9to5to9 » School days http://debralegg.com 9to5to9: A working mom's mad adventures in boy land Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:00:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Thank heaven Mrs. M has a great bread pizza recipe http://debralegg.com/2010/06/02/parents-have-no-credibility-with-kids/ http://debralegg.com/2010/06/02/parents-have-no-credibility-with-kids/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:39:19 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=9024 I was there for the preparation but had to leave before the feast began, so I was curious to hear Big Guy's reaction to the lunch that was part of his end-of-school party.

"Oh. My. God," he smiled blissfully, his eyes lolling at the remembered pleasure. "It was sooooooo delicious! Can you get the bread pizza recipe from Mrs. M? Can we make it sometime?"

"Sure," I said. "In fact, you can have it every day for lunch this summer if you want."

"Every day. Pizza every day? Oh my God, thank you Mrs. M!"

Yes, thank you, Mrs. M, but here's my dirty little secret. Please don't tell Big Guy or it will ruin it for him.

The bread pizza - please don't call it "pizza bread," because that's not what Mrs. M said it is - was my idea as I frantically brainstormed a back-up plan with her after two pizza places nixed the initial idea.

The teacher had wanted to throw a pizza party for the class, and she wanted to make sure that Big Guy was included on an equal basis. That was partly out of concern with cross-contamination of his food with things he's allergic to, but also because she didn't want him to feel singled out with a subpar pizza.

Because he's allergic to garlic I would need to provide his sauce, I said. But some restaurants will make a pizza with homemade sauce, I assured her.

It turns out that none of those restaurants is around here. Even the pizza place on post is kicking about it now, even though I've been providing sauce since December. When Mrs. M called around, two other places rejected the homemade sauce as a "health hazard."

She decided to instead let the kids make their own pizzas, but individual crusts for 23 kids gets to be pricey.

How about hamburger buns? I asked, remembering when we used to have pizza for lunch every day as a kid. It's pretty easy to find egg-free sandwich rolls that he can eat.

That will work, she said.

She wound up using sub rolls, and the kids happily spread sauce and sprinkled cheese. They probably had more fun than they would have if the pizza had shown up in boxes. "It was deeeeeeeeeeee-licious!" Big Guy declared.

Good. I am so happy that Mrs. M was able to provide us with a recipe.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/06/02/parents-have-no-credibility-with-kids/feed/ 0 The weeper in Room 14 http://debralegg.com/2010/05/27/the-weeper-in-room-14/ http://debralegg.com/2010/05/27/the-weeper-in-room-14/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 21:54:53 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=9007 With no outward warning signs, he buried his face in his arms and started crying. These were no delicate sobs, but chest-wracking heaves.

"What's wrong?" his teacher asked.

"It's the end of school, and I'll never see my friends again." He raised his head only long enough to say it before collapsing into his desk again.

Technically, it wasn't the end of school. It was merely the second to last day, and I'm glad I wasn't in Big Guy's classroom on the official final day to see what happened then. This was wrenching enough.

"Oh my God, he's going to make me cry," I said to another mom.

"I know," she replied, tears at the corner of her eyes.

"They have no idea how hard this is for us, too," the teacher said, choking momentarily. It'd never occurred to me before that teachers feel pangs when faced with letting go. I suppose that's how you can tell the really good ones - they invest enough of themselves in the children to feel something when it's time to let them go.

You forget what it's like to be 6, when the two months of summer when you won't see your friends seem like forever. You don't remember what it was like in first grade, when the two dozen children you'd spent a mere 10 months with seem like life-long friends. Then one day, you're volunteering in a class on what's supposed to be a fun party day and you're reminded.

For these kids, endings are even more poignant because you never know if the friend who sat next to you in California will be in Kentucky, Carolina or Kansas by fall. Or maybe you'll be the one on the move. In Big Guy's class, people started disappearing May 7, the earliest possible day they could leave and still get credit for the full school year. Empty desks already surrounded the little boy who could not quit crying.

In the end, I didn't feel sorry for him. I was envious of his ability to unabashedly say, "I hurt." That's something else we forget by the time we're adults.

"Do you think Big Guy will be in the class with me next year?" he asked me toward the end of the morning, because any parent will do in a fix.

"Could be," I said noncommittally. "Are you still going to be at Fort Irwin?"

He nodded.

"Big Guy's still going to be here, too. So even if you're not in the same class, you'll see each other sometime at recess, right?"

He nodded again, brightening a bit. "Hey, yeah. That's right. We will get to see each other next year."

"I'll like that, too,"  Big Guy added.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/05/27/the-weeper-in-room-14/feed/ 1 Summer reading in three-part harmony http://debralegg.com/2010/05/26/summer-reading/ http://debralegg.com/2010/05/26/summer-reading/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 22:11:01 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=9001 Mom's Two Commandments of Summer: Thou shalt stay out of my hair in the mornings so I can work, and thou shalt read and like it.

It's a given that the first is not going to happen - it's more of a dream than a goal. The second part gets tricky when it comes to the "like it." After a week of wracking my brain, the solution arrived in a Barnes & Noble box - new book collections for each guy, plus one for me to read to them.

I'd looked at various programs online, such as Book Adventures, but rejected that one in particular because the post library is tiny and I would have wound up ordering books almost weekly to keep up with the latest whim. Plus I didn't like the quiz component - too much like school work - though that part appeals to some parents.

The post library  has a summer reading program, but remember what I said about the library being tiny? There's just not much there anymore that Big Guy likes, plus I don't want to be stuck with overdue books while we're out of town.

So I decided to wing it.

Using the Book Adventures handy-dandy search, I looked for books a bit up from their current reading levels. I wanted something that would challenge them without making them struggle. It also had to be something I thought would interest them, and I was leaning toward a series.

I could have gone with something we already have - Big Guy got a Junie B Jones collection for Christmas, while Santa brought Boots some Thomas selections. Big Guy, though, was suffering from Junie B burnout, and Boots has memorized many of the Thomas books. Plus you can't discount the value of the UPS man toting a box to your porch and the guys' excitement when they find out it's full of stuff for them instead of more camera gear for me.

I wound up with "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" for Big Guy and several "Froggy" books for Boots.

Big Guy had shown some interest in Wimpy Kid even before we saw the movie, plus he knows several older friends who are reading the series and that appeals to his competitive streak. Even though the Wimpy Kid is considerably older than Big Guy, he still can relate to him. Particularly since Wimpy Kid also has a Baby Who Ruined His Life.

Even the title itself inspires discussion.

"He's not really that wimpy, is he? He's more of a nerd," Big Guy said.

"Nothing wrong with being a nerd," I replied. "I'm pretty nerdy. That just means you're smart."

"OK. Maybe he's a dork. I saw a dork at the park today."

"What's a dork?"

"It's someone who's, well, umm ... dorky. Oh, I don't know but I know when I see one." It reminded me of the Supreme Court's definition of porn.

Froggy gained credibility with Boots when we saw one of the books we already owned - "Froggy Plays Tee Ball" - come to life this spring. It was the passage where Froggy's coach tells him to "run home" and Froggy takes off for his house. With Boots' team, the coach yelled for a player to "go home," and the poor kid ran to the dugout, tears streaming, and began packing his equipment bag.

I mostly picked new books that reflect Boots' life this summer - learning to swim, playing soccer, going to school. While he can read only a few words in each sentence, he's picking up new ones at a rapid pace because the story is interesting. He's also learning to sound out unfamiliar words. This same system worked well with Big Guy, too, by the way.

I'd initially picked "Love You, Soldier," a tale about a 7-year-old whose father is off to war, for the book I'd read to them. Then I found out that the dad in the story dies. Yikes! Big Guy didn't seem to mind that when I explained why I wasn't going to read it - "It's just a story. That's not what's going to happen to Daddy," he said - but I was concerned about Boots and switched to "How to Train Your Dragon." Yes, it's another movie book but we already had it and I knew the guys like the story.

I've tried to keep it fairly loosey-goosey to avoid a Big Guy rebellion, plus I need a break from structured homework, too. We curl up in bed with our books, just like we did during the school year. I help Boots with his while Big Guy reads silently - but I stealthily quiz him afterward to make sure he's not just staring into space. Then I read the group book to them.

There are no grand prizes like in Book Adventures or in library programs we've done in the past. They do get a sticker for finishing the book - or, in Big Guy's case, for completing his time since he's reading much longer books - and stickers turn into allowance at the end of the week.

Is it the reading by choice that I'd prefer? No, but then, I didn't read without prodding when I was their age either. It's still reading for fun, though, and I'm hoping that habit will linger long after they've spent their allowance on slushies.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/05/26/summer-reading/feed/ 0 Preschool graduation – go ahead and laugh http://debralegg.com/2010/05/25/preschool-graduation-go-ahead-and-laugh/ http://debralegg.com/2010/05/25/preschool-graduation-go-ahead-and-laugh/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 19:24:02 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=8989 The invitation set my snarkometer into overdrive when the teachers handed it to us that morning.

Preschool graduation. 4 p.m., May 19. Complete with a "commencement address." It had all the markings of a big to-do, in striking contrast to Big Guy's "low-key kindergarten graduation alternative" last year that some  parents insisted on turning into a big to-do anyway. And here I hadn't even ordered Boots' class ring, let alone his calling cards.

I didn't exactly grumble - those duties were left to Big Guy, who was miffed that he'd never had a preschool graduation and had gotten stuck with a "low-key kindergarten graduation alternative." "I want to go back to preschool," he sniffed.

I did, though, roll my eyes heavily. Inwardly, at least. Outwardly, I gave every indication of looking forward to Boots' "congraduation," particularly the mysterious songs they'd been rehearsing for weeks. "It's a secret. Can't tell you. You have to come to the concert at the congraduation."

Fine. Congraduation it will be, though I still had issues with turning childhood celebrations into adult-sized events, quinceaneras that morph into mini weddings and first birthdays that require renting a hall included.

So we loaded into the car that day, Big Guy in his karate uniform because his class was shortly after the congraduation and Boots rushing to don his cap and gown because finding the karate uniform had made us late. If they play "Pomp and Circumstance" I'm going to shoot myself, I thought.

The opening notes played, and I regretted not owning a gun. Big Guy grumbled. "It's no fair!"

But then his face changed as Boots scampered up the aisle, a smile as wide as his graduation cap, his gown flapping behind him. "Awwwwwwwwwwww. Just look at that little boo. Isn't he so cute?" Big Guy said.

And he was. He was equally adorable as he danced and twirled to the stage, enthusiastically shakiing the chaplain and the director's hands on the way to getting his "cetificate." Then he pirouetted and bobbed his way off, his face wearing a megawatt smile and his tiny cetificate-clutching hand pumping in the air.

If he throws his cap in the air I'm going to gag, I thought before something disrupted my cynicism. It was the tiny tear in the corner of my eye and the lump in  my throat. A slip of a boy was very, very happy at that moment as he celebrated a year of hard work and play. He'd made friends, he'd gone on field trips, he'd performed concerts, he'd learned. He was happy not because adults were imposing their standards, but because of the pure joy of childhood.

Can boys have quinceaneras? If so, deal me in.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/05/25/preschool-graduation-go-ahead-and-laugh/feed/ 0 A notebook worth keeping http://debralegg.com/2010/05/19/a-notebook-worth-keeping/ http://debralegg.com/2010/05/19/a-notebook-worth-keeping/#comments Wed, 19 May 2010 21:06:26 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=8978 There are two gray plastic bins in the garage, each roughly 2x2x2. I bought them several years ago, to preserve the guys' keepsakes. Important stuff such as the first outfits they wore and their first Halloween costumes. There's a handprint a year for each of them, and their first sports uniforms.

They've both been in preschool since they were 2, so there's always been a lot of projects to choose from. I've vowed to be brutal about purging, though. I just have to do it when Boots isn't home.

That was before this week, when Big Guy cleaned out his desk and I hit a roadblock that even my hard heart couldn't send to recycling.

It was his daily journal, a 200-page spiral notebook that lost its cover long ago. The kids had a time set aside each day to write or draw about whatever was on their minds.

Many entries were mundane - practicing numbers, equations or the week's spelling words. Many were fairly illegible, particularly at the start of the year when his arm was in a cast. Others, though, offered glimpses into the heart, mind and humor of a little boy.

Aug. 26, 2009:
Make a list of your ten favorite foods.
1. Pisza
The rest of the page is blank, and I don't attribute that to laziness. By October, he'd at least decided  to add ice cream, popcorn and Oreos to the list.

Sept. 21, 2009
Dear Mrs. M
I got on green to say we have been gud with are sub. How are you doing? We sang and playd.
I hope the substitute appreciated the serenade and gud behavior.

Oct. 6, 2009
How you play hid go seec
The prsin cowns to 30 whyl you hid. The othr prsin fid you.
Or, if the other prsin is your brother, he can't find you and cries for Mom to help.

Jan. 6, 2010
Tooc Dad to the Army bus.
Got rid of the sink.
Did my homework.
Actually, we kept the sink but we did have to shut off the water after an early-morning flood.

Jan. 29 , 2100
I went to D's hose.
Play at the park.
I wunt to go to Hawaii.
He can spell "Hawaii" but not "want"?

February 2010
I stay at howm.
Clearly, the red figure pictured above is me with a bad case of bed head. I can't figure out if Boots is downstairs with me and Big Guy is a genie haunting us from the second floor or if Big Guy and I are being attacked by the zombies he'd mentioned a few days earlier.

March 15, 2010
The crowd is quiet. All eyes are on robbie Knievel. He is about to risk his life.
Note to Big Guy: If you're going to blatantly plagiarize your library book, make it one your mother hadn't read with you. And throw in a few misspellings. Knievel? Really? We'll talk more about intellectual property rights in the future.

April 2010
The Wish Fairy
The mall
The zoo
Los Aglis
NASCAR ras
The air port
My cusins
The PX
Star buks
The following month, he added Disne, his gramma's, New Yok and Las Vigis to the list of places he wants the Wish Fairy to take him. I'm hoping the Wish Fairy has her own corporate jet.

I think we'll have to make room in the box for the notebook. And if the tub starts popping apart, we'll just ask the Wish Fairy to stop and pick one up on her way to Star buks.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/05/19/a-notebook-worth-keeping/feed/ 1 The moon is made of … http://debralegg.com/2010/05/14/the-moon-is-made-of/ http://debralegg.com/2010/05/14/the-moon-is-made-of/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 21:42:08 +0000 Big Guy http://debralegg.com/?p=8955

There is not gravity on the moon. You can flot up in the rocket. The gravity can lif you.

It is not strong gravity. The moon have a slick gravity. Gravity is not hot air. Astonots breeth the air.

Copyright 2010 Big Guy. All rights reserved.Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/05/14/the-moon-is-made-of/feed/ 0 Happy Mother’s Day! http://debralegg.com/2010/05/08/happy-mothers-day/ http://debralegg.com/2010/05/08/happy-mothers-day/#comments Sun, 09 May 2010 06:59:14 +0000 Big Guy http://debralegg.com/?p=8926 Dear Mom,

I love you! Happy Mothr's Day! I love it when you clim the montin. Have a special day! I like it when we ride bikes.

Love,

Big Guy

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/05/08/happy-mothers-day/feed/ 1 If I had a Thing … http://debralegg.com/2010/04/16/if-i-had-a-thing/ http://debralegg.com/2010/04/16/if-i-had-a-thing/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:22:50 +0000 Big Guy http://debralegg.com/?p=8771 (All misspellings are by the author. Not that the Web master does much better on any given day.)

If i had a thing I would cich it.

I would take the kite away fron him.

If the thing doesn't listen I will Put it in a box.

And if that doesnit work I dont' know what to do.

Actually I would Play cors with it. and I wil eat ice cream.

Copyright 2010 Big Guy. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/04/16/if-i-had-a-thing/feed/ 0 Trying not to turn Air Force One into a helicopter http://debralegg.com/2010/04/15/trying-not-to-turn-air-force-one-into-a-helicopter/ http://debralegg.com/2010/04/15/trying-not-to-turn-air-force-one-into-a-helicopter/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:03:20 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=8764 A funny thing happened on the way to the White House.

As he "researched" information for his first-ever report - one page on a historical site, with a picture from which he could create a drawing - a photo from President Obama's recent trip to Prague caught Big Guy's eye.

"Hey! I'm going to write about this," he declared. He had that certain set to his jaw that told me he wasn't interested in dissenting opinions or contradictory information, such as the inconvenient fact that Air Force One is a thing, not a location.

Never mind that it was Tuesday and he'd already written three sentences about the White House. Air Force One he said, Air Force one it was going to be. I frantically tried to Google up a rationalization - surely there has to be an Air Force One in a museum somewhere. I found one at the Reagan Presidential Library. Yes!

Now, back to our research. Er, his research. Er, my research to be perfectly honest about it.

And I hate that with ever fiber of my helicopter-abhorring body. I was landing in a place I'd vowed to avoid at all costs: The militarized zone of parents overly involved in their kids' homework.

It's not as if I don't put in my time. I log up to an hour every day, plus or minus depending on how long Big Guy decides to protest. Most of that 60 minutes, though, is spent puttering around the family room and monitoring to see that he sort of stays on task.

This week's report, though, could not possibly be completed without serious hands-on-keyboard time for me. Maybe there's a super-gifted first-grader somewhere who could fly this whirlybird solo, but not Big Guy.

He knows the basics of how to search - at least he does when he's motivated to find something on YouTube or Netflix. He reads at above grade level, so he probably could have muddled through what he/we/I found on the Web if the mechanics of reading type on a screen hadn't thrown him.

The rest of it, though, would have flummoxed him. Take notes? Turn the notes into something coherent? Finish it all without copious amounts of coffee and an all-nighter, like his mom used to do in college? No way.

I finally hit on a hybrid system. Does that make me a hovercraft? That might be worse than a helicopter.

We buddy read the articles, then I asked him what he thought was interesting or important. I took notes from what he said, trying mightily to make them incomplete-sentence gibberish so he'd have to write his own sentences.

I didn't completely succeed, which caused him to look at the fragments, scratch his head and say, "What am I supposed to write here?"

Dang it, child, don't ask me. It's supposed to be your report.

Or is it? I'd questioned that from the second the note about the assignment came home with the sentence "you will be completing a virtual field trip."

I'll admit, I learned something from my involuntary trip on the Chinook. Did you know that FDR was the first president to fly while in office? Or that the designation Air Force One came during the Eisenhower administration, after a mix-up over call signs sent a commercial plane into presidential air space?

As for Big Guy, he thinks a plane with an operating room is cool, and he's waiting for Obama to invite him aboard.

I fear that what he'll remember most, though, is that his reports are Mom's job, too.

Holy Black Hawk, Batman. That is not the message I want to send.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:]]> http://debralegg.com/2010/04/15/trying-not-to-turn-air-force-one-into-a-helicopter/feed/ 0 What can we do to create 21st Century schools? Just look to Central California http://debralegg.com/2010/04/02/what-can-we-do-to-create-21st-century-schools-just-look-to-central-california/ http://debralegg.com/2010/04/02/what-can-we-do-to-create-21st-century-schools-just-look-to-central-california/#comments Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:29:18 +0000 Debra Legg http://debralegg.com/?p=8683 Forget all the discussion about where we're going to live when Dad gets out of the Army. As far as I'm concerned, it's settled. We are moving to Madera County.

Yes, that Madera County, the one smack in the middle of California's Central Valley. Think ag country - 123,000 people and not a single city of considerable size. It's a location that never was on my radar as anything other than the location of a women's prison.

That all changed when I read a story about Minarets High School. I almost didn't read the story, because the headline about students exchanging text books for laptops didn't grab me. That notion is so 2009.

Except at Minarets, the notion has turned functional. The students are living off their laptops, where they can go to video chats with teachers if they get stuck. They use mountain bikes for PE, and, oh my GOD, the school's Web site is built as a wiki to which any member can contribute.

This is not a private school. This is not a charter school that needed exceptions to normal California education law to make this happen, so take that Arne Duncan. This is a good old-fashioned public school that just happens to be the perfect example of what it will take to teach today's youth.

Strike that: This school goes beyond teaching to aim for true education that focuses on  skills these students will need when they graduate. The staff realizes that lecturing will not necessarily lead to learning - the Web site has a section outlining the difference.

The teachers use tools such as Power Point, Google Earth, photo sharing. Even - GASP! - cell phones. That's the ultimate nod to "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

And you can't beat 'em, no matter how hard you try to ban social networking and YouTube at school. Youth today gravitate toward it because they're growing up with it. Why not acknowledge that and meet them where they live instead of having IT and administrators running around and throwing up road blocks?

Yes, it's easier to create a modern school when you're starting fresh with a building that was actually built this century and set up accordingly. But the power of Minarets isn't in the building. It's in a mentality that says, "yes, we really are doing this for the children."

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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