What the Stomach Bug Means to a Fifth Grader

My fifth grader has been home for two days with the stomach bug despite getting the flu shot. Here are some quotes from the poor guy:

“Who gave this to me?” as if last week’s patient in some classmate’s house were truly evil and out to get him. 

“Why were there red things in there? Is my stomach bleeding?!” No, just carrot bits from last night’s dinner. It’s always the food you liked least from the night before that shows up in the puke. Why is that?

“There goes my attendance streak!” with gleeful acceptance. Then only an hour later in tears, “I’m going to fail my math test! It’s not fair!”

“I actually want to go to school today, but I don’t think I can stand up.” Mom was that boring the first day.

And from his celebratory younger brother upon learning the day had produced only 7 vomits, “I’ve still got the record! Oh yeah, I’m awesome!”

Let’s hope the record-holder isn’t similarly waylaid tomorrow.

A Convertible on the Christmas List?

“Skylanders Swap Force. Skylanders Wham Shell. Bey Blade Death Quetzalcoatl. Wes Welker Jersey. Extra orange and blue bands for my Rainbow Loom. Broncos slippers. iTunes Gift card (as much as possible, please!). Convertible. Skylanders Doom Stone.”

Convertible? A convertible what?

Every year, my nine year old creates several drafts of his Christmas wish list before editing it down into his final letter to Santa. The process takes him two or three weeks.

This year, a convertible appeared on the list. Yes, a convertible that you actually drive. His explanation?

“When Dad keeps asking for something over and over again, you always eventually let him get it.”

I don’t let him. He just does, but I see where this is going.

“So if I start now and ask every single year for a convertible, you’ll eventually let me have one too. Even if I’m 28 by then. It’s worth the effort.”

Says the accused Dad, “I like the persistence, dude.”

The Thrill of Kindergarten Basketball

Kindergarten basketball games are not high-scoring. Six baskets per team in an hour of play is typical. No dunks. No passes behind the back. No rockets from half-court.

But kindergarten basketball games give me great joy. The enthusiasm and effort cannot be beat, the tackling each other like puppy dogs on the bench, the unabashed grins at cheering parents when they score, the complete lack of awareness about who’s really winning.

Dribbling not required.

“We won,” my son says after every game even when they were demolished on the boards… or the opposing team had one kid who actually gets it.

After the last game, when my son let his opponent beat him down the court twice for a basket, I told him he should think of it as a race. If he beats the other player, he wins.

His response?

“My brain kept telling my legs to go faster. Go faster, they said over and over. But my legs wouldn’t listen. I tried, Mom. But they just weren’t listening.”

When Boys Dress Themselves

It was 29 degrees when we left for school today. My fifth grader came down in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. For two days, he has deliberately walked past the clothes I’ve left for him on the railing outside the boys’ bedroom. Fine. He’s past the age when I should have stopped that anyway.

But I made a rule just yesterday that after Halloween (especially if it is 29 degrees out), my kids have to wear at least one long something – either long pants or a long-sleeve shirt. So I sent him back upstairs to change.

Mean mom.

He came down still wearing the shorts, black with blue and florescent yellow stripes. On top, he was wearing dark green plaid. Totally over-patterned.

But I didn’t say a word.

A few days before, my six year old dressed himself to go out to dinner. He climbed into the car wearing a navy shirt with red stripes, poorly matched with orange and brown plaid shorts.

They clearly inherited my lack of fashion savvy. But certain colors do not go together! Don’t mix plaids! Plaids and stripes? Often an even worse combo! How do they not see that?!

But I didn’t say a word.

One “mean mom”-ordered trip back upstairs to change a day is plenty. If they can’t get it right it after that, they will have to try again tomorrow.

As long as they don’t get frostbite on the playground.

How I Know What’s Up in School

Typically, I hear from the girls’ moms in my fifth graders class when they have a big assignment due, as my son and his friends often “forget” to write them down in their assignment books or bring the required books home.

“Have you guys started studying for the test?” “This project is taking my daughter hours.” “What is your son for doing for that project?”

…and worse… “How did your son do on the pre-test? It sounds like everyone failed it!”

I look blankly at them. What pretest?!

But when he is truly engaged or inspired or upset, I hear it all. I am re-learning the bones of the body. I have heard all about the hero of Wonder and his struggles. I now know every plot point in Rick Riordan’s latest Percy Jackson book.

And last Friday afternoon, my fifth grader slid into the car, looking disturbed. I immediately learned that his concern was for humanity. A tough burden for a little guy.

The fifth graders had just watched a film about the Holocaust.

Before yesterday, he knew about Hitler. He knew that Hitler and his minions had murdered millions. He knew that the U.S. and the British and Russia were on the same team. He is always pleased to recount the happy ending, that we won, that Hitler is gone.

But he did not have a picture in his head of what it means to murder millions.

“Warning, mom,” he said, “I wouldn’t plan on sleeping tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not sleeping. I don’t want to have any nightmares. We saw the scariest movie today that I have ever seen.”

With Halloween approaching, I assumed he was talking about a ghost story.

He was. A real one.

“Why did they have to show so many dead bodies?”

“Because one of the worse things about growing up is that you learn about how really horrible people can be. And you see things that you wish you hadn’t.”

“I’m never sleeping again.” Code for “you are never sleeping again.”

“But there have always been more good people than bad people, and that’s why it’s going to be okay.”

“I know, mom,” he said, forcing himself to appease me. “But we’re staying up tonight.”

Best Sports Moment in History

Today, in their last game, my son’s soccer team finished the season undefeated.

It was his 6th birthday.

And when he scored his goal, he sprinted straight off the field, shouting joy, and tackled me in front of his team, his coach, his opponents, the entire kindergarten-YMCA-soccer-world.

They say winning the Super Bowl is great. I cry when my basketball favorites win the NCAA tournament. A World Series win for the home team is amazing, especially when you are in the ballpark. A victory at the Kentucky Derby, a gold medal at the Olympics… until today, they were the best moments in sports.

But nothing in all of sports will ever again beat my son tackling me after his goal the day he turned six.

On the Bulletin Board

Every year, there are teachers all over the country who put a photo of each child in the class on their bulletin board. Next to that photo is sometimes a sheet where the children have answered questions about themselves.

What do you want to be when you grow up? What is your favorite food? What do you like to do after school? List your pets. What’s your favorite sport? Where is the place you want to visit most?

My least favorite of these questions relates to friends. Who is your favorite person? Who do people see you with most? Who is your closest friend?

Since these are copied forms, I assume they are commonly used in elementary schools as a fun way to get kids to share their story. I know from experience in schools that they get used year after year.

As a parent, I love to see what my boys write down. There are always a few funny surprises. “You like to eat what?”

But as a parent of shy children, who absolutely adore their handful of friends, I hold my breath every time these “autobiographies” go up on the wall.

There are always one or two kids who aren’t named by anyone. There are always kids who list a best friend who failed to acknowledge them.

Now, it wouldn’t hurt so much if it were a private assignment through which the teacher got to learn about her new class. It would still provide parents the opportunity to learn those surprises that make us laugh. “You want to be a what?” “You want to go where?”

But posted on the bulletin board for each child to see every time they walk by? Knowing that feelings will be hurt? “Why didn’t he put me as his favorite person?”

I know lots of people who would say, “that’s life” or “you can’t protect them from everything” or “you are so over-protective!”

But it breaks my heart for all the kids who learn from a school assignment posted on the bulletin board for all to see that they are no one’s best friend.

And they never say a word.

As a parent, I wish life’s lessons were not so hard, and that school were a safer place for sensitive souls.

Fantasy Football: Peyton versus Copernicus

A second year of Family Fantasy Football has begun. Mom’s team, named Last Place Lulu for her last place finish last year was on a comeback after Week One.

First, Yahoo ranked Last Place Lulu the best draft picker of the five-person and one-dog league. Go Mom!

Then she came away with a huge first week win over the nine year old, even though she did not play Peyton, who rocked the house.

But in Week Two, she faced Bacon Puppies, and for the second year in a row, lost to the dog. Again, she benched Peyton because she assumed that when playing his little brother, who he loves, the game would come out fairly even. Apparently, not that even.

Basically, Last Place Lulu has a quarterback problem. She drafted two excellent quarterbacks: Peyton and Colin Kaepernick. In the first two weeks, both played well, but Peyton has been on a roll. Last Place Lulu, almost ten years his senior, keeps thinking the “old guy” will get tired or hurt. Knock on wood, he looks stronger than ever.

And Kaepernick threw for 412 yards and three touchdowns in the season opener. On any other fantasy football team, he would be a smart choice.

So here we go into Week Three. Last Place Lulu is set to play Orion, managed by a smack-talking ten year old who is studying the constellations for fun.

Sitting at the computer, Last Place Lulu looks at her quarterbacks. On the advice of her nine year old, she actually reads the player updates. She debates. She avoids a Week Three decision by looking at her growing Running Back problem (none of them are scoring).

“Go Peyton, mom,” says the nine year old, “You can’t even say the other guy’s name. It is not Copernicus.”

Still, what if Week Three is Kaepernick’s time in Copernicus’ sun?

Last Place Lulu is playing Orion. Will it be the Week of the Astronomer? Or the brilliant Peyton once again?

Kindergarten: Why Not to Volunteer In September

I love driving on field trips and volunteering in my kids’ classrooms. It is the best way to get to know the teacher and, more important, learn about my sons and their friends – who is nice, who makes my boys laugh, who inspires them to achieve more academically.

So last week, I jumped at the chance to help out in kindergarten. But I quickly realized the problem with volunteering too early in the kindergarten year – other kids are ahead of mine.

Fortunately, this is my third. If it were my first child, my volunteer day might have sent me into a tailspin.

The first kids the parent volunteers got to know were mostly boys, and we spent our time trying to keep them quiet. My son was part of that group. They laughed out loud. They talked in excited voices. They scribbled pictures of brightly colored tornadoes and things exploding. Then, they made the noises that come with tornadoes and things exploding.

“Shhhhh!!!!”

But as the morning wore on, we met a little boy who can read and write. He also created his own story to a book with no words, and then sang it to us. The parent volunteers all looked tentatively at each other. “Can your kid do that?”

Another little boy drew a beautiful picture of a house in the grass. A girl with long legs drew a perfect brown horse. “Can your kid do that?”

We shook our heads. Oh dear.

And the girls were so well-behaved, as they drew realistic pictures of flowers and hearts and rainbows. Said the mothers of boys, “They’re so quiet!”

“My son is definitely not that!”

“Well,” the parent volunteers laughed as we left that day, “we have a lot of work to do this weekend.”

It is hard to remember during those first few weeks of kindergarten that they will all learn to read. They are all coming from different preschools, where the focus on skills development varied. There is a big difference between just-turned-six and recently-turned-five. And the goal of the kindergarten teacher is to get them all where they need to be, while encouraging them to love the process of getting there.

Our kindergartners are going to grow a lot this year.

To give them time, maybe wait a few weeks before volunteering in the classroom. This from a mom who gets in there every chance she gets.

Mom is Reading My Books!

During the last few weeks, I took a break from the stack of books on my bedside table so that I could read the required summer reading for my sons. I wanted to read the books before they did, so that we could talk about them. My fourth grader was too fast. He knocked them off in early June. So I hit the fifth grade list. Apparently, my fifth grader is at least approaching the age of reading maturity where we might enjoy the same books. For a book lover like me, that could be really fun.

http://voices.yahoo.com/childrens-book-review-gary-paulsens-hatchet-12256148.html?cat=25

I started with Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, which I have reviewed for Yahoo. The link is here if you want to know what a mom gets out of a book written for her kids.

The ironic piece of the review is that I talk about teaching my kids self-reliance, while I am reading their books to make sure they are understanding what they read before school starts. Funny. I did not pick that up until I re-read the review.