Children – Page 11 – My Truant Pen

Epochal Days

This weekend a big milestone occurred.

My sons live in a slightly hilly town with lots of things that are in biking distance. A 7 year old could get to school, to libraries, bookstores, soccer fields, swimming pools, ice rinks and playgrounds. A teenager could ride to the woods, to the T, to many parks, aikido dojos and other areas of as-yet-unknown great interest. Actually, a moderately ambitious bike rider could probably make it to an IMAX theater. When we go camping, most of the kids bring their bikes and spend their time until dark whizzing around the even, partially paved, quite safe roads of the campground. To sum up: my kids need to have bikes, and they need to know how to use them.

Now, I’d wanted to get Grey a bike last year, but my husband thought he was too young. But that argument timed out, so yesterday I walked with Grey down to the local bike store, where Grey chose the very first bike he was shown, it is a silver and green Schwinn.

Of course, Thane might actually spontaneously combust if his brother got cool new transportation and he was left behind, so I decided to do a two-fer and get him a trike. May I just say, for the record, that trikes have come a long way since my day?

The handle makes for easy cross-generational mobility

We went to a local parking lot and went around in satisfied circles. It was awesome, with the bright sunshine and biting winds.

I have a lot of memories of bicycles. Riding on the back of my parents’ bike. The trike I had when I was four in Merced. The beautiful wine-colored 10 speed Schwinn that brought me anywhere in all of Prosser. That was the best bike ever. I flew like a bird. I went everywhere, with complete liberty, on that bike. Ask me sometime about the time my sister and I got epically lost in the Tri-cities, in the wrong time on the wrong side of the river. Turns out you should NEVER trust my sister with directions. That’s a tip, folks.

As I watched my sons speed (see also: snails) around the parking lot I thought about when I STOPPED bicycling. For years I thought it was when we moved to Mineral. There was a) nowhere to go b) no sidewalks c) narrow winding roads with big log trucks. But I know that I did take the red Schwinn into town to Dick’s Store. When I really stopped was when my sister nearly killed herself on a bicycle. Wear your helmets, folks. If you admire my sister’s intellect, it is likely that such intellect was only preserved by a bike helmet that completely split in two after a high speed wreck that required extensive repair. And I don’t think the bike made it at all. When I think about it, I’m surprised I have the courage to start my sons on a two-wheeled path. But life is full of rewards, risks and odds.

And this is worth having.

In the last 48 hours

I’ve made five pies, hosted about 25 people for Piemas, gone on the first walk of the spring, had five people spend the night, and woke up in the morning to discover my entry area redone.

Exciting! It would be even more fun if I didn’t have a nasty cold. I just hope that I didn’t share it with anyone. I washed my hands a gazillion times and covered all my everythings, so here’s hoping!

Anyway, you don’t get a real blog post. Instead, you get a picture post. In this month’s thrilling installment we have:

– Awesome cardboards spaceships at the table
– Silly boys on laundry baskets
– Thane playing Angry Birds with grandma
– Grey hanging around with some rapscallion
– Jessica, also associated with said rapscallion, and the combinations reading books
– Piemas
– A family portrait (because the last picture of all four of us was taken last spring)
– Surprise!
– Playing with the light settings
– First playground of the spring

March2011

20/20 Vision

Before my brother went to Kindergarten, he had the standard kiddie eye test. There was no reason to be anxious about this test, since the kid could spot a McDonald’s arch from 2 miles away. We thought for a little while he might be color blind, but he eventually mastered his colors and we stopped worrying.

But that kiddie eye test revealed that my 5 year old brother was basically not seeing out of one of his eyes. He had a lazy eye – it looked as though he was focused on you, but one of his eyes was actually pointed off in left field. By five years old, his brain had learned to ignore the useless signals it was getting fed.

That kicked off a year? 18 months? Two years? Of what must have been great suffering on the part of my parents. My brother had to wear patches over his good eye for months and months — taking away a perfectly functioning organ and making him mostly blind. My mom put Garfield stickers on the adhesive patches. My brother didn’t complain. For his entire childhood, he wore glasses with varsuvial flows of dirt layered on top of them. You’ve never seen glasses as dirty as his glasses. He didn’t need glasses for his good eye — doesn’t correct his vision at all now, in fact — only for the eye that couldn’t see. And every week (or two weeks) for what seemed like forever my little baby brother had to be driven down to Yelm (a good hour plus drive) to go to vision therapy …. which in the end could not rescue much more than movement from his bad eye. I think it must have been Saturdays. My mom would take Gospel and I first to my piano lessons, where I would be awful, and then to Yelm for vision therapy that didn’t work for a tiny little kid.

Rough. Mostly on my mom.

So it’s fair to say that I’ve kept a watchful eye on my sons’ vision. Grey is the age now that Gospel was then — which is to say too late. But I’ve verified that he sees out of both eyes previously. However, given this family history I decided there was no time like the present to get his vision checked out, and after about 18 months of procrastinating I finally took him to an eye doctor. It helps that he can read and knows all his numbers and will follow instructions.

He did a fantastic job with everything but the glaucoma test (the puffs). He rattled off letters, proved he wasn’t colorblind and doesn’t seem to have an astigmatism. He didn’t bounce nearly as much as is a five year old’s right. There was a moment or two where I sat wondering what he’d look like with glasses and imagining the lifetime of future nagging that might be in front of me but… nope. Perfectly fine! Come back in another two years or so!

Phew! Now time to see if Thane’s got both eyes working!

Twenty bookes, clad in black or red

It’s been a while since I last gave you an update about what my boys were doing. Now that they’re both out of the “monthly” mode (and heck, my BLOG is practically at a monthly update level. I can’t tell you how much I miss writing more frequently!) it’s more challenging to highlight their growth.

With Grey, the big news is how big and capable he’s getting. I suppose there are a thousand steps on the road towards self-sufficiency, but each one is thrilling to a parent. For example, Grey has successfully:
– Gotten out bowls for he and his brother
– Gotten out cereal
– Poured the cereal in the bowls (without spilling)
– Gotten the milk out of the fridge
– Poured the milk on the cereal (without spilling)
– Gotten out spoons
– Brought spoons and cereal bowls over to the living room where the boys break their fast
If I could teach him to put the milk BACK, and combined with his terrifyingly acute control of the television apparatus, I might finally be able to sleep in on Saturday mornings!

The greatest new development for Grey, though, is around books. He had a great day today. He graduated levels in swimming class, ably making his way around the pool with limited bouyantical aid. He tested for his next belt in aikido, competently demonstrating Kata-tori Kokyu-nage, among other techniques. So I decided, while obtaining the requisite present for a birthday party tomorrow, I’d get him a new book. I hesitated, among the scant options in Target. The picture books all seemed a little simple. He’s been doing a great job reading lately. So instead, I picked up a simple chapter book The Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark. As we headed to the airport to drop grandma off (Bye grandma!), Grey set aside his DS in order to read.

An hour ago, sitting at my feet as I blogged, he finished the book, face flush with enjoyment and pride. He had read the last several chapters to himself, only the pace of page-turning a clue that every single word was getting its due. He really read it. Himself. It was his first full chapter book. I have a sneaking hunch that it will not be his last. (Possibly because he went to his room, pulled out about three other books, and read his favorite parts of them.)

A real reader! I have a real reader! We can read together! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!

I fondly remember when my brother (who, by the way, will be graduating from Princeton Seminary this spring. If anyone’s looking for a nice Presbyterian Minister, let me know) began to read. I remember the conversation we older ones had, jealously laying out the wonderful books he would be able to read for the first time.

Grey, reading a Scooby Doo coloring book. It’s Dr. Jekyl, by the way!

My youngest son has been no slouch in the “fun” department either. He loves books deeply. Unlike his brother, he’s willing to sometimes be in a different room than we’re in. I’ve seen him spend a good 45 minutes alone in his room, going through all his books. (Which usually leads to a several inch deep carpet of books in his room… the prices you pay!) Thane’s absolute favorite books in the entire world are the “How Do Dinosaurs…” series. This particularly excellent set of books doesn’t have generic, badly researched dinosaurs like so many of kiddo dino books do. Nor does it happily stop with the oligarchy of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus like the rest of them do. No, there’s some new ones in these books…. Comsognathus, Pachycephalusaurus, Tapejara. And Thane, although not yet potty trained, has complete mastery over this entire pantheon.

I think he likes to categorize things — to know the names and be able to identify things. Or maybe he just likes dinosaurs. He has finally mastered his letters and numbers. But I’ll be honest: I think he got the dinosaurs first.

As he plops his bottom down onto my lap, beloved “How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You” in hand for the 9,234th time (demanding I identify each and every dinosaur on each and every page before reading the text – as if he doesn’t know), I admit that I’m caught between the desire for him to be an early reader too… and the desire to have many long year before me of “Mom, can you read this?”

Thane, reviewing his dinosaurs. Dilphosaurus, Protoceratops, Carnosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus….

A full set of pictures

Return on (toy) Investment

If I had to summarize my #1 function at work in my new role, it’s asking people whether the project they’re trying to do is really worth it. (Often in many different ways, and usually involving Powerpoint.) Although this can make me rather obnoxious to my colleagues (I’m sure), it’s starting to have an impact on the rest of my life. I mean, if you keep focusing on ROI day after day, you start thinking about it even after you come home.

So I’d like to talk about toy “Return on Investment”.

For my fellow parents, raise your hand if you’ve ever bought an expensive toy, absolutely convinced that it would be your child’s favorite toy EVER in the history of the universe. For example, last Christmas I bought Grey a space-explorer set that included two space monkeys. Rockets ships. SPACE MONKEYS. Obviously this would be his favorite toy ever. Heck, it’s practically MY favorite toy ever.

The one time I’ve witnessed the child playing with this toy was when I was idly setting it up and making rocket-ship/monkey sounds while I was, uh, cleaning his room. Right. That’s totally what I was doing.

If I was to create a powerpoint slide for the “Space Monkey” investment, it would look like this:

Returns
Initial opening excitement: 3 (on a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 highest)
Hours of subsequent play: .5 (not including mommy’s)

Costs
$40
1 of Christmas presents (opportunity cost)
Storage space – 1 Ikea drawer

Intangibles
But, but, but SPACE MONKEYS!!!!

Result
Not a good investment.

The problem though (actually, much like work) is that it’s hard to predict the qualifications of a good toy investment. The best toy investments will:

1) Distract them while I’m making dinner
2) Not make a mess
3) Not cause them to fight with each other
4) Be played with multiple times
5) Not take up much room
6) Not be a “screen”

I’m usually willing to compromise on at least two of those when buying toys.

But recently, I’ve hit the motherload of toy-investment-opportunities for Thane. I’ve discovered a toy that:

1) He plays with at the table
2) Isn’t messy when used properly
3) Grey isn’t interested in
4) He loves all the time
5) Is tiny
6) Is not digital

Stickers. Thane loooooooves stickers. He will spend 30 minutes moving tiny little stickers from one piece of paper to another. Stickers. Dinosaur stickers. Mickey stickers. Smiley stickers. He doesn’t care, he just wants stickers stickers stickers stickers stickers.

He stacks the stickers high on one small area of paper

Let’s look at that ROI calculation again:

Returns
Initial opening excitement: 4
Hours of subsequent play: 10 (to date)

Costs
$5 for 400
No opportunity cost
Minimal storage cost

Intangibles
Played with at worst time of day
Keeps him quiet
Does not make noise

Result
Superb. Invest all available capital.

So I totally did. By today, he’d made it through most of the backlog of stickers I had lying around in my role as R&D mommy purchaser. I bought another 50 or so (for $.99), but they only lasted through nap time. So I made a whole separate stop solely in order to lay in a huge supply of stickers. It’s totally worth it, even if the this is just a consumer fad. Stickers would be a great deal at twice the cost and half the utility.

What about your kids? Which toys generate the biggest play-dividend? Which ones were bad investments? How do you decide which toys to buy and keep?

Milestones

There are moments when, all of a sudden, your place in life lurches forward.

Tonight, for the first time, Thane used the toilet for the purpose it was intended. Twice. Let the record show that he is 2 1/4, and bribed with lollipops. (Actually, I made it a joint endeavor and bribed both him AND Grey so that I wouldn’t deal with melty Grey when Thane got a treat and he didn’t, and so that Grey would have a motivation to help potty train his brother.)

My sweet Thane boy seems so far from a baby, sometimes.

And then, tomorrow morning? I’m going to go to South School and sign my eldest up for Kindergarten in the fall. Which, I must admit. It seems well PAST time for him to be in Kindergarten. But still! School!

Lucky Charms, mmmm yummy!

So here I was saying that I had written through my blog backup. How wrong can one girl get? I’d totally forgotten a critically important piece of content I was going to share? How could I?

One of the very best parts of this Christmas Past was the Camp Gramp theme song. This story starts back in June, when my church held a fund-raising auction. I scored some excellent packages — baskets, goodies, a photography session and… a custom song written by our pastor. After mulling for a month or two, I asked him to put together a Camp Gramp Theme song. For several weeks I sent him information on Camp Gramp, with periodic inquiries returned.

Camp Gramp, for the uninitiated, is an annual adventure. Since Grey was about 2, Camp Gramp has been a time when my parents take all of their grandchildren for a week of revelry, junk food, adventures and fun — while the parents of said grandchildren abscond to go do fun grownup things that are not kid-friendly. My parents do not plan on doing ANYTHING during that week but pay attention to their grandkids. We middle generation abscond. (Last year we went to Istanbul! The year before it was backpacking.) And the kids get each other’s company and have a ball. It’s an excellent establishment – long may it continue!

Then, a few weeks before Christmas, he said he was ready. After church, we all snuck away from coffee hour and he played it for us. It was AWESOME!!!!! It captured the spirit and flavor of Camp Gramp.

I can just imagine me, being somewhere totally different! And the kids, bleary-eyed and not my responsibility, being woken up by these dulcet strains for another day of fun and happiness together. I imagine them reminiscing about how awesome that was years from now, when they’re ancient and my age.

I’m not going to type out the words to the song here (some things you don’t want to have SEO’d) but for all you big Camp Gramp fans out there, here is the Official Camp Gramp Theme song!

Camp Gramp Theme Song

Kindergarten Registration

Today I am filling out forms for Grey’s Kindergarten registration in the fall. I’m pretty sure what I’m supposed to be feeling is How fast the time flies! It seems like he was a baby just yesterday! It can’t possibly already be time for my preshus snowflake to go to school, can it? What I really feel like is You have got to be kidding me. Kid was more than ready THIS fall. It seems like he’s been a big, grownup-person forever… you sure he was actually a baby? Really? Huh, go figure. In point of fact, Grey is five and has been for several months now. He missed the cutoff by four weeks this year.

To say it succinctly: I’m ready. He’s ready. Let’s do this Kindergarten thing.

Since Grey will be attending public schools, I figured that Kindergarten would be my payola — the moment where huge chunks of change returned to my budget. Currently, child care is a bigger cost for us than our mortgage. And we live within 10 miles of Boston in a 4 bedroom house. This is to say… it is a not inconsiderable expense. So Kindergarten will be huge savings, right? Right?

It turns out that while there is free part day Kindergarten, ALL DAY Kindergarten costs money. $3500 to be exact. Ok, so that’s really not bad. It’s like 3 months of preschool. BUT, we’ll have to have after-school care. That (including transportation) is $500 a month. Oh, and remember school vacations? Those end up costing $56/day. So do snow days. So…. yeah. Not really saving anything there. First grade. First grade will be the payola…

Returning to the pastel nostalgia of Kindergarten! School! My child’s entree into education! I’m pretty excited. I think Grey is superbly prepared for it. The sitting still problem will be his biggest challenge of Kindergarten, as it is for so many energetic young children. I’m slightly concerned that his reading ability will pose some challenges for his classroom, but I figure we all have to worry about something, and that’s a good something. I will NOT accept from him complaints about being bored. In that case, the thing he’ll need to learn from his classroom is how to deal with boredom in a productive way. That’s a super-useful life skill that will come in handy in adulthood.

I had meant this to be a chance to talk about Grey, and how much fun he is. Because he’s super duper awesome. It was really fantastic to get to spend lots of time with him at Christmas. He’s got an active imagination and a wide repertoire of blowing-up noises. He can be tenderly solicitous (he likes to make little Lego “babies” which he says are “so cute!”). He can also be very rough and tumble. Over Christmas, he spent considerable time with his 8 year old cousin, and barring a few hungry/tired related meltdowns, he did an excellent job of keeping up with his cousin.

If you ask Grey what his favorite things are, he will tell you “Screens”. And he’s probably right. Although we attempt to limit screen time, Grey loves cartoons and tv, his DS (he only gets to play in the car/on airplanes/when we really need him to), Wii, the iPad, the computer and all manner of screens. At Christmas, I confess, there was significant brain-rottage.

It’s hard to capture the unfolding complexity of your child. He is striving desperately to tell funny jokes, poring over joke-books to try to figure it out. He is surprisingly patient and sweet to his younger brother… most of the time. They created this new game he calls “Ready Freddy” which involves hiding, having your brother find you, then screaming and running away to do it again. He likes to read, but usually only when there’s no more alluring option. He loves Legos and Bakugan and Pokemon cards. He could care less about cars and isn’t wildly interested in art or drawing, although he really likes mazes. He insists on having music playing at night while he goes to sleep. He sleeps with all his stuffed animals piled on his bed and makes special accommodations for Tigry and Puppy. He can play Blokus with actual strategy.

I find myself having more and more things I WANT to do with Grey. I want to play games with him. I want to take him to see the movies. I want to take him shopping with me. (He begged to go grocery shopping with me this last week and did a phenomenal job!) I want to read him books. I want to teach him how to ride a bike.

It’s much harder with younger children. I sometimes look at Mr. Two Year Old and think… “What do I DO with you?” But I can play with Grey in a way that’s fun for me, too.

He’s a fun kid. I’m glad he’s mine.

Also, I want Santa-riding-rocketship pajamas!

OK, I should probably disclaim that I have bronchitis and am hopped up on 300% more drugs than usual… usually I just abuse caffeine. So in case this doesn’t actually have any narrative structure (I, um, have my doubts) here are some bonus pictures to make you forget!

Beautiful blue eyes. He's probably asking if he can have more candy/screens/presents.

I took a gazillion shots of this scene and they were all lousy.

He rearranged the icons on Grandma's iTouch and she almost didn't forgive him!

Christmas Music

For almost all my life, I’ve been the person who turned the music on. As a girl, growing up, music was played much more often once I figured out how to make it go. I still remember fondly all 6 of the CDs we owned, seared into my hind-mind as they are. When I graduated, I secretly absconded with all my favorite CDs. (Note to parents everywhere: check what your kid packs to college, especially when they’re going 3000 miles away and will never ever actually return with their possessions.) The music and NPR always played in my dorm room, eventually joined by baseball broadcasts. In my own home, I have complete ownership over the sound system. If it’s on, chances are over 90% it’s because I turned them on.

So it’s interesting to notice my sons gradually taking control over their own soundscape. Each has a CD player in their room. Grey is vert interested in what it plays, and will make careful choices among his handful of CDs. He loves Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence, but thinks Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is too scary. And he’s started to form his own opinions about what he likes, what he wants to listen to. I’m sure there will be a moment in the future when I have to compromise the music played in our public space. I’m hoping to avoid sharing as long as possible, however, because my music is better. Ahem.

Anyway, this year for the first time, Grey has a favorite Christmas carol. What do you think it is? Maybe Rudolf? Grey went Christmas carolling with the church group this year (as our official bell-ringer – he refused to sing) and Rudolf was his request, but no. It’s not a kid’s song. Perhaps the Carol of the Bells on the traditional side? Or Joy To the World? Or “Darcy the Dragon” which is MY favorite Christmas song? (Kind of.)

Nope. Grey’s favorite Christmas song is The Kingston Trio’s Mary Mild, from the Last Month of the Year. It is such a joy to see him decide this on his own. While that song is certainly in heavy circulation (“The Last Month of the Year” is my husband’s favorite Christmas album), that song isn’t in my top 50 list. I’d hardly paid much attention to it, other than pondering its apocryphal origins. But he loves it. He sings it. He requests it at night time.

I know that my choices create the soundscape in which my sons grow up. They seem so young, so clearly under my purview. But already, they love things that I like. They notice things that escaped my notice. They hear things with fresh ears and reach different conclusions. I have set the foundations, but the house they build upon it will be all theirs.

“Go up the hill,” His mother said, “and there you will find three jolly children.
But let me hear no complaint of You when You come home again.”

Not scare-mongering

My sons’ daycare hosted an event to train parent’s in the new safety curriculum. Hint to everyone: here’s how to get young parents to come to your event. Offer babysitting AND dinner. I probably wouldn’t have gone, otherwise, but that critical combination told me that they were serious. They really wanted me there. I heaved a sigh, and we went.

I consider my own parents some of the finest examples of the parenting genre. I wish I could bottle their parenting and uncork it onto my own kids. (Camp Gramp will have to do.) And my folks’ philosophy is usually described by my mom as “benign neglect”. Perhaps uncoincidentally, my childhood memories mostly include leisure, fun, exploration, etc. If my children had my childhood, I’d be delighted. My aspirational parenting philosophy would be to raise Free Range Kids, confident and capable to deal with what our safe, careful, child-friendly area has to offer in the way of real life. So I went to this training ready to do some serious eye-rolling to what I figured would be an inevitable histrionic over-reacting.

Well, color me impressed. The curriculum and training were done by the Committee for Children, with funding offered by a local business. (Wish I could remember who — they deserve credit!) They got off on exactly the right foot with me. Here’s how the introduction to a book to share with our kids put it, “This book will not frighten your child. It will give your child skills that will help make him or her strong. A strong, informed child is a safer child.”

Awesome. Fantastic. Let’s not wrap them in bubblewrap. Let’s not keep them inside forever. Let’s not hover. Let’s give them skills to make them safer! Sign me up.

And it just got better. The “touching saftey” chapter is one of about 17, with others being firearm safety, fire safety, kitchen safety, water safety… good stuff! And all very reasonable, centered and operating on the assumption that our kids could apply simple sense to stay safe. Plus, it gave we parents excellent language to use to talk about tough stuff, and they even showed us videos of parents superbly handling some of the hardest discussions a parent might have with their kids. It was extremely valuable training for us, and an excellent curriculum for them.

There is so much in the world that seems hysterical or divorced from reality – especially when it comes to kid’s safety. I thought I’d just take a moment to let you know: a private company is helping fund an excellent, sensible curriculum to teach our children how to navigate through the world instead of hiding them from it. Fantastic.