Thursday, January 20, 2011
It's a Cliffhanger.
An original short story, authored by Buttercup. Written via dictation, with minor grammatical edits by Mommy. Reviews welcome.
The Leader That Shows the Policemen How to be a Policeman, by Buttercup
Once upon a time there were a lot of policemen. One day they went to their car.
“Come on,” said the leader. “Come on in the car. Let’s go. Buckle up!”
They did the things that the leader said. They picked a key. They got in the car before they buckled. Then they did go all the way to kill a bad guy. They drove and drove.
“It did take a long time,” said one of the policemen.
Then they stopped at a house and they helped somebody. They just used their instructions without paper. They told them what to do.
Then they took a break until they were ready to kill a bad guy. They killed ten bad guys. Then a bad guy ran away and the policemen got them – the other ones who were helping. Then they got in their car and went to work in their garden.
CRASH!
“Here comes a big something but we don’t know what it is!”
The End
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Childish Introductions
I think that I ought to introduce my children. They are the inspiration here, and deserve some sort of credit. You’ll hear about them a lot. As a group they function a lot like a pack of puppies, but with more drool and a lot less fur. Individually, they’ve each got a rock star quality that I’m in love with.
Buttercup is our eldest, at five years old, and to call her a princess falls far too flat. I’d call her more queen-ish than anything, with an attention to details and a real sense of presiding over how things ought to be done. There are few rules but her own rules, and if Bubba doesn’t play by those rules . . . Off with his head! She’s as likely to be digging in the dirt as she is to be planning a dress up tea party, and can’t understand why the seeds from her apple that she planted in the backyard yesterday aren’t producing more apples yet. “But I want it to grow today!” Buttercup will spend long stretches of time in the company of nothing but her own imagination. She will even hold whole conversations with imaginary friends and if I accidentally respond, it’s “No, Mommy. I was talking to Abby.” But, lest you think she’s reclusive, she is also the child who started her first gymnastics lesson by standing near the entrance and introducing herself to every girl that walked into the room. Her ballet teacher once told me that (and I paraphrase) Buttercup “has so much positive energy that the other girls want to follow her, but she also has her own ideas, which don’t always reflect what we’re doing.” Now, if I can just harness that energy without killing it off, she really will be ready for her crown.
Bubba is my two year old. He is thoroughly boy and wants you to know it. If he isn’t punting the football in the living room he is probably digging up dirt clods in the back yard so he can throw them at – or over – the fence. Better at the fence than at his sister, I always say. I just keep hoping the neighbors won’t be in their backyard at the time. This child is the reason that, if I can’t find the TV remote, the first place I think I should look is in the toilet. His language skills are coming together at an alarming rate, but he still articulates like a baby. If I quote him as saying “I want to eat the couch,” in real life he probably sounded more like “Ah wah eee kow.” But I know what he meant. I have to. I’m his mommy. And I’m nice enough to translate for you. And yes, he did utter that exact quote this weekend, followed by an enthusiastic chomp into the upholstered arm of my recliner. Buttercup was more concerned with the fact that he called a chair a couch than with the idea of him wanting to ingest the furniture.
The Baby. He is probably the cuddliest and happiest baby I have ever raised. When he isn’t screaming, he’s usually smiling – though it might be gas. That’s why I call him Stinky. He’s so gassy I can play him like a bagpipe. And I’m not kidding about that. He likes to be held as much as he can get away with, but he’s humongous – as far as babies his age go – and I go to bed with sore arms and shoulders on a regular basis. Apart from making music and building my muscles, he doesn’t do a whole lot yet. Though he does contribute heavily to the cuteness factor in the house. He was only just born in September, so he’ll get more exciting later this year, but I’m not in a hurry.
Between them all, we have a pretty good time around here. There are those days, of course, that everybody has, where I want to throw in the towel and everybody cries all at once, but I wouldn’t change my job for another. I will never find another group of people who love me so devotedly – and whom I adore in return. I know that if I give them long enough they will find me terribly embarrassing, but I like that I get to enjoy them now, while they still like to hang out with me all day. Not every mom is so lucky.
Buttercup is our eldest, at five years old, and to call her a princess falls far too flat. I’d call her more queen-ish than anything, with an attention to details and a real sense of presiding over how things ought to be done. There are few rules but her own rules, and if Bubba doesn’t play by those rules . . . Off with his head! She’s as likely to be digging in the dirt as she is to be planning a dress up tea party, and can’t understand why the seeds from her apple that she planted in the backyard yesterday aren’t producing more apples yet. “But I want it to grow today!” Buttercup will spend long stretches of time in the company of nothing but her own imagination. She will even hold whole conversations with imaginary friends and if I accidentally respond, it’s “No, Mommy. I was talking to Abby.” But, lest you think she’s reclusive, she is also the child who started her first gymnastics lesson by standing near the entrance and introducing herself to every girl that walked into the room. Her ballet teacher once told me that (and I paraphrase) Buttercup “has so much positive energy that the other girls want to follow her, but she also has her own ideas, which don’t always reflect what we’re doing.” Now, if I can just harness that energy without killing it off, she really will be ready for her crown.
Bubba is my two year old. He is thoroughly boy and wants you to know it. If he isn’t punting the football in the living room he is probably digging up dirt clods in the back yard so he can throw them at – or over – the fence. Better at the fence than at his sister, I always say. I just keep hoping the neighbors won’t be in their backyard at the time. This child is the reason that, if I can’t find the TV remote, the first place I think I should look is in the toilet. His language skills are coming together at an alarming rate, but he still articulates like a baby. If I quote him as saying “I want to eat the couch,” in real life he probably sounded more like “Ah wah eee kow.” But I know what he meant. I have to. I’m his mommy. And I’m nice enough to translate for you. And yes, he did utter that exact quote this weekend, followed by an enthusiastic chomp into the upholstered arm of my recliner. Buttercup was more concerned with the fact that he called a chair a couch than with the idea of him wanting to ingest the furniture.
The Baby. He is probably the cuddliest and happiest baby I have ever raised. When he isn’t screaming, he’s usually smiling – though it might be gas. That’s why I call him Stinky. He’s so gassy I can play him like a bagpipe. And I’m not kidding about that. He likes to be held as much as he can get away with, but he’s humongous – as far as babies his age go – and I go to bed with sore arms and shoulders on a regular basis. Apart from making music and building my muscles, he doesn’t do a whole lot yet. Though he does contribute heavily to the cuteness factor in the house. He was only just born in September, so he’ll get more exciting later this year, but I’m not in a hurry.
Between them all, we have a pretty good time around here. There are those days, of course, that everybody has, where I want to throw in the towel and everybody cries all at once, but I wouldn’t change my job for another. I will never find another group of people who love me so devotedly – and whom I adore in return. I know that if I give them long enough they will find me terribly embarrassing, but I like that I get to enjoy them now, while they still like to hang out with me all day. Not every mom is so lucky.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Who Wants to Hear a Story?
I have this recurring dream that I’m going to sit down and read a book to all of my children at the same time. It’s a nice dream. Usually there is a sofa involved, and everybody is awake. It could be a picture book or a volume of original Pooh stories. At some point everybody giggles at once – except the baby, who isn’t crying. That’s the dream version. The real life version of me trying to read to my children as a pack is more like this.
“Who wants to hear a story?”
Buttercup and Bubba come running. Bubba drags Blanket with him. The Baby smiles. I open the book, read the first page, notice an odor. We get up, change Bubba’s pants, get The Baby back out of his bouncer, sit down again. I read the second page. The Baby starts screaming – he thought it was meal time, even though he just ate an hour ago. I hand the book over to Buttercup and get The Baby ready to nurse. Bubba has forgotten the book. He has Blanket draped over his head while he runs around the room yelling “Bubba Ghost! Bubba Ghost!” Buttercup has looked three pages ahead. I review the first two pages, call Bubba back. He jumps on the sofa, The Baby loses his latch. Page three, Bubba looks at the pictures while Buttercup interrupts me every other line to point out a word she recognizes on page four. Page five, Bubba’s attention span is gone, and so is he. The Baby spits up all over Buttercup’s leg, she wipes it on the sofa, goes to change. I get a towel, clean the sofa, settle back with The Baby and Buttercup, ignore the banging sound in Bubba’s room. Review page . . . what page were we on? Page six, Bubba is back. He grabs the book and tosses it on the rug, laughs like a crazy person, goes to time out. Page seven, baby is crying for no discernable reason except that maybe he is reading my mind. Page eight, I suggest to Buttercup that we finish when the boys are in bed later. Page nine and forward go into the black hole of Naptime when everything is planned and nothing actually gets done.
Maybe one day, when my children are in their thirties, they’ll indulge me in sitting down and listening to me read aloud for a few minutes without interruption. Of course, by then maybe we’ll have another generation of babies making a mess of story time.
And then I’ll be doubly blessed.
“Who wants to hear a story?”
Buttercup and Bubba come running. Bubba drags Blanket with him. The Baby smiles. I open the book, read the first page, notice an odor. We get up, change Bubba’s pants, get The Baby back out of his bouncer, sit down again. I read the second page. The Baby starts screaming – he thought it was meal time, even though he just ate an hour ago. I hand the book over to Buttercup and get The Baby ready to nurse. Bubba has forgotten the book. He has Blanket draped over his head while he runs around the room yelling “Bubba Ghost! Bubba Ghost!” Buttercup has looked three pages ahead. I review the first two pages, call Bubba back. He jumps on the sofa, The Baby loses his latch. Page three, Bubba looks at the pictures while Buttercup interrupts me every other line to point out a word she recognizes on page four. Page five, Bubba’s attention span is gone, and so is he. The Baby spits up all over Buttercup’s leg, she wipes it on the sofa, goes to change. I get a towel, clean the sofa, settle back with The Baby and Buttercup, ignore the banging sound in Bubba’s room. Review page . . . what page were we on? Page six, Bubba is back. He grabs the book and tosses it on the rug, laughs like a crazy person, goes to time out. Page seven, baby is crying for no discernable reason except that maybe he is reading my mind. Page eight, I suggest to Buttercup that we finish when the boys are in bed later. Page nine and forward go into the black hole of Naptime when everything is planned and nothing actually gets done.
Maybe one day, when my children are in their thirties, they’ll indulge me in sitting down and listening to me read aloud for a few minutes without interruption. Of course, by then maybe we’ll have another generation of babies making a mess of story time.
And then I’ll be doubly blessed.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Only Grown Ups Can Read
As long as she’s been breathing, my little Buttercup has enjoyed a love affair with books. When she was a toddler, our floor was carpeted in picture books. I couldn’t keep them on the shelf. She played with them, paged through them, carried them around, begged me to read them to her, and even dreamed about them (probably). I can imagine her sliding “Wheeeee!” down a hill of floppy picture books in a cloud of butterflies and rainbows and ice cream cones and waking up disappointed in the size of the pile of actual books on her bed. Learning to read seemed like it would be a natural extension of all that affection. I encouraged her to sound out words, to recognize them, to guess based on the pictures . . . nothing.
I asked if she would like me to teach her to read. She did not.
Now, I may have my moments of excessive planning, but I am not a worrier, nor am I in a hurry to get around to much of anything, so I wasn’t too stressed about getting her to read early. Kids don’t usually learn to read until they go to school, right? And she’s not even old enough to go to Kindergarten, so what is the big deal? When she’s ready, she will learn, and on her own time. That was my theory, so I just kept reading to her, no pressure. One day, a few months ago, however, I heard her say something in conversation that shed a new light on the matter.
“Only grown-ups can read,” she said. Only grown ups.
“That’s not true, Buttercup,” I told her. “Kids can read, too.”
“No they can’t.”
“Yes, they can.”
“No. Just grown-ups.”
And then it clicked. She wanted to read. She just didn’t believe it was possible. Buttercup, in all of her language loving glory, thought that I was only having her on whenever I suggested that she learn to read. It had to be a joke because it just wasn’t possible. Reading was a superpower that did not belong to her.
“I learned to read when I was four years old, just like you,” I told her.
Blank stare.
“When I was four years old, I learned how to read books. You can learn, too, if you like.”
Blank stare.
“Would you like to learn to read, too?”
“Yes.”
Brilliant.
That’s when our official “preschool” times began. We’d already used an assortment of workbooks designed to teach phonics and basic pre-reading skills, but it all felt so disjointed and she didn’t seem to be learning anything except how to connect pictures of cats to pictures of cows with pencil lines. It wasn’t about learning to read words. It was about learning to decode pictures, and to associate words with pictures.
Right about four months ago, a few weeks before The Baby was born, we started daily “Preschool” with a primer called The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, by Jessie Wise and Sara Buffington. Just to flip through the pages, this book looks incredibly boring. No pictures. No connect the dots. No coloring pictures of objects that start with the letter A.
What makes this book exciting is the knowledge. Reading is, indeed, a superpower, and this guide provides step by step instructions to owning it.
Every lesson challenges her, and yet the pace is so gentle that she seems to already understand almost every lesson before we’ve even begun. The authors cover every phonetical rule – most of which I have never heard in my life - one at a time. And it’s working. After only about four months – punctuated with a little break when The Baby made his initial appearance – my Buttercup is already almost half way through the primer and is reading whole “beginners” books all by herself.
She is training her superpowers.
And boy is she tickled pink about it.
“Did you know that five years olds can read, mommy?”
“Is that so?”
“Yes it is! I’m five years old, and I can read!”
Turns out grown ups aren’t the only ones with superpowers after all.
I asked if she would like me to teach her to read. She did not.
Now, I may have my moments of excessive planning, but I am not a worrier, nor am I in a hurry to get around to much of anything, so I wasn’t too stressed about getting her to read early. Kids don’t usually learn to read until they go to school, right? And she’s not even old enough to go to Kindergarten, so what is the big deal? When she’s ready, she will learn, and on her own time. That was my theory, so I just kept reading to her, no pressure. One day, a few months ago, however, I heard her say something in conversation that shed a new light on the matter.
“Only grown-ups can read,” she said. Only grown ups.
“That’s not true, Buttercup,” I told her. “Kids can read, too.”
“No they can’t.”
“Yes, they can.”
“No. Just grown-ups.”
And then it clicked. She wanted to read. She just didn’t believe it was possible. Buttercup, in all of her language loving glory, thought that I was only having her on whenever I suggested that she learn to read. It had to be a joke because it just wasn’t possible. Reading was a superpower that did not belong to her.
“I learned to read when I was four years old, just like you,” I told her.
Blank stare.
“When I was four years old, I learned how to read books. You can learn, too, if you like.”
Blank stare.
“Would you like to learn to read, too?”
“Yes.”
Brilliant.
That’s when our official “preschool” times began. We’d already used an assortment of workbooks designed to teach phonics and basic pre-reading skills, but it all felt so disjointed and she didn’t seem to be learning anything except how to connect pictures of cats to pictures of cows with pencil lines. It wasn’t about learning to read words. It was about learning to decode pictures, and to associate words with pictures.
Right about four months ago, a few weeks before The Baby was born, we started daily “Preschool” with a primer called The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, by Jessie Wise and Sara Buffington. Just to flip through the pages, this book looks incredibly boring. No pictures. No connect the dots. No coloring pictures of objects that start with the letter A.
What makes this book exciting is the knowledge. Reading is, indeed, a superpower, and this guide provides step by step instructions to owning it.
Every lesson challenges her, and yet the pace is so gentle that she seems to already understand almost every lesson before we’ve even begun. The authors cover every phonetical rule – most of which I have never heard in my life - one at a time. And it’s working. After only about four months – punctuated with a little break when The Baby made his initial appearance – my Buttercup is already almost half way through the primer and is reading whole “beginners” books all by herself.
She is training her superpowers.
And boy is she tickled pink about it.
“Did you know that five years olds can read, mommy?”
“Is that so?”
“Yes it is! I’m five years old, and I can read!”
Turns out grown ups aren’t the only ones with superpowers after all.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Buckle Up
It’s a bit like starting a road trip. First I’ve pulled out the maps and looked them over a hundred times, obsessing over just where we should go and what is the best way to get there. Hundreds of roads are available, and many will do the job – but what is the perfect route? And will we need to change course along the way? And then there are the lists and the shopping and the packing and the worrying, all of which is supposed to ensure that we’re starting off on the right foot and that we’ve not forgotten anything. I wish I could just throw a bunch of stuff in the trunk and take off, except that this journey is unfamiliar and my nerves are too jumpy to take the risk. Next we drift down the driveway and move slowly through the neighborhood, warming up the engine and getting comfortable. I’m still adjusting my sunglasses and the kids are already asking for their water bottles that I forgot to pass around before we left. Dad is plugging in the iPod.
Our family is beginning a journey. Not the metaphorical road trip described above, but a much more exciting one. We’re beginning to homeschool. The last several months have been a warm up period for us – packing the car and planning the route. We’ve been teaching our five year old how to read, how to count to one hundred, how to hula hoop. The important things in life. I’ve been telling her about this adventure. The first thing she asked me on January first was whether we were “going to start doing math now.” Yes, Buttercup. Soon. We would have started on January 2nd, except that Mommy didn’t order the math book until January 3rd and it’s not going to be here until January 11th. In the meantime, we made the exciting discovery today that three plus three is the same as four plus two. Can you believe it?
I’m terribly nervous about this. I have only a general idea of where we are going, and I’m not sure I’m a good enough navigator, but it looks as though I’m going to have to learn on the job. Part of the plan is to record something of our adventure here, on the blog. I’m doubtful that anybody but me is going to do much reading here, but I want the opportunity to gush and vent and philosophize and chronicle and then look back later on and see what happened while time was flying so fast. This seemed like a good place to do it.
Buckle your seatbelts, kids. Here we go . . .
Our family is beginning a journey. Not the metaphorical road trip described above, but a much more exciting one. We’re beginning to homeschool. The last several months have been a warm up period for us – packing the car and planning the route. We’ve been teaching our five year old how to read, how to count to one hundred, how to hula hoop. The important things in life. I’ve been telling her about this adventure. The first thing she asked me on January first was whether we were “going to start doing math now.” Yes, Buttercup. Soon. We would have started on January 2nd, except that Mommy didn’t order the math book until January 3rd and it’s not going to be here until January 11th. In the meantime, we made the exciting discovery today that three plus three is the same as four plus two. Can you believe it?
I’m terribly nervous about this. I have only a general idea of where we are going, and I’m not sure I’m a good enough navigator, but it looks as though I’m going to have to learn on the job. Part of the plan is to record something of our adventure here, on the blog. I’m doubtful that anybody but me is going to do much reading here, but I want the opportunity to gush and vent and philosophize and chronicle and then look back later on and see what happened while time was flying so fast. This seemed like a good place to do it.
Buckle your seatbelts, kids. Here we go . . .
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