PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
May 2008 Archive
May 30th, 2008
Out with the old...
L.'s last day of second grade is today. They've had "last days" all week, really. Monday was a holiday, and then Tuesday was "game day" and the kids got to sit around most of the day and play their favorite games with each other. I was especially jealous of "bring a book and read" day on Wednesday. I had just gone to the library and checked out some good books for myself to read for a change, and the thought of being given a whole entire school day to lounge around in my pajamas with a pillow and some good books made me drool. L. [more]
May 29th, 2008
Doing it all
I rode the elevator to class with one of my students yesterday. She missed class on Tuesday--a definite no-no for summer school--and I could tell she was nervous about talking to me. She took a deep breath and plunged right in: Her three-year-old son had food poisoning on Monday night.
"I couldn't leave him with the sitter," she told me. Then she looked away for a second. "I'm...I'm still very attached to him and didn't want to leave him alone."
She seemed apologetic, almost--ashamed to admit this. [more]
May 28th, 2008
The happy spider
* Let me preface this by saying that we do not live in squalor, but in the South, and it's summer and buggy. Enough said.
I snuck upstairs this morning to get my shoes right before heading off to work. T. was, supposedly, still sleeping. When I crept into our bedroom, though, I found her wide awake, lying on her back in our bed and staring at the wall in rapt concentration--like someone studying something very detailed and absorbing.
"Mama," T. whispered to me in hushed tones. "There was a happy spider on the ceiling, and now he's on the wall!"
May 27th, 2008
Double exposure
A couple of months ago I took T. to a birthday party at the house of one of her little school friends. As soon as we walked in the front door, I was struck by the fact that there were framed wedding pictures hanging in several places in the living/dining room, and a massive white embroidered wedding album lying out on the sideboard in the hallway. I asked the hostess how long she and her husband had been married (they have two children) and she told me nine years.
May 26th, 2008
Getting there is half the fun
On Friday we loaded up the kids, the dog, our suitcases, and every stuffed animal L. and T. own, and we pointed the van north and headed out of town for the weekend. We stayed the weekend with my parents, so we could go to a wedding about an hour away from where they live. The trip to their house is always frustrating; it’s one of those car trips that should take a lot less time than it actually does take.
May 22nd, 2008
Jekyll and Hyde
I don't know how it is with your children, but I've noticed that my kids often behave in unpredictable Jekyll and Hyde ways when in public. One day they will be as good as can be, causing heads to turn, and strangers to comment in pleased tones about how well-behaved and sweet they are; then the next day heads turn in altogether different ways, and everyone gives you a wide berth, hoping against hope that whatever is wrong with YOUR kids that day won't rub off on theirs. [more]
May 21st, 2008
A post in which I grouch a little about fruit
It's that time of year again--the time for endings and beginnings; for saying good-bye to classrooms and teachers and the old ways of an old school-year. I look at the second-graders at L.'s school and they seem suddenly all arms and legs and missing front teeth. They carry around Harry Potter books and beloved webkinz, and talk about big kid stuff like THIRD grade. At T.'s school the kids are coming into their own, suddenly, dividing themselves up by boys and girls; T. comes home with gossipy-like tales of who did what to her, and why. [more]
May 20th, 2008
Here we go again
I can't shake the feeling that summer will be over in the blink of an eye. Of course, I know that we still have many months of hot, humid, buggy, pool-filled and popsicle-sticky days ahead of us. But I started teaching summer school today, and it was with a heavy and somewhat sad feeling, mixed incongruously with the tinge of excitement I get whenever a new semester begins, that I got up this morning, made coffee, swept up T. with her tousled, sweet-smelling, bed-head, and planted a kiss on her soft cheek. When I left, T.
May 19th, 2008
Friends to feed the soul
This past weekend was a little out of the ordinary for us in two ways: 1) we did a lot socially and 2) we slept in. The sleeping-in part is a little unusual, although one of the perks of having older children is that they do sleep more as they get older – even difficult, hands-on sleepers like ours. So don't despair, if you do have early-risers like we once had; even a year ago, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd wake, peer at the clock, and find it reading "8:15" and, better yet, discover that although L.
May 16th, 2008
What matters
I have a favorite children's book I used to read when I was a child, and I read through it recently with T. It's set a long time ago, in the 1900s, and in the book the mother, a writer, is always telling her kids to "be good dearies and play" while she sits and does an hour or two of writing. Then, when she's done, she sends her stories off to her editor and devotes herself to playing with her children – who, all the while, have been keeping nicely to themselves while their courageous and talented mother earns her livelihood writing.
Are you laughing, yet? [more]
