Two years ago we took Austin's training wheels off his bike and tried to teach him to ride. He tried, we got frustrated, he got frustrated, snow fell.
Last year, we tried again and he tried hard and by the end of the summer, he was getting up and riding in a parking lot.
Earlier this summer, he was scared to try again but now he's doing well and feels like he can ride around the block by himself.
Earlier this summer, we bought Mari a Float, a bike with removable pedals. Last Monday, Julie and I played tennis while the kids had their bikes on the basketball court next door. Austin was soon riding around in circles, stopping and starting at will. Mari shoved off with her feet and glided a few yards at a time.
Yesterday, I put Mari's pedals on her bike and she tried it, went ten feet, then got frustrated. She refused to let us touch her, touch the bike, talk to her about bicycles or even look at her (except when she was mad that we weren't watching her).
This morning Julie and I played tennis again and when we were done, Mari was riding around in circles like a pro! Her second day with pedals!
We're very proud.
Monday, August 02, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Toronto 2010
We went to Toronto for a week. And I record here our schedule and impressions for sake of memory and so when people ask me what to do in Toronto, I can send them a link.
Keep in mind that we have two kids, currently age 7 and 5.
Our first day, a Saturday, we went to the Skydome / Rogers Centre and saw the Red Sox play the Blue Jays! There were a lot of Red Sox fans in attendance. Mari lasted for about 5 innings, and then we stayed for one more before heading out to walk over to Harbourfront and Queen's Quay. Harbourfront was hopping with an electronic music festival which included lots of hip hop dancing. At Queen's Quay, we looked in on the Museum of Inuit Art. Although I learned something from the museum, I wouldn't put it on a must-see list. That said, Julie was charmed by her first visit to the Harbourfront.
On Sunday, we hung out at the pool with my sister's family. For lunch we went to Asian Legend on Shepherd Ave. The food there is very good but not particularly distinctive.
Come Monday, we let the kids go wild at Ontario Place! Every year we admire Ontario Place and wonder if we need to go again. And every year the kids demand it and we find more for them to do. This time around, they were much braver in the water park and we went down the big slides a number of times. Austin turned out to have outgrown the kiddie rides but is now tall enough for the full sized bumper boats! That was great. As usual, some of the most seemingly prosaic equipment was the most fun, in this case, some trick basketball hoops. Everyone from age 2.5 to 40+ had a lot of fun shooting hoops.
Tuesday was spent in the orbit of the Pacific Mall. Julie ordered some new sunglasses, we had lunch at the Mongolian BBQ and then more shopping! Also, bubble tea. We had dinner at my friend Sheldon's new house and he let us play on his drum set! Loud fun.
Wednesday was a day out for Julie and me. We started out down at the Beaches, walking the boardwalk and then heading up Queen Street East. We stopped in the Purple Thumb which had lots of neat locally made and designed clothes and accessories. For the lack of one size, Julie would have bought a dress. The nice ladies there suggested we try the desserts at Dufflet. We took their advice! In fact, we had a gazpacho and a ham and brie sandwich there before gobbling up two tarts: key lime and apple berry. Yum. Still in the Beaches, we stumbled upon Ends and bought some clothes. Not high fashion, but cheap. Like, 99 cent T-shirts (quality cotton, no obnoxious labels or sayings).
We then ventured west to Leslieville. Julie was struck by how many specialty dog stores we've seen in Toronto and declared her favorite was The Bone House, in part because it's small but every item seems well selected (as much organic and Canadian manufactured as possible). Found a great new collar for Boo! We had a couple of beers at Lil' Baci while waiting for my sister and Stephen to join us downtown. The Denison wheat beer (with a note of banana) was very good and we liked the name and glass of another beer, Flying Monkeys, whose motto is "Normal is Weird."
Once we met up with the rest of our group, we went for another drink (hey, it's our annual bar hopping tradition) at Swirl. Not the easiest place to find, you can see the black and white decorated door on the left of the Bone House in this photo.
I heard about Swirl in this review, and sure enough, the food is cooked off-site, stored in mason jars and is pretty good. We had the duck rilletes and a cheese plate from the Leslieville Cheese Market across the street. And I had a nice pear white sangria. (oops, forgot in the first draft to mention Ed's Real Scoop -- a very good ice cream shop at 920 Queen Street East. Apparently Ed was inspired by Steve Herrell's ice cream in Boston!)
From there we went to the Distillery District and Julie and I saw Jitters at the Soulpepper repertory theater. Great fun, and we enjoyed seeing actors we liked from other productions.
Thursday, the whole family went down to the ROM. We saw an exhibit of the Terracotta Soldiers from Xian and was again amazed at how nice the cafeteria is (not aesthetically, but good, decent food at non-gouging prices). Afterwards, we sent up to see the animal exhibits and there were lots of educators showing off hands on exhibits. That was really neat. Julie was amazed by the spider crab. I popped upstairs to look at the Middle East exhibit and watched Clemens Reichl in a two minute film about a lion from Babylon.
On Friday, we went to Ding Tai Fung. This is Julie's favorite restaurant in the area, serving Shanghai style dim-sum including xiao long bao that are so juicy, they seem like soup dumplings. Plus they make mini-dumplings and there is a big window on the kitchen where the kids can watch the dumplings being made. Yum. The mini-mall nearby had some good bubble tea and then we took the kids to the Kidstown waterpark. No giant slides, but otherwise as good as the Ontario Place water park. And free.
A great trip. What was best: discovering new neighborhoods in Toronto. Live theater. Ontario Place.
Keep in mind that we have two kids, currently age 7 and 5.
Our first day, a Saturday, we went to the Skydome / Rogers Centre and saw the Red Sox play the Blue Jays! There were a lot of Red Sox fans in attendance. Mari lasted for about 5 innings, and then we stayed for one more before heading out to walk over to Harbourfront and Queen's Quay. Harbourfront was hopping with an electronic music festival which included lots of hip hop dancing. At Queen's Quay, we looked in on the Museum of Inuit Art. Although I learned something from the museum, I wouldn't put it on a must-see list. That said, Julie was charmed by her first visit to the Harbourfront.
On Sunday, we hung out at the pool with my sister's family. For lunch we went to Asian Legend on Shepherd Ave. The food there is very good but not particularly distinctive.
Come Monday, we let the kids go wild at Ontario Place! Every year we admire Ontario Place and wonder if we need to go again. And every year the kids demand it and we find more for them to do. This time around, they were much braver in the water park and we went down the big slides a number of times. Austin turned out to have outgrown the kiddie rides but is now tall enough for the full sized bumper boats! That was great. As usual, some of the most seemingly prosaic equipment was the most fun, in this case, some trick basketball hoops. Everyone from age 2.5 to 40+ had a lot of fun shooting hoops.
Tuesday was spent in the orbit of the Pacific Mall. Julie ordered some new sunglasses, we had lunch at the Mongolian BBQ and then more shopping! Also, bubble tea. We had dinner at my friend Sheldon's new house and he let us play on his drum set! Loud fun.
Wednesday was a day out for Julie and me. We started out down at the Beaches, walking the boardwalk and then heading up Queen Street East. We stopped in the Purple Thumb which had lots of neat locally made and designed clothes and accessories. For the lack of one size, Julie would have bought a dress. The nice ladies there suggested we try the desserts at Dufflet. We took their advice! In fact, we had a gazpacho and a ham and brie sandwich there before gobbling up two tarts: key lime and apple berry. Yum. Still in the Beaches, we stumbled upon Ends and bought some clothes. Not high fashion, but cheap. Like, 99 cent T-shirts (quality cotton, no obnoxious labels or sayings).
We then ventured west to Leslieville. Julie was struck by how many specialty dog stores we've seen in Toronto and declared her favorite was The Bone House, in part because it's small but every item seems well selected (as much organic and Canadian manufactured as possible). Found a great new collar for Boo! We had a couple of beers at Lil' Baci while waiting for my sister and Stephen to join us downtown. The Denison wheat beer (with a note of banana) was very good and we liked the name and glass of another beer, Flying Monkeys, whose motto is "Normal is Weird."
Once we met up with the rest of our group, we went for another drink (hey, it's our annual bar hopping tradition) at Swirl. Not the easiest place to find, you can see the black and white decorated door on the left of the Bone House in this photo.
I heard about Swirl in this review, and sure enough, the food is cooked off-site, stored in mason jars and is pretty good. We had the duck rilletes and a cheese plate from the Leslieville Cheese Market across the street. And I had a nice pear white sangria. (oops, forgot in the first draft to mention Ed's Real Scoop -- a very good ice cream shop at 920 Queen Street East. Apparently Ed was inspired by Steve Herrell's ice cream in Boston!)
From there we went to the Distillery District and Julie and I saw Jitters at the Soulpepper repertory theater. Great fun, and we enjoyed seeing actors we liked from other productions.
Thursday, the whole family went down to the ROM. We saw an exhibit of the Terracotta Soldiers from Xian and was again amazed at how nice the cafeteria is (not aesthetically, but good, decent food at non-gouging prices). Afterwards, we sent up to see the animal exhibits and there were lots of educators showing off hands on exhibits. That was really neat. Julie was amazed by the spider crab. I popped upstairs to look at the Middle East exhibit and watched Clemens Reichl in a two minute film about a lion from Babylon.
On Friday, we went to Ding Tai Fung. This is Julie's favorite restaurant in the area, serving Shanghai style dim-sum including xiao long bao that are so juicy, they seem like soup dumplings. Plus they make mini-dumplings and there is a big window on the kitchen where the kids can watch the dumplings being made. Yum. The mini-mall nearby had some good bubble tea and then we took the kids to the Kidstown waterpark. No giant slides, but otherwise as good as the Ontario Place water park. And free.
A great trip. What was best: discovering new neighborhoods in Toronto. Live theater. Ontario Place.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Kid update
So here is where we are these days:
Mari is suddenly very interested in words. Unlike Austin, she has not taken to reading early; instead, she likes writing. So she's learning to spell so she can write little notes, not so she can read a book. Maybe this is in reaction to her brother, but in any case this week she has been spelling out words as we bike to school "S-T-O-P!" "G-O D-A-D-D-Y!"
Two odd quirks from these months. Mari has decided she doesn't want to have babies. Why not? Because she doesn't want to breastfeed. The idea kind of creeps her out and gives her the giggles. I explained to her that she doesn't have to breastfeed, that she can give babies bottles but that hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The second thing is that she has a friend, Clare, at school who is Korean. (Her dad is working here for 3 years and then they are going back to Korea.) Thus, Korea has become a country that Mari is very interested in. Any foreign language: "Is that Korean?" News about Afghanistan on NPR: "Is that near Korea?"
Austin, meanwhile, has been obsessively reading Ryder Wyndham's novelization (for Scholastic) of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He also likes reading children's bibles. And, he's writing jokes. The one that made me laugh the most is this:
Q: What do you call an atom's privates?
A: The pe-nucleus.
Mari is suddenly very interested in words. Unlike Austin, she has not taken to reading early; instead, she likes writing. So she's learning to spell so she can write little notes, not so she can read a book. Maybe this is in reaction to her brother, but in any case this week she has been spelling out words as we bike to school "S-T-O-P!" "G-O D-A-D-D-Y!"
Two odd quirks from these months. Mari has decided she doesn't want to have babies. Why not? Because she doesn't want to breastfeed. The idea kind of creeps her out and gives her the giggles. I explained to her that she doesn't have to breastfeed, that she can give babies bottles but that hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The second thing is that she has a friend, Clare, at school who is Korean. (Her dad is working here for 3 years and then they are going back to Korea.) Thus, Korea has become a country that Mari is very interested in. Any foreign language: "Is that Korean?" News about Afghanistan on NPR: "Is that near Korea?"
Austin, meanwhile, has been obsessively reading Ryder Wyndham's novelization (for Scholastic) of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He also likes reading children's bibles. And, he's writing jokes. The one that made me laugh the most is this:
Q: What do you call an atom's privates?
A: The pe-nucleus.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Parenting Column
The Boston Globe published my latest parenting essay today, on identity and food shopping.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Nurture Shock
A long review and summary of the book Nurture Shock
by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman because I think it was good and had lots of information that I feel I will need sooner or later. Basically, it's a parenting book that looks at sociological studies to determine if modern parenting styles are truly effective in delivering the results we might want. No surprise, that they heavily market the positions where good intentions have bad results.
So here's the Cliff Notes version, for you and for my memory. (Please note, the book is really good and filled with colorful detail and is worth reading):
Chapter 1: Praise.
This has been going around for a while: if you tell your kid that they are "smart" they get freaked out when challenged because they don't know the answer. Better: remind kids that change is possible and constant, or more specifically: your brain is like a muscle and it gets bigger when it works harder.
Chapter 2: Sleep.
Kids need sleep. They need it more than adults do. They aren't just tired after missing some sleep at night, they are slipping behind in their development. Teenagers need sleep and their sleep times tend to be late shifted, so high schools that start later (like 8:30 or 9) find their average SAT score jumping by dozens of points. For little kids, as little as 15 minutes of sleep lost a night will translate in 3 days to work being a full letter grade lower. i.e. 15 minutes of sleep loss changes an A student to a B student. 30 minutes will make a B student a D student. Much of the lost sleep comes in the "slush" period between the evening routine and actual sleep. Spending extra time chatting with your child might be nice for you, but in the long run is not best for your child.
Chapter 3: Race.
Kids are aware of race. They are not "color blind." Further, they already have stereotypes that they are building to make sense of the world. Parents should be explicit about race, and about the achievements of individuals and groups. It's not enough to say, "we're all equal" because kids don't understand that concept.
Chapter 4: Lying.
Kids lie. A lot. And it's not easy to tell if they are (in tests, random adults score at chance levels when trying to determine if a kid is lying).
Kids learn lying from adults. And little kids define lying as saying something that gets you punished. (So swearing is sometimes considered "a lie.") Kids see adults "lie" all the time. White lies, or just approximations ("Just call him 5 so we get the discount; he just had his birthday last month") that seem harmless but to kids seem like adults lying. Broken promises count as lies, too.
Punishing lies does not help. Praising honesty (Geo. Washington) tends to improve honesty.
Don't force kids to lie. "Did you do this?" when you know they did, will only encourage them to lie to you. Better to just explain what was wrong and explain what would be right.
Chapter 5: Kindergarten testing.
Children's minds are so unformed at age 5 that testing for "gifted" children at this age is ridiculous. There is more correlation with later intelligence when kids are tested in 3rd grade.
Chapter 6: Siblings.
Better to teach them to have fun together and not fight than to try to resolve conflicts. Best predictor of siblings getting along (age difference is not one): how well the older child plays with friends. Kids learn from their friends how to play with their siblings, not the other way around. Shared fantasy play is a huge factor, agreeing to imagine a shared scenario.
BTW: books that try to illustrate and solve sibling conflict, like the Berenstain Bears, or Sesame Street books, just exacerbate them. The conflicts are much more part of the story and better remembered than the resolution.
Chapter 7: Teen Rebellion.
Did I mention that kids lie to their parents? All teens lie to their parents. The best teens lie a little less. Most teens fight with their parents. For many of them the fighting makes them feel bonded and protected by their parents. In fact, some choose to tell the truth just to provoke a fight just so they know their parents are concerned about them. Parents who are lenient because they want their kids to tell them everything are still lied to and the kids turn out worse. Bottom line: stick to a few basic rules and be flexible enough to make exceptions and your kids will lie less to you.
They also have crazy hormones that screw up their pleasure levels, so they need to do extreme things to get a kick out of life. Also, the one thing they hate the most is peer rejection (like asking a girl out or standing out in a crowd).
Chapter 8: Self-Control
Here they discuss Tools of the Mind, a pre-K and K curriculum that emphasizes planned role plays (like firemen or house) where children make a concerted effort to stay "in character" and thus build their imaginative abilities. Bottom line: get your kid into one of these programs, or if not, recognize that playing, especially make believe play, is very important to kids' development.
Being able to pay attention to oneself, to judge one's work (best letter forms, or checking own spelling), and to concentrate on one task are all elements of self-control. Self-control leads to higher order thinking and much better learning in general.
Chapter 9: Agression.
There are 3 main kinds of aggression, including relational aggression (using words to attack a relationship "you're not my friend anymore"); kids who watch PBS shows show more relational aggression than kids who watch violent cartoons (!).
Relational aggression is usually a sign of intelligence, because the kids understand the social effects of what they are doing; some of these kids end up being very good at directing groups and become the popular kids in high school.
"Progressive Dads" tended to have as many aggressive and disruptive kids as "Disengaged Dads" (and presumably more than "Traditional Dads"). The authors' conclusion was that P Dads tend not to have consistent discipline so the kids test boundaries more often.
Chapter 10: Oral Language acquisition.
It's all about listening. While it's important that kids hear lots of language spoken around them, it's more important that parents listen to kids and respond to what they are saying without delay. This encourages the child's speech and improvement. This is especially important with infants, but could have benefits as kids acquire more vocabulary as well.
That's it! Well written book, much recommended.
by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman because I think it was good and had lots of information that I feel I will need sooner or later. Basically, it's a parenting book that looks at sociological studies to determine if modern parenting styles are truly effective in delivering the results we might want. No surprise, that they heavily market the positions where good intentions have bad results.So here's the Cliff Notes version, for you and for my memory. (Please note, the book is really good and filled with colorful detail and is worth reading):
Chapter 1: Praise.
This has been going around for a while: if you tell your kid that they are "smart" they get freaked out when challenged because they don't know the answer. Better: remind kids that change is possible and constant, or more specifically: your brain is like a muscle and it gets bigger when it works harder.
Chapter 2: Sleep.
Kids need sleep. They need it more than adults do. They aren't just tired after missing some sleep at night, they are slipping behind in their development. Teenagers need sleep and their sleep times tend to be late shifted, so high schools that start later (like 8:30 or 9) find their average SAT score jumping by dozens of points. For little kids, as little as 15 minutes of sleep lost a night will translate in 3 days to work being a full letter grade lower. i.e. 15 minutes of sleep loss changes an A student to a B student. 30 minutes will make a B student a D student. Much of the lost sleep comes in the "slush" period between the evening routine and actual sleep. Spending extra time chatting with your child might be nice for you, but in the long run is not best for your child.
Chapter 3: Race.
Kids are aware of race. They are not "color blind." Further, they already have stereotypes that they are building to make sense of the world. Parents should be explicit about race, and about the achievements of individuals and groups. It's not enough to say, "we're all equal" because kids don't understand that concept.
Chapter 4: Lying.
Kids lie. A lot. And it's not easy to tell if they are (in tests, random adults score at chance levels when trying to determine if a kid is lying).
Kids learn lying from adults. And little kids define lying as saying something that gets you punished. (So swearing is sometimes considered "a lie.") Kids see adults "lie" all the time. White lies, or just approximations ("Just call him 5 so we get the discount; he just had his birthday last month") that seem harmless but to kids seem like adults lying. Broken promises count as lies, too.
Punishing lies does not help. Praising honesty (Geo. Washington) tends to improve honesty.
Don't force kids to lie. "Did you do this?" when you know they did, will only encourage them to lie to you. Better to just explain what was wrong and explain what would be right.
Chapter 5: Kindergarten testing.
Children's minds are so unformed at age 5 that testing for "gifted" children at this age is ridiculous. There is more correlation with later intelligence when kids are tested in 3rd grade.
Chapter 6: Siblings.
Better to teach them to have fun together and not fight than to try to resolve conflicts. Best predictor of siblings getting along (age difference is not one): how well the older child plays with friends. Kids learn from their friends how to play with their siblings, not the other way around. Shared fantasy play is a huge factor, agreeing to imagine a shared scenario.
BTW: books that try to illustrate and solve sibling conflict, like the Berenstain Bears, or Sesame Street books, just exacerbate them. The conflicts are much more part of the story and better remembered than the resolution.
Chapter 7: Teen Rebellion.
Did I mention that kids lie to their parents? All teens lie to their parents. The best teens lie a little less. Most teens fight with their parents. For many of them the fighting makes them feel bonded and protected by their parents. In fact, some choose to tell the truth just to provoke a fight just so they know their parents are concerned about them. Parents who are lenient because they want their kids to tell them everything are still lied to and the kids turn out worse. Bottom line: stick to a few basic rules and be flexible enough to make exceptions and your kids will lie less to you.
They also have crazy hormones that screw up their pleasure levels, so they need to do extreme things to get a kick out of life. Also, the one thing they hate the most is peer rejection (like asking a girl out or standing out in a crowd).
Chapter 8: Self-Control
Here they discuss Tools of the Mind, a pre-K and K curriculum that emphasizes planned role plays (like firemen or house) where children make a concerted effort to stay "in character" and thus build their imaginative abilities. Bottom line: get your kid into one of these programs, or if not, recognize that playing, especially make believe play, is very important to kids' development.
Being able to pay attention to oneself, to judge one's work (best letter forms, or checking own spelling), and to concentrate on one task are all elements of self-control. Self-control leads to higher order thinking and much better learning in general.
Chapter 9: Agression.
There are 3 main kinds of aggression, including relational aggression (using words to attack a relationship "you're not my friend anymore"); kids who watch PBS shows show more relational aggression than kids who watch violent cartoons (!).
Relational aggression is usually a sign of intelligence, because the kids understand the social effects of what they are doing; some of these kids end up being very good at directing groups and become the popular kids in high school.
"Progressive Dads" tended to have as many aggressive and disruptive kids as "Disengaged Dads" (and presumably more than "Traditional Dads"). The authors' conclusion was that P Dads tend not to have consistent discipline so the kids test boundaries more often.
Chapter 10: Oral Language acquisition.
It's all about listening. While it's important that kids hear lots of language spoken around them, it's more important that parents listen to kids and respond to what they are saying without delay. This encourages the child's speech and improvement. This is especially important with infants, but could have benefits as kids acquire more vocabulary as well.
That's it! Well written book, much recommended.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Birthday comix
And now, as promised, the "exquisite corpse" comics jam.
Gavin had an odd shaped notebook that was perfect for a comic strip. We passed it around and each person added a panel, having only seen the panel immediately preceding it. It's a bit disjunctive, but there's a surreal flair to it that no one person could have come up with (I hope; if you are that one person, please seek psychiatric attention).
The artist/writers are: Gavin Grant, Chris D'Aveta, Maria Daniels, Ada Vassilovski, Pete Cramer, Julie and me.
Gavin had an odd shaped notebook that was perfect for a comic strip. We passed it around and each person added a panel, having only seen the panel immediately preceding it. It's a bit disjunctive, but there's a surreal flair to it that no one person could have come up with (I hope; if you are that one person, please seek psychiatric attention).
The artist/writers are: Gavin Grant, Chris D'Aveta, Maria Daniels, Ada Vassilovski, Pete Cramer, Julie and me.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Birthday comix
Peter Cramer and Ada Vassilovski, like Gavin Grant and Kelly Link (see Monday!), used ComicLife on the Mac to produce an adventure serial. Lots of cameos in here, including my dad, some of the contributors to this comix week, and an ass.
Don't forget, click to enlarge!
And tomorrow: the Exquisite Corpse experiment! Stay Tuned! Same Blog Time, Same Blog Channel!
Don't forget, click to enlarge!
And tomorrow: the Exquisite Corpse experiment! Stay Tuned! Same Blog Time, Same Blog Channel!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Birthday comix
Maria Daniels did hers like a daily newspaper strip, albeit one with a "Life in Hell" funny animal vibe.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Mari at school
We interrupt "Birthday Comix week" to link to Mari's nursery school class blog:
http://wnstk.blogspot.com/2009/11/woodland-videosphotos.html
She's identifiable in a few videos, most notably the swinging vine.
http://wnstk.blogspot.com/2009/11/woodland-videosphotos.html
She's identifiable in a few videos, most notably the swinging vine.
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