When Everything is Overdue

I'm trying really hard not to cry at the fact that my last post was nearly a YEAR ago.


Which means a year's worth of writing (here or elsewhere) basically hasn't happened.  I have a stack of not-followed-through-on post-its to show for it, others that I went ahead and tossed because they made me too pressured, guilty, and sad, and yet more ideas forever swirling around in my head, mostly unprocessed, waiting to be freed somehow.


It's not a good place for me to be.  Having a brain that is next to impossible to shut off and letting it run rampant for a year leads to not only the frustration of the accumulation of unfulfilled creative ideas but also the stress, anxiety, and sadness of keeping too much inside.  I realize that it's really important for me to process everything- little crap that happens throughout the day and big stuff that hangs over me, too.  And I'm such a verbal processor.  I need to either talk it out or write it out and I've had a huge lack of both of those this year.  No time to write.  Not nearly enough time to talk over things with Backtire, family, and friends.


And on top of it I feel bad that I haven't made a point to carve out time for myself to write (or get a haircut or exercise or buy sorely needed clothes or or or or...).  So, I rarely put myself first and then I feel guilty about rarely putting myself first.  Isn't that great?  Beating myself up for that?  It's like kicking myself when I'm already down.  Then I feel guilty about feeling guilty about it because I know that won't help anything and then I'm headed very quickly down a spiral of inner craziness.


Instead, I'm trying to remind myself of the good way to look at it: I have been in the throes of Fox's first year on the planet and Turtle's first year of real school, doing my best to do right by them, manage the household, and keep up at work, too.  Plus all the junk that goes along with keeping a post-second-kid-mid-life-mid-career-exhaustion-how-did-I-get-here? marriage afloat.


I already look forward to the days when I'll look fondly back on all of this!


So, here I sit at a downtown coffee shop with free wireless, having forced myself to leave the house with laptop in hand and make myself sit down and write even if it's crap and even if I put four posts up tonight and not again for another year, just to try to get back in it again.

Camping With Kids: Why It’s Worth It

For the past decade a group of family and close friends have trekked up North each summer into giant redwood territory near Eureka to camp for a few days along the Eel River. When it all started, it was a bunch of young adults, for the most part untethered and able to keep it simple. As the years have passed, many of us have gotten hitched and had kids, which has expanded the group size as well as the packing list!

This year, it took both Backtire and I spending two full days and evenings packing, shopping, and prepping, and it was only that fast because we’ve done this trip before and were working off a pretty well developed packing list. Then there was one day of loading the truck, driving seven hours, and unloading it to make camp and another day reversing that on the way out but with additional time driving because it was horrible-Sunday-everyone-else-is-returning-from-having-fun-too traffic. Plus, at least a full day’s worth of unloading the truck at home, unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning pots and pans, and putting everything away. Although that full “day” was actually spread out across the better part of a week because we were back to work and couldn’t devote much time to it each each day.

So, let’s see… that adds up to five or more days of pre- and post- doings so that we could spend three nights and essentially two full days camping as a family.

And I’m not even counting the mental thinking and planning and listing that went on in the weeks before we started physically packing or the flurry of last-minute email coordination between us and our fellow campers.

And let’s not forget that once we started our brief camping trip we spent a good chunk of each day setting up and tearing down and packing and unpacking something or other for each meal or hike or trip to the river we did. All of which involved more back/shoulder/wrist-straining schlepping than normal because we brought an immobile 3 month old baby and her necessary accoutrements with us.

All told you’ve gotta admit there was a pretty high work to play ratio here! And you know what? It was all worth it! Here’s why:

•Lying on the ground with your 5-year old and looking up to see the tops of giant redwood trees swaying in the wind.

•Waking up to the sound of kids squealing because they found banana slugs crawling all over the coolers.

•Catching tadpoles with our bare hands.

•Hours and hours and hours without a single “I’m bored” as kids busy themselves playing endless imaginary games with sticks, rocks, and leaves.

•Adults and kids together playing “night soccer” with headlamps.

•Learning how to build a fire and then staying up way past your bedtime listening to the guitar and singing together around the campfire.

•Crunching through pine needles on your bike.

•Feeling the current of the river tugging on your legs as you cross it holding Daddy’s hand.

•The whole family snuggled up in the tent together, keeping each other warm.

•Water gun fights with your grandparents in the heat of the afternoon.

•20 people whooping in the woods as they play a crazy game of catch with baggies full of milk, sugar, fruit, ice, and rock salt and then laughing with delight as they enjoy eating the ice cream they just made.

•Making new friends and re-connecting with old ones.

•Sharing responsibilities and taking care of each other, lending and borrowing, helping out, taking turns, sharing a treat.

•Standing with your family in the forest as you leave the empty campground for one last moment before heading home. Hearing only the rustling of leaves as the breeze blows through them. Hugs and kisses and sighs of contentment.

Ramblings on Gender Differences

I was looking at back to school backpacks for kids last night online and you had to click boy or girl before the website would display your backpack choices. At McDonald's you have to tell them boy or girl when you order a Happy Meal so they can give you the correct toy. When grocery shopping with 3 month old Fox wearing a plain white onesie, baby admirers needed to know boy or girl before they proceeded to gush over the baby cuteness. I've always been fascinated by gender differences and cultural roles, took the obligatory Women's Studies course in college, read Gloria Steinham, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and have personally varied between fighting, struggling with, accepting, and embracing gender stereotypes at different times in my life, but I'm even more aware of it and sensitive to it all now that I will personally be charged with raising a boy and a girl.

It irks me that any major retailer, especially toy stores, there are the pink aisles and the blue/camo/black/silver/red/green/grey aisles and nary a toy in between. It even irks me that the boy aisles seem to have a range of colors available, basically every color except pink and purple, and the girl aisles are solely pink and purple.

Things that could be gender neutral, like play food (don't we all eat food?) are shelved in the pink zone sending the clear message to old enough/savvy enough kids, like Turtle, that those must be girl things. It's one thing to set up a preschool classroom with a play kitchen corner, a book corner, a blocks corner, and some art supplies and find that the girls tend to convene in the play kitchen more often and the boys tend to be stuck in the block area most of the day- that's self-segregation and you still will see some cross over. I know Turtle likes to play kitchen and restaurant and house and doctor with the girls and the other boys, just not as much as he likes to build blocks and race cars and play dinosaur attack. But it's another thing to physically separate different kinds of toys and color label them as being the purview of only boys or girls. That kind of extreme genderization of playthings is offensive to me.

Legos? In the boy aisles. Doesn't my daughter need spatial skills and a sense of mastery, too? Let's walk my daughter into the Lego aisle and let her choose a set. Hmmm....do you want a Star Wars attack, sea monster attack, pirates attack, or soldiers attack set? I exaggerate a bit, but the fact is that the building toys are all designed for boys' interests.

When my then 2-year old nephew was going to become a big brother, I went searching for a baby doll that he could have so that when my sister nursed and attended to the new baby, he could have a baby to take care of also. I was hard pressed to find a baby that was not dressed in pink from head to toe with all pink accessories. I guess girls who play with dolls aren't even allowed to have pretend sons, only pretend daughters, let alone pretend gender neutral babies. And boys shouldn't be interested in baby dolls, even though we expect them to somehow grow up to be good, loving, nurturing fathers. I suppose they will practice those skills somehow with their attack Legos?

Backtire walks around the house holding and singing to a baby, changing her diaper, soothing her. He's a man and this is part of his real man's life. But Turtle is already less and less interested in playing with his baby doll because he's heard it through the grapevine that dolls are for girls. The funny thing? Turtle spends a lot of time racing and crashing Hot Wheels and having superheroes rescue good guys from bad guys and not much time taking care of baby doll or stuffed animals. But in real life, his dad is feeding and changing and cleaning and playing with children a lot more often than he is slaying bad guys. So, it seems like girl toys like play kitchens and dolls actually prepare both boys and girls better for a lot of what real life is all about than some of the boy toys do! I'm sure Backtire in his fantasies would rather be racing real cars and probably slaying real bad guys, too, but come to think about it Mommy might rather be doing other more stimulating things than feeding and cleaning up after children, also! Where are the girl toys that help girls with skills other than domestic ones? Pretty much in the boy aisles! Aaargh!

And then there's Storm. You know, the kid whose parents are trying to raise it to be gender neutral and hiding it's sex from all but close family members. I'm all for the sentiments behind the statement they are making in many ways and I sympathize, but come on. Let's get real. Is everyone really walking around calling it "it" because they can't use gender pronouns? Hey, come over and meet my little...sibling. Doesn't... it have such cute chubby thighs? And which bathroom shall it use? Good luck shopping for gender neutral clothing! and bathing suits! and underwear! or anything, for that matter! And have they started a counseling fund so the kid can deal with having been it's parents personal experiment? And why is it okay for it's older siblings and it's parents to have gender and ever other person it meets or characters in every storybook read to it, but not it? How realistic is the experiment when they know the sex, so it's impossible to not subtly bias how they act around it or what purchases they make? And what about the whole peeing standing up or sitting down thing?* I mean isn't the real sex going to come out pretty fast and all of this come crashing down? And what will the point have been? Plus, it seems they are operating on the assumption that our gender-based behaviors are all learned and that's simply not true.

There are very real hard-wired differences between the sexes, physiologically, hormonally, neurologically, that evolved to be there because they made our species successful. There are a lot of learned things on top of that, yes, and the interplay between those two is fascinating and impossible to fully understand and we'll never be able to tease out some of the nuances in terms of what we are born with versus what comes from even very early exposures in our lives. And what's wrong with that? Why aren't we recognizing and acknowledging and celebrating our gender differences instead of trying to squash them? Also, I want to know- when they take Storm to get a Happy Meal, how does that work?

Okay, so clearly I am conflicted myself about all of this. No, I'm not conflicted. I take that back. There are real gender differences and they are okay and even wonderful. But there are also extreme exaggerated gender expectations and stereotypes out there that don't need to be that way and aren't very healthy for us and our kids. Trying to make our kids into Storms is not a good idea, but neither is the pink vs. camo mentality. I'm trying to find a middle ground for my kids. (Pink camo?) They both need to build and cook and role play good guys vs. bad and race and fight and nurture and all of that stuff and to find who they are and to learn about their own gender and the opposite and to understand there's lots of overlap. So, I'll be working on that.

Meanwhile, I have to admit, that the other day I went into a children's clothing store that I've frequented on occasion over the years to buy Turtle clothes. But this time I was there to get something for Fox. I had a totally wild exhilarated kind of wide-eyed feeling as I realized that for the first time in 5 years I was going to cross the aisle into the girls' side of the store. I had never even set foot over there before. It was joyful and kind of overwhelming, both emotionally and literally (as there are way way way more choices of girls' clothes than boys'!) I have loved filling Turtle's drawers with the little bulldozers and aliens and monster trucks clothing and even though I have spent a lifetime eschewing pink flowery girly princess stuff for myself, I now plan to fully embrace and love the flowers and butterflies and ladybugs while I can! Vive la difference!

*Credit to my mom for pointing that one out!

F*&n Update

My boys returned from a bike ride this afternoon and shared the story of the unleashed pitbull who was growling and running toward them and how they had to yell at the dog and, later, the owner. Best part of the telling?

Turtle (gravely): Mommy, the dog was so mean and scary that Daddy had to say fucken.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

A week ago we were at the park with Granny & Grandpa and Turtle decided to bring 73 Hot Wheels (yes, he counted) in a bucket to play with. At one point, I am sitting on a bench nursing Fox and he is behind me racing Hot Wheels in the grass. I can vaguely hear the familiar sound effects and exclamations and constant narration that goes along with major Hot Wheels races, but I'm kind of happily tuning it out and focusing on the birds chirping and the nice breeze. But then the back of my brain realizes that I'm hearing the same phrase repeated over and over out of his mouth and I can't help but tune back in. And what do I hear?

"You're so fucken fast! This car is fucken fast! Fucken fast!"

!!! (sound of me clamping lips shut trying not to laugh out loud) !!!

It was pretty "fucken" hilarious, actually. I was far from horrified and quite amused, especially at the pronunciation, which was very much fuck-EN, as opposed to fuck-ING. It was obvious that Turtle had no idea what he was saying at all and had just picked up the phrase phonetically. I did take a moment to admire his proper use of the adverbial form of the word. And a second moment to decide which one of us parents I should blame this on.

Oh sure, when I told Backtire about it later, he took the easy way out and blamed it on "kids at school", but I'm thinking that the context (racing) and the exact phrase "fucken fast" kind of give it away. I mean, who has all the car magazines at our house? Who checks race scores online all the time? Who introduced Turtle to a racing videogame? Who talks about cars and motorcycles and racing incessantly with his friends? Whose blog moniker, an old nickname, refers to doing wheelies? I rest my case.

Next step- do I pretend I didn't hear it and say nothing? Do I jump up and yell at him for using foul language? Something in between? I couldn't do the yell thing because A. that would make me the biggest "fucken" hypocrite in the world and B. because the bigger of a deal I make of it, the more power I give the word which will only lead to him trying to say it more intentionally in order to push buttons and test limits. And C. I'm just not really a yeller. Not my parenting (or teaching) style.

I seriously contemplated just letting it go. It was the first time I've heard him use the F-word and he wasn't saying it TO anyone, just sort of to himself as he played, and he definitely wasn't using it in a rude way, more of in an enthusiastically descriptive way. And, by the way, thank god the grandparents were out of earshot for this whole thing! (Although they may read the blog. Oh well.)

But then I realized, well, what if he's racing cars at school and says "fucken fast". Then he's gonna get an earful from the preschool teacher and I might have to hear about it, too. So, I called him over and said "Uh, that word you are saying is a bad word."

"What word?"

"That word you've been saying." I didn't even want to say it, because then I'd be too tempted to correct the pronunciation and get into the proper use of the word, its origin, meaning, etc. "You shouldn't say that word. It's rude and mean and it's worse than saying poop." Okay, definitely feeling lame at this point, but not sure how far to go with this. Trying to get across the graveness without giving a whole education on other bad words.

"Is it worse than shit?"

Okay. Clearly the boy already knows something about curse words and their relative ranking.

"Yes, it's worse than shit. It's one of the worst words. And if you say it in front of Granny & Grandpa they are going to think you are really mean and rude and if you say it at school, you are going to-"

-I was about to say you'll have to go to the principal's office, but then realized that it's preschool and there is no principal and I really don't know what the worst consequence is?-

"-you'll have to go to Donna's office." She's the director of the preschool. Not sure if she fulfills the same disciplinary role as a principal? Probably not? He's looking at me confused, like, okay...whatever...why does it matter that I'd have to go to Donna's office? "Well, anyway, you could get in a lot of trouble if you say it at school, so why don't you say something better like 'This car is super duper fast! It's amazingly fast!'? Try that!"

He kind of blows me off and goes back to playing cars. I am left not sure whether I've made an impact or not. And, honestly, I don't care that much. It was half-hearted discipline on my part, mostly just to cover my own ass. I don't really feel like having to talk to Donna when she calls to tell me he's been using foul language. And, of course, I want my son to be respectful and not to use foul language inappropriately and all of that good stuff, but I just can't get all hot and bothered about "bad" words. I've just never gotten it, even when I was a kid. They are just words. And they are great, descriptive, useful words.

And part of being a successful grown up is about learning how to behave in different contexts, not mindlessly following black and white rules. And part of being a successful parent (or teacher) is not laying down rules that can't or won't be consistently followed or enforced. If I had told my high school students no cussing ever or else, then how should I have responded to the girl who was helping me by taking down posters from the bulletin board while her classmates finished a quiz, creating a little pile of thumbtacks next to her as she worked, when she slipped, caught herself with her hands, and thereby drove a thumbtack into her palm prompting her to shout "fuck!" as the pain signal reached her brain? By sending her to the proverbial principal's office? I think not.

By the way, there was a recent scientific study that demonstrated that people who crushed their thumb with a hammer or something equally painful experienced less pain if they were allowed to just curse it out than those who had to say "oh gee golly" or "sugar!" So yelling "fuck!" across a quiet classroom, in this case, was medically beneficial.

When I hear students using foul language inappropriately in the classroom setting, I just remind them that we can all talk however we want with our friends on a Friday night, including me, but that we all have to maintain an air of professionalism in the school setting, which is practice for the future work setting. (At least until you cross the fuck barrier with certain colleagues. After that, I've always found the work setting to be more fun and relaxing.)

So, we'll take each case of cursing as it comes and help Turtle learn when it's okay and when it's not to use certain words. And I'm confident he'll pick it up really...fucken fast.

Sick of Nesting

(photo credit: http://myheelsarehigherthanyours.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html)

I can't stand it anymore. My due date is tomorrow and she still isn't here. If she doesn't come by Tuesday morning, I have to have the dreaded appointment where my doctor & I discuss induction.

My first day of maternity leave was April 4, 12 days ago, not that I'm counting. The first couple of days were relaxing and fun and happily productive. Since then I've gone through multiple roller coaster ups & downs of peacefulness, anxiety, restfulness, restlessness, enjoyment of the spring sunshine and moving at a slow pace, extreme boredom, enjoyment of quality family time, impatience, enjoyment of me time, loneliness...

I've written and finished multiple iterations of to do lists, created projects for myself just to have something to do, dredged up stale tasks that have been avoided for years and taken care of them, and generally driven myself nuts. I'm a person who nests even when I'm not pregnant, anytime there's a spare moment to organize or prepare something, so being pregnant and off of work is a really bad combination for me.

Here's a list of what I've done for the past 12 days and I'm sure it's not even completely exhaustive:

1. Went to Michael’s to buy scrapbooking stuff
2. Created 10 scrapbook layouts
3. Returned an item at Michael’s, browsed around for a long time to replace it
4. Organized all the ripped out of magazine recipes into recipe notebook
5. Tried 4 new recipes
6. Baked banana bread, ate 25%, froze 75%
7. Stocked up the freezer
8. Prepared soil in two raised garden beds, stopping every few minutes to catch breath
9. Planted seeds, installed labels, tomato cages & bean poles in garden beds
10. Watered the garden beds each day
11. Rinsed, sorted, and culled all the backyard sand toys, riding toys, trucks & balls, re-organized into bins
12. Re-arranged backyard furniture, playhouse, slide, & basketball hoop
13. Had a service demo and remove old shed, along with some other yard junk
14. Broke down and recycled accumulated cardboard boxes
15. Cleaned & dried the ice chest
16. Hung up wind chimes now that the too windy season is over
17. Installed elbow on outdoor spigot
18. Threw out broken 25’ coiled hose
19. Unwound & rinsed spider webs off of 100’ hose, stopping often to catch breath
20. Installed hose winder to new elbow with new connector hose & seal
21. Wound 100’ hose into hose winder, stopping every few turns to catch breath
22. Realized 100’ hose leaked where connected to winder and is too heavy, annoying to actually practically use on a daily basis
23. *Replaced 100’ hose with new 50’ hose on hose winder
24. Realized really never liked hose winder at all
25. *Purchased basket to wind hose into instead
26. Washed all the remaining unwashed baby clothes
27. *Installed curtain rod and curtain in nursery
28. Sat in nursery in contemplation
29. Washed & changed all the bed linens
30. Stocked up on post-partum supplies
31. Moved alarm clock to Backtire’s side of the bed since I’m not waking up for work anymore
32. Moved alarm clock back to my side to time contractions one night
33. Got excited & nervous after 2 hours of 10 min apart contractions
34. Called doula & brother-in-law to put them on alert
35. Kept timing contractions that went on every 10 min for 8 hours, but then just stopped
36. Texted doula that nothing ended up happening
37. Got really bummed out
38. Organized Turtle’s bookshelves, stopping just short of using the Dewey Decimal system
39. Went through Turtle’s dresser and closet, pulling out outgrown clothes, putting out the next size up
40. Did near daily small loads of laundry to just “stay on top of it”
41. Went through 4 filing cabinet drawers, thinning, re-organizing, re-labeling, and shredding
42. Created a rock & mineral kit with accompanying explanatory book for Turtle’s preschool classroom, delivered it & used it with the kids
43. Checked and kept up with work email daily
44. Filled out work paperwork
45. Renewed my teaching credential
46. Checked and kept up with personal email daily
47. Wiped the hard drive of, found the accessories to, posted on craigslist, & met with buyer to sell old laptop
48. Went through computer accessory box, culled, set aside e-waste
49. Went on near daily walks to Starbucks to drink, eat, read, and kill time
50. Took Turtle to the park for 5 hours
51. Took Turtle out to breakfast twice
52. Met friend from work for lunch date
53. Went on a lunch date with my mom
54. Toured the house for sale on my street
55. Dyed my hair
56. Drove to distant mall to exchange one of Turtle’s birthday gifts
57. Used gift certificate to order two pairs of shoes online
58. Received shoes, tried them on, called for return authorization for one pair
59. Packaged up one pair of shoes, went to UPS store to ship back to shoe store
60. Shipped birthday present to my brother
61. Set up, synced, and started learning how to use my new iPad2
62. Organized a bunch of files on work computer
63. Organized a bunch of files on home computer
64. Wrote & mailed a big pile of thank you notes
65. Supervised & battled with Turtle over writing & mailing one thank you note per day for his birthday gifts
66. Went through both bookshelves, re-organized books, pulled out ones to return or lend to people or give away
67. Found over 5 year old disposable camera and dropped off to be developed
68. Superglued broken toy
69. Read Pink Brain, Blue Brain
70. Read Eat, Pray, Love
71. Read Pope Joan
72. Read Free Range Kids
73. Read every current magazine in the house
74. Organized old National Geographics into piles for each of the last 4 years, started going back and reading the ones I never read
75. Read a bunch of blogs
76. Read chapters and chapters and chapters of The Borrowers, Ralph & The Motorcycle, The Trumpet of the Swan, etc. to Turtle
77. Watched about 20 TED talks
78. Watched Away We Go
79. Watched The Social Network
80. Took in a matinee of The King’s Speech
81. Called my mom
82. Called my sister
83. Called my friends
84. Texted my friends

(*To be fair, Backtire actually did these 3 tasks. But I led the charge.)

What's left? Perhaps I'll have to go gather some twigs, grass, and mud and start building an actual nest.

If you see something like this in my front yard, you'll know I've gone overdue...

(If you want to see more, check out the artist, Patrick Dougherty.)

Turning 40

Last night I greeted Backtire and Turtle as they climbed out of the car to say "Happy Birthday" to me and give me hugs. I thanked Backtire for the card and gift he had left for me to find that morning. Turtle's bottom lip started to quiver as his eyes got sad and he said "but I want to get you a present for your birthday." Tears began...

Oh no!

We had both failed to make a point to ensure that Backtire helped Turtle select a gift and prepare it for my birthday in advance. I felt so bad! The thought had crossed my mind a few days ago that he's old enough to get how birthdays work now and to want to be a part of preparing gifts for someone, as we've done so for his friends', cousins, and great-grandfather's birthday parties over the past months. But it's been a year since Mommy & Daddy had a birthday and we just didn't think it through as to how to include a 5-year old in that. Plus, we've all been so busy and exhausted and there wasn't really a plan to do anything special on a Tuesday night for my birthday. We're having a larger extended family dinner on Saturday. So, it just wasn't on our minds.

I hugged Turtle and told him that there was only one present I really wanted from him and that was a hug and a kiss. He smiled and gave me those, but then burst back into big tears saying "I know, but I want to give you a real present and wrap the present and give it to you on your birthday." I offered that my party wasn't until Saturday so he still had time to do that, but he wanted to give it to me on my real birthday. He cried frustrated that "I need help getting a present, I don't know how to buy one myself!"

We were about to go out to dinner and everyone was already starving, which wasn't helping us out of the meltdown, so I offered that Daddy could help him figure out how to get a present tonight after dinner if he wanted. He suddenly straightened up and got serious and said "Well, I need to go to Target" and asked me how late they were open. Then, "but I don't know if they have what I want to get."

"Well, Dad will know- talk to him about it. He'll help you."

"He doesn't know! Now I have to give it away!" Crumpling into my arms.

"No, you don't. He'll know. Ask him."

"Well, he doesn't know if they have grown up books at Target!"

"They do. He can help you with that."

"Now I gave it away!" Huge, more frustrated cries.

"No, you didn't, because I don't know which book you'll pick."

"But I don't know any of the names of the grown up books!" More agonized crying.

"Daddy can help you with that. You guys can go after dinner and he'll show you which ones I like."

Eventually, he calmed down enough for us to make it into the car and head to dinner.

I don't want the focus of birthdays to be on the idea that we get stuff. But I completely understood where he was coming from, too, in being so upset, because getting presents is one of the exciting things about a birthday and he saw how enthusiastically I had just thanked Daddy for his gift to me and felt left out of being able to make me feel that way, also.

And I felt so crappy and sad about all of this because it is really our responsibility to help him be able to give someone a gift if he wants to. He's not going to check his calendar and remember a birthday is coming and make time to create something or find a way to go buy something on his own. And he expressed all of that to us- that he couldn't get to the store or even know which book to pick without our help.

And I felt heart-warmed that he had such a desire to get me a gift and that he suddenly came up with the idea of a grown up book, which is a lovely perfect idea as a gift for me and makes me happy that he recognizes our shared love of reading and books and that I would enjoy a grown up book just for me.

So, that is how I found myself on my 40th birthday sitting in the passenger seat of the car in the rain in the parking lot of Target past bed-time with Backtire and Turtle inside buying me a surprise grown up book, frantically texting back and forth to Backtire in an effort to help him select a good book for me. I was trying in vain to remember what popular bestseller type book Target might have that I would want or names of authors that I like in general, but which books of theirs I've already read, all without being able to be in there and see the bookshelves and he was texting me possible titles for approval. We finally settled upon Eat, Pray, Love. Whew! All the while, Turtle was oblivious to this behind-the-scenes choreography of my gift selection.

They emerged from the store, one weary and one dimpled with excitement holding a Target plastic bag and saying "we got your surprise!" After we got home, I was banished to the back of the house while the gift was carefully wrapped and the secret bonus gift of my favorite ice cream was put in the freezer. Then right before I was to open the gift, a relative called to wish me a happy birthday.

Finally, much past 9 pm, the moment arrived and Turtle excitedly presented me with my beautifully wrapped gift. I opened it and exclaimed that I had been wanting to read this book and how did he know?! And thank you so much for getting me a book because I love to read and it makes me really happy! and hugs and kisses!

And he was smiling from ear to ear.

And that was the real gift.

Teaching Evolution to Children

Last night, Turtle was talking to his dad about the dinosaurs in the puzzle he was piecing together and mentioned that the T-Rex was a “bad guy”. Daddy corrected him pointing out that just because an animal is a meat-eater, that doesn’t make it a bad guy, that’s just how it needs to eat. Turtle clarified saying the reason it was a bad guy was that it ate people.

To which both of us quickly jumped in to remind him that dinosaurs and people never lived at the same time on earth.* I said something to the effect of “a long time after most of the dinosaurs were extinct, then humans came to earth” and the instant those words left my mouth, I regretted that last clause.

Predictably it led to Turtle asking “well, how did humans come to the earth, then?” Crap! I knew better than to use the phrase “came to”- what was I thinking! To make it worse, Backtire jumps in with a sarcastic “well, the aliens dropped off the humans” and I give him the evil eye because this is going to be a tough enough concept to explain to an almost 5-year old with out adding sarcasm about other people’s misconceptions and crazy notions into the mix.

So, I had to explain that Daddy was joking about the aliens thing and apologize for my mistake and backtrack into the explanation that there was an ancient group of animals who changed a little over time, then changed a little more, more, more, more until they became humans. He already knows that this is how birds came about from their dinosaur ancestors, so the analogy would have made sense to him.

Then he says “oh yeah, so gorillas changed into humans”. Aack! No! I started over, explaining that there was an ancient primate that was similar to monkeys and apes, but not the same, and some of them changed and changed and eventually became gorillas, while others changed and changed and eventually became chimps, and others monkeys, and others humans.

After that, we had to head out to dinner, but I kept thinking about this conversation, as a parent and an educator. Evolution is notoriously tough for laypeople to understand and there are some very real cognitive barriers (not to mention the emotional and cultural ones) that prevent people from truly grasping it easily. One is that it deals with deep time, which in and of itself is nearly impossible for most people to conceptualize. Another is that it is a highly complex phenomenon, each new piece you learn leads to more questions and details and variables to consider, so although you can attempt so simplify evolution and explain it to people of all ages and educational backgrounds, a true understanding of it doesn’t come until after much study.

Although I understand evolution well and have been careful to avoid explaining nature in magical or so-grossly-oversimplified-that-they-become-incorrect ways, he still leapt to conclusions that represent some of the most common misconceptions held by laypeople about evolution all on his own. Namely, that humans and dinosaurs lived together and that monkeys and apes turned into humans.

This happened in my living room and I am a parent who has invested a lot of energy into educating myself about evolution, educating my students about evolution, and working with other scientists and educators to attempt to address the difficulties encountered by the public and students when trying to understand evolution.

What’s a less evolution-involved parent to do? Seek out appropriate resources for helping you talk about the realities of how nature works with your young children. Visit Charlie’s Playhouse and recommend it as a resource to your child’s teachers. They’ve got learning resources and a list of approved and recommended books for all ages. This is important because there is a lot of quackery and incorrect stuff out there, so you can’t just Google “evolution books for kids”- the list you get back won’t have been vetted for accuracy.

Educate yourself. When’s the last time you took a biology class? Who knows what the quality of your learning was in the first place, how much you've retained, and how outdated that information is at this point? Get the facts. How?

Go to Berkeley’s Understanding Evolution site, which can serve as a sort of refresher Evo 101 course for you and has a whole section dedicated to resources for teachers you can recommend to teachers you know.

Visit the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s Human Evolution site with your kids. There are beautiful photos, fossils, timelines, videos, maps, and more to help you understand and explain our origins. Even better, plan a visit to the exhibit with your family!

Want to go deeper into current evolution research? Try NESCent.

Want updates on efforts to ensure quality evolution education in public schools? Head to NCSE.

Good luck with you & your child's evolving understanding of evolution!

(*Dinosaurs lived between 250 & 65 million years ago, when most of the species went extinct. It’s important not to imply and simply not true that all dinosaurs went extinct. Some species remained, evolving over time to become modern birds. This is one of the first misconceptions children hear from us about ancient life and evolution.)

"Girls Can't Do It"

Team sports don't do much for me. I've always been more of an X-Games kind of girl. I was a skater in another lifetime, am into street and dirtbikes, still love to rollerskate (quads only!), and recently took up BMX along with my son. Two years ago, I fought a lot of anxiety and self-doubt to even make it around the track for the first time. After much practice, I gained confidence, got smooth, and then started to get fast. It was so awesome the last few times we went because in choosing to work on speed, I ended up inadvertently catching air for the first time and finally "got" what that was all about.

I've always fantasized about being able to do air tricks on a bike or dirtbike and practically blew out the clutch on my XR250L trying over and over to do wheelies down suburban streets years ago. The best of which felt like I was going to fall over backwards but probably looked like my tire popped up about an inch off the pavement. Backtire automatically does huge ones by just thinking about it and has tried to explain the physics and mechanics of getting that front tire off the ground to me dozens of times (you get where the nickname comes from now). But although I understand it scientifically, I've never been able to feel what I need to feel to actually do it. I've tried really hard to no avail.

It turns out that trying was going to get me nowhere. Speed was what I needed and the bike just lifted itself up magically! or scientifically! but I certainly didn't feel in control of it. Now I know that if I get to the right speed I can get a little air on the top of any jump that I want and I can feel how with more speed and the right twitch here and there, I could get bigger and bigger air.

Then there's the steep drop ins. Although I eventually learned years ago how to drop into a small skateboard ramp and I've gone down steep hills on dirtbikes and mountain bikes and skis, and I know that how gravity and friction work and that the bike will be fine going down and all I have to do is calmly stay on it, when I roll the BMX bike up to a steep drop in, I always chicken out. Well, here's the new motivator- my 4 year old. He has been following daddy down the steep drop ins the last few times while I take another route (chicken sounds here). Screw that! Today I just started pedaling behind them before my head could get a chance to stop me and of course I was fine.

Then we headed over to the big bowl, part of the track I've never even considered riding and after Backtire went through it, Turtle asked if I would and I said "hmmm, I don't know, I never have" (more chicken sounds here) to which he replied "Well, girls can't do it." Screw that, too! Talk about double motivation. No way am I going to let my son believe that "girls can't do it" about anything! So, off I went. Right down the ultra steep drop in and up the other side without eating it. Whoo hoo! Who woulda thought?! And now I'm eyeing some of the bigger jumps and thinking about how I can work my skills up to the point of attempting them... what was fear to even try has become passion to get better. I'm hooked! In fact, where I used to begrudgingly accompany them to the track, I was the one who suggested going today because I really wanted to ride.

It took me two years to get to this point. That's longer than I believe I've ever stuck with something that I wasn't learning very fast. I've always tended to quit that which I couldn't get wired right away or at least make great gains in rapidly. Especially anything vaguely in the realm of sports. But now I'm growing - at the BMX track and in my approach to learning new things- and maybe I actually WILL catch that fantasy big air one day...

Not Me- I Wish!

(Photo Credit: http://www.future10.com/v2/blog/?m=200805)

Living the Dad's Life

This is a hilarious reminder that it's not just us moms that have our lives and identities swallowed whole. I'm sure Backtire has his share of "Spare Mindy" moments, too!