Holpineville

Hysteria Abating

The rain has slowed to a steady drip and I haven't driven into any major puddles yet. And I am much calmer.  Sorry.

Carl had his five year old check up yesterday.  He was acting like an utter goofball, so I guess he was nervous. I made the executive decision to bribe him into cooperation, even though it sets a dangerous precedent.  Thus, he cooperated with all the things he didn't want to do (vision screening, hearing screening, scale, poking of his various parts) and he's still very excited about his prize (stuffed flying squirrel with magnetic front paws from the lobby gift shop). 

Anyway, Carl is doing fine.  He's 46 inches tall and 53 pounds, which puts him firmly on the 97th percentile line for both stature and weight, in line with the same curve he's always followed.   The 97th percentile for 20 year old males is only 6'2", by the way.  I figure he'll be blowing right past that mark around age 14. 

There was also a flu vaccine: the nasal mist, which he didn't enjoy, but it beat the injected alternative.  I got another Clueless Mommy Award to add to my collection by failing to notice the fair-sized dried booger collection in Carl's nose, and we were instructed to get back on the saline-rinsing wagon and to try some new nose spray to ward off a return to Sinus Infection Misery City this fall.  

I have noticed that Carl has trouble with at least a couple of speech sounds.  His b's and v's get mixed up, and he has trouble with the voiced "th," as in "together" and "feather."   It may be a developmental phase and he needs only time.  Or, maybe he could benefit from a few tongue exercises and some coaching.  I'm not sure.  The doctor wasn't either, so she said we should go ahead and get him a speech evaluation, which might be covered by the health insurance that we are lucky enough to have, or it might not be. In theory, you can also get a (free!) evaluation at school, but everyone I know who's tried it at our school has been frustrated and had to go elsewhere. Add that to Mommy's To Do List to figure out and schedule.

Rod is still gone, but he's coming home in time to take the kids camping this weekend.  A bunch of our friends are going, but it's pretty far away.  I was originally supposed to go, but I have a lot going on this weekend, so Rod volunteered to do it. 

Ruby is trying to put in more time on her spelling list and improve her speed in doing basic arithmetic (8+6, 9+8, etc.), because she doesn't do well on the timed tests they have at school. Tomorrow, I am spending the day helping out in her classroom, which is the first day I will have spent any time in there this year.  I think it will be exhausting but maybe I will finally start matching names and faces of the new kids. Bad financial news arrived when our Super Wonderful Tenant came over to tell me that he's being transferred out of the country toute de suite, so after a very brief period of mourning, I need to get cracking on my real estate listing.  Blah.

I just read that Lego sales in the US are up more than 20% since Carl got interested in them, which helps explain the problem with my bank account.  Do you think they could send me a rebate? If only Lego was publicly traded. 

 

Weather PTSD

When did I get to be such an anxious person? Driving in the rain scares me now.  Yes, it's pouring today, and the weather-people agree it will be pouring until two days from now, which means the streets will flood, which means I will be tied in knots the whole time, watching the weather radar, checking the traffic cameras, calculating how else I could possibly get the kids home from school if the usual route is impassable, should I skip going to this meeting that takes place in the low part of town, should I pick the kids up early, and how I would cope with the kids in the car if we had a problem.... 

I suppose it all dates back to the Great Floating Car Incident of 2001, when I drove into a puddle and ended up in a dead car in the dark with water coming through the floor.  It was really frightening, and I was already stressed out that day by being secretly pregnant with what I didn't know was Doomed Miscarriage Baby.  Rod came to my rescue that night, but he's out of town this week, so if I end up in high water now, it's all my problem. 

 I am really unhappy with myself for being such a ball of nerves about something so stupid.  I lived here for over a decade without any weather anxiety, driving little bitty cars and renting in a neighborhood that floods.  Why can't I get back to that un-bothered state of mind? And do you have any, say, Xanax, that I could use in the meantime?

Moving on to the news: Carl says he wants to be an inventor when he grows up.  I lobbied for "poet" or "mechanic" (like an inventor, but more practically useful) or "doctor" (wouldn't it be great to have someone around here with a prescription pad?), but he's pretty firmly committed.  The Engineer Gene Lives On.

The birthday parties went well, with many kids attending and huge piles of presents accumulating.  We have all been busy assembling Lego kits and trying out toys.  My favorite gift, just because it appealed to my immature streak, was the "Cosmic Thruster."  ("Oh Mom, it has balls!")  Anyway, Carl has a pile of thank you notes to write, which will take a while because all he can write is his name, although he does have a certain talent for copying things out. 

Ruby had her first Brownie meeting, and is all psyched up to earn badges and sell cookies; not even the ugly brown vest can deter her, and now I need to figure out how to neatly iron all the badges and insignias and patches onto it.  It also reminds me of my mom, who wouldn't settle for merely ironed-on badges on my sash.  Oh, no.  Mine were lovingly sewed in place with great precision, and as a result, my uniform did look much neater that everyone else's.  How I miss my mom.

Five

The morning after September 16, 2004:

Today:

Yeah, I know, he needs a haircut. And really, he's much cuter when he's smiling.   

I woke my baby this morning and gave him the ceremonial re-telling of the Exciting Story of the Day You Were Born, which I was surprised to find he enjoyed this year.  He was thrilled with the Garfield balloon that magically materialized in his room overnight. 

I am amazed at how much I love this kid.  His sister, too, but it's his birthday.  His eyes, his hair, his long legs and big bony knees, the little pale splotch of skin by his belly button. When he's so excited or happy it overwhelms him, his eyes get big, his smile is enormous, and he throws himself at you for the world's strongest, wordless, hug.  (Aside: my thanks to all of you who sent the birthday presents that got me all the hugs yesterday.  Sure, he knows the gifts are from you, but I was handy.)  He's funny and tenacious and curious.  I even kind of like the whiny sobbing when he's just so very disappointed. 

There will be more about the birthday party later. I am deep into getting ready for it all, and despite my efforts at keeping it small, I've got a lot of work to do and have spent a zillion dollars at the grocery store, on party favors, and so on.  Apparently I don't do small. 

In an hour, Carl will be taking the Earth around the sun at school during his celebration of life.  Tonight, we are having a dinner party with his favorite friends and favorite foods (chips and queso and chocolate fondue).  Thursday, we're having a party for all his pals at one of those giant indoor inflatable places. 

He's five.  Wow.

Where the Fun and the Mess are Never Ending

Carl is sweet and good natured and sporadically affectionate.  However, he is not moved to perform acts of kindness and disinterested generosity as often as, say, Ruby is. Thus, I was quite touched when he spontaneously decided to make a "surprise breakfast" for Rod and me this weekend.  He started planning Saturday, when he got out a tray and loaded it up, refusing to tell me what it was for, but instructing me not to get out of bed in the morning when I "heard the thump sound."  Carl asked for help in stashing the tray in the refrigerator and obliquely asked about things Rod might like for breakfast.  

I thought he might have forgotten overnight, but no, the next morning Carl somehow managed to get the tray out of the refrigerator and all the way upstairs to the bed, without spilling the following: a cup of milk, a cup of raspberries, a cup of cheddar bunny crackers (purchased as part of the "take a child to the grocery store and pay extra" tax), a banana, and a pear.   Then he went back downstairs to get Rod a plate with a pear and a banana.  It was very sweet. 

Can someone direct me to a suitable martial arts class?  Last week I took Carl to a trial jiu jitsu class.  It was nearby, mostly conveniently scheduled, sort of affordable, and a good mix of boys and girls ages 3 to 6.  Carl was excited about trying it out, until the day it was time go.  Then he reverted back to his toddler barnacle stage, wrapping himself around my thighs and burying his head in my stomach, and being a complete nervous pill besides.   I was about to give up and go home when he finally agreed to help the teacher teach the class. 

But it didn't go well.  Carl seemed to like the individual activities (rope climb, monkey arm hang), but most of the class involved working in pairs and he either refused to be paired off or the teacher didn't pair him off, and at the end he told me he hated it.  Also, I wasn't so thrilled with the way the teacher managed the class time, and well, to me it just seemed a little....violent?  All that grabbing and pushing and wrestling? 

As I was telling Rod about this, I asked "so are there any martial arts classes that are, you know, a little less violent?  With less focus on learning how to beat people up?"  And Rod looked at me like, "well, my goodness, I sure did marry a crazy stupid person, how did that happen?"  and he gently explained that most martial arts had to do with, you know, defending one's self.  And he asked "what exactly are you looking for, then?"  To which I could only reply, "well, like yoga, maybe, with some macho power moves and yells?" 

So dear readers, what are the differences among karate, jiu jitsu, tae kwan do, capoeira, aikido, kung fu, judo, kendo, etc.? Which is best for an energetic oversized five year old with a squeamish mother? Our quest for the Right Class continues.

Carl and I finally planned his upcoming fifth birthday party, which will be at one of those indoor, giant inflated things to bounce on places.  I'm not so excited about it, because it's not a very original idea and it will cost me money, but in the pro column, let us note that it is easy to plan and I won't have to clean house.    Now if I can just figure out what to give him.  Oh, sure, there's Legos, but it seems to me Mommy and Daddy should be a bit more original in their gift-giving.  A friend of a friend offered up a chihuahua mix puppy and I thought it was destiny, or at least kismet, but Rod still says no.  Maybe the party will be the present.

Ruby opened up a bit about the things she feels she needs to work on at school: getting faster at doing basic addition/subtraction/multiplication, reading long numbers out loud, and maybe spelling.  She also thought it would help her to have a chart of things she needs to work on, including those items plus reading and piano practice, for instance.  She seems to like charts, and I know at school she figures out what she's going to do when using a chart called her "work plan" for each week. So, I need to help her pull that together.  This fall, Ruby's taking an extracurricular creative writing class, piano, and the same dance/theater class she did last year.  This is a little more busy than I originally bargained for, but we can't give up the latter two, and the first one is a pilot program we want to get started at the school, so I'm sending her to it.  Also, I have relented and agreed to let her join the Girl Scouts, so she can live out her dream of selling cookies, and that means another meeting or two each month.

In other news, the pulmonologist said that my pneumonia was indeed a weird looking case, but he thinks I'm making a fine recovery....it just takes weeks for one's lungs to clear out, sorry about that, honey.  We spent the weekend swimming, working on a volunteer project, going to sleepovers and various kid and adult parties, and doing stuff around the house.  I'm in a cleaning out frenzy, sparked by Ruby's relocation to Carl's room and an upcoming children's consignment sale, where I hope to make a million selling off the kids' outgrown clothing and no-longer-treasured belongings, assuming I can sneak them out of the house when they're not looking. 

Ruby's garden has yielded a handful of okra, one Japanese eggplant, two poblano peppers, and two banana peppers.  Rod and Ruby made fried okra last night and it was actually good.  Ruby even liked it, so score one for the garden!

I was all excited for my kids to hear the President's speech this morning, because I think the ruckus over that was completely and utterly ridiculous (and yes, I'd feel the same if it was one of my least favorite presidents from the other party giving the speech), and that it's useful to have an authority figure other than Daddy and me telling them that education is important, hard, and worthwhile.  Plus, I discount the whole "political brainwashing" argument: I know I watched plenty of Reagan speeches on school time in the 80's, and I managed not only to survive, but to become the bleeding-heart liberal that I am.  My kids are way smarter than I am and they can think for themselves.  But, I guess Carl's teacher decided the class was too young, and Ruby's class was out at one of their ancillary classes at the same time, so I guess I'll have to summarize it for them later.

Carrots

Parental insight for this week: our kids like external rewards.  I don't think I'm really all that motivated by performance incentives. Sure, it's nice to get a prize, but it's rare that the promise of one makes me work harder at anything. 

I finally figured out that my kids like to have an incentive to work toward.  Ruby's school has a new policy of sending the kids out to walk around the track if they arrive early in the morning, and they're all supposed to walk two laps at the beginning of recess.  Ruby hit on the idea of keeping track of her laps, which I thought would be interesting.  We could make a map showing how far she's walked, for instance. But Ruby kept asking what she would get if she walked so many laps.  She wanted a prize!  So I agreed to a reward at 30 laps and one at 60.  I figured it would take her two or three weeks to get to the first level.  Then Ruby walked ten laps the next day at school. That's 2 1/2 miles!  So we're raising the prize bar a bit, but she's still interested enough that she tries to get to school early to have time to walk. 

Ruby has asked for an incentive chart before.  We talked about one last spring for piano practice and reading, but I never followed through.  I wanted her to do those things because she enjoys them and because she's supposed to, not because she's trying to win a toy.  But talking to other parents, it seems like incentives are pretty effective for some kids, and I guess I'm willing to give it a shot if Ruby's one of them.

And then there's Carl.  Toward the end of the first week of school, his teacher told me his behavior was not as good as it needs to be.  My darling child was playing too rough with the other boys, and he and his new pal were so involved with each other that she had to separate them in circle time and at lunch.  I really had hoped that Carl was beyond all that, that he had matured and evolved enough to do better.  It was depressing. 

I took the boisterous boy wonder home, and talked to him about our expectations for his behavior,and how he's a big kid now and needs to act like it.  Finally, I told him that he wouldn't be having any play dates after school if I didn't get "good reports" from his teacher.  

Yesterday, I asked his teacher if Carl was doing any better.  She said yes!  much better.  She had taken him aside and explained that he wasn't a three year old anymore, and that she wanted him to be a role model for the younger children.  She said Carl stressed to her that he was turning five soon.  She told him that five year olds learn to read, and if he wanted to do that, he needed to get serious and do the work to get ready.  She told me that it's clear Carl really wants to be able to read, and that he seems a lot more motivated since they talked.  Last night, Carl told Rod and me all about some sound/letter work he did at school, so I have to agree.

This morning, Carl told me goodbye, I said "have a good day," and he said "Good report, right, Mom?"  "Yup," I said, "I want to hear a good report so that we can do something fun this afternoon." 

In other news from school, Ruby does not like her in-class reading buddy, but she does like her kindergarten reading buddy.  She is learning long multiplication (is that what you call carrying to the next column?) and does not want to practice her spelling words any more than she did last year.  The homework load has been adjusted this year, though, and should be lighter overall, so I told her to quit complaining.  I'm so supportive.

Finally, some pictures of the so-called garden, pathetic, tiny and neglected as it is, we get very excited whenever anything that might be a flower, fruit or vegetable appears:

Okra has surprisingly pretty flowers

The eggplant makes nice flowers, but no eggplants.

What is this, a zinnia?  We caught Ruby pulling off the blossoms.  She thought it was like the basil, where you want to pinch off the flowers.  Oops.