Free Range Kids, my style

There has been a lot of buzz on the book "Free Range Kids". I see it on Facebook, on message boards and even my parent education classes are talking about it. I have to confess that I don't read her blog nor have I read the book, but I get it. I think after enough discussion I can see the point people are getting at and its definitely some food for though. One of these days I'll probably read it just because, but for now I wanted to express my personal philosophy for free range children.

First of all I have no idea how far I will take it when my kids are older, but right now at 3.5 and 2 I try to let them test limits and boundaries without helicoptering. I am not going to let my kids run around my neighborhood, but I often wonder what my friends might think of my philosophy because I am definitely a little individualistic on this idea. Some people might misunderstand my inaction as laziness, but honestly I am doing it on purpose, but when my friends correct my kids I smile and go with it. I don't see anything wrong with them getting different points of view.

Here are a couple of examples. Today Erik didn't nap and when that happens he goes crazy, to the point where I can't control his behavior and am yelling and giving him timeouts constantly. Today was a gorgeous day, we had been sitting for almost two hours watching "Tangled" and the boys needed to get outside. So I put some water in the water table, opened the windows so I could hear and see the boys clearly and told them they couldn't come inside until dinner. Just to clarify, my backyard is completely fenced and they could fall two feet in front of me just as much as when I am in the house cooking dinner. If I was worried about them falling I wouldn't own a swing set!

At first they both freaked out. They stood by the door crying and insisted on coming inside, but I held my ground, told them no and just waited to see what happened. Well actually I went into the kitchen to get dinner started. The next time I checked on the boys they were really busy. Sometimes when I looked they were playing with the house or on the swing set together and sometimes they were playing independently. There was minimal fighting and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. I appreciated how quickly they found something to do when I told them they couldn't come back inside.

Then I looked outside and Erik is putting dirt on the swing set. Sometimes I don't mind in small quantities, but I could tell by the gleam in his eye he planned on putting a lot there. He didn't nap so he had no impulse control that afternoon. I went out there to stop Erik and just get a general sense of what was going on. As soon as I am out there everything breaks down and the boys start fighting. This is what I found most interesting, when I stepped back and let their play evolve on its own they played in peace, but the minute I interfered they both started crying and fighting. I say, let them play outside by themselves if they are going to get along better and it gives them the sense of independence and testing the limits my boys crave.

Another thing that got me thinking was when we went hiking yesterday. My friend Tracy asked me for the best place to take her girls hiking and then invited us along. I decided Stough was a good beginner hike because it is wide, a gradual incline and there are tadpoles to see at the end of the hike. My boys have been on this hike a lot so I am comfortable with them up there and give them free reign. The first time I was up there I did helicopter a bit to make sure they didn't go over edges and Carl yelled at me. Now I trust them to be safe even when they throw rocks over the edge because I have watched them test the limits while I helicoptered and know that they worry about falling just as much as I worry.

This is a very old picture, but you get an idea of what the ledge looks like.

My friend hadn't been up there so of course she treated her girls the same way and her girls were a bit more reckless than the boys, but she always got worried about my kids. It got me thinking if my friends think of me as lazy. I am by no means wanting them to go over the edge, but I am not commenting or controlling the situation on purpose. If they get to a dangerous spot I will discuss that with them, but if they want to stand near a ledge and throw rocks down a hill I am totally fine with it. The same thing happened while they were using some flowers as swords. She stopped them, but in my mind and what I told her, is that the worse that would happen is that it might get it in their eye, but they wouldn't be seriously hurt and would learn a lesson if that happened. So I just let them play swords with flowers.

So my question is, do those who like to hover a bit more think of us "free range" parents as reckless and lazy? If so, know I am doing it on purpose and it is philosophy on how I want to raise my kids. Of course if you feel safer correcting them I am okay with that too because kids need to learn different methods of disciplines and limits from different people and I am fine with that too.

Smores and Ojai

This Sunday the boys hadn't seen their grandparents in a while so we headed up to Ojai for some family time and what I like most of all, time to walk around the orchard. My boys did what they always do there, walk around all the old cars sitting around the farm. climb a few rocks, go on some hikes and just enjoy themselves at their grandparents house.

What seems to be a new tradition during the rainy season, is to cook smores by the firepit. Excuse my lack of variety of picture from today, but Aunt Chrissy thought it would be a good idea to visit the Ojai Beverage Company and have a few pints. So my imagery suffered as a result. Boys stayed at home with grandma watching a movie.

Smores are definitely a rare family treat here and only shared at Grandma's house. My boys are lucky to get cookies on a good week. So the adults sat by the campfire and roasted marshmallows while the boys savored in the gooey mess.

 

I have to say that the boys really loved their gooey mess although Elliot did have one freak out when marshmallow got all over his hand. I think he was mostly done for the day and ready to head home at that point.

Although I literally just wrote a blog about how I am teaching my boys to eat healthy, it is moments like these that we share as a family that count more than the calories. It is the memories that you have to remember today and stop thinking about what is going to happen tomorrow. This is why I love having children, it just makes me stop and appreciate what I have right now instead of thinking of what is next or who or what I want to accomplish next. Life is simple when you sit back and just enjoy a smores.

I have to share these pictures because there is a picture in my archives of Carl in this same chair as a little boy and out of both the boys Elliot looks like Carl the most. So here is Elliot's special moment in the rocking chair today eating raisins. Sometimes it is just the simple things that count the most.

 

The battle to eat healthy food

Its no secret in our house, Erik is a very picky eater. From the moment he could eat solids he preferred sweet foods, wouldn't touch a veggie and always wanted to feed himself. As he evolved to his terrible twos this habit became worse and more pronounced. All he wanted were muffins and sweets and it was very hard to give him a variety of healthy food. We always served it at meals, but he always choose not to eat it.

Now that Erik is 3.5 I can start to reason and negotiate with him. This comes up in many ways, it started off with dinner. I refused to make Erik something special that only he would eat and make just one dinner for everyone. If Erik is hungry he will go back and eat it, but he doesn't get anything else to eat if he chooses not to eat his dinner. It has stopped a lot of fights and has given Erik the power he desires. I have to admit about 90% of the time he doesn't eat his dinner, but I am okay with it. He understands the consequence, he is not starving and on those days when he is really hungry he goes back and eats it.

For snacks there are only two things Erik will eat, peanut butter crackers and yogurt which is not the best diet. If I let Erik, he would eat 5 yogurts a day, but ages ago I made a two yogurt a day limit and it is really working for us. He understands if he eats both of them in the morning he won't be able to have one in the afternoon which happens often. So when he asks in the afternoon after having ate two yogurts already, he understands the rules and accepts the limit. Have I mentioned how much I love the age of 3 and finally being able to reason with my child.

Yesterday I made apple muffins with Erik so they could have a healthy snack that morning. Also muffin last us a while because we have them for breakfast. Well today there was a problem, we had no yogurt and Erik is refusing to eat fruit at the moment and he was still hungry after breakfast. So of course asked for a second muffin.

Here comes my rules, I am trying to teach my sweet obsessed child healthy eating habits for his life and this comes with a lot of patience and a lot of work. So today when Erik was still hungry and asked for a second muffin I said yes on one condition, he had to eat some grapes first.

The first couple times I tried this trick Erik rebelled, but I knew this lesson was important so I braved the tantrums and fits and didn't give in. If he wants a carb treat he has to eat fruit first. Another rule is if he wakes up from his nap to close to dinner he can only eat fruit as well.

So this morning he was hungry enough and I did offer him his favorite fruit which he loves, he just likes carbs more.

 

This morning the fight was minimal and he ate almost all the grapes, minus the bad ones and is happier for a fuller and healthier belly. I think this might be working too because last night when we went out to dinner instead of ordering pizza Erik ordered a healthy option because he liked the picture. It was grilled chicken with broccoli and spaghetti. True to his eating habits he ate the broccoli and chicken, but no pasta. I am just hoping that this will teach him good eating habits for life. Also I try to live by example and eat when I tell them they can eat. So if they can only have fruit, I can only have fruit. If they can't have a snack, neither can I and it is really helping me to practice better eating habits by doing as I say.

Sneak Preview

I have been talking about how I need to work on this project for weeks, but finally my new desk is up, I have my double monitors in action and I am out of excuses. So today during naps I sat down and just started working on it, Elliot's one year old photobook when inspiration hit. Usually I use backgrounds and fun colors to supplement my work, but I really like my photography. I mean I am very very proud of it.

For this year of Elliot's life most of our moments I captured are with my camera and my critical eye and my book is starting to look fantastic. Since I love the photography and the moments I captured so much I decided to let the photos lead the book. So I ditched fancy fonts, background, colors and the such and just went with great big photos.

My background is in graphic design so I can't help myself. All images, text and headers need to be uniform. So in my books you will see two fonts and a couple different colors and that's it. It works for me because I like to keep it simple. In case you are wondering about the technical stuff, I design all my books in InDesign and then export it to jpg. I print them on Shutterfly, but am not married to that service, I just trust the quality.

So here is a sneak preview of what I got done just this afternoon while all the boys were napping.

No I do it

Mr. Elliot just turned 23 months a couple days ago. Although I am starting to get sad when I realize I will no longer have a one year old, what is capturing most of my attention these days is Elliot's need to suddenly assert his independence. His favorite phrase all of last week was, "no, I do it" which meant I needed to stop helping him and let him try it on his own. Mostly it was clothes, some other things snuck in there like washing hands and cleaning up, but he is definitely wanting to be a big boy now.

The latest manifestation of this stubbornness has come in the form of sleep. Elliot has always been an awesome sleeper and is usually half asleep before his head hits the pillow. The last couple of days he hasn't wanted to nap. As soon as we put him in his bed he starts crying and no matter how much we rock or cuddle him and he falls asleep, the moment we move him to his crib he starts crying. Today I tried every technique I could think of to get him to nap. I rocked him, sang extra songs, I even crawled into his crib with him, but the only technique that worked was letting him settle himself down and cry a bit. Unfortunately when he decided to finally give in at 3 pm, and my little man who normally naps for 3 hours, only got one hour of sleep.

To say he was grumpy when he woke up was an understatement. It was late in the afternoon and we had been cooped up for 1.5 days so we all headed straight from the front yard since there was a bit of sunshine. Here is what Mr. Crankipants did while Erik played.

If you are wondering, he is not laying down because he is tired, he is trying to hide from me. When he gets mad or upset he curls up into a ball and refuses to look at me or acknowledge me in anyway and when he finally does look my way I get the most killer expressions. Seriously, if looks could kill on this guy.

So Elliot has been afraid to go into the police car since the moment we got it, but one day I had his friend William over and his friend loved playing in it and Elliot watched this all happen. Ever since that day, Elliot has been getting braver with this car and today, it actually cheered him up to sit in it. I think he felt like the big boy he was.

This is also a common part of the "no I can do it" motto of Elliot right now. His rain boot fell off. Its a size too big so they fall off constantly. Today he insisted on trying to put it on all by himself and why not let him try, rain boots are easy enough to put on yourself. Its definitely a work in progress for this little guy.

There is always one sure way to get this guy smiling and its not dessert like his brother. Its to serve him his favorite meal, any pasta with three cheese pasta sauce, sausage and veggies. He had three helpings of spaghetti tonight.

For the last couple days it has been pouring rain here. The wind and rain were so bad we didn't even leave the house all of Sunday and my boys were officially stir crazy by Monday afternoon. In all that time we got 4.5 inches of rain according to my rain gage. So this afternoon when the sun was out of course we had to head outside to catch some rays and play in the puddles.

My friend warned me when we were at the park Friday morning that it was going to rain all weekend, but I guess I didn't believe her as I basked in the 70 degree temperatures roasting in the sun. This meant I did nothing to clean up for the storm and my backyard was a mess after the winds. Lots of things out there that shouldn't have been.

 

While I cleaned up the mess I made and we waited for the right moment to wake up Elliot I had Erik splash around a bit. He said "mommy look at the footprints I made, take a picture," so of course I did. I love the imagination growing on him lately.

Then we woke up Mr. Crankipants and went outside to play. Erik on his bike and eventually his brother to follow. I love watching my kids splash around in puddles and play outside when it is wet. Its the same, but different and they have to learn to compensate. It just makes me happy.

Erik did fall a lot riding on his bike today, but that is all part of the process of learning and he was never hurt. He just brushed himself off every time and went on playing and that is how I like it. I want him to fall, make mistakes and pick himself up. I try to give him safe opportunities to do just that.

Here are the many faces of Erik today. No emotions, just faces today.

 

 

When Erik grabbed this bungee cord he made his "I am grabbing something that is going to me into trouble noise" and I just looked at him and carried on. He has tried this trick many times so I am not sure why he felt guilty taking it out today. I must say, this is is the first time I have seen it work in his many attempt, I guess "try and try again."

Elliot did cheer up enough to ride his trike for a few minutes. Of course seconds later Erik decided he was done outside so we all were finished. Such is life with two young children, the moment is gone in just seconds.