Miss Missa on the road: Training Day 1!

Today was... very interesting and filled with an unusual amount of socialization for an introvert like me! I got up in time to grab some breakfast at the hostel (blueberry muffin, bagel with cream cheese, orange sections that I picked out of my teeth for the next three hours) before heading out. It's about a 30-minute casual stroll to the RIE centre, downhill the whole way. I arrived nice and early, and met Kate from Peaceful Parents, Confident Kids (you should read her blog, it's fantastic!) right away, along with some other fabulous people. I'm not the only one who came from afar; there were two ladies from Australia and one from India in my class. We did introductions, went over some introductory materials, and talked about things like taking time and/or waiting for a response from an infant before doing the thing you said you were about to do, and like authenticity and getting to know the small person in your care while allowing that person to get to know you.

I walked with a couple of my classmates to a coffee shop nearby and got an insanely delicious sandwich for my lunch. It is still annoying that I have to actually READ the paper money to determine its value, and I automatically put my wallet away when the change is going to be less than $5, and have to pull it back out for the $1 bills.

After lunch, we talked about specific times we felt respected and disrespected, and it was interesting how much more difficult it was to think of things on the respect side of the equation. My thought was that most of the times where I've felt respected I tend to either write it off as people respecting my skills or something, or it kind of blends in with the level of common courtesy that people automatically give each other most of the time in our society.

After watching an interesting video (which is apparently for people who were once infants, or whose friends or family members were once infants) and doing some discussion and reflection, it was time to go! I spotted the Hollywood sign on my way up the hill, and stopped at Walgreens for some supplies (did you know they can still sell cigarettes in drug stores here?), and made it to my room somewhat tired but feeling accomplished. One of my roommates was asleep, so I dropped off my stuff in my locker and came down to the common room with my laptop and books, where I met some interesting people, one of whom shared his tasty spaghetti with me. And with that run-on sentence, it's time for me to get through my homework for the night and get to bed!

Miss Missa on the road: I always knew I'd make it to Hollywood one day!

Hello from Hollywood and Highland!

Today was another long travelling day -- I was at the Spokane airport before 7am. After hastily stuffing some jeans from my suitcase into my carryon (I was 6 lbs over on my checked bag!) I was off! It's been a long time since I rode in a propeller plane, and I forgot how loud the engines are on those things. I had enough time to grab an orzo pasta salad and a bottle of water in Portland before boarding my second flight to LA.

It was interesting approaching LA and seeing all the palm trees, the huge warehouses, and the multitude of backyard swimming pools. The airport was surprisingly quiet when I arrived (as in it was nearly not so busy as to make my head explode), as remarked by someone who apparently actually lives here. I foolishly followed Google's advice and lugged myself and my luggage all the way from Terminal 6 to Terminal 1, missing the flyaway bus to Hollywood by about five minutes. After using a washroom and regrouping a bit, I learned that the bus does indeed stop at all the other terminals. Sigh. Now I know where to go to get my bus back to the airport in two weeks, though! It's just off Hollywood and Vine (at which intersection I was too busy figuring out where to go that I forgot to stop and take a selfie). The first star I noticed on the walk of fame was the one that says Frank Sinatra; my family will think that's hilarious even if no one else does.

I opted to pay the $1.75 bus fare to ride up Hollywood to Highlands, rather than attempt to make the 15-minute walk whilst lugging my 49.9-pound suitcase. The entrance to the hostel is secured, and you have to ring the doorbell and wait for the desk attendant to buzz you in -- then you have to climb a full flight of stairs! My room is on the second floor, making me appreciate having packed "light" for 2 and a half weeks away (I will take advantage of my sister-in-law's non-coin-operated laundry facilities when I visit there "on the way home" in a couple of weeks).

To get a feel for where I'm staying, here's the hostel's website: http://walkoffamehostel.com/

Tonight is "games night" which this time means beer pong with free beer (as long as you're playing). The common area also has a number of board games and such. There's a kitchen, and free breakfast. I plan to use the free hostel breakfast to make myself immune to the fact that McDonald's is literally down the road. I spent my evening with my 4-person dorm room to myself unpacking a bit into my locker, reorganizing my bags, and exploring the hostel, rather than walking down to the place where my training will be, since I was an hour later than I intended to be arriving. I popped back in to get my makeshift lap desk when the common room was taken over by beer pong so that I can use my laptop on my lap, and my one roommate was in the room, apparently facetiming with her significant other based on the snipped ot conversation I overheard after we exchanged "hi"s -- hers was a little frosty, but maybe that's because she thought she had the room to herself tonight, or because I was interrupting her call. Hopefully it was just a false start! I'm trying to make a point of being in the common areas and actually talking to people (or at least being approachable), because I will NOT be participating in many (or possibly any) of the planned activities, and I hear it's bad hostel etiquette to be a complete hermit.

In the morning, I will venture out to the RIE Center for Day 1 of the Foundations course. I'm so excited!

Miss-Missa on the road: Greetings from the USA!

Well, after a long and interesting journey, I have arrived in Spokane to visit a friend for the weekend. My bus's alternator broke between Edmonton and Red Deer, causing the 10-minute stop there to turn into 2 hours so that a mechanic could come fix it. They held our transfer bus in Calgary (there were 9 of us making that transfer), so it was 30 minutes late leaving -- to the dismay of all the other passengers that had to board in Calgary. In Golden, the guy who had started chatting with me in Edmonton and proceeded to get increasingly drunk as time went on was escorted away by the police, which caused another delay, but despite all that we managed to arrive in Vancouver 30 minutes early and make the transfer to the next bus. At the boarder, the US official kept asking if where I was going in LA was "near Redfern" (even after I said it was West Hollywood) and I realised that he was actually following a script and told him I had no idea -- I only made the connection to the shootings that had been in the news a few weeks ago several hours later.

The Greyhound station in Seattle was packed, and I found myself boarding a nearly-full bus with people whose accents I'd only heard on the phone (while working in call centres for American companies) and on TV, a guy with a pitt bull who he tried to pass off as a service dog but who clearly needed more training and focus in order to handle such a stimulating and stressful experience, and a baby who did very well considering she also had to handle a stimulating and stressful experience.

I saw more snow in the passes between Seattle and Spokane than I have in a long time, with banks taller than the vehicles. It seems like the snow fell fast, wet, and heavy though, because it clumped in the crotches of the tree branches like snowy magpie nests. After the mountains was what I can only describe as badlands -- a semi-arid desert with fences up to keep the tumbleweeds off the highway and, later, out of the farm fields. It reminded me of the area around Wainwright -- and there was actually a section with signs indicating "US ARMY RANGE" which reminded me even more of the Wainwright area.

We arrived in Spokane a bit early, but I didn't have to long to wait until my friend picked me up. I got a tour of an American Walmart (they really do sell guns, ammo, and liquor) and visited McDonald's, where I determined that the fries taste different (maybe it's the oil?), the Big Mac bun is tastier, ketchup tastes different (I was not expecting that!) and Dr. Pepper is available despite the fact that it's a Coke place, not a Pepsi place.

Now I'm going to enjoy the first coffee I've had since Golden, and I'll catch you all up from L.A. tomorrow afternoon!

Miss Missa on the road: Journey's Beginning

I am currently on a Greyhound bus heading south to Calgary, the first leg of my journey to L.A.. Why, you may ask, am I going to L.A.? Well, I am very excited to tell you that I am going to participate in the winter intensive RIE Foundations class this month! I'm planning to post periodically with updates and reflections on my experience, so stay tuned! In the meantime, I've got a 37-hour + bus ride, so I think I'll do some sleeping...

Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult.

“All I am saying ... can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” ~ John Holt

This morning, I had the great pleasure of spending time in The Small Park with the toddlers and most of the preschoolers.

At one point, one of the older toddlers called out to me:

"HEY WISSA! I'N UP HERE!"

"Oh, hi E," I replied, walking over to the platform he stood on, "You're standing on the platform here."

"Yeah! I climbded up. But... How do I get down?"

"Hmm, how do you get down?"

"I don't know, I can't go down. I need you help me."

"You're worried about getting down from there. I wonder; how did you get up?" We won't lift children onto playground equipment that they cannot climb independently, so I already knew that he knew how to climb up.

He peered over the edge, then carefully turned around, balanced on his belly on the edge, and confidently stretched one rain boot to reach a beam below the platform, followed by the other boot, and then stepped down to the ground. "There. I climbded on that part!" he said, patting the beam.

"I saw; you used the beam to climb down. You knew how to do it. You got down by yourself and didn't need my help at all. I knew you could!"

-----

This afternoon, I stepped into the preschool room, where the volume level was very high, and everyone was very busy. Some children had used the big hollow unit blocks to create a long, narrow "skating rink", complete with a very challenging "hill" consisting of the two "ramp" blocks arranged to make a V shape. The majority of the children in the room were each standing on one of the smaller unit blocks (think about the size of a 2x4 cut to about a 10-inch length) with each foot, "skating" around the track. I was informed that everything else was water, and I was floating in the chair I sat in to watch the skating show, and my clothes were now all wet. Two children "splashed" into the empty space in the middle, declared it to be a "swimmin' pool" and proceeded to read storybooks to each other.

The hill feature was rather tricky, as children skated down one side and then found it very difficult to get enough traction to get up the other side. There were some falls and bumps, but the children stood (mostly) patiently and waited for each child to make the attempt over and over and over and over until either managing to stride far enough to get to the top without falling down, or giving up and crawling or picking up their skates and walking.

At one point, conflict arose between a few of the oldest preschoolers, as one kept breaking the ice track apart and yelling at the others "GET OFF RIGHT NOW!" and then screaming furiously when the others tried to fix the track. They very nearly came to blows a couple of times, but managed to regulate themselves with verbal reminders. My role as the adult in all of this was to try and make sure both sides were heard, and then trust the children to come to a solution together (whether or not that turns out to be the solution that makes sense to me or that I would have chosen!). "E, you sound very angry. You want everyone to get off? It seems like shouting at them is not working. I wonder if they need more information to understand why you want them to get off." "J, you seem upset that E keeps breaking the track. I wonder what kind of information you could give so that E understands what is making you feel so upset." "E said the ice is breaking apart because it is getting wet and sloppy. She said she wants to fix the ice to make it safe again. She said everyone has to get off so she can fix it."

Eventually "everyone" made a tiny "ice" bridge to go around E's broken spot, and then "everyone" wandered off to do other things. E, in the meantime, fixed up the ice and then told me "The ice is fixed now, it's safe to skate again."
"Oh, you've finished fixing it?"
"Yeah."
"Did you want the others to know that it's ready?"
"Yeah. I could tell them."
"Sure, you could tell them, though they seem a bit busy now."

Sure enough, when E yelled that the skating rink was open, no one made any indication that they had even heard her. I said "It seems like the others are involved in other things right now. What if you made some kind of message so that people would know the rink is ready when they come?"
"A sign! I can write a sign!" After staring expectantly at me for a few moments, and listening to me idly wonder what we would use to make this sign, she popped over to the art card and returned with a paper, a black pencil crayon, and a clipboard.

"How do you spell 'skating rink'?"
"Well, it starts with a 'ssssss' sound... I wonder which letter that could be..."

Suddenly, a crowd of children gathered to help E puzzle out the letters to use for her sign. Exclamations of "HEY! That's MY letter!" and "I have an I in my name, TOO!" and "HEY! My mommy starts with that letter!" mixed with chatter about the difference between a NNN sound and a MMMMM sound, how easy it is to change one letter into something different by adding or removing a line here or a curve there, and descriptions of how to draw a G or a K. Keep in mind that we have never explicitly taught letter recognition, sounds, or formation in our centre. The children are motivated to learn to read and write because it interests them. E spent close to fifteen minutes producing her sign that said "SKAtinG RinK" at the bottom, and "opEn" above it. I asked if she felt like signing her name, and she did. Then she leaned the sign against the far end of the "rink" and went on with her day.

These hollow blocks made up the skating rink, though this photo is of a "stage" created by preschoolers about three years ago.

-----

These rich experiences would not have been possible without trust. It is challenging for adults to trust children. It is easier for us to just swoop in and dictate a solution when there is a problem, to impose restrictive rules when things seem even mildly risky to us, to do the writing for them, to lift them where they ask to go. But when we step back and trust children to show us what they are capable of, we get to revel in moments like these. Moments of "I knew you could do it!" and of seeing the pride, the confidence, and the triumph in the face, nay, the entire being of a child who dared to try something difficult, who stuck with a tricky task until it was figured out, who was given the time and the space to create real, meaningful words on a page. Trust children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult.

Peelable nail polish: DANGER! (Or: Apparently Walmart is trying to kill me.)

I'm going to post this here, because it needs to be posted, and because most of the (five?) people who read this blog have young children.

On boxing day, I found these sets of peelable nail polish at Wal-Mart. They have 18 colors, some of which are super fun. Because I have to pay attention to my actual nail colour, I tend to avoid proper nail polish, and this seemed like a fun way to have a "spa day" with some of my favorite kids. There is no expiry date on the box (just a symbol that seems to indicate the product should be used or discarded within 12 months of opening it). I bought the Disney princess set, and what the hey, they're half price, I grabbed a Sofia the First set, too. There was no indication that either box had been opened, damaged, or tampered with.

A couple of days later (this being a busy time of year and all), I opened one of the boxes, and I chose a random bottle to try. The polish had solidified to the point where the brush tip stayed in the bottle, and I was holding a cap with a stick attached. More random selections from both boxes yielded similar results. Many bottles had clear liquid around the outside, and a solid blob in the middle, and no amount of shaking would help. Others were just dried right out.

Then I opened this bottle, which required very little force.

Instead of the cap unscrewing, the bottle literally broke apart in my hand. These are glass nail polish bottles. I was holding in my hand broken glass from a product whose packaging says "not for children under 3" like basically every toy says, and whose instructions simply say "with adult instruction, apply to clean nails." It was more by good luck than good management that I didn't slice my hand open. This one was from the Disney set.

Closer inspection of the bottles on the Sofia set revealed this one, cracked quite badly. 

Please note that these products are marketed to preschoolers.

These are going back to Wal-Mart tomorrow. I want you to be warned: if you see these things, and you just HAVE to buy them, be careful. Make sure your child is not the one who opens them. These products pose a serious safety hazard. Feel free to spread the word. I would hate for a little kid to be hurt by a randomly exploding nail polish bottle.

What does YOUR heart sound like?

Earlier this week, I sat on the floor with the two oldest preschoolers casually snuggled up on either side of me. We were reading a story together (am I the only one who always thought it was weird that Nicky Bunny had to strip down to his underwear at the doctor's office as if that were just normal routine?). At one point, the story describes Nicky Bunny's heartbeat: thump-thump, thunp-thump. And then (spoiler?) Nicky gets to hear the doctor's heart go thump-thump, thump-thump. 

The two children enjoyed all the thump-thumping, and we repeated it together a few times. One said "That's the sound your heart makes!"

"Well," I replied, "my heart actually makes a different sound, because I was born with a heart that is a little bit different from most people's hearts."

I saw two heads turn sharply towards me from other parts of the classroom. One belonged to a big brother whose baby sibling had heart surgery at birth. The other head belonged to the child who underwent a procedure to repair a hole between heart chambers this past autumn. The two children sitting with me looked at me with a little bit of awe. 

"What sound does your heart make?" asked the one.

"My heart sounds more like thumpa-dump, thumpa-dump," I told her.

"Oh," she said, "My heart goes thump-thump, thump-thump."

"Yes," I agreed, "Most people's hearts go thump-thump, thump-thump."

"Not mine!" proclaimed my other story-reading companion.

"Oh. What sound does your heart make?"

He thought for a moment, then made a wiggly gesture with his fingers. "My heart goes squiggy-squiggy!" 

We had a giggle together over how silly it would be if hearts actually went squiggy-squiggy, and returned to our story.

________________

This subject is very dear to my heart (har har); I was, indeed, born with a congenital heart defect called a bicuspid aortic valve. Thankfully, there were no complications, as it was not detected until I was an adult. Our little childcare community happens to be quite strongly affected by congenital heart defects -- there are two staff families and two enrolled families which include people born with heart defects, and we find ourselves talking about hearts quite a bit around here.

Congenital heart defects affect about 1% of the population. They may cause no trouble, or they may be immediately life-threatening. Congenital heart defects cause more children to die each year than all forms of childhood cancer combined, but cancer research receives more than five times the funding that congenital heart defect funding receives. If you would like to help improve early detection rates, treatment options, and quality of life for the 180,000+ Canadian children and adults living with congenital heart defects, please consider supporting the Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance (CCHA). Your support could save lives (and maybe find out why young Mister Preschooler's heart goes squiggy-squiggy!).