we had an earthquake last night. 3.2. those of you in or from CA are laughing, but get this: we were ON TOP of it. the epicenter was horseshoe pond, and that is basically next to our pond. it was at 11:30, i had just turned off the lights and there was this incredible--and i mean incredible--BOOOOOMMM!!! if someone had told me a plane had just crashed in our front yard, i would have believed them. and everything shuddered violently for about 2 seconds. and then quiet. like no other earthquake i had experienced. it was like the ground literally cracked open under us.

the kids never noticed it. of course, when i told ava about it, that prompted an all day discussion of earthquakes. the questions never ceased. she is incredible. she must know EVERYTHING there is to know about something. you cannot just say, "oh, an earthquake is when the ground shakes." or "mommy is going to do some work now" or "we are going to go to the airshow"--or you will be me with "why? where in the ground? how far down in the ground? do things get damaged? is it dangerous? do other people have earthquakes? is it like thunder?" and "what work? for whom? why? do you have to email? is it important? do you have to go to a meeting?" and "what planes are going to be there? will the hurt-helicopter be there? (lifeflight) Can they save someone that has been stung by a jellyfish? how do they help people in the water? what color is the emt's life jacket?..." and she will not stop until she is completely satisfied that she understands. when i told her about michaela standing in the red ant's nest, she had to know every detail, down to what kind of medicine she had to put on the bites later that evening.

in other news, carter may not talk, but he sure can count--he tripped and fell today, then he did it again about 20 minutes later, and i said "carter, you did it again!" and he looked at me, smiled, and held up his 2 index fingers and nodded.

we had an all day marathon today--up, get ready--pack diaper bag, sippy cups, snacks, bikes, helmets, skate bag, wallet, computer, and files, drive to the grocery store (45 minutes--it eats up a lot of time), shop, drive into lake placid, get the bikes and bike helmets out of the car, ride bikes in the speed skating oval in lake placid, bring bikes back to car, change carter's diaper, put him in the car seat while i load the bikes and helmets in the car, get skate bag, more snacks and sippies, and warm clothes for the rink, get carter out of car, walk to skating rink with carter and ava and rolling skate bag (thank god for wheelie bags), go upstairs to the '32 rink, get ava out of summer clothes and into skating clothes while carter runs all over the place, retrieve carter 50 million times and ask him to sit quietly, finally get ava into tights, leg warmers, skating dress (very cute), skates, gloves and helmet, bring carter, bag and geared-up ava into cold rink, hand ava off to skate coach, chase carter around stadium seats of rink for 1/2 hour, retrieve ava, repeat the process of dressing ava, but in reverse, pack everything up, go downstairs and walk to car. drive home, tell stories about earthquakes while carter sleeps in car, pull into driveway, leave kids in car and unload groceries, put perishables away (as if they weren't already spoiled and/or melted), brush teeth, grab more snacks, and drive 1/2 hour to dentist's. mom in dentist chair first, then ava, went smoothly, then drive to nana's. have a cup of tea. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. say thank you, drive home, get ready for bed, discuss earthquakes some more, put the nonperishables away, feed the dog, the guinea pig and the fish, make a good night snack, put the kids to bed. go to work.

and that is where i am now--going to work and not writing another word!

i have been working in the evenings, work that requires serious computer time, and thus i have been very proprietary regarding my hours spent child-free. now, that is not an exact statement--not child-free, rather child-asleep. as such, bedtime is now an entirely different event. before i felt compelled to start working no later than 8 pm, i would lie quietly with both kids til they were both asleep. this would be preceeded of course with reading and quiet reflection on the day, but after books were over and it was quiet time, then i would get my book and read while they settled down. then, before i started to work, carter suddenly developed a need to be rocked to sleep in the glider. i have no idea why. if i suggested snuggling up on the bed, he would sob and wail. this coincided with ava wanting me to make her a little nest on the floor--several blankets laid on the floor for her to sleep on, with a pillow and a blanket to go over her. so, everything changed--carter and mom in the rocker/glider, ava on the floor of her own volition. then i started to work. and several days into it, i told ava that i was not going to be rocking next to her, that i had to work. no protest, she was fine with that--as long as i was in the room with her, she was happy. and my desk is in the room. but then what to do with carter? i cannot type with him in my arms, and he won't lie on the bed, let alone without me. so, one evening when he was resisting sleep, i just looked at him and said "mommy has to work now--you can sit next to me for as long as you like, but you have to be quiet and still" -- lo and behold, he nodded. so i plunked him down next to me, and he did exactly what i told him--he sat and watched me work -- without moving a muscle -- until his eyes slowly closed and he leaned against me and fell asleep. it was very endearing. life is getting easier in teeny tiny increments.

There is such a fine line between autonomy and disobedience when you are four, and apparently, it is very easily crossed. Our days are filled with events that fall into the category of “I can do it myself” or “That is NOT how I wanted you to do it, Mom/Carter/Rose/Dad”…or other similar expressions. It is extremely difficult terrain to get through, because yes, you want to let her learn how to do things, you want her be her own person without dictating what her personality/likes/dislikes etc should be, you even want her to learn from her mistakes. But oooooohhhhhh, you want her to do all of this and express all of this in POLITE terms. It is very hard to tease out the parts that are ok (yes, you can make your own snack/get Storm out of his cage/dictate every moment of your day) from the parts that are not – i.e. it is not what you are asking for, it is how you are asking ...believe me, I have to count to 10 a lot.
She is devoted to Mary Poppins. She plays Mary Poppins, she practices Mary Poppins dances – and has declared herself the best chimney sweep dancer (“I can do it better than they can”)—anyone familiar with the Step In Time routine knows that it is a rather impressive dance number. Carter always has to be Bert, and I always have to be the Mother. Easy role—all I have to do is holler “votes for women!”
We finished reading The Secret Garden—she liked it, but the plot complexities were a bit lost on her. She got the general idea, but the psychological analysis was a bit much. We moved on to The Little House in the Big Woods, and just finished that tonight. She LOVED that one. Completely age-appropriate and fascinating – how they lived in the olden days compared to all of the similarities—what Laura liked to do, how she played, how she felt about some things. And then there were the discipline sections, where it was simply a given that not only were kids spanked, but hit with something along the lines of a whip or a switch. Wow, did that give her pause. I’ll bet it was the same reaction I had when I learned that the mother of one of my friends in first grade hit my poor friend with a wooden spoon. Not only was I shocked and astonished, I was extremely relieved and grateful.

so, i read in Oprah's magazine (my secret addiction), that there is new research on interval-based workouts. apparently, if you exercise for 30 minutes, alternating very intense -- VERY intense -- segments with rest periods (think 1 minute intense, 2 minutes rest), this makes you a lot fitter than 90 minutes of endurance-type exercise.

since i have completely given up on exercising becasue i cannot figure out how to get my stroller-adverse kids to sit still for a minimally effective workout, this was great news. why? because that means we can exercise together!

it is impossible to do a conventional exercise routine of any sort with kids unless you are prepared to completely ignore them. they are a constant stream of wants and needs, and no matter how much you beg, they will not leave you alone for more than oh, a minute.

which is precisely the length of time needed for those intense intervals. when the interval is over, you can stop to recover and get a child a glass of water or clean a mess or find a toy.

moreover, the guilt of ignoring the chores in order to exercise is mitigated by the fact that you can do chores in the recovery intervals...

AND one-minute intervals are superb for revving up your kids--i cannot explain how much they loved it when i put one of their favorite CDs on and said "now we are going to play a fast-slow game! first we are going to dance s-l-o-w-l-y...now we are going to dance REALLY FAST!" and so on. and believe me, it was one heck of a workout.

so, oprah has come to my rescue and provided me with a way to exercise, do chores AND take care of my children all at the same time. she is my hero.

perhaps this chance to exercise will cure my insomnia, and i am also on to something regarding my, um, tummy issues. i think i may have found the cure. i think, and no, this is not exactly a revelation, that i cannot eat sugar. in pretty much any form. for me, this sucks. i practically live on sugar these days. fruit, crackers, sugar in my tea, cheddar bunnies, juice, blah blah blah. but i am fairly certain that those simple carbohydrates are doing some pretty complex fermenting in there, and i am so over all of that.

we'll see.

we went to see a theater performance of sleeping beauty today. ava sat with her mouth hanging open the entire time. i don't think she even moved once, other than to get on michaela's lap during the scary part. even carter was awed. it pretty much touched on all of the themes ava has been incorporating into her imaginative play--witches, sword fights, princesses, dancing, fairies, and the all-encompassing good vs evil.

the best part was at the end when the prince had to kiss sleeping beauty, but he did not know this, and was hesitating and the good witch begged the good citizens of the kingdom (aka the audience) to help him by shouting "kiss her! kiss her!" -- the whole theater was yelling "kiss her! kiss her!" and then the man behind me yelled "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"

So, this whole toy issue is giving me plenty of food for thought. When the kids were born, I read tons of different child-development books (otherwise known as guaranteeing yourself a near constant anxiety attack about your performance as a mother), and there are literally hundreds of theories about what sort of play kids should be engaging in, and which toys are the best for them. There is a backlash against all of the educational toys, there is an anti-plastic brigade, there is a lot of fuss being made over toys that do not allow any imagination, and then of course there is the whole parallel and intricate issue of television.

TV on its own is an entirely different debate, but there is a lot of concern about all of the characters in a child’s toy box originating from a show that has a plot provided. In other words, if a child picks up Dora, some people are concerned that he or she will simply reiterate a show’s story line, instead of making up their own. I see the point, but I am not sure if that is entirely true. I think perhaps the shows may prompt ideas, but I really don’t think they stifle them entirely. Assuming the child has not been pickled in that cool TV glow.

My issues with TV are different: First, I tend to find most of it depressing. Not because the content is depressing, but I just think it is depressing to sit inside and watch it if the sun is up. This is primarily due to my own personal need for UV light. Second, there is a bit of condoned attitude among some of the “children’s programming” that I find distasteful. Even on Sesame Street there are wise-cracking brats. Oscar was one thing, but when you have a cartoon character mimicking the attitude of a grown up for comic effect, I have a big issue with it. My kids do not need to know how to say “talk to the hand.” Third, the materialism cultivated by TV is something that I know I cannot escape, but I can keep it as minimal as possible. The fewer commercials, the less susceptible they are to the global machine.

I don’t know what impact our no-TV policy is having, but I do know that when they do see television, it is like giving them speed. The shows are loud and glaring, and the commercials are even worse. They visible wince. As adults we are able to tune it out, but as kids they are sucked into the chaos and they cannot get out.

I digress. I am not trying to sound judgmental—I know that Ava learned her ABCs so early because of TV, and so I know there are benefits, but I feel like watching children’s TV these days is forced complicity with the WalMart agenda.

Anyway, back to toys. I have been concerned with the toys that the kids had, ever since they were little. I saw the point that researchers were making about overstimulating—simple is better, keep the noise and the lights to a minimum, etc. So, my vague policy has been to keep the toys as simple as possible, avoid licensed characters, and minimize the plastic (HA!). But I quickly learned that allowing a child to become proficient on the computer by letting her play PBS games is not tantamount to eschewing ones responsibility as a parent to teach her pre-reading and math skills. Sometimes they just don’t want you to hover over them. If she is going to push me away, then by all means PBS, go for it. Also, remote controlled toys are a riot. Especially when you have a dog.

Toys that I assumed they would love often sat ignored for months, even years. We have an outdoor climbing thing, with a little slide and a hideaway underneath. Ava played on it occasionally, but it pretty much collected pinecones for the last two years. Carter was a bit more interested this summer, but not by much. Then suddenly, they discovered that IT HAS A SECRET SPECIAL HIDEAWAY! And I cannot get them to leave it alone. I have to lure them inside with ice-cream sandwiches. I only have four years of experience, but I have concluded that children’s interests develop in no particular pattern. All children will like almost all toys, but on their own schedule. Carter LOVED puzzles in his first year. Ava? Not so much. Now, at 4, she adores them. The weird thing about them is that she puts them together based on shape only, not by looking at the colors and how they need to line up. Ava had a profound fear of balls for a long time as an infant. Then it was over. One consistent love for both of them: books.

What this all boils down to, is: you never know what is going to be a hit. Moreover, something they love at school or at a friend’s house may lose its luster once they have one at home.
Worrying about whether or not a toy is developmentally appropriate is perhaps a good exercise, but really, if you are the type of parent who worries if a toy is going to help or hinder their neural map, your kids probably have such an advantage already that the difference a toy is going to make is infinitesimal. All of the emphasis on toys in parenting theories—say for example the Waldorf and Montessori philosophies—is interesting and certainly valuable, but those authors never considered how much anxiety they could provoke in a neurotic mother.

And then, after all of this mental anguish about providing a stimulating and fun learning environment, after all of this observation, careful tracking of their cognitive development via play, after all of that, it turns out that the toys are essentially laced with poison. And then, if you are frantic about heavy metals poisoning your kids, and you tend to be a bit on the extreme side (some might refer to it as the all or nothing approach), you cull everything that might have been painted in China.

After the first wooden toy painted in China scare, I removed everything that might have been painted, but I left the plastic things—I still cannot tell when plastic has been painted. This left us with a seriously reduced number of toys.

Neither child even noticed.

I mentioned the issue to Ava, because she had been given some jewelry and I told her that she could not keep it. When questioned, I simply told her why. Some may chafe at the idea of being so forthright with a four-year old, but she is just the sort of kid that has to know exactly why something is happening. Telling her some fib or worse yet, some fairy tale to explain it gets you nowhere. She looks at you with “yeah, right” and then continues with her line of questioning. Now, wherever we go, she asks if something is made in China. This is probably going to embarrass me someday, but I am glad that she understands, because I can say “no, we cannot have that, because it may not be safe.” In turn, I promise not to abuse that and tell her that we cannot buy ice cream because it might have been made in China. Too easy.

Then I had to remove almost all of the remaining toys for Ava’s birthday, partly to make room, and partly to protect them from the flock of preschoolers I invited into our home. After her birthday, I kept putting off the toy restocking, glancing at them piled in the basement, thinking, I really need to take care of this, but not having any need because most of our days were spent outside. And as the days went by, I noticed that the kids were not missing them. They do spend most of their time outside, where it must be said there are TONS of toys—rakes and shovels and buckets and so on—that are in heavy rotation. I am not sure what would have happened if this experiment had taken place in the winter. However, when they were inside, they would do one of several things: art, run around with some crazy made up game using whatever props they could find (fly swatters, empty boxes, ribbon, dress up clothes) or no props at all, play intently with some of the toys that did remain, or flip through books.

The toys/playthings that I kept upstairs were all of the stuffed animals, all of the dress-up clothes, the wooden barn with little horse figurines, the cash register, a plastic bus and a little wagon, the tent, the blocks, all of our books, the games, and some indestructible things that live in the toybox—too tedious to list—basically little things. But essentially, that was it. And they have been perfectly happy. I did get the little scooters that they love, and the little grocery carts back out of the basement. Those are big favorites.

What I have realized is that they have finally reached the age where art supplies, books, puzzles, games and props are really all that is needed for HOURS of fun. When they were little, most of those things were not an option, and those that were an option were dropped after the small-child-attention-span limit of fifteen minutes. You add up the fifteen minute stretches in a 14-hour period and you find yourself needing 56 toys. And you had better hope that some of those 56 toys have lights and music and buttons and all of the things that violate the ‘simple is better’ rule. Between the ages of 0 days and 2 years, anything—ANYTHING—that stops crying meets the criteria of being a wonderful toy.

But now that their imaginations have been launched, it is all different. Toys are great, obviously, but the type and quantity necessary is totally different. A few caterpillars in a box with dirt, moss, and a few rocks (otherwise known as a terrarium, I think) occupies Ava for hours. One small stuffed horse and a roll of curling ribbon (closely monitored) has occupied Ava for two weeks now. And blocks are all Carter needs for the afternoon, especially now that he has stopped chucking them at the sliding glass door. Granted, they have each other, and they do a pretty good job of playing together, and that helps a lot, but if we are inside, they are either pretending or creating.

This is a good lesson to have been forced upon us by the free market. I hate the way in which it occurred, and it absolutely kills me that companies and countries are blithely risking our children’s health in the name of profit, but I really don’t see any other solution other than to keep my kid’s environment simple and local. At least they don’t seem to mind.

recent commentary from ava:

"that is just the way life is carter, please, let it go."

the best thing about carter these days is this funny little excited run/walk that he does--he bends his knees, tips forward a bit at the hips, balls his fists and sticks his elbows out, then run/walks while twisting his torso and chicken arms in opposite directions. i have no idea if that conveys it, but it is even funnier when he has two balloons on strings in his fists. and he sort of juts out his lower jaw in a determined/i am big and tough sort of a way.

and this is what i have learned: unlike ava, if you ignore his tantrums, after 5 minutes or so, he gives up and either walks away or he does what has been requested of him. ava? no way. ever since day 1, she could outlast anyone. her endurance is phenomenal, and so we learned to capitulate pretty quickly. crib? no? ok. bottle? no? ok. shoes? no? ok. but with carter, if there is really a strong reason why i am saying no, say for example i am draining spaghetti and cannot hold him, he just wails for a minute or so, then moves on. tonight, he wanted to feed himself hummus. at any other point in the day, i would have said ok. but he had just had his bath, and i had just finished cleaning up the disaster that was the remains of our taco dinner (note: this is not a good dinner for a 2 year old and a 4 year old if you do not want refried beans EVERYWHERE--but they did eat it, which is the primary objective). so i put my foot down. mommy had to feed him with the spoon. mommy needs control. he was devastated. so i calmly said no and i put the hummus on the counter. a few more back and forths, with him pointing to himself and crying, and me repeating "you can have hummus, but i have to feed it to you" (ava LOVED this exchange--mom was putting her foot down with carter), and then suddenly, as quickly as it began, he stopped and pointed to me, and said "mommy." i said "you want me to feed you?" and then he nodded and said "pea?" which is please. and we had hummus. peacefully.

and he pretends now. he loves to pretend to eat--he makes all sorts of concoctions and brings these invisible goodies to me. it is pretty neat.

Fisher Price is recalling nearly 1 million toys. Why? Oh, you know, lead paint. From China.

Fortunately none of them are anything we have--they are all licensed character toys, and i am fairly neurotic about keeping Dora etc out of our house. I am on a mission to keep my kids at a complete social disadvantage by preventing them from achieving a level of preschool cultural literacy.

So, which toy is next?

I swear I am about ready to haul out the ol' whittling knife. Make me a darn good toy, by geez I will...