Easter Bunny

On the Thursday before Easter we took Penny to the Student Government Association-sponsored easter egg hunt. It was for the children and grandchildren of faculty members. P was in the 1 and 2 year old group, but since she's almost 3 she was one of the biggest kids in the group along with a lot of barely walking toddlers. Luckily, though, she's not very greedy. She wanted to stop and open each egg before getting another one. I think most of the "babies" ended up with more eggs than she did! (Which is fine with us b/c we already had to confiscate a fair amount of candy- lol!) She loved meeting the Easter Bunny. I didn't know what to expect. I pictured him sitting on a chair like Santa at the mall, and waiting in line for our chance to be photographed with him. Instead it was a SGA member in a costume roaming around through the crowd acting goofy and approaching kids individually. He shook her hand, and then she went in for a hug. She just couldn't believe it! She was so excited. After the easter egg hunt, we asked him if we could take a photo of all three of us with him. He obliged and afterwards she called out to him, "thank you for the eggs!" Too cute.

Stay on your sticker

I took P to dance class this afternoon and peeked in the curtain to watch her dance. They were doing the hokey-pokey and I saw her really getting into it -- and then stopping what she was doing to look down to make sure she was still on her sticker before resuming dancing. Ms. Carla must say, "get on your sticker" one hundred million times during the hour because so many of the older girls just want to run around and not stay focused. Penny appears to be the only one who listens. And listens so dang literally. We keep trying to tell her it's okay if she dances around or near her sticker (and, heck, I wouldn't even mind it if she wanted to go run around with the other girls). But no. Ms. Carla says on your sticker, so on your sticker it must be - even if that means having to readjust her position mid-song. OCD, much?

The funny thing is, I know she gets this from me. I drive Tray absolutely bonkers with my "I'm a stickler for the rules" attitude. Well, rules I agree with anyway. It's so funny to see an element of my personality reflected in her like that.

Respond versus React

I once had a professor who told me he wasn't interested in hearing another excuse from his students and I remember thinking, "Ok. But what about a reason?" I try to remember that when talking with my students. Sometimes they give excuses, but sometimes they give reasons. And here's another distinction that I've been thinking about today: When I became a mom, I was knocked on my butt by how hard it was. It took me months to come to terms with it (not that I completely have). The loss of personal freedom was the hardest thing for me, but I try to recognize that personal freedom isn't always the best goal anyway. Isn't a better goal to work for others in general - and not just one's children? I read a lot these days bemoaning the fact that parents focus too much on parenting and that maybe we should just step back and (the way I read it anyway) just go and live our lives with our kids over there in the background or something. That doesn't seem to me to be the solution, because why have kids if that's what you're going to do? But I read a comment today that moved me to write this. It said that a lot of the problem was that we as parents are viewing ourselves as fully formed adults who are supposed to be "in charge" with the goal of shepharding our children into the status of fully formed adults. When in reality, we aren't finished. None of us are. Becoming a parent shouldn't be the moment we become adults, full and complete. It should be the moment we realize just how much we still have to grow. And one of the things that I and that anonymous commentor have in common, is that I need to learn empathy. I need to learn how to respond instead of react more often. So many of the times that I lose my patience with Penny, I find myself reacting, which does nothing to resolve the situation. She needs empathy, not my anxiety or anger. That's definitely an area that I'm going to work on. And just like school isn't about what students learn, so much as it is teaching them how to learn, I think that rather than trying to turn Penny into a person, I want to teach her how to become her own person.

Party at the Playground

Two quick things of the make a note in Penny's baby book variety and then a longer write up of recent events: I noticed yesterday that she's saying "Lindy" now instead of "yindy." That initial L sound actually sounds like an L instead of a Y. And I've noticed her sitting "indian style" - or cross-legged which I didn't know she knew how to do.

Penny attended her first birthday party this weekend. Ok, not really. She'd obviously been to birthday parties before, but the honorees have always either been relatives or the children of friends of ours. This was the first party she was invited to where we didn't even know the parents. Well, I kinda-sorta know the mother. The little girl is in dance class with Penny and we've spoken. Anyway. She had fun. There was some consternation when we first got there because I had perhaps talked up the birthday cake angle a bit too much and she wanted cake immediately upon arrival. She was miffed that I was trying to get her to go play on the playground instead of eat cake. But once we got that straightened out, we both had a nice time.

Dance class in general is a little weird though. Penny enjoys it a lot and she looooves to dance at home. She's very young for the class though. The class she's in is called "Creative Movement 1" and is supposed to be for children 18 months to 3 years. Well, most of the girls may have been 3 when the class started but many are now 4. I think there may be one other girl around Penny's age. They do a lot of sitting while each girl takes a turn doing whatever. I'm not a fan of that - or at least not the duration of the sitting required. I don't mean to imply that Penny can't sit still. She sits still way better than the other girls; I think she gets super bored though and would get so much more out of it if they spent more time with everyone to keep them moving. We keep thinking we are going to drop the class and just maybe forget to mention to her and maybe she'll forget, but she doesn't. While she doesn't yet have the ability to read a calendar and keep up with the day of the week, she knows that I teach on Tuesdays and when I get home it's dance class time, so even if we don't bring it up she will.

On the other side of things is gymnastics on Thursdays. We're still in the Parent and Tot class there which really means free-reign of the equipment. But - and this is really ironic considering how I used to worry about her coordination given how long it took her to learn to jump with both feet - they want to put her on into the 3 year old class because she's so good at stuff. According to them she "gets" the basic concept of a cartwheel and headstand better than the actual 3 year olds and has "excellent coordination" when doing forward rolls and whatnot. While I would ordinarily be proud of the praise for my daughter, moving her up to the 3 year old class means, again, an actual class with sitting and taking turns and not-free-reign of the equipment. Moving her up now makes me feel the same trepidation I feel about the dance class, like it's too much too soon - and why do I have to make decisions like this when she's 2 and a half? We've been semi-participating in the class while I get to stay with her, but if she gets bored with something she'll just run off and do something else, which she obviously won't be allowed to do in the class for real. The owner has said something to me about it for the last three or four weeks now, and then this week two of the other instructors each said something about it to me separately. So while I'd lean toward keeping her in the parent and tot class, I don't want to be that overbearing mom who can't see what everyone else is seeing. I mean, I see it, but I'm not sure she's ready emotionally you know? Or maybe I'm not?

Students

I normally post this sort of thing to facebook, but I have a funny student anecdote to share that wouldn't fit in that space. Plus, it happened awhile ago. I don't know what made me think of it today, but it has been on my mind so I'm going to write it down. I hope it makes you laugh/groan at the state of education too. A few years ago I asked my World Geography students to write a short essay describing the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. I provided them with news articles and they were merely to summarize the conflict: who were the major combatants and what were they fighting about, etc. I suppose it was mostly a reading comprehension assignment, as it didn't involve much if any critical thought. The essays were horrible, but that's not what stuck with me. What made me laugh, and still makes me laugh when I think of it was this: most of the articles talked about the conflict occuring between Arabic groups in the north and black ethnic groups in the south, but a majority of my students, apparently not wanting to use the word "black," wrote that the conflict was between Arabs and African-Americans. I had to go to class after I'd graded them and say, "no, they are just Africans." It still makes me laugh (and groan at the state of education).

Fishcats

Wow. I just changed the masthead up there to take Mullet's name off. It was hard when I took Catfish's name down and hard this time too. But this time I also realized that the whole blog is called Fishcats (because we had two cats with fish names), and now it seems like an odd name since both cats are gone. Oh well, it will be a nice memorium. ** I also briefly considered adding our four chickens to the title, but I'm not sure they warrant inclusion. They do lay really tasty eggs though, so I feel like I should at least give them a shout-out. They are: Tidbit, Blackie, Camo-chicken, and Spot. Thank you, ladies, for the eggs. And Tidbit, sorry about that time that Penny picked you up and put you in her wagon and attempted to send you riding down the hill.

Working it Out

Over the weekend I overheard Penny talking to Mr. Bear on a couple of occasions. Not deep conversation or anything, but once or twice she addressed him as though he could hear her. She'd placed him on a coaster on the table and then went to leave the room. She got to the door, and then stopped and looked back as though she'd forgotten something. She goes, "Oh. Mr. Bear is calling me." Then she went back to where he was sitting and asked him, "Why are you calling me, Mr. Bear?" It was very cute. Then last night she lost him in the covers and cried out for me to find him. I found him for her and then snuggled up with her until she fell back asleep (which she did within seconds). This afternoon though she was unable to take a nap (which is not uncommon for her), but when I asked her why she couldn't sleep she said because she thought that Mr. Bear might run away. I figured she was saying that since she'd lost him in the night, but I thought it was odd since that happens all the time I'm sure. This evening she went looking for him, but couldn't find him (she'd left him on the bathroom counter) and the look of concern on her face was pretty strong. It all of a sudden hit me that she's concerned that he's going to go away because Mullet went away. She's definitely still working it all out.