What I Want to Teach my Kid About Nature

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Recently, I read two almost antithetical essays about the value and meaning of nature, one in Sierra Magazine and one by an unschooling advocate. While the Sierra Club president went old-school in his defense of wilderness and the need to preserve it, the unschooler said that not only is there no such thing as wilderness, there’s hardly such a thing as nature. As an environmental communicator, I’ve thought a lot about this subject. I also know that I want to pass on a love of the outdoors and ecological values on to my son.

Considering both articles’ points of view, here’s what I want to teach Sprout while we’re out in nature:

1) Nature is beautiful – and so are a lot of other things.
I’m a Christian, so I believe that God shaped the natural world, albeit through evolutionary processes. Personally, I see His/Her fingerprints on every tree leaf and ocean wave. Likewise, I believe many human-made things are beautiful too, from a hand-crafted quilt to a well-planned streetscape. But saying they’re the same thing undermines the uniqueness of each, undervaluing both the complexity of biology and the human eye for artistry.

2) Not everything is nature, but nature can be found in the unlikeliest of places.
Sure, your plastic dinosaur may be made of oil, which was once natural (and even organic, going with the biological definition), but it isn’t nature. Neither is a city sidewalk, as useful as it is. But you can find nature even in places dominated by people – in weeds fuflilling their evolutionary duty of recolonizing disturbed places, hawks nesting in tall buildings, trees rising from city streets, insects pretty much everywhere. Finding and appreciating those places and creatures can help you remember that people are never truly alone – other species are trying to make their way as well.

3) Both Wildness and Wilderness are valuable.
Unlike the popular belief that Thoreau was referring to wilderness, the actual quote is “In Wildness is the preservation of the world.” To me, wildness is that fighting spirit of survival independent of humans that guides evolution and ecological relationships. Even non-living objects maintain their strength and momentum (albeit by physics, not consciousness), with rivers cutting through rock if ypu give them enough time. The wilderness is where that wildness is most evident and human interference is minimal. (With global environmental issues, there is no such thing as a complete lack of intervention, and even in pre-industrialized times, it was very rare) As people, we tend to be preoccupied with our own species, both as individuals and society. Observing wildness on the small scale and wilderness in the large one helps us see the bigger picture, both in terms of geographic and time scales. Comprehending the size of a redwood or understanding the age of a Galapogus turtle puts our concerns into perspective.

4) Nature is dangerous. But instead of being afraid of it, we should be prepared.
Because of that wildness, nature’s citizens don’t care about us. The Disney version of nature is about as real as the Disney version of Paris. While we control nature in many places and ways, it’s never truly tamed. There are some places I find too risky – I’ve never been interested in mountaineering – but you can experience most wild places with a reasonable level of safety as long as you’re smart about it. Being prepared is a good motto for everyone, not just Boy scouts.

5) Everything is interconnected, but also has value on its own.
My undergrad degree specialized in ecology, so I completely appreciagte the vast complexity of the food web and every other type of ecological interaction. But as important as keystone species are, it’s also worth appreciating each plant and animal’s incredible coolness. I’m a big fan of weird bugs and funky plants, even the ones that aren’t big, beautiful, or ecological building blocks.

6) We will never not have an impact. But there are ways we can mimic and work with nature to minimize the negative impact or even have a positive one. There are way too many humans to eliminate our impact, unless someone pulls a Crake (from an excellent series by Margaret Atwood) and unleashes a worldwide virus. But by mimicking and learning from nature’s patterns, we can find new ways to work within ecological systems instead of against them. This is why I love the permaculture movement – it takes as a given that we can combine ecological principles with agriculture to get what both we and the ecosystem needs. The sustainability movement has picked up the ball on this one, helping us better understand how we can build our cities, food system, and transportation networks, ideally in ways that are both environmentally and economically just.

7) Because all humans are part of a larger ecosystem, human health and well-being is tied to those ecosystems’ health.
Even if you don’t give a whit about polar bears or whales, environmental issues are fundamentally human issues. From air pollution to clean water to climate change, our world’s most vulnerable folks are the most negatively affected by environmental problems. They get stuck with dealing with respiratory diseases, high levels of mercury from coal plants, and intensified natural disasters from climate change, because of our unsustainable policies.

8) Just as we can be healed when we’re sick, so can many ecosystems.
While wilderness is wonderful, one of the big problems with the original movement was that it was just about preserving “untouched” places and didn’t have anything to say about places people actually lived. Too much policy treated polluted places like Edward Abbey claims to have – as if you could just litter in them because they were already ruined anyway. Fortunately, thinking has shifted away from this, leading to clean-ups of the Chesapeake Bay, the decanalization of rivers and streams, and the re-wilding of European forests.

9) We have a responsibility to each other to respect and care for those around us, no matter their species.
That really what this whole list comes down to. As many challenges as we face, we as humans are very powerful. And to quote good old Uncle Ben from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Along the Stream and Through the Woods: Hiking at Croydon Creek Nature Center

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

For month, I had been excited to bring Sprout on his first camping trip. While it didn’t work out as planned, we’re lucky to have some great natural areas nearby.

I don’t love every aspect of camping – in particular how sore my back gets – but I do love all of the clichéd stuff: campfires, marshmellows, hiking, star-gazing. When I was a kid, my family did some tent camping, but my most vivid memories were of our old pop-up camper, listening to the rain hit the roof and sound like macaroni boiling. Later on, I went on group backcountry trips, where we hiked and canoed through the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Although Sprout is too young to remember or fully appreciate these pleasures yet, I want to cultivate this foundational love of nature that comes from regular exposure. (This article from Treehugger has several more reasons to bring kids camping.)

So we got ready for the trip, making reservations at Shenandoah National Park, picking which trails we wanted to tackle, reading The Down and Dirty Guide to Camping with Your Kids cover to cover, and gearing up at REI.

But the weather had other plans. The forecast predicted highs in the 60s and a 50-70 percent chance of thunderstorms all weekend. The combination of rain, potential lightning and chilly temperatures posed the double threat of being dangerous as well as uncomfortable. Packing up a sopping wet tent while looking after an exhausted toddler, possibly while it thunders, sounded like a special circle of hell. So much to my disappointment, we decided not to go.

Still wanting to get in some outdoors time, we headed over to our local nature center on Saturday morning. They have some short trails through the adjacent forest that looked simple on the map. Reading the nature center’s directions that hikers could call if they got lost, I laughed, “How could you get lost? It’s a couple of loops!” Oh, ye of little sense. Of course, we got lost. Not for long, but we did ramble down a trail that wasn’t maintained and not on the map. One thing the outdoors will quickly teach Sprout is that his parents aren’t perfect and shouldn’t be automatically trusted to know where we’re going. I hope he’s better with a map and compass than I am!

Despite the nearness to an urban environment, we had a lovely walk. A stream wound through the forest, with rocks creating riffles and waterfalls. Clusters of oyster mushrooms sprouted on downed logs. Woodpeckers knocked away at the trees, hunting for bugs. We spotted one’s bright red spot as he flew on the wing and a less-flashy female going about her business on a tree. A young buck with just the beginnings of antlers grazed across a stream from us, then bounded over and started following us. Once it was clear we posed no threat, he continued up the steep hill leading away from the water.

All the while, Sprout looked and listened, content from his perch in the hiking backpack. I think he missed many of the things we thought were interesting – the birds, the deer – but he has his own priorities.

After we wrapped up our hike, we stopped in the center itself, which has a number of live animals. Sprout was especially fascinated by the turtles, watching them swim in their tanks through the glass.

Our little pre-lunch outing couldn’t compare to a full camping trip in a National Park. But it did quench my thirst a little for a hike and reminded me how lucky we are to have some great parks nearby.

You Know You’re a Sleep Deprived Parent When…

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

My son is not what you would call a good sleeper. He’s far from the worst, thank God, but I’ve spent a fair number of hours in his room in the middle of the night. My night vision has gotten substantially better over the last year from practice. I scowl at those lucky bastards who say, “My child slept through the night at six weeks.” At 13 months old, we still consider it a good night when he wakes up once and falls back asleep within 10 minutes. So I know of which I speak when I talk about lacking sleep. In fact, every single one of these has happened to me!

You know you’re a sleep-deprived parent when:

  • You dream about not being able to sleep.
  • You sleep more soundly on the train into work than in your own bed.
  • You consider it a major accomplishment to have only a single caffeinated beverage during the day.
  • You know how to (kind of) sleep sitting up on the couch with a toddler sprawled out on you.
  • You find it hard to sleep without white noise because you’re so used to hearing it over the baby monitor.
  • You can apply oral-gel with your eyes closed – literally.
  • You have a justified fear of falling asleep on your feet and toppling over.
  • Sleeping until 8 am sounds scandalously luxurious.
  • 4 am seems like a perfectly normal time to be awake.
  • You are just So Damn Tired!

The End of a Nursing Era

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Breastfeeding my baby ended on Saturday, quietly and with no drama except a few sad smiles from me.

I didn’t plan to doextended breastfeeding and certainly didn’t want to draw it out to the point where Sprout could clearly ask for milk. While I respect every woman’s right to make those decisions for herself, the idea of doing it myself freaks me out a little. Sharing my body with my baby who needed it for his main source of nutrition was fine, but I definitely didn’t want a kid (albeit a little one) who can speak nursing essentially for comfort. But I also didn’t want to go cold turkey, which would be painful to me physically and Sprout emotionally.

Once I reached my one year goal, I started the process of weaning. First, I cut out one pumping session each week, which I was more than happy to say goodbye to. Getting back the time and headspace that I had devoted to pumping was definitely the best part of this process. Because I was producing less, Chris started giving him bottles on weekends (in addition to weekdays) to supplement my nursing. I tried to give him a bottle and he did not take kindly to it, throwing it across the room.

Once I stopped pumping, my morning and nighttime supply also dwindled. As he wasn’t getting enough from me to last through the night without waking up hungry, Chris also took the final leg of the bedtime routine to feed him a bottle. Spout also didn’t seem to protest Daddy putting him to bed as much he did me, since he saw him all day and wasn’t as disappointed about not being able to play with him.

Finally, there were just two feedings left – when Sprout woke up and right before he went to bed, special times for us. As I knew these would be the hardest, I gave myself another week before tackling them, to make the transition as smooth as possible. Also, possibly, to drag the process out a little bit longer. As A Benediction for Nursing Moms says, we both mourn and rejoice at the beauty of what we’re leaving behind.

As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about in terms of Sprout being traumatized. He actually became rather ambivalent about nursing. He would latch on when offered, but would only stay on for a few minutes. Rather than rejecting me (which he’s done before), he just seemed apathetic. If he had the social sophistication, I would say he was doing it out of a sense of obligation.

In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice when I cut out the morning feeding. Unlike the first time I offered the bottle, he accepted it readily, happy to be able to drink a lot of milk, fast. He even continued to play with my hair, something he always did while nursing.

I had planned to wait a full week and a half before stopping the evening feeding, but moved the calendar forward because of his lack of enthusiasm. I purposely chose the last night as a quiet one, with Chris at the movies and me putting Sprout to bed by myself. Of all the milestones, this was one I actually controlled and I wanted to give it the focus it deserved. I felt a bit sad, knowing that this would be the last time we shared this special bond. But I didn’t cry. Instead, I just watched him with special attention, lingering on the look in his eyes. When he finished, I hugged him, kissed him, and offered him a full bottle, the transition complete.

While so many things with him becoming a toddler are loud, the end of nursing was hushed, a gentle kiss goodnight to his babyhood.

To Love is to Listen

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

I have a confession to make – I’m a terrible listener. I like learning about other people, but I enjoy talking about myself even more. When something comes to mind, I say it far too often, even if someone else is in the middle of talking about something else entirely. (This post describes me perfectly.) My filter has improved over the years, but it’s something I’ve literally worked on for decades and I’m only 31 years old. So among my many fears of becoming a parent, not being a good enough listener was way up there.

Recently, I was reminded of how far I have to go upon reading some co-workers’ evaluations of me. They did say a lot of good things, but it was very clear that I could do more to listen and consider other people’s perspectives. To me, the starkest sign was that I said that I try to genuinely listen to others, while my co-workers said I sometimes just pretend to listen. Unfortunately, both of them are true – even though I try to listen, I still fail at it too often.

While this has some implications for my career, it was even more of a wake-up call for my parenting. You can suck at listening and still be a good employee, but you can’t be a good parent. As Sprout communicates more and starts speaking, my listening skills are only going to increase in importance.

For one, listening well is one of the best ways I can respect my son. Our society undermines children’s perspectives and feelings, telling them that they should be this way because authority says so or this way because it’s trendy. Not listening to children or perhaps worse, pretending to listen and then steamrolling them shows kids that they aren’t valued. And when parents don’t respect kids, they don’t receive respect back. Plus, if kids aren’t respected at home, they try to find from other places, many of which aren’t healthy. In fact, three of my favorite parenting resources really focus on how good listening connects to respect. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk has some phenomenal examples of ghonest active listening, Dr. Karp’s Happiest Toddler on the Block gives tips on how to listen when your kid is barely speaking, and this video talks about how listening is related to teaching the meaning of consent.

In addition to respecting my son, I want to be a role model for him. If he takes after his dad, he’ll already have a head start, but I still want to set a good example. As the consent video points out, if we wait until kids are teenagers to teach about consent, it’s too late. Consent is fundamentally about respecting other people’s preferences and boundaries, which we learn through good listening. Learning how to listen well is probably one of the best life skills I can pass on to Sprout.

Fortunately, becoming a mother has already set me down a path for improvement. The How to Listen book made me aware of a lot of tendencies I hadn’t even realized, like giving advice when people just want someone to listen. It also helped me realize that saying very little while actively showing that you’re paying attention can truly draw people out.

At the time, Sprout wasn’t communicating much beyond crying, so I practiced on our neighbors’ kids instead. Coming home from work, I ran into a couple of them coming back from the park. One of them started telling me extensively about his coin collection, declaring that he was going to invest in silver because “it was low and expected to climb.” At the same time, the other kid randomly proclaimed that “you can’t trust anyone.” When I asked, “Hmmm. Why do you say that?” he explained that someone he thought was cool called someone else gay and you shouldn’t do that. I tipped my hand a little by commenting, “But it’s okay for people to love whomever they want” and agreeing that it shouldn’t be used as a slur. In the less than 5 minutes I walked with them I learned so much about their lives by just listening and respecting what they had to say.

As Sprout still doesn’t have many vocabulary words, listening to him now involves carefully figuring out his needs by watching him. I can then vocalize what he wants to communicate but doesn’t have the language skills to do so. (This especially important considering our half-assed at best efforts at teaching him sign language.) Figuring out what he’s “saying” forces me to take his needs seriously, rather than brush them off as whining. It’s worked pretty well, calming him and helping him demonstrate more patience than I think he would otherwise.

My relationship with him has also helped lay the foundation for better listening skills by fundamentally changing how my brain works. One of the main reasons I’m such a bad listener is because I find it very hard to shut off my internal monologue. You shouldn’t think about what you’re going to say while someone else is talking, but my brain will be four paragraphs ahead if I let it. It takes a serious conscious effort for me to focus. Fortunately, this clarity of thought is something I find easier to achieve with Sprout than anyone else. Since I’ve returned to work, I’ve tried hard to make our time together on weekdays special without outside thoughts crowding it. As he had even less to say at the time, I learned to appreciate just watching him and enjoying his company. Now, I can sit on the lawn and watch him play in the grass far longer than I would have imagined before becoming a parent.

Parenting exposes your biggest strengths and weaknesses. As I face mine head-on with honesty, I find that the growth to become a better parent is making me a better wife, daughter, friend, co-worker and neighbor as well.

Are there any skills you’ve felt compelled to improve on as a parent?

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It Could Be Gone

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

As a kid, my mom always taught me that I was extremely lucky to have the advantages I had and to be grateful for them. I don’t know if she ever mentioned the word privilege, but she certainly communicated the concept. (For folks not familiar with privilege and the issues associated with it, John Scalzi’s Lowest Difficulty Setting and Being Poor, as well as this comic on intersectionality are a good introduction.) While a stupid mistake I made two years ago hit me over the head with my privelege at the time, a total accident recently did the same thing, reminding me of how fragile financial and social stability really is.

A few weeks ago, Chris started complaining about a toothache. Finally, it got so bad that as much as he hates going to the dentist, he called and was able to get in on the same day. Our church pastor had previously mentioned he was willing to look after Sprout, so Chris was able to rely on him for childcare. As it turned out, it was very fortunate that Chris didn’t bring Sprout to the appointment. While Sprout was watching cartoons and playing with our pastor’s mutt, Chris was undergoing an emergency root canal! The infection was so bad that the dentist said he had to get the surgery that day.

Of course, that appointment wasn’t the end of it – it never is with dentistry. As Chris needed a check-up appointment the next Thursday, I took time off for childcare duties and then worked from home the rest of the day. Chris then needed a second follow-up to fit the crown. As I had just taken time off work, was going to be out of the office at the end of the week, and the appointment was on extremely short notice, I really didn’t want to call in. Unfortunately, our pastor, along with everyone else from church who possibly could have looked after the kid, was traveling. Fortunately, my Mom was kind enough to travel all of the way down from upstate New York to D.C. Even though she’s retired (congrats, Mom!), it’s quite a haul to make on short notice.

Fortunately, everything went well. Mom got to see Sprout walking all over the place, they had some Nana-Sprout alone time, we cleaned out the guest bedroom, I didn’t take off work and Chris was able to get his crown put in. Even if my mom hadn’t driven down, I probably could have called in sick and it would have been fine.

But this happy ending (or as happy as a root canal can be), depended on a number of social and economic privileges Chris and I take for granted. If just one of these was missing, we could have had Very Big Problems. For example:
– If our pastor wasn’t able to take care of Sprout the first time, Chris wouldn’t have been able to get the root canal. By the time he found out he needed it, I wouldn’t have been able to come home before the oral surgeon closed for the day. If he didn’t get the root canal, it’s likely the infection would spread to other parts of his mouth or even beyond, which can be deadly.
– If we didn’t have dental insurance, Chris also couldn’t have had the root canal, with all of the attendant medical issues. Even with insurance, it’s likely that if we were tight on money he wouldn’t have been able to get it. Our insurance only covered a third of it (dental insurance is the worst, except compared to not having it), leaving us with a $1300 bill. In other circumstances, he would have had to choose between falling behind on a bill or him not getting the procedure.
– If he had the root canal, we might not have been able to afford the crown, which was another $500. Without the crown, the canal would be exposed, making it more likely to become reinfected or be vulnerable to other damage.
– Even if we had all of the money set, there was the issue of childcare for both of the follow-up appointments. Luckily, I have a job where I can take a few hours leave on relatively short notice and my mom is awesome. But if I had a service job, taking that time off would have meant that I’d miss a day or two of pay at best or at worst, be fired.

When everything is going well, it’s easy to be frustrated by “First World Problems” like “filled up on bread, didn’t leave any room for tiramisu” to quote Weird Al. In contrast, times of crisis – even minor ones – are when I really understand how lucky I am and how little I really had to do with that. For us, Chris’s dental problems were expensive and painful, but ultimately annoying. But as Scalzi says, “Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.” I support universal health and childcare for everyone because if just a few things had been different, we could have ended up with life-changing consequences.

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!

I Would Walk Five Hundred Feet

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

I am all about allowing Sprout to develop at his own pace without pushing him. But on the last few weeks, that pace has picked up significantly. This week, Sprout truly started walking!

He first got on the move at around 7 months, when he started scooting backwards. While I thought it would be a short phase – surely he would get bored with going backwards – he didn’t seem to mind.

In fact, it took him almost two months before moving forwards appeared to occur to him. One day, something just clicked – Sprout got his hands and legs coordinated and was on his way. Once he started, there was hardly a learning curve. It was as if he had been practicing in private. Right around the same time, he started pulling up on everything he could get his hands on – the couch, the coffee table, the curtains, our pants, my hair (Ouch – I am not Rapunzel.).

Following the same pattern, he crawled and pulled up on things for a couple of months, showing little interest in walking until near his first birthday. He “cruised” by hanging on to furniture quite well, but didn’t try to bridge gaps he couldn’t reach across or stand on his own. He would walk from place to place if we helped him, but he didn’t seem that interested in it.

But then, about a month and a half ago, walking with our help was all he wanted to do. He’d sit on the floor and raise up his hand, indicating that he wanted a finger or two to grab onto. Once anchored, he would twist his leg out from under him, place one foot down, and then squirm a bit to get the other one in place. Soon enough, he was so solid with our help that he was walking both inside and outside, over all sorts of surfaces. Playing with any his toys paled in comparison to walking! Chris said that some days, his back started to give out from having to lean over so much.

Despite his new-found love, Sprout was totally uninterested in walking independently for several weeks. Just over two weeks ago, he walked for the first time on his own after we let go of his hand. But even then, he was very hesitant. He would only take “steps” if Chris or I were very close by with open arms.

Suddenly at church last week, he decided he had quite enough practice and it was time to strike off on his own. He was walking all over the place, now unafraid. While he still didn’t like falling, he could walk well enough on his own to actually get somewhere without tumbling every few steps.

Since then, he’s been practicing his skills every chance he gets. He still likes holding mommy or daddy’s hand, but lets go as often as not. Sometimes when he’s walking on his own, he keeps his right hand in the air, steadying himself with our virtual support. He was even chasing a little girl on the lawn at our Town Square yesterday afternoon. She looked more disappointed than he did when he fell, circling back and holding out her arms to help him get up.

While he falls very little considering how recently he started walking, it’s still a lot compared to an adult. His reaction really varies, ranging from not caring at all to wailing immediately. (We’ve already had some dramatic ones.) When he does seem distraught post-fall, describing his feelings for him (“Oh, that hurt to fall down, falling down is scary.”), a technique from The Happiest Toddler on the Block, has actually helped quite a bit. After a brief whine, he’s usually satisfied and waves his hands to request help getting up.

Although he can’t do them on his own yet, he’s obsessed with steps, both crawling and walking up them. On our way to the playground yesterday, he spent so long stepping on and off of the sidewalk curb that the kids that had been playing there left by the time we arrived. When we were in Peru, I joked that the Incas discovered the stair and said, “Yes, that’s what we will build our empire on.” I despise climbing stairs, but he would have fit right in.

Now he’s intently focused on his next skill – climbing. Before he started walking independently, he actually showed more interest in trying to climb – lifting his knees up in the air and trying to get footholds – than walking. In fact, he climbed up to the couch using my leg as a step-stool before he took his first steps.

For big steps or climbing up the rocks in our Town Square, he holds on to both my hands and lifts his foot up above his waist. If we don’t shift his weight for him, he’ll put all of his weight on our hands, making him near-perpendicular to whatever he’s climbing. He doesn’t seem to mind – he must have it in his blood from me rock-climbing while he was in-utero.

I’m both proud of and nervous about his passion for climbing. While walking is a big deal, he can’t really access any household items that he couldn’t previously. But once he starts climbing – especially if he progresses as quickly as he has with the other skills – we’re doomed.

Now, Sprout is definitively a toddler – there’s no denying it. I love walking with him now, despite the repetition, and look forward to walking all sorts of places with him in the future.

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!

Firsts for the Fourth

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

While America celebrated Independence Day over the July 4th weekend, we celebrated a number of firsts with Sprout.

My in-laws visited for the holiday, eager to spend time with Sprout before our August trip with them. They saw the trip as a bit of a “practice run” for Disney, testing out how he’d do with a variety of new experiences.

The first was staying up far past his bedtime to watch fireworks. He had actually seen fireworks before, but he was only two weeks old at the time. Then, we couldn’t bring him anywhere crowded because he hadn’t received his vaccines yet and I couldn’t muster much effort anyway in my sleep-addled state. So we just walked over to a pedestrian bridge less than half a mile away to see the town’s show half-blocked by buildings.

In contrast, this year we trekked up to lovely Frederick, Maryland, which hosts a huge 4th of July celebration at its city park, complete with bouncy rides, bathtub races, tons of food trucks (not the fancy ones), and a big fireworks display. Despite the other entertainments, the very first thing I noticed was how retro their playground was. After reading so many stories about how playgrounds are becoming overly safe to the point of monotony, it was refreshing to see metal slides and a merry-go-round! They even had a sand pit, where Sprout had his first feeling of sand between his toes as my mother-in-law helped him walk through it. Later on, we visited the petting zoo exhibit, where he got up close and personal with some goats. While he was mostly curious about them, it didn’t help when the farmer wrangled the baby goats out of the enclosure without a warning, causing all of the kids – human and not – to freak out.

After wandering around, we settled down to wait for the fireworks. With Can’t Stop Believin’ played by an adequate Journey cover band as our soundtrack, I tried to keep Sprout from wandering onto other people’s blankets and stealing their stuff. Just as he was experiencing new things, I too had to lighten up a little. As the culinary choices were limited, I tried to feed him some quesadilla (cheese has protein!), but he was totally uninterested. Instead, he managed to find his appetite for my Italian ice, slurping it down. Since he hadn’t eaten any dinner and we were outside any resemblance of a normal schedule, I let him eat as much sugar and red dye as he wanted. To quote my mother-in-law, “It’s July 4th!”

Despite missing his afternoon nap and the fireworks starting more than an hour after his bedtime, Sprout managed not only to stay awake until the show but more impressively, be in a good mood. He would have been a disaster if we had been at home, but there was enough people to look at that he forgot how tired he was. He even held out throughout most of the fireworks, watching them with the intense gaze that he’s turned to everything new since the day he was born. It’s a look of: “This is fascinating, but I’m not sure what to make of it yet. I’ll gather more information.” That was, until the finale. The continuous and overlapping booms put him over the edge and he burst out wailing. Fortunately, once the display was over, he calmed down and promptly fell asleep in his stroller despite the obstacle course-like path back to the car.

The next day, we continued the festivities by visiting a local outdoor mall that has a train ride, a carousel, and paddleboats. In my family, the mall is best known for the place where we did slow walking laps around the pond to induce labor when I was three days past my due date. Needless to say, this time around was much less stressful. To see how Sprout would potentially handle rides, my mother in law wanted to bring him on the carousel. Chris sat Sprout on a horse, holding on to him from the side, while I rode an eagle next to them. Much like with the fireworks, Sprout’s expression was observant without being outwardly happy. I have a suspicion this is going to be a common look at Disney. While he didn’t smile, I think he enjoyed it – he certainly knows how to let us know otherwise – and I suspect he would become much more obviously joyful as he got used to it. He was pretty impassive the first time we pushed him on the baby swing at the park, but now he grins in response.

That night, my in-laws got to be the guinea pigs for another first – the first time someone other than Chris or I put Sprout to bed. After a lot of bedtime drama that involved Sprout whining loudly at me for more than a half-hour a night, Chris recently switched to putting him to bed. But it would be a whole different challenge for someone else to put him down. Would he be worried that we weren’t there? Would he cry and reject consolation? Would he want to continue playing with Grandma and Granddad? Whatever happened, we wouldn’t be there to find out, gallivanting around D.C. baby-free. We bar hopped, going from one to watch the World Cup to another to play chess and skeeball. We wandered downtown, popping in a candy shop with adult confections, watching a street dance / acrobatics group that half-failed at their tricks, and listening to a jazz band on a corner in Chinatown. We finished the night with dinner at a fancy restaurant, eating Fruits de Mer and fois gras. The time was just for just the two of us, where there were no dishes to be done or baby monitor on in the background. It felt like a big sigh of relief. Fortunately, bedtime went just fine, at least according to my in-laws. They didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask for additional details.

The last day of their trip, we trekked to the town pool. Sprout loves splashing in the bath, but that’s quite different from even the kiddie pool. After slathering him up with enough sunscreen to let you walk on the sun, we put him in a disposable swim diaper and headed off. Much to my surprise, his shorts were already soaked when I lifted him out of his car seat, five minutes later. Lesson learned – disposable swim diapers are designed to allow pee to flow through, not hold it in. Ick.

Despite this knowledge, I still waded into the kiddie pool, holding Sprout’s hand so he could walk. He was hesitant at first, looking up at me for reassurance. I’m constantly telling him not to stand up in the tub, so I’m sure he was confused by me encouraging him to walk through water. But once he caught on, he thought it was great, combining bath time with his current favorite activity, leading us around so he can practice walking. The fun only increased when they turned up the little fountains. Of course, he chose the one that had another kid at it who wasn’t interested in sharing. To avoid a showdown, I finally picked Sprout up and relocated him to a different fountain. Even when the kids were all at their own fountains, they kept eying each other and wondering what was so awesome about the other fountain that the other kid was using it. I spent an absurd amount of time at the pool as a kid, so I hope this is only the first of many visits.

From fireworks to fountains, Sprout had an eventful Independence Day weekend.