Scary?

It was rather awesome, actually. We decided to undergo this experiment in part to see how the girls handled the responsibility of putting THEMSELVES to bed. And, oh, who am I kidding, also because I was too damn tired to stay awake much longer anyway! So, our kids told us when it was time for bed, and we followed by their rules and finished up our evening duties to follow their bedtime schedule.

We had to brush our teeth and get into our pajamas, and then we both got a massage. Laurel’s little fists of fury actually felt rather good on my upper back. I did have to convince her that punching my breasts would NOT actually make me feel calm and ready for bed, but she relented easily.

Each girl read us a bedtime story. This ritual took FAR too long. But, Laurel told us we had to find the mouse in every picture in Goodnight Moon. And the book that Kelsey read, Kiss GoodNight, had action parts in it! She also lost focus at several points during the book because she was completely exhausted, and we had to remind her gently that if she didn’t finish soon, her parents would fall asleep without night nights.

Hearing your children sing the songs that you have sung to them for years, their intonations mimicking your own, is completely charming and “Awww” worthy. Allen and I melted into puddles of goo under the covers with the cuteness. We then got night nights, noseies, kisses, hugs, and they put out the light and left the room.

And it only took a gentle reminder 15 minutes later that it was also bedtime for THEM. The lights were put out, and two tired little parents-in-training put themselves to bed and didn’t get out of bed until 9 this morning, except for some 4am nightmare activity, which is par for their ages.

All in all, the experiment was a total win. I did fully expect the younger child to go overboard with her new sense of power, though. I figured she’d be hanging out in the living room on my computer, doing some online gambling while sipping a glass of red wine, my purse slung over her shoulder and plans to rule the world all laid out. But she actually used her power responsibly, didn’t bludgeon anyone OR send her sister into fits of crying. Maybe Napoleon is growing up?

Kelsey and Laurel have agreed that we need to have more reversals in the future, including one in which they are responsible for preparing a meal. Although I don’t relish the idea of two girls with BIG imaginations coming up with a new recipe for me to have to digest (they usually include ketchup along with milk and peanut butter…), I do think we’ll try to give the girls some more control and power in small doses and let them level up a bit in our household dynamic. Maybe I can even get some help with the laundry at some point!

I fully endorse the concept of reversal to the parents of kids over 5. Giving them a sense of power over their parents seemed to satisfy a need to show us that they really could handle more responsibility than we thought they could. Bonus points were the warm fuzzies we felt at seeing the bedtime rituals we’ve crafted over the years from a different perspective, and witnessing the sweet, nurturing behaviors of two kids who, lately, seem to be fighting for every scrap of attention and independence they can squeeze from us.

I don’t play favoritism. I charge for it. I take cash only, as you just can’t trust the credit of kids these days. My children will always know that the only true way to be a favorite in my heart is to pay me.

The real reason there are more photos of my wee one than my older one? Because the little one moves slower than the older one. Yep. That’s it. But why, besides shorter legs, does she move so slowly? Perhaps because she was held too much as a baby. Maybe her mother neglected her development by carrying her around in a sling 24 hours a day. It’s that whole attachment parenting thing, isn’t it? Yeah, you’ve been waiting with your Itoldyousos, haven’t you?

Well, we took L to the physical therapist to see if we could figure out why this child doesn’t like running much, and why she falls on her face whenever she tries. Lots of people tried to tell me that it’s just a lack of grace. I mean, genetically, she didn’t ever stand much of a chance, did she? Her father can fall over just by standing still.

We found out that our younger child has one leg that is 1/8 inch shorter than the other leg. And so, running puts her off balance, and she goes sprawling onto her face. It’s just not something I ever even considered. Yet, there it is. The physical therapist showed me the difference in length, and I felt like a complete fool. Of course. So that’s why she has that weird, jaunty little jog! Poor kid is off-kilter!

Yes, there is something we can do about it. She will be getting *inserts in her shoes very soon to take care of the imbalance and the pronation. The physical therapist thinks this may have happened as a result of the great tibia fracture of 2005. It was a key developmental time for growth, and what grows bones, you ask? Compression. And since she was favoring the leg (and in a cast for 2 months), compression didn’t happen, so the other leg got all the work and did all the growing. With the inserts, she should feel more confident in running and should fall less. Her next big growth spurt (around age 6/7) should take care of the problem. And, it’s not like she’ll live a less amazing life if it doesn’t. Do we really need to be graceful runners to have a full life?

I think I’ll sign her up for swim classes.

*The inserts issue deserves its own post, which I will write soon.

Today, a snow day, she has gone through all her school reading skill level books (level 6, for those familiar with such things), and is looking to delve into some higher level books. She read Puff the Magic Dragon today along with the CD, her eyes following the words as she heard the song. Once she learns to recognize a word, it is almost instantly added to her sight words. Her recall of words on sight is really quite amazing.

On her school evaluation, Kelsey received all IMs (Independent Mastery)and DMs (Developing Mastery), mostly the former. Her Spanish, art, and music teachers also gave her IMs. Considering that she just began this new school in mid-November, after 3 months in public school, she is doing phenomenally. She’s ahead of her class in some areas, catching up in others where she doesn’t have as much experience. We’re going to work on getting her up to speed on the Wilson Reading exercises that the other kids have been mastering since August — although Kelsey knows her phonics pretty well, knowing the method the other kids use will help her confidence when doing phonics exercises as a class.

The choice to put her into this school was easy. Paying for it isn’t, but we’re managing. Seeing the results — a child ecstatic about learning, voraciously reading and questioning and experimenting, HAPPILY going to school and fitting in with kids whose parents also give a damn about their children’s education — has been one of the most satisfying, validating experiences of being parents thus far.

I’m sleeping at night.

I think my sleeping issues began a few weeks after Kelsey started school at the public school, when I started feeling unsure and unsafe. I’ve been waking up at 4 every morning. I wake up in a panic, go and check on the girls, then try to go back to sleep. I would seldom if ever get back to sleep after my wakefulness. And I was uncomfortable, like every muscle in my shoulders and neck were twitching and pulled tight. I never considered that it was stress. I figured I pulled something. But now I think most of that pain might be one-part arthritis in my collar bone from a childhood injury, and the rest may be stress.

It’s really no wonder I’ve been so wound up. After the first incident at her old school, when I found Kelsey standing out by the pick up line alone with no supervision, I’ve been paranoid about being even a few minutes late in picking her up. Like, severly paranoid. You know, sometimes when you run by the store to pick up milk and bread before school lets out, and your younger child has to go to the store bathroom, and of course she has to, errr, spend some time on the potty, and you end up having to race across town doing 70 so that you are there to pick up your child on time so that she doesn’t get snatched by some stranger?

*breathe*

And now, if I’m running a little late, I know that her teachers are still THERE, in the classroom, and that Kelsey will be there with them, or else she will be out playing on the playground, with supervision.

So, I’m sleeping once again. I still wake up at 4, go check on the girls. Listen to their sleepy breathing/snoring. But then I go back to sleep. And I sleep until the alarm goes off.

I feel RESTED. More able to deal with stress. My kid is safe when she’s in school.

And did I mention that she’s happy? But that’s the next post….

1. When she asks you if she can go to another school.
2. When the school and/or teacher has acted in such a way that you fear for her safety — physical or emotional or both.
3. When, 2 days into beginning a new school, she still shows no separation anxiety or sadness about the transition.

This isn’t a trick question, and, yes, all three apply in our situation.

Kelsey now goes to a school where learning takes place. Where, instead of countless repetitive worksheets and daily homework, she is taken for walks in the woods and learning to speak Spanish. Instead of being punished for acting like a child, she is encouraged to develop skills appropriate to her understanding. This doesn’t mean it’s a discipline free for all. They are accountable for their actions, but they aren’t being asked to perform tricks for candy. Making peace and negotiating situations are taught — just as they are in our home. Good behavior isn’t rewarded with plastic trash from a treasure chest. It’s just… taught.

I can already see her self esteem shooting back up to the level it was before we began public school.

The kindergarten class is called Sunrise, and her classroom is filled with montessori-type learning materials. They learn through hands-on exploration. They do experiments and are encouraged to express themselves through always accessible art supplies. And they are learning how to treat one another, to form a community and learn how to interact with each other. It’s really what kids should be doing in kindergarten, not trying to satisfy the politicians and learning to perform well on tests so that the number crunchers can measure and judge if adequate yearly progress has been achieved or not.

Most importantly, the teachers get to teach. When Allen and I toured the classroom and saw the dynamic process of teachers teaching and students learning, we both ended up in tears. This is what kids are supposed to be getting at this age.

Learning at this age is a spontaneous, messy, explosive act of discovery, not a regimented, structured thing that can be easily graded.

We are so happy to have found this school. And truly lucky that there was a spot available. This was the right thing to do, and we have no regrets. Here’s what Kelsey did this week. Look at the “Of Note” section to read about our welcome.

I’ll be returning to work shortly, and I can feel comfortable knowing that K’s in a good place.

And I truly believed that the 3 year old would choose the Hello Kitty Princess costume. She flocked there first, professing her true heart’s desire to be a kitty princess. She even said she had ALWAYS wanted to be a kitty princess for Halloween. The child doesn’t yet understand that all things Hello Kitty are symptoms of the type of corporate consumerism that is making my brain throb, with rivers of vitriolic explosiveness surging inside my skull. To her, it’s a cat. And it’s on a princess dress. That’s enough. And I do try to respect my kids’ choices, even when they may cause me brain hemorraging. See what a good mommy I am?

But, she then saw the Diego costume in the boys’ section. (Why do we have to segregate Halloween costumes by gender? Meh. A rant for another time.) She ran to it like a happy running thing. With her mother cheering her on. YES, run from the Hello Kitty! Straight to the… oh hell. Diego. Well, at least he’s multicultural and bilingual. And I can giggle to see my short-haired very anglo girl-child in her Diego costume, stomping around in boots and correcting everyone who is calling her a cute little boy. So, I still win, right?

Today my girls are trying out their new costumes. They are zipping around the house, saving stuffed lions and looking for bad guys.

This year might trump last year, even. When the older Superman girl heroically led the very sad bizarre clown sister around by the hand. I can’t wait ’til October 31!

Feign disinterest. Seem easy going. If you ACT obsessive and panicky, all will be hell. When someone flips the off switch on the air jumper you rented in the backyard, don’t envision 9 little bodies suffocating inside the walls as it crashes to the ground. Calmly delegate the job of turning the blower back on to a parent who looks quick-footed, and continue cutting up the pineapple.

Don’t be rational. Really, what is sane about giving a rowdy bunch of 3 to 5 year olds a bat and pointing them toward a candy-filled target hanging up above their heads? And how does one convince not only the 10 or so present mothers, but the two men holding the rope to suspend the pinata in the air that THIS is a good idea? And, by the way, now is NOT a good time to lay down the rules to your child that she cannot have the hard candy that she had to fight three older boys for when they finally tore open the belly of the battered pinata.

Be breezy. Yes, every 4 year old in blowing distance is going to help with the candles, and some will be using their noses. Yes, someone is going to put his or her used spoon back into the container of clean spoons. And of COURSE some little child is going to flush some mysterious substance down the toilet. You cannot prepare for such things, and yes you may secretly want to hurl, but you have to just roll with it and keep smiling.

We celebrated our older child’s fifth birthday last weekend and had a great time. Most of her classmates were in attendance, as well as family (via webcast!), friends, and neighbors. We rented a jumper, ordered up the best weather of the year thus far, filled the inflatable pool, borrowed some lawn furniture, and partied for 3 straight hours.

Happy Birthday, Kelsey!

Santa found packages of geckos at Wal-Mart for 88 cents each. Or so I presume. Where else would one find packages of squishy geckos, right? Yes, both kids played with the plethora of toys they opened–more, I gander, to amuse their parents and their grandmother than for any other real reason. But as soon as we left the room, they gathered up the geckos, and had a party.

I reappeared minutes later and there were dozens of geckos stuck to the walls of my home, their oily bodies leaving gecko prints behind. Geckos had to be buckled in to the driver’s and passenger’s seats in the Loving Family SUV. Cute, new, fuzzy puppies were forced out of their plush carriers to make way for, you guessed it, the gecko family. The older child maneuvered her new bike around the kitchen island while clutching a handful of the little buggers.

It’s really making me think, all this gecko business. I’m about ready to ditch all of this Christmas hoohah and replace the holiday with a celebration that’s simpler and more wholesome. Something that involves a whole lot less consumerism and fewer batteries.

88 cents. Two happy kids. I’m learning.

It’s been one of those shows I’ve tried to keep my kids from viewing because it has a high mommy-pulling-her-hair-out potential. Same with the insidious purple beast that I shan’t name here. I don’t like my kids to watch shows that make me nuts. Caillou is, to my mind, a spoiled little kid who has tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. His parents are sickeningly rational. Caillou is a brat. And that voice makes me want to throw large heavy things at the television.
I’m the same way with certain toys. My kids both know that I don’t like Barbie. I’m not going to tell them THEY can’t play with Barbie, and I believe Santa is bringing them their first Barbie this year, as they requested one. But my kids are going to know WHY I don’t think playing with a grown-up girl doll with unrealistic proportions who doesn’t do anything except dress in trendy clothes is fun. I hope my tastes rub off on my kids. I know this can backfire.

I don’t put much stock in Disney Princess products either, and for the same reason. How many brain cells am I killing in my girl children by giving them toys that tell them they should be well-made-up, perfectly coiffed princesses waiting around for their princes? I mean, let’s be realistic about our culture here. Let’s see… where do you think the unrealistic expectations regarding marriage begin in our culture? But I digress. I always get in such a dither when I get on this subject.
So screw you, Caillou. My kid is on to you.

On Monday, we lost Alex.

Any of you who know Laurel know exactly who Alex is and how traumatic these last five days have been her, but for the benefit of those of you who don’t:

Alex is the Beanie Baby lion Laurel has carried with her everywhere for more than a year — and a year’s an awfully long time when you’re still four months from turning three. We’re not sure just how old Alex actually is, but his worn, matted mane and general state of manginess lead us to suspect he’s been around quite awhile; Laurel found him in a box of old toys which used to belong to her cousins while we visiting them sometime last summer, and he’s seldom left her arms since. (The “Alex” comes from Alex the Lion from Madagascar, a movie she first saw around the same time she discovered the toy.) Alex is, in a way, part of the family: he’s never been “Laurel’s lion” or “Laurel’s toy,” but always, always “Alex.”

The last time Alex was seen was at the grocery store on Monday. Terry knows Laurel had him when they went in, but she didn’t have him when they got back to the truck with the groceries. Terry went back into the store and went up and down every aisle looking for Alex, and she left her phone number with the customer service office. She’s even been back twice checking with the store’s lost and found and called once.

But it’s obvious at this point Alex is gone.

Laurel, understandably, has been distraught all this week, though she hasn’t been able to express exactly why — advanced though her speech skills might be, expecting her to communicate emotions of that complexity is a bit much. She’s had a hard time going to sleep (Alex slept cradled in her arms every night) and has taken to pulling out her hair in anxiety. She’s been carrying around a small puppy Kelsey had given her a couple of weeks ago, but we can tell it’s just not the same — she likes the puppy fine, I suppose, but she’d had her heart invested in Alex. Unlike Kelsey, who happily flits from Most Favoritest Friend to Most Favoritest Friend with the wind, Laurel and Alex have stuck together solidly for almost half of her life.

Not quite as understandably, I’ve also been distraught this week. Every time I think about Alex’s absence, every time she asks where he is or sullenly says “I miss Alex,” I find myself having to fight back tears. (I’m sure that shatters the image of me as Tough Stoic Manly Marlboro-Man-Without-The-Marlboros so many of you hold of me.) Most of it simply has to be my not wanting to see my daughter upset, I guess, but I’m wondering if there’s be something more to it that I can’t quite get at, some childhood trauma of my own I don’t even remember.

Regardless, my daughter was upset, so I jumped into action Monday night. I crawled out of bed in the middle of the night, hit Google, and found and ordered her a replacement Alex… not sure whether I’d be able to pull off the switch, but feeling like I had to give it a shot. (Part of me felt like I was in a bad sitcom, some episode where my neighbor asks me to watch his dog while he’s on vacation and I accidentally kill the dog through some bizarrely contrived negligence and try to buy another one that looks just like it hoping my neighbor will never notice but of course he does and I learn Valuable Life Lessons about Facing Up to My Responsibilites and Lying Is Just Wrong. Or something.)

Found

Terry’s been prepping Laurel the last couple of days for Alex’s imminent return, pulling out the kinds of fantastic lies that could really only work on small children still gripped by their imaginations: “Alex went on vacation! He went to a spa to relax and get himself cleaned up, and when he comes back he’ll be prettier than ever!” We weren’t sure how much she bought it — two-and-a-half years old or not, she’s a really, really smart kid and we wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised had she seen through our film of bullshit. But we had to try.

This afternoon, a small box was waiting for us in the mailbox when we got home.

Both girls were asleep in the truck, so I grabbed the box and we drove around a little more so we could examine Imposter Alex before presenting him to Laurel. He’s not exactly the same as Original Alex; in addition to his much better overall health, his eyes are a little different and the underside of his jaw is white, details we were hoping she wouldn’t notice. (My suspicion is that Original Alex was actually a cheap knockoff of Imposter Alex, who has his pedigree: he’s an Authenic Ty Beanie Baby.) But the body’s largely the same, and I was counting on that being the aspect she’d focus on: how he felt in her arms.

After we got home and got the girls inside, I snuck back out to the truck, cut the tag off and set Imposter Alex up on the ground right outside the front door. If we were going to ride this lie, we were going to ride out to the end: Terry knocked on the wall where Laurel couldn’t see, and we encouraged Laurel to go answer the front door. We helped her pull the door open and directed her gaze groundward, where Imposter Alex was looking up at her expectantly.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Oh.” She looked at Imposter Alex for a minute.

And then she picked him up.

And she didn’t put him back down for the next three hours.

“This is Alex,” she said to Terry later. “He’s my lion. He’s very special to me. He came back to me.”

(Here’s where I completely demolish the rest of my image as Macho Man Holt by admitting that after it became obvious Laurel was accepting our ruse, I cried. Hard. I felt like I’d done something Good: I’d managed to alleviate my child’s pain and anxiety. I realize there’s benefits to your child learning how to cope with loss and grief, that children need to learn to deal with those emotions, but dammit, not just yet and not with her very favorite toy.)

Epilogue

The book Kelsey picked out for me to read to her tonight was The Velveteen Rabbit — a book she’s never had me read to her before, a book I wasn’t even aware we had. If you know this story at all — and being that most of you were once kids, you most likely do — you can appreciate why that book hit me a little hard tonight. (If you don’t know this story, I’d like to introduce you to my good friend Google.)

I hate The Velveteen Rabbit. I’ve always hated it, ever since I was Kelsey’s age. Tremendously. (That hatred either is symptomatic of whatever real or imagined childhood grief guided my actions this week… or possibly was the root cause of it. I’m honestly not sure.) Yeah, okay, it’s a happy ending for the rabbit and al, but I’ve always felt just awful for the kid, who had all of the toys and books which were meaningful to him taken from him — especially that damn rabbit.

But when I got to the end of the hated story tonight, I tried to reframe it within the context of Alex Lost and Alex Regained, and it made me hate the story a little less:

I imagined that some night, Laurel (who’s maybe five or six now) will be sleeping peacefully in her bed when she’ll be woken by a noise just below her window: a soft, playful growl. And she’ll go to the window and look down into the bright, clear night to see a majestic lion standing beside the swingset in the backyard, smiling up at her with a familiar spark in his eye, moonlight dancing through his mane. And she’ll look down at the now-well-worn lion in her arms, the lion that she can’t remember ever not sleeping next to her. But she’ll smile at the familiar-looking lion in the backyard and she’ll wave and maybe she’ll blow him a kiss, and then she’ll climb back into her bed and snuggle down next to her Alex and return to her peaceful sleep.

(This article was also posted at Allen’s blog, Do or Do Not.)