digging up dandelions

     Photo courtesy of Olga Oslina.

I dig dandelions out of the lawn around our garden. The ground is wet, and the trowel goes easily into the turf. I push it in near the dandelion stem, forcing it down as far as it’ll go before cutting off the root. If you don’t get enough of the root, the dandelion will just grow back.

I pull one weed out and toss it into a trash bag. I stick the trowel in near another dandelion and repeat the steps again and again. It’s not hard, but it’s not quick work either. The grass is riddled with dandelions. After nearly an hour, the bag is full and heavy, but when I look around I still see plenty of dandelions in the grass.

Shaping our sons’ behavior feels like a similar lesson in delayed gratification. Progress comes slowly, and as much as we do or say, some weeds remain. We repeat ourselves a lot, saying things like

No jumping on the furniture.

Let’s use a fork instead of our fingers.

We don’t talk about smacking others in the face.

No kicking.

No jumping off the furniture.

You don’t need to shout.

Don’t hurt your brother.

That’s not appropriate.

We may go for long periods without seeing any evidence that we’re rooting out old ways. Perhaps because we’re looking at the turf of their lives as a whole, and there are still lots of dandelions growing in there. Certainly, if we don’t dig down deep enough, we don’t get the root out and the behavior reemerges.

But we have hope that one day there’ll be far fewer dandelions, that those words won’t have been repeated in vain, that they’ll learn to dig out their own weeds.

mom in the picture

This post is inspired by a Huff Post piece from last year, The Mom Stays in the Picture by Allison Tate.

“The kids are so much cuter than we are,” she wrote, “better to just take their pictures, we think. But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture.”

When I read that line I couldn’t help think how right she is. It reminded me of when the funeral director asked my dad for a picture of my mom so they’d know how to style her hair for the final viewing. We couldn’t find a single recent picture of her. My dad ended up giving them her high school graduation picture, which had to be about 15 years old. No joke.

“I’m everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them,” Tate said. “Someday I won’t be here — and I don’t know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now — but I want them to have pictures of me.”

So here is a gift for my sons:

First try

Second try

This isn’t fun anymore, our oldest is thinking. Perhaps a fish face will add to the entertainment value.

 

Happy Mother’s Day.

In the comments, feel free share a link to your photo with mom in the picture.

no place is perfect

Minnesotans like to talk about the weather – well, complain mostly. And with snow falls up through May this year, there’s been lots of complaining going on.

But we’re not the only ones with a less-than-ideal climate. Yesterday, my husband was talking about Djibouti, where he lived for a time. It’s extremely hot there, he said. “Is it hotter than Somalia?” my son asked.

Yes, you always want to hide from the sun because it feels like the sun is just inches from your head, his daddy told him.

“Some places are too hot and some places are too cold,” our five-year-old concluded.

eight more days to celebrate poetry month

April is poetry month. This year I’ve been a little too preoccupied with work-related deadlines – and a tax-related deadline – to give it much thought. Until this week.

So, how does one celebrate poetry month, you ask? The main goal is to show your kids how fun it can be to play with words. Yesterday we sang several verses of Down by the Bay, making up our own rhymes for the verses. Today my five-year-old and I wrote a limerick together. It was silly and not very good, but it made him giggle. I’ll just tell you the words at the end of each line and you’ll probably get the main idea:

Rick, kick, time out, pout, stick

Tomorrow we’ll read Louder than a Clap of Thunder. Perhaps we’ll make it popcorn and poetry evening.

For more ideas, see last year’s post on ways to celebrate poetry month with your children.

What’s one of your favorite children’s poems?

those ads about teaching toddlers how to read? I never believed them until last week

I started out teaching our older son to read about three weeks ago, and have made quite the discovery. Our younger son is picking up decoding right along with his older brother. I wasn’t even trying to teach him, but he’s around during the lessons and he’s been absorbing quite a bit.

What is it they say about children’s brains? Like sponges.

I wasn’t even serious when I asked our two-and-half-year-old, “What sound does this make?” as I showed him the “G” block. But he said, “Guh!” I cheered for him and then tried out a few more letters. He also knew “C,” “P,” and “T.” “A” is hit or miss, but he’s better at “O.” (We’re just learning one sound per vowel at this point.)

So we’re on lesson 17 of 31 lessons and I’m adjusting slightly to include two pupils instead of just one. But I’m not pushing the understudy too hard.

when it’s better not to do the easier thing

“It’s more comfortable to stay home,” my five-year-old complained as we were getting in the car. To some extent I had to agree. We had a two-hour drive ahead of us, which IS rather long for preschoolers. And when it’s long for them, it’s long for me.

“But people are important, and sometimes we don’t do what’s easier or more comfortable,” I explained. And it’s a parent’s job to live this out, not to just say it. So we buckled in and were on our way to visit my dad and brother. “Are we going to Grandpa’s house?” my little one asked, checking to make sure nothing had changed. He asked the question again when we stopped for a potty break and then when we were about 30 minutes from the farm. “Yes, we’re going to Grandpa’s house,” I confirmed each time.

Amos, the farm dog, greeted the boys as we got out of the car. Inside the house, they went immediately for the toy box. But once the initial novelty of the toys wore off, they looked at the calves, the milk truck and the skid steer from the house window. (It was too chilly and muddy to spend much time outdoors.) Dairy farmers never have a day off, but both my dad and brother were able to carve out some time to get down on the floor to play with the boys, the trucks and the building blocks.

When it was time for them to start the evening chores, we climbed back into the car. Thankfully, the ride home always seems just a bit shorter.

“Did you have a good trip to the farm?” I asked my younger son as I put him in his crib last evening.

“I like Uncle Wayne,” he replied.

“Did you have a good day at the farm?” I asked my older son.

“Yeah, I didn’t know I was going to have such a good day,” he said.

how to prepare your child for kindergarten

Write what you know, the old adage says. So I’ve written about preparing a child for kindergarten. Check out my article on page 20 of Christian Home and School Magazine.