The Fish Pond

Being the Hero When You Needed it Most

Saturday morning, Little Man whined on my bed "I don't want to go to this game. We have two games this weekend. Why do I have to go to all the games? It's boring and I suck."

I took a deep breath, and reminded him that it was important for every player to show up, because if they didn't the team would forfeit the game and lose without even playing, and that he was a new player and still learning.

"Do you want to quit? If you do, you need to tell your coach that. The team is relying on you."

"No, no, I don't want to quit, I just don't want to go to all the games. Why are there so many? Why do I have to go? I just suck anyway." I reemphasized the importance of just showing up, and also said that each game is a practice, that each time he played he got better and better. He continued to whine and try to bargain with BigDaddyFish and I. We wouldn't budge. I finally told him that for every minute of baseball he played I'd give him a minute of computer game time, then walked away. I couldn't listen to him beat himself up anymore.

Little Man has never been a joining kind of kid. BDF and I both want our kids to make exercise a regular part of their lives, in hopes that they'd stave off the kind of spread each of us has earned with our unathletic lifestyles, as well as reaping the benefits that participating in teams will give them. I tried to get him to play soccer, basketball, football. He tried lacrosse briefly and didn't like it. We tried karate, thinking a more solitary sport would appeal to him - it didn't. So when he came home in January with a flyer for baseball and told me he wanted to play, I couldn't sign him up fast enough. Since April, we've had an average of two games and one practice per week, with a couple of fairly brutal three-game weeks thrown in for fun.

A few minutes later, Little Man came shlumping down the steps in his uniform and we all went to the game. I kept the girls and Nemo in the car watching a movie, because we've learned that they get bored pretty quickly and Nemo is prone to wanting to go out on the field to play. I watched the game through binoculars while BDF stood on the sidelines at the game, until the kids' movie was over.

We walked up as our team came up to bat in the bottom of the sixth inning. We were down by one and starting at the top of our batting order. Apparently this had been a contentious game from the start. The kids on the opposing team had been standing in the base lines and crowding the bases, and we had a couple of bad injuries a few games ago with kids running head-to-head at a base, so one of our coaches asked one of their coaches to talk to the kids about it. The opposing coach said "They are 8 years old, what are ya gonna do?" I don't know what transpired after that, but I know it wasn't good.

We worked through the batting order, scoring once to tie the game up. Then we had a runner going from second to third. The third baseman got the ball but it wasn't a force, so he had to tag the runner, and our runner deftly dodged around the boy and tagged up. The ump didn't make a strong call right away while our third base coach was yelling "He's safe!" while the other coach yelled "He's out!" The ump called the kid out, but he didn't make a hand signal, so it was very confusing. The coaches were yelling back and forth, and finally the little third baseman RAISED HIS HAND and said "She's right, I didn't tag him" and his coach yelled across the field "YOU SHUT UP BOBBY AT THIRD BASE!" Everyone got quiet except our third base coach who yelled "Way to reward this boy's honesty, Coach!" The coaches went back to arguing but another of our coaches stepped in and said "Look, the ump called him out, so he's out. We know the truth, but he's out." He didn't want us charged an out and/or being made to forfeit for arguing. Our poor base runner went to the bench near tears.

We worked through the batting order and had a runner on third when Little Man came up. He is still in his learning curve and bats close to the end of the batting order, if you know what I mean. The little boy that bats after him has about the same skill level, and his mother looked at me and said "It comes down to our kids. I don't think I can watch." I knew what she meant; I was already white-knuckling it at the fence.

Little Man had already had a career best day - three hits: two stranded on base and one ground out. He runs kinda slow, so we knew it had to be good for him to make it to base - this team was definitely capable of making strong defensive plays. He swung at a couple of pitches (they get six in coach-pitch games) and I had visions of crushing defeat, and given what we had been through before the game I was dreading it. I don't want him to give this up; he seems to like it when he isn't bored or getting focused on the negative, and he even had me sign him up for baseball camp for this summer. On the third pitch he smacked that ball hard to the sweet spot in between where the infielders and outfielders play, between first and second. There were kids there, but they didn't catch the ball and he ran his head off. He made it to first, the runner on third scored, and the place exploded.

I picked Little Man up and swung him around, his teammates kept smacking him on the helmet, the runner who scored thanked him, his coaches were over the moon, and he didn't stop grinning until the next day when they got clobbered in a makeup game.

He was the hero, right when he needed to be the hero, not just for his team, but for him.

Next up, Humility 101. Can't have everything.

note: all photos are from different games than this one, and I've changed names to protect the innocent third baseman and guilty coach.

It's All About the Pants - Laundry Survey

Trout learned an important lesson this morning after yet another meltdown about pants. This time, it was specifically that she didn't have any clean pants to wear, a result of most of her dirty clothes residing on her floor rather than in the hamper, which I empty and wash. She knows that the rule is I'm not chasing clothes - if she wants them washed, they have to be put in the hamper. Anyway, I told her that she had three possible solutions: wear a dress (nope, PE day), wear one of the three brand new pairs of sweatpants that were currently on the bottom of her bed waiting for her to take the tags off and put in the laundry (but they haven't been washed and are slightly too long!), or pull a dirty pair out, give them the sniff test, and wear one. The third option she deemed positively the height of grossness, even when I told her that both her father and I routinely wear our pants two days before washing except in case of misadventure, and that when she's in college if they didn't walk by themselves they'd be deemed clean enough to wear. It's amusing that she finds wearing the pants more than one day before washing them offensive, because if I had a dollar for every time I've had to force her to change her underwear every day she'd have enough pants that I'd never have to do laundry at all. Anyway, I refused to engage her and made BigDaddyFish deal with her while I got the other two kids ready to go to school. He eventually convinced her to put on one of the pairs of sweatpants and go to school.

So, in honor of overworked launderers everywhere, how often do you wear your clothes before washing? I'm not talking about underwear of course - if you don't change those every day I don't want to know about it - but pants and sweaters and jackets and other things that aren't getting dirty or stinky with the same rate as things that touch your skin. How many days can you get out of a pair of jeans? Inquiring minds want to know. And please speak up; there just may be a prize in it somewhere, and it'll be better than laundry detergent.

Sorry, New Jersey

Trout, holding up a piece of ham: Why is this all wavy?

Me: Muscles. Muscles are wavy.

Trout: Huh?

Me: Muscles. Meat is muscles.

Trout looks perplexed.

BigDaddyFish, flexing his bicep: Like this! Muscles!

Me: But we don't eat people muscles. Well, most of us.

Trout: Do some people eat people?

BDF: Yes, in the jungle, mostly. And New Jersey.

Little Man: I am NEVER going to New Jersey.

The adults crack up. Me: I am so going to blog that. "I am NEVER going to New Jersey."

Little Man: Me, neither.

The adults laugh so hard BDF has to run to the sink to spit water and tears run down my face. The kids look perplexed.

Shooting for the Bulk Discount, AKA A Straight Tequila Night

It could have been worse, I suppose.

I was in the basement, moving laundry through the machines. Nemo had come down with me, as he is prone to doing, but he lost interest relatively quickly and disappeared, I assumed to go back upstairs, and I continued with what I was doing, which at that point was sorting dirty stuff into piles. I heard Little Man start to scream, which is not unusual in this house, so I paid no mind at first. His screams became more urgent, though, and the other kids started screaming, and the words "Little Man is bleeding!" penetrated my fog of irritation. I hollered that I was in the basement and told Little Man to come down.

He rushed into the laundry room, still screaming at the top of his lungs, blood just pouring out of his hand. I grabbed a dirty towel and wrapped it around his finger as he wailed that it hurt and I demanded "What happened? What the hell happened?" as I couldn't really figure out what was so dangerous and blood-inducing about watching Avatar. "Nemo did it! Nemo cut me with scissors! Mom! I need a bandage!" I could hear the girls upstairs screaming, the timer for the food in the oven beeping over their cries, and the thump-thump-thump of Nemo's footsteps as he ran around the room, and I couldn't figure out where the hell he got scissors, since I'd locked them all up in our locking cabinet after the food-coloring disaster.

I dashed up the stairs, dragging Little Man behind me, shouting that everyone had to get their shoes on because we had to go to the ER, and I intercepted Nemo holding a particularly wicked pair of scissors, which I confiscated immediately. Then I tried to calm Little Man down enough to tell me exactly how the cut happened as I tried to administer first aid.

Here I need to back up a bit. As some of you may know, I used to own a rubber stamping business. The company I worked for sold all of their stamps with the rubber and cushioning separate from the wood blocks, and the buyer had to cut out the stamp images and mount them. To aid in this, they sold super sharp rubber-cutting scissors. The company now sells their images die-cut, so all you have to do is punch them out and mount them. I still have a sizable area in my basement that is a disastrous mess of craft supplies, which I need to clean out, and it has been there since Sunny was a baby. I haven't really touched it but fewer than a handful of times in the last 4 years, mostly just to move stuff around.

Note the really dirty blades.

Evidently, when Nemo left the basement he took a detour to the craft area and found a pair of the rubber cutting scissors. Anxious to show off his new toy to his brother, he went upstairs where the kids were wholly absorbed in Avatar, walked over to his brother, and cut the middle finger on his right hand between the knuckle and the base of the finger. I knew on sight that it needed stitches.

I got the food out of the oven and called BigDaddyFish, who was at work over an hour away. He came home, talked me down from DEFCON 5 to about DEFCON 4, and reassured me that based on the cell phone photo I sent and the fact that he wasn't gushing blood anymore, Little Man could wait until he got home to go to the ER to be stitched up. In the hour it took him to get home, though, Little Man worked himself into a hysterical tizzy about potentially getting stitches or glue to fix his finger. He wouldn't let me touch it, wouldn't let me wash it out, and a couple of times he told me he couldn't breathe because it hurt so bad. I kept talking to him, trying to calm him down and explain what would happen at the ER, but he insisted it would hurt and that he wasn't going to let them touch him. When BDF got home, we gave Little Man the choice of who would take him to the ER, and he picked me. BDF was kind of upset with me, because he was mad I hadn't locked up those scissors and there is still such a big mess in the basement after all this time. I didn't say much at all after he got home, and those who know me IRL know that means something Big is going on inside. He leaned in the window of the van as we were getting ready to leave and asked something like "You feel bad, don't you?" and all I could do was nod as the tears started to fall. He asked Little Man again if he was sure he wanted me to take him, because I was upset and felt bad that he got hurt. Little Man was insistent, though, so I got composed myself and off we went.

We are lucky to live in a neighborhood that has a freestanding ER about 3 miles from my house. It is usually fairly empty, espeically on a weeknight, and it only took us about 5 minutes to get there. The whole time, though, Little Man kept up a running monologue about how he didn't want to get a shot, he wasn't going to let anyone touch him with needles, and how it was going to hurt so bad. I kept having flashbacks to my own adventure with needing stitches when I was 7 and how my parents handled that. I kept reassuring him it would be okay, that we still didn't really know what they'd need to do, and he didn't need to worry. I told him that we wouldn't let anyone do any thing without thoroughly explaining what they were doing and why. We would make sure he was comfortable with it.

We got in and got through triage okay, though he got a little panicky any time anyone wanted to even look at his finger. The doctor, a young perky woman probably five years younger than I am and definitely good with kids, came in and examined him. She understood his panic and told him he'd need some "gluey string" to fix his finger. She put a topical liquid on his finger, a liquid she had to squirt out of the end of what looked like a needle, which of course made Little Man more anxious. It took her poking herself several times in the hand to prove to him that it wasn't a needle. As she worked she talked about how she has 7 year old twin girls and how she had to do stitches on one of her girls, and that he'd be fine. She did every thing she could to try to calm him down. We had to wait 30 minutes for the medicine to take effect, and as the 30 minutes wore on, the closer and closer we got to stitch time the more anxious and panicky Little Man got.

The doctor came back in, and Little Man was pretty much hysterical at this point. She talked to him about what she was doing, about how she had to test to see if the medicine took effect, and he was just too out of control to cooperate. She brought in two nurses, one on either side of him. One nurse held his arm while the doctor took a pin to test to see if he was numb. He wailed and wailed about how much it hurt and how he could still feel. So we had to do things the hard way. One nurse held his arm down, one nurse held his feet and other arm down, the doctor gave him two shots at the base of the finger, one on either side, I rubbed his chest and head and kept murmuring "It's okay, it's okay, it's going to be fine" while he wailed "No! NO! NONONONO! It HURTS!" Once the shots took effect, though, he stopped wailing, though he was still tense and on edge, but resigned to his fate. He looked so small, his eyes so beaten.

The doctor kept up a monologue the whole time she worked, talking about what she was doing, but also about the wonderful half-sleepover party that her twins had a couple of weeks ago. She told him she was using gluey string again, and he looked at me with accusing eyes as he said "You lied, Mom, you LIED! You told me she would use a needle!" and I just took it, since I knew she was using a needle, but she kept her hand cupped a bit so he couldn't see what she was doing, and I thought again about my own accusation to my father. When she was finished, she showed him the curved needle she was using, so like a fishhook, and told him "Your mom wasn't lying, bud. This is the needle I used, but it was like gluey string, because you couldn't feel it, right?" Then she bandaged him up, gave me a bunch of surgical instruments, and gave him a lime popsicle.

See? Ready for a second career, I am.

We came home weary and hungry. BDF had been so worried he cleaned and vacuumed the living room while I was gone. The other three kids were asleep. We sent Little Man to bed and BDF and I nibbled at our dinner, gone unappetizing in the hours since we'd left for the ER while BDF played Wii and I drank straight tequila, the only alcohol we had in the house. I've told everyone else they can't do anything to get another trip to the ER at least for the rest of the month.

Five stitches and a good excuse to give everyone the finger for the next week.

Hallo-what? Elect-huh?

Indeed, we have had both a holiday and a momentous day in our history, but I have largely missed them (though I did exercise my civic duty on Tuesday). Where the hell have I been? Um.

Well, first I had the bright idea that since Trout's birthday was three days before Halloween and Halloween was on a Friday, that we could have her birthday party on Halloween and BigDaddyFish could take all the guests trick or treating with our kids while I handed out candy, and then when they got back to our house we could have cake, play a couple of games, and then send them all home on a sugar high. No fuss, no muss, little mess, and no dad-burned treat bags. Brilliant idea, right? Not so much. First one parent called and asked if she could stay and bring her 4 year old. I have a 4 year old, so no problem. Then another parent called to ask if her younger child could come. He's five. Thinking that the parents would be staying, I said yes. That would mean 11 kids to at least four parents - no problem.

BDF was supposed to work from home, but he decided to go in and come home early. My job was to clean the house.

I got the house cleaned, but I still needed to go to the store to get balloons and a cake. BDF was supposed to leave at 3. 3 goes by. 4 goes by. Frantic text messages ensued, to no avail. He got home at 5, at which point I blew out as fast as I could to go get balloons and cake. I live under a rock, so I did not know that the shopping center with the party store was having trick or treating there. The store was mobbed. I got the balloons, but it easily took 35 minutes for them to get them done, and I still had to hit the grocery store for a cake. It was on the way home, but I was still driving when BDF started calling asking where I was at 6:15. The party started at 6.

When I got back, I discovered that the parents of one of the extra kids had not, in fact, stayed. Later on BDF told me that they asked if they could go out to dinner and he said yes. There were kids running all over with no one asserting control of the situation. I tried to get them to eat dinner, but they were too spun up. BDF finally put on the Charlie Brown halloween DVD, and that kept them a little calm, but they were still a bit rambunctious. In particular, the set of kids whose parents didn't stay were running all over, climbing on the furniture, and trying to pull out all the toys I had spent half the afternoon cleaning up. The last two guests finally arrived, and everyone tumbled out the door for trick or treating.

Except Nemo. He was overwhelmed with all the people he didn't know, he hated his costume (Yoda. Little Man was Darth Vader. Great in concept, but the Jedi Master pleased was not.), and just freaked. So he stayed with me to hand out candy. I tried to get him to go just to our next door neighbors, good friends of ours, but he wouldn't go past our property line, which isn't very far when you are in a townhouse. I took his bag and put some candy in it to show him how to trick or treat, and he thought that was great, but he didn't want to leave our property. So I held him on my lap outside, with our big bowl of candy, and he slowly warmed up to putting things in other people's bags.

We didn't have very many trick or treaters this year, but I really have to commend the ones we did. We had a bunch of older kids, old enough that I usually get pissed off and only give a single lollipop to. To a one, they were considerate of Nemo and if they were wearing a scary mask, they flipped them up so he could see their faces before approaching us, or they let him come walking rightuptothem and look up their masks to see their faces. I was impressed and rewarded them generously. We still had tons of candy left.

When the kids got back I fed them and did the cake. Kids refused to eat cake (!) and persisted in trying to take out the toys. So I distracted them with the opening of the presents, and then we played some games, games specifically chosen with 8 and 9 year olds in mind, not 5 year old. Our extra child couldn't cope with losing, even though everyone got prizes no matter what. I guess that being in an unfamiliar house, on an out-of-the-ordinary night, possibly past his normal bedtime, and playing with kids that didn't want to let him lose so he wouldn't freak out was just too much. He had a screaming crying meltdown in my living room for an interminable amount of time but probably only 15 minutes before his parents arrived and helped him calm down. I felt sorry for the kid, but was profoundly relieved to send him home. Then it took me all weekend to recover.

Speaking of the weekend, my husband, we'll call him "Randy," enlightened me that he has recently fallen in love with me again*, and seems to be under some sort of delusion that he is, in fact, 21 years old again. I haven't slept in days, dear Lord help me the man is going to kill me with all this lovin'. I realize I could have worse problems, but it's only recently that I've been able to sleep at all without a two year old mauling me while I tried to get comfortable. I was kind of enjoying sleeping more than 4 hours a night. Still, it was an amazing thing to be able to go together to go vote on Tuesday.

I think from being run down due to the birthday party and Randy, I developed a cold that is morphing into bronchitis, hence the absence. I can currently sing bass. It's...interesting.

So how was your week?

---------------------------

New post up at DC Metro Moms about why I won't tell my kids who I voted for.

---------------------------

*When you've been married as long as we have, this is what happens. You don't wake up every day loving, or even liking, the person you're with. It takes a strong commitment to the marriage to stay sometimes. I like to say that I'm lazy and stubborn and that has come in handy to weather the hard times, but in truth it's mostly that my husband is my friend, my best friend, and that's what sustains you when he asks you what you do all day while he's at work because your job is so easy and you really, really just want to ram your fist into his left nostril. Then one day he takes the kids for you and lets you sleep in for four hours and you overhear him telling his friend that he understands why you can't get anything done because gah! and you feel secure that he GETS it and you love him all over again. Plus, it doesn't hurt that he's hot.

You Made Me a Mother

Dear Trout,

It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to have balloons, and a special dinner at the table as a family, and a cake with candles, not just a cupcake that you made yourself with a single candle in it. Your presents were supposed to be wrapped with fun paper, not handed to you as though we were bartering treats for good behavior. I wasn't supposed to be sick.

I felt guilty. I feel guilty. So that is why, even though I was cold and hot and achy and my nose ran a river to the tissues that were ever-present, we went to get your ears done. You were so brave, and I am so proud of you, even when the woman had to do the second ear twice since the earring didn't go through the first time. I would have had a panic attack or passed out (and nearly did because MY BABY!), but you sat there like it was nothing, worried more about bleeding than anything else, and no you weren't bleeding. I didn't see a single drop of blood from the whole thing.

You are starting into the strife years, where you learn a lot about life and how hard it can be, and where you start to establish your own identity, your own person. I'll be right there learning with you, because although I've been where you are before, I've never been here before, watching my daughter learn firsthand about pain and heartbreak. Not everyone is going to embrace your quirks quite like your father and I do. But there is joy, as well. You are learning what an amazing thing it is to find something that you do that you love, that comes to you easily and even though you have to practice you don't mind because it's that wonderful, it isn't work. Remember to be true to yourself and the things that you love, even in the face of others who try to tell you not to love it, that you aren't as wonderful if you love it. It doesn't matter what they think, it only matters what you think. Somewhere, there is someone who loves it, too, and will embrace you for it. You always have a place here, friends here, in your family, when it seems like you won't find those others.

When I was putting you to bed last night, I apologized that your birthday wasn't something bigger, something more special, and you said to me, "Any kind of birthday that you do is good for me, Mom. It doesn't matter," and your smile went all the way to your eyes as you hugged me. Yet another example of the kindness you show to everyone, the thing I love the most in you.

Happy ninth birthday, my big baby girl. Thanks for making me a mother. I am proud every day to be your mother.

This Job Just Gets Tougher the Older They Get

When Trout was getting ready to enter elementary school, we had to make the decision about when to start kindergarten. When I was in school you had to turn five by December 31 of the year to start, so when school started in September there were kids who'd been five for the better part of a year, there were kids who were four and wouldn't turn five for several more months, and then the rest in the middle. A few years before Trout started kindergarten, the school system decided to change the date for enrollment in kindergarten to September 1 instead of December 31. Instead of changing it all at once, though, they instituted a graduated scale where each year they backed up the date 30 days until September 1 was hit. Trout's fifth birthday would happen only three days before the cutoff of October 31 for her year.

Around the same time they decided to switch from half-day kindergarten to full-day sessions, again instituting a graduated scale of going full-day in those schools with the most need, as defined by the population of the school receiving free or reduced lunches due to low income. Trout's school was one of the first to switch. So for her, that meant that if she started kindergarten the year she was first eligible, she would have been one of the youngest kids, and she would have had to make the transition from going to preschool for 2.5 hours a day, three days a week, to going six hours a day, every day. She's not good with transitions and I didn't think she was ready for that.

Academically, I wasn't concerned about the work. Trout's always been bright and I was sure she could handle it. But socially, she's always been a little...quirky. She doesn't read social cues very well, she doesn't seem to understand nuances of interaction that most people seem to intuit naturally, like personal space and volume (i.e., I've had to teach her about respecting people's personal space and keeping the volume down, whereas I haven't had to even point it out to the other kids). I was concerned with putting her into a position where she couldn't hack it and setting her up for failure, when if we simply waited and let her mature it wouldn't be an issue.

People around me were incredulous that I wasn't all "Get this kid in school all day so I can have a break!" and things like that, but I really felt that I wouldn't be doing myself any favors to push her into a situation she wasn't ready for, not to mention being more concerned for her needs than my own convenience. I didn't want to set her up for failure, but I also didn't want her to get bored with the work she was doing and become a behavior problem.

I agonized over this for a long time. When I was in fourth grade, the school system wanted me to skip a grade, because I was gifted academically and the work would have been more appropriate for me. But my mother said no, and wouldn't let them make the switch because of social issues. I was always small for my age, and my mother was concerned that I would be picked on because of it, and would have trouble fitting in. The thing is, from the time I was old enough to know what happened, I resented the hell out of my mother for doing it. I didn't fit in with kids my own age. I didn't fit in with the older kids, really, either, but at least I could have a conversation with them without having to explain what half the words I was using meant. I was picked on, anyway, it wouldn't have mattered if I'd skipped a grade. And I became a discipline problem because I was bored to tears with the blasted worksheet-factory instruction, talking too much and causing other mostly minor but annoying problems in class. It wasn't until junior high when I found band geeks that I started to fit in somewhere, and then again in high school when I found honors and AP classes and a very astute teacher who forced me into them.

So we didn't know what to do with Trout. In the end, we came up with a solution we thought worked well: we sent her to private school for half-day kindergarten, and then transitioned her to full-day kindergarten in the public school the following year. We were certainly in good company, as at least 1/4 of Trout's kindergarten class had done the same thing. Trout thrived and we were all kinds of pleased with ourselves that we'd made the right decision.

Until this year. Trout's always been an advanced student, and last year she was put into a class that did third grade math (she's in third grade this year). The school system tests all second graders to identify "highly gifted" students, and Trout tested as meeting the criteria. Our school system has centers for the highly gifted (their words, not mine) for fourth and fifth grades. So Trout is eligible to attend the local center for her last two years of elementary school. Which is good and bad. It's an exciting program that would offer a lot of room for Trout to express her creativity and be herself. I have a friend whose son attended it, and the kids wrote, produced, and performed their own opera, each child playing a part that catered to his/her strengths, whether it was set design and construction, writing, or dramatic flair. It is demanding; he had about 2.5 - 3 hours of homework a night (!). There are other drawbacks. The center is held in a rough, rough school. Crime rates in that neighborhood are sky high, there are several housing projects near there with the associated problems, and the school itself would be a low-performing school if the center weren't housed there. Is it a good tradeoff to be in a demanding program that she'd enjoy if her personal safety is in question?

She's also started having trouble in school. She has trouble focusing sometimes, and she is getting a low grade in reading because of issues with getting distracted and not completing her work. She tests way above grade level, but her grade doesn't reflect that. She's also becoming a discipline problem. Last week her reading teacher called because she had taken a first aid kit out of another girl's desk, taken out all the bandaids, and made some sort of art installation with them. Not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but sure annoying as hell, and of course the girl who owned the first aid kit was rightfully upset. This week I got an email from her homeroom/math teacher that she's been writing on her desk, and was spoken to about it and kept in from recess to clean the desks, yet she continues to do it, and they're going to have to refer her to the office. Issues with the discipline philosophy aside, the first thing most people say when I tell them this is "She's bored."

So now I'm in my mother's shoes. Unlike my mother, though, we've brought Trout into the process. We've talked to her about the opportunity, about what sorts of things to expect from the program. We're going to have her talk directly to my friend's son, who is in HS now, about what he remembers and his opinion on how it affected his MS career. We told her she needs to consider the appeal of interesting, challenging work with the demanding workload and the fact that she'd need to cut down on her extracurriculars, if not eliminate them entirely. We also need to consider that she'd be moving away from the few friends she does have - the opportunity to make new ones who are quirky like her, vs. leaving those that love her already anyway. Privately my husband and I are discussing the school itself, her academic needs, and her social needs.

We also have identified a need for further testing. I've suspected Trout has ADD and/or some sort of sensory integration issue since she was about four. Now that Little Man is older Trout's differences are so much more pronounced. If we tell both of them to go upstairs, turn off the lights in their rooms, get a pair of socks and come down and put their shoes on, Little Man will do it and remember to shut the babygate each time he goes through it without a problem, but Trout might, maybe, if she's having a good day, get the light turned off. She gets distracted by a speck of dust or a toy or a thought, and she's gone. This is just one minor example but it's unbelievably frustrating. She's an incredibly picky eater, she's nuts about how her clothes have to be (she won't wear jeans because "they hurt my knees"), her bed has to be just so before she can lay down and go to sleep. She's unbelievably creative in the games she plays and the messes she makes. She's a daredevil with poor impulse control, much to her own detriment sometimes.

So we also need to weigh all of this with the potential need for services (though in the research I've begun into gifted kids, apparently these are not uncommon issues and I imagine the center will be able to meet them). We just want to do what's best for Trout, and it was so much easier to figure out what that meant when all she needed was my arms, my breast, and an occasional nap.

Sunny Says, and then Little Man Says

"Mommy, my heawt tells me what I want to bring to play with, and it didn't said I want to bring my ghostie."

"Sunny, it's 'say' not 'said.'"

"Wait, did you just correct your sister's grammar? That's my boy." Actually, that's what I thought. What I really said was "Little Man, it's not nice to correct your sister. It hurts her feelings." But I was actually quite proud.

Working on a BlogHerDC recap post, with pictures even.

The Little Girl Who Cried Sick

Once upon a time, there was a little girl with a bad case of Idontwannagotoschoolitis. Her mother was a Mean, Nasty Mother, and she made the little girl go to school anyway. The little girl thought she would try to make her mother think she was sick so she could stay home from school. Every day, she told her mother that her stomach hurt, or her head hurt, or her legs felt wobbly. Her mother would feel her head, look in her eyes, check her glands, and send her to school anyway. Her Mean Mother told her that if she wasn't running a fever, bleeding profusely, visibly throwing up on something, squirting poop out of her butt, or snotting thick green goo all over the place, she was going to school. It was tough.

One Monday, the little girl told her mother she felt sick, that her throat hurt. Her mother felt her head, felt her glands, checked for blood and goo, and not finding any, told the girl to drink some juice and go to school. The little girl did, but when she came home from school, she was quiet. Unusually quiet. And at bedtime she went right to bed instead of staying up for hours trying to read by nightlight.

The next morning, the little girl told her mother again that she had a sore throat. She had bags under her eyes and didn't look good. Her mother felt her glands and lo, they were quite swollen. So the mother took the little girl, and her baby brother and little sister, to the pediatrician. They had to wait almost an hour, causing the mother to exhaust her repertoire of kids' songs, and still the baby brother tore the exam room apart. The doctor felt the little girl's glands, looked down the little girl's throat, and said "Ew, no wonder your throat hurts. I bet it's strep."

The mother's blood ran cold. The Mean Nasty Mother happened to have tonsils the size of golf balls, and she lived in fear of the Strep. The doctor dutifully swabbed the little girl's throat and left the mother to come up with more songs to entertain her brood.

The doctor came back 5 minutes later with the bad news. It was Strep. She then checked the baby brother and the little sister, noting that they were clear, and then CHECKED THE MOTHER'S THROAT. Everyone was clean, at least for then. The doctor instructed the little girl to stay home from school the next day, causing the mother to freak right the heck out, because her sister is getting married on Saturday, and it's rather an inconvenient time both for Strep and for having kids home from school. Plus Thursday is a Jewish holiday, so there is no school on Thursday, the day that the little girl is officially authorized to return to school.

So the mother is now spending all her time swabbing down the entire house with bleach, trying to avoid the Plague strep. And the little girl now learned that a real good way to stay home from school is to stick every damn thing she finds in her mouth, even though she is certainly old enough to know better. Of course, since she gave it to all her classmates on Monday when she went to school contagious, she is sure to be able to track it down a few more times before Christmas.

------------------------------

My friend hokgardner had her baby number 4 on Sunday evening, five weeks too early. Elizabeth is in the NICU, but is a little fighter and is doing better every day. If you could find it in you, hop on over and give hok some loving while she goes through this topsy-turvy time (say that ten times really fast).

Surprises of Old Friends

Due to our vacation and a bunch of other conflicts, I ended up not being able to have Little Man's birthday party near his birthday. He turned 7 on September 12, and we had a little cake at home and took him to buy his present, a skateboard that he has yet to really use because he wants both BigDaddyFish and me to help him learn how. Never mind that neither of us can skateboard. I wanted to have a party for him on the 13th, but my sister's bridal shower was held that day, planned by the matron of honor without her checking with any of the rest of the wedding party to see if that day/time worked. So, we cobbled together a party for him this past Saturday. We rented a picnic pavillion at a nearby park/playground, invited a couple of friends from school, a neighbor friend, some adult friends of the family, and his cousins and wonder of wonder, everyone was able to come.

Friday night I stayed up stuffing the pinata and the treat bags, and the phone rang about 8:45. I almost didn't answer it, because I was busy and we don't usually get calls that "late" as it is in the middle of our typical bedtime routine. But I picked it up, and that's probably the best decision I made all week.

"Hello, FishyGirl? I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Friend's Mom, from Little Man's class last year? We moved at the end of the year?" Of course I remember, Little Man was a wreck for weeks after they moved. Friend, who I'll call John, was Little Man's best friend at school, and he was devastated when they moved. It intensified a period of acting out that had begun a month prior, when it was announced that John was moving. To Georgia (the state, not the country). We had talked about exchanging emails before they left, but it never happened and we really mourned the loss of that friendship.

"Well, we're in town this weekend, and we were wondering if we could get Little Man and John together to see each other while we're here." Would we ever. I invited them to the party, all five of them, and they came.

So from 1-4 pm on Saturday, we threw a bunch of sandwich fixings, chips, grapes, and carrots on a table, let the kids eat, let the kids run and play and climb on the playground equipment and play games and eat and run and play some more. We had cake and a pinata (though I forgot the candles, but it was kinda breezy so I'm unsure how they would have lasted, anyway), though several of the kids lamented that it was the pull-string kind and not the beat-the-hell-out-of-it kind (we use a wooden baseball bat for pinata bashing and it's a great way to use up some of that energy). No one wanted to go home. It was a glorious day. Finally, John's family had to leave to drive back to Georgia (but not before we got their email address), so that started the exodus, though our family friends and my sister in law and my nieces and my sister came back to our house. The last guest finally left at 10pm.

I could not, in all my imagination, have come up with a better scenario for a birthday party. Simple, cheap, fun, and most of all, full of the love of friends and family. The way it should be.