I’ve been compiling a list of places I’d like to go in conjunction with my earlier list of themes for each week.  So far, I’ve just put the list together.  There are certainly more things to do in the Washington area, especially if you have older children; however, I’m keeping in mind the relatively low tolerance and attention span of a 2 1/2 and a 5 year old (as well as their walking ability).  There is no way that I’ll be able to do it all, but why not start ambitious, right?

• Adventure Park USA
• Adventure Theater
• American Visionary Art Museum
• Assateague State Park
• Brookside Gardens
• Butler’s Orchard
• C&O canal
• Cabin John Park
• Calvert Cliffs State Park
• Croyden Creek Nature Center
• Cunningham Falls
• FDR memorial
• Fort Frederick State Park
• Germantown Water Park
• Glen Echo Park
• Glenview Mansion
• Gravely Point
• Greenbelt State Park
• Greenbrier State Park
• Harper’s Ferry
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
• Homestead Farms
• Imagination Stage
• Kennedy Center (Millennium Stage)
• Lake Frank
• Lake Needwood
• Libraries (Mongtomery, DC, Fairfax)
• Locust Grove Nature Center
• Meadowside Nature Center
• Montgomery County Agricultural Fair
• National Building Museum
• National Children’s Museum
• National Museum of Natural History
• National Museum of Women in the Arts
• Old Post Office Pavillion
• Olney Farmer’s Market
• Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center
• Pea Island Nature Center
• Playwise Kids
• Rock Creek Park
• Rockville Farmers’ Market
• Rockville Town Square
• Sandy Point State Park
• Seneca Creek State Park
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
• Smithsonian National Zoo
• The Children’s Museum of Rose Hill Manor
• The National Capitol Trolley Museum
• The National Museum of American History
• The Puppet Company
• The Theater in the Woods
• The United States Botanic Gardens
• VisArts
• Washington Monument State Park
• Way Off Broadway Children’s Theater
• Western Maryland Scenic Railroad
• Wheaton Regional Park

This is a starting list.  If you  have fun things that you love to do in the area, please leave a comment, and I’ll add it to my list.  In the future, I’ll post a top ten things to do to make “adventures” as smooth as possible…

While Pippi napped, Annie and I were making lists.  I’ve been working on a  list of places to go this summer: website links, and locations which I can put into an Excel spreadsheet… because I am a nerd.  Annie, on the other hand, is listing “Things for my Sid the Science Kid Playhouse.”  Much of my own inspiration lately for daytime activities results from our family’s addiction to the new PBS show “Sid the Science Kid.” Born out of a brand new Jim Henson’s Creature Shop studio called the Henson Digital Puppetry Studio, the show uses “real time” puppetry to trace the interests and curiosities of a preschool boy named Sid.  Each program follows the same predictable sequence:  Sid is playing in his room early in the morning and comes up with a “Big Idea” or question including: “Why do my shoes get small?” or “How can I get my toys into my tree house without carrying each one up one by one?”  Sid introduces the question to his parents at breakfast, then drives to school with his mom who drops him off in the playground where he meets up with his friends, Gerald, Mae, and Gabriella.  After taking a survey of his friends’ responses to his “Big Idea,” Sid sits in circle time with “Teacher Suzie” who uses emergent learning techniques (in other words, she allows the class to be driven by questions that the students ask themselves) to direct the students’ “Investigations.”  The students move to their “Super Fab Lab” to conduct simple experiments and observations, which they record in their “observation notebooks” through drawings, colors, taping and gluing samples… things that preschoolers can really do.  The “Teacher Suzie” section also usually includes instructions on how you (parent and child) can duplicate the experiment at home and a song.  Finally, once school is excused and the students have “played with their new ideas,” Sid returns home to talk about his findings and to connect what he learns at school with his questions at the beginning of the day/show.

What I like best about the show is that it treats children as real scientists, and my daughters respond very well to this.  The subjects of “Sid” become the topic of many of our conversations, from “Mommy, did you know that I just slid down an incline plane.  Did you know that an incline plane is a simple machine?” to “How do we breathe, again?”  The girls have their own “observation notebooks” which are filled with leaves, drawings, tables, and charts.  Also, what I love about the show is that rather than answering questions or teaching information that stays put when the show is done… we are taking what we learn (and I say we, because I watch it with them) and using it throughout our day…. not to mention the fact that I’m re-learning all kinds of science I’d either forgotten… or never really learned in the first place.

We did a “leaf investigation” on Tuesday, which I will try to write up soon.  It’s really easy to do and works on observing and recording, but also on comparing and contrasting, and expanding vocabulary… all very useful skills.  Today, though, we have no real investigations planned.  Instead, Annie is making a list of “science tools” that have been used on the show and that she thinks would be useful so that we can put them in her playhouse outside.  Her list is mostly comprised of simple drawings: a ruler, an “inclined plane” (aka slide), a “lever and fulcrum” (teeter totter), a magnifying glass, an estimation jar, and a notebook.  She’s planning to collect the things she can lift and put them in a box.  I’m just thrilled that the playhouse has taken a break (however brief) from being Snow White’s or Cinderella’s or Sleeping Beauty’s castle… Thank you, “Sid.”

Need something to do to test your own brain and reawaken your vocabulary prowess? Keep your own mind challenged and try “Free Rice.”  Each correct answer you supply buys ten grains of rice for a child in need. Sometimes the girls watch me and count the grains of rice I’ve stored up…. and it’s a great way to show them that even Mommy likes to learn new words (and sometimes she even gets them wrong!).

This may be one of the last uninterrupted summers that I have with the girls.   At first, I began to  panic at the thought of an entire summer with no camps and only one planned week at the beach.  It seemed (ok, and still seems) daunting.  How many trips to the pool or playground or library could we possibly do before they were sick of it, sick of me, sick of the same old routine?  Jason and I had thought about camps, but with two tuitions to pay, a fence to build, and many other household expenses looming large, we wondered if camp was really worth the expense.  But, what I really liked about camp was the opportunity for the kids to get outside, to socialize, and to learn something new.  So, I looked around at what camps were out there for children, thought about what TV programs, books, music, and activities the children like, and considered what kinds of days the kids like to have at school… and realized, I can do camp.  We can do ” camp” all summer long.  Granted, our camp will also have a “laundry hour” and “mommy needs silence” time… but if I approached each week with not only a routine but also with a new focus each week… a theme for each week… we might just keep from going stir crazy!

I’ve only begun the planning, but come May 31st, the girls are all mine, all summer.  My goal, then, is to have a basic daily schedule of events (including times for me to get things done that *I* need to do), but also a general, weekly calendar that focuses our attention on topics we already like or that we haven’t already considered.

So far, here are the themes I’ve come up with:

• Farming/Growing/Gardening
• Reptiles/Amphibians
• Entomology/Butterflies
• Birds
• Architecture
• Oh, Pioneers!
• Dinosaurs
• Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
• Fairytales
• Beach and ocean life
• Pets
• Orchestra
• Theater
• Chinese culture
• Sign language
• Spanish
• Your body
• Swimming

Assuming that I have about 10 weeks to plan for, I’ll have to whittle this down a bit as we get closer in.  Some of the extended projects that we were planning this summer include growing some vegetables (we’ve already begun a few seedlings on our deck and in the windows) and planting a butterfly garden.  We have the butterfly garden seedlings in the kitchen waiting to be put in.  We have  pool membership at the neighborhood pool, too, and the girls have asked for swim lessons.  Of course, that means Pippi needs to be potty trained… and that’s a whole other story!  Perhaps today, the girls will help me brainstorm ideas.  I have a folder that I’ve been stashing lots of flyers and circulars in as I see them around town with ideas for puppet shows, places for nature walks, free community events, etc. that might help me to plan dates and times for certain themes.  As I focus my plans, I’ll post them… I think the next step is to think concretely about the resources we have in the Washington, DC area and listing the ones that would be useful for 2 and 5 year olds.

Today’s Washington Post features an op-ed piece on parenting advice, parenting  magazines, and the neverending, black hole of parenting publications.  I know.  Decry the massive amounts of publishing about parenting on the one hand, and add to the burgeoning masses of it that’s available and constantly growing on the other.  That irony hasn’t escaped me.

Nor should it escape the editors of The Washington Post.  I thought, as a follow-up to my open complaint about the parenting advice available in the Post, that I should also comment on Lenore Skenazy’s piece, “Parenting Advice?  That’s Just Quackery.” in which the author condemns the state of parenting publications and our complicity in its consumption. In broad strokes, Skenazy faults the masses of poor, hastily-written, and poorly-conceived articles offering effete advice to parents and blames parents’ collective loss of confidence in their own common sense on the proliferation of bad advice and trivial but frantic controversy. Essentially, she makes a good point.  Quoting an article in Parenting magazine that recommends that parents, for example, “Choose a sunny day when there’s no chance of lightning,” in order to take one’s child out kite flying, Skenazy points to example after example of lame advice that reinforces a reader’s inability to make simple decisions or observations for one’s self. Whether it is eating chocolate while pregnant or products that test bathwater temperature for your little bundle of joy, Skenazy explains that our willingness to read and to consume advice, regardless of its value, and our suspension of our own common sense in deference to the publishing industry’s frenzy to produce debates has collectively eroded parents’ sense of confidence in their own decision-making skills.  I think back on all the articles I’ve read recently in parent publications and wonder, is much of this really news to parents? No.  Not really.

Can parenting literature go beyond creating controversy?  Can we expect more from parenting magazines, advice columns, book publications, and blogs (admittedly, like this one)?  I think it (and we) can.  Parenting literature is best not only when it opens our eyes or alerts us to potential dangers, but more importantly when it shares genuinely useful knowledge and skills with parents.  Of course, this is hardly a solution for those interested in publishing volumes and volumes of literature, and requires that the authors, and more importantly the editors, of each publication understand its audience–and not simply consider them to be oversized lemmings.  Then again, that also requires us as readers to ignore banal articles and bad advice, but we’re so busy chasing the “Top Ten Ways to Solve Potty-training Woes” to notice that we’re falling off a proverbial cliff. And if we can’t keep straight whether we feel more or less like lemmings, keep in mind that neither can The Post.  In case, we start feeling confident in our parenting skills, don’t worry. I’m sure The Post (or any other publisher for that matter) will try to relieve us of that feeling by the next issue.

There is so much to do in the Washington area that it is overwhelming to try to list it all or to choose between one thing or another.  Each month, I’ve tried to make lists of calendars and events to help me choose the best activities for the day/week.  Here are a few of my “go-to” calendars to choose from, in no particular order:

• Washington Parent: http://www.washingtonparent.com/calendar.php
  The Washington Parent magazine is fairly ubiquitous.  Free of charge and often found in the entry area to malls, grocery stores, and community centers,  it offers several articles per month ranging from how to handle bullies to selecting a name for your child.
• The City of Rockville: http://www.rockvillemd.gov/events/index.htm and http://www.rockvillemd.gov/events/thisweek
  Rockville offers its residents a wide variety of events and community activities which are either free to the public or require a small fee.  For Mother’s Day, the city is throwing a tea party for children 2+ and their mommies.
• Washington Family Magazine: http://www.washingtonfamily.com/page/Places-to-Go_
  Much like Washington Parent, Washington Family magazine can be found free-of-charge in locations such as your supermarket, the community center, the coffee shop, or the post office.  According to the blogs on the site, this section is new and it lists many of the places where you can go adventuring in DC.  It isn’t a calendar, per say, and I’ll do a list of “places to go” in a future post, but it did include a link to one of my favorite places as a child: The Children’s Theater in the Woods at Wolf Trap…(This summer includes performances by Dinorock and Steve Songs… family favorites)
• Nick Parents Connect: http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/calendar/washington-dc-usa/2009/5/1
  Maintained by the TV network Nickelodeon and promotes free events to parents who live in cities, such as Washington DC. It displays only one day at a time, so you’ll need to play around with the date feature a bit, but it has a surprisingly large collection of free events in our area.
• Smithsonian Institute Calendar: http://www.si.edu/events/
  A comprehensive calendar of all the museums and centers that are part of the Smithsonian Institute, this calendar can be narrowed to focus only on events appropriate for children.  You can select the day, narrow your search, and find precisely when the zoo keepers feed, for example, the giant octopus.
• WETA: http://www.weta.org/local/calendar
  Events in DC according to its local public television channel.

There are more, but I’ll start with this for now.  I’ve tried listing calendars that draw mainly from “free” activities.  One of the key features I’ve learned about keeping busy is that it can get pricy if everything you do costs a little here and there.  One way to cut down the costs is really to focus on those places that have lots of payoff for very little money up-front.  This way if someone throws a killer tantrum or falls asleep or gets you kicked out of the facility, at least you aren’t out the extra cash!

For those of you who experienced that period of life between the end of naptime and when kindergarten begins, this will come as no surprise. For those of you who still get regular naps from your child and think this will never happen to you, herein lies a cautionary tale.

Today, Pippi (aka potty-training-with-attitude) called in her sticker chart reward: a trip to “Chuck E Cheese.” Don’t worry, it’s Tuesday at 10 AM. Believe it or not, there are only about 3 people at Chuck E Cheese at this time. (No, it doesn’t disappear into some Dr. Who time warp where everyone is always hungry, whiny, and under 4-feet tall … as I had suspected it might before we tried it the first time.) When we go, we do so with 10 tokens each, no food, and I smuggle in drinks. It usually takes us about 1-1 ½ hours to use all the tokens, climb the indoor equipment, dance in front of the blue screen, and then cash in 20 tickets for 2 overpriced lollipops. Still, so far we’re grinning ear to ear at the end every time, and that was no different today. We were a tad bit later on our arrival (10:30), but we still managed to end happy by 11:45 or so. Next, we ventured to the nearby Safeway to stock up for my attempt at a Cinco de Mayo dinner celebration. We also bought a $5 cheese freezer pizza and gnawed on two “sample” oatmeal, raisin cookies before making our way back to the car. This, however, was the beginning of the end. Having pushed our excursion past 12:15 meant the beginning of what I call, “The Great-American Whine.” “When will we eeeeeeat? My tummy is so hungry it is going to explode!!!” and “I NEEEED a DRIIIIINK!!!! I’m dyyYying of thirst… Don’t you care mommy?!?!?!?” Which at home melded nicely into a battle royal over Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and a blanket. (“Mommy knows you’re tired sweetie because you’re crying at ‘Mr. Roger’s,’ and he’s on the TV.”) Anyway, we suffered our way through pizza, potty time, and the beginning of a nap when Annie realized… she’s about to take a nap. This realization, so thoroughly jarring and startling to her senses caused an inverse reaction: imaginative play with paper doll princesses who only speak in screeching, loud voices. As she played with her dolls (and as Pippi who *needs* a nap had begun to settle down), Annie’s voice crept higher and higher. I went back to the “quiet zone” (the name of the room being the first indication of my expectations) to gently remind her that she needed to keep her voice down. Five minutes later… her voice is back up, and worse… she’s wandered out into the hallway directly in front of the room where Pippi is napping. Standing in the hallway, I whispered to explain, “This is your final warning. Your voice needs to be a whisper. If I hear you again, I’ll take away one of your dresses.” (This, of course, being one of the ultimate disincentives… I could take anything away from her… any privilege, and she’d shrug it off… but not the dresses!) She took one step back to the room, turned to me and asked, “Which dress?” Not thinking that far ahead, I was caught and paused to think about what dresses were hers… which were clean… which needed laundering… , and when she volunteered, “*Gasp* NOT my kitty-cat one!” I jumped at the opportunity. “Yes, dear. I’m afraid that’s the one.” She turned, “sobbing” into her arm, took one more step, and turned back around, dry-eyed. She looked at me and asked, “For how long? A week?” The “ee” in week approached a pitch only heard by our dog, Sasha, and which I only understood because “whine” is my second language. Again, I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and it seemed adequately long enough for waking Pippi from the early stages of a nap, so I said solemnly, “yes.” Taking one more step back to the room, Annie turned mid-stride, smiled and explained, “That’s ok. A week is only seven days, Mommy, and it takes you that long to do the laundry anyway.”
I have reached an all-time low: duped by a 5-year old. Here’s hopin’ Pippi naps every day until she’s 18!

The following letter is a response to a Family Almanac article in the Washington Post.  I’ve attached the link.  I sent this letter (admittedly rushed and written while 2 kids climbed nearby furniture) to an email address included in the print edition of this article; however, the email address did not work, and the letter was never delivered.

Dear Ms. Kelly,

Regarding your article “Mom’s at Split Ends for Dealing with Toddler’s Hair-Raising Antics” (Washington Post 4/23/2009), I must take issue with your advice. Any article which includes the line “All it takes to rear a toddler…” shows that the author is out of touch with the daily challenges of parenting a toddler–if for no other reason than demonstrating a lack of empathy. Despite being a mother, you can still be out of touch with the urgency, the freneticism, and exhaustion that most parents of toddlers (those of us who don’t have 24-hour per day nanny services, at least) experience. You’ve lost this reader because your emotional removal from the experience and clear nostalgia (the kind of nostalgia that comes from being a grandparent, frankly) has affected the “voice” in your writing.

The child pulling her mother’s hair isn’t pulling it *because* she doesn’t know that it hurts. She’s doing it because she gets a reaction. Pain is irrelevant. She loves the attention and response that it brings… even if it’s negative. She may even have a cursory understanding of the pain it causes, but a 15-month old child has not developed this kind of empathy yet. Instead, she’s playing the role of the little scientist who loves watching how everyone responds to her… and thinks it’s quite a great game. She cannot psychologically make the connection between her own pain (the gentle tugging of her own fingers on her own hair) and the pain she causes someone else. True, she lacks impulse control… but she also loves a reaction. You have to take the reaction away from the child before the behavior will stop.

Parenting a toddler requires something almost more impossible than endless patience, encyclopedic understanding, boundless humor, and prescient prevention… it requires knowing when to be emotionally vulnerable and intimate and when to be detached. It is one more skill that seems unattainable, until you remember why you do it. Then, like most of the skills we learn as parents, we keep working at it because we love them, and it’s what they need to grow.

Sincerely,
Lisa Rhody