Television

I'm always interested to learn about the way other people do things, and I was interested to learn on a recent T&S thread that there are many people in the bloggernacle who don't have a T.V., or at the very least have intense rules about television consumption. So I would just like to have an informal poll about how many people let their kids watch TV, and what you let them watch, and what you think is inappropriate. I have found that these answers, esecially the inappropriate vs appropriate, vary greatly, and I want to know what y'all do in your families. Also, what do you think about letting small children watch full length feature films at home, or in the theater? Jacob really likes going to the movies, and we do that on rainy days and when Adventure Mom needs a serious break. He has seen Shrek 2, the Incredibles, Madagascar, and Star Wars, Episode III in the theaters, and he loves it. We get our popcorn and treats, and he sits attentively each time, watching the movie. I, of course, sit and watch my son's brain melting as he overloads on visual stimulation, but I assuage my guilty conscience by telling myself that he watches virtually no TV at home (our TV is hooked up only for videos--DH says the time waster has been replaced by my blogging habit!), so a little brain melting now and then won't hurt him in the long run. I could just be fooling myself, I know, but it makes me feel better all the same! Ok, so to sum up, here's what I want to know: Do you let your kids watch TV, and if so, how much and which shows? Do you let your kids watch feature length videos at home, and/or at the theater? When does the occasional brain melting become too much, and what do you think the effects are, if any, of media consumption? I'm mainly interested in anecdotal evidence, but if somebody can pull up some real stats about TV, that could be cool, too.
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I'm the mom--still

The other day, I was total Adventure Mom. I took my little son and his little playdate to a really cool place, and we did some awesome stuff. We went on a train, we went on a carousal, we went on a boat ride, we found a nest with some eggs in it, threw rocks and sticks in a lake, you name it. The kids had a great time, got thoroughly worn out, and slept the rest of the afternoon. It was a great day. The next day, my little early riser crawled into bed and said eagerly, "What are we doing today, mommmy? Wait, we just had a great day yesterday. You mean I have to do it AGAIN? I think that's one of the hardest things for me as a mom. No matter how fun you are one day, there is always tomorrow. No matter how great a dinner you made one night, there is still tomorrow night. No matter how long it's taken you to clean your house one day, it still looks like a hurricane went through the next. I think motherhood embodies the old myth of Sisyphus--wasn't he the guy who was condemned to roll a big rock up a hill each day, only to have it roll back down again? I love being a mom, I do. I love my son, and there are things about motherhood that make me smile and giggle and act goofy and overall rejoice in the creation of life and my role in it. Every now and then, though, I think I'd like the rock to stay put so I can go shopping. Or at the very least, take a nap.
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Non mommy related vent

Sorry, this post has almost nothing to do with motherhood, but I still felt like venting to the blogosphere, so read and enjoy and soon we'll return to your regularly scheduled programming. Ok, when we lived in Arkansas, we had this really kinda quirky neighbor. She was sweet as could be, though, and was always giving us stuff, especially Jacob. She would bring toys over all the time for him, and he loved it. Sometimes she brought over a tomato she had grown in her garden. Her tomatoes were, without a doubt, delicious, and I loved getting the fresh vegetables. One time she stopped to chat about the tomatoes, talking about how she hates to eat canned tomatoes, or any canned tomato products, because she used to live by a tomato canning factory. The smells of the chemicals wafting over from the factory used to make her sick, she said, and she has vowed not to eat canned food since. She went on and on about how she thinks that the increase in consumption of canned vegetables and the chemicals that go with it could be the reason that America has such a high incidence of cancer, and certainly those chemicals can't be good for you. Then she lit up a cigarette. Call me crazy, but I'll pick a can of pureed tomatoes over a cigarette any day. Now we live in Virginia, and have an awesome garden of our own. We talk tomatoes and pesticides and fertilizers with all our neighbors. One neighbor, a woman who has particularly robust tomato plants, claims that she does not put Miracle Grow on her plants, that she has tilled the earth with good, natural compost that has added sufficient nutrients to the soil to give her some seriously kick-butt plants. I believe her, too. Not everybody does, however, and she was going on today about how she doesn't believe in pesticides or fertilizers, that those are things that are not good for the environment or good for her food. Then she, too, lit up a cigarette. The irony is just maddening.
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Deciding what he will be when he grows up

I have a friend who is a concert violinist. I grew up with her, and her entire life was violin. She has often mentioned how difficult it was to sacrifice what she did to get to where she is, but she also attributes all her successes to her mother. I can only imagine the time and money spent in special lessons and transportation to the state competitions, all of which, to my knowledge, my friend would win. My friend insists that she is glad her mother did it all. Now my friend and I are all grown up, and have kids of our own. Last month I attended a mini-concert, if you will, of her daughter playing every variation of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" imaginable. For those of you who are familiar with Suzuki method of teaching music, you know how many variations there are, and I had to sit through about 10 minutes of music. Her daugther is 3 years old, only 6 months older than Jacob. Jacob does not play an instrument. At all. The closest he comes is banging different notes on the piano as hard as he can while singing, "Doe, a Deer" at the top of his lungs. I left my friend's house, feeling like a failure that her child was so much more advanced than mine, and was so as a direct result of mothering intervention. Worried that I wasn't doing enough to ensure my child's excellence at something, I started thinking about what Jacob could do well, and how I could help him excel at that. The answer was clear: swimming. Jacob loves to swim, and can do it fairly well for a kid his age. I started asking people about swim teams, competitions, etc. His swim teacher said that I should wait until he's at least 4 to start him as a competitive swimmer, just because then he would be closer to the other kid's sizes. But then I starting thinking about it, andI'm really not sure that it's my responsibility to make sure that Jacob becomes an Olympic swimmer, just as I'm not sure that it's my friend's responsibility to make sure her 3 year old becomes a concert violist. And yet it is clear that those people who demonstrate excellence in certain things have their parent's dedication and direct involvement to thank for it. At what point do we intervene to make our children great, and when do we just let kids be kids? Am I stunting my son's growth because I let him play with his toys all morning, baked cookies with him in the afternoon, and am currently letting him play on his bike outside while I blog? No culture or music or learning today--just kid stuff. We are, however, going swimming later. You know, just to keep Jacob's skills up :).
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The oddest question

As a mother, you have to be prepared to answer questions. Everybody seems to want to know one thing or another. Strangers and family members alike want to know everything. Some questions are ok, even predictable, and are things you actually want to talk about. How big was your baby when he was born? C-section or vaginal birth? When did he first start sleeping through the night? Is he on solid foods yet? Some questions are inappropriate, like, do you have milk-let down when you have orgasm these days? (Yes, somebody asked me that.) Some seem ridiculously obvious: Is it a boy or a girl? (She's dressed in all pink, is wearing pantaloons, and has a bow in her hair--does she look like a boy? I have to admit, though, one time I was stumped when the baby's name was Sage and she was dressed in all black. Yes, the parents were from New York!) As the child gets older, the questions change. Is he walking? Is he talking? Does he still nap? Is he in preschool? Some questions are specific to my child. Jacob is very tall for his age, has really gorgeous freakishly long eye-lashes, and white-blonde hair. People thus ask, all the time, "Is your husband tall?" or, "Where did he get those eyelashes", and "Does your husband have blonde hair, too?" I think every kid has something that stands out about them that people ask about, and Jacob's height, hair, and eyelash length just seem to be his. His really, really fair skin gets comments too. Dh was in a video store when a black man said, "That is the whitest baby I've ever seen!" But the other day, I was asked a truly odd question. I was at the museum with Jacob and his playdate for the day (Yes, we go to the museums around here A LOT ok? You gotta problem with that?), and people asked questions like, "Are they brothers, twins?" That's a normal question--they are, after all, two boys that are basically the same age and both have blonde hair and blue eyes. But when I answered one woman with, "No, they're just friends. This one is mine," pointing to Jacob, she said, "And do you color his hair to lighten it up so much?" Um, no, I do not chemically alter the state of my 3 year old son's hair, thank you very much. It seems she could have deduced that from the fact that I myself have light blonde hair, and I had already identified myself as this child's mother, but I guess that was too difficult a leap for her to make. I dunno. Of all the questions I've been asked over the years as a mother, this one was the weirdest. Anyone else have weird stranger question stories?
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Saying No to Sharkboy

I fear I am spoiling my child. Yesterday, we went to McDonald's (yes, I've seen SuperSize me, yes, I understand how incredibly gross this food is, but we never eat the fries, I get the Apple Dippers and milk with the Happy Meal, and I personally only eat a junior hamburger, which is the FDA recommended portion of red meat, so get off my back already!)and he got the new toy of the month, "Shark Boy", from some silly sounding movie "Shark Boy and Lava Girl." Jacob knows nothing about this movie, but hey, he got a new action figure, so he was thrilled. Shark Boy and Spiderman had a great time attacking each other in Jacob's car seat. Later that day, we went to a museum downtown with some visiting family members. Jacob was way overtired, seriously needed a nap, and was being downright bratty to his cousins. He was still holding fast to SharkBoy, but when he was looking at one exhibit, he dropped SharkBoy, then left him, forgotten, on the floor. I saw him drop the toy, thought, "There will be hell to pay if we lose that stupid thing," and was promptly distracted and didn't pick it up. We wandered to another exhibit, and I remembered the forgotten toy. I asked Jacob if he had it, and he checked his pockets, then held out his empty hands and shrugged. "Where is it, Momma? I need my Shark Boy." We quickly went back to the previous exhibit, and I asked the docent if anybody had turned in an action figure. A woman standing nearby said, "Oh, I saw that toy on the floor, and a little boy picked it up. Oh, it belongs to you? Sorry, I thought it belonged to the boy who picked it up." Jacob heard this, and let loose a terrific howl, complete with head thrown-back and hot tears streaming down his red face. "I NEEEHEEED my SHAAARK BOY! Who is that boy who took it? I don't know his NAAHHAAME! I can't find him!" and on and on and on. Finally, I said, "Tomorrow we'll go back to McDonalds and get another one, ok?" That calmed him down for about two minutes, until, of course, his cousins did some heinous thing like looking at a rock that made him flip his lid, and he finally fell asleep, exhausted, in the car on the way home. Shark Boy seemed like an insignificant and forgotten matter. Then this morning, almost the first words out of his mouth when he came padding into our room were, "When are we going to McDonald's to get my new Shark Boy, Mommy?" I figured I had to keep my promise, and we went back to McDonald's for the second time in 2 days, and I requested the Shark Boy toy in the Happy Meal. Jacob has not let this toy out of his sight since he ripped it out of that little cardboard box. He is currently killing bad guys with Shark Boy, using our small hand broom as his weapon of choice. But I am wondering if I did the right thing here. After all, it's not like some other kid stole it and ran, or a car ran over it, or something like that. Jacob simply lost it. I could have picked it up at the museum, but technically it was his fault he let it drop and left it for another excited kid to pick up. At what point do you stop replacing toys and start letting the kids learn the lesson of keeping track of their own stuff? At what point do you say "No" to Shark Boy? I did tell Jacob that this was the last time we were going to get a Shark Boy--if he lost this one, it would be gone, that would be it. He seemed to understand, which is possibly why he hasn't let go of the silly toy all morning. Still, giving him a 1 time freebie might still be too much. Any thoughts on how to avoid raising a son who is a complete and total spoiled brat?
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Lesson on The Priesthood

As I've mentioned before, I'm the R.S. teacher in our ward for the David O. Mckay lessons. This week's lesson is on the Priesthood, and I am not sure where to go with it. Yes, I know, follow the manual, but the manual seems to favor heavily things like actions you should do with the priesthood, why you should remain worthy of the priesthood, and how to honor priesthood, etc, etc, etc. In other words, it's a lesson that would be great for deacons and new male converts, but I've having a hard time envisioning the same kind of benefit for the women. So what do women want to hear about the Priesthood? From previous bloggernacle discussions (let's face it, this is not a new topic), it's clear that many women have very strong opinions about the Priesthood, particularly women not having it, and how gender roles in the church affect the decision making process in individual units. I know that many women feel frustrated and powerless in the church when it comes to dealing with this topic, and that there is a lot of pain and anger associated with it. Needless to say, I like to keep the pain and anger in the Relief Society to a minimum when I teach, but I can't stand the thought of getting up there and delivering the same tired lines like, "Women support the priesthood by giving their husbands opportunities to use it in the home." I actually believe that, but I also believe there's got to be a lot more to this whole thing than thoughts that border on empty platitudes. So if you were sitting in a Relief Society, and you heard that the topic was The Preisthood, what would you want to hear? What would you want to talk about? What are things that you feel never get discussed, or get sugar-coated with meaningless cliches? And also, what are things that would just make you want to vomit right there on the teacher's shoes? In addition to keeping the pain and anger meter low, I also like to reserve cleaning up bodily fluids for the comfort of my own home, where a good priesthood holder presides who is more than capable of wielding a broom and a mop!
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Frumpiness among the beautiful people

I'm not a clothes horse. I never have been. I always stole my older sister's clothes in high school, because her clothes were cool, and mine weren't. (She didn't appreciate that, by the way.) In college, everybody looked frumpy in sweats all the time anyway, so I fit right in. But by the time I got to graduate school and a profession, I had finally shedded the sweats look, got some classic pieces in my wardrobe, and felt like usually, I looked pretty good. Somebody even remarked at work once, "Speech Pathologists are always the best dressed therapists." It took me a second to realize that she was including me in her statement, but it confirmed what I had secretly hoped and suspected: I was no longer frumpy. Well, all I can say now is, Welcome to Frumpville. Population: me. Is it motherhood? Is that my problem? What is it about motherhood that makes one turn into Frump Girl? Am I the only one who looks at pictures of me before kids and thinks, "Wow, good thing DH met me back then!" Usually, I actually don't think that much about how I look, (frankly, I hang out with 3 year olds and their moms most of the time, and the moms are just as covered in bodily goo as I am) but the other night, my frumpiness was called sharply into focus. I went to a fancy shmancy work event with DH and my parents, and the song "One of these things is not like the other" went through my head all night as I was introduced to some big wigs. I was suddenly acutely aware of my unpainted toenails, my oft-bitten fingernails, my seriously unhip hairstyle that comes out of a ponytail pretty much only on Sundays, and my choice of attire that did not seem to match the other womens'. Do other mother's feel like this? Am I the only one that can deal with 2 three year olds fighting over a stick in the middle of a forest with ease, but feels uncomfortable in a room where people are wearing something besides what was at the top of the laundry pile? For right now, I guess it's not that big of a deal. Like I said, most of my associations are with other moms and little kids, neither of whom give a flying flip about what I have on. But I'm worried--will I ever be able to remember what it's like to put on something hip? Am I going to be stuck in Frumpville forever? Hey, what a great excuse to head to the mall. Shopping, anyone?
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9 months pregnant at the Battle of Fredericksburg

And you thought your pregnancy was bad.... I've just come across an amazing story of a woman who was literally 9 months pregnant while fighting in the Battle of Fredericksburg in the Civil War. Fredericksburg occurred in Dec of 1862, and she gave birth on January 19, 1863. Nobody knew she was a woman until she gave birth to her son in camp. And Fredericksburg was not her first battle. As far as anybody knows, she had fought in at least 2 battles before that: The Seven Days, and Antietam, where she was wounded. I can't imagine how she was wounded and treated without her sex being discovered, but the wound must not have required extensive physical treatment, because her true identity went undetected until the following January. Not one of her fellow soldiers had known previously that she was a woman. Her true name and identity has never been uncovered. . I have been to two of the battlefields where this woman was known to have fought. Antietam is a huge, huge rolling field of wheat, and is basically flat. Fredericksburg is not flat. The battle took place basically along a ridge, much like the Battle of Gettysburg, but in Fredericksburg, the Confederacy had the upper hand. They were completely entrenched on the higher ground, and the incompetent Gen. Burnside sent wave upon wave of Union soldiers up this ridge to be slaughtered, cut down like dogs. Just being there in the Confederacy's stronghold and seeing what viewpoint they had of the battle, how protected they were, knowing what the Union faced, is enough to make one physically ill. And this woman fought on those fields and charged up that hill, 9 months pregnant. Nobody knows quite why she did it. It is estimated that over 350 women fought in the Civil War, dressed as men, and their motives have longed been talked about. There are a lot of plausible arguments about why the women went to war. But why didn't this woman's motherly instinct kick-in when she saw that ridge, and knew that death was fairly certain?(Union casualities at Fredericksburg were enormous.)Did she feel that her cause was more important than her unborn child? Or was she one of those women who didn't know she was pregnant? Conditions in the army were such that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that she could have stopped menstrating months before she got pregnant, but can you even get pregnant if you are not menstrating? Or does the mother love that we all know not really show up until you give birth and see that the tiny perfect being who has been growing inside of you? In any case, she was, by all accounts, a remarkable soldier who was promoted several times. I don't know what happened to her after the war, or even after she had the baby. I just hope she was as good a mother as she was a soldier. Regardless, she sounds like one strong woman.
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My two cents on the Ensign Article

Apparantly there is a big dust up about the cover of this month's Ensign, and the lead story about mothers. T&S is having a huge discussion, and seeing as the comments have reached over 250 (last time I checked) I feel no guilt whatsoever about putting in my two cents over here, because if I made a comment over there, nobody would pay attention anyway. My objections with the article are similar to Julie's--the content was fairly predictable, but well presented. But I have to say that the pictures that went along with the article bothered me. All but one picture focused on the domestic arts. As somebody who has come to learn the domestic arts late in life , and struggles with that particular part of motherhood, I felt inadequate as a mother even before I started reading the article. The inadequacy caused feelings of irritation, and frustration, and that's the spirit in which I started reading this article that was meant to uplife and inspire. Like I said, the article itself wasn't bad, but the pictures did not reflect the full message of the article, and frankly, I was bugged. I get bothered by the stereotype that the only women who are good mothers are the ones who can quilt and sew and make good meatloaf (although, I have to say, I go make a pretty darned good meatloaf.) My own mother doesn't do any of these things well, and she raised 6 kids who turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Her focus with her children was on developing our talents, keeping us busy with enriching activities, reading good books, and playing lots of games. She gave us the confidence and freedom of exploring things we liked to do, and supported us 100% in all of our activities, which ranged from soccer to dance to performing Shakespeare. The argument has been made that with the growing membership in the Church, and the globalization of the Church, publications like the Ensign have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I can understand and appreciate that. However, I think they missed the boat on this one. Somehow I don't think everybody equates sewing on a button with motherly bliss.
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Last quote

This one is also from Amy Hardison and her book, "How to Feel Great About Being A Mother." Last one, I promise. We'll start blogging our own thoughts on Monday. I never imagined that I would have a child that complained every night if we didn't have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. I never thought that there would be winters when we never had everyone weel and one time and that I wouldn't get an uninterrupted night's sleep for years on end. It never dawned on me that there would be times I would feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and inadequate. BUt neither did I imagine the joy of holding my own baby, the delight of listening to a three-year-old's imaginative play, or the pride of watching my own kindergartner in a school Christmad play....The expectations of motherhood are not always fulfilled, but often they are surpassed. I especially identify with the sleep part.
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Another Quote

This is one from Beppie Harrison, author of "Needles in the Basket". I have no idea what that title means, but, you know, whatever. Sometimes weaknesses challenge weaknesses. Maybe the child who needs patience the most has the trick of exasperating you almost past endurance. Maybe the child with the flaring temper that needs control repeatedly kindles your own temper,...Whether you are at peace or at loggerheads, the two of you are joined together. This is the child you Heavenly Father has sent to you, and one way or another, the two of you have to cope with each other. Hard as it may be sometimes to figure it out, there is a reason the two of you were given to each other. You have lessons to teach each other, and once you've weathered the process, you will each be more of what your Heavenly Father knows you are capable of being.
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Other people's thoughts on motherhood

Things have gotten a little crazy with the families of us bloggers. A new baby nephew, in-laws in town, and, sadly, a death in DH's family is going to make it pretty tough to really do some hard core blogging around here. So I thought we would still make it interesting to come and read by posting some other people's thoughts on motherhood, some quotes I've gathered, if you will, and y'all can talk about the quotes, or you can just read them and smile. Either way, if you're here, we're happy. We might do this again, but I will start with one of my favorites, from a woman named Amy Hardison, from her book "How to Feel Great About Being a Mother". Ok, I know, that's a WAY cheesy title for a book, but I do like what she says here: We need to make allowances for "almosts." We can be very successful mothers if we are almost always attentive. We can create a nurtering, supportive home environment if we are alomst always loving and patient...We can make these allowances for "almosts" because motherhood is not a matter of absolutes. If we have not completely met our expectations, it doesn't mean we have failed....It is quite possible to both fall short of and exceed our expectations of motherhood. I liked those thoughts. It makes you think you can pick up and still be a good mother even after you screeched, "You little booger!" at your son when he sprayed you in the face with the hose.
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