Archive for January, 2009

From the Archives: Duck!

January 3, 2009 @ 10:10 pm | Filed under:

Just came across this and the memory made me laugh, so I thought I’d repost it just for fun. Originally posted in July, 2006.

It’s been about three [now five+] years since the day at the park when I realized my daughters were lacking a vital, a crucial, an indispensible piece of knowledge. I don’t know how we’d missed it—these kids knew Tennyson before they could read and discussed the periodic table of the elements over dinner. (Okay, so we had a placemat with the periodic table on it. Still. We did discuss it. As in: “No, dear, we don’t smush peas on helium.”) They’re bright kids, well-educated kids, but there was a giant hole in their education and it was the kind of hole that left an opening for serious pain. Literally.

See, we were at the park, as I said, and a bunch of kids were playing ball not far away. Suddenly a cry rang out: “DUCK!” Every person in the vicinity ducked out of the way of the large ball hurtling toward our group. Except my kids. All three of them (there were only three at the time) LOOKED UP AT THE SKY. I kid you not. “Where?” cried Jane. “Is it a mallard?”

Is it a mallard. The kid knew her times tables at age seven but had no clue that when someone hollers “duck,” you get your head out of the way. When I stopped guffawing, I decided I’d better rectify that little oversight right quick. Back at home, I put the kids through a bit of boot camp. I figured while I was at it, I might as well throw in some other quick-response commands. I lined up the three little girls, ages eight, five, and two, and drilled them in Duck, Hit the Deck, and On Your Feet Maggot. It was a smashing game and we played it every day for a week. They made mighty giggly little soldiers but they got the point and I felt reasonably comfortable out taking them back out to dangerous places such as the park.

At some point I added another command, and for something that started out as a whim, it has turned out to bring immense peace and pleasure to my home. It had occurred to me that one of my biggest pet peeves was calling one of the kids and having her yell back, “Wha-at?” instead of coming to SEE what because if I’d wanted a conversation of shouts, I’d have hollered what I wanted in the first place.

I remembered what Charlotte Mason has to say about habit-training, how a mother should pick one habit at a time to cultivate in her children. Start with a bad habit that vexes you, Miss Mason says (somewhere; I no longer remember which book—probably all of them), and devote a period of several weeks to replacing it with a good habit. This is the best parenting advice I’ve ever encountered. Such a simple principle: instead of punishing for the inappropriate behavior, you take the time to develop the behavior you want to see.

Of course my children didn’t know what kind of response I wanted when I called out their names: I’d never bothered to explain it. Did I just expect them to instinctively know that the “whaaaaa-ut” hollerback drives mothers up the wall? When I examined the situation, I understood that I’d never given much thought myself to what kind of response I’d prefer. I just got annoyed by the one I didn’t prefer.

So after the Duck drills, I started working on the “what to do when I call your name” routine. And oh my goodness has it been a pleasure to see it in action these past three years. By now it’s completely automatic. I call a name and the child in question cries out, “Coming!” Simultaneously she leaps to her feet and runs to wherever I am, landing before me with a “Yes, Mom?”

It’s marvelous. Maybe the script isn’t your cup of tea but I truly love it: the quick response, the way I can take it for granted that all I have to do is say a name and the needed child will appear before me—with no irritation, no resentment. It’s all automatic; we hardly notice it anymore; it’s simply what one does. It is, in fact, a habit.

Habits (good and bad) are catching. Wonderboy has picked up the routine too, without our doing anything to teach it. In fact, he’ll see your “coming!” and raise you one—half the time I holler out for Rose or Beanie, the boy will chime in his own “Commmmm-ee!” in chorus with theirs. Sometimes he just stands at the bottom of the stairs barking out his sisters’ names and supplying their responses for them. Or maybe he just thinks their names are Rosecoming and so forth.

I know the drill-sergeant routine is a little hackneyed, but it’s been a most successful means of following Charlotte Mason’s habit-training advice. Very Mary Poppins-esque, really: the silliness of the drills (nothing says fun like calling your children maggot) is the spoonful of sugar, far more palatable than the pill I used to be, scolding them for not coming when I called. Kids pick up an awful lot by osmosis, but not everything. Just ask my little birdwatchers. No, dear, it isn’t a mallard. It’s a soccer ball and it’s about to give you a concussion. Now DUCK!

What the Song Looks Like

January 2, 2009 @ 10:41 pm | Filed under: ,

A commenter (named, delightfully, Jane Wiley) on my recent Signing Time post asked:

Melissa…have you heard about “Sign Art” the interpretation of music through sign language…
Sign Art is a beautiful way to see a picture… of a song… through the interpretation in sign language…

Several years ago, Scott called me to the TV to watch a clip from a Pearl Jam concert DVD he was watching. “Trust me,” he said. “You’re going to love this.”

As usual, he was right. I stood transfixed as a young ASL interpreter accompanied the band in a performance of “Given to Fly.” Her movements are lovely and captivating, lifting the song itself to a level of beauty I would never have associated with Pearl Jam.

I found the clip on YouTube so you can see for yourselves. (Parents with younguns looking over your shoulders, be aware that Eddie Vedder drops an F-bomb at minute 3:28—with a bit of sign language of his own).

Links for January 2, 2009

January 2, 2009 @ 10:02 pm | Filed under:

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2008 in Posts

January 1, 2009 @ 9:23 am | Filed under: ,

January

I contemplated fresh starts.

I experimented with a a new departure in flavorings. (My famous chicken tortilla chai soup recipe. Mm mm bleck.)

Then it was time to Journey North again!

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February

I finished crocheting a sweater, almost. (Never did put the buttons on. Rilla won’t wear it, anyway. No ladybugs on it.)

Wonderboy got glasses.

We had bad days and good ones.

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March

I sang out loud in the grocery store.

John Stilgoe knocked my socks off and got me contemplating how Way Leads on to Way and how Every Face I Look at Seems Beautiful.

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April

In a word: Barcelona! Barcelona! Barcelona!

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May

I contemplated my Mother’s Days and celebrated 14 years with That Cute Boy.

I got very wordy about houseplants. Twice.

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June

Scott battled a fearsome beast in our laundry room. I read about the epic fight on IM.

I explained my Doctor Roster.

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July

My big girls went to Colorado for a week.

We were happy to get them back again.

Then we ditched them for the San Diego Comic-Con. (Scott had to: it’s his job. Me? I tagged along for the photo ops.)

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August

We started the 100 Species Challenge. (And though we’ve not kept up the blogging-it part, we’ve done really well with the species ID part! I think we’re in the 60s now.)

I had a little hospital adventure.

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September

I made curtains! (I didn’t say I made them well.)

We kept on learning new stuff about our sweet Wonderboy.

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October

I celebrated the San Diego autumn and small happinesses. And more autumn, and more happinesses. (About that sourdough starter, though? Epic fail.)

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November

My parents came to visit, and we enjoyed a fabulous week of exploring SoCal with the big girls.

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December

‘Twas a month of Twittered moments, and birthdays, and sewing, and books, and Advent moments both magical and mucky.

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And now it’s 2009, and we’re about to make another fresh start.

Lilypie Expecting a baby Ticker