Semana Santa 2013 - Or - Honey, I'll try not to kill the kids

Lili will be off school all week and the following Monday for Holy Week (Semana Santa) and Easter, while Oliver will still be working most of those days, Therefore, it is time for some organization so we have fun rather than end the week in some sort of murder-suicide situation. (PS - I love my children.)

Thus, the 'What I want to do in Semana Santa' poster we made today.

Item 1: Shadow puppets!

We did our first funtastic Semana Santa thing today: shadow puppets! Never really done these before but was inspired some time ago by a scene from he TV show Community, which I cannot seem to find online anywhere :(

A quick search of Google on 'How to make shadow puppets' gave us this video
http://puppetry-arts.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-shadow-puppets-4495/

which provided some very handy tips. Then we improvised with what we had around the house, finally using newspaper pasted together into layers, for added thickness, to create the bodies and bamboo skewers we've had in the kitchen for about 100 years as the sticks. A baby blanket I can't bear to throw away even though no one uses it anymore was our screen.

After a looong time cutting and a very short time rehearsing, Lili and I did the show below for Oliver.

Note: Hidden in our iPad is take 1 of this little show, which ends abruptly when one of the puppeteers burns herself on the lightbulb. 

Word wall -or- Oh my gosh, a post!

It's been a while...and is time we post something here!

What's new is the Word Wall. Funny thing about living in another country is that even though Lily will come out of this thing speaking three languages, if we don't help her out, she won't be able to read or write English :(

Thus, the Word Wall.

Lily and I started working our way through the Dolch Word List a few weeks ago. To get her psyched, we started by making a pretty mosaic poster for our wall. Then got down to learning.

A few days a week, sometimes before school, sometimes after dinner, we pick a word from the current group we're on, sound it out, then cut letters and pretty colorful things out of magazines to make a card for that word. It then gets stuck on the wall.

Then, from time to time we'll randomly ask Lily to grab a word off the wall and bring it to us, and we ask her to sound it out to prove it's the right word. She can also send us to get words. We've also started making silly phrases by putting the cards on the floor and changing their order.

Lily was not initially impressed by the 'learning something new' aspect of the task. The first time I tried to get her to sit down and look at the word list and sound things out, she was pissed. I actually had to be all mean mom and say "You're going to sit here and learn letter sounds or go sit in your thinking chair!" - I'm sure that's standard practice in pedagogy. In any case, as soon as she worked out the first word ('cat'), she was so pleased that we've rarely had to revisit that phase. In any case, I try to keep the 'sessions' to 10 minutes or less, and often to just a few seconds so she doesn't get bored and resentful...though I'm sure we'll have to keep varying the activities every few week, or she will anyway.

Any other ideas on teaching phonics, reading or writing?

We haven't really ventured too much into writing because my Lil gets hot headed. I can remember my sister trying to teach me borrowing in Math and how I screamed at her 'No, you CAN'T DO THAT!' when she 'took' 10 from one column and put it in the next....so really, have no idea where Lily could get this stubborn thing from.

Anyway, she can write all the letters, but getting her to make words is like [insert simile about how difficult something is here].

3-year-old therapy sessions

I've said it for 10 months now: I hope with the next kid, I can just birth a 3-year-old.

Lily's just so fun, inquisitive and thoughtful. Using Stephen Covey's old "talking stick" method really works on her and if I just shut up, it's amazing the deep thoughts that come out.

The best recent example relates to her school life. I try to encourage Lily to talk about "nice kids" and "naughty kids" to get her thinking about what actions she likes people to do to her and which she doesn't, if the "naughty kids" are "bad" or just having a bad day, what she can do to help the "naughty kids", and when to just leave them be. Usually when we're snuggling in bed, or at dinner, I'll ask who made her happy and who made her cross today at school.

Observations she has made on her own include,

"Marcel gets sad when his mummy isn't there. He's scared and then he hits. I don't like it, but he's just not happy."

"Gerard (her best friend) hit me today on the playground. I was playing with Valeria (her friend from music class), so I think he was just jealous. I told him no and he went away."

A commonplace event on the Spanish playground is that kids shout "malo!" or "mala!" at each other, which means "BAD!". I really don't like this one and Lil says it from time to time when someone commits a minor transgression against her. When she was talking about Marcel, I brought this up, asking:

"If Marcel is feeling sad about his mom, so he hits someone, what will he feel when someone calls him "malo"? Will he feel better, or sadder?" I mimed sad body language, slumped shoulders and sad face when I did it, and got even slumpier at the "malo" part.

This seemed to drive the point home and her face went really serious. "No, he'd feel sadder," Lily responded grimly. We left it at that, so I suppose it will stew until the next time it's relevant.

Prenatal Class This, Tool

For those of you who understand the reference made in the preceding title, way to go on having seen the movie Bring It On way too many times. Perhaps we can discuss your becoming a Godparent candidate. ..

For all other people out there, you should know that Oli and I had a very successful weekend of prenatal classes. Our nurse educator was chilled out and all natural. No psycho suggestions of super cleansing, although she did bring up nipple confusion. To my exteme delight, she suggested that babies really only need to be fully bathed 3 times a week. Anyone who knows me will immediately understand my glee; I've always been an "if you're just going to get dirty again, why bother?" person (within reason!). Overall, I now fully trust the Advocate Christ Hospital nursing staff to take care of baby, me and even Oli a little.

We engaged in the classic sitting-on-pillows breathing routine and watched several videos that showed educational clips of what different types of baby feces look like and of what to do when your baby is driving you crazy (pass him/her off to your partner and leave the house). Of course, the coup de grâce was the video entitled "Deborah's Delivery" in which we saw one gracious woman's labor from home to delivery. Kindly, there was no screaming, despite Deb's choice to go sin drogas, but Oli and I were both pretty depressed for poor old Deb when after 6 hours of breathing through contraction after contraction, the girl was only at 5cm waiting to open 5 more! Hours later when it was time to push and Deb felt she had nothing left to give, her super hero parter encouraged her through 'til that baby girl popped out and had her first feed. I have to say Deb's delivery was an exemplary demonstration of how to offset the whole pain-fear-tension cycle, as seen above.

As for our own labor and delivery, prenatal class has made us aware of the options available to us regarding delivery positions and now I'm considering the squatting position over the supine postion; we'll talk to Dr. Doah about it. And sorry to anyone who will now have nightmares of me squatting out a baby. Shame on me.

340 New Things That Could Kill Your Baby...

...and 470 things you can buy to save him.

Halloween has just passed us, but if you didn't get in enough thrills and chills over the holiday weekend, I have good news: just pick up a copy of Parents magazine and you're sure to have your pants scared right off!

In all seriousness, I gave this magazine a fair trial period, but I just can't handle being told things like:

-Bring sanitizing wipes with you to the pediatrician's waiting room and wipe down any vinyl surfaces before touching; avoid upholstered surfaces as they cannot be sanitized

-Limit your children's trick-or-treating time so they don't collect too much candy; try having your child trade you half of their Halloween candy for a small non-edible gift

Not to go all old fogey, but when I was a kid we licked all the toys in the doctor's office, ate chocolate 'til our eyes crossed, got sick, and then got better. Pure exaggeration, of course, but seriously, if we give our kid good real food and don't let her kiss little boys with smallpox too often, I bet she'll be healthy more often than she's unhealthy and won't resent us for wiping her down bi-hourly and tricking her into giving away her candy.

If you want a peek at Parents, try out this article on preparing one's family for a biochemical terror assault, written by none other than Senator Bill Frist, M.D.

~ Angela

Modern-day Dad Defends His Cubs in Urban Jungle

Modern times being what they are and we living the middle-class urban and suburban lives that we do, one might be tempted to feel that living is almost too easy, that it's no big thing to make it; we're supposed to make it. It's easy to feel wimpy in the light of romantic film scenes where pioneer dads, in times when men were not just executives but also men...with guns, fight off pillagers to protect their families. But I suppose not everyone can be a pioneer, nor unfortunate enough to encounter pillagers, nor brave enough to even touch a gun much less wield one. So in these times of comfort and good fortune, one must take up arms against the corporate and bureaucratic foes left to us and feel tough doing it.
Which brings me to my Oliver, who I daily admire more and more for his ferocious Modern Dad Skills.
It begins with negotiation, turns to bullshitting and no matter what, ends with Oli winning. From getting discounts by simply suggesting that cashiers at Old Navy give us the sale price when our item is clearly not on sale, to demanding that we not just counter offer but also counter counter offer when negotiating housing contracts, to telling Chicago British Consulate personnel that he has been summoned to them by the American Embassy in London in order to bypass the whole "must have an appointment to enter" rule, he is a man on a quest to save money, get a home, obtain a visa and ultimately, use that visa to legally spend more than 90 days in said home taking care of his baby and woman.
When not tearing Corporate America and bureaucratic institutions a new one, Oliver takes time to practice his bowling skills at the UIC lanes where he is known as Cosmic Oli. Today I met him for lunch there where we discussed his Consular victory and just as I left to return to work, he scored a strike for me and baby, adding another name to his list of conquered foe.
~ Angela