Raising a Bibliophile

Several months after moving to Virginia, I finally got around to getting a local library card.

Okay, to be fair, I got a card for the local city library months ago. Bug and I have hit story time there a few times, and it's a cute library with a decent set of books. But we hadn't made it to the county library yet. The closest branch is actually right across the street (almost literally), but it's currently closed for renovations (reopening next summer or autumn), and I didn't figure out that there's a temporary branch open a block away until just a few weeks ago. And since I did discover that, it's just been too cold to go.

I know. Whine, complain. I'm serious, though; it's been in the 20s and 30s lately, and most of the time we don't have a car during the day, and there's no way I'm walking even a few blocks when the temperature is at freezing or below.

So. Anyway. We finally got a library card to the county library a few days ago, and when we were there, we heard about a new program they just started called 1000 Books Before Kindergarten, which is exactly what it sounds like. The goal is to read kids 1000 books before they start kindergarten. They don't all have to be different books, and you don't have to track every individual title. Instead, the librarian gives you a series of coloring sheets, if you will, which each have a certain number of butterflies on them. Kid colors in a butterfly for each book, and once you fill in a sheet, you take it to the library for a reward. There are different milestones to aim for: 100 books, then 250, 500, 750, and finally 1000.

Almost done with this sheet!

Theoretically, you sign up for the program after first having read 25 books. Considering the amount Bug and I read every day, I just signed up same day, because we've obviously read way more books than that over the course of his life so far. Parents can sign up even their little babies, so I figured we're covered.

Once I explained the premise to Bug, he got very excited. Because: prizes. Actually he took it as a personal challenge of sorts (which is guess *is* technically the point).

The result? We read more than 75 books over the past three days. Bug claimed his first reward this morning.

It's a magnet!

And there's no slowdown in sight.

Bug has always been a big reader, just like his mama. He has an overstuffed bookshelf in his bedroom, plus there are always other books rotating in and out of the house: review books; library books; new arrivals from bookstores or book sales or Paperback Swap coming in, other books we weren't too thrilled with heading out.

While we lived in both San Diego and the Sacramento area we hit story times nearly every week. Bug has participated in the Summer Reading Program every summer he's been alive (again, because: prizes). When I request new review books from one of the outlets I write for, I almost always ask for a few picture books for his sake (and before too much longer, he'll be able to start reviewing books himself!). We frequently buy books from library book sales and I can't walk into a regular bookstore without picking up at least one new selection for him. Bug obviously can't actually read to himself yet, but he enjoys having even longer stories read to him, including ones meant for 2nd and 3rd graders. He's got a short attention span for most things, but he'll happily bring me book after book after book. We can read for hours on any given day.

So a challenge like this is really not pushing us to do anything new. We're already big fans of books. But it is bringing out Bug's competitive spirit, and it's giving us something specific to work for.

Just another way I'm working to raise a book lover, I suppose. Bug loves being active, playing board games, being wild outside, watching cartoons, and doing other normal almost-five-year-old things. But it's very important to me that he not only appreciates books, but that he love them. Books are amazing tools, and I dearly want my son to grow to love them the way I do. And programs like this are a fun way to motivate him to do something he already enjoys.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

During one recent week, we been spending a lot of time reading Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I've been trying to get a bit more creative in our daily activities; I know my son loves craft projects and simple work sheets, so I'm trying to get a bit more of them into our weekly preschool-ish schedule. So here are some of the things we got up to this week:

First off, I couldn't find our copy of the book (naturally), so we watched a few different videos on YouTube of people reading it. Our favorite was this animated one, although I am also partial to the sign language version.

We talked about all kinds of different things this week. We talked about the life cycles of butterflies (including reading another book, Butterfly by Moira Butterfield), and did this cute cut-and-paste sequencing strip. We made footprint butterflies (me, too, because if we're painting our feet then I'm obviously going to get in on that) and Bug made an egg carton caterpillar. Bug did a number stamp activity, practicing counting while making caterpillars with his dot painting set.

We talked about the days of the week, which is still a relatively abstract concept for Bug. He had a lot of fun using days of the week sequencing cards, though!

We talked about different fruits, especially the kinds that the caterpillar eats in the book. Bug did a fruit color-by-number. We also did an activity from a new book that I'm really excited about: Art Lab for Little Kids. The activity was buttermilk chalk, and it basically involves dipping chalk in buttermilk to make it creamy and spreadable and mixable. It was actually quite fun, and in addition to drawing fruit, Bug and I drew rainbows and lovely snowy scenes.

So that's what we've been up to. What kinds of fun crafty things have you been doing recently?

Off-the-Wall ABCs

A recent conversation with Bug:

Bug:  Mama, what sound does the letter 'K' make?
Me:   Kah. 'K' makes the "kah" sound. Like 'kangaroo.'
Bug:  Kangaroo?
Me:   Or king, or koala, or kindness, or kudzu, or... kamikaze? Kefir? Kwanzaa?

As you can see, I have a problem. And with a four-year-old who is diligently practicing his alphabet skills every chance he gets, it's a problem I deal with on a near daily basis. It's not a big problem by most standards, but it's definitely a problem.

My problem is that when faced when the task of giving my son words that start with a given letter, my mind kind of blanks. And when it doesn't go blank altogether, it goes in weird directions instead.

Most people, when asked for 'G' words, would head for gorilla. Goat. Good. Giant. Nice, normal words. Me? My brain goes straight to Gorgonzola, gangrene, Geonosis, or Gollum. J is for jaguar, jungle, jack-in-the-box, jellyfish. Or jugular or juxtaposition, Judas or jinx, Jabberwocky or jackalope. (Or Jack Daniels. Definitely inappropriate.) C is for cat or cheese, cheetah or chimpanzee. C is also for cantrip, canasta, cancer, contrarian. F is for farm, family, friend. F is for flatulence, fandango, Fallopian tubes, flagellate, (the) Forsaken.

(Disclaimer: These words don't all make it from my brain to my lips. Obviously.)

A is for ant, alligator, amphibian, allopathic, agoraphobia, amnesia, androgynous, algorithm...

Honestly, I don't really know what's going on with my brain sometimes. Is this a side effect of reading too much? (Not that such a thing is truly possible!) Is this because I have strange interests and a rather morbid fascination with certain unpleasant subjects? Is this the result of four years of not quite enough sleep? (Because even when kids finally start sleeping better, parents don't... or maybe that's just me.)

Am I just plain weird?

Whatever it is, it really does come up all the time. Sometimes, Bug wants me to make up my own words to alphabet books. Normally, that task belongs to D, but since he's away for the foreseeable future, the task instead falls to me. As you can see, I have a strangely difficult time coming up with decent nouns for every letter.

Or sometimes he asks for more words when he's doing his workbooks (definitely not trying to push early academics in this household, but Bug LOVES workbooks! And I'm all for encouraging whatever he's interested in), or when he just sees random letters on the walls (thanks, DMV and military hospital pharmacy). Sometimes when we're in the car, he'll ask for letter sounds and words. Sometimes Bug just likes copying letters from books, and will ask me for sounds and words as he goes.

No matter the situation, I find that my mental lapses happen pretty much every time Bug asks for words beginning with a certain letter. And as of now, I have no solution, except to at least keep my filters intact and keep the inappropriate words to myself, along with the words that will spark questions I'm currently unwilling to answer and the words I just don't want Bug repeating.

At least my kid will have a good vocabulary. Right?

Mixed Observations From My 3.5-Year-Old

Welcome to the September 2015 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Kids Blogging
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have let their children take over writing and sharing.

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I know I've probably said this at every stage of my son's life, but this current stage has got to be my favorite.

Specifically, I love how verbal Bug is. I love how his use of language has evolved over the past few years, how's he's always gaining more vocabulary words and improving his ability to clearly pronounce the words he already knows. I love how he's forming opinions on various subjects. I love how he likes to tell little stories about things that have happened recently or describe the plotlines of books he's been reading.

And, as any parent knows (or will know soon enough, if they've only got pre-verbal kids so far), sometimes the things that come out of his little mouth are simply amazing. Sometimes he makes me laugh, and other times he offhandedly offers up comments that would be offensive in different circumstances and from a different speaker. Sometimes his astute grasp of matters just blows my mind.

Showing off his glitter tattoo from a library event. He wanted a spider that was yellow and orange and red and pink.

I know it's impossible to really accurately portray just how much I love the things my Bug says using written words, so I'll just pass the mic to him, so to speak. Below are a handful of quotes from my little guy, along with a smattering of pictures of recent creations and general cuteness. Enjoy!

He always loves coming to Penzey's, the spice store, with me, probably because he gets to color and then hang his artwork on their wall.

***

First, a brief interview:

How old are you?
     I'm three years old.
What's your favorite cartoon and what's it about? 
     The world one [Word World], how to make letters. How to make things.
What are you good at doing?
     Scootering!
What's your favorite color?
     Black. And green, blue, and red.
What's your favorite animal?
     Yucky snails right now, because I really love them. And kitties do love snails!
What's your favorite book?
      Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
What's your favorite game to play with Daddy?
     Pathfinder. First, I need a little guy, then I find a path, then I go into the big Ender Portal,
     because the Ender Portal that I go in is very, very dangerous.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
     Mommy. Or Green.
What is your favorite food?
     Vegetables. Pasta and chickpeas.
What is your favorite toy?
     My rabbit. It's hiding somewhere.
What's your favorite thing to do outside?
     Make construction sites.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
     I really want to go to work. [He wouldn't specify what kind. And that was the end of that.]

In case you're wondering, this is how Bug plays Pathfinder. We'll make a (tabletop) gamer out of this boy yet!

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When I fart in the water it makes bubbles! And now I'm gonna make a really big fart. And it'll make a really, really, really, really big bubble. And then I'll go inside it. But then you can pop it and I'll be free again.

***

Mommy, your butt is so squishy!

A self-portrait.

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I love the rabbit song. But then a skeleton came along and died the bunny. And now it's gone forever.

A little creation.

***

Sometimes, Bug and I play this game where we go back and forth saying different parts of each other that we love. And sometimes, he picks rather obscure things about me to love.

Me: I love your... shoulders!
Bug: I love your elbows!
Me: I love your tummy!
Bug: I love your belly button!
Me: I love your ears!
Bug: I love your earwax!

***

I love you right up to the moon! And then over the moon, and into a forest, and through a field, and into a barn.

Playing with watercolors. His grandma says he's channeling a little Bob Ross here.

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Bug: I like Warrior 2. I also like Warrior 5.
Me (perplexed): Warrior 5? How do you do Warrior 5?
Bug: You put one leg up like this, and both hands down. No, Mama, you're doing it wrong.

You know how Trader Joe's gives stickers to kids at the register? Well, this is where most of Bug's usually end up.

Showing off the (somewhat creepy-looking, but don't tell him that!) mask he made.

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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be updated by afternoon September 8 with all the carnival links.)

• Life in Mexico—from the perspective of my 13 year old son — Survivor's teenage son at Surviving MexicoAdventures and Disasters shares his perspective on living in rural Mexico.
• Baby Boy Working & Blogging — Baby Boy takes over the blog, he has so much work to do. Then, Life Breath Present writes a letter from his perspective about her working and blogging.
• Videos of a family learning & having fun — Prompted by her kids, Lauren and the rest of the crew at Hobo Mama have started a YouTube channel of Pirate Family Fun & Learning.
• Mixed Observations From My 3.5-Year-Old — Holly at Leaves of Lavender shares some fun quotes from her 3.5-year-old son, along with some fun pictures.
• My 7 Year Old’s 5 Favorite Things About Homeschooling — Dionna at Code Name: Mama's son, Kieran, has always loved homeschooling. Today he is sharing 5 of his favorite reasons.
• A Four-Year-Old with A Lot to Say — After a summmer full of fun, Todd talks for the blog Parental Intelligence about all that he enjoyed such as time visiting with Grandma and Grandpa that included going to a play Grandpa wrote that his uncle acted in.

The S-Word

Bug and I took a trip to the Natural History Museum the other day.

He absolutely loved everything about it, but he was especially enamored of all the hands-on exhibits. Of course, hands-on activities can also cause problems when more than one kid wants to play.

The museum had this one computer in particular that my son thought was super neat. It featured a bunch of wildflowers native to California, and you could click on individual ones to see a lovely painting of the flower, a picture of a dried specimen, and a lovely photo of it growing in the wild.

Shortly after Bug sat down at this computer, another little boy sidled up. I have no idea how old he was, because I'm a terrible judge of that, but I could tell that he was definitely older than Bug. So this boy came over and said, "I want a turn!"

Bug just ignored him, completely enthralled as he was. So I turned to the boy and said "You can play with it once he's done."

The boy watched as Bug looked at a second flower, going back and forth between the different pictures, and then started to reach for the controls, saying "It's my turn now."

To which I replied, "It'll be your turn once he's all done." The boy gave me a confused look, watched for another minute, and then got bored and wandered off.

So I'm just going to put this out here. I absolutely hate the current standard of "sharing." Learn to share. Let him have a turn. You're all done now; someone else wants to play. Why is this what we're teaching our kids these days? I don't understand it. It seems like many parents are teaching their children that instant gratification is their due, that once they express interest in something, they deserve to have it right now.

And if you dare to challenge the status quo, if you're that parent that doesn't force your kid to give up something of theirs the moment another child asks for it, whether it's toys or food of anything else, you get dirty looks and under-the-breath comments disparaging your parenting skills.

I see it all the time. A parent forces their child off the swings within seconds of another child saying they want to use it. A mother glares at other parents when the line to go down the slide doesn't move fast enough. One child steals borrows a toy from a second child, and when the second child protests and tries to take it back, their parent tells them that they they've been playing with that toy all day so now they need to share.

He's having fun. So no, I'm not going to make him get off just yet.

It drives me crazy, and it comes from all directions. At the aforementioned museum, my son tried to take a toy dinosaur away from a younger girl, and I redirected him to a different toy (there were plenty of lonely, unattended toys in the area) as the girl's father stepped over and to tell her that she needed to give my son a turn. I pointed out that there were plenty of other toys, and my son could wait until she was done, and the father looked baffled. "She'll play with it all day if you let her," he told me. So? If there are other toys for other kids, why is it a problem to let her play with, even monopolize something she's interested in?

Later that day, we sat down at a table to have a snack. There were already people at the table, and when the woman saw Bug looking longingly at her child's pretzels, she immediately told the boy to give some to my son. Aside from the fact that she never even asked if I was okay with my son eating pretzels, I just can't stand the message this sends. We shouldn't be teaching our children to give their anything of theirs away simply because someone else wants it.

Kids tend to naturally covet things that others have; isn't it better that we teach them not to indulge in that impulse to take? Patience is a useful skill, and I'd rather my son learn to wait for things rather than that the world owes him everything he wants right now.

Don't get me completely wrong. I believe in sharing, but I don't want it to be forced. The desire to share should come from within, not be imposed by others. A child, especially a two- or three-year-old, shouldn't be punished because they don't want to share their toys (I see this all the time too--Since you can't share, we'll just have to go home now.). And I fully recognize that my three-and-a-half-year-old doesn't really understand the concept the way we do as adults.

If my son has brought a pile of toys to the sand pit at the park and another child is eyeing them hopefully, I might encourage Bug to see if the other child wants to play with something he's not currently using. If he's playing with the train table at Barnes & Noble and another child shows up, I point out that someone else would like to play, and maybe he would like to offer them one of the engines so that they can ride the rails with him. If someone else has a toy that he thinks is really cool, I suggest that he ask the other child if they'd be interested in trading it (temporarily, of course) for one of his toys. (And if they're not interested, it's a learning experience: other children are not required to share their toys if they don't want to, just like he's not required to share his. Sharing is a nice thing to do, but in most cases, it's not mandatory.)

Ultimately, I want my son to share for the right reasons. I have no problem with talking to him and helping him to recognize times when it'd be nice to share. Better yet, I talk him through things when possible, so that the idea to share comes from him, rather than from me. I want him to share because it's more fun when everyone can play, and it feels good to let others use your things (so long as they give them back, of course).

And taking turns? I definitely believe in that, as kids can get much more behind this idea. But I don't think someone else should necessarily get a turn the moment they express interest. There's nothing wrong with teaching our kids to wait for the things they want.

In the case of the wildflower computer at the Natural History Museum, the boy did come back awhile later, and while Bug was still pretty absorbed, he'd also had a fair amount of time to play. I told him he could look at three more flowers, and then we'd move on so that others could play too. And after those three flowers were done (we counted down), he got up with absolutely no complaints.