Connecting with our Kids

Pine Village Co-Founders Emma LaVecchia and Brid Martin

This post was written by Emma LaVecchia, Co-Founder of Pine Village Preschool. 

Every now and then, in between all of the office hours, I get the chance to meet with and talk to real live parents (and children) in person, to learn about their experiences at Pine Village and listen to what is important to them. 

Please don’t misunderstand, I am forever grateful for the opportunity to run this business, and deep inside I really love the business aspect of things.  I have learned more than I could have ever imagined, and relish every second.  But if I could ever dream of having the best of all worlds, it would be to spend more time with parents and share what we have learned, and of course learn more from all of them. 

Wednesday night was one of those wonderful and rare “connection” opportunities.  This is the stuff that fuels my tank.  I’m sure it does the same for all of us who are educators at heart, including Brid (the other PV Co-Founder), when we find ourselves missing the “people piece”.

We gathered that evening to help guide a small group of Pine Village parents at one of our locations to start a Parent Committee group, which they hope will, in part, have a positive impact on building community in their school.  This is of course another great passion of ours: to build communities within our schools that nurture lifelong relationships between families and children.  But that’s a whole other topic. 

The moment from that night that has remained with me until now was the discussion about connecting with our own children, and how as parents we want to have a clearer picture of what happens at school in order to know how they spend their day.  This of course was one of the subtopics that generated from the Committee goal of wanting to enhance the experience that their child has each day.  I was reminded in a deep way that connecting with our children isn’t only about collecting facts, knowing schedules, gathering and looking at their projects, knowing what they ate, or which park they went to.  Connecting with our kids is truly about understanding how they feel.  Yes, it’s a right brain AND left brain thing.

As parents, when we want to know how our children are doing, we instinctively look for answers to questions; hard facts, real life examples to show us what our child did that day or week.  We want daily notes, photos, newsletters, projects and emails.  This is our left brain at work.  However, we are often so focused on those pieces – and it takes so much of the time and energy that is at its lowest point when we finally have the chance – that we don’t fully engage the other side, the emotional connections of the right brain.  We often forget to talk – just talk – to our kids.  To ask our children – yes even the very young ones: 

• “What were you thinking about when you made this picture?”
• “How were you feeling today at school when your teacher left early?” 
• “Tell me about who you played with?”
• “How is your new friend Jane? Why do you like playing with her?” 

It’s not just about the notes and the pictures. We need to focus equally on connecting emotionally with our children.   We need to walk with them on their journey of life, and encourage them to acknowledge the feelings and emotions they experience by asking about them and listening to them about their day.  This is truly how we get to know our children, learn about their day and what they learned and experienced. 

One morning this week as I was driving my 17 year old to high school, he said to me: “Mom, do you know why kids cheat?  It’s because teachers and parents put more emphasis on a grade rather than what we actually know.”  At the time I had three thoughts, 1) “Sad”  2) “That was quite profound for a kid his age.”  And, 3) “I hope he isn’t cheating.”

But his statement had even greater meaning since our parent meeting last week.  It’s truly not only about how many projects the children complete that day, if you received a daily note or if your child read three or four books that day. It is equally about experiencing what our children are experiencing.  About engaging with our children and taking the time to understand this whole other part of their life, from their perspective.  It applies to teachers as well.  We can get so caught up in the daily tasks of the day that we forget to enjoy the kids, to engage with them, to really get involved in their play.

Yes, of course there is a balance.  And in that perfect world we would all be able to have just the right amounts of each.  In reality though, most of us probably need to make the conscious effort to engage and emotionally connect, with our own children in particular, and put aside our expectations and predetermined guide of what we think determines success.

A Week with James

This past week, my sister Jessica took care of James as it is childcare vacation week, but both Kelley and I had to work. She wrote this post about her time with James and graciously agreed to let us use it as a guest blog entry. Thank you, Aunt Jessica!  

The 25 things I learned during my week on James Patrol:

1) Pushing a toy train around a circular track for hours on end is actually pretty Zen, as is digging a hole and filling it in, over and over and over again.

2) I do, in fact, lift from the knees - my legs are killing me from carrying James all week but my back is totally fine.

3) Speaking of carrying James, it turns out that a sprained elbow from a high school injury has the habit of flaring up again, 20 years later, if you spend the week carrying a child.

4) Playing with James' hair or driving him around after a few hours of stimulus, is a sure fire way to get him to go to sleep - sometimes mid sentence. "Aunt Jessica, did you see that dig-zzzzzzzzz"

5) Pushing a stroller with a two (almost three) year old in it for two miles is a lot harder then just walking (or even running) that same two miles.

6) The Faneuil Branch of the Boston Public Library doesn't open until noon on Tuesdays.

7) Grilled American cheese sandwiches are quite possibly the most amazing things ever invented...no, I don't care that American cheese isn't a real food.

8) Thomas and Friends is actually rather entertaining, with some truly catchy tunes that will stay with you for hours and hours and hours.

9) A two (almost three) year old can be solidly distracted by play-doh, bubbles, pink & white, Thomas, trains, and of course, diggers.

10) The Boston Road Crews (the ones who trim the trees from the power lines), and the garbage men of the city are either super friendly, or all have little ones at home because I honestly don't think we passed a single city employee during the whole week who didn't take a second to wave to James.

11) The Children's Museum is exactly as much fun as I remember it to be.

12) The children of Boston, and their parents, are incredibly sweet, well behaved and conscientious of the other children around them...or at least the ones who were at The Children's Museum on Wednesday were.

13) It turns out a two (almost three) year old boy is fascinated by all manner of bodily functions - pee, poo, toot, burp, you name it - it's all awesome and hilarious to the child.

14) A water/sand table is pretty fun, not just for a two (almost three) year old.

15) Grapes are better when cut in half and shared with a nephew.

16) Boynton books are awesome but so are a whole bunch of other board books like THE LITTLE BLUE TRUCK and SHEEP IN A SHOP.

17) Two (almost three) year olds can be incredibly bossy and particular...oh, and did I mention destructive, but they can also be the cutest thing on the planet - painfully, adorable - truly.

18) It's super fun to say things around a two (almost three) year old just to see if he'll mimic you in his adorable voice. There is nothing quite so hilarious as hearing something like "you can't handle the truth" or "these aren't the droids you're looking for" or "no power in the 'verse can stop me" out of that adorable and endearing chirp of a voice.

19) If you put down a paper-tape track through the house with the intention of the two (almost three) year old using it to drive his cars around in a circle, know that it will never be used for that intended purpose and instead you will find yourself running around the track in a circle being chased by said two (almost three) year old for a good hour at least - the good thing is that you will not need to do your scheduled 4 mile run that day.

20) There is no limit to the energy of the two (almost three) year old, but a 40 (almost 41) year old runs out of steam about 2 hours into the day.

21) You can, in fact, get a two (almost three) year old to bake his own birthday cupcakes, as long as decorating the cupcakes once they're cool is in the offing.

22) Magic words are real once the two (almost three) year old realizes that nothing will happen without the most magic word of them all - "please".

23) The two (almost three) year old is a booger making factory. Seriously, if we could harness that power from all the two (almost three) year olds in the world I think we could end this country's dependence on foreign oil.

24) Time runs differently when caring for a two (almost three) year old. In fact, I wonder if there's some sort of worm hole surrounding the little ones that actually changes the laws of physics - have we discovered the true fluidic space?

25) ...which leads me to the fact that caring for a two (almost three) year old for a week is a level of chaos that I couldn't have fully understood until today. Bravo to the mommies and daddies and day care workers and babysitters, the grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles who do this on a regular basis. I tip my hat to you all and, though I don't plan to have any myself, I completely agree that there is nothing quite so indescribably wonderful as hearing "I love you, Aunt Jessica" from that sweet and marvelous little boy.

Jessica Ammirati is a director and doula extraordinaire who lives in Brooklyn, NY. The founder of Going To Tahiti Productions, you can find her regular blog posts for GTTP at http://goingtotahitiproductions.com/blog/. 

The Incident At Cockle Cove Road (And Other Adventures in Discipline)

So there my sister and I were last week, driving down the charming Cape Cod road happily chatting when, from behind us, James piped up, “Here comes the binky!” and a binky landed in my lap.

Hold on a second, you say. Isn’t that kid almost three years old? Isn’t that way too late for a binky?

Well, yes. I suppose so. But I do have to admit that Lucy had a binky for a very long time. At least until four. (I am ashamed to say that I don’t entirely remember how long she had it; I wouldn’t be surprised if I were presented with photographic evidence that showed she had one for another year or so.)

With Lucy it wasn’t a deliberate thing. We were first-time parents and, to be honest, it was just easier that way. I mean, I considered the whole cut-off-the-tip-of-the-binky-so-that-it-doesn’t-have-the-whole-suction thing, the let’s-tie-it-to-the-balloon-and-send-it-off-with-a-proper-good-bye thing, the ceremonious-collect-all-the-binkies-and-throw-them-away thing (can you tell I’m an avid reader of parenting magazines?), but it was always a half-hearted attempt and it never got very far.

My husband, on the other hand, just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Whatever. She’ll be done with it when she’s done with it.’ And, guess what, that’s exactly what happened.

Flash forward ten years and here we are in the same place with James. This time around, however, it is entirely deliberate. It’s part of the strategy in fact. First of all, it’s come to my attention that if a binky is in James’s mouth, nothing else is. Although I do recognize that’s not the most child-proof method of child-proofing, it does come in handy, I must say. Particularly when, say, he’s playing in a garden that has a big, honking Nightshade plant (i.e., deathly poison) about three feet to the left.
If I were smart, I would say that that’s the true reason that we haven’t done anything to begin the binky separation process. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The binky is a key element in our discipline strategy with James – because nothing else works.

Being that James is #3, we aren’t entirely surprised that he didn’t respond in the way the first two did. We learned that lesson when Will came along. Take the whole counting thing, one of the universal discipline strategies across time. What parent doesn’t use the “I’m going to count to three” phrase on a regular basis? With Lucy, we never even got to two. Heck, we never got to two and a half. She’s a rules girl, and by the time we got to two, we were well on our way to whatever point we needed to make. Will, on the other hand, would ask, “But what’s going to happen when you get to three? Will you take my cars away? Will I go into a time out?” And then, based on the answer, he’d decide whether to do what we wanted or not. I wasn’t thrilled, but at least I had a sense of where things were heading.

But now there’s James. James just takes a passing glance at the rules and then leaves them in his dust. When I start counting to three, he just, in his sweet little voice, counts along with me. “Twooooo… Threeeeee…” It’s all I can do not to end up laughing hysterically. Forget following through with any kind of threat. Not to say that James doesn’t end up in his share of time outs, but it’s not the end-all-be-all that it was once upon a time.

Which brings me back to the binky. James couldn’t care less if he ends up in a time out after we get to three. That’s just a chance for him to sing to himself for three minutes. But if we threaten to take away his binky, well, that’s a whole other story entirely.

For example, when I found myself driving along at a fair clip and then all of a sudden there was a binky coming my way, I knew that the first thing I needed to do was tell him that he was never to throw things in a car, and most certainly not in the direction of -- or at -- the driver. The second thing, of course, was me saying that he wasn’t getting the binky back and that it was in a time out for a really long time.

The fact that he barely reacted to that was suspicious.

So I looked into the rearview mirror, only to discover that he was sitting there with a whole other binky in his mouth. He’d apparently taken to carrying around an extra. No wonder he wasn’t concerned.

But he’d thrown it in the car. And he’d thrown it at me, i.e., the driver. The problem, however, was that by the time I’d realized that, it was several minutes later. And we were on a country road that had nowhere I could pull over to make my point right away, something that all of those parenting magazines I read say is crucial with kids this age. Then again, when my other kids were this age, they wouldn’t have thought to have a second binky in reserve.

A few miles down the road, I saw a turn off. Cockle Cove Road. Even though it was now ten minutes later, I pulled over, got out of the car, and went around to his side and opened the door.

“No throwing in the car. No throwing at the driver. This binky is in time out until we get home.” Binky #2, gone.

He cried the whole way home.

I didn’t like it – and I don’t particularly like that I know what his weakness is and that I use it. But that’s the line we walk as parents, isn’t it? It’s our job to make sure that, well, they don’t grow up and keep throwing things at the driver. And sometimes it isn’t pretty.

In the meantime, though – and as long as he doesn’t keep throwing it -- he can have the binky.

Books and My (Sweet Baby) James

I am so ridiculously happy to say: this week's blog is about books. In honor of our Authors' Month curriculum theme, which, o.k., is now officially over, but since I wrote this on the night of April 30, I'm still within the bounds. 


As you know, my hope had been to write about books last time, but there was the bombing, and then the lockdown, and books just didn't cut it. Not when I felt like I was living in the pages of one. 

The last week -- thankfully, gratefully -- has been much more what I hope will remain the norm. Deadlines, way too much on my plate, but nothing involving SWAT teams or CNN.

With that said, Tuesday kicked my butt. It was a beautiful day, no doubt about that - gorgeous weather, managed to get myself to the gym for the first time in, oh, maybe five years. I even voted. But overall, the day just got to me. No question.

It started out with a work thing. One of those things that shouldn't have been a big deal but turned out to be so much more of an issue than it should have been. And that put a spin on just about everything else for the rest of the day. So I wasn't in that great of a mood when I set off to do the round of pick-ups for the day. And what a round it was. With my husband at a class and unable to pitch in until the 8 p.m. Lucy dance pick-up, it was up to me to do the crazy drill:

4:30 pick up Will in Brighton
5:00 pick up James in Watertown
5:20 pick up Lucy in Newton
5:45 drop off Lucy at cello lesson in Watertown
6:30 be home in Brighton for Will's guitar lesson
6:30 pick up Lucy at cello lesson
7:00 drop Lucy off at dance class in Newton

As you'll no doubt note, that doesn't actually work. First of all, it's impossible to be two places at once. Even those of us who are horrible at math know that the 6:30 p.m. Brighton/Watertown split is tough. Second, fitting in dinner for three kids -- 2, 10, and 13 -- isn't exactly the easiest given the schedule above. (And, yes, I know that making sandwiches for everyone would have been ideal, but see previous paragraph about work. I barely managed to get out of the house to get to Will at 4:30. Sandwiches weren't making it into today's game plan.) And, third, the schedule left no room for error. So when, say, Will wasn't ready right at 4:30, and then needed to run back into the school, and then said we'll meet out in front but didn't see the car so he ended up not showing up, well, it just served as a continuation of the workday. Which did not bode well.

Needless to say, we were late picking up James. And then late picking up Lucy. We somehow managed to get Lucy to cello on time, but by then Will was angry with me because I'd clarified that when he began the ride by saying he had no homework to do, it actually meant he had no homework due on Wednesday. Having an entire vocabulary packet due on Thursday and a Social Studies project due on Friday, however, meant that Wednesday night would be well spoken for, so no more games on the iPhone, homework folder out instead.

Did I mention that Will gets surly when he doesn't eat?

O.k. New plan: call the Watertown Domino's and order pizza for pick-up. Done. (No judgment, please.) Lucy dropped off, pizza picked up, back at the house with a whole twenty minutes for Will and James to eat their pizza. And, thank goodness, they got the "light sauce" right on Will's pepperoni. Ten whole minutes of peace. I could even get James into the car so that we could be ready to go when Dan (Will's guitar teacher and all-around wonderful friend of the family) showed up. But I neglected to factor in James's 6:22 pm poop.

"I can not go right now, Mommy. I am not done yet."

Sigh.

I managed to finally convince him that I could change his diaper before he was fully done with his twenty-minute cycle of pooping -- also managed to get Will to not draw the line in the sand right then about whose cars were whose -- and get him outside at 6:30. What I didn't manage was to convey to Will that he could not then finish his homework before starting his guitar lesson, so that was another seven minutes. Finally rolled up to Lucy's cello lesson at 6:47. Sigh again.

McDonald's drive-thru for her (please hold off your judgment for just a little bit longer), and, then, finally, got her to dance class. 7:04 p.m. Not great, but could have been worse.

Driving home along the Charles, I was not in the best mood. James helped with his running commentary. ("Boats, Mommy! They are swimming!!!!") But, oh, how I was ready to be home and done with the craziness. Which was when I let my guard down.

We got home just as the lesson was ending and, having the chance to talk to another adult, I ignored the raucous laughter in the living room that I knew meant Will and James were playing a game that they should not be playing, and instead decided to hang out and chat with Dan. Less than ten minutes later came the kind of crying that I knew meant blood was involved. And, yes, there was James lying on the floor, his temple bleeding from where he'd fallen off the couch pillow (or, rather, been hit by a pillow wielded by Will and pushed off -- yes, o.k., some judgment here is appropriate) and hit a stack of Legos on his way down. It was not a good moment. And yet, I guess, the kind of end I expected to this incredibly aggravating day. I managed to clean it off, get the Neosporin on (my husband laughs, but I can't rest until I get the Neosporin on), and then the Elmo band-aid.

Wasn't this post supposed to be about books?

Yes. And here goes: while James was nearly inconsolable, crying in pain, the only thing that calmed him down was sitting back in our "bink" chair, binky in his mouth (sorry, no judgment allowed again), and a stack of his favorite books. And I, unsure how to determine whether a two-year-old has a concussion or not, took comfort in his knowing exactly what books he wanted. First up, the "sheep" book. In this case, he didn't mean Sheep in a Jeep (one of my personal favorites) or Sheep on a Ship (both by Nancy Shaw), but Lucy the Lamb. So, o.k., technically not about sheep, but the lamb was close enough.

Then came Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! Now, of the Sandra Boynton books -- many of which are translated into Spanish, incidentally -- I have to admit, my favorite Boynton books are But Not the Hippopotamus and Hippos Go Berserk. But, honestly, I have no issue with dinosaurs. And what I was happy about Tuesday night was that, despite the big bump on his head, James went through all the usual motions: his routine counting of the dinosaurs on the last page (he can't actually count, mind you, but he was close enough), pointing out which dinosaurs are green, etc.

The last book of the night was my choice: A You're Adorable (Martha Alexander). It's a song that my mom used to sing to me, so when I came upon the board book way back when Lucy was a baby, I couldn't help but snatch it up. And I'm so glad that James loves it. He sings along throughout the whole alphabet, except he has to stop at "M-N-O-P" because of the girl with the puppy, and then at "Q-R-S-T" because he has to talk about how the boy on the bicycle is pulling the train.

And there it was. These days I don't get a lot of time to read books of my own; I figure that time will come again. But I'm thrilled that sitting down in that chair and reading a few books made as much of a difference to James as it did to me. Those moments and those three books put the rest of the day into perspective. If I could end every day holding him in my arms, his cheek to my cheek, working our way through the stacks of books on the table beside us… It's worlds away from where the day began -- hearing him giggle his way through the alphabet was a good thing. A great thing. So thank you, Authors' Month, for reminding me to fully appreciate the joy and comfort that even just a few words per page can bring.

Of course, I should end by noting that, unlike me, my husband didn't rely on general behavior to test for a concussion. "Did you ask him who the President was?" he asked, only half jokingly.

"He's two," I answered. "Of course he doesn't know who the President is." (Although at two Lucy could name the three Buffy boyfriends, to my mother's deep dismay.) 

"Well, let's try him," Kelley said, as we stood there by the crib. He turned to James, looking at him expectantly. "So?"

After looking at Kelley, and then at me, James put his binky back in his mouth. "Obama."

The End.





 

Lockdown

James (2), watching for helicopters
outside our window

So, apparently, I spoke too soon. Remember last week how I said my family wasn’t directly affected by the events of the week?

On Friday morning we woke up to a phone call at 6:08 a.m. Early morning phone calls are rarely good, and my heart was pounding a little as I listened to the caller i.d.

City of Boston? On school vacation week? That was… odd. I had James, though, so my husband answered it – or listened to it rather – and he gave me the overview: bombing suspect had been involved in the MIT shoot-out the night before, was suspected of being in Watertown… And he was going to take a shower. (He meaning my husband, of course, not the suspect.)

Um, o.k., I thought. Thanks City of Boston for the update. I went back to sleep.


Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. This time it was Boston Public Schools and I’m not sure if they gave more detail, if I was more receptive to it than my husband was, or if it was just that by that time we were more awake. Because, well, Watertown was shut down, no cars in or out? Allston-Brighton was on lockdown? What exactly did that all mean? With plans to go to visit my parents in Connecticut for the day, it was an odd experience to call my mother to say that we wouldn’t be there later in the morning because we weren’t allowed to leave the house. Our house, you see, is on the edge of Brighton. On the Brighton/Watertown line, to be specific. The Black Hawk helicopters everyone was seeing on the news? I was seeing them out my bedroom window.

Once again, Facebook came in handy. With Will (10) in the living room watching Netflix, turning on the news wasn’t an option. And ironically, to begin with, I got more information from friends and family across the country who were watching the news than I was getting at home. Thanks to a friend in Ohio, I was able to get the link to the Boston Police scanner channel and get a better understanding of what was happening for a little while. (And let me tell you, listening to them talk about addresses that I could practically see from my house – to see the command center set up in the parking lot of the Target I go to pretty much ever week, or the reporters talking from the intersection I drive through every day to pick up James from daycare – is a strange and surreal thing.) When that no longer worked, another friend posted a link to a TV station’s website that was running live updates along and live-streaming their newscast along with closed captioning – again a necessity with the kids around.

And what about the kids themselves? Will, as noted above, watched Netflix all day. In fact, he wasn’t even aware that we were "sheltering in place" until Saturday morning, after the events of the previous day were well over. For most of the day, I couldn’t tell if he knew something was going on but had gotten away with watching thirteen hours straight of TV so he wasn’t going to say anything until we did, or if he was truly so wrapped up in his show that he was entirely clueless. (It turned out to be the latter, giving me new insight as to why we have to tell him something nine times before he finally acknowledges that we’re talking to him.)

James, at two, couldn’t have cared less. In fact, he actually handled being cooped up in the house better than I expected. His favorite part was to watch the “big, fat helicopters” (presumably big and fat because they were flying so low and close to our house). It wasn’t until about twenty minutes until bedtime that it was clear that he’d had it. For the most part, however, he was content to just hang out with everyone and to run around. Being allowed to play ball inside the living room, was icing on the cake.

Of the three kids, Lucy, at 12-going-on-13 (literally; her birthday was that very day) was the toughest. She had a friend sleeping over, which was a Godsend for all of us as Maeve provided enough of a buffer for the others to keep them from turning on each other or on us. And I have to say, that the two of them held it together for most of the day. (Although, after telling them what was going on when they ventured downstairs in the morning, Lucy did say, “Well, that’s a lot to wake up to.”) Maeve mostly read her Kindle until her mom broke lockdown to come get her, and Lucy played games on her computer and watched YouTube. It being her birthday, we opened presents (although, unfortunately, I had not purchased any DVDs for her, which would have been an excellent distraction) and ate birthday cake, all along trying not to think about what was going on out in the world on her 13th birthday.

All in all, for as strange as the day was, it wasn’t really that much stranger than the rest of the week. And although I saw several people on Facebook question the difference between “lockdown” and “martial law,” I can certainly say that knowing the strength of the law enforcement presence was more reassuring than frightening. In fact, although I was restless – o.k., and pretty much useless (as my husband will attest) all day – it wasn’t scary. The first time I felt that fluttery panicky feeling was about three minutes after they lifted the lockdown. Because if they didn’t find him in the neighborhood right around the corner from me in broad daylight, and if he were hiding out in some nook or cranny (or, as it turned out, boat), then all I could envision was him making a run for it and ending up in my backyard – or coming in through our back door – and then everything would change.

But that’s what it comes down do, doesn’t it? Everything didn’t change; not for us, at least. It’s been a scary and surreal week, one that I’d prefer not to repeat. In some ways, even, it’s been uplifting – before Monday, the idea of Boston Strong spreading around the world would have been, well, ludicrous. The traffic signs saying “We are one Boston” make me cry every time I see them. And I’ve never felt more of a Bostonian or prouder of my neighbors and city than I do today.

But when the suspect was finally captured, and the relief and rejoicing began, I couldn’t bring myself to join those posting something to the effect of “It’s over.” Because I don’t believe it is. I think about Oklahoma City, and London, and, of course, New York. And, yes, you can be damn sure that I think about Afghanistan, and Syria, and Iraq and Iran. I think about our children and the way of this world and am grateful that, on Friday night, I was able to put my kids to bed saying that the police did what I’ve raised my kids thinking police always would – they protected the public. They got the guys who did this. They were patient, and painstaking, and worked together as a team and didn’t give in to the pressure for more information (true or not), more action (justified or not), or more of anything other than what was needed to get the job done. I also know, however, that there are children out there for who this is not the case, who may grow up not feeling safe or loved or cared for. Who may not grow up, period.

So I will pray for Martin Richard and Lu Lingzi and Krstyle Campbell and Sean Collier. I will pray for their brothers and sisters, their mothers and fathers, for the families, friends, and communities who love them. I will pray for the nearly two hundred wounded in the Marathon bombings, for the recovery of their physical and mental and emotional beings. I will pray for the caregivers and the law enforcement and for each and every person who witnessed or experienced this day. I will pray for anyone anywhere in the world who has feared for or, worse, lost, a loved one be it in the name of peace or of war, whoever defines those terms. And I will pray that someday, there will be a generation of children who grow up and figure out a way to manage their differences in a way that doesn’t involve violence of any kind. Perhaps those children will be ours. 

Times Like These

This week’s blog post was supposed to be about books. I got a little heavy last week, so I thought that I’d lighten things up, go with the curriculum theme of the month, and focus on the books that James looks forward to every night. But, obviously, that isn’t exactly at the top of my mind today.

I wasn’t there on Monday; my family wasn’t affected. Not directly at least. But I’m not sure anyone in Boston – or who has ties to Boston, for that matter – can say that they’ve been unaffected. I’ve always loved the fact that Boston, despite its city-status, often feels like a small town. Downtown is navigable and familiar. The rest of the world may not think we’re the friendliest, but we tend to see people we know wherever we go.

What that means in a situation like this, of course, is that, if we weren’t there ourselves, then we know someone who was. And, in many cases, it’s not just that we have a friend who went to school with someone whose husband's college roommate was right there; it’s more that it was our neighbor’s friend. Our friend’s niece. The grad student who works for us. And although most of us are lucky enough to have enough distance to know that life will return to normalcy at some point in the not very distant future, for some of us that isn’t the case. The broken bits and pieces of my heart go out to those for whom it never will be. Our challenge as parents is to try and figure out how to reconcile that understanding with allowing our children to remain as unafraid as possible. For us to remain as unafraid as possible.

On Monday afternoon I was getting ready for Lucy’s birthday party, a slumber party with seven 13-(or-soon-to-be)-year-olds. Lucy wasn’t actually home because she’d gone into work with my husband, but 10-year-old Will was, as was his friend from across the street. I was midway through hanging streamers when I got a text from my sister asking if I was o.k. After a few furious texts back and forth, I got onto Facebook, which ended up being my news source for the rest of the day.

In a way I was grateful that I had a house full of kids – it kept me from, a) collapsing in tears on a regular basis, and, b) keeping the news on for the remainder of the day and night to catch whatever snippets of actual information I could. From the little I did see, it would have been an exercise in futility given that there was so little anyone could yet say.

After a frantic few minutes of trying to get in touch with my husband (just to confirm that he hadn’t on a whim taken Lucy into Boston to see the marathon) and then realizing that cell phone service was down, I posted on Facebook to let our family and friends know we’d been nowhere near downtown, and then spent the next two hours texting and talking to various members of my family to fully reassure.

What I didn’t do right away was tell Will because, well, I had no idea what to say despite the advice going around on various sites. I knew his first question would be about his teacher. (Remember his wonderful teacher Ms. Harmon that I talked about last week? As her whole class knew and was eagerly following, she was running that day). To be honest, when I finally got the opportunity to talk to him, I botched it pretty badly. And several days later, even though I know all of the steps I’m supposed to take, I’m still having a hard time figuring out how exactly I should handle this.

The good thing is that, for all of Will’s anxieties, this isn’t the kind of thing that scares him. And Lucy seems to have gotten my husband’s lack-of-worry genes. So I sit here reminding myself that, if Lucy asks me if she can go hang out in Harvard Square with her friends for a few hours, rather than say, you-are-never-leaving-the-house-again, my answer needs to be “yes.” And when Will asks me if we can go to the movies, my first response can’t be you-want-to-hang-out-in-a-crowded-movie-theater-during-April-vacation-week???? but instead, “what show do you want to see?” At the same time, last night, when Lucy started to argue with me that it wasn’t energy efficient for her to charge her cell phone every night, you can bet I pulled out the “I’m your mother and I say so; end of discussion” line.

We can’t live our lives in fear. That’s not something I want to pass on to my children.  What I do want to make sure they understand is that, although bad things happen, there’s good out there, too. Or, actually, maybe that’s something I need to remind myself of.

So I’ll try to forgo the news footage and the graphic photographs and instead focus on the stories of heroism and kindness that came to light. If that means I overdose in reading about the Yankees playing Sweet Caroline at their game the other night, so be it. (In some families it’s about race or religion; in my Yankees-fan, New York-based family, marrying a Red Sox fan – much less becoming one – was sacrilegious.)

But at the same time, I’m going to force myself to have the hard conversations with my husband and my kids. Who is the person we call if cell phones go down and we can’t reach each other? Where do we meet if, God forbid, something like this happens again and we can’t get to each other? Who picks up James, who picks up Will, and how to we track down Lucy if that’s what it really comes to?

Many years ago, Will and I pulled up to my mother-in-law’s house to pick up Lucy after school. Then-5-yr-old Will asked me if he could bring his Hot Wheels cars into the house while we waited for her to get her things together. If you can carry them, I answered, you can bring them. So he gathered ten or so into his arms and carefully walked up the path and into the house, murmuring to himself, Be strong. Be strong.

Be strong, Boston. I may be a transplant, but you’re still my home.

In a message sent out to Pine Village families on Monday, April 15, PVP co-founders Emma Lougheed and Brid Martin sent out the following message that we’d like to share here as well:

As we reflect on yesterday's horrors, we want to send all of our fellow Bostonians love and support during this unimaginable time. I know we are all weighted down with a sense of sadness for our city, and for all of our neighbors who have been personally affected.  The Pine Village community has tremendous strength and spirit and we ask you to please send your positive healing vibes to all of those who were tragically touched yesterday, and of course for peace.

The PV family is several hundred strong.  Many of you came to school this morning wishing to share your stories with us and asked us to share in helping you to protect and support our children through this complicated time.  We want you to know that the Pine Village staff is here for you in any way we are able to be.  Please talk with us and let's stick together as we reassure our children that they are safe and loved.

"There is more good than bad in this world. More light than darkness.  And YOU can make more light." 
Written for every child - Peter Reynolds 4/15/2013

Warmly, Emma and Brid

More information about helping kids of different ages deal with traumatic experiences can be found at http://www.nctsn.org/trauma-types/terrorism and http://www.psychiatry.org/mental-health/more-topics/coping-with-disasters.

Butterflies in the Tummy

I have to be honest, this has been a tough couple of weeks. Slipping on the ice and giving myself a concussion – not fun. Having the fog evaporate and realizing exactly how much fell through the cracks when I was off in concussion-la-la land? Really not fun. In a really really kind of way. Especially when this week is one of the biggest weeks work-wise of my whole year. Which is why this week has been one of those off-the-charts I Am A Horrible Mother weeks.

When my ten-year-old woke up on Monday complaining of a stomachache – which had been an ongoing complaint throughout the week before but had gone away over the weekend – I wasn't the most sympathetic. But we went to the doctor and they said a bug was going around and that it might not be a bad idea to keep him home for the day and, and, and… The fact that my first thought was frustration is not something I am proud of. The fact that work even factored into my thoughts makes my heart hurt. But it did. And, yes, when I drove off to a meeting that I had to attend, even knowing that I'd left him in the highly capable and loving hands of my mother-in-law, I pretty much cried the whole way there. So you can imagine my complicated feelings when, at 9:12 yesterday morning, my phone rang and the name of his school popped up.

To my surprise, though, what happened from there wasn't a "Please come get your son because we have 700 students in our school and I can't have him lying here"; instead, the nurse took the time to talk to me about what was going on, to hear the concern and, yes, frustration in my voice, and then tell me to give it a little time and see how the morning played out. With another meeting on the schedule (big week work-wise, as I mentioned), I arranged for my husband to be available should the next phone call come.

Two hours later, after monitoring my phone and seeing nothing, I called the school back and checked in. The nurse, as it turns out, had watched over Will for awhile and then took him back to his class and talked to his teacher. And between the two of them, they managed to get to the bottom of it: anxiety. Big-time, big picture anxiety, but anxiety nevertheless.

Other than to say that I fully understood it once they figured it out, I'm not going to go into what it was about – that's Will's stuff. But the reason I've gone into all of the above in the first place is because, well, I love his teacher. I find I love his school nurse, too. In fact, I love the whole support system that this 700-kid school -- in the big Boston Public School system -- has. And it made me think about what it means to have a place that we love and trust to send our kids to.

I mean, regardless of why we choose to send them – and whether it's a choice or not – there's going to be guilt involved. Right? It's that I Am A Horrible Mother thing, even if you, like I, believe that a happy mom makes a better mom. But that's why our choice is so important. It's why we choose a place like Pine Village.

When Will was four, he had, well, the closest I can come to describing it is an anaphylactic-shock episode, although to this day we aren't sure if that's what it truly was. It was at midnight on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and it happened as we drove home from visiting family in New Jersey. Or, to be more specific, on the side of the very empty, no-help-when-you-need-it, everyone's-home-in-their-beds Mass Pike. (To this day, I firmly believe that the truck driver who saw us and crossed the highway – and radioed our exact location to the ambulance since between the 911 operator and myself we couldn't figure it out – was an angel.)

What I also (to this day) remember, is the complete breakdown I had in the Pine Village parking lot after dropping him off on his first day back at school. If it weren't for his teachers and the staff there, I can pretty much swear to you that I wouldn't have made it through that experience. I would have kept him home and in my arms for, well, ever. And he would have ended up as petrified to leave our house every day as I was to let him go. But they watched over him and they watched over me; they looked out for things he could have a reaction to, took possession of the Epi-pens and the asthma meds and all of the doctor's forms and instructions… and through their patience, reassurance, and confidence somehow managed to get me to let him continue on with being a kid. Just like his teacher and his school nurse today. And I am so grateful for all of these wonderful people who have become a part of our lives.

Although it is only April and that pesky ice isn't as distant of a memory as we might like, we're all thinking about summer and enrollment for next year. For some of us, that means leaving Pine Village and heading into much bigger, big-kid schools. For some of us that means leaving our daycare – or maybe transitioning out of a stay-at-home experience – and joining Pine Village. We love where we are now; we don't want to change. But change is necessary and it is good. We know that, but we fear it too. Because 'change' when it comes to our kids means a lot of tears – both theirs and ours. I mean, you know me – you know I love Pine Village; you know I'm thrilled for two-year-old James to finally be there in the Fall. But I, too, fear that moment when James realizes that he won't be seeing his classmates Annika and Rhea and Scarlett the next day, but instead will be staying at this new school. Yet I know that the teachers and staff at Pine Village will care for him and love him nearly as much as I do.

And when it's time to leave Pine Village, I'll do so knowing that there are teachers and school nurses and a whole host of other people that will take care of him and support him each and every day. Whether you're heading to Boston Public Schools (as Will and his older sister, Lucy, have) or a school in Newton, Needham, Cambridge or beyond. So I'm going to savor these last few months with Annika and Rhea and Scarlett, but I'm not going to fear the Fall. Instead I will look forward with excitement to the moments yet to come, and to the new (and old) wonderful people who will become a part of our lives.

Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering about how it all turned out with Will yesterday...

A few minutes ago his teacher texted me with an update that he was heading off to soccer and all seemed well. When I texted back and asked if I could talk to him – because I'm not actually a horrible mother at all and I really needed to hear my baby- um, I mean, my big boy's voice – two seconds later the phone rang.

"Hey, Mom! What's up?" he asked, a universe away from the sick kid I'd spoken to in the morning.

"Nothing," I said. "Just wanted to see how you were feeling."

"Fine," he answered, with the kind of exasperation that a ten-year-old boy reserves for his mother. "Can I go now? They're waiting for me."

"O.k.," I said into the silence as he handed his phone back to his teacher. "Love you," I added, even though it was probably Ms. Harmon on the phone at that point.

And, you know what? It didn't matter who I was talking to at that point. Because either way, I do.  

Yes, that would be Will in the blue t-shirt on the left, taunting
whoever was "It" at the time. Clearly doing much better!
(Incidentally, note 2-yr-old James in the red and blue jacket
on the right, mixing it up with the big kids.)

I Believe

This past weekend was, for some of us, Easter Weekend. And, no, this isn't about to be about religious beliefs or different spiritual traditions – this is about the all-important question of, well, the Easter Bunny.

My ten-year-old is a jumble of personalities. He can be so incredibly sweet – making sure to grab that extra lollipop for his sister or worrying that his baby brother feels scared and alone when put into his crib for bed. At the same time, he can easily whack that brother in the head with a soccer ball or say the most obnoxious thing to his sister. "It's not my fault!" rolls off the tongue much more easily than "I love you, Mom," I'm sorry to say.

And as Saturday night rolled around, it was his question I was dreading: "Mom, is there really an Easter Bunny?"

Now, don't get me wrong. It isn't the first time this has come up. In fact, it isn't the first kid that I've had to go through this with. Lucy, my now 12-year-old, however, went about it in a different way. She sat me down one summer – well outside of any concerning calendar events – and said, "Mama, I need to ask you a question. And I need you to promise me that you'll tell me the absolute truth."

Given that she was about six at the time, the answer was a no brainer. "Of course," I said. I couldn't imagine not telling her the truth about whatever she wanted to know.

Except then the question came: "There's not really an Easter bunny, right?"

Um…

So I stammered and backpedaled and looked for a way out of the promise I'd just made. And in my very unhelpful silence, she followed it up with, "I mean, is there really a big bunny that walks around and brings candy to, like, everyone in the world?"

That one I could answer easily. "Not everyone in the world celebrates Easter, Luce."

The withering glare she gave me indicated that she wasn't falling for the stalling bit, not even a little.

So you'd think that when the question was raised by Will all these years later that I would have had my wits about me. Especially because, as I said, it wasn't the first time he'd asked. He, too, began to question the existence of a six-foot tall rabbit bearing chocolate and jelly beans. Being a second/third/fourth grader these days doesn't allow for much in terms of innocence. But in previous years he asked in such a way that it was more than easy to brush off the question; I got the sense that he was more than happy to be allowed to believe.

This year was a little bit different. He's ten, after all; a world weary fifth grader. He's walked through CVS and Target and seen all the candy displays. So this time when he asked, I decided to go with the words that his sister had handed me years ago.

"Well," I said, my heart pounding loudly, "it's not like there's a big bunny that walks around handing out candy."

I know. You're hoping that his answer was a casual shrug and a smile and a "Yeah, I kind of figured." Right? Because that's what I was hoping the answer would be too. I mean, he's ten. World weary and all that.

But when he looked at me, there was disappointment in his eyes. "Really?" he said, in a sad kind of way.

Then came the shrug and the answer I'd hoped for, but I knew it wasn't real.

So I quickly and wholeheartedly said, "But I believe."

Thank goodness he didn't ask me in what – because I couldn't with a good conscience continue with the six-foot-bunny thing. But he gave me that sweet innocent smile and then he nodded happily.

And you know what? I do believe. (So don't get me started on Santa.)