Smiling Mom

I was invi­ted to attend an event hos­ted by Leap­frog this past Sun­day night through my affi­lia­tion with Sili­con Valley Moms Blog.  Ini­tially I was mostly exci­ted to be atten­ding this event because it gave me an oppor­tu­nity to catch up with newer and older friends, drink with the girls, and have zero child res­pon­si­bi­li­ties for a few pre­cious hours.  I was in, but not too inte­res­ted in the pro­ducts that I knew would ine­vi­tably be pushed as an exchange for my attendance.

Turns out, I was plea­santly sur­pri­sed that abso­lu­tely no sales pitch given to us.  None.  We were asked, but not requi­red, to leave a com­ment on Leapfrog’s com­mu­nity forum.  We were not even asked to blog about our experience.

OK, now I’m listening…

In lieu of a sales pitch, Leap­frog enlis­ted the help of Dr. Cun­ningham, a Leap­frog advi­sory board mem­ber and direc­tor of the Joint Doc­to­ral Pro­gram in Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion at UC Ber­ke­ley.  Dr. Cun­ningham enga­ged us in an hour long dis­cus­sion regar­ding the impor­tance of fre­quently spea­king and rea­ding to your chil­dren ages zero to five.

Recently I had the oppor­tu­nity to lis­ten to a pod­cast from NPR’s This Ame­ri­can Life in which they did a seg­ment narra­ted by “Wha­te­ver It Takes” author Paul Tough entit­led Baby College.  He fin­dings show that the typi­cal middle class family speaks to their infants and todd­lers dra­ma­ti­cally more often and more posi­ti­vely than the typi­cal lower income family does.  Fas­ci­na­ting!  His work focu­ses on brea­king the cycle of gene­ra­tio­nal poverty by focu­sing on the chil­dren.  If you have 30 minu­tes to lis­ten about his ongoing work in New York, it’s truly worth your time.

Dr. Cun­ningham sug­gests that we should expose our chil­dren to rich lan­guage through our words, books, and tech­no­logy, and in turn our chil­dren will have a bet­ter chance of rea­ding fluently and com­prehen­ding dif­fi­cult voca­bu­lary at an early age.

What a power­ful con­nec­tion, and a fabu­lous discussion.

I left the event with a gift bag full of the latest Leap­frog pro­ducts.  My chil­dren will be get­ting some pretty sweet Christ­mas gifts this year, thanks to our new favo­rite toy com­pany, Leapfrog.

OH, did I say toy com­pany?  I should cla­rify.  Leap­frog first iden­ti­fies the skill that needs to be taught, then crea­tes a sys­tem in which to teach that skill.  Kinda like a really smart teacher, huh?  So I should say that thanks to our new favo­rite teacher, Leap­frog, my chil­dren will have hours of fun lear­ning through play!

*****Leap­frog also pro­vi­ded us with a cou­pon to save $10 off any order of $50 or more when you shop at leapfrog.com which is good through Novem­ber 15^th, 2008.  So shop away!  I know I will be. 

Cou­pon Code: HY8BHPR

Thanks Leap­frog!!  I’m a new con­vert.  I’ll pro­mote you.  I’ll con­sult for you.  I’ll work with you.  Heck, I’d even help birth some of your cute little froggy gup­pies if I could!  I appre­ciate how nicely you trea­ted us mom bloggers!!

OK, I’m pretty much done dis­cus­sing my son’s horri­fic tan­trum phase that he’s taken resi­dence in.  I sucks.  I’m stres­sed, but it looks like some of these beha­viors are here to stay.  The tan­trums have redu­ced in time, but not in inten­sity.  He’s going to school nicely, which is a bles­sing.  But he tends to loose it in the eve­ning.  He’s tired.  Very tired by night time.  I’ve pretty much become emo­tio­nally detached when he works him­self up into a tizzy, which is a very, very good thing.  When I men­tally go to my happy place, I am able to more ade­qua­tely deal with the outbursts.

Last night’s melt down only took 35 minu­tes, not an hour and a half.  Thank God.

Any­way, I deci­ded to write a post on a ligh­ter note… my new iPhone!!  Squee!!

Actually, it’s not new, it’s my husband’s hand me down.  Heck I don’t care.  Anything’s bet­ter than the P.O.S. I use to own.

Today at Sili­con Valley Mom’s Blog, I write about my love for the new iPhone.  Let’s just say that this little device is good, oh so good, for my per­so­nal life!    Now go read, and leave me a comment!

So a bit ago I wrote a post for SVMB about BC. You may remem­ber how he cried, lost con­trol, and how I might have slightly ove­rreac­ted a bit by crying and fee­ling like a horri­ble mom? Well, I’m happy to report that this past week has been so much better!

My friend Jamie sent me an email, God bless her, with the best sug­ges­tion I’ve heard in a long time on how to cur­tail BC’s inc­rea­singly defiant outbursts.

She said I should make him the Man of the House.

You see Hubby recently went back to work after a 7 1/2 month break due to a torn shoul­der. This tran­si­tion see­mingly has really effec­ted BC.  Jamie’s sug­ges­tion was to give BC the res­pon­si­bi­lity of being a hel­per, with a title, while Hubs was away at work.

Now if you’ve ever met my son, you know that he’s all about step­ping up to the plate.  In an emer­gency, he’s the best per­son to have hel­ping you, aside from my Hus­band.  So this whole idea of being the Man of the House com­ple­tely appea­led to BC.

Each night this week BC’s furro­wed his brow and said, “Now Mommy, I’m the Man of the House, is there anything else you need?” and goes one to say, ” If I hear you say, “Ouch,” I’ll come out of my bedroom to help you.”

And each mor­ning when BC encoun­ters Hubby, BC reports, “Daddy, I was the Man of the House, and I did a great job last night!”

It’s beau­ti­ful.  And sim­ple.  And OH SO appreciated.

With this new found res­pon­si­bi­lity, BC’s like a new boy.  And me? I’m fee­ling so much bet­ter about our nightly rou­tine.  I no lon­ger dread put­ting my dar­lings down to bed.

So thank you Jamie!  You may begin char­ging me for you mothe­ring ser­vi­ces at any­time now.  I’ll be happy to pay top dollar!

I want to paint this quote on my daughter’s bedroom wall, tat­too it on my forearm, and take it on as my own mantra.

Truly. Ama­zing.

Our dee­pest fear is not that we are ina­de­quate. Our dee­pest fear is that we are power­ful beyond mea­sure. It is our light, not our dark­ness that most frigh­tens us. We ask our­sel­ves, Who am I to be bri­lliant, gor­geous, talen­ted, fabu­lous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your pla­ying small does not serve the world. There is nothing enligh­te­ned about shrin­king so that other peo­ple won’t feel inse­cure around you. 

We are all meant to shine, as chil­dren do. We were born to make mani­fest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in ever­yone. And as we let our own light shine, we uncons­ciously give other peo­ple per­mis­sion to do the same. As we are libe­ra­ted from our own fear, our pre­sence auto­ma­ti­cally libe­ra­tes others.

–Marianne William­son, 1992