NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children, Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

I was made aware of this book by a friend whose book club was reading it. Aside from the single long black hair I discovered part way through (which reminded me how very public library books are), I loved this book. I recommend it (and have many times already) to any parent, grandparent, teacher or anyone who will ever have a role in a child's life. I read many tidbits out loud to Ben (as I do frequently with many things that make it onto my reading list), and really wanted to share information from every chapter with him, or I wanted him to read it himself. He said that I should take notes for him. Unfortunately, this entire book is already so condensed that every paragraph is of worth. Each chapter tackles a different topic, such as "the inverse power of praise", sleep habits and how it affects kids, why kids lie and "why white parents don't talk about race".

The race chapter and the included study results were particularly interesting to me and inspired a rather shocking interaction with my own child. It is important to read the book to get the details but the gist of it is that in our efforts to be "colorblind" and not discuss and or acknowledge racial diversity we are instead leaving children to draw their own conclusions about race relations. After reading this particular chapter, while putting the children to bed (earlier than usual, based on the readings in a previous chapter) I decided to ask if the kids "liked people with brown or black skin"? Ever diplomatic (and fresh off of Black History Month at school), Avery responded in the affirmative and gave specific examples of one of her friends whose skin was "beautiful". Miles shook his head no and continued to work on the puzzle in his lap. I thought for sure that he must have misunderstood and asked the same question again, to which he continued to say no and continued to work on his puzzle. I then brought up names of his friends from church with brown and/or black skin who he did agree that he liked. But no one else. I didn't have to say anything because Avery unleashed on him, I'm fairly sure she was quoting Martin Luther King in her rant. He still wouldn't budge. When I asked him why, he said..."they might snatch me". Cue explosion in my head.

On one hand, I am glad my child has some fear that a snatching could indeed occur. On the other, very large hand, I am appalled that he would attribute this possibility to a certain group of people, and I've done a search of the child predators in our area, and they are dominantly old white men (and we live in a diverse area). But back to the study, this is what the book found; That unless you tell your children explicitly, that you yourself do like people of other races, then they won't get it. No matter how much Little Bill you have them watch or even if they see you with friends of varying color. So right then and there I bore my testimony that their dad and I do indeed like people with brown skin and black skin. The next day I repeated the initial question to Miles and he decided that he does in fact like people with brown skin and black skin. I don't know why that was so scary to talk about, but I'm glad I did. (There are a lot of other studies in this chapter, involving intricacies of how children shape ideas of race, the introduction of Black Santa, etc.. Interesting stuff)

Read it.

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The Moral Landscape: How Science Determines Human Values, Sam Harris

I picked this book because the title sounded interesting. I started it on CD because that's what the library had available, but three discs in I went in search for the hardback because I needed to see if it was his delivery that I was struggling with or if it indeed was failing to deliver substance. One thing I hate is wasting time, my own time, others time, watching others wasting their own time (subjective I know), but especially my own time. Which is what Sam Harris did to me by making this into a book and not an article. Because, besides one novel thought that he had in the first 100 pages (that I wrote down in own of my many notepads but can't find) I found it to be a super tedious endeavor. The title promised a book about how science can help us be better people, and what it delivered was extreme examples of injustice and conjecture. I was hoping for more of a day-to-day application of his scientific discoveries. He's probably a great thinker and neuroscientist, he just happens to be a very poor storyteller. (I am apparently in the minority on this, as I just checked Amazon's reviews of the book and it has a bunch of positive reviews, including the first one which calls it "A provocative feast"!) . I almost gave up on it but I skimmed through and thought it got better around page 138. I also thought his Acknowledgements section showed some personality. And I liked that there were nearly 100 pages of Notes, which made the book much shorter than I had originally thought.

Baby Whisperer

Miles loves babies. Unfortunately, his own brother is too strong (willed) to be held so he has to take any opportunity he can to take care of the newly born.

With his new cousin Quinn.

With his new cousin Emma.

And recently, I was was watching a friend's baby and I couldn't get her to be happy. But Miles could.

Smurfed.

(I hope that the title of this post doesn't have any innapropriate connotation. A quick search of the word didn't come up with anything)

Imagine my surprise this morning when I got an email with an iTunes reciept for $119.10. Honestly, I bristle when I get an iTunes reciept for .99, so this floored me. Especially when I saw what it was for:

*The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss, v1.08, Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc. (4+)
Write a Review Report a Problem $3.99
*2 Toki Tori HD, v1.0, Seller: Chillingo Ltd (4+)
Write a Review Report a Problem $4.99
*Smurfs' Village, WAGON OF SMURFBERRIES, Seller: Capcom Interactive, Inc.
Report a Problem $99.99 !!!! (despite contrary belief, sometimes more than one exclamation point is neccessary. this is one of those times. )

Report a Problem? Yeah, I should say so.

Miles likes to play on the iPad Ben generously gifted me for Christmas. The iPad that took me 3 days to open because although I really did want one, I didn't want such an expensive gift. After my grandma essentially told me to stop being so cheap and to open the darn thing, I did. And I like it. But Miles likes it more. So of course we know what happened. While the iPad was babysitting Miles, he downloaded to his hearts content. Only, anytime I try to do ANYTHING with iTunes I have to enter in my password, almost to my annoyance, but I was happy for the protection from potentially expensive mistakes. So I'm not sure exactly what happened, only when I was recounting the story at the office this morning, someone told me they just read a similar story a few days ago. And she forwarded it to me: http://consumerist.com/2011/02/8-year-old-girl-racks-up-1400-bill-playing-smurfs-village-ipad-game.html. I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, and don't have time to be blogging about this really but while I wait 24 hours to hear back from Apple it serves as a therapy of sorts, and hopefully a warning to others.

So although I'm pretty certain that a four-year old doesn't legally have the capacity to enter into that kind of purchase agreement and I trust that my request to kindly remove the charges will be sufficient, I am a bit concerned. Concerned that a kids game charges real, significant money (a few more purchases and Miles could buy his own iPad) during the course of play. Concerned that you can buy your way to advancment with the click of a button (so much for achievement based on skill development and hard work). And mostly I am concerned that there is a market for this and that people (and by people I mean adults) would even spend a nickel on a wagon of smurfberries ($99), a bucket of snowflakes($19) or this other virtual nonsense.

I guess I probably got Gargameled, really. All of this has driven me to break into my box of Valentine chocolates early (thanks dad), and subsequently spend even more time finding a "mouse"-free hiding spot for what's left.

January Recap.

I can already tell that 2011 is going to be a busy year. My library holds list is already a dozen books long, my collection of seeds to plant is growing by the day, I get to do real estate related activity a few times a week, have a busy calling, busy children who make plenty of messes, taxes to file, two hours of Bachelor ever Monday night...I mean the list goes on and on. And just when we think we have things under control and I think I might just have time to clean out a junk drawer we have a minor disaster somewhere in the house (one word - mold) which means I need to resurrect the house building blog). So let's get to reviewing.

First, we kicked off the year with a trip to SUNNY, lay by the pool, eat too much good food and play tennis California. And it was fun to see the family and friends too. Our first order of business was to see this guy again after two and a half years (whom cousin Kate is sooo glad that McKay is "not our cousin anymore, he's our uncle!". If anything will turn you from cousin to uncle status it will be a mission I guess. (For the record, he's always been her uncle):

(more family photos to come)

Ben - Started a block of research - YEA! (At least that's how I felt when he first started and I thought he would be around more. I still don't see him during daylight hours (not that there is an abundance of them) so now I just feel like: yea! (with only half an exclamation) because I think he feels like he can breathe a little easier during the day (while I continue to gasp)(but this section isn't about me is it?). I'm not sure what he is researching exactly, but he did give a presentation on face lifts today. So hopefully he's not researching my face.

Avery - Turned 7. For her birthday, we sent her to Vegas. And what happens in Vegas, deserves it's own post.

Miles - Miles spent a good portion of January telling fibs. Big ones. Such as when asked who ate mom's not-so-well-hidden chocolate stash by the bed, he flatly responded "mice". When pushed further on the story, he gave great detail on the apperance of the mice, number of mouse offenders and even gave a demonstration on how mice eat chocolate. Never mind the chocolate rimming his little lying lips.

Cruz - Has officially spent more time outside of the womb than in, although at times he does seem to prefer the former. He will do anything to get to his mom. My favorite is when he is is crawling around the house, spots me and then puts his head down and goes full speed ahead to get to me. His parents are suckers for him and just like the other two before him, he has convinced us that the best place to sleep is right between us, mostly we agree. Although not walking yet (so disappointing) he has mastered not only going up the stairs, but sliding down carefully step by step - a trick Avery taught him. He also claps, leads music and says a few words that only a mother can decipher - mama, dada, ball, Avery and water (okay, I'm not so sure about the last one). And he still loves to eat, not what you are feeding him, but whatever you are eating.

Me - I pretty much covered my stuff in the opening paragraph, so unless you want to hear more about my vacuuming technique or love of laundry (I must love it since I spend so much time doing it), how to re-seal countertops or touch up paint then my thoughts on January are over. Except to say that Britt spent the majority of hers wining, dining, kayaking and being dip kissed in New Zealand. Wah.