That Time of Year Again

I'm actually a little late this year, but I've started gathering my materials for my marathon of gift making for the holidays. It's an odd phenomena that happens to me every year. Some time toward the end of every summer or the beginning of fall, I somehow stumble across a new craft or a new level of a craft that I'm already involved with. The past few years, I've been developing my picture DVD making. I had planned to learn more about video making for this year's batch of family gifts, but then I got sidetracked.

So, my new fun thing is felting. A friend introduced me to the process and I'm so excited! I've already made a door sign for my son and a purse for my daughter. These are by no means extraordinary or magnificent things, but for first tries, I'm pretty pleased. I also tried felting a crocheted witches hat which I plopped on the pumpkin in my window. And par for my course, the inspirations hit (with some brainstorming help from said friend).

I think that if this batch of gift - scarves, neck gaiters, purses and barbecue mitts (those will be the most challenging) - work out well, I may restock and reopen my Etsy.com shop under Craftybear. If I do, I'll add the link to my list. I think I shall take some pics and post them here as well. I'm pretty psyched about the possibilities!

When Will It Stop?

I just watched part of a video on MSNBC of two middle schools fighting in a bathroom at school. I’ve seen girls do worse, but of course they were in jail, so it’s sort of apples and oranges. I was a teenager once and I remember threats and viciousness, yet I still found this video clip disturbing. Perhaps I have a different perspective as the mother of a little girl. But it goes a little beyond that, I think. For all the honey in the Hundred Acre Wood, I can’t figure out what it is that we are teaching kids to make them so damned volatile.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these people petitioning for violence and profanity to be eradicated from all media. I just monitor what my kids are watching. I don’t allow them to watch most TV shows, I seriously restrict violence and our viewing is usually limited to Disney, Nickelodeon or Discovery Kids. But I don’t think I have the right to tell other people what to let their kids watch. At the same time, I can’t understand people who allow their preschoolers to listen to hard-core rap, watch violent movies like Spiderman III or horror flicks and then don’t understand why their kids do things like assault their own parents, curse at them or attack their siblings. That seems to me to be a bit of a contradiction.

We can’t have it both ways. People complain that kids are too violent but then let them play games like Grand Theft Auto.

I don’t blame the media or entertainment industry. I don’t wholly blame the kids. I pretty much think that parents need to stop being so damned touchy feely and start setting some limits on their kids. If everyone parented their kids, I think we might start to see a bit of a change. And I know that has been made virtually impossible these days what with all the ‘experts’ telling parents to boost kids’ esteem and empower them and let them be free and let them make their own decisions at the age of three. “Let them work it out,” I hear from one neighbor who used to be a preschool teacher. “They have to learn.” Sure, okay, but they also need some kind of guidance. That’s the problem with all this ‘self-help’ advice: it throws out great one-liners, but never gets into the reality of implementation. Life cannot be reduced to a catch phrase.

Yes, we should boost kids’ self-esteem, but they also need to understand that they won’t be the best at everything, nor will they win all the time in the real world. I agree that kids should be allowed to make some choices for themselves, but quite frankly, if a three year old could make all their decisions for themselves, they wouldn’t need parents. How’s that working out by the way? You have a kid who thinks they know everything and never has to follow a rule, you say? I can’t imagine why.

I think a bit more of the ‘old-school’ way is going to have to make a comeback and fast. I don’t think that kids need to be beaten, I won’t go that far, but at the same time, parents need to be allowed and supported in setting some better limits on our kids. And stop blaming the media or the entertainment industry. Just because a child wants to watch something or play a game, doesn’t mean they have to be allowed to. Just because everyone else is doing is doesn’t mean that my kid has to do it. How is a child supposed to not succumb to peer pressure when their parents are giving in to it? Barbara Bush may have had some kind of an idea.

Granted, my kids are little and still very much under my thumb and I have no experience raising anyone older than six, but I honestly believe that if the foundation is set at a young age, kids will take those lessons with them. I’ve been fighting those peer pressure battles since the day my oldest was born. People pushing me to let my kids have candy or crappy snacks all the time have changed into different people thinking that I’m stupid for putting their seat belts on to drive down the road. But you know what? My daughter was playing McDonald’s the other day with some peers at the playground, and when she placed her ‘order’ instead of asking for soda, she requested water. I wasn’t there; I heard the story from Grandpa. So obviously the lessons have sunk in. When my kids start expecting gifts and trinkets on a regular basis because they were being given them (against my wishes) I put a stop to it. Now we have a reward system and they have to earn their little treats. And when they want something strictly because they see someone else with it, I say NO! because they don’t always have to follow the crowd.

We’ll see how this works out for us, but I certainly don’t get the sense that I’m alone in thinking that parents are starting to feel the need to regain control. I look at it this way, I can let my kids run amok now and then let them pay the price later (that girl in the video is being charged now – she’ll have a criminal record at the age of fourteen) or I can take the responsibility now and hopefully they’ll be spared when they’re older. As far as I’m concerned, I signed up for the latter the day I decided to become someone’s mother. Or maybe I’m over-simplifying. What do you think?

And just as I finish writing this, there’s another story of a school shooting, and the fourteen-year-old suspect killed himself. When is it going to stop?

How Do They Do It?

There are a number of things that I'm good at. I'd even go so far as to say that I'm a halfway decent parent most days. One thing I stink at, though, is home-schooling. I don't know how all those moms do it. It seems like it should be the simplest thing in the world, natural even - I mean people did it sort of before there were schools, didn't they? Yet the skill set consistently eludes and frustrates me.

My daughter didn't quite make the cut-off for kindergarten this year, and because of finances, she's at preschool less than she was last year. But she still has to know certain things before she starts kindergarten, because from what I keep hearing, these things are no longer taught but expected. Even the children in her class have more developed skills than she does, because they are working on them every day. So I try to work on these things at home. We work on holding the crayon properly, beginning letter sounds, numbers, whatever we can. But what we 'can' do is increasingly less as my patience rapidly dwindles.

It wouldn't bother me so much if it didn't bother her that she's slightly behind her peers. It does upset her though when her kindergarten friends call her a baby or snottily point out that their drawings are better than her scribbles. She gets frustrated when she's having trouble cutting and is the last one to finish her school project. She chastises herself almost as mercilessly than they do and I can't take it. So I try to tell her that where she's at is fine and that she just needs to keep practicing. But she doesn't want to practice - she wants to watch TV or do puzzles or go run outside. While I can't blame her, if she doesn't do the harder things, she won't get better at them and she'll continue to be teased and to berate herself.

We worked on writing her name this morning. First she traced my block letters, then over my dotted lines, then connect the dots. That was all fun until she had to try it on her own.

"I can't do it! I'm no good at writing my name!"

"Yes you can, you just did it five times. Try."

"I don't want to!" And she threw the pencil onto the table.

There is something in my personality that gets very annoyed with people who give up too easily. Some things I have infinite patience for - quitting is not one of them. Even when my husband gives up on a game of chess, on the rare occasion that he's not slaughtering me, instead of playing out the game and seeing if he can pull a win out of his butt, I want to whack him right upside his head. What's this nonsense that you only play until the end when you're winning? I'm as sore a loser as he is, but at least I get mad when someone else beats me - and don't just settle for beating myself.

My daughter seems to have adopted this same trait. She gives up before she can fail. We don't pressure our kids to be great or even good at anything, but I do demand that they try. I just don't seem to have the patience to deal with their frustration intolerance.

Perhaps I have unrealistic expectations, and maybe I'm unwittingly putting too much pressure on my daughter. I just don't want her to feel badly about herself by comparing herself to her friends. She's a smart girl and she's naturally good at lots of things. But she also needs to understand that even if you're not great at something doesn't mean you just stop working at it, especially if it's something you're going to have to do like it or not. You don't want to practice soccer because it's too hard? Fine by me! Do something you enjoy! But being able to write and read is pretty much not optional. She'll need to know those things even if she does join the circus (like she's telling me right now).

So, what am I doing wrong? How do I get her to keep working on those skills without making them so miserable that we're both irritated with each other and the task at hand? How do those home-schooling moms do it? Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

Who Says I Have to Do Something With My Hair?

Almost two years ago, I decided to stop relaxing my hair and to wear it naturally. That was on Election Day of 2005. Not long after that I decided that I was ready to transition into dreadlocks. There were many reasons for these changes, but one major reason was that I felt I needed to regain some part of my cultural and ethnic identity. Other factors were a desire to stop poisoning my hair and body with chemicals, and to stop warping my mind by trying to fit the description of someone I could never be. I don't think I consciously wanted to be anyone else, but subconsciously, it's kind of ingrained in the culture: long, silky, shiny, bouncin'-and-behavin' hair was the the way.

I love my locs. They require some maintenance, but are actually easier on a day to day basis than having my hair relaxed, or even just wearing in naturally loose. I've had periods of wanting to chop them off, more out of a need for change than anything else, but they've always passed. My hair is my hair and it's awesome (to me) just the way it is.

So where did I get this crazy notion that I need to do 'something' with it tonight?
My husband and I are going to a wedding this evening - his cousin is getting married. I should point out that his family is Italian. I bought a really knock-out dress and made a lovely shrug to go with it. I've got the shoes and accessories to go with it. Then for some bizarre reason, I got this idea in my head that I needed to do 'something' with my hair.

It's not so huge a leap to make - that's what all women say when they're dressing up, isn't it? When you're 'going out' you go get your hair done. The thing is, there's not all that much to do with my hair. I go to a loctician periodically and she's done a funky thing with pipe-cleaners to set it and make it curly, but I can't do that myself. Nor do I have the money or time to go see her. I actually think my hair looks nicer without the curls. But still, I tried.

I washed it and twisted as I normally would. I even did some cute twists at the front and secured them back from my face. And then I decided to try the pipe cleaners. Call it temporary insanity. Clearly I am not my loctician. I noticed pretty quickly that it was not going to work. So then I spent a very frustrating time trying to get the pipe cleaners back out of my hair. But I didn't quite give up on the idea of 'doing' my hair.

I kept the front twists and then thought that maybe if I rolled up the back and secured it in a kind of bun, the ends might get a bit of a curl. I should really know better.

This morning, after a night with an awful headache, I undid my hair. Now it is a) still damp and b) not curled at all. Total waste of a good night's sleep.

So now my hair looks pretty much like it always does and this is not a problem in the least. It's clean and groomed and will drape nicely over my shoulders, not taking away from the real focus of my ensemble: my dress. If I do say so myself, I think I will look pretty darned good tonight. I just wish I had saved myself the headache of trying to conform to someone else's idea of 'done' and had spent a bit less time time in pain. Live and learn. I locked my hair as a way of accepting myself as I am. Sometimes I just need to be reminded that everyone else will just have to accept me as I am, too.

What happens when I get off my ass

Not to pat myself on the back, but I kind of amaze myself sometimes. It seems that what I really need to get myself motivated is a deadline, preferably one that is ridiculously close.

I have a wedding to attend this Saturday and I needed a wrap of some sort. I'm just being practical here - it's October, I hate to be cold and I don't have a lot of disposable income at the moment to buy something I'll wear once. So I decided to make a shrug.

Now, I had started this shrug back in the spring. Between May or June and this past Monday I completed about 5 rows (crocheted). Today, the shrug is just about completed. Did I really have to do the marathon crocheting thing, working until my fingers were ready to fall off every day? Apparently I did.

So there's the secret. In order to avoid a million unfinished projects, I need to have a specific purpose or goal BEFORE I start a project. And that goal has to be imminent. For example, I can't start making a gift for a pregnant friend when I find out they're pregnant. No, I have to do it the week before the baby shower. Otherwise, I end up (like I am now) with three or four unfinished baby blankets in my closet and a whole mess of yarn that I would never use for anything but a baby blanket. It's kind of wasteful, when you think about it. I'm hoarding all this perfectly good yarn, with the vague intention of using it sometime, but someone else could be using it much more productively.

And there we have it. I think I will have to impose some sort of deadline for the rest of these projects (i.e. scrapbooks) that I have sitting around. I want them OUT!!