Field trip

The best thing about having all the kids in school is that now I can be a room mom and volunteer for field trips without having to worry about sitters. So I was more than happy to go as a chaperon for Apollo's class field trip to Johnson's farm. What a fun way to spend a morning, right?

It started out well enough. Apollo was excited to see me, and I knew all of the other moms. I was in charge of 4 boys--the Sunflower group. We boarded the bus, squeezed in like sardines (three seat belts to a seat!) and made our way to the farm. We planted 4 seeds to start with--bean, sunflower, pumpkin, and corn. Then we got on the tractor for a "hay ride" to pick some produce. In the fall, they always let us pick small pumpkins. This time they handed out strawberry baskets. We were all pretty excited about the prospect of picking strawberries. When the kids told the "farmer" about the strawberries, he deadpanned: "Strawberries? You're picking spinach." The kids looked at us in confusion. We smiled knowingly and shook our heads. Of course we wouldn't be picking spinach; he's just teasing you. But as we drove past the strawberry fields, paying customers looking at us warily, we didn't stop. There must be another field in the back, we reasoned. We passed apple orchards, horses, tractors in various states of disrepair in a shed (flashbacks to Grandpa McKay's farm) and kept driving. Til we were in a spinach field of all places. (Oops, our bad!) Some of the grownups, still in denial (we really wanted strawberries) looked at the weedy patch and told the kids we must be picking some mystery plant and pointed at the weeds. Luckily, the "farmer" set everyone straight and we ended stuffing spinach leaves into our strawberry baskets. To be honest, the kids didn't seem to mind, and tried to stuff as much spinach into their baskets as possible. (Perhaps it's slightly better than the cotton Tritan picked at his farm field trip in kindergarten in VA--at least we could eat spinach).

Then we were admitted into the animal/play area where they could feed animals through tubes and look at them through double fencing.I am sure that is much more humane than most "petting zoos" but the kids soon tired of throwing corn through tubes and went to play on a myriad of tractor tires, rope mazes, bridges, barrel slides. The only problem was that there were 5 kindergarten classes from our school alone, and there were at least 2 other schools in the play area. I only had 4 kids to look after--piece of cake, right? The thing with 5 year olds, they don't get the buddy system, or at least these 4 didn't. But they are confident enough to run around with reckless abandonment, never looking around for reassurance from a familiar adult. I know this because as I'm scanning the playground, I was constantly losing one or the other--(there's Aidan, there's Apollo, where's Alan?, is that Chris?) until finally I did lose one and had to go on a recon mission. I was sure the missing kid would end up with another school, and finally realize he was lost when he was on a bus headed to inner-city Philadelphia. Sure enough, I found him obliviously playing with kids from another school and brought him back to the fold. And then I went back to continuous scanning (there's Alan, where's Apollo?, is that Chris?) I was relieved when it was finally snack time.

As I handed out snacks, I realized I had forgotten Apollo's snack. I had put in a juice box, but that was it. So here is fifty or so kindergartners opening bigger than usual snacks with apples, cheese sticks, crackers and my kid has nothing. Luckily, I packed a meal replacement bar in my bag for me, so he gnawed on that. Satisfied that he wasn't going to starve, and that all we had left was to herd them back on the bus, I turned to the one dad who met us at the farm because he had the day off: "It was nice that you could come," I said, trying to sound friendly.

"Yeah." Pause. "You look a little stressed."

"Yup," I nodded. Great.

Athena's ambition

Athena in her new outfit

Athena has always had a mind of her own, and a will to get what she wants done. I've always known this about her, from the moment I was surprised by her conception. Once I had abandoned the questions of "how could this happen?" and "what are we going to do?", I immediately got the impression of a little girl who just couldn't wait to join her big brother, and one day I'm going to look into the back story of how she managed to cut in line. She was born with ambition, and I am at turns amazed and delighted by it, since I seem to have very little ambition myself.

Last week she had a performance for her Enrichment Group. Enrichment is a class 5th graders get to choose to go to once a week--they get to choose from health, knitting, art, singing, etc. Her Enrichment Group was Singing, and under the direction of the school music teacher, these 8 girls put on a "Glee"-like show where they each got to sing a contemporary song as a solo and they had one group song at the end with choreography and everything. She was understandably nervous about singing a solo in front of the entire school, and thought that a new outfit was just the thing to boost her confidence. I would have agreed...if I hadn't already spent quite a lot on her already this year on new clothes--surely, one of her newer outfits would suffice. But she spent the next week asking for jobs to do around the house and negotiating how much money they were worth--(cleaning the linen closet--me thinking I was generous: $3, her: "I was thinking more like, $5?"), When she had $8, she found a dress at Target for $14, and convinced me to pay the other $6. She worked so hard for it, I felt like I had to give in.

Singing "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton

Second case in point: She found out that the Talent Show at school was canceled this year. She and her friend Alyssa and her other friend Alyssa have been working since February choreographing and practicing a dance, so they were very disappointed. A lot of her classmates were, too. So she thought, "Well, hey, I'm one of the class presidents, I'll go talk to Mrs. Kennedy (the principal)". So she went down, and very calmly inquired why the talent show was canceled. When she found out it was because the teachers who normally sponsored the talent show were too busy this year (one was on maternity leave, the other is getting married next month) she suggested that she would find two other teachers to sponsor it. And then she went around asking teachers til she found 2 that said yes. (But really, who's going to say no to a kid?). So now the talent show is back on.

Of course, I'm proud of her. I'm just also a little worried about what I'm going to do when she decides she wants her own car, or to go backpacking across Europe...

Answer

First Time Loosing a Tooth

Riddle

What can make a kid be reluctant to eat, want to go to bed early, and be eager to go to school? Leave your guesses and I'll post the answer tomorrow.

The kids have been partying...

This is supposed to be a blog about what the kids do, but they do so much without me now, it's hard to keep track....

There are anomalies in all of the places that we've lived--things I've noticed that are unique to the area we live in but have no logical explanation, aren't really a product of the geography or the genealogy of an area, but are just coincidences: Like, in Alabama there were an unusual amount of red heads. And twins. Here, there seems to only be about a dozen names: Jill, Jessica, Lisa (or Alyssa), Rich, and Steve--seriously, if you don't know someone's name you have a pretty good shot if you just guess one of those. Also, apparently April/May was a popular time to give birth around here--the kids' social calendar has been rife with birthday parties.

Tritan's best friend had a slumber party a couple of weeks ago. They were supposed to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid but at the last minute, the kids all decided they'd rather just goof off (go figure). So they went to the parking lot of the mother's workplace (with no cars in it) and the parents drove around the parking lot fast while the kids hung their heads out the window. (Note to self: Next time the kids beg to see $9 3-D movie, suggest this instead.) They ate pizza and stayed up most of the night. Tritan's not our most social, so despite being a little unorthodox, the party was a huge success. Tritan could even tell us the names of everyone who was there!

(On a side note: Tritan's IEP meeting went really well. All of his teachers said they could see a huge improvement in responsibility and socialization this year. I've noticed it too. Especially this last few months. I'm not sure what caused this new attitude, but maybe it's just him growing up. They are going to mainstream him this next year to classes with 2 teachers, so he won't have any pull-out classes. Tritan said he is a little nervous, but I think he will do great. He is really smart; it's only the social aspect that he has a hard time with, and he's getting better with that all the time.)

Athena had a birthday party the night before Mother's Day and came back sparkling, literally. The mother of the birthday girl did makeovers for the girls, and she had gold eyeliner, pink glitter, and glossy lips. She tried to sleep on her back to preserve it for church, since she had a talk in Primary. I wasn't thrilled with her wearing so much make-up, but see below, I tend to let some things slide.

Apollo is the busiest with appointments at the Pump It Up party place almost weekly. The good thing is, he's old enough now that I don't have to stay with him the entire party. Now if I was only smart enough to buy toys in bulk we wouldn't have to run to Target every week...

Mother's Day

Yesterday someone referred to Mother's Day as a "Card Holiday"--a holiday created to sell cards. Usually I would take great offense to this statement because ever since I became a mom Mothers Day was one of the most important days of the year to me. When you go from working and going to school where you're rewarded with pats on the back, grades, and paychecks, to cleaning up food, poop, and heaven knows what else and get rewarded with more food, vomit, etc. to clean up, it's nice to have one day where everyone takes a moment and tells you how wonderful you are. This year I let the statement slide--but that didn't mean I didn't take full enjoyment of the day. Here are my favorite things about mother's day:

• Listening to the primary kids sing "Mother, I Love You" and getting chocolates at church.
• Not making dinner--Dad made spaghetti while Athena made fruit salad
• Taking a nap while everyone else cleans up dinner
• Dad orchestrating "spa day" where the kids rub lotion on my feet and hands
• Going to a fireside given by Sister and Elder Holland with Tritan and Bev
• Coming home to a Shirley Temple made by Athena

I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day. I know I couldn't have made it this year (or any year, actually) without going crazy if I couldn't call my mom every week and have her help me keep things in perspective and empathize with what I'm going through at the moment. Thanks Mom!

Mother tries to know best

I am not the best mom I know. I am not even close to the kind of mom I want to be. But then, I realize that some (most?) moms probably feel the same way. Still, it's not always easy to know when to put your foot down, and when to let things slide.
Athena had state testing this week, and so she wore slippers to school. Really? Slippers? But I just rolled my eyes and let her go, because, really is that something to fight about?
Paris wore an Ace bandage around his ankle on Monday. Why? " I hurt myself," he said. And when I challenged him, he amended it to, "I have a mosquito bite that I don't want to itch." I suggested he just put a band-aid on it, but he seemed to think a whole Ace bandage would work better. Fine. Whatever.
Of course, then I found out that he was telling everyone at school that he was playing around when some friends of ours were leaving and they accidentally hit his ankle with their car(yes, that would be you Jess). There are some pretty obvious flaws in that story, but he pointed out that when you unwrap it, the bandage leaves an impression that can look like tire marks. Apparently, there have been a lot of accidents in the 4th grade and Paris was feeling left out. We talked about being liked for who you are, and the importance of not lying, and the long and short of it was he didn't wear the bandage again.
Tritan's teacher sent home a PG version of Gladiator for me to preview and (hopefully) give my consent for him to watch it. This is the same teacher who wanted to show a PG-13 version of 300 (that I just said no to). I watched about 45 min. of this movie, and I admit that somehow they made the opening fight scene about as gruesome as a Narnia movie (which was really incredible, seeing how I've read the original fight scene was pretty bad). I'm sure if I had compared the two movies I would have found that most of the blood and guts and sex scenes were edited out, so technically it's a PG movie. Thing is, when a film maker makes an R-rated film, he makes it for adults, not children. So the themes, intensity, and plot are all more than a 12-year-old can handle (I think). For instance, the son of Caesar kills his father when he threatens to hand over the government to Maximus. I don't think a 12-year-old needs to see that, blood or no blood. And then, Maximus escapes execution, and is returning home to see his beloved wife and son, when they show the soldiers riding up to kill the son and wife. Of course, the son runs out to greet the soldiers because he thinks his father is among them, but no, they are there to kill him. OK enough. I turned it off. I can't even handle that kind of sadness. I know I'm a dork, but if I can't handle it, I can guarantee you Tritan won't enjoy it. He doesn't even like it when parents yell in movies.
So I had to say no. Which I'm sure the teacher is rolling her eyes about. And maybe now the whole class won't be able to watch it (because with the 300 movie, if one parent said no, no one got to watch it). I do feel bad since she is trying so hard to make ancient history interesting for 6th graders, and I'm sure she feels she is doing her best to acquiesce to us overprotective moms, but I mean, Maximus isn't even a real person. And historically, Commodus didn't murder his father; he died of the plague and the murder story was made up later to justify overthrowing Commodus later.
Ah, well. I may not serve warm breakfasts or limit computer usage as much as I should, but I am trying. Hopefully, the kids will understand when they're my age (that's why I'm writing it down now).