My Kids Are Weird

This morning I noticed Wren had a purple bruise on his foot.

"Oh, look, you hurt your foot! How did you do that?" I asked.

"When I was a baby I trod on a dead beaver and it had a spike in back and it hurt my foot but I am alright now," he told me.

I mean, what do you say to that one?

Wren is also clever at reading 'signs'. He can read the green walking figure to tell me when we can cross the street (but fights me holding his hand while I insist). He saw this sign at the coffee shop we like near Frost's school and told me it said "DOESNT STAND ON ONE FOOT HERE."

We really like that coffee shop because they will make kidicino's - foam filled little espresso cups with a sprinkle of chocolate - for only 50c. As any good Seattelite, Wren takes his 'coffee' very seriously.

Meanwhile, Frost is in the kitchen unpacking the kitchen cupboards to find products "past their expiration date".

Since I poisoned him with rancid peanut butter a few months ago (he had a horrible bout of food poisoning from peanut butter I found in the Emergency Supplies Cupboard and fed him before checking its use-by date which was 3 years prior) Frost is very invested in checking food is not expired. He is also distrustful and routinely looks on boxes and cans before he eats things. The stuff he found in the cupboard today has raised his level of vigilance:

1) A bag of soy flour expired in 2005.

2) A cup of noodles in a flavor none of us eat. When opened it erupted in a purple dust of [probably toxic] mould spores leaving a few undecomposed noodles like the bones of an oracle. At least I would not have FED him that one.

3) Various grains eaten by weavils.

4) Packaged tofu that was EAT BY last year.

See, I tend not to think that expiration dates are very important with dry goods. By contrast, with meat I am quite careful and so those sardines that expired in August 2009 had to go.

For breakfast, I am eating the sardines which expire in a few months. Yum.

Frost and Wren dumped all the expired foods into a bowl and mixed them up. Frost pretended that the tapioca was snail eyeballs and the prunes were something else yucky.

Even though its early we have already been doing gardening and now its time for tea and sardines.

Scattered thoughts of fall

We had a relaxing weekend. At least I think we did (I honestly cannot remember much of it but I know I had a bath and read my book and that Frost had a soccer match). Today it was cool and the typical fall weather of dark skies, slight rain and buffeting winds set in by the afternoon. Inside its warm with the furnace kicking in overnight. There are spiders everywhere - one fell on me in the bathroom this evening - as if they know its time to find a warm nook inside. Our Halloween decorations are coming out.

On Sunday we had a lovely brunch with Tara and Fred while Frost caught up on his Alexander time. After breakfast we walked and rode bikes up to Meridian Playground and ran around and collected horse-chestnuts for Wren's sensory table. Wren went on a big kid swing for the first time while Frost threw apples.

Frost is very focused on Halloween. He writes about it in his journal, plans a party and has already started decorating the house. Here are Frost and Alex dressed up on the weekend. I am not sure what Frost is supposed to be but he was colorful.

Ninja Alex

This morning Wren had his first day alone at Roaring Mouse for the whole day. He took some of his favorite things - skeleton spider, a rubber bat and soft shirt - so he would not be sad. I came back in time to watch closing circle and he was sitting quietly mimicking the teachers crossed legs and clapping.

Frost with the Skellie-spider

Wren is a danger

Tonight at the preschool coop parent meeting the educator mentioned that 2 year olds have little spatial awareness. This was the most important thing I have learned at preschool and explains why Wren is so dangerous at present. On the weekend he borrow Alex's "Gyptian sword". The Gyptian sword is a costume prop but has a very sharp tip. Wren loves to run around with the Gyptian Sword ("Mummy, where do Gyptians live?" "In Egypt" I answer.

Wren's 'mirror neurons' are very active at the moment - he loves to copy exactly what I do. If I touch my hair, he touches his hair. If I take a bite of my dinner, he bites his dinner. If I sip tea, he wants some tea to sip. This is not so good with Frost's behavior. Wren runs after Frost copying his thrusts of imaginary daggers, kicking walls and leaping off sofas in emulation of Frost's 'moves'.

Tomorrow are going bird watching and Heather will be here in the afternoon. We are also going to make orange playdoh for Halloween.

The peregrine falcon who may speak Spanish

Do the birds speak Spanish?

This morning I took Wren to the zoo. Lately, he has tired of watching Diego but one of the last episodes he watched was about rescuing orphaned raptors in a lush rainforest. When the birds were old enough to be released they were taught to 'migrate' with a song and exhortation in Spanish. Wren has watched this episode a couple of times.

At the zoo, he usually enjoys seeing the raptors on display on their perches. As we were passing we saw a docent bringing out a falcon.

"WHAT IS THAT BIRD" Wren shouted over the conversation with some kids in the front row.

"It is a peregrine falcon" replied the docent, who we later learned was a Burt.

"Does the birds speak Spanish?" asked Wren, with authority.

The docent did not know how to reply to that and carried on explaining that the bird used to live on the West Seattle bridge but was injured in a territorial battle with another falcon. Apparently, there are only 6 or 7 breeding pairs of peregrines in Seattle even though there are enough pigeons to feed many more. The birds are aggressively territorial and will nest of protected ledges in the city. There are a 'famous' pair who have nested on the WaMu tower for many years, watched by tweeters and researchers.

When I explained that Wren had seen falcons in Diego and those falcons spoke spanish AND that we liked birdwatching at "The Fill," Burt suggested we check out the tweeter website where NW birders report sightings and birdlists from around Seattle. I am not sure which Tweeters he meant as there seem to be a multitude. I shall do more research after I get some sleep.

Also at the Zoo we saw the hippos out the water, weaver birds with their nests, bears eating meat and nannies losing their wards.

Wren ate a soft pretzel with too much salt and rolled pennies down the money pit.

It was a good visit.

Note

I am sorry I am doing so poorly with updating the blog. Preparing a resume and doing job research has taken a lot of my time. Coupled with that I am in a medically intensive period myself. I am seeing a PT twice a week to get to the bottom of the neck problems I had a month ago (and a year ago). I am also due for a full skin-check after the skin cancer that was burned off my collarbone area last month. PLUS, I have to go for an abdominal u/s to "follow-up" on a cyst that was seen on the CAT scan I had as part of my Great Unable To Eat disease a few months ago.

I am not 'sick' but I have a sudden rush of medical appointments which are a real nuisance as they must occur in my non-Wren time which is my only real time for job-search and blogging.

They should be over by the end of next week and I will be able to socialize and run and volunteer at Frost's school and read up on International Public Health and Halloween Crafts and Beginning Marimba skills etcetera.

Semi-fun day

Frost came home from school and told me he has a test on Polygons tomorrow.

I said "isn't that on Friday?"

"It IS Friday tomorrow," he explained.

"No," I said, "Its THURSDAY tomorrow."

"Well, then we had two Wednesday's" he said, puzzled.

"Oh, you think?" I teased. "You just thought...."

Then the penny dropped. It is Thursday. He has a test tomorrow! This means that we have to review the whole worksheet to differentiate various polygons based on sides and angles. It seems that many of the kids had covered some of these features last year and are building on it. Frost is struggling to work on the many concepts from scratch and to remember (and spell) the words.

I will be enjoying this weekend as much as him for what it offers by way of escape from homework.

Frost is planning to DECORATE THE HOUSE FOR HALLOWEEN - a much anticipated and beloved event.

Wren had a fun first full session at preschool. I was there with him and he was incredibly happy and sweet. At one point during the day he said he would like a cookie to "put in my throat and eat up."

He was very tired at bedtime because the afternoon preschool time means he misses nap on Thursdays.

I will be submitting my second job application tomorrow and will have the weekend off to enjoy reading books instead of crafting resumes.

Adjusting to New School - Week 2

Yesterday Frost had his first playdate with a new school friend. His friend is called Carter and he and Frost eat lunch together and play basketball at recess. Frost says he is good at soccer but Carter is good at basketball.

The playdate was at Carter's house and it went well - they had icecream, played Lego and looked at Pokemon cards. Carter's family moved from Amsterdam to the US a bit over a year ago and so they are still in the instability of immigration (even though they seem to have little to no accent) which must be hard. They seemed charming and Carter was bright eyed and attentive which made Frost seem like a bouncy bunny talking all the time. Sigh. Whenever Frost is anxious or meets new people he gets frantic and talks all the time and I start to reach for explanations and excuses about why my child is such a lunatic.

Have you ever felt embarrassed about your kid in front of other adults? I just seem to feel that a lot recently as we move into a new community and I am doing my nice "getting to know you" behavior he seems to be at his most uncomfortably bouncy and out of step with me.

Last night I spoke with his teacher about his handwriting. Coming from KapKa we had an idea that Frost struggled to produce PRODUCT. Still, the burden of writing is large at his new school - everything from Math to Reading to Social Science is centered around writing your thoughts down or explaining your observations. Frost struggles to keep up with these and it is affecting his ability to do the homework. He is very self critical - saying "I suck", "I am no good at this" and "everyone else writes 7 sentences while I write 1 line."

His teacher suggested the following strategies:

1) Try to start him on cursive. Cursive is going to be taught over the whole year, this might give him a chance to be ahead and learn his letters correctly from the start, doing practice ahead of the class rather than feeling behind.

2) WRiting in a wider lined composition book (they have fine ruled books).

3) Allowing dictation for answers to math worksheets and additional practice writing from a workbook.

4) Correcting his errors in mixing case, starting from the line etc.

5) Encouraging lists and shorter sentences to continue to "get his ideas out" in writers workshop.

6) IF practice and support aren't working within 2 months, refer him to a SIT evaluation with an OT present. This is a special evaluation team which would identify the problem and then assign someone to work with him 2 times a week to give him special intervention on writing. We hope he won't need this.

My Dad tells a story of how he was almost held back to repeat Kindergarten because his handwriting was so bad. My granny had to go and argue (advocate in today's parlance) with the teachers to get him a PASS. My dad is very clever and I hope it is just a sign of our family writing disability coming through. Josh also had terrible handwriting (he says) and mine was awfully messy and always full of red ink on tests (but I blame that on having to write italic font with a messy fountain pen. Who would credit it!).

Got to run home now. Wish me luck with Job Application #2 going in tomorrow.

Falling Behind

Its ironic that when you have most to write about there is the least amount of time available to do it. We have been busy. On Saturday we drove down to Longview for Josh's nephew's first birthday. We are not the sort to whiz of to every first birthday around but we hadn't seen his family so for long that it was a de fact reunion. Everyone seems well - The Cousins are huge and pre-teen and Frost appeared equally giant to them. We ate pizza and watched Leighton (1) squish his fingers into his own finger-squishing cake. I think it was an event designed to generate cute photos and it did the job!

To avoid two long drives in one day we decided to stay Saturday night at Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound which we had heard described as a hotel with a water-park attached. It was far more than that. Our neighbors describe it as Vegas for Kids which captures the hyper and spectacular nature of the place. Frost's favorite feature of our stay was Magicquest - a live action role-playing game set up around the hotel. You buy a wand and then check in at various central quest kiosks to set out on a quest. The quest involves waving your wand at certain specified objects around the hotel - a great old red chest, an owl, a cave with a pixie in it. The wand and objects are interactive, chests open to reveal glowing crystals, pictures shimmer and speak, everything twinkles and emits a great deal of noise.

I shall post more about our visit to Great Wolf in another post. For local friends and family, here are some pictures from Leighton's party (I don't know how we missed a picture of the girls, Nana Katie and Great Granny Charlotte. Oh, seeing Nana Katie Josh said "what? You are my Granny? She looks too young. And [to me] you look OLD":

Josh's Sister Kindra

Wren taking cake eating seriously.

The Bigger Boy Cousins:

Mark, Landon, Mason (Frost and Wren front)

Wren interacting with a party favor.

I will accept caption nominations for this one.

Frost wanted a go on the car too but he was too big.

Leighton and the Face-Cake

Wren and I

Wren is weaned

Wren has not had any milk for two days. He still asks for it occasionally but will accept no and a pair of snuggle bunnies with soft shirt and the promise that the door will be open at naptime.

Frost is doing well at school (socially) but battles handwriting issues.

More later. I am giving priority to coffee and a book.

Gobo is a Good Gun

This morning Wren and I went to Uwajimaya to replenish our stocks of inari wraps, onion tofu and bubble soda for Frost. It was a trip pitted with weirdness, starting with...

The Part where Wren Announces Gobo is a Good Gun
As we entered the store we saw a large display of the specials including Strawberry and Classic Ramune soda (not the favorites), burdock root and beech mushrooms ($1.50 a package!!!). Wren begged me to buy some burdock root (gobo) but I was reluctant because I have no idea how to eat it. That didn't bother Wren who just wanted a few roots to wave around. We walked around the store arguing about how he had to hold them UP and AWAY from my eyes while he felt that they were GUNS and had to be waved around.


I asked an Asian women how she cooked burdock and she waved her hands helplessly at her mouth to indicate she couldn't really speak English. Then she said "like vegetable."

I am going to try and eat it like a vegetable even though Wren spent the drive home gouging a hole in it with his fingers. When I asked him why he was doing this he said he was "looking for bones."

Then there was...

The Part in which we Discover Beard Papa's Cream Puffs and the Milk Tea
I have to give a rave to this new cream puff kiosk at Uwajimaya. If your child loves the cream puffs on the conveyor belt at Blue C Sushi this is the place for you to go for tea. Sure you have to sit at the mall-like plastic tables in the food court, sure you make have strange tea but these cream-puffs are delicious. I can vouch for both the vanilla and the chocolate one and the lady in line said the green tea one was great.


I also enjoyed my tea although there was some difficulty ordering it. The menu lists Earl Grey tea and Earl Grey MILK tea. I like (cold) milk in my tea so I ordered MILK tea. The sales-person tried to explain to me that MILK tea was made with 50% milk and 50% water. That sounded ok so I said "yes". Well, it turns out that its more like a tea latte. They make a strong tea infusion and then mix it up with milk. Its very hot and very milky. I think it would be safer to order regular Earl Grey and then ask for milk if that is how you like it!

So, we carried our MILK TEA and cream puffs over to a table and this leads into ....

The Part In Which I Insult an old lady
with a Mental Health Issue
We sat down opposite a woman much older than me wearing a pink sweater embroidered with flowers. She had black hair with gray threaded through it and was eating some kind of bun in a plastic wrapper with HAWAIIAN printed on it in red lettering. When Wren sat down he stared at her in silence.

Wren has good instincts while I tend to be overly chatty.

The woman immediately admired Wren and smiled and chatted to him. She was doing very well in her admiration so I asked her if she had a grandchild. She said she had no children or grandchildren and was from Hawaii and her sister worked here. She added that her hair was gray because she had fallen over three times and the paramedics had come. They had taken her to hospital and put her in a CAT scan and an X-ray and then her hair had gone gray. I said I sympathized.

Around this time a women with a child sat down next to us. Her child looked the same size as Wren so I asked how old she was. She said she would be 3 in December. We started comparing dates and it turns out that Sofia was born on December 15th at Swedish while Wren was still in the NICU. They were there in the same huge storm! She was also still nursing (I had just weaned Wren).

In the middle of this conversation the Hawaiian woman interrupted to tell me that she was not old. That her hair was greay because she fell over. I said that I didn't think she looked old. She said that I was rude to call her Grandmother. I apologized but mentioned I asked because she seemed so comfortable with Wren.

There was a pause - one of those moments in the conversation in which you realize you are sliding from mutual understanding to a form of speech in which I you are simply an object which has intruded on someones internal dialogue. That nothing you say matters. That none of your words can gain purchase on this hill of ice.

The lady says that she is not old. I nod. That she is NOT my Grandmother.
"How old are you anyway? You look old! I could not be your grandmother!"
"I am 42"
"See, you are old. This woman is young. She is... what? Are you 25?"
The other woman adds that she is actually 35.
"Well, you look young. This one [me] looks old. She should not say I am her grandmother!! My niece is not 42!!! She is 25. How can I be her Grandmother!!! My niece is 25!"
I agree she is far too young to be my grandmother but no words make any difference now. I have somehow insulted her by implying a great age when in fact her age is less than 70. "How old is YOUR mother anyway?" So, she is in her 60s? Well, still, she is not much older than that! Definitely people think she is but she IS NOT. I was very RUDE. I should not be such a RUDE PERSON. I sigh and buy Wren an apple juice I do not want to buy and he does not really want either. The lady waits for me to return.

I wish the damn milk tea wasn't so hot that I can't leave.

Finally, the old lady's dialogue circles into a form of brevity as she recycles the 'facts' again and again until reaching the conclusion that I am bad, rude and a bit stupid. She leaves.

THe Other Mother woman says she often sees this person in the area, that she often carries a doll on the back of her pack.

I know this is sad and puts the story in perspective. Still, despite compassion I felt unsteady and my milk tea tasted better in peace.

Dave Matthews at the Gorge (weeks ago)

A few weeks ago we drove up to Moses Lake, WA so I could attend a Dave Matthews concert at The Gorge Amphitheater along with a group of friends from Frost's old school. It was a few weeks ago but I so rarely attend anything of this scale that I could not resist posting some pictures.

Firstly, I had no idea what a huge deal The Gorge is. It is situated on the banks of the Columbia River Gorge and has a fabulous view down cliffs and sharply falling rocky hills to the river swelling in the distance. It is scenic in scale - the kind of thing you that you see in Chinese Landscape Paintings - haunting and vast.

The evening started wetly with a huge downpour which tested the limits of my new gortex raincoat. Thankfully we had VIP passes to a 'party' yurt which had a bar which had beer and rum and some mixers. I loathe beer so I had various permutations of rum and juice to wash down chips, cookies and veggies with dip. The party tent was hot and steamy with wet people squeezed into a happy intimacy but I met a few interesting folks and waited for the rain to rain and for various opening acts to open.

Watching Dave perform was eye opening. I know he is a cult performer but it was interesting to see him in front of a vast crowd (they said almost 28 000). There was tremendous energy and while his music is obviously fabulous - particularly his haunting lyrics - I found the celebrity machine the most interesting part of being there. The fans in the row behind me knew his entire repertoire and could predict what song he was about to perform based on instrument, setup and who was on-stage. They gave a running commentary about what the mix said, meant, felt like, reminded them of. It was eerie.

I won't go into my reflections on celebrity right now but it was a strange experience both great fun, exciting and vaguely disturbing. What is it in humans that elevates some among us to god status?

Day 4 of School, Day 1 of Homework

Frost received Homework today. As far as I can figure he is supposed to do:

* 20 minutes of his own reading [record page number start and end]
* 5 minutes of math-fact games [Frost was asked to work out his own plan to learn these.
He chose games and a mad minute practice test.
We actually played Flip for 20 minutes and Josh plans to play Math bingo with Frost tomorrow]
* 10 minutes of math worksheet practice [on the day's lessons]
* 10 minutes of WRITING in his journal [he can write whatever he likes]
* Practice on a wordlist of 20 words for a spelling test on Friday.

The words are:
hawk
author
fawcet
pause
daughter
withdraw
hauled
awfullly
unlawful
lawyer
strawberries
squawk
saucers
drawer
caution
vault
naughty
gnawing
awkward, and
exhaust

It is very hard to help Frost with homework while Wren tries to help Frost with homework. I ended up giving Wren a Diego while we worked it all out. Frost's major impediment is the lack of fluency in his writing. Still, he wrote a sweet entry in his journal:

TODAY
Today I'm looking at Wren. He drinks chai.
He wants Chai. I get Chai. I drink Chai.
Mum works on dinner. Its yummy. I like it.