The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

Dear First Grade Teachers,

I want to thank you for a fantastic year. My son was happy to go to school each morning, his writing improved and he mastered some new math skills. Most importantly, he was excited about what he was learning and would come home and look things up on the internet he wanted to know more about and he would teach me new facts.  This kind of enthusiasm only comes when teachers are also happy to be in the classroom and excited about what they are teaching. So I tip my hat to you for creating classrooms that were engaging and relevant to six and seven year olds.

I love that you ended the year learning about the upcoming London Olympics, brilliant and so timely. We are huge Olympic fans in our house. The Olympics gives the world a chance to celebrate our shared humanity, put aside our differences and come together in the spirit of athletics and competition.  The object is to perform fairly and honestly and to the best of our natural abilities. The Olympic spirit can be felt not just by the athletes that compete and not just in those who take home medals. The real spirit of the Olympics is seen in the athletes from poorer parts of the world with limited resources who represent their country with pride and dignity. As the Olympic Creed says:

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

It’s moments like this that get me every time:

watch?v=HFKpZnok10s&feature=player_embedded

I love that my son is feeling patriotic.

But.

Team Handball?

My son is now fascinated with Team Handball.  I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Olympics, and I had never heard of team handball before. Anders has watched every YouTube video featuring team handball, almost all 20,000 of them.  My husband says it looks like a sport for short guys that can’t play basketball, which might not be such a bad thing for Anders.

I have been searching for a team somewhere within a 50 mile radius that will train a seven year old in team handball.  Shockingly, I’m having a bit of a hard time with that.

Thank you. Thank you first grade teachers for sparking the Olympic spirit in Anders. But perhaps next time scratch team handball from the curriculum.

Sincerely,

Kirsten

I don’t need the calendar to tell me that the school year is almost over. I merely look at the slow deterioration of my children, home and what little is left of my mind to know the end is near. The kids are down to one frayed strap and a piece of dental floss precariously holding their backpacks together. Since I refuse to by any new pants until the day before the first day of school next year, my son is getting sunburns on his calves at recess. We’ve got one sock left between us, and they are alternating days wearing it.

And we’re tired of homework. Specifically, the never-ending projects which somehow require me carrying the bulk of the workload. I’ve used so much glue this past year that all of my fingerprints have been cast in Elmer’s skeletons 10 times over. Our kitchen table looks like we’ve been paying the home version of CSI or we’re experimenting with different identities to enter the Witness Protection Program. I truly hope I’ve made my last late-night trip to Target for supplies to recreate the Eiffel Tower in popsicle sticks.

We could sue a little break from the book reports as well. While I certainly appreciate a healthy appetite for books, I could do without another story about childhood angst written with a plethora of italics and exclamation points!!! The only things I want my nine year olds reading this summer are Interstate signs and lemonade recipes.

But it’s the waking up early that’s killing me. I’ve noticed that we’ve gradually pushed our wake-up time later and later each week with the snooze button forsaking some new element in our morning routine for a few extra minutes of blessed sleep. First we gave up making beds, now were are lucky if we leave the house without shampoo in our hair and a breakfast of Tic Tacs and Chapstick.

So if you think I am dreading the end of the school year — that somehow my workload will increase with all three children at home 24/7 as opposed to 18/5 — you would be wrong. I look as summer as my 2.5 months to undo all the good habits their teachers have instilled the rest of the year. We need some mornings to sleep through the alarm. We need mid-week sleepovers.  We need lunches on plates, not scrunched up in paper bags. I need to smell sunblock and chlorine not industrial janitorial cleaner and sweaty gym socks.

Feel free to remind me of this nostalgia in August when I’m complaining of walking into the grocery store for yet another package of hot dogs in unmatched flip flops and a sheen of bug spray. But until then, the only number 2 pencils we’ll be using will be on the miniature golf course.

I can complain about my mounting pile of to-dos and in the same breath proclaim that I actually like to be busy. I like feeling useful. I like ticking things off my list. Done. Done. Done. But sometimes I’m just plain overwhelmed. I sit and stare at my computer screen without knowing where to start. I curse myself for taking on too much, for saying “yes, sure, no problem, I’ll take care of it.”

I’m overwhelmed this week. My to-do list is long. I’ve been talking about motherhood, thinking about motherhood, working on sharing motherhood, writing about motherhood, fretting over my motherhood choices. I’ve been planning school events, reading emails, writing emails, renewing car registration online, monitoring field status and cancelled practices, rescheduling rained out soccer games, frantically racing to the mall in search of white tights with no embellishments for uniform check day that somehow slipped my mind.

Last night I was forced to simply stop and sit still for 45 minutes.

My son made his debut as the blue shark in the South H Elementary production of Oceans of Fun.

I was forced to stop organizing motherhood and actually live motherhood. And it was marvelous.

I consider myself to be an optimistic, glass half full type of person.  I like to believe in the inherent goodness of people.  I often leave my car doors unlocked when the car is just sitting in my driveway.  I walk away from my grocery cart to grab something at the other end of the aisle while my purse sits ripe for the picking.  Admittedly, I sometimes don’t take the necessary precautions like having an earthquake kit handy or a family fire escape plan because I tend to fall into the “it’ll never happen to me” camp.

My husband balances me out with what I consider his over-cautiousness.  He gets it from his parents who I think have a slight, inherent mistrust of most people.  He is the one who locks the car doors in between trips to and from the house while loading the car for a family road trip.  I am not even kidding.  He calls me to let me know his plane has landed safely when he travels and to make sure I se the house alarm before I go to bed.  He makes sure our kids are in the proper car seats, then checks and double checks in the installation of the car seats.   We are well stocked for a power outage with radios, batteries, flashlights and bottled water thanks to him.

The other day I arrived at school for my weekly stint checking out books to kindergartners and another mom stopped me in the parking lot.  “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.” she said.  I gave her a puzzled look and she told me they were about to have a lockdown drill.  If I didn’t want to get stuck  in a dark room with 20 five year olds for the next half hour, I should rethink going inside.  I figured it couldn’t be that bad so I braved it and went inside.

As soon as I walked into the office, I ran into the principal.   She said she had just announced the drill and asked if I would like to go along with her on her rounds of checking all the classrooms.  I said sure.  It was eerily quiet in our normally bustling elementary school.  Our school was built in 1971 and instead of traditional classrooms with doors, the classrooms all flow together in “pods” separated by bookshelves and screens.  Within the pods each teacher has a Small Group Interaction (SGI) room where they can take their class to escape the often noisy pod areas.

As we passed through the library on the way to the lower grade pods, there was a group of fourth graders who had barracaded themselves in one of the teachers restrooms.  Each teacher was required to go into their SGI and, cover all windows, barracade doors if possible and huddle with their students in a corner.  As I followed the principal from room to room she gave instructions to teachers about what they were doing well and complimented the children on staying quiet and following the lockdown rules.

The experience was chilling.  The whole time we were walking room to room and looking at the faces of all those little kids huddled into the small rooms I felt myself start to choke up.  I kept picturing some terrible person walking around the school looking for victims.  *shudder*

But what really got me was the looks on the teacher’s faces.  I could tell they were taking this very seriously and you can bet they would do everything in their power to protect those kids, drill or real thing.  My kids.  I had to fight back the tears.

Perhaps my tendency to want to stick my fingers in my ears and sing la la la la la is easier for me than picturing the “what if.”   The reality is that while it’s nice and lovely to live in “it will never happen to me”-land, it’s much smarter to live in “maybe it could happen to me so I better be prepared”-land.  Because in an instant nice, peaceful lives can be shattered by shaking earth and monster waves.   I think we are all well aware of that right now.

Way back in September during the first few weeks of school on a random Thursday, my phone rang.  I immediately recognized the number for my children’s school and like every parent, went into panic mode.   Who fell off a slide?  Did my son forget his lunch?  Does my daughter have another bloody nose that won’t stop?  It was none of the above, it was much worse.  I heard my daughter’s voice on the other end of the line.  “Mom,” she said, “we had a fire drill today and I stepped in dog poop on the lawn.  Can you bring me some new shoes?”

Oh crap.  Literally.  I grabbed a fresh pair of shoes and headed down the road.  I was annoyed.  When I got to school and entered her classroom, the teacher was no where to be found.  It turns out she was outside cleaning dog s*#% off of the other children’s shoes who could not get ahold of their parents to bring them a new pair.  Then I was more than annoyed.   I’m sure when Ms. V was getting her teaching credential she envisioned herself shaping young lives, not spraying Lysol on their sweaty sneakers.

My kids like to tell me the news of the day the moment they jump into my car after school.  Each one has a slightly different version of how their day went and the most exciting thing that happened.  Last week though, they were all on the same page.  They all recounted for me how they had to conduct Spanish class in a cold corner of the cafeteria sitting on the floor because another student had stepped in dog s*#% and the regular Spanish classroom smelled terrible for the entire day.  Now I am just furious.  After speaking to a few other parents, there are dozens of these stories, all involving dog doo doo on the school field.

I like dogs.  I really, really do.  We had a dog up until my twin girls were about two years old and he started to growl and snap at them when they walked around with food.  He clipped one of them right next to her precious little eyeball once and we found him a lovely home on a farm in Montana with a family who had no small children.  My husband still misses him and probably holds a grudge against me, even six years later, for making him chose between his daughters and his dog.

But do you know what I liked least about having a dog?  That’s right, picking up his s*#%.  But I did it, because it was my dog and that is the right thing to do.  I understand it’s no fun and I also understand that sometimes you are chatting with someone at the dog park and you don’t even notice that your dog did his business.  Mistakes happen.

We live in a highly residential area and there is one park in our small town that is way up in the hills.  The three elementary schools in our town provide the only large, open spaces to throw a ball around for a dog that needs his exercise.  Of course, I never see dogs at school during school hours.  But once the small hand is on the three and big hand is on the twelve, it’s a pooch party on the field at school.  There are usually no less than 5 or 6 dogs there at a time from 3pm until dark.

There are very few houses in my neighborhood that do not have a backyard of some sort.  I know taking your pet to a place where you and your furry companion can socialize is important to some.   However, I really, really wish that place wasn’t my kids elementary school.

I don’t have a dog because I don’t want to open the back door first thing in the morning in the winter to let a dog outside.  I don’t want to have to clear the yard of dog crap every time my kids want to play outside in the summer, which is every single day.  I spent five plus years changing diapers and potty training small children and I would like at least ten years of not worrying about someone else’s excrement.

If you are going to take Fido to an elementary school for his daily ball chase, please, please, please pay attention and pick up after your dog.  I’m going to go even farther and say I don’t think dogs should be allowed on school property, ever.  Teachers should focus on reading, writing and arithmetic — not Lysol and s*#% removal.

OK, I’m just going to say it.  Are you sitting down?

I was not ready for my kids to go back to school on Tuesday.

I really enjoyed winter break this year.  Usually I am counting the days, hours and possibly seconds until I can speed through the car line and send them on their merry way to learn times tables instead of bicker over who has more legos or smear marker all over my white marble counter tops.

But this year was different.  I don’t know if my kids have reached some magical age where I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief and having them home with me for an entire day is somehow less draining.  They play on their own for long stretches of time and sometimes they even get their own snacks.

We hosted both sides of the family on Christmas and had a few families over to celebrate New Year’s Day.  The kids helped set the table, played sous chef in the kitchen and OMG even cleaned their rooms.  They enjoyed having company and didn’t want the parties to end.

We slept in (if you consider 7am sleeping in) and had leisurely breakfasts.  Of course it was nice that my husband took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off so I was able to go for a run after breakfast and take my time showering and getting dressed.  We did puzzles, went bowling and to the movies, even skiing for a day.  And for the very first time ever we played Monopoly and no one threw a tantrum when they were sent straight to jail without passing go and collecting $2M.

Even though all the family togetherness and well behaved children was blissful and lovely it’s not what I enjoyed most about winter break.

What was really nice was the break from homework, lunchbox packing and time spent shuttling three kids all over the peninsula during the hours of 3pm – 5pm.  I didn’t have to rush my shower between kindergarten book borrowing and third grade art lessons.  There was no mad rush to get home after school, go to the bathroom, grab a snack, get changed and head out to soccer or ballet or Tae Kwon Do.   No dinners were burned because I was distracted giving someone a spelling pre-test.

But alas, all good things must come to and end.  On Tuesday we all woke up early.  My husband was already on his way to work by the time I stumbled downstairs to pour my cup of coffee.  I told the kids we wouldn’t be having pancakes, hot cocoa and bacon for breakfast and asked what they wanted in the lunchbox.  Then I came home to a very quiet house.  I’m already counting the days until Spring Break.

I remember clearly my first thought when I found out I was pregnant for the second time.  I already had two year old twins and all I could think was how is there ever going to be enough of me for three children.  But low and behold, I have managed with three children just fine for the past five plus years.  Some days there clearly isn’t enough of me to go around and other days I even manage to eek out a little time and energy to do something for myself.

I’ve learned to divide my heart into three pieces, but what often trips me up is trying to divide it into three equal pieces.   Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been obsessed with fairness.  I made sure each one of my stuffed animals had a turn right next to me in my bed and drove my mom nuts asking her to count the number of noodles I had on my plate to make sure my sister didn’t have more.

I try my best to make sure everyone has the same amount of milk in their glass.  I carefully count out the chicken nuggets to make sure each child has the same number.  We take turns picking the music we listen to in the car and I even made a chart to keep track of whose turn it is to sit in the most favored car seat.  But let’s face it, life is not always fair and I just can’t make sure they all get the same amount of hugs per day and chocolate chips in their cookies.

When my twins started kindergarten I went to great pains to make sure I volunteered the same amount of time in each one’s classroom.  I was assigned to Monday afternoon for one of them and there are several Monday holiday’s in a school year.  They noticed if I made it to one classroom that week and not the other, and I felt guilty.  I try to explain to them that things will not always be tit for tat.  For the most part it all works out and I probably feel more guilt over dividing my time up than is necessary.

Tonight is Back to School Night and like every parent with multiple kids at one school, not just twins, I fret over whose classroom presentation I would attend and which one my husband would attend. I don’t mean to imply that I am the superior parent, but I am on the front lines doing drop off, pick up, communicating with fellow parents and teachers and helping with homework.  I wanted to hear the teacher’s presentation first hand for both my girls.

At least my son’s kindergarten class presentation is earlier in the night and both my husband and I can attend that one.

After fretting over it and making my husband discuss it with me ad nauseum, he finally said, “relax, it’s not Sophie’s Choice.”  And he was right.  Whenever I am stressed about something like this I try to ask myself how much it really matters in the grand scheme of their lives.  They won’t even know whose classroom I was in.  Will they not get in to Stanford because I didn’t sit in their classroom one September night in 2nd grade?  Perhaps taking a step back from making everything fair and the same would be good for me and my kids.

It didn’t take long this year for my third grade daughters to bring home their first project homework assignment.  You know what I am talking about, the type of homework that requires a tri-fold board or a trip to Michael’s.   The second week of school and my children were required to make a solar oven.  I don’t mind these types of projects and luckily my kids are usually quite willing and excited to work on things that require glue, scissors and permanent markers.

As I was reading the instructions, I noticed down toward the end was a sentence that made me smile.  It read, “students should do this project on their own without parental help other than providing materials.”  Thank you third grade teachers, I thought to myself.  So that is exactly what I did.  I provided my girls with the shoe boxes, tin foil, black markers, saran wrap and duct tape that they asked for and set them free to design their ovens themselves.  They tested them out one afternoon in the back yard one afternoon and off to school they went with their ovens.   I was thrilled.

But I had to wonder how many parents had actually followed the teachers instructions and kept their hands out of their third graders solar oven.  If history is any indication, my guess is more than half the parents couldn’t help themselves.  My first taste of this was when my  twin girls were in kindergarten and the 100th day of school rolled around.  We were tasked with creating some sort of display of 100 of something.  It could be anything.  I asked for my daughter’s input and we created two simple poster boards.  One wrote 100 with 100 pieces of elbow macaroni and the other made ten hearts out of candy hearts.  They counted, arranged and glued the macaroni and candy hearts on themselves.  I thought they turned out cute and they looked like they were done by kindergartners.

But when we brought our projects into the classroom I was taken aback.  One child had a board created to look like a beach complete with sand dunes, fake water and tiny beach umbrellas.  Glued onto the board were 100 beach type and sea life things.  Another child had a mini racetrack with mini race cars and the thing even lit up!  Now don’t get me wrong, these projects looked great and were really cute, but there was no way they were done by a kindergartner.

A few weeks later when my daughters were asked to make a leprechaun trap, I set out to Michael’s for green paint, glitter, fake gold coins and anything else green I could get my hands on.  I picked up the girls at school, set us up at the kitchen table and told them my plan for the leprechaun traps.  They politely told me that I had some good ideas, but they had some ideas of their own.  They did the traps just they way they wanted while I had to restrain myself from interjecting my opinion.  Sure enough there were a few leprechaun traps, including my girl’s, that looked like they were done by 6 years olds and a few that made me want to check under mom and dad’s fingernails for green paint.

So this is how it went through first grade and most of second grade.  I found it slightly annoying, but not enough to make a big deal out of it.  My girls were decidedly do-it-yourselfers who would listen to my input on their projects, but really wanted to do it themselves.  They didn’t seem bothered that their classmates projects were far superior to theirs.  They weren’t really being judged against each other and I’m sure the teacher was aware of who was doing most of the work.

Toward the end of second grade though, the disparities started to become much larger.  At Thanksgiving the girls were asked to plan a menu at home and prepare a meal of thanks for their family.  I loved this project and we had a great time looking through cookbooks, buying ingredients and taking photos of the food they prepared.  When it was time to put together the tri-fold board I stepped back and let them hand write the recipes and photo captions.  When we brought them to school, I noticed some of the other boards had recipes typed out in fancy font, construction paper frames for the photos and everything was glued on perfectly straight.  My daughter noticed and said she didn’t want to turn hers in.  And then I was angry.  Just the night before she was so proud of her work.  I gently explained that those kids had help and she did hers on her own and that she should be proud of her project.

It went the same for the country reports, book reports, etc, etc.  At Open House at the end of the year I was seething while browsing the second grade dioramas.  There was just no way a second grader designed and sculpted some of those creations I saw.  I started taking pictures and planning my rant to the teacher.  Have we become so competitive that we have to do our kid’s homework for them?  What are we teaching our kid’s here?  If your project isn’t perfect it’s not good enough?  How do they learn anything from turning in three perfectly typed pages that they had nothing to do with?

That is why I was so happy to see that little sentence at the bottom of the instruction sheet for the solar ovens.  The learning happens when they actually do the work themselves.  I know it’s hard for parents to step back and let them turn in something that is less than perfect.  I get it.  I know their teachers are on the same page and I will continue to encourage my kids and praise their less than perfect hard work.  I will also continue to be irked at those parents who feel like they need to do their child’s work for them.

This was not the post I intended to write today.  I was going to write about parents who basically do their child’s homework projects for them and how much that gets under my skin.  But that will have to wait until next week.

After a morning jam packed with meetings and errand running I remembered that today was early pick up for all kids at our school.  My plans of writing while my kindergartner relaxed after school went out the window.  I collected all three children from school, came home, gave them a snack and immediately made them get to their homework.  Last year I would have let them unwind and play for as long as they liked before I took out their homework, but I’ve learned my lesson.  It’s best to give them a short break after school and then insist on finishing homework before play or other activities.  It’s just what works for us.

We got through our homework session just fine, but then the afternoon took a turn for the worse.  I told them all that I had some things to do on the computer.  They would have to play alone for a while and not come in repeatedly with requests for a pitcher of water, straws, pretzels, a towel, bowls, popsicles, a pencil, paper or a cookie — all requests that I fielded before sitting down.

Just as I sat down there was some bickering outside where the kids were playing.  I ignored it, but it escalated.  Quickly.  There was some pinching and some hitting involved and quite possible the word “freaking” but I can’t be sure.  I walked outside to investigate and ask the kids who they were and what they had done with my sweet, well behaved children who never ever repeat words they hear mommy using while driving.  The crying and the finger pointing got worse and I gave us all a time out.

And then I remembered.  Oh yes.  The first couple weeks of school and sometimes even longer kids come home from school not only physically drained, but emotionally drained.  And it’s the emotional exhaustion that is a killer.  My kindergartner literally does not have the ability to get along with his siblings after holding it together for five straight hours at school.  Just being aware of this has helped me be a kinder, gentler parent when all I want to do is dole out the punishments.  I remember when my girls started kindergarten it took almost until Christmas break until I felt like they were fully adjusted to their new schedule.  Each year since it’s gotten a little easier for them, but there is still a re-entry period.

So this is why I have zero after school activities planned for my kindergarten son.  It’s best for everyone if we just take these first few months of kindergarten one day at a time. It really is a big step.  I have to remember to brace myself for afterschool meltdowns and prepare for early bedtimes.

For the past two years my son has spent three hours, three mornings a week at a great preschool.  They have a nice array of activities — cooking, gardening, story time, sharing time, riding around on tricycles like maniacs and crafty things that involve painting, gluing, stamping, glittering and other messes I don’t have to clean up.

I deliberately chose a preschool focused more on social and emotional development rather than academics.  Academics and preschool are two words that really don’t belong together in my mind.  He’s gained self-confidence, learned how to interact with his peers and with adults and most importantly, become comfortable with his emotions and gained skills to deal with them. (I’m not knocking preschools that teach letter sounds, etc. For us, this was the right choice).

Despite the fact that he doesn’t know his lower case letters, he can’t quite recite the days of the week and he still says lellow instead of yellow, we’re ready for kindergarten.  I say “we” because both he and I are ready for him to spend a larger chunk of time somewhere other than at home with me.  My patience for endless games of Candyland and building race tracks is staring to wane.  The thought of dropping all three of my children off at the same school every day makes me giddy.  My son is already comfortable at the elementary school where he will attend kindegarten having spent several hours there tagging along with me for library duty or to volunteer in his sister’s classrooms.  Most of the teachers already know his name and he knows where all the bathrooms are located.  Yes, we’re ready.

Today is his last day at preschool.  I’ve known this day was coming and honestly have not been that emotional about it until the past few days.  At his school, the last fifteen minutes of the day before pick-up is reserved for Celebration Time.  Parents arrive in the classroom and the children each get a turn to say what they remember about their day, they sing some songs and then are dismissed when the teacher calls their name.  It makes for a nice transition for school to home and gives me chance to learn exactly what he did that morning.

It’s been almost painful for me to watch my son at these Celebration Times lately.  I am coming to the realization that I will no longer be the parent of a preschooler.  I am all too aware that with kindergarten comes benchmarks, homework and lots of kids five times the size of my son running around on the playground.  They don’t end the day with a round of “Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?”  and there are no robot boxes to play with at recess.   There has been a silliness and sense of playfulness that has infused his days at preschool that I will truly miss.

So, yes, we’re ready and excited for kindergarten.  But I am so glad that my son’s preschool years were filled with wonder, making up silly rhymes, finger painting and riding around like a maniac on a tricycle.  I’ll make sure we have plenty of time for making robot boxes after school once kindergarten starts… after his homework is done of course.