2011
Sleepers
This is me totally copping out of recapping our Great Week-long Utah Adventure in favor of whining about shit because I’m hormonal. (It doesn’t happen often, this letting hormones turn me into a cranky tangle, but when it does I just let it ride BECAUSE I CAN.) (I try not to be too much of an asshole, but sometimes it happens, yo.)
Here’s one photo from last week, though. Cute, huh?
(He broke those glittery sunglasses clean in half later that day. Too bad we don’t have any other pictures of them.)
So, Salt Lake: we had fun, we ate much and poorly, and I “slept in,” the end. Except not the end because I’m cranky and hormonal and would like to further examine (i.e., whine about) this whole “slept in” business.
Point the first: Whyyyyyyyy did I wake up on vacation at the exact same time I wake up when I’m at home? WHYYYYYYY? This has never happened to me in the history of ever, and I feel like it’s something only old people do. Did I…get old?
Point the second: Why did Wombat go to bed an hour later than usual (even considering the time difference) and then wake up hours earlier than normal? WHYYYYYYY?
Point the third: My mom is awesome. She was on staycation (gak) and got up with Wombat every morning without complaint. It helps that he’s the only grandchild and is smack in the age range that my mom adores above all others, but still. Grandmotherly affection doesn’t always trump 6 a.m. (which is 5 a.m. California time, for the love).
Point the fourth: Simon and I have an ongoing debate. He says that because I get up later than he does every morning, I’m “sleeping in” every day. I maintain that the notion is absurd, since the same logic would mean that Simon is “sleeping in” compared to some other sorry soul who gets up even earlier than he does. He says it only counts if you live in the same house. I say don’t be ridiculous, now fetch me my slippers and lavendar eye mask.
He’s out of his mind, obviously (and obviously also kidding, mostly), but the part where it becomes a problem is that he feels entitled to “catch up” on weekends, which…no. Wombat is still up at the crack of 7ish, regardless of what the calendar or my crazyeyes say, and although we’ve devised a clever and complicated system of safely occupying the runt while we stay in bed (okay, it’s neither clever nor complicated; we turn on the teevee) (say what you will, but this beats the months we stuck him in the living room in an Exersaucer while we staying in bed up until that one morning we heard a thunk and found him facedown in the rug with tweetybirds circling his bald little noggin), even then, one of us still needs to get vertical and actually, you know, parent before noon.
Did you know there are no such thing as weekends in motherhood? I was not informed of this.
Anyway, the trouble is that for Simon to properly “catch up” (ha!) to me sleepwise (absurd!), he’d have to remain unconscious until 11:30 on both Saturday and Sunday (no, no), while I, meanwhile…get up at the same damn time I do every other day. My compromise has been to let him stay in bed until 10 a.m. (before I start stomping around and banging pots and pans and suggesting to Wombat that now would be a good time–nay, the best time!–to stage a production of the Suess classic Hop on Pop), but I’ve noticed he gives me the stinkeye when this happens, and not because I’m being a dick (well, not just because I’m being a dick) but because he really does think his way is the fair way.
Did anyone tell you parenthood/marriage/life is unfair? I feel like I heard that somewhere once, but I don’t remember when.
Here’s the thing: I think we should each get a sleep-in day that’s relative to our normal wake-up times. He gets to sleep two extra hours one day, I get my two the other. None of this “he sleeps ten extra hours on the weekend while my mornings grind on as per usual” nonsense. Nonsense, I say!
THAT SAID…Simon gets up at 6:30 Monday through Friday and I usually don’t fall out until 8 or 8:15, which, YES, I KNOW, is totally luxurious for a person with a job and half and a toddler and a husband and a house that’s in desperate need of cleaning. (And yet, 8:15! Working from home for the motherfucking win!) But still, this isn’t about equity, or who’s spoiled; it’s just the reality of the jobs we have, and there’s no use arguing what’s “fair” here.
AND ALSO…He does let me sleep in on one weekend day per set. He does this even though he gets up almost two hours earlier than I do for five days in a row and then, when it’s finally his turn to get some extra rest, I clomp around crinkling cereal bags and crushing Coke cans the second I decide he should be done sleeping. He is awesome (albeit often ridiculous), and I’m…kind of a jerk sometimes. I know this. I do.
The thing is, I’m not always patient and grateful enough (especially early in the morning) to realize what a gift I have in this kind man. And when I’m in that not-patient, not-grateful place, I fall into that sitcom rut of “I don’t want you to just put your shoes away, I want you to remember to put your shoes away without me having to nag about it, and I want you to do it with a smile on your face and no trace of resentment.” I catch myself thinking these things–”Okay, fine, it’s great that he’s allowing me to sleep in too, but why can’t he do it without that…look on his face”–and then I want to loudy crinkle my own face and stompcrush my brain like a soda can because HELLO, SHUT UP, YOU ARE SO DAMN LUCKY.
It’s really not so bad as all this–I warned you I was cranky and hormonal–but hey, since you’ve read this far, let’s talk about it.
Just because I’m curious: What time to you get up in the morning (weekdays and weekends both)? What time do you go to bed? Do your spouse’s hours differ? Do you ever feel like a total bitch about this stuff and vow, in a moment of clarity, to rise at 4 a.m. next Saturday to start churning the butter that will go on top of the homemade french toast you will serve your darling husband in bed, and not a moment too early for his liking? Or are you also cranky and hormonal and willing to fight for my cause, against all good judgement?
2011
225 to 231
Wombat and I are leaving town next week while daycare’s on vacation, and since accessing the internet while visiting my parents means driving to the nearest hospital (yes, hospital) and sitting in the hospital lobby in a hospital chair under hospital lights while hospital things happen in uncomfortable proximity to my very serious commitment to things like the critical oeuvre of Parry Gripp, well…yeah. Posting might be light is what I’m saying whilst gazing through this filter of I Am Very Important on the Internetness. Actually, what I’m really saying is that while I will be on a relaxing vacation among people who allow me to comfortably ignore my child while they love on him, I will also be in the seventh circle of hell, since there’s nothing relaxing about being without internet for seven days when the internet is how I relax. God forbid I have to, like, “live some content” or something. Twirl around on the grass with my awesome kid or something. GOD.
But yea, all is not lost, as one thing I damn sure will be doing is wringing every last ounce of free service from my pity-gift smartphone, since I have it until the end of the month but beyond that don’t think I can justify paying $30/month for the privilege of internet access when I’m normally away from my computer a pathetic average of 30 minutes a day. Sure, it would be nice to check Twitter in the off-chance I get stopped at that single traffic light between home and daycare, but honestly, then I might miss out on the shenanigans occurring at the intersection, which, I assure you is always a good show, where “show” means I sometimes have to duck to protect my person from flying bullets and/or bodily fluids. Stay scary, Oakland!
My solemn vacation vow to you, however, is to not post from my phone, as even a simple text message usually comes out looking like I’ve had a seizure, and I wouldn’t want you to worry.
Therefore! Please to be enjoying this week’s installment of Project 365 (Week 33!) (minus Day 227 because my subconscious mental block against photographing Mondays is apparently impenetrable) as well as some links to other things you might enjoy. (Yes, they’re all links to myself, and yes, it’s because I’m the only person I got around to reading this week.)
***
Elsewhere:
Win some money! (The comments will make your mouth water.)
Don’t miss Simon’s original songs.
Throw my friend out of a plane!
CD and DVD storage that everyone in the entire world should adopt.
Happy last full week of August (OMG)!
2011
Back to School
It all started when my friend mentioned that her oldest daughter would be going to kindergarten in a few weeks.
(This is a long one.)
“But isn’t she only four?” I asked.
“Four, almost five. School starts at the end of August, but her birthday’s in mid-November and the kindergarten cut-off is December 2.”
I did some quick math (well, not exactly quick; I was great at math once upon a time, but as soon as I stopped taking classes–which was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, MY GOD–I found I could barely add single digits anymore) and then commenced with the freaking out that Wombat, whose birthday is December 14, was just twelve days shy of the cutoff and would be almost six years old when he’d be allowed to start kindergarten. Curséd December Baby strikes again.
A few things:
1. I’m not freaking out about this quite like I was last week in part because
(a) I informed myself on the logistics of the matter, which included the news that by the time Wombat’s eligible for school the cutoff will be September, so he’ll miss it by months rather than days, and because
(b) I was making Simon crazy dissecting something that’s not going to happen until 2013 at the earliest, and because
(c) public school’s age restrictions will likely be irrelevant, as we’re probably going to have to send Wombat to private school anyway, despite the encouraging news that our neighborhood elementary has worked hard to boost test scores and now rates a whopping 2 on the 1-10 scale instead of being a bottom-rung 1, aka among the very worst schools in what is, by all accounts, already a pretty fucked-up district as a whole.
Whee!
And because Point 2: He’s two. I happen to think he’s brilliant beyond all measure (says the proud mother), but who’s to say where he’ll be–academically, socially, emotionally–in three years? It’s ridiculous to plan a course of action for a child I don’t even know yet.
Anyway, now that I’ve had time to pour cold water on my head and slap myself across the face with an open palm (it’s exactly as hard as it looks), at this point I’m not posting about the issue because I need to be talked down from a ledge or be told what to do in my specific case so much as simply because I find it fascinating to hear everyone’s perspectives on how they weigh(ed) similar decisions, and, within that discussion, to see how little, from what I’ve gathered so far, actual “kindergarten readiness” even has to do with it anymore.
A telling point: Of the people I’ve talked at to about this–friends, bloggers, the director of a private elementary school who also happens to be a neighbor–most of them misunderstand the problem from the get-go. “Don’t worry! He’ll be ready!” they say. “Someone has to be the youngest. It’ll all even out. He’ll catch up!” They assume I want to hold Wombat back so he’ll be smarterfasterstrongerbetter than his peers, but of course that’s not the problem at all. That’s the opposite of the problem. I’d prefer him to go to kindergarten as an almost-five-year-old rather than as an almost-six-year-old. I think he’ll have a better experience being younger rather than older because, from what I know about him now (even though, yes, yes, he’s only two), he’s going to be ahead of the curve as an almost-five-year-old and already plenty smartfaststronggood to thrive in a school environment that early, without needing that extra year. Besides, if someone has to be the youngest in the class, why not him?
I didn’t know how popular the redshirting of kindergarteners (especially boys) has been in recent years among upper- and upper-middle-class parents, but it totally makes sense. If you’re invested in your kids being the smartest/tallest/strongest in the grade (perhaps because Malcolm Gladwell told you that would make them win at life [link goes to a short NYT piece that's a good overview of the issue]) AND if you can afford to pay for daycare during that extra time before school starts, keeping your kid back a year is an obvious and attractive option for a lot of people. But…that just doesn’t ring true for me at all, maybe because I care less about sports than I do academics (and I’m confident in his academic skills), or maybe because I loved school from start to finish and hope Wombat will too, such that putting him in kindergarten sooner would be a gift, not a liability.
(“I want to go to school!” he says when we pass the elementary on the way to and from daycare. “Not until you’re older. School is for big kids.” “But I am older! I am a big kid! I want to go to schoooooool!”) (Granted, he thinks school means playing on the monkey bars, but hey, as long as he’s excited, right?)
I dunno…I guess…I find the redshirting of ready kids a bit distasteful because I don’t get what triumph there is in a child being the X-est simply because he’s got a year on some of the other kids and not because he’s actually X-er than them. And if that kid is going to a public school of mixed demographics, aren’t the parents worried, at least in academics, that their almost-six (who likely spent the previous year in some sort of kindergarten-readiness program) will be bored to death in a classroom with almost-5s whose parents (a) followed the rules and sent their kids the year they were ready or (b) couldn’t afford to pay for another year of daycare let alone this newfangled kindy-preschool hybrid that teaches the kids what exactly? The same stuff they’re going to spend another year learning in formal kindergarten so all the students have a chance to catch up anyway?
If Wombat’s full-on reading at three, doesn’t it seem wrong to send him, three years later, when he’s almost six, into a kindergarten classroom that might include kids who are still four years old and learning their letters? That makes my eye twitch.
And anyway, since when is school about showing off what you know already? Isn’t it [supposed to be?] about what–and how–you learn there?
(I was transferred into a gifted program in fourth grade after it was clear the regular classes weren’t cutting it. I’m not the smartest person out there, but I’m a fast learner and a high achiever (i.e., I’m good at school, which only has a little to do with smarts, IMO), but those two things alone make a huge difference in the type of school environment I needed. Regular teachers would see I was bored and give me more work, but the gifted teachers would see I was bored and give me harder work (which I loved). Regular teachers would see I had mastered a skill and make me teach it to my peers. (UGH.) Gifted teachers would see I had mastered a skill and throw something new at me.)
I don’t want to keep Wombat back that extra year (which in his case isn’t even redshirting but simply sending him when the rules say he’s supposed to go). So my kid won’t be the smartest or fastest or strongest in the class. So what? Isn’t there benefit in giving him someone to chase? I love that his current daycare has kids from four months to five years because it teaches him a range of skills–social and otherwise–that he wouldn’t get in a daycare class full of only two-year-olds, and while, yes, it’s adorable to see him help the babies, it’s inspiring to watch him learn from the older kids. And yeah, the age disparity means he’s obviously not the smartest, fastest, or strongest at daycare, but then that’s not the point, is it? The point is to learn, not simply to achieve. (And I say that as someone who was WAY into achieving in school.)
I get why parents would want to hold their kids back.* We all want our kids to succeed. It’s just disheartening to read about (and see in practice) parents overlooking their kids’ actual readiness for kindergarten in favor of gaming the system, all, “Well, if he’s ready now, he’ll be really ready next year.” Further, I’ve seen the held-back scenario go poorly, and I don’t want what happened to my genius baby brother (who barely graduated high school) to happen to my son. (My brother was super-smart, was old for his grade, was refused early admittance to kindergarten, wasn’t skipped a grade because he wasn’t emotionally mature enough for it, and then was completely bored and fed up with the whole system by the time he was twelve.)
*Note: My issue is with parents holding back their perfectly ready children because they want a leg up. There are, of course, many reasons why a kid would not be ready when the district age cutoff says he should be, and if a parent truly believes her child will benefit from another year to grow and learn, it’s wonderful they have that option (and the kind of lifestyle that allows them to afford that). But true redshirting? That’s kind of cheating, isn’t it? If I could remember any of the Ayn Rand I read back when I was naive enough to swallow it all, I’d probably have some great quotes to drop here.
All that said, time is on our side. It’s not like I’m lobbying for Wombat to go to school NOW, and even if he had the brainpower of that two-year-old girl who was admitted to Mensa a while back, I’m fully aware of the many problems that can surround, say, a fourteen-year-old going to college, no matter how academically advanced he might be. And the same is true for younger kids, including Wombat, however smart or not he ends up being. Even if he turns out Mensa-brilliant, I’d worry about him skipping grades and being behind his friends in other milestones, like getting his driver’s license or a moustache. (I’m worried about him driving AT ALL, of course, but that much less so than I’m worried about his FRIENDS driving him around, for I was once fifteen and had friends drive ME around, and HOO BOY.)
But I also think–and this is the important part–hey, it’s going to be okay. He has his father’s half-Polish genes and will probably start growing a beard when he’s nine, so no worries there, and he has his mother’s nerdery genes, which might make him largely oblivious to social concerns like who can drive or grow facial hair or “have friends” so long as there are books to read and theorems to prove and stoichiometry to…stoichiometrate. Seriously, though, I wouldn’t wish a level of smarts on him that would preempt his having a life outside of exciting afternoons full of extra-credit astrophysics homework, but then that’s not always the kind of thing you can choose or even control. You really just have to play it by ear. Which is what we’ll be doing when this stuff is actually relevant and imminent instead of pure, hysterical** speculation about a kid who can still ride in a backward-facing carseat.
**I’m really not freaking out about it, I swear. I’m just fascinated.
