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.

potty training

we moved around a lot recently. over the summer, we actually lived in 5 different places together, and we didn't really have the internet. i got really badly out of the habit of posting, and i know that it made it harder for some of you who live far away to follow the girls. i'm sorry! it also is so easy to just post a picture from my iphone now to my facebook, that i posted a lot of my photos right there.

anyway, it's kinda crazy to try and catch everything up. aviyah recently started really potty training. she wears only pullups now, and i think for about a month she's been almost always going in the potty or on the toilet. we've had a potty (really like 4 different potties) for a long while, but we also didn't want to stress her out. she had gone a few random times on the potty, but i think it was still early. anyway, our thing was we didn't want to really pressure her to do this at a certain time. we wanted to make sure we supported her wanting to go and gave her the option to go, but we definitely didn't want to shock train her.

a book i read mentioned that there is a traditional kind of sticker rewards system, and we did start a system around when she started school. she gets a new heart sticker to put on the potty to show each time she goes, and she started also asking to get one picture bandaid that she puts on herself or her clothes. so it's kind of funny 1) because then everybody always thinks she's her because she got bandaids all over her face and knees and 2) because she asks me and samantha sometimes if we want bandaids too after we go to the bathroom. at the same time, her best friend at school started potty training and i think that really inspired her, too. (maybe even more!)

so, i don't think there was any super huge smart thing that we did. i think she was not ready and then she was ready. there are a lot of parents who are a little bit exasperated that the kids haven't been more serious yet about potty training, but i definitely think this is a thing that parents get all worked up and either proud or upset over. i think different kids do it at different times. i really really think that yes the things we do can encourage or discourage what our kids do or want to do. at the same time, i also think that we stress a little bit too much first on what is exceptional or smart or fast, and then for sure, we stress too much on what is normal. i think there are different kinds of things and different kinds of kids and different kinds of normal.

i think there are all these little stages that probably start with sleeping and that go all the way up to what college your kid goes to college. i think the competition is silly. certainly, i do see other things that parents do and sometimes i think, yikes! but i try to think yikes! more i don't want to do that with my kid than i think this is what causes their kid to do a or b because i know sometimes our kids do a or b and it just is.

i do take what we do with the girls very seriously, and i imagine like other things, it's something i get made fun of for. at the same time, i think we try our best to have a conssitent philosophy and a consistent system and to learn how to do things better because i see so much of how the kids i teach are shaped by their parents. you can see so many things clearly: which kids are encouraged, which kids are shut down, which kids are carbon copies, which kids are independent and confident. i know that so much has to do with who kids are, but i also know so much has to do with how we parent, too.

i guess that's the juggling act,then. you don't know, necessarliy, which things the children are going to push on and which things they are going to respond to. i think knowing that everything you do matters is important, but i also think it's important to release thinking that kids do everything because of what you do. i do think it's important to set up a clear and consistent system that encourages creativity, communication, and happiness at the same time that it establishes discipline. i believe that you should almost always tell your child yes. i also believe that it is really important to know when to say no and to say it clearly, consistently, and convincingly at those times. i guess that i think it's like how i think about my observance. in the little picture, all the observances really are silly and wierd. at the same time, i think, the discipline and the system sets up opportunities to be more real and more close more often.

shana tova 5768