Small talk can mean a lot to a little guy

At bedtime, my friends Chris and Melissa do something with their daughter, Sophie, that they call "chitchat." Their idea of chitchat is quality time with an educational twist. They started it when Sophie was a baby. Just before bed, they spent a few minutes talking.

It started simply with things like sounds and letters. As Sophie matured, topics grew in complexity.

They considered numbers. They picked random places on a globe and learned about them together.

Sometimes they used reference books. Sometimes they used the Internet to augment their discussions. (If they were talking about hawks, they would listen to audio and watch video of hawks in action.)

The key, Melissa said, is to keep it to a few minutes. Also, they stick to non-fiction topics.

I am amazed every time I see Sophie. She celebrated her fifth birthday last month. The theme that Sophie picked for her party was "birds of prey."

When I asked her what birds of prey are she replied with casual, conversational ease: "owls and hawks." She is an intelligent kid who can hold a conversation with adults.

My wife and I have a similar ritual with our 2-year-old son, Owen. Each night before bed we read two stories, talk about what he did that day and also what he will be doing the next day.

Then we wind things down with a song or one more story, which is actually a guided meditation that helps put him to sleep.

Unlike Chris and Melissa, our bedtime stories are usually fiction. Thomas the Tank Engine and Dora the Explorer are among his favorites.

While the stories are important, I've noticed another variation taking place in our version of chitchat. These days, the conversations have become more useful to Owen than the stories.

It is during our talks that we are able to put the day's events into perspective for him. This way of processing is so important to Owen that he even requests it during the conversations that I call guided meditations.

He still enjoys picturing himself driving trains while falling asleep, but now he requests that the new people in his life ride on his imaginary train too.

As we talk about the things he did and the people he saw, we put special emphasis on concepts that were new to him and summarize how we think he felt about these things.

We know this routine has helped him with language. He is already starting to use full sentences. He is even starting to grasp trickier concepts like personal pronouns.

But more importantly, I hope it will help him process his feelings and make some sense out of the world.

Choosing to flood my child with joy

You are standing on a train platform. It’s late, and foggy. No one is around. It’s just you and your child at your side.

You hear footsteps at the other end of the platform. They approach steadily.

You crane your neck, squint your eyes as the adrenalin starts pumping. You scan your surroundings as the flight or fight reflexes kick in.

Your child is also anxious and scanning for clues. But it’s not the approaching stranger that’s making them nervous. It’s you.

As adults we take our cues from our surroundings. Our young children however get their information from our faces.

Dr. Stephen Briers uses the example above to open the chapter on mirror neurons in his book, "How Your Child Thinks."

"When presented with an ambiguous or unfamiliar situation, the first place most infants look for further information is in the faces of their caregivers," writes Briers.

While children don’t have life experience to help them assess their surroundings, they master reading faces very early on.

Mirror neurons take reading your face to yet another, deeper level.

These special neurons are what allow us to learn from others by simply watching. Some experts believe that not only do we learn how to jump by watching someone else jump, we also experience the thrill of jumping from watching someone jump.

This is something that I need to keep in mind when I’m tired and grumpy. Inevitably, my 2 year old is following close behind watching everything I do.

Lose my keys in a huff, in a hurry, and he is there. Throw something because I feel like I am going to snap, he is there.

"When we frown at our children, they feel the chill of displeasure; when we smile and laugh, we flood them with the sunlight of their own capacity for joy," writes Briers.

How do we know mirror neurons really do have these effects on our kids? All I have to do is consider the way my son's laughter makes me feel.

When he plays chase, he runs around shrieking and smiling until he drops. By the time he hits the floor, I'm also exhausted. I feel like I could collapse in a fit of happiness. I certainly lighten up from watching him.

Why not return the favor? He doesn't know the world of bills, contracts, narrow windows of opportunity and disappointment. Toddlers don't fill with fear at the sound of a stranger's footsteps on a train platform.

To them, the world is not a harsh place. What they know about emotions, they get from watching Mommy and Daddy's faces.

How life has changed at the Shore

NNS Photo

As my wife Sarah and I walked down the pier I realized there are three phases to life at the Shore: couples, parents with little kids and teenagers trying to get away from their parents.

When Sarah and I came to the Jenks pier (as Jerseyans call it) as a couple, we’d drive down in my Jeep with the top off, park near a restaurant and sit on the beach ordering drinks like the Funky Monkey until the night’s entertainment started, which was usually a cover band that made good use of horns and a reggae beat. All we needed were our hats and shades.

This year was our first summer with Owen, our 15-month old son. We drove to the Shore in the four door SUV that replaced the Wrangler before Owen was born.

Instead of drinks on the beach, we packed juice and snacks. We also had to pack diapers, wipes, toys, extra clothing, and a tent to be built in the sand so that my half Nordic baby wouldn’t burn.

The main attraction of a band was replaced by the aquarium where Owen ran from tank to tank pointing to sea lions and sharks yelling, “Wawa! Wawa!”

When night fell, instead of bars, we all turned our attention to the pier’s choo-choo train and carousel where we took pictures of Owen smiling in amazement.

As it got later, teens and young couples flooded the boardwalk making navigation with a stroller difficult. Listening to myself grump about the hoodlums who had clearly been drinking it hit me—something had changed!

I was no longer the teenager heading into the T-shirt shops. I wasn’t even one of the young couples anymore. Trips to the Shore from now on would be centered around family fun, like showing Owen the ocean and watching him try new things like frozen yogurt and funnel cake.

I don’t mind the change. In fact, I am anxiously plowing ahead full-speed, looking forward to future summers when I’ll get to see him running along the water’s edge, flying kites. Maybe we’ll play miniature golf…Only one thought makes me pause: I’ll know I am in the next phase when he starts ditching me for his friends.

He’ll hurry through dinner as the sun goes down; put on cooler clothes and head to the pier where he and his buddies will laugh at the adults who grump along pushing strollers through the crowd.

I know they say that there’s nothing new under the sun. But still it shocks me to see how things change.

Originally published 08/27/2008 in Suburban Trends and other North Jersey Media Group newspapers

Ladies and gentlemen, the 'Old Mac Donald' Blues!

I have many harmonicas. There’s a pile of harps that I play and a pile of keepsakes – harmonicas signed by famous blues harp players, like John Sebastian and Charlie Musselwhite.

Whenever my 2 year-old son, Owen, runs into my office, the shelf full of harmonicas is the first place he heads. Maybe they were initially appealing because they were a collection.

Once he found out that the multi-colored plastic cases opened--and each one contained a shiny metal object--the appeal increased. By the time he discovered that the shiny objects made music, there was no stopping him.

Whenever I left my office door open, the little guy with a huge smile would make a mad dash for the harmonica shelf.

"Daddy, open this one," he'd say handing me a red case. "Open this one," he'd say pushing a blue one into my lap.

Big ones, little ones, plastic and metal, he'd grab as many as he could and plop himself down in the middle of the room with the harps scattered around him.

I bought him his own. But the plastic rubber orange harmonica with large holes made for someone his age had an unfortunate characteristic—it was hard to play. Even I had trouble getting sound to come out of it. Instead of letting him get discouraged by the toy, I let him play mine.

I got used to him honking the harmonicas behind me while I clicked away on the computer. He’d blow into the holes and listen. Flip it over and try again.

Eventually, he learned that he could make music in a number of ways: blowing into the holes, sucking air through the holes; he learned that moving up and down the harmonica would change the pitch. I was proud of my blues harp buddy.

Last week, I was sitting and playing harmonica with him and I noticed yet another milestone. He started to sing and play at the same time.

He breathed into the harp and then I heard a quiet voice. I couldn’t make out the words until he repeated them after his next riff: “With a moo moo here…”

He added another riff…

“And a moo moo there!”

He was singing his own blues adaptation of “Old Mac Donald!”

What a moment! I was so proud of him playing harmonica and trying to sing for one of the first times in his life.

The most common comment that I get from readers goes something like this: “Thank you for last week’s column. It reminded me of the love that I have for my child and made me appreciate them again, now that they are teenagers.”

I have to admit that as a newbie father of a boy who is only 2, the level of frustration parents can hit by the time their kids are teenagers is foreign to me. But I do remember being a teenager. I hope Owen is easier on me than I was on my parents.

When that time does come, when I feel like hitting the roof, I hope that I remember this moment--Owen and I jamming the "Old Mac Donald" blues.

I am betting that it will probably be a touchstone that I return to. I can’t imagine the road ahead of us. Was it moments like these that got moms and dads throughout time through the rough spots?

Ode to Daddybloggers -- That's Why I'm Here!

From "Ode to Daddybloggers"

I'm really not one to buy into these pseudo-holidays that try make people feel that a bouquet of flowers and a trip to the spa are an adequate way to thank mothers for everything that they do or make us think that dads need yet another day to relax, watch sports, and enjoy what being a "dad" means in this culture.

It's no secret that I'd love to die and come back as a dad.

Whether it's the happy screeches and clingy love that he gets when he walks in the door, or the praise he gets for being the lone dad with all three kids at the pool, there's something about being a dad that's obviously missing from my experience as a mom.

At least beyond the twig and berries.

I don't deny that it can be tough out there for a dad, particularly those, like many, that are forced to choose between work and family. At least women have started a commentary about the challenges of working and maintaining a family presence; I just don't see it happening as much with dads.

The breadth of dad lit has just started expanding, but the level of analysis on the experience of fatherhood seems to just be scratching the surface....

For the rest of Kristen Chase's blog entry visit: motherhooduncensored.net

How many ways to say 'NO!' are there?

Now that my son Owen is 2,  the baby has been replaced by a confident little man who has his own preferences.

One of his favorite things to do at this moment is to say “No!”

It doesn’t matter what the question is, “No!” is the most appropriate answer.

“Owen, would you close the drawer?”

“Want to sit with Daddy?”

“Did you have a good day, Owen?”

“Do you want to color?”

Of course this sometimes presents a problem for him. What if the answer isn’t “No?” What if he does want to color?

The answer is still “no,” but he has a “tell” as they say in poker. His face changes. His eyes widen as he worries about the outcome. Then he hesitates before giving his standard answer. This is the only way he lets on that the answer actually is in fact, “yes.”

I thought teaching him a fun way to say “yes” would do the trick.

“Owen,” I said with my thumbs-up ala Fonzie style, “this means ‘yes,’ and this means ‘no,’” turning my thumbs upside down.

He started to smile.

“No!” he said laughing while attempting to put his thumbs down.

He saw the beauty in what I offered him—another way to say, “no.”

He ignored the thumbs-up. Hmmm…

“OK, Owen, try this…Shaking your head up and down means ‘yes’ and shaking it from side to side means ‘no.’”

He illustrated he understood with a nod from side to side.

For help, I turned to the Web.

A number of parents consoled each other and offered what help they could in the article "Parents say: Getting past No!" on a BabyCenter Medical Advisory Board site.

"When your toddler falls in love with the word "no," it can feel like you've run straight into a brick wall,” it starts.

“We like the idea of giving choices within boundaries. For example, with our 22 month old, Noah, if he says he is hungry, I might say ‘Okay, lets have a piece of fruit. Would you like a banana or grapes?’ That way he is making the choice, and the choice is a healthy one,” wrote Adrienne.

Respond with humor advises Jan from Minnesota.

“My 2 1/2-year-old won't always cooperate — no surprise! For instance, I'll ask him to sit down to eat and he'll say "No!" and laugh, and start dancing around instead. That used to make me mad (okay, it still does), but I try to laugh back and say something like, ‘What's going on there, Legs? You tell Bottom to sit right in that chair!’ That makes him laugh and breaks his defiant mood,” she writes.

Lisa from Washington also uses lightheartedness to prevent a head-on battle.

I try to deal with stubbornness by making the task seem more fun. Going potty before leaving the house can be an endless battle in our home, so now we ‘fly’ our 2 1/2-year-old son to the bathroom. By the time we get there, he is laughing and having so much fun he is willing to go potty,” she writes.

Of course, there is the old standby, reverse psychology.

“When I have heard one ‘no’ too many from my 2 1/2-year-old son, reverse psychology always seems to work. I just say, ‘Oh, okay then, I'll do it by myself.’ He always chimes right in with that fierce independence and says, ‘No, I will do it by my big self!’” offers Barbre from New Jersey.

One other tip that I thought would be useful came from Arizona native, Carey.

"Our daughter Dayna is 2 years old and wants to do everything herself. When I ask her to do something, like get out of her car seat after I've unbuckled her, I give her some time to do it herself (a few seconds). Then if she's not moving quickly enough, I tell her it's now her turn, but if she doesn't do it, then it'll be my turn.”

All of these tactics  have conflict avoidance in mind.

Familyeducation.com agrees that this is paramount and brings up another important point.

Being able to say “no” is important to toddlers.

“Kids this age are driven by the need to make their own decisions, to be autonomous, and to control their world, and the way they express these needs is through the word no,” the site states.

From the toddler’s perspective, living in a world where the chairs, tables, and sinks are too tall, drawers are too heavy and the stairs are too steep can be frustrating, the site reminds.

The word “no” can be a relief to little ones.

Giving Owen choices, letting him do things for himself and letting him participate in chores and important household  tasks (like getting the mail) will go a long way to reducing his frustration and empowering him.

After all, a sense of empowerment is what the word “no” is all about.

Lastly, familyeducation.com reminds readers not to expect their children to always be nice, “and don't take her 'no' personally. Your child is not defiant, angry, or negative—she's a toddler saying no.’”

I wonder if there are any other ways I can teach Owen to say no?

The 'Big Red Spaceship Car' that caused a time rift

Over the past week, I feel like I've aged 10 years. When my wife and I went out looking for a new car, I was thinking of the sporty Subaru WRX, or maybe the bold Toyota FJ Cruiser.

We came home with a Dodge Caravan: 17 inch wheels, inferno red, nine speakers, I was ready to roll.

And what was our first road trip? Turtleback Zoo!

As we cruised down the road I wondered why my office mates gave me such a hard time when I tried to show it off.

"I remember those days," one groaned.

"I just got free myself," said another. "I couldn't wait to get out of that thing."

"But it's got the sports suspension," I countered.

That gave everyone a good laugh.

Luckily, my wife and I suffer from the same delusion and we were totally happy with our purchase.

"Put on Dan Zanes," said my son.

Dan Zanes, good idea, I thought to myself as I hit play and started the folk music sing-along.

How could anyone not think this minivan was cool?

"Comfy back there?" I asked as the minivan that my son named "Big Red Spaceship Car" floated along. This was certainly a new phase in my life.

The time shift caused by purchasing a minivan was not unlike the effect caused in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" when the scene jumps from young boy George Bailey to a fully grown Bailey in a fedora.

Viewers first meet him as an adult holding a suitcase. This scene perfectly illustrates why I love my minivan.

Just like the jumbo suitcase that wide-eyed George Bailey intended to buy, the minivan represents possibilities.

Family trips to Colorado to see Owen's grandparents, Florida to see my cousin...the same cousin I teased for buying a minivan not so long ago!

My mind switched to thinking of him. We always had fun camping together as kids.

I should take the family camping with the minivan I thought as I took off my fedora and put it on the passenger seat.

Yes, I was wearing a fedora, and yes, I was driving in the right lane.

I do feel older in my new minivan, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.

The best part & worst part of being in the moment

By Gene Myers

I recently read an article on toddlers' perception of time. Because my 20-month-old son, Owen, cannot understand a statement like, "I will be home in 8 hours," it suggested using routine events that happen throughout his days as mile markers.

Ready for work on a Monday morning I thought I'd give it a try. Owen ran to the front door as I zipped up my coat. I bent down and said, "I will be home before you go to bed."

His bottom lip started quivering. His eyes welled up and he started crying! Oops, major mistake on my part. I miscalculated.

When I got home that night (earlier than I had promised) I decided more research was needed. Instead of reading another article, I got on the floor and pulled out Owen's Sesame Street Garage and Racetrack. We raced cars out of Oscar's garage (one at a time) and drove them into his Fisher Price pizza parlor.

"Yum," said Owen as he pushed a slice of Sicilian into the grill of his Elmo car. "Yum" I repeated as I drove the Cookie Monster truck back to the track.
"Elmo!" Owen said, handing me his magnetic pen, so I drew Elmo for him on an Etch-a-Sketch-like pad.

I ignored the twinge to check the time on my cell phone and let its reminders vibrate ad infinitum in my pocket.

I made mental notes each time my son had what might be best described as happy attacks. From out of nowhere he would throw his hands up in the air and run around yelling enjoyable nonsense.

At least that is how it appeared from the outside. Various events instigated these happy attacks, including finding a piece of lint on the floor or the appearance of a new person in the room.

The happy attacks clearly illustrated to me that the best way to research what's going through my boy's mind was to surrender control and become the test subject.

This got easier and easier to do with each of Owen's maniacal laughing fits, like the one that followed after we crawled around like dogs, panting. Then he stood up and pet me, saying "DOGGIE!"

By the time the fun had ended I learned a lot about being in the moment with my son. Playing by his rules made it easier to get silly with him. But it also made leaving in the morning that much harder on the both of us.

Each morning he had a new scheme that he hoped would get in the way of me going to work, like stealing my shoes or blocking the door.

None of these plans actually stopped me, but they did make it harder. What made it harder still was the realization that while being in the moment makes it possible to be carefree and silly, it also means that waiting for daddy to come home feels like forever.