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Flying with small children

I just read an excellent article about flying with small children.  Here’s a few tips from How to Fly with Kids: 

  1. Book a bulkhead row to prevent your child from kicking the seat in front of her.
  2. Reserve a window seat for your child. Most children enjoy looking out the window during flights.
  3. Use a backpack as a diaper bag; this will leave your hands free for other things.
  4. Pack empty bottles or sippy cups. Once you go through security, you can
    buy water and juice to fill them. You can also ask the flight
    attendants to fill them with water or juice.

There are lots more in the article!  One I would add from personal experience is explain ahead of time how security works and what happens if they select your bag for additional screening.  Jacob still thinks those security guys are mean for taking his backpack!

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Book review: Learn to Swim

Learn to Swim: Step-by-Step Water Confidence and Safety Skills for Babies and Young Children is a beautiful book about teaching kids to swim.  It has great pictures, step by step instructions, and games and techniques for teaching your children how to swim.  I especially liked the fact that it very clearly stated what children can learn at each stage.  So Caleb is now old enough to be learning how to hold his breath.  (He’s 11 months old.)  They not only said he can learn how to hold his breath, but explained how to teach him and what to watch for to see if he’s comfortable with it or we need to take some more time.  I now have a very clear guide of what I can work on with him and what I might want to wait a bit on. 

As a side note, my problem with Caleb is not making sure he’s comfortable or getting his face wet – it’s teaching him that he’s not a fish – he can’t just walk in water over his head!  He was quite happy to be in the water and immediately went walking towards his dad and didn’t seem to mind at all that it meant he inhaled a couple of lungfuls of water in the process! 

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Book review: Speaking of Boys

I’ve read a couple of books on boys and the best by far is Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons.  It’s set up in a question and answer style and it answers questions like:

  • why are brothers competitive?
  • does my son really mean to be that mean to his sister?
  • why is my son preening like this and will it ever end?
  • what to do as a divorced mom breaking up with someone
  • what do do when your son starts acting abusive or violent
  • how to react to your son (or his friend) lying

But I found it most useful in understanding boys’ humor.  I don’t find most "boy jokes" very funny and I struggle on how to respond and I struggle with understanding why they are funny – from farts to knock-knock jokes.  (I’d like to be in on the joke!  It looks like fun.) Michael Thomson did a really good job of explaining how boys use humor to gain status with their friends and in their social groups and he even gave some good advise to people like me who just don’t get it. 

I learned a lot from this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is occasionally baffled by boys – small or big ones.

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Babies can lie

New research shows that babies can "lie" as early as six months.  For example, they can pretend to laugh or pretend to cry to get attention.  Before this researchers thought kids didn’t know how to lie until they were about four years old.  I don’t think they are talking about lying as a form of deception – crying to get attention isn’t lying.  It’s crying on purpose. 

I think any mom could have told you babies will laugh or cry just to get attention – not because they are sad or happy.  At 10 months, Caleb has already mastered the art of laughing just to get people’s attention.  Is he lying?  Not really.  He’s just learned that laughing gets people’s attention.  He’s not pretending to laugh – he’s actually laughing.

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Owies are good for kids

The Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents had decided that taking risks, playing with friends and some bumps and bruises are good for kids.  That’s good to hear because Caleb has almost permanent lumps on both sides of his head from taking face dives onto hard floors.  He’s getting better at catching himself though – he must have abs and back muscles of steel!

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How many words an hour does your kid hear?

I read an interesting article in the Economist about Marriage in America.  But the quote that really peaked my interest was the difference in the number of words children from different types of homes heard in an hour:

One study found that a college professor’s kids hear an average of 2,150 words per hour in the first years of life. Working-class children hear 1,250 and those in welfare families only 620.

My grandmother told me I was going to talk her ear off when I was little – I guess that’s what comes from having two parents as teachers!

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Should the drinking age be lowered?

I have to agree with McCardell, the president of Middlebury College:

He notes that
18-year-olds have a right to marry, adopt children, serve as legal
guardians for minors, purchase firearms from authorized dealers, and
are trusted with the vote and military responsibilities. So, he says,
it is not unreasonable to think that they can, with proper preparation,
be trusted to drink.

Our laws restricting things dependent on age are just a little out of sync. 

Note that the drinking age is 21 in all 50 states because of the federal law that says the states lose 10% of the highway money if their drinking age is lower than 21.  That age is not based on any research that we suddenly understand how to drink responsibly at the age of 21.  I think there’s ample evidence that many people have a problem drinking responsibly after the age of 21, so maybe we should spend more of our highway money on things like better public transportation that might prevent drunk driving instead of just trying to delay it until people are 21.

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Videos of the kids

Here’s a video of Caleb trying his bouncy swing for the first time! 

I finally started playing with the video function on my camera and Anita has helped me with editing them.  So here’s my first video blog post.

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10 things you need to know about sailing with kids

We recently got back from a trip to the BVI with our six year old.  Here are 10 things you need to know about sailing with kids.

  1. Find a life jacket they love and make sure they wear it whenever the boat is moving.  Jacob liked his a bit too much – we had to convince him to take it off when swimming!
  2. Find fun things to do when anchored like jumping off the side of the boat or tie a swim float to the back of the boat and let them try to lie on it.  They can also snorkel to check the anchor.
  3. Find fun things to do when sailing.  They can help steer, coil ropes or just play checkers and Uno.  This one was the most challenging to us.
  4. Lots of snacks.  We couldn’t believe how hungry our kiddo was but when we stopped to think about it – he never stopped moving!
  5. Explain ahead of time that there may be times when you can’t talk to them and you need them to sit still and stay out of the way – like when you are trying to navigate a tricky passage or when a big rainstorm with a huge gust of wind suddenly hits you.
  6. Tell them where you are going and what they will find there.  Have them practice saying names like "Anegada" and "Jost Van Dyke."  Explain the things you are seeing.  Practice spotting mooring balls and other types of boats.

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  7. Realize that when they are very tired, injuries are much more likely to happen.  One day after a long day at the beach, Jacob managed to fall off his seat and hit his back on the wheel and his stomach on the seat.  Half an hour later he fell down the stairs hurting his back and slamming his front on the floor.  Tired kids get clumsy and boats aren’t kind to clumsy people.
  8. Schedule lots of time for their favorite activities and realize they may not be what you think they will be.  Beaches – playing in the sand – not swimming or snorkeling turned out to be Jacob’s favorite.  (Also remember that kids tend to get really cold snorkeling for more than 30 minutes at a time.)
  9. Be sure to explain how the head (i.e. the toilet) works and double check a few times that they are doing it right.  Jacob was really good about remembering not to put toilet paper in the head but it took him a few days to figure out to pump with water before pumping all the water out.
  10. Don’t forget the peanut butter!  Jacob requested a peanut butter sandwich everyday.  Ham, turkey, salami and pepperoni just didn’t cut it.

And, unlike this picture, you probably shouldn’t let them run on the boat.