jubyred

Cap n Gown

We did this two years ago when BoyChild "graduated" from Pre-K so this time, I knew what to expect.  The mothers who didn't stood there bawling as the little ones marched forward to accept their certificates of completion.  I fell for that ole trap last time.  This time, I was armed with tissues.

I'm not a big believer in applauding everything my children do.  I think it only serves to make them feel entitled or makes them think the world owes them some sort of special recognition for simply completing what they agreed to do.  So, I could really do without the whole cap and gown thing, however cute it is. 

What's moving to me, as it is to most of the parents, isn't little people dressed up as big people.  What gets us is just the marking of time.  There she is, five years old, suddenly.  It kills me.

So they waved as their names were called and hugged their teachers as they were handed their mini diplomas.  They said the Pledge of Allegiance, sang the national anthem and some other songs, and sat in a line of chairs trying so hard to be still and quiet.  Some did better than others.

We had our last Parent/Teacher conference last week as well. Probably in spite of us, she thrives. Of course I want to take credit when the teacher shows me her academic assessment.  She said she's quiet when she needs to be and speaks up when it's appropriate.  She is independent but a very adept leader among her peers.  I sat there and glowed hearing it.  But I guess my favorite thing she told me was that my daughter is a Whole Person.  In the end, that's all I really want.

The Pics from the day are here.

Birds and the Bees

It all started after Christmas.  BoyChild had a friend over and they were playing upstairs in the playroom.  I was downstairs starting dinner when he ran downstairs, grabbed the January edition of Vanity Fair with Kate Winslet on the cover and headed upstairs.

- Hey hey hey.  Where are you going with my magazine?
- Nowhere.  Upstairs. 
- Why are you taking my magazine?
- No reason.  I just like magazines.
- You have ten minutes of playtime yet.  Start cleaning up the mess up there and then y'all get in the car so I can take him home.  Leave the magazine down here.

I wasn't sure what to make of it at first.  I had already looked through it and I knew there were some rather provocative shots of Ms. Winslet in there that revealed her ass (really lovely, shots in the vein of Belle du Jour, actually), but was that what he was going to show his friend?  Maybe they just needed a magazine for some other project they were doing.  The kids were always cutting up magazines.  That was probably it.  I'm sure he was just looking for pictures of cars. 

But to be sure, a few days later, I found myself alone with him and I picked up the magazine.

- So, hey, is this the magazine you wanted to look at the other day?
- I don't know, maybe.
- Was there something specific in it that you were interested in?
- Nah (waaay too nonchalantly).  I just like magazines.
- Yeah, me too.  Do you want to look at this magazine with me?
-  Ok, sure.

So we sit there flipping through the pages and we talk about photography and lighting and advertising.  I get to the spread of Kate and explain that it's set up to look like a famous movie and that lots of people are involved in picking the furniture and the setting up lights.  Blah blah blah.  "Oh, and this one is kind of silly because you can see her bottom."  He laughs a little.  And I go on to explain how lots of photographers and artists like to draw or paint or photograph the human body because it's so beautiful.  And he agrees and listens and that's that. 

Fast forward to a few weeks later and Drew and I are downstairs listening to an argument brewing upstairs between the kids.

- No! She can't be naked if she's going to be the princess.  If you're going to play Barbies with me you have to play right. 
-Well I don't want to play Barbies with you unless she is naked.

I listen on the stairs for a while then head up there.

- Hey guys.  What are y'all playing?
-  (He quickly shoves the naked Barbie under the table.)  Nothing

I send his sister downstairs and we have a little chat. 

- So, it sounded like you were very interested in the Barbie being naked.
- No I wasn't.
- It's okay if you were.  Everyone is curious about what people look like naked.
- Really?
- Sure.  I was and so was your dad.  Everyone is curious about that. 
- Ok.
- Do you have any questions about it?
- Uh...no.
- Well, first of all you know that real women don't really look like a Barbie doll, right? (I resist the urge to go into what I really want to here.  One thing at a time)  But when girls grow up they get breasts and their bodies change just like boys' bodies change.  You remember what breasts are for, right?
- For feeding babies?
- Right!  Exactly. 
-  Then why do you still have them?
-  Uh, well, that's a good question.  I mean, they don't just disappear.  And women who don't have babies have them even though they might never feed a baby with them.  And some women have babies and feed their children with a bottle.  They're kind of just there in case.
- Ok. 
- Do you have any other questions?
- No.
- You know you can ask me anything, don't you?
- Uh huh.

It was at that point that I realized he was so completely embarassed that I stopped.  After telling him how normal he was like 32 times and asking him a few times why he was suddenly so interested in all this, I let it go.  My first thought was total fear, like, who's been talking to him?  Has something happened that I'm not aware of?  And then I sort of got that this is how it goes.  We aren't quite to SEX yet, but we are right on that cusp.

I got him a book geared for kids with the very basic facts of life.  All in kiddie illustrations.  Nothing too weird or sexual.  Just kind of a funny and normal take on things and I read it with him.  He seemed completely disinterested and I set it on the dryer to return to B&N.  Then a few weeks ago, I found it had moved to his room.  I didn't say a word, just cleaned off his nightstand and left it there. 

He just turned seven.  I was really not expecting this sort of thing so early.  I mean, he's very mature in most ways.  I know, I know, I sound like a mom.  But he is a weird kid in his social maturity.  A friend of ours ate with him in the cafeteria the other day and said he's someone she'd love to just take to lunch and talk to.  While her kid is picking his nose and giggling, mine is saying things like, "So, Ryan, I was wondering...what would you like to be when you grow up?"  The combination of his interest and his social skills concern me a great deal.  There's no stopping it now. 

 

To My Children

At 1:30 am this morning, I watched President Elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech to the office of President of The United States of America and thought of my two children asleep in the dark.  Unable to go to sleep, I wrote the following to them:

Dear Jed and Ruby,

After months of explaining to you both how Democracy works in America, I am sitting in our house watching history play out as you both sleep upstairs.  And for the first time in a very long time, I am hopeful and inspired.

There are those who would tell you today that the elevated rhetoric of this man we elected amounts to little more than pretty words and goosebumps. I would remind them that every significant step taken forward in this country, from the very formation of this nation to the fight for civil rights for all citizens, began with a vision and with the rallying cry of those who believed in the same fundamental ideals.  Without that, we are nothing.  I pray that in your lives, you will both have many opportunities to feel as though you are a part of something bigger than yourselves, that you will be inspired to learn and grow and change this world and to be inspirations to other people.

Like both your father and I, you have been blessed with great opportunity.  You were born to educated, free people of means.  You were born citizens of America.  You were handed that gift on the day you were born.  There are those who will tell you your luck was God's will, that those who were not so fortunate are somehow deserving of their lesser lot in life.  Some may have you believe that you need to only look out for yourself in this world and not be concerned with how others fare.

As your mother, I would tell you that my singular goal for you is to understand and embrace the notion that with such great blessings comes great responsibility.  As a citizen of this country, as a child of God and a resident of this world, I firmly believe that we all have the responsibility and the great privilege of looking out for one another, of respecting one another, of doing everything we can to make sure that everyone else can be their very best.  It is only in this way that you will ever find the best of yourselves.  This world does not belong to you. It belongs to all of us and we are all connected.  My prayer for you is that you will always feel tied to the bigger force that binds us all.  Call it God, call it Love, call it Community, call it Family.  It's all the same force and it is what sustains us and enables us to change ourselves one individual at a time and, subsequently, the world.

There are those who will continually yell, "Mine!  Mine!  Mine!"  Those who will always think what they have matters more than who they are.  There are those who would be very angered by the notion that they are in any way responsible for complete strangers whose decisions they can't control. But I believe the only progress we can make as a nation and as individuals is with the support and encouragement of one another.  This is how your father and I have taught you that we are in our own family. The very same principles apply outside of our home.  To exclude certain people or groups of people, to insist that we are better or more deserving of the blessings of this world is the worst kind of hubris and only sets us up to isolate ourselves and fail.

I am so thankful at the thought that neither of you will know the limits that have been placed on certain people in this country.  You will likely never know poverty nor will you be denied your fundamental rights to participate as a free citizen of this country.  Because of the tireless efforts of very brave people who came before you, you can live and prosper in a country where we have possibilities that some people didn't have as recently as one generation ago.  I am thankful that there are many struggles you will never have to endure; battles that were fought and won before you were even born.

But there will be other battles.  I was quite pregnant with you, Jed, on the morning of 9/11 as I watched in horror the events of that day.  I sat there thinking of the world I would be bringing you into and wondering what my place in it was.  I wondered how I could keep you safe and how on earth I might have the strength of character to instill in you the courage and fortitude to be a real agent of change in your world.  This prayer is my greatest hope for both of you.

This country moves and changes in small steps, as it should.  Our new President is charged with a formidable task ahead of him as all presidents before him have been.  I am not naive to think that one man can be elected and the enormity of our problems will magically disappear.   Christ, himself, could be sworn in on January 20th and that will not be the case. That change is up to us.  Each one of us. 

What I do believe, however, is in the overwhelming and undeniable power of hope. I believe in the fundamental notion that you have a voice, that you matter, that you are significant, that you can affect change, that everyone you touch matters, and that it is these ideals that make us most powerfully human. 

Love,

Mommy

Scary Stuff

This was the first year that BoyChild requested to be something scary.  Mission accomplished, I think. 

I spent a month convincing GirlChild that a ladybug was THE costume of the season.  Who wants to be a boring ole princess or fairy like every other four year old girl?  That's not unique.  But a ladybug.  Now, that is special.  Oh, and I had already bought the costume and didn't have to sew anything.

 

Heartstrings

Any mother worthy of having children knows what it takes to get her children in 'the zone.'  For mine, it has always been music.  Since birth, my kids have responded to music.  No matter what crazed mood they are in, I have been able to snap them into calm with the right song.

GirlChild's latest favorite song is one I started singing to her at bedtime a few weeks ago.  Within days, she had the entire thing memorized.  I can't get her to remember to rinse her toothpaste out of the sink, but she can mostly sing a song back to me after hearing it once or twice.  I love her intonations and strange southern accent as she earnestly sings it into her squash microphone. 

I also included the real version by Alison Krauss in case this isn't in your repertoire and you'd like to hear the treatment of it by a grown woman instead of the four year old's version.

Saturday Punkins

The annual ritual of visiting the Pumpkin Patch took place late Saturday after another busy day of soccer and errands.  Just more confirmation that this is, indeed, my favorite time of year. The entire photo set can be seen here.

Red Light Green Light

Since the day my son was born, he has had a lot to say.  I have come to accept this fact about him.  He came prewired that way.  I am a firm believer that children are who they are and our job, as parents, is to nurture the best of them and allow them to blossom within that.  My job is not to turn him into someone else or to make him feel ashamed of who he is, but to try to foster an environment where he feels loved and accepted and celebrated for his true self.  It's what everyone deserves.

That being said, my kid just won't shut up.  I mean it in the most loving way.  Really, I do.  I have been told by no less than four teachers now, by six grandparents, and by complete strangers.  He is insightful and bright and his perspective is often quite remarkable for a kid of six.  But I'm not sure his first grade teacher needs to hear it all day long as she tries to prepare his class for all the upcoming standardized tests. 

Just as in Kindergarten, he begins each day on the color Green.  As infractions occur, he can be moved down the line to Yellow, then Blue then Red (at which time a letter is sent home detailing his behavior).  All last year, and towards the beginning of this school year, he was mostly a Green kid with a few Yellows thrown in for variety.  But over the past two months, the Greens are few and far between. 

I got in touch with his teacher and we spoke at length about his overly-social behavior.  He is completely distracted by everything and everyone.  When he is one on one, she said it's like talking to a ten year old.  He's reading at an accelerated level and doing well academically, but simply cannot seem to keep his commentary to himself.  His behavior is disruptive to the other students.  And of course, the main concern is that, very soon, the school work will not be as easy as it is now for him and he will lack the essential skills of paying attention that he will need in order to learn new material. 

So, we spoke at length and now have numerous (like three a day) conversations with him about how to behave.  We have extolled the benefits of Silence.  We have bribed him for good behavior and punished him for bad behavior and none of it has made any bit of difference.  I have recently threatened the loss of Trick or Treating in an effort to make him take it seriously. 

Each day, he comes home with his school agenda and he is required to draw a circle of the color he got for the day.  If he gets anything other than Green, he makes it a sad face, sometimes with commentary like, "Sorry."  But the strangest thing happened after speaking with his teacher last week.  His agenda mysteriously disappeared.  We looked in his backpack but no agenda.  The first day, he told me he got on Yellow.  The next day, we knew he was on Red because a letter came home that we had to sign and return.

Then yesterday, he came home and announced that he got Green! Drew had the kids fed by the time I got home and when I walked in, the two kidswere sitting at the bar eating popsicles.

-Hey Mommy!  Guess why we're eating popsicles even though it isn't a dessert night.

-Hmmm...I'm not sure.  Why?

-We're celebrating because I got Green today!

-That's excellent!  I am so proud of you.  I knew you could do it.  I'll have to call your teacher and ask her how it went today!

-Oh, well. uh, let's see...(rubbing his chin) Let me think, did I get Green or did I get Yellow?  I'm trying to remember now. 

-You don't remember what you got? You seemed pretty sure that it was Green a minute ago.

-Well, I had my mind on something else.  I might have been distracted.  now that I think about it, maybe it was Yellow.

-Hmmm.  Well, here we are celebrating your Green.  You got a popsicle and Daddy and I have been praising you.  How do you think we should handle this since you didn't actually get Green (looking at his half-eaten popsicle).

-Um, well (quickly slurping it down as he's talking to me), throw away the rest of my popsicle?

-Do you think that would be fair?  Since you didn't really earn that privilege?

-Um (slurp slurp) I guess so. Only (slurp slurp bite slurp), it's almost gone and, uh, (slurp slurp) now it really is all gone so uh, all I have is the stick. 

Tiger Cubs

This afternoon, we hosted BoyChild's Cub Scout pack for a hike in our neighborhood.  In lieu of a regular pack meeting, we decided to take advantage of the green space in our 'hood.  Needless to say, my son was pleased to lead the way. 

Thanks

My favorite thing GirlChild says these days is her use of the word "Lovin'," which I sort of started using in kind of a funny way.  But, since she's four, she thinks it's really a word we use.

It goes like this-

1. I get home and she runs to me (usually in an elaborate outfit that involves her swimsuit, some tights, a head band, and some high heels) and pulls my hand to the couch telling me to sit down and hold her because she "needs some Lovin'."

2. She trips and falls in the garage getting out of the car (this was last night) and is bawling.  I pick her up and carry her inside and hold her silently until she calms down. 

-All better now?

-Yes.  Lovin' made me better.

 And she hops down off my lap.

3.  Bedtime-She has been tucked in and kissed and sang to and I am downstairs watching TV or cleaning up the kitchen and I can hear her yelling from her room, "Mommy!  I need some more Lovin'!"

4. I see her in Mommy Pretend Mode, playing with her baby dolls.

-Whatcha doing, Sweetie?

-Oh, just Lovin'. I loved Her and Her and now I'm Lovin' Her.

Strike a Pose

Break out the camera lately, and here's what we get.

See a theme here?