After Words

You Be the Parents: Manners--Resolved

I thank you for your feedback.  I'll admit quite honestly that I did not handle this one well.

The Boy was upset, but so was I--embarrassed in front of The Boy's teacher and in front of the mother who I knew already felt that, at 4, The Boy was not nearly macho enough.  So, I started off with A--manners are manners and you say thank you no matter what--but then I drifted into B and introducing the whole gender fairness topic just confused the issue.  He is ALL about fairness these days and suggesting that somehow he had been done an injustice just fed his rudeness fire.

I did talk to his teacher, whose snippiness I must have misjudged, and she was sympathetic about the whole thing.

So, crisis averted.  For now.

  

You Be the Parent: Manners

You arrive to pick-up your 4 year old son from pre-school, and he is--for the first time in recent memory, in tears.  His teacher explains (somewhat snippily, which is unusual for her) that one of his classmates went away on a trip and brought back gifts for the class and that your son was so disappointed about the gift he received that he dissolved into tears. 

After you leave school and talk to your son, you learn that girls received princess-themed tchotchkes and that boys got...something else.  Your son doesn't understand why he was not allowed to have a princess tchotchke, and it seems to you that he's reacting to the gender issue (i.e., princesses are not for boys) more than the gift itself. It may or may not be relevant that the girl who gave the gifts--and her mother--have been among the more vocal of the "ballet is not for boys" sentiment. 

Do you:  

A)  Remind your son that it's the thought that counts and that the appropriate thing to do when you receive a gift is to say thank you, whether or not you like it.  Then ask him to say thank you to his gift bearing friend at school tomorrow.

B)  Explain to your son that some people foolishly believe that only girls like princess stuff and that his friend was trying to choose a gift that she thought he would like.  Then ask him to say thank you to his gift bearing friend at school tomorrow.

C)  Have a conversation with your son's teacher about the gender issues you feel are at play here to explain (but not excuse) your son's behavior.

D)  Watch The Feminist Breeder's show on the Discovery Channel on Wednesday.

E)  Do something else entirely.

As always, I eagerly await your response.

Who Goes There?

When I decided to start blogging again, I dithered about my online identity: how much to say about where I was, who I was, and, most importantly, what to reveal about my kids.  

Once I threw Twitter into the mix,it got more complicated, as I thought it might.  I gravitated towards local Tweeps, I posted a profle picture, I used my first name.  I was more "out there" on the inter webs than I'd been before, but it was worth it.  In connected with some local folks--online and in person--who I really liked.  

I was still mostly anonymous though--am mostly anonymous.  With very few exceptions, I don't talk to my real life friends, family, and acquaintances about my blog in part because I don't think they'd get it.  Back when this was an infertility blog, I knew they didn't get it (that was the whole reason for the blog in the first place).  I'm not particularly worried about embarrassing myself--God knows I do that on a nearly daily basis as it is--but I am worried about embarrassing my kids.  I don't want to be known as that mom at pre-school/the playground/the grocery store who's always writing everything down for all the world to see.  Especially because here in my little corner of Fairfield County, it seems like the internet and the blogosphere are viewed with a good bit of caution.  Maybe it's the taciturn WASP aesthetic.  Maybe it's good common sense.  I don't know.

Anyway, as it happens I recently outed my sorta kinda anonymous self to a local reporter who wrote about me and some other local bloggers here.  Maybe I should have thought twice (or three times or four times) before saying as much as I did for the article, but I felt like my concern about being "discovered" online was also standing in the way of my writing in the first place.  

I don't know that this will ever become a truly local blog, but we'll see.  I'd love to hear from other folks in the area--leave a comment, send me an email, or what have you.  

But in the meantime, I'll leave you with this: 

My name is Jacquie.  I live in Darien, CT.  And I have a blog.

Tempus Fugit

Tomorrow I register The Boy for kindergarten.  I've been incredibly impressed by the way the local Board of Education has handled everything related to kindergarten so far: lots of meetings and opportunities to ask questions and get comfortable with the whole thing.  Still,it feels pretty overwhelming.  This is The Boy I see in my mind's eye:

 

How can this baby boy be ready for kindergarten?

Simultaneously, it's time to sign up for summer activities.  Last summer, I planned poorly and we had a lot of downtime in which we all made one another crazy.  Now, I'm torn between signing him up for the camp I know he'll love--which will occupy him from 8:30-3:30 for six weeks this summer and wanting to keep him home with me so I can stare at him and try to stop time.

Also, this year The Girl is old enough for camp (although her day is shorter, 8:30-11:30)--assuming I can get her potty trained in time, God help me.  I was trying to talk to her about camp to get a sense of whether she'd enjoy it enough to make it worth the expense, and she started jumping around the room yelling, "Camp!  Camp!  Camp!"  So, yes, I guess she wants to go too.

Now to pay for it all.

(Not So) Tiny Dancer

The Boy started ballet this week and great googly moogly did he love it.  I was nervous about it because I wasn't entirely sure that he grasped the gender factor--he would more than likely be the only boy in the class (and he is)--but at the same time, I didn't really want to talk about that because who really cares if he's the only boy in the class?  

So, the first day of class, The Boy took his place in line among the pink-clad ballerinas (he wore black leggings and a white t-shirt) and was practically vibrating with excitement.  He looked around and then came to stand by me. "They're all girls," he whispered.

""Well, sure, some girls like to do ballet too."  (See how I twisted that around?  Clever, eh?)  And he seemed happy enough to get back in line and walk into the studio on tippy toes without looking back.

*****

As I've mentioned to people in the neighborhood that The Boy is taking ballet, the most common response has been, "Well, that's fine!  Nothing wrong with that!"  Which of course implies that it's not fine, that there is something wrong with that.  That's the attitude I was expecting and the reason I was hesitant to sign him up in the first place.   Now that reluctance embarrasses me.

*****

Since it was the first class, the teacher left the door ajar so we could watch the kids.  The Boy's favorite moment may have been when the teacher mentioned there would be a recital in the spring and measured his inseam to order his costume.  It was the only time he looked for me.  "Costume!" he whispered when he met my eyes.

*****

The class ended with a circle dance--all the dancers joining together to a ersatz version of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration"--and there was a moderate commotion as the girls all sorted out who would be holding hands with whom.  The Boy was alone, happily shaking his money maker, until he spun around and saw all the girls linked together.  Then he looked stricken.

"Hold his hand!  Hold his hand!  Somebody hold his hand," I shouted telepathically.

The teacher must have heard me, and she turned from the stereo and saw The Boy. "All together, dancers!" She said, as she broke the chain and reformed the circle, holding his hand.   

 

Resolved

Everything I could possibly write about now seems silly when I think about the devastation in Haiti so I figured I'd write about the silliest thing of all: New Year's resolutions.

I made a couple this year--the typical ones, I guess.  I gave up Diet Coke, which is less about giving up soda and more about giving up artificial sweeteners.  I'm allowing myself to drink real Coke (in those cute little pony cans), tea, and the occasional Starbucks splurge.  I've had a low grade headache for the last two weeks, which I attribute to my body's learning to live without Nutrasweet.  I hope it goes away soon.

I'm trying to exercise more.  It's been easy the last few weeks because my husband has taken over bedtime duties, and I find that going to walk/job on the treadmill while watching crappy TV (usually some variety of "real" housewife) is actually more pleasant that putting a non-compliant child to bed.  But I can't say I love it.  Or will ever love it.  I just have to do it.

After those two it gets a little more vague.  I'm trying to do new things, is I guess the best way to put it.  More playdates for the kids.  More social interaction for myself.  More cooking things I haven't made before.  Reading authors I haven't read before.  Etc.  Does that sound boring?

Into the New

Remember how bummed out I was about how much better The Girl was sleeping at night when my husband handled bedtime?  Yeah, well, that ended over the weekend: she's once again up a zillion times a night regardless of who puts her down.

So, powers that be: I'm over it.  I promise not to whine even a little about The Girl being better off without me if you can arrange for her to sleep through the night again.  Deal? 

*****

We made our first ER visit of 2010 over the weekend when The Boy, getting in close to smell some freshly baked blueberry muffins, touched his upper lip to the baking tin that still contained the muffins.  It's a first degree burn so the damage is just cosmetic at this point, but man is it crusty and nasty looking.

Another reason to avoid baking.

  

May the Force Be with Him

The Boy is into Star Wars.  Or thinks he is.  He doesn't really know anything about it except that his second grade-friend up the street only wears clothes that have some character from "The Star Wars" on them. 

This year for Christmas, a doting aunt gave The Boy a lightsaber--which he was unimpressed by until we explained that it was from Star Wars, and he started carrying it around with him all the time, though he insisted on calling it his "life saver," no matter how many times we corrected him (which was not that many because I find it rather adorable). Now that he has his life saver, he thinks he is some kind of Star Wars media expert, though he hasn't seen any of the movies, and when I was reading him pages from a Star Wars sticker book and saying names like R2D2, C3P0, and Chewbacca, he kept saying, "No, what are they REALLY called?"

So, imagine my surprise when, just a few moments ago, The Boy asked, "Do you know who Darth Vader is?"  I started to answer when he interrupted with, "He's Luke Skywalker's father!"

"Who told you that?"  He named a boy he'd met at vacation camp this week and then told me all about how Darth Vader cut off his son's hand (!) so he got a robot hand and could fight like a robot, and even though I guess that's more or less true, it's not exactly the spin I would have given it all when I watched the Empire Strikes Back sometime in 2011 or 2012, as I had planned.*

Thus, my newest New Year's resolution is this: to introduce The Boy to the Star Wars movies--assuming he's interested--because I don't want some asshole pre-schoolers to ruin the whole thing for him.  Or for me.  There are other resolutions, to be sure, and no doubt I'll hem and haw about them in weeks to come, but this is the one to which I'm most looking forward.

May your resolutions be as much fun.

*Not really planned.  More mused about when he'd be ready to see them.

Obsolete

The Girl is a terrible sleeper: she doesn't go to sleep easily, doesn't stay asleep, and wakes all too early.  She's 2.5 now and sleeps in a bed (if I had it to do over again, I'd try to keep her in the crib for longer).  She's stopped napping during the day unless she's in the car/stroller in the late afternoon.

I've been searching out toddler sleep advice and it's run the gamut from putting a lock on her door to prevent her leaving her room during the night to setting up her own bed in our room so that she can come in and crash there without rousing us too much.  I've done the latter (I just can't sleep with her in our bed with us) but can't bring myself to do the former.*

I'd read that sometimes it's helpful to have someone else put the kids to bed so last week, when I needed to do some last minute Christmas shopping, my husband offered to handle bedtime solo (usually, we do it together: him with The Boy and me with The Girl).  The Girl slept through the night.  It was a miracle.  He did it the next night.  Same thing.  The next night, we had a babysitter handle bedtime and The Girl once again slept.  Christmas Eve, I took part in bedtime again (seemed wrong to skip out on that) and she slept through until 7:30.  It was a miracle.

Then, the sleep train jumped the rails.  But then, I was taking part in bedtime every night.  

Sunday night was an exceptionally awful sleep night so last night we experimented again: my husband put the kids to bed and again, The Girl slept through (well, basically through: she woke up around 5, wandered out into the hall, then wandered back into her room and went to sleep).

Clearly, my husband needs to take over bedtime. It makes sense.  There are things that I could do with that time: I could go to the gym, I could clean the kitchen, I could go OUT!

And yet, I find it hard to let go of bedtime, to write myself out of this part of the script.  On the one hand, those hours from 5-7 are tough ones, when my patience is at an all time low. Historically, I turn the kids over to my husband for bath time sometime between 6 and 6:30, and I won't lie, that's fantastic.  But then I get the kids back all warm and clean-smelling for some snuggling before bed.  But so far the husband doing bedtime routine only works if I am out of the house (or, as was the case last night, lurking silently downstairs pretending to be out) so I must skip out on those post-bath kisses.

It won't be forever.  We'll establish a routine, get The Girl into a better sleeping rhythm, and then I can come back. But it's hard to think of my kids as being better off without me, even in only this limited way.  

*No judgment on the door lockers: it's just not for me.

Happy Holidays

Well, this post isn't about the miracle of UPS and Amazon Prime, at least not yet, as I'm still waiting on the delivery of some pretty important packages this Christmas Eve morn.  Gah.

This post is a little bit about the fact that we had a babysitter last night, and I don't know what magic she worked but The Girl slept all through the night until past 7 am and then played quietly into her room until nearly 8 (when I went in to investigate).  That's never happened before.

This post is about this: I went out with my husband last night for some grown up holiday cheer.  We had a lovely dinner, some lovely wine, some lovely conversation.  Then, we realized we should probably kill some more time to make the evening worth the babysitter's while. As it happened, we were near a hotel.  And as it happened, the hotel had vacancies.  So without luggage and without too much embarrassment, we checked in.  For two hours.

It was one of the most extravagant and impetuous things I've ever done. And it was so much fun.

Wishing you and yours extravagance and impetuousness this holiday season, whatever form it takes.