I found this amusing. When Emma was a baby one of the few things that calmed her was listening to U2 music. That probably had something to do with the fact that I was listening to the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album nonstop around the time she was born. I guess I need to play more music these days to get Aidan hooked as well.

We're museum members, so I generally take Emma there on weekdays after lunch (when it's not crowded). There's generally mostly moms and grandparents there with kids, and a respectable number of dads letting the kids play. I had never been on a Saturday before and from my aloof pregnancy observation post I was intrigued by the new variety of visitor present. At the risk of gender stereotyping, I will call him the "Engineer/CEO Dad."* The take charge and achieve perfection sort of dad. This is the dad who works a traditional schedule and so would never show up mid-week with the work-at-home, stay-at-home, flexible schedule dads. From what I typically see, most other parents at the museum might explain a certain exhibit to a kid, but they then let the kid play. The Engineer/CEO Dad jumped right in. Not to play with their kid per se, but to figure out how everything worked and to show their kid the right way to do things. If the kid was building a track for a ball to cascade down, the dad would jump in to improve on the design so it worked better. If the kid was building a tower of blocks, the dad would insist on strengthening the foundation so it wouldn't fall. The drums had to be played in rhythm and the manipulable shapes had to be made into a recognizable design. If their kid couldn't handle it, the dad did it for them.

I was fascinated. At first I was a bit annoyed – the point is about letting the kids discover things for themselves! Then I was convicted about how much I step-in to prevent Emma from having to struggle as she learns. Then I started to wonder about how much we as the church step in to prevent fellow Christians from struggling to figure things out for themselves. We want people to have all the right answers and especially the right theology. So instead of encouraging questions and self-discovery, we spoon feed answers. Not that I'm against education, but like these dads we assume we need to take charge of other people's spiritual journey. But will that actually help them learn or develop a deep faith? Or does it just lead them to parrot answers they don't really believe because they know those are the "right answers"? If we think allowing kids to discover things for themselves is good pedagogy, then why don't we allow the for the same when it comes to spiritual formation?

*(I am sure that dads who are Engineers (hi dad) and CEOs are great dads and that there are a lot of moms who act this way too… just observing what I saw)

She looks a bit more demure in her birthday party pictures below with her pigtails, jumper, and yes, birthday tiara. She was very specific on what she wanted for her birthday this year – Dora hats, pizza, cake, and dancing. All which are documented below. Enjoy

Emma informed me today that she wants a purple balloon for Christmas. Thankfully, this has been the only "I want" from her so far. I hope it stays that way. The funny thing is that out of all the crazy stuff she could be desiring, a purple balloon might just be hard to find. Why? Because of the current helium shortage around the world.

We are currently at that stage in life where people offer my child a balloon seemingly wherever we go. At the grocery store, at the haircut place. It honestly drives me nuts, but I'm not going to be the evil mom who takes away the balloon after the salesperson has already given it to my child because I think it is environmentally wasteful and is the number one choking hazard for children. No I just give in and let Emma have the stupid balloon. But recently I've noticed that the balloons hardly last a few hours in float mode. Apparently because of the helium shortage (and balloons being low on the helium priority list) people are filling the balloons with mostly air and just enough helium for a few hours lift.

So party balloons and free balloons at the stores might soon be a thing of the past. I personally would be quite happy to not have to fight the balloon battle every time we go to Trader Joe's. But that still leaves Christmas and the purple balloon issue. Will I pay premium helium prices and buy my daughter something I hate? Or perhaps I'll just cross my fingers and hopes she forgets about it. I think she also expects for there to be snow at Christmas. While that isn't outside the realm of possibilities here in Chicago, this might end up being a good year to teach the whole expectation versus reality distinction…

Tags: Helium, Balloon

I am so sick of being faced with gender specific assumptions when I get anything for Emma. The whole pink and blue thing is everywhere – it's hard to avoid exposing her to the idea that pink=girls and blue=boys. All the clothes are pink and purple covered in flowers, hearts, princesses, or ballet shoes. And now the sippy cups get involved too. So what does it matter that I let her use the blue=academic/intellectual cup? She knows that the pink one is for girls and so sees that girls are associated with tea parties and flowers while boys are associated with learning and school. I'm sure people will say that I'm overreacting and am too sensitive, but I'm just finding it really difficult to avoid imparting to my daughter oppressive gender roles. Does the world really have to promote cultural stereotypes on freaking sippy cups? This gets more annoying everyday…

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
Your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Copyright © 1978 by Margaret Atwood.

I love that poem – the simplicity that hints at the vast complexity of language and knowledge. Teaching words to a child – naming the world and defining the boundaries. At this stage it feels like I am restricting Emma's world. This word, this symbol, is this. Eye, hand, rain. The words are the thing itself. We struggle through this, this naming of things.

Emma – What happened to the mouse?
Me – The mice?
Emma – No, mouse.
Me – When there are more than one, they are called mice.
Emma – No, that's not nice. Mouse.

Mice and Nice. We're working on that one. The naming continues. Words are what she knows and there is power in words. I define the world for her, answer her "what is it?" question with a name – the right answer. Abstract words are harder. She knows saying please is associated with getting what she wants, but hasn't quite realized that it isn't a magical spell one casts that always results good things. She orders her world with the phrases she knows. She's heard Dora when getting on a boat say "lifejackets – so we can be safe" enough times that as she played with her Noah's Ark toy recently each animal had to put on a lifejacket before entering the ark. Words define, they set boundaries, they are secure.

But I see her from time to time breaking free of the constraints of language I have set for her. She is discovering the power to create with language – to be involved in her own process of naming. Tonight the space under the table became the realm of Puddleduck where the caped hero Gobbleguck attempted to escape from lions, tigers, dinosaurs and the mommy tickle monster. The world is not flat in reality, language does define and constrain, but there is still the power to create. Perhaps with just these nine colors we can create infinite shades.

So this is what it means to be a mom…

Yesterday Mike was watching Emma down in the basement while I got to take an uninterrupted shower. As I was getting dressed, I hear them come upstairs and Emma is screaming hysterically. I run out to find her wailing with her hands wrapped up inside of her shirt. Whenever she gets hurt she wraps up the hurt in a blanket or something, so I knew something must have happened to her hands. Mike had no clue what had happened. He had seen her pulling one of the toy bins off the shelf then hide her hands and start screaming. It took a long time for us to extract her hands as she thrashed, and kicked, and flailed about so as to ascertain that there were no visible cuts or bites. Had she broken something? Sprained something? I started rocking her and singing to her to calm her down. After about the 300th verse of Itsey Bitsey Spider, she fell asleep with her hands still clutched tightly under her shirt. She slept for a couple of hours and awoke still hiding her hand and refusing to let us see them. At this point I was wondering if we should go to the ER or something. Finally we tempted her with mac n' cheese and she eventually started using her hands again. We kept trying to ask her what had happened, but she wouldn't say anything. Nothing appeared to be wrong with her hands, so by this point we were really mystified. After lunch I tried to take her back downstairs to play and she freaked out again. knowing that something downstairs had hurt or scared her, (evil parents that we are) we picked her up and took her downstairs. Once down there, she crawled up on the couch, clutched her hands, and started screaming about a snake. We went to the basket she had pulled out earlier and sure enough there was a rubber snake in it. Mike had to make a big scene about getting rid of the snake in order to calm her down. She clung to me for at least an hour afterwards and continued to ask throughout the day if the snake was gone.

I have no idea what has caused Emma to have this intense fear of snakes. We were at the point of taking her to the ER because she was so hysterical about her hands not being touched. But it was all because she accidentally touched a toy snake. So is this a serious issue? Something she will grow out of? Oh my goodness it freaked me out. Oh the joys of parenting…

We celebrated the Solstice with the alternative parents group I am a part of with a picnic and bubble extravaganza. (what better way to celebrate anything than to have laughing toddlers chase bubbles!) Here is Emma enjoying the occasion.

Two and a half(ish) years later Emma is being herself. She loves books and drawing. She likes to dig in the dirt and dance around with the leaves in the backyard. She loves to wear her princess dresses, but is also obsessed with baseball (as the picture shows, she sleeps with her ball and bat). She insists on wearing her "horns" (University of Texas Longhorns) clothing as much as possible (and having mommy and daddy wear their horns shirts as well) and has to be sung the UT Fight Song before bed each night. So leaving aside the fact that in this picture she is a walking advertisement for Disney Princesses, Sesame Street, and Dora the Explorer – she is herself. Not clones of mommy and daddy, but not our exact opposite either. She's Emma.