Sunday Morning At the Park

Things are being absorbed.

Yesterday Dutch asked Cook "Daddy, who invented computers?" and he said something like "Blah blah blah different people blah blah blah Alan Turing,"* and she said "Oh, I know about him. He was a codebreaker."**


*I would have said something like "Uh... I don't know. I think maybe some military guys? Whatever. Go away. I'm emailing." So maybe I shouldn't be in charge of homeschooling the kids.


** See above.

I feel like all MY blood was drained out.

Today I took Skipper to her well-child appointment. I knew it would suck. Skipper is not at all invested in pleasing people in authority, and is substantially more oppositional than her sister ever was. She hates medical appointments, and has never been compliant for anything at a check up. I was pretty much willing to do anything to make this appointment go better, because I'm weak, so I took her to the toy store and had her pick out a substantial toy ($20!) to be her Big Bribe. I promised her that if she was compliant for everything, she could have the Big Bribe. If she was mostly compliant, she could have a Small Bribe. I really didn't think she would be able to earn the Big Bribe, but damned if she didn't make it through the appointment. She was miserable, and she refused to look at or talk to the doctor, but she permitted all sorts of indignities* to be visited on her without fighting back or screaming. She fought the shots, yes, but I was still impressed. But then the doctor said she was concerned enough about the eczema to recommend testing for food allergies.**

(The Eczema: Skipper's eczema has become, over the last three months, more localized and more intense, and she scratches the bad spots in her sleep, to the point where she's maintaining them as open wounds. She won't allow us to put on lotion. It's not a good scene. I have been feeling really crappy about it for a while, because I feel so helpless to fix it and I'm worried it'll get seriously infected. Skipper has taken to hiding her wounds from us - she has sores in the crooks of both elbows, and when she takes off her shirt she says "Don't look at my arms!" and she won't wear shorts or short sleeves.***)


Because I'm compliant, I said "Okay." And then we went to the lab. It took me and three Kaiser staff maybe 45 minutes to extract maybe a teaspoonful of blood total from three different places on Skipper, because she's small and her veins are elusive, and she was fighting like a miniature Incredible Hulk.*** Skipper's narrative went more or less like this: "I don't want to be here! DADDDDDDDEEEEEEE!!! I want my daddy! I want to go home! Ouchy ouchy ouchy ouchy! Stop! NOOOOO! I want to be asleep! I want to go home! Ouchy! I want to go home! I want to go to bed! Stop it RIGHT NOW!" etc. She actually started to look, by the end, like she really was going to use her preferred avoidance mechanism of going to sleep, which would have been really weird but really great. Anyway. We all survived. Worse things will happen in her life and in mine, but at the moment it felt deeply awful. Skipper and I staggered out of the building, sweaty and exhausted. While we were waiting for the bus, Skipper said "That was yuck-sucky," and I said "yes." She fell asleep a few minutes later, and when she wakes up, I'm taking her straight to the toy store to collect her Big Bribe.


And in other news, Skipper has been medically confirmed as being short (15th percentile) and fat (46th percentile).


*Like standing on a scale! And having the doctor look in her ears! Horrors!
** And a course of antibiotics. Ugh. I like our doctor, who seems to have similar parenting and medical philosophies to mine, so I tend to go along with her recommendations, and when she's concerned about something, it makes me nervous. 
*** Rockstar Uncle, who had eczema, too, also refused to wear shorts when he was a kid. I have a memory (real? I don't know) of my mom writing a letter to Luke Skywalker to inquire whether he wore weather-appropriate clothing. Luke wrote back to say that he did indeed wear shorts in hot weather. I don't remember whether my brother was swayed by that.
**** I'm pretty sure they didn't get enough blood to do all the tests, but they were running out of places to puncture, and I think we were all emotionally really done with the process. 

Sunday

Today was the sunniest, warmest day of the year so far. It took us a little while to get moving.

Blueberries we planted last year, posing with strawberries.

The azalea I'm very carefully "unshearing" on a multi-year schedule.

One of this year's blueberries, with tulips and roses we haven't yet killed.

The grapevine is budding out! Maybe we'll get some ripe grapes this year.

The salmonberry plant we put in last year. I have since learned that salmonberries will take over your entire yard given half a chance, so I probably shouldn't have put it in. But it's gorgeous, and tenacity isn't necessarily a bad thing in a plant under my care. 

Dutch actually sold five of her unique pipe cleaner bracelets (she raised the price to 25 cents for "normal" bracelets and 26 for "crazy" bracelets). She paid Skipper to do all the hawking, so Skipper stood in the driveway screaming "BRACELETS FOR SALE!" at the bleary-eyed young folks staggering along our street toward the uber-hip coffee shop on the corner. We don't need to worry about a college fund for either of them!

Dutch squeezed our two lemons and the girls had lemonade in the driveway in the evening, after their showers.  They took it pretty seriously.

Saturday Morning

I took these pictures over about a minute this morning.    

Skipper might be possessed.

Cook is obsessed with our ant infestation.

Dutch is re-reading Harry Potter.

Cupcakes were eaten.

Because I don't use Facebook, I put these things here.

Skipper, sitting alone in the dining room, eating a bowl of hummus* with a spoon,** looked over at me and said "Mom, I'm yumming my hummus."

Also, in desultory conversation with the counter staffperson today at the neighborhood bakery, I mentioned that Skipper had just asked me what we were going to do today, and the counter staff person (who sees me and one or both kids every few weeks or so) did a double take. "Wait, SHE said that?" she said, pointing at Skipper, who was mashing her pastry sample into her maw, "I didn't know she could talk!" I shrugged, and Skipper gave her the patented Skipper Smirk, which probably only convinced her that I'm deluded and the kid really can't talk at all.

But, oh, she can.

*I've been making a lot of hummus lately, having finally found a recipe that gets me somewhere close to what I want hummus to be. Why didn't somebody tip me off to Melissa Clark years ago?
**Carrots are for losers.

Problem solved.

Cook's decided that all we need to do to make sure our kids get a decent education is to have them do something quirky and adorable, get noticed by a gregarious independent film-maker, and become a viral internet sensation.*

So now I feel better.

*Not to say that that kid doesn't totally deserve an awesome college fund, because he is exceptionally charming. And the movie makes me feel good about people, which I really appreciate, since I'm very much on the misanthropic side of things lately.

I can't bear it, either.

Dutch cried most of the way home from school today. Her music teacher (an energetic, generous, joyful woman who is, I suspect, the heart of the school) made the official announcement to the kids at an assembly today that she* will be leaving the school this summer. Dutch said her music teacher cried and her classroom teacher cried, and Dutch cried too. Dutch being Dutch,** she said "Mom, I can't bear it! I can't BEAR that she's leaving!" and I found myself fighting back tears, too. I'm sure Dutch would be just as sad if her beloved teacher was retiring, or voluntarily leaving for another job, but I wouldn't be, and I'm guessing nobody else in the school community over the age of 10 would be. But I think that a lot of other parents and school staff are shedding tears over this loss.

Obviously, we CAN bear it, and it will still be better than many schools in the world, and better than no school.*** But it feels really sad, and weighted with more meaning, like Everything Good is Going Away.


* and therefore not only music classes, but also the 5th-grade band, the 4th-grade drum group, the holiday community sing-a-long event, and probably more other stuff I don't know about...
**Sentimental and extremely fond of drama in any form.
*** I guess. Though I think we may be reaching the point where I really could provide a better education through homeschooling. Actually, I fear that keeping Dutch at home for a carefully-planned curriculum of playing complicated pretend games with Skipper, arguing with me, coloring, and lying around reading books about horses would provide a better education than what she's going to get at school next year.

Easter

This is a crappy way to grow citizens.

We got the news today that Dutch's school will be cutting its PE teacher and music teacher for next year. The remaining cuts are not yet confirmed, but are likely to be reductions to the school counselor, librarian, and reading specialist positions, for a total reduction of 1.3 FTE between them.

I don't know what that means to you, but I think it's staggering. These cuts bring the school down to almost bare bones, and there's every reason to expect that the following year the bones will be cleaned down to classroom teachers, admin staff, janitorial staff, and cafeteria staff. That's all. No art, no music, no physical activity, no extra support for kids who need it. I can't see how they'll cover teachers' planning time; I have to assume it'll involve students watching a lot of movies. I don't even see how they'll supervise recess, honestly. Maybe they'll cut that, too.

I also assume that every family at Dutch's school that has the money to send their kids to private school will at least seriously consider doing so. Those kids will leave, and what remains will be a community without deep pockets from which to fund-raise to cover any extras, and a population of kids who really need the resources they can no longer have.

What kind of society is this? I guess this is what anti-tax people want. I don't understand why, though. I just don't get it at all. When people say they want to shrink government, what kind of a future do they see? One in which stuff like sewer/road/water/parks/etc infrastructure is built and maintained only in rich communities? One in which only rich people's kids get anything good? Is that really what they want? Have they thought this through AT ALL?

 Lately Skipper has been putting herself to sleep pretty often. Today she kicked me out of the room after her pre-nap book, and I heard her yakking away to herself for a few minutes, pretty loudly. She sings to herself, loudly, extensively deploying what a friend of mine calls (in describing her own peculiar child's singing) a "strange toddler vibrato." Anyway, when she stops making noise, she almost immediately falls asleep. I went in to check on her about 90 seconds after the last note faded away, and this is what I found.

And these are two pictures from this evening. This is Dutch, reacting to my explanation that the amount of  money we are going to start regularly putting away for her college education is enough to pay for 1% of her expected costs to attend community college while living at home

This is Skipper, playing with the all-time favorite toy in this household.

The Force is strong in this one.

Tonight Dutch said to me, "Mom, can I make a spreadsheet?"

Oh, yes. Yes, you can, my child.

Nothing new.

We're still slogging along with the same old, same old. I just felt that I should post something to reassure anybody who might be lying awake at night worrying that something terrible has happened to us. Here for your enjoyment: miscellany.

Spring is reluctantly easing here, with occasional lovely days and a whole lot of rain. Tonight is balmy and beautiful; Cook went to a meeting of map dorks, after which he glided and swooped home on his bike in the dark, and came home exhilarated.*

My job is in transition, possibly to a different setup at a different organization, and possibly to no job at all. I'll find out in May. (This makes it a little challenging to plan summer childcare.)

I got new tires on my bike. Cook bought them for me, and he went into the shop and said "My wife needs tires. She doesn't like to fall down, she doesn't like to go fast, and she hates getting flats. What should I get her?" So now I have these fabulous fat tires on my bike.

Dutch has been watching some women's basketball, including a game featuring a player who is 6'8". I don't think Dutch will reach those lofty heights, but you never know. I've never met a taller 7-year-old.

Skipper** is eagerly anticipating her upcoming third birthday, which she has already decided will feature cheese pizza and chocolate cupcakes. Otherwise, she continues to be rashy and reckless, with a charming love of wordplay*** and an off-putting love of whining and shrieking.

And that's about it. Further bulletins as events warrant.


*In equal parts from the ride and the map dorkery.
** aka "The One Who Isn't Tall"
*** We credit/blame the Grandparents Cook for this.