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.

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