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If I Teach My Children One Thing (or 150)

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Today as I was trying to get through FOUR sets of doors with my two small boys and three heavy bags of groceries, two twenty something men who were going through the same door basically just ignored us, went through the doors in front of us, and then held the door open for us as an obvious afterthought.

I could not stop thinking about it and realized If I teach my children nothing else, I hope they learn that if they see someone who needs help, they offer to help.

Better yet, don’t wait until you see it, but actively look for opportunities to help others- isn’t that essentially why we’re here?

It also made me think of a list I read on Better Together last year called “150 Ways To Build Social Capital.”

I prefer calling it community (instead of social capital) and here is an excerpt from the list:

77. Return a lost wallet or appointment book
78. Use public transportation and start talking with those you regularly see
79. Ask neighbors for help and reciprocate
80. Go to a local folk or crafts festival
81. Call an old friend
82. Sign up for a class and meet your classmates
83. Accept or extend an invitation
84. Talk to your kids or parents about their day
85. Say hello to strangers
86. Log off and go to the park
87. Ask a new person to join a group for a dinner or an evening
88. Host a pot luck meal or participate in them
89. Volunteer to drive someone
90. Say hello when you spot an acquaintance in a store
91. Host a movie night
92. Exercise together or take walks with friends or family
93. Assist with or create your town or neighborhood’s newsletter
94. Organize a neighborhood pick-up – with lawn games afterwards
95. Collect oral histories from older town residents
96. Join a book club discussion or get the group to discuss local issues
97. Volunteer to deliver Meals-on-Wheels in your neighborhood
98. Start a children’s story hour at your local library
99. Be real. Be humble. Acknowledge others’ self-worth
100. Tell friends and family about social capital and why it matters
101. Greet people
102. Cut back on television
103. Join in to help carry something heavy
104. Plan a reunion of family, friends, or those with whom you had a special connection
105. Take in the programs at your local library
106. Read the local news faithfully
107. Buy a grill and invite others over for a meal
108. Fix it even if you didn’t break it
109. Pick it up even if you didn’t drop it
110. Attend a public meeting
111. Go with friends or colleagues to a ball game (and root, root, root for the home team!)
112. Help scrape ice off a neighbor’s car, put chains on the tires or shovel it out
113. Hire young people for odd jobs
114. Start a tradition
115. Share your snow blower
116. Help jump-start someone’s car
117. Join a project that includes people from all walks of life
118. Sit on your stoop
119. Be nice when you drive
120. Make gifts of time
121. Buy a big hot tub
122. Volunteer at your local neighborhood school
123. Offer to help out at your local recycling center
124. Send a “thank you” letter to the Editor about a person or event that helped build community
126. When inspired, write personal notes to friends and neighbors
127. Attend gallery openings
128. Organize a town-wide yard sale
129. Invite friends or colleagues to help with a home renovation or home building project
131. Build a neighborhood playground
132. Become a story-reader or baby-rocker at a local childcare center or neighborhood pre-school
134. Help kids on your street construct a lemonade stand

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135. Open the door for someone who has his or her hands full
I love this list. Seems like it should be common sense or second nature, but that is not the reality in out fast paced technology obsessed lifestyle. So I like to be reminded of all of the little ways I can make a difference
Products, Recommendations

It’s Been a Big Week!

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We have had an exciting few days around here…

We took the training wheels off of my 4 year old’s bike, and he climbed up on it and just started riding. As if he’d been riding it without training wheels his whole life. We were absolutely amazed, and by the end of the hour he was doing various “tricks” such as standing up while pedaling, spinning out, and creating skid marks. I had no idea it would be so easy, but this proves the theory that the balance bike is the best way to teach kids how to ride a bicycle.

As for my baby (who turned 2 in June) he is now potty trained! That also happened in a matter of days, and was his idea. One day a couple of weeks ago he simply refused to wear diapers- probably because of how uncomfortable they are in the unbearable heat. When I say refused, I mean that I even had to sneak a diaper on him after he went to sleep. So, I explained to him that if he wasn’t wearing a diaper he had to use the potty, and lo and behold, he got it! I didn’t think he was ready, but he knew he was. He woke up 3 mornings in a row with a dry (snuck-on) diaper, so he now sleeps in underwear. I have 5 packages of unused diapers that are so cute it’s hard not to want to use them.

We’ve entered a new era.

Breastfeeding

Asked To Stop Breastfeeding- SERIOUSLY?

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I could boycott Chick-fil-A for what a manager there did this week- criticized a mother for breastfeeding her five month old baby in the play area. I want to even go so far as to boycott Knoxville, TN since that is where the incident took place. But really it happened completely because of the opinion of an individual. It had nothing to do with the corporation, or the city (that my husband happens to be from and we visit often).

Yes, I wish making a mother feel ostracized and unwelcome about breastfeeding her child had never happened, but hopefully it will continue the conversations within the company and get people talking. I can only hope good will come from this.

Being a mother of small children is hard enough as it is. To wonder if it’s OK to breastfeed in a public place should not be on our minds AT ALL. Though it is. I’ve been fortunate enough that the times I’ve worried about what others were thinking, they have taken a moment to tell me, “Great job, mama.”

I have some friends who have been encouraging of my frequent and public and extended breastfeeding, but most just don’t say anything. More like they don’t notice, or maybe it’s just a non-issue. Maybe for those who know me well assume I’m 100% confident in my baby feeding choice, knowing how outspoken I am about it. But I really would love some encouragement.

So, in the “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” mindset, every single time one of my friends has an obviously upset baby, one who clearly wants to nurse, I say, “feed her!” “Feed him!” I encourage it to the extreme. Maybe I go overboard. Sometimes I do this to perfect strangers who seem to be assessing the situation when they say “he wants to nurse”…Maybe I do it subconsciously to balance out those less informed who ask breastfeeding moms to stop, or who say that breastfeeding is gross. (Wait, what decade is this?) I’m not sure.

But for whatever reason, this is one area I am extremely passionate about. I was breastfed until I could ask for it, (a taboo to some!) and I thank my mother wholeheartedly for going against the grain and not worrying about the opinion of others in the seventies.

SO as I often have to remind myself, instead of sitting around and getting angry about something that is happening in our world, what can I do about it? What am I going to do today to be the change I wish to see???

So glad I had the option to breastfeed my 14 month old at this 5 star restaurant. He fell asleep, and we were able to fully enjoy our meal!
Prevention

The Marathon of Travel

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My kids have always been great travelers- but every time I fly I brace myself for something to happen, since children are so unpredictable.

Everything has always been fine, even when we had some outside drama, like the time the gate agent told me I couldn’t fly with my 16 month old lap child because she didn’t believe he was under 2 and I had no proof. I had flown with a folded up copy of my older son’s birth certificate since he was 2 months old, yet I was never asked to show it so I didn’t think to take one for my 2nd baby. Moral of the story? Always take some proof of your baby’s age if you’ll flying with him on your lap!

Everything worked out that trip- aside from my minor heart attack, as we assessed worst case scenario (drive back home, get birth certificate, take a later flight) but finally we called a supervisor over who confirmed my son was not yet two, by his lack of speech. Phew. Note to self, always carry copies of birth certificates.

Then there was our direct flight from Austin to NYC- what could go wrong? It was a direct! Well, due to some mysterious events, we were diverted to Baltimore for FIVE hours and they tried to make us stay on the plane the whole time. Since we had no food and I had a rambunctious 13 month old, they reluctantly let us off (due to the new FAA rules that I just so happened to know about) but in a last minute effort to try to get us to stay on the place, the flight attendant told me we might not be able to get back on the plane. We decided to take the chance.

All in all it was an 8 hour delay. We could have flown to Hawaii in the same amount of time we were on that flight. But my boys did so well!

I’m always exhausted after traveling, and my kids have not yet melted down on a flight, or thrown a tantrum at the airport. They are always shockingly on their best behavior, so I wonder how I would feel after traveling if they acted appropriately for their age.

On our most recent flight I was prepared for the running-a-marathon like feeling I usually have when a seemingly cosmic joke was played on me.

My almost 2 year old wanted nothing to do with me, would not sit in my lap, nurse upon takeoff, let me give him candy, nothing. As long as he was in his dad’s lap, he was happy.

Then another crazy event took place- my 4 year old fell asleep in the middle of the day on an airplane! This child cut out naps at 2, and does not randomly fall asleep ever. Not in a car, not on a plane, not while watching a movie, not while being read to, NEVER. What can I say? He loves life and does not want to miss out on a single thing. I like to compare him to Leonardo DaVinci, who pretty much never slept.

What was I to do- I had just downloaded “The Paris Wife” onto my Kindle, and had optimistically juiced it up before leaving home, never expecting to actually get to read it.

Well apparently I had two hours of time and space to myself, so I excitedly cracked open my Kindle and started reading.

That lasted about one second before my Kindle started flashing on and off, and then turned itself completely off and reset. This continued for 10 minutes and every time I found my place again and read one or two lines, the same thing would happen.

Seriously? Cosmic joke.

So I put that away, and decided to do the crossword in the airplane magazine. Alas I had no pen, and crayons do not write well in tiny squares on glossy magazine pages. Oh well, I couldn’t really even stretch my brain enough to access the trivia I have stored…

So there I was, with nothing to do but wonder if my new non-toxic deodorant was working. I wasn’t quite sure it was until I realized the plane was full of teenaged boys on a rowing team.