New Responsibility

What do the kids want most of all this summer? Freedom.

Freedom to make their own meals, freedom to choose their own clothes (though the act of getting them ON is something they'd still like help with), and freedom to wander the neighborhood without Mom or Dad tagging along.

Requests 1 and 2 are easy to grant.... request 3 is going to be hard for me. The kids can go around the block currently with a friend, with each other, or with the dog. Jacob this afternoon asked if he could go alone. I said OK. A few minutes later the neighbor across the street came over to ask if I knew he was in the street on Meadow Grove (the busier street that parallels ours). I said he was exploring the block.

But it was nice to know that the neighbors look out for the kids too. I see pretty soon it's going to be "can I go to the park?" or "can I take the long walk." Ack..... we're so happy to see them start walking when they are 1. Little do we know this is what it leads to - around the block, to the park, with their friends, in a car...... can I skip this part???

Perhaps I'll create a new mantra "I will not be a helicopter parent, I will not be a helicopter parent."

Soccer Pic

Jacob and his friend Kaden playing soccer the other week. I don't know what's with the pose....

not ideal

Not quite the sight I want in my face first thing in the morning....

The proprietery playdate

One side effect of the growth of playdates is the notion that they are some type of sacred contract between the invited and invitee. I seem to remember a much more organic style of playing when I was young. I would call Megan Stevens and we'd say something like "wanna play?" and then one of the other of us would be running through the backyards to get together. I also remember playing with multiple kids at a time (the three-is-a-crowd lesson learned over and over again). Maybe I have a rosy remembrance of the past.

The kids had a half-day today and the neighbor boy, who is in Jacob's class, had a playdate with another boy who is also in Jacob's class. I tried to keep Jacob entertained and we called several other friends because Jacob was pretty desperate to play with someone. No luck - many people were taking the long weekend to head out of town.

So after a few hours, Jacob ended up standing on the edge of the lawn staring over at the other two boys playing. I suggested that he simply go over and ask if he could play too. The more, the merrier, right? After a little back and forth between the boys, Jacob was invited to join them. Less than 5 minutes later, Jacob had been sent home by the neighbor dad.

I can kindof see two sides of the issue - one, Jacob and the neighbor get to play together often and played most of the afternoon last Friday until the neighbor was sent to his room for being mean to Jacob (a dynamic that is probably worthy of it's own post). The classmate wasn't invited over to play with the neighbor AND Jacob - also the playdate might have been a conscious effort to have the neighbor play with someone specifically other than Jacob.

But the other hand is that after he's been invited to join by the two boys - it seemed rude for the neighbor dad to then promptly send him home. It couldn't have been that the playdate classmate was excluded from play - there wasn't enough time for that.

I've decided that the neighbor dad just doesn't like his kids playing with our kids. I've talked to enough parents with similar stories to know this isn't a unique situation. I'm sure there were kids I played with that my parents didn't care for. I don't ever remember my parents sending anyone home. "I'm sorry Lori..... Jamie and Nancy are playing right now."

Jacob is now happily playing with his friend Dominic. No lingering problems other Mom trying to keep her opinions to herself.

Brutal

Jacob's soccer team lost their game last night in what can easily be called a crushing defeat. We lost count, but the score was something like 20-4. I throw out the old cliches of "you win some, you lose some" and "playing a good team makes you play better." The kids were not really buying it.

It seems that at this age, the winning team is decided largely on who has the better single player. Our team doesn't have one of those players and the team they played against had 3. Also, Jacob's team is very young - it's supposed to be 5K. Jacob's team are almost all late spring / summer birthdays. And they have two kids who are not even 5 yet but are playing in the league as exceptions. This makes them the youngest team, and in some cases almost 2 years younger than the opposing team.

I know there aren't good solutions there will always be winners and losers, and really the kids are out there to have fun (it's why we chose the league and not the other in town). But you also want the kids to have fun, and kids equate "fun" with "winning." So, the other team had lots of fun. I'm guessing they have fun every week.

Holy Productivity Batman!

E-waste to recycling center -
Library books returned -
Checks deposited at bank -
Park Pavilion reservation paid -
Lab supplies ordered -
Plane tickets refunded -
Daycamp deposit dropped off -

Productive 2 hours!

Jacob's birthday

Well, it officially must be nice weather on June 5th, since we're having Jacob's birthday party at the park. He wants a sports themed party, specifically kickball. This might be more work than last year's YMCA bouncy birthday party, but that's OK. It's still not at our house.

(the rain plan is to go bowling)

If anyone falls into the central venn diagram category of people who (a) read this blog and (b) are inclined to purchase Jacob a birthday present: here are a few ideas. Super Mario Party for Wii; Star Wars Character Encyclopedia book; any type of playground ball; and outdoor games like croquet or horseshoes.

Summer solstice

I am lodging my first official complaint about summer, on the day I sent the kids to school and they were asking if they needed mittens. (when will it warm up????)

It's really, really light out. I slept with the window open last night, and had to get up and shut it around 4:30am because the birds were too noisy and it was beginning to get light out. I think the birds were noisy first, but the approaching twilight made me totally misjudge the time. Allison woke up at 5:10am and it WAS light out. Also - Allison woke up at 5:10 am.... ack!

Then I just took the trash out at 9:30 pm and you could still see hints of light blue on the western horizon. Summer, I like you, but you mess with my sleep.

Math mania

a.k.a. - what to do when your 5-year old can multiply?

Jacob seems to have an aptitude for math. I suppose with two engineers for parents, this should come as no big shock. I think what's kindof weird however - is how well he seems to understand the concepts behind the numbers. He just sees how they work together and can apply a new idea after seeing just one or two examples. We've decided it's a little bit creepy.

He also has the benefit of observing the 2nd grade math that Allison brings for homework, which introduces him to concepts not normally in the kindergarten curriculum. Beginning last week - it was multiplication. We explained in the car one day that 2 times 4 was the same thing as adding the number 2 "four times." This explanation plus the free math baseball app that Grandma Sue recommended and Jacob now knows all his multiplication tables up to 6 x 6. This morning he asked me if I knew that 100 times 100 was 10,000.

It's not just add subtract and multiply, either - he's started to grasp is negative numbers. "Mom, what's 5 minus 100? - Negative 95!" And fractions - this morning Jacob holding up 7 fingers and asking how many hours he has if he has this many half hours. (He said 4 - which was incorrect).

So, do we encourage this math learning, or do we just let him develop it out of curiosity? Also, if anyone knows of any good math computer games or iphone apps - please let me know. Jacob's not a big fan of "workbooks" the way that Allison was.

Guess who?

On behalf of United Airlines and our United Express partner, SkyWest Airlines, please accept our sincere thanks for your patience and understanding during what we know was an extended delay in reaching Denver on May 18th.

I was alerted of the circumstances surrounding our decision to return back to Milwaukee to seek medical attention for an ill customer. I am truly sorry for the disruption of your travel plans and want to thank you for your understanding as we made preparations to get you to your destination.

I hope you will allow us the privilege to serve your travel needs again in the near future.

Sincerely,

Peggy Beirne
United Airlines
Customer Care

More Jacob Quotes:

"Only my friends and my cousins can play with my balls"

"Do they have apples in Minneapolis? - It's Minnie, apple-less. Apple-less means: with no apples. Do they get them from other places?"

Hard Labor

Allison is in for some hard labor. Ok, well, it'll be mostly cleaning, but 5 hours worth. Saturday afternoon, in what we can probably described as wanton tiredness and monumentally poor decision-making, Allison damaged some stuff in Jacob's room (which we discovered when we put Jacob to bed at night). After much yelling and a young girl who went straight to bed, Brian and I were unable to doll out any punishment at the time. Ok, to be honest, we couldn't really think of anything.

Punishing Allison is a challenge, and I mean that it's difficult to find appropriate and consistent consequences. There isn't anything to "take away" that means anything to her (like losing an hour of video games is enough to get Jacob to do just about anything). Plus, the whole world of "punishment" is full of wonderful advice like "reward good behavior" and "authoritarian parents will pay for it later with rebellion" and "use a poor choice as a teachable moment." Uh, huh. I'm sure that advice works well for some kids. It does not work well for all kids.

We have "rules" and praise the kids when they solve a problem without fighting, or try a new food on their own. We try never to say mean and hurtful things to them, even if they call us "poopy butt" or something worse they heard at school. But there will come a time when even the best kid makes a bad decision and then what do you do? And what do you do if your child seems naturally predisposed not to consider the consequences of their actions BEFORE taking said actions? And what if this predisposition is compounded by lack of sleep, hunger, or once medication has run it's daily course?

And then if your child does fall into that category - how much do you "forgive" on account of his/her less-developed abilities? Allison seemed truly remorseful for her actions after the fact. She wrote Jacob a note to say that she was sorry. Mom and Dad decided to have her pay for what needed to be replaced ($61 - not wholely accurate assessment, but Jacob was content with it), of which she had $36 in her piggy bank (that she was saving for Bop It) and the remaining $25 she is working off at $5 per hour with chores around the house.

All the parenting "advice" recommends a consequence that allows the kids to take responsibility and make amends for their mistakes. Allison can't have any friends over or play with the neighbors until she's finished her 5 hours and paid off her debt. She did 20 minutes of window washing today. At this rate, it might take a while.

I wish it were still as simple as a 5 minute time out. Time outs were straight forward. This is a chore.

Sleepover

Allison had her first sleepover at our house last night. The girls decided to give a fashion show about 8:45pm (pic below).



The biggest challenge was keeping Jacob away from the girls, as he was desperate to be included in whatever they did. We finally ended up letting him go to sleep in our room (and then moved him to his room later).

Allison and her friend have been having lots of fun, though. They watched a Barbie movie, had the above-mentioned fashion show, decided to glue mosaic tiles to something in the dark (slightly messy), played "tricks" on Jacob, and sang songs late into the night. We did finally separate them to go to sleep (as Allison was super amped-up and finally fell asleep at 11:30, about an hour after her friend did) and then put them back in the same room later. I felt a little bad, but she otherwise would have kept the both of them up well past midnight.

This morning they have been playing and hiding from Jacob. In an odd way - exclusion is also inclusion - since the simple act of avoiding him makes him part of the fun.

Forever Ago?

Pictures from the ski trip in February!! (I just re-located the camera)



The magic carpet - LOVE IT.


Allison in Ski School


Jacob in Ski School.


Are we there yet?

Party, Party

Jacob has a birthday party to go today from 1-3:30pm.

Allison has a birthday party to go to today from 1:30-4:30pm.

By my math that is 2 hours without kids in the house.

Party on!

What's For Dinner?

For my birthday, a friend of mine gave me a subscription to The Six O'clock Scramble, which is a website that e-mails you weekly recipes with sorted and organized grocery lists. Many recipes are easy to prepare (between 20-40 minutes) and all are from scratch. You can change your menu options, but we've decided to try most of what they send us.

So tonight was a roasted chicken with sweet onions, herb red potatoes, and lemony spinach. It was good. It was one of the longer recipes time-wise, so we did it on the weekend. We had enough leftover to save some chicken for sandwiches and create a broth for risotto later this week. (the broth is what's in the pan).



But we were eating and I was thinking about when we moved to Madison and decided we were going to try and eat healthier. We created meals around a protein, a veggie, and a starch. I remember feeling like an Adult. Ah - food world - we'd arrived! I loved those frozen pasta dinners from Bertolli and boxed potato and salad mixes were standard fare.

Our menus are now much more diverse (healthier.... ah, it's a toss up). But eating a meal tonight which was protein, veggie, starch - was kindof fun. Reflecting on my new favorites - scallops and risotto, french onion soup, or (compliments of the Scramble) - grilled spinach and brie - made me think about how much I enjoy food now. For those who knew me even 5 years ago may now marvel that I bought the largest box of spinach available at the store, or that I enjoyed the potato leek soup we made last week, drink coffee, and even manage to have a taco night every once in a while.

Of course, in the interest of Karma, we are not blessed with children who also enjoy the foods we cook - or at the very least - never BOTH of them on the same night (exceptions include Pizza Hut night and Breakfast for Dinner nights - see, we're not total food snobs). The kids tonight had chicken, potatoes, grapes, and pudding and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out which two components of the meal they ate. Oh well. Perhaps they'll also come around in about 30 years....

a week and a half

The last day of classes is next Wednesday. Not that I'm counting down or anything. We get to this point in the semester and it always causes me to reflect on one of the key differences I noticed about Brian and I - way back when. Getting to the end of a long, arduous task (let's say a long bike ride), we're both tired and ready to be done. This generally causes Brian to dig into some sort of deep energy reserve that says to him (presumably) "here you go - take this energy and get it done!" at which point he conveniently speeds up under the plan of "if I can get there faster, it'll be done sooner."

My inner voice (on the contrary) stats reminding me how tired I am, how much farther I still need to go, and how much better I'd feel if I just slowed down. I can conserve my energy, thus improving my chances of having enough to make it to the end.

I think of this as I stare at the second-to-last homework assignments of the semester. The second to last week of classes. The last chapter of material to cover. I'm tired of grading, the thought of opening up 150 AutoCAD inventor files fills me with dread.

I need a second wind. I need to power through and get it done. Or - LOL - perhaps I can get Brian to do it.