No Baby, No Cry

Well, the whole hipster parent thing is so well-established by now that it's barely even a cliche.  Baby fauxhawks, anarchy onesies, Strokes cover bands at the talent show, whatever.  I'm not saying I'm immune to it: my kid's been to the Echo.  So, the Rockabye Baby line makes perfect "why didn't I think of that?" sense.  Lullaby renditions of bands like the Beatles aren't that much of a stretch, but it's the ones like Green Day and Nirvana and Bjork that I think are the most fun.  They're put out by the cool kids at CMH Records (I heard their art director is pretty cool, hi Argee!) based in Silverlake.  Pick some up and enjoy the soothing sounds of glockenspiel and xylophone with your little monkey gone to heaven- the perfect iron(y)-enriched musical formula! 

A word on music and babies: there's no doubt that playing music for your child is an enriching experience.  But make it one you give in small doses- your newborn is stimulated enough by just by living in this crazy world.  Like, clothes touching my skin and look at that dust floating in the air, wow!  If music's playing all the time it'll eventually become more background noise.  It can be part of your routine, like playing soft music before a nap or bedtime.  Better yet, make music an active experience, rather than a passive one, by singing together or letting him play with musical instruments as soon as those wild flails become a little more controlled.  Shaking a maraca or banging on a drum help refine motor control and teach your baby learning schemes like cause and effect, providing a great foundation for future development.

Rockabye Baby!  Available through the Rockabye Baby store and probably at lots of other places, too.

Critter Club at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles

Shout out to my former employers: Do you have a little one who's crazy about bugs or dinosaurs?  Do you want them to get a taste of this "Nature" that we city-dwellers hear so much about?  Check out a Critter Club.  One Saturday a month (usually the second Saturday, but check the website because it sometimes changes) the Natural History Museum puts on an excellent program geared to 3-5 year olds.  The preschool/toddler demographic is a big (and, I thought, somewhat neglected) part of this Museum, so I'm glad that this program exists to reach out to the stroller mafia.  I think more programming is being developed that's geared to the little ones, and many of the museum's halls are in the process of renovation and being updated, so keep your eyes our for great things from them in the future.  Anyway, a Critter Club session usually lasts about half an hour and consists of a short explanation of the day's topics (themes change every month and are usually based on the season or the Museum's current exhibit), as well as storytime, a craft, and, best of all, super up close time with one of the animals from the Museum's Living Collection.  There're sessions at 10 am and 11 am.  It's free with Museum admission and get there early.  Afterwards, stay and meet a dinosaur at one of the Dinosaur Encounters shows, and definitely take the kids down to the Discovery Center to dig for dinosaur bones.  Say hello to my little friends in the Insect Zoo.  Tell them Kristine sent you.

Critter Club at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
2nd Saturday of every month (usually)
The next one is themed "Ladybugs and Butterflies" with sessions at 10 am and 11 am.

Free Earth Day Concert with EGG!!!

Thanks to Jamie for the heads up.

It'll be at Dragonfly Dulou on Sunday, April 25th at 11:00 am.
Visit the Dragonfly Dulou website for more info.

Catcher in the RIE

Anyone who's studied infant development or modern parenting approaches has heard of Magda Gerber and her RIE institute- Resources for Infant Educarers. Magda was a pioneer in the field of infant development and the idea of "caring with respect." The RIE method is intuitive and simple, once you make this realization: babies are not living dolls! They are in fact little people undergoing incomparable brain development and acquisition of new skills. So, Magda put out the idea that infants should be treated with respect. Telling them "I'm going to pick you up now" or "It's time to change your diaper" instead of just whisking them off from behind with no notice helps them acquire language as well as develops the infant/caregiver relationship. Another major point is that daily caregiving routines, such as feeding or diaper-changing, are really the "curriculum" (along with free play) that make up an infant's day. The idea that these caregiving routines are not tasks to be rushed through, but are actually opportunities to learn and to build emotional attachment, is a real breakthrough. And, lest you forget, emotional attachments are the foundation for ALL other development in a child's life! She also stresses observation and intervening only when necessary. This "educaring" approach is, I think, truly the difference between a stimulating infant environment and someone who's merely babysitting.

I'm a big believer in most of the RIE teachings, but I am in no way militant about it. Yeah, we put the baby in the sling or in the stroller before he could sit up (Magda thought babies should not be placed in any positions they can't achieve themselves). I've used many of the approaches with my own child and I plan on implementing it with the children in my family care. But, when I started my Infant and Toddler Development class at LACC, I was pretty surprised that right now the current academic teaching in infant development is basically synonymous with the RIE method, no challengers. It's not like in preschool educational theory where at least you have several schools of thought to choose from, like Montessori or Reggio Emilia. It could just be as simple as demographics- Magda lived and worked in Los Angeles, and her RIE Institute is based here, so it's not surprising that her teachings figure so prominently in what I'm learning. My question is, what comes next? This is in no way a criticism of RIE methods. I really am curious to see what the next step will be, what the post-RIE research and field studies will come up with. I've always had an academic approach to infant development as well as a practical one. Magda was an advocate for infants and taught so many people how to listen and relate to these baby humans. She brought a lot of validity to the field of infant care and infant development, and for that we should all be greatful.

I highly recommend Magda's book Dear Parent to anyone who has or works with infants. The RIE Institute is based in Los Angeles and offers (somewhat expensive) classes for both parents-to-be and infant caretakers. I'm saving my pennies to attend the annual RIE Conference at the Skirball Center in June.

Raising Children

Here's an essay by novelist and Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen. It's been making the mom-blog rounds and I thought I'd share it with you.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages, dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, and finally what the women on the playground, and the well-meaning relations — well what they taught me was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.