Writing Maternity

Interpretation

I read Squiss the "Atlanta" story from Free to Be for the first time two nights ago.  She was coming to it from a fairly solid knowledge of the original -- at least, the original as re-told in D'Aulaires, her Greek myth Bible.  In that story, Melanion wins the race and the right to marry Atalanta because he lures her off-track by tossing three golden "apples of love" along the race course.  Aphrodite gives him the apples because she "wants to see all pretty girls married."

In the FTB re-telling, Atalanta still doesn't want to marry, but "Young John" and she *tie* in the race, and he doesn't use any god-given trickery.  He's actually running because he's noticed her about town (as she buys wood and nails to build things, or equipment for her telescope, or is laughing with her friends) and wants a chance to talk to her.  Her father interprets the tie as Young John's win, but YJ and Atalanta agree to spend the afternoon talking.  "By the end of the day, they [are] friends."  Then she goes off to visit "the great cities" and he goes off "to discover new lands." 

This version met with cautious approval from Squiss, but required some processing.  At first, she insisted that it was "nothing like" the original.  Then she agreed that it had similar elements.  Then (I don't know how) we got into an interpretive tussle.

You're thinking that I should have known better, and I mostly agree.  But I can't really let the idea that "all pretty girls should be married" pass me by.  But I made the rhetorical mistake of calling Aphrodite "silly" and this was unforgivable.  After some back and forth -- and Squiss at one point coming close to tears -- we got to such an impasse that she had to claim ownership: "Well, Mommy, the Greek myths book is MY book, and so *I* get to decide how it is."

I didn't explain the thousands and thousands of years of bloodshed such a relationship to interpreting texts about gods has produced.  Instead, I tried to suggest that we could have different opinions and still love each other.  Eventually, she just called it quits.  "Mama, I think we should stop talking about this."

Indeed.

This intersects interestingly with another thing I've noticed lately, which is that Squiss is in the process of sorting out the difference between opinion and fact: her perceptions, even when they're opinions, are simply *true* to her.  And so countless times I'll disagree mildly, or correct her gently, even saying something along the lines of "I can see why you think/thought that" and her response is consistently, "I didn't *think* it."

It's hard to imagine that an almost five-year-old could process a fine-grained difference that (let's be honest) most of us have enormous difficulty with.  But it's interesting to see it happening in real time.  My calling Aphrodite "silly" wasn't simply a difference of opinion; it was a threat to Squiss's essential world-view, and not just because I'm her mother.

back, but pretty well brain-dead

The trip was great, and re-entry hasn't been as rocky as we'd feared: the girls slept until close to dawn the first morning home, and are now sleeping until light has definitely broken.  I took notes while we were gone, so will start filling in the great big gap soon, but of course further stories and musings are crowding in with our return.

So, to start, I'll launch into news about schools ...

We learned on Monday (once we got our mail) that Squiss was not granted an intradistrict transfer to attend Hippie School.  Apparently scads of kids were turned down (17 from Hippie School, 25 from NE High Scores School, and so on).  Either there was a baby boomlet in our town c. 2003 or (ahem) the superintendent decided to stop allowing so many transfers.  We actually have information that it's the latter, which I'm sympathetic to administratively -- what a headache they must've been! -- and ideologically.  But if this were going to be the year when they stopped honoring pretty much all transfer requests carte blanche, couldn't they have made the announcement in, say, January?  before the parents of rising kindergartners spent lots of time and energy investing emotionally in their choices?  hmph.

As you know, I've swung in all sorts of directions.  And after a moment of fairly serious disappointment, I'm back to where I was before we applied for the transfer.  I'm happy with the school -- especially the kindergarten program.  I'm delighted with the commute -- I'm happier walking than biking, really, and Squiss is excited to ride her glider rider.  And I'm happy, as well, to be investing our time and our lives in a school that isn't one of the most-precious-and-bestest.  I'm pretty confident that this is a perfectly good school, I love the fact that it's very diverse, and I'm excited to think of being part of helping it become even better.

On other school-related issues, Tricksy is now also a "Montessori kid," currently being in the midst of her third day at the sister school to Squiss's.  I'm cautiously inclined to say that it seems to be going well, although transitions with two-year-olds (why qualify?) are probably never perfectly smooth.  On the first day, she happily kissed me good--bye and settled in to play with some blocks with her teacher (Miss Baltimore) and another child.  When I returned at 11:15, she was sitting in the teacher's lap looking completely exhausted but otherwise calm.  (Well, she'd been up since 5:00 AM.)  Miss Baltimore said that after the first hour you could see her simply starting to crash; and that she'd just wanted to stay with Miss Baltimore and hold her hand.  (Apparently she was also gently stroking the other children's arms.)

Day 2's departure was significantly rockier.  She was, to put it mildly, screaming with all the energy her almost two-year-old lungs could muster when I left.  She'd settled into the routine after ten minutes or so, apparently, and when I came back at mid-day she was sitting in the group with the other children listening to Miss Baltimore read them a story.  She came over eagerly but without tears.

Day 3's good-bye was also tearful, but she was comforted when Miss Baltimore picked her up so that she could blow me kisses at the window.  She's staying through lunch and nap today and then M. l'O will pick her up at about three, so we'll see how it goes. 

In the afternoons and evenings, she's talked about the slide, and about how she goes to "ouw-town mon-te-soh-ree."  She was really excited to bring her lunchbag today, as well.  On the other hand, she announces on the way home each day, "miss. wig-gul."  (She's also told me that she misses Squiss and Papa, which is just to say that we're tormenting our daughter by piling multiple transitions on at once: back to full days of school, to a new school without any previously-known friends, and the like.  Oh!  and jet-lag.  At least we didn't move cross-country at the same time, which is what we did to her sister at this age ...)

Gemstone's younger sister actively protested her transition to that Montessori six months ago, taking so long to adjust that her parents actually switched her back to her old school two days a week.  Gemstone herself had a pretty tough time with her transition when she was four and a half.  It's far too soon to tell with Trix -- I'm expecting it to go up and down for the rest of this week and next -- but I'm feeling generally lucky with my daughters' relative adaptability.  I'm hoping the adaptability Squiss has shown thus far stands her in good stead in the fall, since the move from Montessori into "traditional" public education can be disorienting for a lot of kids.

voting rights

On the way to school this morning, Squiss had a series of questions about presidents.  ("Who was the first president of our country?" etc.)  Then, she reverted to something that had last come up months ago, I think: children's right to vote and the lack thereof.  By the time we got to school she was almost in tears over the injustice of it.  The thought of writing letters -- to the president, to our representatives -- seems to have gotten her over the hump, but I was struck by it, nonetheless.

In tears, because she doesn't have the right to vote.  At not-quite-five.

rbo family

Squiss has been talking about "consequences" a lot.  I think that part of this is because she's enjoying saying the word, and it may also be because they're talking about "consequences" a good bit at school. For example,

"Mama, did you know that there are consequences?"

(Hmm, let me think.  Yes, yes, overactive superego that I have, I did know that there are consequences.)

"What are consequences?"

"Well, if you play during class time, then the consequence is that you have sit on the bench during some of play time."

"Oh, I see, because you took some play earlier, you have to lose it?"

"Yes.  Or, if you touch another child's job, then you have to sit and watch the other children working, and you're not allowed to work [at a job]."

And so on.  As we so often do, we're trying to bring this language home, to help her understand her choices.  (For example, if you dawdle while getting ready for bed, then the consequence is that there isn't as much time to read books.  And so on.)

----

We were outside getting ready for dinner (Squiss and Tricksy washed the table for us), when all of a sudden there were two girls lying on the deck crying.  It turned out that

1. Squiss had turned around to take a step, and had tripped over Tricksy and fallen on top of her;
2. Tricksy, at least frightened, was shrieking from startlement and possibly slight pain; and
3. Squiss, equally startled and feeling quite guilty, was shrieking, "I'm sorry, Tricksy!  I didn't see her!"

I pulled them both into my lap, and we worked on having Squiss say "sorry" to Tricksy in a way that Tricksy could process. And we also worked on getting Squiss to simply stop crying, because after the first 60 seconds it was clear that Tricksy was still crying because Squiss was.

In what is probably simply a coincidence, Tricksy later poked herself on the finger and then said "sowwy."  That marks the first time she's said that spontaneously.

(Of course, there's been lots of apologizing in her short life.  We seem to be over the hump now, but for several weeks in a row The Wiggle was essentially using Tricksy as her preferred teething ring.  Her parents, horrified, got her to say "I'm sowwy, Twicksy," so Trix understands receiving apologies.  Both of those little girls have clearly been marked by the whole period: Trix still periodically points to her wrist and says, "owie -- Wiggel" with a sad and serious face; and Wiggle, when asked "what do we do to our friends?" replies "don't bite Twicksy."  [The desired response was "high-five!"])

update

I've returned from my sister's to face various unpleasantnesses, but in the realm of good news, I'm *very* pleased to say that she responded to the cerclage (and, really, the week of total bed rest) well enough that she's back on modified bed rest now. This is tremendously good. She can walk around for longer than it takes to go to the bathroom and return; she can stand for brief periods; she can go outside; and, most importantly, *she*can*pick*up*her*son*and*put*him*to*bed.*

Passover in the land of the gentiles

I just returned from a four-hour grocery shopping odyssey in preparation for the seder tomorrow night.  I knew when I set out that it would be a long, arduous journey with many stops; I did not realize just how far I would have to drive, however.

We food-lovers in town routinely complain about the grocery shopping options.  Shhh had one epic day when she had to go to four (I think) places in order to find fresh thyme.  There are advantages to the multi-stop shopping mode -- we all end up frequently local ethnics of various varieties in addition to national chains, both large (a Safeway subsidiary) and smaller (Trader Joe's).  On the other hand, when you've lived in, say, SF or NYC, it's hard not to expect a lot from your food shopping, and to be annoyed when plans ingredients don't line up as expected.  (And I'll say that what's most aggravating is that at a number of our regular stops you can't quite count on anything.)

The menu for the seder:

seder plate (various greens, horseradish, charoset, lamb shank, roasted egg, matzo)

hard-boiled eggs (friend will provide)

gefilte fish

chicken soup + matzo balls (again, friend will provide)

lamb stew with prunes
asparagus (farmer's market on Saturday AM)
salad (another friend)

berries & oranges (farmer's market or CSA)
orange-walnut cake
macaroons (from the bakery in town, to be picked up tomorow)

So, when I set out I had a route mapped out with four stops.  The Persian place, for the lamb, dried fruit, and nuts.  Then the Safeway subsidiary, which I've gotten Passover staples at in the past.  Then TJ's, then the Vietnamese market for the fish.

Persian place rocks.  We love it generally, and they happily cut up the 7 pounds of lamb shoulder for me for us to stew.  And in addition to all the beautiful dried fruit (do I want the large sultanas or the small?), they had trays of vine-ripened tomatoes for $6.  Not on the menu until now, but I have 14 people to feed tomorrow, and 6 of them are staying for the full weekend.

Safeway, on the other hand, does not.  They had a truly pathetic kosher-for-passover selection, and when M. l'Oignon called several others in the general vicinity, they didn't have much either.  So.  I tried one other national grocery chain to no avail.  And then I drove 20 miles west, to the nearest Whole Foods, because I know that there are more Jews in that part of the world.

And then I drove back, getting stuck in traffic along the way, but managing the charm the fishmongers at the Vietnamese place into filleting an 11-pound carp for me ("just today!").  Four hours later, and utterly starving for lunch, I'm home and ready to cook.  Deeply nostalgic for the year that I lived in food mecca --  with Zabar's 2 blocks in one direction, Fairway and Citarella 5 blocks in the other, and Westside Market around the corner -- I'm going to go and grind some fish.  (Although, too be fair, I would have paid way more for the fish unless I went down to Chinatown, and I would have needed to shlep to Brooklyn for a comparable dried fruit and nut selection.)

administrivia

Squiss is hanging out with me in my office for a bit this afternoon before dance class.  She's sitting at the table, working with colored pencils and paper.  And I mean working.

She's filling out "unpunishing forms" for the Chinese gods.  Forms, it seems, to make sure that you don't get punished if you haven't done anything wrong.  I'm not clear on the policies, but it seems that . . .

"the gods don't punish the form-makers"

"the gods don't care what you write with"

"they just ask you to write some kind of something"

you need to write on the forms: "don't punish mortals; it's not very nice to punish people"

"formers" need to fill out the forms; "the gods ask them to do it, because they're formers.  They form things out.  I'm a former."

And . . .

"Right now I'm doing them for the Greek gods, not the Chinese.  I already did them for the Chinese.  Gods often ask me to do this."

N.B.  Not all mortals are formers, but all gods have formers.  They're kind of like cup-bearers.  "Because I'm a former, I do things that the gods don't really want to do."

Tricksy, poster child

for full-time daycare!

I ran into the mother of one of Tricksy's friends this morning.  She just started working full-time last week, although Tricksy's Twin* has been at the school part-time since September.  She worried about him going up to full-time, she said, and then she looked at Tricksy.

"Sure," I said, "she seems fine."

"No," she replied, "she seems great."

We clearly think alike in other ways.  In our hurried three minutes after dropping the kids off, we talked about a new program some of the colleges in our consortium are instituting, where the college subsidizes a limited number of days of in-home, emergency childcare.  She worries about that, she pointed out, because it's just one-on-one; she'd be more comfortable with TT in a center, with other kids.  I feel the same way, and have since M. l'Oignon and I were first choosing care of Squiss: other kids = more parental supervision = more brains and eyes on the ball.

We promised ourselves more time to talk later.

* He's Tricksy's Twin because he was born one day before her and at the same hospital.  M. l'Oignon kept running into his father as he'd run down to the cafeteria to get snacks.  It was a particular surprise because TT was actually due something along the lines of two weeks later.

How does anyone learn anything without an older sibling?

That was my mother's refrain this weekend, watching Tricksy trundle after Squiss, dutifully trying to do anything and everything she did. Squiss was dressing up?  Tricksy needed to, too.  Squiss could swim without holding onto an adult?  Well, why not Tricksy?

It's clear to most parents of more than one kid -- and developmental psychologists have tracked this systematically -- that younger siblings do many things earlier than older siblings (or onlies) do.  (The interesting exception to this, of course, is talking.)  They crawl earlier (well, not in my house); they walk earlier (ditto); and so on. The theory is that learning certain things through modeling is easier, and that it's even easier to learn those things when the person modeling them for you is more like you.

Tricksy is following typical patterns for speech -- she's become verbal younger than her big sister did -- and has bucked the trend for gross motor activities, like crawling and walking.  But she started playing pretend earlier than Squiss did, and can only imagine that's because she was a passive participant in her big sister's games from infancy onwards; and she's determined to swim independently earlier than Squiss was interested in trying.  She seems, in fact, generally interested in doing more things independent of parental help than Squiss was at this age.  One of Tricksy's favorite word-phrases is "DOO-dih!" which is pretty clearly short for "I do it!" and equally clearly means "back OFF!!"  (It contrasts with the much gentler "Igolih," which almost has a whiff of "thanks, but ...")  I don't think that we try to do things for Tricksy more than we did for Squiss -- if anything, it's likely that we require more autonomy from our second-born than we did from our first- -- but it has to be frustrating to see your big sister pour herself milk from a small pitcher every morning and not be allowed to do it for yourself.  Huge spill on the table, chair, floor, and clothing or not.

Four random bullets of Tricksiness:

• She's taken to saying "A-B-C" in a fairly rapid singsong, over and over.  Most often when she's looking at and pointing to letters in a book.  I take no credit for this.  I have no idea where it came from.
• She's progressed to the age where the process of choosing the next book at bedtime isn't simply about choosing the next book . . . it's also about delaying lights-out.
• Given how easily she took to swimming this weekend (it hit 95 yesterday, so we went both days), I'm betting that she'll be able to float-swim from one parent to the other, holding her breath, by the end of the summer.
• Her current book obsession is Franklin and Harriett.  While this is a book that affirms a younger sibling's love of her older sibling, it does so mostly through the lens of the older one -- so readers experience and (I imagine) most easily identify with the older brother's periodic resentment of his little sister.  It's an interesting choice.  But whether she's more intrigued by that or the fact that Harriett goes in a swing and a stroller, and wears both boots and a jacket over the course of the tale, I certainly can't tell.

changes and, well, just plain work

It seems I'm going to have to call him Reg now, given that he's blogging and all himself ... Or perhaps just M. l'Oignon.

As of this moment, I've hosted a candidate on campus for a full day, interviewed 14 applicants for writing center tutor positions, commented on a draft of the report from the Big Scary Thing, attended at least two workshops or lectures, and applied for a passport for Tricksy.  This week.

By this time next week, I will have hosted two more candidates (Tuesday & Thursday), made decisions about next year's writing center tutors, attended a lunch for the parents of admitted students, reviewed 17 applications for new course development grants, taken Squiss to the dentist, attended at least one more workshop, and (oh, by the way) made a recommendation to the department about which theses should win our prizes.

Meantime, I'm waiting to hear from the various committees that need to weigh in on the conversion of my position to a tenure-line, my mother will visit, and M. l'Oignon and I will plan the seder and get ready to host four adults and twin two-year-olds for that weekend.  And by the time that's over, we'll have launched into the end-of-the-semester social and other whirl.