Decorating for the holidays Crunchy style

Raised by a mother who cheerfully and voraciously celebrated every major and minor holiday with paper plates, napkins and cups, exterior and interior decorations and flowers in season, I fell naturally but not nature-ly into festive adornment.

My enlightenment, or should I say, growing discomfort with the multitude of mass produced holiday decorations has led me toward a more natural, environmentally friendly approach. That and the fact that I can’t begin to afford the high end wood, pottery and fabric offerings, has encouraged me to venture into homemade decorations too.

So, gone are the plastic decorations and polyester outdoor flags, though not necessarily the paper napkins, admittedly with a bit of guilt. Replaced are the plastic table decorations and even the store bought pottery ones in favor of handmade, simple décor that grows as The Hamster ages.

Inside, I pull out my holiday tablecloth, napkins and dishtowels, some of which I’ve had for years. To feed my shopping habit, I do purchase new ones every once in awhile from Big Lots or another off price retailer. My DS’s tiny table gets a refresher too. I buy a yard of holiday fabric and sad to say, without hemming, toss it over his table.

To decorate the house, I collect pine cones and scatter them in groupings with polished rocks in various places in the house and place candles of various sizes on glass trivets. Stockings on the chimney and lots of fresh wreathes adorn the living room. The bathrooms get tiny glass holiday figures and bowls of red and white polished stones. In the bedrooms I use fresh greens and fabric dolls with quickly sewn red felt outfits.

Outside, my natural décor breaks down a bit, as I do use electric Christmas lights, though I could use luminaries – paper bag or tin can ones are great. Several poinsettias add color and, I’m thinking about replacing my handmade autumn scarecrow with a handmade snowman.

As The Hamster gets a little older, we’ll make felt banners – buying felt by the yard at the fabric store and cutting out Christmas designs and gluing them. OK – maybe sewing them on. For now though, rather than buying 25 different decorations this year, I’ve decided to go minimal. Then each year, I’ll buy or make a few more things, rather than replace them every few years. I’m always on the search for ideas . I found that on many retailer sites , there are some great ones. The key, I think, since my son is young, is to keep it simple and involve him in the decorating and seasonal activities.

We’ll add a few permanent decorations each year. So, for this year, it will be mostly garlands and wreathes…MMMM…it will smell nice around here.

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Celebrating St. Nicholas Day

Now, that we are in the swing of the holiday season, I’m starting to look at festivals that lead up to the main event, simple ways to celebrate the season. Though we are not particularly religious, we do celebrate a number of Christian holidays as well as, Hanukah with our close friends. We also attend other celebrations to which we are invited. We try to honor all belief systems and instill a respect for most all religions in our DS.

On December 6th, though, we’ll culminate our St Nicholas celebration. I researched a bit about St. Nicholas day, as it is not a traditional American holiday. Celebrated in different parts of Europe, St. Nicholas Day is part pagan, part Christian and closely aligned if not amalgamated with Christmas.

The story of St. Nick seems to have different interpretations, as legends typically do. In general, they revolve around the fact that St. Nicholas slyly threw money into the window of a poor man – quite a nice surprise, since his daughters had no dowry. (I’ll skip the part about their alternatives as dowry-less young girls in the re-telling.) Instead, I plan to tell a bit of the story of St. Nick each day starting December 1st, using this great collection of stories.

On December 6th, at the beginning of the Advent season, children typically put out their shoes at night, as well as, carrots and hay for St. Nick’s horse and receive small presents in their shoes in the morning. I plan to fill my DS’s shoe with a walnut, in the shell, spray painted gold, as they did at The Waldorf playgroup we attended I’ll also include a few small toys. I picked up some cute little wooden and cloth toys on Hearthsong ,which is having an “Holiday overstock” sale as I type. They should be here by the 6th.

We generally acknowledge holidays at our house with an addition to our seasonal table – one of which is the middle of the dining room table. For this holiday we’ll make a small clay pot or felt St. Nick and perhaps include a small felt or wooden shoe – the wooden shoe I will have to buy, as woodcarving is not yet one of my talents. I saw a few on E-bay, but, I think I might be able to buy some at a craft store.

This relatively new, holiday should keep us busy for the next week and away from the stores and excessive commercialism leading up to Christmas Day. Traditions that involve crafts, stories and decorating take the spotlight away from the “presents’ part of the holiday. As this great quote says so succinctly:

“Presents become less important when the family traditions are rich in other ways” Waldorf in the home

Photo from Blueberry Forest

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Blog Review World Culture Net

I was looking for information on St. Nicholas day when I ran across World Culture Net. I’m starting preparations for this holiday that falls on December 6th, so I thought I better get started finding resources since Christmas lurks just over the horizon. While this didn’t help, it did provide quite a bit of information on other holidays.

I feel a bit funny offering a Blog review. Though I’ve been lurking on Blogs for several years, I have only been actively blogging for about a month. But, since my goal is to provide resources and information on this site, I have to start somewhere.

World Culture Net appears to have been up just a short time, but has already attracted some attention, probably from people like me. Per the “About us page” “WorldCultureNet is dedicated to sharing information about cultures around the world.” In practice, it acts as a great resource for information about various festivals and holidays around the world, including crafts, traditions, stories and songs.

Reading the post on Thanksgiving, listed as an American holiday, I was struck by how it included not only the story of the Pilgrims but also other associated American traditions including football, turkey dinner and The Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.

This approach, of including associated traditions that aren’t normally found in textbooks and sites dedicated to holidays, adds humanity to the information. I wouldn’t normally think of including this type of information in say, a letter I wrote to a foreign colleague. But, these are truly part of the tradition of the holiday as celebrated in the U.S.

Of course, I spent far too much time clicking through the site as the breadth of cultures represented is excellent, with entries from across the globe. Operating both as a resource for the terminally curious and an excellent addition to traditional travel information sites, this site could grow to create a community for travelers as well as researchers. For now, I’ll continue to visit this site and see how it grows.

BTW- it's World Culture Net at www.worldculturenet.com, not worldculture dot net.




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Black Friday

Black Friday is coming up. For non-business types, here's a bit of trivia. The day after Thanksgiving was traditionally the day when retailers finally broke even...or “went into the black”, after running a deficit all year.

Of course in our consumer oriented, “all shopping, all the time”, culture, this is probably not necessarily true anymore. Many of you may remember when Black Friday was the day for big sales, right before prices went back up until Christmas. About 6 or 7 years ago, consumers and retailers got into a game of chicken during December and rather than buy Christmas gifts throughout December, they waited to see if the items would go on sale prior to Christmas. Retailers panicked and started sales. This of course trained consumers to wait for the sales every year.

Now, we exist in an all sales, all the time culture...which of course encourages us to buy things we don’t need, but want. As a firm believer in "retail therapy" and "recreational shopping" up until recently, I thought this was just dandy.

Maybe it’s a combination of my readings in the crunchy parenting world about the impact of materialism on children. Maybe it’s because we are drowning in toys…or maybe it’s just I’ve finally hit the wall. There doesn’t seem to be much I want to buy anymore. And it has begun to irritate me to see all of the “stuff” everyone else is buying.

Now, of course, it gets worse. I helped The Hamster write a letter to Santa. As I mentioned in my post on crunchy shopping sites, he only wants 4 things. So, do I buy him only 4 things? What about Grandparents and relatives? Should they not buy him anything? Should I decide what other toys he needs? Should I buy him books? He will need a new bookcase if I do that. Should I buy him clothes? He doesn’t really need any of those either.

So, rather than try to solve this complex problem…I am spending my time pondering the impact of materialism and how I came to this place.




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Über blocks

This post should be titled…things I learned while researching other things. So, rather than just one post…this will probably take me three posts to discuss everything I discovered.

So, post # 1…..I am really late this year getting my Christmas shopping completed… not that I am one of those who shops throughout the year or one of those who is finished by Halloween…but I am usually finished with my online shopping by Thanksgiving….”ain’t gonna happen” this year. One thing holding me back is this blog…ah, but…

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the things I want to buy The Hamster for Christmas is blocks. This seemed a simple and straightforward enough idea until I started looking at the different types of blocks available. There are small blocks and large blocks and painted and natural and tree bark and odd shaped and castle (we already have those) and, and, and.

In the process of researching this gift, I discovered that the standard blocks found in most preschools are “unit blocks”. No ordinary blocks, these blocks have specific mathematically based sizes to aid in understanding the basics of the 4 mathematical functions - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. (Who knew?) Considering both my and my DH’s math aptitudes, perhaps I should buy The Hamster a truckload!


These blocks have been around for about 100 years it seems ( not specifically the ones at The Hamster’s pre-school…but they could be). The inventor, of unit blocks, Caroline Pratt , was an educator in the early part of last century – whose bio was next to impossible for me to find- so this page from the school she founded will have to do. Caroline Pratt based her unit block design on blocks developed by Fredrick Froebel , the inventor, so they say, of Kindergarten. John Dewey and Lucy Sprauge Mitchell were friends and fans of Caroline Pratt and a whole host of other famous early childhood educators fit into the story.

Goodness, who knew blocks could be so complicated ?

Fortunately, as it turns out; the mathematical principles used in unit blocks later were adopted by the makers of Legos, Tinker Toys and other building materials. At least, we have lots of Legos, picked up at a thrift shop and a good selection of Tinker Toys, quite useful for building swords.

Anyway, after all this research, here’s the quote, from the Yale University site, no less, that got me….

“…(This) leads me to believe that the lack of traditional play experiences helps explain the numbers of children coming to the classroom with deficient eye/hand coordination, two-handedness and visual/spatial understanding as well as poor language development. It may be that the technological changes we are experiencing in our world are so profound that these skills will not be needed in the future. For now and however long our society values these skills, (source)


OK, I’m sold…They better work because they are awfully expensive…hmm...Ebay or Craig’s List are looking awfully good as a source. BTW- Thanks to Community Playthings for the above photo, I'd buy them there if I had a day care center.

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Storytelling - The Baldwin Project Site Review

I actually stumbled upon The Baldwin Project last week when I was frantically searching for a story about St. Martin, the morning of his feast. My DH and I are not particularly religious, but I try to support various different festivals of all faiths, with my DS through story and sometimes song. (And also with environmentally unfriendly, printed paper plates and napkins, though I am trying to break this habit!)

Montessori Mom has a great source site that mentions this resource and I decided to check it out. Usually, I go straight to Wikipedia for my stories, but, while absorbing and a good way to lose an hour of your time, the stories on that site can be a bit heavy for a preschooler. The Baldwin Project, a collection of both stories and books is more in tune with my needs. This has become a goldmine for me, as my DS is in the “tell me a story” stage and is conditioned to storytelling from his time at the Waldorf playgroup locally.

I love the mission of The Baldwin Project site, “Bringing Yesterday’s Classics to Today’s Children". Divided into, not terribly intuitive sections, this site can be used for story-telling, book recommendations and curriculum suggestions. Many items are copyright free and complete on the site, so can be copied and brought to school for classroom use.

The story section of this site is not particularly search friendly, but can be perused relatively quickly for an appropriate title. In many cases, you can purchase the book in its entirety, but you can also just select and print a chapter for a special need. Though The Hamster is not yet in school, I am often called upon for virtual homework help by my 10-year-old niece and 13-year-old nephew who live across the country. A quick e-mail linked to The Story of Rome , provided a child friendly answer to a recent question…with proper citations provided by your truly.

Clicking on Authors, and then Hans Christian Anderson , brought me to a selection of his stories, but, interestingly enough, not The Little Mermaid. Have we all become accustomed to the Disney version that we really don’t want to know about the, much sadder, original text? Clicking on Unit Studies and then through to Africa, brought me to West African Folk Tales… sort of like looking at Rudyard Kipling’s source.

Clicking on Getting Involved may have been a bad idea. The project needs volunteers. The enticing opportunity to be involved in developing this site, by preparing a book is almost too much to resist.

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How "Waldorfy" are you?

Not so long ago there was a post on mothering.com asking the question: “How Waldorfy are you”. Mothering.com is a pretty darn crunchy site and has an entire discussion board devoted to Waldorf education. In a previous post , I discussed my interpretation of what it means to be Waldorfy. This post by, hannahsmummy, though, asks the questions that define what it “means” to be Waldorfy.

Do you allow any TV/Computer time?

How about plastic toys, noise making electronic toys and the like?

Character stuff?

Do you try to use natural craft materials (beeswax, wool, felt...)?

Do you allow recorded music?

The correct, “Waldorfy” answers to those questions are:

No,

no,

no,

yes,

no.

My answers, and to my surprise, many of the folks who chose to answer those questions were:

some,

some,

no,

yes,

lots…which, in the scheme of things makes me, of course, not QUITE crunchy.

I feel pretty good about being on the no TV bandwagon. Even most mainstream educators recommend no TV for the under 2 crowd and very limited for older children for a variety of reasons.

To me, no plastic and electronic toys make sense because wooden toys last longer and have better play value. My husband and I have a “three things” rule. That is, before buying any toy we evaluate whether or not The Hamster can use it in three different ways. That usually includes, telling at least several different stories with it. A toy plane can be featured in several different types of stories; a superman action figure cannot. The Waldorf philosophy is more or less the same. Children use their imaginations more when the toys do less.

I’ve recently gotten into the natural materials for crafts trend because…they just feel so nice! The Hamster could care less, I believe, but real wool for knitting, beeswax instead of play dough and roving wool (raw sheep’s wool) hits all my “cool” buttons.

I’m totally non-Waldorf though in the recorded music area. Again, Waldorf focuses on the natural part of music…that is…you get a lot more out of it, when you see the instruments played than if you are listening to recorded music. All well and good, but neither my DH or I play… does banging on pots and pans count?

There’s an interesting discussion on hipparents.tribe.net about Waldorf school and some of the guidelines and myths, that I have been following. It's worth a visit.




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Wrapping Crunchy

Yesterday we went to a birthday party. Fifteen kids, 16 Moms (some had two) and a scattering of infants. A wild time was had by all with the anticipated breakdowns and tears appearing after about two hours.

I was late getting ready for the party so ended up recycling a gift bag given to my son at some point, to wrap the present. In my opinion “re-gifting” wrapping is not gauche; it’s being environmentally sensitive.

Ten minutes before the party, though, I was digging through my wrapping paper box searching for anything that wasn’t holiday paper. After years of purchasing wrapping paper during every school sale. I have enough to last a lifetime. Of course, this is just at the time when I have become somewhat crunchy in my wrapping.

My favorite wrapping for smaller items is a brown bag with a handle that can be found at many craft stores. I buy them by the dozen and have them (sometimes) easily available. A nice ribbon to tie the handles together and an appropriate image selected on Google image, printed, cut out and glued on the front and voilà, instant wrapping.

Several friends of mine buy butcher paper by the roll and have their children color or paint on it. This also works with plain old white paper or, for the really crunchy, printer paper, with type on one side (those extra pages you print out by mistake).

Crunchy wrapping, for me is deliciously self-serving. I don’t have to spend money on paper, I can do it at the last minute and I can get rid of the old bits and pieces of paper, cardboard and fabric that I’m always saving because, “the kids might want to make something out of it”.

My favorite ideas, collected from a variety of sources include:

- Wrap presents in leftover fabric or felt – this is great for odd shaped presents as you can tie the ends with a ribbon, string or pipe cleaner. You can purchase ready made cloth gift bags at lagniappe gift wrap.com/, Attachments Catalog.com or on a variety of other eco-shopping sites. I prefer to make them myself as it is so easy.

- Save last years wrapping paper, scrunch it up and use it as packing material…or use this year’s if you receive early presents.

- Cut up the old Christmas cards and use them as gift cards – especially the generic ones you receive from commercial contacts, friends you haven’t seen in years and your realtor.

- Don’t buy gift tags….cut a square of the wrapping paper you use and make a matching card or cut a square from the paper you won’t be using anymore to liven up the “crunchy” style wrapping you are now using.

- Use your children’s old artwork or coloring book pages for small presents.

- Use old wallpaper cut up or old paper grocery bags or magazines.

- A great book circulating on the “green circuit” is Simply Green Giving, by Danny Seo, A review by a top green blog can be found here. Or, check out the queen of decor for ideas, Martha Stewart,... if you are relatively crafty.

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Not Quite Crunchy Christmas shopping list

What is not on my list for the upcoming holidays are any of the toys that appear on most of the “Top Toys for Christmas” gift lists. Whew…at least I can avoid the crowds at Toys R Us.

My 4-year-old, The Hamster, wants 4 things:

A Playmobil airplane and bus
A cleaning cart like the janitors have (all my aspirations for college?)
Wooden Blocks
A Wooden Castle

And every toy, in every catalog, we get mailed to the house. He’ll get the 4 things. I don’t want to promote materialism. Too many toys stifle imagination… none of these items is cheap and we are not rich.

The Playmobil items I have already ordered on the Playmobil site. There is a truly enormous selection of toys made by this company, much of it history, not character based…which is why I really like it. A more limited selection can be found at Amazon.com, Target and many specialty toy stores. I love the figures and accessories, but tend to shy away from the larger items (castles, airports, forts). Like most, multi-part, plastic items, they seem to shed tiny plastic pieces little by little until they finally fall apart.

Though plastic and somewhat detailed, Playmobil is a generally good fit for not -quite-crunchy families in the Waldorf camp, Playmobil figures encourage imaginative play. and storytelling and can be used to create multiple scenarios.

In our house, it also gives my husband, a fervent Playmobil collector as a child, a chance to relive his childhood. The Hamster would love to get the whole new Roman set from Playmobil, which is only on the German site at this writing, but, he’s not getting it, since Oma and Opa are buying the Viking ship and Santa, the bus and plane.

There is a great crunchy style cleaning cart available at Magic cabin.com . But, my son, in a sad show of non-crunchiness prefers the plastic one that more resembles the one Juan, the kind and kid friendly janitor at our old apartment building had. OK, fine, whatever.

Though the Hamster has two castles, one small plastic one bought by his grandparents last year and one large, Playmobil one purchased by some house guests (why did he get the thank you present and not me?) they both have broken bits. The Playmobil one is still usable but, now he wants a wooden one, “so it won’t break, Mommy”. Good little crunchy boy.

I’ve been all over my favorite crunchy sites looking for the perfect castle. There are a few nice ones at Unique Wooden Toys and Willow Tree toys. Rosie Hippo one of my favorite sites, has a really cool and really expensive one, I’d love to get, but then we would have to all go live it in as we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage.

Blocks is something I actually talked him into requesting. We have castle blocks, which are really a hot item now in my circle of friends. But, I’d like to get him , the traditional unit blocks. There aren’t too many toys out there that combine imaginative and mathematical play value so well. But they are … whoa, way expensive. I think I’m going to try Craig’s List or E-bay for these.

I’m tempted to get him tree blocks but the bigger unit blocks are more appropriate for this age, IMHO. I keep getting sidetracked by all of the wonderful block sets out there - focus, focus.

Additional items to be given by other folks I’ll select myself. There’s a really cool windmill house in the recent Magic Cabin catalog that he’d like since the family in Chitty-Chitty Bang, Bang live in a windmill.

Usually I pick up a few things in Germany when we go for the holidays, but, now that Haba has entered the US market with their great toys, I don’t have to lug all the heavy wooden toys back this year after Christmas.

I’m still deciding about books and CDs …he’ll get a few, probably too many.


My favorite, Not Quite Crunchy shopping sites

http://www.willowtreetoys.com/

http://www.farmgoodsforkids.com/

http://www.hearthsong.com/

http://playmobil.com/

http://www.magiccabin.com/

http://www.blueberryforest.com/

http://www.melissaanddoug.com/

www.sensationalbeginnings.com

http://www.ebay.com/

http://craigslist.org/




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Toys, a Crunchy Perspective

With the holidays coming up, it seems an appropriate time to discuss the crunchy parent’s toy philosophy. As a not QUITE crunchy parent, I spend a lot of time with crunchy parents learning from them and admiring their conviction.

My crunchy parent friends, have homes carefully filled with beautiful, often handmade, toys made of natural materials, primarily wood. Most eschew plastic and electronic toys and veer away from licensed products. Truly crunchy homes seem to have very few toys out at a time and use the “rotation into the closet” method with vigor. That’s one of the really appealing parts of being crunchy, not tripping over toys in every room of the house.

Though we NQC types hide away the plastic toys when our crunchy friends come to call, I’m fairly certain many of my friends simply don’t have any. They have classic, Waldorf inspired or Montessori toys.

Perhaps the easiest to find are classic toys, which have made a comeback of sorts in the past few years driven by nostalgia as well as a yearning for simpler times. Radio Flyer wagons, Tinker Toys and Lincoln logs are all back in vogue with niches on both ends of the parenting spectrum. Many of these toys, like the ones mentioned, fit in with the crunchy, natural living lifestyle.

Montessori toys are also relatively easy to find. Many teacher supply stores carry Montessori products and many Melissa and Doug toys are based on the philosophy. I have spent quite a bit of time studying the Montessori philosophy. (Actually, I spend WAY too much time studying anything that purports to make me a better parent – the search for the magic philosophy, you could call it.) As we never attended a Montessori school, I’m by no means an expert on Montessori or even an informed parent…anyone out there who can add to this topic or correct my assumptions please do. We did attend a Waldorf’s pre-school for 2 years and we are still part of the local Waldorf community, so I feel a bit more on top of the toy philosophy for Waldorf.

Crunchy parents in both philosophical camps favor wooden toys with Montessori toys firmly in the practical, structured toy category and Waldorf in the whimsical. Since the Montessori pedagogy focuses on, among other things, finding meaningful work, many of these toys are child size versions of adult tools. Waldorf, on the other hand, encourages imagination and promotes open-ended play while, keeping the child in the realm of fantasy as long as possible. Waldorf toys are intentionally short on details and can be used in many ways.

I found a few sites that discuss the Montessori philosophy and the Waldorf philosophy
and how that impacts toy selection. You can purchase toys and materials at both of these sites too.

Typical Waldorf toys include:
Wooden Playstands,
Irregular shaped wooden blocks
Waldorf Dolls (made from all natural material, without a lot of facial or body detail)

Typical Montessori toys include:
Wooden tools
Wooden puzzles
Number rods

The real plus to these types of toys is longevity. Most of these toys are really well made (and relatively expensive). Nothing beats wood for sturdiness. Waldorf toys, with their focus on open-ended play morph into new play toys as the child grows. Good in that you do not have to constantly buy new toys; bad in that you rarely can give anything away.




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Book(s) Review- The Barefoot Book of Knights and The Barefoot Book of Pirates

Since our Internet connection just shut down, I am not going to review, as planned, a great story site I found. Thank goodness for good old print on paper. Spare time to write is limited around here.

The Barefoot Book of Knights written by John Matthews and The Barefoot Book of Pirates, written by Richard Walker, we have both, are collections of stories, primarily for boys, published by Barefoot Books . Each of these books features a collection of short stories from around the world, primarily old legends and folktales. These are read-aloud, picture books for 5-10 year-olds featuring beautiful, detailed illustrations. Though they are also marketed as read alone books for a slightly older crowd. I’ve learned through experience to read a book myself prior to giving it to my DS to check for “scary things”. These books are no exception, so you may want to preview them first.

There are seven individual stories in The Barefoot Book of Pirates, each about 1000-1500 words long…or 10-15 minutes, depending on how fast you read or how many times you’ve read it to your child. (After 300 times, I recommend that you buy another book in this series to save your sanity). My favorite is a moral tale from Japan, Music charms the Pirates. As you might expect the boy musician, who was ridiculed for playing instead of fighting, charms the pirates with his music and convinces them to sail on rather than raid the town.

The Barefoot Book of Knights follows the same format but the author, ties the stories together using an older knight as the storyteller to a young page. These tales, full of chivalry and adventure include some with which many boys will be familiar and some new ones from various cultures.

As usual, I first found about these books through word of mouth, and then stumbled upon them in my local independent bookstore. I was enchanted from the first time I saw the Barefoot Books story on their website. I’m a sucker for mom owned businesses and this is a great one. The two UK moms who started this business a dozen years ago seek out and publish books that encourage,” Independence of spirit, enthusiasm for learning and sharing of the world’s diversity”. Wow!

Parents looking for more than the, run of the mill, books available at local big box retailers will find a treasure here. Several of their other titles, including: Stories from the Opera and Shakespeare’s Storybook are on my Christmas list.

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Co-sleeping Confusion in the web sphere

So this morning I’m bombard by a variety of news articles on parenting that are erupting across the web sphere. I’m going to tackle the somewhat less controversial first.

CBS news reported that on Wednesday Bed-Sharing May Up SIDS Risk, which cited an article which appeared on Webmd.com on an article that appeared in Pediatrics on a study by the New Jersey center for SIDS research.

You get the drift…

After all of the track back to make some sort of sense of this article I think the comment by The American Academy of Pediatrics, on their website probably makes the most sense:

The American Academy of Pediatrics has indicated that bed sharing may be hazardous in certain conditions. … Parents should not bed share if they have been drinking or taking any substances that interfere with their ability to awaken.

I’ll add to that - or if they are not educated about to know how to do it correctly.

Disclaimer: We co-sleep. We did not intend to co-sleep; we tried to not co-sleep. We co-sleep. After about a week of getting up every 2 hours to nurse the Hungry Hamster and his obvious dislike of the lovely and expensive bassinet we purchased for our tiny bedroom we sort of slid into co-sleeping. We’re now in the process of trying, somewhat half heartedly, to slide out of it.

Buried in all of the research and the daily news reposts, there seem to be few key facts. First, most incidents of infants who suffocate while co-sleeping occur when parents co-sleep unsafely. That is, they place the baby in an obviously unsafe positions …sleeping with parents under the influence is obviously unsafe but, so are some sleeping positions and practices. (hello? Balancing your infant on your stomach while sleeping, let alone awake on a bed isn’t terribly safe).


Try doing a search on SIDS deaths that involve co-sleeping. I did, (which is one reason I’m 3 days late commenting on this news release). I couldn’t find one incident that didn’t involve one of the factors listed above. Safe co-sleeping is another story, which I’ll get to in a minute.

First, a little perspective, co-sleeping, is a common practice in most of the world, outside of Europe and North America. Admittedly, some of co-sleeping across the planet is due to economic circumstances, but much of it is due to the cultural paradigm.

Co-sleeping was also common in Europe prior to the 1800s when the usual male psychological experts (the same group, more or less, that recommended hysterectomies to cure female “hysteria”) decided that co-sleeping interfered with a growing child’s independence. I found the history of this change, fascinating and predictable .

So, how, I asked, do safe co-sleepers sleep with their child?

Sober
On a normal bed
With the child on top of the covers in a warm sleep suit
Away from walls or furniture that could trap them
With pillows away from the child’s head
Admittedly, sometimes uncomfortably

Sleep tight!




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Book Review- The Read Aloud Handbook

I thought I might add some book reviews to my site. Since I am an avid and somewhat indiscriminate reader, I’m always picking up books, these days often on parenting. Recently I found a copy of The Read-Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease, for 25 cents at my local used book store.

I’ve since found out that this book, now available in the fifth edition has sold over 1 million copies and is a favorite of many kindergarten teachers I meet. Who knew?

Trelease is a former journalist serendipitously turned educator while raising his own children and publishing his first edition of The Read Aloud handbook. It turns out that he wrote the first edition of this book back in the late ‘70s when he found most information on the value of reading was locked up in educational journals, inaccessible and unreadable by ordinary parents. My kinda guy!

This book covers both why and how to read aloud, as well as includes a Treasury (selection) of what to read aloud. The Treasury section, about half the book, gives book title, authors and a mini review of each recommended book. It’s particularly nice to have the reviews all in one place, rather than having to click on books one by one online to find each review.

Trelease confronts, head on, parents' concerns about competing with electronic education and offers suggestions and tips for raising a reader. Most importantly, he delves into the “why” of reading aloud and the connection between being read to as a child and reading comprehension and vocabulary development in later years. Reading and being read to helps build a child imagination and teaches them early that enjoyment, as well as learning can be found in books.

I hadn’t delved too far into the book when I was struck by this paragraph, that illustrates that point:

A school’s objective should be to create lifetime readers –graduates who continue to read and educate themselves throughout their adult lives. But the reality is, we create school time readers – graduates who know how to read well enough to graduate. And, at that point the majority take a silent vow: If I never read another book, it’ll be too soon.

Quite obviously, if we want children to read outside of school time, we need to have them read, see us read, read to them outside of school. With a preschooler, that’s somewhat obvious, but I hadn’t considered the value of reading aloud to even middle schoolers…a technique he highly recommends.

Probably the biggest contribution that Trelease makes, to the subject of reading is his discussion of the what and how. He spends a significant part of the book discussing how to read to children, how much time each day to devote to reading and when to start (fresh from the womb). His insights include purchasing books that feed children’s interests, even if that literature is comic books and extending the reading process through a third dimension. One example is having blueberries available to eat when reading Blueberries for Sal.


Peppered with examples and suggested literature, this book opened my eyes to lots of possibilities to continue to encourage reading. I guess this means though, I can look forward to reading all sorts of literature I’d rather not, if the Hamster likes it….bugs and poop anyone?

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TV Strategies

Earlier, I wrote about a study I found in, Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics journal. I thought I might discuss how I got there and what the mainstream press had to say about the study.

Each morning I open my computer to my customized Google news page to see the latest articles on parenting. The article that caught my eye this morning, 7 Ways to cut Kid's TV time, was also reported by CBS with a catchier title, How to unglue kids from the TV - those television journalists know all of the tricks!

The most interesting point in the article to me and one that I and most of my friends struggle with is:

Parents in this study expressed interest in taking steps toward reducing children's television time but also uncertainty about how to go about doing so.


Most parents in the study agreed that TV time should be limited to 2 hours per day. Most children, it seems though watch more than 3 hours per day, with up to 5 hours of “screen time”, computer, video, etc. typical.

This article suggests a few rather obvious strategies:

Pay attention to kids' "screen time," including TV, computers, and video games.
Don't put a TV in a child's bedroom.
Turn the TV off if no one is watching it as their main activity.
Limit TV on school days.
Don't put a TV in household eating areas.
Don't tie TV viewing to eating, including snacks.
Find other in-home activities that don't involve screen time -- playing, for instance

In practice, the easiest of these is, despite the lure of Disney princess TV sets; do not put a TV in your child’s bedroom. The second is, do not watch TV while eating. Move the TV out of the kitchen or the family our of the TV room during meals. After that, I think, it gets harder.

The struggle obviously, is how to entertain kids or rather, how do kids entertain themselves, without a TV? This, it seems is almost a silly question, since it’s only been in the last 50 years, that TV really was an option as a babysitter and it’s only in the last 15 or so that kid’s programming/videos were available 24/7.

TV Turnoff.org is a good source for more ideas, but requires a membership…is it worth the extra junk e-mail to get ideas?


In our house, we limit TV time for everyone. This is mainly because, while we have 2 TVs and a huge screen hooked up to a projector is some complicated way by my husband, we have no cable and therefore no broadcast or cable TV. We’ve come to this point, in a series of steps.

My husband, the television producer, quite obviously, watched a lot of TV when we first met. I watched a somewhat less than average amount. After our son was born, I was adamant about no TV for him. Slowly no TV for our son became less TV for us. Then we got into a fight with the cable company and my husband cancelled the service, leaving us with broadcast only. When we moved to our new house this year, I accidentally (really!) cut the TV cable that wound across the basement floor as I transformed it into a playroom for our son. In an admirable show of laziness, we didn’t bother to call the cable company and have them rewire the house.

My husband and I have moved to the Internet for most of our news. My son watches videos on occasion. With no TV in his bedroom and no TV near where we eat...we've managed to tame, if not totally control, the TV beast. I have to admit though; it is hard to not just switch on a video when he is bored. Our strategy is to limit videos to weekends – the weekends loom like a carrot for we good little parents.




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TV Time

This morning, I came across this study from the November issue of the American Academy of Pediatrics journal, Reducing Children's Television-Viewing Time: A Qualitative Study of Parents and Their Children , Since this is a topic I have wanted to write about, I was intrigued by what the experts say. Waldorf philosophy, as some of you may know, advocates no TV, prior to the age of nine. I can't say I know too many involved Waldorf parents who are actually able to accomplish that, but it lives as a goal.

In case you weren’t aware, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV prior to the age of 2 years and no more than 2 hours per day for older children. Let me say that again, “NO TV FOR CHILDREN UNDER 2”.

Can someone tell me how why the number one children’s health authority in the US, can make such a pronouncement and many if not most parents don’t know about it? Why there is not a warning on Baby Einstein videos, as there are on cigarette packages: “THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS WARNING: This product may be hazardous to the health of children under the age of 2”.

Even more distributing, apparently, this isn’t an important topic for pediatricians either,

A recent survey of pediatricians revealed that, whereas three quarters were familiar with and in agreement with the AAP recommendations, only half had recommended to parents that they limit children's television time.

Only 75% are aware of the recommendation? Only half even bother to mention it to parents? The article does go on to mention that pediatricians are time crunched during meetings with parents. As I have a good friend who is a pediatrician so, I can believe that.
The question that needs to be answered however is, why is our children’s mental health of so little interest to the country that greater steps are not being taken to ensure the word gets out?



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Celebrating St Martin's Day

This Saturday is Martinmas . This holiday, celebrated in much of Europe, is a favorite of Waldorf parents. I like it because it is a great opportunity to engage in a variety of activities around a central theme. Most of my ideas about this holiday and how to celebrate it come from my European husband and the two years we spent attending the Waldorf playgroup.

So, on Friday, our usual Friday play date will focus on preparing for St. Martin's day. I found a great story online St. Martin story that I will tell to the children. As usual, I will edit, (which, BTW, Waldorf advocates do not recommend) secularizing it and removing anything I think might be a bit too graphic or violent. I may have the boys act out the story with Play Mobil figures. They could act it out with dress up silks and fabric swords, but I'm guessing they might squabble over who gets to be St. Martin.

Then we'll make lanterns. I've made two different kinds, both involving decoupage. This year we'll use old strawberry jam container and decoupage them with orange, white and yellow tissue paper. After they dry, we’ll wrap some wire around the top to form a handle and insert a tea light.

The other option is to blow up a balloon, then decoupage it with tissue. When it dries, pop the balloon and insert the tea light. This is a fun idea too, but since these lanterns are a bit wobbly, I prefer the jam jar type.

Once the lanterns are complete, we'll attach them to a long stick and march around the neighborhood. We'll probably do this mid afternoon and maybe again after dark. Possibly, we'll do this for days on end, since it's so much fun.




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What we're reading- St. George and the Dragon

This week we've been reading Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges. It's been a fun read for the Hamster and me. It has just the right amount of battle for a male preschooler and enough history to ensure Mom that he's actually learning something. Books are my passion, so, of course, I'm interested in passing that interest along to my son. As I journey down the parenting path, I, of course start analyzing things I never considered before...like if the time between ages 2- and 5 are the optimal time for absorbing information, do we load kids up with useless facts? I mean, why is it important for them to learn about Power Rangers...Batman...Superman? Is it important to be conversant about the fictional characters they’ll see in one book in pre-school…no matter how popular? Could that time not be better spent learning about fictional characters they’ll meet later in great literature and science and history facts they’ll learn in greater detail in grade school?

OK- so that sounds good in theory, but, I find myself buying popular books during the Scholastic book drive. We read them together; I regret buying them and my son loves them, oh, well, I never claimed to be a fanatic or even very good at sticking to my guns.

Anyway, we are reading about Saint George, the patron saint of England and the knight that, rather gorily, defeats the dragon. The Hamster and his best friend, son of another avid reader, have been acting out the story with tiny Playmobil figures and castle blocks. Unfortunately, that has been taking place in my office, so I step over the “set” each day on my way to my computer.

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How did I miss the Candy Fairy?

Why did I not hear about the “candy fairy?”

I’m quite annoyed.

Here it is, 2 days after a major "candy-holiday" and I’ve already laid out a "one piece a day" rule for indulging. When, at school today, the Hamster's friends come up to show him what the candy fairy has brought.

The Candy Fairy?

“Oh didn’t you hear?” Inquire my Mom friends.

Simply let your child select 3 or 4 or 5 pieces of candy, one for each of the next few days and put the rest out in a bowl for the candy fairy. She (?) who lives on candy (and must have really bad teeth) takes the candy and leaves a toy or book in its place.

What a great idea!

The Hamster, of course, who already has the one piece a day rule in his mind, is having no part of it now. He says he’d rather have the candy. I’m going to try again in a few days and see if I can talk him into it. That gives me time to run out and buy a little present too!


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Playdate

So, today we had a play date. We hosted 4 boys and their Moms- so we totaled 5 boys ages 2-1/2 – 4-1/2 and their Moms ages 30s and 40s (need we be specific?) We started at 10:00 and broke up around 3:00. As usual we followed the “inhale and exhale” rule two of us Moms learned at Waldorf playgroup. It’s such a simple idea, but works great. We vary the activities – one “inhale” quiet, sitting inside type of activity with one “exhale”, outside, running around type activity.

We are blessed with a large playroom and a big grassy area outside our home to play…plus generally balmy California weather, so that helps. But I think this works just about everywhere, as I’ve used it during extended stays at relatives’ homes in colder climates.

Any parent who spends a lot of time with their children recognizes when the energy turns and the kids get antsy or crabby…switching the breathing seems to neatly rebalance them. That is, until one hits the “nap hour” of 2:00 or so…then it’s just time to shut down and go home :-)

So, we started the day with a wagon ride around our neighborhood, piling the kids in wagons and giving the Moms each a chance to get in an lower body AND upper body workout. That (inhale) was followed by the boys chasing each other around the yard for a few minutes (exhale). Then we went inside and the boys each pulled different toys off of the shelves and began to play. The older boys favored the Playmobil knights, while the younger ones pulled out the wooden cars, fire truck and train.

The outside called again when one child got beaned by one of the toy baskets and we went on a walk to the other side of our complex where they have a miniature woods. We Moms reminisced about being able to go out, by ourselves and play in the REAL woods…those days are over, at least in any quasi urban area.

After stripping the boys of their muddy clothes and finding replacements, we finished up with lunch in the playroom. They never tire of Annie’s organic Mac and Cheese – we added a crudités plate with ranch dip and pears to round out the meal.

The Hamster is now watching foreign language video I just love saying, that – it makes him sound so intellectual – but it’s just that he is bilingual…more or less and we try to encourage the “more’ part when we can and I don’t feel too guilty letting him watch the tube. Maybe I’ll let him watch two since he was so good at sharing his toys today.




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What is Waldorf – what can it do for me.

What is Waldorf – what can it do for me.

OK - so what's Waldorf? (Not WHERE'S Waldorf - WHAT's Waldorf). Waldorf or Waldorf School or Waldorf education are terms you’ll hear from a lot from VC (very crunchy) parents.

Waldorf education was started about one hundred years ago in Germany by an Austrian philosopher, named Rudolph Steiner. With over 900 schools world wide, it is a growing educational system, especially here in the US, where you’ll find both private Waldorf schools and public charter schools, inspired by the Waldorf philosophy, all over the country.

I’ve been learning more and more about Waldorf over the past 4 years since, my VC (very crunchy) friend introduced me to it. As a NQCP (Not quite crunchy parent) I tiptoed into it slowly. I visited schools and read a lot about it on various sites. I even attended their playgroup for two years with my son.

Basically, their philosophy, in a nutshell: to addresses the needs of the developing child by transforming education into an art that educates the whole child – mind, body and spirit. This is more less a paraphrase from the Waldorf FAQ page on their website. There is also a lot about Waldorf education on Wikipedia .

Waldorf is popular school with very crunchy parents. As a NQC parent, I have found some wonderful ideas and great insights to incorporate into my own parenting. Some of these include: toys from natural materials (wood, fabric, etc.) storytelling and added insights on limiting media.




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Halloween Aftermath

So, Halloween is over. Last night I dressed my son as a bat and we went door to door in the neighborhood. This morning, I stealthily removed an assortment of candy from his treat bag. As his counting skills are still rudimentary, I can do this. I know the time will come, however, when the jig will be up!

So, as we move into the holiday season, I know he will be eating more and more sweets, particularly candy. This is the time for teeth brushing and sugar watching. I'll do my best to keep him away from candy, but I refuse to start a fight over it when we are out of the house...so, he can have any candy that someone gives him ( not strangers, of course :-))

I find it easier to set myself some rules than to try to remember what I am supposed to do. So, I have decided to pack a travel toothbrush in my purse. You can get one of these at most drugstores or from your dentist. Tooth brushing will commence after lunch each day or anytime he eats candy. (OK- let's not get carried away...I'll never remember to do this all of the time...but it's a goal.)

Toothpaste is optimal but, not always available on the run. So, water and toothbrush will do for lunch. If you feel that toothpaste is essential, there is a great product from Oral B that is portable. These small tooth wipes can be used instead of a toothbrush.

With older children, this strategy may not work as well. Any ideas out there on how to encourage more frequent tooth brushing?




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