Beautiful Boy

I go into this same Starbucks almost everyday on my way to work.  I swear to God; every time I go in there John Lennon's song Beautiful Boy is playing.  And every time, I get choked up.  I shed tiny tears thinking about my own beautiful boy (and my girl too) waltzing off to school while I drive 21 miles down the LA freeways to my job.  I have a brief moment of remembering them--their faces flashing across my mind as I hurry to get my espresso and be on my way.  And I, like many mothers who work outside the home, swallow any guilt that might come up, reassuring myself that they are fine, I am fine, and we'll be together soon.

But more than that, I think about Sean Lennon.  He was 5 when he lost his father.  John Lennon said when promoting the album Double Fantasy that he loved being a "house husband."  He loved being with his child.  And to have it all taken away after only 5 years is heartbreaking.  As I listen to the song, I can feel his hopes for his son--the boy's life playing like a film in his imagination. 

"I can hardly wait,
To see you to come of age,
But I guess we'll both,
Just have to be patient,
Yes it's a long way to go....."

He never got that chance.  But I do. 

This morning as I was leaving the house for work, I was running really late.  I threw all my stuff in the car and yelled back at the house, "BYE..."  Then I went back inside.  I hugged and kissed my kids.  I told DG I loved him.  My family is the apex of my happiness, and I don't want to miss a moment of letting them know it.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!!!!!

Competition brings out the best and the worst in some people.  In kids, it's a little glimpse into how they're going to relate to others when they grow up.  Case in point--The All City Track Meet.  Here are the kids at the beginning of the cacophonous, frenetic, team-spirited event.

All smiles--Whoop-de-doo!  Happy as can be.  Ready to take on their events, run fast, pass batons, have fun.  Here they are at the end of the event.

After all the ribbons had been presented.  After they LOST their events.  What?  you say, but they've got ribbons.  What gives?  Yes, they were in relay races against 2 other teams.  All the relay team members got ribbons.  T2 didn't even run.  She was the alternate. 

But the individual events is where I really got to see my twins' sensibilities, and in the individual events is where the teachable moment lies. 

When T1 didn't win, he said, "Oh well, at least I got a medal for the relay. It was fun." 

"Good for you!" I said.  That's right, you did your best and you had fun.  Let's go home and have a cool drink and celebrate your maturity.

T2 cried.  Sobbed.  Said she was robbed.  The other girls cheated.  Little Miss Competitive.  She was more than a little disappointed.  And seriously unwilling to take responsibility for the outcome.  The blaming is where I thought to act.  How can I ease that feeling of pain that comes when you have an expectation that doesn't pan out?  I know that feeling.  I'm holding back tears too watching her process this sad emotion that inevitably comes as children learn about the ya-win-some-ya-lose-some lessons of the world.

"Did you do your best?" I asked. 

"Yes," she sighs, "but my back still hurts from the bruise." (Long story of a mishap with some stone steps.)

"You know what?" I ask, "you're right.  That must be still smarting you.  And not placing makes it feel worse.  For next year, we can practice.  I've got a stop watch....."

Her eyes light up.  "Right!" she says.  I can see the brain going.  "Let's run everyday.  You can time me and see if I can do it faster."

A-ha.  Will she grow and begin to see that she is the only one who can mold the outcome of her life?  Did I do the right thing?  (If you ascribe to Carol Dweck's Mindset, then yes, I guess).  For how long will hugs ease the sting of losing?

Forever, I hope.

Let's Pretend.......Words Heard from the Playdate

Having twins and working outside the home, for me, means that I very rarely schedule playdates for my kids.  Why would I?  They are the same age.  They have similar interests.  They play well together.  Playdates are complicated, what with the driving them here or there, or coordinating drop off and pick up times.  And what's more, I only really get to spend extended periods of time with my kids on the weekends, do I really want them gone for 2,3,4 hours?

The answer is it's not up to me.  I'm beginning to learn that it is better for my kids' development and their imaginations to play with other kids their age--and the same gender.

Yesterday, I scheduled playdates for both kids.  Each one had a friend over.  These were looooong playdates.  The first kid arrived at 7:45 am and the last kid left at 5 pm.  I made 17 grilled cheese sandwiches and cut 100 strawberries.  Okay, well not really, but it seemed like it.  Their imaginary play just evolved from each corner of the house.

I decided to spy, stealthily from place to place observing, like a social scientist scrutinizing subjects in contrived habitats. You wouldn't believe what I heard.

"Let's pretend we were best friends, and we're fairies."


"No, we're jazz cats, and we have to come to this island every once in a while, and people take care of us."


"Wait, we're tiger cubs and you have to tame us."


"Let's pretend we're putting on a show and I'm the only one who can do this special move."

 "Let's pretend we have to have a battle and we have to jump off this couch into those cushions to see who wins."



"And we're magic and we have to use wands to make spells."


The boys had created an elaborate game that resembled skeeball and involved what boys like best--throwing things.  They threw Mighty Beanz up the skateboard ramp and into the playhouse, assigning different points for each window or door the toy went through.  DG said the game should really be called, "Where's My Mighty Bean" because that was all they said over and over as they looked for the chucked toys.

The girls set up a spa in my bathroom.  There, all my nail polish bottles were strewn around the bathroom floor and they were painting each other's fingertips nails.  It was hard to get a word in edgewise as they cheeped like baby chicks and squealed their approval of each other's looks.  I intervened and served as manicurist for a couple of minutes.

The boys made a battlefield of the couch cushions.  The girls were a dozen different characters in a multitude of made up stories from fairies to princesses to dancing divas.

I discovered in my scientific observation that boys are different than girls.  Ha.  Who knew.  And all this time I was treating my twins as just kids.  I was encouraged by their gender-specific play.  Both kids were able to spend time imagining a world where they could just be who they wanted to be.  There was no looming school work, no scheduled activity, no birthday party, no parents' errands that needed to drag them away from the sheer joy of being a seven-year-old boy or girl.  Maybe more of these playdates are a good idea.

Homework: The Great Divider of Families

My son hates homework.  He's like a puppy distracted by a shiny thing whenever he sits down to do it.  No sooner has he finished one math problem that he's out of the chair, sharpening his pencil, looking at the notebook paper curling at the edges--anything to take him away from the homework. He pretty much always finishes the assigned work, but it's grueling to keep him focused long enough to do what other kids can do in 10 minutes.  It can take 45 minutes to write five sentences.

And again, like I've mentioned in this blog, I blame myself for this dilemma because I am simply not there.  I'm not there when he does his homework at the after-school program where the kids are crammed around tables with everyone talking, moving around, and being distracted in their own ways.  I'm not there when the teacher gives out the homework and says, "You can do the packet but not this one page," which my son insists she says on a regular basis.  When I try to help him, it's usually at the end of the day; he's tired, and so am I, and I am worried about getting dinner cooked.  We both end up fried.

I am an educator.  I have students who don't have a lick of study skills.  I swore when my kids started school that I was going to know exactly what to do to make sure their love of learning was nurtured and molded in the best pedagogical way.  I had fantasies of sitting around the dining room table, the kids helping each other with their work and me sitting there grading my students' papers.  This is not what is happening, and I feel like I'm losing control, and that his love of learning is slipping away every. single. day.  It disheartens me.

I have a friend who is a huge believer in the current movement that argues against the value of homework for elementary school kids at all.  I read an article on Slate.com that reviewed 3 books on the subject.  I am beginning to see the point.  The struggle to help kids as they mire through pages of inane worksheets that practice the same math sums and subtractions in a myriad of ways is mind numbing.  It makes that time that we spend together laborious, contentious, and sad.  One article I read said, "If the homework is such that the child procrastinates, resists, surface-skims, and does sloppy work so he can get done, be advised that those are precisely the study habits being learned." 

Indeed.

My children's elementary school rolled out a new homework policy that limits homework to only 10 minutes per grade level per night.  No take home projects for long weekends.  They say this is to preserve quality of life for families.  I know what I have to do to have a better quality of life with my family.  I have to be present to give them meaningful experiences that include teachable moments throughout their day.  I have to inspire them to think critically and to explore learning because it's something they want to do to discover the world around them and to find their place in it. I have to let go my fear that what is happening now, in first grade, is any indication of how he will be for his entire academic career.

I have to believe in the hope that someday, I'll watch him pouring over some book or he'll come to me with a hypothesis he wants to research.  I have to have that hope.

Oh, the Pressure!

Don't you hate it when you have a million blog post ideas in your head, and instead of drafting or writing, you just think about them everyday, and when evening comes, and you think you want to write one, you're so burned out after doing the dishes and making the lunches and cleaning the fish tank that clever, witty posts elude you?

I know I sure hate that. 

Who's this game for anyway, them or me?

Ah the first signs of spring--the sun peeking through the clouds, the warm weather returning (before you laugh, we did have a coooooold winter by So Cal standards, but don't judge me), and Opening Day--little league for whole stinkin' town.  Pretty much everyone with kids in this small town joins little league when their kids are five, maybe even before, if they can.  We opted to stay out of little league last year.  T1 seemed way to squirrelly to focus on a game where he would need to stand in a field and pay attention to something going on about a mile away.  No, we chose to start this year.

When I went to sign up my very excited son, I learned that they had leagues for girls too.  T2 and T1 would both be part of this community wide event.  And I mean event.  Last year, when we tried to get kids over to play on Saturdays in spring, no can do.  Baseball game, sorry.  Maybe next time.  We were not going to miss it this year. They put them both on the same team.  How convenient, I thought.  This makes me so glad. No having to cart them to different practices and games that overlap.  Super.

So we show up on Opening Day and we see all of T1's cub scout troop are together on the Cubs (we're the Angels).  Then the rest of the first grade boys are on the Giants.  All the girls are on other teams for 7- and 8- year-olds who have been playing for 2 years.  When I ask them how they all turned up on teams with kids they know, they say, "Oh, we requested it.  These kids all played together last year." Our team has really little 6-year-olds and a couple of 5-year-olds.  None of whom we know. And none of whom played last year.

Here's the thing:  I am finding myself hugely bothered by this.  Why didn't anyone tell me I could choose a team?  Why didn't I put them in last year so they could be with their friends?  Won't they be angry when they have to play against all of their friends?  I guess my own insecurities come out.  I envision myself sitting in the stands, with moms I know, watching and cheering on our little darlings.  When we play the Cubs, I will see the moms I know in the other set of bleachers.  I might feel sorry for myself that I didn't get to be on that team.  But it's not about me, is it?  My kids aren't bothered that they didn't play last year.  They don't care that kids they know are on other teams.  They are not bothered by this at all.  They are loving getting to know all their new teammates.  And they love their coach.  Who's baseball for anyway, them or me? 

T1 with his team

 T2 checkin' her mit

Up at bat

On deck

I look at their smiling faces here, and I realize that little league is not about me being able to create a community of friends.  It's not about me feeling left out of the other team.  It's about them, learning to have fun in a sport that is about teamwork.  They're up to the task.  Maybe my maturity level needs to come up a bit.  And to think of it.  I thought they were too young..... 

Oh well, at least I got to go out to a fancy dinner afterward and order this:

Lobster salad from Crustacean

............................................

Fast forward to the next day's laundry.  Whose pants are whose?

It's gonna be a long season.....

Discipline -- Part 3, The Harried Working Mom Version

I am always so amazed when rifts spring up between T1 and T2.  How could this possibly be happening?  I was so blissfully trying to do my job in snippets after the after-school follies of candy eating snack time and written torture homework.  They were playing.  It was pleasant with the trilling of happy child-voices engaged in the throes of childhood.  And then...the Grabber pisses off the Shrieker.  Oh well, bliss over.  Time to get involved.  Or is it? Maybe, but in a calculated way.

DG and I have followed this parenting program for five years, since the twins were 2 and wouldn't stay in their beds, with great success.  The philosophy is pretty simple: give children a routine, make clear expectations, descriptively praise steps in the direction of cooperation, and reflect their feelings.  Following the techniques really does result in a calmer, easier, and happier home life.  But it takes effort and energy--both rare commodities for a working mom.  I find myself slipping into habits of letting the kids go off on their own with no intervention from me until something erupts and then rushing in to solve whatever the problem is.  I accuse, raise my voice, try to "get to the bottom of this!" which usually results with more grabbing and shrieking as well as whining, crying, and screaming.  I love the harmonious sound of children trying to "one up" each other, don't you?

I've re-doubled my efforts of late, trying to bring the bliss back.  This morning T1 disrupted an Easter display that T2 had created.  She had left it alone thinking that it would remain untouched.  He came along, not knowing this part of her thinking, and took it apart.  She yelled as she is wont to do.  He ignored her as per his M.O.  But DG and I came in and calmly reflected her feelings of being upset.  She cried some more about how long it took her to make it and how she'll never be able to do it again.....and then it was over.  In. about. 2. minutes.  That's all.  If I had tried to get her to stop crying, it would still be going on now.  They re-played the scene again, this time doing it correctly: she politely asked him to leave her display alone.  He said okay, and he asked me for something similar to play with.  Joy, and off they went.  DG and I secretly high-fiving each other behind their backs.

The lesson is that even though it seems so grueling to take time away from the busy day-to-day to actually parent my children, I know that this is what I ultimately want--confident, self-reliant, cooperative children who I enjoy being with.