Technology Generation

Aah...technology. We all use it. We all love it. At least most of us do. I know I am certainly not the most technology driven person, but I use a fair bit of it each day. Why am I bring this up? Well, I'm a bit scared about where all this technology is taken us. As a college instructor, I am constantly reminding my students to put their phones away or watching them clearly spending time IMing on their computers while I am trying to teach. As a law school student, I saw the complete panic some of the younger students (I was about 10 years older than most of them) had when a professor simply stated no computers allowed in this class. I always found it interesting, but now finding that balance has become crucial to me.

CJ has become the technology wizard. He loves it. He sends text messages every night to his Nana. He could spend all day on the computer if we let him. We don't even have to help him. He knows how to use the mouse and flip back and forth around pbskids.org and sproutonline.com faster than I do. He loves it. On one hand, I figure it's better than TV because at least he's interacting and is playing educational games. He likes the games dealing with numbers and math the best. It's truly amazing to watch him click and navigate the web like it's second nature to him. On the other hand, I don't want him to become so addicted to those games that things like Chutes and Ladders are no longer fun. Don't get me wrong. He has a brilliant imagination, but I do worry that he'll lose that ability if he spends so much time on a something that can create things for him. Ceirnan is in on the act too. She has definitely figured out the importance of the cell phone and is always trying to play with the buttons. She loves the remote control too. I'm sure she'll follow right in her brother's footsteps.

I know the simple answer for now is to limit all of his screen time (TV and Computer), but I definitely wonder what a difference it will make in his life as we move forward.

Coolest

Just a quick note to remind myself that having children is brilliant. Last night Ceirnan said Mama for the first time and meant it. It was amazing. Then CJ turned to his Dad and said, "You're my hero." I thought Case's smile would literally explode his face. Then this morning CJ said Case and he were the coolest. Case asked what Mama and Ceirnan were and he said, "well Daddy, they are just sweet...so sweet." I could have hugged him forever.

CJ is just getting smarter and smarter. His newest phrase is "this is incredible! I mean really." He's incredible.

For Girls

So we've hit that time. At almost 4, CJ finally uttered the words...I can't get that. It's for girls. It broke my heart. I know it is related to him going to school because the little girls there often tell him "this is just for girls" but he never really paid attention to them before. This time he flipping through a catalog picking out things for his birthday party and remarked he couldn't get the pink pirate set. Mind you he has the pink pirate cards at home that he loves. It really bothered me as I tried desperately to figure out how to explain to him that he didn't need to follow what society deemed to be appropriate for boys and girls. My mind started racing toward all of the things he might now limit himself to because it was a guys thing. Would my sensitive boy stop caring so much or decide that boys don't cry? Will he feel that he has to play sports instead of paint pictures? Will he give up believing in fairies as they are all marketed toward children? Breathe, Courtney, breathe. This morning he woke up, put on several of Ceirnan's pink and purple hair bows, and decided he wanted to wear at least one for the day which he did while he did his morning run from the stop sign to the car. SIGH.

Bad Parent

So I admit it...I try to be the perfect parent. I do worry about being one (perhaps the only) mom that doesn't stay at home out of all of the moms in CJ's class. I'm always the first to sign up for things and go out of my way to send treats at least once a month. I'm always worried that I am not doing enough or we don't look as engaged as we should be. I find it funny since I really don't worry about what most people think of me as a person. Still when it comes to my kids I don't want them to be negatively affected by my choices.

Anyway, this is way deeper than I wanted to get. What I really wanted to say is that I sent my kid to school today without having given him a bath last night. I know...I know...shocking. LOL! I don't want him to be the smelly kid in class, but I was literally falling asleep on the couch. He was exhausted and started crying. Umm...yeah...it was like 8pm, but sometimes you are just tired. Usually if that happens, I get him up early and either give him a bath or throw him in the shower with Case or I. Today, I let him sleep. Hopefully he wasn't that stinky!

Extreme Parenting

This weekend I was shocked to find out that we are "extreme parents". LOL! There is a show on cable called Extreme Parenting. I wasn't aware, but many of the things that we do are considered extreme. For instance, the show featured a segment on gender neutral parenting. For those of you who read this blog, you know I just talked about how I do think it's important, but there are limitations on it. In the segment, they filmed toys such as a little kitchen and talked about how this kid has a pink castle. CJ has a little kitchen and a purple castle. It never dawned on me that those things were girls toys. They also talked about teaching the boys to cook. CJ has been cooking in our kitchen since he was about two-years-old. He can pretty much make cookies, cupcakes, and brownies without me at this point (except for putting them into the oven). Again, I never realized that I was teaching him a girl thing.

Another segment talked about attachment parenting. It is something I did finally read up on a bit between CJ and Ceirnan as we were practicing portions of it without even knowing. For instance, we co-sleep with our babies. A practice many people are completely against even though there is research out there that shows fewer children die from co-sleeping than from SIDS. We also were not fans of the cry it out method although it worked well for many of our friends. When both the kids were babies, especially for the first three months, they were held practically all day long. With Ceirnan, I have a Moby wrap, which I prefer to wear rather than pushing her in the stroller, but she does get buggy rides too. The funny thing is we did these things because they felt natural to us not because we knew anything about attachment parenting. Reading up on it, only gave me some good information to provide people who chose to criticize our choices. I remember hearing from a family member that our style of parenting would cause our child not to know how to self-sooth. That was completely not what we were finding. He was able to quiet himself quickly and in fact is less likely to come to us when he falls down or bumps himself.

Of course the next point, came breastfeeding. I admit on this some say we're extreme, but I definitely don't think we go as far as many parents do. It's an area everyone needs to decide on there own. I breastfed CJ until just after he 2nd birthday. We decided to let him go that long based on research and suggestions from the World Health Organization. I will likely do the same for Ceirnan if she wants to go that long. She's definitely different than CJ and I can see her wanting to stop before he did. He was in love with breastfeeding and just wanted to cuddle with Mom. Ceirnan has a little more let's get down to business attitude. Plus, she has an older sibling who she wants to be just like.

Anyway, it was an interesting reflection. I guess I'll follow the advice that I give all my friends who are having children. Trust yourself...do what you think is good for your kids...ignore what others say or at the very least take it with a grain of salt.

Life or Something Like It

It's been awhile since I blogged. Life kind of caught me by surprise and I've been working through it a bit. The past three years have brought about so many changes and a great deal of loss. There are nights when I sit up...a lot of nights actually...with a heavy heart wondering when things will "get back on track". The days are not so bad. Life is busy. My children laughing can sustain me for hours. Hugs, kisses, and I love yous are a staple in our house. We seldom go more than an hour without one of us showing some love.

At night though...it's different. I'm often lost. I lay in bed thinking about the kind of woman I want to be...the kind of woman I want my daughter to see. Then things hit me. The loss of my best friend who is still alive but is unreachable to me. The loss of my grandparents and how it ties into my feelings of having no roots. How I used to love the fact that I/we had no roots...we could pick up tomorrow...we could be anywhere we wanted. The realization that ultimately I can only rely on myself and that I must make difficult decisions on my own. I think of how life deals everyone blows and if God is up there what he or she wants us to get from all of this.

Last night was a good night. My father is in town, some friends came for dinner, CJ sang songs for me. All should have been right by the world, but I was still up all night. I miss my daughter. It's strange to me that I can miss a child that was never born. I'm sure it's strange to other people too. I love Ceirnan so much and I think about how if we didn't lose Lucy we wouldn't have Ceirnan. However, I just want both of them. Lucy is just such a real presence in my mind and in my heart. I feel her missing on holidays and I think about what she would be doing now. I know it's a process, but I'm not certain I'll ever feel differently.

Gender Neutral

So I've always planned on raising my children in a gender neutral environment. It's very important to me that they aren't forced to follow specific stereotypes simply because they were born male or female. I touted this philosophy to anyone who would listen before I had children and worked at integrating the philosophy after CJ was born. Recently, however, I've begun to realize how difficult that philosophy is to maintain. In some cases choices I made for toys or clothing colors or books were made simply because I liked them not because they "follow" my philosophy.

I've also noticed that when many people, myself included in some instances, talk of gender neutrality they really mean it more for girls than boys. I caught myself in this conundrum the other day and my reaction blew me away. We were at Kmart dropping in quickly to pick up a pail and shovel on our way down to the beach. We stopped by the clothing section to get a few things for CJ that could carry him until he's ready for spring/summer clothes as he just hit a huge growth spurt. CJ was running around, showing me things, and half paying attention. I was hurried because I wanted us to get the beach before sunset. He grabs a shirt, hugs it to him, and says something like, "Oh, Mama! This is my favorite. I love yellow. I really want it." I glance up from my rummaging through sales racks and say- "That's a girl shirt. Put it back." Then I stopped and thought what have I just said? Does that blow my whole philosophy out the window? I would never tell Ceirnan she couldn't have a shirt out of the boys section. I've been wearing boys clothes all my life. It would never cross my mind to say that to her, yet I'm telling CJ he can't have a girls shirt.

I honestly haven't been able to reconcile it yet or to decide whether to accept that now that he's in school I will be doing things differently or to go back and buy him the yellow shirt. I just know that my reaction surprised me and disappointed me a bit. In other aspects, we make decisions that we didn't even knew were gender neutral. We bought CJ a "Cleaning Caddy" and a little kitchen one Christmas. It never dawned on me that other people would think of these things as girls toys until a friend commented on them to that affect. I should have realized it when they were located in the "girls" section at Toys R Us.

The hard part is as much as we may want to make a difference and raise our children differently, the fact of the matter is they have to function in this society. Is imparting my believes that go against the mainstream going to jeopardize his or her happiness in the end or is imparting those beliefs going to make him or her grow into a self-sustaining, strong individual? Maybe it'll do both. I guess the best thing I can do is keep trying to balance out my kids' lives and try to hold myself accountable to my philosophy.