eff you!

So, I told Gideon that if he's angry, he can "write it out" instead of being mean, like to settle himself down. So, he had to saty in from recess and he was writing. The teacher asked to see what he wrote. Gideon told him that he didn't want him to read it. He picked it up and looked at it. In very neat handwriting, with good spelling and punctuation, my first grader wrote "fuck you Mr Kelly. Your crap is stupid." Ugh! Really? 

So now, Gogo is writing a letter of apology after a talk about "grown up words." My idea, not the teacher's. However, for the record, Gogo asked him not to read it. Sigh. I told him it's best to write out his anger at home. Sigh again. 

He did use the right "your."

127

Me: so what kind of a day did you have at school today?

Gideon: um. One hundred twenty seven.

Mess

My floor is cluttered again -- with markers and scissors and tape and colored.paper and pencils ... The kids think they can just come in here every morning and pull out all this craft stuff and make a mess all over my floor and tape their little creations all over my walls! They are absolutely right. :-)

Tic Tac Toe

Me: Adrian, are thos tic tac toe games on the tops of your feet? 

A: yup! Gideon has them on his feet too.

Me: ok, just checkin.

Telephone game

My 7 year old little yogi, Gogo, just put his foot the side of my face, his toe by my ear and heel under my cheeckbone and said, "here, this is your phone," and put his other foot on his own face, "and this is my phone." And then we had a very short conversation about Patrick Edward from the book monster mama. Cool kid.

Little moment with Gogo

Gideon is informing me that his favorite foods are tomatoes, spinach, apples, and oranges. And honey from the bee hive (honeycomb) is good, but he only likes a little because It's supersweet. He is a tired babbling boy. Now on a huge tangent about being stung bby a bee at recess. On and on and on ramblingsleepytalk.

Oh my Jesus, he's killing me with how cute he is! I just said, "when you're big, like bigger than Ella, and you move away..."

And he interrupted and said, " but guess what? I'm going to stay because when I grow up, you're going to be an old woman. And when you're old, you're so helpless. And like your back hurts and your hip amd your other hip. And if your hips hurt, I'll massage them and bring you food because when you're old, you'll be helpless and you'll need me to take care of you because i like being nice. Mama, you're so tiny. When I'm grown up, I'll be bigger than you ..." Ramblerambleramble. I'm in mama heaven, here in my bed cuz Gogo "can't sleep."

 "You're so tiny. You're like a molecule"

"Can we write a finger puppet show? Can we make a puppet theatre? We have boxes..."

Now A has entered the scene and is lying on my back and Gogo is reading to us. I'ma take over. Gotta get these monkeys to bed. It's hard to be strict about bedtime when they are so flippin sweet!

The occasional screaams from teenagers in the basement watching a horror movie (yes, screams, a chorus of them) reminds me how short and precious this time is. I make no apologies for spoiling them and letting themselves talk themselves into tired stupors for an hour past bedtime. I wish we had "spoiled" the big girls more in this manner. My gosh, Ella will be a junior next year, lulu a sophomore, Simon in middle school. This happens so fast!

Still Pluggin Away

Things I've learned lately:

Time moves too quickly. I need to spend more time indulging the kids' sense of wonder and play. There are many ways to do this. They know them. I don't have to come up with all sorts of things. I just need to follow their lead.

Time moves too quickly. I can't procrastinate. There's a balance I need to find. If I spend all of my time indulging my kids' and my own sense of wonder and play, I won't get anything else done. I need to do things like laundry and my job. I need to resist their pleas to be entertained and stuff. Sometimes loving them means making them find their own fun, telling them if they are bored, I'll find something for them to do -- starting with cleaning their rooms, haha. Also, loving them means giving them a model of someone who gets things done. Sigh. That's the hard part.

Teachers are just people. So are principals and guidance counselors. They are neither my enemies nor my best friends. They are just people. I need to cut them some slack.

None of us is perfect, and that's just fine.

Well, it's not superimpressive or deep, but that's what I have.

Lydia: I love getting dirty. Getting dirty is my thing. :-)

When it snows, I can't keep Adrian inside. Each time he comes in, I have to remind him not to tra k snow through the house. Just now, I showed him a big chunk of snow that fell off his shoe and told him to take care of it. He bent down, picked it up, and smooshed it back on to his shoe. Then he retraced his steps, picking up all the little bits of snow on the floor AMD packing them onto the tops of his boots. "There!" He said with a proud big boy smile, hands on his hips like superman, and he went back outside.

Me: you know it's ok to let people take care of you sometimes.

Ella: I don't neeeeed anyone to take care of me.

Me: but it's nice sometimes to let someone take care of you.

Simon: you do need someone to tale care of you. You're a girl.

Ella: I WILL break your arm, and mama will let me.

Me: Ella, I actually won't let you break Simon's arm.

Don't be Rude!

Any adult who is offended that a child doesn't want to speak to him or her is the one with the problem, NOT the child. When I say hello to kids in public, most just say hi back, but some don't. If I had a quarter for every child who hid his or her face when I said hello in the shopping line, I could buy Ella a very nice car for graduation. I have never been offended. 

Throughout my life, I have had children say things about my clothes, my hair, my cane (when I broke my foot), my father's wheelchair, hair on my legs or underarms in the odd season I decide not to shave for a spell... I have been called old, loud, weird, fat, ... I've had my gender questioned (are you a boy or a girl?), I've had my race questioned. I've been asked if I'm a witch. I've had my hygiene questioned. I've been told I need a shower on multiple occasions (after painting or art or playing at the park or dying hair or something -- why are you so dirty? why are you fingernails black?) Parents have been very embarrassed, I have never been offended.

Kids are trying to make sense of the world, trying to determine where "others" fit into their schemas. Part of our jobs as parents is to guide them through those moments. The best way to do it is to honor their instincts, engage their intellect, and feed their curiosity, to talk to them about that "weird lady" on the way home, ask why they say what they say, tell them "yeah, I can see why you think that." then engage them in conversations about differences and what we can learn from them.

Kids are so very curious. We need feed that curiosity and broaden their scope -- not say "Oh my GOD! I'm so sorry!" then turn to the kids and say "DON'T say that! EVER!" with no explanation beyond telling them it's rude. All of their stumbles are opportunities for us to help them understand their world. And believe it or not, even when we shut them down, we are helping them understand their world, and the world we are creating for them when we shut them down says their thoughts and opinions, their feelings and judgements are problematic at best and completely insignificant and insubstantial at worst.