Back From Vacation

So vacation and the preparation for vacation and the general feeling of being burned out before vacation equalled no blogging. Now I have so many things to blog its hard to even start.

Blah, blah, excuse, blah, blah, blah.

Here are the kids in the front of a row boat.

We do love both kids equally despite the fact that Naomi isn't wearing a life jacket. It turns out they're just a lot more fun to be around when he has one on and she doesn't.

I think that makes me a crap mom in some ways.

It turns out she is still alive and well so I'll just go ahead and forgive myself.

Bridge Collapse

Eliot is really tuned into the collapse of the bridge (and how could he not be, we can't turn on the radio or drive around town or even go to church without hearing about it).

For months and months the kids have gotten a charge out of walking under Aron's legs when he is standing up. Eliot calls it walking through Daddy's bridge.

He'll even climb under our legs when we're sitting down with our feet propped up.

If I'm leaning on something he'll walk under and say he went under my bridge.

He has even tried 'making a bridge' for Naomi to climb under with varying levels of success.

Yesterday he asked me to make a bridge by putting my arms on the counter and then leaning back.

Then he told me to make the bridge collapse.

I fell down in the funniest way I could must with my gigantic walking boot on my leg. I thought it would lead to uproarious laughter.

Like most of my jokes, it didn't (don't you think its sad that I'm not even funny with the under 5 crowd).

Instead Eliot said he wanted to be a car and ride down when the bridge collapsed.

So I let him climb on my back and then of course Naomi climb on my back and we made a bridge and then it collapsed.

I hoped again for some laughing.

No laughing was had. It was a serious exercise.

I missed a little moment too I think. Instead of asking more about the bridge collapsing I kept going with the funny gag thing. Trying to make it a funny game.

This morning Eliot made a bridge out of towels and told me about it.

When I came in to see it he pulled the towels down and said the bridge collapsed.

Again, I didn't get it. I didn't really get it, at least I don't think I did.

I didn't asked him more about the bridge collapsing. I think I was just a bit quiet and then said something benign like, "how about that, the bridge collapsed."

If another bridge collapses in our house I hope I manage to ask more.

For the Record

I don't think I'm a bad or neglectful mom for not having the kids sleep with us. A lot of people have talked to me or emailed me or told me I shouldn't feel so bad about my parenting choices.

I don't feel bad.

My last post was meant to be a little sarcastic.

I'm so super duper tired of parenting style fundamentalists who think there is just one way to raise a kid successfully to adult hood.

Since the moment we started telling people I was pregnant with Eliot nearly 4 years ago I've been drowning in parenting theories.

They all work kind of like this:

If you [fill in the blank] you will hurt your child irreversibly. By doing [fill in the blank with the opposite thing] your child will excel in all things.

The things in the blanks could be anything really. And can be switched.

Some say sleeping with your kids will hurt them. Some say it will cause them to excel.

The same goes for tons of other things: breastfeeding vs. formula, 'wearing' your child vs. not wearing your child (sling vs. Baby Bjorn), home made baby food vs. store bought food, circumcising your boy vs. not circumcising your boy, using a schedule vs. not using a schedule oh lord the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and includes such stupid things as the idea that if you don't sign your kids up for classes you're just not right.

I have found just about zero parenting theories that admit a willingness to consider that any other way of parenting might just possibly still be okay.

And even fewer talk about the importance of choosing what you feel best about so that you can feel confident so that your child can have a confident and happy parent.

So for the record.

Even tho I've been told by magazines, emails, friends, parishioners and who knows who else that I'm a bad and neglectful mom for making this choice, I don't sleep with my kids, I don't think its a sin, I think its good for them because its good for me and God knows good for my marriage and its not bad for them.

I'm sick of parenting theory fundamentalists of all kinds (whether they agree with me or not).

And so my last post was a little sarcastic about the whole thing.

I think I'm a basically good mom.