HappyHappy

On Monday Baby M and I, along with some friends, went to LACMA to check out "HappyHappy." It's part of the "Your Bright Future" exhibition which includes works by 12 contemporary artists from South Korea.

Baby M and I arrived at Hancock Park, home to LACMA, the Page Museum and the La Brea Tar pits, around 10am and were pleasantly surprised to find free parking on 6th Street. LACMA doesn't open until noon, but we were able to explore part of the "HappyHappy" project, a chain length fence with brightly colored plastic objects fastened to it. (Trust me, it looks better than it sounds.) We contributed to the piece by tying on one of Baby M's purple sand shovels. Baby M loved that he was able to touch all of the various bowls, cups and bottles, but was very upset to discover that the toy truck was firmly attached and could not be removed no matter how hard he tugged.

The other part of "HappyHappy", long strings of colorful plastic containers that hang from the ceiling near the museum's BP Grand Entrance, did not open until 11:30am when the museum box office opens. Being able to see but not run through the giant curtain was torture for the kids, but at least we were able to play hide and seek in "Urban Light", a grid made up of hundreds of classic lamp posts, while we waited.

"HappyHappy" part 2 was definitely worth the wait. Baby M and his friends loved running through the suspended bowls, cups and funnels. The guards asked us to make sure the kids did not tug on the strings, but other than that they allowed us to exhuberantly enjoy the exhibit. After running around the patio for a bit we used Baby M's NexGen pass to get into the Broad Contemporary Art Museum for free and took a look at the 10 foot tall "Balloon Dog (Blue)" (exactly what it sounds like) , a giant dollhouse and plenty of other fascinating pieces. Another fun day at LACMA.

Imagination

Baby M is lying face down on the kitchen floor.

Me: What are you doing?

Baby M mumbles something about trains.

Me: Oh, you're a train? What does a train say? Choo choo?

Baby M (sitting up): No Mommy, train tracks

and he lies back down on the floor. At least he is easy to keep track of this way (ha ha).

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.