Foster Further

Some moms in my circle have posted snippets about Body Autonomy recently. A mother will post a picture of a child behaving rudely when asked to pose for a special event and then applaud her own child for making his own decisions with his body. Cue obligatory "you're such a great mom!" comments from others in her tribe. These are all very young first time moms who are woke in all kinds of ways. I'm sure I was that mom, too, about a decade and a half ago. But nowadays I'm parenting more like my grandparents than this generation of TL;DR millenialls who think a really long FB post from an emphatically non-expert influencer is enough research for them. (And, as a friend pointed out, the message of I-do-what-I-want is what is causing a society that contributes to global warming, a rape culture, insufficient tax base to create a social safety net for the most needy, etc. etc. etc. It's about the least Christian message I can imagine.) The reality is that no...

I taught the girls to say ouch. When they first came to me their hair was a mess. Snarls, mismatched lengths where sections had been hacked off, thin and coarse hair that tangled in every hair clip I tried, etc. Due to a healthy diet and daily vitamins, as well as good hair products and regular brushing, their hair is now sleek and glossy. Jane has a cute haircut. Kate's hair is growing longer every day and curling into ringlets that bounce. I was so afraid of hurting them when they first came! I have naturally curly hair and my mother's is stick straight. She never understood how much it hurt when she pulled the brush straight through. I haven't let her touch my head since I could do my first clumsy pony tail. (At first, I held their hair so loosely while trying to do it that every single pony tail fell out minutes after going in. Looking back I feel like those people who don't know how to put a diaper on and it falls off when they lift the baby up!)  But eve...

Since Jane and Kate came to us I've been annoyed by how Jane talks. She was 3 yrs, 2 months old but advanced for her age in her language skills. I felt she spoke as clearly and had nearly as big of a vocabulary as many 4 year olds. What annoyed me was something I have a hard time defining. I guess "whiny" and "passive aggressive" come close. For example, if she wanted some crackers she would look at the box and say, "Those are crackers!" and then, a few moments later, "I very like crackers!" (she has this cute speech pattern of using 'very' to mean 'really' and I wanted to capture it here before I forgot) I began using the phrase, "You are a strong, smart girl!" with a big smile followed by an explicit instruction on how I wanted her to behave. So, I'd say, "Jane, I know that you are a strong, smart girl and you can tell me just what you want. You can say, 'Can I have some crackers, please?'  a...