Like most parents, I typically check on my kids before I go to bed. The Potato has a tendency to climb out from under the covers, and I cover him back up. The Bee gets to read in bed for a half-hour or so, and she falls asleep while reading at least once a week.
Lately, I’ve developed a new bedtime ritual.
My daughter has really dry skin, especially in the winter. Her hands are sometimes so chapped that her knuckles crack and bleed. Landisdad and I supply her with lotion, and remind her to put it on constantly, but she hates having lotion on her hands, which makes it worse.
A few months ago, I started sneaking into her room at night and putting Vaseline on the backs of her hands while she’s asleep. I thought I would do it once or twice, and then tell her about it, to prove to her that using it would actually make her feel better.
After a couple of days, I asked her if her hands were feeling better, and she said yes. I told her that I had been putting on the Vaseline, and suggested that she keep it up.
About three days later, she said, “Mom, you need to sneak into my room and put Vaseline on my hands again.” When I asked her why she couldn’t just do it herself, she said, “It’s gross! and it gets on my book!”
Sigh.
So I’m left doing the midnight Vaseline treatment a couple times a week.
What kinds of things do you do in your kids’ rooms at night, while they’re sleeping?
I have a sort of duh-science reaction to this article, I have to say. One thing that I’m not entirely clear on is what exactly is involved in quality time–does that mean you’re only spending time with one kid? And that the time spent is not doing things that qualify as chores? Or eating?
‘Cause if that’s the case, I think I spend about six minutes a day with each kid during the work week. Holy crow, they’re both destined to fail!
Well, at least the Bee can’t complain that I don’t spend as much time with her as I do with her brother…
The Bee is experiencing the joys of state testing for the first time this week. She was tremendously stressed out about it all weekend. There is something deeply wrong with a society that believes that 8-year-olds deserve academic stress.
I told her, during one of several conversations we had about how her performance on the statewide test of third graders would not unalterably determine her life’s path, that in a way, the test was more a test of her teachers than it was of her. That she would do well, but that the thing that was really being tested was how well her teachers were teaching all the kids in the class.
And you know what? I don’t really think that’s a great idea for our society either.
One of the things that I love about the Bee’s school is that it is very small. It’s so small that there is only one class for each grade. Lots of the parents know lots of the kids–not just the kids in their own child/ren’s class, but in the whole school. And it’s really a community, where the teachers know all of the kids, and the principal can not only greet each child by name, but really knows something about who they are as students.
Last year, her school had an impressive improvement in the third grade test–the scores were significantly improved over the prior year. But I’d guess that has about 80% to do with the fact that the current fifth grade (the third grade of two years ago) is filled with kids who are overactive and have a lot of attention problems. This year’s fourth grade (last year’s third grade), on the other hand, is a much quieter and better-behaved group of kids.
The Bee’s class? My bet is they’re somewhere in the middle. Does that mean if they slip ten percent from last year’s testing that the teacher was ten percent worse at her job this year? or does it speak to the vagaries of kid personalities, and attention spans more than anything else?
When the Bee came home last night, she ran up to me, gave me a great big hug, and said, “you were right Mom, it was easy!” She went to school this morning without being stressed about the test, and I’m happy about that. I just hope that the teachers get to relax about it soon too.
I saw this meme over at Penguin Unearthed, and it looked kind of fun. Write about the first ten blogs you clicked on in Google Reader. Well, I use bloglines, but I guess it still applies. Here goes:
Wonkette is liveblogging the primary results from Super Twosday. Sadly, Ron Paul was not defeated in two primaries tonight.
Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, on her blog Multiplicative Identity, is blogging about a new documentary that looks at Castro’s many escapes from death.
Diana at Diaphanous writes about a jailbreak in her town, and listening to the police scanner to find out what’s going on with the re-capture of the prisoner.
Mocha Mama writes about two high school teachers that made a difference in her life.
Becca from Not Quite Sure writes about her real flaw–the one she’ll never confess in a job interview.
Metrodad writes about taking his daughter skiing for the first time–warning: this post includes pictures of The Peanut that may cause your computer to spontaneously combust, due to the cuteness!
Procrastamom writes about her habit of crying when she sees an ambulance with sirens on–even if she doesn’t know the person in it.
PunditMom writes about today’s virtual march to protest the Bush Administration’s plan to cut funding for after-school programs.
Anjali can’t wait to have the baby (and haven’t we all been there!).
And CamiKaos reacts to seeing The Bridge to Terabithia for the first time.
Well, that’s it for tonight folks. Thanks to everyone who sent lice-killing vibes. I don’t want to jinx us, but I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about that whole project.
The Potato is sick again. I had to leave for work really early yesterday morning (try 6:30 a.m.), and at about 8:30, landisdad called to tell me that the Potato was sick, and couldn’t go to school. He puked a couple of times yesterday, and spent most of the day dozing on our bed with a fever that fluctuated between 104 and 100. Last night, he went to bed early, and he came into our room and crawled into bed with us at around 4:30 or 5 a.m.
At breakfast time, he was hungry, so I took him downstairs to get something to eat.
When I found a louse on his head.
Sigh.
About three days ago, the daycare sent a note home saying that a kid there had lice, and I’ve been suspicious ever since. He’s been scratching his head a lot, and sure enough, we have an outbreak on our hands. And did I mention the amount of time he spent sleeping in our bed?
So we spent the whole day washing every piece of his bedding in hot water. And giving him a buzz cut. And washing his hair with lice shampoo. And combing it with the nit comb. And praying that the Bee does not get lice.
The Bee, who has waist-length hair. The Bee, who screams when her hair is brushed with a wide-toothed brush. The Bee, who is feeling resentful of her brother lately, and will not take it at all well if he gives her lice.
Also, is it itchy in here, or is it just me?
So the rest of the family prophylactically shampooed with the lice shampoo too. And we washed our bedding too. Including the pillows.
One of the first mommyblogs I ever read was Suburban Bliss, and one of the first things I remember her writing about was her war against the lice, and the vat of mayonnaise that she bought as a weapon in that war. I don’t want a vat of mayonnaise. Please send lice-killing thought waves our way.
Edited to add: And of course–while on its ninth or tenth laundry load of the day, our washing machine overflowed. Flooding the basement. Which we just had re-carpeted last week after our most recent flood.
I’ve been reading two books lately that are..interesting…to read together: Falling Man, by Don DeLillo, and The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein. The DeLillo book takes place in the days immediately following September 11, and one of the main characters is someone who walked out of the Twin Towers, and reunited with his estranged wife.
The Klein book is about how neoliberals have been using the aftermath of various natural or man-made disasters–including 9/11, the tsunami of 2005, and Hurricane Katrina–to do massive social re-engineering that privileges big corporations and displaces the poor. I’m not that far into it yet, partly because I can’t read more than a chapter at a time without having my blood pressure rise into a dangerous neighorhood.
The interesting thing about reading it in conjunction with the DeLillo book is the feeling of being pushed back into that week, when the shock was new and ever-present. The point of the Klein book is that the Administration (and global capital) used the shock and dislocation of that time to rush through the abrogation of our civil liberties, and to enter into contractual relationships with companies like Blackwater and Halliburton to engage in war in Afghanistan.
In Martin Sherman’s Bent, there is a scene where two of the main characters (gay men in a Nazi prison camp) move a huge pile of rocks to one side of the prison yard, take a three-minute break, and then move the pile back to its starting point over and over again. Sometimes I feel like that’s what landisdad and I do with the stuff in our basement, except without the pink triangles or the threat of death.
Which is a long (and melodramatic) way of saying that we’re once again living with a ton of boxes in our dining room.
Because our water heater cracked, and flooded the basement.
sigh.
Fortunately, it happened on a day we were home. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it in time to keep 38 gallons of water from flooding our basement carpet. Which now needs replacing. And the guy who finished our basement in the first place has gotten out of the residential contracting business, and now only does commercial work.
(And let me just say what a sad day that was for residents in our area, since when I called him to find out who he subcontracted the carpet to, he called me back within 6 hours, and offered to find us someone else if we couldn’t use our original carpet guy. Best. Contractor. Ever.)
I can’t tell you how many plumbers, electricians, and other contractors we have called over the years. Many of them never called back. Some of them made appointments, and then never showed up. Some of them came and did estimates, and then never came back to do the actual work.
Enter the fine folks from Service Magic. Ever since we started using this free service to find contracting help, we have had no such contractor problems, and they didn’t fail us this time either. Two carpet guys called within a couple of hours, and both showed up for their appointments. One of them is coming tomorrow to sign a contract, and then on Saturday to install our new carpet.
We’re never using the phone book to find a contractor again.
