Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today would have been my mom’s 66^th birthday.   I started this blog with a post about the pain of losing her to cancer a year and a half ago, but today I want to honor her awesomeness on the occasion of her birthday. 

Easier said than done.  A few days ago I started to go through my photo library for pictures for this post and suddenly plummeted into a deep and gloomy funk.  I miss my mom!  Seeing these beautiful, vibrant photos of her—so full of life, so full of vivacity—happy and alive, well it was hard.  I totally broke down. 

When I get super sad about losing my mom, I also instantly tune into her.  What she said to me as I was crying and carrying on, was that she didn’t lose any of that vitality, but she only gained more of it when she passed, unencumbered by a human body.  She didn’t become any less warm, loving, or funny, she became more of that person.  She is right here with me all of the time, completely still the same awesome mom, but only more.  I am immeasurably comforted by that. 

I want to honor her wonderful life and the amazing person she was.  I wish I had more and better access to photos of her as a child or of her from when I was a child.  I will get a hold of these some day and do another mom post, but for now let's look at some of the cool things about my mom Janette Dean.

This is where she and my dad lived for years before moving to Washington near the end of her life.  They built their dream house on this gorgeous Colorado property.  Brennan and I spent many Christmas vacations up there in the snow and nose-bleed altitudes (nearly 10,000 feet and close to Pike's Peak--my mom was made of hearty mountain-woman stuff).  

This was the used bookstore that my mom and sister Sherri owned in Woodland Park.  It was called Blue Heron Books and was fairly thriving for about 9 years.  It was awesome!  She and Sherri really followed their passion on this one.  I wiled away many an hour perusing the used books while visiting the family in Colorado.  It was also the halfway pit stop from the airport in Colorado Springs up the hill to nose-bleed Victor, so it was always the first place we'd stop when we visited.  Happy memories!

This is a typical Christmas shot of my parents Janette and Bill.  My mom loved her dogs too!  

Here is mom with her mom--my Grandma Mabel, my sister Sherri, and I having lunch on Alki in West Seattle during one of her visits up here.

This is one of my favorite photos of me and my mom.  We're in Hawaii a few days before my wedding and we are so healthy and tanned and relaxed.  This was a really special time for me and having my mom with me made it all so much better.

This is one of my favorite pictures of mom and Megan.  They both had such a funny sense of humor!

I feel very blessed to have spent 37 years with my mom.  She was an amazing woman and today, and every day I celebrate her.  I love you mom!

Sometimes life's a f*****g parachute

Today I was at a thing called Kids Gym at our local YMCA with the two children.  This is a weekly group that meets in a big gymnasium filled with fun toys like bouncy houses, balls, tunnels and tricycles-- with the added feature that the teachers lead us in songs at the beginning and the end.  It's a pretty fun way to fill a tuesday morning, or so I thought when I signed up both kids.  Only, the thing is, Megan still doesn't really like it much.

I have to say that I'm pretty surprised by this.  She likes all of the components of the class--bouncy houses, other kids, big space to run around, toys--but for some reason put it all together and she gets completely clingy and crying.  I feel torn by wanting to comfort her on the sidelines and wanting to interact with Finn who's thoroughly enjoying himself.

Today all bets were off though by the mere mention of a parachute being brought out to be played with.  Megan lost her shit.  She screamed and sobbed and everyone stared.  I had to sit with her on the bleachers hugging her and trying to calm her down, but she was inconsolable.  The teachers approached me and said that if I needed to I could take her out or leave early or do what I needed to do, which was nice but I just tried to explain the unexplainable...Megan has a thing with parachutes.

I don't know why.  When she was really little we had her in Little Gym classes and they frequently brought out the parachute to play with.  Megan loved it.  She loved it so much that she started making up stories about the parachute game.  We'd talk about the parachute all of the time.  That's all she thought about.  We'd talk about the things to do with a parachute, (go under, shake it, walk around in a circle, throw balls on it); the parachute became a character in itself, and I dare say, she was obsessed with it.

One day at a yard sale we found an old small parachute and thought we'd buy it for her.  Her very own parachute!  She saw us buying it and was stoked but then she realized we were bringing it home with us and she flipped out big time.  It took weeks of cajoling before she became comfortable playing with it.  But she still wasn't going to have anything to do with that Kids Gym parachute by golly!

I think that Megan had built parachutes up into such mythical proportions that the real thing was just...too crazy, or real or...I don't know.  She can't stand the real thing, only the idea of the thing.

Psych!

So all of this was happening, and I was trying to put on my game face and keep positive so that Megan didn't feel more like crap than she had to and that Finn could still feel like he could have fun.  A mom approached me and made some small talk.  Our children were the same age with the same difference in age and I found myself slightly losing it.  You could tell she just wanted some light conversation, but the next thing I know I'm tearing up and telling her how freaking hard everything is and how having two toddlers makes me rip my hair out.  I felt like I was rambling on and on and she sort of had a fixed smile and that "I'm going to back away slowly now and talk to a sane person" look on her face, so I let her go and continued to try and keep my cool.

But fuck it!  It's not easy!   Having a 19 month old and a 3 year old is, sometimes, too hard.  How many tantrums a day do I really have to go through?  (Let me tell you, the amount I go through now is TOO MUCH).  I know I should be starting to potty train Finn, but I've barely got Megan potty trained and she's nearly 3 1/2!  Megan had three time outs at preschool the other day and I had to talk to the teacher...and it's all just too much sometimes!  I feel like poor Finn is going to need therapy because he's the neglected one...and I just don't have enough hands to do it all, or functioning brain cells to even think sometimes.  I work really hard to be happy, but some days it just doesn't happen.

So, I guess in a way I can relate to Megan's screaming about the parachute.  If life's like a fucking parachute, I'd want to scream too.  Some big, loud, out of control thing being waved willy nilly in your face.  You know it's supposed to be fun, but sometimes it's just a bit...much.

Big Bird's not the only loser here...

I have an issue I want to talk about.  It's actually the reason I wanted to start a blog.  It's about the change that has happened with something very dear to me.  I couldn't fit my rant into the tiny status update that Facebook allows and I really wanted to share this with as many people who would read it, so blogging seemed a good jumping off point.

There's been a lot of talk lately about Mitt Romney trying to kill and filet Big Bird, and what a mean jerk he is.  (I mean REALLY).  If the quotes you read on Facebook can be trusted, then this one I read really makes Romney look like a piece of garbage:

"Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive."

~Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist 

0.012% of the budget?!  Dude, focus on cutting war funding.  That should save a couple bucks. 

However, I feel that in addition to Big Bird being bullied by the GOP, what we need to actually be worried about is the demise of ELMO.  And it's not the republicans we need to blame this time, it's our friends at Sesame Workshop--the creators of Sesame Street, who have decided to oppress your favorite giggling red monster and all he stands for.  

Now, I am not a huge fan of mainstream television for children.  Most of it is like crack for little kids' minds.  I find it frenetic, unhealthy, brain-draining, sexist, often violent.  I don't let my kids watch it.  I do let my kids watch Sesame Street though.  

Let me also say that I LOVE Sesame Street.  (Probably more than any adult should).  And Megan LOVE LOVES Sesame Street.  And Finn, well he could care less about Sesame Street, but I have a feeling that since it's on every morning he's going to come around.  Like many people I grew up watching Sesame Street.  I remember a boy in my kindergarten class named David knew how to spell "motorcycle" because of Sesame Street.  I love the muppets, the often hilarious skits filled with double entendres, the simple messages of sharing and friendship, the faces of diversity.  I love that Megan has actually learned a ton from a TV show and she is always entertained while counting and singing the alphabet.  

Before I had kids I didn't really like Elmo; all I saw was the annoying Tickle Me Elmo dolls and commercialized junk.  But now I love him!  He's cute and sweet and all he wants to do is love you.  Cookie Monster loves cookies, Oscar's a grouch, Bert is always irritated, Abby's magic, and Elmo just loves you.  Megan eats it up, and even Finn says "Elmo" whenever he sees a muppet.  Also, I saw the documentary Being Elmo and fell in love with his creator Kevin Clash as well.    

For 13 years Elmo has had his own eleven minute segment at the end of every Sesame Street episode, called Elmo's World.  It is Megan's very favorite thing in the entire world.  Each segment has a simple theme, like "ears", or "the weather", or "animals".  There are songs and educational videos about the themes.  Megan's favorite part of the segment by far is Mr. Noodle, a clownish guy who tries to figure out silly things like how to use an umbrella or how to get dressed.  It's wonderful.  

Since we have watched Sesame Street every single day for the last year I have seen every episode a million times and Elmo's World in particular about three million times.  I was so excited when the new season was going to start a few weeks ago.  Not only would there be new main stories with their celebrity guests and funny morals, but there would be new Elmo's Worlds.  (I was maybe a little too excited.)

When the first episode of the new season came on, you can imagine my surprise when, instead of hearing the familiar opening notes of Elmo's World there was something called Elmo the Musical.  It was...um...different.  Megan looked at me with confusion and then started to cry.  She sobbed for a good twenty minutes solid.  After frantically googling for what the F was going on, I had to explain to her that there wasn't going to be any more Elmo's World and that this....this...horrible, horrible abomination was here to stay.  

What I found out in my research is that Sesame Street has used something called the STEM system of education.  This stands for Science-Technology-Engineering-Math.  I don't know a thing about educational techniques, but that seemed like a pretty good deal.  This year, with the advent of Elmo the Musical, they are starting something called STEAM, Science-Technology-Engineering-Arts-Math.  That's the justification for phasing out Elmo's World and starting Elmo's Musical, because musicals are artsy.  

The problem with Elmo the Musical though is that, sure it's artsy-ish (simply because they're calling it a musical), but it has absolutely NO educational value.  Elmo's World explained things, it had real-world videos of real kids doing the things that were explained, it had kids "teaching" Mr. Noodle how to do things, it had counting, it had letters, it had songs.  AND it was artsy.  Elmo the Musical is mostly a non-sensical cartoon with Elmo blue-screened in. It is supposed to bring the arts into Sesame Street because it's a musical, but it added no artistic value, while actually depleting educational value because it replaced something that did educate.

Now, the good news is that we have multiple platforms with which to watch Sesame Street.  We have it live and set to our DVR (the new Sesame Street), we have it On-Demand through our cable (old Sesame Streets), and we have it streaming through Netflix.  Megan requests "old Sesame Street" every morning and I'm happy to oblige.  

The major problem that I'm having, aside from my child being disappointed, is that Sesame Street, something that is supposed to be the sacred cow of educational children's television programming, has sunk to a new and dangerous low.  The old Sesame Street format is drastically different (and better) to the new one.  The reruns that we watch are mostly from 2008, just four years ago and the format is like this:

-the main story

-2 vignettes (adorable little animations or real life videos that have to do with counting, the alphabet, sharing etc, or they can be Ernie singing about his rubber ducky.  Something sweet and educational)

-the letter of the day

-1 vignette

-Grover's travels around the world (these are the BEST.  He hosts this little video documentary about how other kids around the world do things.  The other day we learned how kids in South Africa make metal wire cars.  So cute)

-6 vignettes

-Elmo's World

Compare that with today's format:

- Murray's "Word on the Street" word of the day

- the main story

-2 vignettes

-the letter of the day

-Abby's Flying Fairy School (an animated Abby Caddaby segment which I kind of like)

-1 vignette

-Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures (a claymation segment in which Bert and Ernie go somewhere and learn something.  Not my favorite, especially since Sesame Street seems to be moving away from using actual muppets)

-2 vignettes

-Elmo the Musical

There is a trend toward more "episodes within the episode", (like Abby's Flying Fairy School), but I really like the vignettes because that's where the learning happens.  I swear Megan learned to sing the alphabet from watching these.  Plus, there were real children, children who were mostly not white.  That diversity is rare for television and now it is practically non-existent on the new format.  The more segments of these "episodes within the episode" like Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures or Super Grover 2.0 they have, the fewer opportunities they have to show actual children of color on TV.  And this new format of Sesame Street is mostly filled with those segments.  

Now, I hear you saying that all of this is so minor in the grand scheme of things.  It's just a TV show, and you don't need to let your kids watch.  In fact, it's just a segment inside of a TV show, and there are puh-lenty of other real things to worry about in this world.  Well, that is true, but I have to say that this is a legitimate problem, (and not just because my kid's unhappy).  The trend is disturbing.  40 years ago, when Sesame Street began and Jim Hensen was in charge and life was good, it was a pure, sweet and simple educational television program.  Change happens, I get it, and shows need to grow and adapt to those changes.  But even in the last four years Sesame Street has moved drastically away from simple education to became the "crack for kids" format.  It's faster and flashier and more colorful.  Sesame Street has drastically decreased its didactic, quality content in lieu of a ratings boosting (I can only assume) candy-like subject matter.  And Sesame Street was one of the LAST shows that you could count on for good TV for kids.

And the worst part of all of this is:  IT WILL NEVER GO BACK TO BEING A QUALITY EDUCATIONAL SHOW AGAIN.

Dramatic, I know.  But throughout its 40 plus year run, Sesame Street has moved in one direction, especially in the last few years, and there is nothing to think that it will make an about face.  I just think that there's already too many kids shows that are fast and hyper and only a teensy bit, if at all, educational.  I think that Nickelodeon and Disney channel should be able to air any old stupid cartoon that they want, and we will choose not to watch them.  But SESAME STREET???  PBS????  My last refuge?  What a terrible, terrible loss.  And I think this problem of losing our sacred Sesame Street is emblematic of the irreversible damage to what our society provides for children in general.

It turns out we don't need politicians like Mitt Romney to eviscerate Sesame Street and take away quality programming on PBS when it is doing the job just fine on its own.  

Forays into Pinterest

     I love Pinterest.  I love browsing the kid stuff especially.  I'm eternally in need of activities and crafts for the kids, yummy and easy recipes they would like, parenting advice, smoother ways to run the house... and Pinterest is lousy with creative gems I would never even consider.

     I found a great one to try and so yesterday I took the kids to the dollar store.  The plan was to buy five small plastic bins and lots of little activities and toys to fill the bins, then I would label each tub with monday through friday so that Megan can have a "Relaxation Time" activity each day.  (Relaxation time is my favorite, favorite time of the day and I would do anything to keep it going.  The day it ends is the day I start taking to the bottle before noon, I swear to God).

     The dollar store in Kirkland is suuuuuupppper yucky.  I had never been there before and the minute we approached the door I knew I should probably rethink this whole thing.  When I shop with both kids on my own ideally I like to have a cart with two seats.  Costco, Target, Home Depot, Fred Meyer. All of these places are good for a double cart.  If no double cart is available, I like a nice single cart for Finn and a prayer that Megan won't run around like a wild banshee destroying the store.  I usually have mixed results with this.  The dollar store in Kirkland was small and didn't have carts which meant I carried Finn and Megan carried the basket... for about three minutes.

     It had soon devolved to both kids running around the cramped aisles grabbing every single tiny thing they could get their hands on and either throwing it, moving it to another place on the shelf or putting it in our basket.  I needed to move quick.  I found plastic bins, I found coloring books, colored pencils, magnifying glasses, pens, stamps, puzzles and squishy balls.  In the nick of time we made it out of the store with minimal damage and brought our goodies home--all for about $35.

     My intention was to fill the bins and stack them nicely in a closet with perfect little label maker labels denoting the days of the week.  On Saturdays and Sundays Megan would get the choice of which bin she can use.

     Things that didn't quite work:  The lids don't really fit well.  You get what you pay for and if I were to re-do this I would have gotten the cheap tupperware from the grocery store.  Also, the coloring books don't fit in the bins so I can't close the lids anyway.  No stacking neatly in the closet.

     Things that were great:  Megan loves the idea and she gets to have a fun new bin of activities each day.  That way it won't get boring and she stays in her room.  She even still slept after playing with her stuff.

     All in all I think it's going to be a success!