It's Not A Smart Phone Park

We've spent the last week in Florida.  We had a lot of fun in our last hurrah before the start of school - and now I'm scrambling to do all the school prep I haven't done over the past week - and I am going to do a few write ups of our experiences at some of the new parks we hadn't been to previously, with a slant towards the perspective of taking someone with special needs to the park.

Overall, we had a blast.  Most of us anyway.  I noticed that whenever the wee ones were on a ride at Legoland (many are truly designed for little kids and parents can't join them), my husband was constantly on his phone.  Apparently my reluctance for him to join the smart phone age was well justified...

Rather than watching the wee ones cavorting - in this instance, driving in the Ford Motor School Driving Test, heading the wrong way down streets and blowing past stop signs they swear they didn't see - my husband was checking the weather.  Or maybe Facebook.  Or maybe reading news.  Or who knows, maybe it was online poker.

For him, watching the wee ones have fun and sharing in their enjoyment is something he wasn't raised with.  His parents didn't interact with him in the same way that my parents did - nor do they interact with the wee ones when we visit.  It's a completely different style of parenting, and from my perspective, it's not a fun or filled with joy.  It isn't that it's wrong, but it's not how I am.

I've given up trying to change him, for the most part.  The second he's finished eating, he's up clearing dishes and moving on to the next thing, regardless of how many of the rest of us are still eating and trying to enjoy a family meal.  When he plays a board game with the wee ones, it's about getting to the end of the game instead of having fun along the way - you don't want to be the one having a conversation when it's your turn! And that's all he ever knew.

How about you?  How were you raised?  Do you follow the same tenets of child rearing that your parents used?  And what's your take on hanging out on smart phones around your children?

Take A Step Back

Mom, what's in your bag there? I sighed as I could see into my mom's purse. No wallet or lipstick there.

What? I could see her pulling her innocent face.

What is in the bag that you're opening up right now? By now I could see that the only thing in her purse was food.

Just a couple of pretzels and some grapes, why? She started to reach inside to offer them to the wee ones, who had just eaten lunch not twenty minutes before.

Put them away, Mom, I cringed some, knowing that this was going to not be fun.

What? They're just some healthy snacks. Wee ones, don't you want some yummy grapes?

Mom, please put them away. They just ate. The smile was falling from my face.

What? Grapes are healthy. Wee ones, your mommy doesn't want you to eat these nice healthy grapes. Don't you want some yummy juicy grapes? My mom dangled the aforementioned grapes in front of Little Miss's face.

Mom. Put. Them. Away. I could feel myself starting to growl.

We'd had this conversation over and over again, but it was always the same. My mom has an odd compunction to feed people, constantly. She is always giving the wee ones snacks of all kinds, albeit relatively healthy snacks. It didn't matter if the wee ones were hungry or not, my mom would offer them food. It got to the point that they entered my parents car and started to reach for food like Pavlov's overstuffed dog.

The odd part of this is the my mom doesn't even like food. She doesn't eat much, and she's always been thin as a rail. However, she's also always pushed food on me and the wee ones. It took a long time for me to recognize what hunger actually meant and to be able to listen to my body.

I remember being a kid and ordering three cheeseburgers from McDonalds, plus fries and a strawberry shake. The thought of eating that much food now makes me sick to my stomach, but somehow my parents never thought that they should possibly reign this in. I'm lucky that I was never heavier as a child than what I was, although I was never a string bean.

I refuse to have my children fall prey to the same challenge. When they're hungry, they can ask for food, and I am happy to give it to them. When I sense that Mister Man's blood sugar is getting low and his moods are getting wonky, I'll have him sit down and eat an orange or something along those lines. A snack every time we take a break in the day? Not so much.

What's wrong with a little snack?

Mom, they just ate lunch. If they're hungry, they can ask for a snack, but trust me, they're fine. Put away the food. They don't need it.

Why are you being this way?

Mom, you seem to have forgotten whose children they are. They're my children, not yours. Uh-oh, I'm on a roll now, and I was just hoping that no more came out than I intended and that I wouldn't regret this. I've been pushing this conversation off for a long time, silencing the irritation I felt every time my mom did something that ran counter to how I was raising my children, counter to the requests that I'd made of my parents. They don't need food, they don't need you to shove food in their face every time they see you. It isn't healthy for them. They need to learn to listen to when their tummies are telling them they're hungry. Until you hear it from them, close the bag, and put the food away.

There was stunned silence in the car. My dad took me to task for the tone I used, but at that point, I was done. I'd requested nicely time after time, and no one was listening. With the amount of time my parents spend with the wee ones, it was an issue and not the typical different rules when Grandma and Grandpa see their grandchildren.

See, I'm not always a very nice person, am I? And here you thought I was just full of sweetness and light!

For The Love Of Swearing...

I'm not a big swear-er. I never have been, and I doubt I ever will be. That isn't to say that I don't swear on occasion, as I do. But with my prediliction against swearing, you can imagine that it's that much more effective when I do swear.

Personally, I'm just not a fan of swearing in general. I'm sometimes a bit old-fashioned, and it just sounds vulgar to me when it's thrown in gratuitously. I can remember being in the sixth grade riding the Mouse (roller coaster) at Valleyfair and for the first time saying -- quietly and to myself -- Oh my God as I rode up and down and around the curves and hills. I felt like I was being so bad then, but I did it anyway. You can imagine how much of a problem child I was for my mother.

With this minimal background in swearing, I didn't want my children to grow up swearing. When pregnant with Mister Man, we agreed to not swear in front of any children we may have and that to get in the habit, we should start immediately. It was much easier for me than it was for him, but we both did it.

Since Mister Man was born, there have been some slipups on Daddy's part, but luckily nothing frequent or that has stuck.

Interjections, on the other hand, are another matter. Personally, I think it sounds wrong and ugly for a preschooler to say things like "Oh my God" or "What the?..." (without the last bit at least) or "Gosh darn it" or even "For Pete's sake." Little kids don't need to learn saying like this, especially not at two or three. At least in my mind.

My husband and parents are of another mind altogether (we'll leave out my in-laws who swear in front of my children). They believe it's perfectly normal and that everyone needs interjections to get their point across.

We've come to a stalemate. I contend that Little Miss (at three) saying, For the love of God, will you please stop singing really isn't appropriate. I'm the only one in my camp. For now, the wee ones bend to my will and avoid saying things like this after being corrected once by me. The rest of the family, however, continues to expose them to language like this.

I know it's only a matter of time before I hear one of them shouting Holy cr@ p - or something worse - and I'm not looking forward to it. Am I totally out in left field on this one? I just want the wee ones to stay innocent and enjoy childhood. Apparently, that's too much to ask.