Have WOD, Will Travel

So, I wrote a long meandering post about our recent road trip the other day, and I mentioned that I had gone a little lax paleo-wise.

Basically, that means I drank a bunch of beer, because, hey--the wedding was at a brewery. In Wisconsin. It would have been rude not to drink beer. I was doing it out of sheer politeness. Yeah. That's it.

I also ate wedding cheesecake and a piece of Sean's birthday cake and the odd piece of bread to go along with the beer-cheese fondue (again, I plead "Wisconsin"). But it's all good--I did everything in moderation, with full consciousness of what I was doing, and enjoyed every second of it! :D

But despite my occasional straying from my (mostly) paleo diet, I did pretty well on the exercise front! And I'm here to tell you all about it.

I was gone a total of 11 days, and that meant missing 5-6 CrossFit sessions. I knew I wouldn't do quite that many workouts while on vacation, but I wanted to do something. So I googled "travel wods" and found this nice list of body weight WODs that are perfect for traveling.

Here's what I ended up doing:

Day 1

We had a long long LONG drive that day. We went from our home to my mother-in-law's house in a mere 13.5 hours (including stops). By the time we got there, we were exhausted. What is it exactly that's exhausting about sitting in a car for hours and hours? Anyway, I was also kind of stiff and a muscle in my leg was protesting from all of that sitting around.

When we got to my MILs neighborhood, I had Brendan reset the odometer to track how far it was from the front of her neighborhood to her house. It was just at half a mile. Perfect!

So the first night, I warmed up for a few minutes (squats, lunges mostly) and then went for a run, to the front of the neighborhood and back. That's #11 (run one mile) on the list. I didn't time it; I just ran. I felt SO awesome after doing that. Much more like myself, less cramped and stiff, and very relaxed after our long day.

Day 2 was a rest day (and, um, uh. . . a beer-drinking day).

Day 3

In the morning my sister, her husband, and I took the kids to the pool for about an hour. Light non-WOD kind of exercise, but physical activity is physical activity.

Later that night, I danced for about three straight hours at the wedding reception. Not exactly an official WOD, but certainly a lot of exercise! Notably, I didn't get tired or really even out of breath during the dancing, and I credit this to my improved fitness since starting CrossFit! Just like Eliza, I could have danced all night. And I wasn't even really sore the next day.

Oh, and I did change out of my painful wedding shoes (they were even flats!) and into my VFFs for the reception. Yes. I told my brother and my new sister-in-law that I loved them enough to wear painful (though cute and matching) shoes to the wedding, but not enough to hurt my feet at the reception. They were cool with it. :)

So, no official WOD, but I count Day 3 as a day full of good exercise.

Days 4 and 5: Rest Rest and OMG Rest. We were SO tired from the wedding stuff, and just took a couple of leisurely days to hang out.

Day 6

Kind of a moderate physical activity day. Went with my mother-in-law and the kids to the pool for a couple of hours. Sean likes to hold my shoulders and ride on my back while I swim, so I did a lot of that. Not in WOD fashion though.

We also went for a walk (Sean on my shoulders, as usual) and did paddle boats for about 30 minutes. It's HARD, those paddle boats! No wonder my parents never wanted to do those when I was a kid! Anyway, that was a bit of a workout, and I wasn't sore for a second afterwards.


Day 7 was driving and rest. Took a little walk around a nice little town, but that's it.

Day 8

We were back in Chicago at my MIL's. I was feeling like I needed to do some kind of more intense exercise, so I checked my handy-dandy list and found #63, which is run 400m, 50 squats, run 400m, 50 push ups, run 400m, 50 sit ups, run 400m. No prob.

I couldn't be bothered to find the 400m mark in the neighborhood, so I modified the WOD and did about 1/3 of a mile, then the squats, 1/3 mile, push ups, 1/3 mile, sit ups. Same distance and exercises, just in a slightly more convenient format. I loosely timed it (meaning I checked the time before I went out and when I came back in, but did not monitor to the second) and did this in about 15 minutes.

It was a little odd-looking, I'm sure, to see me doing push ups along the sidewalk in the middle of my MIL's neighborhood (don't do them on the grass or blades of grass will go up your nose!), but I'm at the stage of my life where I don't really give a flying crap about such things.

I felt awesome afterwards. I was nervous that all that beer-drinking meant I was completely and utterly back out of shape forever and ever and was eager to prove to myself that I still had it. I still had it, baby! I don't know what I was worried about, but I blame the Perfectionism Monster.

Day 9 had no vigorous exercise in it really, but it did involve a nice long walk around Purdue. And s'mores (yum!).

Day 10 was another day with a nice long walk in it, but no vigorous exercise. Or s'mores. There was, as I recall, copious amounts of wine.

Day 11 was a long drive and no workout at all.

The day after I got home I went back to CrossFit and did some deadlifts (5 sets of 3) at a nice high (for me) weight: 145 pounds. Honestly, I probably could have gone higher, but I wanted to ease back into things a bit.

I'm proud that I was able to keep going with a couple of WODs and lots of other physical activity on my long road trip. It sure helps to have family around to hang with the kids so I can go for a quick run. I love the list of travel WODs, too, and plan to consult it on all of my future vacations. Including the mini-vacation I'm taking this weekend, where a couple of CrossFit-y friends and I are planning to meet up for at least one workout.

Time Travel Tuesday: Find the Funny

Today I'm posting one of the funniest posts I've ever written. I wrote it at the end of a long, long frustrating day in which juggling the needs of three children and myself seemed impossible. Sean was about 5 months old, Morgan was just over 3.5, and Ryan was about 6.5.

It was one of those days when you think to yourself It's either laugh or cry. So I chose to laugh.

Here's a general idea of what it takes to get me and the three kids out the door.

T - 60 minutes: I mentally go through my Going Somewhere Checklist to identify things that could be done right away. Usually, there's not much that can be done this far in advance, but I will try to make a guess as to when Sean will need to eat next, and if it's any time in the next 2 hours, I'll see if he needs to eat.

T - 58 minutes: Put screaming, offended baby down, as he clearly didn't want to eat.

T - 57 minutes: Do dishes or something else constructive (like write on the blog or Facebook!).

T - 45 minutes: Start gathering up crap for my big bag, such as diapers, wipes, snacks, drinks, my wallet, money (ha!), 9,000 soldier peopleguys, cell phone, car keys, hat for the baby, extra outfit for the baby, extra outfit for Morgan (just in case she "forgets" the potty), the Leapster, pens, pencils, notepads, Epi-pens, bottle of wine drink for me (if applicable), toys for the baby, 9,000 teeny tiny puppies, and a partridge in a pear tree. If we're heading to swimming, the list is even longer.

Go read about the rest of that crazy day here.

It's still a little complicated getting out the door these days, but NOTHING like it was when I had a baby and a kid who needed help getting dressed.

Actually that reminds me of the funniest time I ever needed to nurse the baby. You nursing moms know how sometimes you find yourself nursing a baby in the oddest situations, right? Imagine this:

We were heading to meet Brendan for dinner after Morgan's ballet class when the baby needed to eat. He was about 3-4 months old, I think. And he had that cry that told me I couldn't delay him any longer. We were early to the restaurant so I parked and went to the middle row of seats in the minivan to nurse him, figuring that's what we'd do until Brendan got to the restaurant.

So just as I got the baby latched, Morgan cries out from the back "Mom, I really really need to poop!" And this is the kind of thing you can't ignore either.

For a second I tried to weigh the needs of one against the other and the logistics of taking her across the parking lot to the bathroom. Then I realized that we had a little Bjorn potty in the car. Great. She could go in the car.

So, one-handedly, while nursing the baby, mind you, I pulled the little potty out from underneath the seat in front of me and found a little white trash can liner to go in it (makes clean up quick and easy!), and tried to place the liner in the potty. All the while trying to explain to Morgan who was whining "I have to goooooooo!" what I was doing and why.

That's when the fun began. She was in her ballet clothes, see. And couldn't get out of the leotard and tights all by herself.

So, one-handedly, while nursing the baby, mind you, I reached behind the seat I was in and began to pull the leotard off of her shoulders. One arm at a time. She was crying by this point and unintentionally hindering the process, which made it take longer, which of course was NO GOOD because, well, you know. Poop was coming. Every time I pulled the baby off, he lost it and freaked out and couldn't control his head all of a sudden and was flopsy and flailing.

In retrospect, I should have put him in his carseat and let him suffer a couple of minutes while I got her out of her clothing. I wasn't thinking clearly, obviously.

That moment, nursing the baby while pulling a leotard off of someone who was screaming and standing behind me in the van, felt like FOREVER.

Even in that moment, though, I thought WOW. What if someone saw this? This looks insane. How hysterically funny! 

Eventually I got her undressed and sitting on the potty and everything turned out okay. I did have to do some 'splaining to Brendan who was pretty surprised to find me in the middle seat with the baby and a naked Morgan on the potty in the backseat when he arrived.

So, for all of you living the insane crazy dream right along with me, here's to us! And here's hoping you can Find the Funny. If not now, then at least someday. :D

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

We made it home yesterday, safe and sound, though a little frazzled and stressed from too many long car rides through too many thunderstorms.

It was a fun vacation, though I'll be sad when August rolls around and we aren't going to the beach as we usually do.

What did we learn, see, do, think on vacation? Let me count the ways . . . (and in no particular order)


My kids are really cute all dressed up, even if they are sitting in a pipe on some rocks getting all dusty before the ceremony:

I think it was a good idea to tell Morgan not to be a dog during the wedding ceremony, but somehow I neglected to tell her to keep the front of her dress down. Something to note for next time.

The wedding was tons of fun. My family knows how to rock it. I hope some of the formal pictures turn out because we were all looking good and all five of us were color-coordinated (see above) and wearing fancy clothes.

My grandma really liked her surprise scarf! :D

New Glarus, Wisconsin is a cute little town and makes really really good beer. The wedding ceremony was on top of the hill at the brewery. Here's a gnome that's on the brewery premises:







Sean had a great time on his birthday! He loved his gifts (beware of colored bubbles) and is acknowledging that he is, indeed, three years old. Apparently he knew that he wouldn't turn three until June 20, and that's why he wouldn't even HEAR of it until that date had arrived. Now he's happy to show three fingers (and he's using the correct ASL sign for it, too).

We rode the Ducks on Sean's birthday. It was fun, though the ride accidentally made Sean have a birthday nap, which I don't think he was planning to take. :D Here's a picture of the Birthday Boy on a Duck, as we were getting ready to go, looking very old and mature and not at all like a baby (sniff):

Also, always bring a jacket to Wisconsin, even in June.

On our way back to Chicago, we drove right by Taliesin and didn't go in. It's pretty from the road. It's also in the middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin. Who knew?

Just down the road from Taliesin is The House on the Rock, which we also didn't go in. Maybe when I have older kids.

There'a a lot of strange roadside art in Wisconsin. I remember a metal dinosaur particularly.

Mineral Point, Wisconsin was the first capitol of Wisconsin. My ancestors emigrated to Mineral Point from Cornwall in the 1840s. We visited Pendarvis, an area where they restored some of the homes of the Cornish immigrants, which was really interesting.

I don't recommend visiting Pendarvis in A.) the rain, or B.) with crabby children, or especially C.) with crabby children in the rain.

Morton Arboretum has a really cool children's area, completely with rope bridges. Sean fearlessly tackled all of them.

Lou Malnati's always tastes better in Chicago (though it's quite good when you have it shipped to your house in Georgia), but it's not a good idea to go to the restaurant with tired, crabby children.

Visiting Purdue was lots of fun, though I'd forgotten that there's always tons of construction in the summer. They also keep putting up new buildings where there weren't any before, which is confusing. We saw the Armory (Ryan was impressed) and the Engineering Mall and some of Ross-Ade Stadium (which is where my SIL works kinda). I learned there are 62,500 seats at Ross-Ade.

They had tons of fun sliding down the fountain.

Poor Sean wanted to get down. He's not super impressed with Neil Armstrong, apparently.

And I got a couple of new shirts, including a new Harry's Chocolate Shop shirt! Yay.

The drive home was, well, long. Brendan flew back Tuesday Wednesday to work (he got to spend the night in the Madison airport, poor guy) and the rest of us just made our way south as we could. It was fun to hang out with relatives and see different things on our way home, but by yesterday, we were all pretty much OVER. IT. So of course the weather was crappy and the trip took much longer than it should have.

But we made it! Sean and I slept in REALLY late this morning, too. And now all I have to do is tons of laundry and running to the dry cleaners and going to the bank and getting groceries and cleaning up and putting all of the tons of presents the kids got away and opening mail and paying bills and . . . I might need another vacation soon.

Lucky me! I'm going to the first part of OCON and I leave on Saturday, so I will get another vacation! I'd better get started on that laundry though.

I'm happy to be back (for the time being at least) and getting back to a regular routine. Which will hopefully include blogging! It will definitely include eating better (I didn't do terribly, but I was definitely on Lax Paleo instead of Regular Paleo) and starting a new knitting project and going to CrossFit and hanging out with the fam.

In Case You're Wondering About CrossFit

Our vacation has been going full speed ahead for a week now! It feels like FOREVER, but in a good way. Tomorrow we'll take the second leg of our trek back home and Hail Old Purdue.

While I was gone, I missed participating in CrossFit Kennesaw's bid for Atlanta fame! Chris and lots of the good people at CFK were interviewed for a local morning news show last Friday. Today, I finally got a look at the videos. So much awesome, I can't even describe it!

Here's the reporter talking to Chris and learning about some of the parts of the workout he'd get to do that morning (Fight Gone Bad, mwahahahaha!). It's a good look at some of the different things you get to do in CrossFit. Because I know you're wondering about it and thinking 'Hey that Jenn seems to be really into this. Is she crazy or merely awesome? I hope she'll tell me more!'

Well, it won't embed, so click here to go see the video (there's a short commercial before the news clip runs).

So yay for Chris and CrossFit Kennesaw! I'll be there next time, promise!

By the way, the answer to that question you've been thinking is: AWESOME. :D

It's Seanie's Birthday!

We are having a wonderful vacation so far. The wedding was great fun. The party: even FUNNER. Morgan and I tore. it. UP at the party! :D

And the celebrations continue. My baby is three today! Here are a few Sean highlights:

Less than two hours old, Sean was lifting his head up and looking around. (I'm told I did something similar.) Note that we were already having trouble finding hats to fit his ginormous head.

Wearing the hat my grandmother knitted him. She knitted him a train sweater for his birthday this year! I'll put pics of that up at some point.

Always has been such a sweet baby

Baby Mandrake for first Halloween

Eyelashes

Just a hint of curl

A few more curls

Angry, resigned Oompa Loompa

The classic Sean grin. He uses it to charm and confuse the opposition (me and Brendan). It's very effective.

Very self-satisfied at his birthday party last night. Looking proud!









UPDATE 6/21/11: Many of my picture links didn't work yesterday, so hopefully they're fixed now. But that's okay, I can add a bonus picture of the birthday boy on his actual birthday, on his way to ride the Ducks in the Wisconsin Dells. He LOVED riding the Duck, though it did put him to sleep. :D





Happy Birthday to my sweet, bossy, funny, impish, smart, playful, fanfare-singing, curly-haired, charming little guy!

Obligatory Pre-Vacation Procrastination Post

I can't really tell if I'm procrastinating or if I'm just really, really good at packing for long trips. I've got plenty of time because we're not leaving until tonight. And it's not like I haven't done anything to prepare. I've purchased road-trip supplies (mainly, snacks and baby wipes), dropped the cat off at the kitty hotel, and printed my hotel confirmations, maps, and the game I'm bringing to the bridal shower. The laundry's all done (I know!) and folded and I've just got to pack everything up according to my carefully prepared list.

However, there are also many other things I could be doing, such as tidying up the house a bit, as I hate to walk into a crazy-looking house after a long vacation. But Brendan will be here in the house for five days without us. He'll either mess it up or clean it up, right? Why bother cleaning? :D

So instead I'll just put up a picture of the scarf I finished last night:






It's really cute, if I do say so myself. It was a pretty easy pattern, too, and I was able to knit the last third or so of it without even glancing at the pattern to remind myself what was next. It's a good length, too. Taller than me, though that's not saying much, heh.

This project represents something of a departure for me in knitting, too. It's the first project where I've taken the time to fix my mistakes and re-knit some stuff. Usually, I can't be bothered (and usually, I'm knitting something for practice so it doesn't truly matter).

I'm so glad it turned out well, and that it's finished! But, but . . . what will I knit during the trip? Oooh . . . I think I just had another great procrastination idea: flip through my books and pick a knitting project for the trip! Wow, I amaze even myself sometimes.

I hope to be tweeting pictures and other fun updates while I'm gone, so if I don't make it back here for a while, find me on Twitter and/or Facebook. I promise always to amuse. Well, amuse myself, that is.

See ya in the Land of Beer and Cheese!

Time Travel Tuesday: On Positive Discipline

For this week's installment of Time Travel Tuesday, I offer my very first post on Positive Discipline. It includes a general overview of the principles of PD and some examples of how we might use those tools (contrasted to a traditional punishment model of discipline).

Here's an excerpt (with some relevant links added):

I don't think punishment--as in Child does XYZ Bad Behavior and then I as the parent must then do something to the child in order to make them either understand that the behavior was bad or feel bad about doing it, such as sit in Time-Out or be grounded or hit or screamed at or shamed--is necessary.

I want to guide my children toward full rationality and the virtues I prize, rather than control them into it. I look at punishment as a way to try to control the child's behavior rather than teach the child what's expected. Obedience--the end result of being well-controlled--is not a virtue. I don't want my kids to know how to obey me. I want them to be independent, productive, honest, be just and moral, have self-control and integrity. And this entails rationality, which cannot be present without volition, choice.

Kids need practice at making good decisions. (Actually, many adults I know could use a refresher course, too.) They're going to make good ones and bad ones. And they're not fully rational either [insert obvious joke about adults here]. But I think that PD respects a child's nascent rationality, and in fact, bolsters it--by allowing them to practice and make mistakes without punishment.

When Brendan makes a mistake, I don't punish him by making him sit in Time-Out. Once, I accidentally dropped his computer and it broke. I didn't go to the Naughty Chair--I got the computer fixed. PD is more in line with how adults treat each other, while making allowances for the immature brains and less experience that children have.

Since that post, I (along with Kelly) took a couple of classes about teaching these techniques to parents and am currently a Positive Discipline Trainer Candidate. The fun thing about teaching and taking these classes is that it helps concretize some of the ideas. Sometimes it's a bit of a stretch to imagine what a home with no punishments or reward systems might look like, how a parent handles discipline situations. The classes are designed to demonstrate and even give the participants some practice in using the ideas. I'm definitely looking forward to teaching more classes in the future.

If you have any questions about non-punitive discipline/Positive Discipline, I'd love to hear them!

Road Trippin'

We're about to leave for this summer's big vacation. We're not going to the beach like we usually do. Instead, we're heading to Wisconsin for multiple family celebrations!

We've got my brother's wedding hoopla, followed by a mini-vacation at my mother-in-law's home in the Wisconsin Dells where we'll celebrate Father's Day (with my dad, father-in-law, and Brendan), and Sean's third birthday.

Can you believe that Sean is already THREE??!!?!?! So unfair. But yes, next Monday, he'll turn three. Only he insists that he WON'T be turning three--he plans to remain two years old apparently, so maybe I will get my (temporary) wish that he will stay little forever.

Should be a fun wedding, too. It'll take place in a tiny little town not unlike Helen, Georgia. I'm told there will be much beer, as the bride's father is a brewery peopleguy. :D Ryan and Morgan are in the wedding, and I'm reading a poem in the ceremony, too.

My kick-ass grandma will be there, and I'm excited because I've almost finished knitting her a scarf (will post pics when it's done). Sure, she lives in Southern California and probably needs a scarf like she needs a hole in the head, but it's a symbolic scarf. She's knitted so many things for me, and for my kids and even for Brendan! I figure it's time to start repaying this knitting debt a bit. Besides, I think she'll be so tickled at the gesture.

We'll get to see tons of people we haven't seen in a long long time, too. We have a pretty awesomely fun family, and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone. And there's another wedding in the family at the end of the year, so I'll get to see most of them AGAIN. Rock.

Brendan's flying home Tuesday night since he has work to do. :( We'll miss him, and I'm more than a little nervous about driving home all the way from Wisconsin. But I have a plan! (As if there were any doubt about that!)

We'll be hanging out a couple more days with my in-laws at their fun house in the Dells, swimming and relaxing a bit. We might make a trek to Mineral Point, which is where some of my ancestors went when they left Cornwall in the 1840s. I've never been to Mineral Point and I'm DYING to see it. But seeing it might depend on how tired we're feeling.

Then we'll head to Chicago with them and spend a night there. Then we'll head to the bride and groom's house (they're not leaving for their honeymoon until July) in Lafayette. We'll be taking the kids for a tour around Purdue, something I'm not sure we've ever done with Sean. No, wait, he's been there once, when he was about 6 months old.

Pilgrimages to Purdue were something I experienced as a child (both my parents went there), and it's fun to make them again with my own kids. My sister-in-law works for the university, so maybe we'll get to see some things I've never seen before. And we'll wander through the usual sacred areas, visiting with memories. Lots of life-changing stuff happened for me there. Visiting the places where some of those things happened is always fun thing to do.

After that, we'll head to my sister and brother-in-law's house in Southern Indiana for a night, and then, home!

It'll be a long trip, and probably by the time we're through with it, we'll never want to take another. But I'm looking forward to it very much!

We don't leave until Wednesday evening, but I have SO much to do in the meantime to prepare. Which is, naturally, why I've been writing this blog post as a procrastination measure.

OGrownups Monthly Summary

Here's what happened on OGrownups in May!

New Members: 7


Total Members: 283 (that's a lot!)

Topics:

• Toy guns
• Montessori resources and questions
• Blog Post: A lesson in rational self-interest
• Article: "How the fear of SIDS keeps infant sleep positioners on the market"
• Musical instrument lessons
• Happy Mother's Day!
• Yet another misrepresentation of Ayn Rand: sacrifice and children 
• Pregnancy announcement
• Infant sleep books and ideas
• Child beds
• Article: "I am not raising obedient children"
• Intriguing video (about child development and parenting)
• Cloth vs disposable diapers
• Where does meat come from? (answering a child's questions about that)
• Blog Post: Using a picture book to solve a parenting problem
• Circumcision ban proposed in San Francisco
• Children's rights
• Genderless child-rearing (two separate threads!)
• Tummy tub
• Entrepreneurship fellowship
• Transgender clownfish controversy (you'll have to join the group if you want to know more about that one!)
• NYT article: "Could conjoined twins share a mind?"
• Baby abstractions
• Long term travel with kids

If you are interested in discussion parenting and education from an Objectivist perspective, join us! Non-Objectivists are invited to lurk. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I'll be happy to answer them.

A Funny. And Then, A Serious.

My sweet daughter is very funny. 

Just a little while ago, she came up to me with something in her hand and said:

"Hey Mom! Next time you are mad about something and trying not to yell, here's a book you can read so you'll know what to say."

And handed me How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Evidently, she's been browsing our bookshelves and was inspired!

Note: I haven't lost my temper in a very long time, so it's not like she was trying to make a point or anything (and she's too young--and sweet--for the snark factor). She knows that this is something I struggle with, because we've talked about it. And she wanted to help.

I thought that was pretty funny. And awesome. And we talked about how that was one of my favorite parenting books.

Incidentally, I've been asked a few times if I let my kids read the parenting books I read and the blog posts I write. The answer to this is a resounding "YES!" 

I'm not trying to hide my "tricks" from them. I don't have tricks. The (better, non-yelling) methods of communication I use are ones I want them to learn because they are great for humans of all ages, in my opinion. The limits I set and enforce are as plain and clear as I can possibly make them because I think they are based on rational guidelines (respecting individual rights and taking care of themselves). I want them to learn what rational limits are and eventually learn how to self-discipline: to limit themselves when necessary and enforce that limit, too. 

One day, he needs my help holding his hands still so he doesn't hit somebody else. Another day, he stops his hand all by himself and uses words to handle his problem. 

One day, she needs me to remind her to watch carefully for cars in a parking lot. Another day, she is alert and watchful all by herself. 

One day, he needs me to help him practice how to make a suggestion in a kind way instead of barking an order. Another day, he speaks kindly and manages his own negotiation.

Sometimes I think parents view discipline strategies and principles as secrets, or tricks up their sleeves, something to be sneaky about. Perhaps because they view discipline as mainly a set of manipulative actions or words to make the child behave in the moment. To control the child through physical means, or emotionally, too. Make them do what is necessary. And if that's the purpose of discipline, then maybe you want to keep a few tricks up your sleeves. Never let your opponent know just how much firepower you have, right?

I have no problem showing the kids all of my "weapons" and sharing with them my tactics and strategies and reasons and principles. Everything is out there, nothing is hidden. When I enforce a limit, I tell them exactly what I am doing and why.

With everything out there, visible and plain, I can't manipulate them into good behavior. I can't hide behind an excuse of I'm the Parent; You're the Kid. I don't need to wonder what I'll do if (when) they discover my weapons.

But that's okay. Because these weapons are actually the very things I use all the time in my adult relationships, and I happen to think rationally selfish rights-based self-discipline and good communication/problem-solving skills are pretty good tools to have at your disposal no matter how old you happen to be. 

So I hope my kids read all of the parenting books on the shelves. I hope they read them and think about them and question me about them and challenge me about the ideas. I hope they notice when I am not living up to my standards and goals and call me on it. I hope they notice when they are not living up to the same ideals and call themselves on it.

I'm really eagerly anticipating all of the discussions that are to come about parenting strategies and choices. In fact, today's incident with Morgan and the book is an example about how this conversation has already begun.

So no, nothing to hide here.

More Yummy Enjoy Life Products

Lucky us! The peopleguys at Enjoy Life Foods sent us some free samples of their new products to try in exchange for an honest blog post about what we thought about them!

Here's a preview of our final conclusion: Enjoy Life = YUM.

The first product we tried was the Double Chocolate Crunch Granola.

Now, between the peanut allergy and the paleo stuff around here (which means very few, if any, grains), none of my kids even knew what granola was.

And now they do know what granola is, which is slightly dangerous because this was a very yummy treat, as evidenced by the fact that it disappeared pretty quickly over the course of a couple of days. I even tried some, too (Hey, it's for Science! And Capitalism!) and it was very delicious, chocolatey and crunchy and sweet.

I just asked the kids for a statement about the granola. Morgan says "I love it!" and Ryan says "How could I forget it? It was delicious and I wish you'd buy some more RIGHT NOW!" 



The other product we were lucky enough to sample was the Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mega Chunks. I figured the only way we could properly test this was by making chocolate chip cookies.

The kids protested and whined: "Not chocolate chip cookies! But you only made them six months ago! It's too soon, way too soon!" 

Um. Not. In fact, as I recall, they threw a little parade in my honor.

I used my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe (a modified version of Nestle's Toll House recipe) for the test. Before the chocolate chips (I mean, chocolate MEGA CHUNKS because they really are very large) went into the batter, we all tasted a couple right out of the bag and pronounced them cookie-worthy.

Morgan just pronounced the chocolate mega chunks "the best" and Sean is currently sad because he just heard me say the word cookie and we don't have any more left. Ryan likes "everything" about them and has requested that I order some more RIGHT NOW.

I have to admit, they were pretty. darn. yummy (again, it's for Science! And Capitalism!). They tasted just like the chocolate chips we used to buy before the peanut allergy stuff. And did I mention they are BIG so that the chocolate-to-cookie ratio was very favorable?

We also tested them in raw cookie dough form (and our friend Kelly helped, too!). Everyone seems to agree that whether straight out of the bag, baked into cookies, or in raw cookie dough, these chocolate chips are pretty delicious!

So there you have it--nothing but our honest opinions about these two new products from Enjoy Life Foods. Next time you're in the mood to support Science and Capitalism, even if you don't have a food allergy, you should give these a try. :D

Parenting Quote of the Moment

I'm re-reading Barbara Coloroso's Kids Are Worth It! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline. It's my favorite parenting book and one I often recommend to others who ask me about parenting books. Coloroso is one of the 'positive discipline' authors I really like (I'm using small 'pd' to differentiate from Jane Nelsen's capital 'PD' since she is the one who coined the term Positive Discipline).

But it's been a while since I've read Kids are Worth It!, so I want to see if it holds up. So far it does. Here's a neat little passage about how parents empower their children (as in lighting a spark in our children and then stepping back to let them handle things themselves), from page 18 of my copy:

Empowering our children involves first giving them a secure, safe, nurturing environment--offering them unconditional love, caring touch, tenderness, and concern for their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Within that environment, children can begin to make choices and decisions and mistakes, assume responsibilities and become actively involved family members. Engaging them in critical reflection, teaching them always to be aware of the consequences of their actions on others, showing them how to accept responsibility for their accomplishments and mistakes--all this empowers them to become responsible, resilient, resourceful, compassionate individuals who can act in their own best interests, stand up for themselves, and exercise their own rights while respecting the rights and legitimate needs of others.

Empowering our children involves first giving them a secure, safe, nurturing environment--offering them unconditional love, caring touch, tenderness, and concern for their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. 

This first sentence captures what Kelly and I see as the essence and purpose of Attachment Parenting--that responsive baby and toddler care helps the child get a sense that he is valued and loved and that he is important enough to be cared for. We talked about this some in our ATLOSCon Positive Discipline for Parents of Children Under 6, and we will be talking more about it in a future podcast.


Within that environment, children can begin to make choices and decisions and mistakes, assume responsibilities and become actively involved family members.

This is just how I want our home to be: a safe haven where my kids get lots and lots of practice exercising their minds, where they will learn productive ways to manage their mistakes and failures, where they will shoulder more and more of the responsibility for their own lives as they grow. And when I say 'exercising their minds' I don't just mean reading and math. Very important stuff, reading and math. But I think it's equally--if not more--important that they learn and practice the virtues, too, so that they are growing and exercising a good character.


Engaging them in critical reflection, 

(helping them to introspect)


teaching them always to be aware of the consequences of their actions on others, 

(for good or ill, their actions may affect others, and learning what happens and to what extent helps them learn about individual rights)


showing them how to accept responsibility for their accomplishments and mistakes--

(the virtues of pride and justice and honesty and integrity)


all this empowers them to become responsible, resilient, resourceful, compassionate individuals 

(the words responsible, resilient, resourceful, compassionate often come up in our PD classes)


who can act in their own best interests, 

(be rationally self-interested)


stand up for themselves, 

(be confident and independent and just)


and exercise their own rights while respecting the rights and legitimate needs of others.

(again with the learning about what individual rights are, as they apply to themselves and to others)


Good stuff.

Time Travel Tuesday

I was recently looking through some of my older parenting posts and it was fun revisit some of the topics and ideas I'd written about in the past. Especially because a few of the posts seemed brand-new to me, as I had no memory of writing them!

I think I've picked up some new readers (hello!) and I know that not everyone has the time or inclination to go back and read all of my posts from the last (almost) six years. And let's face it--I'm wordy, which I do recognize as an obstacle to all but the most eager, interested, and intrepid blog readers.

And yet, I think that sometimes when I write parenting posts I am unconsciously assuming that everyone has either A.) read everything I've written and retained it or  B.) lives inside my head and somehow knows all of my context and definitions. What I mean is, I think sometimes I am not defining terms or ideas very clearly. And if I am unclear, please ask!

So I thought, as a semi-regular fun bloggy thing, I might feature a previous parenting post. This is partly for myself--to jog my memory and to see if I still agree with some of my premises and assumptions from way back--and partly for any readers who might be new-ish to my blog and/or non-punitive/non-rewarding parenting and who don't want to wade through all of the years of posts.

This week, I picked my very first post where I wrote explicitly about one way I try to apply Objectivism to my parenting practices. It's called Parenting with Objectivist Principles and was originally posted in July 2007. Nearly four years ago, wow!

You can click the link to read the whole thing if you want, or you can just read some highlights and my current thoughts about this subject. It's all very Decide What You Will Do around here at my blog, see?

Here's how the post starts:

"What is your work going to be today?"

I ask this question of my 5 year old each morning over breakfast. A typical answer, which can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes long (seriously), might be something like: "Well, first I'm going to be a Builder Peopleguy* and build a road, then I'll open up a store that sells electrical wires. After that, I'll be a Zookeeper Peopleguy and I'll specialize in snakes and lizards, and of course, I'll have to feed them...."

The 2 year old has begun to join in these conversations, too, and will usually indicate a desire to splash water in the sink or work on puzzles.

Then I talk about my own plans for the day: laundry, clean up the kitchen, the cabin business, pay bills, the garage project, any errands that need doing, etc.

It's funny to me that the kids featured in this post are now 9 and 6 instead of 5 and 2, but that's how Mr. Time works, huh?

I still ask this question most mornings, and the current 2 year old generally chimes in with an answer, too.

I liked this paragraph (broken up into more readable chunks here):

And as is the case with all small children, they do want to follow our example. In the safe haven of their home, they decide on goals of their own interest, plan how to achieve them, and perform the actions necessary to achieve them, and we grownups make sure to give them space and time. 

The work of a child is to learn about reality, including how his own body and mind work. When kids follow the examples we set, they practice being adults, they learn and practice the habits that will help them achieve their goals as adults. Our job as their parents is to let them get on with that work. 

And so along the way, we answer their questions, make problem-solving suggestions, provide materials and other resources (and by that I of course mean stickers and electrical wires), and are ready with encouraging words and sympathy if necessary. But above all, we stand back and try not to interfere too much. Their work is and should be theirs.

I think anyone who has a child they really care about in their lives can relate to the following experience (I added links to the online version of the Ayn Rand Lexicon):

When my oldest exclaims that he just loves to work hard on his own projects, when he jumps up and down after successfully hammering in a plastic dowel, when he excitedly calls me over to look at the road he designed and built, he is experiencing the result of productiveness for himself--pride.

Notably, this post was the first one in which the word peopleguy was ever used. :D

I enjoyed reading this one over. I liked the writing and I am pleased to be able to say that nothing has really changed along these lines in the four years since writing it.

As I already mentioned, we do have discussions about what our daily plans are. The kids are, for the most part, very self-directed in what work they choose to do (whether the given 'work' happens to be a project or something academic or play or entertainment). I try not to interrupt them unless necessary (that's directly inspired by Maria Montessori).

So yes, this was a good one. Thanks for walking down memory lane with me!

Fitness

I'm having another battle with the Perfectionism Monster! And so I need to write about it, because it really does help me. It's a bit rambly, this post. I tried and tried to wrestle into some semblance of decent essay form, but it just wouldn't. Hooray that blog posts are not meant to be polished essays! :D (At least mine aren't, in case you hadn't noticed.)

So I was talking to Kelly the other day about CrossFit and paleo stuff and our progress on our health goals. I am not even really sure how this came up exactly, but I said the words "I'm fit" and it felt like a complete and utter lie.

The interesting thing is that I noticed this feeling and the connection to my words in the moment and was able to talk to Kelly about it some (then and since). I talked to Diana about it at ATLOSCon, too. She caught me qualifying my statement with mostly and decently, as in ("I'm mostly fit") and I'm thankful she called me on it.

I'm making good fitness progress at CrossFit and I'm enjoying CrossFit immensely, too. I feel great and I can do all kinds of physical stuff that there's no way I could have survived in the not-so-distant past. I am fitter today than I was last year. So what the hell is my problem?

Here I go: I'm fit. I am fit and in decent shape. Nope. Still feels off (though it's getting better).

Why? I think it's because I have more weight to lose and muscle to build and sizes to decrease. Because I don't look really like someone who is fit, I don't think.

So because I haven't yet met my goals 100%, it seems wrong to say that I am fit. This makes sense, in a way. But I know me, and when I start thinking of things in terms of 100% or "all or nothing at all" that's a clue that I need to see if the Perfectionism Monster is taunting me. And it is.

Thinking this over, I have realized that my definition of 'fit' and the idea of what I should look like and weigh and measure when I am 'finished' with this transformation is off-kilter.

Fitness is an outcome, but it's also a process. And there are different kinds of fitness goals that can be rational values for different people. I'm not aiming for Olympic-level fitness here--just regular live-my-life-and-be-healthy fitness. I think I have achieved that, even though there are gains still to be had.

And I will never be 'finished' being fit. If I get to my ideal weight and some (undetermined) level of physical accomplishments--there are still things I will do to stay fit. I am not doing CrossFit with the intention of dropping it the second I am 'finished' getting 'fit.'

If I look at my fitness accomplishments, I can see evidence that I am fit. (I have to do this, to make these little lists to help me see things more objectively. Lists. Love 'em.) For example:

Eight months ago, I could barely run 400 meters without wanting to die. A month ago, I ran in a 5K and didn't stop once and it took less than 36 minutes to finish.

Eight months ago, I had to step up on a 12" box because I couldn't jump it. Five days ago, I did a WOD (workout of the day) which went like this: 21 deadlifts, 21 20" box jumps, 15 deadlifts, 15 20" box jumps, 9 deadlifts, 9 20" box jumps. Oh yeah--those deadlifts were 135 pounds each. And I completed the WOD in less than 9 minutes.

Eight months ago, I could barely push the 35 pound bar up over my head a few times. Two days ago, I did a WOD with a total of 60 55 pound push presses. Yesterday, I did a 100 pound power clean. And my arms are still functional today (though a bit sore).

Now, I'm not saying this is any kind of insanely awesome level of fitness. Plenty of people ran faster and jumped higher and lifted heavier than me during the same workouts. But I do think it qualifies as semi-decent level of fitness, don't you?

However, the real test of my level of fitness isn't how much I can lift or how many reps of a particular exercise I can do. The real test of my level of fitness is what I can do outside of the gym.

And here are some things I can do: I can carry Sean (or Morgan) on my shoulders for half a mile or so to the car at Stone Mountain. I can run and climb on the playground with my kids. I can lift and carry 5 gallon bottles of water to the dispenser (those are 40 pounds) and I don't worry that I'll hurt myself doing that any more either. I can take three kids and approximately 200 pounds of pool toys, towels, and equipment to the pool, go swimming myself, and then lug all of that equipment and those kids back home after (you moms know how hard that is!).

Basically, I feel completely confident that I'll be able handle any physical thing that routine living can think to throw at me. And then some. I really want to start hiking regularly, but that might have to wait until the weather cools down.

Another thing--I also realized that I have, to my very great surprise, an idea in my head that I must be really thin/skinny/tiny in order to be officially fit. And guess what? I will never be really skinny even if I wanted to be. I will get smaller as I continue to make progress in gaining muscle/losing fat (I hope), but waif-like dainty skinny is something that is not within the realm of possibility for me because of my body type (and possibly my age?).

I'm just sayin'--anyone who is as short as I am with feet as huge as mine is not ever going to pull off dainty. :D

I think I subconsciously accepted skinny/thin/tiny as the standard for what my body should look like. I think that's an error. I want to be at a healthy weight (I'm getting there!), but I also want to be STRONG. Which means muscles, not thinness, and that also means a heavier weight than what the BMI/weight calculators tell me.

I am just fine with that, but because I've identified this incorrect premise, I need to be on guard that I don't accidentally hold this idea of small & thin = fit as the standard for what I need to achieve. (Please note: I'm not saying you can't be small and thin and fit! I'm just saying I can't be. If you are small and thin and fit, then rock on!)

So this has been a good thing for me to think about. And write about.

I am able to be happier and live my life better today because I have achieved the level of fitness I've achieved. So to that end, I can honestly say "I am fit." I will get even more fit as time goes by, but the fact that I will be fitter then does not negate the fitness I have today.

Hear that, Perfectionism Monster? Just because I'll be more fit tomorrow doesn't mean I'm not fit today! So there. :P

Objectivist Round Up #203

Welcome to the June 2, 2011 edition of the Objectivist Round Up.

I'm still coming down from the high of ATLOSCon, a mini-conference sponsored by our local Objectivist group (my account of it is included in this week's Round Up). So I've been thinking about happiness. Via the online Ayn Rand Lexicon:

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: “This is worth living for”—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.

Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 29

Gathering with other Objectivists for serious discussion and serious play at our conference (and SnowCon back in March) was one of the highlights of my year. And this feeling of happiness and contentment is my reward for participating. Here's hoping the other people who attended feel the same way!

And happily, I have TWO more Objectivist conferences ahead of me this year: OCON in Florida in July, and the mini-conference sponsored by the Chicago Objectivist Society in September. I am very much looking forward to both and I hope to see you there.

And now, here's this week's Round Up!


Benjamin Skipper presents The Good Political Themes of *One Piece* posted at Musing Aloud, saying, "I enjoyed the anime *One Piece* in my youth, but now as an adult I've noticed it has good, pro-freedom political elements in its philosophy. Other people might appreciate it for the same. Catch it on Hulu."



Andy Clarkson presents Sermon On The Mount Versus Reason, Rational Self-Interest, and Rights posted at The Charlotte Capitalist, saying, "I've created a Facebook group which examines Jesus Christ's Sermon On The Mount.

The purpose of this group is to examine the philosophical roots and historical impact of Jesus' Sermon On The Mount. What is the SOTM? What are the different versions? What philosophical premises -- metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical are at its core? What influence has the SOTM had on the world? Has that influence been good or bad?"



Jonathan Akin presents Giving and Gaining: Thoughts on Charity in Light of Japan’s Disaster posted at The Undercurrent Blog, saying, "What are the moral principles that should be applied when giving to charity?"



Rachel Miner presents Evolutionary Parenting posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "I'm just really fascinated by the ideas this lady, who spent several years studying jungle families, presents and I'd be interested in any thoughts of others reading the Round Up (especially those who invest the time to watch the video where she establishes her context)."



Victoria Genther presents An Undercurrent Distribution Story posted at The Undercurrent Blog, saying, "Submit your own distribution story and win a $75 Amazon gift card!"



Ari Armstrong presents Why Spending More for Local Goods Harms the Economy posted at Free Colorado, saying, "Spending more for identical local-made goods destroys wealth."



Benjamin Skipper presents A British Accent, Eh? posted at Musing Aloud, saying, "My bad hearing gave rise to a speech impediment which has given me much grief throughout my life, and I mistakenly thought it could be covered up with a fake accent. I have since fixed the source of my difficulty, but to my surprise I still have the accent as a stuck habit. Should I alter it?"



Jason Stotts presents ATLOSCon Speech posted at Erosophia, saying, "For anyone wanting more information about my speech "Sexual Ethics and Objectivism" that I delivered at ATLOSCon, including references to the more important essays by Ayn Rand on the subject, or how to obtain a copy."



David C Lewis, RFA presents Retirement Calculators Have Their Limits posted at A Revolution In Financial Planning, saying, "This week, I discuss the limitations of relying on retirement calculators."



Scott Connery presents Islam Says: Murder Beauty Pageant Contestants posted at Rational Public Radio, saying, "More murderous hijinx from everyone's favorite "religion of peace""



Julia Campbell presents baby back ribs + cherry cabbage slaw posted at the crankin' kitchen!, saying, "Super summery dry-rubbed baby back ribs with a citrusy cherry cabbage slaw."



Rational Jenn presents The One About ATLOSCon 2011 posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "The Atlanta Objectivist Society (ATLOS) hosted its second mini-conference last weekend, and here's my summary. It was a great time!"



Martin Lindeskog presents EGO: BIRTHDAY GREETINGS ON MAY 25 posted at EGO, saying, "I celebrated my birthday by subscribing to the Harry Binswanger List and order a new logotype & banner for my personal tea site called www.GOT-Tea-Party.com."



Edward Cline presents Much Ado about Nothing: Fatal Fallacies about “Palestine” posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "There were many pluses in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress on May 24th, and some critical minuses. It was, however, refreshing to listen to a speech that was not inflated with platitudes and bromides."




That concludes this week's edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Objectivist Round Up using our carnival submission form. The deadline is every Wednesday at 11pm Eastern Whatever Time. Next week's host is NoodleFood!

You can find past posts and future hosts on our blog carnival index page. Any questions about the Round Up, our guidelines, hosting, etc. can be directed to ME, your ORU Peopleguy. And don't forget to LIKE our Facebook Page!

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The One About ATLOSCon 2011

I don't even know where to begin. ATLOSCon was a great experience, and so much happened in such a short amount of time that I haven't really thought about it all somehow. It was also a different experience from last year, and I'm thinking that over, too.

Everything went really smoothly for the most part. The facility we chose, which was quite a drive for some of the local folks, was clean, and spacious enough to accommodate our large group. (And it happened to be the most affordable of all of our options, which was not a small consideration.) There were a few hitches and glitches, as there are bound to be, but Yippee Mistakes! We'll learn some things and improve for next year. :D

The classes I attended were really interesting. And the ones I taught were fun, too. As always, I learned something about what to improve for next time. And I really appreciate speaking to groups of people who are engaging and challenge us a bit on our ideas. It's really really fun!

This year's conference was a good bit larger in terms of attendance. I don't have an official count out of the reservation system, but last night I wrote a list of the names of people who came to at least one event and came up with 76 77! (For those of you on the OList chat last night, yes I thought of one two more person people since the chat.) Including kids, that's 84 85 total. Last year's attendance was 62 (67 including kids), so that's what . . . about a 23% 24% increase over last year (using the adult numbers--did I do that right? I'm still working on my coffee this morning.). NOT BAD AT ALL!

I met so many neat people for the very first time, and we were all so happy and thrilled that so many out-of-towners attended! Diana and Paul were our house guests, and the kids enjoyed meeting them (they know Diana as "The Webcast Lady"). We spent a fair amount of time with Tim and Faye and their little baby, too. As usual, I feel as if I didn't get to spend tons of time with some I'd wanted to, but that's just all the more reason to keep having and attending these mini-conferences (as well as OCON), I think!

One of the things I really love about our conferences is that while they are centered around activities for adults, they are family-friendly, too. (Kelly has a whole thing about this and I hope she writes about it on her blog--that activities, and life, should be adult-centered, but that kids should sort of have access to many of those grownup-y things. I quite agree with this.) So there were lots of kids running around the social activities. Our house was Kid Central during the conference classes (hooray for wonderful babysitters!), but there was at least one kid at most of the other events. I love that my kids are getting to know the children of other Objectivists. And I'm only half-joking when I say that Ryan is assembling his future army. :)

I paced myself well throughout and didn't get burned out or totally exhausted. I'm not the type to party through the night anyway, even before I had kids. But having kids and house guests helped me keep to somewhat of a routine and semi-regular sleeping plan.

Some of my favorite moments:

• Opening the Scepter of Power (we really need to think of a better name for that probably, or maybe we did and I can't remember) with Kelly at the Meet & Greet!

• Reading aloud from Crocodile on the Sandbank

• Watching my kids interact with all of these strangers and thinking about how great it is that people know them and care about them (I had this great feeling last year, too)

• Talking about Positive Discipline and effective communication techniques with Kelly

• Tearing up at the poem "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur during Kelly's poetry class

• Our CrossFit workout was especially great fun! Love going to CF with friends. And of course, Arthur's 47 inches, not to be forgotten. :D

• Singing the Ballad of Jayne at Stoney's Pub (and another version of the song, soon-to-be published, I hope)

• Standing on top of Stone Mountain with Morgan 

• Funny and interesting conversations galore! At parties, classes, and even while floating in the pool.

This conference was less adrenaline-rushed than last year's. I think last year, because we had no clue what we were doing and were running around like crazy until the very last second before it began, we were so surprised at ourselves about pulling it off! And while the stress of it was not fun, the rush from our accomplishment was so very exciting!

This year, our tagline was "This Year, We Kinda Know What We're Doing" and things were definitely more even-keeled. We had lots of help (thank you ATLOS Peopleguys!) and lots of time and more of an idea of what we were getting into. Even now, there's a lot of post-conference work that must be done, but I don't feel too stressed about getting it done. It'll get done.

But this year, instead of feeling EXTREEEEEEM EXCITEMENT at every step of the way, I felt more . . . I don't know. Just calm and satisfied that things seemed to be (for the most part) going to plan. That's a nice feeling, too.

And both years, I did have a moment where I was nearly overcome with pride and joy at having helped bring something of immense value into being. :D

Thanks to everyone who helped accomplish this great feat, and thanks to all who participated! We'll be sending a survey soon to our attendees so please help us get some ideas for making next year's conference even more successful.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled crazy fun wonderful life!