Two little second graders were in my charge today – as their class and two others descended upon a living maritime museum. They were cute, the scenery was beautiful, I am exhausted.
The official documents for the Acushnett, the ship Herman Melville sailed on and whose voyage inspired Moby Dick, were housed in this actual box!
Turns out the junk is not in the trunk. Who knew?
I always feel a little guilty when I think how long it’s been since I’ve done a craft project with my kids. When they were small – at least numbers one and two – we’d whip recycled materials into an artistic representation of almost every season. We’d cover the dining room table with the vinyl tablecloth saved especially for catching craft gak. We’d paint and glitter to their hearts’ content and I’d pat myself on the back that I’d saved their malleable minds from another hour of dreaded TV.
Add more kids and less patience and craft times were fewer and farther between.
But Good Friday – the kids were out of school and I’d found a beautiful Easter/spring craft project online. It’d been awhile. Maybe I was feeling nostalgic. Maybe the years had dulled my memory of how harrowing the combination of wet, gelatinous substances and children can be.
So we set out to make string Easter eggs.
First I dumped a mess of embroidery floss in the middle of that glitter-spattered vinyl tablecloth, the kids thrusting their hands in and claiming their colors. Oh, but wait, we have to ‘cook’ the paste, a combination of flour and water on the stove top. Stirring that – and fighting their sisters for their turn – kept their attention for a little bit. While it cooled, we blew up the balloons. When I wasn’t about to pass out from lack of oxygen, I was dodging spit missiles as the underinflated balloons shot from their mouths. About this time, their father called, stating “Better you than me.” Thank you, dear. But even as I said this, the peals of their laughter drowned out my words. My girls and I were united in this experience, this common goal. We were gathered around that palm-tree tablecloth laughing and smiling and having fun. The separation of all time and space disappeared. It was the same feeling I’d had whenever we’d gathered at our craft table – no matter the year or house.
And then we actually started the project.
Ever tried to separate six strands of embroidery floss into two sets of three without tangling them? Ever asked an impatient seven year-old to do it? She was out by the time the first strings knotted. My other two started dipping the first string they’d unraveled in the goo right away, only to realize they had to unravel about eighty more to finish one egg since they’d blown the balloons up to dinosaur egg proportions. And the goo, oh the goo. Because I’d told her not to use too much, my oldest ran her fingers along the string to siphon some off, but started at the bowl and moved upward, splattering the slime in a wide arc over her shoulder. Even a tablecloth especially set aside for this purpose couldn’t help that. I was a thread-separating machine, draping strands over the backs of their chairs so they could wrap them around the balloons. My five year-old ran past the chairs and swept them all to the floor in a heap. It quickly became a learning experience for them in colorful language.
My oldest hung in the longest with me, the other two abandoning the project for bopping extra balloons around. But even she bailed out eventually. My husband arrived home to me, alone at the dining room table, wrist-deep in wheat paste.
I was miffed that they’d left me to do our project alone. But I was also relieved. Definitely more relaxed. I had fun choosing the colors and winding the string around the balloons in criss-cross patterns. I made a lot less mess than the little ones.
That night, my youngest helped me hang them up to dry on a makeshift line in the bathroom, ferrying them two at a time in her little palms from the dining room. And they all came in to admire them hanging there. Easter morning they had tons of fun pricking the balloons with pins and watching them fizzle and shrink down before shimmying them out through one of the gaps.
Jennifer Butler Basile
They are gorgeous.
But there are still flakes of dried gak on every surface they touched. And I’m not quite sure if I’d do it again – at least as a kid project. When I posted a picture of the eggs on Facebook, another mother said she doesn’t have the time or patience for a such a project. I quickly replied that I didn’t either! But I forgot the winky face and I fear she thought I meant but I did it anyway. Though I shared the best shot of the stinking eggs, there was a whole lot of backstory that photo left out. The don’t-touch-that-not-yet-not-like-that-wait-no-slow-down-aaaaahhh-#$%@*$! Believe me, I am no Martha Stewart martyr.
Those were the moments craft time taketh from my patience and sanity and peace of mind. But there were moments that gave laughter, joy, and bonding. I think that’s why I periodically try such projects. I think that’s why this little batch of eggs makes a good metaphor for the greater yield of motherhood.
Thank God for happy children,
for pictures like these
artwork courtesy of my youngest
May their lives be happy and sunny for as long as possible
before real life sets in.
Where does a backpack go
confined inside four walls?
Does it sprout legs
and walk off?
Will the underlord of the couch
reveal his hostage?
Where can a blank book hide
from prying eyes?
Filled with private words,
its thick cover is not enough
to disguise it from vengeful fingers and pens.
An errant sock, a puzzle piece, a lego gone astray –
inanimate things seem to take on a life of their own
when children roam the home.
image by Terry Border
We call them Old Wives’ Tales, but there must be some truth to them. For, why would such a tale transmit through the generations, from place to place, person to person?
One particular teacher, a seasoned veteran, and I used to compare notes on our students’ behavior in relation to the phase of the moon. In other words, a full moon meant crazy kids.
I extended that prediction to rainy days as well. A drop in the barometric pressure caused children’s brains to ooze our their ears.
Which is about what is happening to my just-returned-from-school children right now.
Oh, my aching Old Wife’s head.
Found this image on hemiplegicmigrainehope.wordpress.com – thought the info on this site was ironically appropriate for all adults involved.
A second grader, hands still so small they remind you of the baby they grew out of not so long ago, eager to please, eyes full of wonder and mirth, proud to show her parent some of her schoolwork, excited because the parent is here, in her classroom. It is a special day, out of the ordinary. As she moves to retrieve her journal from its crate, a classmate in the front row sneers under his breath, “What do you think this is? A second open house?”
The parent in this scenario is me. The second grader is my daughter. The classmate in the front row is – rude? A bully? Jealous? The teacher in me found it hard not to reprimand this rude comment. The mother in me found it hard not to put this punk in his place. But because my daughter thankfully didn’t seem to hear it, because it wasn’t my place, and because it wasn’t my charge of children (ie my classroom) – I stepped back to assess the situation.
All teachers know that nearly all off-base comments are based on some insecurity hidden deep within the offending student. In the heat of a disruptive moment in one’s own classroom, it’s hard to remember or appreciate this, but as a parent privy to only this one comment and able to scoot back out the door I’d only just peeked into, it was easy to presuppose why this student may have made such a snarky comment.
As jazzed as my daughter was at my visit, there was a vacuum of other parents who couldn’t be in the room right then. Perhaps this young man was upset that his parent(s) couldn’t be there. Perhaps his parents have jobs that prevent a midday visit. Perhaps he’s angry or sad that his parents would never think to come into his classroom. Perhaps the obvious joy and pride in my daughter’s eyes reflecting in mine is something he can’t bear to see because this is the only time he will.
Perhaps it is unfair for me to make such presuppositions.
After many years of seeing students in action, however, I know that those students who you would least like to embrace are exactly the ones who need it most.
Not an easy task when they make hurtful comments, strike out at those around them, and have no other framework of operating to follow. There is no easy answer. Remember, I didn’t say anything . . .
But while there may be a reason for it, such behavior cannot be condoned. Had my child heard this hurtful comment, her joy would’ve been squashed as well. Her fragile nature, which I’d come into the classroom to build up, would’ve been diminished.
How do we support such children without discouraging others around them?
In just ten easy steps, you, too, can get your children’s drawers ready for fall and winter!
1. Save every possible stitch of hand-me-down clothing you can get your hands on, even items your previous child may have loathed or ones they loved so much they near extinction.
2. Wait until the switch is absolutely essential. That month or so of sweatshirt mornings/shorts afternoons – way too early. You must relish those last-minute mornings of fishing the one clean pair of long pants out of a random laundry basket. Searching out hooded sweatshirts shoved into the sandy bottom of your forlorn beach bag – priceless.
3. Reassess the situation when your children have shivered onto the bus for six consecutive school days. Ensure that the sixth day follows a weekend. See if it wasn’t just an acclimation period. Grudgingly drag one bin up from the basement and pull from that during this waiting period. If needed, you may also pull one stretched out kitchen garbage bag into your child’s room. The clothes in this bag, however, may not be of any use to you as they were the ones that might not fit next season, but were so stinking cute you couldn’t bear to part with them. Now is the time.
4. After three days and nights of your children plying you to change out their drawers and your frantic scrambling to find clothes that fit them, but still sending them off looking like three of Fagin’s minions, start pulling your youngest’s summer shirts out of the baskets in her closet. Make a pile of outgrown clothes to donate, a pile of ones that might not fit next season, but are so stinking cute you can’t bear to part with them, and a pile of those that certainly won’t fit next season but could work under a sweater right now.
5. Leave these three piles on the floor of her bedroom for a day and a half. Be sure to yell at your other children for knocking over and mixing up the piles.
6. Open the one bin you’ve dragged up from the basement and put the shirts from it into the baskets in the closet you just cleared out.
7. Repeat step 4 1/2, 5, and 6 for pants, sweatshirts, pjs, and bathing suits (the spot of which will now be filled by sweaters).
8. Shove the rest of the clothes which you do not have room for – but are in perfectly good shape and kids are so messy you could always use an extra pair – into any nook, cranny, or hole you can find in their closet.
9. Take the one bin you’ve managed to empty and bring it into your oldest’s daughter’s room. Put her outsized clothes into it, where they will stay for the 2.5 years it will take for your next child to grow into them.
10. Put all the newly filled bins back into the basement where they would sit collecting cobwebs for three months – except that in two weeks you’ll have to move them all about to get the one on the bottom into which you must place three more items you found lingering at the bottom of the hamper two weeks too late.
from operationwife.com
And that’s all there is to a smooth wardrobe transition from one season to another! Easy Peasy!
Today, I am unhappy to say that I know what Katniss feels like when she unleashes that nest of mutant killer wasps.
It all started innocently enough. My three girls had joined forces with two neighboring boys for a game of Cops and Robbers. As our little vigilantes sought justice in the woods behind the house, their mother and I watched from the patio. Alas, the true offenders would not be brought to justice.
The youngest boy suddenly started screaming. At first, I thought a branch had broken on him or he’d gotten caught up in a pricker bush, but the screams got louder even as he exited the woods. Two of my girls started screaming and crying and the older boy started yelling. His mother ran to the youngest to assess the situation and calm him. That’s when we both noticed the several yellow jackets swarming around the top of his back, head, and neck. My girls swatted and pulled at their skin as others attacked them. In a frenzy, we all ran in different directions, swatting, swinging, crying, and pulling. Even almost to the front edge of the house, the yellow jackets followed and continued stinging. We ran to the street to escape. My neighbor and her boys went the opposite direction, around and eventually into their house. My only daughter who had escaped the assault, stood well away, no doubt petrified watching what befell her sisters. We all ran to our house a few doors down, where I stripped clothing as needed, applied witch hazel, baking soda paste, and benzocaine, administered antihistamines – all while trying to ignore the stabbing pain in my own thumb where one had gotten me and not start sobbing and repeatedly tell my daughters to stick out their tongues to see if they were swelling.
After checking in with my neighbor (her sons were okay – thankfully), comparing notes, and sharing some antihistamine, I settled my girls in front of the TV with ice packs to take their minds off the emotional and physical trauma (yes, soma for the masses). By the time my husband arrived home from work, I was a limp dishrag hunched over the laptop researching for the next best bee sting remedy. I recounted how I couldn’t tell if I was shaking as a reaction to the venom coursing through my veins or the surge of adrenaline. In any case, the adrenaline had left its host a quivering mass of nerves and worry.
I don’t know if it was the unexpected nature of the event, the anguish I felt for my children’s pain or my own, the dreaded anticipation of an heretofore unknown allergic reaction – or simply the mama bear effect, but the whole experience sucked. I watched the snot run down their faces and mingle with their tears, heard their wails of distress, even ran to their aid to take those striped demons out, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. The one yellow jacket I saw bent and broken, its bright yellow in contrast against the black of my cell phone on the ground where it got thrown, was only dead because it had already driven its sharp stinger into the precious flesh of my children.
My one daughter who didn’t get stung didn’t want us to open the windows. My neighbor said her sons didn’t want to go outside. I myself had shuttled them up the hill and into the house as quickly as I could, slamming the door behind me. Trying to catch my breath in the aftermath, the only words I could form for the helpless feeling I had watching my children in pain was, ‘parenting is scary.’
It’s a wonder any of us want to leave the house, a host of dangers lying in wait. Unexpected. Uncontrollable. Unwarranted. Oy vey.
I decided to pack a more comprehensive first aid kit to keep in the car or in our backpack on hikes. I’m trying to come up with a plan to keep my children from being afraid to explore outside. I’m trying to take away the positive that when the stinger hits its mark, I can and will step up to the parenting challenge.
May the odds be ever in our favor.
Dinner at our house can be a little trying. That is, if you’d like to eat without acquiring indigestion, without running to the kitchen after two bites to refill the glasses of milk the wee ones finished in 2.5 seconds, leaving no room in their tender bellies for the food they wouldn’t eat anyway because it has green stuff on it – but I digress. (See Dinner with Kids for further clarification)
In an attempt to keep them at the table for longer than the 0.5 seconds they usually last after finishing their milk, I bought packs of cocktail napkins (at the discount store) with conversation starters on them. We started with the jokes and riddles. Even funnier than the corny jokes was my middle daughter’s uncanny knack at figuring out the punch lines. Hmmm . . . perhaps that’s why she wanted to pass out the napkins. After a few nights of that, we graduated to life’s important questions. If you could invite any one – living or dead – to dinner, who would it be? Again, the middle stole the show – and my heart – when she replied, without missing a beat, Grandma Julie, my beloved grandmother and her namesake whom she never met.
from seasonedkitchen.com
Another night, we had to reveal which superpower we would want as a superhero. I piped up with my response first. “That’s easy, definitely flying.” Like with a cape? Flapping your wings like a bird? “No, just with my arms out as I floated above the trees.” My answer came easily because I automatically remembered my most favorite dreams – those where I soar above the tops of the trees and roofs of neighbor’s houses behind my childhood home. The psychological conclusions one can glean from this dream are fodder for perhaps a whole series of posts, but the upshot today is what my oldest daughter said with a look of impressed surprise on her face.
I think that says perhaps more about my existence right now than my thwarted desires of dreams. All sorts of high-falutin’, politically feminist, empowering responses came to mind, but I simply said thank you and took it as the compliment I’m sure she meant it as.
What a strange psychological experiment parenting is – for all parties involved. I suppose mind-expanding conversation – even if they need be started with paper squares we smear across our faces – is one way to navigate the maze and see the different paths available. If not, there are always our dreams and unbridled imagination – even for moms.
Chopping Potatoes 