Tuesday follies

Another Tuesday with the good Mrs. R and the little inhabitants of Room 3. Today’s “Centers” had me manning the worksheet table where they labored over the letter H and a fun game of matching sounds that different pictures begin with.

The children were squirrely today. There’s probably some reason behind that– but the energy was completely different than it usually is in the normally ordered and quiet room. Some of the little pictures were tough to interpret– I couldn’t always come up with the right word. By the time I got to the third or fourth group of kids I figured out that it was yarn– not knitting and yolk– not egg that we were looking for to match with each other.

Meanwhile Malakai and Jacob were working on their two-man comedy routine that probably kills at the Kindergarten Lunch Table but not so much with the Helper Mommy. Kennedi and Marshaun had an escalating battle that started with Marshaun allegedly accidentally pinching Kennedi’s finger and then, instead of an apology Kennedi only got a “You’s a crybaby!” Nice. Trying to put out that fire– get Kennedi to stop crying and get Marshaun to learn to be a gentleman and be kind– was interrupted by Emma trying to figure out the matching sound for the word goat. (I thought gate was tricky, too. It looked like a fence. The hinges weren’t obvious.) Jack was in fine form today– wanting to hold my hand while he did his Hs with the other hand.

Praise one child and you set off a chain reaction with the other 5 sitting at the same table– “What about my coloring Mrs. Jack’s Mom?” “Look at my page!” “Do you like mine?” “I haven’t done it yet!” “Is mine pretty, too?” I try to say something encouraging to each of the kids. I try not to blanket them all with the same praise– because that would be empty. I try to find something that each is doing well or uniquely. After a few weeks of being with them it’s starting to become apparent that some of them aren’t as used to hearing kind words from adults. I’m glad that the joy in finding something to praise edges out the horror I feel that a five-year-old can be so unfamiliar with encouragement.

I’m glad I can help out. I’m even more glad that Jack is in the hands of the good Mrs. R and the other very qualified people.

The Annual Reading of The Long Winter

I just finished my annual reading of The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think it’s probably my favorite book. Not just in the Little House series– but of all the books I’ve ever read. It’s the one I’ve re-read the most often.

Not to spoil it if you haven’t read it– it’s not a very cheerful story. Laura and her Ma and Pa and sisters (blind, good Mary; thin, fragile Carrie; and small Grace) endure a long, hard winter of seven months of blizzards. Their little town of DeSmet in the Dakota territory is only a year old and the townspeople run out of supplies when the trains stop running due to the weather. Laura’s family goes from eating simple but hearty meals of beans and salt pork and bread to eating just potatoes and bread to eating a coarse bread made from Almanzo Wilder’s seed wheat ground in the coffee mill. They run out of things to burn and end up making sticks out of twisted hunks of hay to keep from freezing. It gets bad. They are starving and cold. They’re cut off from the rest of the town– each family unable to make much contact with the others so that they might as well not be in town at all– the blizzards are that bad.

It’s the darkest of the books (until Laura gets married and they have a series of misfortunes). Laura describes the monotony of surviving the winter as an unending cycle of grinding wheat, twisting hay, eating the coarse bread (without butter or preserves or gravy– just coarse, brown bread), sleeping– all in a semi-darkness brought on by the blizzards and lack of kerosene.

At the lowest point Pa can’t play the fiddle– his hands are too chapped from the cold. They exhaust the only other entertainment– reciting from memory the things they can remember like poems from their schoolbooks or verses from Sunday School. Laura feels “dull” and “tired.”

And then– in the last few chapters it all comes out well. Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland make a desperate run for some rumored wheat, find it, bring it back, and save the town from starving. The Christmas barrel that was sent out from the Minnesota church on the last train arrives with the turkey still frozen and they Ingalls have a Christmas feast in May to celebrate the return of Spring and their survival.

Mixed in are a few observations about human nature. The storekeeper that tries to make an unfair profit from the wheat brought in to save the town. The inexperienced Easterner that ruins a (literal) shot at some meat when the men see a rare herd of antelope. The patient Ma who snaps.

I’m not sure why I love it so. But I do. And I’ve reread it every year since I first read it when I was about 9. I usually read it in the summer. Her descriptions of the howling winds and thick snows of the blizzards chase off the humid Michigan summer heat. This year I read it late. I had it with me at church this week. We had a conference after church and I used the half-hour between to read a bit. I was interrupted by several people asking what I was reading. Our pastor’s eyes lit up when I showed him the cover. He knows it well, too.

Several years ago I was doing a research project for work. I spent a day at the Detroit Public Library’s special collections pulling images for an exhibit. The staff there was pretty patient– they filled my many requests with trips to the archives. I finished earlier than I’d expected to and I sought out the librarian that had been the nicest and asked politely if it was true that the original manuscript for The Long Winter was in their collection. She sighed and laid aside her work and led me to a locked case where she handed me a pair of white cotton gloves. We sat together at a long table where she carefully pulled a Red Chief notebook from an archival box and opened it to reveal Laura’s long-hand writing. Page after page in long hand was the story I’ve loved complete with corrections and crossed out phrases. I soaked it in. Took in the way she shaped her letters and the height of her letters. And then I thanked the librarian for letting me see it. She was startled. Didn’t I want to see the rest? She was willing to sit and turn it page by page while I read it. The entire thing. I was just as startled. “Oh no. I’ve read it before. I just wanted to see it in her handwriting.” I don’t remember a single image we pulled that day for the project at work– and I was there pulling images for at least 6 hours. But I remember the way my throat filled up with my 9 year old heart when I saw that first page of Laura’s familiar words.

If you haven’t read the Little House books you shouldn’t necessarily start with The Long Winter but keep reading till you get to it. Little House in the Big Woods will seem simple and childlike. Little House on the Prairie might be too earnest. Farmer Boy (my second favorite) will make you obsess over donuts and ham and baked beans. By the Banks of Plum Creek is where the payoff starts in your investment with the Ingalls Family. By the Shores of Silver Lake is the hardest one for me to slog through. Partially because in the first 50 pages or so Jack the dog will die and Mary will be blind. And then there are all the passages about building the railroad (Robby loved this book because of that). My beloved The Long Winter makes its appearance here. And then it’s a happy coasting through Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years before Laura’s writing tone changes with her memories of The First Four Years of her marriage to Almanzo Wilder.

Let me know what you think.

And they have all that flat pizza, too– it’s not fair!

Question of the day:

Do East Coasters appreciate their Mallomar availablity? Do they express genuine gratitude for the months that they can stroll into a market and pick up a box as easily as a carton of eggs??

Grrr.

Jack and Frost

Our little teaching moment came today in the morning frost.

The windshield was all frosted over when we got in the car to go to school. Jack was confused, “Is it snow, Mommy?” I explained that it was like snow– because it’s cold and icy– but that it’s frost. All the way to school we talked about dew and wet morning grass and how, when it gets cold enough the dew gets icy and that’s frost.

Jack nodded and I think he understood a little of it.

Then– on the way into the school building we walked through the thick leaves. (I’m bad at leaf shapes but I think it is oak leaves that we wade through every day. They are deep enough that they nearly come to Jack’s knees when he shuffles.) I realized that the frost had melted off the leaves where the sun shone– but in the shadows they still glistened and sparkled.

“Jack! Look!”

I showed him a shimmering, silvery leaf. It was beautiful. All the delicate veins were visible. Jack marveled at it then gingerly reached out to touch it with his finger. The spot he touched instantly melted, of course, and his mouth was a perfect little o! in understanding.

I’m glad there is still a lot for him to figure out. For us to figure out.

With the press of a button

I had to run some hard copy images to the printer’s today for work. There were two images for the newsletter that I didn’t have digital scans of– so I swung by the office, picked them up, and then headed over to the printshop. I was irritated because I got the message right after I’d picked Jack up from school so it wouldn’t be a quick in-and-out errand but now I’d have the car seat buckles to contend with and a somewhat cranky Jack who only wanted to go home and eat something. 

I used to take Jack to the printshop all the time when he was smaller… They have an Easy Button. It was a gimmick they got from their Office Dept (or was it Staples? or Office Max?) supplier. You press it and it says, “That was easy!” It used to keep Jack busy while I met with the designers to go over layout issues/learn InDesign. One of the designers is a mom with boys. She and I could carry on lengthy conversations while over and over in the background there was a constant refrain of “That was easy! That was easy! That was easy! That was easy!” We could tune it out. The other designer is a man. I don’t think he’s married or has children. But he seemed unbothered by it, too.

Anyhoo. Today the side entrance that goes directly to the designers was locked so we went through the front office. The receptionist there is super friendly and she let us go the backway through the actual print shop where all the machines are clattering and whirring. Jack loved it.

“It smells like an office!” he declared.
I love that smell– ink and paper and solvents. It reminds me of my Dad.

It was a great little field trip. The man-designer was there and showed Jack around the designer end of things. Jack admired all the big computer screens and the red-lit room and the really big copy machine… But all of it was eclipsed by the sight of his old toy– the Easy Button.

He pressed it for old times sake.

Making Jack happy was easy. I’m glad that it worked out that he went with me.

 

Politic(ked off)

We voted in our town yesterday. I filled in my little bubbles and got my little sticker.

Today the results are in… and for at least two of the politicians their victory came down, quite possibly, to money. Not politics. Not what they’ve done or what they’ll do… but how much money they spent convincing us to vote for themselves or not to vote for the other guy.

In one instance the reported campaign dollars spent had the ridiculous difference of one candidate spending $30, 000 and the other spending $300,000. My mother and I have mused today over what that money might have been spent on instead… what $300,000 could have done for a school or for the local parks department. How many police officers? Could it have repaired a street? Filled the food bank to overflowing? For all one candidate’s campaign promises about “creating jobs!” where was spending $300,000 justified? Six people could have a nice, healthy income for a year…

Our mayoral winner’s victory thoughts quoted in the newspaper included the sentiment for us to remember that they are ”only one person…” which seems a little disconcerting to me. What kind of attitude is that? Don’t expect to much from me even though I promised I’d change everything… Don’t hold me to it because I’m just one person and so unless you do all the work nothing will happen…Don’t blame me– it will be your fault.

At least our school district’s millage passed. It’s part two of a request. Several years ago “we the people” okayed a millage increase to do some necessary structure upgrades with the caveat that this was only half the work that needed to be done– that there would be another “ask.” I’m glad people supported it. It was a pretty narrow margin– 51% to 49% is a little too-close for comfort.

Personally I wish that there could be a silly poll question on the ballots. Something to leave us laughing like what color we want the park pool house painted or the best Coney Island in town… something frivolous and silly.

Maybe How would you spend $300,000 to improve our town?

 

A few cool Gs

I get to help out in Jack’s class once a week. The good Mrs. R sets up “centers” for the kids to rotate through in small groups. I help man one of the stations. It’s a nice opportunity for me to see what Jack’s school world is like. And I’m getting to know his little classmates and their personalities.

Jack loves having me come in. And the kids get a kick out of there being “two Mrs. Rs!”

Today Mrs. R had four stations– one with her working with letter sounds and sight words; one at the “listening” table– the kids put on giant headphones and follow along with a story; a worksheet featuring the letter Nn; and a fun activity with letters. I got the last two groups today. The worksheet kids were nearest to my activity group so I kept an eye on them, too.

The activity was a great idea– Mrs. R made solid colored charts that had 6 letters of the alphabet across the top and vertical columns under each letter. Then there were color-coded cards (the purple chart uses the purple cards) featuring  the 6 letters printed in various fonts. She’s trying to get the kids to understand that the same letter sometimes has a different look depending on the handwriting style, or book, or magazine, etc.

The kids enjoyed it (except for two… one who was just being irritatingly negative today and the other who doesn’t like to do anything) and they liked it when a letter was tricky. Me, too. We had a lot of fun at our table. A double-story letter g (the one that looks like a twisted figure 8…) threw them for a loop. That g became “Tigger Gs” (because the “t-i-double g- er!” is something they know. I told them the bubbley bottom of the g was what made Tigger bounce. They liked that.

The lower case letter a that has a little roof became “a lower case a wearing a hoodie,” a loopy y was a “y with a ponytail” (pigtailed Autumn like that), and bs and ds can “belly bump” if they are facing their correct ways. We had a blast at our center.

But the best part of the day was helping sweet Malakai figure out how to write his Nns. Poor Malakai was near tears with his frustration at trying to write out his capital Ns. I promised him it wouldn’t always be this hard and worked with him to get a really good N and then a string of ns. He was so happy with himself– it was great to see him go from tears to laughing.

I’m already looking forward to next week.

A tale of two moms

One of the other school moms rubs me the wrong way. She’s pregnant and she complains about that. I try not to be oversensitive about not being pregnant– I really do– but it’s hard when you run into someone with a big, round belly full of baby who grouses about it.

Her family is blended. (That phrase makes me think of a giant blender and a bunch of humans on puree.) She has a son that she talks glowingly of– he is perfect, she is quick to tell us. The other son is her new husband’s offspring. When she speaks of him her face turns ugly. She takes on the expression of someone who finds a dead rat on her pillow. (Or so I imagine.) She thinks he’s too fat (he’s not. Not at all). She complains about him constantly.

The first time I met her she shared entirely too much with us about the cost of her home, the perfection of one son/the degradation of the other, and her pregnancy annoyances. At the time I was working rather quietly at the other end of the work table. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt– she didn’t know that we’d had a miscarriage so she didn’t know how utterly insensitive she was being by moaning about being pregnant. But when she started talking about the two boys in her family I was completely appalled. I clamped my mouth shut and concentrated on the work in front of me and wondered how she could say such things to three strangers.

She likes being pregnant. She likes everyone asking her about her. She’s enjoying the drama of it all… She doesn’t ask for our help but announces that we can help her. “I can’t do that– I’m pregnant (pause to run her hands over her belly). You can do that part.”

To balance this out I’ll mention another School Mom that I’ve met that I like a lot. She’s friendly and warm and cheerful. She’s pregnant, too– and, as it happens, we would have shared a due date (give or take a day) if I were still pregnant. I told her about the miscarriage a few weeks ago because she asked if we’d planned to have anymore children– so, after an awkward moment I explained what had happened. She was kind and encouraging. And, in a weirdly compassionate way, she’s shared her pregnancy with me– crossing a crowded room the other day to show me pictures of her recent ultra-sound (it’s a girl!).

The difference between the two women (assuming that I could ignore the atrocious way that the obnoxious mother talks about her sons, the closing cost of her house, and her obsession with weight) is that one took the time to ask about the people around her and the other only talks about herself.

And it might have to do with contentment. The mom I like seems very happy with her albeit harried life. She speaks kindly about her husband and children and pets– they aren’t perfect and sometimes she’s at her wit’s end– but she loves being their wife/mother. The other mom spends a lot of time telling us how great her life is but there’s no joy in her voice. Just tension. A wild frenzied method of continuously talking so we don’t ask questions in the gaps of her monologue.

I pity the poor son that is already shunted aside when this next baby is born.

 

Blue skies and pap smears

Another busy day. Taking a little break in the middle of it.

My morning started (after getting Jack to school) in my OB/GYN’s office for my annual exam. Super fun. A couple of thoughts:

1. Annual gynecological exams could be made more fun if there were confetti guns greeting you afterwards. Maybe a nice fanfare playing as you exit the exam room. A gauntlet of nurses saying, “Great job! Woo! Hoo!” Balloons. Not clowns– clowns are creepy– but maybe a cheerful mascot doing a silly dance.

2. My doctor (the good Dr. Boo Boo) has a light panel on the ceiling that looks like clouds and sky. It makes me laugh every time. I mentioned it and he said that his wife had them put in. He’d wanted to put up pictues of rockstars and celebrities on the ceiling for us look at. I said that it could be awkward. He agreed. And said that probably there weren’t many women who would find looking at Iggy Pop necessarily calming.

3. Dr. Boo Boo always says to “just relax now” which also always makes me laugh. Really? Okay. Sure. Right after you get the confetti guns. (My sister suggests a T-shirt cannon, too. It’d be nice to think you could win something.)

4. My “normal” cervix. “Normal?,” I squeaked. Dr. Boo Boo said, “Normal is good.” I sniffed. “I’d rather that my cervix was exceptional.” That made him laugh.

What else could make today super, super fun? The fact that my Facebook account has now been “unavailable” for 24 hours. WHAT?! I have Farmville crops withering. I’m missing out on everyone’s photos of their kids costumes. Arrrgh.

The only thing that could make today worse would be a root canal.

I’ll stick with lunch with Jack at school (it’s grilled cheese day!) and his party.

Little Miss Muffet and her cracker spiders

I took treats to Jack’s class today. I missed the sign-up for the Halloween Party treats when we were sick last week so I asked the good Mrs. R if we could bring something today. His class has a snack every afternoon so she’s always grateful when we offer to pitch in.

I made the same spider crackers as last year with a few changes– Ritz cracker bodies sandwiched together with peanut butter (last year I had to use squirty cheese because his preschool had a peanut ban…), 8 matchstick pretzel legs, and raisinet eyes affxed with a little frosting. (The raisinet eyes might be about the most daring thing I’ve done in quite a while. Jack’s school– the whole district actually– has a “healthy foods” initiative that bans any sweets, cookies, cakes, and the like from the school. The good Mrs. R and I agreed that chocolate is a major food group. And, for crying out loud– it was chocolate covering a raisin. Still. I feel rebellious. Like I drove a Harley to school.) I brought apple sauce, too– it was on sale at the market.

The snack was a hit with Jack’s little schoolmates. Except for the kid who told me three times, “I can’t eat applesauce!” (Okay. junior. Got it. Had it the first time.) So Jack was pleased with me for the most part.

My visit coincided with the end of the Math Lesson today. I helped Jack’s table and the table near by with their 5s, 6s, and 7s. Fives are tough when you’re in kindergarten. There’s a lot to remember. Jack’s class has a little mantra of “Down! Big belly! Put a hat on top!” It’s stuck in my head now. And 6s, it turns out, are tricky if you don’t want them to look like a row of small bs. Sevens are a huge relief after all the concentration to get the 5s and 6s to behave– 7s are just “a straight line then s-l-i-d-e.”

It’s funny to see them all so furrowed up over the formation of their numbers. And how most of them were relieved when they got to the coloring part of the paper. I like how encouraging the good Mrs. R and her aide are in getting them to the ends of their papers.

We got to see the little preschool kids in their costumes, too. They don’t have school on Fridays so they had their Halloween party today and then paraded through the rest of the school in and out of the “big kids” classrooms and down the halls where there parents were snapping pictures and oohing/aahing. I felt old to have a Kindergarten kid with that group of parents.

There were some great costumes– a tiny Optimus Prime (he would be, to the real Optimus Prime about the size of a Happy Meal toy), and a fierce and scowling and incredibly politically incorrect Indian Chief (he carried a little tomahawk and grunted at us. I loved him). There were several little witches in multihued witch hats and witch dresses (a pink witch!?) and the cutest little Tinkerbell who dramatically flourished her little sparkly wand at each of us.

I’m looking forward to the party in Jack’s class tomorrow.