One of the cutest things in the en-ti-re world is Sasha lying on her belly in the driveway talking to ants. If you ask what she's doing, she holds out her hand and says, "Ant - hand"; and often enough there is in fact an ant crawling on her hand. Or smooshed between her fingers.
Billions and billions of ants live in our yard. They like the ponderosa trees. Ours are all black ants, but biting red ants live in the park at the end of the street. I suspect red ants need the drier, dustier soil found there.
Anyway. You remember that my kids had a "pet" daddy long-leg in the bathroom, right? Well, the other day they found a spider outside and chased it around our neighbor's driveway. That spider was so large I could see it from 100 feet away. I don't know what kind it was but it sure scared me, and I told the kids to leave it alone.
That night, my husband and I explained that some spiders living in Central Oregon -- black widows for example -- are filled with poison, and if they bite you, they'll make you very, very sick. It was a one-way conversation, as conversations with Blake often are; but the next day I heard a loud STOMP, and Blake explained, "It's OK, Mom. That spider was filled with poison."
*
A cartoon in the last New Yorker showed two people in a tree with a bear below it, staring up hungrily. One person says to the other, "You tell him how much money we donated!" This made me laugh so hard...
I'm not trying to teach the kids to "love" nature. Nature isn't some cute, cuddly creature that exists out there; it's not a fascinating weather event watched on TV. Climbing a mountain isn't a quick jaunt undertaken lightly. This world demands admiration and respect.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Fear, part two
In daycare the kids are doing a unit on safety. They are learning about strangers.
Before we hiked Pilot Butte the other day, Blake told me a long story about how when you climb into the center of the earth and meet a stranger, you should never talk to them. Don't talk to strangers! So I asked him: Blake, what's a stranger? He had no idea.
While hiking Pilot Butte, we passed dozens of strangers. And we said hello or nodded to every last one of them. Some of the strangers stopped to admire Sasha and to wonder whether she had hiked the whole way by herself. One stranger yelled after me to catch her, that a car was coming down. (We hiked up the road, since we had the baby jogger. It's a one-lane paved road with no guard rail.) One stranger picked my son up when he tripped.
So. I can't teach my children not to talk to strangers when I talk to strangers all the time -- when, in fact, I sometimes rely on strangers for help. But clearly they need to learn to be wary of certain people.
Yesterday I left the kids in the car while I ran into the cleaners. (Silent conversation with self: I parked in the spot immediately in front of the building. I can see them through the shop windows. If someone tries to take them, I can yell loudly enough to be heard. I can be out the door in an instant. If Blake tries to climb out... Etc.) Before I left, I asked Blake if he knew what to do if a person he didn't know tried to open his door. What, Mom? Scream as loud as you can, Blake! Scream as loud as Sasha.
In other words, for the moment I have decided to tell them not to go with a person they don't know. Not to take anything, even candy, from a person they don't know.
What do you think? My kids are just 4 and 2.
Before we hiked Pilot Butte the other day, Blake told me a long story about how when you climb into the center of the earth and meet a stranger, you should never talk to them. Don't talk to strangers! So I asked him: Blake, what's a stranger? He had no idea.
While hiking Pilot Butte, we passed dozens of strangers. And we said hello or nodded to every last one of them. Some of the strangers stopped to admire Sasha and to wonder whether she had hiked the whole way by herself. One stranger yelled after me to catch her, that a car was coming down. (We hiked up the road, since we had the baby jogger. It's a one-lane paved road with no guard rail.) One stranger picked my son up when he tripped.
So. I can't teach my children not to talk to strangers when I talk to strangers all the time -- when, in fact, I sometimes rely on strangers for help. But clearly they need to learn to be wary of certain people.
Yesterday I left the kids in the car while I ran into the cleaners. (Silent conversation with self: I parked in the spot immediately in front of the building. I can see them through the shop windows. If someone tries to take them, I can yell loudly enough to be heard. I can be out the door in an instant. If Blake tries to climb out... Etc.) Before I left, I asked Blake if he knew what to do if a person he didn't know tried to open his door. What, Mom? Scream as loud as you can, Blake! Scream as loud as Sasha.
In other words, for the moment I have decided to tell them not to go with a person they don't know. Not to take anything, even candy, from a person they don't know.
What do you think? My kids are just 4 and 2.
Fear
After I graduated from college, aged 22 years, I moved to Riga, Latvia. An English-language newspaper (really more of a newsletter to emigres) had offered me a job. It paid next to nothing but did offer housing, so off I went. I bought a plane ticket and I left the country *snap* just like that.
In Latvia I met the most interesting people. Everyone seemed so daring. One young man had travelled from Latvia to Istanbul by plane, then came back up by train and bus; I met him in a cafe and made him tell me all his stories. At the end of the evening he offered me his hand-drawn map of Istanbul and encouraged me to take the same trip. So I did. With a backpack, a passport and very little knowledge of Turkey, off I went *snap* just like that.
You might say that I was careless. That I was naive, unforgivably innocent, much too trusting. And you'd be right ... but nothing particularly horrifying happened to me. I had a wonderful time. I grew up.
I kept that sense of daring after returning to the US. I learned to mountain bike; I learned to snowboard; I married; I finagled my way into jobs that I was completely unqualified for. I talked to strangers. I had a wonderful time.
Then. Then I got pregnant, and everything changed. I grew fearful. When I was pregnant, I wouldn't stand beside a microwave. I wouldn't consume anything containing alcohol, caffeine, unpasteurized milk (eg soft cheeses), beef, pork or raw fish. I stopped riding my bike and I certainly stopped snowboarding. I drove less. And I wanted never, ever to be more than 10 miles from a hospital.
After my baby was born I was always anxious. I think I was just a little crazy. I tried never to turn my back on my baby, even when he was sleeping. Babies die in cribs, you know! I used to put him in the bouncy seat in the bathroom and shower with the curtain part-way open, so I could see him. Once I dropped the phone on his head (from a distance of about six inches) and I kept him awake for hours to be sure he didn't have a concussion. Eventually -- after about six, eight months -- I realized that my excessive carefulness was actually creating problems, especially sleep problems, and I tried to relax.
But I'm still filled with anxiety. I think some of the other parents in my neighborhood consider me too laissez faire because I give my kids a long leash; but every second that I am responsible for those children, they weigh on me. It's an endless conversation I have with myself. Blake climbed up that ladder. He's probably OK. It's stable. He's only on the third rung. If he goes higher, I'll... Blake played with that marble toy; did he leave marbles where Sasha can get them? Maybe she won't eat them. Oh of course she will, I'd better find them all... If I go to the bathroom while Sasha's in her highchair, will she try to climb out? She's entranced by that movie. Maybe if I leave the door open, I can hear what she's doing... All day long I think these thoughts. If I can't see the kids, you can be damn sure I can hear them, and have a good idea what they're doing. Even if Blake has ridden his bike down to the park. Even if Sasha has wandered onto the neighbor's porch. I know where they are and I'm silently calculating whether (or how badly) they can get hurt in that activity, and whether it's worth the risk.
Andrea from Beanie Baby questioned why we, as parents, feel that the world is less safe than it used to be, when clearly it is not. She concluded (if I read correctly) that we feel more responsible for our children's safety than parents did in the past -- we feel that every bump and bruise is our fault -- and so while the world is safer, our culpability is greater, and that's the main source of our anxiety.
Certainly I feel that way. I take responsibility for what goes wrong with them, but don't take credit for what goes right.
And I was never, ever anxious or stressed before I had children. Not even during finals week. Not even when I arrived in Rila, Bulgaria at 10pm with no hotel reservations. Now I'm anxious just about every second of the day. I try to let my kids be free, to take their chances with the world; but I'm anxious for them.
In Latvia I met the most interesting people. Everyone seemed so daring. One young man had travelled from Latvia to Istanbul by plane, then came back up by train and bus; I met him in a cafe and made him tell me all his stories. At the end of the evening he offered me his hand-drawn map of Istanbul and encouraged me to take the same trip. So I did. With a backpack, a passport and very little knowledge of Turkey, off I went *snap* just like that.
You might say that I was careless. That I was naive, unforgivably innocent, much too trusting. And you'd be right ... but nothing particularly horrifying happened to me. I had a wonderful time. I grew up.
I kept that sense of daring after returning to the US. I learned to mountain bike; I learned to snowboard; I married; I finagled my way into jobs that I was completely unqualified for. I talked to strangers. I had a wonderful time.
Then. Then I got pregnant, and everything changed. I grew fearful. When I was pregnant, I wouldn't stand beside a microwave. I wouldn't consume anything containing alcohol, caffeine, unpasteurized milk (eg soft cheeses), beef, pork or raw fish. I stopped riding my bike and I certainly stopped snowboarding. I drove less. And I wanted never, ever to be more than 10 miles from a hospital.
After my baby was born I was always anxious. I think I was just a little crazy. I tried never to turn my back on my baby, even when he was sleeping. Babies die in cribs, you know! I used to put him in the bouncy seat in the bathroom and shower with the curtain part-way open, so I could see him. Once I dropped the phone on his head (from a distance of about six inches) and I kept him awake for hours to be sure he didn't have a concussion. Eventually -- after about six, eight months -- I realized that my excessive carefulness was actually creating problems, especially sleep problems, and I tried to relax.
But I'm still filled with anxiety. I think some of the other parents in my neighborhood consider me too laissez faire because I give my kids a long leash; but every second that I am responsible for those children, they weigh on me. It's an endless conversation I have with myself. Blake climbed up that ladder. He's probably OK. It's stable. He's only on the third rung. If he goes higher, I'll... Blake played with that marble toy; did he leave marbles where Sasha can get them? Maybe she won't eat them. Oh of course she will, I'd better find them all... If I go to the bathroom while Sasha's in her highchair, will she try to climb out? She's entranced by that movie. Maybe if I leave the door open, I can hear what she's doing... All day long I think these thoughts. If I can't see the kids, you can be damn sure I can hear them, and have a good idea what they're doing. Even if Blake has ridden his bike down to the park. Even if Sasha has wandered onto the neighbor's porch. I know where they are and I'm silently calculating whether (or how badly) they can get hurt in that activity, and whether it's worth the risk.
Andrea from Beanie Baby questioned why we, as parents, feel that the world is less safe than it used to be, when clearly it is not. She concluded (if I read correctly) that we feel more responsible for our children's safety than parents did in the past -- we feel that every bump and bruise is our fault -- and so while the world is safer, our culpability is greater, and that's the main source of our anxiety.
Certainly I feel that way. I take responsibility for what goes wrong with them, but don't take credit for what goes right.
And I was never, ever anxious or stressed before I had children. Not even during finals week. Not even when I arrived in Rila, Bulgaria at 10pm with no hotel reservations. Now I'm anxious just about every second of the day. I try to let my kids be free, to take their chances with the world; but I'm anxious for them.
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