Sometimes It's Just Hard To Sit Still: Dinner + Little Kids

What is reasonable to expect of little kids at the extended-family dinner? For my four boys, a favourite activity is sliding off their chairs and disappearing under the table briefly, only to suddenly reappear on their seats again. Sitting across from them, they look like a pack of gophers popping in and out of their burrows.

NOT what dinner looks like at our house!

Due to this tendency, I usually allow my boys to leave the table between courses, so that they can play, away from the eating and conversing adults. Last year, my laxity produced a few critical comments from grandparents and some great-uncles and aunts: "They need to learn to sit still and eat together as a family!"

I certainly agree: kids can --and should-- learn to participate appropriately in various social scenarios, including siting for the duration of a meal, waiting to be served and enjoying conversation with others. However, I also think we adults need to be realistic about how and when that will happen.

At the time of the above story, my four boys were aged six and under. Let's put on the perspective of, say, a very normal four-year old boy and see the typical extended-family dinner through his eyes:

Mom said two minutes until I get food. That's forever! My tummy's sooo hungry, I'm not sure I can... Oh, good! She putting food on my plate.... Huh? What's this stuff? This doesn't look like what we normally have for dinner. What's that mushy brown thing? I don't think I want to eat that...

I really want a piece of that pie Mom and I made together. So yummy! It's my favourite. When's dessert coming?

Arrrgh, Uncle Somebody is asking me a bunch of questions. Things about school... I don't remember --I haven't been to school for days and days! Why doesn't he ask me about something cool, like the new truck I got? Wait, did I leave it in the other room? I can hardly wait to play with Cousin Jay with it... Is it time for dessert yet?

Seriously, can you say this is a four-year-old's ideal fun-time? So, yes, let's help our children learn the rules of social gatherings and the art of conversation. But, for heaven's sake, let's be realistic and do it in such a way that takes into account who our kids are and where they're at. Relax, all you relatives! They'll get there.

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(PS -- For any of you who might be counting, yes, I've been away for several months. What can I say? Family life got overwhelming, and I decided to take my own advice and be Realistic about what I could manage. Now that I'm back, my aim is to post once per month --hey, still trying to be Realistic-- with breaks at busy times. Thanks for keeping on reading!)

Boy/Girl Tea Party, Part 2

Much delayed, but here is the second instalment on our boy/girl inclusive tea party! (If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.)

Setting the Table


Knowing that I was likely to host several more kiddie tea parties, I left my "grown-up" finery safe in the cupboard, and instead checked the thrift store for cheap and child-sized tableware. Our table boasted:

• assorted small "tea" cups and saucers, which I think were originally intended as espresso cups, but that happened to be a nice small size;
• assorted mini glass dishes --some were probably punch glasses, others were tiny dessert glasses, and I think one was an oversized jigger;
• colourful paper napkins that we already had on hand;
• and a lovely tablecloth, hand-embroidered with ... teapots! (Okay, I admit, the tablecloth I picked up in the summer. I just couldn't let that nice stitch-work languish in a thrift store!)

No joke, the cups/saucers and glassware totalled less than $1 per guest, and the tablecloth was the most expensive single item at $7.99.

Food

Although our theme was "a cupcake tea party," we decided to offer more fare than just sweets. And because I wanted to try the "Mad Hatter" tea party game, we served the food in courses. Our menu was:

• thinly-sliced veggie sticks --carrot, celery and red pepper-- served upright in the individual glassware with a small shot of dressing in the bottom;
• a combination of cubed fruit on skewers;
• and, last but not least, cupcakes and two kinds of tea, both herbal --one camomile, and one chocolate spice.

Cupcakes

My boys requested that we make "bat" cupcakes (another idea from Chirp magazine), and I thought they'd be nicely complemented by some "butterfly" cupcakes, inspired by those found in the kids' cookbook Cook It Together by Annabel Karmel. Both were a hit!

We decorated the bats with Smarties eyes, jelly bean mouth with sunflower seeds for fangs and dried mango as the wings. The butterflies had two half-cookie "wings" piped with a butterfly outline in chocolate.

The party was such fun, and I'm looking forward to inviting guests for a springtime tea party!

Boy/Girl Tea Party, Part 1

Let me be clear: I love having four boys. But not having a girl does deny me the option of certain experiences, like shopping for pretty frocks, making pretty crafts, playing with pretty dolls.  Well, I decided, that's life. But --boys or no boys, girl or no girl-- I refuse to be denied tea parties.

Guest List
My oldest and I began by drafting the guest list, trying to balance numbers of boys and girls. We ended up inviting an equal number of each, with four girls accepting and two boys (a third did as well, but in the end couldn't make it), plus my three out of four boys.

the finished product

Invitations
We decided on the theme of a "cupcake tea party." (That way I was only on the hook for producing cupcakes, should time, focus or inspiration fail me.) For invitations, we cut out cupcake shapes from construction paper, with the bottom and top from different colours, and glued them together. Then I simply hand-wrote the details with a coloured pen.

cupcake tops to cut out

Activities
I must admit I was not enthused by most of the activity ideas I found, as a lot was geared for girls (like makeup stations or crafting a handbag) or, if boys were the focus, the "tea party" aspect was largely overshadowed by the addition of pirate or monster themes. (Arrgh, matey! Pass the sugar, or I'll make ye walk the plank!) Nope and nope.

But in the end, a little inspiration and imagination gave us some fun activities:

Decorating Hats

• hats were thrift store finds, various kinds/styles
• kids chose their hat and the decorations from an assortment of feathers, sequins, pipe cleaners, pompoms, ribbon, foamy shapes
• parent-helper used a hot glue gun to attach the embellishments

Tea Cup Treasure Hunt

• kids were let loose to find the tea cups for the party hidden through the house
• certain rooms were off-limits (like the kitchen)
• hunters were instructed that no objects needed to be moved/opened to find the cups; all were in "plain sight"

Mad Hatter Tea

• similar idea to Musical Chairs, but always having the same number of chairs as players (i.e. no one is "out")
• at the start of each course, before serving the food, music is played and kids walk around the table; when the music stops, each kid sits down in the chair s/he is at and stays at that seat until the next round
• I must confess that this one did not actually work at our party. I faced a near-unanimous mutiny. But I still think it's a great idea. Link to the original idea is here.

All right, there were some pirates present.. but very well behaved.

Next instalment: Setting The Table and Food 

Real Boys: Something Every Parent of Boys Should Know

I'm sometimes taken aback by the roles cast by our culture for our boys and young men. Why is it that we encourage girls to move beyond roles deemed "traditionally feminine," say to use a toolbox or excel at sports, while boys who have preferences or qualities outside those considered "traditionally masculine," we view as weak or deficient?

Don't agree? Just think about that boy who cries a lot, publicly. Or imagine a boy who is utterly hopeless at anything athletic. Even if you don't shy away from these qualities, you've certainly thought, "Others will make fun of him," and worried for his emotional safety. I'm right, right?

Real Boys' Voices

A mother of four young boys, I was thrilled to stumble across the book Real Boys' Voices (RBV) by Dr. William S. Pollack (Random House, 2000). As a practising psychologist and research academic, Dr. Pollack has spent decades listening to North American men and boys open up about themselves and the pressures they feel. RBV is the follow-up book to Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood, in which he walks the lay-reader through his analysis of what fundamental impact normative conceptions of "masculinity" have on boys.

RBV carries the same message as Real Boys, but as told through hundreds of first-person insights offered by boys in interviews. The message is simple, yet profound and disturbing: sensing that only a narrow spectrum of "masculine" emotions are available to them, our boys shut down and suppress much of their feelings, and manifest their fear, pain and sadness in forms condoned as "masculine," namely as anger, detachment and physical violence.

But, Dr. Pollack stresses, there is hope. If we create safe spaces for our boys, listen to them and let them open up in their own way, we can let them know that they can live beyond the "real boy" code of behaviour. Though heavy on the first-person accounts, RBV offers lots of practical tips on ways to help boys feel emotionally safe, how to open the door to conversations and what signs or signals our boys might be giving us if they're feeling lost or depressed.

Having read Real Boys' Voices, I feel better equipped to help my sons navigate the oft-confusing labyrinth of growing up male, and I really recommend Dr. Pollack's work for anyone raising and nurturing a boy.

Do you have a "lightbulb" book when it comes to parenting your boy or girl?

A Snippet of Brotherly Love

It was a little thing, but it warmed my heart.


My not-quite-one-and-a-halfer had been playing with his twin brothers in the back yard, when they both decided (mental telepathy?) to retreat to the kitchen where I was making dinner to see what they could get into. The toddler left in the yard showed no concern, until... he tried to get the teeter-totter to work, by himself.

He screeched with frustration and disappointment (he had seen how much fun the other two had, playing on it just a few minutes earlier). But, the plain truth is that such an apparatus requires a partner. I felt my heart go heavy, feeling his solitude. So I explained to the twins, "He'd really like to play on the teeter-totter. Would one of you like to play with him?"

The first to respond gave the answer I expected: "no!" Then the other, very gently, said, "I'll do that," and he joined his younger brother at the back of the yard.

Attention spans of toddlers and pre-schoolers measure in nano-seconds, so the interaction didn't last long. But for the brief minutes they played together, I smiled at their squeaks of laughter, wide grins and, especially, the look of enthralled joy worn by my youngest boy.

Such a nice contrast to the more typical whacking and smacking that goes on among our boys. Gives me hope... :)