Exploitation, or, Blog Posts Written By Children

I'm probably a very bad mother, very bad indeed. I mean, last year, when my iPhone was clearly on its last legs, I replaced it with a new one and gave the old one to the kid. It's not got phone service, and its battery life is farshtinkener, but it does connect to the internet via wi-fi (at home) and she can use it as an iPod and play all manner of zombie games and send emails to her friends and take picture of the cats and make lists.

After she fell asleep clutching it in her hot little hands last night, I read all of her emails, looked at all of her pictures, and reviewed her "notes". She is one funny thing.  

Email to me and Daddy:

Subject: Periced Ears

Dear Mom & Dad,

I think it is very,very unfair that I am not allowed to get Periced Ears. I will buy my own my earrings and NEVER EVER complain about dinner. And I bet they will hurt about as much as my clip-on earrings. So PLEASE,PLEASE say yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Email to a friend, about a sleepover they've got planned for next weekend:

Subject: Sleep Over

Here are 9 things we could do at the Sleep Over.
1.Go on Webkinz.com
2.Watch Comedy Movies
3.Torcher George
4.Play with Barbies
5.Play Dress-Up
6.Plan Money-Saving for Goth Girlz
7.Play with American Girl Dolls
8.Play Beauty Salon(With real Make-Up
9.Play Super Model  

Notes to herself (version as of last night):

MY WISHES FOR TONIGHT:
1.To have 12 inches of snow
2.To get my ears pierced
3.To have a really good singing voice  

 Notes to herself (updated sometime this morning):

MY WISHES FOR TONIGHT:
1.To have 12 inches of snow
It happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2.To get my ears pierced
Not yet!!!!BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3.To have a really good singing voice
It is half-way their!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of an endless series of pictures of cats up in the ceiling of the cellar:

(In case you are wondering, we did not get 12" of snow - it was more like 6". I'm happy that she figured out how to spell "pierced" - I'd corrected her after she sent that first email to us. Of course, she spelled "torture" and "there" wrong. One step forward, two steps back. However, torcher/torture is kind of a nice homophone.)

Always Work In Pencil

Wolves are not as bad as we think.

Snakes could be posinos.

Antelope run very, very, very, very, very fast.



I think I need to write in pencil insted of pen.



(Shamelessly scanned out of the 8yo's "reader's notebook")

The Santa Question

A couple of years ago, we got the girl a dollhouse for Christmas. She hardly ever plays with it, because it's too big for the Calico Critters and too small for the Barbies - creative make-believe be damned. Yet, when I asked her if we should get rid of it - it does take up a lot of space in her small bedroom - she told me that she didn't want to because she didn't want to hurt Santa's feelings.

I filed that away.

She's been writing letters to Santa Claus since September, one all Calico Critters and accoutrements, the next a list of American Girl Dolls and accessories. The current envelope addressed to Santa includes a lot of slips of paper cut from the myriad advertising supplements that arrived with the Sunday paper.

But I've been waiting.

The other day, she asked me, carefully, nonchalantly, do you think Santa is real?

I parried with a what do you think?

I asked her to reflect on what happens at the end of The Polar Express (which we'd read the night before).

At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as if does for all who truly believe.

I reminded her about the court scene in Miracle on 34th Street:

Your Honor, every one of these letters is addressed to Santa Claus. The Post Office has delivered them. Therefore the Post Office Department, a branch of the Federal Governent, recognizes this man Kris Kringle to be the one and only Santa Claus.

Today, she still believes in Santa Claus.

But I know that there's doubt in her young heart, and that rather makes me sad.

The Water Question

So we're sitting around at the breakfast table the other day, eating our oatmeal, and reading various pieces of the New York Times, as we do. I was reading the business section, because my husband had glommed onto the front section, and the girl child was knee deep in the insidious advertising supplements, blow-ins, collateral, what have you, which are particularly voluminous this time of year what with Christmas around the corner. Anyway, there was a front page article headlined "Hot on Trail of 'Just Right' Far-Off Planet", about the search for planets of other stars which may be in "the sweet spot known as the habitable zone...fit to be inhabited by the biochemical likes of us". My husband starting reading aloud from the sidebar infographic, which talked about the specifics of our Earth and Sun, and the expected shift in the Sun's habitable zone:



The girl vectored upstairs to get dressed; we stayed behind nursing our cups of coffee and reading some more bits of the paper, as we do.

About 15 minutes later, she came back downstairs, and paused in the doorway of the dining room looking stricken. I assumed that the cats had destroyed something special (as opposed to their ordinary mischief), or pooped somewhere untoward; it was that sort of look. What's wrong, honey? She dissolved into sobbing wailing hysterics: I'm worried about the planet and all the water going away.

While I thought she'd been totally absorbed in $900 television sets and iPod karaoke machines and Barbie dollhouses, she'd been hearing Daddy talking about the Earth's water boiling away several billion years from now.

We calmed her down, explained that several billion years was Several Billion Years and not, like, tomorrow.

In school, they've been studying water and the water cycle - it's part of why last month's field trip was to the local water treatment plant. And what she's learned is that the water cycle is endlessly recurring: Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, Accumulation, Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, Accumulation, repeat. For her to hear that the Earth's water might boil away was not only horrible news, but a questioning of the supreme authority of her teacher.

I hope her teacher wasn't too taken aback when she was ambushed at this morning's Morning Meeting. This weekend, I learned that the we aren't going to be able to live on Earth in several billion years. At least she asked for a copy of the article to bring to school today.

But I tell you, an eight year old having an existential crisis at 8 in the morning is not a pretty sight.

Adding And Subtracting

Oh wise educator types - I need some help.

The child. She can add and subtract. She can even add and subtract three digit numbers. But they've been doing timed drills on single digit adding and subtracting, and she manages to get through maybe 50 of 100 equations in 8 or 9 minutes. 2 + 1 = __. 9 - 4 = __. It's stuff you shouldn't have to think about, and I know she knows it - but she gets bogged down. She needs to learn to speed up a little.

Yesterday afternoon, I had her do some subtraction drills. I gave her 10 problems and a minute to do them in; she finished in 40 seconds. Another 10 problems; she finished in 20 seconds. 20 problems, she finished in under 2 minutes. But when I gave her a sheet of 100, she petered out and could only do about half in 9 minutes. Lacks stamina. Voices frustration: "I can't do math". Clearly there's a disconnect here; she can do it, but she short circuits.

I tried giving her a mantra:

I can do 10.
If I can do 10, I can do 20.
If I can do 20, I can do them all.

She didn't like that one bit.

I tried having her warm up by writing the numbers from 1 to 10 forwards and then backwards, as quickly as possible. That helped with the next round of 10 and 20 problems; she still chokes when faced with a longer set.

And it's not sinking in for use later: this afternoon in school, she got 43 out of 100, in 8.5 minutes.

Any ideas? Yes, I've talked to her teacher - who is also pondering the puzzle. But I thought you wise people might have ideas too.

Eight

Eight years ago, she was a helpless newborn, full of unrealized potential. Today, she's a third grader, full of vim and vinegar, piss and vigor.



Eight years ago, she was 22". Now she's 53", and has grown two and a half inches since last year.



Eight years ago, I didn't know that she would make me a better person, bit by bit, every single day.

Happy birthday, girlie. You'll always be my favorite baby.

Tales of the First Week of Third Grade

Fine, sure, okay, whatever.

School started last Tuesday. It was pouring rain, so there was no "first day of school" photo. Also, since I am a slacker mom, I don't think I've taken a "first day of school" picture since kindergarten, which was actually THE first day of school. For the record, she was wearing a purple/turquoise sundress dress from Target ($4, on sale, can't beat that with a stick) with a pale aqua sweater and similarly colored leggings. And silver sandals. The girl has some style.

On Thursday, at breakfast, that is, after two days of school, she anxiously confessed that she was worried about "international" tests in April. Oy. I'm a little irritated that the school, or the teacher, is already winding these kids up about mandated standardized tests. Not fair. Wrong.

We are, and this really has nothing to do with school, knee-deep in D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I am enjoying reading it to her as much as she is in having it read to her - "please, Mama, just another bit". I'm liking the Greek myth refresher I'm getting; she's captivated by the myriad interleaving stories. The other night, I went in to shoo her into bed - I had to clear something off of her bed so she could climb in, and so dropped a pile of something on the chair, on which all the Groovy Girls were sitting, in a row. "No, Mama, that's the council of goddesses." Okay, then.

The pernicious book log is back. I am working up to a conversation with the teacher, after "back to school" night next week. It's one thing to sign her homework book and certify that she read for at least 30 minutes. But the nitpicking log too? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

And so begins third grade. In ten years, we'll be packing her off to college.

Second Grade Poetry In My Heart

My heart is as happy as a cute cuddly kitten.
My heart is as angry as a stampede of buffalo.
My heart is as sad as when Slinky and YoYo died.
My heart is happy like a puppy.
My heart is angry like squawking geese.
My heart is sad like a rain storm.


(Yes, I'm still putting away the piles of school paperwork.)

Science: Energy

Monday was second grade poetry day. Today we have touchy-feely science:


I think energy is a system in your body. In your heart, you have a big ball of energy.

What is this? Since when is science about "I think..."? The question should be "What is energy"?

On the other hand, a big ball of energy in your heart? I kind of like that.

Poetry: Gray Swaying Trees

I can't help it. The accumulated second grade paperwork is coming home from school in a fast and furious flurry. One folder the other day contained a whole pile of poems, two of which I have to share:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SWAYING TREES



Swaying trees
In the breeze
Dance to the rhythm of the wind
Swaying trees
In the breeze
Look like Halloween ghosts
Coming closer and closer until
It catches me!!!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GRAY



Gray is an ugly color
My mom makes me wear it anyway
It's like the gray is pulling me like a vacuum cleaner
I try to get away but I just can't!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Chickens

The Table of My Memory

What makes a memory?

When I think about my childhood I remember the beach, the ice-skating, the neighborhood block parties. The day Wally – a grown-up! – dropped the bread peanut-butter side down, and then jumped on it. Sailing. My sixth grade teacher. The children’s librarian at the public library. The annual pig roast, and the day my father brought the suckling pig home on the Long Island Rail Road cradled in his arms and dressed in baby clothes. The long long grass in the backyard of the house we moved into when I was eleven – it hadn’t been mowed in years. Kittens. Our jungle gym. The Christmas party. My fourth grade phonics workbook. Stinky cheese and poison. Going to the ballet, the circus, the Museum of the City of New York.

Trips to the city usually included restaurants – special occasion meals, pre-theater meals, lunch in the city meals - storied places, now largely defunct. Like Sloppy Louie’s and Sweets – fish places down by the Seaport, near my father’s office, where he’d take us to lunch on those rare days when we got to go to work with him. The Auto Pub – a kitschy car-themed restaurant in the basement of the GM building, where the Apple Store now is. Pearl’s – a fancy midtown Chinese restaurant, known for the lemon chicken incongruously flavored with lemon extract. The Xochitl – a cheap Mexican restaurant in the theater district where I remember daring my siblings to dip a toothpick in the little open ramekins of hot sauce that were permanent fixtures on the tables. Luchow’s – the huge German restaurant on 14th Street – we went there for my birthday one year. And Keen’s – the chop house with the clay pipes on the ceiling.

Of them, Keen’s is the only one still around.

Last night, we took the girl to a one-man circus, which she thought was hilarious. We needed to eat beforehand, so in some fit of madness, I suggested Keen’s. It’s on 36th Street, where it’s been forever. We couldn’t get a reservation in the main part of the restaurant, so we took a chance and landed a table in the pub. Dark wood paneling, wood-burning fireplace, framed pictures and handbills tiling the walls – it’s like hasn’t changed in the 125 years since it opened. 125 years! It’s been around since before any of my grandparents were. I had a “mutton” chop with a side of sautéed escarole and it was so good that I picked that bone up and gnawed on it, even though it turns out to be lamb. The girl had a hamburger, most of which came home with us, though she ate the whole bun and drank all of her Shirley Temple and polished off a piece of chocolate cake. Before we left, we traipsed upstairs to the bathroom, through the brass embellished rooms with their oriental rugs, past the portrait of Abraham Lincoln and the entrance to the Lily Langtry room and the display case of novelty pipes. “Look, Mama, that one’s shaped like a lady’s leg!”. And then we left and walked uptown to Times Square, through the crowds, past the lights, under the enormous signs, to the one-man circus in the jewelbox theater.

And I wonder, what will she remember?

Contracts

This kid? This kid is going to be a lawyer. She wrote the contract on the left a few days ago, when Daddy put her to bed without dessert (only because it was late, not out of some sort of punishment). She called him on it the next morning, you can be sure. I believe the scribble at the bottom is a drawing of a bowl of sorbet - which, incidentally, she spelled right while getting breakfast wrong.

The right hand contract was drawn up last night. I finally got a new phone - which is a long complicated story about MobileMe and obsolescence and my first generation iPhone that refused to even think about letting me have a calendar anymore - and the girl decided that she wanted my old one so she could play Plants vs. Zombies "because I just got two more plants, Mommy".

I did take a moment to point out to her that neither was a valid contract because of the lack of consideration - never to early to learn the basics of contract law, eh?  On the other hand, all she's asking for now is a discussion. If we get to the next step, we could agree that she could have the old phone (which will work like an iPod Touch because it's been deactivated) in return for

• Cleaning up her room
• Setting the table
• Sleeping in her own bed
  and
• Eating vegetables

 Hmm...

Seven

Seven days old:

Seven years old:

Happy birthday to my favorite baby. Your hair is much better than it used to be!

(And yeah. She had cake for breakfast.)

More About That Swim Team Stuff

After her somewhat less than stellar performance in that first swim meet, which was the "B" team, the takes-all-comers team, not the team that counts towards points in the regional standings, we got an email that her times were good enough to move her onto the real team, the "A" team. Go figure. She's competing in the six and under group.

So off she went to practice, and I got the following text from my husband:

I just looked up from my reading and there she went, diving (plunging really) off the starting platform and swimming a very respectable 25m for a small fry.

The swimming team business is surreal and sublimely entertaining.

Trophies!

The six year old was in her first swim meet yesterday. She wasn't even supposed to be on the swim team, but the "pre-team" practices are in the morning when she's at camp, so she kind of ended up on the team by default. She was a little nervous beforehand, "I don't want to lose, Mama", but she persevered and swam three races - two freestyle and one backstroke. If you look very very closely, you may be able to see that she received two sixth place ribbons, and one for fifth place. She was beyond delighted with her "prizes", and I am tickled at her delight because coming in sixth means, um, she came in last in the two freestyle races.

My husband, who was roped into timing, said that the child who finished last in the backstroke - that is, after our little fifth place girl - went off course, veering across the pool and under two lane markers, to finish the race two lanes over from where she'd began. If I'd been the one timing, I think I'd have been laughing too hard to click the button at the right moment. I guess that's why I have a desk job.

Twenty twenty Olympics? Here we come!

How To Make A Cat Love You

It's easy, really.



Just pet it some more.

Once A Ponatime

I am organizing and collating and weeding the many many pieces of paper and "books" and artwork that are coming home as the kidlet cleans out her desk in preparation for the last week of school. Indulge me if I post a gem or two, like once a ponatime.

Wardrobe Wednesday With Tulips

Orange top, hot pink skirt, tie-dyed blue leggings, mismatched socks*, and hiking boots = a good costume for traipsing around on a Garden Conservancy Open Days tour.



*not visible in the photo but I know they're there.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Is this a freckle? A friend told me it was a pingle.