Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman was my favorite book as a child and one of the first that I learned to read.
Hmm, I'm just thinking now of the first book I remember reading. I can't recall the name, but the story was about an inchworm who spins a cocoon and becomes a butterfly. The sentences were very simple (something like "Hairy was a worm. He liked to eat. He spun and spun and spun."), and the pictures were basic and colorful. Wish I could remember the name of the book... I looked on Amazon but I'm not seeing anything (there's a book called "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", but that's not it, or is "The Inch Worm").
As evidence that this post is a long time in the making, between writing that last paragraph and this I spoke to my mom about that first book. As I spoke to her I remembered the name was Gus. That Gus was a bug. And he was fuzzy. And he runs and runs and runs. Armed with that recalled knowledge, I found the book on Amazon. But that wasn't the point of this post.
The point was, for some reason I no longer remember, I ended up reading the reviews on the Are You My Mother? book. Most of them were 4 or 5, completely expected and what I would rate it too. But I noticed a handful were 1 star. Wondering how anyone could rate such a cute and simple children's book 1 star, I read through those reviews. In brief, they complained that it either was scary (the snort!), taught that children should look like their parents, or was improper for children because the mom left the bird alone for a some time.
First off -- it's a children's book, not some study of deep theology or a comprehensive philosophical framework; take a slow breath and give it a break.
It doesn't teach that all children look like their parents. This bird looks like its mom, but its a bird. Just like a human will look like their parents. That is, he or she will look human. Nothing more, nothing less.
Is it scary? I suppose a little, but that's kind of the point. That not everything that seems scary at first really is. (Now, one could argue that this teaches children to be too trusting of strangers or that anything that's scary isn't really, but again, it's a children's book!)
Basically, my point is: what does it say about us as people and a society if we negatively criticize such books? The action, and the thinking which leads to it, is not progressing us forward; it is the same attitude that would have us spend our lives cocooned in a padded room, breathing bland oxygen and sucking a protein slurry for fear of anything dangerous or different.
That last sentence made me think of Aragorn's speech in the Return of the King movie while standing at the Gates of Mordor:
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!"
If we fail to harness and tame our reason, and to trust and embolden our faith, we'll inevitably end and err to one side or the other. We'll dismiss everything with a trite and jaded eye, or we'll drift aimless with every wind of fate or fashion. We'll give 1-star reviews to children's books because they both speak too rationally (though simply) yet not comprehensively about life. We'll wonder where the magic of childhood's past has gone, and fearfully squash any hint of its continued existence.
And seriously -- this is one of my favorite books, how dare you give it less than four stars! ;)
...
Here's a YouTube reading of Gus. The drawings are different (someone redrew them for this video), but the reading is the actual text.
Oh, and someone made a neat checkbook cover from the Gus book: http://www.etsy.com/listing/18472163/checkbook-cover-made-from-recycled
As evidence that this post is a long time in the making, between writing that last paragraph and this I spoke to my mom about that first book. As I spoke to her I remembered the name was Gus. That Gus was a bug. And he was fuzzy. And he runs and runs and runs. Armed with that recalled knowledge, I found the book on Amazon. But that wasn't the point of this post.
The point was, for some reason I no longer remember, I ended up reading the reviews on the Are You My Mother? book. Most of them were 4 or 5, completely expected and what I would rate it too. But I noticed a handful were 1 star. Wondering how anyone could rate such a cute and simple children's book 1 star, I read through those reviews. In brief, they complained that it either was scary (the snort!), taught that children should look like their parents, or was improper for children because the mom left the bird alone for a some time.
First off -- it's a children's book, not some study of deep theology or a comprehensive philosophical framework; take a slow breath and give it a break.
It doesn't teach that all children look like their parents. This bird looks like its mom, but its a bird. Just like a human will look like their parents. That is, he or she will look human. Nothing more, nothing less.
Is it scary? I suppose a little, but that's kind of the point. That not everything that seems scary at first really is. (Now, one could argue that this teaches children to be too trusting of strangers or that anything that's scary isn't really, but again, it's a children's book!)
Basically, my point is: what does it say about us as people and a society if we negatively criticize such books? The action, and the thinking which leads to it, is not progressing us forward; it is the same attitude that would have us spend our lives cocooned in a padded room, breathing bland oxygen and sucking a protein slurry for fear of anything dangerous or different.
That last sentence made me think of Aragorn's speech in the Return of the King movie while standing at the Gates of Mordor:
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!"
If we fail to harness and tame our reason, and to trust and embolden our faith, we'll inevitably end and err to one side or the other. We'll dismiss everything with a trite and jaded eye, or we'll drift aimless with every wind of fate or fashion. We'll give 1-star reviews to children's books because they both speak too rationally (though simply) yet not comprehensively about life. We'll wonder where the magic of childhood's past has gone, and fearfully squash any hint of its continued existence.
And seriously -- this is one of my favorite books, how dare you give it less than four stars! ;)
...
Here's a YouTube reading of Gus. The drawings are different (someone redrew them for this video), but the reading is the actual text.
Oh, and someone made a neat checkbook cover from the Gus book: http://www.etsy.com/listing/18472163/checkbook-cover-made-from-recycled
, and it worked great for smaller amounts such as infant baby formula when we were first getting Sophia to accept the breast. Soon enough though she got the hang of it and began refusing all bottles. Occasionally though we would use it for reheating and, honestly, as the volumes of liquid have increased (and we're trying to reheat frozen from the freezer) I don't think this warmer has been doing that great of a job. I think other reviews on Amazon have had similar problems too, so I wouldn't recommend this one.
. Cleaning out these bottles is a little more tedious since they have multiple components, but they work pretty well and baby didn't get very burpy at all with them. The best part though was the wide mouth and large, lowe-flow nipple, which was really helpful during the first weeks when our little darling had a difficult time latching on (the lactation consultant mentioned the roof of her mouth was pretty high, so she wasn't getting the touch on the top of it that would signal her to start sucking).
), a great pass-on from some friends of ours. Often you hear stories of children peacefully sitting and falling asleep in their swings, to rest for hours upon a time. Well -- those stories are not about our little girl. I don't think its any fault of the swing though, she's just not one to fall asleep in it unless she's very, very tired. Even in the car seat, which every website and blog and book mentions as the ubiquitous get-baby-to-sleep fallback plan, did not work for her until after 3 months of age (and a long and tiring 9 hour car ride). Anyway, all that is a long-winded way to say that now she plays well in the swing even if she doesn't sleep.
-- we had to stick a little pillow underneath it because when we bought it (she was 3 - 4 months old) her little legs didn't reach the ground. All the same, she immediately got the hang of it and was soon bouncing up and down to her (and our!) delight. She'll still occupy herself for quite a while in it, though unlike some of the reviewers I don't think she's ever worn herself out so much that she falls asleep. Again, not that kind of kid I suppose. I can't say enough though to convey how much she loves this thing, though.
hasn't seen much use other than as a fun fort for cats to crawl under. Perhaps when Sophia starts crawling and we need a contained space to occasionally keep her in will we start getting more use from it, but frankly trying to set it up with the bassinet and changing table option is a HUGE pain. Keeping it solely in toddler mode is much easier, it simply folds up then. The other options require assembling and disassembling metal rods and folded pads each time. Also, when baby was sleeping in the bassinet those folds caused her to rotate and slide toward the middle each night, laying crosswise (she's perhaps a little tall for her age, and at that time of 3 months she just barely fit crosswise).
for too quickly for my wife, but it did last us for about 3 months. This bassinet was great to have -- the adjustable height allowed it to fit just perfectly beside our bed and the ability to rock helped a lot during the first few weeks in getting her to sleep or stay sleeping. The cover was nice too as well as the white noise option (although we did eventually replace that with a ocean waves recording that I purchased from iTunes and downloaded to my iPod). We didn't make much use of the ability to carry it around, but when we did that was nice to have. We didn't use the changing table at all and I kind of think that would be a pain if that was your primary changing table, nor did we use the included nightlight (too bright for a regular nightlight and too narrow of a beam for use as anything else).
, and we've also had many people comment positively about it when we're out and about. Probably the key deciding factor for us was the ease with which it can switch between forward or rear-facing while keeping the wheels facing in the proper direction. Some strollers can switch as well, but then you end up with the (often) smaller swiveling wheels in the back and it becomes much harder to manuever. This stroller not only avoids that problem, but its so easy to switch that you'll find yourself gladly doing it to keep baby out of too bright sunlight or gusty winds (or the annoying stranger). The stroller has a car adapter which fits most models, has nice large wheels which turn easily, a decent brake, adjustable height handle, and an ok storage pouch on the bottom.
. This little lightweight did a great job of manuevering through crowded airports and handling the (very) bumpy and hole-ridden walkways of the city we visited. Being an umbrella stroller there's not a lot of storage, but it served fine for our purpose and will really come in handy when we start taking Sophia visiting to different places (like zoos, parks, relatives, etc).
as our infant car seat. At some point we'll need to switch up to a convertible, but in the meantime this has been a very handy seat. In our car, the base installed nicely and securely, and the seat itself is very easy to fit in and take out. Sophia seems comfortable in it; earlier she wasn't a big fan of car seats in general and even still she hates having to get buckled in, but once that is done she settles right in and doesn't complain at all.
I'm glad we did. It's not even about having warm wipes (which I'm sure is nice, but I don't think the baby really minds most of the time), but about having a solid (read: heavy) wipe dispenser which keeps them moist and readily available. Being a tad on the heavy side is necessary because once those wipes start getting near the bottom of the pile they have a tendency to want to come out in one big heap and your dispenser needs to have enough heft to it to hold them down while you're busily yanking with one hand and desperately trying with the other hand to hold the baby back from sticking all available appendages into a big, stinky, messy diaper. Which leads me to my next item...
and I've been generally pleased so far. Our cute little girl can produce some things that are not-so-cute and not-so-little, so it's nice to have something close by that is relatively easy to dispose into and keeps the smell contained. I'm not sure the baking soda portion is doing much (as most reviews note), but even so it does a pretty good job of keeping things under control. The bags aren't too badly priced, and you can often find them on sale at Babies-R-Us or Target.
