Month: October 2016

For the majority of the time, Katie is a happy bouncing five year old with a voice that’s jump-rope bright. But  lately she’s developed a habit of getting upset over random things that I can neither fathom or predict.

The other evening, we had this conversation at bedtime:

She asked, “How long does hair grow? Could it grow down to my feet?”

“Yes,” I replied, “although it would be difficult to take care of hair that long.”

“So hair never stops growing?”

“That’s right,” I answered, “it grows very slowly, but it doesn’t ever stop.”

With that answer, Katie burst into tears.

“IT NEVER STOPS?? WHY DID GOD MAKE US THIS WAY?” She wailed, “I don’t WANT hair growing down to my feet! Noooooo!“

She then curled into a sobbing ball in my lap and wouldn’t be consoled, even when we explained the concept of haircuts. I suppose the idea of something on her body growing without her permission was a little too much for her five-year-old brain to handle.

Lest you think this is strictly a bedtime phenomenon, Katie was also incredibly upset one morning at breakfast when she heard that we would be getting a new range for our kitchen. (Our current range has been in slow decline, first ruining a bunch of baked goods with a faulty igniter, which we replaced, but now fails to ignite at all, blowing gas all over our kitchen. (Yeah, it was a little scary.)

“What will they do with the old oven? Give it to another family?”

“Um, no, Katie. This one might start a fire, which is why we can’t keep it.”

“SO IT WILL GO TO THE JUNKYARD? NOOOOOOO!”

Ah, poor girl.

Eleanor, on the other hand, has had a great week. Since she decided to stop drawing during math class, and she got a perfect score on her most recent test.

She also wrote a short story for English that was so well done that her teacher has decided to put her in a special group for advanced writers (there are only two other kids in the class who will be part of it) and they will work on entries for writing contests together.

Eleanor has always believed that she has no aptitude for writing (despite my insistence that the opposite is true). It’s wonderful for her to get proof of her ability from another source besides me.

William is continuing to embark on “PokeWalks” with Brian as their main bonding activity — that is, they walk around the neighborhood and play PokemonGo together. For the Halloween season, the game has started spawning a lot of ghost-type Pokemon for players to catch, which is really fun.

Both Will & Elle passed off their Basic 4 skating class this week, hooray! We’ll be taking a break from skating for the next session because they have decided to be in the school musical. Whew, so many things to do!

I’ve made it a goal lately to try to take our kids to more arts performances, so this week Brian and I took Jeff to a production of Iphegenia and Other Daughters, performed by UW graduate students.

This play is a mash-up of three classical Greek plays: Iphegenia at Tauris, Electra, and Iphegenia at Aulis. I love seeing Greek theatre, and it’s rarely performed, so I jumped on the opportunity to see this. It wasn’t until I was in the car and reading a full review of the play that I realized that it was very much a modern feminist reinterpretation of the stories, and would require a lot of familiarity with the original Greek stories to understand what was going on.

I’m lucky that Jeff is already familiar with the Iliad so that I could explain the finer points of the Agamemnon/Fall of the House of Atreus story. (So much revenge!!!) Also, I found it challenging to explain the concept of the Chorus.

Also, Brian and I kept singing Iphegenia in Brooklyn by P.D.Q. Bach. Which didn’t help matters, but gosh darn it I LOVE Iphegenia in Brooklyn.

Okay, so the production itself . . . was fine, in my opinion. The adaptation of the three plays is hauntingly beautiful, I loved the language and emotion, the basic human questions about loyalty, family, justice, fate, etc. that are always a big part of Greek tragedy. And the costumes were pretty!

But the production itself was kind of slow. The performances weren’t that strong (and this is a production that requires very strong performances to be effective). I looked at my watch twice. At one point I glanced at Brian, and saw that he was nodding off. Not wanting to “catch” the sleepies, I glanced the other direction, only to find that the gentleman seated there was also nodding off. I was concerned that Jeff might be bored out of his mind.

But, in fact, Jeff was enthralled. “This was the best show ever,” he said quietly when the house lights came up. “There was so much meaning, and it was such a complicated story.” For Jeff, this was very much his first foray into theatre that didn’t involve Shakespeare or musical numbers — it was Mature Grown Up Thee-a-tah. It brought back a lot of memories of my own first experiences with art didn’t have that sanitized, family-friendly coating, and how special and smart it made me feel.

I look forward to taking him on more art adventures!

Autumn in your family might conjure up such seasonal touchstones as sweaters, crunchy leaves, pumpkins and the many pumpkin-flavored junk foods that are crammed into every vacant space in America.

But in an academic family, autumn also means Conference Season. This is when Brian is gone for many days at a time, traveling hither and thither to professional conferences. Most of them are in October and November, although some of them are in the spring (I sometimes call spring “mini conference season”).

This year isn’t so bad; Brian only has three conferences to attend and two of them are already over, including the biggie: the week-long American Society of Human Genetics mega-con (which is held every odd year in Canada, so it was in Vancouver this year).

This year marks the first time that, since all my kids are now in school full time, I could attend a professional conference as well!

I was invited by my fellow members of the Puget Sound Council for the Review of Children’s Media (or PSC for short) to go to HackWLMA, the con for the Washington Media Library Association, aka school librarians (or, as they prefer, “teacher librarians”). (I wasn’t singled out; everyone in PSC is encouraged to go.)

And the conference is called “HackWLMA” because there is a focus on hands-on participation instead of passive listening to presentations

AND 

Next year it won’t be called anything at all since WLMA is being incorporated into the larger Washington Library Association meeting.

Whew!

Even though I’m not currently employed, it was great to be with “my people” and have lively discussions about G Suite for Education and school funding woes and the best books of the current publishing year and everybody was spouting clever ideas to get more books into the hands of kids and helping teachers incorporate more literature in their curricula.

The keynote speaker was John Schumacher, aka “Mr. Schu,” who is currently Scholastic’s School Librarian Ambassador and teaches at Rutger’s. He has a gift for booktalks and enthralled a whole lecture hall with enthusiastic glee over his favorite titles for kids from 2016. I got go onstage and helped him read the newest “Ballet Cat” book to the audience, which was very fun.

My favorite workshop was one about creating “makerspaces” in school libraries. The presenter was a teacher librarian from Spokane who has come up with ingenious ways to make STEM kits and maker kits available to kids in her school, both for in-house use by teachers and via kits kids can check out and take home.

There were scores of tables loaded with techie toys and I got to play with them all. My favorite was experimenting with the Little Bits kits (which are very pricey, so I’ve never been able to tinker with them before). Another conference attendee and I tested out the wireless transmission Bits and made a buzzer sound on opposite sides of the room. I’m sure everyone loved us.

Once again, I am tempted to go back to school to get a teaching endorsement so I can be a school librarian. But I know that right now is not a good time. My kids aren’t self-sufficient enough to get themselves to school without my supervision, and ditto with after school homework and activities. Employment as a school librarian would require me to be gone during those times, and Jeff is barely getting out of the woods, academically. But it’s fun to imagine doing that.

Speaking of Jeff — Katie and I got to see his final cross country meet this week!

His school was competing against the other middle school in our district. The kids, parents and teachers create a really supportive environment for XC that I really like — everyone was cheering for everyone. One kid had to stop mid-course because he couldn’t breathe, but then picked himself up and completed the course afterwards, minutes after everyone else had finished, which is admirable.

Jeff was 78th or something. We don’t really care, it’s more about getting fit and becoming a better athlete. This course was at Hamlin Park, which I am familiar with because it’s where Katie used to attend Froggy Holler Outdoor Preschool. It’s a tough course, those woods are full of very steep hills!

I want to encourage Jeff to stay on and participate in track in the spring, although right now he’s balking at the idea. But I think he’ll warm up to the idea in a few months.

Katie Update

• When I was ten years old, my parents bought a Siberian Husky dog. We weren’t the best dog owners. Huskies are bred to run 20 miles a day, and are very intelligent and require intellectual stimulation as well as vigorous exercise. Without both, the dogs tend to go a little crazy and get into mischief. Which is what happened to our dog. Which is also a good description of Katie before she went to kindergarten.
• Katie LOVES kindergarten. She has Ms. Smullin, who also taught William for kindergarten. However, Katie likes talking about her school day more than my other children. She frequently sings the songs she learns, “reads” me the little stapled-together books she brings home, and demonstrated every movement in the “Zoophonics” program (there’s an animal for every letter sound in the alphabet)
• The age gap between Kate and her siblings seems unsurmountable at times; she can’t read, ride a bike, or play the same games. But she wants to do the same things they do, and sometimes gets desperate for their attention and drives them crazy (see husky dog story, above). Pushing, hitting, and tears often ensue. Too often in these conflicts, I am accused of taking her side, but if I don’t stick up for her, who will?
• She is a bigger fan of doll play than any of my other children. Her teddy bear has been rechristened “Katie Jr.” and I am its grandmother. Katie Jr. shares Katie’s bed every night, along with a gang of a dozen-odd other stuffies. She insists on carefully placing them in a row-just-so before consenting to climb under the covers herself. There is often hardly any room for her on the pillow.
• She is the tallest girl in her class, but not whip-thin like my other kids. However she isn’t overweight for her size. She has the heartiest appetite of my children and is always asking for snacks — which is probably caused by her rapid growth. I am always fearful of giving her more food, and I know this is centered around my own body-image insecurities. Sometimes she points out the differences between her physical build and Eleanor’s by using the terms “skinny” and “fat” and it makes me want to scream. Hence, I tend to overreact and get a tad hysterical when she asks me for more food, or when I catch her raiding the box of Honey-Nut Cheerios. This isn’t good.
• I think I’m letting her watch too much television. She has started to refer to individual books in a series as “seasons.” As in, “I’m reading Season 2 of ‘Princess in Black!'”
• Katie took a pre-ballet class over the summer but didn’t take to it. “I’m taking a break from ballet” she cheerfully chirped, and was pleased when I signed her up for karate at the rec center. I found a ghi at D.I for $2, and it is the cutest thing ever.
• I’ve also started a Daisy Girl Scout troop for Katie with other girls from her preschool days. This pleases me immensely.

William Update

• William’s 4th grade teacher described his behavior in class as “it’s like he’s a quiet genius or something,” which is funny because “the quiet, brilliant one” is how Brian and I have often described him to ourselves.
• He’s at the age where it’s difficult to get him to open up and talk about his internal self; so it’s difficult to say what kind of a person he is right now. Conversations about Pokemon Go and Star Wars or any kind of project he’s working on is easy, but conversations about his fears or hopes or dislikes causes him to curl in a ball, grin and say “stuff.” As in, he literally says the word “stuff” in response to those questions.
• In terms of mood, he is still my summer boy: 90% sunshine, 10% thunderstorm. When he gets angry, he tends to pout, ducking his head down and refusing to say anything except a terse “No!” It’s really difficult not to burst out laughing when this happens.
• He’s the snuggliest of my kids right now. Unlike Katie, he is very small and slight for his size and is easy to pick up and curl into a ball on my lap. It’s like having an elf crossed with a kitten for a son.
• He spent the spring and summer reading a string of Roald Dahl books, and has now moved onto The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but is taking forever to read it. He has an unfortunate habit of getting halfway through a book and then misplacing it.
• William is the most list and calendar-oriented child I’ve ever seen. He loves routines and checklists, and follows through on completing a list of tasks without getting distracted. Therefore he is making faster progress on piano than Eleanor did at his age. Eventually, he may surpass her.
• “Snuggy pants” are still his preferred pants to wear (that is, sweatpants), but it’s difficult to find ones in his size that don’t fall right off his hips. The only time he deigns to wear jeans is on Cub Scout nights, when he prefers jeans because the belt loops allow him to wear his Cub Scout belt. (He is particular about his uniform, and likes it as complete as possible, down to the neckerchief and hat.)

Eleanor Update

• Eleanor is the most day-dream prone of my children; she likes to spend time moving slowly through her day, taking time to think. But unfortunately this has morphed into a procrastination habit that I find very frustrating. Her piano skills have suffered over the years; she’s talented but has no desire to work hard and I can’t think of a way to motivate her. Most recently she was busted by her 6th grade teacher for drawing in her notebook during math lessons. Fortunately, Eleanor responds well to other adults better than me, and she’s working to change her math-class behavior.
• To tell the truth, the reason she wanted to draw in the first place is that she’s done it for several years without being caught. I unknowingly recycled her 5th grade math notebook, and she was devastated to lose all of her drawings! I’ve since given her a dedicated notebook just for art (she prefers the lined paper to plain) and is trying hard to resist doodling during math.
• I’m thankful that I have so many good adults in Eleanor’s life. Her Primary teachers adore her; Eleanor really enjoys Primary and I know she will be sad to leave in six months.
• That said, she always wants me to have a “chat” at bedtime. I admit that I am often exhausted at that point but I try to rally. Too often I lapse into a lecture. I need to work harder at speaking with her like a friend.
• Her new dance studio has yet to open (it’s still under construction) but it excited to start the modern dance classes on Wednesday afternoons. Ballet was okay, but not her favorite. She and William are taking skating lessons together as well, which is adorable.
• She has a group of female friends that she enjoys hanging out with, but most of them are in middle school this year, and deeply enmeshed in the world of phones and social media. I invited them over last Friday evening for waffles and a movie, and they spent a long time taking selfies and waffle pics for Instagram, then singing a pop song together. Our family policy is no cell phones until 10th grade, and Elle couldn’t care less about pop songs. I know that she feels a bit left out, though. She’s becoming a bit of a loner at school, although she enjoys participating in different clubs.
• Such as student council! She went for it and won the class election. Her teacher is now holding it over her head to stop procrastinating in class, for which I am grateful.
• Eleanor is a Cadette Girl Scout this year, and has designated herself the official mentor for Katie’s Daisy troop. This is one of the best things ever — she’s the perfect age to enjoy being a leader for younger girls, and I love it.

Jeffrey Update

• Jeff is in 8th grade this year, and all of a sudden I am surrounded by adults who are complimenting me on his behavior. His English teacher and case worker, Mr. Maschman, is especially happy that Jeff has joined the cross country team this year. I admit that I miss having Jeff home early in the afternoons (we always got some one-on-one time before the other kids arrived home) but it’s been good for Jeff to be on the team. The photo above was taken by another parent at the most recent meet. Whew — I need to sneak more protein powder in his food.
• He’s starting to detach himself from the usual child behavior in our family. During the last visit from Uncle Sven & Aunt Kristen, the other kids jumped up and down and begged for piggyback rides, but Jeff stood back and observed instead. He sometimes prefers to sit and read in another room when we’re watching movies, and has chosen not to trick-or-treat this year. (It was a bit of a stretch last year, to tell the truth. But now that his voice has lowered it’s a done deal.)

• Brian and I work hard to give him social opportunities. This summer his best friend, Solomon, moved away, and he’s distanced himself from most of his elementary school buddies (although he still sits with them at lunch). He won’t say why he’s edged away from his school friends, but I imagine that the LDS/non-LDS behavior standards might have something to do with it.
• So, this summer Brian took care to schedule Edge of the Empire game nights every few weeks. It was effective — the group of boys from church are much more comfortable around each other and with Jeff. His birthday party this year wasn’t nearly the awkward affair it was last year.
• He still has a lot of his Asperger quirks; he spends a lot of time talking to himself and nibbling on plastic tidbits. Every time I think he’s maturing, I see him with his peers and realize how untypical he is. I love him for who he is, but I worry that nobody else will ever see him that way.
• The latest good news is that his English teacher says that he is ready to transfer into a mainstream English class! This same teacher took time to compliment me on all the hard work I’ve done, tutoring Jeff on his handwriting at home. I accepted the compliment, but felt a little sheepish, considering that we haven’t done much writing lately.
• He was ordained as a Teacher today. I took time to snap a photo afterwards. What a cutie.

My boy is 14!

I love this kid. Lately I’ve noticed that all the other adults who teach or work with Jeff are coming up to me and telling me how much they love him.

• Our stake president stopped me after church to say what a great job Jeff did with helping clean our ward building.
• One of the other parents from the Boy Scout troop told me how fun it was to hike with Jeff on the most recent backpacking trip
• I e-mailed his social-studies teacher with a question, and her answer was prefaced with a paragraph about how kind and eager to learn Jeff is, and what a good example to the other kids
• At Open House night at the middle school, Jeff’s cross country coach took me aside to say that he is so happy that Jeff has joined the XC team
• I went visiting teaching and both my companion and teach-ee spent time telling me how sweet and kind Jeff is, how positive and optimistic

This is a 180-degree switch from what I used to endure as Jeff’s mom during his early childhood years. It’s almost as if the fading away of his hyperactivity has revealed to everyone else what I’ve always known: Jeff is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. Yes, he still has a long way to go with growing up, but I’m so glad to know that he is surrounded with a community of adults who care for him.

There was no school on Jeff’s birthday this year, so we had a Day of Fun just for him. In the morning, the kids and I went to Denny’s for breakfast, and in the afternoon (once chores and homework were completed) we went to the gaming pub for root beer and ice cream.

That same evening, Brian and I took Jeff out to the restaurant of his choice (Sushi! We spent time challenging Jeff to get ready to attend the next stake youth dance, when not being distracted by the weird Japanese game show being broadcast on a television in the restaurant) but still had an informal party the following Friday.

For his party, Jeff requested that everyone make sushi together (the boys really enjoyed learning how to do this), and then all the kids played Betrayal at House on the Hill, a cooperative board game about a haunted house. The guests were all the boys who have been playing Edge of the Empire with Jeff all summer long. They are such a great group of kids!

Other notable events this week:

Eleanor, William and Katie all performed in an end-of-summer piano recital. It was Katie’s first performance — she played “Two Black Ants” and “Three Little Kittens.” Their teacher, Frances, likes to get the kids performing a lot so they don’t develop stage fright. Eleanor performed her original composition, “Flight of the Mosquito,” which she plans to enter into the PTA Reflections contest.

Speaking of piano, I had my first lesson with Jensina at Seattle Community College this week. Back to school for me, sort of! Already she’s been giving me great coaching on hand position, posture, technique, etc. Even with the few basic tips, I’ve noticed an improvement in my performance of Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” and other pieces I’ve been working on this summer.

However, the only photo I took on campus was of this guy:

In case you can’t tell, he’s walking around campus with a giant pretend boom box on his head. It even plays music. I ran into him in the hallway immediately after my lesson was done, and he trailed along behind me as I walked back to my car. Several people who passed us muttered, “Awww, man,” but as Boom Box Guy said to a friend, “I’m becoming a Seattle Icon.” You go, Boom Box Guy. You be you.

Katie finally got to bring Super Bee home from Kindergarten. Super Bee is a puppet who goes home with well-behaved children, and Katie has been waiting — well, all summer, really — to have a turn taking Super Bee home. When she didn’t get a turn within the first few days of school, there were tears upon arriving home. (“I held in my cries until I came home, Mom.”) So it was a big deal when the Bee got a turn with Katie.

Katie also had her first Daisy Girl Scout troop meeting, which I am co-leadering with another mom from Katie’s old preschool class. We have a darling group of little 5 and 6 year old girls, and Eleanor, who is a Cadette this year, has declared that she’d like to come along for some leadership experience. Nice!

Eleanor is also making a better effort at playing patiently with Katie. Here they are with our vintage Strawberry Shortcake game (which we all think is great, even the boys. It’s essentially like Candy Land, but with a couple extra twists to keep the game interesting). Instead of the usual game markers, the kids like to use my childhood collection of Strawberry Shortcake miniature figurines, which are just the right size to move around the board.

Also this week: I completed the second Seattle Stairway Walk, through the northeast part of Queen Anne. My friend Jenny came with me, along with her darling little boy in a backpack.

This neighborhood included a lot of gorgeous homes, beautiful views of Salmon Bay and Alki Point, and yes, many fun stairways tucked in odd places.

This pathway isn’t a staircase, but it’s a curiosity nonetheless. It looks like private property — the narrow space between two homes — but it’s still part of the public street, and the city put a sign on the fence to prove it!

We also passed a playground with this fun slide built into the hillside. I tried it out, but. . .

. . . it was incredibly slow. Something about my clothes or size prevented a quick slide to the bottom. Instead, it was a lazy slump to the end. How disappointing.

Jenny and I enjoyed the exercise so much that we’ve already agreed to meet again this coming week for another stairway walk. I can’t wait!