Day: March 17, 2009

The alarm rang this morning after I’d had only 5 hours of sleep. I was up late last night providing morale support for Kiki who was scrambling to get a project done, and who did not really need my help, but who devolved in to over-stressed tears if I was not sitting near her radiating calm. It is exhausting to radiate calm for several hours in a row late at night. Kiki finished her project, but morning came at the same time as usual.

Fortunately today is St. Patrick’s Day. This meant that getting ready for school was made more interesting by the search for green clothing. Woe betide the grade school child who shows up without green on this very important day. Because of the holiday the kids were speedier than usual about getting dressed, which was nice. Also the possibility of leprechaun adventures at school helped. I hear that Patch’s class was particularly hard hit by a leprechaun who played many tricks, but who also left treats. Once the kids were at school I went back to bed for 40 minutes. I knew that the rest of the day was going to be exhausting. I was right.

Link had Moms and Muffins, which is when I spend an hour in his classroom listening to him read and eating a muffin. This is an enjoyable event for both the child and me. They even give each child a book to take home. It was a time for me to consider again how the books that adults think kids (particularly boys) ought to like do not always intersect with the books that kids actually like. I looked at the book selection and thought “Oooh!” Link looked at the exact same books and thought “meh.” Most of the kids were excited to get the books they picked, so the selection really was appropriate, just not to Link’s taste. We had him pick a book that his sisters will like and then he read to me from his library book.

Next came The Cleaning of the Kitchen. This was in preparation for the two hour long Business Meeting. We figure we look a lot more professional when meeting with partners if the papers don’t stick to syrup puddles on the table. The business meeting was very good, but two hours of focused attention is tiring. And the brain spinning on Tasks Which I Now Have To Do is also tiring.

The meeting finished up only minutes before kids arrived home from school, so I headed straight into Mommy mode. Fortunately the kids scattered to friends’ houses, then Kiki called for me to pick her up. She’d stayed after school to meet with her math teacher to get a better explanation of an assignment. She did this voluntarily even though she is already earning an A in the class. I have an awesome daughter. I decided that my awesome daughter and I had both earned a trip to Wendy’s so we went to get food. For the next 90 minutes she and I had one of those conversations which wander everywhere and where she opens up about social situations at school. When one of these conversations starts, I have to clear everything out of the way and let it just flow because this will be my only chance to hear about Kiki’s life as it is right now. I have to encourage the conversation and participate even though I am tired and my brain really wants to shut down. So Kiki and I discussed fast food, SuperSize Me, lunch at school, the funny thing that happened in German class, that boy who likes her, that other boy who likes her, how she can make the boys stop being idiots, why the boys are idiots, when they are likely to stop being idiots, the boy she kind of likes, the fact that attractions make life difficult, and, coolest of all, how Kiki stood up for someone who was being picked on even though it required her to confront a peer in front of lots of other people. If I’d cut the conversation short I would have missed all of that and I would have missed the all too rare moments when my teenage daughter is actively seeking my advice about her life. It was a wonderful conversation even though I was tired.

Then my brain melted and an hour or more disappeared into the internet. If you find it laying around, feel free to send it back.

Then there was Link’s Gymnastics class, and grocery shopping, and frozen burritos for dinner fed to kids in front of a video, and delivering Link to scouts. After all that I should have made the movie stop so kids could do homework, snack, and bed. Instead I popped popcorn and sat with Gleek and Patch for the last 30 minutes of Angels in the Outfield. It isn’t a movie I like, but the kids do. It was so nice to just sit. It was even mildly interesting that the DVD was glitching, randomly skipping seconds and turning the subtitles on and off. It says something that I did not even care.

I love my kids. They did not argue or fight about going directly to bed when the movie was over. I feel better for the brain-dead movie time. Not ready to accomplish stuff, but less zombie like. I think I shall have an early bedtime now.

Last fall I chronicled my challenges in finding books that Link could love reading. The wealth of suggestions lead to a list of books for 5th Grade boys. I would now like to praise to high heavens a couple of books in particular. They are books filled with words that Link will choose over video games.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney This book bridges the gap between comics and novels. Most of the story is told in words, but every single page has an amusing cartoon on it. Link was a little doubtful when I first handed him the book, but within minutes he was laughing out loud. As soon as he finished it, he asked for me to get him the next one. In fact he was so desperate for the next book that he spent his own money to buy it. So that’s how we got Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules. Now Link has finished that one and is begging for the next one Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw. I’ve put it on the wishlist to wait for a time when either Link or I have some spare money. In the meantime we’re on the waiting list at the library. These books are going over really well with lots of boys. I’ll also need to get him the Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Do It Yourself Book which looks like an ideal way to encourage Link to do some writing as well.

The other book I’d like to praise is 15 Minutes by Steve Young. Link read part of this book to me out loud. It is wonderful. The narrator has a great sense of humor and explains stuff so that the reader just feels like he is hanging out with a friend. Link laughed several times while reading and was happy to struggle through some of the challenging vocabulary. One of the nicest things is that the chapters are all really short. This prevents Link from feeling overwhelmed by endless pages of words. 15 minutes also goes on the wishlist so we can acquire it. It may even go on the bedtime story list because I think Gleek and Patch might enjoy it too. I know it amused me. It does for middle school boys what Junie B Jones does for first graders, amuses parents as well as kids with witty observations and very real situations.