Callaway on foot

This week we’ve been enjoying a brief visit from my mom, who flew in from Colorado Sunday afternoon and will leave us again Thursday morning. The last time she was here without my dad she was slaving over dinners, scrubbing floors and counters for me (and everything in between) and accompanying me on power walks as we tried to prod overdue Owen out of my bulging belly. This time I’m doing the cooking and letting her get in as much play time as possible with Will and Owen (mostly because I love to work on a simple meal with no distractions while listening to the sweet sounds of grandma-grandkid conversations in the other room).

Yesterday we laid low but did the usual walk to Lakebottom Park, where Grammy and Will enjoyed swinging side by side.

And today we hit Callaway Gardens, where I realized that the next best way to see the Gardens when you can’t tour the whole place on a bike is to stroll down the bike path (which is pretty clear of bikes on a weekday) from one stop to the next. A good mom tip for those of you who live nearby and frequent Callaway: Stop the madness of loading kids back in the car at each tourist destination and park just a couple times – first at the Butterfly house and then somewhere like the Discovery Center –and make it a car-free stroller journey from there.
We took in a Bird’s of Prey Show (which had Owen shouting so loud in amazement that the crowd sometimes took their eyes off the owl or the peregrine falcon to crane their necks and get a look at squawking baby), fed some turtles, ate a lakeside lunch, strolled down the bike path where Will found nature objects for a “decoration” he was scheming about as he pushed his own stroller most of the way, wandered over bridges in the Callaway Brothers Azalea Bowl and then looped back to the Sibley Horticultural Center, where Will tried his hand at nature photography for the first time. Here is one of his point-and-shoot masterpieces.

But the highlights were really the walks in between the sites. In the woods, away from the crowds, we stopped for several minutes to watch a great blue heron, who stood just 20 feet from us at the edge of the lake, while a bald Eagle soared in large loops over the lake.

Just before we headed back in the car, Owen nearly jumped out of the stroller when he saw these ducks.

No lions here

On Saturday we went up to Atlanta with intentions of going to the zoo. But the weather was a bit questionable and we wound up giving Will the choice of a day at the zoo (which he hasn't been to in two years) and a day at Imagine It!: The Children's Museum of Atlanta, where we'd never been. He immediately chose the museum as the less scary option (he'd been worrying about how we were going to avoid the gorillas, tigers and lions at the zoo, and he told his Aunt Alicia this weekend that he plans to go to the zoo once he is 7 years old. Apparently he's intending to get brave by then).

So we decided to check out the lion-free kid's museum. I didn't get my animal-viewing fix (we'll save for that the fall), but it was fun to watch both boys immersed in so much exploratory fun. If it weren't for the fact that nap-deprived Owen was headed for a meltdown by mid-afternoon we could have stayed all day. Here are some highlights:

Sweet independence

Today, Will, who has been gradually learning to pump on the swings at Lakebottom Park, finally mastered the concept. He was so thrilled to not only be pointing his legs in the proper direction, but also propelling himself forcefully enough to stay in motion, that after one push from me he pumped and kept himself swinging for a full, uninteruppted fifteen minutes. (I started quietly keeping time once I noticed how immersed in the activity he was becoming.) “I finally get how to do it, mom!” he said. And in his joy, he started shouting silly-talk at the trees on each upswing.

Meanwhile, Owen and I got to enjoy ourselves on the toddler playground and just wave back at swinging Will now and then. The peek-a-boo tunnel is about as thrilling for Owen as pumping on a swing is for Will. When Will finally gave up his swing session, he was eager for a little peek-a-boo too.

And back at home, Rob decided it was time to launch a three-piece band.

***On an unrelated note: If you’re a garden enthusiast and live nearby, you might want to go on the Keep Columbus Beautiful Commission’s 2008 Tour of Gardens on May 3. See my story in today’s Ledger for details. Proceeds go to Keep Columbus Beautiful.

Here's the "If You Go" details, since they didn't make the online edition of the paper:

What: The Keep Columbus Beautiful Commission’s 2008 Tour of Gardens
When: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday (May 3)
Where: Green Island and Brookstone neighborhoods
Cost: $20 in advance. $15 per ticket for groups of ten or more. $25 per person the day of the tour. Proceeds go to the Keep Columbus Beautiful Commission. Tickets can be purchased at any of the featured gardens the day of the tour. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the Keep Columbus Beautiful Commission office at 685 Front Ave.; the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau, 900 Front Ave.; The Butler’s Pantry, 2533 Auburn Ave.; The Butler’s Other Pantry, 1640 Rollins Way; River Road Pharmacy, 5100 River Road; Columbus Coffee Company, 1660 Whittlesey Road, the Nursery of Lee Bayard, 1210 13th St.; and Spring Harbor, 100 Spring Harbor Drive.
Details: The tour is self-guided. Tickets and maps will be available at each of the featured gardens, and you can choose your own starting and stopping points. A plant sale will take place at Brookstone School throughout the tour and is open to non-tour-goers as well. Columbus Flower Workshop will present a standard flower show throughout the tour time at Spring Harbor at Green Island.
More information: Call Keep Columbus Beautiful at 706-653-4008 or 706-653-4009.

Corn, corn and corn

If you’re not a paranoid, label-reading grocery shopper already, take this challenge: Go into your refrigerator, your pantry, your cupboards and look at how many of the items that you eat have corn (or high fructose corn syrup, or corn-fed beed – which almost all beef is these days) as an ingredient. A few days ago, Rob and I finally got around to watching "King Corn," a documentary that aired last week on PBS’s “Independent Lens” series, after I’d been enticed to see the film by an interview I heard with the filmmakers on NPR. The documentary follows two recent college grads who learn that the carbon in their hair indicates that their diet is comprised largely of corn and who become inspired to go rent and plant an acre of corn on an Iowa farm and then follow its journey from “seed to feed.”

The saddest thing, of course, is the role the U.S. government has played in subsidizing the mass production of corn, sacrificing human health and agricultural diversity in the interest of producing cheap food.

So here’s to community-supported (and sustainable) agriculture, grass-fed beef, honey bees, 100-percent juices and plain old tap water.

If you missed the film on PBS, it's available on Netflix. And you can watch a preview here.

Here’s a quote from the filmmaker, Aaron Woolf:

“I feel that the seeds of an improved food economy and food culture will come from forging reconnections everywhere––between farmers and consumers at produce markets and in CSA subscription farms; between constituents and legislators collaborating on an agricultural policy that makes us healthy; between eaters and the food we eat. I hope KING CORN can be a small part of helping these conversations and connections grow."

Earth Day in little ways

Today is Earth Day 2008. Go here for some ideas of recycled and animal/nature crafts to try with your kids and for other kid-friendly earth day activities.

Will brought a nature-filled show-and-tell bag to school today with a Happy Earth Day sign he colored and some pine cones, rocks and leaves he's collected to pass around.

Other than that, we're keeping it simple and just talking about Earth Day and why we celebrate it with Will. I think I’ll take him and Owen on a neighborhood nature/clean-up hike this afternoon. We’ll bring a trash bag and gardening gloves and go litter hunting – and at the same time scout for animals and plants in our neighborhood. And once Rob's home, we'll probably have to have a little living room family dance session, pass around our globe, and sing along to Raffi's rendition of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

These little holidays that sometimes feel like tokenism to adults are a fun excuse to celebrate with kids.

We sing for kids

It was concert time at Will’s preschool this morning -- to launch the school’s celebration of the Week of the Young Child . The highlight of the show was the youngest toddler group, which showcased one twirling, dancing, gleeful boy and an entourage of other bewildered kids who all stood stock still through their performance. They were too awed by the crowd to move or sing.

In many ways, Will still belongs in their ranks. I found myself getting slightly nervous as the three-year-olds’ performance approached. Would Will bolt the stage or scowl at the crowd? (Scowling is one of his most recent “I’m feeling shy” defense mechanisms – not a very endearing one of course.)

But Will chose to be politely shy. While most of the kids around him sang and did accompanying motions with varying degrees of enthusiasm, Will seemed to barely mumble the words for the first part of one song and then mostly look around. At one point he shut his eyes as if to block out the crowd. By the second song, he was trying to get comfortable and I watched as he’d almost imperceptibly do hints of the dance motions. A tiny, slow motion tilting of the head instead of the fast-paced head bobbing of his classmates, for example.

So I settled into it and enjoyed watching my little shy guy try to make the best of his stage fright.

Back at home, I asked him if he’d enjoyed the concert.

“Yeah,” he said, then quickly added: “Mom, when I’m singing to a lot of people I just sing a little
bit and then I stop. Because I’m scared of singing to a lot of people. I just like singing to two adults and a lot of kids."

Fair enough, I thought, since I prefer singing to no adults and two kids.

Diaper escape

Owen has hit that critical moment in his diaper-changing journey when he has recognized the exhilarating possibility of escaping from the changing table. Gone are the days when Owen would merely cry if he was in no mood for a diaper change. Now, regardless of whether he is feeling cheerful or funky, his first reaction upon being laid on his back for a diaper change is to immediately flip himself over and attempt to crawl away. So now, for safety reasons, I wind up doing some of his especially squirrely diaper changes on a changing pad on the floor. I come armed with an assortment of toys and I do obnoxious songs and dances directly overhead in a desperate attempt to keep the squirmy guy on his back. I call in back up – and Will does his own songs and dances, reads board books, offers still more toys. And 75 percent of the time none of it works. So I change Owen’s diaper as he struggles on his tummy to crawl away. This would all be manageable if it weren’t for the fact that I’m still using cloth diapers on Owen during the day – the old school Chinese prefold kind, with old-fashioned safety pins for securing the things. And I can’t get comfortable pinning diapers on a crawling baby. So fifty percent of the time I’ve been throwing in the towel and reaching for disposable.

Back when I was diaper waffling in October, I predicted I would abandon cloth once Owen got squirmy, stinky and belligerent on me. But I really hate to start using nothing but disposables now that I’ve settled into the fairly simple process of storing and laundering cloth diapers. It’s cheap and, since I hang-dry the things, I’m pretty sure it’s better for the environment.

So I decided to do one of those ridiculously specific Google searches: “getting baby still to change diaper.” And I landed at this web site, where I quickly ticked off all the advice in my mind. Done that. Tried it. Worked once but never again…. And then I hit the gold mine: Offer something ordinarily forbidden like a cell phone, a television remote or masking tape…. So this morning I gave Owen a TV remote and he marveled at it, still on his back for an entire diaper change. Next diaper change I tried it again and before I had so much as pulled his pants down, Owen immediately flipped himself over to explore the remote like so.

So out came the masking tape, which worked for one diaper change but was old news by the time

Owen was due for another change. This time I was prepared with a back-up novel item – a piece of thick string, and again this worked for just one diaper change. So next time we moved on to one of Will’s sippy cups (which Owen covets more than any of his toys) and then a spool of thread. If Owen’s squirminess forces me to present him with new items to explore, I guess that’s just the innate learner in him, demanding that he be taught with fresh materials – so I don’t mind obliging him. As long as I can keep coming up with novel ideas – or perhaps a rotation of about 30 of them??

By the end of the day, though, I was ready to let Rob have a hand at the diaper changing. Surely he could handle just one disposable after Owen’s bath?

“Okay, you’re up,” Rob calls to me from the bedroom, as if to suggest that he’d diapered the boy and it’s time for me to take over the bedtime routine.

So I walk in and, behold, there is naked Owen crawling on the floor toward nowhere, with his Pampers lying open a couple feet behind him. So there we were again: me and Squirmy and a spool of thread. (It took the thread PLUS a gleeful verse of Little Bunny Foo Foo to get that simple disposable on Owen, and he still flipped on me before I finished the job.)

How do you restrain, subdue, hypnotize or otherwise manipulate your kids to keep them still for diaper changes or other obligatory tasks?