A Terrific Twosome

May 30, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

It is considered a universal truth that watching two toddlers means “you have your hands full.” At the least, it’s chaos; at the worst, a total and utter cluster. But despite the prevailing wisdom, we actually had a great time babysitting for our friends’ three and a half year old (Z) with our almost two year old.

We aren’t strangers to either taking care of our friends’ kids or Sprout hanging out with Z in particular. We did the babysitting kid-swap before, looking after another couple’s infant last year. Z has been over to our house a number of times, playing with Sprout while his dad Gamemasters (GMs) our gaming group. However, this was different from other times he had been over both because his parents weren’t present and we had to put him to bed. So we weren’t entirely sure what to expect.

The night started auspiciously, with Sprout and Z playing well together. I suggested going over to the park – Sprout’s utterly favorite place in the world – but Z was extremely keen on heading down to our basement. As his dad said, “That means you have good stuff.” Good to know our toy choices pass the muster of a three year old. They played with our toy kitchen – the build-your-own pizza is very popular – and the slide. It helped that Sprout is now talking enough for Z to actually have conduct a bit of conversation with him, instead of just talking at him.

While watching the boys play was enjoyable, dinner was where we really got the show. Chris made spaghetti Bolognese, which is just spaghetti with fancy meat sauce. Sprout shoved the pasta in his mouth as fast as he could move it from the plate to his little face. In contrast, Z proclaimed it, “The most delicious pasta ever” and then proceeded to eat very little. Instead, he launched into an extended semi-monologue on a variety of topics of great interest to a toddler. They ranged from the presence of honeybees in our yard to robots in his bedroom to squirrels (in general) to whether our toilet worked like the one in his parents’ house. (My answer: “Yes, it works the same, although we don’t have a little potty.”) Sometimes he covered all of those topics in the same breath. I’ve taught kindergarten and am a bit of a scatterbrain myself and I’ve never heard such a variety of topics covered in a half-hour. It was a hoot. We tried to follow as best we could, but sometimes we just let him bring us along for the ride.

The best part of our dinner-time conversation was completely incomprehensible to us. Z said something we couldn’t understand, garbled by pasta in his mouth and a lack of enunciation. Sprout didn’t seem to be paying attention up until this point, focusing on inhaling as much pasta as possible. But right then, he looked up and burst out laughing hysterically. Z then laughed loudly and made a funny noise, which set Sprout off laughing again. This entire time, Chris and I were just looking blankly at each other trying to figure out what was going on. Then we joined in the laughing because adorable toddlers laughing about nothing is too cute not to.

Handling the two of them gave me a little preview of what it may be like if we have a second child. As an only and socially awkward child, I never had those “look at each other and start laughing for no reason” moments that you have spontaneously with other kids around your age. It was so joyful to see Z and Sprout share that, completely separate from whatever the adults were doing. While Sprout would be the older sibling in a potential future situation, I could see him sharing that kind of resonance with a brother or sister. Even if he never has a sibling, I hope he continues to have friends like Z that he can have those moments with.

In the end, everything went smoothly, even bedtime. While I can’t imagine that would always be true with two toddlers – it’s certainly not been with a single one – it was a relief to see that it’s at least occasionally possible.

Eight of the Best Games for Your Family Game Night

May 27, 2015December 17, 2017 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Eight of the Best Games for Family Game Night. (Photo: Covers of the games Caatan Junior, Ticket to Ride, Apples to Apples, Dixit and Quirkle)

Everyone has their terrible family game night story. From my sister-in-law as a kid throwing the Monopoly board at my husband (who probably cheated) to the game of Risk that never, ever ended, it’s easy to think that board games aren’t worth your time. But the problem isn’t family game night itself – it’s that most older games are just awful. In addition, most “educational” games for kids are badly designed.

Your family deserves better games! As a genuine board game geek that has spent many an hour playing the best and worst games out there, I’ve honed a good sense of what makes a great family game night. Here are eight games for family game night that are genuinely fun for everyone, from little kids to adults.

Continue reading →

Reading it Up in the Suburbs: The Gaithersburg Book Festival

May 21, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Hearing one of your favorite authors speak is one of the great joys of being a fan of authors who are still alive. For such purposes, we have the huge National Book Festival in D.C. Unfortunately, while it’s still attracting amazing authors, it hasn’t been nearly as appealing since it moved off the National Mall to the Convention Center. While it was easy to stand in the back of an outdoor tent and leave if Sprout got fussy, it’s much more difficult to be adaptable in a smallish, packed room. Fortunately, we’ve found a less glamorous but more inviting alternative – the Gaithersburg Book Festival. As Gaithersburg – the suburb just north of us – isn’t exactly known for its high culture or literary scene, I didn’t expect much. But my low expectations turned into pleasant surprise when we attended the Gaithersburg Book Festival last weekend.

Walking in, there were two very welcome things I noticed that the National Book Festival doesn’t have. The first was a gaggle of local food trucks serving a huge diversity of food. The National Book Festival has a couple of crummy tents selling boring tourist food like hot dogs and terrible pizza, so this was a big step up. We brought a picnic because we were trying to stay cheap, but I appreciated their presence.

The second was a table run by Book Crossing, a worldwide network of people who want to share and trade books with each other for free. Because I’m ridiculously susceptible to the lure of free books, I browsed the kids’ table. It doesn’t count if it’s for my son, right? I picked up a counting book with lovely nature photos (Counting on the Woods) and was moved to see that it was in honor of a little girl who had passed away. Reading her story on the family’s Facebook page , I was almost brought to tears. She was from suburban Virginia and died after getting hit by a car while riding her bike. As a family biking advocate and someone who wants the roads to be safe for everyone, I am both saddened by the circumstance and honored to be able to celebrate this little girl’s memory through this book.

Strolling through the Park that hosted the Festival, I was struck by how much larger it was than I expected. There were tents beyond tents, a sea of white points dotting the landscape. The children’s area was almost as large as the National Book Festival. While they didn’t have an entire Magic School Bus trailer or PBS tent, they did have Clifford the Big Red Dog, a whole tent of kids’ entertainment, and most importantly, a fenced playground. The tents were also a lot smaller, which made it much easier to hear and see the authors.

We wandered by the children’s entertainment tent just as they started a puppet show of Where the Wild Things Are. It was a very different set-up than I had ever seen – they used paper cut-outs of the characters, switching out the backdrops and lighting as the scenes changed. The puppetry was pretty simple, with the puppeteers wiggling around characters on sticks, but it was effective enough. Instead of having the characters speak, a narrator read the book, accompanied by music. Hilariously, the parts in the land of the Wild Things had an arrangement of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida as the background music! Not what I would have chosen, but its melodic darkness was surprisingly appropriate.

Next, we caught the ending of a talk by the author of Goatilocks and the Three Bears. The author recruited a few members of the audience to play the various parts in her book, including the three bears, the eponymous goat, and the house itself. As more than half of the “actors” were kids who didn’t quite know what was going on, it was pretty adorable. In the background, they showed the book’s illustrations, which involved said goat gobbling down not only Baby Bear’s porridge, but also his chair and bed!

Finally, the talk our family was waiting for arrived – the author and illustrator of Dragons Love Tacos! This book is so beloved that Sprout renamed Figment the Dragon to Taco because of it. The collaborators (Adam Rubin and Dan Salmieri) are a couple of youngish guys, close to Chris and my age. They joked that they knew what kids thought were funny not because they had kids but had never really grown up. (I admit that’s one reason I love reading to Sprout. At least the first time, most of his books are pretty awesome.) As an example, they mentioned that when they first met, one brought the other a taxidermied squirrel as a present, toting it around town the entire night. Anyone who has the guts to do that deserves some credit in my book.

They then offered us the first look anyone in the general public had at their new book to be released in September, Robosauce. Unlike Dragons Love Tacos, I immediately loved this book. I won’t ruin it, but it has a surprising and cool twist that makes it both unlike any children’s book I’ve ever seen and very much in the new tradition of using books as objects in ways that iPads can’t replicate. We’ll definitely be picking it up for Sprout when it comes out.

Adam Rubin and Dan Salmieri with a monster picture created from children's suggestions

This is our blurry photo, but the one on Dan Salmieri’s Instagram is much better.

To keep the energy up – an hour-long talk for kids is long – they played a game. They asked members of the audience to name different objects that could be body parts of a monster, from a monster’s hair to its ears to its feet. The kids came up with some very interesting answers, from microphones for a head to cupcakes for hands. The best one was a oil tanker car for a neck, which was promptly followed by a very loud, long train whistle – the park backs right up to the railroad. As the kids volunteered ideas, Salmieri drew a cobbled-together beast, which ended up looking rather scary-adorable.

To wrap up our time at the festival, we made a stop at the playground while Chris got Sprout’s book signed and then headed out via the book tent. We already own Dragons Love Tacos, but I wanted to buy Sprout a commemorative book from the festival. In celebration of spring and gardening, I picked up Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt. The Gaithersburg Book Festival tent also had three major advantages over the one at the National Book Festival. It was run by Politics and Prose, one of our very few local bookstores, whereas the National one is run by Barnes and Noble. It had a little kids’ corner with chalk and crayons, which was great while we were waiting for Chris to check out. Lastly, it had a program where you could buy a book for the Book Festival to donate to a needy family. We decided to share the Dragons Love Tacos love with another kid who might not have his or her own library at all.

While I didn’t know what the Book Festival was going to be like at first, I appreciated its geographical closeness to us (rather than having to haul all the way into D.C.), intimacy, and kid-friendliness. We’re very fortunate to have such a great celebration of books so nearby!

Gaining New Words Every Day

May 19, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

There’s a joke I tell about my own babyhood that although I started talking late, I’ve been making up for it ever since. At Sprout’s 18 month appointment, we thought he might be following the same path. He was a tiny bit behind on his verbal development – nothing to be concerned about, but significant enough to keep an eye on. My mom is a speech-language pathologist, so I knew if he needed an evaluation or services, I could get great advice and wasn’t worried. But it turns out we had nothing to be concerned about anyway. Lately, it looks like he’s closer to following Chris’s path, who was speaking in full sentences by his second birthday.

At the last doctor’s appointment, we realized that we weren’t entirely sure if he had reached the milestone or not because we hadn’t kept track particularly well. More importantly, we wouldn’t have any clue if he had reached the 2-year-old 100 word goal if we didn’t start some type of system. While some people do rather more elaborate methods (like this adorable “Word Wall”), we stuck with something simpler – a calendar. I took the free but beautiful calendar I recieved from the Nature Conservancy and started writing down every word he said independently (no repeating after us) on the day he said it. Although we could have just used a piece of paper, going slightly more complex was the perfect choice. Sprout really enjoys looking at the animal and landscape photographs, which themselves offer opportunities for introducing new words. He now can identify something on every page, from trees to water to monkeys.

While we were far from exact in writing down what word he said when, the calendar also offers us a way to look at patterns in his learning. We found that he tended to have “vocabulary explosions,” where he would suddenly start using 5 or 6 new words in a few days and then go back to a slower pace. It also helped us remember words that he used constantly for a while and fell out of use as he moved on to different ideas.

Besides timing, the most obvious patterns are in terms of subject matter – namely, his love of animals. In addition to the usual farm animals, he knows about different marine animals (sharks, fish, penguins, whales, octopus), flying animals (owls, bats, birds in general), insects (butterflies, or as he says it “flies,” bees), jungle and plains animals (lions that say “rowr,” monkeys, and giraffes). I think most of it comes from his books, the majority of which have animal characters. In addition, his cool wooden animal puzzles from Melissa and Doug have also helped reinforce those concepts. Other popular topics include body parts, household objects, and a few scattered verbs focused on how his body moves (jump, walk, march, hop).

Like most toddlers, he loves identifying everything he sees and knows the word for multiple times, especially cars, buses and birds. His joy at gaining knowledge and mastery over words is rather contagious.

In fact, we’ve actually stopped using the calendar in the last few weeks because he’s learning too many new words for us to keep track. He’s up to more than 200 and gaining new ones on a daily basis. While it’s no longer in active use, the calendar is a really nice (and compact) keepsake of this particularly exciting time.

With a solid foundation of single words, he’s started developing a larger vocabulary around concepts. He’s increasingly close to knowing the alphabet song, although he routinely skips letters. Hilariously, he recognizes when something is a letter, even when he has no idea which letter it is. He’ll go up to our Prius, which has the word Hybrid in raised letters near the door and say, “A…B…D…” He does the same thing with numbers. Occasionally when he’s babbling to himself instead of sleeping, he’ll count: “1…2…5….10.” It’s hard to both stifle my giggles (I don’t want to sound like I’m mocking him) and gently correct him while being encouraging.

He’s starting to link phrases together too, making it a little easier to have conversations. The other day, he said “Ow. Foot” to Chris. When Chris asked what happened, Sprout responded, “Hog. Sharp.” From that, Chris could figure out that he stepped on the dryer hedgehog (it replaces dryer sheets), which has sharp plastic spikes. Today, as he walked past the neighbors’ house, he said, “Dog. Scared.” They have a medium but very loud dog that barked at him the other day.

I know some people dread their kids learning to talk because it allows them to talk back. But I much prefer words – even sarcastic ones – to crying or whining. Plus, one of things that has always connected Chris and I is our love of good conversation. I hope that we can share that with him and have great things to discuss with each other in the years to come.

A Fine Whine

May 15, 2015October 15, 2022 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

A few months ago, the primary adjective I would have used to describe my son was “sweet.” While he’s still sweet most of the time, I have lately been periodically barraged by a cacophony of whining. I often wake up bleary, blinking to see a small person either yelling at me or just about to.

Lately, certain times of day are a series of efforts to hold off a meltdown. It had been mornings, which declined, only to be replaced by the return of the dreaded Bedtime and Middle of the Night Yelling. Sometimes I’m able to stave off the yammering by acknowledging his need promptly and responding in a reasonable period of time. I’m not going to drop everything – he needs to learn some patience – but I also want him to feel like I am listening. While less reliably effective than it had been, Dr. Harvey Karp’s Connect with Respect technique does help to an extent.

But some days, I just can’t help him. Sometimes it’s because I cannot under any circumstances figure out what the hell he wants. He’s up to more than 200 words, but that still leaves out a very large portion of the English language. This is an especially big barrier when he launches directly into whining with any prior indicator of need. I can’t parrot back what he wants if I can’t understand a word he’s saying. I’ve taken to looking him in the eye and telling him, “I can’t understand what you want. You need to use a different voice so I can understand you.” We’ve had mixed results. I think it works when he wants something specific and fails when he’s just randomly cranky, often under the influence of teething. Of course, it works the least at 4 AM, when neither of have any idea what we want except to go back to sleep.

Other times, we’re physically incapable of meeting his request, most often associated with the plea of “Up!!” Chris tried to explain to him recently that “No, you can’t go up into the tree to chase the squirrel.” We have a similar problem at the park, where he seems to believe that we have the ability to lift him up high enough to make a basket. As I’m simply not that tall and even the smallest basketball moves only inches from his fingers, it’s simply not practical. I lift him up into my shoulders, but that’s the best I can do.

Then there are other times that I simply won’t give him what he wants because it’s against our rules and values. We have zero tolerance for anything that purposely hurts another person, physically or mentally. Unfortunately, this sometimes conflicts with a toddler’s desire to have All the Things, All the Time, regardless of their actual owner. A few weeks ago, Chris had to physically extract our screaming toddler from the park for the first time because he stole someone else’s ball and refused to give it back. Thankfully, that’s been an isolated incident – so far.

Other times doing the action once is fine, but I don’t want to set a bad precedent. A few weeks ago, I allowed him to sit in my lap once while I was eating breakfast. For the next several days, he was obsessed with wanting to sit on my lap instead of his own chair. As I need my space and like eating my cereal without a small child’s fingers in it, I really didn’t want to make that part of my morning routine. Similarly, he often wants me to read to him in the morning, which I don’t have time to do and get to work at a reasonable hour. These are some of the toughest things because while he knows the schedule in general, he doesn’t understand context yet and is confused as to why sometimes some things are okay and other times they aren’t.

The worst part of the whining is that it’s incredibly emotionally draining. While the noise hurts my ears, the idea of it sets off my self-judgment. Even though I know he’s frustrated by the general unfairness of the world, the constant “Mamamamama” sure sounds like it’s condemning me. The third day of him screaming to sit on my lap, I actually started crying myself. Thank God his public meltdown was with Chris – I might have had one with him.

Thankfully, the whining is declining a little bit, as he starts to realize it isn’t very effective. I hope this self-control of ours is going to pay off soon because I might need to invest in earplugs otherwise.

Tour de Cookie is Good Enough for Me

May 13, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I am a big fan of food-based bicycle rides. Maybe it’s because I have fond childhood memories of biking to Lakeside Farms for apple cider donuts or along the Lake George bike trail for ice cream. Or maybe it’s because they combine two of my favorite things. Either way, the Tour de Cookie, which features 7 to 11 different cookie stands, depending on the route, is close to my ideal ride. Plus, it benefits a local group that connects abused and neglected children with needed services. Yummy desserts, biking and benefiting a good cause? A few months ago, I said, “Count me in yet again for this year!” Plus, I wasn’t the ride alone – my parents traveled down from upstate New York and I would be dragging Sprout in the bike trailer.

While I had done the Tour de Cookie previously, I was slightly nervous about my readiness level. While I was seven months pregnant the last time I did it, I wasn’t dragging a trailer with a nearly 30 pound kid. Even though I ride every day now, it’s only a mile each way to the Metro without kid-towing duties. In contrast, the Tour de Cookie is 12 miles, plus another four miles from my house to the starting line and back, for a total of 20. In addition to my own capacity, I was also a little paranoid about whether or not Sprout would be okay being in the trailer for that long. Sure, he loved the ride a few weeks back, but that was only 3 miles with a break in the middle. At least I wasn’t signed up for the 40 mile long route!

One executive decision that helped both of us was the choice for Chris to drive Sprout to the start and then home again after the ride. I still needed to drag the trailer those 8 miles, but it was around 30 pounds lighter. In addition, the section we rode back and forth on is bumpy and a glorified sidewalk at best, so I was very glad he wasn’t present.

Being a bike advocate for the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee, I couldn’t resist (or maybe get out of) volunteering in some way. Thankfully, I got the simplest job we had – the person pointing the way and cheering for people starting the ride.

From my viewpoint, I had a great perspective on the diversity of participating riders. The Washington Area Bicyclists’ Association’s Women and Bicycles group had a great turnout, with a bunch of women clad in their distinctive teal jerseys. I nearly yelped when I saw three people riding a triple tandem bicycle, something I didn’t even think existed. The family biking contingent was in full force, with tons of parents with trailers and kids on their own bikes for the short route. I wish I had Rockville Kidical Mass business cards to hand out.

My location also made a perfect meeting space. Earlier that morning, fellow blogger John (also known as Rootchopper) at a Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel tweeted that he was at the registration desk and – knowing I was going to be riding – was looking for me. A few tweets later, he walked up and introduced himself in person! Right off, he said, “I love your blog.” As I don’t have very many readers, it warmed my heart to know at least one fan (who isn’t my mom) truly enjoys it. (Plus, he said my kid is cute, so super bonus points there.) Because we’re bloggers, we obviously took a selfie. I was rocking the sweet neon ride marshall vest.

Once I made sure everyone knew where they were going and had been thoroughly cheered, it was time for our merry band to take off. Sprout tried to climb in the trailer without prompting and didn’t even fuss with his “bike hat.” My parents followed me like the world’s slowest peloton as we rode to the first stop at Thomas Farm Community Center. Even though it was first, it was probably my favorite cookie stop across the entire seven-stop ride. The Girl Scout troop running it made homemade versions of beloved Girl Scout cookies, including Tagalongs and Thin Mints. I tried to share a peanut butter one with Sprout, who wasn’t the most cooperative. At first, he only wanted the big piece. Then, once he accepted the smaller one, he just walked around holding it without even trying to eat it. The thought patterns of an almost two-year old continue to elude me.

The rest of the ride was a pleasant ramble around Rockville’s Millennium Trail, a bicycle beltway around the city. We got stuck behind a very large group of adults and kids who were far less familiar with the best practices of group riding (like passing on the left or riding in a line) than we would have preferred. That’s rather inevitable with a short, family-friendly ride like this though. My mom – who is used to a much quicker pace – said it was the most relaxed ride she had ever been on. Of course, she’s never been on one of our Kidical Mass rides! Sprout only whined twice, both times because his helmet fell in front of his eyes. Understandable, and a quick fix. He seemed to enjoy the whole thing, especially our second major stop, where he gobbled down a chocolate-heavy granola bar he shared with my mom. Multi-generational family cycling at its best. I enjoyed that stop too, as it was at the top of the biggest hill on the ride. Eventually, the movement of the trailer lulled him to sleep and he was snoozing by the finish line.

From cheering others on to the delicious cookies throughout the route, the Tour de Cookie was a great celebration of and for our local cycling community.

In (Belated) Honor of Mother’s Day

May 11, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Knowing I’m the mother of a small child, multiple people this morning asked me how my Mother’s Day went. I could definitively say that it was wonderful. For breakfast – not in bed, too many crumbs – Chris made french toast with farmers’ market strawberries. At church, my friend Teresa took Sprout to kids’ class for the first time and said he behaved fantastically. The little bit of marker on his shirt was very much worth it for the hand-made card. In the afternoon, we hiked the Rock Creek Trail, a paved path that runs 20 miles from the suburbs into the heart of D.C. We saw a thick black water snake, ducks, three white-tailed deer, fish, and plenty of squirrels. Sprout loved his perch up in the baby backpack. Instead of a hotel or restaurant brunch, we went to Taiwanese dim sum for dinner, where we got a ton of food for $30, including as many noodles as Sprout could shove into his mouth. It was a Mother’s Day very much suited for this particular mommy, without any of the commercial trappings but with all of the love I could imagine.

But as lovely as my day was, I know Mother’s Day can be incredibly painful for many women. Whether because they wanted to be mothers and could not; have lost children to physical illness, accidents, or broken relationships; or have no contact with their own mothers, this particular celebration can feel very exclusionary. That’s why I loved the Litany for Mother’s Day that we printed in our church bulletin yesterday. My friend Rev. Deb Vaughn, was guest preaching, and I thought it was incredibly sensitive of her to include it.

Even if you aren’t familiar with the particular stories of these Biblical figures, I think their experiences ring true to many people:

We remember Sarai who was taunted by others in the household because of her inability to have children.
All-encompassing God, we pray for those who feel excluded when we emphasis one kind of family as normal.

We remember Esther, who was adopted and raised by her cousin.
God who embraces us all, we pray for those who cannot be raised by their parents, for a short time or permanently.

We remember Jochebed, the mother of Moses, who placed him into a raft on the river.
Saving God, we pray for parents who struggle to raise their children in oppressive circumstances.

We remember Hannah, who loved her child so much she handed him over to another to raise.
Loving God, we pray for parents who have placed their child in another family.

We remember Naomi, who grieved the death of her sons.
God, who grieves with us, we pray for parents who mourn the death of a child.

We remember Ruth, who gave up her family to be family to another.
Inclusive God, we pray for those who choose to be family to those isolated by culture or language or distance.

We remember Elizabeth, who had a child in old age and we remember Mary, who had a child as a teenager.
Ageless God, we pray that as a community we accept people of varying life stages and responsibilities and relationships.

We remember Rachel, crying for her children.
God of justice and hope, we pray for those whose children are killed, and look to a time when children can live safely in their communities.

We remember Lois and Eunice, who taught Timothy faith by example.
Faithful God we pray for those who teach us faith by their lives, may we remember that we also teach about you in the way we live.

We remember other people, not named in the Scriptures, like the mother of the prodigal son.
Companion God, we pray for those who wait for a phone call or a visit, cut off from family and friends by distance and disagreement.

Nurturing God, we give thanks for those
who enrich our lives by their presence
who teach us about your abundant love
who encourage us to journey in faith.

I hope that no matter your circumstance in life, no matter if you are a parent or not, that you have or are able to find a family – whether biological or not – who loves you as mine does. That is my Mother’s Day hope and prayer for all people.

How to Introduce Books to Your Baby to Help Them Love Reading

May 8, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Text: "How to Introduce Books to Your Baby to Help Them Love Reading / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So" Photo: Four children's board books on a wooden table

“Where everyone is napping,” I read, as my baby crawled off my lap. Soon, he was across the room and out the door. With him gone, who was I reading to now? As cute as The Napping House is, it’s not the book I would pick for myself.

Babies are not easy audiences. Nonetheless, reading to them is essential. The American Pediatric Association appears to agree, with a recommendation to read to children – even babies – every day. While “every day” is tough, it’s still a good goal. But besides remembering to do so in a sleep-addled state, the idea of reading to a squirming baby can be intimating.

From my experience, here are a few tips for reading to very young children:

Continue reading →

Children’s Book Week: Bizarre Children’s Literature

May 6, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 12 Comments

Did you know this is Children’s Book Week? My posts this week are going to focus on reading to children and children’s books, from the weird to the patience-building.

There are some things you remember from childhood as odd, blurry phantoms, cloaked in a haze of nostalgia and strangeness. You always wonder if what you remember was less weird – or perhaps more! – than you recall, warped by a child’s view on the world. If you’re really lucky, some of those things are books. I had a book growing up like that about dogs that lived in a city like humans, a canine version of friends. The main character had a bulldog as a boss and moved to a little stone cottage in the woods at the end. These days, my Mom and I can find no trace of this book on the Internet, not helped by the fact that our best guess at the title is the rather obvious but most likely wrong Dog City. Perhaps due to the loss of this work of my childhood, my Mom appears committed to keeping Sprout’s bookshelf well-stocked with picture books that are just plain odd. Between my mom’s contributions and others, he’s starting to have quite the collection of surreal books. None of them are nearly so awful as the ones on this Cracked.com list, but I hope a few leave their fond, vague traces in memory.

Edamame and Edapapa: This book is about a mommy bean and a daddy bean with a pet sesame seed. The only things that distinguish them from each other is that the mommy bean (Edamame – say it out loud) has a pearl necklace and the daddy bean has a luxurious mustache. One day, a paper crane drops off a baby bean for them. The End. It’s short, it’s based on a very silly pun and it’s adorable. But anything that involves talking plants – especially ones that use phrases like “teeny weeny beany” – is inherently weird.

The Secret Life of Squirrels:This book tells the story of a “very unusual squirrel” that cooks on his grill, plays the piano, reads, and cleans his house more than we do ours. None of this would be that odd for children’s literature, except that the book is made up of photos of real squirrels interacting with tiny domestic tableaux. The author actually handcrafted little beds, chairs, bookshelves and ice cream stands, smeared peanut butter on them and took photos of squirrels when they came to investigate. It’s the sort of hobby that if it was your friend, you might suggest joining a Meetup group. But as the author now has a best-selling children’s book, what do I know?

Dragons Love Tacos: According to this book, dragons love tacos and parties. But not spicy salsa, because then they get indigestion and will burn your house down. What makes this one odd is how it blatantly and purposely ignores all cultural trappings around a renowned mythological creature, creating an entirely new take in only a couple of pages. Also, the fact that the kid actually has his house burn down is kind of shocking. The success of the kid’s dragon taco party also raises a lot of questions – How did he advertise this party? Where do dragons get their community calendars? Have dragons just been going to Taco Bell in disguise (like the animals in Little Dee) and we’be been missing it the whole time? While I thought this book was kind of dumb at first, I now respect how weirdly radical it is. Sprout has also given it his ultimate approval – Figment the Dragon has now been renamed “Taco.”

I Want my Hat Back / This is Not My Hat: It is very rare when a children’s book involves one character eating another, especially when the protagonist is the one doing the eating. In both these books, a top predator gets its hat stolen (a bear and a large fish respectively), finds the perpetrator, and then presumably eats them. While it’s possible there was a peaceful negotiation (as one hopeful child asked the author in a story he told at the National Book Festival, “What happened to the bunny?”), it seems extremely unlikely. Especially because the bear in I Want My Hat Back says, “What bunny. I would never eat a bunny.” Riiiight. Perhaps the most bizarre thing is that you totally feel like the thief deserves it, even (and especially) in the book where the narrator is the thief!

Any Maurice Sendak book besides Where the Wild Things Are: Where the Wild Things Are is odd by itself, but his other books make it look like Dick and Jane. When we were at the library, I flipped through some of his books and was frankly shocked – not offended, just surprised – at how bizarre they were. From full frontal nudity to children kidnapped by goblins to cartoon homeless people, his books mine the depths of dark innocence. Some of them have the same feel as the old fairy tales, with things that lurk in the woods and pose true dangers to children. I suspect they are an acquired taste for adults, so used to relatively simple ideas in children’s stories and not the surreal grotesque. I need to give them a second look, quite honestly.

What are your favorite weird children’s books?

Children’s Book Week: Passing Down my Beloved Books

May 4, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Did you know this is Children’s Book Week? My posts this week are going to focus on reading to children and children’s books, from the weird to the patience-building.

Saying that I am attached to my books is an understatement. I have two large Tupperware containers of books in my closet that I’ve owned since I was a child, ones that I either believed would be out of print or that I valued so deeply it pained me to get rid of them. But because I was a very precocious reader, very few of them are picture books. In fact, I have few distinct memories of reading picture books at all. This leaves me at a bit of a loss for now when it comes to passing on my beloved books to Sprout. Fortunately, there are a few that remained from my young childhood, mainly because my mom “borrowed” them for her classroom and brought them home when she retired. However, some are a bit different than I remember them.

Squiggly Wiggly’s Surprise: This was definitely the most hilariously disappointing of the bunch. Squiggly Wiggly is a worm (according to the book – he’s actually a caterpillar) that is represented by a little finger puppet that you push through holes in the book. However, his brown coloring and black rings make him look suspiciously like part of the male anatomy. Less funny but more unfortunate, Squiggly has some serious body image issues. While the story is ostensibly about him learning about different colors, most of it is actually him complaining that he’s drab and ugly, opining he could be something else. In the end, of course, he’s transformed into a beautiful butterfly. That’s kind of a crappy message though, as not everyone actually gets to become a butterfly. Squiggly should love himself for who he is. If you want caterpillar stories, stick with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Bialosky Goes Out and Bialosky Stays Home: In contrast, these books were a pleasant surprise. I faintly remembered the books that used photos of a teddy bear as pictures, but before re-reading them, wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about them. Bialosky is like Winnie the Pooh’s long lost cousin: he makes grand plans that go array, loves honey, and is “a bear of very little brain.” In Bialosky Goes Out, he spends so long deciding on where to go and what to bring on a walk that it starts pouring before he has the chance to leave. In Bialosky Stays Home, he attempts to make cookies, but “tests” so much of the batter via nibbling that’s there isn’t any left to bake! In both books, he responds to his dilemma with a shrug and declaration that he’ll do better next time. While they lack the moral ambiguity of Winnie the Pooh, he has an irresistible attitude even when his plans completely fail. I’m very glad my mom kept them – they seem to be out of print now.

The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash: This is by far my favorite handed-down book, a tale of subversive fun narrated by a hilarious little girl (Meg). It has a sense of unbridaled, unashamed chaos. It starts off with the main character greeting her mother – who wears a very 1970s outfit combining no fewer than 3 floral patterns – after a trip to the farm. In the course of telling her mom about the trip, we find out that not only did a bale of hay fall on a cow, but that pigs ate the students’ lunches, motivated by the kids throwing their corn, due to the students running out of eggs to throw, all precipitated by Jimmy bringing his pet boa constrictor into the hen house. And the narrative – or Meg’s mom – doesn’t judge the kids at all for this behavior. Meg’s mom acts surprised, but far less than I suspect I’d be in the same circumstance. In fact, it’s very clear that Meg is a key instigator in it all of it – while she didn’t start it, the scene in the henhouse shows her with a full armful of eggs, ready to chuck at her classmates. The other thing I love is the fact the protagonist is female. Not only are girls underreprestened in children’s literature, but they tend to either fit into two stereotypes – full-on tomboys or very pink, very conventionally feminine girls. Meg and her fellow female classmates are neither. They all wear cute 1980s style dresses and skirts to the farm, but participate in the chaos as much – or more than – the boys. When Meg comes home, she changes into a car racing costume to pilot a homebuilt racecar with Jimmy (owner of the boa constrictor) and his new pet pig. But the best part is her non-plussed reaction to the day’s events -“I suppose it was exciting if you’re the kind of kid who likes class trips to the farm.”

A Very Young Dancer: I haven’t given this book to Sprout yet, as it’s rather text-heavy. Nonetheless, I look forward to reading it with him. It follows a young ballet dancer training in the School of American Ballet in New York and what she has to do before the big performance. Because my mom took me to the New York City Ballet every year (we lived near its summer home), I was a little obsessed with ballerinas as a kid. While I can’t force him to like anything, I want Sprout to be able to appreciate dance and theater, especially because they are often seen as “girly” interests. I hope this book can give him some insight into the hard work, athleticism, and beauty that goes into dance. Unfortunately, he won’t even be the second kid to use it. A little boy at my mom’s school was interested in dance and I gave her permission to take it to school. He then drew on it with crayon. At least I know it was loved.

What were your favorite books growing up? Did you have the chance to pass any of them on to your kids or kids you know?

We'll Eat You Up – We Love You So

The Adventures of a Mom Just Trying to Make a Difference