The Dwindling of the School Firsts and Lasts

I'm one of those moms who always insists on a first day of school picture. I don't ask for much, so my kids always indulge me. Doesn't mean they look happy in those pictures, but those regular markers in time do capture a lot of growth and change.

Looking back on all that growth and change, I am astonished at how fast it has gone. Especially when so many days seemed to crawl by, seeing that the years have flown takes my breath away sometimes. The markers matter, because various milestones of firsts and lasts force us to stop and notice before it all slips away.

This year and the previous one have been such a peculiar blur that the firsts and lasts have gotten all out of whack, particularly where school is concerned.

My oldest daughter didn't get to finish high school in a way that felt anything like closure. School simply stopped last March. Everyone expected to be gone for a couple of weeks, then return to class. That never happened. Aden got to venture back into the abandoned school at an assigned time to retrieve her projects from the art room eventually, but that was it. There was an unsatisfying "graduation" ceremony that was just an online video. She got a cap and gown but no event at which to wear them.

Aden indulged me in my mom-photo moment, where I had her put on the cap and gown and pose outside of our house. It was more like dress-up than anything else. It reminded me of how I wasn't a girl who ever dreamed of wearing a wedding dress, and always assumed if the time came I'd just wear something practical that I could wear again. But when it was time to actually plan my wedding, it hit me that only on that one day could I wear a dress like that where it wouldn't be play-acting or strange. I could walk around in that dress exactly once without having to explain myself. I decided not to blow that chance. A cap and gown is like that. It's a costume with an expiration date. And in Aden's case, the date got erased.

Aden's first day of college became unmoored as well. Covid robbed us college tours, but Aden was accepted to all the art schools she applied to. When she decided on UW Stout, she went through the procedures of registering for classes and getting a dorm room assignment, etc. But then the pandemic numbers became too scary and she deferred for a semester. She repeated the whole thing for the spring semester, and deferred again.

By the time she registered for everything for this fall, she felt quite competent at navigating it all this time around after so much practice. We've gotten the campus tour finally. She's been in contact with her roommate. We've bought the Twin XL sheets, and I own a UW Stout blanket I can snuggle in the TV room when I can't snuggle my daughter this fall during Star Trek. That first day of school was delayed, but is finally happening. Although I won't get to take an actual first day of school picture this time. The last one of those for Aden was in fall 2019. After so many years, that tradition is over.

At a different end of the high school spectrum is Quinn. He had his eighth grade completion ceremony this spring. Which means after three kids, and fifteen years, we no longer have anyone at Fernwood Montessori. That is a shift in our lives that is hard to grasp.

And again, the transition in these pandemic days is hazy. Fernwood normally has a tradition of the seventh grade parents throwing a dinner event for the graduating eighth grade families, and the kids get certificates, and everyone gets to say goodbye to teachers they've known for so long. But Quinn did the last few months of seventh grade online, stayed online for nearly all of eighth grade, and only went back to in-person school for the last few weeks of the adolescent program. As parents, I'm not sure when we last stepped foot in the building. Quinn's seventh grade class didn't have a part in the Winter Concert, and Covid shut life down before the annual science fair, etc. I think the fall parent/teacher conference in 2019 was the last time I was inside Fernwood. And now we're done there, and there is no reason to step inside again. It's surreal. The number of hours I spent doing volunteer work, meeting with teachers, attending cultural fairs and Halloween dances.... There was no official conclusion to any of that. It just faded away as if it had no meaning.

I will take a moment here to say something about all that time at Fernwood Montessori. Like everything, it had its ups and downs, but for the most part I'm glad my kids got to go there. My kids have complaints that they weren't allowed to play with sticks on the playground, and fellow parents understand that the Montessori philosophy--although good on paper--doesn't mean our kids can figure out to put on a coat when it's cold out, but overall it was an environment that held up kindness as a guiding principle. I remember being concerned about the behavior of a violin teacher that was brought into the school for lessons, and Aden agreed to peek in on the class to spy for me. She told me the teacher was yelling at the kids. Her assessment was, "It was not Montessori." I liked that in my daughter's mind, Montessori was equated with being kind above all. (And yes, I did my best to do something about the bad violin teacher, but eventually budget cuts did it for me.)

Despite whatever my kids want to say about Fernwood simply because it was "school," I know they were cared for there, and guided in ways my peers and I were not when we were growing up in our own schools. One of our few regrets is that Aden never received proper credit for her design that was turned into a mosaic on the addition to the school building a few years ago. She was thoughtful about it, drawing on elements of the "Cosmic Opera" that her lower elementary teacher put on annually for many years. Many kids submitted designs, and she was surprised when hers appeared on the building without any acknowledgement. There's no way to prove it at this point, but I'll share it here, so there is a record somewhere in the world that Aden came up with this concept to represent her school:

Fernwood did have a ceremony for Quinn and his class, but it didn't feel connected to anything we knew. They held it in a neighboring high school that had room for distancing. Each child was limited to two guests. Everyone was masked and far apart. The kids were separated from the audience. A few kids spoke. The principal and a teacher spoke. There was no mingling. There was no dinner. There were no goodbyes. The one part of the eighth grade graduation that I've always loved is the slideshow of the kids set to music. Everyone submits photos of their kids as babies, and as younger kids, and finally present day, and it's really moving to see all those little faces grow up on a big screen. I submitted my three photos of Quinn that I wanted to see up on that screen, but due to some sort of deadline technical glitch, when Quinn's name came up, it was only accompanied by a goofy stick figure. Thus ended our time with Fernwood.

I did get a first day of school photo of Quinn standing outside his bedroom door about to start virtual classes for eighth grade. It is a noticeable break in the pattern, but then so was all of 2020.

This week he started high school. That first day of school picture is back to Quinn standing on our front porch in his jacket, looking uncomfortable and sweet, doing what his mom asks of him even if he'd rather stay out of view. He's attending in-person, but it's hard to say for how long based on how many Covid cases were reported on the very first day of class. He has a fresh supply of masks, which is the strangest addition to our back-to-school shopping list, that sadly no longer feels that strange.

Our middle child is in the most nebulous set of school firsts and lasts. Due to health concerns, she didn't attend her eighth grade graduation from Fernwood back when that happened. Then she did a year of high school, most of a second year of high school before the pandemic shut things down, and all of her junior year was virtual. I managed to eke out a VERY reluctant first day of school-in-the-house picture for that one.

Compared to all the time we spent at Fernwood, I feel sadly disconnected from Mona's school. Which is a shame, because Bay View High School is where my grandfather went. It's a beautiful building with excellent teachers. It's right on the park and only a few blocks from our home. I've wanted to be a part of things there. But my daughter wants distance from her parents in a way her older sister didn't, and the kinds of activities that interest her never invited us into the school. When we sat in the auditorium for Quinn's eighth grade graduation, it occurred to me that we'd never had occasion to be there for anything related to my child who actually attends that school. We've never seen a play or a concert or a science fair or a sports event. I've only stepped inside the school for conferences or a medical issue.

She's now in her senior year, back to in-person. But she managed to get ahead in credits by doing summer school every year, and only needs a couple of English classes to graduate, so she should be done with high school before 2021 is up. Are there "graduations" for people who finish school midway through the year? Does she get a cap and gown? I doubt it. Especially in Covid-times where ceremonies don't really happen to begin with. She's also only doing half days, and showing up at lunchtime at the violin store where we've hired her to work. Since I don't see her leave in the morning and she arrives only a couple of hours after I get to the store, it barely feels like she's in school at all. So she may finish high school with the least fanfare yet.

It's really messing with me. I didn't realize how much I relied on certain milestones to keep my parenting identity anchored. I never cared about graduation ceremonies until they all went away. Maybe I'll get to see Quinn march one day? As we listen to boring speeches on a hot spring afternoon? I sincerely hope so.

Because I only have so many firsts and lasts left to document. There are only three first day of school photos left to take of Quinn. Once those are done, I'm left to the mercy of whatever my kids choose to share as they move entirely into worlds of their own. I hope they remember to take a picture once in a while. I want to see them.

The Bus

As this school year begins wrapping up I want to take a moment to acknowledge the greatest development for me in my children's school attending lives:  the bus.

Aden started taking a bus last year for high school which is almost six miles away, but this year the other two kids started taking a bus too, and to not have to get up and drive anyone anywhere first thing in the morning is amazing.  We still make breakfast (although on days when we can't it's just fine) and we still have to prod the kids awake and remind them to put on clean clothes, but that's it.  Not braving the cold or the snow or the rain or having to find a spot for drop off is wonderful.  Equally wonderful is not worrying about the pickup and having to interrupt my afternoon to get the kids at school or remember to write to note so they can walk to the violin store if I can't get them.  I love it, and I think the kids like having more autonomy.

Why didn't we do it sooner if it was an option?

In no mood for other people's updates

This is a short, grumpy post that I should probably not hit "publish" on, but sometimes this blog is my venting space, and I feel like I will get past these feelings sooner if I try to pin them down with words.  So indulge me a moment, and I will post about Mold-A-Ramas and the like again soon.

With apologies for being vague (since some stories are not mine to tell), one of my kids was pulled out of a school event that they've been looking forward to for over a year and I'm angry.  I get the problem, and I don't specifically fault the school since the people making the decisions were at the district level, not the teachers, but I do not think the way things were handled was fair, and the decision had the potential to exacerbate the situation they were supposedly trying to mitigate. 

In any case, I did everything I could to advocate for my kid, and since the decision left my hands I've been trying to just accept things and come to peace with it.  It's all okay.  The world certainly didn't end.  Compared to the nightmare I was living through a year ago at this time, this is like a dream scenario.  Life is good.

But then there is Facebook.  And blow by blow updates from happy parents nervously fretting about their kids off on an adventure.  I had expected to be one of those parents.  Instead I'm reminded with each post that I feel my kid was denied something they had earned and it hurts.  I don't want to resent those other families.  I don't for a minute wish anything but the best for those other kids.  I hope they have a fabulous time.

I just don't want to hear about it.  At least not right now.  Is that petty?

I feel a little like I did the first year or so after my dad died and I really didn't want to hear other people's stories about their dads.  Father's Day was painful.  (Father's Day is still painful.)  I don't begrudge anyone their happiness.  I just sometimes have trouble juxtaposing it with my loss.

I understand that we know things intellectually, and that we can't control how we react emotionally, but there is also the image in my mind of the person I strive to be, and that person is better at all of this.  Or at least better at accepting all of this.

Until I figure it out, I think I will stay off Facebook as much as I can afford to.  It's not helping.

The silver lining in all of this has been my kid, who is grappling with their own mix of emotions and reality and is doing it with a grace and maturity that I find astonishing and deeply reassuring.  That's more than enough to sustain me.  (As long as I avoid the jabs of other people's updates, at least for now.)

Pigs in Space

My first baby just graduated from eighth grade.

How does that happen?  I remember a decade and a half ago the pregnancy test coming up positive, and telling Ian, and then telling my grandma (who cried).  I remember talking to Aden in my belly and enjoying having her with me everywhere I went even though I hadn't seen her yet.  I remember the baby who smiled at me for real at three weeks old, and who had full blown empathy at four months.

I remember a little girl starting at her public Montessori school who refused to walk down to her kindergarten classroom in the basement unaccompanied, which was a problem in the winter for her pregnant mom with the toddler in tow and a husband deployed in Iraq.  That problem was eventually solved by her finding a friend to walk with her.  That same friend was one of the last she walked out of the school with after graduation.

I can't believe time can come crashing all together like this.  Hundreds of trips in and out of that school, no particular one looking like a milestone, and yet she started as a tiny four-year-old I could scoop into my arms, and came out an impressive young woman who performed a violin solo on the stage for the graduating class and left clutching a certificate.  I am overwhelmed.

The Sports Thing

Aden joined the eighth grade girls' volleyball team at school this year.  She was interested in getting more exercise (which can be harder to do when the weather is cold) and I suggested she might like a more social outlet for that, so why not give volleyball a try?  She was hesitant, but she signed up, and she's really been enjoying it.

It's been interesting for us.  Earlier this month we went to our first sports thing as a family when we watched Aden's team play.  We've never been to see any kind of organized sporting event together.  I know Aden has been to baseball games with other people.  Mona was briefly on a swim team at the Y, but that was as low key as you could get, and we never all went to a meet.  I think the closest Quinn has been to sports is the Gaga Pit at school.  Sports has not been part of their education, so they know "of" sports.

Sports holds little to no interest for me.  I am glad to be married to a man with equal non-interest in sports, but it's definitely an area where my kids have not had a lot of exposure due to our lack of involvement.  However, Aden is among the very top of the list of things that do interest us, so we are all happy to go watch her play volleyball.

The Recycled Kangaroo

Aden wanted to be a kangaroo for Halloween again this year.  She loves being a kangaroo.  She likes being soft, she likes having a big tail, and she likes having a pouch (which conveniently holds either candy or the dog).

Aden has been a kangaroo many, many times.  It was the first costume idea she picked for herself when she wasn't quite three.  (I made several suggestions, but when she realized she could use the pouch of a kangaroo costume for Trick-or-Treating, that was it.)

The main thing I learned from that first kangaroo costume was that in subsequent costumes not to include feet.  I didn't expect my kids to wear their costumes over multiple years (and for any and every occasion), but they do, and room for added leg growth has proven necessary.



So as much as Aden liked being a snowy owl last year, and a zebra the year before, she really liked her kangaroo costume from the year before that and decided to wear it again.  It just needed a few alterations.

The Good and the Bad

Aden invited me to go with her class on a field trip to a movie downtown.  As part of the Milwaukee Film Festival there was a showing of Landfillharmonic, a documentary about children in Paraguay who live in a dump and play music on orchestral instruments assembled from garbage.  Aden knew I'd be interested, and when her teacher said there were a couple of tickets left for any adults who wanted to come along she was excited to ask me.  It was short notice (she told me the night before), but I was caught up on my work and figured it would be fine for Ian to cover for me in the morning.  I told Aden I could go.  She was delighted.

Aden is 13.  13 is hard.  We are struggling a bit with her lately, because the parenting road is not particularly clear anymore.  When children are younger there are relatively fewer choices about many things.  I'm not saying it's easy, by any means, because it's not, but the variables are different.

With toddlers, for instance, you know all of their friends.  You usually share most of your child's environment.  You know where they are, what they are eating, and what they are watching.  The scope of their potential worries tends to be narrow.

By eighth grade, for many, that all goes away.  Most days my daughter spends more waking hours outside of our house than in it.  I do not know all of her friends.  I have only a vague idea of what her days look like, I no longer have control over what she eats or watches, and her concerns are complicated.

No Gradual Adjustments Here

Normally as school approaches we get the kids back into some kind of bedtime routine.  Enacting bedtime forces other parts of our routine in line as well and gets us back into a more precise schedule.  That seems reasonable.  Apparently this year we were going for the unreasonable.

During summer vacation we have very few rules.  We don't tell the kids when to go to bed or get up, we get, um, flexible about mealtimes.  When I'm home and feeling ambitious I might remind them to practice violin or piano, but I'm of the belief that real unencumbered free time is valuable.  Left to their own devices my kids never get bored.  They do interesting projects and come up with interesting games, and I know how important freedom is to the creative process.  To have a big swath of unscheduled time to use as a blank canvas is a gift.  (One I wish I got for myself more often.)

So summers around here are loose when they can be.  It's nice to be able to do things for as long as you want and not care about the clock.  At the cottage the kids routinely went to bed well after we did.  Occasionally we'd bug them to be quieter, but we didn't actually want them to stop whatever odd thing it was they had laid out with foam swords and pillows and fake jewels.  There was lots of laughing involved in whatever that was, and I can't ask for more for my kids than a summer filled with laughter.

Concert Rave

Quick post.  I still have enough people staying in my house at the moment that I keep losing count (we set the dinner table for 17 last night, I think...) so I haven't had time for writing.  I still don't, but we're in a down moment where people are just reading, etc. so I will blog!

Before I forget the details I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the kids' school concert.  It was wonderful.  It was everything the girls' last choir concert wasn't.

The Value of Cursive in School

(This post was recently published on the site The Broad Side.  Some interesting writing over there in general and I have an open invitation to contribute there again, so check it out if you have time!)

A couple of years back I asked Quinn what he wanted to learn to write in cursive, and he said, "Everything!"  So I wrote out "everything," and he happily followed suit.

THE VALUE OF CURSIVE

I've been dismayed by recent articles about how many schools have stopped teaching cursive.  My own children attend a public Montessori school where they start cursive in kindergarten, and I'm thankful that is part of their curriculum.

I understand the constraints schools are under anymore to teach a growing array of skills, and I'm sure finding time to have children do the repetitive work of learning to write clearly by hand may seem better spent on other things, but I'd like to take a moment to argue in favor of cursive.  I do believe it's worth our children's time.

The arguments against it are that people use electronic devices and keyboards now, printing is clearer, and that there is essentially not enough bang for your buck to warrant taking time for it in the classroom.  I would counter that cursive is practical, beautiful, and fills a variety of useful needs that should be embraced as part of a well-rounded education.

When History is Sweet

Every year my kids' school puts on a Multi-Cultural Fair.  It's an eclectic event, often crowded, usually interesting.  Mona's old kindergarten teacher always does a display about Alaska that includes moose jerky and the chance to pan for "gold."  Many rooms put out excellent food (samples from Brazil, this particular year, come to mind as particularly yummy), and the kids contribute to all the presentations.  Quinn's room did Spain (and on the wall where the kids were quoted about what they liked learning about Spain, Quinn's line said, "Everything!").  Mona's room primarily did Mexico, but there were some splinter factions that did additional displays about China and Ireland.  This made for a strange snack table of soda bread, pot stickers, and cookies, but we got to take some chopsticks home so it all worked out.

However, the big event for us this year was in Aden's room.  Instead of working in a group each student there did his or her own display about some connection to Milwaukee and its history.  My mom's side of the family IS Milwaukee and its history.  My great-great-grandparents moved here from Germany, and my great-grandmother, Alma Borchert, was the youngest of their six children born in the city.  Aden decided to do her research and presentation about her.
 
Alma Borchert is the person who always comes to my mind first when people ask that question about "If you could meet anyone from history...." 

School

The first week of school went well here.  Unless you count the second day where Quinn threw up.  Twice.  So he came home early, but had no fever and seemed fine.  We sent him back the next day and things were less messy.  (I have no idea what that was, but I'm chalking it up to 'transition.')

Aden, Mona, Quinn, first day of school

The first day of school Ian biked there with the girls and I followed along a few minutes later with Quinn in the car because we had at least six bags of supplies to deliver.  We get a list every year from each teacher of a dozen things that includes paper towels and pencils and copy paper.  I don't remember as a kid being responsible for any supplies beyond what I was supposed to use myself, but now basic things like crayons and glue are not available in the regular school budget apparently, so all the families pitch in.  That's fine by me, since my kids attend a public school and their education is essentially free to begin with, but it makes me sad that as a society education is such an underfunded priority.  So many of the good things about a community radiate from having a well educated population, so I'm amazed that schools have to fight for the money needed to do what they do.

End of the Half-Day Pickup

We are entering a whole new era.  Our youngest child just had his last day of morning only classes.  (!!!!!!!!)

Quinn showing me his latest map

Montessori has mixed aged classrooms, and the kindergarten has K3 and K4 children who leave school at lunchtime, and K5 children who stay the whole day.  It's a great system in that the younger kids don't get overwhelmed and the older kids get more serious attention in the afternoon.

Half-day pickup

It's a great system for the kids.  For the parents, not so much.  Especially if you have a mix of kids at the school for half-day and full-day.  We drop the kids off at 7:40, then come back for the 11:00 pickup, then back again at 2:20.  That half-day pickup kind of breaks up the whole day into unworkable parts.  The morning stretch is not quite long enough to do anything involved, and then we can't go far after the half-day pickup because we have to turn right back around and do the end of the day pickup.  It can be a bit limiting.

Since Ian is the stay-at-home parent most days, he's had to deal with the brunt of the school chauffeur duties.  He missed the one year with no half-day pickup when Quinn wasn't in school yet and Mona moved to full-day, but that was my one saving grace during that deployment, not having to chop up my day with another drive to the school at lunchtime.

I will say, however inconvenient, there is nothing cuter than the half-day pickup.  Watching the procession of three and four year olds being herded out of the building and onto the playground in uncertain rows, most of the year bundled in brightly colored coats and hats, is adorable.  It unfailingly makes me smile, regardless of anything else happening in my day.

Next year I will get to wait for my son on the other side of the building at 2:20 like we do for his sisters.  I'd go anywhere, anytime, to be greeted with that smile--but I'm glad we won't be doing it at 11:00 anymore.

Quinn is now officially a K5!

I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like....

We've been biking to school as a family whenever we can the past few weeks.

The upper elementary kids had a series of bike safety classes in May and Aden was inspired.  In mid-May there was a (school-wide? city-wide? national?) bike to school day.  Of course on that morning it rained, but we gave it a shot the day after.

Aden ready to ride

I love activities we can do as an entire family, but it can be complicated when you have kids of different ages.  There aren't a lot of games or physical events that work easily for both the ten year old and the five year old.  I didn't really think biking would be among them for some time.

Mona was resistant to the idea of learning to ride a bike (preferring her scooter) until recently.  But she got a new hand-me-down bike from a friend that she was excited about, and Mona, being Mona, didn't want any help and taught herself to ride that bike over the course of a couple of hours and a few nasty spills that we were expected to ignore.  Now she bikes fearlessly as only Mona can.

Quinn with his scooter fresh out of the box

Quinn learned to ride a scooter this Spring.  His tricycle is too small and he needed something to ride, and I was nervous about him having a scooter with only two wheels, but of course he wants what his sisters have.  Now he zips around the block, gracefully when he's well rested, tumbling and ripping holes in the knees of his pants when he isn't.

So all my kids have wheels, but mixing bikes and scooters doesn't work well if we want to stick together.  Aden was determined to get us all biking to school, however, and she reminded me we had a bike trailer in the basement.  I had thought of it as more of a toddler hauling accessory, but we pulled it out and had Quinn get inside, and he liked it.  He sings back there, and keeps treasures in the side pockets.

The distance to the school is just over a mile and a half, and there are a few busy streets and intersections along the way.  We picked a simple route where we could primarily use sidewalks and did a practice run in the evening to time ourselves.  It takes our odd little convoy about 25 minutes from door to door.  (Alone, Ian or I can do it in a bit less than ten.)

The first morning we biked to school Ian had Army responsibilities, so I had to take the kids alone.  Hauling the trailer uphill with Quinn is hard, and I was a little frazzled trying to give directions and keep everyone in a little group while monitoring all the morning traffic.  I had Aden lead, and I stayed in the rear listening to Mona chatting away.  I prefer when Ian joins us and can haul the trailer, but I'm pleased with myself for managing to get all the kids to school on time with the bikes on my own.  Since that first morning we've gotten better at it.  The kids are familiar with the route now, and their biking skills have improved.  (Although there was a day last week right after a rainstorm that resulted in a lot of sticks on the ground, and I swear to you Mona hit every last one.  I considered asking her if she really was trying to hit them all but then I decided I didn't want to know.)

It takes extra planning and work to get ourselves out the door in time to make it to school before the last bell, and we can't bike in bad weather, but I'm glad we've gone as often as we have without the car.  With the half-day pickup that's six trips between our house and the school every day.

We had been at it about a week, some days proving more conducive to biking than others, when I came across a PBS program one night that caught my attention.  I watch a lot of TV, but not on our actual television, and one evening when I got home late from work and made myself a little something for dinner I decided to eat it alone in the family room and just flip around with the remote awhile for fun.  I stopped on a program about families dealing with childhood obesity and what people can do to change, and most of it was stuff I knew (like not eating alone in front of the TV) but the one line that jumped out at me was a doctor saying that many people have the mistaken idea that a healthy lifestyle doesn't take work.  He said that families who are able to do a successful job of eating the right foods and being active are exceptionally organized.  They plan, they make sacrifices, and they make it a priority even though it's difficult.

You know what?  That really made an impression on me.  Because I think I did have a sense that maybe there was something wrong with me that trying to incorporate more of the activities and choices into our daily lives that seem healthier were also an incredible amount of work.  That maybe I wasn't cut out for it somehow.  Cooking decent meals takes planning so produce doesn't go bad and some days our schedule is really tight.  Getting around with the kids by bike takes a lot more thought and effort, and some days we can do it and some days we just can't.  Having someone not just say, "This is good for you and your kids, you should do it," but add, "It's going to be a lot of hard work but it's worth it," makes a difference.  It changes your expectations.  I don't feel like I'm a failure if I can't do it all the time.

So I'm proud of us for making the effort, even though it's not easy, and the truth is when it all goes according to plan it's great.  As the school year winds down for us in another week I will miss getting the kids there by bike.  It's been lovely, really, despite middle-schoolers letting the air out of the girls' tires on the playground one day, or the occasional squabble about who leads and who follows, or stopping to fuss with a bike chain.  I think it's been good for our kids to see us solving problems as they arise and sticking with it.

There's a level of independence that comes with being on a bike that's also positive.  Aden even got to bike home alone one afternoon when she stayed late to play with a friend on the school grounds.  She was confident enough about remembering the route back that when she called to say she was ready to head home she said she wanted to do it on her own.  I won't lie that it didn't make me nervous because some of places she'd have to deal with traffic scare me, but I'm proud of her for doing it.  She did fine.

My favorite part of our commute is where we cut through the park, and in the middle there is a large pond that at this time of year is teeming with red-winged blackbirds singing in the reeds every morning.  It's beautiful.  And worth the extra work it takes to get us there.

We'll have to find new destinations to bike to as a family once school is out, because now that we've gotten into the groove of it I don't want to give it up.  It is worth the effort.  And my kids agree that the world looks better when viewed from a bike.

Crazy Mixed-Up World

Quinn is good at maps.  He gets this from his father.  He most certainly does not get this from me.  I have tried for years to learn some basic geography and I am still surprised every time I look at a map at where everything really is.

This is Quinn at 18 months old (still wearing a diaper) putting together a map puzzle of Asia by himself, happily naming each country in his baby lisp.  (The joke for a while was, "Oh, he's probably just reading it.")

I picked up the puzzle on a whim at the local natural history museum one afternoon because he seemed interested.  I didn't expect him to master it in a couple of days.

For Christmas my parents got him the Africa puzzle, which he also learned in a couple of days.

So of course we got him all the puzzles.  The only one that bored him was South America, and I think that was because in order to fit nicely on a square the puzzle has a lot more ocean than any of the other map puzzles.

In any case, Quinn loves to learn things, and he will focus intensely on something for a stretch of time, and then just let it go.  Which is what happened with the maps around age three.  He was doing the Europe puzzle at the violin store almost daily when he spent his mornings there with me while his sisters were at school and his dad was in Iraq.  Then, one day, that was enough of that.  No more maps.  He was only interested in things that were purple.  Then he was into planets.

But recently at school, where he is a K4 in a mixed age Montessori classroom, he started working with maps again.  They have sets with pieces the kids can trace to make their own maps of different areas of the world.  Quinn got inspired and made me one of the United States, one of South America, and one of Africa.
 
I don't know which I like better: The actual maps, or the smile on Quinn's face when his dad brings him by the violin store after the half-day pickup and he says he has a surprise for me in his backpack.  (Okay, the smile, but the maps are awfully cool.)

Anyway, the school maps inspired Quinn to dig the old map puzzles out of the game cabinet, and he was familiarizing himself with all the countries of the world again.  (And this time he really was reading the words on the pieces.)

Then one evening I came home from work to discover that Quinn had dumped all the map puzzles into a single heap.  The puzzles take me forever and I have to keep referring to the pictures on the boxes, so I have always been very careful to make sure we put one away before we get out another for fear of a time consuming mix up.  Seeing all the countries of the world scrambled together put me in a mild panic.                                                               

I offered to start helping Quinn sort them out, and began picking out pieces of the United States and Canada and putting them in pile.  And my poor boy started to quietly cry.  I froze.  Then I scooped him into my lap and apologized.  Just because I assume something needs fixing because it makes me uncomfortable doesn't mean that that's true for anyone else.  I had interfered in something that I shouldn't have, and since my son loves me he can't just yell, "No!" to make me stop.  I had to make myself stop.  And I left him and the mixed-up world alone.

Not that Quinn leaves me alone.  He would pick at the puzzles a little in the morning before school and again in the evenings before bed, all the while chattering away at me as I did my own projects at the dining room table or in the living room.  And after a few days he had sorted out everything.

Quinn fixed the world.

 

I don't know.  The kid is smart enough maybe by the time he's finally in full day kindergarten he'll figure out how to fix the real one.  Let's all just be glad that he uses his powers for cuteness instead of evil.

The Science of Praise

My kids had their annual science fair at school last week.  It's always crowded and busy and there is always a bake sale where we can buy a couple of cupcakes for the price it would cost me to make an entire batch of them better at home (but we buy some anyway because it raises money for some worthy cause plus apparently it's exciting to buy a treat at school).

Anyway, Quinn's kindergarten class all did planets, but since he's still only a K4 and not in school the whole day yet he was not part of creating any displays for the science fair.  He pointed out what the K5s did and he's looking forward to making something great next year.  Considering how organized he is with the blocks at the violin store I can only imagine what he'll do when he's given real work to display.

(He actually organized all the blocks into categories and then made a chart, so he's a serious kind of five year old.)

Aden's class had some entertaining displays, including one about the science behind why dropping a mentos into diet coke creates a geyser, and another that made soap bubbles filled with fog from dry ice that you could hold if you were wearing gloves.  Aden did a project on her own about vibration and I was really proud of her.  She created a nice poster and had lots of props for doing demonstrations including a slinky for simulating echos and her violin for making musical sounds.  I was impressed with how well she engaged people who came by her display and how clearly she explained her work.

And then there's Mona.  Aden can move me to tears and Quinn leaves me astonished, but Mona makes me laugh every day.  I love Mona.

I love all my kids, but Mona has a particularly lively role in our family.  In fact, when we split up for the first couple of days of spring break recently and I had just Aden and Quinn with me, it was sort of eerie.  Aden and Quinn are both polite, and quiet, and at the dinner table are very still.  They think carefully before they speak, and often don't speak unless they are spoken to.  I'd never really noticed how mature they really are because usually, fidgeting between them, is Mona.  Mona who can't keep her butt on a chair for a whole meal.  Mona who has no volume control.  Mona who likes to get a laugh but also doesn't want to be the center of attention, so she struggles with conflicting feelings of self-consciousness and pride and embarrassment mixed with a crazy sort of showmanship.  Mona is hilarious and life without her is much too orderly and dull.



So, Mona's science fair project was a display she worked on with three other kids about magnets.  Her primary contributions were the three pages of written information that she would read to people as they visited the display, and she also made 'metal detectors,' which were these little devices she created out of refrigerator magnets and popsicle sticks that could be used to pull iron filings out of a dish of sand.

It was wonderful to watch Mona work with both children and adults, happily sharing all she'd learned about magnets.  At one point I asked her if she'd like to take a break and get a treat from the bake sale, but she was more concerned about getting a chance to see her sister's vibration display on the floor above, which I thought was very sweet.

But the best moment of the science fair was when Mona read her whole report about magnets to some random mom and when she got to the end she looked up and asked, "Do you have any questions or compliments?"

Questions or compliments!  I suppose she meant 'comments' but Mona is more inventive with language than her siblings.  Aden and Quinn have large vocabularies and they are cautious about using words properly, which I think is great, but Mona has a large vocabulary too, she just plays fast and loose with it.

Questions or compliments.  Yes, Mona, I have several of each.

Special (Babble)

(Mona on the school playground, Oct 30, 2006)

One of the most difficult days I experienced during my husband’s first deployment was on November 1, 2006.  I remember the date because the weather had been fairly pleasant and warm right up through Halloween, but the next morning the temperature dropped dramatically and it was officially cold out.  The reason this was a problem is that Mona, at the time still two years old, would not wear shoes or a coat, and I was only a couple of weeks from giving birth to Quinn.  If I wrestled shoes onto Mona she just kicked them off.  I could not get her into a coat.  I was too pregnant, too exhausted, too stressed, and in too much pain to physically do what needed to be done with Mona to keep her in shoes and a coat.  I was stuck.  I carried her shoes and coat everywhere in the hopes she would come to her senses and ask for them when she got cold, but that never happened.

Every morning when I would take Aden to half-day kindergarten at the public Montessori school I would be caught between a rock and a hard place, because Aden would not walk herself into the building and down to her classroom, which meant Mona had to get out of the car, too.  If I only had to walk Aden across the playground to the building I could have lived with leaving Mona buckled in her car seat, but not if I was going inside the building.  I pleaded with Aden to go alone and she would not.  I pleaded with Mona to at least put on her shoes and she would not.  So I would walk with Mona and Aden into the building and try to figure out what I was supposed to do when it got really cold.  On November 1st when it reached that point, I decided to go to the office after delivering Aden to her classroom to find out if anyone could help me out for just two more weeks until Ian came home for the birth of the baby.


But on my way into the building a woman (I’m assuming a parent otherwise why would she be on the playground?) chastised me for putting Mona in danger by not having her in a coat.  The meanness of her tone startled me and I held out Mona’s coat and said, “Fine, you do it!”  She snapped back that no, I was the parent and I was being irresponsible exposing my child to the cold which was tantamount to abuse and she should report me to Child Protective Services.  By the time I got into the building I was crying uncontrollably.  I didn’t want to be crying but I was so upset and embarrassed and frustrated and at my limit with everything that it was too much.  I cried on and off the entire day.

Now, the upside to that particular story is I met some wonderful people who came to my rescue (including my friend Carol who volunteered to pick Aden up at my house every morning and let her walk into the school with her own daughter, thus solving my dilemma for the rest of the school year), and I learned a valuable lesson about not judging other parents but trying to help when possible.  That woman could have offered to get Mona into the coat and shoes, or at least carried her into the building for me which I couldn’t do while nine months pregnant.  Calling me a bad parent was not helpful to anyone, and to essentially kick a pregnant woman (whose husband was in a war zone) while she’s down was just cruel, no matter how justified she felt.

But that’s not actually what I want to focus on with this post.  I’ve got a whole other piece in the works about judgment and parenting that I will finish tinkering with someday and will put up, but in the meantime I’ve got something else rattling around my brain with a lot of odd tangents to it.  Indulge me while I try to sort some of those thoughts out here.
While I was inside the building that day, trying to pull myself together, I had a talk with an important figure at the school about what solutions there might be to my problem.  I was trying to arrange to have someone meet me at my car in the mornings to help walk Aden to class, or something along those lines.  But this person I was talking to was fixated on the problem of Mona and her shoes.   I got nothing but suggestions for getting Mona into shoes.

Mona is not like anyone I’ve ever known.  At age two she was very much in her own little world.  She didn’t talk much, nothing we said to her seemed to register, she did not exhibit empathy yet, and she was not interested in objects or physical things.  Her favorite toy was her shadow.  She was adorable and brilliant but unpredictable and difficult to manipulate.

The school official didn’t want to hear any of that.  I had to listen to a lecture about sticker charts.  The solution to all my problems with Mona apparently lay in the proper use of sticker charts.  Now, I may not have been able to control my youngest daughter as well as I would have liked, but I still knew her better than anyone else could.  And Mona wouldn’t have noticed a sticker chart if I taped it to her face.  She also would have paid no attention to attempts at reverse psychology or anything resembling logic.  Mona just didn’t want to wear shoes.  I knew the only way to make her do it was to be consistent and force them back on her over and over and over until she realized I was not going to back down on the issue, and I was too pregnant to do that right then.

When I protested and said that the techniques being suggested would not work on Mona, the person got exasperated, eventually saying, “Every parent thinks their child is special.  I’ve seen this work on a thousand children.”  I was not in any emotional state to argue at that point, but I remember thinking very clearly at the time, “Well, every child IS special, and meet child number one-thousand-and-ONE, because you are wrong.”

That line about everyone thinking his or her child is special has stayed with me.  I think about it often.  Every parent should think his or her child is special.  Because every child is special.  And this is an issue I’ve struggled with a little bit, especially when talking with certain people who have differing views from my own.

There is a line in the movie The Incredibles that is central to the point of the film about how “If everyone is special, then nobody is.”  I agree that there needs to be room for people to be extraordinary.  We are not all equal in our abilities or talents or willingness to work.

But I believe that the extraordinary among us with the right encouragement and resources will rise to the top.  I don’t think that just because some people have a specific genius for art or music, etc., the rest of us aren’t worthy to have a go at those things and we benefit from that experience in different ways.  I know artists and musicians who are weary of seeing bad art and hearing inadequate music and wish sometimes others without innate talent would just stop.  I don’t see the mediocre as a threat to the brilliant so it doesn’t bother me particularly, and I accept that the audience for the truly great is sometimes small.  But just because I will never be singer in any official sense does not mean I should never sing.

When I started team teaching violin lessons for clients in music therapy I had to rethink the whole point of playing music.  Normally when I teach the goal is to improve performance on the violin.  I have materials and techniques I use to get students from point A to point B to point C, with the purpose of working toward more complicated music and wider opportunities.  Among the side effects of that kind of training are greater confidence, developing self-discipline, relaxation, and interacting with new people.  In music therapy this is kind of flipped on its head.  The goal is the side effects, and learning to play violin specifically is the vehicle.  So if I happen to have a student who never improves on a technical level because of some obstacle or another, it doesn’t matter.  I see the benefits of playing violin, I just have to think about my part in the equation in a new way.

I have never had a single music therapy student who I did not think benefited from playing violin.  Will any of them go on to great professional careers in music?  Unlikely.  But the same is true of my regular students.  I talk to adults who come in my store all the time who wished they could play violin and somehow think it’s too late to start.  I tell them it’s too late to be a child prodigy, but there is no ‘too late’ for music.  What difference does it make if someone else started younger?  Starting younger did not mean that person went on to do it forever or even be very good.  All that matters is that it brings you joy.  Everyone should be allowed that.  The people who want to put in the exhaustive work of going pro will do so.  They will be exceptional and rightly admired for it.  That doesn’t mean average players have to forgo the fun of making their own music.  So I don’t believe giving everyone a chance to be included somehow negates the exceptional.  It just opens up the possibility for everyone to make it their own.

So is every child special?  I think yes.  Because I don’t mean it in a dopey silly way that suggests we bow down to children or not expect them to behave, I mean that every person–particularly at the beginning of life when they are still learning to make responsible choices–deserves respect and care.  Every child should have a fair chance to be the unique individual he or she is supposed to be.  Every child should be entitled to decent medical care, good nutrition, education, exposure to the arts, a safe environment, and love.  It’s heartbreaking to me that this isn’t the case for even most of the children in this world.  How different things would be if all children were raised as if we are glad they are here.  I don’t understand people or policies that write children born into bad circumstances off as if they don’t deserve better.

I most often hear people griping about the ‘Everyone is special’ problem when it comes to competition or ceremony.  There are people who whine if kindergarteners get a little graduation, or if everyone receives a ribbon or trophy.  Many people want there to be a winner and a loser I suppose.  I think that’s too narrow.  For one kid maybe being the best at something was easy.  For another, maybe grappling with a learning disability made the same journey much harder.  Who really deserves the praise?  The person who worked or the one who didn’t have to?  I never practiced viola in high school.  I didn’t need to.  The music we performed had to be accessible to strong and weak players alike so it was easy for me, and praise for my part in it didn’t mean much.  However, the classical guitar solo I put together to perform onstage with the orchestra my senior year–THAT was work.  Terrifying, nail-biting, worry-up-to-the-last-minute-will-she-get-through-it-without-falling-apart work.  The praise I got for that was earned and I knew the difference.

The truth is, life is hard for everyone at some point.  There are enough real lessons in success and failure to go around without inventing more.  Why not change the rules to Candy Land so everyone wins?  So what?  I don’t think important character building lessons about being a good sport happen at age three for most people.  No one likes losing, but little kids can’t grasp the big picture in order to take losing well.  So why bother?  My kids hate losing at Chutes and Ladders so we don’t play it.  I remember hating when I lost at Chutes and Ladders as a kid.  It didn’t make me a better person to suffer through that.  Eventually you put things in perspective and now I don’t care if I win at it or not, and my kids will get there too.  The point of playing games together is to have fun.  If finding ways to play together without someone losing makes it more fun, great.

The point of little ceremonies and all those little trophies is to acknowledge everyone on whatever terms are meaningful to them.  There is no way to know whom that will touch.  There are too many kids among us who do not feel special at home.  That ribbon one person sees as a worthless gesture may mean the difference for someone else between feeling school is a good place to be or not.  Between feeling special or not.  Between feeling like they are worth anything or not.

So, back to Mona and her shoes.  When her dad came home on leave from Iraq he simply told her to wear them.  She knew it was pointless to fight him on the concept, so she did it.  No sticker charts.  Just because you have techniques that seem to work universally, you have to leave room for the possibility of the new.  The times I’ve failed my own violin students were all cases where I neglected to take the individual into account and tried to force them into a mold that worked for others.  Seeing what is special in everyone takes imagination.  It can be hard.  But when we don’t make that effort, that’s when life becomes cheap.  When we don’t see everyone as special we write others off too easily, and that’s a mistake.

“Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”  —Albert Einstein

Welcome Rejection (Babble)

(Quinn organizing his trick-or-treat haul.)

I think the kids are about at the end of their Halloween candy.  We try to have them just eat it and be done with it as early as possible, but Mona is oddly good at delayed gratification and she still had some candy saved from Fourth of July that she mixed into her bucket, so it’s hard to know for sure.  My kids stash stuff in weird places, like squirrels, so I really don’t know at this point.

But the Halloween decorations came down this weekend, and the pumpkins are gone, which is my cue to start preparing for birthday season.  I can’t believe Quinn is going to be five this month.  When I started this blog he was still two (back in the days when he did map puzzles), and it amazes me how much he can still be my baby and such a big kid at the same time.

I’ve been thinking about all the things that have changed in the past year, what’s different and what isn’t.  I honestly believe that now, more than a year since Ian returned from Iraq, that Quinn doesn’t remember the deployment.  It’s just too long ago in proportion to his relatively short life so far, and there are too many new things each day crowding out old memories.  He’s not sure what we mean when we talk about possibly returning to Incrediroll, I don’t think he’d recognize anything in Chuck E Cheese at this point, and I would bet he has few memories of our old house.  So I really believe that the idea of his dad not being around all the time is foreign now.  Which is great.

Quinn is a stubborn little guy.  Very smart, very dear, but when he had it in his head that he didn’t like his dad when Ian returned from the last tour of duty, he stuck to that with a tenacity that was impressive.  The most disheartening manifestation of that was at the school pickup.  I maybe pick Quinn up after half-day kindergarten once or twice a week.  Usually it’s Ian.  All last year I was greeted with hugs and love and squeals and smiles.  Ian was greeted with silence on a good day and a tantrum on a bad one.  Quinn would slump when he saw his dad, and plod along slowly.

We decided on the days Ian picked up Quinn he should bring him something special, so we let our son pick out Pop Tarts at the store and Ian would have one along for a snack for the ride home after school.  If I picked up Quinn there would be no Pop Tart.  I figured at some point Quinn would associate his dad with Pop Tarts and be happy to see him and it would be a start.  A Pavlovian start, but something in the right direction at least.

But it didn’t seem to work.  All last year Quinn stuck to his guns and would never say it was good to see his dad.  His behavior improved toward the end, but was never particularly positive.

This year has been better.  Since I work outside of the house more often than Ian does, he’s still the main stay at home parent and the kids are accustomed to having their dad around.  It’s so much better than having their dad be like some fictional character we talk about and pretend is a part of our lives I can’t even tell you.  I think back to that and still feel great relief that things now are so different.  But getting here has be gradual.  Which is good, especially when dealing with a smart and stubborn little boy.

Last week when Ian went to help out on a field trip with Aden’s class, I got to pick up Quinn at the half day and take him with me on errands.  We had a lovely time, returning things at the fabric store and picking up groceries and splitting a KitKat bar outside of Target.  But the best part was at the pickup itself.

Quinn bounced in the line when he spotted me on the playground, ran to me when he was finally released, gave me a huge hug with both his arms and legs and he laughed and he smiled and made me feel like the luckiest mom in the world.  Then as we started to walk away from the school Quinn went slumpy.  He still held my hand but he drooped and moved slowly.  I asked what was wrong, and he said sadly, “It’s just, I like it better when dad comes to get me.”

Part of me realized that I should be hurt, because what mom wants be feel rejected like that?  But I had to turn my head so Quinn wouldn’t see me smiling.  I loved hearing those words.  The amount of parental affection has been so lopsided that there is no sense of loss from my end if it shifts at all.  I’ve been waiting for it to even out for so long.
Because I couldn’t help it, I asked Quinn why he preferred his dad at the pickup.  (The girls are very clear that they’d rather have their dad get them at the end of the day because he lets them play outside there as long as they like.  I always have eighteen places to be and must leave so I am not the preferred parent in that scenario, either.)  Without hesitation Quinn said, “Pop Tart.”

So it did work.  It took a long time, and Quinn sees through the game a bit, but when he spots his dad after school it makes him happy.  I know at some point that will be true even without the promise of a Pop Tart.  I love my guys.  Life is good, and getting better.
(Although I did finally find the limit of my son’s love for me.  He draws it at Almond Joy bars, which when he was laying out all his Halloween candy he declared to me he would not share.  That rejection I take a little harder!)

A Call Nobody Wants to Get (Babble)

“Quinn is having some kind of seizure here in the school office and we’re calling 911.”

Are there words that would make me move faster?  I can’t imagine what.

I had just gotten back from swimming at the Y and was still in my sweatpants, my hair was soaking wet.  I didn’t have on socks.  I called Ian at the violin store and told him what had just been told to me as I jammed on my shoes and ran out the door.  I left both doors unlocked and the phone off the hook.

Every light was red between my house and the school.  All the cars I was behind seemed infuriatingly slow.  There was a firetruck outside the school, lights still flashing.  I parked directly behind where Ian had parked the minivan moments before, and ran all the way into the building.

The copy room off the main office was filled with people: paramedics, the principal, the school nurse, my husband….  And my little Quinn unconscious on a blue stretcher, an oxygen mask on his face.  I leaned down on the floor near my son and realized I was shaking. 


It’s hard to even describe what a sight like that does to you.  You want to stay calm and can’t.  You want to be positive and your mind darts to horrible places.  You are completely absorbed in the moment and strangely feel yourself slipping somewhere else.  You wonder what comes next but you don’t want to know.

Apparently while Quinn’s class was walking to the library he started acting fatigued and whiny, when all of a sudden he went limp and passed out.  Luckily, of all the people in the school, Quinn happened to be walking next to the nurse, who caught him as he fell so he didn’t hit his head.  She rushed him to the office where they called our emergency contact when our home and work lines were busy (because at that moment Ian and I were talking to each other), then finally got a hold of us.

The paramedics were efficient and very nice.  They recommended we take an ambulance to Children’s Hospital.  They asked me if I thought as his mom I could get Quinn to wake up.

I squeezed his hand and said his name.  His eyes opened a little as if he were very sleepy, then closed again.  I kept talking to him and he opened his eyes a little more.  The first thing that got him to respond to me?  When I asked him if he knew what should be arriving in the mail today or tomorrow.  He answered quietly, eyes still shut, “Latin Is Fun Book I.” *

Eventually Quinn was awake enough to climb into my lap.  He was not very responsive to the paramedics and their questions, but he also doesn’t like crowds or being the center of attention, so we assured people this didn’t look out of character to us, even though he wasn’t showing the kind of energetic signs that they would find promising.  He was happy to get onto the rolling bed they needed to strap him to for the ride in the ambulance.  They gave him a truly all-purpose bracelet that neither of us were crazy about:

The ride to the hospital was blissfully uneventful.  The EMT told me based on the facts as he saw them that he doubted Quinn had had a seizure.  He hadn’t trembled or gone stiff.  He hadn’t lost control of his bladder or bowels.  The EMT said he would term it a syncopal episode–a general fainting.  The last time Quinn was in the hospital it was for dehydration as a result of his being sick.  Quinn’s been sick for about a week, but seemed to be doing much better.  He had one night of fever several days ago, was fine in the morning, and has just had a lingering cough but not bad enough to keep him from doing his normal routine.  Until today.  He hadn’t had anything to drink, and had eaten only a small bite of toast.  Quinn isn’t much of a breakfast person and often doesn’t feel like eating.  Starting tomorrow we will make sure he at least has a cup of juice and a bite of something before we send him off to school, even if he’s not in the mood.

The Children’s Hospital here is very good, and people were helpful, but Quinn was back to his old self by the time we got a room there.  Ian met us, and brought me my laptop and DVD’s for Quinn to watch if we needed them.  Our son was understandably a low priority, as he should have been compared to other children I saw there, but we waited for over three hours before we gave up on seeing the last doctor.  Nurses listened to him breathe, his blood sugar was perfect, his blood pressure was back to normal, a doctor said she didn’t have an explanation but that Quinn seemed fine to her, and that was enough.

(Bored boy.)

We played I Spy until everything there was to spy with our little eyes had been spied.  Quinn ate animal crackers, saving the best animals for last (those being the owl, the turtle, and a mystery animal he decided was a beaver).  We made him drink some juice, and he even had a Pop Tart that Ian had brought along.  But it was time to go home and pick our other children up from school and get some real food into Quinn.  If I really felt the last doctor was likely to say something new we would have stayed, but I just didn’t think it was worth making our day even more complicated than it had already been.  I never made it to work (my assistant filled in for me–thanks Robyn!), I didn’t get any of the projects or errands done when I was expecting to do them….  Hell, I never even got properly dressed.  It was time to go home.

I told Quinn I wasn’t going to go in to work, that I was just going to stay with him for the afternoon, and he cheered.  He read me his books about butterflies, dolphins and goldfish that we picked up at the last book fair.  He ate an egg and some toast.  He drew on his white board and talked and jumped and danced and did all his regular Quinn things.  He was just my sweet boy, like nothing had happened.

So now I’m both relieved and wary.  I’m glad Quinn is fine.  No, I’m thrilled beyond measure that he’s fine.  But, what was that?  The whole episode has left me anxious and uncertain.  Quinn looks great now, but I’m afraid to let him out of my sight.  I don’t think he will faint again anytime soon, but since we don’t know for sure what caused it, it’s not safe to make predictions.  But I suppose that’s true of parenting all the time anyway.

* An explanation about Quinn and “Latin Is Fun Book I”: Quinn reads so well for a four-year-old my mom suggested recently that maybe he might like learning another language.  I asked him what he thought, if he’d like to learn Spanish or French or German…. He didn’t show any interest until I told him there were also some old languages.  We talked about those for a minute and he decided on Latin.  I have no idea what he thinks it will mean to learn Latin or why that’s what he chose, but we went online and looked up Latin books for kids and the one he wanted was Latin Is Fun Book I.  He was excited that there was also a Latin Is Fun Book II available.  We both wondered at what point Latin ceases to be fun.

Today I am just grateful that we will find out together.

(Happy Quinn, flopped in my lap before we even left the hospital room.  Does that look like a kid who should be taking bed space from sick children?  I didn’t think so either.  What a day.)

Optimism (Babble)

First of all, thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts about my father.  His condition was described as being in a grey zone for a while, which was scary.  My brother, Barrett, has been at the hospital every day since dad was admitted, providing the rest of the family with updates.  I hate being so far away, but it makes more sense to stagger our visits if dad is getting better instead of worse, and luckily he does seem to be improving.

My dad is out of the ICU.  He will need rehab to gain strength before heading home.  The consensus is that he had a severe reaction to the last round of chemotherapy and the resulting dehydration caused a myriad of problems.  Now when specialists look at my dad and give him about two years it’s still frightening, but it seems like a gift compared to where we were just days ago.

Here in Milwaukee it was the first day of school for my girls.  They were so happy and excited!

Aden was up at five in the morning to get her backpack out of the washing machine and to make herself some alphabet soup.  (She has a new little lunch container especially for soup that comes with a tiny spoon, and she was determined to bring it on her first day back in the lunchroom.)  Mona saved a special sparkly shirt just for today.  Ian made everyone French toast.  I put Aden’s hair in a braid last night so we could sidestep the usual unpleasantness about detangling her before we leave the house.  The only thing that slowed us down was shoes.  Aden hunted high and low before realizing her shoes were in the car, and Mona simply came outside in her socks, then ran back inside when she realized she’d need shoes too.  (When Ian was deployed I had a rule for a while about no one getting to eat breakfast unless they were already wearing shoes.  Shoes are the Waterloo of our morning routine.)

The lovely thing about watching both of my girls at the start of school is their confidence.  Aden is so poised.  She always has been.  And lately she just seems so grown up, and tall, and ready to face the world in a way that’s new and independent.  I walked her up to her new classroom so I could introduce myself to the teacher and get a peek at her new space.  She has friends in her new room already.  She’s hoping they still do show and tell in fourth grade.

Mona’s new teacher seemed very sweet.  I liked that he greeted each child in the doorway while crouched down at their eye level.  He interviewed the kids one at a time, asking for a name and checking his list, and finding out if they take the bus or get picked up at the end of the day.  Mona has a large messenger-style bag instead of a backpack this year because she wanted lots of room for her paper creations.  She has a jaunty kind of look about her when she wears it.  When it was her turn at the front of the line she announced her name with pride.  She loves school and she was glad to be back.  There was no hesitation in Mona this morning.

I’m sure I was never even half as cool as either of my girls.  I was always nervous and worried.  I’m still nervous and worried but I hide it better.  I love how bold both Aden and Mona are in their own ways, marching into a new situation and believing it will be great.  Because they are optimists.  They have experienced good things and imagine more good things ahead.

And in a hospital bed the next state over, my dad is fighting to go home.  Because he knows a bit about good things, too, and believes there is more like it ahead as well.  I want him to be right.  Nervous and worried has limited utility.  I think I’m better off throwing in my lot with the optimists.