On helping Ella stand strong

I'm away at a software seminar in New Hampshire, and trying to stay up late so I can wake up late so I can stay up really late tomorrow night as I drive home, which is a 7-hour drive when the roads are good and (as I found out last night when driving here) a nearly 10-hour drive when the roads stink.

I hate driving in heavy snow, even in a Subaru with nice four-wheel drive.

Anyway, that's not what I'm writing about. I've been meaning to write about something that happened with Ella last Friday.

She had a lovely little friend over, Caroline. Caroline is a sweet little waif-like thing, if possible even shyer than Ella. And the thing is, I know Caroline is really a very nice little normal girl. But a game she insisted that she wanted to play while she was over here, despite Ella's objections, made Ella extremely uncomfortable. And Ella didn't know what to do about it. Moreover, Caroline insisted that it was a "secret" game.

I came upstairs while the secret game was being played. They giggled nervously, but didn't tell me what it was. I figured it was some silly role-playing game, and thought no more of it, letting them have their little secret. How bad could it be?

Later, after Caroline left, I found out that Ella had tried to get Caroline to stop playing the game, but Caroline wouldn't, and Ella felt compelled to go along with it. She wished I had been able to stop it.

What! What! I was shocked, but didn't act upset in front of Ella. "What was it?"

Ella burst into tears. "I can't tell you. I'm too embarrassed."

My GOD! What the HELL?

Thereafter ensued a full half hour of 60 Questions, gently put to my sweet baby, to which Ella, speechless, nodded or shook her head, sobbing, and eventual...thank goodness...a real anticlimax. "I just can't tell you, Mom. I can't, I'm too embarrassed."

I got worried, very worried. "Were there rules to this game?" Yes. "Is it played in a specific room?" Yes. "Is it the hall?" No. "Is it the bedroom?" No. "Is it the bathroom?" Yes. "Is it with your bodies?" Yes. "Is it pretend play, role play?" Yes. "Is it doctor or something like that? You know that little kids do that sometimes, Ella, it's natural." No. No one took off their clothes. Bathroom, bathroom...what the hell? I got scared. "Tell me you didn't do anything with the medicines, Ella." No, nothing like that. It was all pretend. You needed at least three people to do it, so they had to pretend one of the people. Ella was upset, Ella tried to tell Caroline that her Mom wouldn't like it but Caroline just kept playing it, over and over, and Ella wished she could get her to stop...

Finally, I got it out of her, after a lot of talk about what it means to have the courage to do the right thing, how if a little kid makes you promise not to tell the grownups you can promise not to tell AND STILL TELL THE GROWNUPS ANYWAY, you're allowed to do that...

Turns out it was a variation on the age-old cops-and-robbers kind of play...the goal of this weird little game was that you're supposed to run around the house and when you got to the bathroom, well, that was the edge of a cliff and you were supposed to push pretend people off the cliff into a pot.

Ick, yes, kind of. But WHEW!!! No weirder than other things kids play. Nothing that I had to be really concerned about, nothing I had to report to Caroline's parents or anything. The whole time Ella was sobbing in my arms I was envisioning calling up Kelli to give her the scary news about her little girl's games. Thank goodness.

But Ella, my beautiful sweet-souled angel, just couldn't stand the idea. This is something that might have gone over her head a while ago...but Ella, I think partly due to her new awareness about the implications of the things she does, her new awareness of her own efficacy in the big wide world, just couldn't stand the idea of pretending to hurt people. It was so confusing for her why someone would want to pretend that, she thought it was awful, just shamefully awful. My little girl who always wants to help, who always wants to make things better, felt herself compelled to participate in this weird little game.

And that's the thing that we have to consider now...how to be strong in the face of her friends' desires to do something she doesn't want to do. I think she was embarrassed not really at the fact of the game's having been played, but at her own inability to stop it. Not that she SHOULD have the skills to do this at her age, but she didn't know that. So that's my task for the next little while, to help Ella build up her strength of character so that when someone wants her to do something she doesn't want to do, she is able to refuse and to turn the situation around.

I think Nancy Reagan's admonition is too simplistic, though. Even for a 6-year-old. Suggestions would be more than welcome.

By the way, we went right out to Target afterward and I just got her lots of stuff, clothes, mostly, and a doll she really wanted. She was shocked, and very, very pleased. We never do that. (Well, she needed the clothes. The doll was to celebrate her courage.) I want her to remember how it feels, to associate pride and fun and happiness with the achievement of doing something right, a thing she found so very difficult.

Heartbreaking, though, from a parent's perspective. I thought we'd be able to wait awhile on this one.

Ballet solution, I think

I think I have found a solution to Ella's ballet class issue, the one which resulted in her anxiety and crying, and the crying spilling over to other classes.

She started this afternoon at a new class, with a woman named Elizabeth Clark, a 60-odd-year-old woman who has had an ensemble here in Rochester for many years. She teaches in a church near here. The girls had taken a sample class with her at the Brighton library over a year ago, and I remember thinking at the time that she was much more of a "free spirit" dancer, more of a "dance what you feel" kind of instructor. I had thought that this wouldn't be the right kind of class for Ella, not formal or disciplined enough, but after the problem with the formality of the other class, I thought we should give it a try.

The woman is just a total darling, a grandmothery type who wants her students to love dancing. And the class was wonderful for Ella. Ella loved Elizabeth, Elizabeth loved her, I loved Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was very complimentary about Ella's dancing (and even about my web site). It was one big love-fest. Even if one of the other classes Elizabeth teaches is Diversity Dancing (or some such), I don't care. It's perfect. Ella finished the class looking so glowingly happy that I felt willing to empty my bank account for this woman. But I only had to part with $72. What a deal.

Thank goodness.

Lunar Eclipse

Of course we had to check out the eclipse with the kids. The Rochester Museum & Science Center was having an event with members of the Rochester Astronomy Club having telescopes in the parking lot, and a viewing of Saturn from the main telescope on top of the building.

We set out at 8:20 in, miracle of miracles, a clear night. One has very small odds of finding a clear night anywhere between November and April in Rochester, so we felt lucky. It was cold, even by Rochester's standards (17 degrees), but it felt a LOT colder with the wind. We bundled up in layers (and when Ella bundles up in layers, she means FOUR layers of everything...she smilingly imitated Randy in A Christmas Story--"I can't put my arms downs!"), but it still didn't stop the incredible bite of the wind.

As the eclipse wasn't scheduled to start for a little while, we spent a freezing 15 minutes up on the top of the planetarium waiting in line to see Saturn. Then we headed inside the building to play and wait for the Big Event.

We went outside at 8:45. To...a thick snowstorm. Welcome to Rochester. Yep, the car was mostly covered in a scant 10 minutes. It was "only" lake-effect snow, but clouds are clouds. The "photojournalist" from 10NBC was there (you can see that nothing happens in Rochester, when this kind of thing makes the news) to film all of the families crowded around the telescopes and excitedly watching the eclipse, but he mostly got shots of disappointed people crowded around the astronomer who was showing us printed-out charts of what *was* happening up there behind the clouds even though we couldn't see it.

The clouds thinned a little bit on the way home, enough that we could see a fuzzy outline of a moon that was no longer round.

But spirits were undaunted, let me tell you. We sort of saw the eclipse, and calculated how old they would be by the time the next one swings around. They'll remember it all the better for the bitter cold, and the sudden snowstorm.

The important thing the kids will take away from it is: We do stuff. Cool stuff. Even if it doesn't quite work out the way we originally intended.

My third-grade diary

I was doing some major cleaning and reorganizing this past weekend, and found my third-grade diary. I had gotten it for Christmas of 1977. I wrote in it faithfully through February, and then in spurts until the summer. We sat around and read from it.

There are some great entries, the best of which are written DIRECTLY to my children. Yes, I had the sense that some day my kids would see the diary, and I was thinking about what they'd be like. So I had the foresight to say hello to them at various points. On Monday, February 20, 1978, I wrote this:

If it is my husband or my children reading it, you might ask me to show you my little girl sunbonnet. (As told about yesterday.)

The girls were amazed; indeed, I *have* the sunbonnet my parents had brought back from their trip to Lancaster County Pennsylvania. The girls have used it for a couple of years. And to see it written about, in a note to THEM from 30 years ago...wow.

Madison immediately got inspired to start writing in her journal.

One small thing: As a homeschooler, I was a little flummoxed to see that my spelling and handwriting, as a third grader, clearly eclipsed Madison's now. I went to public school; Madison is supposed to be better than me in every respect. Right? Right? Now I know this isn't reasonable. But still.

I did actually seem to like school at the time. BUT...I loved this entry from June 28:

This is the last day of school. Boy am I glad to be out of the grind!

The guilty pleasure of winter drama camp

The local kids have off school this week for Winter Break. Madison started yesterday at a week-long musical theater camp run by a local director here in Rochester.Yesterday's theme was Mary Poppins, today it's Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, Thursday it's Annie and Friday it's High School Musical. (Tomorrow we're having friends over.) I know nothing about High School Musical. Yes, I am totally out of the loop. Anyway, Madison liked it so much that Ella is attending with her today. (It's a very flexible camp.)

I've already gotten out to the gym, exercised hard, went to Home Depot, put up some hooks and made a few repairs, and gotten some work done.

It's quiet.

AHHHHHHHHH.

Excellence

In my KOA newsletter last week, I wrote a little bit about excellence. My follow-up comments this week are getting some positive attention from the Rochester parents who read my email. That's good, because I need to be concerned about not coming on too strong, or seeming like I'm constantly complaining, or making regular people who just dump their kids in public school without a second thought to their education feel like I'm jabbing them (even though I am, implicitly). Here's what I wrote in today's e-newsletter:

After last week's email, which contained some of my thoughts about excellence, I received several comments to the effect that perhaps one problem is that we've actually been putting too much stress on kids, pushing them to compete and achieve and bulk up their portfolios for the all-important college admissions process. This gave me an excellent (ha!) opportunity to make clear a distinction which I have been thinking about for 20 years: Who gets to decide what "excellence" is? I, too, was one of "those kids"--the stressed-out, depressed, high achievers to whom getting A's and getting into a good college meant everything. Now, don't get me wrong, obsessive achievement at school beats failure any day of the week. But my problem was that all I was left with were the A's--not much knowledge or character, and certainly no good skills at thinking. Nowadays, of course, no one cares where I went to college. Why should they? People care that I do my job well: that I can write, and think, and know what the heck I'm talking about when I put fingers to keyboard. For my kids, my goal is to encourage real, objective excellence, so that they become bright, engaged, and culturally literate human beings--excellent, that is, at living life, not necessarily at living up to some organization's standard of academic achievement. I expect that if David and I can succeed at this, our girls' college-and-career-path issues will sort out themselves.

Happy birthday, my love

Today our Birthday of the Day is...

David Stewart Ross

born in 1958 in Queens, New York, 91 years after Laura Ingalls Wilder was born, and one year after she died.

He's not dead, yet. So, no one gets a nickel tonight for knowing when.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Here's an interesting question: What to do when you're reading a book out loud to your little kids and you get all choked up.

This happens to me all the time. I get emotional, my throat tightens, and my voice comes out sounding cracked and strained. But I have always had a conviction of trying not to lose control of my emotions in front of the kids (except for the positive ones...I have no problem with expressing joy or glee or having a giggle fit), because kids are supposed to feel protected by their parents, not protective.

So, what I do is that usually I just try to gloss over it, to take some deep breaths or rub my nose or cough, to divert the attention. Madison is pretty savvy, though, savvy enough to notice a corrollation between what's going on in the text and my coughing. (Ella is oblivious.) She noticed yesterday morning, when I was reading then A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle (one of my old favorites). And then today, at lunch, when Duthbert Mortmain hits Chuck and he falls down the stairs--and of course I know what is going to happen after that because I read this book dozens of times as a kid--well, it was just so sad that I just couldn't go on. I actually started crying.

I realized that part of the impetus behind the welling up of these emotions is that I'm experiencing the book on many different levels than I did as a child; I understand the implications of so much more than I did back then, so these books are far more meaningful. Plus, as I read them, I am remembering how I experienced them as a child, noting how I am experiencing them as an adult, and -- at the same time -- comparing the difference between my experiences then and now, and pondering what the difference means. So it's affecting me on many levels now, simultaneously, whereas it was a much simpler experience for me as a child. So, yes, it's no wonder I start crying.

But what to do about it? I don't want the kids to be too concerned.

And, frankly, they weren't, today. They were surprised. They didn't understand why I was actually crying, given what had just happened in the book.

"Does Chuck die?" they asked.

"No."

"What happens?"

"He gets brain damage, and experiences his universe as an oddly shifting one -- as a swiftly tilting planet."

The still didn't understand why it had affected me so deeply. I told them that adults experience books in many more ways than kids do. They seemed to accept that. They weren't particularly concerned that I was crying, which was a good thing. I think there's losing control and losing control; if I was clearly out of control, that would be scary. But as long as I'm still me, I think a few tears shed won't be a bad thing.

A nice, non-hectic weekend

I don't remember any weekend recently when we didn't have anything pressing to do or accomplish, and it was wonderful. It was boring, though. This is a very boring post.

I'm wrong, actually, we did do something...but Friday night so it really doesn't count. We went to see the Harlem Globetrotters at the Blue Cross Arena. I still love those free press pass tickets that publicists keep giving me so I'll write reviews. I'm still inordinately pleased that I get all these tickets free...can't take the Jersey out of the girl, David says. The "game" was fun, but the sound quality wasn't good and the kids didn't really get the jokes, and they don't know the finer points of basketball, so a lot was lost on them. What a genial time, though; David pointed out that the Harlem Globetrotters are among the last vestiges of Vaudeville.

Then, Saturday, David took the kids to choir while I *read*, ye gads, for several hours. And then we just hung around the house and all did our thing. I sent off a bunch of free passes I'd received for my readers to see the Spiderwick Chronicles movie screening on Wednesday, making about 50 people happy, but otherwise didn't accomplish a blessed thing other than laundry. We watched David Attenborough and then a documentary on Ella Fitzgerald with the girls, and then went to bed.

Today, I organized a ton of financial papers while watching about four Bob Ross painting shows I'd taped (yay me, I've been wanting to accomplish this for a year...the paper sorting, not the painting show watching) and then we went over to the Rochester Central Library. I was looking for the one book on Tupperware history that exists, because a fine point in the book I'm writing revolves around a particular Tupperware lunch box manufactured in the 70s (though unfortunately the book wasn't very helpful). Then we went across the street to the Rundell Library, and the kids sat around and read while David and I and spent a nice hour browsing through some of their wonderful collection of local history books. (I was very proud of the girls, they're real sports about this kind of thing.) Then we ran through the eight-but-with-wind-chill-minus-13 degree wind over to the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for dinner, came home, read, and put them to bed.

The most uneventful and relaxing weekend I've had in a long time. See, aren't you bored just reading about it?

Reproduce or die

The other night while we were out seeing Mandy Patinkin, Madison and Ella watched some of the new NetFlix video, David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals Disk 3 with the babysitter, Hye Yon. (We all love David Attenborough's series -- we can't decide whether this one is best or The Life of Birds.) We asked her after the kids had gone to bed how it was, and Hye Yon momentarily got an odd look on her face, though didn't comment specifically.

This morning, the girls were telling us that they'd finally seen the segment on whales, which we'd all been anticipating.

"And," Ella said enthusiastically, "the humpbacked whale has a penis that goes back all the way inside him! It stays there until he wants to mate."

(This may explain Hye Yon's uncertainty at how to answer our question.)

We all spent a few minutes musing about why the penis goes completely back inside most of the time. I said maybe it's a streamlining thing, how it might slow him down when swimming. "You know, things dangling off you probably get in the way of going fast." David said it may be to protect the whale's reproductive capacity; if he wasn't able to draw it back in, it might get damaged while swimming, and then it couldn't reproduce.

"In that case," said Madison, "he might as well kill himself."

Happy Birthday, LIW!

Laura Ingalls Wilder would be 141 years old today, were she still alive.

What value the woman provided the world in general, and kid lit in particular.

Every morning, when we do the Birthday of the Day, we always use LIW as the standard -- was Babe Ruth born before or after LIW? On February 7, though, the Birthday of the Day was born at exactly the same time and place as our standard. The girls enjoyed that.

They'll get rich with the nickels tonight, that's for sure.

On the other hand...they're having a babysitter tonight; Hye Yon (who now has a real job in a technology firm, but loves the babysitting anyway) will be coming at 5:30 so David and I can go see Mandy Patinkin. Yay and double yay. I think I'll let Hye Yon dole out the nickels, that will amuse her.

Who's on first?

Tuesday's Birthday of the Day was Hank Aaron and Wednesday's Birthday of the Day was Babe Ruth. So perhaps it's no coincidence that Madison took to doing "bases" in math like a duck to water. I had given her an overview of the idea even before we left Virginia in late 2006, but the re-introduction has really anchored the concept beautifully in her mind. She slurped it up with a fairly brief explanation from David and some strategy augmentation from me later in the morning. I made up a sheet with questions like:

Thirteen in base 2

Forty-nine in base 7

Fifty in base 5

One hundred in base 5

Madison ate these questions for lunch, with few mistakes.

I have to get this kid programming, soon. She's going to love it. Someone had recommended Alice.org. I will have to check this out.

Who knows what's next with this kid

More evidence for my theory that Ella is in some kind of big mental/emotional growth spurt: In recent days, she has, at my halfhearted suggestion but without any urging on my part, tried -- and liked -- lettuce, radishes, and now, wonder of wonders, brussels sprouts. Goodness. She even just ate the beef stir fry without complaining the other night (well, after she isolated the peppers and onions).

I did the Mommy Dance of Joy at the brussels sprouts. It vaguely resembled Hammer Time, though without the big pants or the big L. (What the heck WAS that L about, anyway?)

It was hard getting her to go into karate today, though, she was terribly anxious that she was going to cry again and be embarrassed. In the end, we were just in time and she had to change and the class was starting right up, so there was no time for her to come over to me and get worked up. She says she's always fine once she gets distracted, anyway. She has really good insight for something that seems to her still not easy to control.

Spontaneous poetry (and an it's/its lesson)

A Rose is a Song

A rose is a song.
Its petals the tune
And its rhythm the bud.
Its beat is its stem.
Its sweet smell is the happiness sung.
And its thorns the mistakes that are made.

by Madison



-------------------------

At the Beach
bi Ella

At the beach there is sandy beaches
And the oshn so wid
And at the beach thars fan for evreawan.

Ella still crying

Well, Ella is still crying. It's a very strange thing; it started with ballet the other week. The following week she went into ballet ok, but the week after THAT she couldn't even go into the room. Last week we didn't go out because of the ice storm. I'm simply going to stop taking her to class; there are only 4 classes left, and I don't think she needs the anxiety.

The anxiety has spilled over into other classes. She was skittish about it on the car ride to Gym and Swim yesterday, but once she was in she was fine (she actually has no trouble asking the teachers to be understanding in advance, in case she cries). And then, oddity of oddities, I couldn't get her to even go into karate (which she has been doing for over a year and loving) for the first 20 minutes of class yesterday. She just leaned against me miserably, tears rolling down her cheeks, until she felt ok enough to go into the class. The senseis were concerned but were terrific, especially once they realized it had nothing to do with karate.

She's even crying more at odd times that have nothing to do with anxiety per se, when "it's time" for her to make some kind of effort on her own. This morning she was working on some multiplication cards, and started sobbing because "her neck hurt when she was looking down so much."

Here is my interpretation:

I have watched the world suddenly open up for my 6 1/2-year-old over the past several months. She can read. We've been doing a lot of work about other cultures, she's having new experiences, and much less about what's going on in the world goes over her head. She's busy, busy, busy absorbing it all. She's dreaming in detail, all the time, and telling me about it...where she never used to remember her dreams at all. She's losing her baby teeth.

And so, suddenly, instead of this very safe, snuggly, SMALL world that she's used to, she's perched at the edge of this wide-open vista. And I think it's a little overwhelming.

That's my take on it. So I'm not too worried. I think it will resolve itself. But I feel for her.

Thank you again, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Ella somehow suddenly got bit with the Laura Ingalls Wilder bug yesterday. She wanted her hair in braids, she put on the dress that Aunt Anne gave her for Christmas, we started reading Little House on the Prairie (again, but this time with a lot of enthusiasm on her part), SHE started reading LHP out loud with me, we got out the Little House cookbook yesterday and made Mother Wilder's doughnuts, we did math with a LHP theme.

We're on Day 2 of the craze. Who am I to argue.

Update: We've been reading all afternoon. I bow down to this woman as a children's writer. I'll never be close to that good.