everyday life

Independent peeing

Lenore Skenazy’s article in today’s New York Post is great. Particularly apropos given that this past week I let Whit go to the bathroom alone in Starbucks for the first time. I admit that I usually take him into the women’s room with me. But on Tuesday, the ladies was locked. So I, eager to go pick up my venti latte which I could see on the bar, I let him go into the men’s alone.

Grace and I chatted as I stirred in my splenda while we waited for Whit. He came out a couple of minutes later. His hands were wet. He was wearing a huge grin, clearly proud of himself. He had peed, flushe, and washed his hands. I was ridiculously proud.

From now on, he will get to go to the bathroom alone. As Grace often does in restaurants now. A tiny step, but a huge one at the same time.

Bad host mother

I am a host family to two families at the school my kids go to. Two families joining my son in the pre-K class tomorrow. I have met neither family. Oops. I failed to connect with either one in person at the barbeque in May. I did not call. I did email them both…?

Anyway, one of the mothers called me today. Shockingly I picked up the phone (me and the phone? not so much. my classic move is to receive a voicemail and respond by email. don’t take it personally. it’s me and my I-ness). She had a question. I did not have an answer, but I did convey with great enthusiasm and not a little pride that wow, I had the same question!

Oddly she did not seem super reassured by the fact that I shared her question. She forged on with another question. Another one that I did not have an answer to. And then, with my classic verbal diarrhea problem (perhaps I shy away from the phone because I know I am just plain bad at the phone?) I proceeded to regale her with a story about on my son’s first day at nursery school, when he was 2, I had simply not noticed that I was supposed to pick him up after an hour. So, wow (insert giggle) I got that call at 10:15 that said hey your 2 year old is sitting here waiting for you.

She, again, did not seem very delighted with this tale. Poor woman. She sure hit the Host Family Jackpot with me.

Swimming alone


Today’s Motherlode post is a guest post by Lydia Denworth about how the line between overprotection and appropriate risk shifts over time. Lydia’s story is a little more charged than some, because her son has moderate to severe hearing loss that a head injury could tip into full-blown deafness.

I think her essay about still choosing not to wrap her child in cotton wool and a 24/7 helmet is brave and honest. This is something I think about all the time with Grace and Whit, and I’m always looking for small ways to allow them to feel masterful and independent. Today it was letting Grace swim to the raft in the ocean by herself. She’s done it with me and with Matt more than once, but today she went alone. She was eager to do it. The lifeguard and I were both watching. She swam there with ease, climbed onto the raft, and her incandescent smile was visible all the way from the beach.