9/26/08 Soccer Mom for a day

I planned my day around going to the CDC early today to watch Gabriel play soccer. It's a completely informal pickup game, there's no way to identify who's on which team, and there's no equipment other than the ball and two markers for the "goal." It's organized by one guy who likes to coach, and who's assigned to 1-3 graders, and he seems to play for both teams to facilitate the game. So it's a far cry from league games. This guy does this every day, and it's become a big hit among the kids.

I should say, the boys, because not a single girl even watched longingly from the sidelines -- this was strictly boy territory.

I arrived just as they started and watched for about half an hour. The "game" was pretty full at first, but about half the boys dropped out after about 10 minutes, leaving only the die-hards, including Gabriel. Some of the boys clearly play often and have developed ball-handling skills.

I couldn't believe how much fun this was to watch, marvelling at my son's determination and enthusiasm and intensity.



Gabriel scolds Parth for touching the ball with his hands. A rule broken! Not in my world!


In this particular soccer world, Goalie is a coveted position, perhaps because that's where most of the action occurs. I overheard several boys asking repeatedly if they could be goalie. When it was Gabriel's turn for goalie, he was irritated by a much bigger classmate horning in on his goalie-spot, and he kept scolding the kid and shoving the kid out of his way as needed.

The goalie gets to kick the ball back into the field. This isn't Gabriel's forte.


Gabriel puts his all into a block.


I had a great time watching and was so glad to see how much fun Gabriel was having too. He'd noticed me when I arrived, but all he did was shoot a puzzled glance my way, then got right back into the game, and didn't look at me again until it was over. The famous focus.

After picking up the other two, I took the trio home, gave them dinner, and then we went right back to the same place for an Ice Cream Social at Gabriel's school.


Katrina wasted no time taking off into the open field. So much for meeting other PTA parents.

I went back to the tables to check on the boys, and when I turned back around, she'd found a pickup game!


It was cute at first, but this boy thought it was funny to keep the ball away from her and make her chase after him. I'm not at all protective about playground interactions, but really, this was a 3rd-grader taunting a toddler, and I pulled her out of it. She took it very well though, never crying or screaming, just doggedly going after the little brat.


No matter, she found her own ball anyway. "I fow'da PEEK BOW!!" (I found a pink ball!)


Katrina's brothers unwittingly avenged her anyway, by snagging the same flat ball and getting into their own pickup game.


Then when I turned back to Katrina, once again, she was playing with balls, this time with a Dad and his 21-month-old.

The other girl was one of those nice little girls who shares and tries to cooperate and play together. She offered Katrina the ball several times, trying to draw her into a game, but all Katrina did was grab the ball and take it away, and then tried to keep both balls in her stubby little arms.


The other girl didn't know what to make of this. After it was clear Katrina was only going to be possessive, I started to get self-conscious that maybe the Dad expected me to do something about my grabby little girl. And I will someday, but they're too young now. I don't like to chant "share, now, share!"; it's futile.

I had to smile to myself though. I'd admired a similar personality on the soccer field just a few hours ago.

Katrina did not approve of my attempts to round everyone up to go home, and it took some doing. Without the stroller, I don't know how I'd have done it, since the boys kept scattering too.

You know, being a soccer mom might not be so bad!

9/26/08

9/25/08 A bad start

Thursday mornings, Dave drives the kids to school/preschool/daycare, so I get a little time in the morning to take care of things at home. So I thought it would be a good morning to call the IRS to follow up on my Dad's lost tax rebate check.

Anyone see the problem in this? Calling the IRS on a good morning?

After 40 minutes on hold (I was watching the clock), the lady I talked to said it was actually after 6 weeks that I was supposed to call them back, not 4 weeks as I'd been told. I'd had to wait 35 minutes just to request the trace, and I was incredulous when the guy told me that I had to call them back when they're the ones doing the trace.

But, not so fast -- 6 weeks had gone by. A little more probing -- hmm, seems the trace never went through. WHAT?! Something about a "systemic failure." So, what, I get to sit on hold for 40 minutes in another 6 weeks? No, the trace won't go through, I have to call a different number.

I was so frustrated from the hold time and the runaround that I actually started to yell at her. I knew it wasn't her fault, and said as much, but I also told her that she's the only one I had to push back on. She has to complain to her supervisor that excessive hold times and ridiculous bureaucracy was causing taxpayers to become irrational and making her job unpleasant. She said it wasn't the IRS's fault, write your Congressman. I said no way -- Congress decides tax law, that's another major aggravation. But hold times and lack of information and brick walls -- that's all IRS. (Did you know this is "tax season" and that's adding to the hold times??)

After an hour all told, I was really rattled and couldn't even think about going to work. Why do I let these people get to me? Maybe it's all the other insecurities: the house being torn up, the imminent collapse of the country's financial system, a fire at our jobsite, constant unexpected expenses. Meantime my job continues to be dull and senseless, and it seems crazy that I work barely 20 hours a week, yet my toddler is living a full-time-working-mom life.

Maybe I'm just not satisfied -- again -- with the way I've arranged my life, always feeling so strung out and like I can't do well at anything I do. Didn't we hear this same tired old complaint when I was a full-time mom too?

A new guy at the CDC runs the afternoon activities for the 1-3 graders, and he's been organizing a soccer game every day. And surprise, surprise, he has a most enthusiastic participant! Gabriel looks forward to soccer every day, and insists on wearing socks and sneakers to school every day instead of sandals. The CDC guy tells me Gabriel's even a decent goalie, which tells me he's probably a pretty poor shot. We'd tried Gabriel in soccer a long time ago, and he didn't like the class at all. But he likes the competition and keeping score.

Maybe tomorrow I'll go to the CDC and check out the afternoon soccer game. Then pick up the others, take them home for an early dinner, then back to Gabriel's school for an Ice Cream Social sponsored by the PTA. Serious detox from the morning.

9/25/08

9/24/08 Fire in the hole

The bad news is that there was a fire on our jobsite today.

The good news is that no one was hurt, it was minor, put out quickly, and no real damage done. Our contractor called the fire department to check it out, and the house got a clean bill of health. It was started by a plumber with a blowtorch that caught some paper backing on insulation. Still, "fire" and "jobsite" are not two words one likes to see anywhere near each other.

That's not the worst thing that happened with remodeling though. We got a notice from PG&E today: moving the gas line will cost us over $5000. We'd expected more like a few hundred dollars, as this is a straightforward move. I'd really like to know how they can charge $2300 for engineering and administration.

I should be used to these unexpected major expenses. I've lost track of how many $5000-$10,000 surprises we've had. But there's no budgeting, no conserving, no spending strikes, no cutting back. Few of the extra expenditures have been luxuries or options. When you have to spend thousands of dollars on an unexpected concrete removal and dirt excavation, saving $500 on cheaper tile just isn't satisfying.

I really really wish the economy, sagging housing prices, and stock market would get off the front pages already. I don't need the insecurity, what with our house torn up and all. Add to that renewed doubts about living here at all, thoughts I normally push away until a friend astutely describes similar thoughts. Then again, living in the Bay Area, talking and dreaming about moving away are common pasttimes.

Plus the serious grass-is-greener affliction. When I was a full-time mom, my impression was that working moms were on the whole happier, still in touch with their basic selves, despite the challenging balancing act. Now that I'm working, it's quite clear that full-time moms are far happier and less stressed and have much better lives, despite their challenges. It occurred to me today while driving (and I have lots of thoughts while driving since I do it about 2 hours a day) that a big part of the sense of rat-race is spending all of my driving time in rush hour traffic. As a full-time Mom, I almost entirely avoided crowded driving. Maybe I'm just feeling pissy about my car time because it's Pledge Week on NPR.

Gabriel made a cookie at the CDC today, plastered with gooey orange frosting and drowned in jimmies and sprinkles. Cookies are so much better when you make them yourself!


The best thing happened today was that I called my father for the first time in weeks, and he happily remembered me.

9/24/08

9/23/08 The Motivation

One of the questions we had to answer for Gabriel's teacher to prepare for an upcoming parent-teacher conference was, "How is your child motivated?"

Well, unfortunately, Dave and I immediately came up with the same answer: Money! Ever since the allowance started, Gabriel is all about money. He wants to play piano for us so we'll drop coins in his tip jar (Dave started that), and doesn't quite understand when I suggested that being a musician is not a great way to make money. He counts the days down to allowance, and the threat of losing his allowance or any money at all resonates harder with him than anything else.

Lately the boys have been giving us no end of trouble after going to bed: laughing, throwing things, running around, screeching so loud you can hear it outside, well past bedtime. Our standard strategy is to take things away until they're quiet for 5 minutes, but last night this backfired, Gabriel-style, as we found ourselves cleaning out their room and they were still completely hyper pushing 10pm. It's usually just Gabriel who needs to be calmed down; Julian will follow.

Tonight, Dave didn't mess around. After one warning, Gabriel was "fined" ten cents. That put a stop to it, fast. As Dr. Phil says, we've found his currency.

Now how do we explain that to his teacher?!

9/23/08

9/22/08 The House

Katrina loves her new playset so much that she talks about it when we're not home. This is the first time that language has given me insight into what she thinks about that's not in immediate view. Mostly when we're driving, she points out red cars, but today she said numerous times (translated) "I want to play with the HOUSE!"

This house playset came with some standard family characters, and tonight she brought me one of a woman holding a baby bottle and announced joyfully, "I fow da MAMA!!" (I found the mama). I just love how delighted she is about her pronouncements.

But the Cute award goes to Julian today. He learned some dances at school, and while he's said many times he doesn't like to do dancing at school, he volunteered that he'd learned a Mexican dance and a Chinese dance. I couldn't get a good concise demonstration on video, but here's one anyway.


The Music Together class I'd thought about taking with Katrina this session was full. I thought about signing Julian up for a kids' choir, but haven't pursued it (like to find out if he's old enough). Gabriel suddenly loves playing soccer at the CDC, but I can't imagine how to fit in classes or a league. Well, I guess if they're going to get shortchanged, it might as well all be at the same time. They'll recover. I'm not sure I will.

Katrina's having more fun playing with her house than I am with mine!

9/22/08

9/21/08 Baby gets a new pair of shoes

(I just discovered that some-or-other keystroke erases all the text in Blogger, with no undo option. So I'll be "brief" in retyping what I just spent 10 minutes writing, argh!)

The boys went to a birthday party today for Gabriel's peer, and Julian was kindly invited as well. It was a Lego-theme party, in which each kid was given a box of Lego pieces to make a car, then "race" them down this ramp that the Dad built. The boys loved this, of course.

The Dad also baked and decorated a Lego-block cake. What a great idea, and what an amazing Dad!

Meantime, my main goal for the weekend HAD to be met: Katrina needs new shoes. All she has are her summer sandals (a few other hand-me-downs but not in her size and not everyday daily shoes anyway), and with fall approaching, she needs real shoes. So I left the boys at the party and whisked her off to our favorite shoe store. Predictably, she threw a fit about having her feet measured, but she consoled herself with a giant rubber ducky while I paid for the shoes.

Then I brought her home and went back to the party to chat with friends and pick up the boys. We all had a really fun time.

Katrina's full of new sentences today: "I play with the house!" "I want to sit there!" "I read the book!" It's still one-way communication, but she's having a great time with it. It's hard to imagine that Gabriel still hadn't said any real words at this age.

9/21/08

9/20/08 Not a painter

My big project today was testing some house paint colors. "Templeton gray" (a bluish-gray, left), "Hancock gray" (a greenish-gray, right), with white trim; another color family altogether, or chicken out and stick with white?

I'm no painter, but I'm also no photographer, and the photo doesn't reveal the streaks, splashes, drips or uneven spots. It's not easy to paint well!

This morning some wonderful new toddler toys appeared on our porch. Katrina loves the playsets at Julian's school, and we didn't have any. Ah, but for the generosity and practicality of friends living nearby with girls outgrowing toys just as Katrina is getting into them.


I have so much to do to prepare for next week, but it's Saturday night and I just don't feel like doing anything!

9/20/08

9/19/08 No school day

No school today (Staff Learning Day or something), so Gabriel joined us for the weekly jobsite meeting. He was really good and let us conduct our business with no trouble. What a difference 4 years makes! There's no way Katrina would have allowed that.

When plumbers ask you multiple times where a newly delivered cast-iron bathtub sitting in the driveway goes, there's a reason. 600 pounds of it. I guess they figured if they asked enough times, eventually the answer would change, but the answer was unwaveringly upstairs. Sorry, guys.

Well, they got the last word. No sooner did I finish the big push with the plumbers, now the electrician said he needs all the light fixtures next week!

I'm a nut about making use of spaces. Under our U-shaped staircase (it used to be an L), the carpenters have framed a handy storage area, that connects at both sides. Kids are gonna love this. Gabriel demonstrates the pass-through storage area under the stairs.

In:


Out:


Our most wonderful kitchen designer was there today too. She walked in and immediately noticed that the arched niche behind the cooktop is framed in the wrong place (not a big deal, they can move it).


Someday it might look something like this (that reminds me, I've got to give Stacey back her magazine article that this photo came from!).


I'm really missing Katrina these days. She's just lighting up and exploding, turning into such an amazing little person. But even on Fridays, when I don't go to work, I just can't possibly find the time. When the remodel is over....

Maybe Katrina is missing me too. Tonight she resisted going for her bath with Dad, crying "MAMA!!!" and rushing to me with open arms and even giving me some semblance of a hug. Anyone who knows her even slightly will recognize this as highly uncharacteristic behavior. Then as I hugged her, she looked at Dave over my shoulder and smirked. The little stinker!

It's getting chilly enough in the mornings that I'm digging out jackets and sweaters now. This adorable number still fits, with a little style license. Bonne Maman knit it for Katrina when she was 3 months old.


My beautiful, spunky, vibrant baby. I do miss you so!


But I had a very nice day alone with my firstborn, reminding me that I'm determined not to be controlled by a full-time 9-5 schedule, despite our new financial committments. I want to be there for Staff Learning Days, and many others.

9/19/08

9/18/08 Plumbing placement

Ever wish your shower were higher? Or that you could reach the tub controls while sitting in the tub? Have you ever really given any thought to aligning knobs and showerheads with even spacing so they looked right?

Apparently, people do this. And when you've spent as much as we have on plumbing fixtures, so do I. But even if you don't spend much money, you still have to decide where to put things. Hence my evening. No Coffee Night, no photos, no blogging....well, I can still blog while I persuade my printer to do more than one sheet at a time.

Big meeting with the plumbers tomorrow, when I hand them my (in-theory) completely prepared designs and dimensions, and they instantly poke holes in it "sorry ma'am can't mount the shower bar there," "those are too close together" "well, 'standard' is usually..." or, more likely, completely ignore it. I'm going to make darned certain there isn't one lick of blue tape on the (future) bathroom walls, because it instantly turns off trademens' ability to read.

Dave worked late tonight, so I put the three to bed myself, something I don't usually do. I had a great time wrestling with Katrina while putting her pajamas on, letting her "knock" me over, which she thought was hilarious, then rolling on the floor holding her and flopping her giggle-wracked body around. I'm happy to say that now the regular mealtime tantrum is, generally, the only seriously annoying thing about the day with her, rather than the most annoying. It's a jinx to say this, but I'm starting to cautiously raise my hopes for age 2.

Susan, Tonya's friend who often helps her with the daycare, observed today that Katrina is talking in sentences now. I guess she is! "Red car there" is sort of a sentence, but Susan heard her say "I have orange pants!" Allowing for very jumbled articulation, she does say things like that.

No school tomorrow. What a relief not having to deal with homework. Except for this onerous plumbing design thing.

9/18/08

9/17/08 "There!"

Katrina's new word: "there!" Though it sounds more like "day!" Her articulation is on the "only-Mom-understands-sometimes" level, but she's very excited about pointing things out and saying "there!" "Red car there!" "Bicycle there!" "Doggie there!"

Oh yeah, the red car. She insists on the "red car" (Dave's is red, mine is green) as we leave the house, and endures varying degrees of disappointment when I have to break it to her that we're going in the green car, like we do every day. She points out every red car we drive by: "rit cah day! rit cah day! rit trah (truck) day!" She just likes red cars right now, it seems.

I love how she hums a syllable if she knows one is in a phrase she's repeating, but doesn't know what it is. We look at the Play-Doh strewn all over the floor and say, "Monkey made a mess!" and she answers "Mmm-ee mm mm MESS!"

Swamped, exhausted, gotta lay out plumbing fixtures by Friday. "There!" I'd rather play with my little bubble-mouth baby.

9/17/08

9/16/08 Eight in '08

It's pretty easy to remember how many years you've been married when your wedding was in 2000 [ corrected ]. Eight years today! Many [ corrected ] more ups than downs, and in the face of much adversity.

Dave and I traditionally have taken a day off work for our anniversary, and did today, but not for the best reason. We met at the jobsite today, for an electrical walkthrough, a meeting with the plumbers, and to finalize items with the framers. The biggest job there had to do with the fireplace framing, which was wrong in numerous ways. It's easy to notice because there will be a big tabletop counter above the fireplace where the TV will go, and I don't want to the TV to be four feet high! At least we had a nice lunch together before having to go hit the books again when we got home.

Thankfully, the framers and plumbers agreed they could indeed recess this medicine cabinet above the main downstairs bathroom vanity.

This is a bold style statement for a main bathroom for me! No plain mirror will do.

(But there's a reason most bathrooms plaster a big mirror above a bathroom sink: because straight plumbing venting gets in the way, and it's more work for the plumbers to route the vents around the cabinet. To recess a medicine cabinet, you have to plan ahead, choose the cabinet, make sure the contractor knows you want to recess it, and be prepared on framer-walk-through day.)

I've put a lot of attention to the main downstairs bathroom, because while it won't be a daily bathing spot, it will be "Grand Family Central," where splinter-pulling, bandage-applying, allergy medicine dispensing, hair-brushing, potty-training, pre-dinner hand-washing, post-breakfast teeth-brushing, and countless mad dashes to the toilet will happen. It has to be functional. Not to mention it'll be the main one guests see, so I'd like it to look nice too.

We took the three out to dinner tonight, to Chevy's.


Katrina has inherited a negative face while in deep thought from me.

I was just remarking to Dave that Tonya also now gives her a regular cup (we gave up on sippy-cups about 2 months ago), when she spilled her milk for the first of three times. That'll teach me!

As we were leaving the restaurant, something Julian did offended her, and she attracted the amused attention of onlookers by brutishly screeching and shoving Julian out of her way. She has no idea at all how much bigger and stronger he is, and looks so ridiculously tiny and fragile next to him. More incredibly, her dear brother just stands and accepts her furious attacks, unfazed. I wonder, would he be so gentle if this rage came from a little brother instead of a little sister?

She's having a great time with colors these days, volunteering yesterday that my shirt is pink, for instance. Though she's still pretty volatile and liable to blow up and scream at any moment, she's been delightful and funny and cheerful and adorable lately. It must be the joy of discovering colors!

8+3+1....8 years, 3 kids, 1 house...

9/16/08

9/15/08 The bad word

Julian knows that "What the h*ll?!" is a bad word. Sometimes he shortens it to "What the---?" or "What the heck?!" Today he amended it a la Colonel Potter: "What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks?!"

Last night, Dave got Julian to play the piano and sing at the same time, by "reading" the little music book from his toy piano, both the little circled notes and the words. It's slow going and filled with mistakes, but it was still "A tisket a tasket." This afternoon, on his own, Julian tried again. To anyone else, the sounds are no doubt painful, but to me, it's literally music to my ears!

Katrina is still willing to sit on the potty, but she's forgotten all about her former production and thinks sitting on it is just a fun game. Tonight I sat her on the potty and got up to get a book, and as I returned, she was standing and staring at a puddle at her feet, puzzled. I showed her that some of the puddle had made it into the little potty, and she studied it quietly, then slowly smiled as I carried on with yays and claps and praise and kisses. The wheels were turning, the connections forming!

I just caught a major mistake in our remodeling...the framers framed the fireplace incorrectly, the cabinets around it were also wrong, but it took some messages and phone calls and reading installation manuals to straighten it out. I'm starting to forget what life is like when you live in your house instead of just work on it. It's ... h-e-double-hockey-sticks!

9/15/08

9/14/08 Park picnic

I took Katrina and Julian to a 2006 Las Madres picnic in a park today. The boys said they wanted to go, but Gabriel bailed at the last minute. Just as well! I love excuses to go to the park on weekends, and was glad to make it a toddler-focused event.

The 2006 moms. Actually, all of us here are also 2004 moms, and some of us even 2002 moms as well. The "true" 2006 moms who arrived later are both uber-pregnant with 2008 babies, due this month!


All the moms with our 2006 babies. 4 boys, 2 girls. These support groups tend to be heavy on boy-moms. I wonder why....?


Julian and Thomas, Sonia's 2004 son. Thomas is only 7 weeks younger than Julian, and they've done many things together over the years (including their first ice-skating class), but not really enough to know each other well.


Julian does know Andrew well, and they tackled this steep hill immediately. Somehow Julian ended up at the top instructing Thomas and Andrew how to climb up, amusing since Andrew is a capable athlete. I notice that Julian relishes opportunities to shine and be the "expert" for once when his older brother isn't around.


Meantime, Katrina played with Nico, 5 weeks younger than she is.




Me and Nico's mom, Stefanie. If you thought I was rigorous about taking photos, I'm nothing compared to the ultra-thorough Sonia!


Katrina had a grand time digging in the gravel. She played some version of "kitchen," in which she took the shovel and wiped it across her face, then started to drink from the gravel-filled bucket. The mother in me wants to halt these activities; the observer in me says that she'll figure it out quickly enough on her own. So I kept my flinching to myself as she "drank" gravel.


There were balls to play with, and other 2006 babies, younger than herself and much faster, to chase.


Sonia even got some photos of me and Katrina together, though Katrina wouldn't look up for the photos (deliberately, the little stinker). Still, I relish any chance to document us together, for her sake.


This funny pose on her part makes this shot my favorite.


It was a really nice, relaxed visit to the park. Katrina was great, no fits or crying or being impossible -- just hanging out, exploring, playing, interacting with other kids, and generally have a great time. And thanks to that and the company of new and old friends, so did I!

9/14/08

9/13/08 Scrap snap

That's it! I'm tired of my scrapbooking stuff being trapped in boxes. I've been baking like a fiend, but it still doesn't make up for it. Time to liberate my tools, adhesives and papers!

In doing so, I found my high school yearbook, in about the last unopened box from the move. It's late in coming, but here's my long-promised high school yearbook photo with the missing baby tooth. The scan is poor, but you can still make out a definite gap in on my right side. It was, thankfully, my last lost baby tooth, but the gap being so obvious in a photo of such lasting import was mortifying to a self-conscious 17-year-old.

(What's with the collared shirt? I've worn shirts with collars about 9 times in my whole life, and one of them had to be for this photo?! And the ribbon...ugh!)

Dave took the boys bicycling today, but not at the BMX park for once. We're pretty close now to the Baylands park, with a system of flat dirt trails atop levees and surrounding salt ponds and wetlands rich with birdlife. A great place to ride, though the boys liked the one place with a hill the most.

They took the pre-riding preparation very seriously.


I would have loved to hang out and play today, but it was all business this morning. Fortunately, Katrina behaved really well for a long time in the stroller at a bathroom showroom, plus two trips to the house, a drugstore return and a bookstore stop.

Meantime, I have countless details to pursue: the fireplace framing is too high; the jobsite foreman lost the doorway arch detail; answer the interior door guy's question about a detail that doesn't pertain to the style we chose, pick up the plumbing fixtures, prepare for a switch & outlet walkthrough with the electrician on Tuesday, price two vanities for the upstairs kids' bathroom, find a 6"-deep recessed medicine cabinet that will fit the downstairs bathroom, change the bathtub order from RH to LH drain since the plumbing has to be reversed, make the pantry door only 28" wide so the inswing will clear the shelves....it's never-ending.

Well, on the bright side, it makes the time I do spend with my dear children more meaningful. I found myself holding off putting Katrina to bed tonight just so I could spend more time with her. The ultimate in working-parent guilt! Aside from her nightly mealtime tantrum, she's been absolutely adorable the past few days.

Migraine is still there, but it's downgraded to a 1. Low enough I might be able to cobble together a little scrapbooking area tonight...!

9/13/08

9/12/08 The Princess

Julian wanted to take a picture of me today. So I showed him how to use the camera and "posed" for a photo. To my surprise, he actually got me in the picture -- it's pretty hard for kids to hold the camera still and push the button at the same time. Bonus: it's out of focus!

Looking at the photo in the camera screen, he said, "A princess!"

I'll take it. I've been reeling today from the escalation of my 6-day migraine from low-grade to medium. It's not the most painful headache I've ever had, but the surrounding symptoms are bordering unbearable: the strange waving sensations, the light sensitivity, inability to concentrate, irrational sleepiness, being cold, slight nausea; and worst of all, the sense of despondency and hopelessness.

Not a good day for a bad headache, as if there ever is one. Today was intense with house-remodeling items. First, our jobsite meeting, in which countless things were reviewed, reminded, fixed, moved, decided, accepted, more appointments set up. Then a productive meeting with the architect/interior designer at the tile store, then to the kitchen designer's showroom, to sign off on kitchen cabinets, order to be placed Monday.


After writing a very, very large check, I picked up all three kids and took them home, gritting my teeth through the usual Katrina mealtime tantrum. ALL she wants are bananas, and she ended up getting two, plus a few bites of yogurt, for dinner.

Finally, when she was done tormenting me in the high chair and ready to be cute again, I could make the boys' dinner. Or have them help me. They were a little dismayed when I sprinkled bits of spinach on the pizza we made, but complaining about pizza toppings is a little like complaining about ice cream flavors -- fine, then don't have it!

Julian was my sous-chef tonight, and did the cheese and "pepperoni" (turkey meatballs that I sliced).


Katrina made her way into the office, where she suckered Dad into sitting on his lap and playing with his calculator.


She likes TuxPaint, a free Mac painting application that includes a stamp feature. Here's a good example of her asking for help, then imitating me saying "make pickup truck."


Gabriel's invented a goofy way to lift the front wheel of his bicycle from a near-stop, or very slow. Most of the time he falls, but occasionally he gets it.



I really really really really wish this headache would let me enjoy my children -- and my life -- this weekend!

9/12/08

9/11/08 The Homework

It's supposed to be weekly homework, but it's broken down into recommended daily segments. The accompanying notes say it's supposed to be 10 minutes per day, but that's just of the homework. Then there's 10 minutes of reading and recording what you read in the reading log, and then there's spelling practice.

The actual "10 minutes a day" homework is far, far more than that, and most of it requires heavy involvement from the parent. For example, the parent reads aloud a list of words, and the kid stands up when a word with a short 'a' sound is said. Or partner games in which you think of something that has a short 'a' sound, draw a picture and your partner guesses what it is. Gabriel had to choose four such exercises today, amounting to far more than 10 minutes.

Then there's the spelling list. This one really baffles me. He gets a list of 15 words to practice for his Friday spelling test. At the top of the list is a section that I can only guess, since there are no instructions, are to identify rhyming words. But the section is labelled "Basic Rimes:". Yes, you read that right -- Rimes. What is that about?! An accidental misspelling? A deliberate attempt to simplify a difficult word? Either way, that's ridiculous.

Then the words themselves go from ten super-easy ones: "the," "of," "is," to five much more advanced ones: "school," "principal." Couldn't they have stuck in words like "seat" or "pen" in there inbetween?

The reading log doesn't sound so onerous until you have to write down the start and end page you read, and then how many pages you read, and then totalling the read pages for the week! This turns the reading log into a big arithmetic problem.

Add to that a tired kid who just wants to hang out, a brother who is fascinated and wants to "help," (really, wants to play with his brother and doesn't like being kicked out), and a little sister who alternately demands something immediately, or is so quiet for so long that the mom-alarms go off. Gabriel is an ordered kid who doesn't need a ton of prompting to do homework, but this was a serious, serious drag tonight. I hope other parents complain, but this is where cultural differences might kick in: many parents educated in academically intense countries might well be all for it.

I personally think Gabriel can learn about short 'a's without so much silly homework. Some homework, sure, and the straightforward homework, such as picking out words with short 'a's from a list. Once he has to find pictures in a magazine of things with a short 'a', cut them out, glue them to something, and then write down what it is, and then do three more sorts of things like that, plus the spelling and the reading log, it turns into a much much longer task than 10 minutes, and a great deal of oversight from us.

I'm complaining now because Dave's taken this on so far all week, so I haven't seen first-hand how much work it is. It's not all doable in one night like the kindergarten homework -- you really do have to do it every day, since if you fall behind, it would be very difficult to catch up. That happens, that's school, but in first grade?!

At least I liked spending the time with Gabriel, but I hated being interrupted again and again by the demands of pre-bedtime siblings, and fretting about all there was to do. It's stunning what a huge commitment the school expects from parents -- I'm sure it was nothing like this when I was in first grade, and look how I turned ou.....oh never mind.

I miss Katrina. The boys too, but she's changing and growing up with every passing day. The most time I spend with her during the day is during her evening mealtime tantrum. But she's great in the mornings. What am I doing?

9/11/08 (in memoriam....)

9/10/08 The Complaint

Gabriel made a complaint tonight that would make any mother's heart sing: "I have the healthiest lunch in my whole class! Everyone else always gets junk food!" Unfortunately, I doubt that's really true. He gets more than his share of nutritionally-challenged items for lunch, such as macaroni and cheese and bagels; and I'm sure most of his classmates get healthy lunches. Indian cooking doesn't have a strong tradition of Goldfish.

But I've just discovered another lunch item both boys will accept as their "main course": green beans! Poor kids! MOMom. (Mean Old Mom.) Well, maybe that will make up for Katrina's near-complete rejection of all things green.

I had the nicest most adorable and heartwarming phone call and singing from my niece and nephew today, full of giggles and silly sounds.

Dave asked me later if I ever got dollar bills in birthday cards from grandparents, and I had to remind him that I really didn't grow up with grandparents. Three were dead before I remember, and my remaining grandfather lived in France and was in a nursing home by the time I was in junior high school. He struck me as a rather formal fellow; even if he lived closeby it's hard to imagine we'd have gone to the zoo together. I had one aunt and two uncles, and one uncle had four children roughly the same ages as my brother and sister and I, but they were raised in France and we didn't see them a lot (we are in loose touch and I like my French cousins a lot).

So I'm very very glad to have extended family in this part of my life. My niece and nephew singing Happy Birthday to me on the phone more than makes up for the lost dollar bills from grandparents.

9/10/08 (45 and counting!)