Playing school

For the nerd family of four looking ahead to a three day weekend, the view from Saturday looks long.

Perhaps sensing this, Beanie and Bubbie, entirely on their own initiative, chose to undertake some learning.

Beanie has been teaching herself how to read and write Korean, with the aid of a series of video lessons on DVD that my father gave her, some old hangul workbooks from when I was sent to Saturday morning Korean school, and some Korean translations of favorite children's books that we received from my sister-in-law. Whenever I watch Beanie sit down with her Korean lessons, I always wish I had her persistence. When an eight-year-old is determined, she can be a small force of nature. I feel like all I can do is stand back and let her give it a go. So, that is the lesson I am learning from her.

As Bubbie was getting dressed, with me hovering around to make sure he actually got dressed, he said that he had a big question - are mammoths related to elephants? Even though they are extinct, he quickly added. This led to reading about mammoths online - they are more closely related to Asian elephants than African elephants, which I did not know - and then to Bubbie's decision to write a book about what he had learned. This became a way for me to sneak in a bit of handwriting exercise :) Bubbie typically resists explicit instruction from me. He likes to learn together with me, which I think in part is why he likes to ask big questions. Bubbie reminds me that treating a kid as a partner in learning is important.

It is pretty to think the rest of the weekend will be like this.

How is that being-a-woman thing working for us?

I feel like I have been hearing people say for years now that women were "winning" over men. I remember in particular hearing this from another aspiring journalist. A man. We were both recent graduates from college in 1992. However, I got a job and he did not. He seemed to think in part because newsrooms were interested in "diversity." Which I represented. As a woman and Asian, too!

However. What about the fact that I showed a bit of hustle? Which is what one ought to demonstrate as a would-be reporter. I had accumulated clips at my college newspaper, of which I became the editor-in-chief after I had worked most of my free time on it for three years; applied for (and won) competitive internships as an undergraduate; then mailed literally dozens of letters to newspapers and magazines across the country looking for a reporting assignment. (I remember receiving cordial rejection letters from newspapers in Providence, RI, and Anniston, AL)

Here is a reality check from sociologist Stephanie Coontz, who also wrote The Way We Never Were, which discussed the realities versus the stereotypes of 20th century American families.

"What we are seeing is a convergence in economic fortunes, not female ascendance."

What will keep me up half the night thinking about what he means

"Zero makes more sense when it's with another number"
-- Bubbie, explaining math to his mother this evening at our dinner table.

The example he gave is this: 5 + 0 = 5.

I think in math talk, this might be what he means?

A parent's worst nightmare

There was an incident - an attempted abduction - at my children's new school last week.

Thankfully no children were harmed - I believe because they seem to have learned the right lessons about being safe, and because the adults who were supervising them were paying attention. Still, StraightMan and I both cannot help feeling that our children and our community just barely escaped the threat - Beanie tells me that it happened during her recess.

Here is what the city police department posted on FB:

School officials reported that an employee noticed two students looking into the wooded area between I-Nn and the sports fields of the school and, when questioned, the students stated that a male was trying to offer them candy while standing along the wooded property line of the school and I-Nn. When the school employee began walking towards the children, the male ran towards I-Nn and got into a blue van or truck and drove away west bound.

The person is described as a male with dark skin, short brown hair, wearing a dark t shirt, and carrying a fabric type draw string bag.

For whatever reasons, the details here - the van drove west bound, the man carried a fabric drawstring bag - made the story especially terrifying. All of a sudden, I could imagine that one of my children had been taken, screaming and thrashing in the bag while the truck sped across the state line. This has haunted me for the last two nights.

I hope that every chat I have had with my children about being safe stays with them. I hope that the adults who are supervising always pay attention. I hope whatever luck or blessing or grace that has carried them so far continues to do so.

I want to know what is being done to prevent this - and worse - from happening. We cannot feel relief that "nothing" happened because the fact is that something did.

School daze

Bubbie wants to be a Kindergarten teacher.

Tonight, he began accumulating prizes for the "treasure box" that he plans to use as a reward for his students' good behavior. The items included a Pokemon card from a McDonald's Happy Meal, a shiny sheriff's badge from a birthday party goody bag, and a pair of wings from Continental Airlines.

"Look at! Really cool stuff."

As StraightMan helps him into his footed, striped monkey pajamas, Bubbie tells us that his class will say about him: "Bubbie the Teacher rocks!"

A little while later he tells me: "Or they might call me Mister."

So, it seems like none of my fears about Bubbie starting school have been realized. We seem to have had a terrific start.

Here is Bubbie's handwriting exercise on the letter "H / h," with a drawing of his choice of "H / h" word. I think he might have a future in anthropology!

 

 

What Bubbie told me

"Riding a bus is just... riding a bus. It isn't like gymnastics and climbing a ladder and then standing on a cloud."

-- Bubbie, reassuring his mother on the night before Kindergarten that there is no cause for concern

Parenting a Jedi knight

Bubbie is heading to Kindergarten next week - and the plan right now is that he will be taking the bus. He is not necessarily thrilled. So, I am using a traditional Jedi parenting technique on him, which is to reward good behavior with a light saber. (Just one. He seems rather fixated on Darth Vader, but that is a subject for another post. Sigh.)

This will be hanging on our refrigerator for the next month (as I anticipate that it will take him that long to accumulate the points):

Of course, the thought has occurred to me that perhaps Bubbie has been playing a Jedi mind trick on me to convince me to bribe him with the lightsaber. What do you think?