@ Home in the World

Summertime and the living is

A bit more difficult for working moms.

School ended two weeks ago the way it began - with two useless half days on a Wednesday and Thursday. Of course that means that Friday there was no school. Piper used a vacation day to cover the Wednesday half day and I swapped my work at home day for the Thursday and took the Friday off.

I really enjoy being there for the last day of school. All the parents and the students in the lower grades hang around to "cheer on" the fifth graders leaving the building for the last time. The school buses are decorated in balloons and streamers and the drivers honk their horns as they pull out. This year I noticed that they put kazoos and other noise makers on every seat and that the kids were contributing to the cacophony on the way out. God bless 'em!

My neighbor and I have a tradition of our own of taking the kids out to lunch on the last day. This year she insisted that we bring two other women along and they insisted that instead of going to Friendly's like we always do, we should go somewhere that served Margaritas. I can't remember the last time I had a drink at lunch time. Maybe never.

Now these two other women have boys in Pumpkin's class, but they also have either older children who can watch the younger ones or husbands who work alternate shifts (a cop, for instance), so even though this idea started out as a kickoff celebration for the kids, the only one that actually brought her kids was me. Add to that I was technically still on the clock at work, so I did not have as many margaritas (1) or as much fun as the other women did. But I could drive home, which proved to be important.

I spent the entire time thinking someone from work might be trying to get in touch with me - just my luck. Hardly anyone ever calls me unless there's an immediate deadline, so I don't know what I was so worried about. I wound up taking a couple of hours out of my Friday vacation day to make up the time I missed as lunch hour turned into three hours. I'm good like that.

Tigger has spent the following weeks at a nearby camp that he loves. I thought about sending Pumpkin to the same place, but ultimately felt that teenagers could not handle the wigged-out nuttiness that is my younger son when he is overtired and overstimulated. Also, a 5-year old drowned in a camp pool in this state last year and that news went straight to the deep, dark place in my heart usually reserved for paranoia about my own health.

Now, why don't I have those same fears for Tigger? The pool is the one place that he has almost always behaved himself. And he's an awesome swimmer. But yeah, I feel guilty about it.

In the meantime, the woman who so bravely babysat for my kids after school has left us.  It was only a matter of time. She has three kids of her own and after years of saying they were going to move to our town, they have pretty much decided to stay put in this housing market. It's not the end of the world. She was fabulous, her kids were around my kids' ages, but she was also doing double duty as a taxi service for my neighbor's kids who decided that it was okay to come hang out at my house when they were done with their homework. I'm more than happy to have to put an end to that practice. Not that they're not nice kids, but there were just too many people in my house when I wasn't there and inevitably the place was trashed when I got home E V E R Y  N I G H T.

P's former pre-school teacher will be taking over, but she can't start right away. So Piper and I have been juggling our schedules to try to make it work. I realize now that we are never going to have a proper vacation this year. Maybe not next year either. The number of days that Piper and I are actually home together with the boys is going to be pretty limited as well.

I wonder if this is the curse of working parenthood, or maybe just parenthood in general - that we never get the chance to feel settled. And then some days, I suppose we feel too settled.

Some days I hardly recognize that this is my life. And then yesterday a co-worker announced that she was pregnant, due in December. For the first time ever, I was irrationally excited for her.

So, how do we handle this?

I think I need some help from the parent universe out there. 

This Saturday morning, I had the first-time experience of going with the rest of the family to T-ball. I wasn't able to go the previous three or four weeks, because there was always something else that needed doing - getting one or the other of the cars serviced, something for work, some other volunteer project in town. Last week the Pumpkin had such a meltdown that he didn't even go to T-ball, but stayed home with me.

I knew from Piper that getting Pumpkin to stay with his group and not run into the woods or on to another playing field was a challenge. For the past several weeks Piper has handled this challenge alone, shuttling between two kids on two different teams, one who did very well at this sort of thing, but needed an audience. The other, who was not really with the program, and already had an audience of the pointing and whispering kind.

I also knew, that in spite of his inability to say much about it, that T-ball had made an impression on the Pumpkin - he'd drawn himself playing T-ball in two separate "journal entries" in his Kindergarten classroom.

So Saturday morning when we went to play, his team practiced fielding first. He stood in his "stance" out  in the field, knees bent, eyes intent on the batter, chasing after every ball whether it came his way or not, always ending in a pile of kids anxious to retrieve the ball and sometimes remembering to throw to first. He had no patience waiting in line for his turn to bat. When his team returned to the field, he stood out there, this time in left field. Soon it became clear that no balls were being hit anywhere near him, he wandered off to the sidelines, found a tractor to study, and wound up playing catcher for some older kid who was pitching to his plastic bat-wielding, not-quite-two year-old brother. The little guy was hitting far more than you'd expect from a toddler, prompting Pumpkin to say  "That's an awesome baby!"

My efforts to get Pumpkin back out on the field with his teammates were met with "I'm too tired, I'm done playing T-ball. I'm done." Judging by his actions though, what this means is "I'm bored, waiting in line is stupid, I can play the way I want to and not have to follow some stranger/coach who expects me to follow directions."

In this, as in our experience with swimming last fall, I was reminded of Bode Miller, a kid with great skill, but little form, who hated following directions and being a team player. On the one hand, not thrilled with authority myself, I admire this kind of attitude and wish I personally had more of it. On the other hand, since neither child is likely to go into professional sports of any kind, I'm not sure how far this calling of his own shots can be taken.

As much like night and day as my two boys are, I had this exact same problem with Tigger. In any activity but swimming, he was always running to the sidelines to sit with me instead of being with the other kids, waiting for a turn. It made me crazy. All the other 3-4 year olds seemed to be able to follow directions, why not mine? I finally gave up and we quit whatever it was we were trying to do back then. Last fall with soccer, Tigger literally sat in the goal net and rolled around while the other kids played the game.  Finally, during the last game of the season, he blocked a shot from the other team and got an assist toward the end to win the game. Like it all finally clicked for him.

I struggle with my patience in these situations, waffling between wanting to let the boys do it their way and trying to teach a "sticktoitiveness" that all the other kids seem to already have mastered. I don't want to seem like some overbearing sportsparent when I keep urging Pumpkin to get in and play with the rest of the kids. It would be one thing if he were three or four. He's six.

So which is it? Should I be happy that he's recognizing a personal limit and self-regulating? Or should I be concerned that this is fitting into his pattern of doing things on his own schedule and only when he feels like doing it. And if the latter, what do I do about it? How far do I push?

Do over!

This morning I signed the papers accepting the recommendation that Pumpkin repeat Kindergarten. It wasn't easy to hear, but it wasn't a big surprise, either.

I wish that I could come up with some way to describe how I feel other than "disappointment." Not in Pumpkin, or in his teacher or school; I think everyone involved did the very best they could in the situation. It's more that I'm disappointed things didn't work out on the standard path.

I, of all people, should know better.

I know that Pumpkin's sensory issues and language difficulties are quite common for an internationally adopted kid, but what I know is not just about him or about adoption.

I know enough to understand that the "standard path" is kind of a myth, and that every kid develops and progresses differently. I know that this "grade by age" system is the way it's always been done, but it doesn't really work for a lot of kids. I look around at the kids in our church, and our town and school, and the blogs I read, and I see a lot of kids with "issues." Those issues often mean that they need a little extra help or accommodation or understanding from the school systems which are trying not to be one-size-fits-all in spite of our nation's current standardized testing mania. I know that last year our school asked that an extraordinary number of Kindergartners repeat this year and I think I know why.

The work that Tigger is doing in first grade is astonishing. He's had a small amount of homework four nights a week for the better part of this year. He's had a couple of larger projects including a multi-step autobiographical project that culminated in a grade-wide play, and his first (small-scale) research paper. Tigger's in a multi-age class that combines first and second grades, but a research paper?  Wow!

Smart as he is, there's no way that Pumpkin could handle that kind of pressure. This is the school system's way of ensuring that Pumpkin can handle the work and the social interactions without expensive special education services. This is their way of keeping him from getting lost in the system.  I think I'm okay with that.

In my life, I have encountered an extraordinary number of youngest brothers who have lost their way in life - my brother, my uncle, my husband's uncle, the youngest brothers of several friends. Some found their way back, others did not. I have no idea what sends these guys to the edge, when their older siblings did not have the same struggles, but I've seen it enough to worry about it. I'll never know if this is the thing that helps keep Pumpkin from getting lost, but it's worth a try to me.

My Russia

"Mama, will you draw my Russia?" asks the Pumpkin.

He and his father are the real artists in the family, but he insists and so I take the crayon and do my best attempt at something resembling St. Basil's or St. Petersburg's Church of the Spilled Blood. My attempts are always too asymmetrical, the onion domes too disturbingly phallic. But Pumpkin doesn't really know this, and is pleased.

His teacher told me a story of an international chamber music quartet that came to visit the school and play for the students. The musicians were from everywhere from Wyoming to Japan and they played music of all different cultures. When they announced a piece from Russia, Pumpkin once again said "My Russia!" and sat up with a smile. A boy from another classroom turned and said to him "I'm from Russia too." The two boys listened to the piece with rapt attention, happy to have connected with their heritage, and each other, in some small way.

It's hard to know what he remembers. He will often repeat the phrase "I was a baby in Russia," but the truth is that he didn't come to us until he was three years old. I think he knows more than he can really communicate.

Russia remains important to him, but he has crossed a threshhold. He no longer wants to be addressed by his Russian nickname. "I'm not __________, " he will say. "I'm __________!" The songs he sings now are all in English.

For both boys, Russia is a place of fancy buildings and stories. Most of their memories are wrapped up in the photos they've seen a million times. But a place you have lived in inevitably touches you and lives on inside of you ever after. Russia is a multi-dimensional study in contrasts; opulence and dilapidation; opportunity and struggle;  democracy and dictatorship. It is the coldness of the climate, and the gruffness of the people, broken open by the warm smile the director gives you when you say "Da. Yes, I will take this child, about whom I know so little, and make him my own. He will have a home with us."

Like their birthplace, the boys have struggled with transitions, clinging to the old, while trying to find their places in the new. Their challenges have brought me to the breaking point more than a few times. But more and more these days I can look at their little heads bent over their "work," or talk with their teachers about the difficulty they are having and the support they are getting, or watch the sheer joy they express when visiting with their grandparents, and I can think  --

Thank God they're here.

__________________________________

This week we mark five years with Tigger and three years with Pumpkin as part of our family. We celebrate the growth of both the children and the adults in the family.

They say men don't like short hair on women

Apparently, it starts early.

Pumpkin (extricating himself from a hug): Uh, I can't breathe! Your hair is too long!

Me: Do you think I should get it cut?

Pumpkin (considering): Umm, no. I don't want you to be a daddy. I want you to be a momma.

Other things about Easter 2

Continued from here.

After the toy store trip, it was time to head home to do the child exchange. I took Pumpkin to his classmate's party, and Piper took Tigger to the town Easter Egg Hunt.

This is really the last year that Tigger is supposed to be participating in this, and it was kind of a washout compared to last year when some older kids told him about The Golden Egg and a few minutes later, he found it.  This garnered him a special prize and enough candy to share with his brother.  This year he barely had half a basket of candy (I say this based on what I saw, but who knows how much he ate before I got home).

Easter itself was a mostly pleasant day, if long. Tigger had to be at the church a little early to practice his singing and handbell number. They have a very brave choir director who has taken on the antics of at least 3 spirited first-graders and a bunch of other kids up to grade 5 and tamed them into a Cherub Choir. I admire her, I couldn't do it. I could barely sit in for the Atrium 2 teacher without losing my cool. She wants me to get Pumpkin involved in the choir and as much as I know he would love to sing, I'm not sure that he could handle the whole self-control aspect of being in that wild group. Not to mention trying to keep both boys from killing each other when they are supposed to be singing. Cherub Chior, indeed!

Pumpkin was a little antsy because, this being an Easter service, he didn't have the room to spread out and draw the way he does on normal Sunday. This has been our strategy for keeping him quiet during the service and it has worked. Heck, this has been our strategy for restaurants, long car trips, the airplane ride, the wait at baggage claim. We bring some crayons and a notebook, and he loses himself in them. Although I think he is actually plugged in the whole time, and is using the drawing as his filter so he doesn't get overwhelmed. As an added bonus, what he produces is often amazing. I'll have to pic and post a couple sometime.

So, on to the long car trip to my mother's, during which neither child fell asleep in the car. Warning, meltdowns ahead. And yes, we drove all that way for dinner and turned around and came home. Putting a major holiday (or any event, hello, NFL) on a Sunday sucks.

For the boys, the highlight of the trip was the shiny new bicycles my mother bought them for their birthdays. Tigger got a Mongoose, something that has meaning to older kids who like to do tricks. Pumpkin's was regular, but shiny and red. His favorite color. The bikes are a bit big for both boys but they can manage them. They are not riding them on the street yet, anyway. Now we really have to get a shed to put them in.

Other things about Easter (1)

Aside from being too early, it was a surprisingly pleasant Easter weekend.

For some reason relating to local history and the teachers' contract, our school had Good Friday off. Mark this as one of those times I'm sorry I never got a teaching job, as I had to "waste" one of my precious vacation days.

Since I had the day off anyway, I scheduled our adoption agency social worker for Pumpkin's last (!) post-placement report. This means that as of May 5, Pumpkin will have been with us for 3 years. It seems soooo much longer than that, in a good way. It also means that Tigger will be with us 5 years as of May 1 (for whatever reason, I count their "gotcha days" not as their St. Petersburg court dates, but the days they first set foot on American soil).

It is a reminder that I must get back to telling those stories, but that is another (series of) post(s).

Good Friday was also Tigger's birthday. My oldest is 7. He handled himself patiently through the social worker's visit so I took both boys to Friendly's afterward. While there I made a mental note of the ice cream cake that Tigger was most attracted to and later called Piper to pick it up on his way home. And when I think that my mother used to actually make and hand decorate our cakes.... From Friendly's I took the kids to the bookstore where Pumpkin played with the train set and Tigger picked out a bajillion new books (he's been complaining that all the books on his shelf are BORING) and a cheap science kit. Not a bad day, actually. Nowhere near as hard as it used to be to have the two of them for an entire day, much less try to go out in public.

We had pasta, Tigger's favorite, for dinner and he opened a series of small gifts from us. Aside from the Red Sox tickets, which he told everyone in his class about, his favorite present was probably the card from Grandma and Papa with actual money in it. He asked us, in seventeen different ways, why he got money in his card, and so the next day I decided to show him.

The funny thing about being a working mom is that now that I have the money to shop, I no longer have the time. Occasionally, I will be able to stop at the Market Basket on the way to meeting the babysitter because we are always out of milk, but shopping for myself doesn't happen. And here we were the day before Easter and neither the boys nor I had anything appropriate to wear to church.

We've been needing an excuse for a Tigger and Mama day so I dragged him to "mawl" and he was actually quite patient while I dashed around Macy's looking for something that was a Spring color but not too in not too light a fabric because it is still late March and still freezing.

On to the toy store. One of the things that has concerned me over the years is that Tigger doesn't really play by himself. He is very interested in games that involve interacting with at least one other person but will not keep himself occupied. He claims that all his toys are BORING, and even though I know that's not the problem, I decide to tour the store with him to see what he is interested in.

He cruised the Lego section and the train section but rejected both of those options. He considered a bubble machine, but the toddlers on the box put us both off. He looked at the cars, but all he really came up with was "Pumpkin would like that. And that. And oh, he'd really want this." 

What he did choose surprised me at first. But then, not so much. Tigger loves Harry Potter, he's been watching that and the Lord of the Rings since he was very young. His playground games seem to involve a lot of fantasy swordplay and firepower. He and his friend make up these stories and act them out. When I hear and see stuff like this, it is hard to believe that he is not a blood relation, because he is so much like me both in temperament and in interests.

His selection was a dragon.

Tumbling

Amid the Tigger birthday/Easter craziness of this weekend, Pumpkin had a classmate's birthday party to attend.  The party was at a local gymnastics center which has a great and organized program of engaging the kids in some floor and apparatus exercises (mostly a lot of running, jumping, and tumbling), feeding them cake and ice cream, letting them run around some more before sending them home.

This was P's second party at the gym this year. The first time, he decided he'd had enough halfway through and buried himself in their pit of square foam blocks (how cool is that?) and made it very difficult to extricate him. This time it took a little longer for him to basically call it quits and this time he took a friend with him. I sort of consider this an improvement.

This party is not the first time I have been struck by the difference in Pumpkin's experience vs. Tigger's experience. From the start of the year, I was more comfortable with the mothers in Pumpkin's group. I already knew many of them either from around town or from Tigger's second year in preschool. Whereas with Tigger's group, it has been a lot harder to for both of us to break into cliques that were established before he got to preschool. It's frustrating from the perspective of being Tigger's mom because I know that Tigger feels the absence of real friends a lot harder than Pumpkin would. Pumpkin, in his own strange way, is making friends.

So.

It is late March, and though P has made great progress throughout the year, he's not where he "should be" in a whole host of skills, some of which simply confuse me. He is for instance, great at drawing, a fine-motor skill. But his scissor skills are not where they apparently should be. He is starting to recognize words, but he doesn't differentiate between a word and a letter. He is receiving extra help with social, reading, and speaking skills. His speech has improved dramatically, his reading and writing are progressing, and as I said, he's making friends.

So.

Should he repeat Kindergarten? On Thurday, when his progress report came home, I began bracing myself for the inevitable. Some areas where he had been considered a "beginning learner" were now areas "of concern." He is far more comfortable in school, but he is still having some behavioral challenges. His sensory stuff is better, but when he has bad days they can be terrible days. Maybe it's not the end of the world that if he repeats, he will turn SEVEN in Kindergarten. Sorry, I just can't get past that.

But Saturday, I stood in a group of moms and was comfortable. Many of these women had behaviorally challenged children of their own, either in Pumpkin's class or in another grade. The mother of P's "best friend" and I discussed options for first grade (single grade vs. multi-age like Tigger's class) and found we were on the same page. IF he goes to first grade next year.

What if he repeats K and finds himself in a class of high strung kids and clique-y, judgy moms like Tigger is in? What if he loses his connections with these kids who actually like him?

So.

After agonizing for three years about one or both of my boys going forward or being held back in one grade or another; after railing and ranting about this bizarre proprensity to emphasize social factors  over academic skill; I find myself leaning suspiciously on the side of P's social life.

Because it was hard for me. Still is. Because it is hard for Tigger. Makes me cry to think about it. Pumpkin is going to have a hard time in the larger world because he is different. What should I do to make it easier for him?

6x

Me:  Happy Birthday, Pumpkin!

P: I'm six years old today?

Me: Yes, today is the day. You are officially six years old!

P: I'm six! I'm going to need some bigger clothes.

One step forward, two steps back

Our euphoria over having broken the travel barrier was sadly short-lived. Friday morning I got a call at work from someone in the Principal's office. Pumpkin has been kicked off the bus. Again. To make matters worse, they said he was fighting with Tigger. 

Now I'm not one to make excuses for my child or ask to have an exception made, but it's a good thing that I wasn't talking to the actual Principal, because at that moment, I might have tried. You see, I was pretty sure that I knew what happened, and after a (n admittedly tearful) call to Piper, I discovered I was right.

Tigger had been picking at Pumpkin all morning and in spite of being sent to his room for it, the taunting continued on the bus. Well, as we might expect, Pumpkin exploded like a poked hornets' nest, and well, it's not the bus driver's job to calm him down, I can't blame her, but she didn't even bring Tigger in to talk to the Principal. Tigger got off scot free.

I can't exactly complain to the school, since the kid that Pumpkin got in trouble for fighting with is also mine. A tough situation.

So because this is largely his doing, we are keeping Tigger from riding the bus for two weeks also, a fact that I was more than happy to inform him of when he came to me to cheerfully tattle about the trouble Pumpkin had gotten in on the bus.

Ugh! What a mess.