Why I Love the Honest Toddler

Have you seen the Honest Toddler blog?  Or the Twitter feed?  Or the Facebook page?

If not, please do it now.

I'll wait.

It is a rare gem.  I love HT for many reasons:

>>The writing is wonderful.  I almost want to find out HT's true identity so I can find out what else they have written...but that would ruin the image I have of a toddler typing out posts with sticky popsicle fingers in between bites of cake while his mother drinks wine on the couch with eyes half-closed in defeated exhaustion.  I hope he never reveals his true identity.

>>It's a lesson in empathy.  It's really, really hard to empathize with toddlers.  It's hard to accept their self-centeredness as developmentally normal.  We don't remember what it was like to be small and powerless.  We don't understand unfiltered, uninhibited, completely authentic behavior.  HT reminds us.

>>It's a subversive lesson in gentle parenting.  It's pretty clear, at least to me, that whoever is writing this blog is a gentle parent.  Meaning, non-punitive, connected, empathetic.  It isn't as tongue-in-cheek as it seems.  It's funny to imagine a toddler missing the bond he shared with his placenta in the womb, but it's also poignant and real:

"The morning you and I went our separate ways…I’m not going to lie, I cried. It felt like how breaking glass sounds. Like the Monday of all Mondays. It felt like finishing a restaurant meal and then seeing an eyelash in your plate. Like when someone shakes your hand and theirs is wet. Sometimes you know it’s just water from washing up, but still."

It's a big, bright, loud, confusing, scary world they have been born into.  Little things that are normal inevitabilities to us are big, unfathomable, unfair events in their world.  This post is a reminder of how much closer they are to what they experienced in the womb than to what we experience as adults, and that it will take a long, long time for them to learn to navigate our world.

>>It brings the funny to a discussion in desperate need of levity.  People get really up in arms about parenting styles.  The gentle parenting community especially, I think, can seem to take themselves too seriously with their library of parenting books; their idolatry of Ina May, Dr Sears, and Alfie Kohn; and the links to Mothering articles, childbirth and behavioral studies shared on their Facebook pages.  HT manages to convey the same message hidden inside a gumball of laughter.  You don't even know it's in there.

For example, one of the things gentle parents tend to do is not force their kids to say they're sorry.  I could explain why I don't/won't do that, but your eyes would probably glaze over.  Or, you could read the post Not Sorry and have HT explain it for you in a funny, tongue-in-cheek (but not really tongue-in-cheek) way.  Entertained AND educated!

>>It isn't always funny.  The post The Woman is a tear-jerker every time, about the moment HT realizes that he and his mother are separate people.  Based in fact, as well - when babies are born and for many, many months or years after, do not identify themselves as separate from their mothers.  The constant push-pull of toddlerhood, the thrill of independence coupled with the intermittent clinginess and dependence can be seen as them processing this simple but overwhelming fact that they are their own person.

"I am at a loss with what to do with the information that she can walk in one direction and I in another. Sometimes it gives me an adrenaline rush; the thrill, the risk, the excitement of being an independent being as I run away while hearing her frantic voice calling. Other times I feel lost as I look around see that she’s not by my side. At those times, a panic rises in me so urgent that I lose control and all sense of time and space."

"This is the line I walk daily. We’re one, but we’re two. One, but two. It is the two I find so indigestible right now. It sits in my mouth like a bite of food too big for me to work with…even if it tastes new and good I don’t know if I can risk choking on the very idea that one day I might run so far that I can’t find my way back to her.

So today I will cling. The collar of her shirt will remain in my fist, my face pressed against the skin of her chest as I inhale the first scent that wafted into my nose when I was still floating within her. “Don’t leave me,” my spirit whispers to hers as I try to melt back inside and remember the song we used to sing."

Then there's Dada, an ode to fathers.  More tears.

"I know you’re used to playing second fiddle. Waiting in the shadows while mama and I do our special dance. Seeing my angry disappointment after I cry out in the dark for her only and you tiptoe in to stroke my hair, helping my body relax into sleep again. But dada, my world wouldn’t exist without you.

When you walk out the door in the morning time stops until you step back in. The day happens; the clock keeps ticking but something inside me doesn’t budge from my sad place in front of the door. I play, sleep, jump, eat, explore, but part of who I am is frozen. Empty. Wanting the highest up I know. Wishing you were spinning me in circles scaring mama as we both laugh our crazy laugh."

So, if you hadn't already come across HT, you're welcome.

Paper Free (in progress)

I sometimes startle myself with how loudly I crunch these days.  Long gone are the days where I would sheepishly admit to maybe being a little bit of a hippie.  I am not a bashful card-carryer anymore.  I will soon be the one handing out the cards.

Honestly, this is getting out of hand.  I actually lose perspective and forget that not everyone does, or cares to do, or is even remotely interested in this stuff.  I suppose it is called an alternative lifestyle for a reason.

My latest effort has been to get our house as paper-free as possible.  Useless waste has started to really bother me.  Filling up a garbage can with dirty paper towels just to clean the bathroom actually makes me queasy.

Paper towels and toilet paper and napkins have become categorized as needs.  They're not.  They're purely frivolous convenience.  And really, if you have a washing machine and dryer, they hardly even qualify as conveniences.

>>Paper Towels
About six months ago I bought a pack of these rags and I haven't bought paper towels since.  We still have them around for particularly disgusting messes, but I'd say we've used one roll of paper towels in that time, if even that.  In the kitchen we have two open storage bins, one for cleans and one for dirties, and I wash them along with our regular laundry, about every other or every third day.

>>Toilet Paper
A month ago I decided to do the same with our toilet paper.  By virtue of being the only girl in the family and also the one home the most, I am the chief consumer of toilet paper.  John had filled a donation bag with old undershirts, and I cut them up into squares big enough to be folded a couple of times.  I bought a basket at Goodwill for clean rags and a tiny step can for dirties.  I sewed a little fabric bag liner for the step can, so I just lift out the liner and wash it all together.

I know there's a bit of an ick factor involved with cloth toilet paper (known among the savvy as "family cloth").  Before having a baby and dealing with all manner of bodily fluids, it probably would have grossed me out as well.  But I've been pooped on, peed on, barfed on, drooled on, and had food smeared on me for twenty months.  It would take more than a little pee dribble on a rag to make me wrinkle my nose.

But I will admit that poo on a rag (or rather, poo on a rag that then sits in a lidded can next to the toilet for a few days) grosses me out, which is why I haven't totally sworn off toilet paper.  John hasn't shown an interest in started to use the cloth, and I won't ask him to.  I might actually discourage it...So don't worry - if you come to visit, there will be Charmin in the bathroom.  And no, it doesn't smell.

>>Napkins
As for napkins, we really just use the same bar towels that we use in the kitchen.  We were never big napkin people anyway.  If I were so inclined, I would sew up some pretty ones, possibly different patterns for different seasons and holidays (if you know me at all, you may start laughing now), but I'm not.  Bar rags and old cloth baby wipes do us just fine.

>>Feminine Hygiene
As yet, I don't have to worry about finding a non-disposable alternative to feminine hygiene products (one advantage to having a toddler who is a voracious nurser, day and night), but when I do, there are several options.  Glad Rags and the Diva Cup are two that I hear about often.

>>Diapers
We primarily used cloth diapers on Felix since he was born.  My use of cloth wipes was sporadic; I kept losing the cleansing spray (rather, Felix would relocate it).

And as for being in progress, we still use a disposable diaper on Felix at night, and I'm nervous to try cloth options because he nurses several times throughout the night and pees a lot.  While he is fully potty trained at home, there are some outings where he wears a pull-up (like at the park: he is not about to stop playing to walk all the way to the bathroom and pee).  We have padded trainers, but I'm looking into getting a few pair of waterproof training pants.

For more info and inspiration, check out this post at the Frugally Sustainable blog.

The Sassy Pea Market

This morning my mom and I took Felix out to the Sassy Pea Market/Good Earth Farm up in Leander.  I'd heard about it because they sell local, pastured chickens and grass-fed beef, and I happened to notice on their site that they also had a petting zoo.  Maestra had the morning off of work, so we headed up there.

It was amazing!  I was expecting a store and a little corral with a sheep and some bunnies out back, but it was actually a child care center on a farm, with a little store off to the side that sells meat out of a little freezer in one room, and handmade wares (pottery, wooden children's toys, soaps, etc) in another.

You pay $4 to get into the farm area and they give you a handful of carrots to feed the animals and a map of the farm.  Rather than being a petting zoo where you have full access to the animals, they come up to the fence of their pens and you're able to pet them and feed them.  I'm sure the animals appreciate the separation from grabby little hands!

As if the animals weren't cool enough, everywhere you looked there was something fun for kids to do.  A gated fairy garden with a table set for tea, painted tree stumps to jump on, a gigantic "giant's chair" to climb on, a path through some woods with a play kitchen to play house in, a balance beam, a rope swing, a huge climbable tree, play houses, huge industrial spools brightly painted and used as tables, all hand made and hand painted with love.  I might have enjoyed it more than Felix did, and now my brain is whirring on how I can transform my backyard into something resembling this magic place.

They were unsure about one another

Hi goat!

He wouldn't get close enough to actually feed the pig

See how tiny the goats were?!

Beautiful climbing tree right behind the daycare

Dear husband, please make us one of these

Totally worth the thirty minute drive up to Leander.  We will be back!

Less is more

I think people sometimes get the impression that I must be one of those hyper-involved helicopter or snowplow parents because I take such an interest in parenting and because I continually try to be a better mother by holding myself to my chosen standard.  That's very far from the truth.  A good chunk of the time, less is more. 

A couple of weeks ago I was at the playground watching Felix play with another boy slightly older than him (he had just turned 2), and I realized after a few minutes that the father of the other boy was giving me the stink-eye.  Well, it wasn't full-on stink-eye, but it was definitely a quizzical sideways glance, trying to figure out what I was doing.  Or not doing, as it were.

This dad, we'll call him Lance because he was decked out in cycling gear, was very engaged with his little boy.  I mean, VERY engaged.  Excessively engaged.  Their stroller was full of sports equipment - regulation sized football and soccer ball, and a miniature (real, not play) tennis racket and ball - and Lance and Lance Jr were tossing the football back and forth.  Lance was keeping up an enthusiastic commentary - "Way to go, LJ, what a toss!  You're going to be a great football player!  Throw back to Daddy!  WHOA, what a catch!" and so on.

I sit calmly on the complete opposite end of the interactive spectrum when we're at the park.  If Felix isn't playing with another kid, then I fill the role of playmate and chase him, go down slides with him, play peek-a-boo, but follow his lead on what activity he'd like to do.  Run through the field?  Wonderful, I'll chase you.  Swings?  Great, I'll push you.  When he finds another playmate, I fade away to the background and monitor, ready to intervene before sand gets thrown, but otherwise I'm a silent chaperone.

When Felix approached LJ to play with the ball (throwing a ball back and forth is his ABSOLUTE FAVORITE), I faded back, thinking Lance and I would chat while the little ones played.  Instead, it became a three-way game and Lance kept up the commentary while including Felix.  "Throw it to me, Felix!  Oh, well that was a nice try, maybe next time it will go farther."

All the while Lance is glancing over at me, no doubt wondering why I wasn't jumping in or telling him "good job" every time he threw the ball.  And I'm watching him thinking, "Bro, just let the f^&*ing kids play!"  

Every time LJ threw the ball to Felix he looked to his dad for his response.  Every single time.  If his back was to his dad, he would turn around and look at him expectantly, like "How did I do?"

That is precisely what I want to avoid.  I don't want Felix to look for me for approval; I want him to just enjoy throwing the ball.  I don't want to teach him to be disappointed when it doesn't go far.  I don't want him to think that his self-worth has anything to do with how far he threw the ball, or with what I think about it.  

All of the commentary - the good jobs and the way to gos - just serve to suck the simple joy out of play by casting judgement on it, albeit a positive one.  And the oh, it's okays when the ball doesn't go far or when they don't catch it, is shielding them from a nonexistent threat.  They don't even know the difference between a good and bad throw until you tell them, so there's no need to protect them from disappointment.  A child doesn't need to know that it was a good throw; they already know that it was a fun throw.  

Fun should be the only motivating factor in a 2 year old's play, not good.  And they already know how to find fun, so your job is done!  Well, you know, other than keeping them safe blah blah blah... ;)

NYC Trip

We're back home in Austin after a whirlwind trip to NYC with my family.  We had all of my siblings in one place, with doesn't happen too often now that we're grown and scattered.

Felix did really well, especially considering the amount of activity.  He definitely let us know when he'd had enough.  When it's just the two of us, he has free reign to decide what he wants to do and when.  Even when we have to do something that isn't on his agenda, I've gotten really good at waiting for the perfect moment - when he's in between impulses and vulnerable to suggestion - to get him to the car or wherever.  When you're traveling in a herd of nine people, that isn't exactly possible, so we found ourselves saying, "Okay buddy, time to go," quite a bit, which is not something he hears a lot of and apparently has little patience for.

Our hotel view was AMAZING

Walking through Central Park with Dad and Uncle Adam

He spotted me.

In FAO Shwarz

The whole crew (Felix was highly uncooperative)

When did he get all that hair?!

Plane coming home