Left? Right!

The conversation around our family’s dinner table tonight was very much like a long answer to the joke that starts with,

“What do you get when you cross a linguist with a speech-language pathologist?”

Lyle, kicking things off with a random deep thought: Mommy, of the side-to-side words (gesturing from left to right and holding out his hands), which do you like better, “left” or “right”? I mean, the words, not the directions. Which one of those words do you like the best?  I like “left”.

Me, surprised: Hmm, I never thought about that.  I guess I’d say I like…

Baxter, interjecting quickly: Right.  I like right.

Me, finishing: …”left”.  I think I’d say “left”, off the top of my head, just because it seems more unique and interesting than “right”.  I guess I’m thinking about how common it is for people to be right-handed and fewer people are left-handed, so “left” seems kind of cool to me.  That’s the first thing I think of.

Lyle: I like “left”, too, because “left” only means one or two things, but the word “right” can mean lots and lots of different things.

Baxter: Yeah, like when you get something “right”, or correct… I like “right” because one time in Amelia Bedelia, Mr. Rogers told Amelia to turn left and she said, “Left?” and he said, “Right!” and so she turned right! [This retelling was a lot longer but I couldn't follow its winding roads well enough at the time to reiterate them for posterity here.]

Matt: I like “left” because it makes me think of leftovers...

Me, laughing: But I think many people have a negative connotation when they think of leftovers!

Matt: Well, I’m thinking of pizza leftovers… (all three of us were suddenly on board)

Baxter: Then there’s also getting “left” in the dust, and that’s bad...

And so it went, on and on.  We also discussed our preferences for “up” v. “down” and a variety of other oddities.  This has just got to be in their genes.

** Edited to add: At breakfast this morning, Baxter taught Lyle what vowels and consonants are.  The boys spent half an hour giving each other words and naming the vowels in them.  (I made Lyle a cheat-sheet.)  They both found this endlessly entertaining.  After this posting of  last night’s dinner conversation, I did, too.

Bad Fit

Lyle recently expressed an interest in playing the violin.  Having played violin and viola myself growing up, I was absolutely thrilled.  I signed him up for some private lessons and rented violins for both of us.  For a few weeks, I’ve been relearning to play some simple pieces of music and he has loved listening and learning the little things I can teach him while we waited for our class to begin.

His first lesson was last Monday, at a reputable folksy music school here in Chicago.  I sat in and observed.  His teacher moved fast.  She was intense. She wasn’t “mean”, but there was no small talk, no friendly chatter.  She moved right into work on posture  – holding the instrument properly – and told me that he wouldn’t pick up the bow for at least 2-3 weeks.  She spent the full thirty minutes on a sequence of movements required to move from “concert rest position” to “playing position”.  Each time Lyle moved his arm into a correct position he moved one of his feet a step and had to start over from the beginning.  It was hard to watch but I was so impressed that he stuck with it and cooperated so beautifully.

However, the instant she told him he was finished, he rushed across the room, fell into my arms, and sobbed.  She didn’t address this, simply let the next student into the room and pushed us quickly out the door, Lyle still crying.  He cried all the way to the car, raging at me, saying he never wanted to take another lesson, never wanted to go back.  He asked if he could keep his violin, but I told him we couldn’t keep the rental instrument if he didn’t take lessons.  I assured him that we could find another teacher, however, if he wanted.  Much to my shock, by the time we got home he told me determinedly that he would go back.

All week I grappled with this.  Was the teacher too harsh? – or is this the way you teach a young child a challenging instrument like the violin? I don’t remember starting out that way, but perhaps I’ve forgotten.  Shouldn’t she have established some sort of rapport with him first, made a connection with the child? – or was I applying what a good therapist does to a different situation, one that doesn’t require it?  She was teaching him skills and he was capable of learning them with repetition, I saw that.  But was it meaningful to him? No.   Was he motivated to learn from her? No.  So how could it be that different from a negative therapeutic situation, then?

In fact, although he was determined to continue so that he could keep his beloved tiny violin, I watched my son struggle more and more as the week went on.  His anxiety grew more with each day, and his behavior became extremely controlling and defiant.  He wanted to be in charge of every conversation and everything anyone asked him to do.  The closer we got to the second lesson, the less tolerable his behavior.  On Saturday morning, we had to leave a Halloween festival we’d invited friends to because he was acting downright nasty.

I could see it quite clearly.  He was turning the tables on us, acting out exactly what he felt the teacher had done to him.  She had controlled every move he made for thirty minutes straight.  He’d never seen an adult act like that with a child.  Each time I tried to discuss it with him, he waffled painfully; on one hand, he never wanted to go back to that teacher again. “I HATE violin,” he shouted angrily, many times.  On the other hand, he was asking to go back to her rather than another, unknown, teacher.  He didn’t want to give up that violin.

And I still wondered: Can he do it?  Should he do it?  Is this how he needs to learn?  Will he just get used to her style?  Should he?  After all, we need to be able to learn from different kinds of teachers, don’t we? Do we pull the plug this fast, or give him one more week, especially since he says he’ll go back?

But I watched my kid and saw how incredibly dysregulated he was becoming, and decided to cancel the lessons.   I realized suddenly that this is exactly the kind of thing I talk about at work all the time with families.  The violin teacher did all of the things I warn against in therapy:  she sat a brand new child down and started drilling discrete skills (e.g., posture and movement sequences) without establishing any rapport whatsoever, without placing those skills into a meaningful context (e.g., music), moving too fast, and talking too loudly (not adjusting pace and volume to a child’s developmental level and temperament).  There wasn’t a word of praise. When he had a negative reaction to the session, she did not address or acknowledge it even for a moment.  And, thanks to these missteps, my child’s behavior took a huge turn for the worse in a matter of only 5 days, even with me processing it with him every day.  (Imagine a child with a classroom teacher or aide who behaves this way towards him all day?  Think about the “naughty” behavior we’d be seeing!  What if a parent didn’t see it, and so didn’t know what accounted for his behavior at home?)

Maybe that is considered to be an optimal way to begin this particular instrument and some kids can learn that way, but my kid clearly isn’t one of them – and I can’t feel bad about that.  A good teacher or therapist of any kind doing a private lesson is going to assess a student long enough to figure out who this child is and meet him right where he is developmentally in order to move forward.  I don’t think that would’ve taken more than five minutes in this case.  This is exactly why I always do a free initial session with a new client to make sure that both the child and the adult are comfortable with each other.  No therapist or teacher is going to be a good fit for every child.

Now that Lyle knows he’ll never see that teacher again, he has started to relax.  I have a couple other violin teachers for us to meet with this week and he’s happy about that.  Maybe one of them will be a better match and we’ll continue on this road, and maybe not.  In the end, it doesn’t matter.  But one thing is for sure: we are not going to suffer through 8 weeks of lessons with the wrong teacher.  Lyle showed us very clearly how he felt about that.

This parenting stuff?  It’s just not easy.

Caweew Day

A couple days ago I was asked by a fellow parent at my boys’ school if I could fill a last-minute hole in the Career Day schedule at school.  In the interest of full disclosure here, I will admit that I tend to skulk around on the sidelines wearing dark hooded cloaks and huge Hollywood sunglasses when those notices and emails come out about the school’s annual Career Day.  Why is that?  I love my job and I don’t mind talking to people, especially kids, so I couldn’t tell you.  Believe it or not, I have a fundamental shyness that sometimes takes over, and this is one of those times.

But I like this mom who’s organizing it and I didn’t have anything going on that I couldn’t rearrange, so I said yes, sure, I’d talk about my job for 20 minutes to a second grade class.

Every few hours over the past couple of days I suggested to myself, You should really think about what you’re going to talk about on Thursday morning, and then promptly didn’t.  Seriously, I had no idea.  No notes, no particular structure to what I wanted to tell them.  I had more questions than answers: Do I stop and talk about autism, or is that my whole 20 minutes and not really the point of this? What do I do?  How do I put that into words for little kids? And so I truly walked in there with a head full of questions and absolutely no plan this morning.

I realize now that I probably did this because I knew on some level that I didn’t need a plan.  After all, I am comfortable performing, I regularly spend many hours a day talking to large groups of adults, and I am extremely comfortable around groups of children.  It’s what I do all day.  I might be reticent about signing myself up for this, but when asked, it’s not actually a challenge.

So I walked in with all sorts of bubbly enthusiasm and asked them if they knew why I was visiting.  The first boy to raise his hand told me, “Because it’s Caweew Day!” (No lie. Sign him up!)  Next, I told them what I do for a living.  Half a dozen kids yelled, “Ooooh!!” and  jumped out of their seats waving their hands at me, like they had been in a secret club for years and I was their long-lost leader finally come to claim them.  Those were the kids who go to speech therapy.  I knew that before they told me, and so I let them tell the rest of the class what I do for a living.  They did a pretty good job, describing work on /r/ and /l/ sounds, writing, letter sounds, and sign language.  I talked to them about all the names for my job: speech-language pathologist, speech therapist, speech teacher. And then I told them that I prefer to be called something different.  A hand shot up. “Mom?” asked one of the boys confidently, sure he had it right (I had told them that I have two children in their school).  Delighted, I ran over and gave him a high-five, telling him that yes, absolutely, I love to be called “Mom” at home, and then told them that I prefer to be called a Communication Therapist at work.

I explained to them what communication is all about and the importance of non-verbal communication.  I invited my little “Caweew Day” pal to come up for a role play. I had him ask me to play with him on the playground and I demonstrated how I could answer him in various ways without words, and the fact that he was watching me and understanding my facial expressions and gestures without my having to instruct him to do so.  I explained how important that is, and that I teach kids to do that and to pay more attention to it.  We talked about play groups and AAC devices and good toys for therapy.  I let the kids who go to speech be the superstars and tell their friends their favorite speech games.

There were some wonderful questions.  One girl up front raised her hand and asked me if the job is “Fun — or scary?”.  I asked her what she thought might be scary, and she suggested that when a new kid comes in I might feel a little scared sometimes because I wouldn’t know what they’re like.  What an astute question.  I suppose it was a window into how the kids feel when they walk in to the clinic for the first time.  I explained that I don’t feel scared about any kids but that if I ever feel nervous around a new student it would only be because I might wonder if I’ll be able to help them enough (although I pointed out that the longer you do the job the less you worry about this).

Next, a boy raised his hand and asked the apparently all-important second grade question: “Who’s the boss at your work?”  When I answered, “I’m the boss there,” 25 heads snapped to attention and 25 pairs of eyes stared at me in wonder.  Another boy shared, “My dad’s the boss at his work.  You have to get there first to be the boss,” followed by a rambling explanation of his father’s career history.  Okay, moving right along, then!  Then another worldly wise boy asked, “So did you buy the shop?” which prompted me to describe the clinic where I work and explain the whole space rental and share set-up.  (See, it’s really good that I didn’t plan anything, because how could you plan for this?)  I must’ve described the environment and tone of our clinic really well because suddenly a sweet boy who’d been bouncing up and down on a slanted foam cushion the whole time made a strong association – he raised his hand and told me he goes to my favorite local OT clinic and and who his therapist was, and I told him to tell her “hello” for me.  We had a moment, he and I.  I loved that these kids were all proudly sharing their therapies with each other and I can tell you for sure that the kids who’ve never gone to a therapist for anything were dying of jealousy.  I might’ve emphasized how awesome it is just a little bit here and there.

Before I left I asked how many of them thought they might want to be speech therapists when they grew up and at least 90% of their hands shot up.  I’m guessing the response was going to be 100% if asked by the guests who came in after me – musicians with props – but given the fact that I didn’t know about speech pathology as a career option until my senior year in college, I figured this was pretty good.

Something tells me I’ll put away the dark cloak and sunglasses and volunteer to spend the whole morning doing these talks next year.

Generation Gap

I’ve decided that, really, all swingin’ single 20-somethings in a big city should simply stop asking people like me – middle-class moms with young kids – what their weekend plans are.  Because it does not matter how cool I think it sounds, how excited I am, it never translates well.  The conversation just fizzles in a most awkward way.

If we’re going to a show (which is not a frequent occurrence in and of itself), we can’t just let it go at that.  Oh, no.  It becomes all about which bars and restaurants are close to that venue.  Not only do I not know, not having lived in this city before kids, but we have neither the money nor the energy to go out before or after a concert. We just don’t look at our watches at 11:30 pm and say, Hey, we just blew $100 on those Wilco tickets and another $60 so far on the babysitter – let’s go out for $12 drinks and stay out a couple more hours!

But if all the 20-somethings had this reality spelled out for them, I fear there would be a whole generation without children. And then who would my kids babysit when they’re in high school??  Who will wax their brows?  I mean – have you seen Baxter’s eyebrows??  So I listen to the explanations, the descriptions of great bars and fun nights out, and nod as if we might just stop by there.  And that’s really the best case scenario, when I have something like that to chat about.

Here’s an example of a conversation I had yesterday with the girl* who was waxing my otherwise-insane eyebrows:

Girl with the tweezers: Any special plans this weekend?

Me, excited to have anything at all to say, other than something along the lines of “I get to go to the grocery store alone tomorrow!” or “Taking Lyle to a Pump It Up party” or “Church and soccer”: Yes!  Some friends of ours are coming for the weekend!

Girl: Fun!  Where are they coming from?

Me, laughing a little: Um, well, they live here, in Chicago! (See?  It’s already going downhill – I should’ve said Manhattan or anything more exotic than “Here”.)

Girl: You mean…they live in the city?

Me: Yeah!  They’re just coming up with their kids and spending the night with us, it’ll be really fun.

Girl: Wait – where do you live?

Me: Chicago, yeah, north side.

Girl: perplexed silence

Me, starting to ramble now, but still enthusiastic because I am super excited about this plan: Well, you know, with all the kids, it’s great because the kids can stay up late and have a sleepover party and then we adults can all hang out and stay up late without hiring a babysitter…and we can make dinner together and then breakfast in the morning…

It’s a good thing I didn’t mention the fact that we could even go to church together on Sunday.  But I think I forgot to tell her about the booze.  I mean, seriously, if there was one thing to tell her to help her muster up a little enthusiasm about my plans, it was going to be that our friends have some kind of fancy drink blender that they’re bringing so that we can drink some awesome cocktails tonight.  Duh. I need more practice at this.

But at least she doesn’t know about the robe I’ll probably be wearing.  That would’ve done her in.

* When I was younger, I was adamant that any female over 18 was to be referred to as a “woman”, not a “girl”.  The older I get, no matter how much of a feminist I am, the weirder that seems.  Now I choose the label based on the actual maturity of the subject in question.  This subject? A girl.

Where’d that Big Kid Go?

For years I’ve watched as other bloggers grapple with the issue of their children’s privacy in the blogosphere, always with valid and understandable reason.  At its inception, my blog was intended for the eyes of my personal friends and family, and I wasn’t going to be writing things about my inner life that would require privacy.  It never occurred to me in a million years that someone I didn’t know might find it and read it.  Furthermore, although I know many people do, I have no concerns about pictures of my kids being on the Internet.  So it was a no-brainer to  use my kids’ real names and post photos of them.  At this point there’s no going back, even if I wanted to.

But as Baxter’s 9th (!) birthday approaches next month, I am acknowledging a shift that I started to make unconsciously last summer, and that is to pull back on what I share about his life.  I have no doubt there will be stories and photos and God knows what else going on here that relates to him, but I will be leaving the hard stuff – the struggles – out.  He’ll have his tough times, but I won’t be discussing them here unless I am able to judge with confidence that it wouldn’t be embarrassing to him to have it shared, and some useful parenting lesson lies within the story.  He is old enough now to tell his own stories, and in fact is writing stories from his personal history for school these days, and so I hand that job over to him.  And he’s an excellent writer, let me tell you.  Maybe I can talk him into starting his own blog.

And so The Wonderwheel may seem a bit Lyle-heavy at times (maybe it already has, as I started this practice a few months ago quite naturally), or perhaps it will seem as if my older child is heading into the tween years without a care in the world. Should this bother anyone (including Baxter someday as he reads this), I remind you that I started blogging four years ago because of Baxter and that he has his very own blog all about him, my first blog Baxtergarten, still out there on the Internet for all and sundry to enjoy.

Me, in All My Glory

Lyle decided to draw a picture of me today in the car on the way home from school.  It is one of the best things I’ve ever seen and I will keep it forever.

Can a Blogger be Too Happy?

I have to admit it – I’m feeling self-conscious.

I feel like it’s all sunshine and cotton candy over here.  I mean, maybe I’m a little nuts; I did recently write two rather serious, dark posts about my grandparents vis a vis aging and elder care issues.  Those weren’t especially uplifting.  But I can’t shake this feeling that you, dear readers, are all out there rolling your eyes, gnashing your teeth, and thinking, We know you’re working less and the boys are both in school and you have time to breathe and your kids are calm, happy and organized , and hell – even when they have fits because they don’t want to play soccer they end up flying around the soccer field on the top of the world in the end. How endlessly fascinating!

And who could blame you?

Now, to your credit, none of you have actually said this out loud or been anything but pleasant and supportive, which is really super nice of you, but I wouldn’t blame you if you had.

At the same time, I’m also aware that I may have simply and erroneously internalized the message I heard a couple years ago when I was a contributor to a large-group-of-mothers-blog that shall remain nameless.  The message was, in a nutshell: People don’t want to read about your great vacation or how well your kid is doing – readers want something they can relate to.  So give them your bad day, your deteriorating relationships, your failed parenting moments. That’s what brings in the numbers, ladies! Further, we were informed that we Midwestern mothers were the worst culprits when it came to blogging about the niceties of life and thereby tossing our own popularity and success as bloggers into the crapper.   I promptly quit that blog, crying BULLSHIT! on my way out, not because that message is implausible if you are focused on your “numbers”, but because nobody tells me I have to write about how crappy my life is when things are, for a little while anyway, going great.  Nobody puts Baby in a fake shit storm.

But despite my rejection of it, that theory – fact? – is never far from my mind, especially when things are going well like they are right now and I write a few posts in a row that literally shower my kind readers with too many unicorns jumping over rainbows.

However.  I force myself to assume that my little cadre of readers comes back to hear my honest voice, which I value enormously in the blogs I read.  If what’s going on is fabulous, that’s exactly what I’ll be sharing; the rest of the time, I’ll give you the exhausting days, the parenting mistakes, and the fact that I’m out of wine at a very bad moment.  I would expect the same from everyone else.  Do we have an agreement?

If you have a blog, do you think about this? I’d love your insights.

Close Call: On Quitting

Lyle did not want to go to today’s soccer game.

It started yesterday, when I mentioned that there would be soccer today.  I don’t want to go. I told him we’d talk about it in the morning.  It started again first thing this morning.  I put it off again, suggesting we discuss it after our weekend guests left, so I didn’t hear about it for a few hours. But as soon as their car disappeared from view, it started again.  No soccer.  There was whining and a lot of general freaking out.  After some thought, I told him he didn’t have to play but he did need to get his uniform on and we’d go to the field, where  - if he so desired – he could explain to his coach that he didn’t want to play today.  He loved this idea, especially when I promised I’d help him talk to the coach.  He put on his uniform and then pulled on his winter hat and scarf, despite the fact that it was in the 50s outside.  I suspected he was covering up in order to feel more secure – kind of like throwing a blanket over one’s head – so I didn’t argue. He got into the car looking like a despondent, over-dressed little elf.

On the way there, he expressed again his dislike for soccer.  With complete honesty, I told him it doesn’t matter to me if he continues with soccer; that just because Baxter likes it doesn’t mean he has to be a “soccer guy”, and after this season he doesn’t need to sign up again.  I told him he could forego the spring season he’s registered for. We talked about things he does like, and he agreed with my suggestion that maybe he’d rather swim than play soccer.  I mentioned that he’s starting violin lessons soon and we don’t want to be too busy, anyway.

At the field, we approached his coach and explained that Lyle didn’t feel up to playing today but that we’d stay on the sidelines in case he changed his mind.  The coach was extremely understanding, simply smiling and saying that was fine.  (Gotta love AYSO!)  And so we set up a chair and sat down under the clear blue sky together, and watched the kids practice.  Realizing there was absolutely no pressure on him, Lyle’s demeanor brightened and he began to strike absurd poses for me in his hat and scarf, and asked me to take some pictures of him.

I didn’t remain silent on the soccer question.  I occasionally asked things like, Do you want to put your shin guards on now in case you change your mind? So you can just run out there? [No.] and You might want to think about watching during practice and then joining the game afterward. [No.]  As the game began, I thought about how foreign this game is to Lyle.  He’d never watched it before he started playing this fall, and all the other kids on his team played last year.  He always enjoyed running with the pack on the field, but I suspected he didn’t truly understand the basics.  So I decided that since I knew he wasn’t going to play, I could use the time to teach him a bit more about the game.  I began to play sportscaster for him, explaining what was going on in the simplest of terms.  I did it with a lot of excitement and he was riveted. Look!  Your team has the ball and they’re working together to try to get it down to their goal but – oh, no! – the blue team has it and – oops! – red has it again! Wow, they’re passing it to each other to get it down there!

Without any warning, Lyle suddenly leapt off my lap to the grass and exclaimed, “It actually does look pretty cool!  I’m changing my mind!” and he whipped off the hat and scarf, jammed his shin guards into his tall red socks, and ran onto the field as soon as the coach gave him the sign. I was well and truly shocked. Lo and behold, he played with more enthusiasm than I’d seen all season.  He flew ecstatically, arms outstretched, around the field, and kept up with his teammates with a gallop and a spring in his step.  He confidently made contact with the ball quite a few times, and his coach gave him opportunities to shine.  It was clear that the boy had chosen this.

The best part was that he wore an enormous grin the entire time.  Sure, sometimes he flew off in the wrong direction, and I was amused to see him pause mid-game to study the league name and number on his own shirt, air-writing the numbers and letters to himself for a minute.  But he was happy.  I have to believe that for Lyle, knowing he had total control over the decision to play (and a better grasp of how to play) gave him enough confidence to change his mind and go out there, swooping around the field on a crisp fall day, loving every minute, rather than digging in his heels, which was my biggest fear.

I don’t know if Lyle will want to continue playing soccer, and truly, it doesn’t matter. He’s only five and it’s one sport of many that he can try.  But it would have bothered me if he’d quit today not understanding the game (at a five year old level) and not realizing that he is absolutely fine at it.  I knew that the only shot we had at him playing again was if he felt no pressure about it. It had to really be fine with me if he walked away from it, and it was.  If he doesn’t want to go back next week or in the spring, I’m grateful that he was willing to change his mind, show some flexibility in his thinking, and grin his way through this game today.

This won’t always be so easy for me; my kids will want to quit things that mean a whole lot more to me, and it will be much more difficult for me to be so zen about it. I know this. There will be days when I have to let go of my own hopes and dreams for them. Thankfully, today wasn’t one of those days.

Routines and Independence

Back in August, a few weeks before school started here in Chicago, I read this post on one of my favorite blogs, Christine Carter’s Half Full: Science for Raising Happy Kids (in which she uses scientific research to back up everything I happen to believe about parenting!).  Christine was writing about ways she was planning to get her girls prepared for the necessary routines of school, such as getting out of the house on time each morning.

Now, my kids weren’t going to be challenged by getting up earlier for school because they appear to be the only children in America who maintain their usual sleep schedule in the summer – no staying up later at night, no sleeping later in the morning.  This was not our preference, it’s just the way they are hard-wired. However, I did know it was going to be a stretch to fit in everything that needed doing in the mornings; there would be no sitting in our pajamas watching Curious George at 8am.  And I also knew that Lyle had never experienced the morning rush, lucky little man, and so this would be a big change.  I share Christine Carter’s belief that “family happiness is all about being in good habits so that we don’t have to beg and bribe our kids to do routine things, like brush their teeth. I want my family to be like a well-run school: kids are in the habit of washing their hands, helping out, putting their things away.”  I couldn’t have said that better myself if I’d tried.

I took her cue and that night, Matt, the boys and I sat down after dinner and discussed it.  Although both kids approached the new school year with some anxiety and ambivalence, they were interested in what was going to be expected of them, and they always love to be part of the creation of family rules and routines. I think most kids do because it gives them the sense that they are important members of the family and they gain a sense of ownership about their lives.  We talked through what needs to be done before and after school, and made decisions as a family – such as coming up with the idea that this year we would try making lunches after dinner to take that job off the busy morning list (a huge help – they make their own lunches every night, as pictured above).  I wrote a draft of our ideas as we talked and once we’d all agreed to the routines, I typed them up.  All of them are posted on the refrigerator and the before school list is also posted in their room.

To give you an idea, here is their list of expectations for independent tasks to be completed each school morning, in kindergarten & fourth grade:

1. Get dressed – is it gym day?
2. Straighten out bed
3. Eat breakfast
4. Clear dishes
5. Wash hands & face
6. Brush teeth
7. Put your lunch in backpack
8. Is everything in your backpack? (Lunch & drink, Folder with homework, Agenda book, School books – each one is broken down on its own line)
9. Use the bathroom
10. Put your jacket and shoes on
11. Be ready to go by 8:15!

The after school and after dinner lists are much shorter but no less clear and sequential. The boys come home and they know that after their snack the first order of business is to unpack their backpacks, empty their lunchboxes, and get their homework done before anything else can happen.  There is no reward for doing what we all call their “responsibilities”; they are not tied to an allowance and we don’t praise the kids overmuch for taking care of them all.  At times we certainly note that they are doing great taking care of things all by themselves, but the expectation is clear: this is what you do as part of the family, and we expect you to do it all the time, just as we adults do the grocery shopping, prepare meals, and clean.  Sure enough, from Day One, there have been no problems. Of course, on occasion someone gets distracted and starts playing while the clock ticks down towards the school day, but rather than harping on him to brush his teeth, we can simply ask him to check his responsibility list and we all move on.

For Baxter, our older son, this is really no big deal.  He could’ve done it a lot sooner, but we didn’t think of it; probably, in part, this is because Lyle wasn’t on the same schedule and things weren’t as streamlined as they are this year.  Baxter was previously in the habit of sitting down with a Harry Potter book in between every step of his morning routine, which was highly irritating to us as we raced through the morning, but this has completely stopped.  I thought it might be a stretch for Lyle to follow these routines, but he loves taking care of things independently.  This week he’s even getting out a crayon and running back to the fridge to enthusiastically check jobs off as he does them, just for fun.  Yesterday he recited the entire 11-step morning responsibility list to me during breakfast, so proud that he knew the routine by heart.  He clearly feels like a very big kid to be doing these things and going to kindergarten, and he’s embraced all of it.  For us, it has taken much stress out of our mornings in particular, not to have to call out reminders and stay on top of everything the kids are doing.  It allows us to get ready for work and get everyone out the door on time, which is happening every day as a matter of course instead of being a rare occurrence.

I can easily imagine a parent thinking, This is way too structured for me – I like more spontaneity and fun in my home! I might lean towards that philosophy myself if I hadn’t tried it.  To this parent, I want to say that by turning these uninspired (but necessary) chores into smoothly sequenced routines, we get the “work” done faster and there is little to no discussion or arguing about them. This leaves a whole lot more time for fun and games around here – and we’re all in better moods, too.

I believe firmly that by putting these expectations into place as early as a child is ready – and by keeping the responsibilities reasonable and appropriate for each child’s developmental level – it’s possible to instill a sense of pride and a certain level of habitual independence in a child than what can be achieved if started later on.

Life Rediscovery

I’ve been half-joking lately that I feel a bit like I’ve enrolled in a Life Recovery program here. But, in fact, maybe it’s more of a Life Rediscovery, when it comes down to it.  It’s sort of like a giant time out.  I’ve been able to pause, catch my breath, take stock of the last few years and decide how to move forward.

And I love it; surprising things are coming out of this time already.

As many of you know, I’ve cut back on my regular work hours in order to make time for consulting work, and although I’ve had some jobs come in, many things haven’t panned out, at least not yet.  In strictly financial terms, this is not so great, and I can’t afford to work so little long-term, but it’ll be okay for a few months.

On the personal front, it’s fantastic.

We moved here three-and-a-half years ago from San Francisco with two very young kids and I hit the ground running, quickly ramping up and working more hours than I’d ever worked before.  We got settled in a rental house only to have it put on the market the next week, pushing us to buy our first home and move into it just 9 months after the cross-country move.  It’s been an endless cycle of working and parenting and settling in, and because we rapidly found great friends and organizations to be part of, we were always busy.  It was, as they say, all good. Really good.

But I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful it is to have a little time this fall to simply breathe.  Yes, I’m still seeing some clients and running my practice, with all that entails.  But the kids are both in school and are calm and happy much of the time when they’re home now.  They’re older and independent.  I took myself off all committees and the Condo Board. I’m able to volunteer at the kids’ school for the first time ever, as a room parent in Lyle’s kindergarten class.  I’m cooking our meals and baking yummy autumnal treats, listening to music, and seeing friends – even in the middle of the day sometimes. I’m reading blogs again, ones I haven’t visited in a long while, and discovering new voices as well.

Spending more time in my house has led to all sorts of small repairs and cosmetic changes that were on the periphery of my awareness for a long time; I have just recently unpacked boxes left over from California. One by one, I’m working on the closets and storage areas, getting rid of boxes and bags of junk taking up space here. Yesterday I had a professional organizer come over to give me ideas about how to use space in our home office more efficiently, now that I’m in it a lot more. I’ve even taken up the violin again, more than 20 years after putting it aside.  Lyle is going to start playing and I’m going to relearn alongside him; I’m finding enormous pleasure in picking it up in the middle of the afternoon or at night when the kids are in bed and working on my old Suzuki tunes from childhood again.  Without my modified work schedule this year, there’s no way we’d have time for the violin lessons or the flute lessons Baxter is starting next week.  I know: I tried to fit music into our lives last year and it was impossible.

I hope and expect the consulting jobs to pick up more soon.  If they don’t, I’ll go back to taking new clients of my own at work this winter.  But even when I’m working more again, I am committed to making sure I continue to have the flexibility and freedom to schedule jobs so that they work within my new life here, the life in which I have more down time with my family and friends and for baking and making music and writing and thinking and breathing and being.