Tippy Toes and Tantrums

She May Be on the Naughty List

Santa's response when Clover said she wanted a computer and a Nintendo DS for Christmas. Even Rocket looked stunned. I think Clover may be disappointed come Christmas morning.

No Love Bugs

His other love: the tire swing

A note to Rocket's future girlfriends: he'll do anything for cake. All men have their price, his is homemade lemon cake. Lemon cake is such an odd thing for a kid to like anyway, shouldn't cake only have chocolate frosting and sprinkles in the world of a three year old? When I decided to make the cake to use up our lemons, Rocket held my hand while I made the batter. It was a sweet gesture, but also annoying to crack eggs and shift flour while holding the hand of a little person. When I appeared to forget he was there, Rocket stepped up his game. He tenderly kissed my hand over and over, saying soulfully, "I love you so much...(long pause)...cake ready yet?" When he wants something, the kid lays it on thick. He dropped his suave demeanor and started squealing and jumping up and down after the oven beeped. The poor kid was crushed when I told him it was the preheating signal and that the baking was only beginning. "I'm sorry, love bug," I said. "DO NOT call me a love bug!" he barked. His sweetness returned when the cake emerged from the oven. "You are the nicest mommy...I love you so much...is the cake ready for eating now?"

Rocket was forced to be the brave one today when the nurse walked in holding the flu vaccines for the kids. "Who's going first?" Without looking up from her book, Clover pointed to Rocket. She made her little brother go first. He took them both (Flumist up the nose and seasonal flu shot in the arm) like a champ, saying ow, but mostly excited by the bunny on his Band-Aid. Clover started crying...as soon as Rocket's shot was finished. A needle wasn't anywhere near her, but there she was, blubbering away. She cried until she got the shot, then abruptly stopped and said, "That wasn't that bad." But then she started crying again after deciding she liked Rocket's Band-Aid better than hers. I laughed, even though that usually makes her mad, but some days laughter is the only thing saving me from running away to Mexico. (That and my fear of getting Montezuma's revenge...again.)

Goal Oriented

Tell your grandchildren to save the date for a grand re-opening party because the environment will be fully restored by 2088!

The Brownie troop did timelines the other day where one side of the paper was ages one through seven, where the girls wrote the highlights or memories from that age, and the other side was ages 10-80 (by tens) where the girls predicted what they'd be doing then. Clover threw a tantrum at the start of the exercise, partially because she was overtired, but also because she was upset that being the youngest, she was the only girl not yet seven and without something to write on that line. I didn't appear that the tantrum was going to end before her birthday later this month, so I was tempted to write "I cried" under age seven, but we decided to leave it blank.

Clover's future includes owning a wallet and her own phone when she's in her 20s, being a forensic "sientist" by age 30, then becoming a mom and "still a forensic sientest," by 40. Kevin asked me if I thought the "still..." was a dig at me for quitting my job to "only" be a mom. At age 50, Clover will do fun crafts with kids, age 60 "protetect the enviorment," age 70 start being a grandma and spend time with grandchildren, all ending at age 80 when she'll "finesh proteckting envirment."

One of Clover's friends plans to start jogging at 40. The same girl will "probably get the flu" at age 70.

The good news: at least I don't need to worry about buying Clover a cell phone or a wallet for another 13+ years.

Keep Your Child Safe on the Internet By Not Freaking Out

It is highly, highly unlikely anyone is going to track down your young child from a picture on the internet or a blog post to do them any harm. The message given to mom bloggers during an internet safety talk reminded me of when I took newborn Clover to the pediatrician. I was worried about everything - is she going to roll her tightly swaddled body over in her bassinet and suffocate? will one of our dogs sit on her, causing her to suffocate? will she grow or is she going to be a little person? - until her doctor calmly said, "Rare things happen...rarely." I have repeated that to myself numerous times as a parent and it's been surprisingly effective at calming me down. I went into the internet safety talk sponsored by Leapfrog expecting to be told that the photos of my kids would end of on some pervert's site and that anyone with Google and a few minutes could figure out sensitive information, such as where they go to school, from info put out on my blog. Thankfully the message I took from the Leapfrog talk was to calm down.

Pedophiles after young kids are not likely targeting them online because if a young child is on the computer, they generally (hopefully!) have a parent nearby, according to internet safety expert Larry Magid. Adolescents have more privacy, therefore are the more likely target for a predator, but even that risk has been exaggerated a bit. Online solicitation of adolescents is much more likely to come from other teens than the creepy man snagged on Dateline NBC. There are bigger online concerns, such as too much screen time, commercialism, cyberbullying, accidental porn exposure, sexting...the list goes on.

The bigger concerns come as children get older, but as with most things, it's best to lay the foundation for the bigger talks now, when children (at least my children) are younger. If you see something that bothers you, say a violent or otherwise inappropriate advertisement, tell you kids why you are bothered by it. Magid used an example of song lyrics, saying his children could listen to any music they wanted, but in the car when everyone could hear it. When listening to Eminem with his daughter, he asked her about the misogynistic lyrics and gently pushed her somewhat acceptance of the word bitch and other descriptions. She blew it off at the time, but years later she told him she thought he was right. The point was that kids are listening, even when they disagree.

Magid's quick age/computer privacy guideline looks like this:
ages 2-4 - be with them when they are on the computer
ages 4-7 - be close by, check in
ages 10-12 - managed independence
ages 12-14 - privacy concerns, make sure kids aren't oversharing, etc.

One thing that surprised me was that we should put a filtering program on our computers now, even though Clover is only six years old. Clover gets very little computer time - and Rocket gets zero, despite always yelling out "pbskids.com" or just adding "dot com!" to the end of random sentences - and I'm always nearby, but Magid talked about something I'd never thought about before: accidental exposure to porn or other adult sites. Accidental exposure tends to be more damaging and upsetting than stuff sought out by older kids and teens, according to Magid. Everything has controls, from game consoles to cell phone - though it may not be advertised by carriers. There are controls that block sites or just prevent your phone number from being entered online. However, Magid is not a fan of stealthy monitoring. He said it should always be out in the open, so your kids know what you are concerned about and what you're looking out for. He suggested that parents prepare for that moment when the software detects something you find inappropriate and he didn't mean when you find your teenage son looking at naked women because if that comes as a shock, wake up (my point, not Magid's). He said there's a lot of violence in porn and just stuff that not everyone thinks is appropriate to act out as an adult and you should have a plan to discuss when you find something you don't like, generally through a quick, casual conversation where you explain why you think it was inappropriate. His advice was not to overreact, which is something I find hard in almost all situations.

The presentation from the talk can be downloaded here: www.safekids.com/mommy.ppt.

Spanking Always Fails

Kevin came across the Fail Blog recently and found this picture of the Spankme Building in San Mateo. Clover's first French teacher had an office there where she held a nighttime Christmas performace. Once at the building, I remember giving Kevin directions from my cell phone, "It's in the (whisper) Spankme Building." Kevin couldn't hear me, so he kept saying, "the what?" Through gritted teeth, I kept saying "the Spankme Building," while trying to keep my voice low. In a way, I made myself look worse, all huddled in a corner, eventually spitting "SPANKME!" into a cell phone. 

The building's right around the corner from the amazing Sibby's cupcakes, and when I drive by twice a year or so, I always cringe.