Teach Your Children Well

Hello, old friends!  We're finally starting to come up for air here at Me Show Central after a relentless whirlwind of Halloween, colds, Thanksgiving, colds, stomach flu, Christmas, sleep training, colds, New Years, and colds.  That's an overwhelming list to try to recap in one post, so let me just say this:

Larsen ladies in effect, y'all!

You see those people?  The little ones snuggling in that chair?  They are relentlessly adorable and relentlessly exhausting in equal measure.  I look at that picture and I'm as weak with devotion as much as I'm weak with fatigue.  God, I love 'em.  God, I'm tired.  Wash, rinse, repeat for at least 2 more years, or until they both agree to sleep through the night - the same night - at the same time.

So, this may not be my most coherent post, but due to repeated requests for information on my jumbled (but effective!) approach to teaching Livy to read, I'm writing it anyway.  Jessica, Aley, Katie, and Mrs. Miller:  This one goes out to you.

First things first, my kid ain't your kid, and my kid ain't normal.  She knew her letters by sight at 18 months, she spoke early, and she's always been drawn to language and books.  She is this kid.

15 months, and all we did was read books all day long.

She is also this kid.

20 months - letter recognition fully down and working on bizarre sight words.

So, no, she's not typical.  This means that, as much as I would love to take credit for being a fantastic, Annie-Sullivan-caliber teacher here, really I can't.  Livy was bound to acquire verbal skills readily and easily because of who she is, not because of what we've done together with books and reading tools.  Thus, obviously, but it must be said lest I start sounding too much like a blowhard, your mileage may vary with these suggestions.  

1.  Read to your kid frequently, early, and often.

This seems intuitive, but it was really hard for us to implement until I built it into a regular schedule.  I began when Livy was a little over a year old by choosing three hardcover picture books every morning and reading them to her with her on my lap so that I could control the paper pages and make sure she couldn't maul them too badly during story time.  Then I added in an afternoon, post-nap book time during which she and I would paw through her basket of board books, and I'd read anything she chose as many times as she chose it until she was ready to do something else.  Sometimes afternoon book time lasted 5 minutes, and sometimes a half hour or more.  Now, being an Awesome Housewife, I had the luxury of time on my hands, but I believe it was the regularity of this practice that nurtured her love of books rather than the quantity of time we spent reading.  On days when we're really pressed for time, I've read to Livy during meals and during bath time (We had a good thing going where I'd read her poetry during her bath - we need to start that up again.).    

2.  Regularly expose them to letters.

It's easy to understand - if you want your kid to learn his or her letters, then you've got to show him or her letters.  We started insanely early because I am an insane babbler and constant singer.  In addition to repeating the alphabet song until my voice hurt, when Livy was a baby I also made up a goofy little song whose only words are "O-L-I-V-I-A, O-L-I-V-I-A, Olivia!," and then I sang it all the time.  That, plus Livy's love of a beautiful piece of custom name artwork from Auntie Morah, led to this:

Yep, she's 19 months old and attempting to spell her own name.  Also, there is a poop joke in there, you lucky devils!

We also played with a smaller set of these foam letters a lot, at first in the tub and then out of the tub, where she'd randomly fish them from the dispenser lid of old, plastic wipes holder for me to identify.  My mother-in-law's preschool also had this toy (It wasn't this expensive when we bought it; there must be a new version that's cheaper), which Livy loved, and so I bought one for our house, too.  That, plus reading tons of alphabet books, both ours and those that we borrowed from the library, really helped cement her alphabet identification.

3.  Books, Books, Books.

Quality is good, but at this point quantity is better.  If you're going to read lots of books with your kids, then you need lots of books to read.  Although I am an admitted book snob (Sookie Stackhouse and Alexia Tarabotti notwithstanding), in the early days of Livy's book journey, I put no limits on what we read during the day.  The booty from a book shower at the school where I was teaching when pregnant with Liv got us off to a good start in building a children's library in our home, and my rampant bibliophilia has added to that library mightily.  Now that Livy has a keener understanding of narrative and plot, I'm starting to weed out the literary twaddle and replace it with more quality children's literature, specifically feminist picture books, Caldecott Award winners and nominees, and books about whatever scientific topic is currently piquing Livy's interest (mostly space, volcanoes, and snow/winter).  I buy from everywhere, but especially love finding books at thrift stores, yard sales, and used book stores.  Scholastic.com is a great resource for paperbacks and thematic packs of books, plus my mother-in-law's preschool benefits from our purchases.  We also bring home sacks of books from the library to enjoy, and I'll order particular favorites from Powells.com or Amazon.com (Having worked at the best children's bookstore in the world, Bank Street Bookstore, I realize that I should be ordering from them.  I will remedy this immediately.)  Out of print favorites from the library are easy to find on Abebooks.com.  If I'm feeling adventurous and have the time and patience to go browsing with Livy, we'll go to Secret Garden Books or Third Place Books, both of which have excellent children's sections.  

And so that's what has worked.  Now that Olivia is showing an enormous interest in learning how to read, which I have expertly discerned from her cryptic comments like "Mommy, would you please teach me how to read?," we're off into the world of direct instruction.  So, these aren't so much suggestions as mere peeks into our current practice.  I don't know if or how they'll work in the long run, but this is what we're doing.

1.  The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading.

So far, with some tweaking, I really like using this book.  It's a great, straightforward curriculum for teaching phonics at home.  We followed the plan strictly for learning short vowel sounds, and then veered away from it a bit since Livy already knew her consonant sounds.  Now we're back for learning three-letter words using those short vowel sounds, and it's working wonderfully.  It involves a lot of index cards, so we've invested in a few packs of those and a plastic envelope for containing them.  Beyond that, all it requires is the book - no special materials required.  Easy peasy.

2.  Bob Books

We used to sell the daylights out of these at Bank Street Bookstore, and I know why now.  They're fantastic for the little people using them to learn how to read and easy for the big people helping them to use.  Each book has an illustrated list of the letter sounds used in it (M has a moon next to it, etc.), so kids can tell right away which sounds to look out for.  The stories are not riveting for adults, except for the book with the line "Muff has nine rags," but Livy genuinely likes them.

3.  Homeschooling binder & activity books.

We just started this a couple of weeks ago, and it's more of a playtime toy at this point than a serious piece of instruction, but I've made Livy what I'm calling her homeschooling binder. Livy has a number of preschool-oriented workbooks, some gifts and two that I purchased on learning how to print, and I've torn out some of their pages and put them into page protectors within the binder.  With the page protectors over the worksheets, she can use them over and over again with whiteboard markers.  So far my only intention with these pages is to get her to practice her pencil grip and start controlling her pen strokes in preparation for learning how to write.  She thinks it's fun to use the whiteboard pens, and she gets in a few minutes of concentrated small motor practice a day.  If it works, we can continue to use it for the reading, writing, and math exercises included in the workbooks.  So far she likes "doing school" with her binder and seems to be controlling her writing grip better.  Liv also has a number of cheap activity books with dot-to-dots, puzzles, and mazes in them that she likes to do.  While they're clearly games, I consider them legitimate educational activities in that she practices her small motor skills while improving her concentration and perseverance (you'd better bet I don't let her leave pages half done).

4.  LeapFrog Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder

Santa got Livy this for Christmas, knowing that she loved the letter-based version of this, but the jury is still out.  Sometimes she plays with it, but she prefers to just make me write 3-letter words on index cards for her to carry around all day long.  We'll keep trying with it, but so far the verdict is an apathetic "meh."

Having written all of this, it seems like a lot.  It's not.  At all.  We do about 4 dedicated "lessons" a week, usually during breakfast, and each of those is about 5-10 minutes long.  No biggie whatsoever.

Best of luck, friends!  Happy reading!

Family Of Origin, Meet New Family: A Social Contract

Hi, friends!

I'm about to get into some touchy stuff here, so you'll have to pardon my atypical lack of inappropriate jokes and snarkiness.  You may not have heard, but I have a 2 year-old.  I was also, aside from a few fertile friends back east, on the vanguard of my cohort's procreation, which means that now I get to watch all of my buddies going through their own pregnancy and new parent experiences.  One universal experience, in addition to desperate exhaustion and sore nipples, is the challenge of managing relationships within couples' families of origin while forming their identity with their children as new families of their own.  And so, prompted both by recent conversations with my parent friends, whom I asked specifically for their stories, and recent questions from older family members and friends asking for advice on how best to engage with new parents in their lives, I give you this: A humble code of conduct for both new parents and their families of origin.  I'm sure I'm missing a lot here, and you're all welcome to add your own advice or stories in the comments.  But, after informally interviewing about a dozen friends, I've distilled their stories into a few pithy nuggets, hopefully to the benefit of families both new and established.

1.  It's all about communication.

Lots of people I talked to identified boundaries as the most important theme of blending new families with families of origin, but I disagree.  Differing notions of boundaries certainly did lead to conflict, but preceding the violation of people’s boundaries was nearly always flawed or nonexistent communication.  Most of the conflicts and rifts identified in my friends' stories involved miscommunication and, more commonly, a complete lack of communication between families of origin and new families.  People, you’ve got to talk this shit out before it hits the fan, so to speak.  New parents, just as you have a birth plan that you share with your delivery team, please form and share a visitation plan with your family.  Do you want your mom in the delivery room?  If so, then of course you’d ask her in advance.  Do you absolutely not want visitors at the hospital?  Then you should tell those most likely to visit in advance of the baby’s arrival that you want time alone to recover (if necessary, detail what exactly a fourth-degree tear or cracked nipple is) and bond with your new baby.  It’s hard to tell your parents, aunts, uncles, friends, and whatnots not to show up at the hospital with flowers and chocolates when all they want to do is visit your beautiful new baby, but it’s much, much harder to tell them to get the hell out when they’re already there.  Also, be clear on family visits’ beginnings and endings, hand-washing rules, and any other guidelines you’d like visitors to follow with your little one.  All reasonable people will be comforted by knowing exactly what’s expected of them during visits.  And for those who are unreasonable?  Well, cowboy- and –girl up, new parents, and stand up for your rights as the new sheriffs in town.

And, families of origin, please don’t think you’re walking away from this topic unscathed here.  For the love of all that is holy in both your family and the universe, YOU MUST ASK before you show up anywhere near the new family immediately before, during, or after the new child’s birth.  Yes, I know you’re excited about the new arrival, but this is some tender, private, and intensely personal stuff going on here.  Please, please respect that.  Ask before you show up at the hospital, ask before you show up at the house, and then listen to and obey the answers that you get.  You’ll have plenty of time to hold that little baby, and it’s much better to interact with the loving and grateful parents of a newborn than it is to endure the anger or passive-aggression of new parents who feel put-upon or, in one respondent’s word “victimized” by overbearing relatives. 

Alternately, if the new parents insist that it’s cool that you all visit and partake of miracle of new life, please don’t repeatedly ask “Are you sure?”  Take the new family at their word.  It’s exhausting trying to assuage the emotional fears of boundary-leery families of origin during a visit.  If you’re not sure of being there, family and friends, then say you’d rather visit later.  And on the flip side of that coin, new parents, please don’t force people to hold your newborn.  “Are you sure?” is often code for “I don’t wanna!,” and you have to respect others’ boundaries as much as you’d like your own respected.

Finally, because so many people had similar stories, let me make this one its own all-caps sentence.  DO NOT SURPRISE ANY NEW FAMILY WITH AN UNANNOUNCED VISIT.  No.  Just don’t.  I don’t care how delightful you anticipate it being, I promise that everyone loses in this scenario.

So, everybody, let’s agree to be clear, be fair, and be respectful during this time of joyful transition.  It’s what we’d do in interactions with casual acquaintances, so let’s afford these basic courtesies to our most beloved family members, too.

2.  It’s all about calories.

Everyone I spoke with – everyone – answered my request for advice on things that would most help new parents with a unanimous “Bring food!”  I couldn’t agree more.  I remember every single meal my family and friends brought to our home after Livy was born, and I’ve never been so grateful for chili, pasta sauce, and bean soup (Mom); Whole Foods haul, meatloaves, yummy chicken dish, and tomato and egg pie (Kirk & Katie); veggie lasagna (Edie & Michael); Pasta & Co. extravaganza (Nathan & Ruby); nummy Indian food (Katie & Jonathan); Israeli couscous & green salad (Morah); sandwiches & salad (Kathy & Omi); and more Cupcake Royale deliveries than I care to admit to (Jeremy & Krissie).  There.  See how I did that more than 2 years after the fact?  That’s because when you’re exhausted and don’t want to cook, injured (Oh, HI, enormous abdominal scar!) and can’t cook, and are nursing and want to eat all the damn time, food matters.  So if you go to visit a family with a new baby, you’d do well to bring some chow with you, and you’d do best to see what kind of chow your new friends want or crave.  Don’t bring meat to a vegetarian, and don’t bring a 9^th pasta dish to a family that’s choking on donated carbs.  Call, ask, and deliver.  And, no, friends, those calories are not for you.  You’re not going to a potluck; you are on a mission of mercy.  Go, drop off the food, say how beautiful the baby is, and take off.

Or, if you’re going for a gold star, before taking off ask what chores or errands the new family needs you to do or run.  That’s right; an offer to burn some calories for the happy family will be as appreciated as a direct delivery of calories to them, possibly more.  Hold the baby while Mom & Dad catch up on sleep or get out of the house for a while, or fold some laundry, do some dishes, take the dog for a walk, or the like.  Ask what the new parents need, and then give them what they ask for.  And, hey, new parents!  When people offer to help, let them!  Answer honestly if people ask you what you need help with!  The people who love you will be delighted to help you, and, admit it, you need the help. 

3.  It’s all about support.

One respondent to my informal interview said that a family member visiting her new little family to lend support told her how awful she had looked when she was in the hospital.  That’s not supportive.  Another friend wrote of how her mother-in-law compared her new grandchild to her other grandchild, the son of my friend’s brother-in-law.  That’s not supportive.  A family member told me that it was too bad that Livy got my (luminous!  glorious!) pale skin.  That’s not supportive.  A family committed to cloth diapering was told how stupid and wrong it is.  A mother working hard to breastfeed on demand was told that she was spoiling her child and should stop.  A mother who couldn’t breastfeed was told that she was depriving her child and should start (how exactly we haven’t yet determined).  Parents committed to comforting their child on demand are told to let their child cry it out, and parents letting their child cry it out are told to respond to the child on demand.  A mother of a colicky baby was given a dismissive lecture on how much harder it will be to raise her son when he’s a teenager.  That’s not supportive. 

What is supportive is helping new families make the parenting strategies they’ve decided on work for them.  Figure out how you can do that, and if you can’t do that then politely and silently remain a shoulder to cry and vent on.  Anyone can say “I know this is hard, but it won’t always be so difficult.”  Try that.  I promise that you’ll do more good that way than by responding to other people’s challenges with criticism.  And, as a rule of thumb, every new baby is gorgeous, every new mother is a pillar of strength, and every new father is a natural.  If you can’t find anything genuinely complimentary to say, then stick with “What a sweet baby!,” drop off a meal, and leave feeling like the hero the new family thinks you are.

4.  It’s all about family.

During times of great change, such as weddings, births, and funerals, it seems that family members either become their best selves or their worst selves.  Birth is a joyous crisis of sorts, a happy crucible through which families are permanently changed, and not every individual has the strength to endure this change gracefully.  So, people, do the best you can.  Resolve to be your best self and show up to be the best you can be to the people who most need it.  And, should someone fall short of your expectations, endeavor to forgive.  This is a tough time for everyone, but, as anyone can say, it won’t always be this tough.  There’s plenty of time to absorb these changes and settle into a new normal that’s so much sweeter for the new little person in it. 

(And if you really can’t forgive, feel free to comment anonymously here with your rants for us to enjoy.  Win-win!).

Buy Yourself That: Addition to the Emotion Coaching Funpak of Yore

Parenting peeps:  Remember that one time when I wrote about all of the emotion coaching materials I was accumulating and then surprisingly that became one of my most popular posts at the time?  Of course you don't! You're all too busy expertly coaching your children in identifying and managing their emotional lives!  But, lucky for you, I remember, and I have a new addition to that collection.

Usually I'm not a huge Sandra Boynton fan - when she hits (The Going to Bed Book and Barnyard Dance have wonderful rhythms, adorable illustrations, and a loyal following at Me Show HQ) she hits directly, but when she misses (But Not the Hippopotamus is so tragic that I don't know how it got through editing - poor armadillo!) she misses completely.  Because it's firmly on the side of the hits, Happy Hippo, Angry Duck might be a new favorite.

Duck, how can you be so angry when you're so very delicious?

What it lacks in the honky-tonk rowdiness of Barnyard Dance and the gentle lull of The Going to Bed Book it makes up for in great illustrations of different emotions for toddlers and preschoolers.  The simplicity of the title belies its inclusion of more nuanced feelings and the culminating message of acceptance of and help for unhappy kiddos is reassuring even to jaded old readers who should be above finding solace in cardboard books with fewer than 100 words.  I highly recommend it to all parents who'd rather their offspring learn to develop emotional maturity as children rather than amuse themselves with narcissistic blogging as adults.  By which I mean all parents everywhere.

Buy Yourself That: Emotion Coaching Funpak!

I think my bookgroup is reading John Gottman's Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child.  We haven't talked about it in weeks, but I finished it a while back and really learned a lot from it.  It's one of those parenting books that not only helps you become a better parent, but also has the potential to help make you a better person, too.  Its core message is one of helping your children identify and cope with their emotions by empathizing and strategizing with them.  The idea is simple, but it seems pretty rare in practice.  Empathy certainly isn't emphasized in schools (this book is a great read for teachers, too), and it appears to be a newer revelation in parenting given what I've seen on playgrounds, etc., where getting kids to stop feeling their feelings seems to be job one in teaching good behavior.  I highly recommend this book to teachers, parents, and caregivers.  It's a great one and sure to be useful in improving your relationships with kids and adults alike.

To go with this, I bought Todd Parr's Feelings Flash Cards for Livy to play with. 

I really like them because of the vocabulary they teach.  Rather than being limited to "happy" and "sad," the cards run the gamut of complicated and nuanced emotions in kid-friendly language (annoyed, worried, excited, and even ants-in-my-pants are represented on the cards).  She likes to flip the cards and look at the pictures, and I like that she's picking up on emotional language that we can use together in emotion coaching later on.  Plus, Todd Parr is a fantastically funny illustrator.  Shoot, he created one of my favorite children's books, Underwear Do's and Don'ts, so I'm happy to support his little empire.

If you want to start smaller with your little one, I also recommend Mrs. Mustard's Baby Faces by Jane Wattenberg, a fold-out book that has all happy baby faces on one side and all sad baby faces on the opposite side.  It's a wordless book, so you can tell the story of each baby or give each emotion a name on your own, but little babies love looking at the crisp, clear photos of other babies.  Olivia has loved (and mauled) this book since I bought it when she was about 3 months old, and it's always a favorite of other kids during playdates, too.  She sometimes points to the sad babies and makes sad faces herself and smiles with the happy babies, showing that she's learning empathy or playing with expressions of her own emotions, either of which is useful in fostering emotional intelligence.

So, there you have it!  You can take the teacher out of school, but you can't take the school out of the teacher.  I didn't mean to spend this year developing curriculum, but it sneaks up on me all the time and I only realize that I've done it after it's done.  Enjoy the fruits of my obsessive labors, friends!

Wherein I Turn So Sentimental That I Grow a Second Vagina

Regardless of my reputation for being acerbic at best and a huge freaking bitch at worst, I've always loved this poster (available tons of places - you do the research):

I particularly like that the sentiment is not expressed as a directive, but rather as a mere statement of fact.  Thus, my oppositional side isn't incited by some strange do-gooder poster telling it what to do, and the angels of my better nature can peek through the hazy pall cast by the demons of my bitchery.  It is nice to be nice, and life is so much more pleasurable when we can access the parts of ourselves that are able to agree and act in accordance with this truth.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Plato's often repeated quote "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," particularly in my fragility following Kylie's death.  When store clerks are nasty to me, I want to tell them what has happened to our family just so that they know that they're being rude to a person with a heart and not some abstract defined as "customer."  Likewise, I've found myself striving for empathy and compassion in a more meaningful way, because I can't know or tell who in my casual daily encounters is in pain or is struggling with something greater than I can imagine.

I've noticed that crucibles endured and rubicons crossed can bring out either the best or the worst in people.  Weddings, births, deaths, moves, victories, and failures all bring with them opportunities to rise to the occasion or to plummet to far below the occasion's demands.  This observation has borne itself out predictably during the past month, and I've been amazed at the generosity and understanding of some people and shocked by the thoughtlessness of others. 

And so, unlike the gentle reminder provided by the poster above, I'm just going to go ahead and beg you, internets and world in general, to let trying circumstances bring out the best in you.  Being kind, warm, and understanding is not a weakness, and being selfish, cynical, and cold is not a strength.  There is always a moment of choice preceeding an action, and in that moment is always an opportunity to act for good.  So, please consider this uncomfortably earnest plea in those moments as you encounter them.  You'll be happier, and I'll give you a gold star if you do.

For inspiration, watch this (via Mightygirl via someone else).  See?  It's nice to be nice!

Wash After Reading

Here's a little Me Show public service announcement for all of my devoted readers.

Today, as Livy and I were enjoying the lovely weather at the lake we saw a man riding a bicycle in front of us with a paperback book shoved deep into the back of his pants.  There was no evidence of underwear (wasitband on the book, etc.), and I think it is safe to assume that the only thing between him and his Calvins was his paperback.  Just imagining the friction between the glossy paper cover and his sweaty cheeks as he pumped the pedals gives me shivers.  And, friends, on that paperback was a large sticker indicating that it is part of the current collection of the Seattle Public Library.

That's right.  It's now a butt book.

Unfortunately, it's not this kind of butt book.  (Also, Non-Cellulite is not an adjective.)

So, as a loyal user of the Seattle Public Library, I am now resolving to wash my hands after reading shared material, and I think you should, too.  Because the last thing you need along with your community-supported collective knowledge is E-coli.

Keep on the Sunny Side

Hello, friends!  Olivia Lee here with another message of wisdom and optimism for our hectic, troubled times.

We live in a culture with a lot of cliches and proverbs about surviving bad times.  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  We like acknowledging our hassles and minor agonies and then immediately dismissing them as insignificant.  It gives us the satisfaction of having complained without the bad reputation of being complainers.  It's everywhere.  We love turning that frown upside down.  Shoot, this idea has even infected our popular music.  After all, mama said there'd be days like this because sometimes you kick, and sometimes you get kicked.

Me?  I've never been kicked, but I do poop my pants a lot.  And sometimes, just sometimes, I barf my eye.

A clockwork ecru

Now that is a disappointing way to wake up from a nap, yes?  This could be a real day-ruiner, yes?  NO!  No, friends.  I easily could have let this embarrassing and unsavory moment infect the rest of my day with its humiliating disgustingness, but I'm stronger than that.  After all, I come from a land of plucky aphorisms.  This is just the kind of adversity we like to face head-on and then immediately blow off once it's passed, especially when the experience can be summed up into a pithy phrase.

Everything's gonna be all right... No baby no cry

So, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, brushed myself off, and got back on my proverbial horse! The day was redeemed, and Mama even helped ease my troubled tummy by dressing me up as Pepto Bismol since she couldn't actually give me any.

Blush and bashful - pink is my signature color

So, follow my example, friends, the next time you encounter obstacles!  Be resilient!  Be brave!  Rub some dirt on it and rally!  Olivia Lee believes in you!

Away We Go!

I promised a post about traveling with an infant, and here it is.  Please take any and all advice held within with an enormous grain of salt.  We have done this only once, and we have a generally magical baby who is rarely upset and is very easy to calm.  So, we had a great experience, but the odds were stacked in our favor by Olivia's easygoing demeanor.  We also could have just had lots of dumb luck, too.

I took lots of advice from Mightygirl's blog posts on traveling with children here and here, much of which came from the comments following each actual post.  If you're planning on taking your little one flying, you'd do well to at least read these over.  Her plans are so detailed that they seem daunting, at least they did to me before we left, but when put into practice they really do help.

So, without further ado, here's SLB's and my advice for flying with an infant.  Aaaaaaaaaaand GO!

1.  Get there early, but be prepared to wait.

With fears of crotch-bomber-inspired intimate glovings dancing in our heads, we arrived at least 2 hours early for both of our flights.  Then we cleared security within about 15 minutes each way and had some valuable hangout time in the Seattle and Maui airports.  This actually wasn't so bad.  Given how much extra time it takes to do everything with a baby, like bathroom trips (SLB goes while I watch the baby, I take the baby in to change her diaper, SLB watches her while I go back in to the ladies' room to wash my hands and go - at least 10 minutes JUST TO EMPTY OUR BLADDERS) and eating (she lingers over her bottles as she likes to luxuriate in the sensory pleasures of powdered, reconstituted synthetic breastmilk), these extra hours can come in handy.  I was surprised in both airports how quickly the "extra" time passed.

2.  Bring a baby carrier in addition to gate checking your stroller and/or carseat.

We have an Ergo baby carrier that we loved when Olivia was a newborn, then couldn't use because she was in between the newborn- and sturdy-baby-carrying capabilities, and now love again that she's bigger.  We stowed this in a backpack in the airport while we pushed her in her stroller before boarding the plane.  Then, on the plane, we were able to take turns holding her in her baby carrier both standing and bouncing when she was unhappy and seated while she slept on us.  This way we could keep our hands free to eat and read while she snoozed snuggled next to us.

Here's a good shot of the Ergo and me being an idiot.  "We are two mariners / our ship's sole survivors / in this belly of a whaaaaaaale!"

3.  Overpack necessities and keep them with you.

Right before we left I filled a plastic container with a few bottles' worth of "extra" formula and brought an "extra" clean bottle with us.  We used all of that formula and the additional clean bottle on the way to Maui.  I hate to think of what would have happened if I hadn't grabbed these things at the last minute or if I had tossed them in with the checked baggage.  My advice would be to keep at least a full 24 hours' worth of diapers, wipes, medicines, food, and feeding implements on you as you travel.  If you're hesitant to do this, imagine being one of the people held hostage on the tarmac by airlines.  See how much you WANT to bring those extra wipes now?  Yeah, you do.

4.  Also pack these seemingly nonessential essentials and keep them with you.

Pack extra clothing for you and your partner.  Poop, barf, and pee come easily flying out of your baby and onto your person.  You don't want to wear that all day long on the plane, and people sitting around you don't want to smell that on you all day long, either.  An extra shirt apiece ought to do it.

Additionally, remember that airplanes are FILTHY places.  I was so glad to have packed Clorox wipes in a baggie so that I could disinfect our armrests and tables before we sat down, and I was happy to have a trio of thin receiving blankets to place over the backs of our seats for Livy to touch instead of the airplane upholstery.

5.  Be nice to people.

We were extremely blessed with warm and friendly TSA agents on our way to Maui and benignly indifferent ones on the way back to Seattle.  Regardless of the reception our efforts received, we went out of our way to make processing us through security as pleasant and easy for them as possible.  I declared all suspicious materials (bottled water, bottles filled with medicine-treated filtered water for bottles, powdered formula, etc.) immediately upon arriving at the conveyor belt, and we had our system for getting all of our belongings onto and off of the belt as quickly as possible pretty down pat.  We also made it very, very clear that we had never done this before by stating it to anyone who would listen.  That way no one expected us to be very good at it, and we scored lots of extra help from sympathetic TSA moms and dads at security and gate agent moms and dads later when we were boarding the plane.

6.  Understand that TSA, although a federal agency, is not uniform among states.

Yes, it's asinine.  In Seattle the agents had no problem with me bringing baby bottles of water for formula through security.  They had some kind of exterior test they performed that proved that Livy's bottles wouldn't kill us all, performed it quickly, and had my bottles back to me before I could get my shoes back on.  In Maui the agents had NO IDEA what to do about these bottles and, after much conferring over whether to confiscate them or not, ran them through the metal detector.  Nope!  No metal in those clear bottles of water!  Thanks for checking, guys.  Now, a lesser version of myself, or perhaps just one not desperate to make traveling with an infant as easy as possible, would have launched on those jokers like SLB on a feast of cookies and bourbon.  But I was ready for the asininity, and so I was able to smile at it instead of losing my composure.  For once.

7.  Dress comfortably.

Yes, I gave up a piece of my soul when I boarded the plane in yoga pants and a hooded sweatshirt, but it was worth it.  Since I wound up spending hours strapped in a waist-buckled baby carrier and seatbelt, I'm so glad I didn't have an additional belt and buttoned waistband to negotiate.  The marsupial pouch of my sweatshirt came in handy, too, as a convenient and relatively clean receptacle for burp rags and baby toys.  I was not pretty, but I was able to withstand the discomfort of traveling with a baby strapped to me just fine.

8.  Rent baby stuff.

We rented a Pack-n-Play and an exersaucer from an independent baby-crap-rental agency instead of packing travel equivalents of her usual furniture and toys.  It was so worth it.  It set us back about $40 for the week, but saved us hours of discomfort in traveling with extra pounds of baby gear.

So, there you have it!  Be bold, friends!  Traveling with Livy took extra care and attention to detail, but I'm so glad we put forth the effort to go to travel with her instead of passing it off as too difficult to manage.  Sure, it could have been awful, and we were ready for that.  But then it wasn't.  Then it was AWESOME instead.  Huge win!

Salud!  Congratulations on your huge win, baby!

Cybill Shepherd Was Right: You're Worth It

Hello, friends!  Olivia Lee here with a message of love and self-care this holiday season.

As those whose mamas and daddies aren't grinches can attest, this is a wonderful time of year.  It's a time of year where we open ourselves up to emotional vulnerability and share our love and gratitude for our family, friends, and fellow man.  But, dear readers, do you show such love and gratitude for yourself?  Hear me out (come closer, I have wisdom to share with you):

I know how it goes.  Really, I do.  You spend all this time and money and effort buying thoughtful gifts for those closest to your heart.  You bake and cook until your burned, blistered, wounded hands can no longer take it so that you can nourish your family and friends.  You nurture holiday traditions for your family at the cost of time spent nurturing your own soul and spirit.  I know how it is.  The things you do for others are remarkable.

But you deserve love, nourishment, and nurturing, too.  So, go ahead.  Pour yourself a stiff top-shelf drink.  Buy yourself that nice box of chocolates you were eyeing for your mother-in-law and eat it all by yourself.  Take a long bubble bath with the swanky bath products you were saving for your Secret Santa.  You do so much for so many others.  Now is the time to do right by yourself.  You'll be surprised how much more festive you feel when you treat yourself as well as you treat your loved ones.

Take me, for example. 

Now, I know my worth.  Lately I've been starting the beginning stages of teething, which, I don't need to tell you good readers, is a serious bitch.  Mom offers me lots of teething options: water-filled rings, gummy-winged toy bugs, satin-rimmed chewing blankets, and even, God love her, her own fingers.  These are good options - they really are - but they are not the best.  So, do I take these good options, sigh, and call it good enough?  Hell no, people!  I don't settle for less than the best, and the best is Mama's shoulder.  Deeeeeeeelicous.  When that lady offers any of her second-tier chewing options, I politely remind her through my screaming and flailing that only the best will do for me this holiday season, and she'd better get a new burp cloth on that thing right quick, too.

So, take my advice, friends.  This season of giving, give to yourself.  This season of caring, care for yourself.  This season of loving, love yourself.  You, like me, are the reason for the season.