A new celebrity parenting craze called RIE (pronounced wry) is not only aimed at building more self-aware children, but a more peaceful world. Put away those Baby Einstein dvds and pre-school waiting-list forms, in fact, put away baby strollers, high chairs and battery-operated toys. In honouring baby's "authentic self" you will give him nothing but a wooden spoon, paisley scarf and plastic colander as this, they say, is the stuff of imagination stimulation and all you really need for motor skill development.
Stars like Tobey Maguire, Helen Hunt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Felicity Huffman and her husband William H. Macy are among those who seem to buy the method. And I'm sure they are buying all the RIE-approved toys too. Hey- wasn't there only supposed to be a spoon and a strainer?
Maybe I should go to New York and become an accredited RIE instructor myself- people pay a small fortune to sit around a room watching their babies crawl around amongst "RIE approved toys"- you don't even have to encourage the little ones to share with each other- all part of the "do less, observe more" credo. Sounds like a good business opportunity right there.
In the real world, Son and I did some good bonding with nature today. I re-introduced him to our pet worms, which we fed with paw-paw and bran flakes while watching all the other organisms alive in our composting contraption. We set down fresh newspaper over the organic waste and Son added a sprinkling of water. Okay, he probably drowned all the worms and whatever else creeps in there so we swiftly moved on to watering the plants and the grass. Until Son started watering himself, then we moved around to the front of the garden. There, Son scored some goals (despite having mom as the goalkeeper/teammate/cheerleader, which has to have been a little confusing for the kid), and pushed his train around. He didn't enjoy the part where he nearly ran over a dead baby bird but we buried (or "hid") the bird under a tree and said a prayer- he quite liked that. Talk about a more peaceful world!
Just as dad arrived home and, in a less peaceful manner, Son decided to upturn his slide and seesaw to look for shongalolos. He actually found a really huge one which he then teased by pretending he was going to give it a tickle.
Sorry it's upside down!
We had such a lovely afternoon I wasn't even fussed that Son insisted on licking the butter off his roll and calling that dinner. Talk about relaxed parenting! How cutting-edge! Maybe I should look into RIE....
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