susan hayward photography

Mother in the Hood: Working with Interruptions

This is the article Writer's Digest published that I mentioned in Friday's post. In addition to writing, the techniques described in this piece apply to other situations. If you like to scrapbook, read, sew, or enjoy time to yourself, these tips will probably work for you. They worked for me, even though I chickened out on writing and stopped for a few years. But I regret doing so. Please don't give up on your creativity--it will give you energy to be a better caretaker. So buy yourself a timer and get yourself a hobby. You and your family will be glad you did!

I’m in my office writing when my kids start chasing each other through the house.  Within minutes, the game turns into karate kicks and slugging, with the two-year-old yelling “Cut it out” from the sidelines.  I know what comes next.  Someone will start crying and come running to me, a tattle tumbling from his lips.  

I have two choices: I could stop writing until the kids grow up, or I could deal with their interruptions right now so I can get back to work.  As I’ve never been one to wait, I’ve chosen the second option.  Here’s how you can, too.  

 Tell them “Writing is my job, and I go to work like anyone else.”  This advice comes from author Ann Rule, who managed to support her family by writing from home.  Follow her example and tell your family that writing generates income just like your spouse’s job does.  “My kids know that they have two working parents,” freelancer Carla Charter adds.  “They try not to interrupt because they know that my job allows me to be there when they need me.”

 Divide your labors.  Children’s author Rick Walton divides his writing tasks into those he can do with kids running wild and those he can’t.  For the latter, Walton schedules time to write, hangs a “Dad at Work” sign, and locks the door.   He also sets aside time specifically for “dealing with the kids and their issues, demands, and needs.”     

Set a goal.  When family attempts to derail your train of thought, having a figurative writing destination—be it a time limit, word count, or page quota—can help them to understand that eventually you will stop working.  “I can’t stop until I’ve written five pages” is more concrete than “Leave me alone.  I’ve got work to do!”. 

 If you have preschoolers, use a timer.  Set the timer for no more than thirty minutes, put it where they can watch the minutes tick by, and let them know that when the bell rings, you’ll be available.  Then follow through.  “I sometimes have to stop and play a game with my son,” says novelist Rachel Nunes.  “But then he’ll let me go back to work.” 

 Ask, Is this an emergency?  “Sometimes kids just want a little commiseration,” Nunes points out.  “I listen for a minute, then tell them I’ll help when I’m finished.” 

“But it’s an emergency!” your kids might answer.  Fire, choking, vomit—these are real emergencies.  Needing a ride to the mall is not.  Establish what you consider a valid interruption and don’t get up for anything less. 

 Threaten.  If all else fails, follow Nunes’ example and tell the perpetrators they’ll owe you a chore if they don’t leave you alone.  Then watch them run.

 Whatever you do, don’t give up.  But do get going, even if you know you’ll be interrupted.  As business writer Kevin Nunley says, it’s always easier to come back to something you’ve already started.   And that includes your career as a writer.  

 

 

Joyce Tenneson's Wise Women

 

The other day at Barnes and Noble I came across this book by photographer Joyce Tenneson. It's a compendium of photographs and interviews with older women who have figured out a few things about life. For me, it's not so much that I'm figuring out more as I get older, it's that I care less about things I once considered so important. And the older I get, the more I realize that we'll never have EVERYTHING figured out. Or everyone, come to think of it. But I think God made it this way on purpose. If we knew everything, we'd get bored. There wouldn't be anything to discover, nothing to learn, and no surprises. And I like surprises, don't you? Sure, sometimes there are bad surprises, like when you wake up to cat vomit on the hallway carpet. When you're cleaning it up, you ask if someone fed the feline people food the night before. That's when your husband crosses his arms, lays a finger to his chin and says, "Well, I did give her a bit of that curried chicken we had for dinner."

I'm talking about nice surprises, like the flowers that pop up through the frozen earth just when you think Spring forgot to show up for the party. Or when your first grader, who always pulls away when you try to give him a hug, wakes you up on a lazy Saturday morning by snuggling up next to you under the blankets, announcing, "I'm your teddy bear, Mom." Or when you find a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen counter after a hard week of miscommunication with your husband. When you ask where they came from, your husband says, "I may be thick but I'm not daft!" Perhaps the best surprise of all is that when you finally pack away the argument, securing it with thick mailing tape and labeling the box "Sticks and Stones," your love for each other has actually increased, and it looks like you'll stay married after all. Happily, too. 

I've put finding this book again under happy surprises. Kind of like when the doorbell rings and you open the door to find a friend you loved hanging out with but forgot all about. I first read it when my kids were younger, looking for some comfort to get me through the transition from wanna-be intellectual to wanna-be-supermom.  Back then it did help me to feel better. It gave me hope that one day I would be a wise woman too, all cozy with who I had become, able to tell people and things to buzz off whenever I felt like it. Only, it seemed like I would have to wait many years for that to happen. All of the women in the book were much, much older than me.   

Years later, perusing the shelves of Barnes and Noble, I was still looking for advice. My original intention was to find some books on creativity that would wake up my brain and jump start my work. I sat down on a wooden chair in front of the photography section, a stack of knitting books on my lap. That's when I looked up and saw Wise Women, a white-haired woman on the cover holding her face in her hands, staring at me with penetrating eyes. I set down my pile and took up the book. The women told me all about how to let go, find your passion, and enjoy the journey. Joyce Tenneson's photographs inspired me, as usual. And though I'm still not wise, I might be a tiny bit smarter.  

So in honor of this book that I have loved visiting through the years, I give you one of my favorite quotations from it. This comes from Christine Lee, a 67-year-old who really gets it.

"If you wake up in the morning and have a choice between doing the laundry and taking a walk in the park, go for the walk. You'd hate to die and realize you had spent your last day doing the laundry." 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to pick my way through piles of laundry and Lego landmines and go for a walk! 

Bed Heads

Just a fun little post to start the day. I'm supposed to be writing another post right now, and I will get to that in a minute (and will publish later on). When I emerged from the office this morning the kids were upstairs, getting ready for "Crazy Hair Day" at school. Their dad was spraying one kid's wet hair with our supermega strength hair spray. The hair began to flop within minutes. Pulling out the trusty hair dryer, I cajoled and coerced their hair into submission, then sprayed and sprayed and sprayed until we got this:

 I couldn't resist taking a picture and posting. As they were walking out the door, my oldest, a sixth grader, said, "This is my last year doing this." 

"They do this in junior high, too," my husband said. That had never occurred to my son and his expression looked like he wouldn't have messed with this stuff today if he had known. I wonder if he'll allow me to brandish my hair dryer next year, or will he think this crazy hair business is too gauche? At any rate, it occurred to me that with his hair all bed-heady like this he looked like someone famous. 

"Hey," I said, "you look like Edward from Twilight!" He grinned, perhaps thinking of all the girls in his class who carry the Twilight books in their backpacks and giggle about Edward during recess. A few of those girls have started a campaign to get Calvin to read the books too. My guess is that they are trying to train him how to be romantic. Right now my boys think girls appreciate a good belch that vibrates from deep within the chest cavity and erupts from the mouth with such force that it makes the lips quiver. They also think that girls enjoy a good punch in the arm or kick in the shins every so often, just enough to give a slight purplish hue to their porcelain skin that they can point to and say, "Calvin/Paul/Jake did this" at which point my kid would stand a little straighter and proudly lay claim to. Sometimes I wonder if my boys will ever get married. I mean, I don't want to make them dinner for the rest of their lives, however much I may enjoy their company. But I suppose these things will take care of themselves. Today I will enjoy who they are: crazy little kids with crazy hair.   

 

Deep Thoughts on Motherhood

So I've been thinking about motherhood lately, how for so many years I was angry about the whole thing. It took us thirteen months to get pregnant with the first kid, four months for the second, and I can't remember how long the third took to show up. I was so desperate for that first one, so happy to finally get pregnant. But when reality hit, I sure didn't like being a mom. I didn't like giving up my career goals. I didn't like being home all day long without the intellectual stimulation of attending college classes every day. I didn't like that no one told me I was brilliant, or that I had intelligent things to say. I didn't like that professors stopped calling to tell me how much they liked my writing, because I wasn't writing anything anymore. I didn't like smelling like spit-up or getting pooped and peed on. I finally understood what it meant to lose yourself, and I'm not talking about surrendering to the joys of motherhood and all that jazz. I'm talking about forgetting who you are or who you ever wanted to be, realizing that who you wanted to be would be an impossibility, a joke in your personal repertoire. To lose yourself meant the very real possibility that at the next holiday party you go to, you will become invisible once people find out that you don't "do" anything. You're just a mom.

These were my thoughts back then, when the kids were so small and helpless, and so needy. I was so miserable by the second kid that I would eat a pound of licorice each day, in bed, early in the morning. Licorice was like my drug to help myself get through the hours until my husband would get home and I could hand off the kids to him. I distinctly remember the day that I realized this was not a good thing. 

I was sitting upright in my bed, the open bag of red licorice at my side, reading some self-help book that advised me to speak my truth and do things that I used to enjoy when I was ten, before adulthood got the better of me. Only the author never said how I could do that with a two year throwing a tantrum at my feet and and a newborn puking on my shoulder. I stared down at the strings of licorice, so thick and sweet, and soft, laying there in their little cellophane house like a stack of red lincoln logs. It occurred to me that the licorice was not making me feel better. It was only making my thighs bigger. I was in danger of what Anne Lamott describes in her book Operating Instructions, that when she came to a complete stop, her thighs kept on moving. I thought about this as I munched on another string of licorice. I realized that I couldn't taste it anymore. Licorice was just something to chew, something with which to keep my mouth busy so I wouldn't scream. A bit of sweetness in my sour little planet.

Eventually I got better and stopped using licorice, although there were times when I could envision myself smoking on the back stoop when the kids really had a doodle of a day, even though I've never smoked anything in my life--at least not on purpose. I could handle being a mother better, probably because the baby started sleeping more after he found his thumb (which proved that God didn't have it in for me after all) and I started taking copious amounts of an herb called Vitex to balance my hormones. 

Now, twelve years after my tumultuous beginnings of motherhood, I'm understanding that my fears of "losing myself" were valid, but untrue. Maybe motherhood is not losing yourself in the sense that you never get yourself back, like the time I left my keys in the pocket of some jeans I gave to charity and they probably ended up in Africa somewhere and when the recipient put her hands in the front pocket she pulled out complete access to my car and my house. With nothing to open, she probably flung the keys over her shoulder. Or maybe she made a collage with them. Or maybe she gave them to her baby to play with. 

What's beginning to gel in my mind is that there is no loss, only growth. We become what we need to be at any given moment, taking things from our past experiences with us. No one is a static being. We all shed parts of ourselves to make room for the acquisition of new skills, new traits, new parts of ourselves we didn't know existed but are needed. We are adaptable. We are flexible. And we are never exactly the same person from decade to decade because our lives--and the people in them--are never the same either. Our lives are like a closet, our circumstances the clothes. When we are mothers of small children, we wear sweats and jeans. Then when the kids grow up, we can put the sweats away and put on something else entirely. If our circumstances don't allow for wearing the slinky work suits we used to love, we can rest assured they're still in the closet, waiting for us. And maybe when the time is right to wear them again, we'll decide the sweats are more comfortable after all. The trick is to enjoy what you're wearing at the moment, to really feel fabulous in it.

I used to think the kids weren't allowing me to be the person I wanted to be or do the things I wanted to do. Now I see that they've shaped me into something better than what I had envisioned. The funny thing (or tragic thing, depending on how you look at it) is,some things I thought I liked or wanted twelve years ago no longer appeal to me. The person I thought I wanted to be is actually a friend I wanted to be like. The career I yearned for is not something I really enjoy. The jobs I keep on applying for would be great for my sister, but not for me. These are things that would not have occurred to me had I not been "just a mom" for the last twelve years. So I've decided to declutter,cleaning out my psychic closet, sending things to Africa that no longer fit. Some things I will miss, like the teaching certificate that waits to be updated in my file cabinet and the bookmarked websites of big-time New York photographers. I can always keep the things I still like, and for those things that need replacing, I can always go shopping for something new.  

And if that doesn't work, there's always licorice.   

Mother in the Hood: Diary of a Trainer

This is dedicated to Hillary Bolander, who has bravely embarked on a potty training odyssey with yet another child. Hillary, may you never run out of green M&M's!

I wrote this while potty training my youngest child. We (or should I say "I") had some really bad moments during the process. Hopefully, he doesn't remember any of this. For some reason, getting it down on paper made me feel better about everything. Well, almost everything.

Day One

When the diapers run out again, consider the cost, the age of the child.  Remember how you wanted to hook up to the Internet.  So tired of everyone saying, “You don’t have email?  How do you exist?”  You’re starting to wonder the same thing. 

Cost of Internet:  $24.95.  Cost of monthly expenditure on diapers:  $36.00. Age of child:  quickly approaching four.

 Time to potty train. 

  When you take the child by hand and show him the big boy underpants, be gentle.  Talk in your best sweet mother voice.  And whatever you do, try not to sound desperate.  Kids hear that itch in your voice and know you are in danger of losing that last silvery string of sanity that you keep under the socks in your top drawer.  Think of what to say before something spills out of your mouth.  Write it down if you have to.  Just remember:  remain noncommittal. 

  Look, you say, pointing to the empty diaper box.  We’ve run out.  There’s nothing but Elmo underpants to put on.  The child will stare at the box for a long time.  You’ve tried this potty training thing before, only to go out and buy a super mega pack of diapers at the super mega store approximately two hours and five tinkle spills after starting.  The child’s bladder must be the size of a shriveled pea. 

            “Let’s go to the store and get more,” he will say, smiling. 

Do not budge.  Don’t even blink.  And whatever you do, don’t yell.  This is a test,  only a test—a minor interruption in your regular programming.  Do not panic. Three days, you tell yourself.  Give it three days.  And if that doesn’t work, the Internet can wait.

            Only you’re sick of waiting for the Internet.  “Ok, let’s go to the store,” you say. Take him shopping and let him choose his favorite candy.  Then tell him he can’t have it unless he tinkles in the toilet.  Stop thinking about the parenting books that warn against bribing kids to cooperate.  The people who write those things have never lived with your child twenty-four seven.  You know from experience that everything that works on paper never works once the sun comes up and the husband leaves and the kitchen’s a mess and someone’s punching someone else and the phone’s ringing and the cat’s been run over by a car and your oldest has just informed you that he just stepped in doggy doo-doo and didn’t realize it until he saw the smelly smears on the new carpet.  No, the authors of parenting books do not have any idea how to deal with kids like yours. 

            Unfortunately, neither do you.

Back to the potty trainee and the store.  As the child stands in front of a half-pound bag of M&M’s he looks at you again with a tilt of his head, his eyes narrow and wise like the family cat.   You feel like he’s sizing you up, perhaps trying to figure out if you’re serious or not.  Look back.  Smile normally, not that perma- smile you do when you’re trying not to explode after the kids have broken something or someone for the umpteenth time, but a smile that you’d use on a friend.  You know, a genuine expression of happiness.  Try not to tap your foot or tell the child to hurry up.  Ignore the slow ache developing behind your eyes from the fluorescent lights reflecting on the linoleum floor.  What is he thinking?  Why won’t he say anything?  Quick!  Make a deal.  Say:  M&M’s for tinkle, Rolos for poops, ok?  Hustle.  You’re in charge here.

“Ok,” the child will say, without any real confidence.  Clap your hands and skip to the register. 

You’re on your way.  Take a deep breath.  Cross your fingers.  But don’t hope to die.  And resist the urge, whatever happens, to stick a needle in your eye.

Day Two

The next morning, the child refuses to sit on the toilet.  Diapers all gone, you remind him.  He cries.  A part of you understands.  You know how disappointing it is to find another grey hair sprouting like a weed from your scalp, or how mystifying it is to discover yet another body part sagging southward.  Party’s over.  Time to grow up.  Time to consider what is lost, what is gained with each passing year.  Sometimes, you know, the two don’t even out.

Say to the child: Time to wear big boy underpants.  Use a bright voice, like this is some kind of party.  The child flops against his bed and sobs, gulping mouthfuls of air.  Remain calm.  Shrug, strap a diaper to him, then leave well enough alone.  Lay on your own bed eating licorice and cry silently until the middle child knocks on the door and asks where you’ve hidden the candy, at which point you stop eating said licorice and hand him the package. 

When the potty training child finally lets you change his diaper around lunchtime, squishy clear beads of disintegrating diaper cling to his behind.  He reeks of boy tinkle, sharp and pungent like vinegar.   The rest of the day, ask him to sit on the toilet.  He’ll yell NO! and thrash on the floor, cling to the doorframe as you drag him to the little blue plastic chamber pot that his two older brothers peed in a few years before.  Even though he’s small, he’s strong.  His fleshy arms and dimpled fists have surprising power as he punches you in the gut.  And then you know what happens next.  “Wet!” he’ll say, his voice drowning in shock as his pants fill with warm urine.

Do not finish these words:  Son of a . . . because he is the son of you.  And though you suspect that at times the end of this phrase describes you to a tee, you don’t want to admit that right now. 

Great. 

Now you feel guilty.  Add this moment to the list of things your kids’ future therapist might need to know. 

  

 Day Three

Time:  10:42 am. 

Underpants and pants washed:  5. 

Poops in toilet:  zip. 

Accidents:  Lost count. 

Resilience: low. 

Annoyance: high. 

Yell at subject when he stands three inches from bathroom door and pees on carpet.  You hear it from the kitchen, the heavy stream hitting the rug.  The oldest lounges on the couch reading a Hardy Boys book.  “Mom, you better come see this,” he says in a tone reserved for tattling.  The subject stands in a potty lake and grins, his Elmo underpants dark and damp, the smell of vinegar urine strong.  “You are so D--- hard to potty train!” you shriek, hurling a plastic farmhouse over the stairs.  You hear the farmhouse bang into the walls, the cows and chickens clattering down seven steps before landing with a smashing clunk at the bottom.

Oops.

All three kids look at you with an expression of fear and curiosity.  You remember a friend telling you how his mother went crazy one day.  “She picked up everything red—pencils, papers, socks on the floor—and threw it all in the trash,” he said.  “I just watched her from the corner.”  That night, she checked into the local mental hospital. 

For a second, you wonder if this is your moment to dial 911 on your own behalf.  It’s surprising how for years everything can seem normal until one day you pluck the last straw from your storehouse of sanity and toss it in the composting bin.  You wonder what it would be like to give in to the emotions that flicker through your mind.   You wonder what keeps a person together and what makes a person shatter. You wonder if this is your time to crack into a million pieces.

This is the moment when you really look at the kids.  The youngest seems confused.  His lips quiver and collapse into a frown.  He won’t look you in the eye.  He won’t speak.  His shoulders droop as you wipe streaks of pee from his skinny legs.  Suddenly he seems so little and fragile. 

            Please God, you plead, don’t let me break.  

Miraculously, you don’t.  You clean up the mess.  You press your foot against the ugly hot pink towel designated for pee and puke to soak up the spill in silence.  When the towel is heavy and wet, say, “Good enough.”  Put a video on for the kids, and lay down to wait for your husband to come home, at which time you plan to say something like, “Your life is so easy.” 

But you never get to say this because once horizontal, you fall asleep.  

 

Day Four

You wake up the next morning and decide to give up.  Save the Internet money for diapers and a few sessions with your favorite psychologist, the one who also does massage therapy and makes you cry at every appointment.

The youngest approaches, hands intertwined, naked from the waist down,  looking shy like he does when old ladies try to talk to him at the grocery store.  “I went tinkle in the toilet.”  His voice is so quiet.  Unusual for one who yells, even when he’s two inches away. 

You blink.  “What?”

             The child holds out a plump hand and stretches his fingers.  “Gimme candy,” he says.  “I tinkled in the toilet.”

We have lift off!  Give the child a handful of M&M’s, a Rolo, a big kiss.  Yelp like a cowgirl and dance around your son like he’s just won the Pulitzer.  When he grins, remember how broken he looked when you screamed at him the night before.  Hug the stuffing out of him to make up for it, even though you know it can’t possibly.  Marvel at his genius.  Holler, "Today tinkle, tomorrow Latin!"

            Tonight, get down on your knees and pray that it will last.  Pray also that if it doesn’t, if the child succumbs to the convenience of pee-where-you-are disposables, slipping deeper into toddlerhood, you’ll remember  one thing:  the Internet isn’t everything.  But your child is.    

 

 

Mother in The Hood: To My Oldest Son

This is another blast from the past, written when my oldest was just a little guy and I had just decided to stay home full time. Up until that point I had always thought it would be possible to work full time after college while raising a family. As it turned out, I couldn't handle both responsibilities. So I chose to focus on my family. And that, my friends, was easier said than done!

This is a poem for my son

Whose spirit I prayed for and whose body

I housed after thirteen months of wondering

When I could be a Mommy

And to whom.

 

Your compact body, chest burly and sturdy,

Cradled in my arms.

Your soft cooing.

Those were the times when we were close,

When I was home, watching

Your little chest filling like a balloon

as you sang love songs to my milk.

 

But then I stopped nursing. 

Went back to school, to work.

Left you with Grandma all day long

Until she became your mother

and we became strangers.

 

I didn’t know what food you liked,

or if you wanted to be held

facing out

or in. 

Didn’t know that when you cried all night, your forehead

stained in red pain, your body too hot,

that it was just a new tooth.

Not cancer.

 

So I came home.

And when you cried,

I cried too,

Mourning for the person formally

Known as me

Who faded each day as you grew

Brighter,

More needful.

 

I didn’t know that what you gave me

Was more than I would understand

Or even feel for many years.

I didn’t know until my ambition lay breathless and weak,

When I could stand over it, staring.

Wondering at its beauty, its fragility,

Its validity. Its probability,

That you are better than the degrees,

the career, the paycheck.

The accolades.

  

I didn’t know

so many things.

But now I do. 

Like why you get so mad that you tear

through words so hateful,

a rabid dog gone crazy.

Like why you scream at everyone

for no reason other than

you’re thinking of something

else entirely.

And we happen to be in the way.

 

There are so many things I want to tell you.

So many things to say sorry for. 

Like I know why you are the way you are,

do the things you do.

It’s because of me.

I gave them to you.  

And I’m sorry that instead of

the best of me,

you got the worst.

 

 So I write this to you, my oldest son

my guinea pig, who

suffers at the hands of this mad scientist.

I pray this for your spirit and your body I housed

after thirteen months of wondering

when I could be a mommy

and to whom.

May the red in you pale to pink,

and your passion turn to compassion.  

Mother in the Hood

The Next Einstein

I wrote this essay in the early days of my mothering education.  Now, three boys later, I have learned to let my kids develop at their own pace. Come to think of it, they've allowed me to develop as a mother at my own pace too. We'll call it simultaneous mother/child development, in our own time and in our own way.

When my oldest son was two years old, I decided to teach him his letters and numbers.  I secretly hoped that I had the next Einstein on my hands, or maybe the next Dr. Seuss.  At the very least, I wanted him to be reading novels by kindergarten. So I read monstrous books about home schooling, bought a child-sized table, made a schedule, and gathered my son to my side.

             “Today we’re going to do something really fun!” I told him as I crammed my legs under a miniature table.  “We’re going to talk about the alphabet.” I smiled brightly, as if this letter lesson was going to be better than Grandma’s house, better than the swirly slide at the park, maybe even better than ice cream.  My son stared at me.  He eyed my home schooling book and the worksheets stacked on the table in the same way he examined the casserole I served for dinner the night before. Uh, oh, I thought.  He’s not going to like this.  Sure enough, before I could show him how to write the letter “A” on a paper highway of solid and dotted lines, he slid off his chair and ran to his toys.

            I called him back.  He didn’t come.  I offered candy.  He didn’t come.  “Don’t you want to learn how to read?” I asked.

            “No!” he said.  And didn’t come. 

            That was day one.

            Day two looked the same, only this time I dragged him to the table.  My little darling screamed and threw a full-fledged tantrum complete with flailing fists and karate kicks. 

            By day five, I gave up and resigned myself to the possibility that my son would never go to college because he wouldn’t enter kindergarten hooked on phonics.  If he were hooked on anything, it would be cartoons and hot dogs.  Not exactly what his vegetarian English teacher mother had envisioned when he was a mere pollywog in the womb. 

            So I sent my son off to kindergarten not knowing how to read, wearing a backpack bigger than his scrawny body, his arms hanging from his t-shirt sleeves like limp spaghetti noodles.    

It turns out I had nothing to worry about.  During a classroom visit, I discovered that none of the other five-year-olds were quoting Nietzsche or fretting about SAT scores, either.  None of them could write their name without at least one letter backwards.  And not one could read more than a few words like “cat” or “mat.”  I decided things would take care of themselves.

Or at least I hoped they would.

Then came the miracle.  By Christmas, my eldest child could read.  It was as if someone had flipped on the light switch in his head that I had been fumbling for with my worksheets and lesson manuals.  Once he was ready and set his mind to it, he took hold of the alphabet and tamed it.  Now when the house is quiet and the cat’s gone missing, all I have to do is look in my oldest son’s bedroom to find him stretched across his bed, a book in hand and a cat curled in his lap.

The developmental map

Turns out, you can’t force a brain or a body to do what it’s not ready to any more than you can force underpants on a kid who prefers to wear diapers.  That’s why my son balked at my worksheets.  Cognitively and physically, he wasn’t ready for the intricacies of writing—holding the pencil, making his hand form circles and lines that would translate into sounds.  It’s just not something a two year old can do.  My son wanted to play basketball and make block towers rather than sit at a desk and do homework.  And well he should.   Not only is it a child’s job to play, it’s how the brain develops. 

Now that my second child is in preschool, I know what to expect from a kid his age. Based on the research-based philosophy that children learn by playing in a developmentally appropriate environment, my son’s preschool allows him to be who he is:  a wiggly, giggly, curious five-year-old who would rather eat cauliflower than copy the alphabet a zillion times.

My second son doesn’t bring home papers decorated in handwritten sonnets.  But nearly every day he shows me notes composed at his classroom’s writing center.  The dark letters wind around the page in a maze of meaning.  Rather than worry he’s not  writing “correctly,” I delight in his words, at once small and hesitant, then large and loud, squished next to each other as they nearly tumble off the paper.  He’s experimenting with form, swinging from this rung of his language development ladder before he climbs higher.

Like my first, my second son won’t be reading by the time he goes to kindergarten next year, either.  But he can tell me imaginative, detailed stories using pictures to guide his tale.  And I’m fine with that.  It’s another step towards decoding language.  After all, Einstein himself once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  Especially if you’re a child.