for sure.

aviyah is 3 1/2 years old now. yalei is almost 1 1/2 years old. they are still so tiny, but they feel like they're so much bigger to me. sometimes i think about how crazy this whole thing is. i am at a restaurant or at a park or on the sidewalk and i see the crazy things we do from the outside. i see parents making a really really really big deal out of really small things. and i think, what are we really doing?

i'm always afraid that i'm doing something i don't really want to do. i'm always trying to think: is this something i was taught? is this what i really want to say? is this how i really want to say it?

recently, samantha started to ask if i wanted to have a third child. i feel like yes, the answer is yes, but i feel like it's also more complicated than that. it is really really beautiful sometimes, but it's also really really hard. sometimes, i also feel like just lying down on the bed is a really really beautiful thing, too.

no, i mean for real. i mean, big picture and small picture, sometimes, being able to do exactly what you want to do in exactly that moment is so important. i mean that. i know that there is balance, but i sometimes i really also miss being able to live just my own life.

before we had aviyah, we talked about teaching overseas. we were going to apply to be in the peace corps in china. i still feel sad that we weren't able to do that. i feel like there are things that can totally change your life. you are one person, and then you are another. what happens when you do them? what happens when you don't do them?

at the end of the day, i just really want to process and i really want to understand why i really do want to have more children. i feel like people can get caught up in so many races. i just want to know for sure.

g'dolim

so, aviyah is super super way way into dora. it's kinda crazy. i mean, i think it's something that maybe i would generally feel like "ahhh!", but i actually think it's really cute and i totally think that dora's a really good role model for a young girl. i mean, here are a whole bunch of parents who i think are really really annoyed with dora, and i guess i can understand. it's like any kid fad, right? a toy or a hula hoop or a boy. i think it can get tired after a while.

but the thing is is that she watches dora on the computer in hebrew, so dora was always really interesting to me too because i would learn hebrew along with aviyah. i mean, i even downloaded a few episodes on to my ipod for me to watch, and there were a few times i was on the subway and somebody would look over and be like, really? really? you're watching dora?

anyways, she's like so into it that each of us all have our own dora names. so aviyah is dora, and i'm boots, and mommy is benny (or now maybe mrs. marquez), and yalei is tico. (the extended family has names too: mommom is isa, papa is chocolate tree, and so on.) and she's pretty serious about it. i mean, first of all, when people meet her now, she's all disgruntled when i say her name is aviyah. she does settle for me saying, "her name is aviyah, but she really really likes dora, and if it's okay, if you can call her dora." and she smiles and she's very happy.

so, anyway, when we were in israel, i lost our umbrella stroller, but one of my friends was really nice and she borrowed a stroller we could use from one of her friends. when we went to pick up the stroller, there were two little girls from the family. the older girl was about 4 1/2 or 5 years old. when i introduced aviyah as kind of dora, she was very clear that she did not like dora at all. she didn't mean aviyah, she was just saying that dora was not cool at all. i asked her why and she said, "g'dolim sonim et dora. raq k'tanim ohavim et dora." big kids hate dora, she said. only little kids like dora.

then her mom explained that it was so crazy because even a month before, she was still so into dora, but now, all of a sudden, she totally did not like dora even at all. it was so sad. aviyah was like, why doesn't she like dora? how could she not like dora? and i tried to explain to her that sometimes little kids can be a little rough and she's just a little bit confused because dora is way cool. and she was okay with it, but it was so sad because it made me think about how even though she's so into dora now, not even that she won't always be into dora, which is natural, but that one day she'll specifically decided not to like dora anymore because of peer pressure, you know. it's like she could totally still like dora, but then other kids will make fun of her (and it's true, my students make fun of me when i say something about dora because of aviyah) and that's so sad, i think.

razor burn

last night, we invited two good friends over for shabbat dinner. we were halfway into the conversation, i think, and it comes up that aviyah cut herself this morning on her arm. the details of the story are pretty gruesome, and they make me look pretty awful, i guess. she had a disposable razor in her bag that she brought to school. she had two cuts on her arm that were bleeding. i mean, that's not the whole story, but like last night, the headline buries the story.

i know it's pretty important to set the context better, but i'm pretty sure that no matter what context i give, it will be pretty easy for people to say i'm wrong. in fact, i'm pretty sure that i made a mistake, too. (although, i'm also quite sure that we won't agree on what the mistake was.) the context is this: i (sometimes) shave in the morning, and aviyah loves to hang out in the bathroom with me in the morning and pretend she's doing what i'm doing. i'm brushing my teeth, she's brushing her teeth. i'm taking a show, she's taking a shower. i'm shaving my beard, she's shaving, um, her beard. i think that's all pretty normal and regular, right?

so we were recently cleaning up our bathroom before my parents came in for samantha's bat mitzvah, and so, for some reason, two cans of shaving cream are out on our little pack-away-stuff things. they started to use some shaving cream to help draw winter scenes in gan, so she started to understand how to use the bottles and she started putting shaving cream on her face every morning. on balance, it's like super cute. she makes the faces like i make when i'm shaving. (because there are like weird angles and stuff, but anyway.) and i use an electric razor most of the time so we practice when it's off an her face, and i feel like it's totally natural. she's exploring and trying things out and connecting with daddy.

anyway, she found a handheld razor the other morning and she took it out of the pack-away drawer. she was holding it to her face, and i explained to her that she could pretend she was using it, but it's actually very sharp so it's very important that she not touch the razor to her skin. if she actually used it on her face, she would cut herself, so it was okay to pretend with daddy, but she couldn't touch her own skin. and she totally understood, and she went through the whole thing, fake faces, stroking the razor like she was shaving, and she was so proud.

i mean, i'm sure that it doesn't really matter anyhow because i'm sure that already i'm in trouble. i'm sure that are a lot of people who think they know what's up (and probably even some who do know what's up) who think i'm crazy, and i'm well aware that i've got a little different perspective on parenting and well a whole lot of things than a lot of other people.

i mean, i don't think i'm way out there on most things, and i've read quite a bit, and i work with kids, so i feel like i have some insights that i've learned. and, in full disclosure, i mostly think that most parents (including me) are pretty good people who don't have a really perfect idea about what we're doing. i mean, i think we have a sense of why we're doing something (i.e. he has to learn that it's not okay to ____, or she has to know that she can't always ______ or ______), and we feel like the choices we're making are right because we know that x behavior isn't okay or isn't right. in the end, though, we don't always know for sure that what we're doing is working or is even going to work.

i mean, i do feel like i'm a pretty thoughtful and pretty reflective parent, and i do feel like i've read things and experienced things that help give me some insights in things i can do. i do feel like i work pretty well with kids, and it's really uncommon for me not to get along with a younger kid. i mean, i think i generally know what i'm doing, although for sure, there are times when i know for absolute sure that i really don't.

anyway, i just know that whatever it we choose in whatever situtation we're in, we don't always know exactly what's going to happen. we can try (and i do try) things that have the best success with different kinds of kids, but there are always some variables that are hard to control. i guess the larger thing is that we can try to do the best things we can the most consistently that we can do them, and over time we hope that we'll really have a positive impact. for sure, there's no doubt in my mind that kids come wired for some things. still, there is also no doubt in my mind that we effect who our kids are. we change them. we change what they think about themselves, what they think about us, how they see and what they think about the world.

my larger point is this: i want my girls to feel like they can explore anything in the world, and i generally feel that even when we make mistakes (including me), we can learn from the mistake and the learning from the mistake actually makes the whole mistake thing even more positive than being prevented from doing something at all. on a simple level, our children fall when the start to walk, and yet, while we might do what we can from softening their falls, we all know that we've got to encourage them and let them fall sometimes. in fact, they start to learn how to maintain there balance when they fall out of balance on things.

obviously, the limitation to this strategy is when the accident could be so serious or so dramatic that it really wouldn't make sense to even learn from the mistake. my challenge is finding exactly where that place is, right? because i know i'm way farther out than other people. it's just i beleive so strongly that a lot of parents just straight up antagonize and limit their children in what they think are the children's best interests. of course the paretns love their children, but they don't understand that saying no to all these things large and small have unintended consequences. beyond even feeling safe to explore their interests and passions, they also start to feel like they can't even be independent. this means they either rebel (to take back their independence) or they submit (and lose parts of their independence).

in contrast, i feel like they've got to learn to negotiate their independence. it's like, okay, i can argue with aviyah for 20 minutes to put on her coat if she doesn't want to, and of course i'm right because it is freezing outside and she's gonna like it even worse than she doesn't like wearing her coat. but it doens't mater that i'm right. i feel like the bigger thing at work is she's trying to exercise her independence and i want to encourage her to make her own choices. so, then, yes, we go outside and she decides to put her coat on, but there's no power struggle, no i told you so's, no stubborness. it takes one extra minute outside, probably 10 minutes less inside, and i feel like it also builds up a whole bunch of trust.

so, what all happened with the razor? i think she went to get her bag when i was still in the bathroom, and i lost attention of her and she somewhere gave herself a small cut on her arm from the razor. i'm lucky in the sense it was a surface cut and it's no big deal. and for sure i made a mistake by losing my attention for a minute and not noticing that she walked out of the bathroom with the razor in her hand. and, already, i'm sure i don't have any possiblity of convincing anyone i did the right thing by letting her paly with the razor. but that's the thing. i'm convinced there's a larger point her, and i don't know how all this is going to play out, and no i'm not raising the world's savior, and no i'm not inventing answers that people have never thought of before, and yes all of this stuff, the posting on blogs, the writing poems or stories, the having an account on facebook (and posting 25 things about myself), is inherently self centered. it's saying, i'm important. i have ideas, why don't you pay attention to me?

see, it's not really that i think in comparison to others all the time. it's not necessarily that i'm saying, when i'm trying to design my classroom lessons to be challenging and engaging an rigorous and fun and meaningful that i'm necessarily saying i'm better than eveyrone else. i think what i'm really saying, though, is that i do take my life seriously, and i do want to do the best that i possibly can. no, i'm not saying a better parent than others. in fact, i feel like i try really hard to open some of this stuff up here in the blog: parenting isn't easy. marriage isn't easy. teaching isn't easy. i make mistakes all the time. and i feel like aviyah is a long way from being a perfectionist because she knows we all make mistakes and the important thing isn't making the mistake. it's learning from the mistake. it's not learning from the mistake that makes us have problems. it's learning from the mistake that makes up do better.

so, i'm pretty sure i believe that i still believe it's important to let her explore all sorts of things that i know at least everybody else probably thinks is completely insane and crazy. i'm not convinced she should have been told no at the beginning, although yes i do believe that there are real things to say no to right away, beginning with no not ever never hurt somebody else. no not ever yell or punch or push and pull on somebody else. it's never ever okay to hurt somebody else like that. bu there's still a whole bunch of things that i just feel like we need to say yes to.

so, what did i learn? i'm pretty sure that i just learned i've gotta make sure i'm paying attention whenever i'm making those decisions. i'm pretty sure that if i decided it was okay for her to hold the razor, then i just should have decided i was going to stay with her and watching the whole time she was holding it. because if i'm not able to do that, then i probably shouldn't have decided it was okay to play with. (by the way, what did aviyah learn from the whole situation? a) daddy makes mistakes. . . which by the way, she isn't really just learning, and b) playing with a razor isn't something she really wants to do. what's the gain? she learned it from her own choices.

what else has she learned like that?

• don't tilt your head backwards when you're learning to sit up.
• don't make sudden turns when you're learning to walk.
• don't stick the fork all the way in your mouth when you're learning to feed yourself.
• don't jump off the toilet seat.
• don't jump off a moving swing.
• don't run full speed into the wall.
• don't touch the side of a really really hot pan. (or really, even the things inside it.)
• don't rock jump on the rocking chair when you're also trying to rock it.
• don't close a dresser drawer when you still have one hand inside it.
• not everything you stand on is strong and stable.
• it really is cold outside. (still in process. . . )
  

get off the road!

yalei is on the move.  yikes!

i've kind of been a little bit worried about yalei, sometimes.  aviyah was really kind of sharp and more willful, so i felt like maybe sometimes yalei was a little bit behind.  and maybe, also, sometimes i knew a little bit less about yalei because i was spending much more time with aviyah when yalei was really really little.  (i mean, she's still crazy little, but anyway.) 

i feel like it's definitely more difficult making sure that all of the attention that you have given to the first child you can also give to a second child.  for me, i feel like it's not about interest, as in, i've played that game too many times already or i've done that already, and i'm bored now.  it's more that you were so concentrated on each developmental step the first child made, and you were so focused on each challenge or each strategy.  and aviyah does require a lot of attention.  

in that way, though, i think it's actually good that yalei is not as crowded as maybe aviyah was.  she's definitely able to chill out on her own and explore more things independently.  i mean, it's always confusing though, too:  how much does our response determine their character?  how much does their character determine their response?  i think, maybe, it's also a little that it's harder for me to work so much with yalei because aviyah is so much more engaged.  i know that for both girls when they were really really little it feels like it is all going out, and it's really hard to get feedback.  then, as aviyah gets older, that interaction and feedback is so engaging.  and demanding.  

but i really have been trying to do a lot more with yalei, now.  first because i think it's especially important _right now_ for yalei, and second, i also think it's super important for aviyah to see.  i mean, i think aviyah is really great in a ton of ways, but i also think that all of the focus we put on the way we work with her also helped make her a little bit more centered around us.  it's hard to say for sure, but i know sometimes already aviyah seems to need to be closer to us than even yalei.  sometimes i joke that i think yalei's gonna stand up when her big sister gets beat up in the school yard.  

so, in some ways, i really do think yalei is good for aviyah because we do have to teach her to stay back a little bit and also for yalei because she is already more adjusted and independent in a lot of ways.

at yalei's last visit to the doctor, they said that she's met all of her developmental milestones and should be pulling up to standing and starting to crawl soon.  it's funny because, of course, the milestones aren't really really important.  i mean, i really do believe that everyone does their own thing in their own time.  at the same time, i think we definitely want to get her into her milestones because those steps help her development.  it's that in each stage they gain important abilities, so it's not to stress about, but at the same time, we do want her moving forward, right?

when she does move forward, it's crazy to see, you know?  and also she's started commando crawling and crawling to go after things and she just started to crawl up on things.  we were talking with a friend and they thought she was so young because when they are so young they kind of stick in that place in your mind.  and sometimes i know people get frustrated if i guess the child's wrong age, but i do it too, you know?  i mean, it is really crazy that she was totally in one spot, and now all of a sudden, she's moving!

she's especially into people food.  she wants to eat everything we're eating and i think she's choked like 73 times on pieces of food that i give to her that are too big.  although, in full disclosure, i kind of let them juggle with lit torches and sharp knives.  i'm not so into the general rules about what they shouldn't be able to do or not do.  i mean, i definitely believe in structure and discipline.  it's not that it's all free reign.  it's just i think some of these rules that we make are so crazy silly.  i just feel like she should be totally okay to explore whatever, and i really feel like that even when we fall or scrape our knee, or cut our chin, we learn from that too.

anyway, one of my friends was talking the other day about how his child doesn't answer his questions or doesn't listen sometimes to what he's asking.  so, anyway, he was asking me why i let aviyah do so many things that she wants to do, like go to the playroom in her underwear or play in the park without shoes or stand on the windowsill.  i said, i mean, i know it seems silly or crazy or disrespectful or whatever, but think that those things that she wants to do really aren't bit deals at all.  and, when something is a really big deal i want to be able to explain that no, sweetheart, this really is a real rule, an actual serious rule, something that really is important to honor and respect.  something we want to make sure of.  and, pooh pooh pooh, she listens.

so, i guess, making smaller pieces of food is a real actual rule that i should probably honor and respect too.

twofer

a lot of people ask what it is like to have two children. i remember when i asked my cousin what it was like to have four kids. he said that the biggest jump was from 2 kids to 3 kids because they had to play zone defense now. there's no more man to man, he said.

maybe that is true. still, so far, for us, i think the jump from having 0 to having 1 is much bigger than the jump from 1 to 2. i think the biggest difference with 2 is that there is far less independent free time. when it was only aviyah, samantha and i could both do turns of one on one time and we could also do times when all of us hung out together. still, when it was the other's one on one time, we still had our personal free time to surf the internet or read or take a nap or whatever.

now, i think the big difference is that during the one's one on one times, we have one on one time with the other child. so, for the most part, when there is downtime with the one because they are playing with the other parent or because they are napping, it isn't really totally downtime because you are playing with the other child.

i think we have been really committed to bedtimes, though, and that's made a huge difference for us. we can know that at a certain time of day or by a certain time of night we are going to be off duty, you know? i think it would be a crazy mess without a naptime and bedtime schedule. aviyah has had more difficulty napping consistently at her new school. i think she's trying to adjust, and she's started to nap more regularly in the past week or two, but it's crazy because if i think about it, no matter where we have been, here or another home, she has always always always taken her naps. i think i can probably count on one hand the times she has just jumped her nap in her whole life.

i think the big reason i personally bought into the schedule times for sleeping is because 1) i know from teaching that if you don't have consistent systems then all of the fun stuff gets piled over and 2) dr. weisbluth convinced me that the bigge picture is that healthy sleep supports healthy development. i think, no doubt, people think it's a little crazy, and it may have it's drawbacks too. ( it may be that aviyah is a little bit more clingy to us sometmes because she is so used to a schedule and so used to routines.)

i think the truth is that each big system or method you chose, also in teaching, has its big pluses and drawbacks. i think the thing is is that if you have a general philosophy about what you want to do and why you want to do it it makes it easier to make your choices for which approach fits best.

in the end, all i know is that when the girls sleep well, really everybody is happier.

i admit it.

i haven't really written a substantial post for a bit. it's been a little crazy. i feel like it's funny, but that's already a blog trope, right? i met with a teacher friend recently, and she said she had a friend who wrote a crazy popular blog on motherhood.

my blog is not really popular, but one of the reasons that i really wanted to write on aviyah and now the girls was to counter some of the tropes that people say about parenting. i feel like a lot of times people want to make a really pretty face. we don't want to look like we're less than somebody else, right? still, i feel like it's important to talk about the things that are pretty hard. and i feel like sometimes people say pretty silly stuff just because they've heard other people say it. i know that i don't know the answers, but i do know that some of the answers i've heard are just plain off, sometimes.

anyway, aviyah had a really really tough time when yalei was first born. she was and she is pretty kind to yalei, but she had a crazy tough time with samantha and me. we were a little crazy. she started pushing us sometimes. she even bit me twice. i was, for real, at a loss. i was like, where did you learn this? i can't front. i was really offended. so, i made crazy mistakes when i was younger, but i'm pretty nonviolent. i don't believe in any kind of violence, so i was like, where did you get this from? where did you even get the idea that that's even possible to do? to bite people? it was tiring just thinking on it.

and i think that's one thing that people want to put a face on, right? one of my friends asked me if i had any good tips for helping their new son adjust. i said, for real, there are some really good tips we learned, but i don't know that you want to know our tips because aviyah was crazy rough for a minute. i don't know that we did things all off, though. i think some of it is just a gamble, right? i mean, i don't know that you can know how it's all gonna play out, and i think sometimes it's just gonna play out rough. at the same time, our reaction doesn't have to be a gamble. our parenting doesn't have to be a gamble. maybe we don't know how she's always going to react. we can't predict that, right. still, we can predict what we want to do, and when we don't know for sure, we can find out what works.

we bought a few books on toddler discipline to help us through some things. she did get a lot better at around a month, but it was crazy nuts for those weeks, and i kinda thought the cuteness was all gone. i mean, aviyah's always had a little edge. she's got that mischievous thing, like she knows she's pulling something, and then you look at her and she gives this look back and starts giggling. but this was different, right? i felt like, okay, though, this is where we earn our money. we've just got to figure out how to do this right.

it's like teaching, in that sense. yes, there is some instinct to being a good teacher or a good parent. you've got to make some real important decisions in the moment that are just gonna work out or they're not. still, i don't buy the sense that you're only gonna do this by instinct and experience. for sure, our experience matters, and i value my experience with kids. at the same time, if i've worked with x amount of kids, there's people that've worked with x*2 kids.

the bottom line is that there's real research out there. we don't have to make stuff up. there's real data, right? there's real information that tells us how to react better, how to make smarter choices, what the smarter choices are. i've always said that teachers who don't value what they learned in their teacher training either were terrible students or went to terrible schools. of course there's things to learn! of course you don't come knowing how to do this stuff right. i think we've got to figure out how to do our own parent research, our own parent training. and i feel like if we say we don't value that parent training, we're either being bad parenting students or going to bad parenting schools, you know?

sometimes i don't know which way is which, and sometimes, as a parent, i hope i'm making the right choice, but sometimes i'm not and i've got to figure out how to. i know, always, i can learn stuff. so i admit it. i know it's not always popular. but i'm an english teacher and sometimes i read books to find answers.