Dress for Biography Day Success

* Cross-posted on the Picket Fence Post*

I was sitting in traffic this morning -- courtesy of roadway construction -- wasting precious gasoline and hating myself. Why the self-loathing? Because I was headed to a party store to buy a plastic bowler hat and a cheap mustache for my third grade son's Biography Day presentation Thursday morning.

The Eldest Boy is supposed to dress up as Orville Wright and read a speech that he researched and wrote about the inventor in front of his class and his classmates' families. (The Girl will have her Biography Day presentation Thursday afternoon and will be dressed as Harriet Tubman.)

When the Biography Day assignment came home a few weeks ago, I rolled my eyes, not because of the biography part -- that I like and heartily endorse -- but because of the costume part. I live in a community where very little involving our children is done without some sort of flourish (for example, there are multiple end-of-the-year parties in the Eldest Boy's class), therefore I knew that as Biography Day neared, I'd inevitably clash with my offspring over my refusal to buy expensive looking costumes for this event and my announcement that this domestically-disabled woman would not spend hours making costumes for THEIR homework assignments. (We are, as a family, still recovering from the Science Fair.)

After the kids and I downloaded images of Wright and Tubman from the Internet, I agreed to help them figure out what they'd need in order to dress like their assigned historical figures. We went through my closet, The Spouse's closet and all of our dress-up clothes for ideas. The result of my "help?" Both children were angry with me and called me, literally, a Scrooge (for not buying a suit -- the Eldest Boy doesn't own one -- and an authentic bowler), and insane (for suggesting that The Girl wear a skirt because women wore dresses during Tubman's time).

So I was hating myself this morning because I violated my own belief that such assignments shouldn't be dependent on parental economic resources or sewing skills so our children can avoid having their peers make fun of them. And here I was on the road and opening my wallet because my son is deathly afraid of having kids mock him if he wears a costume cobbled together with whatever we have in the house. (He and some of his classmates saw another child this week from a different class who was also assigned to be Orville Wright, and the kid reportedly wore a suit and nice hat.)

Thus I felt trapped in an untenable situation: Stick to my guns and have the Eldest Boy be made fun OR buy a few small items (the hat, the mustache) and borrow a few (borrowed a suit and tie that fit the Eldest Boy from a friend), and (hopefully) spare him from being embarrassed. So when the Eldest Boy wrapped his arms around my waist after seeing that I'd purchased the hat and mustache, I smiled, but felt as though I'd caved.

Do you ever have situations where your child has school assignments like this, where you're faced with buying stuff/doing it for the student, or letting the child do it himself and have his work be compared to that of an adult or to something store-bought?

Image credit: NASA.

Four for Friday: Baby Mama, Mystery Reader, Election Fun/Star Wars style and Baseball Rain Delay

Item #1: Baby Mama

Went to see the new comedy flick "Baby Mama" with a gal pal last week. We laughed. We cried. A good time was had by all . . . particularly in the brew pub afterwards where we watched the end of the Red Sox game while having adult beverages. I sing the praises of comedic talent Tina Fey in "Baby Mama" in my film review here.

Item #2: Mystery Reader

I got an early morning e-mail from the Youngest Boy’s room parent one morning this week asking me if I wanted to visit my son’s class and serve as the class Mystery Reader (a parent who surprises the class by showing up to read a book). At 9 a.m.

I had two columns due that afternoon and other work to which I had to attend, but seeing as though I hadn’t yet been a Mystery Reader in his classroom thus far this school year – though I did help with the class “winter holiday” party – maternal guilt set in. I agreed.

Carrying our hardcover copy of Officer Buckle and Gloria, I was greeted by my son’s teacher in the hallway outside of the classroom. She told me that the children would be back shortly. They'd been chosen to sing a song in the school library as part of a daily, building-wide, closed-circuit broadcast of the "Morning Messages." I plopped down on one of those tiny little chairs that I was certain would crash to the floor as soon as I lowered myself into it and watched the TV mounted on the wall above the black board come alive with the image of an awkward group of first graders singing a rendition of the “Bingo” song. In the corner of the screen, off to the right side, I saw my boy, looking dumbstruck and singing. Kind of. Or at least he was mouthing some of the words, although he did clap vigorously when the song called for it. But what surprised me was how little and how very young he looked. “He won’t be like this for long,” I thought.

After I read the book to the group, which seemed to go over well, the kids eagerly showed me the slimy-looking tadpoles that had just arrived in their classroom this week and were busy darting around a fish tank. All I could think was, "How many of these little guys will make it out alive?"

Item #3: Election Fun . . . 'Star Wars' Style

So this presidential election is going on . . . and on . . . and on. In December, conventional wisdom said that Sen. Hillary Clinton was the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Then the caucuses and primaries began and Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign caught fire and he became the favorite to snag his party's nomination. Then came the dust-up with Obama’s former pastor and Clinton's recent string of wins, and now Obama doesn’t look so strong, or so favorite. The whole thing just looks like one big political mess.

But big political messes make for exciting political news and great cable TV news ratings. And, may I add, great political parody, including this "Star Wars"-style parody I discovered on the Huffington Post. It’s nakedly pro-Obama, assigning him the role of Luke Skywalker while Clinton is Darth Vader and her husband is the Emperor. Regardless of your political party or whether you have a candidate of choice in the Democratic race, I'll bet you find this pretty entertaining. My Eldest Son, a "Star Wars" aficionado, laughed out loud, even though he didn't get half of the political jokes.

Item #4: Rain Delay

Irony of the week: At 7 p.m. on Friday, I was just finishing up making a late dinner for the family. The Spouse and the Youngest Son were still at the Youngest Son’s season opening baseball game. In the rain and cold.

To help pass the time while I tidied up from the aftermath of my cooking, I flipped on NESN, the Boston area cable network that carries Boston sports, and, most importantly, Red Sox games. Only the Red Sox game was in rain delay. Meanwhile my son’s 6- and 7-year-old Little League game in a greater Boston suburb, however, was still ongoing.

Catchin’ Up: Kid Liars, Breastfeeding in the Funny Pages, Going Green and More

New York Magazine has been on a roll lately. They’ve been producing one provocative parenting piece after another. The latest was a recent cover story about why kids lie to their parents. And they do. Lie. All the time. (Without impugning anyone specific, I can say that I speak from experience on this subject.)

I felt great despair as I read through the article, wondering what, if anything, can be done about pint-sized tellers of tall tales . . . until I arrived at the end of the piece and found some pointers which included:

-- Don’t dissuade your kids from tattling because they’ll internalize the message that they can’t come to you with their problems. This will become habitual and, when they’re teens they won’t tell you one of their buddies has been getting loaded every weekend. Or driving drunk. Or other delightful stories.

-- As maddening as it may be, the article says, let your kids argue their points, even if you have no intention of giving into their demands: “In families where there was less deception . . . there was a much higher ratio of arguing and complaining. The argument enabled the child to speak honestly. Certain types of fighting, despite the acrimony, were ultimately signs of respect – not of disrespect.”

So when my Eldest Son is bitterly complaining about how I’m on a multi-year campaign to ruin his life and embarrass him with my mere existence, I can take comfort in the fact that by letting him prattle on, I’m encouraging him to, according to the article, be more honest?

Breastfeeding in the Funny Pages

The “Stone Soup” comic recently had a storyline featuring a new mom who was discretely nursing her baby at a restaurant and was asked to leave because her breastfeeding offended the man who was “nuzzling a buxom bimbo half his age.” Kudos to cartoonist Jan Eliot. Keep fighting the good fight.

Going Green

Ever since my children commenced their formal education, I’ve been on an anti-paperwork kick, frequently complaining that I feel as if I'm under an unrelenting siege from school paper with which I absolutely cannot keep up, no matter how many dead presidents I waste on containers and organizers.

My February Parents and Kids column was yet another volley in my anti-paper campaign, where I lament how my kids’ schools had been resistant to the notion of going paperless and hadn’t been accepting of the notion of sending me school notices, permission slips, et al, by e-mail, so they don’t wind up in massive, scary piles on my kitchen counter.

I have good news to report: The unnamed PTO president who I mention in the piece -- who unsuccessfully argued my point to the school department this fall -- called me after reading the column and told me that there’s been a change of heart at the school. The day will be coming, she promised me, when the school will cease and desist with sending home three copies of the announcement that Friday is Aloha Day and that I’ll get ONE e-mail informing me of the mirth and frivolity at my children’s institutions of learning.

So if you feel overwhelmed by your child's school paperwork, take up the cause and make the case to your school district to go paperless. Print out the column and tell ‘em it CAN be done. Your cluttered kitchen counters will thank you.

Lenton Cash

During Lenton season every year, my interfaith household takes on the task of either giving something up or promising to do something for the greater good during the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. This year, as I did last year, I’ve said I’d try to give up swearing and saying “bad” words (to the kids, “bad” words include: Darn, damn, stupid, dumb and the obviously blue language that occasionally *cough* slips past my lips, even when the kids are out of earshot, such as when I'm driving to work solo and am trapped behind a horrifically slow motorist). When I make a mistake, as humans are apt to do, I must deposit a quarter into a jar. At the end of Lent, we’re going to donate the money to our church.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. The jar is embarrassingly full. At least the church should be happy.

Letting the Kids Play

The New York Times ran a fascinating piece in their Sunday magazine this past weekend about the value of children’s free play time. Though it suggests that there’s no hard, scientific evidence that giving children the opportunity to play is a sure-fire ticket to future success, it does raise some interesting points. Well worth the read.

Read This

Humorist Christie Mellor has a very funny, spot-on essay detailing why you shouldn’t abandon who you are and suddenly don an angelic, Sancti-Mommy halo the minute you become a parent. It’s cleverly entitled, “Chardonnay Swilling Whore.” Not for the faint of heart. Or those who are easily offended.

(Image from Stone Soup.)

Four for Friday: College Application Nuttiness, Kids’ Homework, HSM 3 and 'Baby Mama' Movie Trailer

Item #1: College Application Nuttiness

One of my favorite, down-to-earth columnists, Betsy Hart wrote a great piece tackling the issue of how much emphasis today’s parents place on their children getting into the “right” colleges, instead of trying to “raise persons of character who will eventually be able to thrive and prosper and grow and learn in almost any college – and really, any life – environment.”

“Especially in an ever-changing and dynamic economy,” Hart wrote, “it seems it’s really the student, not the college, that matters.”

Item #2: Kids’ Homework for Kids (Not Parents)

It’s your kid’s homework assignment. Not yours. And if your kid does poorly on it, it’s her fault, not yours.

That’s the message sent by a blog entry from the Washington Post’s “On Balance” parenting blog. Writer Julie Lenzer Kirk said that she took umbrage when her 10-year-old daughter said if she did poorly on an assignment it would be because her mom wouldn’t help her because her mom was working. Au contraire, Lenzer Kirk responded, adding that the kid would have to wait until she was available for help instead of waiting until the very last minute to work on it.

A quick read through the comments section was illustrative, including one comment from someone who says she’s a teacher and wrote: “Nothing bothers me more than a child who has every homework assignment completed perfectly, has no questions for me, yet fails a quiz because he or she doesn't really get it, because mom/dad essentially did the work.”

Item #3: 'High School Musical 3:' The Franchise That Will Not Die

I can sing and/or hum every song from the two “High School Musical” movies, as we are an all-HSM all-the-time household . . . that’s when we’re not being treated to the musical renderings of Hannah Montana or the Eldest Son’s pounding away on the drum set he got for Christmas.

And there’s no end in sight for the HSM madness as the announcement was made official this week that the major stars from the first two HSM films will indeed appear in "High School Musical 3" which is scheduled to be released in movie theaters this fall.

We’re all in this together . . .

Item #4: 'Baby Mama' Movie Trailer

“Baby Mama” is a new film slated for a spring release for which I just saw the trailer on the Entertainment Weekly web site. It looks like it has the potential to be darkly funny. It takes the idea of having someone else be your gestational surrogate and makes it (hopefully) humorous. That’s a tricky proposition. But the film stars Tina Fey, who has a small child herself. And Amy Poehler co-stars as Fey's fictional surrogate. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Watch the trailer here and judge for yourself.

Six-and-a-Half Hours

That's how long it took me to get home from work yesterday.

Six-and-a-half hours.

I could've driven from the Boston area to Baltimore in that time. Instead, I spent those clenched, nerve-wracking hours driving on the snow-covered, clogged and slippery (UNPLOWED! Even on major highways that were not congested) trying to make it home in what is normally a 90-minute trip.

Before I even left work, I received an automated phone call on my cell phone from my children's school department telling me that school was letting out two hours early. Even if I'd left work the moment I got that call, given the conditions of Massachusetts highways yesterday (gridlock beyond belief) I would've never made it back in time. I wound up placing several frantic phone calls, trying to find anyone who could get the kids off the bus. Lucky for me, one of my neighbors was indeed available. Initially, I thought she'd only have to watch the three kids for a half-hour. Then, after I came face-to-face with the worst commute of my life, she wound up watching them for four-and-a-half hours and fed them dinner, which was a good thing seeing as though I still had no food in the house yesterday.

When I finally made it home, leaving my minivan in the street in front of my house because I couldn't get into my driveway, then trudged through 10+ inches of snow to my neighbor's house to pick up the kids, they, the charmers that they are, gave me grief. They didn't want to leave. It had been a kid-friendly winter wonderland over there. They'd gone sledding, had snowball fights, had dinner and snacks, watched "Rudolph" on TV, played a pretend game of Harry Potter and were in the middle of filling a Mad Lib with all manner of juvenile, toilet-related humor when I arrived and dragged them out of a warm, magical neighbor's home. As we slogged through the snow, they said they couldn't understand why I was in such a foul mood.

"I was in the car for six-and-a-half hours!" I wearily replied. "I had to stop on the side of the road tons of times to chop ice off of my windshield wipers. I was so nervous."

"You've already told us that Mom," my 9-year-old son quipped as he tossed his snowpants into the garage. "We get it."

As for The Spouse, he tried repeatedly to get home, but when his car got stuck in a snowbank, he abandoned it on the side of the road, until about 9:30 p.m. or so when he got a group of guys together to shove his car out of the snow and onto the streets. He rolled in at around 10:30.

Between now and New Year's, I am officially not singing any snow-related Christmas songs that speak in glowing terms about the white, freezing matter. Me and snow, to crib a line from an old "Gilmore Girls" episode, we're not on speaking terms right now.

(Image from the Boston Herald.)

Trivial Complaints from the Domestic Front

Various and sundry complaints from the home front, in no particular order:

Trivial Complaint #1: The youngest boy became extremely angry with me this morning after I made him take off a pair of khaki pants (the cuffs were miles from his shoes) and put on a different pair of khaki pants that actually fit him. In fact, he worked himself into such a frenzy of anger that he puked all over the carpeted stairs leading to the garage. Mere minutes before the school bus came. Then the little man proceeded to argue with me, saying he didn’t need a coat (it was in the 40s) because he was wearing a Patriots sweatshirt that would keep him warm. Arguing with a 6-year-old is a futile exercise. It makes one understand why, “Because I said so,” became a cliché.

Trivial Complaint #2: While trying to make a wholesome meal – roasted chicken with vegetables – the other night, I was having trouble extracting that vile bag of “giblets” from the bird. In fact, the bag broke and I had a tough time getting everything out while I muttered in frustration under my breath. In the meantime, the youngest boy thought the entire incident was cool, breathlessly telling his older brother, “Mom took the guts out of the chicken and then shoved a lemon up its butt.” For the record, only one of the three kids wound up eating the meal. I think that the “guts” and lemon-up-the-butt comments had a negative impact.

Trivial Complaint #3: When a young person who lives in my house leaves her belongings all over the joint, sheds items like sweaters or jackets wherever and whenever she sees fit, then (*shocker*) cannot find stuff that she needs (like an instrument for school) RIGHT NOW before the bus comes and blames everyone but herself, it doesn’t make me feel very cheery.

Trivial Complaint #4: After a dizzying few months of trying to simultaneously get all three kids to soccer games (some a 45-minute drive away from home) and to a bazillion practices (as if the kids are training for the Olympics and every practice is vital -- vital I tell you! – to their future success), I was just getting ready to breathe. Until The Spouse told me that my eldest son’s indoor soccer season is starting tonight, before the fall outdoor soccer season has finally come to an end. I think my head is going to explode.

Trivial Complaint #5: If I receive another stack of paper from my kids’ schools making pleas for me to provide free labor by working in the library or the computer room, asking for me to volunteer for yet another fundraising event, or to open my wallet (*again*) to buy junk I don’t need, I’m going to call Al Gore and report them for the unnecessary killing of trees for no good reason. I’m so inundated with fliers that I wind up tossing the entire pile into the recycling bin. Enough already!

Trivial Complaint #6: This is the third week in a row that one of my kids has had a half-day of school so that teachers can conduct parent-teacher conferences. This half-day-of-school business is terrible for working parents who carefully plan their work schedules. In fact, I had to take my youngest to work with me one day when, at the last minute, I couldn’t get babysitting for him. The Spouse worked from home to cover a half-day last week and my in-laws are going to (*hopefully*) cover the third half-day that occurs later this week. Question: Why are school schedules for young children so working-parent unfriendly? These half-days, they stink.

Being Involved with Kids’ Education Vs Backing Off and Giving Them Space

To further bolster the case against being a helicopter parent, Don Mayhew of the McClatchy News Service has a new piece out suggesting that parents who intervene too deeply in their children’s lives may inadvertently negatively affect their children’s success and maturity level by the time the kids are in college:

“Students who get too much help growing up often don’t last long at college. [Helen E.] Johnson, who spent several years working at Cornell University in New York and now lives in North Carolina, said the stress of dealing with the real world can lead to self-destructive behaviors, such as eating disorders or cutting themselves. They may turn to antidepressants.

‘This is a really unattractive outcome of hyper-parenting,’ she said.”

My questions: How are parents supposed to strike a balance between guiding their children in a way that affords the kids a chance to make their own mistakes and meddling, when schools request – nay demand – that parents become uber-involved in their children’s educational pursuits via prodigious volunteering and overseeing homework assignments?

Aren’t parents being sent mixed messages: Involved parents=educational success vs over-involved parents=immature college-aged students?

Helicopter 'Rents, Categorized

Criticizing the phenomenon of “helicopter parenting” (parents swooping down and hovering over their children, micromanaging their offsprings’ lives), researchers at the University of Texas-Austin decided to methodically organize these folks into five categories ranging from Toxic to Black Hawk parent. After interviewing “hundreds of people on more than 150 college campuses,” researchers pegged about 60 percent of collegiate parents as some form of helicopter parents.

But not all helicopter parents are the same. ABC News’ web site quoted study co-author Jim Settle as dividing these folks into the following groups:

• Black Hawk Parent: “[T]ypically angry, abusive and would go straight to the president’s office no matter how minor the concern.”
  
• Toxic Parent: “[P]aranoid enough to log on to their child’s online social networking pages as their child to research friends and roommates.”
  
• Safety Expert Parent: “[A]lways anxious over school security measures and is eager to form emergency plans for his or her child.”
  
• Consumer Advocate Parent: “[A]lways is ready to negotiate discounted tuition and fees.”
  
• Traffic and Rescue Parent: “[S]woops in at the first hint of trouble, landing on campus with supplies and support.”
  

On Leslie Morgan Steiner’s Washington Post “On Balance” blog admitted that she’s, “a bit of The Consumer Advocate and The Safety Expert (cars and pools, ahhh!). All of these parenting styles, taken to the extreme, are bad for kids. And hard on parents, too.”

All of this made me think of a New York Times Magazine piece from a couple of weeks ago about the madness parents of high school seniors experience when they’re trying to help their children beef up their academic resumes and prepare sterling college applications, or when the adults simply take over the process themselves. In fact, that article made my head spin. As a self-proclaimed “good-enough parent,” I’m vowing to do my best to NOT transform myself into a helicopter parent, a parent who embarrasses her eldest son with her warped humor, yes, but a helicopter parent, no . . . that’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.

Parental Homework: An Odious Notion

Parental homework.

Quite the oxymoron.

Parents already do homework. Their homework includes: Taking care of the home and everyone who lives in it and the oh-so-small task of earning a living. Most parents have already logged their time sitting at school desks, completing math assignments and taking vocabulary tests. Additionally, some parents have taken years of college courses and, some have even completed master’s or PhD-level work. They don’t need any “extra,” compulsory homework from their children’s teachers just to make sure they’re paying attention to what their kids are doing in school.

There are certain obligations that fall under the job description of being a child such as, listening to your parents, making your bed and going to school. And there are certain responsibilities which fall under the description of being a parent, such as the ones mentioned above, which, by the way, do NOT include doing homework with your children because doing schoolwork is the students’ job, and the kids need to learn how to complete their own homework because, years down the road in college, they’re going to need to do it without Mommy and Daddy hovering around. Sure, the parent is around to check a grade school, middle school or high school student’s homework, to offer suggestions, to trouble-shoot and such, but the parent is not there to do work alongside one’s child.

That being said, when I read this article in the New York Times about a New Jersey high school teacher who assigns the parents of his teenaged students homework -- including requiring that they complete reading assignments -- I, as a parent, took umbrage. “The ninth graders complete their assignments during class; the parents are supposed to write their responses on a blog Mr. Frye started online,” the Times reported. “If the parents do not comply, Mr. [Damion] Frye tells them, their child’s grade may suffer — a threat on which he has made good only once in the three years he has been making such assignments.”

The article continued:

“The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children’s education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. So, Mr. Frye said, he decided to help out.

‘Parents complain about never getting to see their kids’ work,’ he said. ‘Now they have to.’”

(Can you imagine what it would be like if every one of your children’s several high school teachers pulled a stunt like this, assigning parents homework?)

When did we reach the point when a student’s work also became parents’ work as well? Of course parents are responsible for their children’s behavior, including what the kids do in school. That’s a no-brainer. But do parents really need some patronizing young teacher assigning them (under threat of having the children’s grades suffer) a Walt Whitman poem, one that the parent probably read back in an undergraduate English class? I think not. I have enough adult work to tackle, thank you very much.

A Teacher with a Funny Bone

I adore a teacher with a sense of humor, but, sadly, teachers and parents aren’t given much of a chance to exchange humorous pleasantries beyond, “Hey, isn’t it funny that my kid had to borrow $2 from you for lunch the other day because he forgot his lunch money on the kitchen table?"

Therefore, I didn’t exactly expect witty sarcasm when I opened my third grader’s Open House packet for parents – where the school informs us about all manner of things that occur in a third grade classroom in our town – and found a purple paper entitled, “School Homework Policy,” bearing an orange, happy-faced sticker.

At first, I groaned. “Great,” I thought. “More lectures on how I need to allot all of my post-school waking hours to guide my kids through the labyrinth of their assignments. More dunning words on how if I fail to help my children, if I absentmindedly forget to sign off on the homework assignment sheet, if I neglect to write (in a timely manner) a cheery note in my kids’ weekly notebooks, my children will be banned from recess and be forced to clean the cafeteria floor with a toothbrush.”

It began thusly: “Students should not spend more than 90 minutes per night on homework. This time should be budgeted in the following manner:”

“Oh boy,” I thought, “here we go.”

• 15 minutes looking for the assignment
• 11 minutes calling a friend for the assignment
• 23 minutes explaining why the teacher is mean and just does not like children
• 8 minutes in the bathroom
• 10 minutes getting a snack
• 7 minutes checking the TV Guide
• 6 minutes telling parents that the teacher never explained the assignment
• 10 minutes sitting at the kitchen table waiting for Mom or Dad to do the assignment

When I finished laughing, I handed the purple paper to The Spouse. He asked me if I’d also read the directions for “Long Term Assignments.” I hadn’t, so he urged me to read on:

“These are given the night before they are due. This explains the name ‘long term.’ It is a long term commitment to time that begins at 9:30 p.m. and ends at 11:50 p.m. – or later. It is important that the whole family be involved in the project. It is imperative that at least one family member races to Wal-Mart or K-Mart for posterboard, and that at least one family member ends up in tears (does not have to be the student).”

I think I’m going to like this teacher. We speak the same language.

More Reasons to Name Me 'Mother of the Year'

Reason #1: When my first grader Casey came home from school on Friday, he told me he had to bum $2 from his teacher to pay for lunch because he said I’d forgotten to put his lunch money in his Red Sox backpack.

But both The Spouse and I distinctly remember putting those two dollars on the kitchen table, next to our little guy’s snack and water bottle. Mysteriously, the money never made it all the way into the backpack. (I suspect foul play via the pilfering hands of an older sibling -- as I never found the bills kicking around the kitchen -- but I have no evidence to back up my contention.)

Reason #2: A day later, while Casey was playing in the playroom with his siblings and the neighbors’ kids, he accidentally got kicked in the face by his sister as she was reenacting a move from the movie “High School Musical 2” (that’s the story they’re telling anyway). The Spouse and I had been chatting in the kitchen with our neighbors when Casey burst into the room with a rapidly growing bump under his right eye.

By this morning, the bump had deflated for the most part. But what it lacked in puffiness it made up for with a deepening, darkening bruise. So when Casey repays his teacher the $2 his idiot parents "forgot" to give him, he is going to do so looking as though he was in a bar brawl over the weekend, which is certain make a great impression on the teacher I have yet to meet. I’ll bet Open House will be . . . interesting.

Reason #3: Oh, to insult to injury, tomorrow is school picture day. Can you say, “Concealer?”

E-mail Meredith

Three for Thursday: First Day of School, 7-Year-Old Orthodontic Appointments and Boston Pre-School Application Mania

Item #1: School, Day 1.

And after Day 1, here’s what I have to report:

The school bus was 45 minutes late coming home yesterday afternoon. Forty. Five. At 35 minutes I was starting to panic and wondered if I’d missed some important memo about buses and drop-off procedures, whether my clocks were wrong and if I had unknowingly fallen into a short-term coma and somehow didn't see the bus. I called a neighbor, then the school and was trapped in the hell that is an automated answering service when I finally spotted the bus.

The Daughter immediately informed me that she was missing three of the required folders from her big bag of school supplies and needed them ASAP. I KNOW that we bought the white, orange and green, two-pocket folders when we went to Staples last week. I saw them go into her school supply bag in the store. (Each of the three children took their own school supplies home from the store in individual bags . . . I’ll have to apologize to Al Gore for the three separate plastic bags later.) Upon receiving the bad news, I quickly e-mailed The Spouse to ask him to please pick them up on the way home from work.

The Youngest Son’s teacher wasn't there on the first day and, according to him, will be out sick for the remainder of the week, so his class was in a holding pattern of sorts. When asked to name his favorite moment of his first day of first grade, he paused and then replied, “Lunch.”

The Eldest Son, who was very excited to have his very own assignment/datebook in which to write down items that are due on certain dates, panicked (like his dear old mom) 10 minutes after he went to bed last night because he hadn’t yet had a parent initial his entry denoting that he read for 20 minutes.

Item #2: Orthodontics and Your 7-Year-Old

I’m a bit concerned that my latest screed for Parents and Kids -- where I complain about the recommendation that 7-year-olds go for consultations with orthodontists -- will inspire orthodontists to send me hate e-mail. But, take heart orthodontists: You’ll likely be the beneficiary of thousands of my family's hard-earned dollars as at least two of my three children will likely require your services and 1.2 tons of metal in their mouths in future years. And we will be at your mercy, and in the end, you'll win.

Item #3: Boston Area Pre-School Application Mania

The latest issue of Boston Magazine contains an analysis of the pluses and minuses of Boston area pre-schools, along with a first-person piece written by a parent who thought that the madness of the pre-school application process would be relatively easy in Boston as compared to her former locale (New York), only to discover she was wrong. (“Suddenly, I became convinced that unless I installed [my daughter] in the perfect institution of learning by age three, my daughter would be consigned to a life of academic failure and an inexorable drift toward petty thievery to support her addictions to crystal meth and the Home Shopping Network.”)

Here’s the lead from the main article on pre-schools, “Junior Achievers:”

“Not so long ago, in what was a gentler, more forgiving era, the good children of Boston didn’t face their first make-or-break interview until they were fully formed college aspirants, or at least looking to sew up a spot in the prep school of their choosing. Now the decisive moment happens a bit earlier. Like at, say, about two, two and a half years old.”

*Bonus Item*: The web site Mommy Track’d – for which I write weekly about pop culture (TV, movies, media and politics) and news tidbits – has undergone a dramatic redesign. Check it out and be sure to leave a comment or two.

E-mail Meredith

Back-to-School Supplies, Times Three

I finally located the school supply lists distributed by my children’s teachers and dragged my offspring to Staples to buy $60+ worth of said required supplies, although the Lysol wipes and the box of tissues for my first grader’s classroom weren’t purchased yet, I’ll get those at the grocery store.

Per usual, not all of the brands, counts and types of supplies were available in one location. But unlike past years, where I dragged my sorry behind to various stores trying to find the exact right item, this year, I’ve decided that the classrooms will get what they get. For example, the “Mead” portfolio folders on the classroom list weren’t at the Staples store I visited.

Yes, I could have driven to Target, Office Max, Wal-Mart or ordered them online, but I have many, many things with which to contend right now. I planned on making ONE trip for school supplies, and if a certain brand wasn’t there, I bought the store brand. And the Fiskars pointed scissors that the third grade teachers requested, well, they’re getting store brand as well, as Staples didn’t have Fiskars.

Here's how detailed my kids' school supply lists were:

For my first grader:
-- 3 “Mead” two-pocket, portfolio style folders. One in red. One in blue. One in yellow. (As mentioned, I bought the store brand instead of hunting around in other stores, lazy cheapskate am I.)
-- 4 Elmer’s glue sticks, large.
-- 2 boxes of Crayola crayons, 16-pack, classic colors. (Staples didn’t have a 16-pack, so I bought the 24-pack and was done with this item, which will certainly lead to the downfall of my son’s first grade, classroom environment.)
-- 1 box of Crayola colored pencils, 8-pack, classic colors.
-- 2-4 plain, yellow #2 writing pencils.
-- 1 box of tissues. (I’ll buy them later.)
-- 1 container of Lysol wipes. (Ditto.)
-- 1 box of Crayola, broad-line markers, 10-pack, classic colors.

Now, for my twin third graders’ list, which I bought in duplicate:
-- 1 pair of Fiskars pointed scissors. (As noted above, I bought an *shudder* off-brand.)
-- 4 Elmer’s glue sticks, .77 oz.
-- 1 bottle of Elmer’s glue, 4 oz.
-- 12 pencil top erasers.
-- 6 rectangle, block-style erasers.
-- 24 #2 pencils.
-- 1 pencil sharpener.
-- 1 box of Crayola markers, 8-pack, washable, broad-line.
-- 1 box of Crayola colored pencils, erasable, 10-pack.
-- 1 box of Crayola crayons, 24-count.
-- 8 twin-pocket folders. One each in the following colors: White, yellow, green, orange, blue, red, purple and light blue. (Staples didn’t have light blue, so we bought royal blue and navy blue which will likely confuse someone, somewhere down the line.)
-- 5-tab index divider.
-- 2 composition notebooks, marble covered, 100-page.
-- 1 1-inch, three-ring binder.

Much to The Spouse’s annual chagrin, our first grader’s list specifically states: “All supplies will be distributed to the class in a communal way as they are needed. Therefore, they should not have your child’s name on them.” I’ll have to restrain him the night before school starts from writing Casey’s name on everything.

However, my kids did get a good civics/economics lesson when we brought all of this stuff up to the check-out counter and they learned how much each of their supplies cost, as well as the meaning of the phrase “sales tax.”

E-mail Meredith

(Adam@home image from GoComics.)

Working from Home: End of Summer Edition

There’s a brand new hole in the wall in my kitchen next to the refrigerator. It’s about an inch or so in diameter.

You can’t miss it.

And the same kids who are responsible for that hole decided to torment me this afternoon as I attempted to complete an assignment. Unsatisfied with the five (!) choices I gave them for their afternoon snack, they must’ve somehow conspired to come to my office, one by one, to repeatedly ask me if they could have a particular item that was not on the snack list. Or maybe this other one. Or this other one. Until I threatened to never feed the ingrates again.

In the meantime, I started smiling to myself as I recalled that famous Staples ad, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” where the dad is absolutely giddy as he throws school supplies into a shopping carriage and tells his two kids that they’re going back to school soon. A reader recently e-mailed me and inquired about it. So, in the aftermath of this afternoon's madness, I decided to look up the video and found a poor quality version here.

While I was looking for the Staples ad I found this video of a dad and his son preparing for back-
to-school time. The mom does all the hard work and the dad goofs off. Typical.

And, speaking of school, I just had to throw in this link to scenes from an episode of “The Office,” when Michael Scott is a guest speaker at a college business class and, as he is wont to do, says inappropriate things in the lecture hall.

Ahhh. I feel better now. Michael Scott always makes me laugh . . . almost enough to make me forget about that damned hole in the wall. But when The Spouse sees the wall, it’s likely his head will explode. Then we’ll have another mess to clean up.

E-mail Meredith

(Staples image from this web site.)

High Fives in School: A Gateway to Other Similarly Dangerous Behavior, Like Handshakes

The insanity continues.

Instead of teaching children what is socially acceptable behavior and what is inappropriate, instead of preparing students for the big bad world where they don’t live in protective cocoons of bubble wrap, a Virginia school district thinks it’s a good idea to ban ALL PHYSICAL CONTACT between students. Everything from handshakes to high fives and hugs are now no-nos.

By these standards, I violated the rules more times than I can count at my daughter’s soccer game on Saturday when I high-fived the players multiple times, put my hand on their shoulder or atop their head when I leaned over to tell them something (most of the time it was an “atta-girl” sentiment). In my kindergartener’s Sunday school, we teachers violated the Virginia standards by (*gasp*) holding hands at the end of a prayer.

The next thing you know, the girls on my daughter’s soccer team and the kindergarteners from the Sunday school class will be moving on to more dangerous behavior . . . like extending a hand of friendship to someone. Then where will we be?

(I found this gem of a horror story via Parent Dish.)

E-mail Meredith

Three for Thursday: Grapes, Judy Blume and School Parties

Item #1: Uttered in My Kitchen

Uh-oh. A grape fell in my pants.

(Sadly, this was not uttered by myself or The Spouse in a moment of wry, naughty fun.)

Item #2: I Must, I Must, I Must Increase My . . .

. . . reading list for the summer.

In addition to the material I must read for work purposes, a book arrived in the mail the other day that made me feel all girlish inside: Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume. It’s a collection of 21 essays from women of a certain age (like my thirtysomething age bracket) about the influential role Blume books played in their childhoods.

These books were instrumental in my life. For example, my two best friends in grade school and I formed a club similar to Margaret’s in “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” Although I cannot recall if we actually did the breast increasing exercises (“We must, we must, we increase our bust.”), I know that I did plead with my mom to take me out to the local department store — Steiger’s — for my first grow-with-you bra, even though I didn’t really need it.

That seems so innocent now, and unlike today, where there are thongs in girls’ departments.

Item #3: End of School Madness

I keep getting confused. Whose end-of-the-year school party is on Friday? Jonah’s or Abbey’s?Is it at 9:30 or 9:45? (For Casey’s class party, which was held earlier this week, I signed up to bring juice boxes, and found myself posting reminder notes everywhere so I wouldn’t forget.)

And I think I’m supposed to pick up a Box o’ Joe from Dunkin’ Donuts for the party tomorrow morning — for one of those two kids’ classes — but I have to find out the correct time because nothin’ will tick off parents at a lively end-of-the-year class party than havin’ the person bringing the coffee to be tardy.

At least I did remember to mail my contribution for the teacher gifts to the “room parents” last week so they can made a grand presentation at the parties. And I already wrote the thank you notes for the teachers saying that I appreciate them for not killing or maiming my children during the school year. Sent them in the kids’ backpacks today.

I just need to remember that I have a parent-teacher conference with Casey’s teacher this afternoon . . . and that Abbey has soccer practice tonight, where I’m assistant coaching. Does Jonah have a baseball game, where The Spouse is assistant coaching? Casey’s game, where The Spouse is ALSO assistant coaching, was postponed the other day due to rain, but I don’t know if it’s been re-scheduled.

Please pardon me while I crawl back into bed and pray for the school and athletic year to be over so we can put an end to all the parties, practices and games, and I can spend the summer trying to work from home while the kids harass me that they’re soooo bored.

E-mail Meredith

(Image from Amazon.com.)

‘Red-Shirting’ Kindergarteners

I spent some quality time during yesterday’s rainy weather reading the Sunday newspapers I have delivered to my home as opposed to simply letting them pile up. (For all of you counting at home, that total is three.) Among the thought provoking pieces that I read from beginning to end was a New York Times Magazine article on the trend of “red-shirting” kindergarteners, referring to voluntarily waiting an additional year before enrolling your child in kindergarten in the hopes of a) having the child mature b) having the child grow physically taller c) giving the child more time to socially develop and/or d) giving the child an academic advantage over younger peers.

The article made several fascinating points, including the fact that those who are among the oldest members of their class tend to do well in school. But the piece also added that for people who can’t afford to hold their kid back and need the child in free kindergarten schooling ASAP, their children can be hurt by this practice.

My twins’ birthday falls less than a week before our town’s cut-off date. The Spouse and I decided to red-shirt them, given that if they’d been born even close to their actual due date (they were 5.5 weeks premature) they would’ve missed the cut-off date anyway. As it stands, even though they are the oldest (or close to the oldest children) in their classes, they do not physically tower over their peers, as the image accompanying the Times article suggest red-shirted kids are, suggesting an unfair physical advantage. (In fact, the twins are of average height as compared to their year-younger classmates.)

As for my youngest child, he is among the youngest students in his class. Whether he’ll pay a price for The Spouse and I deciding not to red-shirt him (he makes the cut-off date for kindergarten by roughly a month), remains to be seen, though there are moments when I wonder if we made the right choice.

I’ve got a friend whose son’s birthday is after my twins’ birthday. She opted to send her son to kindergarten at age 5 (he made the cut-off date for kindergarten entrance in his community by days). My friend argues that her child would’ve been intellectually bored silly if he’d been made to spend another year in pre-school. And since we made our respective, polar-opposite decisions, we’ve had some lively conversations about red-shirting. While my friend understands my rationale for not sending my twins to kindergarten based on their actual due date, she is adamantly opposed to red-shirting as a rule and thinks it’s bad for kids and bad for schools.

How about you, readers? Anyone regret sending (or not sending) their kids to kindergarten at age 5? Have a position on red-shirting?

E-mail Meredith

When We Need ‘Play Advocates,’ We’re in Trouble

This is what it has come to.

Adults have to teach kids how to play.

This weekend I read a truly disheartening piece in the New York Times that featured Michael Cohill, described as a “toy designer and enthusiastic,” who runs marble seminars to teach children how to play marbles.

Noting that playground games like hopscotch, four squares, Red Rover, tag (remember when some school districts sought to ban this?) or simply going outside “to play” has fallen out of favor under the watchful eyes of today’s hyper-parents, the Times quoted Joan Almon, a “play advocate,” (how pathetic is it when we need “play advocates?”) saying, “These kind of games, including tag, have practically died out.”

“Ms. Almon bemoaned the fact that she often drives through leafy suburban streets on a sunny afternoon and sees no children playing.”

The problem? It has become unfashionable to allow our kids to simply be kids, to live simply, without having every moment of their little lives scheduled. By some parents’ standards, if your kid isn’t signed up for activities for every second of every day, well, then you and your kid are just slackers.

When did childhood – which now includes an avalanche of grade school homework necessitating direct parental involvement and an excess of organized sports – become so complicated?

E-mail Meredith

(Image from the New York Times.)

Kids’ Homework: Parents’ Homework in Disguise?

The Wall Street Journal’s parenting blogger, Sara Schaefer Muñoz, wrote a great entry today on a topic that has become a particular pet peeve of mine: Kids’ homework assignments that require parents to complete them either with the children or to complete independently. (The Spouse and I have been given regular homework assignments by our children’s teachers.)

Now I have no problem with guiding my children, trouble-shooting for their assignments, making suggestions when they’re stuck or playing cheerleader when their efforts seem to be flagging. But some of the assignments my second graders get which require direct parental involvement can become too much in the context of the harried days in a dual working parent household with three kids.

Although, judging from Muñoz’s entry, with my rug rats still in grade school, I haven’t seen anything yet. She wrote:

“A few weeks ago, I received an email from a reader who said she was fed
up with teachers asking for parental help, including an extensive edit of a
7th-grade paper. ‘Shouldn’t the child edit their own paper?’ she asks. But she
says when she posed the question to an assistant superintendent, the
superintendent ‘proudly admitted to editing her [own] daughter’s senior AP
English paper.’

‘I am not sure I would hire her daughter or recommend her for any job or
college,’ she writes. ‘I would hope that any child in Senior AP English class
could write and edit their own papers.’”

I liken being a parent — at its very essence — to being a teacher to one’s own children where you’re charged with preparing your children for life outside of the nest, where they have to learn how to thrive on their own.

I, like the writer Muñoz quoted, get irritated when it seems as though work that the kids should be doing in school is put onto parents’ plates, or, worse yet, when parents are assigned homework. You see I finished second grade quite a long time ago.

E-mail Meredith

Sign on the Dotted Line

My second graders came home from school with contracts yesterday.

The contracts outlined their teachers’ expectations and guidelines for a three-week project (a report with a bibliography and a complementary craft project of the kids’ design). “There will be no regular homework assignments over the next three weeks,” the contract said, adding however that the child “will be responsible for preparing the weekly spelling and math facts test.”

Included in the packet was a set of instructions with suggestions on how the students can study for their spelling tests each week, given that they wouldn’t have their regular homework assignments designed to help them master their vocabulary words. There were 16 suggestions ranging from making their own flash cards and using Scrabble tiles to spell out the words, to writing a secret code using some of the words and seeing if a family member can decipher it (how very Sydney Bristow of them).

There was yet another set of instructions in their school papers that said, in addition to preparing for the spelling and math tests, the students should continue to read for 20 minutes each day. Like they do every school night. Only the kids don’t have to have parents sign their daily homework sheets because there will be no regular homework while the kids are working on researching their topic and making their craft.

Huh? My head’s gonna explode. So the kids are going to do everything they always do — study for the tests and read — but they won’t have the busy-work assignments. So they can fill their time by completing this project?

There was a place on the contract for their 8-year-old signatures and for a parent’s signature. If I’m a bit unclear about what exactly they’re expecting from my 8-year-olds, how are they supposed to figure it out?

And, as for this annotated report and craft that the students have to come up with to represent their respective topics, I see harried runs to craft stores, modeling clay mashed into the kitchen floor and battles over shoe boxes in my future, regardless of how well we try to plan ahead. (Do we even have any shoe boxes in the house? Do I have to go out and buy shoes in order for them to do these projects? Can they just use an old Cheerios box?)

But, unlike in the recent Garrison Keillor story, my two grade schoolers are going to do their projects on their own, regardless of whether, in comparison to other kids’ projects, theirs likely won’t meet Bree Van De Kamp standards.

E-mail Meredith