Pet peeves
Aug 3, 2001 Ancient Archives, Parenting
I haven’t gotten it together enough to put together a July archives page yet. Later this week maybe. So August will start here, along with all that old July stuff. Oh well, worse things have happened!
Pet Peeves for the day:
- humidity;
- dirty dishes;
- Brett’s cousin who calls periodically to either announce she’s pregnant (again) or to give me some minor symptom and ask me if I think it could mean she’s pregnant;
- busy signals at Earthlink;
- bills;
- potential employers who don’t acknowledge resumes sent to them.
Things that combat the pet peeves listed above:
- reading to Noah especially Put Me in the Zoo, a fave from my own childhood;
- getting an editing job from SRA for the weekend;
- shopping at a thrift store and finding a ton of ancient Little Golden Books;
- Brett going into work late so we can all have lunch together;
- listening to showtunes (especially “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Mis as sung by Andrea McArdle, the original Annie on Broadway).
Noah is in the family room playing with a bunch of little robotic looking guys that he got at the thrift store. Apparently, they are all threatening each other with mortal harm but Buzz Lightyear (the third Buzz he now owns) will surely prevail.
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GAK
Jul 25, 2001 Ancient Archives, Parenting
Today, Noah and I made flubber/gak. I only had dry starch which didn’t work so then I started adding Borax and probably added way too much. In any case, it’s fun to play with. I was trying to make it for Noah’s un-birthday party on Friday but now I think I’ll just put out flour, water, and salt and let the kids make a giant mess with it. (We’re having the party out in the backyard.)
We’re coming out of a week of really hot, humid weather. It’s the kind of weather that drove me out of the midwest in the first place. Fortunately, today held the kind of weather that made me *miss* the midwest when I left. It’s been storming all day. It’s amazing how quick and clean the heat break is when it’s finally ready to break. But for this past week all I can say is thank goodness we have central air and drat the car for *not* having AC.
Not much else to say. Maybe this weekend something marvelously compelling will happen.
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Tags: homeschool, Homeschooling, Noah
The apples falls far from the tree
Jun 27, 2001 Ancient Archives, Parenting
I made the mistake of discussing Noah’s grouch-fest with my mom. Her advice was, of course, to spank him. I don’t spank. I’m not violently (no pun intended) anti-spanking because I think that no one parenting choice should be pulled out of context of the relationship in which that parenting choice happens. However, *my* value system does not endorse spanking. Besides which I don’t think that spanking would work and even if it *did* work, I don’t think it would be worth it. And even if it did work, and it was worth it, I certainly don’t think it’s appropriate in this case.
Noah is an awful lot like me when I was little. He gets stuck with a negative mood because his pride won’t let him jettison it. He’s only four and I think I was more than twenty before I figured out I was master of my own mood swings (to some extent anyway) so why would I punish him because he hasn’t figured this out yet??? My mom says he needs to deal with the consequences of inflicting his bad mood on other people but he does deal with the consequences, i.e., an exasperated mother, a hurt friend, and a grouchy, ruined playdate. Instead of wishing I could find an appropriate punishment to somehow “cure” him, I wish I could be more patient. Because I have echoes in my head of how inappropriate such behavior is (echoes that come from being lectured about my own bad moods as a kid), it’s hard for me to be sympathetic enough to help him find a way out of the mess. I remember feeling alone and trapped and terrible when I behaved the way he behaved. I remember wishing someone would rescue me from myself. I hope that I can learn how to be a stronger advocate for Noah when it comes to facing down his own grouch-self.
This time I did the best I could and at the end of it all I told him, “You’re still a very little boy and it’s hard to always know what to do when you’re feeling so grumpy. But you’re getting bigger and you’re getting better at it.” To which my son predictably replied with the requisite frown on his pretty little face, “I am NOT! I will always be grouchy!” So I smacked him. Just kidding!
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Hot day, playdate just now over
Jun 26, 2001 Ancient Archives, Parenting
Noah’s recovering in the basement (playroom). He was surly, rude, and generally unlikable while his good friend Madeleine was here. He’s pretty much been like this for the past two months when he’s around other kids. He warms up eventually and fortunately, Madeleine forgave him and they had fun but it’s very frustrating for me. I have to keep reciting my new mommy-mantra, “Noah is not my project, he’s my kid.”
It’s so hard to watch him be awful and not *make* him be lovely and shining and sweet, like I know he’s capable of being. But our rule is that if people come over and he’s feeling grouchy, that he should tell us he needs time alone and go to his room and we won’t bother him. So he scowls at Madeleine (and her mother), pulls a Greta Garbo (”I want to be alone!”), spins on his heels to march into his room and slams the door behind him. I attempt to smile at the stunned audience and lead them into the kitchen for muffins.
(sigh)
Thank god my friends get it. As far as I know, they don’t hustle together to discuss my kid’s anti-social tendencies or to analyze the way I handle things. I mean, they have kids who embarrass them, too. They get it. Still it’s hard.
I’ve been having nightmares about Andrea Yates. In one, I was watching her parenting her kids and she was just lovely, a great mom and I turned to the two oldest sons sitting on the couch and said, “See, she was a good mom, right? You guys were happy, right?” And they just looked at me with these solemn, beautiful faces. I realized that since the children allowed to watch this good moment, this happy moment in their lives, that I had to face the way it ended, too. So I left the room and when I came back, the children were gone and there was a figure curled up on the floor. It was her, with her black hair tangled around her. She was on her knees, her face pressed to the carpet and I felt this horror emanating from her body. This awful despair and anger and hatred and, well, evil coming up and poisoning the room.
Then I woke up.
So many of us mothers are talking and talking about this story because we have all looked into that same pit of despair but were blessed enough not to fall in.
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Tags: Noah
Playdating
Jun 19, 2001 Ancient Archives, Parenting
Noah and I had a playdate with a little boy whose mom I met on the internet. She read something that I’d written and saw that my bio mentioned Columbus. She was looking to move here soon so she wrote me to ask the usual new-family-in-town-questions (pediatricians, dentists, etc.). I invited her to check in with our happy-go-lucky Thursday morning hang-out sessions for hip-mama-wannabe’s and she did and fit right in. She’s got two real nice kids. Her son is just a week older than Noah and has this terrific, outgoing personality. Noah (and I) enjoyed hanging with them all immensely.
It takes Noah a fairly long time to warm up in a new environment and he spent the first 45 minutes of the visit in my lap and refusing to talk to anyone. Then he caught sight of this annoyingly shrill, toy trumpet and tooted on that for most of the afternoon. Because this family happens to be so nice, they just smiled while he diligently set about rupturing our eardrums. For some reason, he really wants to play a trumpet. He’s been saying this for about a year, “When I’m bigger, I’m going to play a trumpet!” His (maternal) grandfather and (maternal) uncle both dabbled in trumpet-playing in school so maybe this is genetic.
I’m enjoying not writing this summer. I feel guilty because the lack of additional income means that we have had less luxuries, like we haven’t gotten a zoo membership this year. Still I’m enjoying being at home so much more without deadlines and research. Today after the playdate, Noah and I just books, made muffins, got out the playdough and then sat down and played with some of his little people together. The house is realtively clean and I knew what I was making for dinner so I was able to enjoy just being with him. I’ll tell you, I really want the agent to pick up my book and I want it to sell but if it doesn’t happen, I won’t be too miserable ‘cuz it means I won’t have to write it.
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Tags: Noah