Shaking off the clutches of clutter

Our mailbox regularly contains several catalogs, and they are often too tempting to go straight into our recycle bin. Last month I paged through the kid gear offered by One Step Ahead. An ingenious product lay in wait beyond the toilet training gear (yahoo, done with that) and toddler-sized comforters.

The $39.95 marvel gathers up all the kids’ stuffed animals and stuffs them again—this time into a bean bag style chair.

At our house, fuzzy friends and other toys and trinkets pile up in every room. They have even permeated the kitchen, where half-used coloring and sticker books sit alongside bottles of bubbles.

Clutter is irritating and distracting, and it can even cause kids or adults to trip. (I remember that my mom tried to be vigilant about picking up toys, especially when my dad came home in the dark after working the third shift.)

My husband and I try to slow the supply without seeming ungrateful. We ask relatives to slim down gifts like Easter baskets and we have started to refuse the crayons that many restaurant servers dole out. Our daughter would rather accept the new crayons, but I suspect she’ll drop the protests.

We also give some toys away, but that’s no panacea. It seems disrespectful and unappreciative to give away most gifts from family members. Plus, most of the stuff is somewhat spent. I’m sheepish to offer friends or charities wads of used crayons.

I have successfully sold a few toys in Bay View’s resale shops, and I have attended some local swaps where I tried to give away more than I got.

Our attempts to organize the existing clutter are lukewarm. Most of our daughters’ 25 stuffed animals are too sentimental for giving away—she has named several after friends and remembers the giver. But we did manage to tame them when we moved a huge blue bin from the basement to our daughter’s room and filled it with the little buddies.

In a time when 22 percent of children are living in poverty, it feels especially rotten to live like a glutton. When the clutter spins my mind, I try to remember that we’re lucky enough to have enough.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Does your face light up?

Insightful parenting advice hit me as I lay on the couch at 3:30am trying to return to sleep. At that early hour, nobody but Oprah wanted to talk.

An episode of Oprah’s Lifeclass, which originally aired Nov. 2, 2011, unexpectedly made me want to take notes. Since it was hours before sunrise, I simply re-saved the episode on our DVR and promised myself I’d revisit the dialogue.

The crucial aspect was a replay of a 2000 interview with author Toni Morrison, who asked, “When a kid walks in the room—your child, or anybody else’s child—does your face light up?” Morrison realized that she was too often spending those precious opening seconds with children scanning their appearance for things like uncombed hair and slouchy socks.

Gulp. At times like daycare pickup, I know I sometimes focus on an unzipped coat or missing mitten more than my joy at seeing our daughter. My smile or “Hi, honey” can be de-emphasized by mildly critical comments. The criticism can start off the evening on the wrong tone and I’d rather let it slide for a few minutes.

The Oprah episode remains in our list of recorded shows and I’ve listened to chunks more than once. The concept—communicating positive emotions first—seems to make more sense with each viewing.

The lesson can apply to adults, too. On a busy weeknight, I can forget to kiss my husband before we talk about dinner or mundane details.

Letting one’s face show what’s in the heart is a great way to start a conversation. It’s certainly more important than an unzipped coat.

I’m giving more heartfelt greetings a try. The practice strikes me as a great New Year’s resolution. If it incrementally improves my relationships, it’ll be a lasting gift from an unanticipated source.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Photo cards convey more than season’s greetings

When it’s time to take a holiday photo, our daughter always seems to have a cut on her face, a cross mood, or both.

Hang around a photo studio this month, and you’re likely to see a series of sparkly dresses and holiday sweaters adorning fussy children. Parents will admonish them to “look happy,” perhaps even playing the “Santa’s watching” trump card. Parents and photographer both want to ensure a smile worthy of a holiday card photo.

My friends and family, especially the ones with young children or cherished pets, usually choose the photo card route. But the cards’ cheerful moods belie the kids’ ire over the fancy, unfamiliar clothes and shoes. Dial up the anxiety meter if the planned photo involves Santa. Many children are afraid of Santa and his entourage.

Some parents dread the photo sessions because it feels high-stakes. The track inside their heads says, “If this doesn’t go well, I don’t have time to drive out here another day.”

December calendars fill up with shopping and extra gatherings, and the photo can seem like just another obligation. I’ve toyed with ditching the holiday card photo endeavor this year. Yet as the snow piles up, I’ll probably change course and give it another whirl. The jolly rectangles convey a seasonal message, but also more enduring ones: this family is joyful, this family cares about you recipients more than a text or email message can express. That’s worth my annual hunt through the house for a clean pair of toddler tights.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Mom, it’s complicated

My daughter and her friends routinely share snacks at the playground, but I faltered one day when the kids got hungry. I told the playmate, “You can have some crackers if it’s okay with your, um…go ask if it’s okay.”

I didn’t know how to refer to his father’s girlfriend, and wanted to keep in line with their chosen terminology.

I seem to live in a bubble where most of my interactions are with traditional households. I get linguistically tripped up when the pattern changes. But I can’t be the only one.

Delivery room nurses have surely known for a few years that many children are not entering into the world with a mom and dad in the traditional roles of a married couple living together. And the traditional roles of employed dad supporting a homemaker mother eroded decades ago.

According to 2010 U.S. Census data, almost 37 percent of American children live with nontraditional families. Hence the rise of terms like “baby daddy,” one I’ve heard in jest but never heard uttered in sincerity.

I was chatting with a child at a mall recently when I referred to her dad. “Oh, we don’t go to his house,” she replied. The exchange left me feeling like I needed to get with it.

Then there’s my coworker who calls himself a “step dad” but seems to avoid using the words “step children.”

So, faced with a multiplicity of family types, which aren’t steady year to year, what’s the solution?

Being careful doesn’t have to mean an overload of political correctness. We could ask the child for advice. After all, if they’re old enough, children ought to know what they call the folks in their family, however it’s structured. Then we’re respecting everybody in the slightly awkward situation.

Of course, the question could be answered with a blank stare or a roll of the eyes.

Saying the right thing isn’t always easy.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Girl or boy?

Do you know what you’re having?” I heard one coworker ask another whose wife was nearing her due date. My coworker has probably answered this question dozens of times since he announced his impending fatherhood.

It’s typically around 18 to 20 weeks into their pregnancy when American women choose whether or not to learn the sex of their unborn baby.

My husband and I both wanted to know so we could more easily decorate the nursery and choose only one name. I have heard of parents-to-be asking their ultrasound technician to write the sex on a piece of paper in a sealed envelope to be opened later. That’s an indication of the non-triviality of knowing their baby’s sex. Other couples try to control fate using folk wisdom or paid procedures intended to tilt the odds toward a boy or a girl.

Decades ago, our parents did not get a glimpse of us until we hit the doctor’s hands. It’s one of the many ways pregnancy and parenthood have changed since the time of Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Now, expecting American moms with enough curiosity and cash can use a blood test that detects fetal sex using DNA at just seven weeks. Tests kits are available online but not usually through domestic hospitals due to ethical concerns about selective abortion.

The kits are reasonably accurate and provide the answer to “What are you having?” much earlier—before many moms-to-be even share the news of their pregnancy. That’s often done at 12 weeks.

I can understand the curiosity and the practical reasons for knowing the baby’s sex. I found it hard to buy gender-neutral baby clothing and saw very little yellow among all the pink and blue outfits.

Yet I agree most strongly with the comments posted at many online articles and blogs on this topic. As they point out, the most important outcome is simply a human baby, hopefully a healthy human baby.

A few weeks ago, my coworker emailed us a picture of his healthy baby girl.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Not that innocent?

On me, a turtle-appliquéd shirt or a Scottie-adorned sock would raise eyebrows.

On a child, I think it’s something to relish. When our daughter gets excited about animals on her clothes, I say Carpe diem. I hope little-kid styles keep delighting our daughter for many years.

Clothing manufacturers and many consumers clearly have a different philosophy. Most mainstream stores sell clothes for kids, especially young girls, in smaller versions of styles popular for 20- to 30-year-olds.

Designs and cuts of little sizes seem to be getting more and more skimpy, even sexy. The teens and 20s are prime time for short, tight denim skirts and skimpy shorts, but toddlers and grade school kids should wait for these trends. I have heard other parents muttering the same thing in children’s stores and at clothing swaps.

“Kids getting older younger” describes this trend in clothing plus toys and entertainment. The thinking leads to aberrations like thong underwear in children’s sizes and pushup bikini tops for 7- to 12-year-olds.

From what I can tell, shopping for age-appropriate clothing will only get harder as our daughter gets older. Parents and preteens or teenagers shopping at the popular stores are challenged to find clothes which don’t show lots of skin.

Fathers often draw the line against provocative clothing but many children are being born into families without a strong male presence. In fact, 23 percent of American children today are living with their mother only, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Without dads, kids may be winning more of the clothing debates.

To me, too many kids clothes proclaim, in the words of Britney Spears, “I’m not that innocent.”

Each of these skimpy items represents a bit of lost innocence. They change how we all view children and how they view themselves and their peers, prodding them toward earlier sexual behavior.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Strolling through summer

Two years ago on a hot July weekday, a friend and I took our 1-year-old daughters to Summerfest via bus. Riding Milwaukee County Transit System Route 15 north on Kinnickinnic Avenue to the Third Ward seemed like the best way to reach the festival grounds.

We didn’t expect the bus to be crowded on a Monday around 11:30am, but seats toward the front were full so we paused inside the door with our kids in one hand and our strollers in the other. Diaper bags hung over our shoulders. Balancing all those elements did not seem like fun. Upon request, two young men let us take their seats, which filled up with two adults, two kids, two diaper bags, and two collapsed strollers leaning on our knees.

Now in 2011, our biggest public transit system is trying out a special spot for strollers and carts which are not collapsed. It takes the place of a seat row on 30 buses.

When the spot is free, it seems like a handy solution. Collapsing a stroller is the MCTS rule but that can be easier said than done. Many strollers have one (or even two) drink holders and a large basket for storage, and some have room for multiple children. These features all take up space and add weight that makes them unwieldy to collapse. (The attributes also make strollers a sore spot for some people, perhaps those who have gotten their ankles bumped too many times.) Manipulating a complicated stroller also could be a safety concern because preoccupied parents and children near the street don’t mix.

The stroller/cart spot may help people get to summer festivals more easily. More importantly, it may help people who need to use the bus for daily commuting, or shopping runs that end with a full cart of groceries. Accommodations like this—plus pleasant attitudes from fellow riders—make stroller pushing more pleasant.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

 

Where have all the heirlooms gone?

My grandmother recently moved to assisted living and the family had to help slim down her possessions. Cardboard boxes of miscellanea found their way into basements and shelves in my home and those of other relatives.

This moment is poignant for many families and has tugged at my own heart a little. I always thought I wanted Grandma’s blue teapot, but now that I have it, I struggle to find the right spot to display it. The location should be prominent yet I don’t want the ceramic within toddler-reach, and do want it to match its surroundings.

The teapot got me thinking about heirlooms and wondering what we will pass down to our daughter. It is not a topic I hear or read much about: How to get heirloom tomato plants is a more common topic among my friends than heirlooms for our kids.

I don’t think my parenting cohort will be passing many traditional objects to our children and their descendants. We’re not big on family Bibles or buying build-a-pearl necklaces that grow as a girl reaches milestones. And decades-old china won’t see the light of day in most of my friends’ homes. What objects of value will we give our children to remember us? I can’t see our daughter someday saying, “Look! That’s Mom’s old iPhone and Daddy’s Droid there on the bookshelf. It’s so nice that we saved them all these years.”

Favorite child belongings themselves could become heirlooms, but they are a mixed bag. Children’s books should endure and are small enough to save in the back of a closet so I might purchase hardcover versions of well-worn favorites The Rainbow Fish and Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys, and Their Monkey Business.

Changing safety regulations also affect a lot of potential keepsakes. The crib our daughter slept in was a drop-side style, de rigueur when she was born but considered unsafe by the time she grew out of it. Due to injury concerns, rocking chairs like my parents’ have been replaced by gliders with a flat base. Gorgeous hand-knit baby blankets get limited use because parents are cautioned against blankets suffocating sleeping children.

Some people expand the meaning of heirloom to include things like child photos. Two of my admirably organized friends captured photos of their baby in the same place each week or each month, then printed a nice memory book. Meanwhile, many of us are not even printing out photos because we keep only digital copies which, who knows, may not be easy to access in 20 years. Some of my wedding photos are on a floppy disk, which seems antiquated less than 10 years later. Our children are heavily photographed and videotaped, but they may never view those images.

We will always be reflected in our children’s genes, of course, and our values are another important, intangible inheritance. Values may be the most important thing we bequeath. Some people think of this as “emotional inheritance,” even codifying it in an ethical will in the spirit of This I Believe.

I believe that principles should always outlast possessions. But if it survives a few more decades, it sure would be nice for my daughter to be able to pass on Grandma’s blue teapot to the next generation.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

 

Princess mania dethroned

I had misgivings about taking our 3-year-old daughter to a princess party held recently at our gym. Some friends who know I encourage sports and smarts more than playing pretty princess even teased me on Facebook.

Given what I have observed and read about American girls’ princess mania, I think wariness is justified. What some call the “princess industrial complex” can inundate a girl for a few crucial years in her development.

This is not about idolizing real-life princesses or being obsessed with the wedding of Prince William and Princess Kate. It’s about getting parents to buy princess collateral from among the thousands of Disney Princess and similar items, and, more disturbingly, buy in to the idea of girls simply sitting pretty. It’s about evaluating girls exclusively on appearance and elevating the status of child to “royalty”—not commoner—and all the perks and expectations that come with princesshood.

The part of the princess mentality that bothers me most is girls hearing over and over that they have to be pretty enough or else a man (and possibly his mother) will not accept them, regardless of their other traits.

My daughter already receives a compliment parade about her looks that may seem harmless or even pleasant, but I worry it could send the wrong message.

During a visit to a medical specialist last year, our daughter’s appearance garnered five comments within an hour. First, it was a stranger in the elevator, then the receptionist, the nurse, and the doctor twice.

Like most toddlers, our daughter observes and absorbs adult behavior and could deduce that these strangers and authority figures value her appearance over her health. None of them asked her, “How do you feel today?” Their dialogue with her was limited to “You’re so cute.”

I have enjoyed the rejection of the prettiness-as-priority narrative by the authors of some fractured fairy tales like The Princess and the Pizza by Mary Jane and Herm Auch. And author Peggy Orenstein dissects the emphasis on pink and pretty in her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. It struck a chord with me and I’m not alone. When I checked in March, there were 30 holds on the seven copies in the library. Now the system has 19 copies of this popular new book.

Orenstein helped focus my thinking about how adults can balance the emphasis on outward beauty. The tip I have tried hardest to use is complimenting our daughter’s appearance even when she is not wearing a party outfit, perhaps after a tricycle ride with the resultant helmet hair. I also try to frequently compliment aspects beyond appearance.

Despite my misgivings, we did attend that princess party. I bought a cute dress at a secondhand store and let our daughter wear everyday shoes rather than special-occasion shoes. Her big smile and bright eyes in the pictures remind me that we had a good time, and my friends’ gentle teasing was justified. I shouldn’t hesitate about a single event.

We’re not ready to compete at pageants like those depicted on the TV show Toddlers & Tiaras, but I’ve warmed a little toward princesses.

I still smile when people say our daughter is cute. I just point out that she is also smart and developing good values. I’m proud of her for all those reasons.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Bring on the end of hazardous winter

Parents are supposed to unload our precious cargo on the curbside to keep our doors and our bodies out of traffic, but snow banks often block that side during winter and adults and kids are forced to disembark into the road.

Puffy winter coats are a potential hazard because they can prevent a tight car seat clip-in, which makes kids more susceptible to injury in a crash.

Our 3-year-old daughter likes to use her little plastic blue shovel, but often ends up amusingly counteracting the adult’s efforts.

Shoveling also poses a parenting challenge. When our daughter was a newborn in the super snowy winter of 2007, I’d consider going outside to shovel during naptime. I could get the job out of the way during daylight and before the dog walkers tromped through and created a layer of hard-to-scrape footprints. I chose not to venture out during the naps because it violated the guideline about staying within earshot of a baby. The likelihood of anything happening seemed as possible as finding two matching snowflakes, but I refrained.

The next two winters, our daughter was a toddler and able to stand on her own, but we still did not bring her out during shoveling. We worried about her getting into the street while we focused on the chore. Around 5:30pm, I would be looking forward to my husband’s arrival from work to give me a break after nine hours with our daughter, but he would spend 30 minutes shoveling before he could relieve me.

This year, our daughter is 3 years old and mature enough to stay on the sidewalk while we shovel. She likes to use her little plastic blue shovel, but often ends up amusingly counteracting the adult’s efforts.

The flaky cleanup is welcome exercise because of the dearth of energy-consuming winter activities for kids, especially those who aren’t in school and have no gym class. In particular, exercise in a natural setting is scarce when ice can make any given step unsteady. Even on the melting days when ice becomes puddles, we might start heading to South Shore Park on a clear sidewalk only to get stuck by a snowdrift. I might be able to slog through myself but it’s a struggle to lift our 36-pounder on steady ground, much less haul her over a knee-high drift.

Still, the situation is better than years past when walking across pileups involved trying to push a stroller or carry a newborn on one side and a diaper bag on the other.

Our home was built in 1910 and its dwellers have weathered a lot of winters. When I’m feeling contemplative, I wonder how the earliest inhabitants of our home navigated ice and snow with little children. I really wonder how the area’s earliest people, Native Americans, kept themselves safe and nourished from November through April.

Winter provides a life lesson regarding endurance and accepting the tough days along with the sweet ones. Sure, our daughter needs to know that life isn’t all 70 and sunny, at least not in our Zip Code. But I’m more inclined to lead her in a chant of “Snow, snow, go away and come again another day.” Send in the warm sun, or at least clear sidewalks.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

School choice causes homework headache

Parties, family dinners, and Christmas shopping tapered off in January to a few scattered events, and I was craving some quiet weeks. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but a forwarded email alerting me to Milwaukee Public Schools’ Three-Choice Enrollment and that I had only a few weeks to choose up to three public schools for our daughter. She is eligible for 3-year-old kindergarten or “K3” this fall.

I had three weeks to investigate and discuss with my husband, making me done with holiday shopping but suddenly in the throes of school shopping. It wasn’t a matter of going through a checklist and I felt fairly in the dark about the whole process.

The high number of young children in Bay View causes a lottery system and impossibly long waitlists at some schools. Just like our neighborhood’s most popular day care centers have years-long waiting lists, popular schools turn away child after child.

It is a demographic oddity that many of Bay View’s blocks have only one family with children in middle school or high school, yet those blocks are likely to have multiple families with newborns and young children.

The amount of school types is a bit daunting—the ones which pertain to us include neighborhood schools, neighborhood specialty schools, charter schools (both MPS and non-MPS), and citywide specialty schools. For other situations the contracted agency schools, partnership schools, and Head Start programs all apply. High school parents have lots of options, too.

Minority parents can look beyond MPS through the Voluntary Student Transfer Program (or “Chapter 220”) and all parents can consider the Public School Open Enrollment Program available throughout the state. Other parents choose private schools and homeschooling.

The alternatives probably lead to a good fit for most families, but the choices can be dizzying to parents. Many parents may not even realize that K3 is a local option, or that the Montessori system forces a “now or never” choice because children without a Montessori background cannot transfer in during later years.

My husband and I discussed whether we were looking for a school for the first two years—what we call preschool and the system terms K3 and K4—or whether we were trying to choose an elementary school.

I found myself thumbing through the MPS School Selections catalog the way some children treat a Christmas toy catalog, marking off interesting pages. Would this school with its art focus be better, or that one with its science emphasis? Do they have K3 and/or K4, and is it part of the day or full day?

I started off lacking information but became inundated with data when I downloaded reports from the most recent MPS District Report Card.

Trying to rank values was confusing: diversity versus discipline versus an emphasized subject or teaching style. Within each criterion, I encountered more confusion and probably some overanalysis: How much diversity would be enough? Was some minimum percentage sufficient?

Parental convenience could be important. I stumbled across the fact that the charter school Downtown Montessori Academy, which is located in Bay View, starts instruction at 8:45am, while other local schools we considered start class at 7:45am. Earlier drop-off incurs a fee. More factors come into play with start time because my husband and I share one car and commute together on the days I work downtown.

I talked with like-minded parents and we traded what we understood to be the way the system works and what we had learned about various schools, and even shared rumors of four-hour evening waits at the central office.

Then we turned in our applications, waiting for the results like our children anticipate Christmas.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Baby New Year — Welcome Georgia Lessene Rhodes

Baby New Year

Already a Packer backer

The Green Bay Packers have a tiny new fan and Bay View has a tiny new resident: Georgia Lessene Rhodes. She was born Jan. 3 at 10:03am to Meghan and Jeff Rhodes.

Meghan watched the Jan. 2 Packers-Bears (W 10-3) game during labor and was glad to have the distraction from her pain. Since then, she and Jeff have dressed their little one in a Packers onesie for each playoff game (Georgia is 3-0).

Georgia’s middle name honors her maternal great-grandmother, Lillian Lessene Horton, who was known as “Seenie.” Georgia’s parents have nicknamed her “Monkey.”

She is Meghan and Jeff’s first child, though they consider their dogs Parker and Miles like children and siblings to Georgia. The dogs have adjusted well to having the baby in their home. “We call Parker ‘co-mom’ because she always goes where Georgia goes,” Meghan said. Parker even watches diaper changes.

A few neighbors and friends have visited, and the family has ventured out from their home on Linebarger Terrace to Café Centraal, Stone Creek Coffee, and St. Francis Brewery and Restaurant. “It’s so cold, it’s hard to show her off. Once the weather is nicer, we can actually take her on walks, which will be nice,” Meghan said.

Meanwhile, they are spending lots of time at home and enjoying Georgia’s idiosyncrasies. “Although her personality hasn’t developed quite yet she does a few cute and silly things. Georgia lets out a big cry at the end of every yawn, and makes a pouty face when she is done eating,” Meghan described.

If you wish to lay claim to a “Bay View Baby New Year” born earlier than 10:03am Jan. 3, let Katherine know at editor@bayviewcompass.com.

Next Page »