feeling to be more scared than your child about their surgery. I explained everything to her — what would happen, how she would be asleep, what the doctor would do, and how she would would have a sore throat for a week or two afterwards. She wasn’t the least bit scared, unfazed by everything I said. Even the next morning at the hospital, after changing into her hospital gown and pants (kids apparently get pants, while adults have to walk around holding our gowns closed and risk flashing everyone), she seemed fine. We played in the play room for a bit, then a nurse called us down to the pre-surgery room. The doctor performing the surgery came and spoke with us, as did the nurse who would be in the room, and the anesthesiologist. About 20 minutes later, the nurse came and took Grace’s hand. They walked past the double doors and down to the OR. I sat and watched my baby walk down the hall, praying everything would be okay.

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Monday Morning Motherhood: Surrounded by Words

The extra room in my apartment is filled with box upon box of books I haven’t unpacked yet, simply because I have no place to put them. My daughter’s toy box contains a mix of dolls, toys, and books. They’re piled on top of the book case, on the floor, and next to my bed. My dresser, bedside table, and their respective drawers are all filled with books. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry — all genres are welcome and included.

My love of reading, and the written word in general, began when I was young. First grade, to be exact. I spent much of the school year at home, sick. I missed 40 days of school due to illness, then was forced to take half-days when I returned. Because of the numerous doctors appointments I had, we developed a routine, my mother and I. We would go to the pediatrician, then to The Book Corner in Niagara Falls, where I was allowed to pick out 2-3 books I wanted. I would invariable have begun reading one of them in car by the time we arrived home. I still remember the way I felt every time we entered The Book Corner. My mind would race and begin to fill with ideas of what I wanted to read, what I would choose. The whole store seemed filled with wonder, with possibilities.

Luckily, whether by nature or nurture, my daughter has inherited my love of books. Everyday she is excited to tell me what book they read at school, and not a night goes by without the request for a story — or six. Her current favorites include: Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann, There’s a Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone, and Curious George by H.A. Rey. And thanks to birthday, Christmas, Easter and “just because– presents from her grandparents and great-grandparents, her collection of books is rapidly approaching the size of mine. The time we spend together, cuddling and reading her books is magical; I’ll almost be sorry when she can read them herself. I’ll miss the way her eyes light up when we’re reading, and she starts the next line before we turn the page, and the giggling that ensues when we read something silly.

I can’t imagine my life or home without books. Yet, all over this beautiful world, our nation included, there are homes where books are in short supply or simply non-existent. I will never forget the look on my daughter’s face when she first learned this — it happened when we were in Wegmans this past weekend, doing our grocery shopping.

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Monday Morning Motherhood: Missing Being Mommy

Man, oh, man, I love it when my words come back to kick me in the rear. No, really. It’s quite a pleasant sensation. Okay, so that may have been a bit of sarcasm. I don’t actually enjoy having anything kick me in the rear. Perhaps this will teach me a lesson. Those articles that had me wishing for “me time– ? The ones that said I wanted a break sometimes from being a mom? Ha. Guess what. I got my break. And it sucks.

We are now closing in on day 11 of me, sans child. About two weeks ago, I was admitted to the hospital (oh yes, again). This time my sisters, all of whom live in the District of Columbia, stepped up to the plate and took care of Grace. Liz flew up, and flew back down with my kid in tote, and Grace has since been at my sister Sarah’s home. Sarah lives with her husband, Ben, and their two children, Harry and Rhys. Grace has been having a ball, loving almost every minute of her stay there. They got her her own bed, she had her favorite books with her, and she has spent 11 days running around causing child-sized havoc with her cousins. All of her aunts have been by to see her several times, and almost every time I talk to her she’s in the middle of giggling. Does the occasional meltdown occur? Yes, of course, she’s only four. Once or twice, I received a phone call from a small child in tears, asking to come home.

I’ve been out of the hospital for almost five days now, but my sisters and I agreed, and following my doctor’s advice, that Grace stay in D.C. until I’d recovered a bit more, until I was literally back on my feet. Five days of time to lounge in bed, eat chocolate (mostly Ben & Jerry’s), read books (sappy romance novels), watch movies (“chick flicks– ), and nap at will. After more than four days of every harried mother’s dream, I want to give it back. No more, thanks. I’ve had sufficient. The first day or two was okay, even nice, I’ll admit. But after that, all I wanted was to be a mom again. Not just in name, but in practice.

In my very first Monday Morning Motherhood column, I mention that when we become parents “we gain a child and a whole new identity.– I don’t think I realized myself, until these past few weeks, how true that is. I’m not quite sure what I did with my time before I had my daughter. Whatever it was, it seems ridiculous and inane now. I’m a mom. More specifically, I am Grace’s mom, and right now, that’s all I want to be. I miss her more than I thought humanly possible. She comes home tomorrow, and this “other me,– the “non-mom me,– is gonna lose it quite soon if I read any more Danielle Steel books. Though the plethora of John Cusack movies next to my DVD player is damn good. Those, I’ll keep.

Monday Morning Motherhood: “Huh?”

My family thinks of me as unconventional. That is, they don't think I'm unconventional only because I'm a single mom, but rather because I am, well, unconventional. My path in life has deviated from what was expected of me by my family and enforced by my upbringing. Maybe it's middle-child syndrome. Maybe I missed a few of Piaget's developmental steps. Or maybe it's just that I've always enjoyed being a pain in the ass.

Any way you shake it, I know I've disappointed some members of my family with the choices I've made. I almost flunked out of high school, a very expensive and well-regarded high school. I left college to have a baby — without (gasp!) a husband. Not exactly the life my elders envisioned for me. And I fully admit that, way back when, I didn't it either. In the here and now, though, things are different. I don't have a house in the suburbs, I don't belong to the Country Club, I don't stay home with my daughter, and I don't have a gas-guzzling SUV. My home is the upper apartment in a house in the city, I work at an office everyday so my daughter is in daycare, and I take the bus to work. This life, this path, works for me.

I also know I'm not the type of parent they think I should be. I know they think I'm a good mother, and that my daughter is well behaved and wonderful, but there's no doubt they think my child-rearing skills are a little “different,– to put it politely. I think, at times, it honestly confuses them. I don't spank my daughter: I use time outs. I try to expose her to different cultures, hopefully broadening her horizons.

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A Book Does a Body Good

Problem:

You need to read to your little ones, and you need to find some books that they can read to you. You know all children's books, especially those designed for the younger sets, have morals, sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes not. You want to find books that espouse a world view that doesn't conflict with yours, and may even help encourage your wee ones to believe what you believe, baby.

Or maybe you don't have any tikes of your own, or, you know, maybe yours are a bit older and can be found flipping through the pages of the latest Danielle Steel offering, The Bible, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Supercharged Kama Sutra, and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, which changed and inspired the lives of a few of the folks at Progressive Wednesday.

Regardless, odds are you believe in the important relationship between children and books. And here's the other problem: plenty of children don't own any books, and many others don't even have access to books outside of school. And as progressives, we owe it to children, all children, to let them have as close to the same youth as we'd want for our own. We owe them this because we want to protect innocence. And we owe them this because want a caring, intelligent, articulate, and creative generation to come. We want a better world, so we want a world with more books.

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Make Progress:

To take some action this Wednesday is simple, really. It's simple as A, B, C, D, one, two, three, four– ¦.

• Buy (or Borrow) & Read
• Find & Tell
• Recycle
• Give

Photo thanks to this picture-clicker.

A Book Does a Body Good: Buy (or Borrow) & Read

Buy (or Borrow) & Read:

We've compiled a brief list of books (sixteen to be exact) we'd recommend reading to your future progressives. If you're interested in picking up a copy of any of these tomes for your very own, we recommend going through a small, privately-owned Western New York business, The Book Corner. These guys make finding odd or out-print-books look like making instant pudding. (Mmm– ¦ pudding.) Of course, you can always hunt down most of these titles through your local library or library system (we did).

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I Live on a Farm by Stasia Ward Kehoe

Kehoe's book uses photos instead of illustrations, and teaches children about items and actions unique to farm, such as storage silos, bales of hay, barns, tractors, harvesting, and irrigating. The book also has a discreet anti-pesticide message. We believe this book will help kids who live on farms have more pride about where they live, and will help suburban and city kids better understand life in rural America. Empathy is the most progressive of emotions.

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Spiders by Ann Heinrichs

Spiders is a children's science book that discusses the benefits of spiders (which are referred to as “nature's friends– ) to both the environment and humans. With Heinrichs' book, kids can learn key science terms, scientific history, cultural myths, and facts about reproduction. The text also addresses the common fear of spiders: “Spiders are afraid of you. To a spider, you look like a giant.– To further ease fears, Spiders emphasizes that very few arachnids are dangerous to humans. Kids also encouraged to be in awe of both spiders' silk and webs. We'll take appropriate awe over fear any day.

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At Daddy's on Saturdays by Linda Walvoord Girard

This 32-page picture-book helps kids understand the true causes of divorce (read: it's not the child's fault). Little readers also learn that both parents, despite separation, still love their children, that sadness is an understandable reaction, and that a child can feel at home with both their mother and father. We highly recommend At Daddy's on Saturday's, as well as the other books by Girard, who's not afraid to tackle emotionally charged topics like AIDS, adoption, and sexual abuse.

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Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport

This beautifully designed book won Best Illustrated Children's Book of 2001 from the New York Times Book Review, and deserved it. The book shares the biography of Dr. King along side breathtaking drawings and pithy, inspiring quotations drawn from Dr. King. The heart of the book is that courage, love, learning, and human rights shall win the day. Rappaport doesn't gloss over Dr. King's death, and she reminds kids that good work and good words on earth live on after you do. Both are, in fact, a way to make progress.

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