I’d been hunting for a backpack with lots of pockets when I realized the most cost effective and efficient item was really a purse organizer. Went through Etsy and found BABCIM the most reasonable and with the loveliest fabrics.

It arrived 12 days after ordering via First Class International Mail. Awesome!

Matches my Retro Flower Bratsack.

Fits all my stuff and even the children’s! Love it.

Check out BABCIM – http://www.etsy.com/shop/BABCIM

So forget about the reading and throw away the TV. Have some one on one time, cuddle time, or eye to eye time with baby instead. Show your baby he or she matters.

From Psychology Today (bold emphases mine, bold and italics from the original article):

First and foremost: The fundamental task of early childhood isn’t learning to read, or to “get ahead” for school, or to impress the neighbors, or to give the folks something to brag about. Encouraging children to surge ahead beyond their real developmental needs leaves them with some really sludgy clean-up to grapple with later on.

What kids need from the get-go is a parent who “gets” them, who pays attention to what’s going on inside them, and who responds to them in a way that’s actually related to what the kid is feeling.

The research on attachment shows that there are a number of benefits which last a lifetime, including but not limited to at least the following dozen:

1. The ability to sustain attention
2. Better management of physical reactions to emotions – leading to improved immunity and fewer stress-related illnesses
3. Less anxiety
4. Better relationships with childhood peers, and healthier relationships as adults
5. Fewer behavioral problems
6. Increased capacity for empathy
7. Greater ability to regulate mood (for example, calming down from excitement, or not getting caught up in frustration)
8. Enhanced skills in communicating emotions in healthy ways
9. Greater confidence and self-esteem (and it isn’t just based on performance and grades, but rather a sense of abiding and healthy self-worth)
10. Better able to generate alternative solutions to interpersonal conflict
11. Enhanced insight into themselves, and others
12. Better modulation of fear, allowing for a willingness to explore and take on growthful challenges

“Well,” a parent (or a video marketer) might say, “letting a baby or a toddler watch an educational video to help them read earlier won’t interfere with healthy attachment.”

Actually, it can. As a psychologist/neuropsychologist who has been practicing psychotherapy and conducting cognitive evaluations for nearly twenty years, as well as having researched the relationship between brain and behavior in both infants and adults — I believe that using television to “teach” young children is a big mistake, with significant costs down the road.

(I’ll say here that reading with your child is a solid, helpful, wonderful thing to do. Explicitly teaching them to read, especially by video, is what I’m grousing about here.)

I’d love it if parents who feel they’re giving their child a “gift” with an early reading DVD would consider the following questions:

• What’s the message when (by offering your child a mesmerizing “educational” DVD, and also showing them your pleasure at their achievements) you emphasize the value of learning to read extra early, over time spent with siblings, parents, or friends?

• What might your child be learning from developing the habit of spending time in front of a “worthwhile” or “engaging” video, rather than with someone who loves him or her?

• What are you telling your child when you’re putting them in front of the TV instead of showing them that you value interacting with them and want to be with them?

• How does it help a child to see a screen as their teacher, rather than a real person — what do they do when they have a problem they need to solve, and they don’t have the early, repeated experiences of asking an adult to help them?

• What are you saying to your child about the value of learning if you can’t spend the time yourself to do it with them? (In the commercial for Your Baby Can Read, the announcer asks one thrilled parent of three early readers, “And did you have to do anything?” The mother replies with joy, “I didn’t have to do a thing!”)

And another thing: Early reading doesn’t do much for your child’s success in school, and there’s evidence that it may even be detrimental.

Let’s take a look at a few points in that regard – and note that this list is only a few of many reasons why early reading is a lousy deal for your child.

• Louise Bates Ames, PhD, a superstar in child development and the director of research at the world-renowned Gesell Institute of Child Development, stated that “a delay in reading instruction would be a preventative measure in avoiding nearly all reading failure.” Leapfrogging necessary cognitive developmental skills — and asking a young brain to do tasks for which it isn’t truly ready — is asking for trouble with learning.

• The brains of young children aren’t yet developed enough to read without it costing them in the organization and “wiring” of their brain. The areas involved in language and reading aren’t fully online — and aren’t connected — until age seven or eight. If we’re teaching children to do tasks which their brains are not yet developed to do via the “normal” (and most efficient) pathways, the brain will stumble upon other, less efficient ways to accomplish the tasks — which lays down wiring in some funky ways — and can lead to later learning disabilities, including visual-processing deficits.

• The description of brain development on which the “Your Baby Can Read” program rests its questionable claims is remarkably flawed, confusing language acquisition with reading. They state: “A baby’s brain thrives on stimulation and develops at a phenomenal pace…nearly 90% during the first five years of life! The best and easiest time to learn a language is during the infant and toddler years, when the brain is creating thousands of synapses every second — allowing a child to learn both the written word and spoken word simultaneously, and with much more ease….” There is a huge and unsupported leap here from language acquisition – which is definitely an important developmental task, necessary for connecting to one’s outer world – and reading, which is a very different neurological and cognitive task, and one which is not developmentally appropriate for a baby or toddler’s brain.

• Does early training really get you anywhere? There is a classic study of twins which was done by another pioneer in child development, Arnold Gesell, PhD, MD. He studied a pair of toddler twins, who were not yet able to climb stairs. For the study, one of the twins was given daily practice and encouragement to climb stairs, and the other twin had no stairs to practice on. After six weeks of practice, the “trained” twin could climb the stairs, and the “untrained” twin could not. However, within one week of being given the opportunity to climb stairs, the untrained twin completely caught up with the trained twin’s stair-climbing ability.

• The whole idea that learning to read early gives children — or our educational system, or our economy — an “advantage” is not based on empirical evidence. If you look at the US and Britain, you see the trends toward earlier reading and increasingly less successful educational systems. On the other hand, the majority of children in Finland begin instruction in reading at age seven – two years later than here in the US (and even later than the folks at “Your Baby Can Read” would have you start). The outcome? Finnish students not only catch up to their earlier-starting counterparts, but they surpass the United States, other European countries, and Asian countries as well, with top overall scores in the world in reading, science, and math. Oh, and the Finnish do attend preschool, but it isn’t “academic” in nature — it emphasizes social development and exploration.

I’ve always been lazy about the teaching. I love reading books with the kids but I don’t force them to remember the words. They will learn on their own. I did.

When I was 7 (the proper developmental age for reading), I suddenly picked up a book and began to read. Within months I devoured all of Enid Blyton’s books and then moved to Carolyn Keene. I never stopped.

I believe kids will learn in their own time, as unschooling parents do. Bear potty trained himself on his own time, and he is learning to count, in his own time. He rarely nurses in public anymore and some days never even nurses at all till bedtime.

It is tempting (and I do too for some quiet) to let Bear watch a video on the iPod (since we have no TV). This article reminds me about the message I am giving him. Not a good one. I need to reframe my thoughts and yes, I need my downtime, but perhaps there is something we can do together that we both love, like look at dinosaur books.

(Just had an idea to sit with him and print out his fave dinosaur pictures, then cut and paste them into a notebook that we can read together. Yay activity!)

Most importantly, I want my children to love learning. They can’t do it if we keep shoving learning down their throats, years before the schools start.

I remember losing my love for learning when I entered school. But thankfully, my first 5 years at home gave me a strong foundation of that love and after I finally finished school, I began teaching myself again: to fix things, to write code, to sew.

That is the gift I want to give my children.

The years pass too quickly. I must remember to cherish every moment.

Let me say this now: you are entitled to complain. It is a safety valve. Everyone needs to vent. You are entitled to complain. People who keep their frustrations inside either go mad and/or kill themselves or hurt others when they explode one day.

The argument against complaining is akin to saying:

You chose to work so you shouldn’t complain.

You chose to get married so you shouldn’t complain.

You wore a short skirt and got groped by a gross stranger so you shouldn’t complain.

Caring about someone means listening to him or her and sharing their pain and not being judgemental or taking it personally. Remember, you too are entitled to complain.

The research says otherwise.

Playdates and preschool attendance can add stimulation—-and fun—-to your child’s daily life. But socialization-—the process of learning how to get along with others-—is not the same thing as socializing. Frequent socializing with peers does not necessarily lead to better social skills.

In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Too much time with peers can make kids behave badly. It’s the sulky elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about. Even upscale preschools are likely to make kids behave worse. As recent scientific studies confirm, preschool attendance increases childhood stress and retards social development.

(Source: Preschool Social Skills)

To many parents and teachers, these findings seem to defy common sense. Surely we learn social skills by interacting with other people. What could be more natural than letting your preschooler loose in a social world of her own peers?

In fact, part of this reasoning is sound. You do need people to learn people skills. The question is–which people? Preschoolers need to learn empathy, compassion, patience, emotional self-control, social etiquette, patience, and an upbeat, constructive attitude for dealing with social problems.

These lessons can’t be learned through peer contact alone. Preschools are populated with impulsive, socially incompetent little people who are prone to sudden fits of rage or despair. These little guys have difficulty controlling their emotions, and they are ignorant of the social niceties. They have poor insight into the minds and emotions of others (Gopnik et al 1999).

Yes, preschoolers can offer each other important social experiences. But their developmental status makes them unreliable social tutors. A child who copies other children may pick up good habits—-but she may also pick up bad ones. And peers do not always provide each other with right kind of feedback.

When a child offers to share his toy with a caring adult, he gets rewarded with gratitude and praise. He also learns that he will eventually get his toy back. When he offers to share with a peer, he may not get rewarded at all. Without adult guidance, these experiences can undermine social development by teaching the wrong lessons.

Moreover, it’s hard to see what’s natural about herding together a bunch of children who are all the same age. From the evolutionary, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives, it’s an unusual practice.

(Source: The darkside of preschool)

As parents, we are the best candidates to instill in our children the necessary building blocks in socialisation: empathy, emotional self-control, and communication. Offering our children a secure attachment and ourselves as good role models, and being involved and engaged in our children’s emotional world would arm them with better social skills than any preschool would.

Conditional parenting isn’t limited to old-school authoritarians. Some people who wouldn’t dream of spanking choose instead to discipline their young children by forcibly isolating them, a tactic we prefer to call “time out.” Conversely, “positive reinforcement” teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a “good job.”

This raises the intriguing possibility that the problem with praise isn’t that it is done the wrong way — or handed out too easily, as social conservatives insist. Rather, it might be just another method of control, analogous to punishment. The primary message of all types of conditional parenting is that children must earn a parent’s love. A steady diet of that, Rogers warned, and children might eventually need a therapist to provide the unconditional acceptance they didn’t get when it counted.

What can we do then? The take away from the article is:

In practice, according to an impressive collection of data by Dr. Deci and others, unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.

The last of these features is important with respect to unconditional parenting itself. Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children — whether they feel just as loved when they mess up or fall short.

(Source: When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’ by Alfie Kohn in the NY Times)

1. Elephant Song

Wonderfully interactive, beautifully simple pictures, and a lovely song. When my son first played it, it was my morning anthem for a few weeks. After a while, I couldn’t get the song out of my head. It originated in YouTube but found its way to the iPhone, and for that I am grateful. The recent upgrade has made it more interactive. And to top it off, the app is free.

2. Preschool Arcade

The sequel to Preschool Adventure. Again, I woke up to the sounds of the arcade with this game which I’d been reluctant to try because I was afraid it wouldn’t be educational. But the developers very pleasantly surprised me and what followed was an educational, musical extravaganza which taught my son numbers, alphabets, and shapes in an arcade environment. Very cleverly educational and very good family fun for the children.

3. Ike’s Machine

This is also a sequel to Ike the Inventor, this time for slightly older kids. But you get to create things from blueprints that show the formulas (e.g. to make a book, you need 5 units of a blue stick, 10 units of a green stick, and 50 units of a green liquid). I thought it might have been too difficult for a 3 year old, but no, with a few weeks of help, my son soon mastered reading measurements from a blueprint and addition from this wonderful app and can now play it himself. Kudos to the brilliant inventor!

4. The Boy Who Cried Wolf

From the same people who brought you The Little Red Hen, the same delightful little girl narrates the familiar story of the boy who cried wolf, along with interactive characters and a kind end to this morality tale.

5. Dem Bones

A really fun game to teach kids about our skeleton. A skeleton is laid bare at the start with a pile of bones on the ground. The child must then put the bones back to where they belong according which bone is called. Good giggly fun for parent and child to play together.

6. Where’s Gumbo?

A classic “find someone” game turned interactive. Cute and engaging for a toddler, and switches on their seeking radar (see: The Science of Parenting).

7. First Words: At Home

From the First Words series. A child learns spelling by putting the alphabets back into the shadowed boxes. Simple, familiar, and educational.

8. ShapeBuilder

This one sparks everyone’s curiosity. A shape is presented with various jigsaw pieces to be filled. When filled, it transforms into either a gimme or an object you just could not have thought of. Very fun for both parent and child. Bear played this for hours.

9. Artsee

Similar to ShapeBuilder but this time you use your finger to splatter paint onto the shape and you’ll be asked to guess what it is out of 3 options. I say “you” in this case because I end up playing it too.

10. Old MacDonald’s Farm

Old MacDonald’s has expanded his farm with more animals than Noah could ever hold. This time, we can listen to him sing about sharks, dinosaurs, walruses, and even an octopus. It brought us lots of laughs and very loud animal sounds. No, no one called the zoo.

Part 1, written in February 2009, can be found here. Also cross-posted to my tech blog.

Language

When we’re in the car we have a chat about anything under the sun. We converse on the go and I explain things to him as we see them. I gently correct him if he is incorrect. He gets it right pretty fast. I read that that is the best way to improve a child’s language. Just talk to him.

Creativity and Imagination

At lunch we use activity books for play with his Playmobil or Lego figurines and cars in imagined scenarios (they have pictures we pretend are cities or homes or parks or zoos. We take the family to the zoo for example or through the catacombs to look for treasure.

I recently bought some Lego characters from the Indiana Jones trilogy (with beige faces!) and some came with a map, torch, and whip. Very useful with his maze book which features tunnels and treasure!

Sometimes he’s happy to work on his dexterity by colouring or working on mazes or just drawing. Makes it easy to pop food in his mouth once he’s past his feed-myself threshold.

Science

I try to answer all his questions honestly and scientifically as I can, explaining as simply as I can concepts of our world I’ve long taken for granted.

Why is the tree green? Why are the clouds white? What is dry ice? If I don’t know I tell him I’ll find out. He finds it all fascinating and soon we’re in a chain of whys.

Coffee helps keep the good cheer.

Math and the Value of Money (and How to Wait for What You Want)

He’s been wanting to buy toys so I make it a point to tell him the price of things. What is expensive and what is a reasonable price. He will only buy well-made toys after 3 years of brainwashing. :p

Big and/or expensive toys are reserved for Christmas. He’ll ask me, for Christmas? I say okay. These are over $20.

He is allowed to buy a toy under $10, preferably around $5 with my approval. Sometimes I see something *I* really want and I buy it for him. I try not to mention price during that instant…

He rarely sits on rides since I explain to him that $1 can pay for one hour of parking or half a bubble tea (which he loves). But of course, Grandpa always indulges, when I am not around, of course.

Physical

Today, with his daddy’s blessing and much cheered enthusiasm, I bought Bear 3 Lego foam swords and 2 shields and we had such a ball play fighting. It’s great exercise for the children and he and his cousin Kaitlyn had a marvellous time.

They also played pirates with a cardboard box and their stuffed friends. And my Mom played the Cyclops whose food they stole!

Daddy takes him to the playground 2-3 times a week. He plays non-stop with other children or with Dad.

I’ve never said no to his climbing at home since he tried the very first time. I’d tell him to make sure what he is climbing is stable and to hold on tight with his hands and he would never fall down. And that those were the rules of climbing.

(It is so typical of our culture to say, no stop climbing, you will fall. But I never let that negativity pass through my mouth and Bear ignores anyone who says that. Kids only hear the word fall. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and eventually they become too scared to try anything. Sorry, had to rant about that. He has never fallen while climbing.)

Usually when we are out, I let him climb and run as long as he is not disturbing anyone, along empty walkways and empty sections of a cafe. I’d be the crazy mom running with him chasing me from the loo after changing his diaper.

It’s fun to be silly. Heck, we were all silly once. Wasn’t it fun?

That evening I tried it out with Bear. When he misbehaved, I took him aside and told him not to do it again and amazingly he obeyed!

He went back and apologised and promised not to do it again very contritely.

The point was to not humiliate him in front of others and he really appreciated that.

Thanks Reese for the helpful advice!

1. Bear must feel and know that Kitten belongs to us. We are a family.

2. We must make him feel she is worthy of all our love and that she takes away none of our love from him.

3. Sharing is emphasized. Sharing is what a family does.

4. Having a sister must be a positive and happy thing to him.

5. Family time is important. We must spend time together (before bedtime, for us) every day. All 4 of us.

6.To remember that it is our job as parents to ensure 1-5 happens and parry all negative sentiments from others.

So with that in mind, here is what we did:

1. Before Kitten was conceived, we asked Bear if he wanted a sibling. He said yes.

2. When I was pregnant, we told him we were making the baby for him, and more importantly, that she belonged to him and us, and is also part of this family.

3. When I was tired, I told him making a baby in my tummy was hard work and gave him lots of hugs, kisses, and attention and cuddles while I lay down to rest. We did resty things like reading and playing cars on the bed.

4. I nursed, as painful as it became with my nipples becoming extra sore. I distracted myself with my iPod Touch as I could no longer fall asleep nursing him because of the pain and discomfort.

5. We took care to associate her arrival with wonderful and positive experiences. Like receiving special presents from each parent, and one special one (he has always wanted) from Kitten given when he first meets her. And he got to choose a present for her. It worked beautifully.

6. I tandem nursed as often as I could (too tired to argue anyway). Day time anyway. Night time was tougher as he was nursed to sleep. Someone had to either carry her till he slept or entertain him while she nursed and then dozed off, on her own (of this I am grateful).

7. We do things together. I keep them both close – none of this someone takes him away from me while I am looking after her. Whether changing diapers or nursing or playing. Both kids sit on my lap during story time.

8. I don’t refuse him as much as I can if he wants to nurse. He wants to know I still love him so I show him in that way that I do. Lately he has been asking me if I love him and I take it as a sign that he needs my attention. I always stop what I am doing and look him in the eye and say tenderly, of course I love you… so much.

9. I take time to spend individually with each child. Daddy takes him out to the playground so I have one-on-time with Kitten (even though when he is engrossed in his games I sneak a conversation with her). When she is asleep in our Ergo (which I use all the time with her), I play and read to him.

10. It is tiring and I am often exhausted and screaming for me-time. Accept all the help you can get to rest. But don’t allow anyone to undermine your relationship with your kids. When they say well-meaning things that do hurt him, I reassure him and correct them gently.

Take your time and enjoy each day. Your greatest gift to your children are to help them build a strong and loving bond between them so that years on even after you are gone, they will always still have each other.

Night time was another tricky thing. Initially Kitten was happy for Daddy to carry her to sleep while I nursed Bear to sleep. But now she recognises Daddy isn’t Mommy. So she screams when he carries her during lights out till he passes her to me.

So when it is lights out, all 4 of us get into bed. I nurse Kitten to sleep while Daddy cuddles Bear and tells him stories. Sometimes he falls asleep but usually when Kitten is done, he’ll ask for a little milk and then goes to sleep on his own. Sometimes he feels he needs more and tries to persuade me to nurse him before she falls asleep so I do for a short while, and he rolls back to Daddy (who is usually asleep by now) and I nurse Kitten again. Everyone’s happy although I get real sleepy. (Last night he even kneeled to nurse a bit while I nursed Kitten so technically I tandemed both at night even though I was turned towards her.)

Middle of the night wakings continue… Initially Bear was distressed when he woke up, needed to suckle but his sister was nursing. Lots of screaming and crying ensued but his calmer sister usually dozed off and gave him his turn. These days he wakes less and is happy to wait a bit. She almost sleeps through the night, which is a relief!

The first few months are tough but with help and support from the hubby, it is doable.