Uma's birthday

I just can't leave things on a post like the last one. The family and I area heading out for a few days to celebrate these last lazy days of summer before our school/soccer /life schedule hits us head on. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to that but we're going to take a few lazy days at the beach to properly say good-bye to summer.

After my whiney post yesterday, my sister broke her collarbone. Always the one to one-up me she is..... (totally kidding on that - I'd way rather have a whiny kid and sick kitty cat than a broken collarbone).

And my niece turned 4. The baby of our family turned 4! There were a lot of pink things and fairy things and pony things and brownies.

Crying Uncle.

Dear Life,

I'm crying "uncle".

Love, Sarah


This past week has been rough. Nothing that is really bad in and of itself but just one thing after another. Soccer team fiascos, scheduling fiascos, a cat with an unexpected huge vet bill plus more in the future, stalled house projects, financial issues, ants on the counter, and Miss E. Wonderful, strong-willed Miss E. I'm not sure what has happened but she seems to have figured out that we have no actual power to say, stop her from yelling for an hour straight or make her go to summer camp. Complaining about EVERY SINGLE THING and nothing being right - temperature, food, activity - it's all WRONG and she has been vocally letting us know it. Of course the real problem is that when she's "on", she's awesome - helpful, kind, smart, silly and cooperative.  It makes the "off" times so much harder to take.

It's hard to describe what's been going on but it has made me go through a period of feeling woefully and wholly inadequate and unprepared for this whole parenting thing. The hard thing is that Peter and I approach this so differently. He's super concerned with how to punish her. I am more worried about what the heck is going on. This ends up with us fighting with each other. Which makes nothing better. I think it has something to do with too much unstructured time, the transition to school and the accompanying change in schedule. Who knows though. Blaming things for school kids on transitions is kind of like blaming teething for baby's fussiness. It's always there. LIFE is a transition. Things are always changing for better or worse.

As for the maritial fighting thing? Well, that's just how it goes with us. It starts with me calling him to tell how much the vet is and lamenting about this insane extra expense. Then he starts going off on me about how crazy it is that the vet is so expensive (like I set the prices...) blah blah blah... I get mad that he's pissed at me about something out of my control......etc. etc. etc. Apply same reaction to all stressful life circumstances. Let's just say that "teamwork" has never been our strong point. Maybe we'll learn it some year.  At least it keeps things fresh right? Like we still, after 9 (plus a million) years have something to work on and change?

On the plus side, Miss E is frying her own eggs every morning and reading all kinds of books to Mr. T. So there's that.

Red-shirting

This post is a bit of an opinionated rant/letting off steam....so please take it as such. I know this is a controversial subject.

Peter has been coerced volunteered to be the head coach of Mr. T's soccer team. This is both a very good thing - Mr. T is super excited and a very bad thing - firefighting work schedule doesn't allow you to be at all the games and practices. Overall, we'll make it work. However, he came home last night with a roster for the kids on his team - all kids who will be attending kindergarten with Mr. T in a few weeks and I was dismayed to look at the birthdates and see that almost half the kids had summer birthdays and were held back a year meaning the day kindergarten starts, they will be 6 and possily turing 7 during the kindergarten school year.

This practice, for those who don't know, is called red-shirting and is kind of a trendy thing among affluent communities. Red-shirting in sports is holding a player back (usually in college) to give them an extra year of elidgibility. Red-shirting kindergartners means taking kids who (usually) have summer birthdays and holding them back a year.

I am extreamly opposed to this for a lot of reasons. First of all, the research doesn't support the supposed advantage. By about grade 3 or 4 it all evens out and kids who are red-shirted can actually fall behind academically due to the social issues of being older than everyone else in the class. As they get older, it brings on a whole host of other issues that I'm guessing kindergarten parents aren't thinking of. You have the first kid in the class to go through puberty, the first kid in the class who is driving and then you have an 18 year old supposedly living at home who has yet to even start their senior year of high school.

It skews the spectrum of students for each grade level. By entering kids who are technically too old for the grade, you end up raising academic and social expectations up above what is reasonable for kids who fall into the age group. Schools have an age cut-off for a reason. Unless there are some extreme circumstances going on, I think parents should respect that.

And then getting back to me and my family. Mr. T turned 5 in June. He is in the 30% for size right now. So already, he is going to be one of the youngest and smaller kids in kindergarten and if the playing field were level (i.e., only kids of appropriate age were starting class with him) I wouldn't worry about it. He's ready for kindergarten. He's not wildly ahead like Miss E was but she was also 8 months older than him when she started kindergarten. He's right where he should be though. Knows his letters and numbers, just about ready to read, able to kick a ball and has appropriate social skills. But now I feel like I'm sending him into a classroom that will have quite a few kid who are already 6 - and at this age a year makes a HUGE difference. Now, I'm nervous whereas I wasn't really before. I don't want him to feel like he's behind when really he's not, it just that other kids are inappropriately ahead.

Again, I know this is a super controversial topic. I also know that there are kids who have certain issues such as medical or behavior problems that would warrant red-shirting. I don't think half the kids on Mr. T's soccer team fall into that category though.

Smore Face and Services

This is Mr. T's best smore face. We didn't get to do them the last night of our camping trip this weekend so I promised the kids we could with Daddy on Monday night since he missed the camping trip. 

Peter is at work today attending his third funeral for a firefighter this month. The first one was for a sudden, off-duty death of an active member of the department. Last week he went to the funeral of a retiree as part of the honor guard (for the day). Today his entire crew put on their Class A's again and headed to the service of an active (at the time of his death) member of the department who lost his battle with cancer. His death is considered line-of-duty because he had one of the several types of cancer that are believed to be caused by firefighting work. Even though this was somewhat expected, losing two members of the department has been hard. To put it in perspective, Peter has worked there for almost 10 years. In that amount of time, 3 active-duty firefighters have died. Two of those were this month. It's been a hard month.

I don't know what to say other than it sucks. It sucks thinking of the families of these two young men who are left behind. It sucks thinking of all the firefighters who are putting on their formal uniforms with heavy hearts and venturing to the funerals to pay their last respects. It sucks thinking of the wife and children one of them left behind. Especially since there is always a little voice in the back of my head whispering "that could be you....". I know that voice is 99% likely to be wrong, but still, it's there. It's just heart wrenching.

Growing Up

 This picture was taken on July 20, 2005. Miss E is in the middle with her friend Ruby on the left and Stella on the right. We spent that summer, their moms and I, taking the babies to the park, walking around with them in strollers and carriers and having playdates at each other's houses. The play dates at that point were more for the moms than the girls but I think they enjoyed having some other babies to sit on a blanket and chew toys with. It was a summer of making new and much needed mom friends for me (we met through a birthing class and new mom's group at the hospital) and over time we have grown into friends - not just because of our children but because we really like each other.

This photo was taken on our camping trip this Saturday. Miss E in the middle, with Stella next to her and then Ruby. We have also added a few little brothers along the way. The girls are all going to be in first grade in a few weeks. I cannot believe how much they have grown, and how independent they are. Somehow they survived their mom's fretting about sleep and food and potty training and have grown into the smartest, sweetest, most delightful girls I can imagine. All three of them (and the little boys too!). We are blessed indeed.

New Feathers

I took Miss E to get her hair cut yesterday. Actually, before the hair cut the kids went to summer camp. After camp they told me that some older boys were picking on Mr. T and that Miss E stood up for him and told them to stop. We have been making a big deal of how the kids are to be kind and supportive to each other at school this year. Since they will be at the same school, with the same recess I don't want any fighting or picking on each other at school at all and they have been informed that there will be consequences for that. But yesterday, Miss E helped Mr. T out and I made a huge deal of how nice that was and how good it feels to have some one stand up for you and how bad it feels to be teased. And then we went out for frozen yogurt to further solidify the positive reinforcement.

While we were eating our yogurt I asked her how she wanted her hair cut, if she wanted to grow out her bangs, etc. She said short, yes and she wanted a new feather. A blue one.

Well as she was getting her hair cut our lovely and impossibly hip stylist (also named Sarah) suggested that in addition to the blue feather she could put in a green one. And add the pink in. And put in tinsel if we wanted. Umm...my comfort zone was quickly zooming away. Then I turned into the fuddy-duddy mom who limited it to two colors, no tinsel. Although I'm not sure how fuddy-duddy I can call myself since my daughter now has teal and lime feathers in her hair.

Miss E is in love. With both the feathers and the stylist. She brushed her hair last night (no fighting) and again this morning (without being asked) and clipped her bangs back herself as I told her we would have to if we were going to grow them out. I think she looks adorable. She has such a cute face and the short bob style kind of perfectly suits her looks and personality.

On a side note - Peter has not seen this yet. I'm not sure what he's going to think but we kind of split the kids as in I take care of Miss E's hair and he handles Mr. T's, so it should be OK. Hopefully. We'll find out on Monday when we see him after our weekend of camping!

What summer looks like

At our house it means:

Open doors and windows

2 orange cats lazing on the (mostly finished) front porch

2 half-dressed kids on the back deck

The hose

Iced coffees

Buckets of water

Forts set up on the deck

My gardening gloves and green bucket

Peter and I working on house projects

The Bat Cave and Green Lantern Planet being set up all over the yard.

Eating outside - and dishes scattered all over the yard

Green and shady with tree leaves rustling in the wind

Mowed lawns and weed pulling

Ginger laying in the sun on the back deck

Berries. Lots and lots of berries.

Every kind of imaginative game you can think of.

Unstructured time.

 Miss E in her fort on the deck with "tether baby"

 Eating outside

 Reading - there has been lots and lots of reading this summer. Including reading a lot out loud to Mr. T which is all kinds of awesome.

 Playing in the water

 Sitting on the new front porch before bed time

 Miss E copying everything Ginger does.

 Super Spider. This guy really deserves a post of his own. Every day we've been catching him fresh flies and moths to eat.

When I came home from work yesterday, Miss E was in the shed playing the guitar. Peter came up to me and said "Miss E has some skills on the guitar, she's just picking up the beat by ear." to which I replied "yeah, she pretty much has skills at anything she decides she wants to do". That girl is a ball of all kinds of talent and really the only thing that will ever stop her is her.