community

Rolling Somewhat Merrily Along

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

When I started our town’s series of Kidical Mass bike rides for families, I was afraid no one would show up. Now that the summer has wound down and I’ve led four different rides, those fears have mostly been alleviated. But while I’ve had some success, the last two rides have shown that like many activist projects, it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get a big impact. Fortunately, I’ve also had some little wins that give me hope.

Going into this project, I knew that my town’s bicycle culture lagged behind that of D.C. and Arlington. While we struggled to get 10 people for our community rides, they would get hundreds. Rockville has substantially improved its bike infrastructure and policies, but we just haven’t attracted the sheer numbers of cyclists yet. On top of that, getting families to cycle is the toughest nut to crack and suburban parents are notoriously paranoid about safety. This was illustrated quite clearly when the East Falls Church Kidical Mass launch ride (a specific neighborhood in Arlington) had 32 people, while ours had 17, including me, my husband, and the organizers of an existing ride.

On top of not having as much of a cycling culture, my town poses other logistical issues for Kidical Mass rides. Being in the suburbs, businesses are more spread out, making it difficult to find destinations within a few miles of a starting point that are also on quiet streets. From my experience so far, parents expect to drive rather than bike or take transit to the ride, so you need to start and end in the same place, preferably somewhere with good parking. As Rockville has a number of rolling hills that challenge adult cyclists, I usually abandoned the “flat” part of the “short, un-trafficked, flat” routes recommended for Kidical Mass rides.

Knowing all of this, it wasn’t too surprising that we only had one family each for our last two rides. We had some adult helpers on both, so neither group was ridiculously small, but we aren’t attracting the numbers that a ride that has “mass” in its name implies.

Despite the low turnout, certain aspects of each ride were encouraging. On the August ride, I had planned to ride from a local nature center to Rock Creek Park, a lush gem that runs from the heart of D.C. into Montgomery County. But the ride has some serious hills, so my heart sunk when I saw a little girl show up with training wheels. I especially felt bad when I realized she and her mom had showed up for the July ride but she was too scared to even leave the sidewalk. Trying to hide my nervousness, I encouraged her to try the ride and let her know that it was okay to walk the hills. Much to my relief, she defied everyone’s expectations. She made it up many of the hills and wasn’t ashamed of walking up others. The route offered exactly the right blend of achievable and just-out-of-reach challenge. We turned around before we reached the park, but I was so proud that she made it as far as she did. It was such a huge leap up from just a month before. Even though her mom kept saying, “If I had known the route, I would have never brought her!” it was clear that she was glad she did. Even though she was the only kid there, her accomplishment alone made the ride worthwhile.

On the ride this past weekend, I was quite surprised that anyone showed up, considering it was a 50% chance of rain. In fact, I actually left Chris and Sprout at home. But one family with two kids in a trailer and an older lady interested in volunteering both made an appearance. While the dad of the family was an avid cyclist, his wife was much less experienced. She had just gotten a new bike and self-identified as a rather slow cyclist. They had been doing rides around their neighborhood, but this was the first community ride they had done. And despite the rain, she loved it! Afterwards, she promised to sign up for another community ride this weekend as well as future Kidical Mass rides. On top of making it good experience for her, they’re also interested in purchasing a Yuba cargo bike to replace their trailer, which would be an awesome addition to our Kidical Mass rides.

Our next two rides are going to be with our sister ride in nearby Gaithersburg, which has been around for at least a year. I hope that some of their experience rubs off on us!

We Do Still Want to Hang Out With You – Seriously

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

A lot of people without kids complain that when their friends become parents that they never see them anymore. They stop accepting invitations and don’t invite them to their own events. But before Sprout was born, I was determined that Chris and I were not going to be those people. Even though many of our friends live on the other side of the city, we still wanted to see them.

While we aren’t perfect, I think we’ve been pretty good at following through on that commitment. This weekend, we actually spent time with our friends on both Saturday and Sunday. So to all of the folks who keep turning down invitations, I say that you don’t have to be Those Parents.

In fact, here are a few solutions to the most common challenges I’ve heard. While these won’t work for everyone, I think they could help a few new parents spend a little more time with their friends.

“You don’t want to come – it’s going to be a lot of kids.”
Possibly, but you never know unless you ask! If someone doesn’t want to attend an event, they will politely respond “no” or ignore the invitation altogether. Personally, I like inviting all of my friends – with and without kids – to parties at our house. For Sprout’s first birthday party, we rented space at a local park, which worked out very well for both the adults and kids. As he gets older, his parties will focus on his friends, but you can still have all-ages Halloween parties, Christmas celebrations or summer BBQs. For his party, I think one thing that helped was that we encouraged people to donate to the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project instead of bringing gifts. That way, my non-parent friends didn’t have to figure out what to buy for a one-year-old, folks on tight budgets didn’t feel obliged, people who wanted to could contribute, and we didn’t end up with a ton of extra toys.

“People without kids don’t want to hear me talk about my kids.”
Then don’t – it doesn’t always seem like it, but there are other conversational topics in the world! Even if you’re a stay at home parent, you can talk about pop culture, the news, politics or other hobbies. Also, I’ve found that our friends don’t mind us talking about Sprout, just as long as we’re respectful. We try not to dominate the conversation, listen to people tell stories about their own lives (including their pets), don’t imply that our lives are soooo much harder than their, and don’t make them feel bad about not having kids. In fact, our friends have had a lot of questions, either because they do want kids in the future or are just curious. But avoid talking about your kid’s poop. No one wants to hear about toileting habits – unless it’s a hysterically funny story.

“Babysitters are really expensive.”
They totally are – which is why we’ve avoided finding one so far. Now, a lot of this is due to having a supportive social circle and family, but some of it’s just flexibility. Whenever either set of our parents visit or we visit them, we ask if they can watch Sprout for the evening. While we’ve spent most of these nights on dates, we could have also used them to set up time with kid-less friends. More recently, we did a “child swap” with friends of ours that also have a baby. We took their kid for an afternoon so they could go out and a few weeks later, they took Sprout. But you don’t necessarily need friends or family to provide childcare. If you’re part of a couple, you can actually switch off between the two of you. When one of our friends sends an invitation to an evening party, we take turns as to who gets to go and who stays home. As we had a four year long distance relationship and years of opposite schedules, we’re both comfortable going to events by ourselves. It’s nicer to go to things together, but it’s better to go alone than not at all!

“Nap times are so restrictive.”
We’ve managed to phase out the morning nap, but we know well the dangers of screwing with naptime. But if your friends without kids are willing to be flexible, it’s possible to plan around them, especially on weekends. In particular, we’ve found late brunches and lunches to work well. If your kid is bad at restaurants, places with sidewalk seating tend to be more forgiving when it comes to being noisy and dropping food on the ground. While a lot of folks go to dinner too late for us, barbecues that we can attend after his afternoon nap are great. If you’re willing to host something at your own house, you can really expand the possibilities. In theory, you can put the baby down for his afternoon nap right before people come over, allowing you a couple of adult-only hours. Of course, this doesn’t always go as planned. I hosted a gaming session where I was GMing (game-mastering) and inevitably Sprout decided that was the day he didn’t want to take an afternoon nap.

“But I can’t bring my kids to a bar and adults don’t want to go to Chuck E Cheese!”
Unfortunately, they don’t make neighborhood bars like they used to. Back in the day, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather brought my mom and aunt to the local joint where all their friends hung out. In light of this loss, there are a lot of places that can meet the needs of both adults and kids. Besides the aforementioned outdoor dining, perhaps a friend wouldn’t mind hanging out at a park where the kids can play on the playground. Or you can go to the mall altogether and make a stop at the children’s area. While the summer is quickly fading, a lot of outdoor movie series show awesome family-friendly films, like Frozen and Star Wars. Local events can be perfect too – the local county fair or Renaissance Festival can be very entertaining for everyone.

Now, all of this is not to say that new parents should be solely responsible for maintaining the friendship. We ask for patience and understanding from our child-less friends. We may be a little later than usual, we may have odd stains on our clothes, we will have limited schedules, and we may sometimes need to leave to deal with a child-related disaster, whether medical or behavioral. But taking all of that into consideration, we do still want to be friends with you.

Two is Sometimes Better than One

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

I never babysat as a kid, so taking care of someone else’s children is rather foreign to me. Nonetheless, I accepted the challenge when my friend suggested a baby swap between Sprout and their daughter. Basically, we’d babysit their four-month old one afternoon while they went out and they’d do the same for us a few weeks later. While I was happy for the offer of free babysitting, I was actually more pleased to have the opportunity to help them out. They’re moving out of the area soon and I wanted to give them some downtime, something already in short supply when you’re a new parent.

So two weekends ago, we were in charge of the care and feeding of not just one, but two kids. From our previous conversations, we knew their daughter was a much better sleeper than Sprout was at that age, able to nap in places other than someone’s arms. We also knew that she’s a pretty easy-going baby, but as 4-month-olds don’t have a lot of specific personality traits, not much else. They left us with milk, diapers, a few tidbits of advice, and well-wishes.

Even though we’ve been through this stage recently, it’s so easy to forget how much knowledge you lose and how fast kids change. I now feel bad mocking my parents (even though it was gentle) for not remembering certain things about babies. I was less than a year on and I already felt lost!

Not long after our friends left, we promptly remembered that barely-beyond newborns communicate everything through crying – loud, high-pitched crying. While Sprout’s vocabulary is still limited to “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Hi,” he has variations in his sounds and other ways to communicate. Even his cries vary, from an annoyed whine to a distressed wail. Although our friends said they could tell the difference between their daughter’s cries – short indicated being tired, long indicated hunger – we were at a total loss. When you hear your own kid constantly, you hear all of the little variations, but to us it sounded like one long waaaah.

We were also reminded that baby girls will definitively let you know when they need their diaper changed. In contrast, Sprout could be wet forever and not care. He’s only just now starting to communicate when he’s poopy. Usually, we just check him on a regular basis and watch his facial expressions. But our little visitor certainly let us know – loudly – when she needed to be changed. Although our friends had packed several diapers, we went through them quickly!

We also ran through her milk faster than anticipated. Our friend had packed three bottles, saying, “I think she’ll only drink two. If she drinks all three, call us and we’ll hurry back.” She drank all three by 5:30 pm, even though they weren’t due to be back until 7! On one hand, we didn’t want the baby to be hungry, but on the other we didn’t want to interrupt their dinner. To avoid rushing them too much but still let them know about the situate, we decided to wait until 6 to call.

Her sleep schedule turned out to be just as unpredictable as her eating. Sprout has had a specific nap schedule for months, so we’ve lost some familiarity with the randomness of near-newborn sleep. Much like me, Sprout would nap forever if we let him, but he would also be up all night – not an optimal situation. Even when Sprout slept at random times, he would only fall asleep nursing or on the bottle. In contrast, our friends’ baby didn’t typically fall asleep on the bottle, forcing us to guess when she was tired, as opposed to hungry. So my rocking and singing skills returned again as I struggled to remember the introduction to House at Pooh Corner.

But not everything was feeding and napping. The times when she was awake and not crying were quite delightful, as we watched the two kids interact. We pursue opportunities for Sprout to play with with other kids, but most of the time, they’re older than he is. He’s the youngest baby at our church and most of the kids at our neighborhood park are much older. This was the first time he’s interacted with a kid substantially younger than he is. At first, he was curious. We’ve already taught him how to be gentle when he touches others, so he wasn’t too rough. (And when he seemed to be going in that direction, we quickly separated them.) He seemed to realize that she’s smaller and more helpless than he is and didn’t expect much of her as a result. Chris and I have a theory that although toddlers see babies, they think of them more like moving toys than people. Sprout did get a little jealous when I was holding her at first, but was reassured as soon as Chris started playing with him. Once he investigated the situation and realized she couldn’t play with him, he got bored.

Taking care of both of the babies at the same time gave us a taste of what having two children would be like. While we could never have two kids so close in age unless we had twins, we do hope to have another kid while Sprout is still a toddler. His generally positive reaction was reassuring, even though his relationship with a sibling would obviously be different.

Looking after her also reminded me how diverse even the littlest kids are. Although the broad strokes of taking care of her were the same as they were with Sprout, the details, from diaper changing to sleep, were really different. Just like with him, we had to learn and adjust on the fly.

Lastly, this experience made me very glad that when I take maternity leave again that Chris will be at home with me. Besides it not being as boring, I can’t imagine taking care of a newborn and a toddler simultaneously (or even more challenging, newborn twins and a toddler like one of my friends has!). I may go back to work earlier than I did with Sprout, but at least those first few months will be easier. Having that second adult around will also allievate a lot of the potential sibling jealousy, as Chris could play with Sprout while I would be with the new baby.

I was glad to give my friends some time alone, but I was also quite content with giving her back. We have our hands plenty full with managing one kid at the time being!

Riding Along with Kidical Mass

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Last weekend, I led our second Kidical Mass Rockville ride and it went great! We started off at the Rockville Swim Center and wandered around the surrounding neighborhood. As a personal bonus, for the first time ever, Sprout smiled while he was in the trailer with his helmet on. Plus, he fell asleep part-way through the ride, meaning that he had least got a bit of a nap in.

Check out my post about the ride, along with a photo of the group, on the Kidical Mass Rockville Blog!

Guest Post: St. Francis, Love, and Letting Go

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I have a guest post up at my awesome church’s blog reflecting on the Saint Francis’ prayer and how it relates to parenting. Even though I’ve been saying this prayer every morning for years, I never quite understood the depth of it until I became a mom. Also, the post is illustrated by a really cool picture of St. Francis, my favorite saint.

Here’s the first two paragraphs as a preview…

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“Let me not so much seek to be consoled as to console / to be forgiven as to forgive / and to be loved as to love.”

While I repeat these words – part of the prayer colloquially known as Saint Francis’ prayer – every morning, they truly get put to the test at night. As the mother of a one-year old, I’ve gained a much deeper understanding of these words over the last 12 months. After rocking a newborn as I paced the house to catching snatches of sleep upright on the couch because it’s the only way my baby can get any himself, I now understand that as a parent, this prayer isn’t a request – it’s a rule.

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Read the rest at the Church in Bethesda blog!

Kidical Mass Rockville Hits the Road

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Since I got pregnant, I’ve been thinking about how I would carry my baby on my bike. Biking is such a big part of my life that I couldn’t imagine giving it up or not including my kid in it. My research on family biking led me to Kidical Mass, a nationwide movement to encourage families to bike together, especially for transportation. While all of my bike volunteer group’s rides welcome younger cyclists, the idea of a ride for little ones where we wouldn’t have to worry about slowing everyone else down was appealing. Plus, I wanted to push back against the idea that new parents need to get a minivan and be even more auto-dependent than ever. As I was extremely pregnant when I first found out about Kidical Mass, there was no way I could organize it that season. (The thought of a bicycle seat immediately postpartum is pretty horrifying.) But I committed to organize Rockville’s first series of Kidical Mass rides this summer. This past weekend, I finally made good on my promise and found out if Rockville is ready for family biking or not!

As the spring season approached, I got serious about planning the rides: picking dates, putting it in our town’s recreation guide, writing press releases, pitching blog posts, and posting it to as many social media outlets as possible. For our first ride, I decided to start at one of our community centers and ride to a local ice cream parlor and back. At only 1.5 miles each way using multi-use paths, residential streets and a short hop on a bike lane, I figured the route was low-key enough for even fairly small munchkins to participate.

Unfortunately, I was terrified that my suburb – which most people in the area know for a huge multi-lane state highway – just wasn’t going to have the interest. While we’re actually pretty bike-friendly (Bronze level), but most people don’t realize that. Plus, suburban parents have a stereotype of being tied to their cars and overprotective of their children. Lastly, I have a history of events with mixed results. Often the ones I work the hardest on organizing have the worst turnout, so I was nervous I was going to create all of this hype for nothing.

Then the Kidical Mass DC organizer pitched our story to a reporter at WTOP, the D.C. area’s major news radio station. After quite a bit of phone tag, we finally had our phone interview. While I tried to stay on my talking points as much as possible, good little communications person that I am, I think I still rambled a little. Catching the interview on Friday morning, I actually punched the air, even though she did chose one of my more inane and vaguely defensive quotes. (In response to a question about safety: “I bike more cautiously with my baby in a trailer and I’m a pretty cautious bicyclist anyway.” So much for good sound bites.)

After the reporter told me that the interview was going to air during the next morning’s drive time, the opposite fear struck me – what if we had too many people? What if I had a bunch of little kids on bikes whom I couldn’t keep together and safe? The response to my panicked email to my volunteer group didn’t allay my fears, as everyone was either traveling or leading other bikey activities. Chris said he could sweep (stay in the back of the group and keep everyone together), but with his relative lack of biking experience, I hated putting him in that position.

When I woke up the day of the ride, I thought, “Thank God the weather is cooperating.” The sky was blue, and the temperature was blessedly low for DC in June. The wind was a bit strong, but it provided some nice cooling power. We hustled to get Sprout, the snacks and our baby gear in the trailer so we would have plenty of time to pedal over to the community center. The fact that we had to skip Sprout’s morning nap provided me with one more reason to worry, as I didn’t want him crying while I was leading the ride! Despite the breeze, incredible weight of the trailer, a broken traffic light, and me jumping a gear, we managed to get there a few minutes early. I breathed a sigh of relief at that at small mercy.

My nerves began to calm as people showed up toting small children in trailers and on their own bikes. Overall, six families with 17 people in total showed up! While most of the kids were in trailers, there were 3 little ones on their own bikes, along with two older kids. Much to my relief, the leader of our sister ride Kidical Mass Gaithersburg showed up and was willing to sweep. I gave a brief safety talk, we took a group photo and then we were off!

Kidical Mass Rockville launch ride

Or least off the curb. I cycled into the community center’s parking lot, only to find out there was no curb cut back to the trail. With some effort, I hauled my bike and the trailer up to the trail while everyone waited for me. Not an auspicious start.

Then, we had a few abrupt drop-outs. Waiting for everyone to cross the road less than a quarter-mile into the ride, I noticed our sweep had arrived but our group was noticeably smaller. We actually lost two families! In one of the families, the dad was on a bikeshare bike and the two girls were older, so they may have decided the ride was too slow and going to take too long for their taste. The little girl with the other family kept saying before the ride that she was going to ride on the sidewalk, so the large road crossing may have scared her. The Gaithersburg Kidical Mass guy said that dropouts occasionally happen to them as well – people’s expectations don’t always match the ride, even when you describe it well.

Thankfully, the rest of the ride went much more smoothly. The two kids on their own bikes were a hoot. They were up front with me for much of the ride and pumped up the rather substantial hill. The little girl kept yelling, “These hills are going to make our legs soooo strong! Strong legs!” Indeed. The little boy was equally as enthusiastic, although a bit of a danger to himself. I had to remind him multiple times to stay behind me. He took that direction as literally as possible, riding so close that he almost ran into the back of the trailer a couple times. While it was frustrating, these rides are designed to teach kids how to ride safely on the road, so teaching him proper etiquette was important.

My favorite part of the ride was hearing both of the kids say, “This was awesome!” While they liked the ice cream, they actually seemed to enjoy the ride itself the most. Cultivating a love of bicycling is so rewarding; I was glad to be part of that joy.

Sprout did pretty well this time around too. He didn’t fuss in the trailer and enjoyed hanging out at the ice cream place’s patio. He actually fell asleep on the way home, his head tilted to the side, weighed down by the helmet. A bit uncomfortable most likely, but otherwise a good reward for a job well-done.

Join Me for the Launch of Kidical Mass Rockville!

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Are you a Metro DC local? Do you like biking? Do you have or know kids who like riding their own bikes or mooching effort off of adults on bikes? If so, I invite you to participate in the very first Rockville Kidical Mass ride this Saturday at 10 am at Thomas Farm Community Center in Rockville. I will be the Pied Piper leading kiddos and their families not to doom, but rather to the much more pleasant prospect of ice cream.

Unlike the community rides I’ve lead in the past, this one is designed very specifically to target families with little kids. The route is only 3 miles long with a stop in the middle. Kids of all ages and abilities are invited to participate and we will ride at the pace of the slowest rider. (Even if that’s very, very slow.)

Kidical Mass – yes, bike geeks, it’s a play off of the Critical Mass rides – is a nationwide movement to get families on bicycles for transportation and recreation. While most Kidical Mass rides are in cities, there’s an increasing number in suburban areas, including the D.C. Metro area. With D.C., Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Gaithersburg all hosting ones already, Rockville will bring the local total to six different regular rides.

I’ll be leading Kidical Mass rides in Rockville every second Saturday at 10 AM. To get more details on the other Rockville Kidical Mass rides throughout the summer, check out our blog. To find out about all of the other great community rides the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee is leading, check out our website, Facebook page, or Meetup Group.

Help make biking in Rockville cuter – join the Kidical Mass movement!