Cotton-Pickin’ Days

This morning, Stephen was jumping on the bed as I was laying out my clothes for the day. After I was done brushing my teeth, I turned back and saw that the bedclothes were all jumbled up and my clothes were all over the place. I put everything back in order all the while grumbling about Stephen messing everything up.

I started getting dressed but couldn’t find my bra. I looked under the comforter again and had Stephen look under the pillows. I even checked under the bed and looked again in the drawers and bathroom. No bra.

“Where’s my bra?!” I demanded.

Stephen shrugged as I continued looking around for both the bra and my mind.

Then he asked, “What’s a bra anyway? Those maju* covers?”

*Maju is our family word for breasts, breastfeeding, and breast milk.

**I later found the bra behind the nightstand where it had flown during Stephen’s shenanigans.

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I know that someday my children will surpass me in many ways. In fact, I hope they do. Stephen is already better than me at drawing and constructing LEGO creations. The other day at Yo! Sushi, he demonstrated yet one more way in which his brain is superior than mine.

I had asked for a fork to make it easier for Stephen to eat his unagi sushi. Instead, we received two pieces of wood that looked like tongue depressors with notches cut out on the end. After looking at it for a few seconds, I couldn’t figure out what to do so was about to put them aside when Stephen said,

You’re supposed to stick this one in that hole.

Ohhh. Sou desu ne. (At least I know Japanese and he doesn’t! haaa)

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Here’s a book I won’t be buying - Your Five Year Old: Sunny and Serene by Louise Bates Ames (via American Family).

Sunny? Serene? Doesn’t compute.

Might be fun to check this book out of the library to see what I’m missing.

What I’m pretty sure is going on in my five-year-old’s head (and mine most of the time when I was growing up so I understand) is verbalized by the creator of HBO series The Wire, David Simon:

I will confess to you now that anything I have ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, as anything I have ever done in life down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were f*cked up and wrong and that I was the f*cking center of the universe, and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be … That’s what’s going on in my head.

I should save this entry to show psychotherapists in the future.

(I cleaned up the F-word just to keep my cuss-o-meter low.)

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I’ve been cutting Stephen’s hair at home for the past two-and-a-half years because he cries like the dickens whenever I take him to the salon. It doesn’t matter if it’s an adult’s or kid’s salon, he just can’t handle it. I know he doesn’t like the electric razor but scissors aren’t exactly safe either if he can’t commit to sitting still. Anyway, I suppose I’m saving some money too by cutting his hair at home. His hair doesn’t look so bad now that I know how to layer it a bit. Even so, a flight attendant once asked if his mommy cut his hair with a bowl. What the @#!

Here’s what every hairdresser wishes they could do to children who won’t behave themselves while getting a haircut. Not far from the truth either. A hairdresser once admitted to me that he did not like to cut children’s hair because none of them could sit still long enough. Of course, this guy charges over $100 USD per haircut so I doubt he’s seeing too many kids anyway!

Click to see what happens to this boy during his haircut.

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Stephen has a 10-word spelling test every Tuesday. Here’s how we prepare:

• Saturday - Clarify pronunciation and copy each word twice.
• Sunday - Mock spelling test. For every word missed, write it again.
• Monday - Repeat mock spelling test.
• Tuesday - Re-read words before school.

Aside from the first time when Stephen refused to participate until word #6 because he thought the test was “stupid,” the boy has done well. He’s scored 10/10 on the rest except one and on that one he scored a 9/10. When he had a hissy fit over the one he missed, the TA told him to never mind about the test and just sit it out. The reverse psychology worked.

When she called out the next word, he said, “I know that one.”

“That’s nice, Stephen, but you don’t have to do it anymore if you don’t want to,” she replied. (heh The woman is goood.)

“But I know it! I’ll write it down,” obstinate boy continued the test without further complaints.

So our test prep clearly works. Problem is, he finds something to complain about every single stinking day that we practice spelling. After our last practice session, I said, “You are very lucky you have a mother to practice with you. What have you been getting on your spelling tests because you work so hard?”

“I get 10 out of 10.”

“What do you think other children get if they don’t have parents to practice their spelling with them?”

“Zero out of 10.”

SLAM DUNK! That’s recognition that was long past due.

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After a few requests from family members, I’ve created a special space on the Web for Stephen’s creations. Check out Stephen’s Rubbish at StephensRubbish.com!

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And what did I say???

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Starting school at the age of four is “stressful” to children and does not help their education, according to a major review of English primary schools which also concluded kids take too many tests too early.

The Cambridge University review noted that some English children start at primary school two years earlier than in other countries.

…some students born in summer months seem to perform worse in their first years.

Stephen is among the youngest in his class having been born in August. If he were born in September, he would be the oldest in his class. He should grateful that I am providing performance enhancing education at home. /cue evil laughter

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Click form above to see details.
In hindsight, I should have promised him a kingdom of Bionicles.

Via The Bureau of Communication

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And so I continue to wonder if Stephen has been in school too much, too soon. This is his second year of full-day schooling in the UK - 6.5 hours, 5 days a week. He is only five-and-a-half years old.

In Finland they do things differently. Finnish children stay at home much longer. They play and tell stories years after ours are sitting down in school to a target-driven curriculum. Maybe that’s partly why Finnish children are happier, and maybe that’s why they rate higher in the literacy stakes.

~100 books every child should read by Michael Morpurgo for Telegraph

via Aquatique.net, Sunday Salon member

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Stephen and my dad sharing a moment in cyberspace together on Christmas Day.

My parents, along with my sister and her husband, live in California while we’re in London. Here, Stephen is drawing a picture of the Transformer Bumblebee while my dad watches via webcam. Are we the model modern family or what?

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