Thursday, September 22, 2011

9/22/2011 Mom's here!

My mom's here for a 5-day visit during my between-job purgatory. Yay! Gabriel went with me to the airport to pick her up, that's always fun. He's been so full of joyful energy lately.

Unfortunately being parents to Julian has been less rewarding. His teacher is so frustrated with his behavior in class -- and that's after me pulling out all the stops and investing a ton of energy in not tolerating even the slighest indiscretion at home -- that's she's requesting help from the school district's counselor, and calling a team meeting thing to evaluate him. We've been through this with Gabriel and in some ways it's harder with Julian because he's always been pretty good -- no odd behaviors, no flags for "the spectrum," no developmental delays. He's just....well, dawdly and full of excuses, but he's becoming more and more impossible in class.

Katrina...she's been great lately. I'm still reeling from a horrible nightmare I had two mornings ago, in which she'd died and I was first facing the world without this bright light, this joyful pixie bursting with ideas and observations and life. I was absolutely devastated, and woke up very much in that "place." I can't express how relieved I was when I realized it was just a bad dream and that in fact my little girl was quite alive in the next room. I was very upset all day, and even today somewhat as well. It's as though she was taken away from me and I was granted her back.

One thing that comes to mind with all this emotional turmoil is: I need a job! I'm glad I have this time off, and I'm making good use of it, but I sure need some emotional stability in my day!

All in due time -- first, my Mom is here!

9/22/2011

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

9/20/2011 Ice Cream Social

Today Dave and I joined the kids at school for their "ice cream social" put on by the PTA, since we happened to be out for a late lunchtime together anyway. It was unbelievably hot here today, it's been in the upper 90s for a few days.

I'd expected to hang with the kids and maybe chat with teachers, and that happened, sort of. I caught Julian's teacher and struck up a long conversation with her. They'd had a tough day, with Julian defying the P.E. teacher, giving his teacher attitude and even getting sent to the principal's office. She was really frustrated with how to get through to him. He's only been getting worse, giving her attitude and rude comments and forcing her to repeat instructions several times. She said she doesn't want to spend all her time with him giving him consequence and threatening, but that's what it was turning into. She said something like, "at some point he just has to do what he's told." Just like at home.

I'd planned to spend the afternoon working with Julian on his book report, but had to redirect him to my room to talk alone. "Talking doesn't do anything, Mom," he complained as we walked in. "You're right," I told him. I walked into my closet and pulled out the black belt. "NOOO!" he cried out.

I didn't belt him. But thanks to the one time I did belt him, seeing it looped on a dresser was a necessary threatening message as we talked.

And we talked. First I told him that he had to obey -- not "listen to" -- but obey adults. I told him he especially must obey teachers, and explained that teachers work hard and do their jobs out of conviction and are there just to teach him and other kids. It's their job, that's why they're there, and he can't interfere with that.

Then I wrote down "actions" (such as rudeness, not accepting responsibilty, disobeying and others), and then wrote down "consequences" (giving away toys, no dessert/allowance, grounding, the belt and others), and then wrote a chart of actions mapped to consequences.

Then I had him practice obeying -- I had him walk away a few paces, and I'd call his name and he'd have to stop immediately. This was because of his causing trouble in P.E. today, when the coach called him numerous times and Julian ignored the coach. S.O.P. at home.

By now, he was agreeing with these exercises, because The Belt was looming.

Then I told Julian that now he has to say "yes ma'am" and "yes sir" to adults. This sounds extreme, but I'd threatened that before, during the summer when he was being so much trouble at the CDC. I got the idea from Kung Fu where he has to say "yes sir." I made him practice with me, but he rolled his eyes and said "yes ma'am" with irritation. So I took the belt and whacked it LOUD against a bench, and told him sternly to try again. THEN he said "yes ma'am" with more sincerity. (This is where he departs with Gabriel; Gabriel is very likely to continue resisting; Julian does have his limits.)

I told Julian that absolutely no resistance would be tolerated today. Though it took a ton of energy, I managed to follow up every incident of him ignoring an instruction or talking back with glowering and insisting he say "yes MA'AM." It's amazing how many of those incidents there are in the space of 5 minutes. It's amazing that it's come to this -- I would never have believed that I'd ever threaten a belt or insist on "yes ma'am." How on earth will I have the energy or time to follow up on this when I'm working?

For the rest of the afternoon, I worked with Julian on his book report and homework, and to my surprise, he was pretty cooperative. He blew through his math homework -- the whole weeks' worth took him about 20 minutes, because he wasn't distracted or resistant. Just like Gabriel, the math is really easy and straightforward and needs little intervention. The language homework on the other hand, such as writing definitions for two words from his spelling/vocabulary list, took much much longer.

Julian needs a lot of help with his book report -- but wouldn't any 7-year-old need help? For example, he needs to write a sentence on each of "where" and "when" a folktale takes place, but all our "Jack and the Beanstalk" book says about "when' is "once upon a time." Kids need help with this!

Or do they? Incredibly, Katrina also had a kindergarten version of a book report to do this week, called a "story map." She has to do the hard part: picking a book, writing down who are the main characters, what the "setting" is, and what happens in the beginning, middle and end of the story. These are pretty sophisticated concepts for even a 2nd-grader - summarizing isn't easy, and they don't get that the end of the story isn't necessarily what happens on the last page.

But so unlike her brothers, Katrina insisted on doing her Story Map by herself. Given her determination, I let her just copy the words from the last page of the book for "end of the story." I was blown away by how insistent she was on doing her "homework" that was clearly designed for parents to help with. 5th-week kindergartners can't possibly be expected to write this stuff themselves, when they're technically not even expected to be reading yet.

Well, kindergarten is the least of my worries -- and apparently, 4th grade isn't eithe. Not only is Gabriel doing his homework, but he's keeping track of it -- arguably the biggest achievement. (We passed Gabriel's teacher bicycling to work this morning; Gabriel said the teacher told the class that bicycling to work was a "resolution".) So far, 2nd-grade is our -- and the teacher's -- hugest challenge.

9/20/2011

Monday, September 19, 2011

9/19/2011 Into the future

Apparently I was the last person in the world to know about "streaming" videos, something I still haven't done, but at least now know about. Just in time for NetFlix to announce that it was splitting up its DVD service (which we have) and its streaming service (which apparently we also have but have never used).

Today I made fine use of my first weekday of not earning money by spending a whole lot of it. This included a trip to Best Buy to check out cameras, and morphed into the purchase of a streaming-video device that can hook up to a TV. Right away the first challenge of matching lifestyle to technology and domestic geography presents itself: which TV do I hook this thing up to? That's obvious in households with a central entertainment area, but we don't really have one. I think it'll go in the living room, where the occasional kid-movie gets watched, and movies with guests get watched, but that's not where the bulk of TV-watching happens in this household. We're weird.

Another conundrum is setting up my brand-new Dell Latitude Windows 7 laptop -- because most of the work is in retrofitting old methods and devices to it. My email is almost set up, the very-very old-fashioned way with a local client like Eudora. And I'm beside myself that I was able to get my ancient -- and I do mean ancient: FOURTEEN years old! -- laser printer to work. I'm forever an HP printer fan, none else will do.

I hadn't planned to spend my valuable days "off" before starting a new job setting up my computing world, but it's just as well it happened now. I'd likely never have gotten around to it without a virus rendering my old WinXP tower computer unusable. Despite my clinging to Eudora and an old black-and-white laser printer, for the most part this has forced me to join the 21st century.

Maybe I'll even try streaming a movie tonight.

9/19/2011

Sunday, September 18, 2011

9/18/11 Combination factors

Still getting my computer set up and files transferred. I've decided I REALLY hate my camera so I never take photos anymore. Habit is decreased from this big interruption. Been emotionally overwhelmed with leaving my job Friday and saying goodbye to some coworkers I'd truly grown to love and being really drained at night as a result...all this adds up to being unusually uncommunicative in this blog. Those are the reasons, for better or worse! Worse, I know. 9/18/11