The Power of Belief

This is Dad (Joe) checking in today with an interesting story about Jaida. A few weeks ago we were all sitting around the diner table and the topic of “belief” came up. Now those of you who know Gia and I know that this is a touchy subject with us. Suffice it to say that we accept that other people can believe what they want, as long as they don’t try to force those beliefs on us (or our children). However, we are both quite adamant about not confusing facts with beliefs, and we want to make sure our children grow up knowing the difference.

Alright, back to the story - so to add to our discussion, Jaida brought up that one of the boys in her pre-school class does not believe in Santa Claus, but she does, “and that’s OK” she said. Gia and I were happy and a bit amazed that she seemed to understand what could be a rather abstract concept. However, then she added, “I don’t believe is space, though, and that’s OK too.” When we asked why she didn’t believe in outer space, she refused to talk about it, but simply added, “It’s OK to believe in different things, right?” Of course, we had to agree, and then just let it slide.

A few days later, Gia asked her again why she didn’t believe in outer space, trying to explain that some things are facts, and are not beliefs, citing that outer space is where the moon is, and where the stars are. Again she dismissed these, and repeated that it’s OK to believe in different things. Later, Gia and I discussed this and Gia said she was going to drop the subject for now, because if she really sat down with Jaida and discussed the difference between “facts” and “beliefs,” the original subject of Santa Claus would come up and what would we say then? Jaida has a bright mind and forgets nothing! We want her to grow up thinking rationally, but at the same time, we don’t want to kill her childhood completely by making her realize that Santa Claus might not be real after all, especially since she really wants to believe in him right now. That will come later, as it does for all children, and we don’t want to spoil that one bit of magic for her.

Ok, we now jump forward a week (and to the point of this rather long post). I was alone with Jaida, playing dolls or something, and she brought up the subject of jobs and what I do at my job. I mentioned that when I’m not on a boat, I look at images taken from cameras in space, and suddenly we were back to that strangely taboo subject. After telling me again that she doesn’t believe in space, I asked her again why. Then she sort of closed down in a way Gia and I both know means there is something she is afraid of. I picked her up and hugged her and said it’s Ok to tell me what’s bothering her (and that we don’t keep secrets in our house - another subject that we are keen on). She finally looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said that she didn’t want space to be real because she was afraid of falling off the Earth and floating away.

What a smart and clever girl, I realized as I hugged her and reassured her that that could never happen. Rather than confusing fact from fiction, as we had originally thought, she was simply protecting herself from the scary unknown by refusing to admit it was real. Jaida is much better now that she can talk about it, but it kind of makes you realize just how many beliefs are born out of simple “fear of the unknown.”

The power of belief can be strong and overpowering for children (and also many adults who have difficulty thinking rationally). I hope we can always find a way to help both Jaida and Jaxon understand the power of belief, own it (as Dr. Phil might say), and never let it control them.

Shots!

Jaida survived her doctor appointment. She received not one but two immunizations ... she was less than thrilled when she found this out last minute. However, she might be the bravest 4.5 year old ever. She went to the appointment knowing she was getting a needle. She didn't do any of the following (all of which I expected would happen) cry, whine, or plant her feet and refuse to move forward. We talked a lot about what it was going to feel like ... a poke and stinging ... and the great treat she would get afterwards.

She ended up getting her first varicella vax and the doctor decided to go ahead with her 5 yo MMR vax also. This way at her 5 year appointment it will be nothing other than pleasant seeing as how there will be no shots of any kind.

When the nurse gave Jaida the varicella vax Jaida just winced a bit. The MMR made her nearly cry but by the time she was getting wound up it was already over. The promise of a pink kitty beanie baby and a cupcake from Starbucks was enough to make her very happy. I had a MMR booster before I started college .... I remember that one hurting quite a bit.

Talking about Presidents

We have gone to Chick-fil-A a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. In their kids meal the toy is not exactly a toy but rather a set of flash cards bound by a ring. The cards have pictures of our Presidents on the front and a short bio and a very small picture of the first ladies on the back. We are sitting at the table and Jaida is flipping through them showing us which ones are on money when she looks up and says there are no girls in here. She seemed quite dismayed that there were no girls on the front of the cards. Joe and I explained that in the history of our country having Presidents there has never been a female (or girl in Jaida lingo).

I am still a bit conflicted as to which dem candidate I will vote for. I like them both and think either would make a great POTUS. The extremely liberal feminist in me is screaming that I should vote for Hillary. The idea that my daughter could be raised in a time where having a Madame President is just normal makes me positively giddy with happiness. What better way to illustrate that as a woman Jaida is fully capable of achieving anything her heart desires.

I can't wait to vote in the MD primaries and you better believe Jaida will be going with me when I do it.

Fuzzy memories

My entire labor with Jaida is still quite a blur. I suppose because it was SO long and I was SO tired I just don't remember much of it. Morning turned into night and repeat a couple of times ... that is all I really remember at this point.

The other day while driving to work some music came on and suddenly fuzzy memories of laying with Jaida came flooding back to me. It was odd though because I couldn't really place the memories. They weren't recent memories but she was generally the same size she is now. After a bit I realized they were from the night Jax was born.

It was sort of a whirlwind of an evening. My water broke right around 7pm. After that point the contractions didn't take too long to get ramped up. Around 10 p.m. I was already settling down in my bedroom to try to relax all the while everyone else was bustling through the house getting last minute things finished up, eating, etc. After a bit I heard Jaida in her bedroom sobbing while Joe tried to soothe her to sleep. She was just too excited and ramped up and tired all at the same time. I got up and went padding into Jaida's room where she immediately launched into my arms. I shooed Joe and my sister out of her room and just curled up on her toddler bed with her and held onto her. After a few minutes she asked me why I was breathing funny and I told her that my belly was squeezing pretty hard to try to push her brother out. We laid there for a bit while Jaida felt the contractions and talked about all the new stuff tomorrow would bring. Her goodnight music was playing on the cd player. Eventually, she settled down and fell fast asleep. At no other time have I been so uncomfortable and completely overjoyed and relaxed at the same time.

A very happy memory.

SAD

This entry is not directly about the kids ... maybe it is about them in a round-a-bout sort of way such as "I have no patience to deal with them right now" but that is about it.

EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR right about mid-January I start feeling down in the dumps (is that an actual term? it seems odd). I never get what I would think full-on depression is like but I feel blah. It is usually at its worst come mid-February and by the first day of Spring I feel that renewed sense of being and happiness but I seem to have to go though the winter blahs first. I have never been to a doctor about this and have never been officially diagnosed with anything. That is the beauty of the internet I can diagnose myself with Wikipedia or even better yet WebMD without having to go to the doctor and commune with the sick people and possibly catch something worse than my minor case of SAD. I love the internet!

Anyhow, I am thick in the heart of the winter blahs. If I had an un-limited supply of cash I think I would just up and move to someplace warm and sunny for the winter. I do wonder though if I would still have the blahs ... they would probably just be called something else. I am not a big fan of medication (don't have a problem with others using meds - just not for me) but I do wish there was something like Botox for the brain. Something that could make me superficially happy just long enough to get me to Spring.

ho hum ...

School

Jaida will be starting full day kindergarten in the public school system in the Fall. I seriously cannot believe that my baby girl is going off to real school soon. Anyhow, she needs to get her varicella vaccination before she can be registered. I was really hoping she would get the chicken pox (and thereby natural immunity) before she turned five but as it seems no such luck. She is not going to be pleased when she finds out she is getting a shot next Wednesday.

Shhhhh .... please don't tell her until I think of something to bribe her with!

Grandparent's Day

Jaida's preschool has a little Grandparent's Day celebration every year on Valentine's Day. Last year this was an intensely stressful day for me as I just want nothing more than for Jaida to be happy. Jaida was still fairly naive to the fact that every other kid she knew had Grandparent's locally and she didn't. Last year our wonderful friend Alice agreed to be Jaida's Grandfriend and take time off her job to attend the program at Jaida's school. Jaida just beamed with happiness when she saw Miss Alice come through the door of her school. She talked of nothing else for the week that followed.

This year Jaida is a bit more aware of her situation. When she found out Grandparent's Day is coming up soon she very timidly asked me what we are going to do since her Grandparents all live far away. I explained that she was correct that the Grandparent's that would be willing to come to such an event do live far away so they would not be able to come but that we would figure something out. She is worrying over this though and that just about tears my heart out. Surely other kids have Grandparents that live far away but why is it that at this time of year it feels like mine is the only child in this situation? Anyhow, as it stands now it appears that my good friend (and the mom of Jaida's best friend) is going to go with Jaida to her school program. She is not a Grandparent or even a Grandfriend for that matter but she is someone that adores Jaida and I suppose that is all that matters.

Pink Mushroom

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

Jaida started ice skating lessons. She really seems to love it and has really (surprisingly ) good balance. At one point all the kids were toppling over and I look out on the ice and there is Jaida standing on the ice watching all the commotion. She catches me watching and gives me two big thumbs up. Right before lessons started Jaida looks out at all the other kids on the ice and tells me "mama, none of the other kids are wearing helmets". I told her that her brain would thank me when/if she fell on the ice and banged her noggin. As she was leaving with her teacher she looks over her shoulder at me and says "mama, you worry too much". I think she would be paralyzed by fear if she knew how much I worry about her on a daily basis. I must hide it well (for the most part).

Taking a little break from all the excitement

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

I think Jaida had a great Christmas. We had a lot of fun on our break and of course she received many nice gifts. Jaida really got into all of our traditions this year. I think for Jaida preparing for Christmas was more fun than the actual day this year. Quite fun!

I am reasonably sure she did not like the present

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

What do you think? ;)

We have a visitor

Jaida has a little friend that suddenly showed up about a week ago. We named him Elfie and he is an Elf on the shelf. The first evening Jaida found him spying on her from the shelf in her playroom. The second night he found his way to the Christmas tree, then he was found riding one of santa's reindeer (on our mantle), etc. It is so much fun for her to wake up in the morning and go look for him. She talks to him but never tries to touch him. Can I say that Jaida has never been more well-behaved. :)

Christmas in New York City

We recently returned from a nearly week long trip to the big apple. It was rather exhausting but in a fun sort of way. We saw the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. The kids were all enchanted. Jaida's favorite part was when the Rockettes dressed as reindeer pulled Santa and his sleigh across the stage. Jax enjoyed all of the appearances of Santa Claus. We visited Fao Schwartz where both kids picked out a toy to purchase and Jaida was able to dance on the piano featured in the movie Big. Jaida and I ventured to the American Girl Place where Jaida picked out a new outfit for her Bitty baby. We spent time in Rockefeller Square and watched the brave people try to ice skate. We also braved Times Square at night which was an adventure. Generally, we did A LOT of walking. It was rather difficult as it was very busy and the stroller just got in the way. Poor Jax ended up strapped into his stroller most of the trip but he did enjoy running up and down the ramps in teh hotel lobby a lot. ;) It was a fun trip but we are all really glad to be home and are looking forward to Christmas.

She LOVES Santa Claus

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

There is no greater person on Earth than Santa Claus this year. I definitely think this is the BIG year for Santa with Jaida.

The picture of beauty

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

Jaida was a beautiful (non-Disney-fied) princess for Halloween. She had lots of fun at her schools trunk-or-treat event but has no interest in all the candy she collected ... that is what she has her dad and me for though. ;)

Trying to explain the concept of charity to a four year old

This is a subject I have been talking a lot to Jaida about recently. Mostly because she is four and is entering that phase where a lot of little kids sort of live in a self-centered universe. We have always made donations to various charities, etc. We give to the toys for tots campaign during the holidays and stuff like that. Though honestly it really has not made quite the impression on Jaida that I was hoping for. If at all possible I try to avoid having Jaida be involved in monetary contributions to charity mostly because she has very little concept of how much money it takes to buy stuff and secondly she has a hard time wrapping her little mind around the fact that there are kids and adults in the world that do not have as much (food, clothes, love) as her. It is all hard for her to understand.

Our church does a lot of social activism work (for our local area) and the children are pretty involved through the religious education program. Still I feel the need for Jaida to understand just how fortunate she really is and to find a better way to help her understand ways that we can help other people (on a global scale). In my endeavor to achieve both these goals I found this website. You purchase your child an on-line gift card and then they use that gift card to shop on the website to buy things that can help other people. I think it has more overhead charges than I normally like but I think this is a good way to help Jaida understand the global enormity of the problem and how a simple thing can really help.

Parent-Teacher conference

I went to our Fall conference with Jaida's teacher. Of course Jaida received a glowing report in every category. Academically she is doing outstanding. Her teacher could not say enough about what a pleasure it is to teach Jaida and how eager she is to learn/discover new things. She commented on Jaida's amazingly long attention span also. One striking thing her teacher said is that Jaida is by far the most popular kid in her school. This is such an odd thing for me seeing as I spent much of my younger years on the outside looking in (so to speak). Her teacher said it is odd because Jaida is totally not an attention seeker at school yet the kids just flock to her. Joe and I see this in other areas such as at church or in her dance class also. I think part of it is that Jaida is a genuinely nice kid. She is also usually very happy and cheery. She is not the type to be another child's friend one minute and not the next ... she treats everyone equally and with respect. This is something we harp on her constantly about ... well that and treating others as you would like to be treated. I am glad some of what we talk to her about is actually getting through.

For the record

Jaida told me this morning that when she grows up she wants to be an artist that mainly paints, a book writer that draws pictures in books and a dentist (because she has shiny white teeth). I told her that I am sure she can be any one or combination of those that she wants to be if she sets her mind to it. She gave me a big smile in return.

A gruesome scene

Jaida recently received a bunch of books from her Grandma. They are all the Disney stories ... Lion King, Jungle Book, etc. Jaida LOVES these books. We don't own most of the Disney movies so this is really her first introduction to themes such as sibling violence, mother-less youngsters, killing (death she is familiar with but not the actual taking of a life) and a fair amount of violence. We use these books as a jumping off point for many discussions.

Anyhow, Jaida is quite intrigued by the fact that animals eat each other (Lion King?). She had her Lion King figurines as well as some other plastic animals at the table this morning while I was making breakfast. I deliver her food to her and see a grizzly little scene she set up. She had a plastic cow laying on its side and all the other animals were circling it and positioned as if they were eating it. I asked if she remembered that Giraffes are veggie eaters and typically only eat leaves from trees. Jaida's response - "not these Giraffes, they grew up in a way they shouldn't have , like Mowgli, they eat meat". I answered with a shrug and okay. She says "hey mom, look at all the animals they are feasting on beef - hey that rhymes!"

Names

Jaida has several baby dolls that she plays with. All have been named by her with no help of us. Most have had these same names for at least a year if not longer. Her favorite baby doll is the Bitty Baby from American Girl. Bitty is named Sam. At first we thought Sam was maybe short for Samantha since Bitty wears a lot of pink and appears to be a girl. Recently, Jaida informs us that Sam is NOT a girl but instead a boy baby that just likes to wear a lot of pink. Then there is Pix. Pix is a baby doll that has been adopted by Jax. He hauls Pix everywhere. Jaida named Pix though ... Pix is short for Pixie. There is also a big baby doll (generally newborn size doll), named Ping, that has never been in the inner circle of Jaida's doll favorites until lately. This doll is a girl and was recently promoted to the inner circle when Jaida realized some of cousin Mattie's newborn baby clothes fit her. Many outfit changes everyday. Lastly there is this little baby doll that Jaida calls Ching Ching. This doll mostly lives in the car. So, we have Sam, Pix, Ping, and Ching Ching ... quite the motley crew. :)

Goofy Girl

We are having our bathroom remodeled ... aka - gutted. The workmen show up Wednesday a.m. bright and early. Jaida is hanging out downstairs as we get ready to go for the day. She sees a guy walking out the front door with our toilet and says "the toilet has left the building". It was pretty funny. Then she proceeded to say the same thing every single time another bathroom item was hauled out the door. What was once cute became old very quickly.