Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Screens and kids

There is a post and many comments on it, on the NYTimes Motherlode blog recently, about keeping toddlers away from TV. So many different opinions, so many different experiences, and yet there is always this undertone, similar to that about natural childbirth, and breastfeeding, that if you aren't doing it, it is because you don't care enough. Your priorities just aren't in the right place.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/the-real-problem-with-toddlers-and-tv/

For the issue of TV watching, there is this sense from some commenters that those parents who do let their 2 year olds watch TV or videos, they should stop using it as a cheap babysitter. And that since X study or Y report talks about how TV is harmful for kids, you shouldn't let them see it yet.

I was planning on writing this post this morning, before heading off to work, but A got croup last night. And as part of our shower-in-the-bathroom-off-her-room-as-humidifier campaign, A's bedroom floor got flooded. Even after her coughing spasm settled around midnight, and she was asleep again, I was constantly listening for the sound of her breathing. I was sleeping with the white noise off, with my ears as close to her head as possible. She'd keep rolling onto her back to sleep and every 10th breath would just not come. She'd stop breathing. I'd try not to freak out. She'd wiggle around and wheeze again. I'd wonder when we should go to the hospital. She'd stop breathing again, turn, and continue her wheezy sleep.

Luckily, we both got some sleep last night, so even though she wasn't off to school today, I wasn't a total wreck. It was kind of nice to hang out at home waiting for the doctor's appointment. She was a bit slower than usual but in a good mood. But I still needed to get ready. I gave her my iPhone to play some Fish School. And thought about the post I'd wanted to write.

Among our friends with 2 year olds here, there is a range of TV or video use with their kids. And I think that is perfectly ok. Turns out M and I have the ability to not use TV very much because we have a solid amount of daycare for A, and a babysitter, and some household help. This is a luxury. And one on a very fine line. Because one night of illness, and our precariously just-barely balanced lives get knocked on their asses. And the iPhone games and Sesame Street videos on You Tube whoosh right in. Because our kid is a firecracker. And because, unlike with social science and psychology research, this watching-or-not of a screen doesn't happen in a controlled setting. It isn't about playing with her or having her watch TV, with difference between the two. Life doesn't happen in a single-variable-changing situation. Sometimes it means the morning goes smoothly, for two, still tired parents. And we enjoy each other's company. And I imagine that there are a lot of people who have a lot less resources, and a lot more stress who are using TV or videos to maintain some sense of sanity.

I currently live in a country where everyone has health insurance regardless of a job. Where salaries can be good, and where we moved because our standard of living would rise, monetarily. There are many social supports for people here. My husband shares a lot of household, pet and child duties with me. And I get to choose TV or not when I have the cushion of sleep, and other safeguards (although that may not be today, given my inability to find the right words today). As soon as they are gone, iPhone is my wingman. As part of a loving, caring, calm household. As part of getting through a tough sick-day.

On a trip with three friends last weekend, we spent a lot of time retelling our children's birth stories, breastfeeding stories, parenting stories. We had each been given completely different experiences, and even different views of the same experiences. Each woman's body is so unique in terms of how it will or won't conceive, birth a child, lactate. And yet all the judgment gets brought down hard for only one of two options - right, and wrong. We don't respect people's bodies in context of their lives, or their parenting decisions in context of their messy, complex, multi-variable lives.

Research studies and real life family life are very different. It is a good thing to keep in mind.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

24 minutes

That is what my laptop battery says I have left. I'm at home, so I could plug it in, but I need to get going for the day, so it is a good inspiration to write something and go. I have a cold, first of the fall season, and although I'm grateful that I (and not A) am up coughing at night, I'm still a bit slow. How nice would it be to stay in bed all day!

But work things are starting to move slowly, in a nice direction, and I want to take advantage of that motivation. For my playground project, I just had a lovely lunch meeting yesterday with an architect who also works for an "accessible playgrounds in Switzerland" group, and she had great contacts and information and idea for me. It finally felt like this might become more than just something I surf the internet for, on my own. More than just reading playground blogs (there is more than one - that surprises you, doesn't it?), and searching on "cool playground", "natural playground" and "science playground." I also had a chat with an ed psych PhD student on the other campus last week, and we've decided to try to establish some sort of journal club or reading group for science education academics. Finally. Sometimes living in a new place bring too few of these kinds of life-giving, thirst-quenching encounters where you no longer think it is just you that isn't so happy with the status quo.

However, (oh look, now that I am just writing and not on Amazon.com anymore, I have 25 minutes left!) for now I have been in my pajamas, with warm socks on, the radiator turned up all the way, under a cozy flannel duvet cover, looking for knit toddler clothing patterns. I've sent some 8 e-book samples (the free excerpts) to my reader from Amazon.com, and I just hope that many of them have images of what patterns are inside. I'm looking to make a long vest or sleeveless tunic for A to go over all her long-sleeved tops. Why are there no baby undershirts? I just want this kid to have an extra layer for winter, and a long-sleeved t-shirt from Old Navy isn't cutting it on its own. But I find no baby tank tops or sleeveless onesies for an almost 2-year-old, not here not online in the Americas. My solution then, is to go for an outer layer for over all the long sleeves. Besides, they say that the nap room at school is really warm, so the kids sleep in their lightest layers. Bingo - just pop off that tunic and the Old Navy tshirt is ready for pajama service.

I spend a lot of time "windows" shopping on the internet. Ok, Mac OS X shopping. I don't by all that much, even if I do constantly "add to bag", all across the .com world. I'm finally buying from Etsy, but even there, I have some 50 items in my shopping cart, and only 2-3 actually purchased. I guess it lets me spend time in English-speaking internet space doing some shopping and that is comforting and familiar. Easy.

Ok, Kindle book samples, let's see what you've got for me.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Relaxing

I waste my time by looking through Etsy and trying to come up with things to do with the various rooms in our apartment. Right now, I have orangey wood floors, white walls, that bed (only a headboard height set of shelves, and none of the decor around the bed), and a 3X3 version of this shelf

What I would really like is to make the space bright enough to get me through winter, but also able to cool down for summer months without A/C.

Unfortunately, I really like these pillows from Esty that don't seem to match that there red shelf so well....










Thursday, October 13, 2011

Fall is here

Fall and my new B&W "film" for my iPhone Hipstamatic app. And times when I'm going for longer dog walks again. Actually, the last few days have been really nice. And these photos are from some 8 days ago. The weather is back to giving us at least a bit of sun each day, and I've been through another "I'm depressed, no wait, it was PMS" episode. Regrettably, it peaked while M and I were at the restaurant I last ate the night I went into labor. So I was convinced it was depression back, with the first really rainy cold day, and all the memories of the 17 hours of labor. But, it wasn't, and I'm trying fish oil pills now to see if they might lessen the mood swings every months. No more sobbing in a restaurant bathroom for me, thanks.

And the apartment keeps coming more and more together, final touches on moving around furniture. One metal bookshelf I hadn't touched in over a year finally got re-arranged, and now I just need to find family photos to put up over our work area. 

Here's to black and white photos being as morose as it gets for me this winter.

The park

The park in color

Spiders are everywhere when the fog rolls in.





Some street posts had webs in 4 directions, hanging from every available sign.

"The hill" - where we inch our way up each morning, stroller in front of us. Not a great trek for bad knees.


Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs and Sesame Street chickens

How many hundreds, thousands of posts today are going to be about Steve Jobs? I just heard on NPR, probably 12 hours late, that he passed away. It was one of the few plug-inable devices in our house that is not an Apple product. And I'm sad. In a heavy way. It is 11amI guess these cases where a human being, despite being extremely influential and rich and able to try everything it takes to get well dies, still really get to me. No hiding behind "If only I had....., I'd have gotten better." No hope remains in these cases. Individuals with huge drive and ingenuity, and bank accounts, can't stop terminal illnesses, either. A Nobel Prize was given to a doctor who died just a few days before the awards were announced, and who had tired to cure his own illness with all the latest, newest research-informed treatments from within a research institution.

At the same time, it is the last gorgeous day of early fall today. And I need to get out of this house and into the sunlight. I have some photons to absorb, and a daughter to pick up in a few hours. So my legs are shaved one last time to wear a skirt, I've finished downloading the newest artist I've learned about from Sesame Street You Tube videos, Feist, and I'm off to the big wide world.

"1, 2, 3, 4,, chickens just back from the shore, 1, 2, 3, 4,....."


Monday, October 3, 2011

4am yoga

It has been a while since I've been so present during the little, 15 minute yoga routine a physical therapist gave me for my back. I have yet to return to her for our last consult, 4 months overdue now, partially because I keep "falling off" the yoga horse and never seem to sustain a 2-week practice. And she said to call her once I'm doing the routine each day for 2 weeks.

I'll do it for 10 days straight, now after A goes to sleep (sometimes as quietly as possible in her room while she goes to sleep but only if she is no longer aware enough of her surroundings to pop up like a meerkat, glow-in-the-dark nuggi hanging in mid-air), and then on day 11 will just be too tired, or fall asleep while I'm getting her to sleep. And then one day missed turns into two, and then into a week.

At this point often I am still having enough events per day that could strain my back, that I do it. Last week, on a 10 day hiatus, the end of a soap foam massage at a spa saw me almost slip off the stone tablet I had been laying on and crap! Ow. Reset the clock, can't call the physiotherapist until I feel a bit better (definitely no yoga that night), and now I am on day 5 again.

But last night I was just tired. I hadn't gotten a nap. Instead, I'd been prepping for German class, which is still one of the more engaging activities in my week. Once the 11:45am drowsy wears off. The teacher is really good at using little games of socializing to get us writing and talking - yesterday it was "2 truths and 1 lie" and I managed to fool both people I was playing with. I have not, in fact, ever flown a plane for 30 minutes. I have, however, swum in the Amazon river, and almost knocked over Stephen Hawking.

So German class went by, and soon I was meeting my mother- and sister-in-law to pick up A at school, then found myself heading off for an hour's break into town so the three of them could interact. And then it was dinner, and bedtime routines and goodbyes and I just wanted to sleep as I was laying in a dark room, waiting for A to drift off.

Now it is 4:45am, and I have been awake for about an hour, and spent the last 45 minutes in the living room. Sitting in the dark, watching the lights of Zurich, eating some yogurt snack from the fridge. And generally unhappy that I was awake and seemingly not settling. So I did my yoga. It just takes 15 minutes, which although that can feel like a precious long time at 9pm, feels like nothing when you know you have at least 45 minutes before you have a hope of falling asleep again.

And it was the most present I have been in my yoga routine for, what, months? Maybe I've only felt that "there and only there, moving and stretching, breathing and not thinking about 100 other things" a few times in the 8 months I've been doing it. It was great. And then I'd notice how great it was, and bolstered by such a personal "win", start thinking of what I could do next during this awake 45 min. I'd write in my blog! And then, maybe tomorrow I'd make a few changes in my routine, in my interactions with M and it would be a great day. I'd get more work done, and oh I still haven't done X and Z! But, unlike most times, I managed to get back into that "present" of just breathing and stretching some 5 times. Which is rare for me.

Tack that onto actually feeling sunshine on my legs as I walked in town on my furlough yesterday afternoon, on a street I am usually pushing A's stroller down and not noticing much of anything subtle about myself, and having a chance to write for 15 minutes (with pauses and edits, even!) and I'm suddenly drowsy and calm.