My daughter is the Bumblebee. My son is the Sweet Potato. You'll have to ask their father.
I‘m not going to post a link to your tragic death mask, because, well, this is a family blog.
But I am going to say thank you for your sacrifice.
And I’m sorry.
I tweeted earlier today that the images of your death reminded me of part of the Bertolt Brecht poem, “When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain,” and now I’m really hoping that no more Iranians will have to be butchered in the street, or die in their father’s arms, for the world community to rise up and demand an end to this violence.
Demostration in silence in front of governmental TV station ... on Twitpic
Way back in the first year of this blog, a little thing called Hurricane Katrina happened in this country. I was having kind of a slow week at work, and I sat in front of my laptop, day after day, watching the unfolding of a horror show that was fairly unprecedented in our country.
One of the things that amazed me, at the time, was the online community’s response. I found blogger after blogger who was doing something about the tragedy—the one I remember best being Liz at Badgerbag, whose daily messages from the Astrodome, where she was volunteering, were rage-filled and compelling. It wasn’t just that bloggers were blogging about their feelings—though that was going on too—but that they were actually doing things that helped people, and helped themselves through a period of emotional upheaval.
Flash forward five years to the present day, and it’s now Twitter that is allowing people to ‘do something’ in support of a situation that they are outraged about—theft of the Iranian election. I’ve been watching the hashtags #tehran and #iranelection over the past couple of days, and have been truly inspired by what I’ve seen, which is a community coming together in support of members at risk, who have developed an informal code of conduct (ie—don’t re-tweet using an Iranian’s Twitter ID; if you’re outside Iran, change your time zone & location to Tehran to confuse the Iranian military; change your profile picture to green to show solidarity with Moussavi’s supporters; don’t trust specific newly-created Twitter IDs, as they may have been created by the Iranian government to spread disinformation, etc.).
And that community is interested in viral expansion of support for the Iranian protesters. Within five minutes of the time that I posted a tweet saying that I didn’t know how to change the color of my profile picture, five different Twitter users responded to me with suggestions—2 of whom actually sent me a version of my profile pic in green. In fact, it can be a bit difficult, at this point, to find new info, because so many people are helpfully re-tweeting other’s responses. On the other hand, with the mainstream media being shut out of news coverage by the Iranian government, it’s the first place that many of us have heard about protesters being killed, or about the dorms at Tehran University being attacked by police.
It’s not just a visible show of support that people are manifesting, although that’s important. After reports that the Iranian government was shutting down cell networks and blocking activists’ Twitter accounts, people starting setting up proxy servers, and creating Denial of Service attacks against the state websites. One user even posted a guide on his blog, to explain to other users what they could do to help organizers in Iran. (Edited to add) And here’s a link to set up your home computer as an anonymous proxy for Iranians. I’ve linked to the Mac one, but there’s a Windows version too.
It’s a little humbling, to watch in real time as a father in Iran worries about his daughter, and tweets that he’s just heard that there are military police in the park that she was last in. And it can feel so far away, that park, and that girl—so far away that there’s nothing we can do to help. But every person reading this can do something to help that girl, right now. You can pick up the phone, and call your congressman, and tell him or her to ask the US to intervene. You can wear green to work tomorrow, even though it’s not St. Patty’s Day. In most big cities, you can find a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with the Iranians, and you can attend it.
What gives me hope about both of these examples is the fact that people are willing to do something. Social media is giving us new ideas about exactly what to do, but it isn’t capable of making us care about something if we’re truly apathetic about it. The world wants to help.
(Note: Here’s a link to the Twitpic photo above–I couldn’t make it work with html.)
The school year (and my PTA presidency) has taken about 8.3 weeks to end this year. But now, we’re into the home stretch–it’s just here to Friday. Tomorrow, I’ll perform my last official duty as the PTA president–delivering cake to the fifth graders at their commencement ceremony, and flowers to the fifth grade parents who have been PTA activists and whose youngest child is graduating.
After that, mai tais all around!
The kids are enjoying the week of shortened school days, though when I told the Bee that I’d be working at home tomorrow, and she could come home right after school if she wanted to, she complained, “but it’s Pizza Day (at the after school program)!” So now I’ll be trotting down to get them AFTER they eat pizza (but before they get any water play done–as the Bee pointed out to her brother, “we can just turn on the sprinkler when we get home, anyway.)
The kids will be going to the same summer camp this year, for the first time. It won’t be many more years till the Bee is old enough to go to sleep-away camp, and I’m sort of cherishing this moment, as I can see it won’t last long.
It’s a good thing I didn’t quit blogging this year. Because if I had quit blogging, when the Bee had asked me to help her write about her year in fourth grade, I would have actually had to remember something with my brain. Instead of just coming here and looking at the highlights.
True story.
Yesterday, I unwittingly committed a crime against boy-dom. I threw out the Potato’s gummy bugs.
Let me back up.
In kindergarten, the kids get a sticker every day that they are ‘good.’ The stickers are redeemable for prizes from the teacher’s prize basket.
I’m not sure exactly how many stickers it takes to get a prize, but it took the Potato a good long while to earn them. And when he did earn them, he picked a tub of gummy beetles. It was a momentary thrill, two months ago when he brought it home and ate 2 or 3 of them.
And since then, it’s sat in our kitchen. And sat. And sat.
So last weekend, I threw it out.
Tonight, for dessert, what did he want?
Gummy beetles, of course.
I told him that I had thrown them out, and he was so verklempt, he threw himself on the floor, in one of those tantrums where you’re trying as hard as you can not to laugh at the kid, because it’s so overwrought.
He sobbed, “it’s not fair!” and “my bugs!” But it wasn’t until he said, “but it took me so long to earn them!” that my heart broke a little.
There may be nothing more sincere on earth than a truly wronged child.
So, what do you think the Potato wanted in recompense? Check out the poll on the side of the page, and vote. And if you want to have your stomach turned, see here.
1. Despite the fact that it sometimes hits me personally, I love the fact that she is one. tough. girl.
2. Her enormous vocabulary
3. And wonderful sense of humor
4. Her agility, both in running and in thinking
5. The lovely, high arch of her foot
6. Like me, she’s an inveterate reader, and will spend many hours alone in her room, devouring a good book
7. Her lively interest in what makes the world go ’round
8. How she has finally learned to ask for what she needs, at least sometimes
9. The fact that she’s just as likely to pick up a sword as she is to pick up a stuffed animal to play with
10. Her ability to walk in some of my highest heels, even if it’s just around the house (and OMG, she’s too close to fitting into them for realz!)
1. The little sprinkle of freckles on his nose
2. His wide, wide smile
3. The way he wants us to pose math problems to him at every possible opportunity
4. His sweet & generous nature
5. When I come home from work, he runs up to me yelling, “Mommy!” and gives me a big hug
6. His ability to sleep through being taken to the bathroom in the middle in the night
7. How he tells me, “I am not your Potato anymore!” when he’s mad at me
8. His nearly endless energy
9. The fact that, at five and a half, he’s better at talking about his feelings than everyone else in our family combined
10. He knows that it’s okay for boys to wear pink, and does wear his pink shirt, even after some boys at school told him he shouldn’t do that.
I’m thinking that maybe I’ll be lucky if I post once a month in 2009.
De-lurking for a moment, on this holiday weekend, to post.
We’ve had an up and down month so far. Our spring, which has been filled with so much stress, finally exploded in the first week of May in a massive, all-out fight between me and the Bee. Which culminated in her exploding in a way that was not just inappropriate, but dangerous to herself.
For a long time, we’ve known that the Bee has issues with anger management, and dealing with frustration. I once wrote a post about feeling like the prison warden from The Great Escape, and to be utterly frank, that was not an experience that was limited to the Bee’s toddler years. As she’s grown older, it’s become more and more apparent that when she gets very angry, she loses the capacity for rational thought.
So we’ve been seeking help. I got a great parenting book The Explosive Child, which has helped me to see that our method of interacting with the Bee when she’s in a state of anger is practically the worst thing we can be doing. It’s always nice to know that your instincts are completely wrong. On the other hand, this was practically the only book that didn’t advocate being harsher disciplinarians, up to and including physical discipline—and there’s a road I just won’t go down as a parent.
We’ve also been searching for a therapist, and I think we’ve found one. Landisdad and I met with her on Friday, and we both really liked her. She’s seeing the Bee for the first time next week, so we’ll see how that goes. The Bee is not so thrilled about having to talk to a therapist—the first one we found was not really acceptable to any of us. But she’s happy that no one at school will learn about it—unlike when she was seeing the school counselor once a week.
It’s hard, feeling like we need outside help to parent our daughter. It’s also hard, imagining that we will spend the next nine years fighting like this if we don’t get help.
The Bee achieved a lifetime ambition this week, by being appointed to the school safety patrol. This is her, looking proud, but also irritated that I am publicly demonstrating that we are related, by taking her picture while she’s trying to be cool. Note the bright yellow belt, sign of maturity and imminent promotion into the fifth grade. Not every incoming fifth grader gets to be a safety–but most of them do. I wonder how it feels for the four or five kids who don’t get to do it. Probably, it sucks a lot, though I’m sure the pain is eased by the first bitterly cold, rainy morning in the fall.
When the Bee entered kindergarten, the safeties looked so huge to my eyes. Now that I’ve got an almost-fifth-grader on my hands, it’s a little overwhelming. She’s only got one more year of elementary school, and then she’ll be off to the middle school, where she’ll again be one of the younger kids.
She has to be on her post by 8:05, and for the last couple of days, she’s stood in the kitchen, fully dressed, with her book bag and her lunch box over her shoulder, waiting for the clock to hit 8. I’m not sure what would happen if she left the house at 7:59, but she’s clearly not willing to risk being early.
I’ve had a sort of laid-back week, so the Potato and I have been walking to school. He’s been chattier than usual, since he’s not competing for airspace with his big sister. I’ve heard all about the caterpillars that they have in kindergarten now—which will build cocoons, morph into butterflies, and be released by the kindergarteners—including the one that he named, “Mr. Thousand.”
It’s nice to have the time with the Potato, time that reminds me of when I walked the Bee to school every day, when he was still in daycare. Reminds me how she would tell me things, and make up games, and generally just have private time with mom. I’ve struggled, with both my kids as they’ve grown older, to find one-on-one time to be with them. It’s nice that the Bee’s new independence gives me a little time alone with the Potato in the morning.
I’d like a minute to catch my breath. Can we work that out?
There are moments in my life that I’ve thought, ‘gotta step away from the computer and get some real life going again.’
Lately, I’ve been wishing for less real life, and more virtual life. More time to spend noodling around on the internet, anyway, as opposed to just reading my work email.
More time to spend blogging, and reading other people’s blogs. I can’t remember the last time I discovered a new blog (well, at least a new blog that wasn’t work-related–I’ve had lots of new work-related blogs to read this year!). I’m starting to feel like I need to investigate the world of middle-school blogging, since the Bee is going into 5th grade next year.
Seriously, though, I’m taking some steps at work to slow my life down a little bit, and I can’t wait until that starts working. Because it’s affecting my ability to be a good wife and mother, and I don’t like that.
We work to live, not live to work. Hard to remember sometimes, but worth it.
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