Cat Skinner Club

Waiting for the Thaw

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I am not one to complain about the weather. It seems futile to choose to live in Canada and then complain about the snow. Frankly, I like the white stuff and the cold, and out here on our 30 acres of paradise the snow has never looked more beautiful. I even appreciate the fact that I’m learning to drive (finally) in this extreme winter weather. However, staring down the barrel of March, with no end in sight of this deep freeze, I’m starting to feel like I wouldn’t mind a bit more mud.

If ever there was a winter to be far away from the big city this would be it. Our Toronto friends have had to deal with all kinds of unpleasant winter side effects starting with the pre-Christmas ice storm. I guess we’ve had it easy out here in comparison, but for the sake of trying to be helpful to any of you suffering from the winter blues, here are my tips for surviving the next month or two of wintery weather.

1. Get a hobby. I’ve taken up knitting, which I’ve decided is a metaphor for life. I was really only good at the basics, and with most projects that were beyond the first two basic steps of knitting (knit and purl) I had to take apart my work and start  again three or four times. All of my skills were gathered through YouTube tutorials and the Internet, and for some reason I am able to remain calm and even good-natured through my mistakes. Remarkable if you know me. It’s been so rewarding seeing my work take shape, and I’m currently working on this adorable tunic for Ayla’s birthday at the end of March. Shh…don’t tell her. She thinks I’m making a giant tea cozy.

2. Turn off the TV. This may seem counter-intuitive, but eventually the noise of the TV will begin to bore you, especially if you’ve been trapped indoors for any lengthy amount of time.  We’ve declared a TV-free March, and this is forcing us to spend all kinds of quality time together and on our own. Yes, I realize we’re only three days into March, and perhaps the charm will wear off soon.

3. Bust out the board games. When we lived in Toronto, we used to love Snakes and Lattes. This board game filled cafe and bar gave us a chance to get out of the house, and spend some time connecting and playing together. Now, with a toddler, such excursions would be impossible, but we have a decent stash of games to make for a fun afternoon at home. We inject even more fun into this activity by inviting each of the kids to choose the snacks, on a rotating schedule. Noah likes the all-you-can-eat Goldfish cracker bar. Consider hosting a game night for your grown up friends, or create a game night club where each household takes turns hosting and supplies snacks and drinks. Just don’t play Risk. It’s unbearably boring, and often ends in tears.

4. Get outside. No matter how much you think being out in the snow will be a freezing cold drag, I guarantee you’ll have fun once you’re properly bundled and out there. With kids, and very little else to do, playing in the snow is a necessary fact of life. As adults, why not reclaim your youth with a tobogganing party or a trip to a beautiful ice skating spot? Take advantage of sunny days, if the temperature is bearable. I have personally enjoyed the occasional solo romp through our forest, which is so much easier to navigate without all of the foliage. Tracking turkeys and coyotes and deer has become another hobby of mine.

5. Find a warm haven.  If you force yourself to attempt to get outside, you’ll satisfy your need for some vitamin D. If you’re missing the heat, but can’t afford a getaway, get creative. Find a gym or a spa with a sauna, or steam bath if you like the humidity. Luxuriate in the warmth. Here we have the Butterfly Conservatory which is bright, filled with oxygenating plants and beautiful butterflies, and is steamy and toasty all year round.

6. Cook together. Consider this a great time to learn how to prepare your favourite family recipes. Invite a loved one or relative or bestie over to give you a cooking lesson. Cook or bake with your kids. The kitchen is a naturally cozy place of connection, and people seem to gravitate towards the kitchen when the weather outside is frightful. Take advantage of our access to ingredients and spend an afternoon cooking and eating with the people you like the best. Can’t cook? Can’t convince anyone to join you for cooking fun? Try YouTube for an array of fun tutorials including the always-amazing Chow.com

7.Read together. This tip is meant mostly for those of you who aren’t living on your own, and those of you who like your roommates. I always have a great time reading a book out loud with people whose company I enjoy. Select a book together and designate some time, with snacks and drinks, to enjoy reading this book. Make it a social activity, and keep the actual reading time to a length that doesn’t feel epic and allows for some socializing either before, after, or both. Keep it fun, and low pressure. Consider collections of short stories, particularly funny ones. Be sure to invite your single friends who live on their own.

8. Volunteer. Are you the kind of person who can’t sit still for very long because you get caught up in your own head? Are you feeling blah and depressed and filled with winter blues? Take yourself out of your own brain space and give your time and energy to someone (or something if you prefer the company of animals) who needs your help. You’ll get active, you’ll be forced to leave the house, and most importantly, you’ll gain some important perspective.

9. Get Organized. I never really understood the idea of Spring cleaning. Our Canadian winters are gruelling, and long, and as soon as the weather gets warmer, I want to be outside. The notion of staying indoors and doing housework seems ridiculous when hiking is a reasonable alternative. Use this cold, grey, dreary time to get your house in order. Finish those domestic projects that are indoors, so when the time comes to throw open the windows, you can enjoy some outdoor time. I know that housework is a drag, but around here we think such tasks are vastly improved with great tunes. And cocktails.

10. Exercise. Trust me on this one – if you want to avoid spiralling into a pit of winter-induced despair, you need to get your body moving. I fell off the wagon with the very modest YouTube yoga practice I had started at home. Now I am cranky and stressed out more than I care to be. My yoga mat sits mocking me from the corner of the room, and the second I post this I am going to do some sun salutations. Dedicate 20 minutes of your day to focused exercise. Your body, your mind, and most likely your family will thank you.

Do you have any winter survival tips? Please share! We could all use some help this season.

The Thing About Lassie

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My sixteen-month-old son has an obsession. We don’t watch a lot of television in our house, so I’m not sure how this even came about. The little man is completely and totally in love with Lassie. I don’t mean the old black and white TV series, I mean a very specific made-for-tv movie based on the original novel. This film was made in 2005 and features a star-studded cast, including Samantha Morton, Peter O’Toole and Peter Dinklage. Lassie scores 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and I’ve seen it about twenty times now, so I can agree that it’s a solid film. It’s feature length and my sixteen-month-old will watch it from beginning to end.

Not only will he sit quietly and watch this entire movie, but he also has favourite moments. We know these moments are popular with Noodle because he becomes quite animated and insistes that you watch, by grabbing you with his sweet little hands and often panting, which is his way of saying “doggie”. Every time his favourite horse comes on the screen he says “neigh neigh!” and he furrows his little brow whenever it’s a tense moment or tragedy strikes. He wants to watch this movie at least once a day, and we indulge him because, well, here’s why I’m writing.

I get a thick lump in my throat and a stinging behind the eyes when I witness how much my little baby boy loves this movie. It seems a ridiculous thing to get emotional about, doesn’t it? I don’t know why his love of Lassie affects me so…

It could be because I love dogs more than most people, and movies about dogs always make me very emotional. It could be because the little boy in the movie, with his serious face, prominent nose, and sticky-out ears reminds me of Noah. The little boy loves his dog and gets his heart broken. Maybe the film is making me realize that my own little boy is vulnerable and now that he’s old enough to appreciate film, he’s one step closer to being exposed to a world that can be quite cruel? Maybe his infatuation with the movie is making me aware of the depth of feeling that a tiny person can experience which is humbling? Am I depressed because my husband is allergic to pets and I don’t think our children (or I, for that matter) will ever get to enjoy a dog? Does his captivation with this movie  mean that Noah is growing up quicker than I realize and I feel like time is slipping away? I’m not pre-menstrual, could I be peri-menopausal?

Now when I hear the soundtrack from the film, I feel this incredible sense of melancholy or  perhaps its wistfulness. My son seems to understand every nuance of this story that he watches daily, and I’m amazed by this. I realize as I’m typing this that I want to witness him take in every amazing thing he will discover, but of course I can’t. Time is fragile and fleeting and I have such a short window where I get to observe him being moved, or delighted, or touched by the world around him. It feels like there is never enough time to breathe in all of his wonder.

Teaching Tortoise and Hare

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There are so many moments, like the one I’m having right now, where I sit at my desk in our cozy little classroom and I can’t believe my life. If you had told a twenty-two year-old me that I would be a stay-at-home mom who was homeschooling three kids in the middle of the country, I would have laughed. Sure, we have dreams that we’re working towards, but this really is some kind of Utopia I’m living in.

Homeschooling has proven to be an incredible challenge. There are days where I, and my pupils, have all cried in frustration. There are days where I can’t believe the immensity of the job. There are nights when I lay awake wondering if I’m doing right by our kids. Ultimately, I know that there are no other circumstances where they would receive such a quality, hands-on education, but it’s an enormous responsibility, and sometimes I shudder at the weight of it.

My daughters are opposites. This isn’t news to me, but applying this knowledge to our classroom has really proven to be my greatest challenge. Siblings, especially those close in age, are so naturally competitive.  I’ve found the girls continually trying to outdo each other, even though they are quite aware that they are in different grades. Their learning styles are so very different too, which is equal parts amazing and frustrating. Hannah, our ten-year-old is deliberate and careful and meticulous. She’s a gifted artist, and she spends vast quantities of time on a different plane, we think. This makes her very dreamy, romantic, and empathic. She’s a born nurturer and humanitarian, and her imagination is vivid and epic. As her teacher, my greatest challenge is drawing her back to the here-and-now, and keep her on point and focused. I also struggle to keep her working efficiently and completing her tasks in a timely manner. Ayla, our seven-year-old is whip-smart. She often grasps the concepts (particularly in maths) that I’m trying to teach her older sister long before Hannah does. She is wickedly funny, spirited, out-going and sassy. She’s the kid with the answer for EVERYTHING. My challenge with her is to keep her from getting bored, because that’s when she starts to get disruptive and naughty. She races through her work, often sacrificing neatness and care, and so I must always work to slow her down. If she doesn’t immediately grasp something, she gets lazy and frustrated and wants to skip on to the next thing to race through. You can imagine trying to balance both of these kids at one time is a bit mind-numbing. I don’t rightly know how teachers handle classes with multiple kids!

I forget sometimes the freedom that homeschooling, and my unique lifestyle offers. When I lean on these realities, great things can happen. Here’s how I’ve decided to approach my girls individual needs, and keep our classroom a happy, inspiring place.

I’ve turned our schedule on it’s ear. I’ve decided to work with one girl at a time, switching off between Monday and Thursday. The girl who isn’t in class spends the day “at work” with my man, who runs our family business from our home. The kid in the classroom gets a full day of one-on-one attention. This almost totally eliminates any issues of focus or behaviour. The kid “at work” learns all kinds of valuable skills, gets to contribute to our family business, and gets lots of one-on-one time with Daddy. We still do morning recess, lunch, lunch recess and afternoon snack together, and each working day ends at 3:00. Then the girls will do a household chore and relax into some screen-free playtime, as we try to only do screens on weekends.

This week was our first foray into the new schedule. I think I should mix it up, so they do get some time together, and so we can have some more opportunities for play, which I feel we may be lacking. Our new twist seems to be going very well. Once again, creativity and risk-taking prevails!

How do you handle difficult sibling dynamics?

How Do I Get My Baby to Sleep?

Dear Cat,

I’m a dad with a toddler who won’t sleep by himself because we made the decision to co-sleep. I’m nearly positive that his mother and I might actually have more passion in our lives if we could get him to sleep through the night on his own. What are your own experience with babies and sleep? How do I get my baby to sleep? Will my wife and I ever have sex again?

Sincerely,

Jake

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To Sleep, Perchance to Scream

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Ah, hindsight you wicked bitch. You always arch your cunning brow at me, just before you drop the bomb that makes cringe and facepalm a la Homer Simpson.

Here at the homestead, we’re reading Pamela Drukerman’s delightfully written book “Bringing Up Bebe”. Do you know it? It’s a comparative analysis of French (from France) children versus North American kids, based on the author’s experience of French kids being much better behaved. It’s a great read, but there are so many ideas in this book that I wish I had known about when my fifteen-month-old son was in utero.

The biggest facepalm induced by this book thus far has been Drukerman’s revelation about sleep habits. French babies evidently sleep through the night at an early age, some as early as two months. Noah, who has co-slept with me in my bed since his first day home, and who also still breastfeeds,  wakes multiple times through the night and he won’t go back to sleep without the boob. The boob is also how we get him to fall asleep in the first place when he goes down for the night. Nearly every moment of sleeping with his sweaty little head under my nose has been bliss, but honestly, as a full-time homeschooling mom, I need to start sleeping for longer stretches. I startled myself with my own haggred, dark-circled reflection the other day. Noah could probably benefit from a full night of sleep too, he’s taken to shrieking like a hell cat whenever anyone says “no” to him.  Also,  my (formerly) sexy grown up life could benefit from someone besides me putting the little monkey to sleep for the night.

The French take a little (approximately 2-5 minute) pause before attending to a crying infant, right from birth. They also get baby used to a mealtime schedule that matches the rest of the family once the little one is about two months old. The benefits here are multi-fold, but where sleep is concerned baby learns how to sooth himself to sleep when he naturally awakens from one sleep cycle to the next, and baby also learns to anticipate feedings within a natural daily rhythm. This isn’t jarring, or sudden, it’s just the way things go right from the outset. We’re all entitled to our own ideas about what makes sense for us and our babes, and these ideas really rang true with me. Trouble is, I’m about fifteen months too late to the chic French parenting party.

The advice that French pediatrician and sleep guru Michel Cohen gives to parents well past the baby’s early months in his otherwise practical manual “The New Basics” made my blood run cold; tuck the baby in with a soothing bedtime routine, free of nursing, turn out the lights, close the door and return at 7am the next morning. Hells. To. The. No.

I did not wait 36 years and nearly ten months to make a person with my flesh and blood only to have him finally learn to sleep on his own by letting him wail himself to sleep in the dark all alone until the morning. Is this a super overly-emotional and perhaps a little impractical stance? Yes. Could my baby be developing potentially long-lasting sleep problems with our current routine? Science says yes. Do I think you’re a bad person or an evil parent because you left your baby to CIO? No, I truly don’t. I really, passionately believe that you have to find your own parenting groove.

So what happens in a house with three parents when our newest child co-sleeps and breastfeeds well past the first year? Our other two children, who were birthed by my partner, and who I met when they were three and five, slept in their own beds and were weaned before they were a year old. Interestingly, both were great sleepers, which in my books means they usually slept through the night. As you can imagine, the three of us came from different camps. Both my partners are science brains who put a lot of faith in medical studies, rather than in anecdotal evidence. I am from a more touchy-feely camp where I feel a little paranoid and mistrustful of science. Building a life with these pragmatic, brilliant minds has been a very positive education for me, and I like to think I’ve made them both a little more ‘granola’ along the way.

Collectively, we all understood that the time has come to help Noah develop some more independent sleep strategies. Nekky and Sarah believed that a firm approach would work the most efficiently. I think at least one of them was prepared to try the Cohen method suggested above. I wanted to wean Noah a bit more gradually and slowly try to transition him to the adorable toddler bed we just found for him. Reading ‘Bringing Up Bebe’ inspired me to consider speeding up this process a bit. I actually don’t remember what it feels like to get a full night’s rest, and I’m fairly sure that I’ll be a better mom once I can reclaim that. There will be less crying with my head on the desk at the back of our classroom, for example. I am not willing to try the firm line CIO method where Noah is alone to scream until morning. The ‘extinction’ method, as it’s called.

A very recent Australian study revealed that there is absolutely no long-term negative psychological effects associated with certain variations of the Cry It Out (or CIO) method. These variations include camping out with your baby as they cry, or periodically coming in to give them a pat and some soothing words. Both are only recommended for babies six months old and beyond. You can read the study here, and then read the American Pediatric Society take on this study here if you like. If you prefer more layman terms, I liked this article from Reuters.

I’m sharing all of this because my extensive reading was eye-opening, and frankly game-changing. I learned that trusted resources, like the renowned Dr. Sears family, have skewed research to support their own claims that letting babies cry is detrimental to their health. (Read this one, for more details). It seems everyone in the “parenting expert” world has an agenda, and one really has to be their own advocate when it comes to everything parenting related. Makes sense when you consider how individual all of us humans are, even the tiny ones! It also seems like this particular subject is seriously fraught with emotion. I posted an article on my personal Facebook page to see how my friends and peers approached the matter of baby sleep, and people had a LOT to  say, including some pretty harsh things to one another!

Last night, daddy put Noah to bed in our room, in his play yard. They had a nice wind down with stories and gentle music, and then when it was clear that Noah was really tired, Daddy placed him in the play yard, explaining that tonight he would sleep there, and that Daddy would be right there in the room with him. Mama S and I fled the scene, mostly so I wouldn’t kick down the door to Noah’s room if I got overly-emo about things. We took refuge in a nearby cafe and tried to keep busy while we got frequent text updates. Daddy, who is the softest heart I have ever known, steeled himself for the fifty-minute onslaught that followed. Our baby talks, so in addition to the wailing, he was also calling “Daddy”,  and “Mamma” at the top of his lungs. Daddy would occasionally remind him that he was right there, and that everything would be okay, and it was time to lay down and go to sleep, and then finally Noah sat down, settled in, and knocked out. That’s when we Mamas returned, and I bunked up in Mama S’ room for the night. While we were out, I was surprisingly calm about all of this.

I slept soundly until about 3am, when Noah usually wakes up. Sometimes he also wakes up at about 1am. I awoke on my own, not because the baby was wailing, but because I was a bit panicked by the complete silence. I tried to relax, and settle myself back to sleep with a fairly extensive foray into the Women’s Fashion boards of Pinterest. This eventually worked, and Noah finally woke for the morning at 6am. Daddy informed me that he also woke up at 12:30am and cried for about fifteen minutes before falling back asleep. I WAS SO KNOCKED OUT, I DIDN’T HEAR A THING!!

This morning Noah was in great spirits. He was certainly happy to see me, and he fed voraciously in the morning, which we told him was “breakfast time”. The little monkey actually laughed and clapped when he saw my breasts. My boobs felt like they were going to explode, and I slept like hell because I was so anxious, but I think this exercise went so much better than any of us imagined. I feel confident that tonight will be better, and I’m feeling very confident that we’re doing the right thing for our baby, with all of the love and care we can muster. I say this not to defend myself, but to share my truth with any of you who are struggling with sleep deprivation, and may be afraid to try new techniques.

Noah is napping solidly as I type this. In fact, I’ve heard him wake up TWICE now and mutter a little to himself before falling back asleep! I expect he’ll eat an amazing lunch at noon with the rest of us. I think tonight he and daddy will have more success with bed time, and I don’t feel like I have to run away from home while they get settled either. I’m looking forward to next week when we’ve established a new rhythm and, well, all of us will sleep like babies. Parenting high fives all around.