Boys and Brains

Some hiccoughs in the Kindergartner’s progress recently have had my antennae tingling every time I come across any information about boys and schools and intelligence. I”ve discovered a few really interesting things recently.
This podcast of a recent Voices In The Family radio show was quite fascinating. The guests were a writer who has gathered all kinds of statistics and studies together to find out why boys are doing so poorly in school compared to girls (and there has been  a decline in boys’ performance in recent years) and a psychologist who studies these kinds of things.

Peg Tyre, the writer on the show has a book called The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do which is chock full of examples, studies and conclusions on the topic of boys and formal education. The thing I really like about it is that, although she does present conclusions, they are offered alongside the stats, which means that parents and educators can take that information and weigh it in the context of their own boys and their own situations.

The next podcast I listened to was a recent episode of Radio Times, also from my local NPR station. The guest was Richard Nisbett, who has written a book called Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. Apparently the whole question of intelligence and what it is, is quite fraught and political and I get the impression that the experts all disagree with each other quite vehemntly. However, I liked this guy’s thesis (that intelligence is largely affected by environment). It just makes sense to me. The podcast starts off with a discussion of intelligence and IQ scores and brain size and racial differenes that you might find a bit dry (but which I found fascinating), but it warms up a bit once they start talking about schools and once the callers start calling in (a pretty intelligent bunch of callers, if you ask me. Sometimes you get runts, but this show attracted some interesting and concise callers).

I’d recommend both of these shows, and possibly the accompanying books, to parents of young children, who are concerned about how to help their kids negotiate the world of school and learning.

Smirking

It was a dress-down day at school today, which means the kids get to wear their own clothes instead of uniform. Wooo.

When you have an almost-six-year-old boy there is really no problem with this beyond ‘does he actually own a pair of clean trousers and is there a top that he hasn’t smeared food or paint all over?”. And that’s just me. He doesn’t much care if his clothes are dirty or ripped or clash or, for that matter, fit him properly (although he objects to ‘too big’ more than ’so small you can see my belly and ankles’, even in winter).

So we stomped between piles of snow towards the school, and I wasn’t giving the dress-down day much thought until I saw a gaggle of 8th Grade girls coming towards us.

Now, I know I risk crossing the threshhold into curmudgeonliness when I say this, and I know there is no going back, but in the interests of full disclosure, I have to confess.

I laughed out loud.

These girls had swapped out their short kilts and knee sock uniforms and now walked towards me, a veritable wall of skinny dark-wash jeans, Ugg boots, puffy jackets and long, straight hair.

I know. I know. But I can’t help myself. I have to say it: they had swapped one uniform for another.

Still, I bet they were warmer than usual.

Millennial Mothers – The Joy of…

Recently I was having a bad morning. I was kind of grumpy anyway, and then my dearly beloved hove into view and said something that I took the wrong way (of course).

I barked at him, he barked at me, and there we were faced with the prospect of spending the whole day circling each other, scoring points and holding grudges.

Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered. But I wasn’t sure how to get myself out of my bad mood, either. I felt it from my brain to my slumped shoulders, to my clenched fists. It was up to me to do something.

So I took advantage of the fact that I was locking myself in the smallest room in the house – alone for once. I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand and then I jumped in and started to sing. Loudly.

“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”

I didn’t know it, but I clapped anyway. It was very silly. By the time I had reached,

“…do all three: clap, clap, stomp, stomp, hoo-oo-ray!” I was starting to feel a little cheerier.

So that I didn’t lose momentum I launched straight into a chorus of “On Top Of Spaghetti…”

Hanging out with little kids for the past almost-six years, has really upped the silliness quotient in my life. It has allowed me to rediscover all kinds of things, from the joy of silly songs, to the smell of Play-Doh and the fun to be had colouring-in.

What about you? What has hanging out with little kids brought  back into your life?

Leave Your Comments Here

Working Mother

Well, that went well.

I’ve been shaking the virtual network to see if I could dislodge any writing work now that the boys are both out at school at least part of the time.

This morning I had my first business call in several years, all scheduled and ready to go.

Then G woke up looking pale.

I took him to school along with A, and hesitated outside the door before deciding he was probably just tired (even though my instinct said “no, he’s sick”), and shoved him in the door.

As I was explaining to the teacher that he was pale and she should call me if she needed me, she said,

“Actually, one of my parent-helpers for the trip to the library just dropped out. Can you come?”

Almost any other morning I could have done it (let’s face it, the Monday morning Pilates is nice, but I could skip it). Cursing the timing I excused myself and jogged home (well, speed-walked).

So my call came; we did the preliminary catching up and had just started on the business at hand when my cell phone started bleating. I knew, of course, straight away. I didn’t even have to check the number to know it was the school.

I had to cut off the business call and go and fetch my retching wretch.

We’ve reschedule for Friday morning and luckily for me my business friend is a father to young kids and probably understands.

Getting actual work done is fine. If G had waited another three quarters of an hour to hurl I could have used this time, while he’s sleeping it off) to do actual work. It’s just the phone calls and meetings that are the tricky part.

Somewhere a hardline conservative is shaking their head and saying, that’s what she gets for trying to divide her attention.

‘Scuse me while I pop my shoes off and get back into the kitchen.

Sigh.

(Happily, I think G is going to recover.)

Incompetence

Well. That went well.

Tonight was “Early Childhood Back To School Night” at the boys’ school (oo, I get to say that now that G is old enough for their preschool and A is going into Kindergarten.)

I had already missed the Kindergarten registration open house in the Spring because of something I can’t remember now, and so was really looking forward to meeting A’s teacher and hearing her spiel about what to expect this coming year: not least because I did not go through school here and I like to hear everyone talk and ask questions, because it gives me a clue about what to expect. Plus I was full of ideas about how I was going to be so much more outgoing this year and how I was going to approach other parents and be jolly and friendly and not wait until December to start striking up conversations. I was even going to start using people’s first names excessively when I talked to them, because it makes people like you.

Kev kept asking me what this Back to School Night was about and making ominous rumblings about how his parents were never expected to do anything like this, and how much they seemed to expect of the parents and how uneccesary it all way.

Nevertheless, I reminded him about ten times that he had to be home to come to this thing at 6 tonight.

Then I fed the boys dinner at 5.35 pm.

We were a little rushed, going in, but they hadn’t actually started yet.

Not knowing what to expect, and knowing that we had children in two different classes and would probably have to split up for the meet and greet bits, we dragged the boys along with us. They were the ONLY children in the hall, apart from babies, and they were not about to sit quietly. I heard (just about) the principal saying something about the preschool parents going that way, so I did. She didn’t mention Kindergarten, so I thought maybe they would stagger the presentations so that people with children in kindergarten as well could get to both. So I told Kev he might as well take the boys home, since we weren’t going to hear anything anyway with them there.

I was already a bit jangly because I didn’t feel like I knew what was going on, or what I was supposed to do. Then I started the pre-school event well by accusing one of the moms I knew from last year of being pregnant…and she wasn’t. AArgh! But she was standing all belly-out, hands rounded. I felt horrible and we both blushed furiously and. Well. As I say. Not a good start.

So I sat down, when told to and listened to a presentation that I could have skipped, having been through pre-school last year. Eventually when they stopped talking I belted across the street to the main school…to find the Kindergarten classrooms dark and only a few parents hanging around.

Missed the presentation. Missed the teacher. Missed the whole damned thing.

And I was mad. At them for no organising it better; at myself for not being smart enough to realize I should skip the pre-school thing (in my defense I wanted to go because it’s a different teacher and a different room); and mad at the world in general.

I was also upset. For all kinds of reasons.

For one thing, the school year seems like the perfect time to start afresh, to do things better, to be the perfect you. It’s like New Year’s Resolutions time. I had resolved to be totally on top of things this time, and here I am blotting my copybook before school even starts! I’m so mad. It’s like an ink stain on a brand new white t-shirt, right before you go out the door (and no, Alanis, that’s not ironic, just annoying).

I also felt foolish. Everyone else seemed to manage just fine. Why was I the only one running around like a headless chicken? What was I the odd one out?

So I was too discombobulated to talk to any one at the pre-school meet-and-greet when I went back there, so I just bailed out and stomped up the road.

And here’s a word of advice to all husbands. When your wife comes in on the verge of tears, what she wants is someone to make sympathetic noises (“Oh, no! They didn’t? What? Unbelieveable!”) and to give her a big hug. She does not want you to tell her all the stuff she knows, rationally (or will in half an hour) about this really not being that big a deal. She knows that (or will in half an hour when she’s had a chance to calm down or had a glass of wine. Half an hour unless you try to tell her it’s not that big a deal, in which case it will take three hours: two for her to stop being mad at them and another one for her to stop being mad at you).

[Men of the world: we do not want you to solve our problems. Except when we do. Which is NOT when we're still upset about them. Any other time, have at it. But if we're still all trembly-lipped, be the gay best friend. Good luck.]

Sigh.

Well, it’s their Open House on Friday, where they get to go in and see their new classrooms. They each have a timed slot and guess what? They’re a the same time again.

Let’s see if I can manage to split myself in two a little better on Friday.

Millennial Mom Monday — Gadgets

Mondays are for the Millennial Mothers (and dads too. And aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends. It’s just more alliterative this way…)

Post a reply in the comments. Or write in your own blog and leave a link in the comments. Invite your friends to join in.

This weeks’s theme: Gadgets

A while back, I wrote a Modern Baby Shower Wish List that was slightly tongue in cheek, but not very.

So I started thinking about all the gadgets we have available to us now.

When my mother first saw our motorized baby swing she swooned.

“We used to sit rocking the baby with our foot and joking that someone ought to invent a motorized one,” she said. It seemed so ridiculously extravagant back in the 1960s that they joked about it. Now, no modern parent would dream of leaving off their list some sort of jiggling, bouncing, vibratey-machine.

But how much did you use yours?

Honestly, I used the swing a bit with the first child but eventually I packed it up and used this chair, which took up less space and which, once the baby’s neck was strong enough, converted to a seat that I could, yup, rock (silently) with my foot. I used this as a feeding chair before I got my small high chair, too. With the second child, I mostly carried him around in a homemade sling, because leaving him where his two-year old brother could attempt to swing him around in a circle, or rock him right out of the rocking chair, wasn’t what you’d call relaxing or secure.I did use my little plastic baby baths (this one was good when they were little because of the bump that helped hold their bums in place a seat was good when they were bigger) and I did use my pack’n'play when the babies were sleeping beside my bed.

I loved my Baby Bjorn for a couple of months with my first child, but then he got heavy and it was just a bit of a kerfuffle to put it on and take it off, and it took up a lot of space in a bag, that I didn’t use it for shorter trips.(I repeat it was great for a new parent, it’s brilliantly engineered and much easier to put on than most of the others the same type. It holds the baby beautifully and is super-secure).

Eventually, though,I switched to a sling I made myself (with these sling rings). It folds flat, opens up to become a blanket, works as a dribble-rag, tie a knot in a corner of the flap and use it as a distracto-toy or teether, it goes in the washing machine and dryer, and was very comfortable once I’d watched the video secured by the sling rather than held by me. I even carried the baby around the baby pool in the sling while my toddler toddled in the summer. Can’t recommend this enough as a gadget. about how to put it on properly. I am no seamstress, and I managed it. Never did much use the store-bought padded No-Jo one, which was bulky and awkward and felt insecure. The homemade one got lots of use, especially with the second child. Sometimes I had the baby in it, and sometimes the baby was in the stroller, while the two (and even three) year old rode on my hip,

We mocked up a video monitor with a webcam that published pictures to a private web page, because we still had a computer in the baby’s room at the time. That was priceless for catching evidence of the first time the ‘baby’ climbed out of the cot! But the store-bought monitor didn’t get much use. Kept picking up conversations from the neighbours’ houses (there were lots of babies around here at the same time).

I’m not sure why they still sell play yards. I’m sure babies since time immemorial have simply rattled the bars and screamed to get out. The Exersaucer on the other hand, earned its keep.

I did use Stair gates. I have friends who put stair gates across their kids’ doors once they were in a toddler bed, so that they couldn’t escape. We never thought of that and used door knob locks. I suppose the stair gate would have been a bit more humane, since the kids could have felt like they were still part of the world…

My favourite gadget (because I had been wanting something like it) was the Bumbo. We only used it for a while, but it was a great bridge between the time when the baby wanted to be sitting up and watching what was going on, and when they could actually do it themselves. They have trays and all kinds of things for it now, but I spotted my favourite use of the Bumbo on a blog recently. The mother of triplets, this woman uses two Bumbos to make supermarket trips workable.

But the Bumbo tells the sad tale of most baby gadgets. No matter how much you love them, your kid is going to grow out of them faster than you can imagine when you’re being seduced by the advertising.

The things on my Modern Baby Shower Wish List however? I’m still using them, five years on!

Some other things that I’ve used a lot, although they’re not on the traditional baby list:

*My iPod (the type that plays video). When combined with an iPod dock (or more recently a headphone splitter and two sets of ‘phones) this can magically allow me to have half an hour of peace and quiet, even at the supermarket. I can see the eyes of other parents light up as I pass….

*Pop-Up Playsets. I take a bag to any family restaurant, that contains a pop-up-playset and some cars and we get to make our dinner choices without wrestling tiny boys. It doesn’t last but it serves as a bit of a distraction.

*Crayons. Everywhere you go, there is some way to amuse a child with crayons and paper. Draw a race track, a train track and give them a toy. Draw rudimentary steam trains in blue, red, and green and any two-year old boy will tell you you’ve drawn Thomas, James and Percy.

*Balloons. If you can trust your child not to put it in his mouth, always have a balloon about your person. You can blow it up and let it go: hilarity ensues. You can blow is up and tie a knot and ping it all over the room: instant fun. You can fill it with water or cornstarch or rice, and let them squish it. You can draw a face on it and give your child an instant ‘friend’. If you’re at all adventurous, buy the kind you can twist and learn how to make a dog, a sword (really not hard) and a crown, and you’ll be a hit at parties forever (hint, adults want complicated things. Kids want really simple shapes that you can make in a super-human timeframe and they can play with NOW. Kids have better imaginations than adults.) Talk about value for money.

So, in short, things that make noise and require batteries and are designed for a specific stage of your child’s life= disappointing and a trip to the consignment shop/listing in the classified ads. Things that may not be intended for children plus a little ingenuity= happy families.

Just like in the 1960s. And the 1860s. And the 60s…

Millennial Mom Monday — Things I Never Thought I Would Say

Mondays are for the Millennial Mothers (and dads too. And aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends. It’s just more alliterative this way…)

Post a reply in the comments. Or write in your own blog and leave a link in the comments. Invite your friends to join in.

This Weeks’ Theme: Things I Never Thought I Would Hear Myself Say (Before I Had Kids)

Here are some of mine, off the top of my head:

“…oh, look at my husband’s “boys” wriggling around on that big screen!”
“…and then the nurse grabbed my boob and shoved it into his mouth…”
“…Well done! You pooped!”
“…Don’t stand on your brother’s head!”
“…Don’t bite [me/your brother/that kid].”
“…can I have my iPod back now? [to my two-year old]“

Millennial Mother Mondays — Becoming Mom

Mondays are for the Millennial Mothers (and dads too. And aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends. It’s just more alliterative this way…) We are raising kids at the start of a new millennium. What are we doing? What are the challenges, old and new? Are we different from, or turning into, our own mothers?

Post a reply in the comments. Or write in your own blog and leave a link in the comments. Invite your friends to join in.

This week’s theme: Becoming Mom

(You can read my thoughts below, or  you can read this, which is honest and hysterical and I couldn’t have put it better myself.)

I sometimes tell my eldest child, to his surprise, that he made me a mother. At five, it’s a thing he hasn’t thought about and, depending on his mood, he either tolerantly asks me questions or changes the subject to something related to Japanese cartoons.

It’s true. As my first child, he did make me a mother. And yet…

I have a secret. I didn’t really feel like a mother until I had my second child and had to start acting like one.

With one child, for the first couple of years at least, I felt like a girl with the best toy in the world. It was cute, it was entertaining, it sucked up all my free time and everyone else wanted to play with it too.

My own sister once pointed out how he had me wrapped around his little finger and left unspoken the part that went, “that’s a bad thing, you know.” I heard her words but I didn’t feel it mattered. What else was I to do?

It was only when number 2 came along that I started to have to put my foot down, say ‘no, I can’t do that for you right now’, and that I started to refine my mummy-voice/parade-ground shriek.

Do you have one of those yet?

Some mums do it with a tone, the brilliant ones do it with a look and some with a shriek. I’m afraid I’m a shrieker, although I’m working hard on getting a ‘tone’ because I’ve realized there is only so loud I can shout, and what happens after I’ve reached top volume?

A couple of years before I had my first child, my friend (baking her third at the time) told me that she was trying to find “the tone”. Then she had to explain to me what she meant.

“You know, that tone your mom had that would stop you in your tracks? The one that meant she was Serious and you had pushed it as far as you could safely push it? I need that.”

A while later she told me she had the tone, only now she was appalled to discover that she both looked and sounded like her mother, and that she knew where the wrinkles above her mother’s top lip had come from. She was working on a new way of producing the tone that didn’t invove screwing up her face. (I think she might as well pursue alchemy or the fountain of youth!).

I saw the Mommy Face on my neighbour the other day. She is sweet and funny and smiley as all get-out when we go out for our neighbourhood Mom’s Night Out. Then I saw her dealing with her spirited four year old and her face adopted the stern look of a Mommy Who Means Business. I almost didn’t recognise her, but she looked like everymom. Ilaughed as I watched her turn back to the adults and go through the process of shaking the Mommy Look from her features.

There is sternness that you need to cultivate as your baby grows up and especially if he is followed by siblings. You can’t talk your way out of every situation. Sometimes you need them to do what they are told when they are told to do it. (Like, at the edge of the road.) And I wish I’d done it sooner with my first.

Thank goodness I had a second, who forced me to be a mum, not just a delighted owner of a prized pet. When I realised this, I started to understand why people have larger families. I think that my eldest could stand to learn a little more compromise and cooperation from having a few more siblings demanding my time and attention.

I have had friends ask me what it was like to go from one child to two (since they were contemplating having a second themselves). I said having one child felt like a hobby. Having two was like a full-time job.

I could just as easily have said that it was the first child who made me a mother, but the second who turned me into a mum.

From the livejournal comments:

TheMama says:

You know, I’m not sure if there was an ah-ha moment for me. I will have to think about it.

I do know that I have a mommy moment at least once a day. When TheBoy first learned to say Mummy, I told TheHubby it was like my Hellen Keller moment. TheBoy had broken through. He got it. I was Mummy, he was mine. It was electric.

Now when he first greets me in the morning, he actually shouts “Mummy!” It’s amazing.