Surround Yourself with Things You Value
This level of perceptiveness is what all adults should aspire to, and I gave Sammy due credit for the observation:
LOOK, MOMMY! A PENIS!
That’s not a penis, it’s your vagina. Boys have penises, girls have vaginas, remember?
BUT MOMMY, LOOK! LOOK HERE. IT’S A PENIS.
Oh, I see. That’s called your clitoris. It’s not a penis. It’s part of your vagina and it’s called a clitoris.
IT’S A PENIS.
No, it’s really not.
IT’S A PRETEND PENIS.
Titanic Deck Chairs hosts the Objectivist Round Up this week.
Next week, it’s my turn!
I’m in the middle of reading and implementing Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
It’s really not such a mystery – it’s just the pain of setting up a new system, and I know it will be well worth it. Also, as I’ve been freeing up my mind by offloading things into a better system, I’ve thought of many more new projects that I want to take on, and just getting them all down has been a challenge! I plan to write more about what I’ve done and why when I’m more settled with it, but I’ll give you a few teasers.
First, I already had a really good system for staying on top of the gazillion Little Things that need to get done in my life on a daily basis. I had a fairly clean “in and out” system, a calendar, a task list, and project lists for big things like all the home improvement plans we have. I looked at my calendar and task list daily, and they helped me remember to pay the bills, return the library books, and even to write blog posts. I recently added my Droid phone to the system, which has allowed me to be truly mobile with these tools. I had to manually sync my Palm Pilot, which was a real hassle when you are adding literally a dozen or more items to your lists each day, sometimes while at home and sometimes not. The Droid syncs up automatically and continually. Plus, it has a handy voice recorder for those 1001 ideas I get while driving and walking the dog each day.
What I’ve learned so far from GTD is that:
1. I absolutely must get my filing system in order. I still have not filed a single piece of paper in over 2 years, since we moved from Michigan. I have stacks and stacks of paper, my passport and birth certificate are missing, and when I do need to find something I have a panic attack.
2. I’ve been using my task list improperly by setting dates for my tasks. I need to have clear boundaries about which tasks are day/time sensitive (these go on the calendar) and which are just things I need to get to as soon as possible (these go on the “next actions” or “to do” list.)
3. I need to get more clear on what the next action is for any particular task or project, so that when I come across something on my list, I don’t have to rethink the whole project to figure out what to do, but just look and start moving. For example, I’ve had “filing” on my task list for 2 years, and every single day I postpone it. It has been adding enormous stress to my life, and yet I can’t seem to move on it. But “filing” is not a task. I have to buy the supplies first, then figure out a place to work, then move everything to that place, etc. etc. It is an enormous project and I have to treat it as such. I’m actually not too bad in this regard – most of my “tasks” are actionable items, but there are a few that I’ve allowed to remain fuzzy in my mind for too long.
So, while I’m in this transition period, blogging might be light. I wish I could rattle off a “what I’ve been doing lately” post like Rational Jenn is able to do with such humor and interest. There’s been a lot of fun stuff going on here at Casa Mossoff, but finding a way to make it interesting to anyone but me takes more effort than I have available right now.
MOMMY, WHY DID YOU STOP?
Because there was a stop sign.
WHY DID YOU GO?
Well, did you see that red light flashing?
YES.
Well, that meant that I had to stop, and as soon as there were no cars coming from the other directions, I could go.
WHY THAT RED LIGHT FLASHING?
It’s to let you know there is a stop sign there.
WHY?
Because the people who built the road put it there to make sure all the drivers know what to do.
WHY?
So that we don’t crash into each other.
WHY?
So that we don’t get hurt and damage our cars.
WHY?
[Giving up] It’s the laws of physics.
MOMMY, WHY YOU LAUGHING?
After lathering up her hands with a lot of white, bubbly shampoo:
MOMMY, LOOK! I HAVE GLOVES JUST LIKE SANTA CLAUS!
Talking about climbing the bookcases, which she knows is dangerous:
MOMMY, IF I CLIMBED THAT, I’D FALL DOWN AND HURT MY EYE, AND I CAN’T GET A NEW ONE SO I’D JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT.
She’s been mumbling a lot lately and she makes me giggle with her response to my query of “What did you say, Sammy?”
I WAS JUST TALKING WITH MYSELF, MOMMY.
So far today,
Happy Birthday, Vivaldi, and Happy Impending-Spring to Everyone! (Except those in the southern hemisphere, I suppose.)
Rational Jenn hosts the Objectivist Round Up this week. I see three posts about selfishness in sports, inspired independently by the Olympics, Tiger Woods, and basketball, and there is a fourth that examines selfishness more generally. Interesting. There is some stuff about sex and booze in there, too. You don’t want to miss this one!
Sammy and I had our first pillow fight the other day. I was giving her a real pounding and she was laughing so hard that all she could manage were a few tiny swings of the pillow. Finally, she said, STOP, MOMMY. I DO IT MYSELF. So I stopped whacking her and prepared for a blow. She got ready, got set, and popped herself right in the face. It wasn’t an accident. She thought the game was just to hit herself, not each other!
Adam and I have been meaning to do this since we moved into this house a year ago, and we finally got around to it last week – we hung a mirror at Sam’s height near the front door!
I’ve found that Sammy is more willing to brush her hair or have it brushed as part of the “get out the door” routine. It’s also a good way for me to remember it. She didn’t have enough hair to brush until she was around 2, so I never really developed a routine that worked until we started doing this. She likes to brush and “style” her hair along with me, but that’s not a daily occurrence. We tried brushing her hair when she got dressed, but the brush kept going missing and then I’d forget about it.
Now, we keep the brush in her “shoe basket.” The shoe basket was one of our very first physical tools to help Sammy with her independence. I got the idea from Cornelia Lockitch in her parenting coaching sessions. Not only does Sam like to pick out her own shoes and put them on, but we’ve have never had any issue with her leaving her shoes and socks all over the place. She loves to put them in the proper place, and actually gets quite upset if we try to do it for her.
Keeping the brush there is probably not the most hygienic option, but I’ll take convenience over hygiene any day.
As an aside, we’ve also had a Sammy-height coat rack since she was old enough to walk:
So as we got used to the hair brushing routine, Sam became more and more adamant about doing the brushing herself. She definitely needed a mirror, so we finally got it done, and she loves it! She does a pretty good job at brushing her own hair now. Many mornings I don’t do anything at all, although her hair tangles extremely easily so sometimes she needs some help.
When it is time to get out the door, the only things that I need to do for Sammy are helping her get her socks on and getting the zipper on her coat started. I might not be so anxious for the end of winter if I use this time to help her master those last 2 skills. If summer comes and socks and coats go away, she probably won’t try again until next year. But that’s ok, too. In the meantime, we’ll work on getting out the door in under 20 minutes. Now that’s a challenge!
Every time Sammy sees a small object and a large object of the same kind together, they become MAMA and BABY. There are mama and baby balloons, mama and baby trees, mama and baby pillows, mama and baby clouds, and mama and baby mayonnaise globs. She sees mamas and babies everywhere. It’s quite charming.
Last week I participated in my first focus group! One of the other moms at Sammy’s school works for a marketing company, so I had an “in.” (I hear it can be hard to get into these things, but I’d never tried before.)
I’m probably not supposed to talk about the products we looked at, but it was a group of moms of 3-year-olds so you can guess what kind of thing we’re talking about. It was a lot of fun, Sammy came home with 2 new toys, and I got quite a nice paycheck for 3 hours work. I’m hoping they invite me back again.
I really enjoyed seeing what other moms found important. In some ways we were all the same, but in others we were all quite different. I wish I could talk about it more, but they had me sign papers so quickly that I might have signed a confidentiality agreement without noticing it.
One funny thing happened that I can explain without giving out any important information. We were reviewing something about the product and the facilitator said, “What about safety? You’ve all mentioned safety but you didn’t comment about [this aspect of the product]. You wouldn’t let your 3-year-olds use knives or hammers or anything, so where is your concern for safety here?”
I had to pipe up about that one. ”I let my daughter use real knives, and I let her try to use the hammer and other tools too. She does a fine job.” I wish I could say that jaws dropped, but there wasn’t a strong reaction. Still, I felt like a real Free Range mama at that moment, and it felt good!
I recently used Facebook to solicit advice from my friends on where I might buy some new art prints for my home. One friend (thanks, THP) suggested art.com, and I did find a lot of great prints there to choose from.
But the best thing about art.com is that you can learn a lot about art there. They have their prints categorized by era (pre 12th Century to 20th Century), by movement (Cubism, Art Nouveau, Impressionism, etc.), by nationality, and by subject (animals, scenic, dance, etc.). And, because within each category there are dozens and dozens of famous works, you can scan through them and get a feel for that movement or century or whatever you’re interested in. Yes, you’re just seeing a tiny image which could never capture the subtleties of the actual work of art, and this is no substitute for going to museums and seeing the masterpieces for yourself, or even for taking a course or reading a good art history book. But this is the best overview of the world of painting that I’ve ever experienced.
I skimmed through a few dozen paintings in each movement from the 17th century to the present day. I now know why Vermeer is considered such a genius, after seeing his work next to many others from his time. I saw the difference between Impressionism (nice) and Post-Impressionism (horrifying). I confirmed my suspicion that, although I can appreciate the skills of the Hudson River School, landscapes bore me to tears. Not surprisingly, most of the modern movements are a total fraud and just plain ugly. But now I know a bit more about them. And I found a few new artists that I love – hurray!
I learned more in 3 hours on art.com than I’ve learned in any one place before. However, if I had no knowledge at all going in, I don’t think I could have learned very much. I already had some ideas of what I liked and what many of the actual pieces looked like. Art.com just helped me with categorization and filling in a lot of gaps. (The multiple ways to filter makes shopping for prints an amazing experience as well.) If you’re like me and enjoy art, but are a relative novice, it might be worth a few hours of your time. Let me know if you enjoy it!
My daughter is now old enough that I can ask her to remind me of things, and there is a better chance that she’ll remember than that I will. Of course, this only works with things that she values, but I still find it to be quite practical for my own sake, with the added bonus that she gets to exercise her memory and enjoy the rewards of doing so.
I realized this explicitly one morning when I told her to remind me after school to show her a video of hang gliding. (She is still fascinated with flying and I’ve been telling her about all the ways that people can fly, even though we don’t have wings.) I said, “I can show you a video of hang gliding. Remind me after school. Tell me that you want to see the video of hang gliding. Can you say ‘hang gliding?’”
HANG -IDING.
“Good. Hang gliding. Remind me after school, ok?”
OK.
Driving home after school, after we had talked about what work she did at school and what she wanted for lunch, she suddenly said,
MOMMY! YOU FORGOT THE HANG-IDING!
It’s all about values.
I think we have a new host this week! The Secular Foxhole has published The Objectivist Round Up. There are 4 parenting posts this week, and a lot of other great stuff. Check it out!
This Teaching Moment is one of my favorite kinds. It doesn’t really teach Sammy something specific, but is just a way to identify and emphasize my values.
Sammy and I were in the car and I was listening to Diana Hsieh’s latest Atlas Shrugged podcast. I stopped the playback to think about something she said, and Sammy said, WHAT HAPPENED TO DI-NANA, MOMMY?
“I turned it off.”
WHY?
“Because I’m thinking.”
WHY?
“Because Diana has interesting things to say and they make me think. That’s why I like to listen to her – because I like to think.”
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