gimme the note

Over the next two weeks, I’m going to be gone from home a lot—which is especially hard, since all the holiday-related school things are going on. For example, I’m going to miss the Bee’s winter concert this week, as I will be giving a speech on health care reform that I committed to months ago, before the concert was scheduled. Fortunately, my mom is still here so she’ll be able to come in my stead.

Back when I first started my current job, I used to write my kids a note every time I went on the road. As time has gone on, I’ve let that habit slide (even as I’ve traveled more).

Over the weekend, the Potato asked me to start writing notes again, for the time when I’ll be away. When he got home from school he gave me a note that he had written for me at after-school. It included a picture of me reading the note. Here’s the text:

Mom

From (the Potato)

Open this way —————–>

Have a good and great trip!

Sinse your going on a big trip this is the #1 note I am writing. You shud read this note evry morning because this is the best one so far. Sind (signed) 11/30/09

 

Needless to say, it warmed my heart. Plus, I couldn’t believe he spelled ‘because’ right.

 

giving thanks

I was lying in bed this morning, wishing that my brain would let me sleep past 7 a.m., when the Potato walked into our room and asked if he could have a cuddle. I pulled the blankets aside, and after a few minutes of whispering and wiggling (landisdad, to his credit, does not have a brain that insists that he wake up early even when it’s not a work day), he toddled out of the room to get a book.

He came back in with a book I had recently gotten him from the library—Porcupine’s Pajama Party, or something like that–and proceeded to tell me the whole plot, as he had read it the previous night. Then he left again, and came back with Horton Hatches the Egg. As I sat there watching him read, I realized that the thing I’m most thankful for, this Thanksgiving, is that both of my kids have inherited my love of reading.

The Bee, on a daily basis, is almost late for school because she’d rather read than get dressed. She walks to her safety post, and then pulls a book out of her backpack and stands on the corner reading it, stopping only to help younger kids cross the street. As an inveterate reader myself, I never thought this was a particularly noteworthy behavior—until many other parents in the school made comments to me about how much they like seeing her there, reading, which made me realize that none of the other safeties do it.

She went through a phase of trying to read Jane Austen a few weeks ago, and it warmed my heart to see her wanting to make sense of a book that’s a few years out of her reach—she’d gotten the idea from reading some other book where the main character (a 12-year-old girl) read Emma & Pride & Prejudice. Ultimately, she didn’t make her way through the dense thicket that Austen can construct, but she also didn’t hate it—just wants to try again in a year or two.

The Potato has also turned into an adept reader. He’s moved into early chapter books—lots of Nate the Great and Little Bear. I was a little worried, for a while, about his ability to concentrate long enough to consume a whole text, but his ability to focus on lego construction should have assuaged those fears. He’s not yet the book addict that the Bee is, but I think he just might get there.

I’m glad that we’ll always have this to connect us. I like to read about life in Jo(e)’s house, and imagine what my living room will look like in 6 or 7 years–and I’m always hopeful that I too will have a living room full of laptops and literate kids.

fuzzy orange, meet smooth orange

We still have one pumpkin that never got carved for Halloween, hanging out in our house waiting for Thanksgiving. Our cats are generally mystified by it, especially since I put it on the chair near the front window that gives them a view of the neighborhood, including some random other cats that occasionally wander onto our porch.

This is a shot of our cat, Ichabod, with a pumpkin. Icky was a stray kitten who was hit by a car, and then taken to our vet by some kind strangers on Halloween. The folks at the vet fixed him up, named him, and put him up for adoption–they knew we were in the market for a new cat, and called us. We’ve had him for about five years, I guess. He’s developed a remarkable resemblance to a pumpkin, at least in plumpness if not texture.

crafty kids

Over the past couple of years, I’ve tried to get my kids interested in sewing, with little success. The Potato saw me getting ready to make some Christmas gifts the other day, and they both decided that they wanted to give sewing another shot–they’ve been valiantly hand sewing various items ever since. I got this book a while ago, and they both decided they wanted to make things out of it.

The Bee is making herself a purse–it’s a very small purse, but it has two pockets, and a butterfly decoration that she drew, cut out and sewed on herself. The Potato is making a book cover, with a “Bad Guy” applique.

They both had half-days at school today, and since I had to work at home in order to get our sink fixed, they came home right after school. I cruelly oppressed them by refusing to allow them to watch TV for the whole afternoon, so they decided to work on their sewing projects, after they got their homework done.

It’s really pretty cute to watch them sew, and to hear the Potato say “ow!” every thirty seconds when he pokes himself with a needle. His stitches can tend toward the way-too-far-apart, but overall I think they’re both doing a great job. Landisdad picked up the Bee’s purse last night and said, “honestly, I don’t think I could sew any better than that,” and it’s true that she’s made much more progress in the hand-eye coordination department than ever before.

I’ll post some pictures when they’re done, assuming we get there. I have to say, I’m a little astonished that they’ve maintained interest for three days, even after it got difficult.

 

Don’t Mess with Textas

Earlier today, I was at a meeting where someone made an announcement about another meeting–the topic of which related to “teens who text instead of talking to their parents.” The person organizing that meeting went on a rant about how teens are “texting, tweeting, FaceSpacing (sic)–they’d rather talk to someone 20,000 miles away, than talk to their own parents!”

I leaned over to the friend next to me & said, “if my kids knew about this kind of intervention, they’d stage it on me, not vice versa!”

He leaned back & said, “I’m pretty sure someone made similar complaints when they invented the telephone–’No one writes letters anymore!’.”

growing up again?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I have felt the need to blog less and less frequently. I think that’s because I don’t want to admit that the time for blogging has possibly passed, and I’m just riding a trend too long.

So here’s my counter-argument.

I started this blog in 2005, when I was the mom of a kindergartener and an eighteen-month-old. While I’ve always had a full-time job, I was tele-commuting then, in a job I had very recently gotten. My kids were young, and my life revolved around them. I spent large parts of every day thinking about them, and about the choices that I was making that affected them

And now it’s four years later, and they’ve grown up some. They’re much more self-sufficient, although not, of course, fully grown. While I still spend a lot of time thinking about them, and talking about them with their father and my friends, I feel less often like the choices that I’m making will unmake or be the making of them. There is a foundation that has been laid for their lives, and while I worry about the walls being straight, I don’t feel like one simple decision will cause the house to be less-than-true.

It seems to me, that just as there are stages of growing up for kids, there are stages of growing up for parents. I feel, to a certain extent, like I’m growing up as a mother.

 

kid theft

The Bee has a nemesis. They’ve been in the same class since kindergarten–the blessing and curse of a small school being that you can never get away from your enemy.

Landisdad and I had a long talk this evening during dinner with the Bee about the fact that her nemesis has stolen stuff from her recently. Not big stuff–things like a pen, a highlighter, her calculator. The Bee, to her credit, has not freaked out about it, though she is upset.

She saw the girl using her highlighter yesterday, and confronted her about it. The girl denied that it belonged to the Bee, but the assistant teacher was in the room, and backed her up. I think she’s given up hope of getting the pen back, but she really wants the calculator, although she didn’t have any proof that the girl had taken that.

Until today, when she saw it in the girl’s desk.

We asked her if she wanted to tell the teacher about it, and she said no. She doesn’t want to rat out her classmate, so we talked about some strategies for confronting the girl directly, and not getting upset if she lied again. We told her that she should ask her for the calculator back in front of other kids, since it would be good to have witnesses, if the situation got heated. And landisdad role-played with her what she should do if the other girl started yelling at her.

I’m more and more irritated by this girl every year, and can’t wait until she and the Bee are in middle school, and can keep their distance from each other more easily. I’m sure that there will be other girls, in other futures, with other problems, but this one can get gone, as far as I’m concerned.

rainy weekend

We’re having a pretty laid-back weekend here at chez landis. The various soccer games were rained out yesterday, so we sat around, bundled up, watching TV yesterday morning, then took a field trip into the nearby natural history museum in the afternoon. Today, landisdad went out for bagels in the morning, and we’re just kind of lazing around, doing some chores.

The unseasonable cold is forcing us to cocoon a little bit, and it’s nice. This has been a very active fall, and it’s nice to have a slow, easy weekend.

a note to my friends on the campaign side of the world

As regular readers of this blog know, I have a job that involves working in electoral politics from time to time. Here’s a tip for those folks who are not parents, and choose to work in politics:

If you are a political campaign manager, and you are trying to get my attention and/or support for your candidate, do not send me an email telling me that you live across the street from my kids’ school. It creeps me out, and makes me MUCH less likely to support your candidate. Also, it makes me worry that my daughter might not come home from her safety post someday.

I’m just sayin’.

scenes from a successful slumber party

Girls crashed on the couch, after “not sleeping at all!”

We got the sit & spin out of the basement for a two-year-old who attended—she had no interested in it, but the Potato (seen here dressed as the Boy in Black) found hours of entertainment in whirling it around.