Month: August 2006

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Patience, my dear mama

Today I realized that I’m actually more patient with Hayden when I don’t have help.

The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. When I have someone around to help me, I expect them to (surprise) help me. So I can run out of patience and pass him off.

When I’m alone, there’s no one else to take him, so I just can’t run out of patience. At least not until after 6—usually about the time Hayden starts to freak out, I’m trying to make dinner, and Ryan’s heading home from work—not a moment too soon!

Categories
Random

Lesson for the day

I’ve been on a domestic kick so far this week. This morning I made chocolate chip cookies. I was very self-disciplined: I didn’t eat any of them! Okay, except for the one that fell apart. But I only ate the piece that fell on the counter.

Which brings to mind a valuable lesson: the chocolate chips of a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie will not only burn you, but they stick to your fingers, lips and tongue. That means that even after you drop the offending morsel, you keep burning. Ouch.

This suddenly made me think of the Sesame Street segment where a little girl is sitting in a high chair eating a chocolate cookie. Cookie Monster does a voice-over and keeps trying to get the little girl to share with him. She doesn’t, of course. She ends up with all of her hands and face covered in chocolate. Am I the only one that remembers this? A quick search doesn’t find it on Google Video or YouTube…

Categories
Kids/Parenting

In my own little corner…

Hayden had a little (very little!!) bit of trouble getting down for his afternoon nap today, so I took him to bounce on my bed. He was tired enough that playing quickly devolved into snuggling. It’s nice to take a break from worrying about responsibilities or time and just enjoy my baby as he cuddles up to me and drifts off. A little vacation from the cares of the world:


Sigh.

And then he kicked me in the stomach.

Categories
Random

Travel logs

Within the US:

(Create your own visited states map.)

And around the world (this one’s a little sad – but note New Zealand!):

(Create your own visited countries map.)

Here’s hoping that if/when Ryan goes to Italy for work, Hayden and I will be tagging along!

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Solid!

Hayden had his first solid foods on August 4. By that Sunday, we has pretty excited to be eating pears!

Okay, okay, those weren’t his first bites. He seemed to like it a lot more at the beginning:

Today he tried oatmeal for the first time: definitely more like the first video.

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Freakin’nomics

So yesterday was “Book Thursday.” I read the entirety of Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. It was freakin’ awesome.

My favorite chapter was the one on parenting. To all you obsessive parents out there: stop. You don’t make ANY DIFFERENCE! Just be yourself. Everything has already been determined for your baby based on your socioeconomic status, intelligence, education, etc., etc., etc.

Okay, it’s not that bleak. You just have to read it. One factoid that interested me: there is a positive correlation (read: NOT CAUSATION!) between the number of books in a child’s home and his test scores (possibly because people with lots of books generally value reading/learning/education and this is reflected in their children) (ref: p. 172-3).

So I counted how many books we had in our shelves (and a few other places, but I’m sure I missed a couple). Do you think 286 books bodes well for Hayden’s future test scores? Gosh, the more I think of it, the more it sounds like a lot. It’s not entirely bragging: a lot of them are textbooks that we never sold back.

Also, today, I ensured that I overcame the bleak statistic that Dr. Kerry Soper (I think) cited a year ago at my graduation: most college graduates do not read a single book in the five years following graduation. Don’t know if I believe that one, but at least I didn’t live it out.

(I’ve read other books in the last year, too. . . . Just mostly parenting ones!)