brain rules break

Three more brain rules to go....

Not sure if they will address little girl's love of puttting shoes on her hands and then tromping around the house. She uses her shoes, brother's shoes, my shoes, dad's shoes. Any shoes.

Sandals work great because she can loop them on her elbows and dangle them from her hands as she parades about.

Brain Rule #9

Stimulate more of the senses.
Touch and smell are capable of making powerful contributions to the learning process. Smells stimulate areas in the brain responsible for creating emotions as well as memories.

Delivery service diapers?
When you open the freshly delivered bag, you step right back in time.
Brand new breast-fed baby poop?
There is no other smell like this.
Breast milked stained shirts?
How could I forget this smell? But I had... until baby girl arrived.

Now wonder the memories of 1B's newborn-ness came flooding back to me after baby girl was born.

If you want someone to remember something, teach them using a variety of their senses.

Two groups of people might be assigned to see a movie together, for example, and then told to report to the lab for a memory test. The control group goes into an unmanipulated room and simply takes the test. The experimental group takes the test in a room flooded with the smell of popcorn. The results can be astonishing. Some researchers report that smell-exposed experimental groups can accurately retrieve twice as many memories as the controls.

And it isn't just smell. Hearing, sight, touch, taste.... would all work.

Brain rule #8

Stressed brains don't learn the same way.

The stability of the home is one of the greatest predictors of future success at school.

My idea envisions an educational system where the first students are not the children. The first students are the parents.

Hey, looks like date nights aren't just fun.... they are good for your kids' brains.
Dinner and a movie dear?

photo of little plum and I by Lisa Nelson photography (thanks Lisa)

Brain Rule #7

See this bed? It takes up every square inch of the bedroom. See the tiny lady?

I wish that was me and this was my bed(room).

Because sometimes I'm so tired that I want to just lie there and let babygirl crawl around while I read. If I do that on our bed, she could fall off the edge (She has fallen off the edge).

Brain Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.

The only problem is, each individual person needs their own "right amount" of sleep.
The other problem, some people really are morning people and some people really are evening people.

I think I gave birth to a child (my first) who needs very little sleep. He never slept. Still doesn't go to bed much before 10pm.

Every once in a while my new little baby girl stays up til 10pm and I get flashbacks about my first baby who never slept.

I really could have used a bed like this back then.

Here's a tasty morsel from the sleep chapter:

Students were given a series of math problems and prepped with a method to solve them.
The students weren't told there was also an easier, "shortcut" way to solve the problems, potentially discoverable while doing the exercise. The question was: Is there any way to jumpstart, even speed up, their insights? Can you get them to put this other method on their radar screens? The answer was yes, if you allow them to sleep on it.

If you let 12 hours pass after the initial training and ask the students to do more problems, about 20 percent will have discovered the shortcut. But if in that 12 hours you also allow eight or so hours of regular sleep, that figure triples to about 60 percent. Not matter how many times the experiment is run, the sleep group consistently outperforms the non-sleep group about 3-1.

Brain Rule #6

Most memories disappear within minutes, but those that survive the fragile period strengthen with time.Memory may not be fixed at the moment of learning, but repetition, doled out in specifically times intervals, is the fixative

Dear boys,

You came bounding in the door yesterday full of your stories from the most amazing camping trip with your dad.

"I can't believe I actually jumped off a cliff!" you kept repeating.

"It was an awesome trip" you said with a giant smile.

The stories continued all night.

"2B woke up in our tent with a huge dead bee inches from his nose!"

"Daddy let us buy these giant tootsie rolls. You should have seen them!"

I think I'll keep asking you to tell them to me so we can be sure you don't forget this special time - your summer before (2B's) 1st grade and (1B's) 3rd grade.

What a fun memory to have.

Brain Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

Brain Rule #5

Before I begin brain rule #5, can I just get back to number one for a sec?

That exercise one. The one that reminds us that we need to exercise. It is good for our brain. Good for our mental health actually. Studies were done with people suffering from depression and 80% of the people who added walking into their day, starting feeling better....less depressed.

That is totally me. I really need to exercise. All I'm left with these days is walking. I can put my little girl on me and walk. It is free. It usually leads me to a coffee shop. I can often do it with friends. And it gives me time to quiet my brain. I notice that I am a mess if I miss more than two days in a row of a good walk.

This brings me to my morning walk today. It was shaping up to be a hot one (in my book, anything in the 80 is hot) so I walked as early as I could.

I put Plum on my back. We walked right out the door to walk in the good old rural neighborhood I live in.

And thus began my mental health exercise for the day.

We see horses, dogs, even sheep. Yes there are cars- but not too many. No there are no side-walks. Yes, the shoulder can get overgrown with blackberries. Yes, I sometimes have to walk kind of on the road.

I am always careful about cars. I don't wear an IPod. I listen. I try to walk on the grass when I can. I've got my baby on me - I am hyper attentive. No multi-tasking while walking, no sir.

This morning I was walking in the shady on the side of the street I don't normally walk on. I chose that side because I really wanted its shade.

A car slowed down beside me and a woman asked me if she could give me a suggestion.

I should have known right then and there that I was heading for trouble.

A suggestion?

She reprimanded me for walking on the shady side of the street that doesn't have a very big shoulder. She told me people can't see me and that I should be much more careful since I have a baby on my back and all.

She wouldn't let up. I thanked her for her concern. What was I supposed to do?

She drove away and I kept repeating to myself: I am a bad mother. I am a bad mother. I don't know how to keep my baby safe. I am a careless careless mother.

The entire rest of my walk, I could not shake my feeling of inadequateness. I spent the rest of the time walking on the side with more shoulder. I kept thinking she would drive back by me and see that I'd reformed. Then I started wondering if I shouldn't walk this walk that I've done for 5 years any more.

Here's where brain rule #5 comes in. For short term memory to work, you've got to repeat whatever it is you are trying to learn. Well, let me tell you... this lady's conversation with me is definitely in my working memory. I repeated the whole thing for the rest of the walk.

And remember brain rule #4 - the one about how we pay attention to things with an emotional impact? You can't get to me more emotionally than making me question my mothering.

Brain rule #5: repeat to remember. If you make information compelling enough, people will repeat it for themselves and you don't need to repeat it for them.

Hopefully I've repeated some information about previous brain rules, helping you remember them.

See John Medina's blog for information on how this brain rule should be used in the classroom.
As for me, I will be doing so much more repitition this next school year.

And....

Hopefully I can stay away from a repeat performance of getting reprimanded while walking.

The pictures are not of my road. My road is probably a bit busier. Yet still beautiful.

Brain Rule #4

My boys are all away from here. They left yesterday for a camping trip.

Can you imagine what must be going through my mind? I'm all alone for 3 days. And by all alone, I am using that quite loosely since what I really mean is that it is just little plum and I. Just the two of us.

And she is making life very easy for me.

Giant naps. Early bed times. Easy peasy.... pumpkin pie.

I've cleaned house (and it's stayed clean!)
I've conquered their messy art desk- tossing old things, recycling others, getting to the nitty gritty while they can't stop me to mess up the desk again.

I've been able to focus on stuff and stay focused.

And I'm reading my Brain Rules book.... uninterrupted.

I don't have to make anyone lunch but me and the wee one. I can read and put post it notes on my favorite pages.

I'm not multi-tasking. I'm a single tasking girl.

Brain Rule #4: Attention

Our brain can't multi-task. It's wired to focus on one thing at a time. It really can't do two things at once. A little switch has to tell it to move on to the next thing.

No wonder I often forget who I'm calling when I'm waiting for the person to answer and I've got a child asking me to fix his zipper. Or why I can't remember what my husband told me at breakfast because I was trying to nurse a fussing baby.

No multi-tasking. Yep, that means no driving while talking on the phone (even with the hands free set). No listening to NPR while typing. Darn.. no wonder I can never remember what I heard on the radio. Your brain just can't stay focused as well.

And another thing... your brain doesn't pay attention to boring things. The stuff that tugs at you emtionally grabs your attention most. To get people to pay attention, to get people to learn.... you have to get someone emotionally involved. And you know what gets people's attention? These questions:

Will it eat me? Can I eat it?
Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me?
Have I seen it before? Have I never seen it before?


You notice those things. Advertisers know you notice these things.

As for me....

Can I eat it? Off to eat some chocolate.
Will it mate with me? Funny how this still gets your attention, especially when absence at a camping trip makes the heart grow fonder.
Have I never seen it before? And enjoy this peace and quiet that I haven't seen before in a very long time.

Brain Rule #3

I recently took a class by John Medina on his book Brain Rules. There are 12 Brain Rules addressed in his book. Each rule a tool for surviving and thriving at work, home and school.
A lot of teachers (including some of you readers!) in my boys' school district and in the district I teach in are reading this book. I'm excited about that.

Here's number three....

Every Brain is wired differently.Sometimes I worry that I'm not doing right by my kiddos. Oh, who am I kidding, I always worry about this.

Did I sign them up for the right preschool? Are they going to the elementary school that is best for them?

Is there some learning opportunity they are missing? An I ignoring a talent they may have?

Brain Rule #3 kind of feeds on my fear. Every brain is wired differently. Every kid (every person) is intelligent in their own unique way. Everyone of us has a certain kind of smarts or certain kind of talent. We each learn things in our own unique way.

So.... What if you were a lousy basketball player but you kept playing basketball because no one ever took the time to introduce you to baseball? Baseball is your thing.

Or what if you are an amazing mathematical thinker but you don't get the chance to grow in that field?

In many ways schools try to teach all kids the same thing, and schools value one kind of learning. This can't work. Each brain is different. In a class of 24, there are 24 differently wired brains in that room. 24!

I think and hope in my heart that this is changing. I sure try during my one day of teaching a week. But it depresses me constantly to see that class sizes in public schools are not going down. That testing is so darned important. That teachers aren't always given the amount of freedom in curriculum they need to address each different kid.

It bothers me that next year, both of my boys will be with 24 other kids. Each learning differently, each gifted in their own way.

How do you make sure your kid doesn't slip through the cracks?

Brain Rule #2

Survival: The human brain evolved too.

"The ability to peer inside someone's mental life and make predictions takes a tremendous amount of intelligence and, not surprisingly, brain activity"

"Our intellectual prowess, from language to mathematics to art, may have come from the powerful need to predict our neighbor's psychological interiors"

We had to get along to survive, we had better try to figure out what our allies were thinking.

This little 2B spends a great deal of his time figuring out what his ally 1B is thinking. Figuring out the inner workings of your big brother's brain, is not an easy job. Especially when that big brother learns new ways to taunt you.

One could get their PhD, studying sibling interactions.

2B: "1B is being soooo mean to me! I mean really mean!"

me: What is he doing?

2B: "he's just being soooo mean. He keeps smiling at me"

Oh, of course, the sly "ha ha, smile. I'll smile at you and you won't know why and I won't stop"

Mostly those two are bestest buddies, but sometimes I wonder.... if I wasn't around to make sure they got along, would they survive each other?

more on John Medina's blog: www.brainrules.blogspot.com

Brain Rule #1

Exercise boosts brain powerOur brains were built for walking... 12 miles a day.
"In one recent study, children jogged for 30 minutes two or thre times a week. After 12 weeks, their cognitive performance had improved significantly compared with pre-jogging levels"

Read more about brain rules at www.brainrules.net

Baby girl's latest exercise du jour.... standing up all by herself and then clapping like mad, before falling on her padded little bum. I see her days of walking coming upon us.

fb week one

I am on the fence about my first week of facebook.

I feel like I have nothing to post (me, who airs her lingerie on a blog for anyone to see). I am a tad nervous about what I write and how it will appear on people's walls.

I've got facebook block.

sweetness

This post is for no reason.

Just like you pick me flowers and arrange them just so...for no reason.

This post is just because.

Just because I love the way I feel inside when I see you've fallen asleep quietly on the couch at 2pm.

This post has no reason.

Not your birthday, nothing special you did.

Just because.

Because sometimes I just can not keep quiet how proud I am of you.
How sweet you are.
How much I love my thougtful little boy with the big brown eyes.

You, my quiet little love bug, my second born, my goofy, athletic little dude....are an awesome gift to your mama.

This post is just because....

I love you.

coming clean

I admitted this to my mom last night, so I might as well inform the blog-osphere now.

The other day when I was getting little plum dressed, I found the cutest little outfit for her. I put it on her and then this thought actually went through my mind....

"Now... what can I wear that matches with her"

Passions pt 3

Ugly, unorganized bookshelf in my office. Believe it or not, I can find what I need on it. I really can.

I just hate being wrong when my husband and I have a 'discussion', but I've come to realize that maybe, just maybe.... he might be a teensy bit correct on this one issue.

This issue involving one of my passions.

You see, he has been hounding me about the sheer volume of books in our house.

"Books are not, could never be, clutter!" I tell him.

It's my mantra that I shout at him everytime he mentions clearing out the bookshelves or boxing up books.

"boxing up books! What are you crazy? Books never go in boxes in a garage!" I tell him.

Geesh, books are made for shelves. So that you can reach for them and read them whenever the mood strikes you. We can NOT get rid of any of our books. They are my friends.

This bookshelf is behind a fort 2b made- but you can still reach the books.

But, hmmmm..... maybe he is right. Darn it.

Passions pt 2

Paper airplanes zoom by my head when I am making my morning coffee.

Paper airplanes bump into my leg as I empty the dishwasher.
Paper airplanes are under the table, on the counter, on the washing machine, on the piano.

They multiply faster than fleas over here.

The joy my boys take in making airplanes, flying them, measuring the distance flown, comparing fastest planes..... it is immeasurable.

So is the use of paper.

Normally I am the kind of mom who lets my boys go crazy with art supplies. They have everything they need, all the time. They can use as much paper for cutting, drawing, painting, collaging, etc.

The paper airplane thing is testing my paper usage beliefs. Should I let them keep using paper to make more and better planes?

If they were drawing on the paper, I wouldn't mind.

But something about the endless flying crafts is getting to me.

I'm still confused what to do. The airplanes graze my head. They cover our backyard.

Am I letting them 'waste' paper, or am I letting them be creative little engineers?

Passions

Little Plum's passions:

Trucks and cars. Try taking a tiny potentially lead-painted mathbox car away from her... just try it. Here she takes the plastic tractor and pushes it back and forth, back and forth.

The piano. She screams until we sit with her and let her bang away at the keys. I've considered strapping her to a booster chair attached to a dining room table so she can sit there as long as she likes.

And... shoes.

Here she is with one of grandmama's glittery sandals.

Today

Happy birth(ing) day to my mum

Happy Birthday to me.

Today I got a very nice gift:

Look what husband got me.... the full size couch comes next month.

A real grown up couch. No scratches or stains.

yet.

It is so incredibly comfy. I can sit between my boys and read to them.

I can curl up and read to myself.

They can read and goof around.

I love it and he picked it out totally by himself.

To celebrate my birthday... I took a walk.... all by myself. Little Plum stayed home with her daddy. I love walking with her, but it is also very nice to walk by myself.

I also joined facebook. I have three "friends" and I'm still trying to figure out why people like facebook so much. I'm afraid I will figure that out soon and become highly addicted to it. Come join me over there and keep me company.

Feeding my 12 month old (and something for the grown ups too)

Little Plum has two little bottom teeth.
No more.
Just two wee little teeth.

She still nurses a lot. A lot.

I feed her the random o-shaped cereal, a bit of oatmeal, some steamed brocolli on occasion.

I'm definitely not as diligent as I was with the boys.

She gets some food, but I'm not really on top of the grinding and pureeing that I used to do.

I basically give her what is easy - avocado, for sure.
A taste of yogurt.
She's not bananas over bananas.

At her 1yr check up, we checked up on her iron levels.
She's a bit low.

It's time to ratchet up my feeding techniques.

I need to give her more quinoa, more lentils, more black beans, dark leafy greens, and... black strap molasses.

I've been doing pretty good since her birthday. It works best when I can make something for the whole family and give her bits of it.

Last night was burrito night. We had black beans, black refried beans, avocado, etc., etc. Boys made their own burritos, girl got bits of everything.
The boys loved it and little girl ate up too.

Too bad I can't do the same meal every single night.

I've got a goal. Better food for little Plum and food my boys will eat. Some meals are easy. Sometimes.... it is a major pain to think about what I am to make for lunch or dinner.
I wish I could say that I'm such an awesome mom that my boys will eat anything, but truthfully, they'd live on pasta if they could. 2B is pickier than I'd like to admit.

I've read every book about feeding kids and raising kids who will eat healthy foods. I feel like I know every trick in the book. But somehow, if grades were given out, I'd still only rate a C. These books make it sound so easy to keep your kids from being picky.

This feeding thing is one of the harder points of parenting.

I do have one spectacular salad dressing that is crowd pleasing. It is my very favorite now.

Try it, you might even become as addicted as hubby and I are...yum!

It's from Cynthia Lair's feeding the whole family.

1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3T balsamic vinegar
2t dijon mustard
2t maple syrup
1 clove garlic
1/8 t paprika
1/4 t soy sauce or tamari

My left arm

Husband's arm is healing.

He still walks around like a bird with a broken wing,

his left arm dangling from him, slightly bent... unable to straighten it.

If you didn't know what was wrong with him, you'd think he's always had a crippled arm.

But a crippled arm is a hundred plus one times better than no arm at all.

That was the little secret he was carrying around in his head. He really thought he was going to lose his arm. It kept him up at night.

Then he told me that he just released the fear of losing is left arm. He said he had made it this far in life with two arms, and if he lost his arm....well, he'd manage.

Even though it is his dominant arm.

While he was sick, I realized how much I really count on him. He is my extra arm and there is no way I would be able to calmly rationalize his disappearance. I don't think I'd manage.

Sometimes I think he is my dominant arm.

As a mom of a baby, I do a lot with one arm. And it ain't easy.

Eating a salad with one arm? Not as easy as you'd think.

Pretty much everything is much harder when you try to do it with one arm.

Today I was holding babygirl and I was trying to turn the newspaper page with one hand. The page kept wrinkling and getting all buckled up. I just could not turn the page with one hand.

Fortunately I can set her down for the big two handed jobs. Or put her in my ergo. Those things make it easier when you just need two hands.

Sometimes two hands make life much much easier.

people who just drop by

My kids are in the backyard screaming,
"hello!"
"Hot Air balloon!!!!"
"Helloooooo!"

They are waving their arms and screaming and jumping for joy.

It's a crazy magical event.

Except for me.

I'm horrified that I haven't had time to tidy up before someone is flying over my house.

The backyard (and frontyard for that matter) is littered with:
paper airplanes,
empty boxes (from cleaning our garage),
various toy cars,
scooters,
shoes,
helmets,
empty bug catching containers,
an old newspaper that husband was reading and is now in various pieces all over the yard,
and the crowning glory... our new canopy that lasted all of two weeks before completely falling over into a giant green heap. That's what we get for buying the cheap one.

I can't start cleaning it now. They'll look down from their wine- sipping hot air journey and see the top of may head as I race around tidying things up.

"Look at that strange lady pulling weeds like crazy", they'll say to their companions.

Why didn't they call first?

Happy Birth(ing) Day

To me
I woke up this morning at 2AM and I realized it was my baby girl's birthday. At three AM she turned one.

There she is surrounded by my two midwives and my doula. Right after she came up after the water and was brought to my chest. It was one of the best moments of my life. I can't stop staring at this picture.

I really enjoy re-living her birth.

The day she was born... the moment she was born...
the first thing I said was, "I can't believe it"

I still can't.

I can't believe I had a beautiful birthing experience. My only one out of three births.
I can't believe I have a little girl.
I can't believe we accidentally got pregnant and I am blessed with something I never planned.

I can't believe that that I have had such a joyous happy year with a baby.
I can't believe how amazing big brothers are.
I can't believe how sweet she is.

I am still mystified by all the good that has happened since she was born.

Addendum

Just got off the phone with hubby.

All the previous doctors (in ER, urgent care, and general practitioners) said whatever he had had nothing to do with my terrible strep throat.

Today's specialist told him that it is definitely from my strep throat. He has a strep infection in his arm. He must have scratched himself after touching me (or baby girl?) while I was sick.

The specialist says it is a very serious case and the swelling may be permanent.

Permanent?

He is still on two doses of antibiotics.

At least we know what it is.

He goes back in Friday. His spirits were not lifted very much by this prognosis.

Today's slowly enfolding events

Husband had an appt at the specialist today at 2:45. It is 4pm and I haven't heard from him.

The redness and swelling appeared to lesson over night, but it is still red and swollen.

So while I wait to hear, I put baby girl down for a nap. The boys are eating watermelon

And I'm feeling a bit melancholy over the fact that today is the last day my baby girl is under age one.

It's a tug of war. Because I love getting to see how she is growing. I love how she stands and how she gets into everything. I love the way her eyes tell me she knows what is going on. I love the way she communicates with us.

I just still, can't for the life of me, believe it has already been one year

No way.