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On Raising a Three-Child Family

Robin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:00:30 +0000

I’m on maternity leave from June 11 to July 16: The following is a guest post from Simple Kids contributor Robin Zipporah of The Not-Ever-Still Life.

Raising three kids is not simply raising two kids plus one more. A three-kid family has a different dynamic, and it’s not the default dynamic of most family situations.

Event tickets are sold in packs of four.

If you’ve just had your third kid, you might not be able to fit your kids’ car seats and boosters in your family car.

You’ll go to a restaurant and be asked to wait a minute.

They’ll push a table over for you while a family of four is seated immediately.

You’ve exceeded the norm. Four is a tidy number and five is not, but since when has raising children been a tidy process? As we celebrate with Tsh as she joyously expands her family, I would like to share my observations on caring for a family of five. Our children are four-years-old, two-years-old, and four-months-old, respectively, and here are some lessons I’ve learned by having three children.

Count your blessings.

Yes, you just made life so much more complicated than your friends who have enough hands to hold each of their children’s hands when crossing the street. You have two kids to hold onto as well as a stroller to push; one day you’ll have a kid holding hands with a kid holding hands with you.

For now, you can babywear and free up a hand for each of your elder two, but the math is clear: your youngest isn’t even walking yet, but you can’t keep a hand on each child.

They will need to rely on each other more, and you will need to trust them to do so. But think of that image of them walking together in a line and remember that they are gifts to each other as much as they are to you.

Encourage an alliance.

Your older two deserve to maintain their regular activities, to get outside and play, to read and be read to – without always having to wait for you to feed the baby or shush the baby or put the baby down to sleep. Figure out how many ways you can accommodate their needs while you simultaneously tend to the baby, but also encourage them to work together.

Can your eldest read to your second child? Can they push each other on the swing? Foster their sibling relationship in this unique time, before the baby can join in on all of their activities.

Photo by The Bywaters

Find time for each child.

Then, when the baby is finally asleep, make sure you take over the reading, and wrap each of your elder two around you. They will need just as much physical affection as ever, and perhaps even more of your attention.

You won’t be able to devote your full attention to them every time they ask for it, but you can reward their patience. Read a third story at bedtime instead of the regular two. Sit out on the porch and share an orange after dinner. Seek out quiet moments so that the space for talking is available.

Watch your language.

Your second child now seems impossibly large. For so long you’ve thought of her as your baby, and now she’s been bumped up the line. As she defines her new role, help her by modeling positive language.

You don’t have to call her your middle child. Labels carry a lot of weight, and the “middle child” label doesn’t carry many positive connotations. Call her your second-born, or use gender to define her via her siblings as your first daughter or your only girl. Honor how special she is by introducing her in a way that everyone else will be able to see it, too.

Make the difficult decisions.

Sometimes the baby will cry just as the older two need you, too. It’s true outside your home and it’s true here, too — you can’t please everybody all of the time.

Make sure the baby is safe, and then take a minute to tend to your elders’ needs. They’ll remember feeling neglected if you always go to the baby first, but the baby won’t remember a thing if he cries for an extra minute. And you’ll make it up to him with extra snuggles at midnight. And 2 a.m. And 4 a.m…

Photo by Arslan

Remember why you’re here.

You’re here, a mama of three, because you can do this. Because you have this much love in your heart. Because you believe in yourself, your partner and this family.

My second daughter’s birthday is December 11th, which means she was nine months old on a September 11th. I spent a lot of time thinking about that milestone; that the day she transitioned to longer “out” than “in” was the day we commemorated such violent tragedy.

My daughter became more a child of the world than of my womb on the anniversary of the day I remember hearing people ask how anyone could bring children into such a world. We asked the opposite question: How could we not?

The gift of your three children to the world tips the scales towards greater compassion, greater ecological care, and greater humanity.

Savor the moment.

Caring for yourself, tending to your marriage, and now being responsible for three little ones — it can be a lot. There will be chaos, and you will be more tired than you believed possible. But enjoy it.

My own mothering mentor, whose children are now in their 20s, tells me to remember that the days are long but the years are short. They won’t always need you as much as they do now, and then you’ll miss their little hands and constant closeness.

It is my hope that when I reach that period I’ll look back on these crazy days of their childhoods and think, We did it. We got through it with love and patience, and we raised them well.

What is the best parenting advice you’ve ever received?

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On Raising a Three-Child Family is a post from Simple Mom

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7 Ideas for Screen-Free Travel with Kids

Megan — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:00:54 +0000

Written by kids columnist Megan Tietz of Sorta Crunchy.

As the summer season kicks into high gear, families are making plans, packing bags, and hitting the road for a time-honored tradition – the family road trip.

A few years ago, we bought a portable DVD player to keep our kids entertained while we traveled. And you know what? It worked great! But it broke, and we decided not to replace it. And then we re-discovered how much fun family trips can be when we are engaged with and connected to each other.

We’ve had to get a little creative in coming up with ideas to keep the little people occupied without the help of a screen, especially since neither of them are old enough to read independently.

I’ve been thinking about what my family did when I was a child on road trips in those pre-DVD days, so I thought I might share a few ideas to inspire your travels this summer.

1. Play games.

Go vintage! Bring back the travel games of your youth and teach them to your children. Even my two year old can play I Spy, and older kids might like the ABC game.

To prepare for long road trips, my mom would load up with travel versions of our favorite games (Yahtzee was always included!). M.A.S.H., Tic-Tac-Toe, and Hangman are all games that are relatively easy to play in a moving vehicle with just a pad of paper and a pencil.

2. Sing songs.

Of course there are road trip classics like “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” but wouldn’t it be fun to teach your kids the camp songs or cheerleading chants or popular songs of your childhood? I might never heave learned every single word to Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans” if it hadn’t been for my dad serenading us with it on every road trip of my childhood!

3. Read books.

Photo by twodolla

If you find it hard to fit reading time into your normal, everyday routines, perhaps travel time will allow you to catch up on some of what you have been missing.

Include a trip to the library in your pre-travel preparations to stock up on reading material for kids of all ages, and don’t forget about audio books! Look for stories that will appeal to all ages. The hours will pass by so much more quickly when the imaginations of your family are indulging in the joy of listening to stories being read.

4. Tell stories.

Listening to the stories of others is wonderful, but what about narratives from your very own family? Do your children know the story of how you and your spouse met? Where was your favorite place to vacation when you were a child?

In the fast-paced culture in which we are raising our children, it’s easy to let family tales slip through the cracks. What better time to share stories then when you have a captive audience?

5. Write notes.

For children who are old enough to read and write, a journal is a great way to capture conversations while on the road. You could invite your children to ask questions they have been struggling with, or you could provide them with some prompts to get the conversation going:

What makes you really, really happy?
What makes you really, really sad?
What is your favorite smell?
If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?

Pass the journal around and let everyone have a chance at recording responses. The road trip journal is sure to become a family keepsake!

6. Take pictures.

Photo by Kamoteus

Be tourists! Stop at scenic turn-offs and hop out of the car for a picture. Capture shots of silly billboards or road signs. Take a picture each time you cross the state line.

I have an old point-and-shoot that I let my daughters (carefully) play with on long trips. They get some very interesting shots as well as some great pictures of each other in the backseat. With digital cameras, all of the wasted pictures can be deleted in a second, but the fun pictures will make a great addition to family albums.

7. Be quiet.

Somewhere along the way, I fell into the trap of believing that I was responsible for the entertainment of my children for every second we were on the road. I had forgotten that some of my favorite parts of road trips as a child came when I was just watching the landscape roll past. Our days are filled with lots of noise, but aren’t vacations supposed to offer us a break from the usual?

I am certainly not disparaging those who bring DVDs and portable gaming devices along on trips. There is a time and place for everything. However, if families began to view the time spent traveling as a wonderful part of the journey rather than just means to an end, we might discover there are golden opportunities for memory-making, if only we are brave enough to turn off the power button.

Further resources:

Parent Hacks :: Beyond I Spy
Games Kids Play :: Car Games
Association for Library Service to Children :: 2010 Notable Children’s Recordings

What do you remember about travels with your family as a child? Have you tried any screen-free travel with children lately? How did it go?

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7 Ideas for Screen-Free Travel with Kids is a post from Simple Mom

Toggl: a nifty time management tool for COOs of the Home

Tsh — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:57:23 +0000

I work at home as a part-time graphic designer, and I also manage a lot of my work as a stay-at-home mom on the computer. Combine that with using language learning software, writing two blogs, reading plenty more, and keeping up with friends and family far away, that can equal a lot of computer time.

If I’m not careful, I can end up spending all day on the computer. My kids could become Computer Orphans if I don’t make time management a priority.

I’ve recently found a tool that can really help a mom manage her computer time. Toggl is a free service that monitors your computer time. It’s nothing more than a time logger, but it watches the clock so you don’t have to.

Let me show you how it works for me.

When I log into my Toggl account, I click on “new project.”
I create a project name – something obvious like “Balance Checkbook.”
It requires that you have a client’s name attached to a project, so for this project I’d use “Family.”
I decide how many hours I WANT to spend on this task – let’s say 2.
Whenever I’m ready to start that task, I click the start button next to that project. It immediately starts tracking my alloted time.

I’ve attached a screenshot of what my Toggl page looks like:

You can see that Toggl is actually created for tracking billable hours, like for folks who are self-employed or who telecommute from home. It’d be nice if moms COULD bill their hours, but since we can’t, just ignore this feature. (Or you could give your kids an invoice on Friday, letting them you know can accept straight up cash or whine-free dinnertimes as forms of payment.)

Even though this obviously works best for your computer time, you can also use it for whatever project on your to-do list. If you need to sort through your kiddo’s outgrown clothes, you could add that, and just start the timer on the computer when you start. I can see it working well for getting ready for a garage sale, planning a birthday party, or tracking your child’s homework time. Anything on which you want to spend time wisely.

When you finish your project, you simply click on “task completed.” If you want to see how you’ve managed your time so far, click on “see report,” and it will itemize each task and your time spent on each.

This works very well for me. I’m a list maker, I’m task-oriented, and it helps when I have a reachable goal for my many unseen mom jobs – I’m working to beat the clock, in other words. I also need accountability sometimes! This provides me with a time card for my full-time job of Mom, COO of the Household. And it encourages me to get things done and stay on task.

Another feature that’s great for moms of preschoolers is that you can start and stop your Toggl timer all day. So when you sit down to reply to emails, get the “Dear Mom, Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you” written, then have to stop to fish a Nemo toy out of the toilet, you can pause the timer at the click of a button. Then you can start it up again. And of course, stop it again when your baby’s diaper is now emitting its contents up his back.

At the end of the week – or month, or day, or whenever, I can look at my hours logged, and look at my time management technique square in the face. Did I mean to spend only three hours this week reading blogs, and ended up devoting eight? Did I stay on task for four hours this week writing blog posts, or researching money market accounts, or planning Suzy’s homeschool curriculum – or whatever you need that smidge of accountability for?

With Toggl, I can create my own timesheet. Mom’s the COO, but sometimes it helps to also be the boss.
Photo by Jana Christy

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Toggl: a nifty time management tool for COOs of the Home is a post from Simple Mom