PARENTA-SAURUS WRECKS!
Being a parent is really a scary process. You question every decision, wondering if your actions will scar your child and one day send them running to a therapist for safety. As the responsible party you are filled with regret when something does go wrong. Much like the parents in the movie Jurassic World. Spoiler Alert! They send the kids off to be with their childless aunt so they can make the final arrangements for a divorce. Oh and I forgot to mention, they send them to a park on a small isolated jungle island with dinosaurs. What could possibly go wrong there?!?
Well, I know the story because we recently saw Jurassic World, which was one of those actions as a parent you worry about. Is it going to be scary, is it going to cause nightmares and sleepless nights? And I do mean sleepless for you. But, my six year-old son loved it. He wasn’t scared and watched the movie all the way through. Before we watch any movie I always remind him, “If you see something that scares you, just close your eyes.” That is really the best parenting advice I have and I also use it myself as an adult. Following the movie, the combination of his fascination for not being scared, along with the movie itself, encouraged the conversation about the original Jurassic Park.
In the most abridged version possible, I retold the original movie from the 90s. I remembered the beautiful scenery and the cool Jeeps, and not recalling all of the details of the movie, I talked about the grandfather’s dream and the grandkids who visited him, quickly added that they got attacked by the dinosaurs at the end and reminded him along the way that this was fiction and this place did not actually exist. He wanted to know more, but we couldn’t find the movie on YouTube, so then it was kind dropped. Yes my at-home movie watching habits are still in the pre-Jurassic period.
Until …
“You know how I wanted to know about Jurassic Park? Look what I found,” Azul excitedly said while holding on to his new discovery of an old copy of the Michael Crichton book. I forgot I had the book and remembered even less of the book than I did the movie. In his enraptured state, I promised we would start reading the book that evening. We usually we read two books a night, first he reads to me and then I read a chapter or two of a more advanced book to him.
First he read Felix Feels Better, which is a cute book about a hamster-like animal who gets sick and by the end of the story he feels better. And really, by the end you feel better too. Then it was my turn, I began to read and quickly skipped the intro because it was over his head and we wanted to get to the dinosaurs, so I moved on to the Prologue. I had completely forgotten the opening scene was about a kid getting sliced up by a raptor! Even though the title of the Prologue is The Bite Of The Raptor. Who takes these titles literally anyway?
Once we came to a break in the story I looked at my wide-eyed hatchling and asked, “Was that too scary?”
“YES! I’m scared.” He replied in a shaky high-pitched little boy voice, and then, “Will you lay with me?” Oh no, remember the sleepless nights? Here they come. I tried to recover by talking about how sometimes books seem much scarier than movies because of the detail and that it was just fiction and none of it really happened. I had done enough damage for one day, so I just stopped talking.
As l lay there with him, riddled with parental guilt, waiting for the familiar sound of rhythmic breathing and the slight body twitches that indicate sleep, I thought, “What was I thinking? This is therapy material for sure!”
Once I absolutely knew he was asleep I got out of his bed, grabbed the book on the way out of his room and silently returned it to the bookshelf in my bedroom, where it will stay. Maybe we’ll re-explore this book later, maybe one day, but not today, today it’s just too scary.
That’s Messed Up!
Azul and I recently went to our local Public Library for one of the summer programs they offer for kids. The summer programs are awesome, when you sign up you get a reading log and are awarded prizes for reading when you bring in your log. In addition to the reading and prizes, they also provide weekly family friendly entertainment; we’ve seen magicians, story tellers and musicians. On this particular day they had a musician, singing and playing his guitar. My six year-old was quite impressed with his musical abilities, being a budding guitar player himself.
The performer’s name was Andy Mason and the songs he sang are silly and age appropriate, usually requiring participation from the young audience. The kids were having a BLAST! Azul loved it until there came a song called “My hair had a party last night.” He was good until the part where everyone was supposed to mess up their hair, Azul was having none of that.
Sitting in the back of the room, I was watching him and knew he wouldn’t mess up his hair on purpose. While all the other kids were going crazy with their “partying hair,” Azul gently stroked his hair into place. As much as I wanted to bust out laughing, I just giggled through the rest of the song.
At the end of the song, Andy Mason said, “You can always tell the princesses who don’t want to mess up their hair.” Oh, my! That put a stop to my giggling.
After the show, Azul stayed after to talk to him, compliment his performance and get his card. As we walked out the large glass double doors of the Library he turned to me and said, “I was NOT going to mess up my hair. Not after I spent time combing it this morning.”
Now that made me bust out laughing!
See you at the library. http://abclibrary.org/summerreading
Attack Now
Every parent knows the undertaking of communication with your child can be a slow process of huge milestones. First, you start with the verbal, tiny screams of an infant, the cute cries of helplessness that tug at your heart-strings. And in a state of confusion you try to understand what your child is telling you. To any new parents out there, they usually they need to be held, fed, or changed. And when you are successful, you’ll think, whew! At least I understood that.
Then as your child’s vocal cords grow, so do the bellows, but the meanings of their communication stays the same, only louder, a lot louder.
Through the baby years, your child’s realization of their environment increases and so do their demands. Now there are grunts and finger-pointing that accompany the cries, both of these make it easier to determine what you child wants. The addition of the non-verbal cues really do help. Then comes the cooing, sweet spit bubbles and small words like “mama” and “dada.” This is when it starts to get fun. Your child is communicating that they do recognize you and by doing so, they are now formally thanking you for all you have been doing for them for the last year or so. You’re welcome!
Next, the non-verbal communication and babbling turns into full-fledged talking. Yay! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, your toddler can finally talk and the things that they are ready to say are awesome. But, once the talking starts there is no stopping it and it becomes a constant companion to your child’s personality. Although you will never have a quiet moment again, the good news is, kids are funny if you let them say what they want.
The last task of completing the communication trinity is writing. Once that is introduced they are now able to communicate without speaking. Which needs a lot of verbal explanation! It first starts with drawing and then they begin to add words into the mix. Now things get really amusing and in addition, you now have crayon inspired evidence. More fun! And because children begin writing phonetically, and we all know how tricky the English language can be, things are not always as simple they appear.
At this point your child now has a pocket full of resources to use while communicating, verbal, non-verbal and writing, and they know how use or not use each one of them to get their point across. And when the day comes, when you are given a hand written note you need to approach each word carefully, repeating and rereading, just to make sure you are reading what you think you are reading. And while you are in a state of communication confusion, not again, they know exactly what they are saying.
Azul, my six year-old, spoke not a word to me as he held up his hand written sign. I looked at it trying to figure out what it was saying and then I carefully read it aloud.
“Attic … something” is where I started, his non-verbal communication told me I was wrong, so I slowly tried again, sounding much like a baby babbling random sounds.
“Attack. Now?” I said with some hesitation.
Then he threw down the sign and did as he was told. HE ATTACKED ME!
As every parent knows the undertaking of communication with your child can be a slow process of huge milestones, and then sometimes you just get attacked.
Carmelina Hart 