When i was a kid i never saw a pinata... never knew what it was. I am pretty sure it's the "Dora" factor working here. Dora is the Spanish sensation "educational" cartoon character that all the kids love and embrace the product lines. When Dora, or any character has a birthday party on the show there is always a pinata. Now since we are the consumer society our kids now all have pinatas at their birthday parties.
What we don't have is the culture to know how to do it. It is always a great comedy of errors to watch the pinata portion of the birthday party. When something is really part of your culture there is an intuitive sense of how to do things... there would be an older uncle who's great pride in life is hanging the pinata there would be areas where children waiting for their turn to bash a pinata with a hard stick would stand that would be far away from the child currently swinging madly at the pinata.
In our culture we see it as an opportunity to treat our children to more low quality candy and small plastic toys and the green light to swing a large bat madly with the hope that if you swing hard enough you just might get first shot at the candy.
In my experience the pinata is never hung properly in the first place so there is this meeting of men to try to solve the problem as women and children look on... i have seen 2 men standing on chairs holding a rope high above their heads and the pinata drooping at the midpoint between them and it gets worse from there... the last one i witnessed, the hosts lost a nice Wisteria plant.
There is also no protocol for the bashing... usually the most hyper and oldest boy gets a hold of the stick and attempts to seize his manhood by swinging madly with all other kids in close range.. this bring the adults in all screaming at once to their kids to stay back but it never works because a few minutes later all are again drawn in by the lure of sugar. This scenario repeats until somebody gets hit in the head with a stick, and then everybody moves way back and then slowly begin to sneak back forward again to ensure the comedy continues. Often times the pinata will fall from it's perch before it breaks open and then sooner or later somebody says enough is enough and rips the dam thing open sending the candy to the ground creating another mad scramble. Now the kids have had cake, soda, treats and more candy, and they have fulfilled their cartoon reality.
Ironic that in a world of fear and "safety first" we let our kids high on sugar swing big sticks to prove that "WE" as parents are A OK. This whole birthday culture has got to be stopped... i feel like the Grinch, but didn't the WHOS still sing on Christmas day.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
modest expectations
It was one of the better pieces of advice my sister gave me... she was talking about raising twins specifically, but the concept is one of the key rules to parenting.
If you think that you are going to get 10 things done in the day and something goes wrong than you leave yourself open to disappointment and unwanted forms of stress.
I was reminded of that this morning when i went upstairs to put the wash in the dryer so that it would be all done by the time the twins were ready to take their nap (nice and quiet)... then i was going to go and vote an go to the park for a nice play.
I guess we will never truly know what happened, and it would be easy to blame our 4 year old girl, but perhaps a massive amount of soap somehow made it into the washing machine through a series of errors on my behalf. If i actually want to take that further i do remember just grabbing all the clothes and stuffing them in... perhaps it might be a good strategy to put things in one at a time. In any event, as i whipped up the stairs ready to do a quick task i was greeted with a wall of suds and all immediate plans were off. Did i mention 16 month old children love bubbles?
It's all good... we got cleaned up put the clothes in the bathtub, looked for evidence, found nothing and we made it to the park and to vote and even found time to inflate tires on the stroller.
Kids are napping now, and although the laundry will have to wait for the 4pm window there is stuff to do in the kitchen now.
It won't be the last surprise of the day.
If you think that you are going to get 10 things done in the day and something goes wrong than you leave yourself open to disappointment and unwanted forms of stress.
I was reminded of that this morning when i went upstairs to put the wash in the dryer so that it would be all done by the time the twins were ready to take their nap (nice and quiet)... then i was going to go and vote an go to the park for a nice play.
I guess we will never truly know what happened, and it would be easy to blame our 4 year old girl, but perhaps a massive amount of soap somehow made it into the washing machine through a series of errors on my behalf. If i actually want to take that further i do remember just grabbing all the clothes and stuffing them in... perhaps it might be a good strategy to put things in one at a time. In any event, as i whipped up the stairs ready to do a quick task i was greeted with a wall of suds and all immediate plans were off. Did i mention 16 month old children love bubbles?
It's all good... we got cleaned up put the clothes in the bathtub, looked for evidence, found nothing and we made it to the park and to vote and even found time to inflate tires on the stroller.
Kids are napping now, and although the laundry will have to wait for the 4pm window there is stuff to do in the kitchen now.
It won't be the last surprise of the day.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Crying
When your babies cries it's OK. You don't need to lose you mind and get all upset and go over and shower the child with "love". I'm not saying don't pay any attention to it and ignore your children completely but once they learn that crying will get them attention you start a cycle that will waste time and cause grief.
The baby that doesn't get picked up every time he or she cries in the night will learn that everything is OK and learn to settle themselves thus in the long run do less crying.
Of course every kid is different, but all kids learn from their parent's reactions to the issues of the moment.
Have you ever seen a kid fall in the playground and be OK until he or she see's a distressed parent running toward them? It is then that they start to cry.
I think as a parent you want to do the best for your child, and sometimes the line becomes confused on these issues. How could you neglect you own flesh and blood? Well perhaps you are not neglecting but rather teaching that some things are no big deal.
These days i am in the parks with my twin girls (16 months)... it can be a bit dangerous so one of the policies i have tried to stick too is not to help the girls get to places that they can't get to on their own. The belief was that if they fall they should fall from not very high. Unfortunately the twins have displayed quite a climbing skill amazing myself and other parents. Was this because i never helped them? Possibly, but I am afraid we will never truly know the answer to that one, because remember all kids are different.
Anyway so i was at the park and Emily had gone up high and was eyeing the large slide, and Hailie was making her way up from the base. On the second step Hailie lost her focus and began to fall... she did hang on to the railing which helped break the fall and landed on her bum in the pea gravel. Some of the other parents gasped in horror and one of them even roared over and picked up Hailie and handed her up to me. Hailie never cried but she seemed happy to get a free ride up.
The baby that doesn't get picked up every time he or she cries in the night will learn that everything is OK and learn to settle themselves thus in the long run do less crying.
Of course every kid is different, but all kids learn from their parent's reactions to the issues of the moment.
Have you ever seen a kid fall in the playground and be OK until he or she see's a distressed parent running toward them? It is then that they start to cry.
I think as a parent you want to do the best for your child, and sometimes the line becomes confused on these issues. How could you neglect you own flesh and blood? Well perhaps you are not neglecting but rather teaching that some things are no big deal.
These days i am in the parks with my twin girls (16 months)... it can be a bit dangerous so one of the policies i have tried to stick too is not to help the girls get to places that they can't get to on their own. The belief was that if they fall they should fall from not very high. Unfortunately the twins have displayed quite a climbing skill amazing myself and other parents. Was this because i never helped them? Possibly, but I am afraid we will never truly know the answer to that one, because remember all kids are different.
Anyway so i was at the park and Emily had gone up high and was eyeing the large slide, and Hailie was making her way up from the base. On the second step Hailie lost her focus and began to fall... she did hang on to the railing which helped break the fall and landed on her bum in the pea gravel. Some of the other parents gasped in horror and one of them even roared over and picked up Hailie and handed her up to me. Hailie never cried but she seemed happy to get a free ride up.
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