I Can't Wait!

It has finally happened!  The weather is warmer, the sun is shining, and the ground is (finally!) drying out.  This means that many of us can do what we have been dreaming about all winter - dig in the dirt.  Earlier in the spring the onions, beans, and lettuce were planted and it is time for the spring ritual - the trip to the plant store!  If the work schedule and the weather cooperate, the trip can be made on a weekday when the crowds are smaller.  If the trip has to take place on the weekend, the small spaces between the rows of plants are almost impassible, especially when trying to wheel the largest size cart.  The variety of plants is dizzying, and there are many decisions to be made.  How many tomatoes?  Early Girls or Celebrities, Marketmores or Beef Steak?  What kind of hot peppers?  Cubanelle, Hot Portugals,  or Cayanne?  How many new plants can fit in the herb garden?  Dill, fennel, or sage?  If we can eventually make our way out of the vegetables and herbs, there are the flowers.  Row after row of flowers in every shape, size, and color.  The array and the combinations are unending - a panorama of plants that I can hear calling to me.

While the garden is being planted, watered, and weeded, I wait impatiently for that wonderful day when the first vegetables can be picked and eaten.  While I am waiting, I mentally plan all of the ways that I will eat the bounty - marinated tomatoes with pasta, cheese/tomato toast, sandwiches with tomatoes, lettuce, and soy bacon, sauteed tomatoes and peppers on whole wheat pasta ...  The list goes on and on.  I can almost taste that first ripe tomato while I am waiting.

Children love gardens.  They have an affinity for growing things, and love to watch and comment on each plant while it is growing.  Harvest time is lots of fun, and the children are much more apt to try something that they have actually held in their hands and carried into the kitchen than they would if the same item came from Wegmans.  If you can't garden at home or at your center, try growing a few vegetables and herbs in pots that the children help prepare and care for. 

There are many wonderful ways to use produce from the garden or from the farm market.  Here is one that is easy and quick for a busy evening after work.  It is also a recipe that can involve the children since they can rinse and chop the vegetables (a table knife can work very well and is safe).

Sizzling Chicken and Veggie Skillet

4 small boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)

1/4 cup Italian dressing

1 zucchini, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup thinly sliced red onions

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

1 cup snow peas

1/4 cup rated Parmesan cheese

Heat large nonstick skillet on medium high heat.  Add chicken; cover with lid.  Cook 5 to 7 min. on each side or until done (165 degrees).  Transfer to platter; cover to keep warm.  (If you do not have a nonstick skillet, you could use a regular one with cooking spay or a little olive oil.)

Add dressing, zucchini, and onions to skillet; cook on medium heat 4 min., or until vegetables are crisp-tender, stirring occasionally.  Stir in tomatoes and snow peas; cook 1 to 2 min., or until heated through.

Top chicken with vegetable mixture and cheese.

Enjoy!

It's Time to Say Good-bye

It's that time of year again.  The end of the school year is prime time for change in a child care center.  Children who will be entering kindergarten in another school district leave for their new child care centers.  Children who were coming part time in order to wrap around the church's nursery school are leaving for their primary child care.  Children who are aging out leave to stay home.  Whatever the reason, many children are leaving and we must say good-bye to them all.

A staff member who was in tears at the prospect of one of her children leaving asked me, "Do you ever get used to having children leave?"  The answer is yes - and no.  Since I have been in child care for nearly thirty years, I have said good-bye to a number of children.  Some I have never seen again and some are Facebook friends.  Some I see in Wegmans or the bank or the pizza parlor and some I catch up on when I see their parents.  Some live near me and some live across the country.  Some are in the local newspaper when they are on a sports team or graduate from college or get married.  Some are in the local paper when they get arrested or when they die. 

When I see these now grown children, as I read about them or see their parents, I picture them as they were as infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school age children.  I recall some of the silly things that they said and did, how they looked when they were playing in the rain or snow, and what we were singing while they snuggled on my lap.  I look at pictures of their children, find out where they work, and cry at the news that they are not doing well.

It is part of life that children grow and leave us, just as we grew and left our teachers, our caregivers, and our homes.  It is normal, and to be expected for each child.  But each child, no matter what they were like, how they acted, or where they went, takes a piece of my heart with them.

Why? How? What?

"I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity."  Eleanor Roosevelt

Children are born knowing some basic things.  An infant knows when it is hungry, cold, or uncomfortable.  An infant knows when it is warm, secure, and being held in someones arms.  An infant knows the sound of its parents' voices and that they will respond to his cries.   At first that is enough.  As the child grows, he or she sees more of the world and can begin to move around in it.  Everything that the child sees, hears, smells, and tastes is new.  There is so much to discover and learn!   A young child's brain is full of the potential to learn and to grow.  As the child experiences new things, pathways grow between the neurons and synapses in the brain.  The more that the child experiences, the more that the brain grows.  As we age the "use it or lose it" principle kicks in and the brain loses the synapses and neurons that are not being used.

How do children learn all that they do?  By being curious.  By exploring how things smell, how things taste, how things feel, and how things work.  Unfortunately, adults do not always have patience with curious children.  They do not want to wait while a child explores a fire hydrant or a stone or a bush with all of their senses.  They do not understand that something that a child does is not because he is bad (as if children can be divided into "bad" or "good", but that is a rant for another day).  A young child is naturally curious and eager to learn about all of the things around him.

A child may be curious when he:
     *Puts Mom's makeup on the cat (How would the cat look if...)
     *Pulls open the lovely rose and lily buds in Mon's flowers (What could be inside ...)
     *Uses Grandma's lotion to finger paint on the walls (How would it feel if...)
     *Drops his towel into the deep end of the pool (What would happen if...)
     *Colors on his little sister with markers (How would a tattoo look...)
     *Cuts a friends hair (How would that feel...)
Please note that I am using the literary "he" - girls also do all of this and more.

This is not to say that these are desired behaviors.  I do believe that the child should learn that some things are not done, and if an older child were doing these things I would worry about him.  Curiosity is normal and developmentally appropriate and should be encouraged when it takes a socially acceptable form.  Just think of were we would be if Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, or Marie Curie were not curious.  While it is faster and easier for an adult to explain something to a child, rather than let the child discover it for himself, that is taking away an opportunity for the child to grow his brain and his knowledge base.  If something is not in a child's hand it is not in his brain.  Help your children to hold things in their brain, and they will stay there forever.

  

Music, Music, Music!

Young children have a natural affinity for music.  They spend the first nine months of their lives surrounded by rhythms and sounds - the beat of their mother's hearts, the whoosh of the blood through their mother's body, and the gurgles and sounds of digestion.  In addition, they are hearing the rhythms and sounds of their mother's language (do you know that studies have shown that babies can recognize their mother's voices from birth?).  It is no wonder, then, that children enjoy music so very much since it combines rhythm and language.

One of the best ways to share music with a child is to sing with the child. You say you can't carry a tune?  Neither can most children.  This isn't about becoming the next great recording star - it is about sharing something special with a child.  Bev Bos, who advocates singing folk songs with children tells about a child who, when he was at his grandfather's funeral, stood next to the coffin and softly sang, "Go tell Aunt Rhody that the old gray goose is dead".  He used a song to help him to understand a major but confusing event in his life.  Everyone has a song or two (or more) that can bring back a memory.  The right song can even bring back the taste of the food, the feel of the sun, and the smells in the air during that special time.  My mother and father sang often, and many of those songs are still with me.

It is difficult to tell which songs will appeal to a child.  There was a three year old in my care who fell in love with Dean Martin's Mambo Italiano.  She would dance down the halls, play in the classroom, and even use the bathroom while she was singing, "Hey mambo, mambo Italiano".  My younger daughter loved Janis Joplin until she decided that she wanted to be Tina Turner.  I had a young boy who kept talking about "beer for my horses", which I thought was pretty strange until I discovered that it was a country song.  (I still think that it is strange, but I know where he learned it.  I was a little worried about his parents and what they were feeding their pets.)

Children should be exposed to all kinds of music.  I try to play a variety of music, but I do have a few rules.
1.  Avoid anything that is sung by a purple dinosaur!
2.  Always play the real thing.  There are albums of children singing the Beatles songs.  They can't hold a candle to John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
3.  Many children's albums are very insipid.  The Wee Sings were big for a while and they were pretty terrible.
4.  Avoid anything that is recorded for the purpose of making money for Disney or any other major studio.  Some of the soundtracks are great, but some compilations are not. 
5.  It is always good to preview the music first.  One day I took a James Taylor DVD into my classroom for nap time.  How perfect could it be - the children would drift off to "Sweet Baby James" or "Carolina in My Mind".  What I did not realize, however, was that the last song was "Steamroller Blues". Now, I love the blues and even wrote and sang "The Preschool Room Blues" with one of my classes.  Unfortunately, this song was a live version and the audience kept egging on James until he sang (very loudly and very clearly) the mother of all f words!!  I almost broke my neck leaping across the table to turn off the CD (too little, too late).  Fortunately, this was one of the few days when every child had fallen asleep.  Now I ALWAYS listen to the music first.

So what do the children in my classrooms listen to?  I love a variety, and about the only thing that I don't play is rap (and the young boys and girls who moan through a song - I don't know what you call that).  I love music from the 60's (as a cultural experience my girls went to the Lead Zeppelin and Pink Floyd laser shows at the planetarium), and I won't admit it but I do sing along with disco.  Just make sure that any music is appropriate for children.  The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" is great, but they shouldn't be singing about Maxwell's silver hammer coming down on her head.  There are excellent children's artists, including the Wiggles, Laurie Berkner, Go Fish, and Raffi.  There are a number of musicians who have traditionally done adult music who have recorded children's music.  These include Jerry Garcia, Bare Naked Ladies, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and They Might Be Giants.  One of my favorites is "For Our Children - The Pediatric Aids Benefit Concert".  You will want the original one, which has become VERY expensive, but can often be purchased used for much less.  Every child should experience Little Richard singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" or Bob Dylan singing "This Old Man".

So on to my ultimate rule - have fun and make memories.  Don't make your child sit through some dirge of an opera because it is "good for them."  If you want them to experience opera, teach them to sing "Figaro, Figaro" (we thought that it was hilarious when we were children).  Keep songs in your home and many years later they will still be in your children's hearts.

 PS - The title of this blog comes from a song about putting another nickel in the nickelodian that my mother used to sing when we were children.