School Conferences

This morning I had school conferences for both the kids - one right after another. And, as I did last year, I left there reveling in how awesome the kids are and how awesome our school is. I was a bit nervous going in about Miss E's. Mr. T, I knew, was fine. He's right where he's supposed to be, his teacher thinks he's the funniest kid ever, and he's doing great.

Miss E, I was a bit more worried about. You see, with her, she's kind of gotten used to everything being EASY. Reading is easy, math is easy. Last year she covered for that by spending her time learning about the mechanics of school and being social (which is not her easiest thing) but this year, she kind of has that stuff down. And while I love that she's good at school, I also don't want her to assume that she never has to TRY for anything or THINK about anything. To her credit, she's very self-motivated - yesterday on her rest time she wrote a 5 page story and did 4 worksheets on synonyms, antonyms and homonyms - and that's great but she's not really being challenged at school like I had hoped.

BUT. It's awkward to be the parent who walks into the conference and tells the teacher that her kid is super smart and that the class isn't hard enough. Part of it is because I have this fear of coming off as the "flash-card" parent - you know the type, the super-driven, kids have to stop playing at a certain time everyday to do flash cards or other structured learning -and they're 3. Because we aren't like that. I strongly value free play time for the kids, I actually delayed Miss E learning to read a little bit so she could focus on more creative play. But at this point, at this conference, I knew the time had come to push for her to be challenged more. And I was nervous.

In the end, I should have had faith in the school because it's awesome and so is her teacher. Turns out (unbeknownst to me), her kindergarten teacher put her on a TAG watch-list. But at this school they try really hard not to test kids in kindergarten for TAG because once you test, you can't re-test for 2 years and kindergarten is so young, that they end up with a lot of false negatives. So she was going to be tested at the beginning of this year. But then her teacher met her and realized that being pulled into a strange room with a strange teacher during the first month of school would not produce a good result with Miss E and is delaying the testing until January or so, when Miss E is more comfortable and such. I was thrilled. Not necessarily because of the TAG thing, I don't really care one way or the other if she qualifies and I don't think it means that much extra, but because her teacher, at this early point in the year, seems to KNOW her so well and to understand her. And the teacher seems to be on the same page about making everything more challenging. Whew. What a sigh of relief.

There is no blessing at school greater than a teacher who knows and likes your child. It's just huge.

Life in General

This is what the kids did Sunday while we watched the morning game. Made a fort on the couch and then Miss E read a bunch of books to Mr. T. 

Things have been super busy around here AND I really want to get back to doing the 365. I'm no good at this whole 'blogging events and big things", I'm better at just jotting down the day to day. I have all these written and saved up posts that I don't want to publish because they are too soapboxy and offensive about religion or gender roles (and how our mother's perceive them) and such. And really the blog is a place where I can record the day to day of my life and my children's life. So often I feel like things are flying by and I am so busy trying to keep up with it all that I'm not soaking in the moment and the NOW of life. It's so much filled with meal plans and schedules and getting everyone ready for soccer practice and remembering who has library today or who has PE and errands, that I find the weeks flying by. It doesn't help that I have over-volunteered myself at the school this year. I'm trying to scale it back as I can but the things I'm committed to, I'm committed to so I'm just going to have to make it work.

To balance the busyness, I'm trying as much as I can to keep our weekends un-scheduled. Other than soccer on Saturdays, the kids have had free reign to do whatever they want, I've been cooking yummy things and of course, Sundays are football days. And a birthday party in the case of this weekend. Starting in October I'm taking a photography class in the evenings and I think that might be a good point to start a 365 project again. For now it will be random posts. Hope you are all having a lovely September!

Humbling

Is there a support group for parents of "spirited" children? If not, there should be. No one in my life has ever made me grow, learn, step up, question myself and feel like a failure like this girl. She is full of life and spirit and difficulty and curiosity and power and adventure.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and she didn't want to go. We get to the store and she refused to get out of the car. We finally get into the store and she starts stomping her feet and making a very loud whining noise. So, I don't know about you, but I feel like 6 is too old to be throwing a tantrum in public. I'm good with it up until about 4 and then I'm not such a fan. She knows this. So I tell her that if she continues to act up at the store, we're not going to be able to go out to dinner that night just the two of us (as we had planned). Then she decides to push the cart and makes up a really cute game of deciding which groceries are "girls", which ones are "boys" and which ones are the "naughty kids". Then she places them in the cart accordingly. The rest of the trip was the game (awesome) or stomping her feet (not awesome). I told her on a scale of 1 to 10 she was a 10 for wonderful and a 10 for a pain the kazoo. And it's freakin' true. She's either driving me CRAZY or we're having the best time ever. But she's giving me gray hair while we're at it.

They say it's your birthday

Yep, it's my birthday today. I am turning 36 which, as my husband so sweetly put it, is closer to 40 than 30. Lovely, isn't he? Truth be told, getting older doesn't bother me. I don't feel like I'm close to 40 and I do feel wiser and more secure with each year that passes. This year of my life has inadvertently become the year of living without. I am giving up 2 of the things that have been crutches or addictions or coping mechanisms for me. Not forever, but for a bit just to see how it feels to live without.

The first thing is buying anything for myself- clothes, jewelry, shoes, bags. In the past I have spent way too much money on clothes, gone shopping when I was upset to cool down and other such things. Now, I don't necessarily think those things are terrible, but here was the turning point for me. In May I bought a bunch of stuff for my trip to Spain. One morning just before I left I found myself standing in front of a stuffed closet unable to find a short sleeved shirt to wear with my jeans. And jeans are pretty much the only pants I wear. That's crazy. Having a full closet and taking half an hour to find something that you want to wear or feel comfortable wearing? Crazy. Right then I decided that I wasn't going to buy anything for myself for a year to use what I have, get re-aquatinted with my closet and get rid of stuff that I have and don't wear. Of course, I didn't want this to be more about NOT having something than evaluating so I figured that if Peter got me a gift certificate or bought something for me that would be OK.

The first two months were really hard. Harder than they should have been and hard enough to convince me that I was doing the right thing. Walking through a clothing store I felt like an ex-alcoholic walking through a liquor store. The smell! I tell you, Banana Republic and Anthropologie pipe something into their stores to make them smell a certain way. Of course, I haven't done that other than when necessary but as the months have passed I have been able to walk by a store without feeling the urge to go in.

The other thing I'm giving up (just for a month) is sugar. If you know me in real life, you know that sweets are my thing. After lunch, after dinner, my taste buds cry out for something desserty. The only way I could make this successful is to allow myself to eat sugary things that I have baked at home. I made cinnamon rolls last weekend and had one of those with the kids. I'm obviously going to eat a slice of the birthday cake that Peter is making for me. But I have given up all store-bought candy, doughnuts, and ice cream.  I'm figuring on trying it for a month and seeing how I feel after.

In no way did I plan all of this, it's just as I've been getting older and thinking about my life and my habits it feels good to also see how it feels to give up somethings I never thought I could.

Morning Movie Date

Occasionally, Peter and I like to go on a date. Without the kids. Crazy, I know. Thus far though, we have been ridiculous failures at finding a babysitter. We don't know a lot of older kids in our neighborhood and my parents babysit JUST ENOUGH that it's not a true necessity. Plus, I like my girls nights and he likes to go to shows and we each do those independently. Peter often tells me that if we went to church (which we don't) we would have no problem finding a babysitter and that, to him, is the only thing we are missing out on by not being religious. Babysitters.

But I digress..... This year, there are 2 days a week when the kids are in school until at least 3. Peter has time off during the days, I only work three days a week so therefore - DATE MORNINGS.  You know who's in the theater for the Tuesday 11am showing of Contagion? Us and two other people. Add in some coffee beforehand and a trip to the grocery store after (I know...) and we has us a date!

This picture isn't actually from our date - it's from back to school night - the actual picture from our date is in my phone. My new phone! Which is awesome but I am so far at a loss as to how pictures move from the phone to the computer. Someday, I'll figure it out. Until then, here's a picture of Peter on our way to back to school night. Which was kind of a date, since we didn't have kids with us. But not really since it involved sitting in teeny tiny chairs filling out volunteer forms and listening to information on reading curriculum.

It's Over

It's done. The last of our college animals is gone. The doctor came yesterday to do it and in the end, I felt sadness and a bit of relief. The life Samson was living was not a life he would have been happy with. I am also glad that we didn't have Miss E there for the euthanasia, it would have been really hard for her and for me. That was kind of my only time too to just be sad for myself. Not worried about how anyone else was handling it, but just be sad because I was losing a kitty who had been with me for 17 years. When Miss E and Mr. T got home from school we told them both independently (they got out at different times) and it seemed to go over OK. They were both sad, but nobody was shocked as they had been prepped that this was going to happen at some point soon. The lady who did it shaved a bit of his hair to put in a little baggie for Miss E and I think she was happy to have a tangible reminder of him. We also printed out a few pictures and gave each of the kids their own picture in a frame that they could put wherever they wanted in their rooms. I left his blankets and dishes around the house, and I think Miss E and I will pick them up together this weekend. All in all, it went as good as could be expected.

As a bonus, last night while Miss E was reading in bed, our other cat jumped up to lay with her. Normally, this was Samson's thing. He laid on her bed every night, in fact, that was the last place he could jump up to this week before his back legs started hurting. But he laid on her rug instead, keeping her company. Our other cat never ventured in there. Tonight though, as she lay there reading SuperFudge, Tangerine jumped right on her bed and snuggled with her, like he's been doing it all along.

Handling a Pet Death with kids

Most days, even though I'm getting closer to 40 than 30, I don't feel like an adult. Yes, there are responsibilities but mostly they don't weigh heavy on my shoulders. When we first had the kids I spent a few years learning to be tough. To put aside my immediate needs for another. To step up and handle a problem, not because I wanted to or thought I could, but because there was no one else. But for the most part, I am now realizing, babies are not actually that hard to take care of. Physically hard to care for, yes. Otherwise? Not so much. Their problems are pretty simple as are the answers and so for the most part I have sailed through my life feeling more like a young adult than a full-fledged responsible grown up.

Every once in awhile though, things get hard and that weight settles on my shoulders. Points in our marriage a few years back where it became clear that a divorce was actually the easier thing to do. Figuring out how to handle some behavior from the kids we've been going through and now, on the eve of the death of one of our beloved cats, the weight is there again. How do we talk the kids through this? Should they be there for the euthanasia? Should we let Miss E see the body after he dies? Should we even tell them it's happening before it does?

You know what I've come up with so far? I DON'T KNOW. This cat is Miss E's special buddy. She feeds him every night, he sleeps in her room. They cuddle. She's also at the most awkward age for this where, at 6, she's too aware for us to gloss it over (as we'll most likely be able to do with Mr. T) but she's also too young to truly understand. She knows he's been sick and we've been talking about bodies shutting down as you get older. I've told her he's about as old as a cat can get. Last night though, I tried to explain euthanasia (or as the kids now call it "the shot that makes you dead") and obviously, that didn't go over well. We have someone coming to the house to do it tomorrow while they are at school. I have not told them that. We figured it would be impossible to get them out the door if they knew Sammy was going to die while they were at school. So far my plan is to pick them up after school and tell them then. That will give us the weekend to grieve and process before they have to go back to school. Is it weird to plan your pet's euthanasia around your kids school schedule? I don't know.

Miss E told me last night that if Sammy died she would have to take him off her quilt square at school. When I asked her what that was, she explained that they were putting pictures of all the super special things in their lives on their quilt squares for a class project and she put Sammy on hers. After my heart broke in a million pieces I reminded her that she could keep him on because we will always love and remember him even after he's gone. I hope that was the right answer.

Now we are struggling with whether or not we should let the kids see his body after it's done. Neither Peter nor I thinks that is a great idea but I also don't like the idea that they went to school one day and came home and he was gone. There's only so far talking about it can go really. She knows it is going to happen sometime soon and I had her make a list of all the things she loves and wants to remember about him but..... again I come back to the I DON'T KNOW. Over and over again.

At this point, it's happening to tomorrow, they aren't going to see the body and we'll tell them when they get home from school. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope and pray that we are going to navigate through this correctly and that I will somehow know how to do or say the right thing to make this easier on the kids.