Parenting

So I’ve put myself on partial bed rest, and my condition is stable for now. My doc says to keep doing what I’m doing. I could develop pre-eclampsia any time, but as of now, I’m still technically not diagnosed with it.

We had some on-line friends come and visit today for the first time. (It was great to finally meet you!) I’m always a bit more sensitive about my parenting when around other parents, so I noticed something: I’ve started yelling at Sam. I’m not screaming at her in anger, but yelling her name to get her attention quite often.

She happens to be in a phase right now where she just does not listen. (Please don’t tell me it’s not a phase.) Both Adam and I have become very annoyed at having to repeat ourselves, and seeing her doing exactly what we ask her not to do (or not doing what we did ask her to do), even though it seemed that she had agreed since she didn’t object verbally to the instructions. So we’ve been working on this in constructive ways: we’ve been teaching her how to look us in the eyes when we are speaking to her, and how to acknowledge that she has heard us, and how, if she doesn’t agree with some instruction that we give her, she must first comply, but then she is free to tell us with words that she doesn’t agree and why not. (So, if we say, “stop jumping on the couch,” she must stop, and then tell us why she thinks she should be able to, if she disagrees.) We are careful to listen to her, and to model proper acknowledgement for her. And we’ve explained why it is in her interest to listen to what people say, to acknowledge them, and then to object politely if she disagrees. We’re working on all that, but I know this is one that is going to take a very long time to sink in, so I don’t expect immediate progress.

Still, when I tell her to stop grabbing another child’s toy out of his hands and she completely ignores me, I must act. Normally, I would remove the toy from her hands for her. But now, I am physically limited. So what can I do but yell? I yell her name and it gets her attention. Usually, she’ll come to me and discuss it after that – it’s just getting her attention that is the problem. I don’t really see what alternative I have right now.

But I’m worried that this will become a bad habit, especially since I’m still going to be tied to the couch much of the time after Leo and Zoe are born. This might be my very first parent-of-more-than-one challenge! I can’t stand the idea of being that mom at the playground yelling out her child’s name over and over. If anyone has any advice on other ways to grab Sam’s attention without having to get out of my chair, or how not to let this become habitual, please let me know!

Sam got lost today. I mean, she was really lost for the first time ever. It was kind of a good experience.

We were at Macy’s where I was shopping for new maternity clothes (yes, I’m growing out of most of my current ones already). We were both exhausted – my feet were killing me and I just wanted to be done as soon as possible. After picking out a few items, I told her it was time to go to the fitting room. She said, no, she wanted to lay down on the floor and rest. The maternity section was actually housed in a glass room within the store (the place they used to keep the fur coats), and it was deserted but for one saleslady. The fitting rooms were just outside this room. So, in keeping with our constant efforts at free-range parenting (it really takes effort to let go), I decided to let her stay. She was half asleep under a rack of clothing when I left.

We did this at IKEA recently – we left her lying on a bed while we went around the corner to pick out handles for our cabinets. We just told her to stay put and, that if any adults asked, to tell them that she was fine and mommy and daddy know where she is and will be right back. She also knows my phone number and how to “find a mommy” if she needs help. IKEA worked out fine.

But this time, after about, oh, seven minutes (quite a long time, really), I returned to find her gone. The cool part was, I didn’t freak out at all. The saleslady thought Sam had gone with me and gasped when she found out otherwise. I just calmly brought my clothes to the register and told her to hold them for me. Then I did a methodical walk around the surrounding area, calling Sam’s name as loudly as I dared. I was sure I’d find her quickly (one reason I feel okay leaving her alone is that she is not the type to bolt), but when I didn’t, I realized that this might be a problem.

The problem wasn’t that I was worried about her having been abducted or hurt or anything. I was really just worried that I was going to have to walk around for a while on my aching feet. Seriously, that was my main concern. Like, “oh shit, this might mean I have to stand up for another half hour.” And when I noticed that the escalator was nearby I did have a moment of panic, because that would have doubled my search area.

Anyway, I was just about at the end of what I thought was a reasonable perimeter and was facing the necessity of deciding what to do next when I heard the Macy’s Muzak stop. I knew exactly what would happen. A voice came over the speakers:

“Attention Macy’s customers. Will Amy Mossoff please report to the customer service desk behind ladies lingerie on the lower level. Amy Mossoff, please come to customer service on the lower level.”

Whew! What a relief. I had just covered lingerie and it wasn’t too far of a walk!

Of course, what had happened was that some good citizen had seen a child without an adult and had immediately taken her to the authorities. If she hadn’t done that, I probably would have found Sam in less than a minute (she’s not much of a wanderer, and I know her habits – she probably would have been right there in lingerie, pinching the push-up bras). But I can’t really blame people for trying to help this way. You just don’t see four-year-olds wandering around alone in the mall very often.

Anyway, it was a good, safe situation for Sam to be lost in. I was hoping she might learn a lesson from it, but she wasn’t really scared and I don’t think it had much impact. Since I wasn’t truly worried, I didn’t fake it and make a big deal of it to her. But I did tell her that she’s going to have to come to the fitting rooms with me until she’s just a bit older.

I’ve made a big decision. I’m eliminating Samantha’s afternoon nap.

She has been a great napper. I am the envy of many parents. Since I’m pregnant, being able to nap myself has been a life-saver. I never thought I would be the one to choose to eliminate such a blessing, but the time has come.

Sam’s naps had been growing longer and longer, and she had been having more and more trouble falling asleep at night. I’m quite certain this is how some of us become “night people.” Or maybe she just is a night person, and this is how it first manifests itself. Either way, the situation was becoming intolerable. We’d put her down later and later, but she’d still be up for hours, alternating between getting snacks, playing in the nursery (the room next to hers which is currently vacant), or screaming bloody murder. It was becoming common for her to be up until 10 or 11pm. It was obvious that she was simply not tired. One night I gave her Benadryl just to make her sleepy. (Didn’t work.)

The problem is, Sam still seems to need more than the eleven hours of sleep she gets at night. Without her nap, she barely makes it to bedtime, and she falls asleep every time we’re in the car. That is a sign of a child who needs more sleep, and I agree with Marc Weissbluth that sleep-deprivation is a serious problem. We can’t put her to bed any earlier because Adam works late hours and we’d have to eliminate family dinner, which would be a last resort. But Sam is going to have to give up her nap in September anyway, when she begins full-day school, so we’re going to have to find a way to get along without it.

So I’m going to allow her to go into her room and sleep any time she needs to, but I’m not going to read her a story or have any official nap time. (I wasn’t sure how she’d take to this idea, but she’s done it a couple of times now.) And depending on the time of day she sleeps, I’m going to wake her up after either a half-hour or an hour. No more three-hour marathon naps, no matter how pleasant and productive that me-time is.

I’m actually looking forward to getting rid of the naps. It was nice to have the time to myself, but it was also a huge hassle to be home every day from 1-4pm. It really killed the entire afternoon and evening for any kind of outing, because you can’t drive anywhere in northern Virginia after 3:30. So for the past two years, I’ve done most of my errands and grocery shopping while Sam was in school because the few times I’ve taken Sam to the grocery store or to Target after her nap, it’s been a living hell of traffic and mobs of people. So from 4 until bedtime, we usually just go places we can walk to, like the playground. In nice weather, it’s not so bad, but it was particularly difficult in the winter. And I’ve really missed doing errands with my daughter. She and I have a lot of fun together doing simple things.

After school last week, on the very first day of the new no-nap policy, Sam and I went out to lunch and then directly to the grocery store. It was wonderful. I didn’t feel that rush of needing to get home to keep the schedule, and when we did get home Sam was happy to play by herself quite a bit, so I ended up with some time to get my own work done anyway. (She tended to be very needy after her nap, so usually her awakening would mark the end of my “work” day.) I think I’ll even be able to take catnaps myself with Sam awake in the house. She’s mature enough to keep herself occupied, and I have supermom powers even while unconscious that seem to awaken me at the slightest sign of trouble.

School is out for summer in a week, and when Leo and Zoe arrive in September, who knows what will happen. But I think Sam’s nap is a thing of the past. It was a good run.

I only have a moment, but I wanted to quickly relate what I’ve learned and figured out about my concerns over Sammy’s effort.

First, I think I’m overreacting to just about everything due to the pregnancy hormones.  Second, I know that I am hypersensitive to this issue to begin with because of my own childhood, and my development of an anti-effort mentality. So, after a few days of reflection, the whole issue is much smaller.

Even so, the incident at school is worth thinking about. I spoke briefly to Sam’s teacher after she returned, and she assured me that Sam does not do this “all the time.” That part of what Miss R. told me was just a miscommunication, and that was the part that had me concerned. Sam does wander, observe, space out, and all of those things, but she doesn’t do it excessively. And, just as I suspected, this school does keep a close eye on this behavior to assess whether there is a problem or whether it is just what the child needs to do at the time. Still, as Sam’s teacher has noted to me since she started school, Sam’s tendency is towards needing a push here and there, whereas some children just leap into the work. That is fine and normal – that is just her temperament. And, as Sam’s teacher has been telling me, Sam has blossomed this year and is making independent choices much more often. So I’m 100% happy with how her school is handling this. (But I still want a better way to observe her in the classroom.)

So does Sam have any kind of “problem” in the area of effort, persistence, or independence?  I’ve returned to my belief, prior to last Friday’s incident, that the fact that I’m seeing improvement in her levels of effort is the most important thing.  I’ve also received some very helpful comments that have made me think about whether I am conflating a lack of persistence or effort with caution, introversion, or other, less problematic character traits. I think I do mix them all together, so that I see the effort issue as larger than it really is.

Also, from the comments, I have some new ideas about how to introduce new activities to Sam, about praise, about motivation, and some other things I can’t remember now. I guess I need to compile all of those ideas into my own list because there were obviously too many for me to remember them all. So thank you all for the great comments and advice!

I’ve written before about what I perceive as a persistence problem with Samantha, and the issue is cropping up once again. I don’t want to cover all that ground again, but here are two posts that describe my concern.  Rational Jenn just wrote a post about the same type of issue with her son, which is worth reading, and good background for some of the things I’ll write about here.

Lately, I’ve been more comfortable with Sam’s level of effort. She tries new things regularly, sometimes with hesitation or caution, but we have far fewer instances of outright refusal to try things that are just a little bit difficult or scary. She is taking dance class, and actually practicing moves that are difficult for her, and she just started swim lessons, which require her to put her face in the water and take other risks. Of course there are times when she just wants to be babied – I don’t see those as a problem, but normal for this age. So overall, things are better.

But yesterday I got a shock when I picked up Sam from school. Her teacher is out for a couple of days, so the assistant is alone with the children in the classroom. When Sam ran up to me on the playground (where I pick her up) she sadly told me that she didn’t listen to Miss R. that day. Then Miss R. came over and explained that there had been some crying. It took a long time for me to tease out of her exactly what the problem was because she was so concerned that I would flip out because Sam cried. These poor teachers are so defensive – I guess a lot of parents think children should never have their wills thwarted and if they cry it means the teacher was mean. But once I got through to her that I just wanted to know what happened, she told me. Sam had chosen a piece of work first thing in the morning, and then sat in front of it, not working at all, but just watching all of the other children, for an hour and a half! Miss R. prompted her to work or put it away several times, but Sam didn’t do anything at all until she realized that she was going to miss circle time and not be ready to go outside to play. Then, she quickly did the work and put the material away, but not before having some kind of a meltdown about how she didn’t want to do it. Miss R. noticed that when Sammy finally did the work, she did it correctly, so it wasn’t that she didn’t know how. She just wasn’t choosing to do the work. I asked Miss R. if this happens often and she said yes, it does.

Now, this is playing into all of my fears. First, I have never been sure that Sam is actually working all day at school. When I ask her what she did at school, she usually mentions one or two activities, and they are usually the easy ones that she’s been doing over and over since the first day of school. I’ve been assuming that she just can’t remember everything she does. As I mentioned recently, she is making a great deal of progress through the materials recently, so I figured that she must be working. But, since Montessori children don’t bring home a lot of work product and you can’t really observe them in the classroom (if they know the parent is there, they don’t behave normally), you have to rely on what the teacher tells you. And Sam’s teacher, Mrs. L., is not a good communicator.

I think Mrs. L. is probably a good teacher. But it’s really hard to tell what is going on in the classroom. When we have meetings or talk about Sam’s work, I get that same sense of defensiveness from her as I did from the assistant (and which I’ve gotten from every teacher/caregiver I’ve ever worked with). Instead of giving me facts, she seems to have an agenda of soothing me. It’s frustrating. But I’ve thought about it a lot and convinced myself that it’s a communication issue, not a teaching issue.

But now, if it is true that Sam is sitting and staring into space half the day, I want to know why I haven’t been told about this and what is being done to address it. Why did I find out about it only when Mrs. L. was absent? Does that mean that Mrs. L. handles it better or that she doesn’t do anything about it at all? It’s possible that it is not a regular occurrence, or that Sam doesn’t do it any more than any other child – there is a bit of a language barrier with Miss R., so I’m taking her explanation with a grain of salt.  I plan to meet with Mrs. L. to see if I can get a straight answer. That will hopefully solve the concern I have about how the classroom is run.

But if it is true that Sam is still not putting forth effort at school, and if it is not developmentally normal, then I’m back to fearing for her moral development. My problem is that I have no standards by which to judge whether this is “normal” or not. Reading the comments on Jenn’s post was somewhat helpful. There seem to be quite a few other parents out there with children with similar behaviors. But it’s obviously not true of all children. Jenn herself has two others, and at least one of them definitely does not balk at effort and persistence. I am willing to accept that these are temperamental differences, but I am not willing to accept that they are value-neutral. Effort and persistence are virtues, and if they don’t come naturally to Sam, I want to do everything I can to help her see how they will benefit her. So far in her life, this is the critical issue. (Well, there’s also her anger issue, but I’ll leave that for another day.)

I also want to be prepared for the challenges of homeschooling a child who is difficult to motivate. If I could understand what is going on psychologically with Sam, I could develop better ways of helping to motivate her. My biggest fear with homeschooling is that she simply won’t want to do any work at all (and I don’t believe in forcing “knowledge” down a child’s throat).

Like Jenn, Adam and I have techniques that we use to deal with this aspect of Sam’s personality, and I suppose that we should feel pretty good about what we’ve been doing since she is improving. But again, I see this as such a critical issue that I want to educate myself about it as much as possible.  I am considering asking Sam’s pediatrician for a referral to a child psychologist to get an assessment, but I hate to open up that can of worms. I think kids are way over-diagnosed and labeled in every area these days, when most of the time, they are just the unique individuals that they are. At the same time, some diagnoses and assessments are extremely helpful. So I’m torn about that.

I haven’t yet looked for any books on this subject. I suppose that is my next step. But first, I’ll ask you, my dear readers, if you have any advice.

Sam has been doing a lot of new things lately. I’m sure I’m forgetting many, but here are some things that come to mind:

• She can write her name legibly!  SAMMEE is her chosen spelling.  She had everything but the “s” down a while ago, but just yesterday, she got it.  She is excited about it, but I think I’m even more thrilled.  Her writing skills are coming late (for a Montessori kid) and it’s been holding her back from work she could otherwise be doing, since her reading and spelling skills are so much more advanced.  This is one of the few “academic” things we actually work on at home, so it’s gratifying to see her reach this milestone.
• She can open the car door if she has a curb to get her up high enough. (She’s just not tall enough to have the leverage she needs, no matter how hard she pulls.)
• She can cut her own fingernails – on her left hand, at least.
• She can wash her own hair and get shampoo on most parts of it. (She’s been washing her own hair forever, but she’s only recently accepted the fact that she has hair directly above her ears.)
• She can use a screwdriver to screw in one of those itty bitty screws that are used on battery compartments on children’s toys.  Really, if I hold the compartment closed, she can get it on tight, which is quite a skill.
• She can use a small power drill, if I help her to hold up its weight.
• She can put on her socks by herself – this was one of those things she just refused to even try for a long time.
• She can put on her own gloves and get one finger in each hole. Thank god for that one because it must be one of the worst mommy-jobs ever. In fact, I suppose she learned how because I told her I couldn’t do it and she’d just have to wear her gloves like mittens.
• She can make a snowball.
• She can brush her upper, back teeth well enough that I hardly ever help her anymore.
• And, for her, the most thrilling new skill is that she can now pick up the cat.

The idea that parents should never apologize to their children is so completely idiotic that I can hardly drum up the effort to write anything about why it is so important to do so.  But usually, those of us who do apologize to our children tend to do it after yelling at them or grabbing them or something along those lines.  Today, I have a good example of something more subtle that required an apology from me.

Sam and I were getting ready to go to school.  She likes to brush her own hair, but she is not very good at it yet, and I haven’t done a good job at defining for her (or myself) whose responsibility it really is.  So most days, I try to talk her into letting me brush the parts that are tangled, and if she really resists, I don’t push it.  That’s lazy parenting right there, but it’s been okay because I’m not too uptight about her hair looking messy and she’s not so resistant that she never lets me brush it.  But still, it causes unnecessary friction, and it caused this morning’s situation.

So we were in the bathroom getting ready and she told me emphatically that her hair was not very tangled, and that she wanted to brush it all herself, with no help from me.  I checked and she was right – it was not very tangled – so I told her that she could do it herself today.  She did her usual great job on the front, but the back was still a mess.  Then she asked if she could put some gel in her hair.  We don’t do that every morning, but I always let her if she wants to.  I told her that, sure, she could put gel in her hair, but only if she let me brush the back first.

She got very angry.  She gave me a dirty look and locked herself in the bathroom.  (She does this because she needs to be alone to calm down – amazing maturity, I have to say.)  After a few minutes, she came out, but she was still mad, and she went downstairs.  When I came down, she yelled at me that she wanted to be alone.  I could tell that she was very upset, and I also respected the fact that she wasn’t throwing a fit, but just expressing her anger and working on letting it pass.  While I waited for her to calm down, I thought about what I had said, and I realized that I had tried to manipulate her.  It was unfair of me to tell her she could do something herself, but then try to get her to let me help with a bribe/threat.  And I’ve done this many times with things other than her hair.  It’s something that might be appropriate for a toddler, but it’s not appropriate for someone mature enough to know that she needs to be alone to calm down.

So I left her alone for a few more minutes and she eventually came to me and started talking about other things.  But I sat down at her level and asked if I could talk to her.  I told her that I was sorry for what I said about her hair.  I told her that it was unfair of me to tell her she could brush it herself, but then not let her use the gel unless I got to brush it.  I told her that I should have stuck to my word and that I was wrong.  I didn’t tell her that I had tried to manipulate her because I thought that she wouldn’t understand that word, but I wish that I had because that is how she will learn the meaning of those big words.

And even though I apologize to her regularly, she looked a bit surprised, and definitely grateful.  Her face relaxed, and she said, “Yeah,” and gave me a hug.

It was a nice thing.  I’m going to have to address the hair-responsibility issue with her.  Maybe we’ll talk about it this afternoon and see if we can work out a system that makes us both happy.  But, once again, I also have to update my view of my daughter.  She is older and wiser than I treat her.  I’m afraid this will always be the case.  Keeping up is the hardest thing of all.

Hooray for Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s strong statement supporting parenting as a legitimate career – aka central purpose – in his podcast of Jan 31, 2011!  I have always been dissatisfied with Ayn Rand’s lukewarm (and, as far as I know, only) statement on the subject, given in her Playboy interview of March 1964:

PLAYBOY: In your opinion, is a woman immoral who chooses to devote herself to home and family instead of a career?

RAND: Not immoral—I would say she is impractical, because a home cannot be a full-time occupation, except when her children are young. However, if she wants a family and wants to make that her career, at least for a while, it would be proper—if she approaches it as a career, that is, if she studies the subject, if she defines the rules and principles by which she wants to bring up her children, if she approaches her task in an intellectual manner. It is a very responsible task and a very important one, but only when treated as a science, not as a mere emotional indulgence.

This answer has always bothered me, even before I had a child.  What happened to the union of the moral and the practical?  And why is legitimate career parenting treated as the exception here?  Those of us who do take our parenting roles seriously should not be tainted by the fact that most parents do not treat their role scientifically (if they think about it at all).  Just because most people make a mess out of parenting does not diminish it as a legitimate, productive, creative, moral central purpose for those of us who take it seriously.

I would have liked to hear her answer, “No – absolutely not immoral!”  I would have liked to hear her say that, of course, it is moral, and it can be one of the most fulfilling careers in existence.  And then if she wished to speak about the lazy, unthinking parents – fine.  In fact, I would have loved a long rant from Ayn Rand on that subject.

I know that Ayn Rand did think parenting is important work.  She says so in the statement above, and she makes it clear in the scene with the mother in Atlas Shrugged.  Personally, I have never had any qualms about the morality (or the practicality) of my choice to be a professional parent.  I know firsthand how fulfilling it is and even if Ayn Rand did think otherwise, I wouldn’t give a damn.

But there is a lot of misunderstanding amongst young Objectivists about the virtue of productivity, and it comes out in the parenting field all the time.  (Rational Jenn addresses many of the common objections in this post.)  We Objectivist professional parents have always been somewhat on the defensive on this issue, and Rand’s statement does more harm than help, I think.  So I cheered when I heard Dr. Peikoff make the following statements in response to the question of whether raising children could be a legitimate central purpose:

“I think it is the responsibility of the parent to look after young children personally.  I think it gives room for tremendous creativity. It’s very important in their development.”

“However strong I am about career, I do not believe that you have a baby and dump it in day care.”

“If you intend to be a weekend parent, I don’t think you should have children.”

“If you have children, they have to be the focus; they are your responsibility, and it is not a job that can be passed off to someone else – not without harm to the children. That’s my understanding; I’m not a pediatrician.”

Unfortunately, most of Peikoff’s statement came from the perspective of the children’s needs, which I don’t think justifies whether parenting is a valid central purpose.  But I loved that his answer was an unqualified “Yes!”

I do disagree slightly with Peikoff about it necessarily harming children to put them in day care while both parents work.  I think that can be a legitimate choice as well.  But I do agree with the sentiment that, if you choose to have children, they must be the focus.  So a mother might go back to a career that she enjoys outside the home, but it could no longer be her central purpose, at least not while the children are young.  Her outside career would be on hold, and working in it would be a placeholder.  Some careers would be ruined by taking a ten year break, and I think it would be a sacrifice to give up such a career forever if it is your passion, just for the ten years of child-rearing.  I also don’t think that those people should never have children.  I think it is possible to have both (not two central purposes at once, but the central purpose of raising children, with a full-time job on the side), but one had better be ready for some seriously hard work, and to give up many other optional values, if that is one’s choice.

I think that during those ten years (or whatever the appropriate amount of time is), the working mother (or the father) would have to have the attitude that the children come first.  This would exclude any type of career that requires both parents to work very long hours, or to be so spiritually drained at the end of the day that they have nothing left for the children.  I completely agree with Dr. Peikoff that, if you intend to be a weekend parent, you should not have children.  His argument is that they need more of their parents (or at least, one parent) than that.  My argument is that it could be nothing but a sacrifice.  Without at least one parent having the direct influence on the children, every day, the children are not really even “yours.”  They won’t absorb your family culture. They won’t see you as a role model and (hopefully) emulate your virtues.  They won’t be “of you,” except in the crudest, genetic way.  (And I know exactly how much that is worth.) You will not have a true family, but just a marriage with young strangers involved. The children won’t know you, and you won’t know them.  What’s the point in that?  What value would you be hoping to gain from that situation?

The good news is that I do think that when you have two parents in a good marriage, one can indeed work long hours and only be there on the weekends.  His (or her) influence on the children will be there, indirectly, through the other partner.  But if both parents are essentially absent, the connection is severed.  And that is a recipe for disaster, for all involved.

Sam’s latest thing is to tell everyone she meets that she is four years old and that she’ll be five on her next birthday.  Then she proceeds to tell them all the things that she will be able to do when she gets bigger (which I’m afraid she thinks will happen when she is five):

• I can have two vitamins
• I can drive a car
• I can stay home by myself
• I can go outside by myself
• I can open the car door
• I can have coffee
• I can have a whole soda

It’s nice to see her aspiring to these things.  She is really working hard on the concept of time, and the fact that she looks to the future is somewhat new.  She is also looking forward to summer, when she’ll be able to go back to the local water park and spend more time at the playground.

It’s fun to watch her try to work out different lengths of time.  When I told her this morning that I signed her up for swim lessons, and that we would start in one month, she said, “after nap?”  I said, “No, a month is 30 days.”  She said, “after we go visit daddy at work?” That is what we are doing right after nap today, so the fact that she has those in order is good.  But then I told her that a month was about as long as it took from the day she started opening doors on her Advent calendar until Christmas.  I saw her wheels turning with that idea.  Analogies like that, that key into her values, are the best.

I haven’t figured out anything to use for the concept of nine months, though.

Sam got her first glimpse of god today.  She watched this video with me (which, by the way, is hilarious):

When she saw god, she said, “Mommy, who’s that?  Is that Santa Claus?”  I couldn’t contain a little giggle, but then I managed to answer casually, “No.  He does kind of look like Santa, but that’s supposed to be god.  Have you ever heard of people talking about god?”  She answered, “No.”  I explained, “Oh, well he’s another imaginary guy.”  Ha!

Sam is actually starting to get curious about these things.  After I told her that god was an imaginary guy, she asked, “How did he get up there?  Did he fly?”  I just told her, “Good question.  I wonder why he’s so big, too.”  I left her to think about that on her own.

A few days ago, she asked me what a ghost is.  She’s been in love with all things spooky for over a year, and she’s been asking me questions about what ghosts say and what they do for ages, but this was the first time she asked, “What is a ghost?”  I could tell by her tone that she was grasping for more than, “a white spooky thing that we dress up as on Halloween,” so I reminded her about death, and I told her that some people imagine that, after people die, their souls still exist, and that’s what ghosts are.  I had to also explain “soul” so I told her that your soul is everything inside of you that makes you who you are: your feelings, your thoughts, and everything you decide to do, but not your body.  I managed to do this in just two or three short sentences and when I was done, her eyes lit up and she said, “Cool!”  I’m not sure exactly how she understands it, but she understands something.  I don’t mind if she likes the idea of immortal souls – as long as I’m not trying to sell her on the idea, I have confidence that she’ll work it out.

As you may have gathered from the Santa comparison, we don’t try to sell Sam on the reality of Old Saint Nick, either.  We talk about Santa and the reindeer and the chimney, and we read The Night Before Christmas, and most of the time we don’t say anything about it not being real.  But there have been a couple of times where Sam has asked a question about Santa in relation to reality which required me to say something like, “That’s because it’s just a story,” or “because Santa is something we imagine because it makes Christmas more fun.”  I can’t remember the details – it’s only come up a couple of times.  But I do remember that last time it did, after I said it was pretend, Sam got very upset and said, “No, mommy.  Santa is REAL.”  I just said, “Oh, ok.”  I’m glad that I didn’t try to convince her otherwise, because the next thing she said was, “He is real.  I saw him in the mall.”

I can’t argue with that!

Okay, I’m officially one of “those parents” who buy way too many toys for their kids.  We didn’t get Sam anything extravagant, but she got so many different things for Christmas, even after we had to postpone the ant farm due to the mail-order ants being DOA.  We don’t have a lot of relatives, so there were only gifts from five people/couples besides Santa and Mommy and Daddy.  But all of those people went as hog-wild as we did, especially Aunt B., who is responsible for almost all of the musical gifts.

The rest of this post is mostly for the relatives to enjoy, but if you’re going to watch any of the videos, try the last one with the race track, because there’s nothing cuter than a 4-year-old girl saying “munch out” over and over.

Here is the tree right after Santa left.  (Toby gets tired just watching all of that hard work!)

Sam opened every single present on Christmas Day, unlike last year.  She did take eight hours to do it, with a break for a bath, and that ended up creating a wonderful, relaxing day for all of us.  Although what’s up with the high quality wrapping paper that is impossible to rip?  We couldn’t understand why Sam kept asking for help opening the gifts until we tried it for ourselves.  Here she is needing some help:

I didn’t have Christmas-present-unwrapping-angst at all like I did last year, either.  Sitting next to Sam and immediately making separate piles for trash, toys, and owners manuals solved that problem.

Here is what Sam got for Christmas:

Music

• A tambourine
• A chimalong (which is like a little xylophone, with real metal tubes)
• Finger cymbals
• A real, working miniature accordion

• A real ukulele

• Two sets of jingle bells
• A harmonica
• A drum
• A “cat and canary” whistle (which was a huge hit)
• An awesome set of bells

• A foam, step-on piano mat (kind of like from the movie Big)

Books and Crafts

• Books:  Can You Hear It? (A book with music CD), The Secret Garden (audiobook), My Oh My A Butterfly, Olivia Goes to Venice, Angelina Ballerina, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse, Mariette on the High Wire

• Two workbooks (tracing and numbers)
• New York City calendar
• Disney Princess coloring book/calendar

Stocking Stuffers

• Blob gel (you know, just some slimy stuff in a jar)
• Pinwheel pen
• Bubble bath
• Lip gloss
• An indescribable little monster thing that you squeeze and its eyes bug out
• Silly bandz
• Kaleidoscope
• Instant snow in a can
• One of those plastic wiggly things with all the spikes sticking out of it – if you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about.  Sam has wanted one of these things for ages. Here she is dancing with it:

Clothing

• A few outfits
• Barrettes
• 3 pairs of socks
• A scarf (her first one)
• An adorable hat

Other

• A small, real pot (which I just pulled out of my kitchen cabinet and wrapped up) because “I want to cook with mommy”
• A set of wooden magnetic dress up dolls
• Mr. Potato Head
• Popsicle molds (a particular type that she wanted)
• Foam puzzle of the world
• 3 Christmas ornaments
• A butterfly garden (the kind where you grow real butterflies)
• Magic wand
• A wooden frog that you put together
• A chia-pet type thing
• A penguin that poops out candy (another hit!)
• Princess note cards
• A racetrack set (this was the “big” present from Santa)

All that stuff seems crazy!  Did we all get this much stuff for Christmas when we were children?  Well, Adam didn’t.  He was raised in a Jewish household.  He’s a kid at heart, and since he never had Christmas before, I think he’s enjoying it more than any of us.  But we’ve all been having a blast for the past few days, just playing with toys, including my iPad from Adam.  Yay for Christmas!

Sam had her first dance recital last weekend.  Her first words to her dad afterward were, “I did it!”  She has reason to be proud – it’s not easy for her to deal with a room full of a dozen people, let alone hundreds.  And not only did she get up there and dance – she had fun doing it, as you can see in the video, especially at 2:20.