Playground Politics: When kids hurt kids...

Technically, we weren't in the playground, we were at a pumpkin patch. After an hour of "swimming" in a corn kernal pool, maneuvering through a mini maze and checking out pumpkins in a real pumpkin patch, we were happily heading to our car with Soluna in a borrowed wagon. In the corner of my eye, I see a little kid run up behind her. I turn just in time to see this little kid grab Soluna's hair with force enough to jerk her head back. Ben saw also, and we still are unsure of the kids age. He says 4, I say 5-6. And he remembers the kid kinda yelling at her before doing it.

Ben and I now realize our mama and papa instincts became heightened. He sized up their family pretty much in a second and realizing there was no male with them to growl at tried to walk away as quickly as possible. I think he also puffed his chest and grunted. I grabbed Soluna immediately cradling her head and making sure she was okay. Luckily, she was more shocked then hurt or scared. But both Ben and I kept walking, not really wanting to acknowledge the kid hair-grabber or mom trying to apologize. We were shocked and safety/distance was on our mind. We think that maybe if they tried to get any closer, we may have been a lot more offensive.

On the walk to the car, I told Ben that the kid probably had some kind of mental illness or chemical imbalance. I mean, it wasn't like the kids were playing and things got rough. I feel like hair pulling comes with the territory when kids play. But to run up to a random much smaller kid that you don't know, yell and pull hair with force, that I have to say is in a very different category then normal rough housing.

So really, what should they have done as parents? What should we have done? Should we have made the little hair-grabber apologize? And, if this kid actually had some kind of disability or not, at the playground if a kid is randomly violent to another kid then what do you do?

* * *
Without a huge blog following, I decided to post the question to ColorfulMamas, the mamas group I am a part of. Surprisingly, the responses that came back were about how their kids were on the side of the hair-puller as biters, bullies, etc. It's all part of children's development. I realize now that we should have stopped to talk to the parents, to not assume that the kid had disabilities, to give the mama and the kid a chance to apologize. It's a more communal way of handling problems that arise between kids. By leaving, we didn't really teach Soluna anything about getting a long better with other people or about living in a real community.

Try! Try!

It is hard for me to believe that my little baby is actually a little girl now. This realization only comes when I hold a tiny newborn, look down at him and know in my heart that at this moment he will not talk back to me or grab my susu and proclaim "Mine!" Soluna speaks some complete sentences including, "I love susu!" and "Where are you?" She dances to music and is trying to sing her own songs. She has yet to learn that my family and Ben's family have never had a singer and is pretty much tone deaf.

But with these little milestones of childhood, my mama senses have become a little more alert to the push-and-pulls of motherhood, the funny little dance we all do to get our children ready for adulthood, ready to be good people, ready to take initiative in their life. Soluna has learned two very important and powerful words: help and please. Said together by a little girl, the two word always lead to immediate action by any adult in the vicinity. But only a mama would notice that the words have been used unnecessarily with a very very short and minor struggle trying to get a toy in the right position.

I'm beginning to slow down my response, follow-up with an encouraging, "You can do it! Try! Try!" And she has stepped up more times then not to do whatever she is trying to get done and we celebrate all her small victories with claps and cheers. I have to remember this whenever something in life seems a little harder than it should. At times she also says, "Yay! Mommy!"

Playground Politics: The Aggressively Gentle Mom and Daughter

I keep telling everyone that I want to write an article about playground politics. I have a lot of "observations" but have no idea what I would be trying to get at in such an article. I don't think there are specific rules that kids or parents need to follow and I'm not yet convinced that the playground is a microcosm of the real world, although I still think race/class/gender are neat to observe in playground interactions.

Even without a thesis, let me just share one of my observations for today. Soluna and I went to Willard Park in Berkeley. Soluna and, apparently a lot of other children, love this orange car that has a roof and door. She had been eyeing it since we got the park and when a little girl with a strawberry dress left it, Soluna ran over to claim it. As soon as she got close the girl, who was probably about her age, turned around and starting pushing Soluna away saying "No!" Soluna started to whine and the mom noticed their little interaction.

At this point, Soluna, obviously had no interest in this little girl or her mom. But the mom thought it was the appropriate time to teach her daughter to be "gentle." So she told her daughter, "Be gentle. Gentle. Gentle." while grabbing her hand and trying to get her to stroke Soluna gently. Normally, I've seen this work and have done it with Soluna (usually before and not after she's already pushed someone). Soluna, like I sad, had no interest in them and kept shaking her head and saying no. She grabbed onto my leg to get behind me. But the mom was adamant to teach her daughter gentle and regardless of the obvious "Get the hell away from me!" body language the two of them continued to approach her to stroke her "gently."

Come on mamas and papas? What would you like to teach your kids more: to touch other kids gently or to not touch kids that don't want to be touched?!?!

Anyways, I thought it was interesting and crazy. The mom did turn to me after the little episode and said, "Sorry. We're kinda crazy about these things." ... and if I wasn't so puzzled and taken back about what she had just done, I should have said, "Yea. Crazy is the word I would use."

What is this? What is it that I can say about this? Are there rules to interactions? Do parents just have to be better socialized themselves?

Hello, again...

someone said that the short baby boom was over. Apparently, my friends did not get the memo. There have been so many new baby posts on facebook and more babies on the way to count. I have a little bit of an itch to have our second, but I keep thinking about how nice it is to have just Soluna and I together during the day. Things are finally starting to feel a little easier and we've been laughing, playing and exploring together more without as many little baby issues to worry about.

Ben and I feel blessed every day to have Soluna in our lives. She has such a big personality. She makes little jokes (like some of her actions are specifically made to make us laugh). She giggles uncontrollably at times. She enjoys good food. At a wedding this past weekend, she took a break from cake to run to the dance floor and boogie. She kisses me all over, just because. And, she's the sweetest to little babies. Yet, she is still her fiesty, demanding self, which I hope will transfer to a passion to get what she wants out of life.

I love her.

Here she is with a grease high on our trip to North Carolina after eating hush puppies, ribs, fried corn on the cobb, and sweet potato fries:

"happy papi!"

Happy Papi's Day, Benji!!

Thank you for getting up in the middle of the night when in the dark we hear a little, but loud voice say "Agua, please. Agua!" over and over again. Thank you for having infectuous belly laughs. Thank you for taking care of the heavy stuff. Thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for being reliable. Thank you for supporting mama dreams even if they change from day to day.

We love you!

Is 7 the lucky number?

My mom has been telling me and everyone else that I plan on breastfeeding Soluna until she is 7. It's kind of her "joke" but she is continually trying to discourage me and Soluna from continuing our nursing relationship. She flat out says to Soluna "Why are you still breastfeeding? You're not a baby anymore!" She tells me that my breasts are going to be down to my knees. Great! I asked my Inang (my mom's mom) how long she breastfed her kids (all 8 of them) and she said around 1-2 years, except my Uncle Alex that breastfed until he was 7. That's where my mom got the number 7. It does not matter that Soluna is still in that 1-2 years stage, my mom insists that it's time to stop. I don't understand why it's such a big deal to her. Actually Ben's grandma also said she breastfed her youngest until an age where she came home from school and breastfed. I think it's our mamas' generation that actually decided to stop earlier and, interestingly, I think it was part of their "Americanization" although I bet neither my mom or Ben's mom would admit it.

With that said, I am posting a link to a blog post that cites some research that concludes that the longer you breastfeed the higher your kids GPA will be and the more likely they will go to college. I think research like this is kind of funny because a) there is no way to prove breastfeeding relates specifically to the two outcomes, and b) you can prove almost anything by the way you set-up your experiment. But, I still like to see this research... because maybe it is true... and that would be nice.

words words words

Soluna has been talking, talking, talking. I love it. Here are a few things she's saying pretty regularly:

mom, mommy, papi, papa, lolo, lola, apong, abuelo, abuela, dog, ball, cat, duck, quack, go, walk, outside, inside, aqua, please, thank you, excuse me, wow, owie, lali, jair, baby, kids, play, head, eyes, hand, nose, socks, shoes, susu, hurry, faster, up, down, ice cream, cookie, katie, two, mango, avocado, go, bed, pee pee, caca, bird, butterfly, uh oh, mine, book, num-num (hungry), emma, pizza, hat, Giants!

And there's so much more she understands!

the Big Box

Toni Morrison wrote this children's book entitled the Big Box. I found it when I was in college and bought it under the assumption that some day I would have kids and I would want to have a cool library of books that were multi-cultural and ethnic studies-ish. I found it in my parents garage a few weekends ago and re-read it. Soluna is definitely not ready for it. But it's pretty deep and a great parent read. It's about three kids who adults feel "can't handle their freedom" so they put them in a box and give them things to appease them. I would love to talk to other parents who have read it.

"'But I comb my hair and I don't do drugs
And every day I vacuum the rugs.
I feed the hamster and water the plants
And once a week I hang up my pants
If owls can scream
And rabbits hop
And beavers chew trees when they need' em
Why can't I be a kid like me
Who doesn't have to handle his freedom?
I know you are smart and I know that you think
You're doing what is best for me.
But if freedom is handled just your way
Then it's not my freedom or free.'"

Save Your Pennies!

While I haven't been posting lately, I have been discovering some interesting ways to get things for cheap or for free. We spent a lot of money nesting before Soluna's birth, not knowing that there are a lot of resources to get slightly used items for cheap or for free. So Bay Area parents save yourselves some money and check out these resources for free or cheap baby supplies (and you can get other things too):

* Craigslist.org -- Ok, duh. If you haven't checked craigslist for a new apartment, a new job or a sale at least once in the past 5 years, I don't know what planet you've been living on. We were able to find a carseat attachment thingy for our stroller and an extra carseat base for $5 each.

* Berkeley Parents Network -- For those in the San Francisco Bay Area you can sign-up to recieve emails from Berkeley Parents Network. They do a Marketplace email once a week with things people are giving away for free or trying to sell for a reduced price: maternity clothes, co-sleepers, baby slings, toys, cars (adult cars), etc. We were able to get an IKEA sofa bed for FREE, a nice clean one, for our extra bedroom. I see a bunch of things I bought new for full price on there and it annoys me every time. For our next kid, I'm definitely checkin' the emails for all our supplies.

* Freecycle -- I'm kind of new to freecycle, but basically you sign-up for a group in your area and get emails on things people are offering free or things people are looking for for free. I was able to give away some of our clutter through freecycle, but I've been seeing a bunch of kid and baby items posted for free. You can just reply to emails and folks usually leave the items on their porch for you to pick-up. It's FREE!! Why not check it out?!

* Yard Sales and Rummage Sales -- I haven't checked these out yet, but I need to. My mom found two cute little chairs for Soluna for 50 cents each. And she LOVES them! If you do sign-up for the Berkeley Parents Network emails, the Marketplace emails have listings in the area. And you can just keep an eye out for signs on the weekend.

* Clothing Swaps -- I went to a few parties of friends where folks bring clothes and accessories to swap. So just invite your friends over, have a little potluck and organize a little "store" where folks can exchange their old clothes or their baby's old clothes for something they need.

A Little Reader

About two months ago Soluna got really into books. It started with making Ben and I read her favorite book Pio Peep! over and over and over again. After memorizing ALL her books, I realized it was time to head to the nearest Oakland Library to get new books and to attend storytime. Click here for a calendar of Oakland Libary events.

Here are a few of her new favorite books. A lot of which have little brown kids!