A Sipoeta stelenes butterfly at the Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit.
I haven’t done one of these in ages because of potty training and children not staying in their beds and babies and life, really. But I’ve still been reading and keeping my links, so I figured now was a good of a time as any to share them with you. This time it includes riding transit with kids, the biology of breastfeeding, learning through play, poking fun at Trump supporters, and adventure playgrounds in the U.S.!
Where’s Sprout?
I started a new job this week! I don’t talk about my professional life here much, but it’s a great opportunity to do science communication with some fantastic co-workers. Other than immersing myself in articles relating to my new position, I’ve been reading about family biking, pre-natal health, relationships, and dinosaurs.
My heart and eyelids are heavy tonight after so many events of the last few days. In addition, it was my last day at my current job, so there was a bit of melancholy as I cleared out my office. But I have to believe that we can find some beauty despite the storms of our society, just as the rain cleared on July 4 just in time for the fireworks. I think I need to read my own post again from a few weeks ago on maintaining hope. This week, I thought a lot about #BlackLivesMatter, feminism, and solutions to parenting challenges.
“The tree is my friend.”
For some reason, I’m watching Match Game hosted by Alec Baldwin right now. I blame Chris – he turned it on. In other news, I finished The Happiness Project, which I think could have referenced more research, but was otherwise interesting and had lots of inspirational ideas. And now, the articles for the week, on how to raise a kid who includes others in conversation, achieve work/life balance (or not), allow your kid to roam the neighborhood, mysterious ancient earthworks in Kazakhstan and more.
Chris liked his Father’s Day present!
You know, transitioning back to work with a three-year-old and infant is kind of hard! Who would have thought? While I now have my commute time on the train to draft posts, this transition has put a big dent in my editing and posting time. Nonetheless, here’s a rundown of some of the best articles I’ve read in the past few weeks.
Photo of the Week – Goslings!
I’ve been posting three times a week for the past few weeks, so I’ve got a whole backlog of articles! From sleep deprivation to nature and art making kids kinder, there’s a whole lot of good stuff here.
Photo of the week: A toad we rescued from the drain outside our basement window.
More late nights breastfeeding, more reading than ever. This week, I’m obsessed with how children learn, how cars affect how we structure society, and working moms.
Lego is sponsoring research? I’m usually against corporate-sponsored research, but saying that children should mainly learn through play until age 8 is pretty awesome.
Simplifying is one of my main goals of the year, so the idea of slow parenting is very appealing.
Scandanvian-style outdoor preschools are becoming more popular in the U.S. and U.K. Wish we could afford to send Sprout to one here!
Outside Magazine has been one of my favorite magazines for ages and they’re providing some excellent coverage of parenting in nature, including Richard Louv’s new book, raising brave girls, and (again!) why Sweden is awesome.
Joking with kids and engaging in pretend play encourages kids to be creative. Based on how Chris interacts with them, Sprout and Little Bird are going to be absurdly innovative.
9 Must Have Outdoor Toys to Keep Kids Engaged – so classic.
I love eating food from a variety of cultures, so it’s good to see that my love of curry could lead to Little Bird being less picky.
“I so often am shushing you, my firstborn, setting you aside to run to brother’s aid as he needs me for the umpteenth time. I barely get you anymore.” I’m seeing Sprout more than ever while I’m on maternity leave, but I’m really worried about this when I have to go back to work.
Amazing series of portraits of real working moms.
We’ve structured so much of our society around cars that it’s hard to see how it affects us on a daily basis. From how our children play to our everyday safety, it’s time to rethink their role.
The day-to-day work of serving others can be deeply unglamorous. Let’s do the dishes together anyway.
Gardening is good for both the earth and those tending it.
Good article to read before you visit pretty much any historical location in the South.
Van Jones, green jobs extraordinare, talks comics.
For more articles and photos, follow me on Twitter and Instagram!
Photo of the week. Dressed for jumping in puddles at the park with Sprout!
Another day with a newborn, another multiple hours spent reading. Ah well, it could be worse. Thank goodness for iPhones! So far, I’ve read Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods and N.K. Jemison’s Fifth Season (so good, so many horrible things that happen to children), along with a whole host of articles.
I hate the phrase “children are small, the dishes can wait.” For whom? The dish fairy? This article’s author agrees with me, especially in the haiku “The dishes can wait / They are only young once / I hope you like ants.”
All of this talk by Bernie Sanders about the wonderfulness of Scandinavia has just made me want to visit. Although I already knew a lot of it, this article on parenting in Sweden has just further upped my enthusiasm.
The AV Club is my go-to website for pop culture reviews. Not surprisingly, their Field Guide to Parenting series, starting with an overview of trains, is fantastic. The section on the ideology of Thomas and Friends is snort-tea-through-the-nose-worthy.
I’m a giant nerd who is married to another giant nerd who is a big superhero fan. So naturally, some of that fandom has rubbed off on me. This article on times Marvel has gotten it right with their female characters is pretty great, even if they leave out Squirrel Girl and the new Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
I’m an older millennial, right on the cusp between that much maligned generation and the Generation Xers (who were also maligned in their own time). As I’m not in my early 20s, a lot of the millennial trend articles just sound really weird to me. Which is why this series on Fusion really struck a chord, from the parody Every New York Times Millennial Trend Story to the one on millennials who are not white, upper-middle-class, gentrifiers.
Privilege, especially white privilege, is a tricky and sensitive subject to talk about. The ever-brilliant McSweeneys puts its own hilarious spin on the “invisible backpack” metaphor. The Daily Beast tackles the Mighty Whitey trope (oh, Eat, Pray, Love, how good and yet problematic you are) and this article on Patheos posits #BlackLivesMatter as a core concern of modern Christian theology.
As the daughter of a (now retired) schoolteacher, I am a huge believer in the importance of public education. So I’m really dismayed about the move towards charter schools, especially when they destroy the foundations of public schools like in Pennsylvania and in New Orleans post-hurricane Katrina.
The other big concern of mine in terms of schools is the focus on testing. Project-based learning seems to offer a lot of potential and this article on Edutopia has a great example of how the author worked with his son on a project to make a hospital for his dolls.
The mainstream environmental movement has been expanding in the past few years to really incorporate more social justice concerns, including racial discrimination. It can even include criminal justice, as this article from Grist about horrific conditions in New York’s Rikers Island prison shows.
For more articles and photos throughout the week, follow me on Twitter and Instagram!
Sunrise of the week. (Taken the day before Little Bird was born!)
This week, I was obsessed with constantly feeding my new baby! Thankfully, nursing a newborn for multiple hours a day plus burping means that I have an incredible amount of time to read. While I archive-trawled blogs when Sprout was born, I prepared a bit more this time. I downloaded multiple books and caught up on the many, many tabs open on my phone. So here’s just a sample of what I’ve been reading, from fun stuff to deeper articles.
“Walked a mile to nearest road.” Six words that broke the author’s heart when she adopted her son and will break yours too.
When things go drastically, horribly wrong, here is some excellent advice on how to parent during and after a crisis.
With a small child (and now two!), we hardly ever get to the movies. But when we really want to see one, we often go separately. Zootopia was one of those movies and it was totally worth it. This review from Vox is a great breakdown why it’s not just a fun movie, but important commentary on prejudice and intersectionality.
“Turning away is not an option for people who have committed to the spiritual practice of showing up…. Compassion is your pain in my heart and back out through my hands.”
As a woman who was recently pregnant, all of the laws criminalizing behavior while pregnant are really terrifying. Even though I would never take any non-prescribed drugs while pregnant, my heart went out to the women described in this Mother Jones article arrested under chemical-endangerment laws.
On a happier note, profiles of ex-convicts that received training from one of my favorite charities, DC Central Kitchen, and now cook in local restaurants.
A Prayer for Mr. Trump, the Rage-Maker Whom We Do Not Like Very Much, and Also for Us, Who Could Use a Little Wisdom and Some Kindness and the Reminder That Hope, Who’s Been Hiding, Is Not Gone. We could use a Little Help.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most compelling and thoughtful writers on race and breaks down how the justice system has failed black families.
How Oxfam is shaking up international development, from investing locally to changing global policy.
Today’s News from Ilana Wiles’ husband is one of the cleverest things I’ve seen in a long time.
Climate change and mosquito bites covered in a funny and depressingly informative open letter.
Writing emails to certain co-workers that lack reading comprehension is something I don’t miss while on maternity leave. I’d love to send this article to help them translate what I really mean.
This week, I was a little obsessed with the foibles of small children, the terror that is Donald Trump, smart growth, and black history.
Sprout has his baffling moments in terms of eating – he oddly turned down pasta the other night! – but he’s nothing on Designer Daddy’s kid, who’s managed to eat toenails, sleeves, bathwater, and 16 other things since the last time he ate a vegetable.
With a second kid coming, I’m concerned about being overwhelmed by the number of toys we have. My friend Heather at A Walking Mama, who has three kids, has some nifty tips for keeping toys manageable: Part I and Part II.
Because the weather has been so warm, we’ve been trying to get outside as much as possible. While it’s actually hard for us to stargaze because of the city lights, this article from the Children and Nature Network has some great tips about star watching with kids.
Donald Trump as President scares the crap out of me. Besides his policies, even his rhetoric is poisoning our schools and children’s perspectives (Washington Post).
But when I’m scared of something, I’d rather laugh at it rather than cower in the corner. Lunarbaboon’s cartoon makes me chuckle, but what really cracks me up is Sprout saying, “Donald Grump has all the garbage.” (Okay, yes, it’s definitely because I’ve let him watch this clip from Sesame Street multiple times. No less funny.)
One of the best weapons against hatred is celebrating both what makes us the same and what makes us different. While Black History Month was in February, I was catching up with reading a “lost” Martin Luther King Jr. speech from 1964 (Democracy Now). I also watched a showing of the great play The Meeting about an imagined meeting between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
How we design our cities has a huge effect on how we live. Requiring businesses install a certain amount of parking hurts everyone who doesn’t drive, including our neighbors with the lowest incomes (Washington Post). Momentum Magazine has a breakdown of the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking’s impressive benchmark report, with lots of information on who bikes and walks and where.
And A Letter to You reminds us all that we’re fabulous (Five Kids is a Lot of Kids).