One Thousand Hours

Last week I overheard my aunt tell my mom that she had been quoted in my aunt's congregation's church service. My mom created a program for parents of preschool age children to help them prepare their children for kindergarten (Time Together...check it out). After three decades of teaching preschool and kindergarten, my mom is pretty much the best in the biz.

"She said--over the pulpit!--that you said that it takes a thousand books to prepare your child for Kindergarten," my aunt related.

At this point, my eyes widened a little bit. I mean, I read to my children daily--as often as I remember or they bring me books, but even then, I doubt we are close to a thousand books. Unless you count the number of times I've read Pinkalicious or Dr. Suess's ABC Book or The Little Blue Truck.

My mom reacted with a lopsided, half-smile, "Well, that's close to what I said. It takes a thousand hours of lap time to prepare your children for kindergarten, but a thousand books is good too, I guess."

This comment ate away at me for the rest of the evening and the whole next morning. Somewhere in there, I convinced myself that she had said ten thousand hours and I realized that something about the math was off there.

Is that even possible? I wondered as I opened the day counter app on my phone. Doing some rough (and I mean rough) math in my head, I realized that my daughter will be somewhere around 2,000 days old when she enters kindergarten.  Even I could do that math...10,000 hours in 2,000 days...FIVE HOURS A DAY?!

We are so behind! I panicked. Then I realized that since it was a government holiday, my mom was actually home and not in the middle of teaching five-year-olds geometry, so I called her.

"That quote from sacrament meeting yesterday?" I rattled quickly, knowing I was interrupting my parents' When Calls the Heart marathon, "was that ten thousand hours or one thousand hours? Because I think we're a little behind."

At this point, she just laughed at me. "One thousand hours."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, but still..." I did some quick math in my head. "That's more like half an hour a day instead of twenty minutes, and we've got an extra six months before she starts kindergarten."

She confirmed that this was true. She laughed a little as she told me that she tells parents that as soon as they bring the baby home from the hospital they need to pull out the books.

"How does that work when your child's attention span is barely thirty seconds?" I asked. "Does it count if they are playing in the same room and you read out loud to them?"

She pointed out that my daughter will sit through a book now, and I clarified that my son, on the other hand, will not, and my daughter only started listening to books in their entirety within the last year.

I am failing my children. I'm staying home to avoid this kind of situation, and I'm still failing my children.

I think this was the point when my mother mournfully put Hope Valley on hold and switched her voice into "pep talk mode."

"You're doing better than you think you are," she told me. I only half believed her, because she's my mother, so she has to say that. Even as I ended the call, half an hour later, I felt unsettled and gathered my children on the couch and read them four Llama Llama books in one sitting. (Well, one sitting for me. The boy was up and down at least a dozen times, and the girl took a few breaks to rescue her toys from her brother).

"Mom?" she said after we finished the last book and I reached for another one. "I done."

And she was gone. And I gave up.

Then, today, when she told me the same thing about quiet time and I made her wait ten more minutes so I could finish the season 3 premiere of When Calls the Heart, she asked me if we could play a game. Not up for another frustrating round of Candy Land where she breaks all the rules and I land on the peanut every other turn, I suggested we pull out the Time Together kit that my mom let us borrow.

Before this afternoon, all I knew about the kit was that it came in an orange bag, contained a white board, and somehow magically would help me prepare my daughter to read, write, listen, and do math.

I was surprised, then, when I pulled out item after item of activities we had already done, some that we do daily. Nothing the kit contained was new to my daughter. I thought we'd barely be able to do one activity before her brother woke up; instead, we breezed through them and I had to stop her from doing everything in one day.

Maybe I am doing better than I think I am. I finally started to believe it. After three weeks of noticing all the ways my daughter seemed to be behind her peers--and all of my frustrations because there seemed to be so little I could do to help her that I wasn't already doing--I finally felt a renewal of hope as I leafed through the parent papers in the kit and landed on "Age Appropriate Skills & Activities for 3-4 yr. old Children."

• "A three minute attention span and minimal understanding of yesterday and tomorrow." She has those down, I thought. Check.
• "Can hop on one foot and walk in a line." It's not pretty, but she can do that. Check.
• "Can follow simple directions and accept suggestions." After some negotiating, yes, she does that. Check.

The list continued: "Can put on shoes.... Understands some dangers.... Identifies common colors.... Still doesn't cooperate or share well.... Can sort of dress,,,. May prefer one parent (often the opposite sex). Knows whether a boy or a girl."

Yes, she can put on her own boots. Not always on the right feet, but she does it by herself. She understands dangers enough to warn me when her brother is getting into trouble. She knows all of her colors and makes a big deal of matching, creating "patterens" and making sure she gives us our favorite color of plastic IKEA plate when she sets the table.  She definitely lives life on her own terms, and she knows the word "cooperate" because she's heard me ask her to do so several times a day. Just yesterday she explained to her father that she had "lost the pwvilege" of going on a walk because she misbehaved at church. "Can sort of dress" is a good explanation of her Fancy Nancy clothing styles and ability to somewhat pull her pants up after using the bathroom. Oh, that's right, I forgot--they're leggings not pants. Definitely prefers her father (who knew being a Daddy's girl was a developmental milestone?). Knows the difference between her and her brother; we've had the "that's his peanut" conversation more than once.

So, yeah, I guess we are doing better than I think we are. 

And those thousand hours of time together? I'm learning that they come in small, 2-3 minute increments, like when my son pinches his fingers in the door and comes and sits on my lap for a cuddle before going about his daily, havoc-wreaking business. Or when my daughter asks me to play pretend and informs me that she's the mom and "I's the girl" and she helps me dish up my purple sghetti and cuts up my food for me before tucking me into bed on the couch with a "couple a books." Or how when we read Pinkalicious she fills in the words whenever I pause. Or how my son will run to me, carrying Llama Llama Time to Share and starts yelling "Llama Ama Mama!" Or how my daughter points out to me that yesterday the mountains were blue and today they are white and how come? Or how, when you ask my son what Mr. Brown says, he yells at the top of his voice, "MOOOO!"

1,000 hours. 60,000 minutes. 360,0000 seconds = the amount of time I spend being my child's first exposure to learning. 

It's so much less time than I thought I had, and yet we are doing so much more with it than I ever thought we could.

"Children’s first and most influential teachers are their parents/family. They play an important foundational role in the child’s learning and achievement. When parents, educators, and caregivers work together in the education and well-being of a child, a partnership is formed that will influence the best possible learning outcomes for the learner."(Utah's Early Childhood Standards, p. 4).

 --Taken from the Time Together website

Diabetes is Not a Death Sentence

“They told me I had to lose 50 lbs,” she said. “That’s the weight of a kindergartener!”

I wasn’t supposed to be hearing this conversation, but the media room at our church is only so big, and there were only three of us in there. I pretended not to listen as I signed the copy sheet, but out of the corner of my eye I watched her body language, impressed at how non-chalantly she talked about this obviously major life change. She was still smiling, still joking around. And then I heard the words that told me I knew more about this conversation than I’d originally thought.

“So, do you have to check your blood? Don’t you just, like, poke your finger?”

She nodded. “Twice a day,” she said with a sigh.

Then, despite any reservations I had about admitting I’d been eavesdropping, I jumped in.

“Diabetes?” I asked.

She nodded and told me she’d just been diagnosed.

I smiled. “Me too,” I admitted. “Almost six years ago now.”

“Really?” I saw her wall crumble. Her façade wasn’t hiding anything major, and she didn’t burst into tears, but what I did see through the cracks was the relief that she wasn’t the only one dealing with this particular challenge. So you know, her look seemed to say.

She made my copies and I asked if I could cut them in half with the paper cutter. “Oh! I didn’t even think about that! I’m losing my mind!”

I laughed and assured her that losing your mind is, in fact, a scientific side effect of unstable blood sugar. “I have a hard time focusing on anything when my blood sugar is out of whack. So if I seem scatter-brained to you, now you know why!”

I told her I had to get back to the children, but I’d be back and we’d talk more. After church I found her in the same place, now joined by her husband. What could I say about Diabetes in the three minutes I had before my three-year-old turned Rambo on me?

I spouted off some of my favorite products (including how to get a 30-piece chocolate chip fix in for only 9 carbohydrates), reassured her that eventually it just becomes part of the routine and you hardly even notice anymore, and added in the usual plea to not judge me by what I eat. (For some reason, people think that if you are diabetic sugar can kill you. Well, yes, it can. But it can also save my life. And my sanity. So don’t judge. Please.)

Now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, this is what I’d wished I’d told her, and it’s the same thing a kind nurse told me nearly seven years ago (I’ve had time to do the math too):

Diabetes is not a death sentence.

Yes, it feels like it at first, when they tell you all the myriad of changes you need to make and it feels like your life has gone spiraling out of control. I remember telling one of my best friends about my diagnosis and her first reaction was, “But…bread and sugar…those are your favorite things!”

But, eventually, reading nutrition labels on everything and counting carbohydrate servings in 15 gram amounts seems as natural as putting your hair in a ponytail. To someone who has never done it before, it feels messy and impossible, but with a little practice, you can whip that mane up into the perfect (or at least passable) messy bun in three seconds. The same with a meal at a restaurant, or figuring out an acceptable portion size, or adjusting to the changes that must be made, simply because your body tells you it must be done.

I remember going out to eat with my mom and a few other relatives two months after my diagnosis. Everyone was ordering pie for dessert. I declined. My mom suggested that it would be okay for me to have some, since I’d only had a salad, but in my panicked head, all I saw was the disintegration of my feet and eyesight. “If no pie now means attending my daughter’s wedding later,” I told her, “then I’ll pass on the pie.”

I didn’t even have a daughter then. Now I do, and the other day, she turned to me in front of her little brother and asked, “Can we have some P-I-E?”

She didn’t know she’d just spelled an actual dessert. She just knows what it means when her parents look at each other over her head and spell out T-R-E-A-T. And she knew she didn’t want to share with her brother, just like I rarely want to share with her.

So we have sugar. And dessert. And I bake cookies with my children, and sometimes my husband and I have brownies at midnight. But, you should also know, there are days when I wake up groggy and the feeling never goes away. Days when my blood sugar levels make me nauseated, but try explaining that to anyone and not having them immediately jump to the conclusion that you are pregnant.

And-oh!- pregnancy.

Sometimes it feels that my life as a diabetic would be completely normal if I weren’t of childbearing age. Some days (most days) I don’t even check my blood sugar. I can tell you what range I’m in based on how I’m feeling, and for the most part I know how to handle my highs and lows. But when I’m pregnant, everything I thought I knew about my disease and my body flies out the window. I can’t put into words exactly how hard diabetic pregnancy is for me, and I won’t waste your time with my complaints of poking every single finger I have in a 48-hour-period, giving myself hundreds of shots, attending more than 50 “routine” doctor appointments in a seven-month stretch…everyone has a woe story when it comes to motherhood. Mine is my diabetes.

But, as I said before, diabetes is not a death sentence.

I still have my babies. I still function and run a household. I have an understanding, thoughtful husband, friends who keep me laughing, and active children that don’t let me slow down too much. Granted, I’m not able to do every single thing I want to do, but then again, what woman has actually ever been able to manage that?

I have diabetes, but it doesn’t have me.

My Favorite

They say parents aren't supposed to have favorites, but I totally do.

Have a favorite age for my children, that is.

Here's a clue: it is definitely not three-years-old.

No, no. My favorite age, by far, is the current age of Sly: that point when babyhood is still a recent memory, and the baby lotion smells haven't quite disappeared but toddler time is in full swing, complete with bumps and bruises and an irresistable waddle-run. It is that time when you can look at a little person, and with a certain outfit or hairstyle or pose, you can see glimpses of the little boy, and eventually the man, he is going to become.

I have been aware for the past, well, while, that most of my blogging seems to center around my daughter. I know why, but I don't know how I am going to explain that to my son when he is old enough to ask about the imbalance. So here's my explanation, Baby Guy, and I hope you understand one thing above all: you are loved. More than you know.

Here's the thing, Sly. Your sister, well, she's nuts, and I have spent the last three years trying to figure her out, and one of the ways I make sense of things is to write about them.

You have always made sense to me.

I'm well aware that this may change, probably in the next four-to-six months as we hit that "terrible two's" window. But for now, and for the past eighteen months, you are simply my baby boy, and though I am not always happy about the way you constantly hang on my knees, I am grateful for your simple, constant devotion to "MOOOOMMMMMMAAA!"

My first memory of you happened at my first perinatologist appointment. Oh, how I hate that place. That was a rough day, and the beginning of an even rougher journey to get you here healthy. I remember laying on a cold paper sheet with a thin piece of cotton fabric over me, searching a grayscale screen to make sense of the blobs. And then, I saw you, not even a fully formed fetus yet, but there was a beating heart and a backbone and you were curled up on your side in a way that seemed to say to me, "Why are you so worried, Mom? We've got this."

And so we do. The way you calmed me then and the way you calm me now aren't all that different. I don't often find the need to write my way through your life, because I would rather cuddle and throw a "fooo-ball!" with you instead.

Sometimes parents dread that phase between 12-18 months. Admittedly, it does make attending church services a million times harder, but since Daddy is the one who has to wrestle you through 2/3rds of church, I'm not really bothered. I love this age.

I especially love you at this age.

Your learning seems to have accelerated. You know over 65 words, and I love to hear you say them. Sometimes I ask you to say sorry just because I love how you apologize while smiling, "sawwy!" (I tend to laugh when I apologize to your father too). I love to hear you say "pweese!" and how you ask for a "cooo-kie" because you know that I have to have some hidden somewhere. I love how the first thing you say in the morning is "ball!" and when I get you out of your crib, we have to shoot a few hoops before you will let me change your bum.

I secretly love how you climb on everything, especially your father. I know I tell you to sit down in the firmest voice I can muster, but I will admit this here: I am always impressed at the way you are able to surf on the rocking chair.

I love how you hold your own with your sister and the way you get a fake whine in your voice when you tell me (in gibberish) what "siss-ta" has done to you. You little tattle-tell, you. Most of the time she hasn't done anything but love you a little too hard.

I love how I watched her do a "high jump" off the bottom stair today and seconds later, after I'd walked into the kitchen, I heard a thunk and when I went back around the corner, you were laying on the floor looking a little dazed.

You would fly through life if gravity would let you.

You accumulate new bumps and bruises daily, but you usually only cry long enough to get a cuddle out of me. You don't snuggle for long, but occasionally after your nap you want to be rocked for a just a minute or two while your eyes adjust to the afternoon sunlight coming in through your window.

You make me laugh. You make everybody laugh. You are a big flirt, and it doesn't matter if the girl is 8 months old or 80 years old, you charm her to pieces. I love the way you go to give me a gentle kiss but then ram your head into my cheek and I have to turn my face so you don't break my jaw. You don't know your own strength yet, but you do know that carrying around Balto is a feat that impresses adults.

I love how your chubby little feet bounce when you do your happy dance and how you have perfected the art of spinning just close enough to the stairs to make my heart race but still stay out of danger.

I love to watch you sleep in the car, because stillness is such a foreign state for you. I'm always afraid to creep into your room lest I wake you up before I have mustered up the energy to parent you, but I must admit that when I have to wake you so we can get out the door, I always spend an extra minute or two staring at your sleeping form before I nudge you and scoop you up into my arms.

I often tell people how funny you are, and when they wait for an example, I can't think of anything specific. There is just something about you--maybe that cunning twinkle in your navy blue eyes--that makes a person want to chuckle and be happy.

Can you tell just how deeply you have me tied around your fingers? You are one of my favorite people, and I'm so glad I have you to brighten my days. I know the emails to your father may say otherwise--and let's be honest, using your fingers to slurp up your sister's leftover waffle syrdup is not the best way to keep your mommy smiling in the morning--but I genuinely love you, you, you--all of you. Just the way you are,

this...

and this...

usually turns to this in about thirty seconds.

(Note: Just the way you are now, because when phase-age-stages two and three hit, this is subject to change. I know this because when your sister was this age, I wrote this post on "The Happiest I've Ever Been" when Kevin was 17 months old and I realize now that although being a stay-at-home mom did and does bring me happiness, it sure as heck brings me a lot of misery too, so I probably was so happy because she was so happy all the time.)