Holpineville

Montessori Education is Peace Education

That's the slogan on the school t-shirts this year.  Carl seems to have taken it to heart, to judge by his work:

He especially likes map work:

And in Montessori school you do a lot of labeling:

How do you know when it is okay to let your kid stop going to some class or activity?  Ruby is in a weekly creative writing workshop.  The program gets good reviews from most kids and parents, and several of her friends are in it. Ruby is generally creative, likes making up stories, role playing, enacting dramas, and putting on shows, and she does some writing at home from time to time.  Also, her spelling sucks, even adjusted for her age and grade level, and I think writing is an important skill kids should practice more in general.  Finally, this is the first time the program is at the kids' school and I wanted to support it by signing Ruby up. 

But somehow, Ruby doesn't like this class. She says the instructions for each assignment are too bossy, or confining; basically, she feels like she can't write what she wants.  Ruby says the writing time is too long and it's too loud and distracting in the room with everyone else.  She feels over-scheduled and Wednesdays in particular are too tiring and she's just not happy about it.

I told Ruby she needed to stick it out for the semester and we'd reconsider for the spring.  She said she realized today that the teacher's instructions are more flexible than she'd thought, so today was better.

So what do you think?  Is the benefit of the class worth the bellyaching about it?  Or should I let her drop, because she's given it an honest try and she's tired and stressed out and only seven, even if it means the school loses the program for lack of enrollment? 

Here is a poem she wrote that the teacher sent out as part of an edited anthology of the work of the class.  I gather from some of the other poems that the idea was to write a verse or two about various feelings.  I like the poem, because it seems very "Ruby" to me, and I'm not the world's finest judge of literary merit, but I have to say that I think some of her classmates wrote generally better pieces, if that makes any difference to you.   

___________

Happy

 

I bounce up and down!

 

Sad

 

I run upstairs and lie on my bed.

 

Mad

 

I say, MOM!  MOM!!

 

Alone

 

I feel sick.

 

Angry

 

I say MOM! 

 

____________

The news in brief: For the first time today, Ruby asked if she could borrow one of my books when I am done with it. And yes, she meant to read it.  Surprisingly, it was not some trashy novel, but a big thick history book.  She read a few pages and liked it, "even if I can't understand every single bit of it."  I said yes, of course.

 

Some fool scheduled Election Day precariously close to Halloween this year, so I am very busy until sometime next week with kid stuff, parties, and political action.  It's been raining way too much for my psychological comfort, Rod survived his first colonoscopy (which he got because he's now a middle aged dude and it comes with his Deluxe Executive Physical Exam Package) with no bad news, and in fact, we're all well and healthy for the moment.

The cat ate my password

I see we have some catching up to do, you and I.  You haven’t been getting the posts I compose as I’m falling asleep or sitting in traffic, have you?  Let’s see what I can string together for you:

The news:

Ruby spent one weekend throwing up, but recovered quickly.  Carl has had a snotty nose and I can’t tell if it’s getting better or about to get way worse.  Many of their friends have had the dreaded H1N1, but so far we are clear.

Rod did some much-needed caulking and painting around the house and has been working long, long hours. 

We have new tenants moving in next door this weekend.  Everyone please cross your fingers, light a candle, whatever, and hope that they pay us on time and take decent care of the place.

Carl says he is just one lesson away from being done with Pre-K work at school.  I have no clue if that's true or not, but if it's motivating to him, that's awesome.  Ruby was trying to teach him to read one night, using the highly-motivating book Super Diaper Baby (one of the highlights is the bad guy accidentally transforming himself into a turd).  Anyway, I mentioned to Carl that I have a book about teaching your child to read and maybe we should get it out sometime.  “Get it now!” he shouted, an hour before bedtime.  I would like to say that I used that window of opportunity and that he’s now reading well above grade level, but I made him go to bed instead.

Grandma paid a visit for a quilt show, but made time to have dinner with us all and to take Ruby and me to the show one afternoon.  Ruby really enjoyed it and has big plans for the kitty fabric she got.  Ruby also enjoying calling people on the phone these days, especially Grandma.  It’s strange to see my little baby casually picking up the phone, paging through the speed dial, and calling people all by herself.

Ruby has replanted her garden for fall. Now being tested are onions, spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, cilantro, and pansies.  The excitement was darn near overwhelming when she discovered a lone petite cantaloupe on her half-dead cantaloupe vine.  We’re still holding out hope that it will ripen enough to harvest, and not just rot on the ground.  She keeps harvesting the occasional okra pod or pepper, too, but the eggplant has been devastated by caterpillars or bugs or something. 

Ruby had the honor of introducing the arts showcase at her school today.  She Who is Never Nervous seemed to have a touch of the stage fright, but did fine.  Here is a lovely cell phone photo of my little star, a few minutes before she said her lines:

As for me, what have I been doing?  Nothing, and everything.  I harvested and froze a ton of basil, read a kind of interesting book about the pilgrims, went to my knitting guild meeting, kept plugging away at my volunteer projects, played phone tag with a speech therapist for Carl, went to the spaghetti dinner at school, got the kids’ hair cut, sorted through a giant pile of old papers (sadly, there are many more piles to go), took my pregnant friend to the doctor a bunch of times, cooked more than I really wanted to, did 96 loads of laundry, and ran all those time-sucking errands (cleaners, post office, grocery store, grocery store, grocery store, drugstore, cat food store, school, school, school, school, you know…..).

Last week, I volunteered at another sort of –related to my-kids’ school- Montessori –school-for-underprivileged-kids’ fundraiser.  Ruby and Carl had to be there with me for a while until Rod could collect them.  To my delighted astonishment, they didn’t want to amuse themselves with coloring books; they wanted to help.  And they did, setting tables and filling glasses just like the grownups.  Too bad I can’t get that kind of support at home.

This weekend, the cat is going to the vet, there are a bunch of birthday parties, the kids want to carve pumpkins (even though I explained they will be slimy and black by Halloween, given our lovely climate), and I need to figure out Carl’s costume(s)—the bat, and the Skippy Jon Jones he wants to be for the storybook dress up parade at his school.  How hard can it be to come up with something that makes Carl look like a Siamese cat who thinks he’s a Chihuahua on a mission to Mars?

 

The Princess and the Penguin

Princess costume:  lacks lining, hem and final fitting.  This is more work than it sounds like.

Penguin costume:  still just a glimmer in Carl’s eye.  I need to get with it, and yet here I am, typing away in fine procrastinatory form.

Our weekend was devoted to a couple of other kid's birthday parties, some bike riding for the kids, a Diwali/campaign party for a friend and a late night of playing cards on Saturday night, my subsequent hangover on Sunday morning, pumpkin carving, pumpkin seed roasting, and forcing Carl to take a bath.  He likes baths once he gets in there; he’s just in a mood to fight with me about most things.  There were also disagreements with him this weekend about peeing, putting on shoes, getting into the car, tooth brushing, eating veggies….you get the picture.  He’s worse for Rod, though, I have it easier in some ways. 

Exciting news:  Carl is learning to write his name!  He’s got the C down pretty well.  There’s a thing in the middle that could be the a or the r (and I’m not sure which), and then the l, which, Carl informs me, is like a 1!   Also, his drawings are getting more representational.  This one is either a monster or a robot, complete with his signature:

 

Ruby’s class is going on a field trip to the science museum tomorrow.  I am the backup chaperone.  I hope I don’t have to go, because of my sewing deadline, and because it’s the day I help out with reading in Carl’s classroom.  I was supposed to go buy Ruby a bus pass before tomorrow, but it’s a complicated procedure and I forgot, so she’ll have to pay the whole $1 in cash each way.  I think it’s really great that the early elementary teachers at the school make the kids go on field trips by city bus.  They feel it’s important for everyone to learn how to ride the bus, and it’s less expensive than hiring a school bus.   It makes for some interesting stories, too.

I have a standing appointment to listen to kids reading in Carl’s class on Tuesdays, and in Ruby’s on Fridays.  Carl doesn’t really know that I go to his class, because I sneak in while he’s away napping and try to leave before he gets back, to avoid an ugly scene.  The actual reading is tedious, I have to say.  Why can’t someone make beginning books that aren’t so dull and idiotic? I guess Dr. Seuss did, but they don’t use them in schools.  Instead, there are BOB books, HOP books,  Open Court/SRA atrocities, and many more that are similar.  I think even Dick and Jane were more fun, but to look on the bright side, I guess there are a lot more choices nowadays.

In Carl’s class, the teacher is giving me one or two little books to read with all of the reading kindergarteners in turn.  A couple of them are already strong readers and the books are way too easy.  For some kids, they’re way too hard and so completely not useful.  For others, they’re at about the right level, but they’re deadly dull.  I need to talk to the teacher about choosing different books for different kids based on their level.  I suspect she’s just trying to ease them into reading aloud a few times a week and still getting to know their various levels, but I think they could move on a bit now. 

Plus, the kindergarten kids haven’t learned any sight words (high-frequency words that you can’t just sound out) yet, so the going is harder than it has to be for the ones who are otherwise getting the hang of it.  I did not enjoy drilling Ruby on sight word flash cards last year, but now I see why we were given the task.  When I go to Ruby’s class now, it’s very obvious which of the first graders have done serious work on sight words and which haven’t.   

The process of learning to read is so mysterious to me.  Ruby’s teacher isn’t the first person to tell me that a lot of it is purely developmental; some kid’s brains are just ready for it faster than others.  And yet some of them seem to gain velocity, confidence, and skill so quickly.  Others seem good enough at the basics, but need to work more on sight words and to practice.  I worry that some of them don’t practice at home, that they don’t have reading role models and trips to the library and all, and that they’ll think the boring little phonetic readers at school are all there is and never get excited about books.   There is also a small third group of kids, the strugglers who just can’t seem to get to the level of the others. Do their eyes skip around too much?  Is there something in their brains that makes sounding out words extra hard? I want to help, I want it to be fun, and I end up feeling like I’m torturing them for 10-15 minutes a week.

As for Ruby, she seems to be making some good reading progress these days, to my joy and relief.  She seems well within the pack of first graders in her class, and most of them are labeled “gifted,” so that’s a good thing.  Her school is doing a fundraiser for the March of Dimes, where kids ask for a donation for each book they read.  Rod and I were less than thrilled when this envelope came home, and I was going to gripe to the principal about my kid being encouraged to fundraise for an organization without my consent.  But then Ruby enthusiastically announced that she was going to read “11 to 19 books!”  so that she could get the silver medal (which she preferred to gold).  She agreed that Rod and I could be her sole sponsors and we wouldn’t go around asking our friends for money.  Under those terms, I decided that anything that made Ruby want to read more was a great thing.  She’s spent the last four or five days reading every chance she gets; I think she’s up to 13 books.   

Ruby reads aloud; the idea of reading silently to herself hasn’t quite sunk in yet.  She hasn’t tackled a whole chapter book on her own yet, but she’s reading some fairly long and complex picture books.  She’s a bit lazy, in that she doesn’t like to stop and ask for help or figure things out. Instead, she’ll guess at a word or skip over bits.  Sometimes she scrambles up the words in sentences a little.  She’s just starting to read with expression, which is cute.  I worry a little that the selection of things she likes to read is too limited, even though all the experts say that a steady diet of fairy books/comic books/Captain Underpants/whatever shouldn’t be a concern, that kids do move on to “better” books eventually.  And Captain Underpants is pretty darn funny, plus he is overwhelmingly captivating to Carl. 

Last week in Ruby’s class I also helped her with a math lesson.  She was working on adding four digit numbers and “carrying” sums over columns, like from the ones to the tens; I think this is called dynamic addition?  I suppose I’d seen the Montessori demonstration of this version of the “exchange game” before, but it was so much fun seeing Ruby do it, with the light bulb coming on when she realized it was time to exchange the 10 single beads for a unit of ten, and then to swap the 10 “tens” for a “hundred.”   Heck, addition made more sense to me by the time we’d done a couple of problems.  Maybe there's something to this whole math business after all.

I guess I have to go sew something now.  Tra-la-la!*

 

*Captain Underpants reference, get it?

Howdy.

It is lazy to write your blog post in a list format.  However, as I never edit these little missives before I post them anyway, you probably won't mind, right?

I am spending the day upstairs.  First, I am cleaning out the kids’ closets and drawers: pulling out their fall clothes (we are having one day of cool weather and even though summer returns tomorrow, it’s time for the wardrobe shift), integrating some bigger sizes, smuggling out the too-small and too-stained, boxing things up for G**dwill, the cleaning lady’s granddaughter, and some of the kids’ playmates who are at the opposite end of the growth chart.  It’s rough having the World’s Biggest Kids; they have exhausted all sources of hand-me-downs and the selection in their size at resale shops and on the sales racks is usually sparse. 

Also, I am cleaning cat barf off the carpet as best I can, replacing burned out light bulbs, cleaning the cat’s water fountain, and putting away the $%^&$#$ laundry, which no one ever does (including me).  And I am going to relocate the stash of potential birthday party gifts and treats from my closet to someplace Carl can’t help himself to quite so easily, a challenge involving moving a whole bunch of yarn.  This interlude gives me a chance to listen to the iPod while I work, and can I say, there are some mighty fine songs on it?  At least, if you skip over that dreck Rod put on it.

Ruby has her piano lesson later today.  I was watching her practice last night and noticed she was doing a couple of things wrong.   I tried to gently guide her to the right thing, but I had to tread carefully and I could tell she didn’t want to hear it.  She reminds me so much of myself sometimes; I don’t take criticism well, either, even the friendly, gently offered, sandwiched-between-high-praise kind, even when I completely agree with it.  I can sit here and think of 10 different times I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of message and I still feel the emotional sting attached to each one.  I wish I knew how to teach Ruby to listen to the message and not feel the hurt, somehow.  A thicker skin is a good thing to have.

Here is a good book I checked out of the library.  Rod hijacked it and read it before I could finish, so you know it’s pretty cool.  I have decided I am in a non-fiction mood just now. 

I took Carl for his dreaded blood tests bright and early on Monday morning.  It was really not much fun for either of us, but I don’t think he’ll be emotionally scarred for life.  Anyway, the results were all “normal,” so I don’t have to put him on the If It Tastes Good, Spit it Out Diet just yet.   Naturally, “normal” is not quite enough detail for me, so I asked the doctor’s office to send me the report.  However, I cannot get my $%^&*! fax machine to receive, and apparently the doctor has no budget for envelopes and stamps, so I may have to wait a while to get it. 

The stuffed penguin is done, although not done nicely.  I am just not good at sewing.  The Halloween costumes are languishing, however.  Rod fixed the washing machine (yes, engineers are so very sexy, I do agree).  Carl’s cold seems better and my eye isn’t dripping so much today.  I am in a tired, depressed mood lately, though, and I’m not sure why.  It might help if I got to sleep more; I often have that Can’t Fall Asleep problem and then Carl wakes me up around 4 or 5 a.m., probably because he has to pee and can’t stand to do it alone.  He’s sweet and cuddly, and I just wish he’d stay in his own room until 6:30.  Tonight, I am to go out for a drink with the parents of Carl’s classmates, but my shy-introvert-don’t-make-me-mingle side is battling hard against my likes-grown-up-company-and –exotic-beer side, and I don’t want to go.  Plus, I am tired and I don’t want to spend any money.   Yeah, your heart bleeds for me, I know.

Here is a picture of Ruby with her missing front teeth (Mr. Sexy Engineer solved that particular technology problem for me, too). 

I Got Nothing

There's not a lot to talk about here, folks, but that's never stopped me before, right?

Let's see.  This week, the kids went to the dentist.  No cavities, no alarming "fix it right now!" problems.  They could both do a better job on the oral hygiene, but couldn't we all?  Ruby has three very loose teeth. Carl got a green plastic snake and Ruby got a squishy ball thing for their cooperation prizes.  I got the bill for the copay and the bottles of fluoride gel (no emails about the horrors of fluoride, please!).

Ruby is being slightly more compliant about homework.  This week, she offered to keep her homework whines deep down inside, "so they'll get pooped out later." Whatever works, I always say. Carl felt a little left out at homework time, so we found some "homework" for him to do at the same time; tracing letters in a wipe-off workbook.  Ruby starts piano lessons next week.  We shall see how it goes.

I went to help with kindergartners' reading at Carl's class, and it was fine until Carl showed up and climbed all over me and basically made an ass of himself.  I will have to hide better next time.  I am a little concerned that his teacher doesn't have such a good grasp on the reading levels of the various kindergartners yet, but I guess since my kid's not in kindergarten, I will cut her some slack.

What else? I got my hair done today,in the autumn-inspired slightly less blond variation.  I went to the grocery store every day this week, even though I didn't feel like it.  I did some laundry.  I cooked dinner, even when I didn't feel like it.  I took the kids to a play date and to their creative movement classes.  I went to a farewell dinner for a friend. I did not make it to the gym. Oops.

This weekend, I am going to visit my sisters in the big city. I will get to remember how the single people live and be in weather cool enough for a sweater.  We're all doing the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk and having brunch in honor of mom.  It's a 5K walk, so this can't really be considered an athletic event, although I do get a t-shirt!  It's more of a leisurely stroll and bonding experience, one mom might have enjoyed had she not suffered the various nasty ravages of juvenile (Type 1) diabetes and then died from it one night. On the bright side, it's a disease science is making a lot of progress on just now, so maybe future Type 1's and their families will have it better. 

The kids' school is doing fund raiser after fund raiser, so if you need coupon books, wrapping paper, terrifying shelf-stable cookie dough, poinsettias, or who knows what all else, I can fix you up.  I have just been writing checks to the PTO every time, in lieu of marketing to all my friends and family, because I hate selling stuff, and the PTO gets more money out of me that way anyhow.

Read anything good lately?  Before school started, I read Through a Glass Darkly, by Karleen Koen.  Koen has a connection to the kids' school and I've met her a few times, so I was interested to read this. This week, I finished Bridge of Sighs. I think Richard Russo's work is pretty darn great in general, but I could use a good laugh and so I kept hoping this would turn into one of his funny books, which it isn't, although it has a few moments. A friend has me reading Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks, which is about the plague.  I do love a good medical drama, and it's absorbing, but I find myself skimming ahead.  Maybe I just lack patience right now? I am also listening to Cider House Rules on the ip@d while knitting and driving, and I am hooked.  How I could have gone through life without reading it already or even seeing the movie?  Or maybe it's just the magic of audio. Or maybe I'll get halfway through and tire of it, too.

After a lot of nagging by a certain friend, I joined Facebook this week.  Let me know if you want to be my "friend;" the list is pretty short just now.  I also have been slowly adding some of my old knitting projects to my Ravelry notebook, so if you are on Ravelry and want to share, that would be cool, too.  Ravelry is a bit like Facebook for knitters/crocheters/needlework people, if you are wondering. 

Fairies Invade

I don’t go to the bookstore much anymore.  In fact, I’ve been trying to weed out some books, because we have too many, and to go to the library and borrow instead of buy.  When I desperately have to havea book to keep (which is still pretty often), I order it online.  The kids’ books are from the library, library sales, thrift stores, garage sales, gifts, and the Scholastic book club.  But Ruby got some bookstore gift certificates for her birthday and so we went shopping. 

She seemed to enjoy the shopping and opportunity to choose a book quite a bit.  I was surprised, though, by how gender-segregated the children’s section is once you get past the little kid and picture books.  On one rack, the covers are navy and black and red and the books are about robots and outer space and gross jokes, with a few mysteries as well.  It appears the boys also get custody of the science section, because the nonfiction books about snakes and sharks and castles and spaceships are next to it.  In the middle, there is the DMZ of the Magic Treehouse, which is the one major series of little kid novels appealing to both sexes. 

The other rack is filled with pink and green and purple and glitter.  It's also a little bigger than the "boy" section.  The books are about fairies, mostly, with others about ponies or princesses.  There is Junie B. Jones, who is an obnoxious brat, but at least refreshingly like a regular kid, compared to the fairies.  And there were some puppy and kitty themed novels, I guess for the tomboys.  

Is this sort of division healthy? Was it always like this? It’s nice that there is what looks like more books for kids now.  I sure don’t remember huge long series of “chapter books” or little novels for beginning readers like that when I was younger.  And I don’t remember the books being so clearly intended for one sex or the other.  Sure, there was Nancy Drew v. the Hardy Boys, but those were aimed at older kids than what I’m talking about.  So far my kids don’t differentiate between “boy books” and “girl books,” but I can tell it’s coming.  If I were a six year old now, there’s no doubt I’d be choosing my books from the girly shelf, but I don’t see why the “girl” books have to be so girly, and the “boy” books have to be so testosterone-laden.  It seems like they’re being boxed into categories just by what’s getting the most shelf space. Also I'd like to see little girls' brains fed on something besides a steady diet of magic and glitter, but I'm not sure what that would be.

This week, Ruby is at Fairy Camp, only because she begged and begged to go again this year.  They dance fairy dances, they read fairy stories, they make fairy crafts (crowns, wings, etc.) and they build fairy houses.  At home, we read fairy books.  Both Ruby and Carl are big fans of this interminable series, or rather series of series (rainbow fairies, jewel fairies, weather fairies, pet fairies, day of the week fairies, sports fairies, flower fairies, etc., it may never end…).  Ruby also likes the Disney fairy series and the Fairy Realm books.   All that magic and glitter is getting to be a bit much for me, though, especially when the kids want me to work fairies into their bedtime stories (“Mommy, I want my bedtime story to be a mystery, with Amber the Orange Fairy, Scooby and Shaggy, and Princess Barbie, Ruby and Emily.  And oh yeah—the knights!”) .  If anything can drive me into the pages of Captain Underpants, or this unreadable Lego robot novel Carl chose, that’s it.

Why, Why, Why Can’t I Sleep?

Rod has been gone a week.  There are only three more days until he comes back and I am still not sleeping.   Do I stay up late because I can, without him hassling me?  Or is it that there’s no point in going to bed if he’s not here? I really don't know.  Probably it's both, plus the fact that child tending and housework take more of my evening free time when it's just me doing them.

And yet, I am hanging in there, and more cheerfully than I would have predicted before Rod left.  We have had a few dramatic episodes this week—kids with rashes and ooze places you’d rather not have it; several enormous roaches (dropping down out of the ceiling and onto my lap, ambushing me in the bathroom, or threateningly approaching Carl and his Legos); a dead bird on the back porch (thanks, Sir Plus!  Next time pick me a bouquet.); Carl coming in to wake me in the morning with blood pouring out of his nose (I never have really liked our carpet, but still…..eeew.) However, I have been a brave little soldier and dealt with them all.

Carl had his ear infection re-check doctor visit today, and he flunked.  He also regaled the doctor with details of the nosebleed.  So, she decided we should do some blood work and check his platelets, although I tried to explain about my status as former Midwest Nose Bleed Queen -- Junior Division, and my dad’s tendencies that way, and that it was merely family tradition.  But no, we had to take little Bucky down to the blood lab.  He was extremely displeased by the whole procedure and I felt like such a jerk for doing it to him without explaining fully what was going to happen.  And then it was off to Sonic for a restorative tonic, and then the T@rget for a new round of more expensive antibiotics (so far, I think this ear infection is costing me $175 after insurance, with more bills to come), and we did a little back to school shopping while we waited.   This all took forever and completely destroyed the evening routine, and as a result my crabby children did not fall asleep until 9 p.m. 

Ruby is at Fairy Camp this week.  You can barely call it camp, because it’s only three hours a day.  She doesn’t seem quite as enchanted with it as she was last year, but she’s dancing up a storm (it’s organized by a ballet school) so it must be okay.  Carl has three days left at his school.  He’s planning to take doughnuts as a farewell treat his last day and I'm not sure if he's happy or sad to be leaving.  Otherwise this week, the cleaning lady is coming, I have a doctor appointment I’d rather not go to, and we may try to have a playdate with the one remaining friend family we have left in town this week (see complaint about friends on vacation, below).       

I am trying to read The Golden Compass, but it’s not going well.  I have trouble with the science fiction and fantasy genres and alternate realities.  Oh, I wouldn’t burn the whole section down at the library, as Rod has referred me to a few good sci-fi books in the past (I have tried to understand him, really I have!), I did read some when I was younger (Dune, those Anne McCaffrey dragon books, etc.), and there's always Margaret Atwood.  But really:  there isn’t enough dramatic material available in real life?  So Golden Compass is a lovely story, I suppose, if you get past all the made-up fantasy details, but I’m just not bowled over.  I was all excited to read it because of the whole anti-religious theme issue that came up when the movie came out, but so far it’s not engaging me.  Maybe I should just rent the movie and get it over with?  Otherwise, I’ve been reading child-rearing related books and a couple of forgettable chick-lit type novels.  Anyone out there read anything good lately?  I could use something moderately transformative-- gripping, but not trashy, easy to get into, but not stupid, thoughtful, but not too dense.  A good love scene or two might be nice....

 

Okay, I’m going to bed now.  Really.

Personality Type and Childrearing

I still look like Popeye with mumps.  And it’s not terribly comfortable swelling, either, plus I am tired and generally feeling crummy. My dentist is punting me over to the endodontist for an emergency consult, out of fear there’s infection.  I was less than happy to hear that when I called in for sympathy and to see if I should be using ice packs or warm compresses on the lump where my jaw used to be.  However, I am thinner than I have been in about seven years, if only temporarily, so there’s something to celebrate, and I have discontinued the puke-inducing medication so it’s a better day than yesterday.

Are you familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality typing system? The one where you’re an E or and I (extraversion/introversion scale), an S or an N (sensing v. intuiting), a T or an F (thinking v. feeling), and a P or a J (perceiving v. judging)?  It fascinates me, I have to confess.  My psychologist friends mostly dislike it, saying you can’t pigeonhole humanity into sixteen neat little slots, it leads to over-generalizing, and takes too many liberties with Jung’s work. But it makes so much sense to me sometimes.

I tend to come out near the middle on some of the four continuums, but every time I take it, I’m discovered to be an INTP.  It’s not really the best type to be, if you were allowed to choose.  But reading the description of how INTP’s are is so comforting!  Hey, I say, that’s me! I’m not the only wackadoo in the world! There’s a reason I hate schedules and routines, can’t abide by meaningless rules, “have trouble finding contentment in the workplace,” desperately need time alone, tend to raise my hand to volunteer too much, and can’t choose bedroom furniture after 15 years of considering the need! 

In addition to some Myers-Briggs career guidance literature, I have a couple of books connecting Myers-Briggs with parenthood.  One focuses on how your personality type affects how you do the mom or dad job, and one focuses on figuring out your kids’ types so you can tailor your approach.  I am having an interesting time skimming through both.

It's tough for me to type-diagnose other people.  For the longest time I thought I had Rod all figured out, and then he took the Myers-Briggs at work and I was wrong.  But I can’t remember what he is anyway.  The kids are even more of a puzzle.  I can’t decide where they fall on the introversion/extraversion scale; probably both are more towards I than E.  Today, I would guess Ruby is an NFJ and Carl is an STP, but I reserve the right to change my mind a few dozen times.

It’s interesting to see how some of my internal mom angst can be explained by my INTP-ness.  We INTP’s are cold fish, or at least we worry about coming off that way towards our kids, and we tend to withdraw when things get overwhelming. We desperately need our time alone, but messes don’t faze us and we’re generally calm, flexible, and respectful mommies.  And it’s fun to view some of my discipline issues with Carl in the Myers-Briggs light:  “P’s” like Carl and me just don’t like to be hurried along, and we don’t understand why you J people get all worked up about doing something a certain way sometimes. Like me, Carl needs to know WHY he should or shouldn’t do something; “because I said so” doesn’t get Mommy very far.  Carl likes his collections and his little toys.  Ruby has this sensitive, feely side that has to be catered to every so often, and she likes a certain amount of structure in her day.  For both kids, it helps me to take a step back and acknowledge that the "problem behavior" sometimes has more to do with who they are and who I am than a specific intent to drive me crazy. 

Much Too Busy

We are busy--busy enough that blog writing as been a little too much of a time-sucking luxury to consider this week.  Nothing terribly exciting is going on, just stuff:

Ruby’s dentist appointment to coat her porous molar, my dentist appointment for hours and hours of drilling fun, getting my car “fixed” (it now has air-conditioning, and the mechanic says it’s okay, but I still feel intuitively like it’s trying to leave me stranded this summer), an epic bowling excursion with the kids, a meeting to figure out why none of the credit card charges from our gala had posted, Ruby’s photo session with her ballet class, the actual ballet class, another charity silent auction run by some friends, a family picnic at Ruby’s school, Ruby’s routine –but- very-long eye exam (20/20, for now), a town hall meeting with our new school board member, a dog-and-pony-show at Ruby’s school for potential donor foundations, haircuts for the kids, a meeting about my upcoming Mommy’s Running Away From Home Trip, the dropping off of a couple of dinners for new moms, and I am trying to get some actual sleep and exercise and eat healthier, which is time consuming. And alas, I still have the taxes to do.

Rod is preoccupied with many very important things at work, and the not-so-important company chili cook-off this weekend.  His team has devised some inedible-sounding recipe and I think they are taking a serious misstep by putting so much faith in Rod’s cooking abilities, but my opinions on this are not really as welcome as you might think.

I unofficially know what teacher Ruby will have next year and I am pleased.  Too bad I can’t tell her, yet.  We received the report from her first big standardized test, the Stanford 10, and it seems Ruby isn’t so terribly smart after all. She’s at grade level on everything, sure, and well above it in a couple of the squishy categories (“listening” and “environment,” for example), but she didn’t exactly blow the curve.  I guess we’ll keep her anyway.

Ruby discovered that she can read Green Eggs and Ham, and has extrapolated from that a passionate love for Dr. Seuss that she proclaims over and over again.  We did check some Seuss books out of the library today that are too hard for her, so the fire in her heart may die out soon; her tolerance for frustration is pretty miniscule. In bedtime news, we have worked our way chapter by chapter through the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder, to her early married days in the First Four Years.  This part of the story is tricky because the romance is not spelled out, at least not for one accustomed to princess movies, so it’s hard to understand Laura’s motivation.  Also, Ruby is worried about Laura having a baby so soon after the wedding, so we had to have another chat about reproductive reality.  She is also worried about Laura wearing black to her wedding, and marrying a farmer even though she didn’t like farming, and we keep going back to the Indian-white folk relations problem. 

Lately, Carl is busy popping out of his bedroom when he is supposed to be asleep.  I really hope this phase doesn’t last long.  He also gets up in the mornings before his blue light alarm goes off and comes in to wake me.  I don’t like waking up in general, but Carl is sort of sweet and snuggly, stretching out next to me or on top of me.  One morning we were cuddled up, and trying to buy a few moments of silence, I told him to listen to the birds.  “That one,” Carl said with authority, “is a robin.  And that one is a kuh-not.”  And as I am unfamiliar with kuh-nots, I asked what it looked like and he gave me a detailed description.  Carl has made up several birds and dinosaurs lately.  I think I told you once about the bonkheader dinosaurs, but we have also been told about others.  The trimantis is my favorite, a dinosaur with bright blue skin with Easter-egg like markings, which "tries" ("That's why it's called a TRY-mantis!") to protect the Easter bunny by eating the other dinosaurs, or something like that. 

Carl is also preoccupied with the plastic light saber he got when he crashed a birthday party at the park last weekend.  He is learning about flowers at school this month, and also bees, which means I am also learning all about them.  After he told me the details of some pre-school playground gang war under the play structure one day, I decided to say more of sort of thing I never really thought would come out of my mouth until Carl: “I don’t want to hear about you fighting at school, Carl, understand?  I expect you to be respectful and kind and gentle with all the other kids.”  I don’t think he’s really the problem child of the group, more a follower than an instigator, but I could see where inserting some strong disapproval into the back of his mind might come in handy later. Still, Carl says he wants to have a “fight party” for his next birthday.  I said I wasn’t sure the other moms would go for it.  Eventually he patiently explained, as if I were just a little too dense to understand properly, that it was PRETEND fighting.   So see?  It will be fine.

Today, according to Ruby and Carl, is Hank the Cat’s birthday.  So they made him a cake using two cans of cat food and some catnip and took it up to him in his little hideaway, the strip of floor under my bed between the storage boxes and the wall.  They sang him Happy Birthday and gave him two hairbrushes of Ruby’s as a gift. Tomorrow is Grandpa Dave’s birthday.  Imagine what they sent him.

Candy Hangover Edition

Belated Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.  I had a surprisingly good holiday.  Let me pause to say how happy I am to be more or less happily married (usually high on the More end of the scale), and for a long enough time that deciding how to celebrate is not a big emotion-fraught decision.

Rod bought me some flowering plants for the yard, which was very sweet, especially as I had explained that he was not getting a present.  Because despite my deep, passionate, probably-irrational devotion to Rod, he is too hard to shop for, plus we are cash poor.  So, appealing to my practical streak and managing to surprise me with the plants (hard for him to do) Rod scored some major husband points.  And, he also rearranged his schedule to take Carl to school so that I could go to Ruby’s party, and later went out of his way to put on nice clothes (after a day in coveralls at the test well) and bring home dinner. Naturally, I repaid all this kindness by falling asleep early.

Ruby’s class party was completely easy for me, the Room Parent, and reportedly fun for the children involved, too. We did crafts.  We listened to Mozart. They had a fancy snack. Later, they exchanged cards and complimented each other.  How I love Montessori school.   

I think Carl’s school party was similar, except with more sugar involved.  He won some praise by offering to share his candy with Ruby, and by pin-punching the whole big red heart that was pasted on the side of his loot bag.  We’ve been talking to Carl lately about his unwillingness to pin-punch.  He says it’s too hard, which makes no sense, as he’s been doing it for months.  Secretly, I don’t blame him, as it seems deadly dull, but apparently it’s important in Montessori-world for fine motor skill development.  More important to me, I don’t want him to think he can just say “no” when a teacher asks him to do an assignment.  So, I’ve been telling him he needs to do just a little bit every time, that it’s important to try, blah, blah, blah.  It didn't seem to be soaking in. Thus, I was pleased and surprised that he consented to do the heart.   

Carl and Ruby and I made Valentine’s cake for dinner, and there was hardly any fighting at all over the sprinkles and frosting.  I bought them some Valentine’s Day presents, too, because although I acknowledge that it’s an over-hyped and thoroughly commercialized day, I adore those people beyond all reason, and if I am run over by a bus tomorrow, I'd like to leave behind a token of my affection or two.  And did I mention, Rod is too hard to shop for? 

So we gave them each a book, and Carl got a stuffed snake I knew he would like, and Ruby got the Valentine's Day Barbie I bought on clearance last year and that she has been trying to beg out of my closet gift stash ever since.  She says she’s not really into B@rbies, but she’s happy to have this one, so I guess I did okay. I think the real explanation is that she just likes the 10 cent plastic ring that was included, and I could have bought one from a gumball machine for a quarter and saved myself $2.75. 

Ruby asked me straight out if I was the tooth fairy last night.  I just couldn’t take the fantasy away with the first tooth, so I temporarily modified my position on parental honesty and lied, sort of.  I said nope, not me.  Later, I made Rod sneak into her room to switch the tiny tooth for a dollar bill.  So, see?  I wasn’t the tooth fairy.