Cotton-Pickin’ Days

Stephen received his end-of-school-year report yesterday and after each section, there were suggestions for games and activities parents could do with their children at home. Here are some that made me laugh and others that made me reflect on what I’ve done with Stephen.

1. Join your local toy library.

Are you kidding? We are the local toy library! (See picture of Stephen exhausted after a playful day. Actually, he was just pretending. haha)

2. Play games where people take turns inc. handing round biscuits, etc.

Here I can proudly say that although Stephen isn’t a perfectly behaved child in school, he willingly shares his after school treats with his friends. I don’t think there’s a kid in that class who hasn’t received a small candy, chocolate, or potato chip from him.

3. Show your child how much you enjoy reading & writing.

Just the other day, we were talking about what each of us collects. Stephen said that he collects toys (see #1), I collect books (beams proudly), and Marv collects video games (raised eyebrow). As for the time I spend on the computer, he says, “You’re working; sending messages, talking to Popo (my mom), and writing.”

4. Talk to your child about favourite TV programmes or things you have done together.

While some parents may not want to encourage TV watching in their children, I’ve actually gone out of my way to order special Transformers books for children to encourage Stephen’s reading. I am definitely not one of those who believe TV is evil. And while I don’t necessarily agree with everything unschooler Dayna Martin and her family have chosen for their educational path, I did appreciate her article on anti-TV elitism despite the fact that I am a “book worshipper” and a magazine worshipper and an Internet worshipper,….

5. Draw your child’s attention to, and involve him/her in daily reading & writing routines.

Thankfully, Stephen has a natural interest in these things but we also do about 15 workbook pages a week. Currently, he’s working on one workbook for handwriting and another for addition.

A June example of a sentence Stephen constructed:

TuoMIS has a FeD
TuoMIS brIs MaX hoMo to VIZT

Translation: Thomas has a friend. Thomas brings Max home to visit.

6. Laying the table.

Oops. We don’t eat properly at the dining room table and because of Marv’s irregular working hours, we hardly ever eat together either.

7. Talk to “grannie.”

Eh?

8. Play with different media.

If only different media didn’t also mean big mess! Sometimes paint, play dough, sand, and other crafts are better done at school.

9. Turn pages.

I guess some kids rip pages instead of turn them? At ages 4-5, I would have expected something a little more advanced than this.

10. Make percussion instruments from tins, containers, etc.

Good lord. Does he not make enough noise just going through his LEGO pieces?! Who knew a bajillion little pieces of plastic could make such a racket!

What kinds of gems were in your child’s report card?

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This doll is THE creepiest thing I’ve ever seen floating down the River Thames. We once saw a huge dead rat but I wasn’t quick enough to get my camera out and document it. Perhaps it’s all for the better.

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School isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not that that’s news to any of us. It doesn’t matter if the principal is responsive, the teachers are nice, the playground well-equipped, and test scores impress. What it all comes down to is the mix of children and parents at the school in that particular moment your child is there.

Monday might be lovely because a certain someone didn’t come to school. Tuesday might be even better because a favorite teaching assistant is there. Wednesday is still ok because some children are sick so the class is smaller. Thursday could be awful because of a substitute teacher and rain clouds in the sky. Friday might end on an up note just because it’s the last day of the week!

Up till now, I’ve tried to get along with everyone. I don’t care how other children behave because they’re not mine to mind. The one child I have control over is Stephen and he’s the one I focus on. Even if another child has done something to hurt him, I’ve taught him to express his feelings but walk away and get over it. We’re made of teflon, I tell him. And besides, other people aren’t responsible for our feelings, we are. This way of dealing with “issues” might have worked for a while before Stephen had the confidence to assert himself but now that he is developing confidence in spades, he may be retaliating for some of the hurtful words that have been said to him in the past. (A currently playground favorite is “naughty.”)

And because we are not tattle tales, it makes playground battles difficult to judge. While many children will run to the teacher and report every little thing, Stephen has never learned to do that. We (that is, Stephen and I) take care of it ourselves and move on. Just because we keep quiet, doesn’t mean we’ve never been wronged!

Stephen has been accused by other children but we’ve never accused others. Children at their age are naturally physical. What’s the big deal? Our attitude might have to change. It’s time for other parents to know that their children are not angels being bullied by mine. And how pathetic amusing that Stephen is one of the smallest and youngest children in the class but apparently wields such powers of intimidation that other children are afraid of him. I don’t believe that one bit.

Autobot Transform!

One particular child who repeatedly complains about Stephen deliberately pushes ahead of Stephen in line almost every morning. And another whose mother believes he is a perfect specimen of male childhood (yes, I emphasize the male part) does the same exact thing. Stephen has been taught to stay away from them. Why can’t they stay away from Stephen? And yet both mothers think that other children are “rough.” I cry foul! I say it’s self-defense and I dare them to argue with me about it.

Love is blind. Or is it denial? Insanity? Stupidity?

I love my son but know that he’s not perfect. We work hard to control ourselves - our emotions, our behavior, our bodies, and our minds. And those other kids? They’re working hard on their sense of entitlement, distortion of the truth, and overinflated egos. Good luck to them. They’ll need it.

NB: You might also be interested in reading my tips for how to deal with your child’s playground fights.

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Stephen’s going back to school tomorrow after a week and two days off for half-term holidays. This was probably one of the best vacations we’ve ever had. Here’s what we ended up doing:

Friday, May 25 - Local High Road for a special McDonald’s lunch, followed by a visit to Woolworths where he got a set of Transformers Mini-Con and hung out at the park for a little while so that he could play.

Saturday, May 26 - BFI IMAX to see Roving Mars (see the picture on the right that he drew as part of his vacation homework assignment), picked up Fireman Sam and Transformers DVDs at Virgin, and finished at Hamley’s toy store where he lucked out with an Underground Ernie Jubilee train.

Sunday, May 27 - Stayed home and made cupcakes.

Tuesday, May 28 - Tate Modern with Lilian and the boys, crossed the Millenium Bridge.

Wednesday, May 29 - Royal Air Force Museum with Stephen’s classmate and mother.

Thursday, May 30 - London Science Museum

Saturday, June 2 - Hang out at Lilian’s

Monday, June 4 - Dim sum at Chinatown

I’ll be sad to send him to school tomorrow. Sometimes when I go around town on my own and see mothers with young children dining at restaurants and walking around, I miss the days when we didn’t have any schedule but our own. Then I go and enjoy a nice quiet coffee without any interruptions. In any case, summer vacation is just seven weeks away.* Eek!

*I’m not sure if the London school calendar qualifies as year-round school but they have half-term holidays that break up three terms and that are usually about a week-long. In between terms, the holidays are about two weeks long. The school year starts in September and ends in July.

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clipped from www.londonproject.co.uk The London Book Project is a free book exchange on a massive scale. Using the London Underground as a high speed distribution network, we aim to bring real literature to London’s commuters. Scrap the freesheets - read a free book instead! Over the next two weeks we’ll be distributing thousands of second hand books across the tube and we want YOU to get involved. If you see one of our books, please pick it up! Then read it and replace with any book of your choice. Let’s make the tube a giant, free library!

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We brought Stephen to his first movie in a theater yesterday. And it wasn’t just any theater, it was the British Film Institute IMAX where they were showing Roving Mars, a movie about the NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission.

The movie started with an explosion of sound showing off all that IMAX cinema can offer. The worst was being in the eye of a hurricane with the cacophony of cows mooing and houses splintering around us. I thought Stephen would freak out and demand to leave considering how sensitive he is to noise but he hung in there and only asked to leave one time. When I explained they were only showcasing the speakers’ capabilities, he stayed fixed in his seat.

He was enthralled with Roving Mars as soon as it begun. When we “flew” over the surface of Mars, he turned to me and said, “We’re moving!” and looked around to see if the theater was spinning. My favorite part of the movie was when the control center received the first green rover signal from Mars. I was so touched I had tears in my eyes. Yes, I cry over strange things.

Here’s a video of that moment and a review of Spirit and Opportunity’s first year on Mars:

And, of course, no experience would be complete without Stephen commemorating it in LEGO.

BTW, if you’re ever curious what Stephen’s been making lately, there’s a slideshow in the middle column towards the bottom you can watch or click on to see the entire picture album.

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One of the weirdest things about living in a house in London is the mail slot in the front door. I have never had mail shoved directly into my home. CHING! KERTHUNK! Each morning, the noise of the metal flap flying up to hit the door and the mail thudding to the ground make me jump out of my seat.

In California, we had a mailbox at the end of our driveway. In Baltimore, I had a box in the lobby of the apartment building. Same goes for Taiwan and Japan. In Vietnam, we got so few pieces of mail that they were slid under the door or hand delivered. Half of what we received had to be picked up from the post office anyway because they’d been opened for inspection in case we were trying to smuggle in who knows what contraband.

Today I came to another realization. This is the first time we’ve gotten junk mail in years. From my estimate, my parents in California get around 10 pieces of junk mail a day. We get about 2-3. Today, an envelope arrived from Oxfam with a free sachet of fairtrade coffee, a Sky TV advertisement, and some sort of home learning college brochure. The only junk mail I find remotely helpful are the delivery menus although most of those restaurants are absolute rubbish.

What junk mail did you get today?

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Of all the household chores I have to do (and that is ALL of them), I hate vacuuming the most. The hand-me-down Sanyo vacuum I’ve been using for the past year is so old that I can only get replacement bags online. At some point last year, I noticed the wiring in the plug was loose so I pried it open and tried to rewire it without a clue as to the proper configuration. I promptly shocked myself and didn’t feel quite right for the rest of the evening.

I survived and managed to get the vacuum working again, but I’ve had to repeatedly rewire the plug because one of the wires inside broke and is too short to stay connected properly. Anyway, I don’t know why I’m going on about this except that vacuuming is the bane of my existence.

So when the old vacuum had to be rewired for the balumpteenth time last week and I was down to the second-to-the-last vacuum bag, I threw a fit and said that I MUST HAVE A NEW VACUUM. Preferably one that is capable of sucking up hair because the old one was utterly useless. (And it’s plain old human hair no less, not from furry fuzzy fizzy pets.)

Marv said, “OK. We can go compare prices this weekend.”

To which I replied, “I don’t want to compare prices!! I want to get a @#! new vacuum cleaner.”

And this is what we came back with:

An Electrolux PowerPlus 1900W Z4494 (the vacuum in the picture is the same color as ours but is only 1800). It’s tons lighter than our old machine, which is especially important in our four-story house. And the suction power is fantastic.

But does having a new vacuum make me want to hoover it all up? Does a new vacuum give me joy and hope for a cleaner tomorrow? Does a new vacuum that hums instead of whines bring a song to my heart?

Nope. Vacuuming still sucks.

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Remember when I mentioned last year that Stephen’s school district is exceptionally strict about absences? We missed four days at the start of this term because we returned from California late and had bad jetlag as well. Today I received a letter from the Head of Service Education Welfare & School Attendance (sic).

An excerpt:

The School and Local Education Authority are very concerned that you have taken Stephen out of school during term time.

…..
It is out of concern for Stephen that I write to you in this way. We think it is important that all parents should be aware of the implications of holidays during term time, the lack of continuity of education and reduced progress for their child, the disruption for other pupils in the class who may suffer as a result, the additional work and planning for teachers and the demand on school places in [our school district].

Please don’t throw me in jail! I figured it wouldn’t be a huge deal because he’s only four years old….

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The Institute of Medicine has issued new guidelines for the kinds of food American kids will be offered at school.

• Lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy foods.
• None can be more than 200 calories per serving.
• Foods have to be low in fat, saturated fat, sodium, sugar, and have no added caffeine.

In the UK, the School Food Trust emphasizes the same. Here are a few notes from a newsletter Stephen brought hom from his primary school where he eats lunch every day.

• Sausages and chicken nuggets are completely organic and free from artificial additives.
• Fish fingers are made from whole cod fillet.
• Fresh fruit, yoghurt and cheese and biscuits are available daily as an alternative to dessert. (Stephen often eats these instead of “dessert.”)

Most interestingly, they’ve removed sandwiches from the menu! When Stephen first started school, he would tell me he ate a chicken sandwich for lunch every single gosh darned day. Then suddenly, he began telling me that he ate macaroni, fish cake, cold pasta, baked potato, and all sorts of other stuff he normally would never try. Whoopee! The main reason I like having him eat lunch at school is to get him to try different things and FINALLY he was doing it! Could the cooks have read my mind?

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