parenting

Last Friday my son woke up half an hour early and said that he had had a dream where he had danced a unicorn-dance with A, a girl from preschool, and that he needed to make Cinderella-princess-crowns out of metal and wood right now. And then glue paper to them to add color.

Since my husband and I had been to a very, very loud nicotine-infected concert the night before all I managed was, “Um. Not right now.” I was so grateful that my mother-in-law had said she’d make him breakfast and take him to preschool and so I took him upstairs and went back to bed.

Grandmothers seem to be more patient than mothers because in the evening he proudly showed me this:

Cinderella-Princess-Unicorn-Crowns modeled by Teddy and Mikesch, the Cat

All evening long he talked about which crown was his and which was A’s and that his had to have long hair glued to it so he’d look like a girl.
And there would be a play and the unicorns would dance and there would be aparty. And that he would go and make scenery with his father on Saturday. (We had persuaded him to wait until the next morning.) And that I should go and prepare the food and freeze it.

On Saturday morning he woke up, early again, and told me to go and sew the costumes now. While he would build scenery in the cellar with my husband. And that he had already started on that.

In his room I saw that he had started to draw a “castle” on the big piece of cardboard that we use in lieu of a blackout blind so he doesn’t wake up too early. He even had tried to cut out pinnacles. Actually he woke us to say that he needed the big scissors. Fortunately I could discourage further cutting and promised to buy a real blackout blind soon so he could use the cardboard for his play.

All my poor tired husband wanted was a little sleep. So I told my son with all the authority I could muster that real theatre people always make sketches of everything. Costumes, scenery and who’s supposed to be where. Here they are:

The Unicorn’s Costumes

(Notice the unusual colors, red unicorns with black hooves. Also the “cinderella-princess-crowns” with their golden unicorn horns and eyes with extra-long eyelashes.)

The story of the play goes like this:

Two female unicorns are having a wedding. They have a picknick. Suddenly there is a knight who hurts the unicorns.

The Knight’s Costume

Very traditional though his sword is quite thin and cross-like. The knight is to be played by J, another preschooler.

The unicorns say, “Oh, don’t hurt us, knight, we are very nice unicorns.”
The knight stops.

All this is happening in front of a castle:

The Castle
(Very old with a sagging tower.)

At the end there is the unicorn dance. The two (played by my son and A) are dancing gracefully.

The Unicorn Dance

The audience is delighted.

The Audience

Afterwards there is a party with food and then A and J are to stay overnight.

You know, I only write these headlines so that many, many people will find me through goggling. Because I so totally know that there is no foolproof method for anything in child-rearing. But then, I am a little tired of hearing all these mothers saying, “But she doesn’t like anything. If I don’t give her [enter food of choice here] exclusively she’ll starve herself to death.”

First of all I very much doubt it. Most children tend to have that much survival instinct that they don’t starve in front of a full plate. As the wise Moxie always says food is one of the few things that children can control. The more it is important for you the more you will have a power struggle. So now I tell you what we did. And our son eats absolutely everything. So when he was about nine months old we started giving him part of the meals that we were eating. When he was older than a year he ate everything we did. We continued cooking the same as ever, only, we found out that eating hot food caused his diaper rush so we cut back on that.

What we do is this: At mealtime we sit down and everybody gets a plate with the meal of the day. With all of it. My son then eats. When he is clearly done, the rest will be thrown away. If he decides to eat nothing, well that’s fine too. But then this is it. No substitute, nothing to eat until the next designated snack time. Period. If he decides that asparagus is not to his liking, well, then he’ll just have to eat potatoes only. The next time we have asparagus there will be asparagus on his plate again. Interestingly he often then decides to eat the exact same food that he left over last time and to shun the potatoes.

It also helps that we eat everything. You know that children learn more through example than through your words, don’t you? And I have to tell you that I was a very picky eater as a child. And to be honest I still don’t like strawberries and raw tomatoes. Though I’m not allergic to them. So, when I’m at home I don’t eat them – mostly. When I am somewhere else and somebody makes strawberry cake I say thank you, smile and eat strawberry cake. I come from a family of picky eaters. My father doesn’t eat: rice, pasta, poultry, fish and innards. My mother doesn’t like mushy foods, peas, lentils and beans, anything with a strong taste (like brie), hot or spicy. My sister’s a vegetarian and doesn’t eat: eggplant, bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, and I don’t know what else. In addition to the strawberries and raw tomatoes I used to be a vegetarian too from the age of 18 to 29 and didn’t like celery.

Imagine cooking for that family. You make something like pasta bolognese and end up cooking potatoes too for my father and have your two children eating pasta with ketchup. Or you make something like bean soup and have three people eating bean soup (vegetarian bean soup) and one eating leftovers from the day before. My father doesn’t like vegetarian meals, when my mother wanted fish she had to make something else for the rest of the family, it took all the fun out of cooking. Interestingly even the people who clearly dislike certain foods will eat them when they are prepared differently. The on not eating peppers will like the vegetable quiche with bell peppers, the one not eating poultry will eat Tandoori chicken every day when in India, it’s all a bit mysterious. And every single one of them will at least try everything that my husband has cooked, because he is a formidable cook.

When I moved to Bavaria and started living alone, life became a culinary adventure. New kinds of pasta! Eggplant! Greek cheese! French cheese! Wow! Then we went on vacation in Italy, the whole family together and everything was just so delicious that I gave up being a vegetarian and started eating meat and fish again. Imagine having the whole menu to choose from! When you’re in a traditional German restaurant and you are a vegetarian you have actually about two or three choices: vegetables with a fried egg on top, Kasspatzen (which is a special kind of pasta with cheese), and Semmelknödel with mushrooms (not strictly vegetarian since there is broth in the sauce). In Bavaria especially they even have bits of ham in your vegetables, because obviously there has to be something in it to make it edible. So after ten years of that I started eating everything. I tried things I never ate before, seafood, exotic vegetables (garlic!), cheeses from all over the world, Italian salami, chick peas, Indian food, Greek food, Thai food… Marvelous.

My husband is not only a fabulous cook, he comes from a family where there are no picky eaters. None. Period. So we decided to make our son a non-picky eater. So far we have succeeded quite well, but I found out how this picky eating thing might have gone. When he started eating the same food as we there were often things that he obviously didn’t like. He left onions on his plate, he didn’t eat the outsides of his bell pepper, he didn’t like asparagus. And I found myself panicking, “Oh, he doesn’t like onions!” But I didn’t stop giving him onions to eat. Also we tried to introduce our son to every food we could imagine because I had read that all children get picky at age 3 to 8 or so. And right, for the last year or so he has started announcing that he doesn’t like this or that and wouldn’t eat it. This has become a little more since he started eating lunch at preschool because all they get there is traditional German cuisine. And pasta bolognese. But since we always respond with, “You can stay hungry if you want to.” he just eats. Sometimes he doesn’t eat his potatoes, sometimes he doesn’t eat his meat, sometimes he eats all the meat first and wants seconds, sometimes he eats only potatoes… All in all he gets a very rounded diet. Sometimes he eats only one or two bites, sometimes he eats more than me. His needs obviously are changing.

When we go to a restaurant he gets part of our dishes too. He may choose which one to have, but he can’t choose his food. We don’t have to order something special for him since restaurant portions are too big anyway and he doesn’t eat that much. One thing I found is that people seem to suggest to him that some foods might be unsuitable for a child. Like, “What? You’re eating FISH!” or “And when you’re going to an Indian restaurant, what do YOU eat?” Well, the same as Indian children I’d say. If it’s too hot he gets a little yoghurt stirred into the dish and more rice. My husband and I are a little jealous of him because our childhoods didn’t include olives, foreign cheese or even Chinese food. When we grew up pasta and pizza were considered exotic.

You might think that I’m only lucky and maybe I am, but I didn’t make this into a power struggle and I think this is key. You might also think that I wouldn’t have done this if my child were underweight, but you’re wrong. I recently found out that according to US growth charts my son would be considered seriously underweight. By German standards he is on the light side of the chart with no need to worry. My mother thinks he should gain weight because one can see his ribs sticking out. I think he is like me and like my husband’s brother, a skinny kid. Since he is healthy, growing, smart and active I don’t worry.

Technorati Tags: children, food

Big news: My son is completely diaper-free! Yeah.

This whole diaper-thing has been bothering me for quite a while. I even once wrote to Moxie because of it. Of course, the moment I asked somebody for advice my son changed tactics and became content with wearing diapers at night again. Then another problem surfaced: there was leakage. During the last months there would be little (or not so little) puddles in his bed. Three mornings out of four. Yuck. I changed from cloth to disposable diapers. That helped a little. Then we thought, maybe the problem is not the night, maybe the problem is that he dreamily empties his bladders in the morning into his convenient diaper. We tried to teach him to go the toilet first thing in the morning. You know, like all the adult do. We even reestablished the potty. Well, he just isn’t at his best in the mornings…

Then, one evening – about two weeks ago – after I gave him the “and then when you get up you use your potty immediately”-lecture he said, “I’ll just go to sleep without my diaper. Just like the adults do.” My first reaction: PANIC! my second: “What the frell, we’ve been having wet sheets anyway.”

I didn’t sleep well that night, I can tell you. I thought I’d be woken up sometime in the night by a crying child in need of fresh linens. Surprise! Everything was dry in the morning! The second day he forgot that he wasn’t wearing a diaper anymore. And that’s been it. No more diapers ever.

I have been washing two to three loads of diapers for 3 1/2 years. When he was about nine months old, the first round of leaking started. Fortunately I found a website about cloth diapers and the problem was solved with the purchase of a little more padding. I’m really fond of cloth diapers. They are much cheaper (especially when a friend just hands you her stack of almost unused ones), they don’t smell as bad (Really, really true. In playgroup my son would often run around for an hour with a full diaper, because the women there hadn’t smelled it.) and the child has that adorable duck-like butt.

Of course I had just opened a new pack of disposables. But I don’t mind. So, what shall I do with the blog now? Keep the title anyway? It isn’t the best title in the world. Substitute something for “diapers”? Please help me out here.

Technorati Tags: diapers

For a few weeks now my son has been drawing like crazy, there’s paper everywhere. Then he decided that we need signs on all the toilet doors. He did them himself, all alone:

pee man

Note the full bladder and both genders:

pee woman

I love those signs so much we even have one on the toilet that our students use – posted at the right height for a 4.year-old…