Bedtime Update

Last time you heard from me I was stealthily rolling across the floor and not so stealthily crashing into the furniture. Baby M has now been in his toddler bed a little over a week and I'm glad to report that things are looking up.

The first few nights were terrible. He'd get out of bed and pound on the door crying "Mommy, Mommy." Our brief foray into sleep training when Baby M was an infant was bad enough, now that he can ask for me by name it is unbearable. We consulted our sleep books and asked friends and family for suggestions. The overwhelming majority recommended that I go into his room periodically, put him back in the bed and then leave again. Do not give in to his demands that "Mommy lie down." In fact, many suggested that I not interact with him at all. Others allowed for a curt "It's time to sleep," and a few were generous enough to tack on a "Mommy loves you." But no way, under any circumstances, was I to remain in the room with him. That would teach him that he needed a crutch to sleep, or that he could manipulate me or some other equally negative lesson.

But here's the thing, we followed the Ferber/Graduated Extinction/Whatever-you-call-it method of checking and leaving and we ended up listening to Baby M cry for nearly 3 hours. All of us felt lousy by the end of the night. But what we discovered was that if I agreed to go sit on the couch, Baby M would patter happily over to his bed and lay down. He no longer demanded that I read him stories while he laid there. He didn't throw his blankets on the floor and cry for me to bring them back and he didn't need me to hold his hand. He just rolled over and was asleep in 20 minutes. So our new routine is to read him a story, put him to bed and then sit on the couch for the 20 minutes it takes for him to fall asleep.

And, really, what is so bad about that? So I spend 20 or 30 minutes sitting in a darkened room, reading, meditating, or just zoning out. How exactly is this detrimental to Baby M? Maybe he is trying to see if he can control me, or maybe he is afraid of the dark or maybe he just needs some extra affection right now.

Sometimes it is good just to sit. One of the overlooked benefits of children is that they force us to slow down and appreciate the moment. To stop and notice the leaf that looks like a butterfly, the jolt of surprise when a bubble pops on your cheek and the wonder of sitting quietly and watching your child sleep.

Battle of the Bed

When I was pregnant my mother-in-law loved to tell me that, when my husband was small, she would hold his hand every night until he fell asleep, crawl out of his room and then crawl back in in the early morning. I would smile at her wanly and think smugly to myself that will never be me. Little did I know... Last week I literally rolled across my son's squeaky hardwood floor in attempt to get out of his room without waking him up. I was doing well until I banged my head on the changing table, toppling over lotions, waking Baby M and adding another 20 minutes on to our bedtime "routine."

Baby M has never been a good napper, but until a few weeks ago he has always gone down at night pretty well. For the past 6 months it's been bath, book, bed-- and my husband and I were free for the next 11 hours. Now, for some unknown reason, Baby M panics as soon as we start to leave the room. "Mommy lie down," he cries pointing at the small couch we keep in his room. If we go he becomes hysterical and ever since the crib diving incident, we refuse to leave him alone when he gets like that. So for the past few weeks my husband or I have been sitting in his room with him until he falls asleep and then sneaking out, sometimes more successfully than others. Somehow, the kid who can sleep through an American Idol concert at the Staples Center, wakes at the sound of one squeaky floorboard.

In an attempt to get out of this new bedtime routine, which can take up to 2 hours, we decided to get Baby M a toddler bed. I know this may seem counter intuitive, but our thinking was that (a) maybe he will be so excited to have a new bed he'll stay in it and go to sleep and (b) if he does jump out, at least we don't have to worry about him cracking his head open. We set up the bed, talked about how great it was to have a big boy bed and hoped for the best. Sad to say, the best did not happen. Somehow, my husband ended up sitting in the dark for 2 hours while Baby M brought every toy in his room into bed with him. And where was I at 2AM? Lying on the floor, next to the bed, holding Baby M's hand. It must be in the genes.

UCLA Language Lab

You may recall that Baby M and I participated in several UCLA Baby Lab studies. Now that Baby M is getting older we haven't gotten many calls from the Baby Lab lately, but last week we did get a call from the UCLA Language Lab asking if Baby M would like to participate in a study about language acquisition. I said, "Sure."

So this morning we drove over to UCLA where a nice undergraduate student met us at the parking structure and escorted us to the Language Lab. It was very similar to the Baby Lab; there were some toys for Baby M to play with, friendly research assistants and the same eye tracking software. Additionally, there was the "castle", a small room with sound and video monitoring equipment decorated to look like a tower in a fairy tale. We entered the castle along with the researcher where there was a computer screen set up. Baby M was shown some cartoon images along with corresponding sound and then asked to repeat what he heard. We viewed a picture of a man swimming and heard a voice say "He swims fast." Later the picture came up again with the phrase "There he swims." Initially Baby M was too shy to say anything, but eventually the researcher did get a few words out of him. As a thank you for participating Baby M got to choose a gift out of the "treasure chest." He picked a small white ball with the Language Lab logo printed on it.

The goal of the study is to understand how young children learn and respond to grammatical sentences. The researcher said Baby M's performance was pretty typical. About 50% of the children in his age range don't say anything at all and those that do are more likely to repeat the verb if it comes at the end of the sentence as opposed to the middle. Language acquisition is such an interesting process, and one that, as the mother of a relatively late-talker, I am particularly interested in. I'd happily participate in additional Language Lab studies.

Trains! Trains! Trains!

So Baby M has developed something of a train fetish. Even as an infant he enjoyed reading (and chewing) his copy of The Little Engine That Could and then for Christmas last year he got the Fisher-Price Amazing Animals Sing and Go Choo-Choo, a 2 foot long, singing, motorized train. I admittedly fueled his obsession by seeking out train related books at the library like And the Train Goes... and Chugga Chugga Choo Choo. I have been careful to avoid the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise. I don't have anything against talking trains, but I don't like the idea of getting sucked in to purchasing $20 train cars every time we go to the toy store.

Baby M took his first train ride a few weeks ago when we visited my brother in Portland. We rode the train at the Flower Farmer farm just outside the city. He was so excited. The minute we sat down he started shouting "Choo Choo!". The train runs around the farm and stops at a small petting zoo where Baby M got out, fed the chickens and was nearly knocked over by the goats. When we re-boarded the train he got to ride in the "boose" (caboose) with his Daddy.

This past weekend we decided to take Baby M to Travel Town in Griffith Park. This would have been a fabulous idea if it wasn't the hottest weekend of the summer. Oh. My. God. I totally forgot how much warmer it is on the eastside of town. We arrived when Travel Town opened at 10am. The exhibits and museum are free and train rides are $2.50 each. Baby M loved the fact that he got his own ticket to give to the conductor when we boarded. We rode the train, climbed on the full size train cars, watched the model trains run and toured gift shop (the only air conditioned building and it was getting pretty crowded in there). We had planned to stop by the Live Steamers Railroad Museum which is adjacent to Travel Town and only open on Sundays for more train rides, but by the time we were done with Travel Town I honestly thought I would faint or melt if I had to spend anymore time in the sun. I hear really good things about Steamers, so we'll try to go again when the weather is a little cooler, assuming Baby M hasn't moved on to another form of transportation. He has been enamored of airplanes ever since we flew home from Portland. Lucky for me LAX and the Santa Monica airport are on the Westside where we can watch the planes land and feel the cool ocean breeze on our faces.

Summer Sounds at the Hollywood Bowl

Summertime in Los Angeles wouldn't be complete without an evening at the Hollywood Bowl. Sitting out under the stars in the warm night air, with great music, good wine and good friends is the perfect way to spend a summer night. It turns out, the Bowl is also a great place to spend a summer morning.

Today Baby M and I attended one of the SummerSounds concerts for kids at the Bowl and had a wonderful time. Every summer the Bowl puts on a music festival and fine arts workshop specifically geared for kids ages 3 to 9. This year the series is organized around "Ethnic Los Angleles" and highlights the music and art from 3 different neighborhoods-- Brazil on the Westside, Mexico in East Los Angeles, and Little India in Artesia. Tickets are only $7 for the music perfomance and $5 for the art workshop. Parking is free. The concerts are held on the shaded patio next to the Hollywood Bowl museum.

Today's program was "Brazil on the Westside." It followed the adventures of Hip Hop Loving Shammy Dee as he ventured out of his neighborhood and learned about Brazilian music, dance and Carnaval from his new friends. There was lots of dancing, drumming and singing. The performers really tried to engage the kids: asking them to shout out "Peace", teaching them to pop and lock and a little bit of the Samba. My favorite part of the performance was when the drum line came parading through the crowd, mallets thumping and whistles blowing. For a moment I felt like I was at an Ozomatli concert.

Baby M is not quite 2, but he still really enjoyed the music performance. He's not one of those kids who claps and dances, but he watched everything with this focused intensity. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually did learn to Samba! We skipped the art project, which has a minimum age of 3. We are looking forward to attending another SummerSounds concert soon.

Trash Truck Day

This past weekend we attended the West LA Bureau of Sanitation Open House. My husband didn't understand why I wanted to go this event, but once we got there both he and Baby M had a blast. There were several trash trucks and street sweepers on display and kids could work the controls (with assistance from the employees), sit in the trucks, honk the horns and even go for a ride in one of the smaller trucks. Baby M liked working the controls at the back of the truck, but he got a little scared when he was sitting in the truck and the arm started lifting. It was noisy and the truck shook. I think next year when he is a little older he will LOVE it.

The truck yard on Stoner Ave was crawling with toddlers-- chasing the sassy blue recylcing bin robot, eating free hot dogs, dancing to the oldies and just having a great time. Baby M especially loved the miniature blue trash bin he won playing bean bag toss. He even slept with it. (Along with a stuffed Elmo, stuffed Santa, a fire truck, a dump truck and 2 blankets. The crib is getting a little crowded.) This was a great event and it is so nice of the city to sponsor it and for the employees to volunteer their time. We are already looking forward to next year; every morning Baby M looks at me and says "Trash Truck Day?" He can't wait.

Happy or Good?

I just finished reading Richard Weissbourd's book The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development. Despite the rather didactic title, I found the book thoughtfully written and full of valuable insights.

To be quite honest, I think I'm doing a pretty good job of raising a moral child. Yes he is not quite two yet so I haven't had many challenges with regard to morals, but once becoming a parent I did become very aware that Baby M is watching me to learn how to treat other people. And I think becoming a parent made me into a better person. Overnight I became the guardian to the elderly. I help them locate lost cars in the Target parking lot. I assist them down steep inclines after painstakingly following a sidewalk leading to nowhere (I'm looking at you Marina Del Rey Barnes & Noble!) At any rate, I was not expecting to see myself in any of the well-intentioned, but achievement crazed, sports obsessed, Dimpies (Doting Indulgent Modern Parents) described in the book. So I was surprised when I started questioning my parenting philosophy only two chapters in.

Weissbourd describes a study in which children were asked to rank the importance of being happy, being "a good person who cares about others", achieving at a high level and having a high-status career. Two-thirds of the children ranked happiness above being good and the same number predicted that their parents would also value their happiness over goodness. This is not terribly surprising, after all, as parents don't we always say, "I just want him to be happy"? It never occurs to me to say "I just want him to be good." To see if I was alone in this view I asked my husband, "Would you rather Baby M be sad and good or happy and evil?" After a moment my husband answered "happy and evil." Shocked, I probed a little further and determined that we had different definitions of "evil." I was picturing Hitler and he was picturing... well something less than Hitler. Of course, we both agreed that we want Baby M to be happy and good and that the question I had posed was unfair. Still it bothered me that this question of happiness and goodness was so difficult to answer for us.

In general I have a "say yes" parenting philosophy. I figure that there are so many things that Baby M will want that I must say no to-- playing with that electrical outlet, eating the delicious looking rat poison, riding in the front seat of the car-- that when he wants something that I can say yes to, even if it is inconvenient, I should try to make it happen. I stay an extra 5 minutes at the park. I let him pull all the CD's off the shelf. And even after reading this book I don't think that we should deny our children simply so that they can experience disappointment nor do I think this is what Weissbourd is implying. However I have to wonder what message I am sending if Baby M sees me repeatedly making sacrifices for his fleeting happiness. Is this showing him that I value his thoughts and feelings or is it showing him that I value his feelings to the detriment of my own? Am I inadvertently sending him the message that he should pursue his own happiness at that expense of others?

This book raised many interesting questions that I could go on about, but my number one reader has no patience for long blog posts. In fact, I think he'd prefer these updates in 140 character bursts. So instead I will just suggest you read the book and let me know what you think.