Think you know what big boys are like? Test yourself with this short True-False quiz and check your answers below:
• Big boys cannot organize their school papers. (T or F?)
• Big boys care about personal hygiene. (T or F?)
• Big boys do not hug their moms in public. (T or F?)
• Big boys love their moms in a big way. (T or F?)
Big boys cannot organize their school papers—True! Sadly, things have not changed on this front since elementary school. I hear myself saying, “You’re in middle school! Please, please get organized.” Somehow I thought that once they reached middle school, those days of finding three-month-old notices from teachers crumpled up in crumb-ridden balls at the bottom of their backpacks would end. I just expect them now to remember what they are supposed to give to me and what they’re supposed to take to school. I’m getting a little tired of panic-stricken phone calls from the bus, with Clyde or Tanner shouting into the phone, “Uh, Mom. I’m really sorry but I forgot my…” fill in the blank. It could be anything: homework, lunch, tuba mouth piece, text book, running shoes, gym shorts, brain.
Big boys care about personal hygiene—True! This is an exciting change—a battle won on the child-rearing war front. (Read more…)
Recently, the kids and I had lunch in a restaurant before visiting my grandmother. The area, apparently, is inhabited solely by senior citizens, as I was the only adult in the packed restaurant who could not order off the “over 65” menu. It had been a long drive and a long day, I was worried about my grandmother’s health, and we had a long drive ahead of us after our visit.
Princess and Caveman were being relatively well behaved. Caveman had just opted to be put into a high chair, despite the fact that he does not need one, because it was going to be his pirate ship. Princess was playing a game she made up involving sugar packets. Around us, silver-haired patrons lunched and quietly conversed.
Suddenly, Caveman began to shout: “AAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! MY PENIS! MY PENIS! IT’S GROWING! IT’S GROWING, MOMMY!”
I had a moment of mortified panic when I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if it really was growing or not, but I do know that little old ladies throughout the restaurant turned and stared while I tried to calm him down. In true almost-three style, Caveman lost interest in his growing member and resumed his spaceman/pirate game. I tried to collect myself while gulping iced tea. Fortunately, Princess was not paying any attention or an entire conversation about boy parts and why they grow would have resulted, and would probably have been recounted for my conservative grandmother. (Read more…)
Sung to the tune of “I will survive” by Gloria Gaynor
First I was afraid
I was petrified
Seeing those two little teeth
on your gumline
But I spent so many months
pumping and nursing the other two
I’ll be strong
I’ll just have to carry on
Oh, for two days
your fussy face
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face
I stuck my finger in your mouth
I felt those tiny jagged teeth
All I could think for just one second
was how you’ll soon be chomping me
Go on now go
Crawl on the floor
just put you down now
chew that teething ring some more
weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with your bite
you think I’d crumble
you think I’d stop nursing tonight
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I’ll still nurse you
I’ve got baby weight to lose
I’ve got spit up on my shoes
but I’ll survive
I will survive
It takes all the strength I have
just to carry on
Can’t help but feel like a cow
With those funnels on
and I spent so many nights
just feeling sorry for myself
when you cried
for only mama by your side
and you see me
something to chew
But I’m just a person
who feels pain and will bleed too
and if you feel like chomping in
and expect me to not scream
Then you’re wearing a way too tight
pair of Huggies Supreme
Go on now go
Crawl on the floor
just put you down now
chew that teething ring some more
weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with your bite
you think I’d crumble
you think I’d stop nursing tonight
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I’ll still nurse you
I’ve got baby weight to lose
I’ve got spit up on my shoes
but I’ll survive
I will survive!
This week our daughter F. starts pre-school. It’s more like taste-of-pre-school: a two-hour block of time on Friday mornings. It’s in the same school where H. and I took early childhood classes together six years ago. I stopped by there recently to drop off some paperwork and had a bit of a flashback to what I think of as The Early Years: that time frame when we knew something was amiss with H.’s development but not what that something was.
That was a very rough time. In the wake of questions about H.’s development, I quit my job to be home with him. We moved to a new town where I knew no one. I enrolled us in the local early childhood classes but tried (in vain) to prevent the transfer of records from old school district to new. I was still desperately holding onto the idea that there was really nothing wrong, that H. was just a little…different. I hoped the new school people would look at him and see what I saw, and not what the previous school people had seen. (Though they had ruled out autism at that time, they obviously saw the situation as more dire than we did.)
I remember the phone call from an administrator a few weeks into the semester. The toddler teacher had asked that H. be withdrawn from class. He wasn’t keeping up. It wasn’t the right place for him. I had observed him with the other tots and I had to agree. While his classmates were learning to gather around the teacher, to follow simple games and songs, H. was off to the side, doing his own thing. He seemed oblivious to his surroundings, interested only in the steady turn of the ceiling fan or the sparkle of dust motes caught in the sun’s golden beams.
So I understood the request that H. cease attending. I knew it wasn’t working. But what the administrator said next surprised me.
“And you won’t want to continue in the parent group.”
“Oh, I really like that group. If I could still go, maybe I could find care for H…”
“Well…I doubt they’re going to be covering the same issues that you’ll be dealing with. I don’t think you’ll be able to relate.” (Read more…)