Finding My Balance. Again.

So as part of Lovebug's birthday celebration, I took him and a couple of friends to the local trampoline park

and to his favorite diner and Dairy Queen and for a sleepover and to another kid's birthday party the next morning, but that's another post

for an hour. While there, we encountered a couple of his classmates. The kids hung out together for a while

my favorite thing about middle school is the relative ease with which they can pick a few friends to do something special with instead of having big birthday parties. I like parties, except for the fact that my budget necessitates inviting a reasonable number of kids  but my heart wants to invite every kid in the entire grade and all their siblings. 

and I noticed something odd. The classmates' parents were not at the trampoline park. Like I was all excited to have someone to talk to and then I realized it was still just me and Words with Friends.

I love the Lightning Round game on the updated version, though. 

It hadn't occurred to me that I could just leave them at the trampoline park, which is quite well run and littered with fairly kind teenage workers. But it feels different than letting him walk to town with his friends during the day time.

Okay, he usually does that with Ironflower and her friends, but still. 

He's also stayed at our local lake in the summer when I've taken Hugmonkey home, but again, that felt different. Maybe because the lake is littered with parents and lifeguards he knows and only members can get in?

Yes, I think that's it. Even when they're in town, my kids know that they can go to Ironflower's dance studio or their orthodontist's office and find a reliable adult that we all know. Same thing at the lake. We discuss what to do if this or that happens, where they can go if they're worried or whatever.

And yes, we could have that same discussion about the trampoline park or the movie theater in the town next door. But I can't rely on a local parent or dance teacher or swim coach being there. And that makes me uncomfortable.

Perhaps I am my over-protective mother's daughter after all.

Of course, my mother was over-protective in that she didn't let me bike to our local lake to swim by myself when I was 11. I couldn't walk into town with my friends until 5th grade. And she made me wait until I was 12 before I baby-sat for the neighbors. Not exactly over-protective by today's standards. 

It was so much easier to encourage their independence when it meant taking off their own shoes, or ordering for themselves in a restaurant. Now shit is getting real, and suddenly I'm like those moms who used to baffle me. You know the ones I mean, the ones who babied their kids so much that the kids entered kindergarten without being able to put their coats on.

Is my discomfort hampering my kids' independence?

I don't want to send them off to high school unable to put on their coats, or whatever the high school equivalent is. But at the same time, I don't want to be one of those parents at the other end of the spectrum, either. You know, the ones who started potty training at 18 months or pushed their kids to read at 4. I've always believed in child-led milestones.

Except for that time I pushed potty training on Hugmonkey before he asked for it, so he could go to that preschool at 2 and a half. That was a disaster. 

Lovebug and his friends did not seem to mind that I was at the trampoline park, but I don't think they would have noticed if I'd left, either. I think, as far as the trampoline park is concerned, I'll wait until they ask me to leave them there and then I'll re-evaluate the situation.

I feel like I was easily able to find a balance between pushing and hindering when my kids were younger, but now I'm bewildered and new all over again as the parent of two adolescents.

What's your take? When did you start dropping your kids off places?

Happy Birthday, Lovebug

Today you are 12.

TWELVE. 

I mean, it's pretty obvious from your sense of humor. And the fact that you're (slightly) taller than I am.

But still.

You recently defined your style as "classy nerd" and I think the fact that we've gotten to the point where you have not only thought about this, but created a name for it, indicates just how much you've matured since the last time I wrote you a birthday blog.

One of the many things that impresses me about you is how well you know yourself. You're more sure of your identity at 12 than many young adults are in college. Yet you're not rigid. You roll with the punches surprisingly well for a kid who used to bang his head on the floor when there were too many transitions in your 2 year old day.

You amazed people by running lights live during the fall play, so much so that they're letting you work on the sound board during the spring musical, which is supposed to be for 7th and 8th graders only. You impressed your band teacher so much that she nominated you for elementary honor band. Your grades are spectacular - your hard work is really paying off.

You're a great kid, Lovebug.

Not because of the accolades or how responsible you are or how helpful you are, but because of how good-hearted you are. You are relentlessly honest.  You take such good care of your little brother, even when you don't need to. And the way you get emotionally invested when you hear about injustice, or upset when something bad happens to someone else, shows how much compassion you have.

Unless you're making fun of a bad TV show. Then you're just brutally funny.

I am so honored to be your mom.

I love you.

Posts from the Past #TBT

I tried to clean out my drafts folder. I was moderately successful, but there were a few half-written things I just couldn't delete. I clearly meant to add more to each of them, but now that I'm used to Twitter and Facebook updates these seems long enough to be published.

September, 2011

So it's finally happened. I've been dreading it since long before I had children, going so far as to hyperventilate during a dinner party at my then boyfriend's boss' house when that was ALL THEY TALKED ABOUT, for the love of Christ. I mean, I was a first grade teacher then, I could talk about kids much better than the average single, childless, borderline alcoholic. But it wasn't just kids they were talking about.

It was kids' soccer.

And now, now I find myself reporting on my kids' soccer skills in great detail.

I never meant to become a soccer mom. Even when Ironflower begged to play soccer and I dragged Lovebug into because I thought he should try it, I never thought I'd be giving my kids pointers during games. I never thought that I would care so much about how hard they tried, or how they handled frustration or how many times they tripped over their cleats. Despite years of dance lessons and never having played a game of soccer outside of forced experiences in elementary school gym, I'm way more emotionally involved in the soccer process than I have ever been in Ironflower's dance recitals.

WTF?

November, 2011

Recently a friend of Hot Guy's spent a couple of days visiting. He has an 18 month old daughter, so naturally I used this an an opportunity to talk about what my kids were like at that age. Because if you give me an opening, I will tell you a story about my kids. I try to make the stories relevant and/or amusing, but somewhere in the back of my mind I realize that my stories are only relevant and amusing in my head.

I suppose I'll quit when I wind up on STFU Parents.

Anyway, as I was sharing stories of Ironflower's (relative) youth, I had a moment of clarity. I realized that Ironflower was a lot cooler before she started school. At 2, her imaginary friend was an Allosaurus. She played Legos. She wore pants.

At not quite 3, she started preschool. She became secretive about her love of dinosaurs. She labelled Legos as "boy toys". She became obsessed with princesses. She wanted to wear dresses or skirts every day. Her preference for pink became an obsession.

Four and a half years later, we hardly ever talk about dinosaurs. She will wear pants, but only if there's a practical reason to do so. Princesses have turned into fairies and pink has turned into purple, but she still won't invite boys to her birthday party.

Girl Toys Are Lame, November 2011

"We have to find more pink stuff, Mom." I stared at my daughter, trying to conceal my horror. "That's where the girl toys will be. Where there's pink. "

She yanked me away from all the cool Playmobil and Lego toys and dragged me to the sea of pink.

It started, I think, at McDonald's. The girl toys were always pink and the boy toys were not. The boy toys came in many different colors and could be anything from cars to superheroes to spaceships to puzzles. The girl toys? Always pink. Usually dolls.

Before preschool and McDonald's toys came into our lives, we didn't have any girl or boy toys in our house. We just had toys. But I was weak. I forgot about my women's studies courses when my dinosaur loving daughter came home from preschool and announced that she wanted to be a princess. I caved in and bought her a crown.

When the Barbies came - gifts at her 4th birthday - I let it happen. After all, I was a staunch feminist and I'd played with Barbies. And dollhouses. I'd even had a baby doll. Besides, she still built things with her brother and knew everything there was to know about dinosaurs. The fact that she never mentioned the dinosaurs to her female playmates, well, that was a little disturbing. But I'd thought I was doing okay in the appropriate toy department (if only because Ironflower and Lovebug are 15 months apart and have always played together) until the day we let them spend their own money at Toys-R-Us.

Lego-obsessed Lovebug stood slack-jawed at the shelves of Lego sets. Hugmonkey stood beside him yelling "Lego!" excitedly. And Ironflower wanted to look for pink. She bypassed the cool Playmobil sets she used to love, the board games she used to love, even the crafts. She stood in front of the pink shelves, but not in joyous awe like her brothers. Instead she scanned the aisles slightly desperately.

Everything in the aisles seemed to be poorly made, overly priced plastic. Barbie, Moxie Dolls, Littlest Pet Shop. . .the list went on. Ironflower couldn't decide what she wanted. Not because she couldn't stick to her budget or because there were too many choices, but because somewhere deep inside, she knew it was crap. And yet her desire to be like the girls in her class kept her in that section. And I knew that I had failed.

The only thing that got her out of the sea of pink plastic was that they had the new Barbie movie* in a bin in the front of the store.


*The Barbie movies are surprisingly not terrible. They have good messages and stories and I'd love them if all the characters didn't look like Barbies.

Friday I'm in Love: What's Your Damage?

Heathers came out soon before I graduated from high school. It was so dark, especially when compared with my other beloved high school movies of the '80's  - 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, Lucas and Say Anything. It was sicker, and funnier, than all of them.

There was a female protagonist, too. And the guy she liked turned out to be a jerk. Despite the violence, murder and strip croquet, I related more to Veronica Sawyer's dating life than I ever did to any of the other heroines of the time.

As far as I'm aware, no one I dated or liked in high school turned out to be a murderer like J.D. But no one turned out to be Jake Ryan or Lloyd Dobbler, either. At least not to me.  Plus, Veronica was flawed and bitchy and bitter, which was how I saw myself. 

Besides, how can you not love a movie that includes lines like, "Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, " and:

I found this image on Pinterest and can't find a source. But it's so awesome I'm sharing it anyway. 

I even got my Dad hooked on the movie, which led to us seeing the Off-Broadway musical version in 2014. I enjoyed the musical but didn't really think about it again. . .

until Ironflower brought it up. Apparently, one of her friends had discovered the musical on YouTube. She enjoyed the songs and asked if she could see it. I had to explain that tragically, Heathers the Musical had not made it to Broadway - nor had it even remained Off-Broadway. I searched for a local production but couldn't find one at the time.

So I let her watch the movie with me.

It was darker than I remembered. But I still loved it and Ironflower actually liked it. Except for J.D. She couldn't understand why Veronica liked him in the first place, "He's obviously a stalker, Mom."

I really hope she retains this ability to assess boys accurately throughout her teen years. 

The movie didn't grab her attention the way the musical had, though. So, last month when I accidentally found a local theater company  performing Heathers the Musical,  I had to take her.
Then I discovered that they were doing a high school version, so I invited a few of her friends as well. Even Lovebug came.

The high school version, which I've learned is really called Heathers 101, removes the sex, drinking and most of the swear words, but keeps the violence. The writers of the original musical did the revisions for this version, including putting in a new song that they like better than the (extremely inappropriate, terrible and hilarious) Blue. 

I was really impressed with the production.

But not the theater, which was at a junior high several towns away and a good lesson for the kids in how lucky they are to have such a great theater at their school. 

I would recommend the musical even if you didn't like the movie that much. Lovebug was disappointed there weren't more deaths, but he enjoyed it without having seen the movie or being a musical theater nerd. I think Ironflower had him convinced there would be some kind of bloodbath.

He's going to like Hamlet, I think. 


One of my favorite songs: (from the Off-Broadway production.) Skip ahead to :57 in the video to actually see it.

Let's Talk About Screens, Baby*

*With apologies to Salt-n-Pepa. 

Ever since I miserably failed at not letting my tiny people watch TV (Ironflower was 7 months old and teething, The Wiggles were the only thing that stopped her from howling. It's been downhill from there), I have at least tried to limit their screen time.

Unless they were sick. As there is nothing better to me when I am ill than a Law & Order: SVU marathon, I've always let them watch too much TV when they are sick.

But TV is not, and has never really been, the problem.

I originally started this post almost 2 years ago, when I was still blogging regularly (and I could still think of my children as tiny. Ironflower now has at least an inch on me and Lovebug is almost as tall as I am.) At the time, I had just discovered that the children were sneaking their Kindles into their rooms when they woke up in the middle of the night.

The consequences of that little rebellion were painful for all of us.

But of course screens eventually came back, if for no other reason** than Ironflower and Lovebug have laptops for school now. The new system involves severe guilt tripping and punishment for anyone who uses screens when they're not supposed to. There's also a list of requirements before you

can even ask for screens, which boils down to:  

Sometimes I feel like most of the parenting I do involves whether the screen list has been followed, because it's very rare that any of them just decide to ignore the list and play. Ironflower will sometimes, to read or draw, but even that it is becoming more rare. And Lovebug and Hugmonkey can play (unlike some children I've met), but they don't as much as I'd like. 

So I'm looking for suggestions that have actually worked in real life, not Parenting magazine life. Got any? 

**I'm lying. Their father didn't want to give up video games and I didn't want to give up TV or social media, either. Plus, it's the 21st century and we are not Amish. 

Happy 9th Birthday, Lovebug!

Dear Lovebug,

      I haven't blogged in a long while, but you've inspired me. You are such a great kid; though with all the maturing you've done this year it seems more appropriate to call you a young man. You are so responsible and helpful.

Though you do still love Legos. I love how you build things according to the directions, then let them morph into new objects. You've started to teach your brother your Lego building tricks and I love listening to the two of you build and play together. You also still love to draw comics; I love how you write little stories in each birthday card you make.

Your newest passion is electronics. You've gone from building snap circuits to attempting actual circuits and I'm pretty sure you understand Ohm's Law better than I do. I can't wait to see what you do next.

This year you started karate and were chosen as the first student of the month at your karate school. Your focus and strength in class have impressed everyone around you and put you in the leadership program very quickly. I love watching you in class.

You still love basketball and I think that's where I've seen you grow most of all. Last year it was hard for you to handle disappointments during games, let alone getting bumped and bruised. This year your rec team had to face a travel team that played VERY aggressively and not only did you handle some serious bruising without a tear, you had a positive attitude the entire time.

You have such a mature sense of humor. It may be a little too mature, but you can really make me laugh. And if all that wasn't enough to make you "Captain Awesome" (your video game name these days), there's also the way you excel in school and are so good to your siblings.

I am so lucky and proud to be your mom,
Mommy

KizVuz Holiday Party 2014

This was the second year we were lucky enough to go to the KidzVuz Holiday Party. I can only hope we're lucky enough to go again next year, because my kids are already planning on it! 

After posing for pictures at the step and repeat, we went into the event space at Chelsea Piers. Which was awesome, by the way. The first thing we did was get frozen yogurt from 16 Handles. In addition to their awesome name, they had awesome yogurt too. 

Before their yogurt was even finished, the Ubisoft video game area had suckered the kids in. Hugmonkey was in such a hurry that he let me finish is frozen yogurt, so it was a win for everybody. I let the kids play for a while, they checked out the new Rabbids game and Monopoly. They enjoyed both and I didn't understand either, which seems to be how video games work at our house. After I pointed out all the kids waiting eagerly for their turns, the kiddos agreed to check out the rest of the party.

Ironflower spent a lot of time at the School Specialty craft table. She made flowers and picture frames.

We also saw our friends from BatteryPop, where they were playing the promotional video Ironflower appeared in. Then it was on to iScream, where Ironflower asked me to add all of the cute pillows (especially the donut shaped one) to her Christmas list. We did get one of their blankets in our swag bag and Ironflower is totally in love with it. And if she wasn't? I would totally steal it because it is super soft and warm. 

While the boys weren't as into iScream's products, they were very happy with the candy art at the iScream table. 

I felt like this year I really got to talk to all of the people sharing their products and ideas and that made me so happy. Once again I didn't talk to other bloggers as much, except I finally got to chat with Gay NYC Dad, which made me so happy. I also had a nice talk with Jill from Scary Mommy, who was there to talk about her Thanksgiving Project. It's such a great cause, if you can help, please do. 

I managed to have those conversations while the kids were back with the video games. Because of course they went back to the video games. 

Before that, though, Ironflower got a braid from FiercelyFabNYC, which she really liked. We also talked to Emily from Ribbon Barrettes; definitely the most inspiring 5th grader I've ever met. She is selling ribbon barrettes (my fave thing in 1980) to raise money to help find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. 

We spent a very long time in the HP area. First it was the art project while I talked to someone about printers. I really want a new printer. From HP. Then we played with the HP Stream laptops and tablets. I couldn't get Hugmonkey to ditch his long enough to make our Flipbook. Which is not surprise, except that later he was all about dressing up at the Broadway Kids Night table. 

The kids also had a lot of fun learning about the Gamma Heroes and playing an app involving them. 

Perhaps my favorite thing was discovering Sweet Loren's. It's frozen cookie dough, which normally doesn't thrill me. Not that I won't eat it - because of course I will, I love cookies - but there's a lot of bad stuff in most pre-packaged foods. This dough, however, is made with whole, unrefined ingredients. It's dairy free. And the cookies taste like Famous Amos ones. For real. They sell it at Whole Foods and I'm definitely going to buy some the next time the kids want cookies. 

I'm sure I've forgotten something, so make sure to check out more from the KidzVuz Holiday Party on Facebook. 

Big Hero 6

Thanks to an email from Sandbox Strategies, Game Mill Entertainment and Disney Interactive, the kids and I got to go to a screening of Big Hero 6 yesterday. I admit that when I got the email, I hadn't really heard much about Big Hero 6.

But my kids had off from school that day and my dad is awesome about driving us into the city for stuff (I hate taking the kids on the train. I also refuse to drive into the city. This could be a bigger problem, but between my husband and dad it's not. Yes, I am spoiled.) So I figured, "It's a Disney movie. It's gotta be decent."

The kids were just happy to get to see a movie in the theater. That before going to the theater we walked around Times Square was a big enough bonus that I'm pretty sure they would have sat through that horrible Dora movie they all used to love.

And then on our way in we got popcorn, drinks and 3D glasses.

It began to matter even less how good the movie was. We heard a couple of presentations first; one on the very cool NintendoDS game that continues the movie's story and one on the characters being added to Disney Infinity. I'm pretty sure Lovebug would have taken notes if I'd had a pen. The games look cool, but any game reviews will have to be written by Lovebug at a later date.

Big Hero 6 is the story of Hiro, a brilliant 14 year old and his group of equally brilliant friends. There are some sad moments, but the creation of Baymax (the large white being who sort of looks like what would happen to the Pillsbury Dough Boy if he went badass) mitigates them. I loved, loved, loved the characters in this movie. They were diverse, interesting, smart and not one of them fit some simple stereotype.

I think this might be the most subversive Disney movie ever.

I loved it.

And I don't think that it was recently turning six that made Hugmonkey sit so still in the theater. My kids were completely enchanted; they loved it too. We are all looking forward to watching it again with Daddy and honestly? There are very few kids movies I want to sit through once, let alone twice.

While there is humor in the movie, it's not snarky. There aren't a lot of jokes meant to appeal to just adults. And there is absolutely no romance whatsoever. I have nothing against romance (unless it's Nicholas Sparks - then I loathe it), I may have teared up during the wedding of The Princess and The Frog. But my kids aren't interested in romance. My daughter doesn't need the idea of a wedding always being the happy ending shoved down her 9 year old throat. And of course I'm gonna love a movie that turns smart nerds into superheros.

This is definitely worth seeing with your kids, no question.

Summer Notebooks: The Return

Even though my kids still have almost a month of school left, I spend part of every day prepping for their summer vacation. Some of it is just figuring out what summer activities they are going to do, since I don't send them to regular summer camp. But the rest of it is planning their summer notebooks. I'm not a fan of too many worksheets, but I'm even less of a fan of my kids forgetting what they've learned all year.

It wasn't until last summer, when they didn't have regular camp and I couldn't pretend that they were going to be learning enough all summer, that I realized that I needed to take action. But every time I looked at workbooks, even the "summer bridge" or ones by companies I liked, I got frustrated. Or rather, the teacher in me got frustrated. Tasks were too simplistic to be useful or were geared for kids who struggled with things my kids didn't struggle with. So last year, basically at the last minute, I made my own.

By next year I'll probably have mini binders and all kinds of stuff, but now I'm just using spiral notebooks.

Every morning, they have to do a certain number of pages (usually 2 or 3) before they can have their beloved screens. They can do extra pages if they want to earn more screen time later in the day. I correct it as soon as I can, and I make them come back and fix their mistakes.

Hugmonkey's summer notebook tends to be more similar to worksheets:

Last year there was a lot of tracing and matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This year we'll be focused on counting skills, beginning sounds in words and sight words. I also like to have him draw pictures of family activities as an introduction to journal writing. He can't read the directions, but his siblings can read them if I'm not there, so it works out well.

For the older kids, there will be a lot of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division fact review. (Even though Lovebug won't officially be learning multiplication and division until the fall, he's got the process figured out so he might as well start memorizing). I also have them write sentences about family activities or to answer questions we've been talking about as a family. My favorite thing to do is to gather up non-fiction books, assign them pages to read and have them answer questions pertaining to the pages.

They are both far more into fiction (as am I), so it's a good way to work on reading comprehension and get them out of their comfort zones.

I'm thinking about doing a summer series on my kids' notebooks, detailing how and why I have them do certain things and how to make summer notebooks for your own kiddo. But then I remembered that some of my regular readers are teachers or former teachers, so I'm not sure if the series would be useful. What do you guys think? Is that something you'd want to read about, or would you skip those posts?

Trying To Make Patience One of My Virtues

I never would have described myself as conventional until I had kids. Open-minded. Tolerant. Unwilling to judge based on looks. That's how I would have described myself before I had children. I didn't judge based on what people were wearing or how their hair looked (unless I already disliked them for other reasons). I assumed kids would have stains on their clothes and messy hair.

And then this one mom, who was probably having her own bad day, said something about Ironflower's stained shirt and Lovebug's messy hair and I haven't been right since. Suddenly I heard judgments everywhere.  Hot Guy has already had to say things to the children like, "Just wear what your mother wants. It'll be easier," and "Just make your mother happy and let her fix your hair."

I have been trying to combat this, mostly because I don't want my kids' judging other people for how they look. Also, I should probably save up this energy for the battles that will be coming in the future; shorts and Uggs, shorts in the middle of blizzards, shower shoes as daily footwear, etc. So when Lovebug wanted to have longer hair, I let him.

Grudgingly.

And because we can't get the weekly trims it would take to maintain his hair at this length (seriously, the kid has the thickest hair EVER), this is what happened. I would try to control it for certain occasions, but if there was any wind/sweat/sleep whatsoever, we were doomed. Well, I was. Lovebug didn't seem to care at all.

And I tried. I tried to let him make his own decision, when I wasn't nagging him to use conditioner and product. I felt like forcing the kind of haircut I wanted would undermine all those times I told him he was a smart kid who made good decisions (Lovebug can be really, really, really hard on himself). So I had to wait.

Patience has never been one of my virtues.

It's a Jersey thing. I think.

In the meantime, as Hugmonkey's hair also grew way too long for my preference, I had to let go of some of my conventional standards. Which has been freeing. Or so I tell myself.

And then, Lovebug asked for a haircut. A short haircut.

He loves it. He's proud of himself for choosing it. I didn't have to force him to do anything. Everyone is happy.

My conventional side most of all.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to let go of that side, which really comes from not wanting people to judge my kids harshly or have an extra reason to pick on them.

But I have learned that I can be more patient. And that it's worth it.

Happy 8th Birthday, Lovebug!

Dear Lovebug,

     It seems like just yesterday you were that little boy in the picture above. But now you're an amazing 8 year old. 

In some ways you haven't changed much in the last year; you still love Legos and basketball more than anything. You are constantly drawing stories and creating worlds. You are still affectionate and beyond your years in math. In other ways, though, you've really evolved.

Three years ago you were terrified of the water. This year you asked to continue swimming lessons so you'd be more prepared for the swim team this summer. Two years ago you teared up when your behavior was corrected. Today you usually take corrections in stride. A year ago it was hard for you to make it through a full school day. Today you manage that, homework and activities easily. You've gone from struggling with handwriting to starting lovely cursive. You've turned into an avid reader.

And what you love to read is books that are funny. You have such a sense of humor, you love to make up funny stories - whether the humor is appropriate or not. You've made me laugh so many times. I love that you can see the silly side of life.

I feel so lucky that I get to be your mom. You are so kind to other kids and adore your brother and sister (when they're not getting on your nerves). You are so responsible about getting your homework done and remembering what you need for your activities. Whenever you play a sport, you work really hard during practices and games. Your focus amazes me.

                                                                                         I love you so much and I'm so proud to be
                                                                                                              Your Mom

Trophies For (Almost) Everyone

There is a line, which has probably been stepped on by so many parents that we can't see it anymore, between lying to children and being needlessly harsh to children. I've read  a bunch of articles and blog posts lately lamenting the fact that every kid gets a trophy now. Of course, I've also read a lot of articles and blog posts talking about all the negative effects of the pressure high stakes testing and travel sports put on children.

The trophies above belong to Lovebug. They cover swimming, soccer and baseball. Lovebug has never won a championship in any of those sports. In baseball one year, I don't even think they even kept score. I can hear all the anti-trophy people bristling from here. But the thing is, Lovebug knows he didn't win a championship in any of the sports. He knows he wasn't the best on his soccer team. He knows he didn't win too many races in swimming. He thinks he got those trophies because he showed up at the practices and the games and tried his best every damn time.

And I refuse to see a problem with that. Showing up and working hard is going to get him way farther in life than thinking only the kids lucky enough to be on the winning team (because at the rec level in kindergarten, first and second grade, there's a lot of luck involved) get trophies. I believe that trophies should reward the qualities we want to instill in our kids - hard work, perseverance, teamwork, handling defeat and even winning gracefully.

That also explains why I don't think every kid should get a trophy.

Last summer, Lovebug and Ironflower joined our local pool's swim team. It's not competitive in the way that the year-round swim teams are, but meets are held in other towns and practices are every day (not that you had to go to them every day).

Lovebug fell in love with it, and Ironflower fell in love with the fact that a lot of her friends were on the team. We went to most practices and we went to all the meets. The meets, by the way, involved ribbons for first, second, third and participation. I have no idea where the participation ribbons are, but each kid has their (admittedly few) place ribbons hanging in his/her room. Kids know when they haven't done well and it's insulting to any kid over 5 to think otherwise.

Anyway, at the end of the season there was a potluck dinner and trophies were awarded. For everyone who had worked hard all season, etc., etc. I was cool with this, until a couple of trophies were presented to kids I did not recognize. By blatantly eavesdropping, I was able to learn that the kids had never gone to practice and had only gone to one meet. I was appalled.

Those kids got trophies because their parents had paid for them to be on the team. They did not work hard, show up for practice or even win a bunch of races.

Trophies should be for everyone. Except the kids who don't work for them.

I Think I Need Help

Ironflower and Lovebug appeared in their Theater Week play Friday night. They were, of course, wonderful and it was adorable and I am so proud. Of them.

I was not so much proud of myself as I dragged us to the front of the auditorium and whipped out my iPad. This was after freaking out, thinking we were too far back in the line to get good seats (of course there was a line to go in and of course people lined up way early for it). In addition to recording every moment (even though there were many moments where you couldn't see either kid) of the show, I had my dad and Hot Guy taking pictures during the whole thing, too.

Note to self: White kids, stage lighting and iPhone flashes are not, perhaps, the best combination for taking photos that show faces. Lovebug is the taller one in the middle. 

But even more shameful than acting like the paparazzi staking out Lindsay Lohan at a nightclub, I totally waved at my kids while they were on stage. More than once. I held  bounced the iPad with one hand and WAVED at my kids with the other. Hell, at one point, when one of Ironflower's friends was on the floor near us, I waved at her too.

You know, when Ironflower was first teething and I went from "No TV until she's in preschool" to "Look, if the Wiggles make her stop crying for 15 minutes, she can watch the damn Wiggles at 7 months old", I grasped that actual motherhood might not look like I had imagined it. I realized that many of those things I swore I'd never do would turn out to be done on a regular basis.

But realizing your TV standards are unworkable is one thing, it's quite another to turn into a waving idiot. I mean, I realize that my kids haven't quite got a creative process and that Theater Week doesn't foster deep investment into one's stage character, but still. I was waving. While they were trying to perform. In a way I'd never do during a soccer game. In a way that would have made me cringe in horror if my own mother had ever done it to me. Did I mention I also tried gesturing to Lovebug to get him to stop messing with his costume? And that I started to mouth one of Ironflower's lines with her?

I'm pretty sure I'm just a step or two away from wearing t-shirts with their faces on them to all of their sporting events and performances. Or yelling, "Sing out Louise!" like that crazy mother in Gypsy.

Please stop me.

Friday I'm in Love: Blessed

I don't care if this makes me sound like I'm kinda full of myself.  I recently discovered this post I wrote during my first year of blogging and I've fallen in love with it.

11/11/2007

Blessed

I just discovered a wonderful blog called Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. It deals with infertility, pregnancy loss and adoption and is an amazing resource for people going through those challenges. The sidebar has the longest blogroll I have ever seen, filled with blogs talking about people's struggles to become parents. As I read it, checking out a few blogs here and there, it was all I could do not to run upstairs and kiss my children. (Which would have woken them up, so I didn't. Barring natural disasters and other dangers, there's no way I'm waking them up. Because while I may be feeling joy at their existence, they would be feeling annoyance at being woken up and instead of a touching scene of love and cuddling, there would be tears and crankiness.)

I did not have Ironflower until I was 33. Not super late, but not exactly early, either. And I thought I would have trouble conceiving her. Because I was in my thirties. Because I was a smoker (I quit when I was pregnant - calm down). Because it seemed that all the mommies I knew had spent time "trying", charting their cycles and propping their legs in the air.

Instead, Hubby and I got lax about birth control. We were living together, engaged but not in any rush to make it legal. And surprise! Along came Ironflower. I spent the first trimester in a state of shock (when I wasn't too nauseous and tired to have any emotions at all, of course). I felt a bit like an impostor, not having even tried to get pregnant yet. But by the time she came along we were (sort of ) ready for her and for parenthood.

When Ironflower was 11 months old, we found out I was pregnant again. Four months pregnant. I hadn't had a regular cycle, what with the breastfeeding. My clothes were tight, but I'd attributed it to the chocolate I was eating to deal with the horrible conditions at work. The weird tummy flutterings? I assumed they were gas. Really. (I have ulcerative colitis and weird feelings in my tummy are pretty normal for me)

So I actually got pregnant with Lovebug while trying NOT to get pregnant. After the shock, and having to admit to the world that I was four months pregnant and HADN'T NOTICED, a whirlwind of activity began. Thus Lovebug was not forced to wear his sister's pink clothing or sleep in a purple butterfly bumpered crib.

But I began to feel guilty. Why had it been so damn easy for me? Why was I so blessed? I felt bad when talking to people who were struggling to conceive or adopt. I wanted to apologize, to say I'm sorry it was so easy for me. A little part of me always does.

But finally someone pointed out to me that if I wanted to feel guilty about something, I could also feel guilty about the fact that I get (more than) enough to eat, that I have a nice place to live, that I can walk, that crazy militias aren't roaming my town, that I don't live in a war zone. . . . . .

And so instead of feeling guilty about things I can't control, I'm working on feeling blessed. All the time, not just when I'm reminded of it. Even when Lovebug humiliates me in the grocery store, I am blessed. Even when Ironflower's whining makes me want to bang my head against a wall, I am blessed.

Merry Christmas Eve

For a lot of reasons, I did not send out holiday cards this year. Even though I so love getting them. Especially if they have pictures. So, as an apology (and an idea for a really short blog post), here's a digital card. Just for you.

Wandering Wednesday: Lego Con

Okay, technically it's called "Lego Kids Fest", but really it's a Lego convention. I don't know where I heard about it, but when I discovered that one was going to be about two hours from here, all I could think was, "Road trip!"

We love our road trips. And our Legos. I thought the experience would be a great Christmas present for the kids AND it still cost much less than Hot Guy and Lovebug's coveted Lego Death Star .

Giant. Piles. Of. Bricks. 

After the initial huge piles of Duplos (which my kids never play with anymore, except for when there are HUGE piles of them), we strolled over to the Lego creations. This Lightning McQueen was pretty sweet. 

Life-sized Lego Hagrid. 

I make a point of encouraging Ironflower's Hermione obsession. 

Giant pile of regular Legos. Hugmonkey and I did this while Hot Guy and the big kids went to the Lego Master Builder Academy. The Master Builder Academy was Lovebug and Ironflower's favorite part of the whole experience. They got to meet a Master Builder and learn some building strategies. 

Hugmonkey and I also hit the Lego City area; you could build vehicles or buildings and add them to the Lego City display. 

We met up again at the monochromatic build. All the bricks were the same color (obviously) and the same size - the classic two by four. And yet the projects were amazing. 

Ironflower's. 

Hugmonkey's. 

Lovebug's. And theirs weren't even the best. 

Squee! Lego Harry Potter! 

I wonder how much it would cost to buy that whole display? 

This was where you made vehicles and raced them. 

We spent a lot of time there. 

We built buildings to add to a giant map of the United States. 

Lovebug made the Empire State Building. 

More time at the giant Lego pile. See the cool city Lovebug is adding to? Well, the only negative part of the trip happened here. A boy around 7 or so had made a giant Lego gun, and then decided to destroy the city. He knocked down every building, yanked a house out of a toddler's hands and destroyed it and just acted like a little jerk. No parent stopped him or said anything (except me and Hot Guy, not that he listened) and no one from Lego stepped in. 

Next we went over to the family build competition. We had to make things from Star Wars, to the joy of the boys in the family. 

We played Ninjago, which is actually way more fun than I thought. 

The boys did Mindstorms while Ironflower and I went to the Lego Friends area. We would like you to know that while we are technically against the idea of "girl" and "boy" Legos, we had a lot of fun building with the Lego Friends sets. We don't know why, but they seem to be addicting. 

There was an area with Lego Castle stuff. 

There was Batman. 

The whole thing was four and half hours long and we were there for every minute. We actually could have used another half hour or so - we didn't get to the Lego art area or take a picture with Lego Santa. 

Way better (and cheaper) than our trip to Legoland a few years ago. I mean, Legoland is really just an amusement park with some Lego details - there's no Master Builder Academy and only a teeny building area. Lego Kids Fest is a much better option for kids who love Legos. And Disney World is a much better option for kids who love amusement parks. 

Teaching Tuesday: Beware Strangers Bearing Giftedness

Just writing this post probably makes me an asshole.

Ironflower's repulsed face. Sure, in this photo it's about pumpkin guts. But she'll make the same expression if she ever reads this post. 

But today I don't care, for today I am confused. And this is where I process stuff. Also, where I get advice from smart people who care enough to read my blog, not just my FB status updates.

So anyway, it appears that both Ironflower and Hugmonkey have qualified for the gifted program at school. Before you get too impressed, this is the first time I have heard about us even having a gifted program and it meets every other week for 45 minutes. In other words, this should not be an especially big deal. Especially since the qualifications mainly involve them taking multiple-choice tests well and not being behavior problems.

The question is. . .do I have them tested (at our own personal expense) to find out if they're actually gifted? "Gifted" being a relative term; I can tell you right now that they are not music prodigies or destined for the Olympics. But they would probably qualify for the Gifted Child Society's Saturday morning enrichment classes, according to standard IQ tests (which, seeing as they are white, middle class, suburban children, would probably be fairly accurate). And some camps we couldn't possibly afford anyway.

There's a part of me that wants to know how they'd score on the IQ tests, that wants to push them into the enrichment classes and thinks this would a great excuse to start homeschooling them. I mean, they are bored in school most of the time; Ironflower actually burst into tears a few weeks ago because a math concept was hard for her. For the first time in her life. She clearly needs to be challenged more regularly, so that when she faces the next tough concept, she doesn't fall apart.

But then I think, do they need enrichment or time to build a Lego village in the basement? Did knowing my own IQ ever do me any favors, or did it just make me feel like a failure when I didn't immediately grasp a concept or made a mistake? And how bored are they really? It's not like they do everything perfectly.

I then spent a few hours researching this whole gifted education thing. It wasn't really covered during any education class I ever took. But I wasn't allowed to graduate without knowing about how to teach kids with learning disabilities. And I'm not saying that that's not very important, but really, nothing on teaching the gifted? I subbed for a while in a self-contained gifted classroom when I lived in Seattle. It was so fun, I debated going back and getting certified in gifted education. But the regular classroom teacher said to focus on something else instead, as gifted education was being phased out to save money.

That class no longer exists, by the way.

What was I bitching about? Oh yeah, my research. It was not encouraging. There are lots of opportunities for teenagers, at least in our district, but most schools seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to gifted ed at the elementary level. Which probably means that a lot of gifted kids don't even make it to the high school level, what with never being properly challenged in the classroom and all. I mean, last year, when my kids first started complaining of boredom, they got extra packets of worksheets.

Not exactly inspiring. Though better than the teacher I remember from elementary school who had a friend of mine sit in the hallway every day during reading. Why? Because he could already read and she didn't want him in the room when she was teaching the other kids. She didn't even give him a book to read.

As you can see, wise blog readers, I am all over the place with this. Part outraged at (the lack of) gifted programs, part not even sure my kids need to be labelled as such. . .what are your thoughts? Experiences? Opinions*?

*Unless your opinions involve calling me out for being "that mom" on the internet. The one thing writing this post has helped me sort out is that sharing it definitely makes me an asshole.

Friday I'm in Love: With Jell-O

So, as we all know, I am not exactly a domestic goddess. When it comes to cooking, I'm not even a domestic priestess. Or noblewoman. Or servant. We should all be happy that my children don't starve to death when Hot Guy isn't here, is what I'm saying. I'm so nervous in the kitchen that I don't tend to let them cook with me (though they'd probably be better at it), unless it involves decorating cookies.

But then I saw that JELL-O had Halloween recipes. Making Jell-O is only slightly more difficult than boiling water, so I figured I might be able to handle their Spooky JIGGLERS recipes with assistance from the children.

Hugmonkey even helped me with finding the right JELL-O Gelatin at the grocery store.

If I was smart, I would have taken a photo while we were actually at the grocery store. 

We decided to make the Halloween JIGGLERS Hands, mostly because Ironflower wanted to be able to use Halloween cookie cutters on the leftover JELL-O. 

First we traced our hands. 

Some of us more carefully than others. 

Then we cut them out. 

Next was water boiling. 

And powder mixing. 

Then there was chilling time in the fridge. 

The laying on of the hand patterns. Lovebug was at basketball practice.

And then we added in Halloween cookie cutters. 

Lovebug's hand. Because you can't just trace a simple hand outline in second grade.

Pumpkin. Though it could be an apple. 

Post-practice snack. 

Ironflower would like to do commercials. 

So yummy! 

As soon as everyone was done and I was trying to shoo them upstairs, all I heard was, "This was so fun! When can we do it again? It was fun cooking with you, Mom!" So thank you, JELL-O. I owe you one. 

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.