Author Archives: Andrea Middleton

Currently at Reddit, I spent 10 years as a community organizer on the WordPress open source project. I'm also an avid reader, wine enthusiast, and parent of two.

Getting her out of her own head

Stop haunting my 6yo, lady.
Stop haunting my 6yo, lady.

Since allowing Amelia to watch Disney’s The Little Mermaid on Sunday night, I have had to think up lots and lots of good ways to get her out of her terrible bedtime-anxiety-thought-spirals. She gets herself really worked up: afraid of getting afraid while thinking of the scary parts of the movie. Even though I distinctly remember struggling with the exact same thing as a child, it’s still maddening to keep trying to calm her down and then have her dissolve into panicked tears for what seems like no good reason.

It’s possible that my strategies are all crap, and the ones I think worked are just the ones that bored her to sleep — but that’s a win in and of itself, I guess. We’ve tried doing math, talking about happy moments to think about instead, planning fun outings for the summer, talking about why the story doesn’t even makes sense, etc. I even busted out my feminist critique of the story and waxed philosophical about the repercussions that might arise from trying to start a loving relationship when you had given up your main method of self-expression.

Last night’s winner: practicing her cursive writing on the mattress with an imaginary pencil. Sensory, concrete, and probably super-boring after a while.

Got any other recommendations for ways to pull a kid out of an anxiety attack? Because I have the feeling I’ll need new ideas tonight.

Conversations with Baxter

Wonder Woman wants inB is home recovering from a random fever today, and we’ve had some fun talks in which I’ve gathered interesting information:

  1. He thinks it is crazy that The Princess In Black has not yet been made into a movie. He thinks that George Lucas should produce it, since he did a good job on Star Wars. He suggests we just “go down to there” to go see Mr. Lucas and ask him, since he’s just “across from us” in California.  It is shocking that I don’t already know Mr. Lucas, but we shan’t let that stop us.
  2. Classic videos of Wonder Woman > Dinosaur Train > Thomas the Train > Sesame Street
  3. He can carry very heavy pillows, and thereby help me make his bed.
  4. When I say “eat three carrots,” that means he will eat three bites of carrot.
  5. “It’s a good thing Wonder Woman can help!”
  6. “Whoa, you can take this off. Look, I took this off.”

A candid conversation about the anatomy of plants

Amelia and I were eating some of the previously mentioned strawberries for lunch. 

Suddenly she said, “Mom look: stamens!” 

 And we started talking about how the green flowery-looking stem of a strawberry is actually the cover of the bud of the strawberry flower, and that the flower was pollinated by bees probably, but other animals can also pollinate, and then she adroitly finished the discussion with:

“Well, I’m eating a swollen ovary right now — I know that!”

Thank you, Montessori education! 

Ripe strawberries

 I got half a flat of ripe strawberries at the Milwaukie Farmers Market today and just made 5 jars of freezer jam using Altom Brown’s recipe*. I love how easy and fresh-tasting freezer jam is — I hope I can keep making it all summer long, as each new fruit come into season! The freezer jam took half a flat, and we’ll eat the rest in oatmeal, packed lunches, and smoothies over the next week. Yay, spring! 

*With apologies to Mr. Brown, I admit I subbed 1-1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar for the 1/2 tsp black pepper he calls for in his recipe. The kids can detect any hint of pepper in anything, and then objections are made. 

Games with Thrones

Sometimes she shares.

Amelia has started building herself more and more elaborate, throne-like seats (the better to rule her kingdom from, my dear). 

When Baxter asked her to read him a book this morning, I walked back in the room to see her leading a one-person story hour.  To his credit, he lasted about 10 minutes.   

 

I love this slow, unstructured time we sometimes have on weekends. And now, I need to chase them into street clothes and get them out the door before all the strawberries at the farmers market are bought up! 

It was a Cinderella morning 

When I got out of bed this morning, I found Amelia carefully brushing Baxter’s hair around his tiara/headband. She had already helped him put on two tutus under his Cinderella dress (and over his pajamas). He was very pleased the results. 
   

Back to sleep

Baxter wakes up and groggily stumbles out of his room, saying “Mom, the green light* is on! I’m going to go back to sleep.”

Me: “You’re going back to sleep?”

Baxter: “Yes, right here on dis chair.”  
He turned on the lights between curling up on the armchair, the way you do.

His “sleep” didn’t last long. 🙂 Have a great morning!
*The kids have stoplight alarm clocks in their rooms, in an effort to keep them in bed until a certain time. When the green light comes on in the morning, they are allowed to get up.