Easy as 1, 2, 3

I'm told that when dealing with kids, keep it simple. That's why I came up with 3 easy rules that encompass all a child needs to know in order to peacefully grow up in my home.

Rule #1: WTAM

WTAM stands for Would This Annoy Mom? I teach my children to ask themselves this before doing anything. That loud, repetitive cackling sound? You bet that annoys me; don't do it. Whining? Don't even think about it. Saying my name over and over again? Just. Don't.

I borrowed this reminder from the church crowd. Remember WWJD (What Would Jesus Do)? That acronym was sold on bracelets, Bible covers, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and anything else the Christian bookstore could think of to sell. And so in that same preventative spirit, I decided to make it simple for my kids by providing 4 simple letters to keep themselves in check.

Rule #2: Clean Up After Yourself

Really, who doesn't have this rule. But let me ask you this, how do you enforce this rule? I have a 2 step approach to implement this.

1) I throw it away. I find that my best cleaning is done with a big, black trash bag. Once it's in the garbage, we never have to put it away again. When my kids go through some economic depression in the future, they can look back on this time as the fat years when mom chucked the broken toys instead of fixing them.

2) Ban the kids from whatever made the mess. Some parents think that motor skills determine when a kid can cut with scissors, use glue, or enjoy play-doh. For me the litmus test is whether or not they can clean up after themselves. Honestly, I could care less what they are making. Whether they are tinkering with land mines or blowing flour from a hair dryer, it is all fine with me. But if they can't clean up after themselves, then they have no business doing any of those activities.

Rule #3: Make Me Laugh

At some point, the kids will break these rules. But if they can make me laugh, then I'll let them go scot-free.

Only one of my children as taken this last rule seriously. The other day, Pearl came to me with a pen in one hand and a clipboard in another.

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I want you to respond with very funny, funny, not very funny and not at all funny," she said writing something down on the paper. She began to tell me some jokes that the kids learned from school and told over the dinner table over the past few weeks. "Now I need you to tell me the funniest joke that you've ever heard in your life."

"Pearl, why are you asking me all of this?"

"I want to understand your humor so that when I get into trouble, I can make you laugh and not get into trouble."

This whole process tickled me so much that I think I might gloss over the next few of her infractions.

On the surface, these 3 rules probably come across as selfish. But I assure you that I'm teaching them a valuable life lesson. We all need to learn to make the one in charge happy, right?  Doesn't everyone look busy every time the boss comes around? It's no different in my house. As the old adage goes, "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

The Smoke Alarm is My Dinner Bell

It's no secret that I'm a bad cook. In fact the smoke alarm in our house has become our dinner bell. One day smoke poured out of the oven, the alarm went off, and instead of anyone screaming or cowering in fear, my children's attitude was nonchalance. My son leaned over from where he was sitting on the couch and yelled up the stairs to the other children that, "Dinner's ready!"

But does the apple ever fall far from the tree? While there are wonderful cooks in my family, it seems that bad cooking is a recessive gene that pops up through the generations. I don't have much knowledge about many of my ancestor's cooking skills, but I do know about a few grandmothers.

The farthest back that I can go up the ancestral tree is my paternal great grandmother. According to my grandfather, his mother didn't like her gig as a stay at home mom. Instead of doing housework or perfecting recipes, she pined for a college education. With all of that free time she had avoiding the kitchen, she taught herself painting and literature because she was constantly learning. Her zeal for all things cultured even lead to her acquiring 2 pianos despite it being the Great Depression. Each of her children were required to practice piano 5 hours a day during the summer and 3 hours a day during the school year. And probably the most shocking of all was when she told my grandfather to pursue concert piano because, "there's no money in engineering."

After majoring in concert piano, my grandfather did study engineering, and from what he told me, one of the perks of college life was the food. While everyone else complained about how bad the food tasted or how they missed their mother's cooking, he happily overate. He told me that since his mother's cooking was so bad, he was the only one at his college who actually liked the food and gained weight.

Like my father's family, my mother's family line also produced a memorable chef.  In the case of my Panamanian grandmother, this lack of cooking expertise broke a famous stereotype. You see, she was of Italian descent. And a grandmother. An Italian grandmother. Usually, those two words together conjure images of a warm-hearted woman who loves to push delicious food on anyone who enters her home. Warm hearted she was not. Upon seeing me shove spaghetti into my mouth and using my teeth to cut the noodles (a method I still employ today), she challenged me. "What kind of an Italian are you?" At that moment, actors on the family room TV were correctly twirling spaghetti with a spoon before raising a perfect little ball of noodles up to their mouths. "Look! Even those American actors can learn the right way to eat spaghetti."

Even if she wasn't warm-hearted, she at least did like to push food on us. However, we didn't like the food. When she visited us after a trip to Russia, she made borche. We kids still talk about that disgusting soup 30 years later. Another memorable food fail was when my friend spent the night and excitedly came to the table when she heard my grandmother grilled sandwiches for us. Maybe it was the frozen vegetables that my grandmother used to make it healthy, but these sandwiches were actually soggy instead of crispy. That's right. Soggy grilled sandwiches. I can remember being so embarrassed about my grandmother's cooking because I could hear my friend gag ever so slightly as she tried to get the food down. What always boggled my mind is that my grandmother had no idea that her cooking tasted gross. When she pushed food on us, she'd say in her thick Spanish accent, "Eat it! But it's gooood for you!" It wasn't long before my body cringed at those words, unlike Pavlov's happily salivating dog.

Staying close to the tree, I haven't fared much better in the kitchen. I loose count when I'm measuring ingredients, confuse 2 TBS of salt when I should only use 2 TSP, or my classic move is to overcook food because I forget that I'm cooking. Sometimes I tell myself that I can make a recipe even if the key ingredients are missing, or I'll just forget to put in the key ingredients.

Following in my Panamanian grandmother's footsteps, I probably embarrass my children when other kids spend the night. I have one nephew who doesn't even eat here anymore. He will politely tell me that, "I'm not hungry, Aunt Lizzy. We ate an early dinner."

And this food legacy continues. So far, I have one daughter who loves to cook like the wonderful cooks in the family and one who is falling in my footsteps. The one who loves to cook is so serious about food that she even plans to grow non-GMO food for the restaurant that she will one day own and where she will be the head chef. 

However, my other daughter seems to manifest the dreaded recessive bad cooking gene. Like her dear mom, she's not very precise when it comes to following recipes and has gained such a reputation for baking hard cookies that even her classmates will cover for her and bring in food on days she's assigned the task. They just don't want to be stuck with those hockey pucks that she tries to pass for cookies. 

It's lucky my house didn't burn down the day she tried to make those cookies for class. It's also the day my daughter learned what a convection oven is and how little time cookies need to bake. The smoke in the house from that failed attempt could have been used for "Stop, drop, and roll" videos. We now know that there really is clear air below the thick smoke. But who am I to judge? I pity her knowing that she has to live with this crippling disability for the rest of her life.

But so what? I fail at cooking and my food can be repulsive. I've come to terms with it and I'm no longer apologetic. If my food was perfect, wouldn't I be doing my kids a disservice? They would be so picky! Now they will be able to go anywhere in the world and eat whatever is put before them just like my grandfather did at college. And when they are deep in the jungles of a foreign land and take their first bite into that bug larvae and the guts squirt all around their mouth, I know my kids' eyes will well up with tears, and with conviction they'll say, "This tastes so much better than my mom's cooking."

Happy (Belated) Easter!

I wrote this last month but forgot to post it. Enjoy!

It's no surprise that holidays stress me out.  The etymology of the word probably would explain that tension is at the root of holidays.

I'm not sure why everyone else is stressed out, but I know why I am. Each holiday comes with the expectation to continue traditions and make the day magical for my kids. But like an opossum, I tend to close my eyes and play dead in the face of a challenge.

This Easter the kids spent the weekend with their dad and his folks, so those 3 adults were able to pull off the kind of enchantment a child anticipates. Without the pressure of having to perform, I was able to enjoy the kids for a post Easter celebration at home.

At an Egyptian Easter brunch, I had learned about hollowing out eggs in order to paint them. Hallelujah! An option to the traditional American style of coloring Easter eggs was just what I needed.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to hard boil eggs without cracking them? As a result, the dye colors the egg in addition to the shell. Then there's the issue of wanting to display the handiwork...but there is also the inherent risk of the spoiling food that is left out of the fridge too long. Dying eggs in bowls full of colorful vinegar is difficult as you don't have much control when it comes to the tiny details.

So here's what we did:

1) We poked tiny holes on either end of the egg and blew out the insides. Ever try blowing up a brand new balloon? Yeah, our cheeks hurt just as badly.

2) Then we hardened them with a coat of nail polish.

3) While we waited for the eggs to dry, we beat the yolks and whites for a delicious omelet lunch with roasted vegetables. The day felt so special so I let the kids drink orange juice out of my grandfather's martini glasses. We felt so fancy!

4) Finally, we brought out the paints and decorated our delicate eggshells. The highlight of my day was when a couple of the kids told me that this alternate process of painting the eggs was the most fun way to color Easter eggs.

Some of our final products.

Our day broke the usual tradition, and as a result, I was able to conjure an even more memorable magic for the family.

Studying American Ingenuity

http://www.amazon.com/Built-To-Last-George-Sullivan/dp/0439517370

The kids and I have been slowly going through this fascinating book about architecture that covers iconic and influential structures in the United States.  The stories behind these great designs are mostly entertaining and always inspiring. I'm amazed at the ability to construct something so massive so long ago. Their efforts -- primitive at times -- sometimes required many years during an age when machines couldn't do all of the work.

For example, the Brooklyn Bridge found its foundation on the deep bedrock below the East River after years of men mining the mud in underwater chambers. Air tight underwater chambers! The explanation of how these chambers worked was reminiscent of an astronaut in space. Mind you, while this seemingly space age technology was in use, Laura Ingals Wilder was crossing the praire as a child.

After reading this book, I'd like to take the kids on a tour of our favorite monumental structures described in this publication. Why not spend a weekend in New York City learning about more than just the political history of the city? Instead, we could study the history of American ingenuity.

A Child's Evolution of Time

It's a well-known fact that children have no concept of time. Ask any parent what the most frequently asked question on a car trip is and they will always answer, "Are we there yet?" It doesn't matter what country you live in or what mode of transportation you use, a child on a camel will still ask, "How much longer?"

Understanding how long an hour is or the sequence of days usually doesn't click for a child until they are in early elementary school. Until that point, they rely on the sun to tell them things like what time to wake up and when to go to bed. Living with kids gives me an inkling of how the cavemen lived. After the fall Daylight Savings, my younger children will continue to wake up because of the sun which means that they get up an hour earlier. In the spring, I have a bit of a respite as we regress to waking up in the dark for a while before the sun catches up. But really, without an agricultural way of life, this time complication only serves to push my little alarm clocks to rouse me earlier and earlier with each waxing day.

Time is a concept that my 6 year old is having a lot of trouble understanding. Starting at about 10 am, she will continue to repeatedly ask me if her best friend has come home from school yet. She knows that the bus drops her off at the same time each day, but still she persists in asking, "Is she home yet? Is she home now?" I've tried to use this as an opportunity to teach time on a clock. I tell her that when the short hand passes the 4 and the long hand sits on the 6 then her friend will be home. When I give her that answer, she'll just keep asking me if the short hand and long hand are at the right positions yet. Thank goodness I don't have to only rely on analog clocks for such a situation. I've posted her best friend's bus arrival next to the oven clock, and each time tell her to go compare the numbers.

In order to cope with my children's inability to tell time, I learned early on to avoid certains topics of conversation with them. Instead of getting off the phone to tell a 3 year old that we were going over to a friend's house the next day, I would withhold the news until we were driving over to the playdate. If I didn't hold back such information, then I would answer an endless series of questions.

"Guess what? We have a playdate tomorrow!" I would say naively.

"Hooray! Where are my shoes?"

"Why?"

"I want to go to the playdate!"

"But we aren't going until tomorrow."

"Oh, ok." A thoughtful pause. "What is tomorrow?"

"Ummmm....it's the day after today?"

"When is that?"

"Well, we still need to eat dinner, you need to sleep all night, then we'll eat breakfast, and after that we'll drive over to your friend's house."

"Can I eat breakfast now and then go over there?"

In an attempt to change the subject, I offered to take the tyke to the playground at that moment or read a book. But sure enough, the questions would start all over again whenever there wasn't some fun distraction.

"Is it time for breakfast yet? Are we going to the playdate now?"

The inability to rationalize with a toddler exhausted my vocabulary. Following a series of questions that asked why and how, I eventually was stumped and couldn't even make up an answer. I mean, how do you explain the answer, "I don't know" to someone who doesn't know what any of those words mean?

Unable to reason with my children, I adopted a different tactic. Life became more peaceful for me if I just waited to break the good news until we were are on their friend's street. Though withholding information led to a different type of conversation. The surprised and elated children then turned on me. They want to know why I hadn't told them about this playdate? Were there other things that I was keeping from them? And why did they always seem to be the last ones to find anything out?

It wasn't until the older toddlers grew up to be teenagers that I had a glimmer of redemption with them. One day my son told me that he finally understood why he and his sister always felt like the last to know anything. As children, they didn't like it when their friends already knew about plans before they did, but now he understands why I never gave them an itinerary since he has experienced life with his 4 year old brother.

Given the choice of answering never ending questions or being thought of as a parent who keeps her kids in the dark, I'll live with the later. Even though this seems mean, eventually the younger kids will understand what the older kids learned from dealing with their siblings. Omission isn't so bad when it prevents insanity. This is a win win situation. Why should I rush my mental problems or the end of my children's time-ignorant bliss? In good time, the youngins will emerge from their Neanderthal ignorance of time into our modern enslavement of it.

Lego, My Drug of Choice

Paying homage to our drug of choice at the Lego
exhibit at the Kennedy Center's Nordic Cool event.

I don't remember playing with Legos as a child as much as my children love to play with them. My older brothers had a big, sturdy Lego box that looked like a tool box. I guess we were supposed to put away the different size pieces in the various compartments, but by the time I got ahold of that box, there was no order anymore.

Legos weren't very inspiring to me. As a creative dunce, there are only so many times that building a block out of blocks is fun. For my kids, on the other hand, Legos are treasures. It took me a while to realize the gold I was sitting on.

After we got rid of the TV, I worried what to do with my youngest while I schooled the older kids. With the TV, I had visual valium. I won't lie, it was awesome. I could sit a kid in front of The Wiggles or Dora the Explorer and never have to worry that a whole roll of toilet paper would be unraveled and flushed (i.e. stuck) down the toilet yet again.

My youngest aren't the only children that I doped up with the TV. When my oldest was 9 months old, I got pregnant. Then when the second child was a year, I got pregnant again. Exhausted almost to the point of death, I somehow had to care for a 2 year old and 1 year old while growing another child. One time their dad came home from work to find me passed out on the couch with the babies standing on the kitchen table playing with sharp knives. I think it was his terrified cries that roused me from the coma because that was the day I had tried to tire them out at the playground but wound up being the only person to take a nap.

For their safety, I assure you that I was only thinking of them, I sat them down infront of the retro TV shows on Cartoon Network for the rest of that pregnancy. With the babies transfixed on episodes of The Justice League that date back to when I was a kid, I was able to collapse in peace for the next six months knowing that I wouldn't wake up to find them trying to kill themselves.

Sitting my kids in front of the TV had gotten me through pregnancies, school days, naps, tutoring online, coffee with my friends... I mean, TV was like the nanny who had lived with us so long, it had become a member of the family! Getting rid of the TV induced a bit of a panic to rise within me. Was I to be forced to go back to those Dark Ages of wild children who opened the front door and ran away? So I was so relieved when I discovered that I have another drug in the house, and I've had it all along. My kids will play Legos for hours.

One of my favorite creations that they built was a classical temple that my daughter constructed after I read aloud a book about life in ancient Greece. Using the boring black and white picture from the book published over 60 years ago, she carefully copied what she saw. Doric columns and  blocky statues of Athena decorated the outside of her temple. As you can imagine, that was an all morning project.

My youngest, the one I worried about the most after the absence of TV, will play with Legos while I read aloud to the other kids. After our hour of reading, we move onto other subjects, but I will find him still there creating battles with the Lego men and destroying his own buildings. Well, it is war after all.

Thanks to Legos, I'm not so worried anymore when I haven't heard from the youngest mischief makers because I typically find them busy snapping and unsnapping Lego pieces. Permanent marker all over the wall? That's from that era known as pre Lego. Sharpie on the real ivory keys of the baby grand piano? Also, pre Lego era. Wet toilet paper painted on the wall with a toilet brush? You got it -- pre Lego era. No longer do I worry that all the spices will be shaken out of their bottles or the dirt from planters smeared all over the rugs. Thanks to fake plants and Legos, I know I'll probably find them constructively using their imaginations.

Legos sound like the cure-all drug, but they are not. Still, I find my youngest son and daughter looking like thespians after a fun go at my make up. Eye liner will create new eyebrows that cut their foreheads in half. Blush is applied all over their face making them look like they spent too much time in the sun. Still they both get into their older siblings rooms and trash them. Piggy banks are emptied and then forgotten. Drawers are overturned onto the floor. Regular shake downs still occur at our home.

But even with all of the ransacking and looting, it doesn't happen as much in this Lego era that I will also dub the Golden Era. In this time of peace and constructive imaginative play, we are all benefiting. The kids are funneling their creativity away from danger, and I now have a way to ignore my youngest guilt-free.

Guilt Killjoyed the Gladiator

When going through my drafts today, I found this unposted memory that I wrote last summer while on vacation at the beach with my parents, my siblings, and their families. 

The spirit of the Roman arena is alive and well with my kids and their cousins. Each night after dinner, we all go for a walk on the beach where all the kids hunt crabs that can fight each other. Armed with fishing nets and sand buckets, these kids run screaming into the water hunting terrified crabs.

Watching 16 kids run in a trailing, screaming mass kind of pricks your heart at the sweetness of the scene until you hear what they are screaming. "Yeah! This one can fight the one in the bucket to the death!"

Wait, what? That last scream cooled any warm nostalgic feeling. Sweet and gushy feelings were replaced with guilt, making me feel as if my kids were the Michael Vicks of the seashore.

Once at least 2 crabs are in the bucket, some of the kids dig a pit in order to set the crabs free in the hope that they will fight each other to the death. From the oldest to the littlest darling, these kids work themselves up into a furry. They growled commands at the crabs.

"Rip his head off!"

"Chop off his claw!"

"Fight, you coward, fight!"

"Kill 'em! Kill 'em!"

My brother and I stood by in horror. Those were our kids who were screaming like they were part of the audience in the Roman arena. Granted, our kids weren't cheering on humans fighting to the death, but, still, we felt uneasy about their desire to witness disfigurement and death.

"You suppose this is how heartless people like the Nazis might have sounded when they pitted Jews against each other?" I asked my brother. This question didn't bode well with him.

He squished up his face and  decided to stop the kids. "Release the poor crabs!" he instructed them. But he was too late. One crab had already torn the arm off another. Disabled, the crab still stood up on its hind legs to defend itself.  With much regret, we returned that crab to the wild with one less defense, one less way to gather food for itself.

I realize this makes us sound like bleeding heart liberals which is hilarious if you know my family.

With so many crabs out there, what do these few matter, right? So why did it bother us so much? Obviously we don't want our children to be so cavalier with the lives of small defenseless animals. More than that, though, it just weirded us out to hear such bloodthirsty words come from their mouths.

Studies surely could back up why my brother and I cringed so much while watching our children, but I think it's more simple than that. Guilt is a small voice that shouldn't be ignored. While it might be an overplayed tools mothers use to control their kids from time to time, it still is really useful to keep people in check. And by keeping us in check, guilt keeps us tender.