At four years old he learned (and understood!) how to count musical notation.

These days he makes stuff out of paper or trash. We can hardly throw anything away because he sees it as a potential component to something he can build. Recently he designed a three-dimensional box out of paper and provided picture instructions on how to do it. Yesterday he took two light bulb boxes from the recycle bin, taped them together, and devised rules for a game, again, with illustrated instructions.

This desire to break everything down to components and answers has made the holidays an interesting experience. At four years old Aiden found a packaged toy in our bedroom closet and announced with a huge smile that Mom and Dad go shopping and pretend to be Santa Clause. There was no disappointment because the magic was in having potentially figured it out.

We didn’t give him an outright yes or no. I just asked him, “What makes you think that?” And when he gave me his evidence, I nodded my head and said, “Very interesting idea.” I’m learning he doesn’t want us to give him a definite yes or no. He prefers a little mystery so he can continue to find evidence to prove or disprove his theories.

Skepticism & The Tooth Fairy

On Christmas Eve, at six-and-a-half years old, Aiden finally lost his first tooth and we were expecting a meeting between two holiday mystery characters. Santa Clause and the tooth fairy in one night! Of course, the solution of one led to the solution of the other. “I know Mom is the tooth fairy,” he said.

We played our usual run-around game, ”Why do you assume it’s Mom? What if it’s Dad?”

He laughed, “Because the Tooth Fairy is a girl!”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “In that short film Dad made, Larry was the Tooth Fairy.”

“Oh, yeah…” Aiden stewed on that, looking back and forth from me to Israel.

Last week when he lost his second tooth he decided to take a risk and test his theory by addressing the tooth fairy, herself. Or, himself. After receiving payment for his tooth he put a note under his pillow. Israel and I responded to it on the same piece of paper, with a little clue to the true nature of the “tooth fairy.” The new information surprised him so he asked a follow-up question and we answered that, as well. It continued for a few nights. Here’s what the note said after the third night:

Aiden: I love you.

Tooth fairy: Thank you for the teeth. We love you too.

Aiden: Who are you!

Tooth fairy: We are the ones who buy your special teeth.
We are the tooth fairy.
Why do you want to know?

Aiden: Because I want to see what you look like.

Tooth fairy: I look a little bit like you. –#1
(in different handwriting): And so do I. –#2

Apparently, we threw him off with our last response. He came running into the kitchen where the rest of us were sitting at the table and he announced, “My toothfairies are clones of me!”

We exchanged looks. We questioned his theory. We asked him to read his note again and emphasized the words, “a little bit.” But he wasn’t thinking about the qualifier. He was chewing on the implications of this new bizarre idea. He looked around the dining table, shot his arm into to a point toward Blake and yelled, “And your tooth fairy must be two clones of you!” He then pointed to Dad and Trinity and myself, “And you have your own clones . . . and so do you!”

We were slightly concerned.

To Discover Or To Be Told

Later that night Aiden confided in me. “I’m embarrassed that I wrote, ‘I love you,’ to my clones. I meant for that to go to you because I thought you were the tooth fairy.”

I couldn’t keep his sweet vulnerability exposed like that. I told him, “You know, Aiden? A lot of people say that I look a little bit like you.”

“No, you don’t,” he answered.

Now I understood his switch to the Clone Theory. He had no idea we look similar. “Yeah, I really do. A little bit.”

Recognition pushed his eyes wide open and he emphasized the words, “A little bit?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And Daddy looks a little like you, too.”

He smiled and his embarrassment vanished. But within minutes disappointment replaced it and he complained to us, “Now I know for sure that Mom and Dad are the tooth fairy.” It turns out he really does prefer the questions, the theories, the evidence collecting, over hearing the answer from someone else.

“I didn’t say that, Aiden,” I immediately backtracked. “Blake and Trinity look like you, too. And Grandma Gertrude has the same exact nose as you.”

He laughed and let it go. Hopefully, I left it open just enough for him to have sunk back into his happy state of wonderful skeptical inquiry again. His third tooth is loose now and Easter is on its way, so I guess we’ll find out soon enough. If not, it might be time to nudge his questions in a newer, deeper direction, anyway.

I never did tell you about the article I wrote for the Humanist Network News back in March for their Secular Parenting column. Here’s how it starts…

The “Out” Parent

I walked into my child’s preschool one day right before class was to let out. There was a lobby full of parents and one of them raised her voice above the crowd to say to me, “I noticed your license plate says AGMOM. What does that mean?”

Those of you who have read my articles or blog will recognize it as my blog name, Agnostic Mom. While most of my friends know about this, it wasn’t something I wanted to shout across a crowded room of parents at my child’s preschool. Yet there they all were, staring at me, curious.

Would you like to read the rest of the story? Then please click here.

If you’re newer to Agnostic Mom and would like to read all of my articles when I had a regular column with them, you might want to head over to this page.

The Podcast

Tomorrow on Chuck Bryant’s Something Happening Here podcast, an interview with me will air. I’ll be back to link to it, but I thought I’d give you a heads up…you know, since I’m not around so much lately. =)

You might want to check out his site and show by then, too.

Our interview starts at 9:30 EST, but the actual show starts at 9pm with an interview of Julie from Mothergoosemouse. Julie is an atheist and some of you old-timers might remember her commenting on AgnosticMom.

You can call or email the host with comments or questions, so come prepared. If you can’t make it tonight, the show will be archived and you can listen to it at your convenience.

That doesn’t mean we can’t help. Here is what Dale said we could do:

A polite expression of curious interest combined with excitement for the appearance of such a reasonable and respectful book — that’s the ticket. Something like this:

Dear Mr. Windybottom,

I just came across a great new parenting book and wondered if you’d heard about it. It’s called “Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion” and is co-written by a number of prominent authors ranging from Richard Dawkins to a Unitarian minister. Early reviews are praising it as evenhanded and down-to-earth, not an angry screed. As a longtime reader of [insert mag name here], I’d love to see a review of this book in your pages. Would you happen to know if that’s in the works? I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Sandy Subscriber

As for the list of mags I’m most eager to break into, here’s my top ten:

Parents Magazine: www.parents.com
Parenting Magazine (circ. over 2 million): www.parenting.com
Informed Parent – includes prominent book reviews: www.informedparent.com
Brain, Child – very good content fit: www.brainchildmag.com
Family Resource.com – prominent reviews: www.familyresources.com
Gay Parent – many gay parents are secularists: www.gayparentmag.com
Cookie Magazine: www.cookiemag.com
New Parent Magazine: www.newparent.com
Wondertime Magazine: www.wondertime.go.com
Mothering Magazine: www.mothering.com

I’d be very grateful for help in gently contacting the editors at these publications. Thanks Noell, and thanks to your readers!

Some days my seven-year-old daughter believes there is a god. Hers is a god of lost pencils and favorite foods. On other days, when said god doesn’t come through to grant a wish, she announces, “I guess I don’t believe in god anymore.”

To read more, follow the link to this week’s article in the Humanist Network News. Feel free to write a letter to the editor in response. Or come back here if you’d like to comment on my blog.

I wanted to thank everyone for the great response to the previous post about Parenting Beyond Belief. It was great to see so many links back to my posting and to the book; so many purchases, even multiple purchases, and gifts to local libraries! Awesome.

Somebody asked which of the magazines and stores are rejecting the book. I contacted Dale McGowan about this. So far he is waiting to hear the specifics from the publisher. Once he gets the information I’ll be sure to update you so all the interested activists in this readership can start writing letters.

Here is a positive review from Library Journal. This is a publication that is instrumental in getting libraries to purchase copies:

McGowan, a professor, freelance writer, and novelist, has collected essays from some of contemporary secularism’s big names, e.g., Richard Dawkins, Margaret Downey, in support of those nonreligious American parents who seek to “articulate values, celebrate rites of passage, find consolation, and make meaning” sans religion. Contributor Ed Buckner writes that secular means “not based on religion” rather than “hostile to religion.” Though a few entries do evidence anger or resentment, it is clear that all of these astute essayists have thought carefully about God’s nonexistence. Most of the 30-odd contributors recommend imbuing children with the ability to think well independently; when pressured or rejected by real and figurative institutions that tend to favor the religious (e.g., schools, scouting, holidays), parents are advised to stick to their nontheistic guns. The book considers parents as pedagogues, recalling Deborah Stipek and Kathy Seal’s Motivated Minds: Raising Children To Love Learning. Engaging and down-to-earth, this collection balances the scores of religious parenting titles shelved in the average library and is highly recommended for large public libraries and parenting collections. — Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Hartford

Thanks for your interest, everyone! Don’t forget to stop over to HNN for a little reading.

Several parenting magazines are declining to review the book for fear of offending religious subscribers, and a few retailers are declining to stock the book, claiming there is no market for it. It is essential that we demonstrate otherwise, so please put all promotional oars in the water as soon as possible.

I know that a huge percentage of AgnosticMom readers have blogs. Will you please promote the book on your sites? You can also send a link to the friends and family members on your email lists. Plus, if you can spare the change, how about ordering one for your local library?

Here is a link to the book, Parenting Beyond Belief. Let me know when your order your copy!

Hi Noell
I happened upon your website as I was searching for input on how to respond to as question my children seem to be very close to asking….What happens to people when they die? I think at this age (they have just turned 4) they need an answer that is more definitive than “some people believe this or that”. But at the same time I feel it will freak them out to hear the brutal honest truth that the end is the end. I was hoping you could share your wisdom with me or suggest some reading.
Thank you

I wrote an article on this subject for the Humanist Network News. It is one of my articles included in the new book, Parenting Beyond Belief, as well as an article by Julia Sweeney on the same subject.

I hope my article is helpful. It’s been a while since we discussed this subject so any comments are welcome.

Today I am going to add an additional activity to what we did last year. I’m still working it out in my brain but I think I am going to explore color with the kids as a metaphor for how all of life is made up of just a handful of basic particles. Just as all color and all its variety come from three primary colors and black and white, everything we see in the world with all its variety comes from a limited number of elements (I’m still not sure what I should break it all down to. Any suggestions?)

We’ll play with paint, beginning with red, yellow, and blue, expanding to the secondary colors, then the tertiary. We’ll add black and white for varying tone. I may use that to explain mutations and how some mutations help a creature to survive environmental pressures, allowing it to reproduce more, and some mutations make it harder to survive, preventing it from reproducing as much.

And of course, we’ll also be doing the traditional AgnosticMom stuff that I outlined in my HNN article:

Feb. 12: Introduction of Evolution through Family Book Reading
Dinner focus: The first phase of evolutionary life: shellfish, jellyfish, worms
A. Read The Tree Of Life: The Wonders Of Evolution by Ellen Jackson.
B. Dinner:
1. Very involved version: A smorgasboard of shellfish: shrimp, lobster, oysters
2. Simpler version: Shrimp dinner
3. After dinner treat: Gummi-worms (put them in cute gift bags or boxes on their
plates. The kids love that!).
C. Table decor theme: Under the sea

What are you doing today? Whether you have ever commented before or not, please leave a comment if you are celebrating Darwin Day and tell us what you are doing today! If you have a blog and have written about it there, leave us a link.

Oh, and two articles by Agnostic Mom! And there’s my secret. This book, to be released in April, will feature two of my articles from the Humanist Network News!

I’m going to give you a link to the book on Amazon, but before I do, I’ll let you in on the plan. You can preorder now if you’d like. Or, if you want to try to propel it to the top ten, you can wait until April like many of us are doing when the book is actually released.

There is also a possibility that I may join some of the contributors at the September conference for Atheist Alliance International in Washington D.C. to be on a panel.

Okay, now here is the link to Parenting Beyond Belief.

In fact, the article may relate in some way to a comment/question that Angel posted last week. Angel: If you are still here, the article I linked to may interest you. I do plan to address your specific concern about having raised your children without religion in the next few days.

I also promise to respond to Mommy Window soon, who had a question others have asked regarding social situations as a minority unbeliever.

Enjoy!

We had a lot of fun. I painted bricks onto two panels of paper that I hung in the archway from the living room to the kitchen. As each guest arrived, Blake escorted them to the brick wall, did the magical tapping on appropriate bricks, and then led his guests through the panels. Once inside the magical world of Hogwart’s School (in our kitchen and backyard), Blake let the guests choose from a tray of various wands. Then he put the sorting hat on each guest to hear the announcement of which house (team) that guest would be a part of. My husband recorded the voice of the actual sorting hat from the movie into his lap top and pushed play when the guests put on the sorting hat. The boys loved this! It produced laughter every time.

When most of the guests had arrived we began playing a modified version of Quidditch, then a game between dragons and humans where the humans dodged dragons to steal their golden eggs (chocolate).

The best part for me was the potion class. I put three flavors of Kool-Aid in various shaped jars and containers and as I brought them out I told the kids that the red was Dragon Tears, the purple was Extract of Pituitary, and the green was Sleeping Potion. I also put out bowls of Bloodworms (gummi worms) and Beazles (jelly beans). The boys were hysterical with this! Never did I hear the words, punch or Kool-Aid, come out of their mouths. It was all potion to them. And they thought their own combinations were amazing! I’ve never seen kids drink so much!

They took their drinks to the dining table I set up on the patio under the glow of white Christmas lights. I covered the table with a purple table cloth and laid diamonds of gold wrapping paper as placemats. I set gothic-type center pieces along the table to give it an old and formal feel, like the dining hall in Harry Potter.

Instead of bags of candy and little toys for the party favors, I found 100-piece jigsaw puzzles with dragons and knights at the dollar stores. I wrapped the puzzles in brown paper and sent them home as their thank-you gifts. What a fun night!

Many of the ideas for this party came from www.amazingmoms.com on their Harry Potter page.

This post is to answer a question from Jennifer:

I know this question was already raised, but I don’t think answered, who teaches your daughter about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit? (I’m agnostic, just wondering).

I know I have forgotten to answer a lot of questions. If I passed you over and there is something you’re dying to know, try it again and maybe I can get better at this!

But back to Jennifer. Trinity was really young when we left religion (Mormonism). I think she was only two. But believe me when I say I was a good Mormon mom and I ingrained religion into my children from the beginning. This means she had a vague understanding that there was a god who loved her and that when we die we go to Heaven (she was always fearful so this was important to her) and get to be with Jesus and family again.

When my husband and I made that transition of beliefs, we explained to our children that we didn’t believe all the things that Mormons believed; that there were certain things we thought were wrong with religion. The move toward agnosticism with my children was slow and gradual (I declared myself an atheist as soon as I left the Church, but not to my kids). I just couldn’t tell them there is no god or heaven.

My husband and I travel together three times a year and my kids stay with their grandparents. They go to church with them on these weekends. They go for three hours, two of which the kids are in a small class with a teacher and kids their age. The teachers do not adjust their teaching for non-member guest children (for example, “We believe…”). They just state their beliefs as facts and have my children participate as much as possible.

Trinity enjoys these visits to church and takes everything to heart. In addtion to that, our extended families pray at every gathering and there have been religious lessons at some holiday events. It has only been in the last year that I have been more clear and direct that I do not believe there is a god.

Somebody left a comment that expressed an inaccurate understanding of an earlier post. They thought I call my family agnostic because some of us have atheist beliefs and some of us have Christian ones. I want to clarify that that is not what I meant. I call my family agnostic because when my kids ask about religious doctrines, I tell them what various people believe and then say that no one really knows. I tell them no one has actually seen heaven or Jesus. Those who say they know don’t really. I never tell them unequivocally that there is no god.

Trinity’s choice to continue believing has nothing to do with the fact that our family is agnostic. It is significant only because I have chosen to put more emphasis on giving my children confidence in their right to an opinion. I do not consider Trinity a Christian. It is probable that she will eventually grow out of this belief like she’ll grow out of Santa, given the way we raise our kids. At the same time, she is the most emotionally-driven member of the family. Maybe she won’t.

What is the drawback? Blake’s imagination exceeds my abilities. Now that Thanksgiving is over (and my 34th birthday!), I am trying to plan his Harry Potter themed birthday party. But nothing I do matches the picture in his mind.

For example, he wants to play a game of Quittage (spelling?). He knows that he and his friends cannot possibly fly, no matter how great the broomsticks. He agrees to that. But he will not accept any other modification in the game. I have showed him revised versions of the game offered online; versions suitable for actual children. Not good enough. He wants to play it exactly as it is played in the movie. It is impossible. But he won’t accept that.

So, anyway, I am busy trying to squeeze a birthday party in between now and Christmas, while also preparing something for Trinity’s birthday. On New Year’s Eve.

If you never saw my article in HNN for last week, you can go here to read it.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I have not raised my children to be atheists, although I have that natural desire, perhaps biologically evolved, for my children to share my beliefs. My kids did not even know the meaning of the word, “atheist” until a couple of weeks ago (more on that later).

You all know me mainly by my worldview. I realize I am quite vocal on my blog. What else could I be? But in reality, as you would suspect, there is much more to me and my life than my godlessness. And while I teach my children about how to treat people, animals, and the world around us, I spend very little time talking to them about the gods. When that subject comes up, I have usually tried to explain that some people believe this, some people believe that. I often ask them what they believe. I never tell them what I believe (about gods) unless they ask. And they don’t ask often!

This is why it was such a surprise to me when Blake (age eight) announced to his friends that he didn’t believe in God. Of course, I always hoped he would come to that conclusion. But that is just the point. I wanted it to be his conclusion. Trinity (age six), on the other hand, professes to be a believer and we have never made her feel inferior for being one. I expect in time she will come around, anyway.

The important thing to me is that the kids learn critical thinking, that they learn to question things, that they look for evidence when it is needed, and that they are confident in their ability to form their own opinions.

A number of weeks ago we got our issue of Wired magazine, mainly a techie subscription. Blake saw it on the chair and yelled, “Wow, cool!”

My husband asked, “You like the design on the cover?”

Blake answered, “No, I like the topic!”

What was the headline topic that had him so enthralled? “No heaven. No hell. Just science.”

The title of the article is “The New Atheism.” We asked Blake if he knew what atheism is. When he said he didn’t I told him, “It’s when you don’t believe there is a god.”

He yelled again, “That’s us! We don’t believe in God!”

And then Trinity interjected, “I do! I believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

So there it is. We are an agnostic family and each child has the right and the information to make his or her own decisions. Of course, we influence them. There is nothing wrong with that. But each child knows we respect their ability to come to their own conclusions.

By the way, if you want to know about the article, it is an excellent one with an atheistic viewpoint. Rare, I know. The writer interviewed Richard Dawkins (evolutionary biologist, but you know that), Sam Harris (neuroscientist who wrote, The End Of Faith), and Daniel Dennett (philosopher). You can find it in the November issue.

I explained to Blake that this was a club for children whose parents actually believe that the stories in the Bible were all real. I disappointed him with the news that this club was not the right one for him.

And then came the interesting part. He said, “Do you know that all three of the kids at my table believe in God?” Now I was really interested in this conversation. How did he come upon this information? And why was he so surprised?

He continued, “I said, ‘So who here believes in God?’ And they all said they did!”

“And what did you say?” I asked.

“I said, ‘I don’t.’”

I was getting nervous now but didn’t want him to know it. If I acted anxious, or began giving him warnings, would he learn to feel ashamed? But is it okay for an atheist or agnostic child to just bring the conversation up, as many Christian children do? I have always told him that if friends want to talk to him about God, or heaven and hell, that it is appropriate to say that our family doesn’t believe in that. But here he is now, in school, introducing the topic.

I asked him, “Then what did your friends do?” Apparently one gave a loud exhale of disbelief and another let his jaw drop to the table. But that was it. Thankgoodness. So far it’s been a couple weeks there has been no fallout.

So here is a discussion topic for you. Would you give your child a gentle warning that some parents don’t want their kids around people who don’t believe as they do? Do you think it is inappropriate for a child of atheists or agnostics to ever bring up the subject? Or do you let them do their thing because they really should have that right, as children of Christians do, even though it may lead them to a friendless path?

It’s been a horrendous week. How much more blunt can I get? And to end it, now that the trauma is subsiding, the kids started their fall break so I won’t have any real recovery time until they are back to school on Monday. That is, of course, as long as we don’t have any more urgent health crises.

Trinity had a severe reaction to her medicine last Wednesday (itching hives from her ankles to her cheeks, welts that covered her entire thighs). When I called her neurologist, the secretary gave me a punch in the stomach when she informed me that Dr. Thinks-He’s-God won’t see us now because we got a second opinion. Once we got Trinity stablized and on new med’s with a new doctor’s prescription (it was a horrible three day process), I thought all was well again until Blake had an asthma attack like he’s never had before. Asthma is what killed my husband’s uncle (who is my age) a couple months ago. Blake’s breathing treatments weren’t helping so we’ve got him on a steriod for five days. He’s a little better tonight, having missed school for two days.

I tell you, every day of my life is consumed with doctor visits, pharmacy drive-thru’s, phone calls with a nurse, and the dolling out of medicine. The good news is that with both chronic illnesses, I now know the buzz-words to bypass long waits on hold: “has asthma and is wheezing” or “seizure.”

Anyway, now that I’ve started this party of pity, please don’t feel like you can’t comment on my article about ghostly fears! I’m curious to know your thoughts on the article.

If you’re not already a subscriber and haven’t yet read my article in the Humanist Network News, make sure you head over and take a look. Read the other articles while you’re at it and feel free to write HNN a letter with your feedback or leave your comments here on my blog.

I have a feeling that, like most instances in dealing with children, your kids did not portray the real picture of the situation. What I imagine really happened is that your kids saw your relatives praying and asked why they were doing so and that is when your sis-in-law made the comment about prayer. I really wish that you would talk to your relatives about what happened (it does not sound like you did) before painting this most-likely inaccurate picture to all of your readers. Kids perception often differs from reality.

Your post about the situation was polite and respectful but still it may have painted an inaccurate picture and your readers took it negatively even though you tried not to portray it that way.

How absurd that someone like me, a skeptic even about ideas that support my own beliefs, did not consider this possibility. Sadie’s analysis never even occurred to me and it seemed she might be right. Frankly, after reading her comment, I still didn’t want to approach my sister-in-law about the situation because it did not bother me so much; I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable and have her associate negativity with having watched our kids when we were so pleased with the experience.

I have a couple principles I try to follow when it comes to relationships. If a person’s actions offend me and there is no previous pattern for the offensive behavior, then there is a high likelihood of a misunderstanding. I believe the healthiest choices in such a case are to either give that person the benefit of the doubt and disregard it, or, if nagging negative emotions arise and persist, to approach the person and give them a chance to explain. More often than not, when there has been no previous pattern of such offending behavior, I find there was just a misunderstanding.

It turns out that this is the case with my sister-in-law. When Sadie suggested I didn’t have the full story, I realized she was probably correct. My sister-in-law has never been one to interfere. I decided it made the most sense to assume that my kids had first asked her why she prayed.

When discussion continued on my blog about what may or may not have happened, I decided to pursue the matter and ask Blake. Blake confirmed that Trinity had, in fact, asked her the question. He said that their aunt was not trying to teach them to pray and he seemed perplexed that I was even asking.

I don’t like that I mis-portrayed my sister-in-law and I think it is an example of dealing with relationships where these types of misunderstandings are likely to occur when there are religious differences.

I also wanted to clear up what I saw as a misconception from Wendy, who left a comment that I accidentally deleted. Wendy seems to think I object to a “sharing of beliefs” (if, in fact, I understood her comment). I welcome the sharing of beliefs. I have always been interested in religions of all types, Christianity or otherwise, and I want my children to know about others’ religious beliefs.

What I have a problem with is when any adult teaches something to a child that contradicts with the parents’ beliefs. This is especially hard in a place where one major religion is the default belief-system and a majority of the people assume that you either do, or should, believe in it also.

My kids practically swim in other people’s beliefs about God and that is okay, as long as people do not cross the boundaries between comparing beliefs to help in understanding, and trying to convert my kids.

Likewise, contrary to what I think Wendy implied in the comment that is forever gone, I do not teach nor allow my children to “make fun” of other people because of their beliefs. But when someone asserts that my child will go to “the worst imaginable hell,” as Blake’s friend did, I think it is helpful to giggle about it with my son when the friend is not there and assure my son that that is absurd. If a person wants to be so insistent with ideas that I believe are emotionally abusive, then I have the right to help my child feel better by lightening the situation. I will not apologize for that.

Also, some religious beliefs, like talking donkeys or a woman made from a man’s rib, just naturally inspires a giggle in someone who was not raised around such stories. When this occurs in the privacy of our own home, I will not apologize for that either. I am sure there are plenty of families who laugh at the ideas of evolution. While I think that is ignorant, I don’t find it at all offensive. It’s just natural.

Giggling in private about such a belief is not the same thing as making fun of someone, which I have never seen my kids do. And there have been plenty of opportunities, considering how often people like to “share.”

Rejoice!

This gives me just under three hours, three days a week, to start making those medical checkups I’ve been putting off, finally make some real improvement on the house, volunteer in the kids classrooms, and even blog or scrapbook sometimes. I almost welled up with tears after I dropped Aiden off. Not because he’s my big boy growing up. But because I was driving alone to go enjoy some solitude in my house!

It was a very exciting morning for all of us. First I took Blake and Trinity to their incredible school, which, to our surprise, had colorful helium balloons all over the entrance, including a rainbow of them which we had to pass under to get into the school. The Star Wars theme music blasted through a sound system outside and I imagined (or observed?) that my kids were feeling quite awesome and powerful as they entered their school with such a welcome.

Trinity is now in first grade, which means she has graduated to a full-day of school (more good news for me)! She is so excited to eat in the cafeteria.

By the time we waved the kids off as they herded into the building, there were 40 minutes left until Aiden’s school would start so he and I hopped over to the vast desert trails below the mountains just minutes from the school and took a walk. We started doing this regularly last year when my reader, Ron, commented about a woman who takes her kids out into the wilderness for three hours a day. Three hours daily won’t do for me, but once a week for an hour would. I still have stories to tell about that first adventure we took, and maybe now that I have a little peace and quiet I’ll get around to it (as well as a bunch of other topics many of you requested I blog about) over the next few weeks.

So, for thirty minutes we observed butterflies, dragonflies, lizards, and other moving creatures. Aiden always likes me to hold him not long into our trek, so I get to add thirty pounds to my weight with him on my back, I can hike at a faster pace, and I get some exercise while my boy and I bond and observe nature.

At the right time we headed off to Aiden’s preschool (“for the development of the whole child”) where he sang to his teacher right away. We realized during his newborn days, and again when he was two and started singing to us, that he is musically inclined. Other people notice it all the time, too. He loves to sing. And he loves to hear music.

But back to me. I am on my Ikea chair, the dog is sleeping on my footstool (thus, my feet are not inclined), I have my laptop where it should be and a cup of Chai Tea next to me that I just finished.

Should I make a third cup, just to celebrate?

I did not expect my children to receive a personal lesson, intimate instruction just for them, on why they should pray.

Let me first qualify this post with the explanation that, prayer-lesson or no prayer-lesson, I am so thankful for my brother and sister-in-law who cared for my three children (and our dog) for four long days. They refused the money we tried to pay them. They brought bags of games and activities. They made homemade play dough. They’re both mathematicians and taught the kids math.

We also came home to an immaculate and happy household. A spotless house on the return from a trip is highly unusual.

So please don’t mistake my story for a gripe. It is a story to share. I’d lose at least half my readers if I only talked about science and didn’t share my personal stories.

It wasn’t until we’d been home for a few days when Trinity informed us that their aunt taught them at a meal that, “we should always pray so that we can thank Heavenly Father for the food he gave us.”

I stopped what I was doing. I exchanged looks with my husband. And I noticed that Blake was watching me, waiting for a response.

I smiled at Trinity and asked her, “Does Heavenly Father give us our food? Or does Daddy work really hard everyday so that he can earn the money for us to buy our food?”

Trinity’s big, cute smile appeared and her giggly voice belted, “Daddy!” Her expression was as if to exasperate a comment like, “How obvious!”

I laughed with her and was glad to see how easy it can be sometimes to demonstrate reality to children.

Of course, I had to wonder if my in-law thinks we believe in prayer but are lazy and just never took the time to teach our kids about it. Or did she make the conscious decision to teach my children a concept she knows we reject?

I used to dwell on these types of experiences and let them work on my emotions and patience. In addition to my personal frustrations at such an invasion, I also worried that lessons of this nature would influence or confuse my children.

In the past year I have learned not to worry so much about these types of actions from others. They’re quite entertaining. I also realize that my own words, along with the reality that the kids observe around them, hold much more sway than the religious-speak of others. Though sometimes the kids are unsure and want to hear my opinion, they often think the religious statements people make are down-right absurd.

When the kids pass along another person’s admonitions that they should pray, a simple reinforcement from me such as, “Well, that’s their religion,” seems to be enough most of the time and they dismiss the idea.

In fact it was just yesterday that Blake’s friend (who I am distancing Blake from because his rude behavior hit its peak when I heard him make reference to certain anatomy on his mother) tried to convince Blake to become a Christian immediately after Blake told him I didn’t want them to play together any more. Blake giggled as he restated to me his friend’s lesson about the best heaven and the worst hell you can possibly imagine.

I realize these outpourings from the religious are inevitable. They will continue to happen. Now that I have observed my children’s confidence in their family’s beliefs and non-beliefs, I can look on these attempts with a little more humor and a lot less outrage.

I was reading the Sunday paper so I tried to do a little dodging. “You have to learn all the elementary stuff before you learn the college stuff. That’s why we go to elementary school first.” Then I added a classic line, “Go read a book. Reading anything will help you prepare for college.”

Yes, I was dropping the ball.

Blake contined to prod me for some type of brain-food activity. I noticed a funky multi-colored bouncy ball on the table. It reminded me of a movie Israel and I just watched, Match Point. I only need to tell you that Woody Allen directed it to give you an idea of what type of movie it was.

The story revolves around the luck factor. In tennis, there are times when your ball hits the net and bounces straight up. Where it goes from there has nothing to do with your skill, but pure luck. Chance.

As much as we like to factor our skill and talent into our successes, we often fail to note the innumerable avenues on which luck travels around us.

The bouncy ball on our table provided me an idea for an activity to occupy Blake. I told him to get a piece of paper and a pen. He dashed around the room in exhilerated bliss. He came back with the items. I handed him the ball and told him to let it drop straight down onto a line in the floor that he chooses. He was then to record the direction the ball headed after the first bounce. He would do this ten times. Here are the results:

1. Right
2. Under the line.
3. Right.
4. Under.
5. Under.
6. Right.
7. Under.
8. Over the line.
9. Over.
10. Over.

I asked Blake if he saw any kind of pattern in the direction the ball went. He said, “Not completey. But it is starting to go over the line all of a sudden!”

He was excited, as if he was onto something.

“Do you think there is something causing the ball to go in a certain direction? Maybe the way your hand drops it, or a crease where it hits the floor?” I asked.

Those possibilities didn’t interest him. He felt there was something within him that was predicting the direction of the ball, but he didn’t have his finger on it yet. This is a topic I’ve been wanting to experiment with Blake on because he thinks he can make accurate predictions based on his feelings.

He’s often asked me questions like, “Mom, what do you think the percentage is of people who go to college?”

My reply is something like, “Well, I don’t know. I’ve never paid attention to that statistic so I’d have to look it up.”

And he comes back with “I think it is . . . 60 percent. No, 63! That’s it! It’s 63 percent.”

“Interesting,” I answer back. “And what information do you base your answer on?”

“It just feels like that’s what it is.”

“Is that an accurate predictor? Your feelings of what it is?”

“Yes.”

No matter how many times I’ve explained to Blake that his feelings can’t give him an accurate answer at that type of question, he doesn’t get it yet. I realized this is something I’m going to have to show him.

So I changed the direction of our experiment with the ball. I turned the paper over to the other side. He was now going to predict which direction the ball would bounce, then drop the ball, and I would record whether his guesses were right or wrong.

Here are the results:

1. Wrong
2. Right
3. Wrong
4. Wrong
5. Right
6. Right
7. Wrong
8. Right
10. Wrong

Before showing him the results on paper, I asked him if he thought he had been right most of the time or wrong. He said, “I think I was mostly right.” This surprised me because we spent a lot of time in the middle of the experiment talking about the third and fourth tries being wrong. And the last try was also wrong. Still, this didn’t give him the lasting impression of having mostly guessed wrong. At least he has confidence in his abilities!

I showed him the paper and added them up. Six wrong guesses and four right guesses.

I then asked him, “How many possibilities were there?” His answer was four: Over the line, under the line, right or left.

My next question was, “What if this activity had 100 possibilities? Would that have made it harder or easier to make a correct guess?”

He answered, “Harder.”

“This activity only had four possibilities, making it easier to guess correctly just by chance. Still, you guessed wrong more than you guessed right. Do you think there is a pattern here for where the ball goes, or do you think it is all random chance, both where the ball goes and whether your guess is right or not?”

It was interesting because he made the connection, and yet he still wanted to hold onto the idea that he had some ability to predict the direction of the ball.

In Michael Shermer’s book, How We Believe, Shermer shared his hypothesis of a human Belief Engine. “Humans evolved to be skilled pattern-seeking creatures. Those who were best at finding patterns (standing upwind of game animals is bad for the hunt, cow manure is good for the crops) left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants. The problem in seeking and finding patterns is knowing which ones are meaningful and which ones are not.”

Blake made four “hits,” as Shermer calls them, or in other words, Blake made four accurate guesses when he was making his predictions about the balls. Sometimes it only takes one accidental hit for someone to think they are onto something. I explained to Blake that this is why some fortune-tellers, astrologists, self-proclaimed prophets and the like, think they have the power to predict. They got a hit. A lucky guess. Sometimes they get many hits. But how many misses do they also get in the process?

This activity with Blake was just a seed. I think it will take a few similar experiences such as this before he gets it. Shermer stated the following about the tendency to think the way Blake does:

It is normal. It is in all of us. Stuart Vyse shows, for example, that superstition is not a form of psychopathology or abnormal behavior; it is not limited to traditional cultures; it is not restricted to race, religion, or nationality; nor is it only a product of people of low intelligence or lacking in education. There is variance in magical thinking among individuals, or course, but all humans posses it because it is part of our nature, built into our neuronal mainframe. We do not live in a Pleistocene environment, but our minds were built there and often function as if we do.

The good news is that the more answers we have to life’s mysteries, the less we rely on superstition and errors in our pattern-seeking. For this reason, my focus in raising my children has less to do with telliing them there is no god and more to do with teaching them accurate ways of finding answers.

I envy Europeans in cities where walking is a life-style. I would love for my town to adopt biking as a major mode of transportation, the way Amsterdam has done.

Let me name a few benefits off the top of my head. . . better health, cleaner air, and lower stress levels. Those are just the obvious ones.

In the United States, we did not make ourselves a walking/bicycling society. But given the current climate of social, political, and health trends, maybe now is the time to train a generation of bicycle-commuters.

Last Mother’s Day my husband gave me the gift of my dreams. We went to the bike shop and equipped the entire family with bikes (as much as my three-year-old wanted a bike, and as much as he surprised us by riding circles around the store, we attached a trailer to my bike for him to sit in).

Every weekend we go out together. I take the lead, the kids follow me, and Dad monitors from behind. We leave our neighborhood and cross the major road which leads to an elementary school parking lot, where Dad teaches the kids bicycle tricks, or we go to a greenbelt with sidewalks that wind around. On the way we teach the kids the rules of the road:

1. The side of the road to ride on.
2. Hand signals.
3. Right-of-Way.
4. General traffic rules.

During the week when my husband leaves early to work, I take the kids around the neighborhood. Since Dad is not here to watch from behind, I take up the rear and my eight-year-old son gets to play the leader. Because of this we have always stayed within our own neighborhood and avoided the major road.

I was so proud recently when, after only a few weeks of this practice, I felt Blake was ready to lead us across the main road to the other side. It was a risky venture, but we tried it and succeeded! He did great! We are now one step further in my plan to raise a generation of bicycle-commuters.

We will keep practicing through the summer and then I will take the next step forward when the kids are back to school. I’ll leave the comfort of these two neighborhoods and begin biking my youngest to preschool. I have already made a practice trip to verify the route is bicycle friendly.

Next I will begin making my way down the major roads to learn which have bike paths. I will start training myself to commute to the coffee shop, the scrapbook store, the grocery, and wherever else I think I can ride to. In the meantime I am making note of which roads have bike-paths and which shopping centers have places to hook up the bikes.

Once I’m comfortable biking around my town, my husband and I will start leading the kids around. We’ll teach them how to commute. And we’ll start commuting as a family to our favorite places.

My major goal is for the family to bike the two-and-a-half miles from our house to Tropical Smoothie. We’ll rest for a nice, cold drink, and then ride back home again.

So what do you think? Will you join me in my mission to raise a new generation of bicycle-commuters? Do you think we can transform the American way of getting from Point A to Point B? It doesn’t require a move to Amsterdam. It is a choice.

And if my dream to see bicycling become mainstream is unrealistic it will not take away from the benefits and my own pleasure at being a bicycle commuter. Even if it means being a lone one.

AgnosticMom debuts in the Christian Science Monitor! Uhh, probably not.

The great Duncan Crary from the Humanist Network News sends me PR leads pretty regularly. A few of them are exciting and as they go through (rather, if they go through) I will continue to announce them here. Some of them are more experimental. Like the one from Christian Science.

One of the writers for the Christian Science Monitor put out a query on how summer time for children has changed from when we were kids. Well, I was already planning to write a post on the subject and, not knowing if they’d want to hear from an agnostic humanist, we decided to see what would happen if I sent the writer an email with a description of my thoughts:

I have been comparing my own childhood to that of my three children lately. When I was a kid the mantra was, “Go outside and get some sun!” We played outside all day! Riding bikes, exploring the neighborhood (including its canals and sewer systems), harassing the other homeowners, and who knows what else.

Although I currently live in a much safer neighborhood than the one I grew up in, I don’t dare let my kids, including my 8-year-old son, go out without me.

Their great-grandmother and my own mother always tell me, “You just can’t let the kids out these days. It’s not like it used to be.”

Well, I don’t think that is the reason. I don’t think we were any safer way back then than we are now. I think we are just more aware.

So, yes, this has effected the way my children spend their long summer days out of school. There are two major differences. Our days are scheduled with structured activities, and we spend a lot more time together as a family, instead of the kids spending the days with their friends.

It is that second difference that I have really been thinking about. In order for my kids to go out and play, I take them outside to the park and we all go, whether each one wants to go or not.

One difficulty this brought me was that my oldest son couldn’t go riding on his bike. We solved that dilemma with a slightly expensive, yet healthy solution. We all got bikes. Since my youngest is a toddler and can’t ride, we attached a trailer to my bike for him.

Almost every morning I take my kids out biking in the neighborhood or hiking through trails. Every day we have swimming lessons. We have summer camps at museums and activities with our local moms organization.

While it would be nice to send the kids out to “go get some sun!” especially since it would give me a little peace and quiet, I don’t mind giving up that privilege. Not only are my children safer, we are a closer family.

The writer liked what I had to say and called me for a short interview.

The tone of the resulting article surprised me a bit. She painted me as a little more nostalgic and sentimental toward my childhood summers than I actually am. I am nostalgic, but it sounds like I regret the changes. Really the major point I wanted to make was that while people like to mourn the loss of past innocence, our society is actually a safer place now than before. And our current lifestyle can be more family-friendly.

This was not my own article though. And I can’t complain since she quoted me in the beginning, the middle, and the end. Knowing I am an agnostic writer.

The main disappointment is that she didn’t publish my credentials, which I listed at the very beginning of my email. I hoped she would mention HNN, ClubMom, and my blog. But she didn’t. So it really wasn’t a PR opportunity after all.

Oh well. The good news is that people are interested in what I have to say. It’s good to know I am quotable.

On to other things!

Richard Dawkins had an interesting idea for combatting this. In a lecture called, Science, Delusion And The Appetite For Wonder, he cited a clarinet teacher who told Dawkins that his only memory of science in school was “a long period of studying the Bunsen burner.” This rings true in my case, too. With the exception of a few occasional moments in biology classes, I found science to be completely intolerable to my artistic-leaning mind.

My newer adult fascination and interest in science convinces me that my science education backfired. The potential to grab my interest was there. The educators failed to take advantage of it.

And this was Dawkins’ point when he mentioned the clarinet teacher.

Now, you can enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. You can be a discerning and informed concert critic without being able to play a note. . . Couldn’t we treat science in the same way? Yes, we must have Bunsen burners and dissecting needles for those drawn to advanced scientific practice. But perhaps the rest if us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

Who do we approach to advance Dawkins’ idea of Science Appreciation classes? I think this might have done it for me!

Here is another analogy. My son, Aiden, has a fear of water. A life-long fear. Two different swim teachers who dunked him against his will, along with a near-drowning experience last October, exacerbated the fear. Now that summer time is here he is in swimming lessons again. While most of his class spends half the time learning swimming skills, Aiden and a few other water-shy students stay in the baby pool playing fun games with the purpose of getting them comfortable with the water. They are learning to associate it with fun.

There is no purpose in teaching Aiden the technicality of swimming if all he can think about is his fear that the water will approach his upper body.

But this is exactly the ineffective approach many of the schools take. They teach all kinds of technical lessons before students have learned to associate any meaning to it. Even if the student is able to memorize the lessons well enough to get good grades in the class, the student must have a real interest and understand the significance for it to last in the long-term memory.

In fact, I have a confession to make. When I took the ACT (the university I sought after, and went to, did not use the SAT), I did not recognize a single question in the science section. The only science class I took in all of high school was the required sophomore biology class. If there were any biology questions on the ACT, I did not recognize them.

I shut the book and colored in random circles.

Thankfully I did well on the other sections and my average score was high.

But now here I am, 15 years later, and one of my favorite subjects to read and blog about is science. All I needed was a reason to make it meaningful to me.

We are wasting time and driving away interest by having the schools teach technical science without first instilling an appreciation for, and a positive association to, science.

At least, as parents, we can work on doing this ourselves. Dawkins gave an example of a fun science-fascination activity to do with the kids.

To show how real astronomical wonder can be presented to children, I’ll borrow from a book called “Earthsearch” by John Cassidy, which I brought back from America to show my daughter Juliet. Find a large open space and take a soccer ball to represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line. Stick a pin in the ground. The head of the pin stands for the planet Mercury. Take another 9 paces beyond Mercury and put down a peppercorn to represent Venus. Seven paces on, drop another peppercorn for Earth. One inch away from earth, another pinhead represents the Moon, the furthest place, remember, that we’ve so far reached. 14 more paces to little Mars, then 95 paces to giant Jupiter, a ping-pong ball. 112 paces further, Saturn is a marble. No time to deal with the outer planets except to say that the distances are much larger. But, how far would you have to walk to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri? Pick up another soccer ball to represent it, and set off for a walk of 4200 miles. As for the nearest other galaxy, Andromeda, don’t even think about it!

Don’t your kids love these types of activities? Just the attention from the parents and a family outing experience is positive enough for children. Combine that with a sense of wonder about the mysteries of the universe and you have an experience that may spark a reason for the child to learn the science behind it.

To go along with Dawkins’ activity, I found this page on a website, (thanks to a flippant, funny, and irreverent atheist blog called The WorldWide Rant) that demonstrates a comparison of sizes between the planets and suns. Blake thought it was pretty cool.

Show the web page to your kids, do Dawkins’ activity over the weekend, and come back here to tell me about it.

I gave in to the requests of my three-year-old (because giving in is so much easier than saying “no”) and now I am an accomplice in the murder of Blake and Trinity’s friend-bug.

It was a florescent green happy flying bug. Even its wings were outlined in beautiful neon-green. The kids told me it was their friend. But Aiden was asking for the fly swatter.

Blake and Trinity protested! They pleaded for their friend’s life. I assured them that Aiden was too awkward to actually hit his target.

And that is where my guilt lies festering. The Jiminy Cricket of my mind told me that Mr. Green Bug was slow. And Aiden just might be able to get it.

“Don’t worry, kids. Aiden can’t actually hit bugs yet. He’ll miss it.”

WHACK!

If only you could see their faces. I have sensitive kids.

I would be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children. How do you do it? If you don’t have children, what is your own view?

I would be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children.

So far in previous comments on my blog and in my article, only Jen, Hifi, and I have shared what we say to our children about death. This is probably our most difficult task. I, myself, would like to hear more thoughts.

Currently AgnosticMom gets about 80 individual readers a day, so I know there are lurkers out there who have dealt with this. Please share!

Anyone? Anyone?

The concept of the 5-Minute Room Rescue works great for young children. Every morning before school, and at other times when I feel the need, my kids race around their room picking up everything they can before the timer goes off. I inspire as much urgency as my own energy-level allows me. When the time is done, they are done.

This works wonders for kids who buckle under the overwhelm of a messy room. They don’t have do a perfect job. They don’t even need to get it done. They just need to do the most they can in the given amount of time.

Starting last August, my tumultuous, yet manageable, life has plunged further and further into the endless pit of chaos. That manageable part is fading from my view. For a while I was still able to keep the home in decent order. But now it’s more like decent disorder.

Blake probably doesn’t realize the reason his room has become so unmanageable is because his baby-brother is now a kid-brother and I have not rearranged things to fit all the bigger kid toys and books.

Taking responsibility for his life, and always the idealist, Blake announced to me last night that he should be doing 10-Minute Room Rescues! I agreed, but wondered what it is about my son that he is so eager to inflict this upon himself?

And do you know what else? He doesn’t let me start the timer until he is at the doorway. Sometimes I am in a hurry (rather, ALWAYS I am in a hurry) and I just want to push the dang button and get back to work. But Blake won’t allow it until he is in his room, ready to go.

I used to think that, brilliant as he is, he must be utterly lacking in street smarts. Wouldn’t he prefer to waste a good twenty-seconds of time, which I am perfectly willing to relinquish?

I am sure he inherited my perfectionistic genes, but maybe it is partially the result of a room-cleaning concept that doesn’t demand unrealistic amounts of perfection. Perhaps the concept gave him the freedom to acquire his own desire for a clean room, rather than to always be fighting MY desire for one. Maybe the concept of a 5-Minute Room Rescue allowed him to take responsibility for himself.

Today, the day after his announcement of self-inflicted discipline, I told him it was time to do his Room Rescue. I wondered if he remembered his idea to make it a ten-minute activity. And if he did, would he still be up for it?

Sure enough, he yelled across the house as he positioned himself in the doorway of his room, knees bent, feet in a stance ready for action, arms out and poised to grab onto STUFF, “Set it for ten minutes, Mom!”

And I did.

Are you wondering why?

It’s not because this local Mesa blogger is obtaining new writing opportunities.
It’s not because of any activist involvement on my part.
It’s not about my agnostic/secular viewpoints at all.

It is because I use an ottoman for a coffee table.

That’s right. You heard me. Trinity has been calling herself famous because the Tribune has an interest in coffee tables, especially our ottoman-coffee table. They’re so interested that they interviewed me on the phone, came to my home, and took 50 pictures.

“Well, right now my kids are playing poker on it,” says Noell Hyman, a Mesa mother of three, before she reminds her chidlren to wipe their hands before continuing the game.

The sand-colored ottoman in the Hymans’ living room is upholstered in microfiber, a highly stain- and kid-resistant material. Which is good for days like today, or other days when 3-year-old Aiden plays marbles on the ottoman while eating Oreos.

“Stains wash off really well,” says Hyman.

When Blake, 8, Trinity, 6, and Aiden aren’t playing games on the ottoman, it can easily be transformed into a more adult version of a coffee table by placing a tray on top to hold drinks or hors d’oeuvres when Hyman and her husband, Israel, have company.

The couple purchased the ottoman after they had kids, fearing that a coffee table made of wood or another harder materiral would pose a danger for toddling youngsters.

“I didn’t want my kids falling on hard corners of a wood coffee table when they were learning to walk,” says Hyman.

But she said she was surprised at how versatile the ottoman turned out to be. Now, Hyman says her favorite part about the piece is its addition to family movie night.

“We can pull it right up to the couch, so a few of us can snuggle and stretch out like it’s a bed.”

Did I really call it a couch? Ahem, it’s a sofa.

Note: If any of you live in the East Valley of Phoenix, you can find this article on page H4, the At Home section of the May 20th (Saturday) paper.

We went out for breakfast, ordered too much food (an indication of a great time) and then we all went to the courts to play tennis. After that Israel revealed his surprise gift. Israel always gives me the biggest, best, most thoughtful gifts. This year he fulfilled a marriage-long dream: we went to the bicycle shop and bought bikes for every member of the family (Aiden got a trailer that hooks to mine or Israel’s bikes).

It took a while for us to pick out just the right types of bikes for four different people. Meanwhile, Aiden, who just turned three, surprised us all by riding around the store on a bike with training wheels built for six and seven-year-old’s. It’s amazing what you find your kids can do.

After Israel installed the bike rack on the CRV, we loaded up the bikes and headed over to Tropical Smoothie for lunch. I had a low-fat smoothie and an incredible sandwich, Chipotle Chicken with roasted bell peppers. The kids ate half of it.

Israel had a presentation due Monday morning and had planned to go into the office for a couple of hours Sunday, forgetting that Sunday was also the Mother’s Day he had so carefully planned. This is where “great” turned to “dreadful.”

He dropped us off at home where the dog, Gizmo, greeted me with his own gift. Two, actually. While we were gone he consumed an entire brown crayon. At what point in the meal does a dog figure out that a crayon isn’t edible? In my dog’s case, it is when he vomits it in two neat piles.

At least crayon-vomit is odorless. It’s almost like soft clay.

I gave the kids, oh, at least eight warnings not to step on the vomit. I wasn’t too worried because they were busy giving Gizmo some new chew snacks. After cleaning up the mess of the first pile, I left to get a new rag to clean up the second pile. And that is where I saw them: two big spots of clumpy crayon-brown by Trinity’s door, next to Trinity’s feet where she was walking into her bedroom. In increments of discovery I found about twenty more spots leading back to the place where the second pile of vomit awaited me. Trinity had stepped in it. I now had a trail of vomit to clean.

After calling Israel to gripe about the sudden turn my day had taken, after cleaning twenty piles of chunky goo, Aiden informed me that Gizmo had thrown up again. I guess his stomach was not yet ready for his new treats. Once I got that cleaned up, Aiden had his own bathroom needs, and I found myself, once again, on my hands and knees, cleaning the floor where Aiden missed the toilet.

When I tucked Blake into bed that night ,(Israel now home) Blake told me that I was “sure yelling a lot on Mother’s Day.” I gave him another little taste of guilt when I reminded him how he stepped on my suede purse earlier after I pointed out its location and asked him to be sure not to step on it.

No, yesterday was not a shining moment in my career of motherhood.

Thankfully it returned to the greatness it started with. Israel and I lounged on the couch together, watching HBO’s Big Love where we got to witness the benefits of sisterhood that comes along with polygamy. I love that show.

I was able to start over today with a bit more patience and kindness around the kids. Aiden tested me with his new three-year-old defiance. Trinity and I did more reading than usual. And Blake told me he felt he should stop watching the cartoon, Naruto (that ninja one I mentioned in my HNN article) because it was becoming more and more violent and he wasn’t comfortable with it.

Right now I am out blogging on my front yard (thank-technology for wireless Internet and laptops), watching my kids across the street play at the neighborhood park. I just got up to help Blake out of an interesting predicament. I looked up to see him hanging upside down from the play equipment with his tennis shoe stuck in the rungs, and his head hovering a foot above the sand.

Aiden has added two undesirable words to his vocabulary. So far I have tried giving him explanations about the inappropriateness of the words, I have separated him from the rest of the family when he insists on using them, and I have tried ignoring it. Nothing has worked. In fact, he thought it was really funny to use his new vocabulary with his teacher. He told her, “You’re Poo-poo!”

Nice.

On the other hand, he tells me at random times throughout the day, “I love you, Mama.” When we drop the kids off at school he says, “I miss Blake and Trin.” Mostly good words come from that sweet boy’s mouth. Is he any different than any other three-year-old? Well, yes. He’s cuter.

I admit that with our crazy schedule, I have neglected to introduce the alphabet (except the song) to Aiden. He just turned three and it suddenly occurred to me that I should get him an ABC book when my sister told me her toddler, not yet two, can identify most of the letters. Coincidentally, my mom brought him one when she came into town Friday. To my delight, he opened the book and asked first about the Letter A, rather than the accompanying pictures. He’s ready to learn.

Trinity, six years old, sucks her thumb, despite the dentist’s and my own admonitions. She tells me all the time that she didn’t suck all night. But I still catch her.

She loves pretty things and pretty people. She has only just recently taken to heart the idea that some pretty people can also be mean. And some not-so pretty people can be very good, fun, and smart.

Trinity loves to take care of other people and animals. She’s one of those extraordinary people who LOVES to share. She enjoys the feeling of sharing something with others more than she enjoys the actual thing she could have kept to herself.

Trinity is an artist and she expresses it with her creative clothing designs, her visual artwork, her singing and dancing.

Two days ago she asked about a book she found in the garage. Blake told her it was a Bible. “What’s a Bible?” she asked.

Blake is more complicated. I realized he could understand deep and abstract concepts at only two years old. He is a thinker. In fact, when I had my third child, I noticed the world could fall apart all around Blake, and he wouldn’t notice. He was in his own world. Our toddling baby could have been screaming with something fallen on top of him, and Blake would be right there unaware of it all. What has surprised me most is that in this past year, Blake has somehow learned to be more aware of others around him. He no longer sits oblivious to siblings in need, but has become very helpful and compassionate.

I love that Blake takes responsibility for his choices. He acknowledges them, tries to figure out why he made them, and apologizes right away. He is so mature.

Two days ago the school sent a letter home stating that Blake’s teacher recommended him for the gifted program and they would like to begin testing him next week. Blake excels in every subject. Each week his teacher gives him five of his own spelling words to match his learning level. As opposed to words like, “we’ll” and “they’ll”, Blake gets words like “collaboration” “chronological” and “Afghanistan.” A few weeks ago Blake begged the teacher to give him the longest word he’d ever heard: “antidisestablishmentarianism.” She refused the first week, but when he kept on her the next week, she relented. Of course, he got it right on the test. And he taught the word to his babysitter.

Okay, so I am bragging a bit. All three of my kids are awesome. They don’t have religion, but they do have goodness. They don’t have doctrine, but they have ideas. They’re pretty great kids.

The last thing I expected when I got married was to face the possibility of giving up Santa and the Easter Bunny. Deny my future children the magic of believing in those imaginary characters? Staying up late into the night, hoping to catch a glimpse of what no child has seen before. Knowing that the most popular person in the world thinks of you every year. The truth is, I knew they weren’t real for one or two years before I finally admitted it to myself. I made the joy last as long as I could.

My husband’s siblings, though, did not grow up “being lied to,” as they put it. My mother-in-law insists that learning about Santa devastated her as a child. She felt her mother betrayed her trust and lied to her. While some of the family members are still staunch against the tradition, a few of the others agreed to go along with their spouses, including my own husband.

With Easter only days away, I thought this a good time to discuss the topic. One question that enters the minds of some young atheist and agnostic parents is whether or not to have Santa and the Easter Bunny, if you decide to celebrate those holidays at all. How do we justify giving our children the fantasy of an Easter Bunny while denying them the security of a Jesus?

I love Santa and the Easter Bunny. I cannot imagine my childhood without those wonderful nights of exhilarating anticipation. They brought a joy that only Disneyland could match. Discovering they were not real did no damage to my psyche. It was more like discovering the secret to a great magic trick.

Having considered my mother-in-law’s experience, I set up a number of guidelines regarding the fantasy characters that grace our holidays. Hopefully, the use of these guidelines will not only prevent the rare devastation that a handful of children feel. They will demonstrate the difference between imagination and reality; between our perceptions and the facts, between the stories humans tell and the actual truths they represent.

First, parents need to take into consideration the child’s character. For example, my mother-in-law has an inner drive to get her facts accurate. In her mind, you don’t move forward on something without first verifying each detail. Most children are not this way, which is why most children walk away from their Santa beliefs with a smile and a tradition to pass on to their children. If you, yourself, are more like my mother-in-law, then you can guess that some of your children are likely to be the same way, as well. If this is the case with you, then you may consider banning Santa and the Easter Bunny altogether. But I think revealing the truth at a younger-than-average-age is also an option.

Age, in general, is another factor to consider. For most children, somewhere between six and eight is a good time. Part of the devastation, when it happens, is because the child has been defending Santa’s existence to friends. It is socially humiliating for an older child to learn they have been asserting something that everyone else knew was wrong. A good way to know it is time to reveal the secret is when the child asks you directly, “Is Santa real?”

So how do we make the Santa/Bunny scenario work to our advantage as atheists and agnostics? I figured it out as I was trying to avoid my mother-in-law’s mishap of my children perceiving us as lying. I made a decision at the beginning that I would not tell elaborate stories of how Santa gets his belly down the chimney or how the bunny gets those baskets into the house.

When my oldest son, Blake, starting asking these questions, I replied with my most common of all replies, “What do you think?” I encouraged Blake to think the problems through. The Santa/Bunny scenario provides an opportunity for both critical thinking and imaginary play. At the younger ages, imagination really goes to work. As they get older, they adopt critical thinking. As skepticism creeps into the questions, you know revelation time is near.

I prefer to wait until the child asks straight out, “Is Santa really real?” With many children, like myself and my first child, the desire to believe hangs on longer than the actual belief. We should allow them to believe for as long as they want. But when they want the truth, parents must give it.

And how do we handle the truth? We could say, “No, Santa and the Easter Bunny aren’t real.” But I don’t think that answer demonstrates the reality, nor the reason for the stories. As Joseph Campbell taught, humans have always couched real principles into stories we tell over and over and pass on through generations. Santa and the Easter Bunny are stories of life, love, and the joy of giving. Parents are Santa to kids in ways they won’t understand until they become parents themselves. Like the Easter Bunny, parents bring life and hope to their children.

So when it comes time to answer the golden question, a more meaningful reply is, “Do you know who Santa is? Mom and Dad are Santa and the Easter Bunny.”

Parents can use this revealing of truth to explain how humans are a story-telling people. We have always told stories to express ideas. Some stories generate more belief and conviction than others. The Bible is a compilation of stories which many people have come to believe as literally true. Santa is a good analogy of how people want to believe in the stories of gods. Most stories have an amount of truth within them, as well as an amount of embellishment.

I finally told my oldest child the truth before Christmas last year as he was turning eight years old. When the day ended, I asked Blake if Christmas felt different now that he knows Mom and Dad are Santa. He told me that maybe it did a little. But that somehow, seeing the unwrapped Santa gifts, and going along with the game for the younger siblings, the magic still felt real.

My boyfriend and I have been talking a lot about marriage, kids and our future together. He’s a wonderfull man and I love him deeply. However, He is a theist and I am agnostic. We have never found it difficult to be together as a couple even though we have many differences. We both are science minded people and evolution in his mind is truth. We also agree on most social issues. But, for him god is a much stronger presence in his life than it ever will be for me. How can we raise children together without completly confusing them? Please, any suggested reading or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome, Katie! I love to hear a little about the backgrounds of AgnosticMom readers.

Since you called your boyfriend a deist, I am assuming he doesn’t go to church or believe in religion, including the Bible or other scripture. Is that correct? Is it accurate to say he believes in a Creator Diety who also has a hand our personal lives?

Katie, if my description is correct, then I have to say you are very fortunate as an agnostic to fall in love with, and to have a rich relationship with a science-minded deist. I think your views are not so far off from each other as to cause confusion for the children.

Here is why: The power that he attributes to God actually exists. You just don’t believe it is from a god. But my guess is that you acknowledge the incredible power of the human will and mind. When a religious person claims the help of a diety to overcome a struggle, non-believers like us know that that power actually came from within themselves.

With your children, you can focus on the actual power that does exist, that you agree on: the power of will, the power of love, the power to learn how the world works and make scientific and medical advances, the power to solve problems.

You and your boyfriend differ in the source for that power: He believes it involves God, you believe it comes from humanity. That is the sidenote which you should acknowledge to your kids. Mommy thinks it comes from within us. Daddy thinks there is also a god who helps it happen.

Focus most on things you agree on. The areas where you disagree should be explained as a non-issue and with respect for each other’s views. This will give the kids the appropriate message that it is alright for them to come to their own conclusions rather than rely on other people for their opinions. It will also teach them to respect others’ differences rather than feel a need to make people agree with them.

In my opinion, it is more problematic when one of the parents is actually religious and insists on a number of tenets that a person must follow, while the other parent doesn’t . What often happens is the religion and religious spouse set the other parent up to look like someone who doesn’t want to obey God; someone who isn’t going to be saved unless they convert. I feel this undermines the authority and respect of the non-believing parent.

Katie, if my assumptions about you and your boyfriend’s beliefs are inaccurate, feel free to clarify and we can delve further into the subject. If it is much more complicated, I will refer you to Sweet Reason. She writes a regular advice column for the Humanist News Network. You can probably search her site for a similar question, or ask her your own. Just say that AgnosticMom sent you, please!

Other readers: Do you and your spouse have opposing beliefs? What about your parents? Please share with us your experiences, along with how you/they dealt with it. What was effective and what wasn’t? Thank you for your comments!

“The only scientific explanation for it is, Magic Does Exist! And if it does, then I believe in Magic!”

The character’s faith statement then released her into the air as a spinning propeller, which I would guess enabled her to accomplish some unearthly feat. Based, of course, on science.

Blake: In the Muslim Bible, does it say Jesus is God?

Me: The “Muslim Bible” is called the Quran and they call their god, “Allah.” The Quran doesn’t say Jesus is God. It says “Allah” is God, and Jesus was a good prophet.

Blake: So they’re bad then, aren’t they?

That was one of those questions that makes you wonder if someone is abducting your child at night and feeding them information you know you didn’t pass along. All the while I’d been thinking Blake was on the on-ramp to the Agnostic Highway. I guess somewhere along the way he exited for a pit stop at Christian Town.

Perhaps I haven’t been direct enough about my own beliefs. I like to encourage the kids to come up with answers themselves, so when they ask me questions, I usually say, “What do you think?” Still, I am pretty sure I have given a direct answer in the past that I don’t believe that Jesus is God, nor that there is any actual person who is a god. Of course, I usually turn it back to them with, “But what do you think?”

I could be more direct, but the kids seem to change the channel on their attention-dial when I start talking instead of asking. This time I figured out a way to be direct, impactful, and ask a question at the same time.

When Blake asked me if Muslims were bad because they were voting for the wrong god, I asked him back, “I don’t believe Jesus is God. Does that make me bad?”

First was the look of wide-eyed shock that stunned me as much as my question stunned him. And then, within seconds, a big smile crept upon his face as he laughed at the idea of Mom being bad and he belted, “NO! You’re not bad!”

While the ending was effective, there’s also that nagging question of why he would compartmentalize like that: good people vs. bad people. Why would he decide an entire group of people are bad because their religious beliefs differ? I know that part of it is his awareness of all the recent turmoil in the Middle East and Europe involving Muslims. But I always remind him that not all Muslims are that way; that most Muslims are good people.

Blake is a logical-thinker. While he loves fantasy, he is enthralled with math and science, which contribute to some of his fantasy world. I understand that linear-thinkers like Blake tend to see things more in black and white than artistic thinkers do. I have noticed this pattern again and again.

There is also the lingering affect of the primitive world humans evolved in, where we adapted and survived by aligning ourself with our own tribes against other tribes. Now that we live in a global world where we mix with sll types of races and religions, will we someday evolve away from this natural instinct to pit ourselves against groups of people unlike us?

I guess it will take time for Blake to have more exposure to different people, to various religions, to conversation between us. And that’s okay.

This particular night, his fear was evident on his face, but he wouldn’t say it in words when I asked him, “What’s wrong?” I finally put it out there, “Are you scared?”

Aiden’s eyes got bigger. “Yes! I scared.” I must have provided the word to match what he felt inside. It was a word he was familiar with, but not enough to conceive on his own.

“What are you scared of?”

“Monster . . . ”

Aiden was still navigating his limited vocabulary when he explained, “Monster playing Peek-a-boo.”

I went through the usual scared-of-the-dark remedies with Aiden. I handed him my spare shirt, which he keeps in his bed to snuggle with. I turned the light on so he could look in the closet and the cubbies. I pointed out the fact that his big brother was in the room to protect him. I explained that monsters don’t exist, and this didn’t work either. If there are monsters in the cartoons, then there are monsters in the house.

I resorted to imagination next, but the “Magical Protective Bubble” that helped my two oldest children did nothing for Aiden. I reached deep down to pull out my best dramatic skills to make a convincing bubble. Aiden wasn’t even looking. Instead he was grasping at my arms and using his eyes to plead with me.

What to do next? I remembered how my dad helped me after a series of horrifying nightmares when I was a kid. Dad told me that God answers prayers, including a prayer to stop bad dreams and fears of the dark.

So I prayed, and it actually worked. My confidence in my imaginary god was just what I needed to calm my own fears.

Was that my next option? I was not about to introduce prayer to my youngest child, the only one who didn’t begin his first years in religious indoctrination. Imaginary Magical Protective Bubbles? Yes. People outgrow beliefs of that sort. Most people do not outgrow Imaginary Magical Protective Gods.

So I crawled into Aiden’s bed and spent a short five minutes or so with my very real, but Magical Protective Arms wrapped all around him until he fell into a calm and deep sleep.

On his own blog, Open Campus, Gregg100 presented a possible story for children with discussion questions to help a young child become aware of the concept of “existence.”

I decided to try it on my two children, Trinity, age 6, and Blake, age 8. I knew Trinity would love the story, but I wasn’t sure if she’d grasp the concept. I figured Blake would grasp the concept, but I didn’t know if he’d like the story. Despite the appearance of a frog, it mostly revolves around a girl and a flower.

Before I give you my results, I wanted to invite all you readers with young children or grandchildren at least four years old to join the focus group. You can head over to Gregg’s post, read the explanation of the purpose of the story, then read the story to a child and ask the questions. You can either come back to AgnosticMom to share your results, or you can leave them right on Gregg100’s blog.

Here is the story. You’ll have to go to Gregg’s blog to see the follow-up questions.

Once upon a time there was a little girl that lived in a far off land called Metanoia. Metanoia was a very beautiful land with pretty houses and forests and lakes and flowers everywhere. Everyone that lived there was very happy because they lived in such a beautiful place. But Metanoia was a strange land because nobody had ever seen it except the people that live there. Other people looked and looked and finally said, “It must be a magical land because we never can find it.”

One day the little girl was walking along on the sidewalk by her house in Metanoia and saw a very beautiful red flower and stopped to look at it. As she bent over to see it better, it suddenly disappeared. When she stood back up, the flower had moved and it was just out of her reach. The girl walked over by the flower and bent over to look at it again and it disappeared again. This time she looked to see if the flower had moved to another place but it was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she saw a green frog just out of her reach. The girls stood up and she said to herself, “I know I just saw a red flower but now I only see a green frog! Goodness, what is happening?”

The little girl decided to walk back to her house and tell her mom all about the red flower and the green frog. After she told her mom what had happened, her mom said, “Isn’t that wonderful that we live in Metanoia where we get to see so many things. Just think, you saw a red flower and a green frog and if you had bent over to look at the green frog he might have changed into a, a, well who knows what, maybe a bowl of cereal or a kitten and you could have seen them all.” “Isn’t that wonderful?”

The little girl thought about that and finally said, “But mom, I wanted to look at that red flower and now it’s gone!” “Are you sure you saw a red flower?” her mother asked “or did you just imagine it?” “I saw it! I saw it!” said the little girl, “and I want to look at it again.”

That night the mother told the little girl’s father what had happened and said, “I don’t think our little girl likes living in Metanoia where everything changes all the time. Maybe we should consider moving back to (Mesa, Arizona?) where everything just stays the same when we look at it. And that is what they did. Now when the little girl looks at a flower or a pencil or a tree, she look as close as she wants and it just stays the same and she can look at it as many times as she likes and she is very happy again.

Let me share with you my results. I started with Trinity. She was so enamored with the story of Metanoia that I wondered if she would like the ending. Surprise surprise, as soon as the girl expressed frustration at not getting to look at the red flower, Trinity decided on her own how awful it would be to live in the magical Metanoia because, “What if you came home one day and your house was not there?”

As I asked her the follow-up questions I realized our discussion was revolving around the idea of the need for fixed rules/laws. The conclusion was that a magical place, while fun to dream about, would actually be very scary because of an inability to predict things.

Trinity answered all the questions “correctly.”

Blake surprised me. He liked the story, regardless of the female protagonist with a penchant for flowers. He loves fantasy. Perhaps this is why it took him longer than Trinity to see the potential difficulty of actually living in a world so unpredictable.

Still, he went along with the little girl’s desire to live in the world of reality and fixed existence, but it was the mention of Trinity’s “disappearing house” that truly converted him to the dangers of disappearing objects. He was pretty excited about the idea of it, and also staunch in his decision that the fun fantasy land should remain in the realm of imagination.

So, in addition to introducing the concept of existence, the children came to their own conclusion that magic and fantasy has its rightful place, which thankfully, is not a part of the real world. Thankfully we live in a world with fixed rules and principles that are unchanging. Although I didn’t say it, it made me think how unstable a world of miracles could actually be. Considering the far reaches of Cause and Affect, who knows what the consequences would be of an almighty hand who could change things around at will?

I am not aware of too many AgnosticMom readers with children in the target age group. If you do, please come back with a report of your own experience, whether the results are good or not. We would love feedback.

This time an appearance from Strawberry Shortcake called us to a locally owned bookstore we’d never frequented. A good 30 minutes from home, Changing Hands Bookstore turned out to be the place of my dreams. With more of an eclectic style than the pristine Barnes & Noble, yet comparable in size, there was much to entertain my curious eye.

We moved to the back in search of “Strawberry Short,” as Aiden insists on calling her. We sat the kids down with the other children, then backed away to get behind the young audience.

I scanned the nearby shelves for a book to peruse while the kids listened to magical tales of fruit-filled characters. Staying in view of my children, I passed only a couple shelves and found myself facing an entire row of books by the great Joseph Campbell! I once tried unsuccessfully to find books by him at a library. And now here I was, at the Changing Hands bookstore, staring at an entire row of stumbled-upon Joseph Campbell books.

During a brief break in which “Strawberry Short” needed a sip of strawberry juice, I took my kids over to the amazing children’s section. At Barnes & Noble, I have to sift through a lot of books; books with the purpose of introducing commercial toys to children, rather than actually produce an engaging tale or impart knowledge in an attractive way (although we did find that amazing pop-up dinosaur book called Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs at Barnes & Noble).

At this particular store, my walk toward the children’s area revealed a plethora of desirable books. The one that really got me excited, though, was another educational, beautifully illustrated pop-up book. Galileo’s Universe, by J. Patrick Lewis and Tom Curry, begins with an introduction of how the world had embraced Aristotle and Ptolemy’s geocentric (earth-centered) cosmos for centuries.

Aristotle and Galileo shared a common wonder with everyday observations, but differed, both in their responses to their curiosities, as well as in their results.

Falling grapes. Floating Leaves. Flying Cannonballs. Swinging lamps. Aristotle had seen these things, too, but his explanation of their “essence,” or nature, did not satisfy Galileo.

And so the man of Pisa probed, measured, and tested . . . . Where Aristotle had asked why things moved, Galileo asked how.

Galileo’s Universe will reach a wide-range of ages. All children love pop-up books. Aiden, who is two, loves the book only for the experience of observation as he swings the pendulum back and forth or opens various windows.

Five-year-old Trinity loves the book for the same reason, but with her I am able to introduce the man, Galileo, with a brief explanation of the mathematical or scientific discovery of the particular pop-up she is manipulating. When she turns the dial to see various heavenly bodies on Galileo’s makeshift telescope, or opens up the fold-out comparison between Aristotle and Galileo’s model of the universe, I can explain how science altered what we know about our place in it.

Blake, who is eight-years-old, can actually read and understand the book himself. Besides the beautiful art, which I always look for in children’s books, the author used two different writing techniques to convey the information about Galileo and his life.

The body of text is in poetic form. It first illuminates the fascinations that preoccupied the mind of Galileo, the child:

The movement of a boat or toy,
The angle of a shaft of light
Provided endless hours of joy
And kept him dreaming half the night.

If everything preoccupied
His mind, then what would he become-
A child captivated by
The swinging of a pendulum?

Next we learn how Galileo chose his field of study, invented the hydrostatic scale for measuring weights and metals, and then stood upon the Leaning Tower of Pisa to test the common, ancient assumption that balls of different weight would fall at different rates of speed. There is a great pop-up to illustrate the simultaneous landings of a ball of wood and a ball of lead.

Blake couldn’t believe the actual results explained in the book. He tested it with a number of objects and laughed in amazement to see it in person.

At the end of the book, we observe The Church’s reaction to Galileo’s heliocentric universe and how they banned him to house arrest for the remainder of his life:

When Galileo’s sixty-nine years
Were folded in his chair,
He faced the angry Holy Men,
Who thundered on, “Beware!
The Earth is fixed, it does not move-
So you must testify!”
They sentenced him to silence
And they took away his sky.

There is a second mode of story-telling, which further adds to the book’s versatility. Many of the pages have a pull out insert which give, in prose form, more details to Galileo’s life, studies, and inventions. At the end of the book is a time line for his life.

Am I happy with my purchase of Galileo’s Universe?

You know you got a good book when the kids spend the entire ride home fighting over who gets to hold it. You know it’s good when your son wants to conduct his own experiment based on the story. It’s definitely a prized possession, as I can barely keep my hands around it long enough to write up its review. Yes, I am thrilled with my purchase.

Two days ago Aiden informed me that he was ready to “get bigger” and “pee in the toilet” so he can “go to school.”

In my almost-but-not-quite-infinite mommy-wisdom, I had already perceived the time was coming. Could his approaching third birthday have been my clue? I looked forward to our upcoming Spring Break as the perfect time when I wouldn’t be schlepping kids to and from school all day. We could devote three days at home and avoid frightening public toilets and accidents in the car seat.

Of course, Aiden’s timing takes precedent over my own, and we are now in the throes of cheerio-targets in the toilet, M&M rewards, and instructions such as, “Shoot it like a gun!”

It was during this busy time of thirty-minute bathroom intervals yesterday morning that my very supportive reader, Ron, emailed me a “congratulations” for recent AgnosticMom readership growth. He also expressed hope in my ability to juggle both family and blog. In a healthy way, that is. Healthy for the kids, I mean.

Yes, it has been a struggle. Last fall I let go of some positions I was volunteering for so that I could devote more attention to my three children and at the same time explore writing through this blog. I had no idea the writing would become so demanding and addictive. Yes, I do struggle with the balance of satisfying my readers, and also being the mom I really want to be for my children. Ron’s words gave me that little push to try harder.

The result was interesting. Normally I squeeze every drop of time from every minute to get as much done as I can. If it takes me ten minutes to get to my next appointment, I work on the current project right up until the moment I HAVE to get out that door, and then I grab Aiden and rush to my appointment. I often have to drag Aiden away from his distractions as we hurry in and out of various places. I remember that “Stop and Smell the Roses” phrase, but ‘I will just have to get to that another time when I’m not in such a hurry,’ is the lie I tell myself.

Those of you with only one or two children may be shaking your heads at me right now. Hey, I remember my slower, easy days of long ago. You all just wait until you add a third child, along with school and extra-curriculum activities. You’ll be empathizing with me then!

Yesterday, instead of disappearing into our usual rush, I slowed it down. Aiden and I left ten minutes early for my weekly allergy shot. As we walked, no sauntered, down the sidewalk from the car to the doctor’s office, Aiden wanted to examine the flowers. Perhaps it was his first time not seeing them in a blur as I hurried him along. He identified which plants were “pokey” (we’re in Arizona, so we have a lot of cactus-type flowering succulents) and which weren’t. He examined each plant and flower as we walked past them, sharing his observations with me.

Like I said, I have thought of the admonition to “Stop and Smell the Roses” before. Almost everyday, actually. But this time it had a new purpose. I’ve been stewing over what little time I have to research books that teach children how to reason, how to ask questions, how to observe, measure evidence, and feel the confidence to question traditional beliefs.

It occurred to me that if I always leave just five or ten minutes before my rounds of appointments and errands I would buy us enough time to encourage the inquisitive nature already existent in the maturing minds of my children. My racing around has been stifling that nature. I have sometimes been sending the message that observation and questioning are unimportant and a waste of time.

Meanwhile, I have been wanting to find books and activities to teach children how to reason, adopt a healthy amount of wonder and skepticism, and ask questions before accepting answers. Is it, perhaps, to re-teach what our rushed lives may currently be undoing?. Not very smart. Or efficient, for that matter.

Does it seem like human progress, which has brought us to this manic American culture of rush-rush-rush, achieve-achieve-achieve, is at times self-defeating? From now on, I am making it a part of my daily contribution to the inquisitive nature of my children to leave five or ten minutes early.

A note to anyone reading this at least a week after I posted it: Ask me how I’m doing.

Fran was the first to mention “peer pressure for Jesus”, and then Cassandra, from The Atheist Mama, expressed one of her fears:

But when you have 14 year olds (for example) asking to go to church with their friends – well, I’m not so sure how I feel about situations like that. Young people are so easily drawn in to things, especially when it looks like a good opportunity for “happiness” and “acceptance” and “forgiveness.”

When teenagers are starting to search for their beliefs, and themselves, I think that stepping in and steering them in the right direction may be important.

I watched a 14 year old boy join the Mormon church. His family (xian, but not really church-goers) was dumbfounded. It all started when he stayed at a friend’s house one night and went to church with them the next day, just to hang out…

I know that in the past, some have suggested exposing our children to other peoples’ religions. I can see the benefits of this, especially when our kids are young and we are there with them to explain it the way we see it. But what about sending them with their friends? Cassandra is right that those formative teen years give the child a desperate need to find a cause that is separate from their parents’. They need to belong somewhere where they will feel accepted. The “acceptance” they will encounter at churches will be alluring, but deceiving, because the acceptance comes with unrealistic and manipulative conditions.

Having been a Mormon teenager myself, I have witnessed numerous times how teens take on a martyr-complex when their parents don’t allow them to get baptized. I’ve seen how the church members feed that complex; how church members pit the child against the parents by insinuating that the parents are fighting alongside Satan against God’s will.

I had already decided that I would never allow one of my children to get baptized in a church of their choosing as long as they are not legal adults. I already anticipate this problem because Mormons dominate our city (Mesa, Arizona). I have already told my son, Blake, who asked about getting baptized when he attended his cousin’s baptism, that joining a church is a decision for mature adults, not children and teenagers. I had not really thought about the inevitable times when their friends will invite them to church after sleepovers, or to activities during the week.

Do we outlaw all participation in church services and activities? Will that seem paranoid? Does that matter? Do we let them go and then talk about it with them afterwards?

After thinking about my experiences as a teen, I feel inclined to not allow it at all. But maybe I am reacting to the anger I am starting to feel at my memories.

What are your thoughts and experiences on the matter?

Do you point out “In God We Trust” on coins and make an issue of it with children? How do you tell your children to react when they go to school and are asked to pledge allegiance to “one nation, under God”?

I prefer to pick my god-battles, and a statement of supernatural diety on our coins is not one of them. I won’t be pointing it out, and if my children ever ask me about it, I would just explain that our country has a religious majority and a history of both religion and Deism.

I already have two children in school, and they do say the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember, my kids still figure there is an existing god, although whatever that god is like in their minds, they can’t possibly feel it is a great significance in their life. I guess I am approaching the Existence-of-God topic the same way we approach the sex-subject: Give honest answers as their questions come up or as our experiences point in that direction, and in the amounts that they seem ready to digest.

At some point I will teach them the history of The Pledge and how the “Under God” phrase was added in in 1954 I will ask them, “How do you think it made many Americans,who believe in more than one god, feel?” And, “What message did that send to all the families who don’t even believe in a god at all?”

Rather than push an issue onto my kids, I prefer to follow their lead on this. If they want to say The Pledge, they’ll continue to say it. If at some point they want to opt out, I’ll be happy to inform their teachers. If they want to write letters to the local newspaper, the school, or the school board, I’ll help them find the addresses and proof-read their letters. But these actions would stem their own desires, not mine.

I personally would not turn what might be MY issue into my children’s issue, placing a burden on them for a stand they might not be passionate about. The Pledge is an issue I would prefer to let my children decide on their own when they are older.

How should they react when asked to pray for a friend or relative?

Usually a person asks others to pray for them because they are in great distress. I do not feel this is a time to voluntarily vocalize a disbelief in the very thing the distressed person is relying on for help. At the same time we must maintain personal intregity. An appropriate response is, “I am sorry for your difficulties. You will definitely be in my thoughts.”

Rarely would it extend beyond that, but if the person wanted to press the issue, get an actual prayer commitment, then an explanation with an offer for actual help (if applicable) should be enough. “I’m sorry, but I don’t practice prayer or religion. But I would love to help out by (fill in the blank).” I would teach my children to respond the same way.

“I was envisioning a situation wherein you might be at someone’s home for dinner and before the meal, someone says, “Shall we thank God for this food?” and one of your children “blurts out, “We don’t believe in God”" Of course it could be any situation in which someone wishes to invoke some type of reference to God.”

We experience prayer situations a couple of times a month when we have dinner with my in-laws. Two thirds of the family bow their heads and close their eyes, while a third of us (my husband and I are not the only ones who don’t participate for various reasons) stand there quietly watching the group. And sometimes Israel and I wink at each other.

Once in a while the kids fool around and we have to remind them to be quiet while others are praying. That is precisely how I would have my kids behave in all situations in others’ homes or churches while they pray; to give others respect by allowing them to pray without making a scene.

I think respect is the key. Not respect for religion, but respect for other people and their choice to believe in it. Some very intelligent and well-educated people are religious. Also, people we love, like our extended family members, are religious.

As another example, in the Mormon religion, the phrase, “Oh my God,” is almost as offensive as the F-bomb. It can be jolting to the senses for many Mormons. We teach our children not to say it for their grandparents’ sakes. I told them that even though it doesn’t mean anything to us, and so many of their friends say it, we would prefer they don’t because it would really hurt their grandparents if they accidentally said it around them out of habit. It is just our request, not an order. They don’t get in trouble when it comes out by accident.

On the other hand, if my children ever blurt out, “We don’t believe in God,” I can’t imagine being worried about it unless they did it in a manner to make fun of someone else who does. I think I would just smile.

Here is a variation on the subject of prayer and references to God: Blake has a best friend named Zach. Zach spent the night at our house once. When it was time for them to go to bed, I heard Zach telling Blake that they had to say their prayers. Blake told him, “I don’t pray,” but Zach became insistent that Blake wouldn’t go to heaven if he didn’t pray. And Blake was insistent that he doesn’t pray, but he couldn’t get Zach to leave him alone.

I poked my head into the room and said, “Zach, it’s really nice that you want to say your prayers. Our family doesn’t believe you have to pray to go to heaven,” (I said this to reassure my son), “but I understand your family does, so you should go ahead and say your prayers. Don’t worry about Blake.”

So far these types of situations have not caused my children any anxiety. Blake is very confident with how we choose to live our lives. And while we have giggled at a few religious beliefs (he thought it funny that the Bible says God made Eve from one of Adam’s ribs), I have never seen him show disrespect for other people’s choices to worship.

I have one more question to address, regarding Easter, which I will do in a Part 2 post.

I have found one book that I like. It simplifies the concepts well as an introduction to Evolution. And I stress that it is an introduction. It does not explain mechanisms of Natural Selection, nor does it go into a detailed order of the development of the species. It is a very general story of the evolution of life, with words that inspire awe at the process.

The book is The Tree Of Life: The Wonders Of Evolution by Ellen Jackson. The great thing about this book is that Jackson uses very simple language and concepts to explain an exceptionally intricate concept. It is a great introduction to young minds who are learning about life’s origins for the first time.

For example, the book begins in the early days of the earth, before there is any life. It describes, how an new “almost alive” tiny thing came to be. Then the almost alive thing began to divide in two, reproducing itself again and again using gas and water.

“Did the new thing always copy itself exactly right? The answer may surprise you. Almost always it did copy itself exactly. But once in a great while, not very often, a copy would be different from the others.”

The book then goes on to explain how a good difference (mutation), perhaps making it faster, will allow it to live longer and copy itself more. Eventually we come to learn what the first of the animals are: shellfish, jellyfish, and worms. From here on out, the book gives a very general and simple description of the order of succeeding life: fish, plants, reptiles, birds, mammals and humans.

In the introduction of the book Jackson describes her disappointment with current children’s books on Evolution, which inspired her to write this one:

“Those books that attempted to explain evolution did so in a way that, though scientifically accurate, conveyed none of the wonder and excitement of this concept. The Tree of Life is my attempt to help young children to understand the beauty and power of this great idea.”

Some of you readers support Science, and appreciate the Theory of Evolution, but are also religious, or at least believe in God. You will be happy with this book. While it does not mention a Creator, it inspires a sufficient amount of wonder, that you could naturally interject your beliefs that a god or intelligent being directed the process, helping the “almost alive things” to make the jump to organized life.

My only regret with this book is the illustrations. They’re decent, but the colors are only purple and white. I can imagine much more beautiful imagery, details and colors that would reach further to draw the child into the magic of the story.

I will be reading this book to my children on the first day of Darwin Day, February twelfth. I will then use our dinner meals and a special treat over the following six days to review the order in which species developed. For example, since the first animals to develop were shellfish, worms, and jellyfish, we will have shellfish for dinner. The kids will get wrapped surprises with gummi-worms inside. I will share the specifics of the entire week with you in my next post.

If you are interested in the book, click on the title at the top of this post. As of yesterday, the book is listed at Amazon for a reduced price. There is a limited supply currently in stock, but they will stock up again.

How do we celebrate Darwin’s Day? AgnosticMom is creating some family-oriented traditions for our families to adopt, because from all I have seen, the current celebrations are adult in nature. If you don’t have kids, look at this page of events. It is a world-wide list with links, ranked by country alphabetically (U.S. celebrations are down toward the bottom). The lists give a description of the event, and all the information. Most events have speakers. A humanist organization in my hometown, is having FISH at a restaraunt (as in the Darwin fish). The organization pushing the Darwin Day movement describes having a “Phylum Feast”, a feast with an enormous variety of meats from various phylum.

Some groups celebrate for one day, on the actual birthday. Some groups extend the celebration out for the entire week.

As I mentioned before, I have been formulating ideas for a family holiday, celebrated in the home, as a yearly tradition. My kids are on pins and needles. It should be a fun, highly anticipated, but also educational holiday for the kids, a cornerstone holiday for secular families.

Over the next few days, I will give you some ideas so you can decide how you want to celebrate it. These ideas will range for toddlers, to elementary ages, to young teens, whether you want a one-day celebration, or a week-long one. I will give food and actvity ideas. It’s going to be FUN! I can’t wait.

Why do I think Darwin’s accomplishment is important enough to warrant a holiday? What basis would there be in testing animals for disease research if we are not related, according to the theory of evoution? We have Darwin to thank for so many of our life-saving and life-extending accomplishments. One of AgnosticMom’s readers, Ed Darrell pointed me to an anti-evolutionist’s blog where Ed commented with a list of the many ways Darwin’s discovery of evolution has blessed our lives. I copied it for your reading pleasure.

“It’s the theory behind infectious disease control, crop development, animal husbandry, cancer treatments and cures, diabetes diagnoses, treatment and hope for cure, treatments for cystic fibrosis, the fight against crop pests (notably cotton boll weevils, wheat smut and wheat aphids, and imported Argentine fire ants), wildlife management, and flower development”.

Here is what you can expect at AgnosticMom over the next few days:

#1 A review of a children’s book which explains the evolution of life from the beginning lifeless days of the world, to the world in which men and women walk. I will be using this book as the guide to our weeklong celebration.

#2 A map of my weeklong celebration, with meal and treat ideas.

#3 Game and activity ideas for toddlers, elementary-age children, and teens.

If you have children’s books about Darwin, or activities to recommend, post your comments please!

One last thing. You can help move this cause forward by writing letters to your news editor to announce the upcoming holiday. AgnosticMom readers span the country, from Pennsylvania to Washington to California. Let’s get the word out.

Happy upcoming Darwin Day!

If I could type the thoughts I had at that time, they would be full of loss-for-words stuttering. We discontinued the prayer ritual when Trinity was two-and-a-half years old. She just turned six. Still, she is familiar with prayer, because whenever we are around extended family, they always say one.

I am not one to say agnostics should not pray. As Ron commented on my last post, prayer appears to have mental and physical health benefits. Israel and I made the decision to discontinue the practice for a couple of reasons.

Anyone who knew me when I was an active church member would not believe this, but I never found prayer, specifically group prayer, to be comfortable. When I was the one saying it out loud, which I did many times a week for thirty years, I felt so awkward.

Late in life (too late) I learned to counter my excellent-eye-contact nature when it came time for a group prayer. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out that if a person is looking to ask someone to pray, the one they are most likely to pick is the one smiling up at them. That was always be me, until I figured out the trick: keep your head down and your eyes on the floor or at a book. So, in terms of comfort, it was an easy choice to stop the family prayer ritual once I was no longer a god-believer.

We had another reason for doing away with prayer. We had previously instilled in our children a belief in God and Jesus Christ. Weekends stays with the grandparents and visits to the old church while Israel and I go out of town reinforce their belief. Continuing to pray would only further the reinforcement.

Since we have not tried to blatantly destroy our children’s belief in a god, we have not given the kids a clear reason for why we don’t pray. It is one of those issue where I am walking with a slightly transparent blindfold on, my arms stretched out for possible collissions. I’m hoping we’re doing this right, not shoving atheism into their little innocent heads, while also not encouraging belief practices.

This is why I didn’t know what to say when Trinity asked if we could pray for the special occasion of Dad’s birthday. How do you dash a little girls wishes, but also hold your ground? My sheepish answer was, “Well, that’s not our religion, honey.”

In the background I could hear Blake call out, “No. No prayers.”

So instead of the prayer, we all took a turn saying something we like about Daddy.

Blake: He likes video games.
Trinity: He makes videos (digital video, that is).
Me: I love his sense of humor and he’s very smart.
Aiden: I like shrimp (he said as he stuck a carrot slice in his mouth).

I do have a little prayer replacement activity. We only do it periodically, in order to avoid the redundancy of words I endured growing up, having multiple daily prayers. At the start of a meal I ask the kids to tell me some things they are grateful for. This way they are still acknowledging their many blessings. Sometimes I add a second part, where I ask the kids what kind of positive change they would like to make in the world or the community. If there was one thing in the world they could do to have a positive affect, what would it be? After all, we’re not waiting for a god to do it. It’s up to us.

My children are also not the manic type, driving people out of every store we enter, or making our friends wish they had never invited us over. No, my kids are in-between on the energy scale and the babysitters seem to love them.

They have their times, though, when energy seems to have built up for weeks. We recently had a volatile day like that. I had all kinds of errands to run. Any amount of errands with 3 children at your side, even well-behaved children, is enough stimulation to send you to a mental institution to beg them to make the voices stop.

On this particular day, as I was pushing a cart full of groceries through the parking lot toward our car, I swear to you my kids were shooting bolts of energy from their heads, fingers and feet. In a moment of spontaneous recklessness, and despite her knowledge that we do not run in parking lots, Trinity burst into a full-speed run, down the lot, between the rows of automobiles, straight toward an old man and his oncoming shopping cart. The spastic energy of her body was overriding the signal to her brain: WARNING! Head on collision ahead.

Somehow, by what I would call a miracle if I believed in them, Trinity’s legs propelled her to the right, just missing the poor old man with the frozen look of fear on his face, his brain receiving the WARNING! message, but his body too old to react with adequate speed.

That was it. My kids needed to pull it together. They needed to slow down, just enough to make time for their little brains to register the existence of the other people and objects in the vicinity. As we got in the car, I issued a warning threat of my own, “I am going to sit you all down and teach you how to meditate so you can learn to observe before you act.”

“You already did!” piped Blake, as he and Trinity locked their legs into the Criss-Cross Applesauce Position. For all of you old enough to read this, but young enough to not have kids in school yet, Criss-Cross Applesauce is the new Indian-Style.

I do NOT remember teaching them to meditate. Deep-breathing, yes. A little Yoga, yes. But meditation? For children under the age of eight? No. Yet there they were, putting their hands in the cupped position. Giggling.

So I got them started with something to focus on, and began the drive home. It was enough to get us away from that scene of chaos in sheer quiet.

I’m not really good at meditating yet. The Autobahn in Germany takes second place after my brain in terms of the velocity of its contents. Thoughts race through it, out of control. And I can rarely get away to do it while in a house with three children. The longest I’ve been able to meditate is four minutes. I couldn’t believe that much time had gone by. It was a record. A proud moment in my life. Still, I’m working on it. I want to learn to slow my brain down. I want to learn to observe rather than react.

I bet some of you readers are the meditating type, and the rest of you probably think I’m a nut. For those of you who regard meditation as mystical fluff, here is a little science that should convince you otherwise. Recent multiple studies have concluded:

Meditation increases your immunity.
Meditation improves mental acuity and responsiveness. It affects the structure of the brain, increasing thickness in areas dealing with attention and sensory process.
Meditation changes your brain physically, reducing stress, increasing focus, and helping you deal with difficult situations.

The best article on this is one from Time Magazine about research that shows meditation helps you get smarter. This article has now been archived, and you have to pay a small subscriber fee to get access.

In an upcoming post, I will provide more information on meditation. Until then, breath deeply and slowly, and be mindful.

Silence filled the space that my loss for words left. I stared at Blake for a minute. What other heroes have I introduced to him? Rosa Parks died not long ago, and we discussed her. Black again. I searched my brain files for any other heroes I must have introduced to him.

A-ha! Benjamin Franklin! We have a video about Benjamin Franklin learning how to harness electricity. In the movie, Franklin had to battle a religious fundamentalist who was trying to impede his research. It took much perseverance and faith in himself to finally prevail. Blake loved that video.

“Well, they’re not all black, honey. Benjamin Franklin was a hero, and he wasn’t black.” It was a step in the right direction, but clearly I had failed to provide my son with more than three or four examples of excellent human beings.

Growing up, the hero of my childhood was Nephi from the Book of Mormon. Nephi was a perfect person, with the exception of one tiny flaw. Nephi’s one sin was that he sometimes felt anger toward his wicked brothers who were trying to kill him. No wonder I have overwhelming and unrealistic expectations for myself: the biggest childhood hero of my life was AT LEAST as perfect as Jesus.

When I had kids, and especially when I left my church and all of its out-of-this-world heroes, I vowed I would expose my children to the world’s many great real heroes. I am now facing the reality that I haven’t done so well.

Yesterday, as I analyzed, and over-analyzed, the situation, I realized what is missing. I realized one of the reasons we, as agnostic parents, are feeling such a great need for a guiding source. We are missing a system for imparting our values to our children, that religious families normally get from their church.

The Mormon Church is the master of systems for teaching children. This is why the community is so tight, their familes are so strong, and such a large percentage of them actually make it to marriage in pure and complete innocence!

Let me show you how structured the Mormon community is in regard to teaching their young:

• Weekly church and Sunday School lessons
• Weekly Monday night Family Home Evenings (lessons)
• Daily family prayer and scripture reading
• Monthly visits from Home Teachers (each family is assigned two men who come to the home to give a lesson.)
• Weekly activities for teens, monthly activities for the children
• Monthly children’s magazine with lessons, stories, and learning activities
• Multiple free handbooks for family lesson plans on various moral and doctrinal topics

It was SO EASY to be a Mormon parent. The church put material directly into our hands. Agnostic and athiest parents have to conceive our own system for providing “lessons” to our children. Even more difficult, we have to do our own research to find the material. No one is giving us free handbooks with activities to demonstrate our values, arranged in formats that appeal to children of all ages.

I actually have been developing a system of timing. I’ve been using holidays as a sort of schedule to trigger ideas.

Some examples of holiday-triggered values:

• New Year- goals, ambition, ability to change and improve
• Civil Rights Day- courage, accepting others, forgiveness
• Easter- nature, spiritual rebirth
• Independence Day- patriotism, democracy, liberty and freedom
• 9/11- awareness and gratitude of our local firefighters and police officers and their families, community

I think the holidays, regular reading time, play groups, and other day-to-day experiences provide an adequate scheduling system to cover all the important things we want to share with our children. The difficulty is coming up with the tools for sharing the ideas, such as activities and books. That is the part that requires so much research when you don’t have a handbook given to you from church.

Civil Rights Day was so easy, because the school recommended books. The other holidays will require much more research. And since many of those other holidays also demand planning for giant feasts, extra shopping, and other activities, that just doesn’t leave as much time for educational research, does it?

I am going to continue what I started this month, which is to share my ideas and resources for educational and values-sharing activities and books for our children. They will mostly happen around the holidays, but I will add some other topics in here and there. I hope some of you will share your ideas as well.

My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up With the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I chose this book because Blake’s teacher read it to his class, and Blake really enjoyed it. He liked it enough to tell me all about it after school. The author is King’s sister, and she shares stories of family life, childhood pranks, friends, being ostracized, and eventually the inspiration that led to King’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.

This book is written for Grades 2-4. I plan to use it with my kindergartner also, by focusing on the pictures, and telling her some of the stories in my own words.

The Story of Ruby Bridges
This is a story about a six-year-old black girl who was was allowed, by way of a court decision, to go to a white school. The local community rebelled, pulled their kids out of school (all of them), and harassed Ruby to the point that federal marshals escorted her everyday to protect her safety, because the local police would not.

Everyday Ruby walked past the angry, screaming parents of Frantz Elementary School, attended alone with no friends to play with, and prayed, before and after passing the mobs, that God would forgive them.

I read this to my kids last year, when Trinity was still in Pre-K, and Blake was in first grade. Because the idea of mobs, prejudice, and segregation are foreign to them, it required and inspired a lot of good discussion and explanation.

My children loved the story about Ruby. It appealed to them because her heroic act occured around their same age. They relate to her. We have, at times, referred back to Ruby, throughout the year when topics of courage, teasing, or prejudice came up.

Trinity liked it so much, she said she wanted to be like Ruby, and she asked if she could keep the book in her own room because it is “so special.”

I recommend reading Ruby’s story, along with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s because, in addition to Ruby being a child-hero, she is, more specifically, a heroine. I think it is important that both boys and girls be exposed to female heroes, in addition to the many typical male ones.

As an additional act of respect, we will also be lighting a candle at dinner in honor and recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you have other ideas or books to recommend, please post a comment.

We began with dinner at Jack in the Box. I know, that’s nothing special. I considered a nicer restaurant, but the numerous possibilities of chaos and havoc that three kids bring to my imagination, prompted me toward the fast food arena. I’ll save sit-down restaurant outings for when Israel is with us.

Somehow I convinced my children to forego the Kids Meals with accompanying toy, and share a salad with me. Don’t let me fool you. They usually want a Kids Meal. But thankfully they have figured out that the foods Mom and Dad get are much more interesting than the plain kids’ foods. Trinity, especially, will often leave her boring meal to share mine. So once in a while, the enticement of flavor-variety overcomes their desire for a cheap toy.

We left our pleasant dining experience and moved on to a family favorite: Barnes and Noble. After hunting down a Michael Shermer book for myself, we advanced to the children’s area. Aiden spent most of the time pushing every button on every book containing musical sound effects. Blake found a huge volume of The Chronicles of Narnia. It contained every book, unabridged for a total of 767 pages.

Trinity, who usually picks pretty girly books that have a piece of jewelry attached, broke out of her pattern last night. I am so proud. She found an amazing pop-up dinosaur book. The paper-art is incredible. The intricacy of the cut-outs are amazing. Each page has a huge dinosaur in the middle, plus smaller pop-ups in the four corners, which you open individually. They have little corner tabs that hold the smaller pop-ups shut so they don’t open until you are ready.

All children love pop-up books, but I think it was the art that interested Trinity. She said she wished they also had a butterfly or a flower book. Since she is an artist, herself, Trinity and I decided to see if we can make our own pop-up book. That will be our next project. We will try to make a flower or butterfly pop-up book using cardstock. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Blake and I also came up with a project idea. I am going to help him make a book called, “Blake’s Book of Book Reviews.” Blake loves reading. Maybe he’s too ambitious. He starts lots of books (the bigger the better), but only finishes a few of them. He moves back-and-forth between 4-7 books at a time. To motivate him to actually complete more books, his teacher told us that if Blake would write up a review of a completed book, she would laminate it for him. So Blake and I decided to make a book out of it. We are going to put his current school picture on the cover, and include all his book reviews. I want to make a special shelf showcasing all his completed books. If he likes this project, we will start a new cover with his most current school picture for every year. Imagine growing up with a book full of your own reviews! Can you see the pride and perception of self it would foster? Think of the writing skills he will develop!

But back to our date night. We ended our evening with dessert in the bookstore. You can’t pass up Starbucks when it’s right there in the building with you. Aiden calls our excursions to the coffee shop, “getting a coffee shot.” They always get non-coffee Creme Frappuccino’s. I got my Chai Tea. Even though I don’t actually get the kids coffee, I often wonder if I am raising them to be future coffee junkies. If the highlight of their life is getting a “coffee shot,” AKA, foo-foo drinks at the local expresso bar, I do wonder if they will be addicts by the time they are 16!

I’m a new parent, a stay-at-home-dad, and born-again agnostic doing my initial groundwork for making sure our nest is well lined, insulated from destructive influences, and harmonious!

I am looking for resources, community, and information for agnostic parenting. I am surprised at how challenging this has been – there are assemblies (both real and virtual) for every kind of person imaginable, but the oft demonized ‘teaming masses’ of secularists are in reality very hard to find! Makes the claims of our influence and numbers seem awfully questionable.

Would it be possible to supply more links, if you have them – more connections to similar blogs?

I am sorry to disappoint you, Ron, but I have been scouring the internet, and what I have to report is bad. In terms of agnostic parenting blogs, there is one. Only one. Mine.

On the off-chance I am wrong, and I somehow missed a good blog that deals with agnostic/athiest parenting, I would love for someone to send me a link. I created AgnosticMom after 3 years of finding very little regarding secular families. At Ron’s request, I repeated my search of the blogosphere in hopes of finding newer ones. Nothing.

Almost all agnostic/athiest blogs fit into three categories:

#1 Pure Philosophy (not dealing with day to day practicalities)-I’m sorry, but I find this so boring. Many of us secularist types are already philosophical people. We lay in our beds philosophizing. We daydream, with our lattes in hand, philosophizing. I am full of philosophizing, and I need some practical ideas for practical living, especially for my children.

#2 Ranting and Raving I like a little ranting and raving. I do it myself. But if ranting and raving is all you are doing, where is your life? Once again, the practicality is missing. The rants and raves should be intermittent side notes.

#3 Watchdog Watchdogs are good. I like watchdogs. But it only meets a portion of parental needs. In my searching I found a good watchdog that I like: Be Reasonable

One of my readers, Zoe, has an interesting blog. I like that it has a personal touch, which I find lacking in most of the other agnostic/athiest blogs. Hers focuses on the difficulty of leaving born-again fundamentalism. She shares experiences she has with her still-fundamentalist friends. She is thoughtful and, while not afraid to point out her frustrations with religion and its culture, she is respectful. She shares interesting personal experiences. (Side note: when I went to her site to copy her address for this post, I noticed she has a link to AgnosticMom. Thanks, Zoe!). A Complicated Salvation

For real exposure to other agnostic/athiest blogs, go see the Carnival of the Godless. Every two weeks, godless bloggers submit an article. Every other Sunday those articles are showcased with links to the contributers’ blogs. You get a variety of ranters, philosophers, and watchdogs. None of them really fit Ron’s request, so I’m just providing a link to the entire carnival. The Carnival of the Godless

I’m sorry this is all I have to offer in terms of blogs. There is a very informative website (not a blog) called Ethical Athiest. It has a lot of educational articles. They have a parent-related section, but it is very general, and it is not yet complete.

Things are bleak for non-religious parents. This is why I encourage everyone to share their experiences and ideas, concerns and difficulties, here in comments on AgnosticMom.

Nature selected both my Overly-Sensitive-To-Stimuli Gene, and my Anal/Obsessive Gene, and passed them, magnified, to my son. These tendencies like to manifest themselves when I take off Aiden’s shoes but not his socks, when his pants are too long, when he has to wear a jacket, when I want to cover him in bed with a blanket, and when I need to put him in the car.

This is bad, considering we do these things everyday.

Fortunately, despite his proclivity toward vehicular hysterics, Aiden is actually an unusually calm soul, inclined toward observation and thought.

I have found the following method to work very well when he has these oubreaks:

#1 A one-word yell, one notch louder than Aiden’s screaming, such as “HEY!” This has the effect of momentarily stunning him into short-term amnesia. While I have him staring at me, I proceed to the next step . . .

#2 Instruct him to take a deep breath. I breathe with him, remembering that his deep breaths are twice as short as my own. Aiden picked up on the deep-breathing technique while watching me do yoga. He’s been doing it for a year now, so he has that advantage. He is now in a calm state, ready for guidance.

#3 Empathize.

“I know your shirt isn’t straight, honey.”
“Not straight.”
“You don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it, Mama.”
“But it’s not hurting you.”
“Not hurting.”
“You don’t like it, but you will be okay.”
“Okay.”

Somehow, this works. I don’t recommend it to other parents. It probably wouldn’t fly. That is, unless your child has the same strange combination of genes that mine has.

When this paranoid response didn’t fix whatever it was that had her attention, I asked, “Why are you staring at me?”

“I keep staring at you because you’re so beautiful.”

Trinity just turned six. She is a big girl now, doing her own hair, dancing with boys at wedding receptions, and cleaning the bathroom every morning (almost) before school. But I guess she’s not yet old enough to see Mommy’s physical flaws. Yesterday was a rare day when I didn’t apply foundation, so my uneven skin tones were shining in all their red, blotchy glory. And still my mommy-beauty mezmerized my daughter, the real beauty.

I keep expecting my kids to get over me some time soon. I figure at any point they won’t want me around their friends, or they’ll become aware of my ever-changing figure, or get embarressed when I dance like a dork for their entertainment. So far, they are still in love with their mother.

How long will this last? At what age will it change? Somebody, let me know, so I can milk it while I can.

I don’t know what the ER is like where you all are from, but here, you know you’ll be waiting for 9 hours on a good day; usually 12 hours on most. With the flu season here, and all the snowbirds in town (seniors from up north who come to sunny Arizona for the winter), ER is a horrible place to be.

I remember being grateful this morning, looking at the newspaper article about the hospital closure, and knowing that none of us had flu symptoms that might drive us to ER later.

Then, at 4:30 pm, Israel started yelling, “We need to get Aiden to the hospital.” He ran Aiden to the kitchen, Aiden hurling white and yellow foam from his mouth. Israel told me, “I found Aiden eating Advil.”

I called 911, who called for the paramedics, and then transferred me to poison control. We had no idea how many pills were in that bottle. There were 35 left out of a hundred. I remember the lady on the phone saying, “Worse case scenario is, he ate 65.”

Right on beat, the firemen showed up, gave Aiden a thick, black drink they call “charcoal” and sent Aiden and I off to the hospital.

On the way there I wondered what might happen. Of course, death is always on your mind at times like these. I doubted it would come to that. We had a friend who overdosed on Tylenol this same time last year. He had to have a liver transplant, and because of complications during the surgery, he is now forever like an infant.

So these are the thoughts running through my mind: if it’s bad, he may need a liver transplant. Hopefully it won’t be that bad.

Last October, my brother-in-law found Aiden at the bottom of his pool when we were there for a pool party (I hate pool parties). There were three of us adults “watching” him, not including the other adults monitoring their own children. Due to some miscommunication, none of the three of us, who were supposed to be watching him, were actually watching him for about five or ten minutes, until Russel saw Aiden at the bottom of the pool and pulled him out. Aiden seemed lifeless for a brief moment, but then coughed the water out and was eventually fine after 10 minutes of hysteria.

And now, this evening, two and a half months later, I was driving him to ER for ingesting an unknown amount of adult Advil. Aiden gets into more trouble than my other kids did; not because he’s more of a rascal, but because he’s part of a larger group with more distractions. We just don’t monitor him as carefully.

Aiden is home now, healthy, alive, and sleeping in his bed. At the hospital they gave him another cup of the charcoal, this time mixed with icy chocolate milk. It still looked disgusting, and stained his lips black, but like a good boy, he drank it to the bottom and asked for more.

The doctor told me that Advil doesn’t cause the same problems as Tylenol. Generally it will thin out the blood if left in the system. To avoid that more minor complication, they give you the charcoal mixture, which binds to the medicine, deterring absorption, and carrying it out through the bowels.

So, Mommies and Daddies, give your kiddies a big hug and kiss, and then go make sure you put away your meds and cleaning solutions. May we all live to see our children grow up. And if we don’t, I hope we make many wonderful memories to keep in our hearts.

Yeah, I know it’s super-cheesey. But you can be cheesey with kids. That’s the fun part of being a parent.

It had occurred to me that I do sun salutations many mornings by myself. Why not involve my kids? It’s a nice way to begin the day with the family. It’s healthy. It teaches them mind-body awareness, deep-breathing, and introduces a positive outlook to their every day.

This morning, I asked the kids if they wanted to do Sun Salutations with me again. Trinity and Aiden jumped up from their lounging positions on the sofa, and made a circle with me. Blake, my oldest, stayed right where he was.

“You don’t want to do it today, Blake?”

His answer was one I never expected, “I already did it this morning in my room when I got up.”

Oh, how sweet is that? My 8 year-old boy initiating his own yoga Sun Salutation first thing in the morning! This is my boy, who needs very little sleep. He spends one quarter of his time in bed at night reading (I even found him reading at 3 am. recently), then hops out of bed around 5 am. as awake as a human body can possibly be, as if he’d had 5 cups of coffee and a Full Throttle to top it off. And now, after one quick lesson of Sun Salutations, he’s doing it himself in his room.

I love that kid.

If I can make it past Trinity’s birthday party today without needing a nap afterward, this is what I plan on doing with my kids, before we start the party (party, as in: Israel and I are getting old and can’t stay up past ten anymore, so we will play games with the kids, and go to bed like any other night):

1. Look through the scrapbook from the previous year with each child.
2. Ask the following questions:
What did you do this year that you are proud of?
What is your funnest memory?
What did you try that was new?
3. Write down the answers for their scrapbooks.
4. Ask: “What would you like to try or improve for the coming year?”
5. Write it on a piece of paper, and tell the child that you are stashing it away until Easter. Easter, a holiday about new life and rebirth, is a great time to review the goal and check on the progress.

I thought I’d share it in case any parents out there are looking for some ideas on involving their kids and adding meaning to a holiday that usually focuses on partying adults. I like my adult parties, but since this day is also my daughter’s birthday, it’s hard to justify not being with her.

Do more what, you might ask? Well, he wants me to do more Christmas!

This afternoon I took all the decorations off the dry, crumbling, can’t-handle-the-Arizona-heat Christmas tree, and put them away. Aiden just asked me, “Where’s the star, Mama?”

“I took it down,” I told him. “Christmas is all done now.”

“No!” He couldn’t believe it. Life begins and ends with Christmas. “There’s more! Do more, Mommy! Do more!”

Last year, when Christmas ended, he asked me for months where Santa went. He loved seeing all the santa’s everywhere: on coffee mugs, on store shop windows, in books we read. He heard his name sung in every store we entered. I knew this was a Christmas-loving boy.

“Where’s Santa?” was the constant question, over and over again while we went from place to place. He continued to sing his two favorite Christmas songs deep into springtime. As summer approached he finally got over it. But now here he is, on my living room floor, staring at the bare, Evergreen, demanding, “Do more!”

How long will this last? Will he ever get over Christmas?

You know, it’s funny . . . today was our dog’s birthday. He is one year old, but he doesn’t know it. I bought him a special treat. It’s a can of liver-flavored squirt-gunk. I filled his kong with it and he devoured it. But he still doesn’t know today is any different from any other day. Dogs are sure different than humans.

Right away Trinity was at it, “Mom, I’m not sure if you want Aiden to eat that meat he got from the fridge.”

My first thought was to just ignore her. The kids can’t handle a single step without somehow involving me. But the idea of Aiden having meat kept bothering me. I ate the last of the sandwich meat yesterday.

My Mommy Conscience convinced me to check it out. There was Aiden, sitting at the patio table, pulling out a nice, thick piece of raw pork. He had it between both hands, mouth watering, and was ready to sink his teeth into the juicy flesh.

Once I managed that crisis, I was ready to steal away for a shower. Peace doesn’t last long in a house with three young kids. Aiden walked into my bathroom as I was fixing my hair, saying, “Mama, my hands got dirty.”

Sure enough, he had covered them in both brown and powdered sugar. And it was around his mouth. And the front of his shirt. I stood him in the empty shower, told him to “Stay!”, and ran to the kitchen to see what kind of disaster I had there . . . and whether the dog had discovered it.

In the afternoon, I planned to cut out sugar cookies with the two older kids while Aiden napped. This would be the day he decided he just couldn’t fall asleep. So now it was all three kids.

All three kids, six hyper-active hands moving too fast for me; jabbing their cutters half on, half off the dough; smashing each others’ completed shapes while trying to make their own; three mouths fighting, complaining, whining. I don’t know how many times I sent various children to time-out during that family traditional moment. Even my 8-year-old. It’s been years since Blake sat on an actual time-out chair.

Finally, I’d had enough of the noise and confusion. I sent them all out while I re-organized the kitchen. When I was ready, I called each child in one last time, alone, to cut out two more cookies. Afterward, I banned them from my sacred space while I finished.

In the semi-quiet of the kitchen, I cut out the last four cookies, then came to the living room to relax on the couch. And there was the last surprise of the day: a big, dark pen scribble on our ottomon.

Nice.