Friday Faves: Motherhood in Full Effect Edition

My general weekday experience:  Wake up.  Get ready.  Rouse child from bed.  Rouse child again from bed.  Rouse child yet again from bed.  Physically remove child from bed.  Return to room and physically remove child from bed.  Drive kid to grandma's.  Converse en route.  Drop off kid.  Commute.  Work.  Work.  Work.  Work.  Try to sneak in a bathroom break.  Work.  Work.  Work.  Work.  Question sanity.  Work.  Realize that I need to drink more water if I am going to run.  Work.  Work.  Try to sneak in a bathroom break.  Drive home.  Change into running clothes.  Realize something isn't charged like iPod or watch.  Run anyway.  Become victimized from random honks.  Run.  Shower.  Observe kid's karate class.  Face palm.  Drive home from karate.  Converse en route.  Homework Battles:  he with third grade assignments; me with grading.  Greet husband upon his return.  Dine.  Read.  Worry.  Worry.  Worry.  Sleep.

Therefore, my weekdays tend to blur together.  Imagine the above paragraph sans spaces and punctuation.  That's my Monday morning through Friday afternoon.

There were a few highlights this week.  Most involved my kid.

Fantastic Car Conversations
One morning car conversation involved my son asking me how he could know if a girl liked him.  I enjoyed those ten minutes immensely.  It was a wonderful little moment that will not likely repeat.  You only get those kinds of questions for the first time once.  For the record, these were the answers that I gave him to that question.  He rejected each.

1. You can never know if a girl truly likes you. 
2. Fine.  Send a friend to one of her friends and to ask if she likes you.  

Arts and Crafts:  Boy Version

Picture says it all, I think.

Hunger Games Book Club

Eight daring teens joined the Hunger Games Book Club and we discussed Part I of The Hunger Games after school.  It was a joy to hear these kids discuss books--not for a grade, not because they had to--but because they wanted to.

I had a moment during my reading time one night.  I designed this T-Shirt on Customink.com.  The back says my last name above a large number 12.   Going to wear it to the next book club meeting if it arrives on time. 

  

Surprising Awards

Sometimes I wonder, usually during training runs, what my boy will grow up to be.  I was listening to the Nerdist podcast featuring the interview with Conan O'Brien, and I had an epiphany.  O'Brien, in talking about the creation of his humor style, mentioned the dinner table as his first sort of place to experiment in making his father and brother laugh.  I saw my son in that comment.  

I'm not claiming that my son will be the next Conan O'Brien, but he definitely is the type of kid who purposely attempts to get a laugh out of people.  

This means that he generally doesn't impress the teachers.  His humor isn't always appreciated come multiplication time.  

He's never been Student of the Month.  He likes to remind us of this fact after every Awards assembly.  Last month, he informed me that he has not earned Student of the Month 35 times.

Today was the Student of the Month assembly and my boy took home the award.  The school failed to tell us, so my husband and I couldn't attend the assembly.  I'm saddened by not being able to see his face once he heard his name called, but in the end, this is about him and not about me.  

Finally.  He is Student of the Month.  It is likely he'll never be again.  His humor is getting more purposeful and blatant.  I'm seeing more detention in his future. But today, he gets to feel like the school system is proud of him.  

Applebee's for dinner.  His choice.  The large bucket of sangria helped me get through.  

Mother-Son Drawing Time

The bargain books section of the local Barnes and Noble had a copy of Illustration School:  Let's Draw Cute Animals.  It sounded like a worthy plan.  I bought the book and the kid and I sat down to learn to draw cute animals.  

I like his platypus best. 

My version of a cute koala! Let's call her Sheila!

I have no grown-up presentations this weekend that require professional clothing.  That was the previous weekend and that will be next weekend.  This weekend I have a long run and a date with a nap.

Divine.

Out with the Injury; In with the Heat

This makes a running parent so proud: my son sleeping in his 3K race shirt. We are thinking of training for a 5K in November. He is definitely in for the 3K having run two before, but someone the concept of 5K terrifies him.

I can relate. At one point running continuously for five minutes terrified me. But I'll help get him over his fears.

I let my little athlete sleep in while I went out cautiously and gingerly hoping to run without aggravating the calf strain that I labored so diligently to vanquish. I took off consciously thinking to myself to take it

easy,

easy,

easy.

I'm technically scheduled for intervals today, but I thought that would be a sure shot back to ruined calves. So, for once in my running life, I am being wise. So wise that I am doing doubles cutting my workout in half so as not to load too much onto my calves at one time. I have no idea if there is any science behind this, but it feels like the right thing to do.

This morning the temp was 70º when I started and 73º by the time that I finished. To any non-running members of my reading audience (I wonder if I have an audience at all), this doesn't sound bad. It is. It is about 20º warmer than I like it. I happily and comfortably wear shorts and a tank when it is in the 50s. I don't know if I am normal. I occasionally see other runners out in tons of layers, long pants, sweatshirts, etc when I am out in a tank and shorts. I may be the abnormal one, but then again--watch any race and see how people dress.

The high today is supposed to be 104º. I'm going to speculate that if I wait for the sun to go down, I may have "comfortable" temps in the 90s to run in tonight.

The good news is that this morning's run was without surprise or worry. I iced my calves afterward. Looking forward to battling the heat tonight. It is better than not running at all.

Things My Son Wrote: NRR

End of the school year means an avalanche of papers come home with the child.

It is at times like these when I wished that John Lithgow or Christopher Walken were somehow close, personal family friends who could do a recording of my son's journal in audiobook form.

Reader, I wish that you could read the whole thing from cover to cover. My son's development of his persona is clearly on display in these pages.

Here is a sampling of some of the jewels. I edited the spelling because it was easier to spell it correctly than to accurately type the misspellings.

My big sister thinks school is a joke but I don't think that because sometimes school is fun and I am just lucky because the first recess we bug the kindergarteners.

Hello hello finally well hi...I am dead I am just kidding.

I am a frace (?) caterpillar in the grass awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww just kidding.

Turkey time in November. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chop the turkey!!

Dorky Dora you pick your boogers when you work so you must drink 55 sodas and do not stop until you are done! That is because I am EVIL, EVIL, EVIL! But can I have a donut. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Sick (followed the drawing of a peace sign). Today I saw writing on a pole (followed by a drawing of the pole with writing on it) and it said bad words. Me, Nathan, and Thomas saw the bad words on the pole when we were playing hide and seek.

Yaaaaaaaaaa I rock!

Sick huh huh don't you think.

What is |x|=? it equals !. Ya. I know times.

It is February. (That constituted the entire entry.)

Holy cheese puffs!

It was so funny I laughed to death.

Today I saw a puddle half of a classroom. I wish I was in a pool right now. Holy tortilla rolls! I stink!

I hate school!!! I love Legos!!! There is a big difference you know. Legos are fun and school is boring.

Well Diary of a Wimpy Kid Rodrick Rules is in theaters now and I'm stuck in school with a bunch of crazy kids. (Followed by drawing of crazy kids.)

I am a big fat chatterbox.

Today is April Fool's Day. I am the best faker on the block. I am making fake blood. It is so funny anyways I can fake cry, fake barf, and a lot more. I pranked someone today.

I love kickball.

In for an inch, in for a mile: Not Running Related (Honestly)

I feel as if I am fighting a battle with my son. And the battle is trying to get him to NOT hate school. This is a heart-breaking battle to have to wage. Sometimes I shudder to think of all the times that my son is told no throughout the school day. He wanted to try out for the talent show. He was told that his talent was inappropriate (Musical Arm Farting!). I disagree with both that assessment and the fact that my son was told this information in the first place. His talent is completely age appropriate. He isn’t a Wall Street Broker; he is a seven year old boy.

Today he threw the cosmic balance out of whack for wearing colored hair gel to school.

Before my son started his instructional day, he was told to go to the office by another teacher for the offensive hair. I then received a phone call in the middle of my first period class from the school. My first thought is that my son broke a limb--why else interrupt my instruction of my students. But then I hear that my son had a "misunderstanding" about crazy hair day.

Bull.

There was no misunderstanding other than the school's misunderstanding about what is actually something to worry about and what is NOT actually something to worry about.

Then he is on the phone with me crying. I try to console him. I asked the secretary if it wasn't allowed. She tells me it isn't. She says, "It's in the handbook." (A handbook that I've since discovered isn't anywhere online.)

Who checks the damned handbook? I check my common sense. Huge mistake when a school doesn't operate under any.

Let me break this down.

1. Does a little color in a student’s hair really “materially and substantially” disrupt the educational process? I can understand that green hair may have been quite scandalous back in the 1950s, but in 2011 it seems like a stretch to argue that green hair gel “materially and substantially” disrupts the educational process OR that it is somehow a danger to others. Or a health concern. I would argue that my son's "altered" hair is no more distracting than a new Justin Bieber shirt or a new pair of shoes.

And if a teacher cannot get kids on track with learning with a little colored hair gel in the classroom, there are much larger issues to address.

2. I work in a school where if I sent a kid out of class because of this, I would be asked some serious questions by my administration. I would have to justify the child being out of the class. Being pulled out of the class is akin to a suspension since the child is missing out on instructional time. My concern is that my son was taken out of class to deal with this when he should have been learning.

3. And if "no artificial hair coloring is allowed" most of the faculty wouldn't be blonde!

Mad props to the principal for calling me and hearing my perspective and the idiocy of their hair code when it is 2011. At the Mother's Day activity, I'm pretty sure that the non-tattooed mothers were the minority. Times they have a-changed. Green hair isn't scandalous.

But it only got worse when I learned from my husband that other children were allowed to have temporarily dyed hair today. My son wasn't on the chosen list. Dearest readers, you will LOVE the reason why.

The Chosen were those who were performing at the Talent Show.

That Mom: Not Running Related

My son's school sent home a parent survey. They wanted suggestions. Here were mine.


1. Consider more recognition for students beyond the Student of the Month award.

I happened to be at an assembly where my son was earning a medal for reading. It also happened to be the student of the month assembly. Without fail, it seemed that all of the students of the month were described as if they were part of the brainwashed hoi polloi in a dystopian novel. Don't get me wrong. I understand the need for compliance in an educational setting, but I also understand perhaps the greater need to celebrate and reward innovation and creativity and IDEAS that may leap unexpectedly from the mouths of seven and eight year old children.

2. Consider a shift in the school's use of praise to motivate CST scores. Shift praise from intelligence to effort.

Praise is one of those tricky things. It doesn't always have positives outcomes. As an undergrad, I was first introduced to the concept of locus of control in a psych class. Around CST time, the faculty spent a lot of time at my son's school praising the students for being such "smart Tigers"! This is possibly one of the WORST things that you can do to a student. I realize the hyperbole, but follow me. If students believe that their intelligence is what is responsible for their successes and failures, they have NO control over it. Once faced with something difficult, the child will believe that he/she is simply not intelligent enough to complete the task. These students often shut down when faced with something difficult or (even worse) won't challenge themselves in the future. On the other hand, we can all control the amount of effort that we put forth. Praise effort! I've read or heard of studies in which students who had their effort praised were more likely to take on challenging tasks. This is what we want. We want our children to not shrink from the difficult; we want our children to feel empowered to take on anything.

3. Consider a year focused on learning more about boys as learners.

I wrote something on the survey about ensuring that boys not be seen as deficient girls, blah, blah, blah. Our current educational climate is not the most nurturing for our male learners. There aren't enough books that appeal to boys when compared with books that appeal to girls. Things that boys are interested in (farts, fights, gore) are often frowned upon by overly motherly female faculty. Science, history, and PE are often regulated to the bottom of the priority list.

It is my hope that my concerns are not summarily dismissed, but that they are actually considered. I believe that the school has simply misstepped in the desire to help more students. I think that they have the best of intentions, but need to sort of take a step back and consider the unintended consequences of their decisions.

I just have to figure out a way to turn in the survey so that it isn't connected back to my son. I'm don't want my son to be labeled as the kid with "that mom."