A Bunch of Little Things

Hiking in the Woods

J: This is bamboo. Did you know that a panda needs to eat 500 shoots of bamboo a day?
James: I did not know that.
J: That's a lot. Can you imagine having to eat 500 of anything?
Me: What about 500 pieces of candy?
Owen: MEEeee!!!!!!!!!!!

Things Currently on the Kitchen Table
Monopoly, Jr.
J's cell phone
My note book.
Two empty coffee cups
Three empty water glasses
Flowers
J's sunglasses
Four bobby pins
Pepper mill
Napkin holder

Dentist
As much as James as been struggling recently with getting into the rhythm of school, gymnastics, and piano lessons, he apparently has no fears about visiting the dentist. He could not have been more nonchalant yesterday about opening up his mouth for the hygienist and letting her poke around with the pick and mirrors. He requested a green toothpaste instead of a blue one with aristocratic manners at the end of the cleaning, and when the doctor expressed some concern about how his tongue was attached to the base of his mouth he repeated "Mississippi" back to her with an air of "of course I can say 'Mississippi,' do you think I'm Owen or something?" The hygienist said he was her best patient of the day, including the adults.

Cooking Success and Failure
We definitely like making bacon and leek pizza, which was invented a few weeks ago to use up some ingredients from a date night in. Olive oil crust, an acerbic sauce lots of front-stoop basil mixed with homemade ricotta, cheese, and then a big mess of bacon and carmelized leeks on top. That was a success. Not so much a success was the potato and celeriac cake which I tried to make yesterday. I think that if I tried again it would go better--knowing now how you assemble the whole thing I'd cut the vegetables into even squares from the top and then mandoline them even thinner than I did, and I think that would make for better layering. My cake ended up being a loose mess of buttery potatoes that weren't quite done baking. But I think I know the theory of it now.

Abraham Lincoln State Park
We took the boys exploring in Abraham Lincoln Park yesterday after a visit to the local apple orchard and explored the "other" side of Irondequoit Bay. Hiking with them is a trip. Owen doesn't walk the trails--he either runs them (or, for a few hilarious seconds before he wiped out and rolled down a descent, hops them like a kangaroo) or rides on a parent sucking his fingers and looking exhausted. James is in charge of navigation, of course, especially now that he has a rough understanding of trail markers. No scenic view of the bay is worth turning away from the red mark on the tree--no, Daddy, the red mark is THAT way. We have to follow the red mark.

Stories with Owen
Owen is getting old enough to sit through stories. Not just storybooks, but stories that we tell him. I loved it when James got to this size. Yesterday when James was at gymnastics I took him out to the backyard and we sat in the grass together. "Once upon a time there were two little boys. They decided they were going to go camp outside instead of sleeping in their beds, so they gathered up their sleeping bags--do you know what a sleeping bag is?--and they went out to the big back yard. Their Mommy asked them if they wanted to bring a tent, because they might get wet, but they boys said they didn't need one. Their Mommy asked them if they wanted to bring a tarp, because they might get wet, but the two little boys said they didn't need one. And so they boys brought their sleeping bags out, and they didn't even bring pillows, and they laid them out in the grass and looked up at the big sky. What do you think they saw in the big sky? They saw the stars twinkling, and the moon up in the sky? And yes, they saw airplanes. Probably some bats flying, too. And what do you think they heard? And owl, perhaps? Maybe, and certainly they heard frogs croaking in the pond? And so the boys fell asleep under the big sky in their sleeping bags laying out in the grass just like this. And what do you think happened? Well, it rained of course, and they got all wet and had to run back inside with damp sleeping bags. And do you know who the two little boys were? Why, it was Daddy and Uncle Oliver, and their Mommy was Nama!"
Owen likes stories about little boys who used to live at County House Road.

Fredonia
Today is the first real test of whether or not I'm going to go crazy trying to teach at Fredonia. I have BPO this morning until 12:30, then start Fredonia lessons at 1:30. I'll go straight until 7:30 there, and then have to get home before turning around for another morning of BPO on Thursday. We'll see. I have lots of podcasts loaded on my phone.

James Gymnastics Update
I've been touched by how many of you have asked about James and gymnastics and homeschooling. He continues to have ups and downs with all of it, but gymnastics have definitely turned into a high point in his week. He still does some goofy things there, like wandering off into the wrong class because he isn't paying attention, or just dancing on the mat instead of trying to turn a cartwheel, but that's much more in line with what the rest of the four year olds in his little class are doing, and he's DEFINITELY having a good time. Yesterday he got to swing from a trapeze into a pit full of foam pieces. He also apparently broke away from the class at one point and discovered a hole between two mats which he was in the middle of exploring when the coach grabbed him by one of his quickly disappearing legs and returned him to light of day. So, yes, he's having a good time recently.

Quick Hitters

I. Christmas is Coming
Christmas really isn't coming anytime soon, but James certainly thinks it is. I think this seed was planted last Sunday when we are all down at Roland's birthday party and he saw the majority of his Smith relations in one spot. Ever since then he's been talking about Christmas. He drew a picture of a Christmas tree (with presents underneath) and put it up on his shelf. He cut up on a bunch of colored construction paper to make Christmas decorations for his room, and he's even gone down in the basement looking for stockings for George and Steven.
We tried to talk about this at dinner.
James: "Hey Mommy, is Christmas going to be soon?"
J: "Well, not too soon. It won't be for another three months."
James: "Just three more months until Christmas! I am SO ETSITED!!"
Owen: "MEEeee!!!"
(Owen learned out to say "MEEeee!" as an abbreviation for "me," "me too," or "yes" and has been employing the expression enthusiastically.)
James: "We're going to get PRESENTS!"
Owen: "MEEeee!!!"
R: "You know boys, there are lots of good holidays to look forward to before Christmas."
J: "That's right. First there's Owen's birthday."
Owen: "MEEeee!!!"
J: "And then the next day is Halloween!"
James: "And we can go trick-or-treating on Halloween and get some good candy?:
Owen: "MEEeee!!!"
R: "We can. Do you think we should go trick-or-treating at College Green like we did last year?"
James: "Yes, but we only go up to the houses with the lights on."
R: "...yes, that's what we told you ten months ago, right."
J: "And Grandma Joy's birthday is on Halloween, and then the day after Halloween is Uncle Dan's birthday. And then it's James' birthday--"
James: "And we should have my birthday at home. And Owen wants his birthday at home too."
Owen: "MEEeee!"
J: "And then it will be Thanksgiving, and then after that it will be Christmas. So there's a lot between now and Christmas to look forward too."
James: "My cars and I are SO ETSITED for Christmas."
J: "Do you remember what you dressed up as for Halloween last year?"
James: "Owen was a tiger, and I was a monkey."
Owen: "ROARRR!!!!"
R: "What do you think you boys would like to dress up as this year?"
James: "Owen should be a tiger, and I should be a monkey again."
Owen: "Yeah, ROARR!!!!"
J: "James, do you remember Halloween two years ago what happened? Do you remember who came home to live with us on Halloween that year?"
Owen: "MEEEEEEEeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

II. Homeschool
Well, so far the homeschooling experiment has gone...kind of differently than expected. On the positive side, James is doing better in gymnastics and has kept up with the pace we planned for his workbooks.
But it hasn't been particularly easy. For one thing, he's chosen the past couple of weeks to indulge in some really bizzare antics. He started trying to sleep in a crack between his bed and the wall at night, and then under the bed at night, and he keeps on moving all of his favorite stuff under the bed and disappearing there during the day. At night we have to push his bed all the way up against the wall and then check to make sure that he doesn't crawl under there in the middle of the night. He's decorated the underside of the bed with stickers and retreats there whenever necessary.
Needless to say, he hasn't been sleeping great. He looks tired all day and has been unusually cranky.
When he works on school stuff he gives off a distinct vibe of "I couldn't care less about this" and "I'm just going to do the bare minimum to get back to whatever it is I want to do." And it would be one thing if he wanted to rush through school so he could go outside or go play with his toys, but apparently he doesn't have time for tracking the letter M because he needs to go lie in the dark under his bed?
To be perfectly frank, the boy is a mystery to me right now. He's going to do school whether he likes it or not, of course, and he's going to sleep on his bed like a civilized human. I get the sense that something is going wrong for him, and I can't put my finger on it.

III. Owe blog to J
This blog is brought to you as an apology to J. In pouring her a cup of coffee this morning I perhaps accurately but apparently unwelcomely told her she needed to drink it, comparing her struggles to clean a dirty sippy cup to "Betty White in that Snickers commercial."

Quick Hitters

I. Garbage Trucks
Every remotely interesting outside noise is now a garbage truck to Owen. Like most little boys he is fascinated by weekly arrival of the big garbage trucks (one for recycling at around 8:30, one for the waste about two hours later) and runs to the window to watch in reverent awe. Lucky for him, most of our street uses a different company that collects on Mondays, so he can see the neighbor's garbage truck go as well. ("That isn't our garbage truck," James comments "our garbage truck is BLUE.") I sort of wish that the interest in garbage trucks was the reason that Owen so routinely throws inappropriate objects (stuffed animals, books, sheet music, unopened mail) into the kitchen trash can, but I suspect these two phenomena are unrelated. He just likes to throw away inappropriate objects.
But anyway, all of the neighborhood school buses are now garbage trucks.
<Noise outside>
"OH! Gah-bage twuck!"
"Owen, I think that's just a school bus."
"NOo! Gah-bage twuck!"
"Well, why don't you go to the window and check?"
<pat-pat-pat>
"Gah-bage twuck?"
Even when he discovers that the noise WAS in fact a school bus (we live across the street from an elementary school, you know, so of course it's usually a school bus) he pops right up at the next big vehicle noise with an exclamation of:
"OH! Gah-bage twuck!"

II. Gymnastics
J and I were recently talking about how James (who, it turns out, reads pretty well) may not like the idea of us writing about in him in our blogs. But we need to remember his first day of home school.
He did great with the actual school part. He worked on worksheets, made messy letter A's, and thoroughly enjoyed his new pencils and crayons. But he was nervous about gymnastics.
"I won't do the high parts. Alexa will do the high parts."
(We signed him up to do a class with Alexa, who'd been taking for over a year.)
It went poorly from the beginning. For one thing, Alexa was almost immediately pulled off the floor because of some error in her registration. And then James, who had made a genuine effort to follow along with all the warm-up stretches and exercises despite his nerves, got completely lost in the first five minutes of calisthenics.
I figured that in a 4-5 year old class they would spend some time explaining each element that they were doing for the benefit of those kids (like James) who had never heard of a "straddle" or a "crab walk."
That wasn't how it worked. Most of the class had apparently been enrolled before, and the handful of newcomers apparently didn't mind wandering about through their classmates or taking their mistakes casually. James, however, was breaking down into tears. Each time the coach (who never even introduced himself to the kids) shouted another instruction about "jump and tuck" the tears welled up a little bigger in his eyes, and he looked around the gym, trying to find us. (Owen was trying as hard as possible to break free from J and make his way out onto the various apparata, so she was restraining him.)
James stopped trying to follow the class and covered his eyes, sobbing. One of the adults tried to help him and then motioned me onto the floor. I walked out to meet him.
"I want to go home."
"You're doing fine. Keep on trying, do what the coach tells you to do and if you can't do it the first time, that's alright. Just give it a try."
"Will you stay with me?"
I told him I couldn't, but I ended up tagging behind his group for the rest of his hour. He had finally regained control of his tears when the group started to move to other spots in the gym. The next forty minutes were a painful exercise in reminding us of how little James has done in the way of walking-in-straight-lines, listening to non-parent adults giving instructions, or imitating other kids his age. He floundered badly. He cried often. He went out onto the trampoline when he wasn't supposed to and was scolded, and then was too teary and embarrassed to go out when it was his turn. He walked through areas he wasn't supposed to when he followed the line, and when he found something he enjoyed doing a little bit he became so engrossed in it that he didn't hear the coach telling him to stop or to stay in one place.
Owen was babbling as we walked out to the car, but the rest of us were silent.
I helped him into his carseat and looked at him.
"That was awful." He whispered and hung his head.

We had a talk that night. He insisted that he didn't want to go back. We talked about how to listen to the coaches, how to watch the other kids, how to practice some of the new things he had learned, and about being brave and trying something you weren't good at.

The next day J was reading books to Owen in the library when she heard some thumping in the living room. She looked up. Through the legs of the dining room table she saw James standing by the couch, practicing straddle jumps on his own.

I think it's great that he's smart and well-spoken and reading, but I don't think I've ever been more proud of him than when I heard he went and practiced those straddle jumps by himself.

Last Tuesday I took him back to the gym, and he didn't say much on the way there. J stayed behind with Owen, trying to minimize any distraction from her being there. He was nervous as they started the warm-up. They went right into some new skills, and I could see the tears welling up, but he kept it together. Once that was over and the line was forming to move to the other side of the gym he came running over and asked me: "Are you going to go come with me?"
"Try it on your own. I'll be watching here if you need me, but start on your own."

He wasn't great. He still doesn't walk in line particularly well, and he gets nervous around the tall male coach in particular. But he did much better. And when the class let out he came flying into the shoe area and gave me a silent, squeezing hug and actually let me pick him up and hold him.

He knew he'd done good work.

Bookshelves we made (and two pictures of Owen)