Postscript for Aspiring Fashion Designers

It is a lot harder than it looks to get two giggly ten-year-olds into old vacuum cleaner boxes on uneven stairs. There was much giggling and falling over, and I cannot guarantee that no spiders were injured in the making of this photo shoot.

Alternative Fashion for the More Modest Tween

For years, I didn't understand the moaning and groaning of mothers about the difficulty of finding decent clothes for their preteen daughters. I mean, how hard can it be? Pants to cover up the bottom half, shirts to cover up the top half, put a ribbon in her hair, and you're done!

Then I discovered that this tactic only works until about halfway through the first grade, when all of a sudden those adorable little matched sets are a) uncool and b) impossible to buy in her size. It turns out that there are two sets of sizes for little girls -- 2T (T for toddler) to size 6, and size 7 to size 14. The first set of sizes tends to be sweet outfits that look fine on little girls who are freshly out of the ruffled underpants stage, and are now big enough to think mix-and-match is the coolest clothing concept since the second incarnation of bell bottoms. The second set of sizes ... well, does the name Britney Spears mean anything to you?

Apparently 14-year-olds don't have much desire to look like 7-year-olds, but an increasingly large number of 7-year-olds really want to look like 14-year-olds. The end result is that a little girl who just grew out of her purple corduroy pants and coordinating pink-and-purple striped shirt is now faced with an array of belly-baring, cleavage-enhancing, hip-hugging attire that her mother keeps holding up and saying, "No, they must have the sizes wrong, a ten-year-old could not possibly fit into this skirt." As it turns out, a ten-year-old can -- and if you're worried about the world at large seeing her underpants if she does anything drastic like, you know, walk or sit down or breathe too energetically, have no fear! If they're going to see her underpants anyway, you might as well buy her a backless pair that reads "Eye Candy" on the front! Or maybe a little pair of pink undies that say "Dive In!"

You only think I'm joking.

Well, OK, they recalled those, but only because so many parents threw fits.

Yesterday I tried to buy Mary a few pairs of shorts from the resale shop, nothing fancy, just a few pairs that she could run around in and not worry about if they got stained by glitter glue, mud, paint, or tree sap. (I love that these are equally likely possibilities for my daughter to ruin her clothes with - at least she's having fun, right?) We found three perfectly nice pairs of shorts, every single one of which, when turned around, had something stamped across the backside - "Dance", or maybe the brand name, and we were lucky they didn't say anything worse. (You don't want to know, really.) They all went back on the rack, and we left with empty hands. Call me old-fashioned, and I know some will, but I think that putting a sparkly purple word on something will make people look at it. And when that's my fifth-grader's backside we're talking about, count me OUT.

Since many essayists have articulately and loudly railed about this phenomenon for years, I'll leave that to the professionals. Instead, I'll just list a few alternatives. My grandmother used to joke about how in her day, you could get a hole in the knee of her swimsuit. (A quick phone call revealed that while she was teasing, her mother did in fact have a swimming costume in which it was technically possible to get a hole in the knee. So it's not quite as far back in the Dark Ages as it sounds like.) I know the fashion industry will never go for that, so it's time for moms of tweens to get out their needle and thread (or duct tape, as the case may be), and get creative!

There's always the retro look:



The ever-popular wrap dress gets a fun update with pink roses and Tinkerbell:

Madison models the newest take on the trendy "maxi-dress":



Buy an extra for a friend!

Mary models the latest in "green" clothing:

And for a final environmentally conscious fashion offering, the ladies show off the latest trend for recycled fibers. Madison is wearing a boxy-styled ensemble from the Eureka line, and Mary is in a fetching number with a square neckline by Hoover.

Until these catch on with the fashion industry, just let me know if you find the Holy Grail: A pair of girls' size 10 non-ripped non-skin-tight non-lowrider jeans, preferably for under thirty bucks. Thanks!

Strong Heart, Weak Stomach (or Vice Versa)

Motherhood is not for the fainthearted. It is also not for the weak-stomached, which is frequently much more relevant to daily life.

Fortunately, I've never had real issues with that. I am not, like my poor friend Erin, a sympathetic vomiter. I offered once to drive up to Portland to help her with the unstoppable chain reaction of her children's flu and her inevitable response, which would have earned me a star in my crown, if not three or four of them. I think that if it had gone on for one more hour, she might have taken me up on it.

That's not to say that I like barf, I just can't get all that worked up about it. I've been living for seven years with a mildly autistic child who has what are politely termed "eating issues". Some textures just don't work, when combined with the wrong mood, busy day, or (for all I know) misalignment of the planets. As a result, I am fully capable of cleaning a recycled dinner off of the placemat, the plate, the chair, the floor, the child's clothing and his hair (how do they do that?!), fixing him a sandwich, and serenely sitting back at my own place to eat my serving of the same dinner I just flushed. I was going to say something at this point about what halved grapes look like the second time around, but I'll spare you that. (You're welcome.)

Pee? No problem. I've cleaned whizz off their chubby little baby bodies, their clothes, my clothes, the bathtub, the bathmat, the kitchen floor (THAT was a low day in the potty-training saga of 2002), the sheets, the blankets, the mattress pad, the carpet, and the bathroom floor at significant distances from the toilet for reasons that I cannot, as a woman, begin to envision.

Yes, I'll say it, the other p-word: Poop doesn't bother me. I'm not saying I'd like to decorate my kitchen in a cowplop motif, but spending most of my childhood crossing a field full of horses and cows to play with the neighbor kids gave me a high tolerance for the stuff (not to mention a fair ability at obstacle courses later in life). If you've cleaned up one of those baby blowouts that end up with it inexplicably settling under their hats, there's not a lot that can bother you down the road when it comes to the brown stuff.

Blood? Still OK. I had a dear friend who spent most of his adult life in various jobs in the medical field, and was one of the most supremely capable men I have ever known ... right up until he cut his finger working on his VW Beetle and had to close his eyes and holler until his wife brought him a Band-Aid, or run the very real risk of passing out cold right then and there. I never had that issue, and in fact chickened out only at the last minute when I had the opportunity to watch a surgery being done on my own foot. I don't like seeing my children bleed, but I've survived front-row seats for their many vaccinations, the broken arm incident, two suspected concussions, tear duct surgery, gymnastics-related bangs and bumps, and the countless scrapes and scratches that naturally result from combining small children with bicycles, stairs, and excitable cats.

So, with this stellar track record of stainless-steel-stomached motherhood behind me, you can imagine how surprised I was to find myself with my head between my knees at Dr. Robertson's office last week. My daughter has had a tiny mole under her right arm since infancy, and while it gave no cause for concern, it chafed when she wore sleeveless tops, so we opted to have it removed. The doctor said it was a simple skin tag that could be treated with a local anesthetic and snipped off with minimal fuss. I was fine through the whole description of the procedure, and my calmness helped my daughter, as I hoped it would. The needle didn't bother me, but as soon as I saw those scissors, I felt ... nervous. You know, just a little ... concerned. Maybe a little fluttery. Is it hot in here? My goodness, I must have had less sleep last night than I thought. I think I'm ... um ...

At this point the doctor realized that Mom wasn't going to be much help, and might actually permanently warp her daughter by passing out cold on the floor, so he excused me from the room. I waited out the rest of the procedure in an adjacent exam room with a line of sight to my daughter, but too far away to see exactly what he was doing with those scissors. I dutifully put my head between my knees when I felt dizzy, but there wasn't anywhere I could put my head to remove the embarrassment.

And even more than feeling silly for being caught off-guard and having to leave, I felt that I had let my daughter down by leaving her right when she needed me. She was fine -- a little zing of pain from the anesthetic, a quick snip, and a brightly colored Band-Aid, and she was good to go. (A trip to Baskin Robbins also seemed to accelerate the healing process.) But I was far from fine, and the bowl of dark chocolate goodness didn't take care of my sore heart.

I know, intellectually, have always known, that I can't go with my daughter and spare her all the hurts of life, and it would be very wrong to do so even if I had such supernatural power. She will need to experience pain, and loneliness, and the heart-strengthening effects of dealing with life's inevitable bruises (physical and metaphysical both) on her own. I know this. I know that I can't even walk along beside her every step of the way to hold her when she cries, because honestly, who really wants to bring their mom to college for the first time they're stood up by a date? I know this, I do. But this day, all I could think of was that she was in there, and I was out here, and I didn't know what to do.

I like to think that she will forget the fast-fading scar and her mother's lightheaded abandonment, and remember only that she was allowed to order the long-coveted clown ice cream treat. I am probably right in this. I suspect, though, that this is only one in a long line of occasions where I am not enough for her, when my weakness makes me fall short of what she needs at that moment. I hope she some day grows up to the point that she knows my love leapt across the hallway even as my body sat hunched on the red plastic chair in the other room.

I won't always be able to catch her, to hold her, to wipe the tears, but I'll keep throwing love across the hall (across the world if necessary), and hopefully enough of it will stick that she'll feel the warmth of it. For tonight, I think I'll carefully ease into her room and hold her warm, sleepy self close, banking against the next time I drop the ball.

It was so much easier when all I had to do was wipe faces and hands and tiny bottoms, but (not too surprisingly) I'd never turn back the clock to those endless, exhausting, smelly, ketchup-stained years. I'll adjust, somehow, to the inevitable independence that will grow and mature out of her childish "My do it!" and propel her into adulthood. For the moment, though, I'm glad the days only go by one at a time ... I don't think my heart could manage more than one of them at once.

Making Money

Some people are born entrepreneurs, natural salespeople. You know the kind I mean -- the ones (like my father-in-law) who get bored in the summer, and where normal people go to the beach for the week, they start businesses for fun. The high schoolers who mow lawns and babysit like all the other kids, but then invest in stocks and bonds and put themselves through college. The guys who could, with a smile and a joke, steal your car and sell it back to you -- and you'd think you got a good deal.

I am not one of them. I can manage the money I have, save it and invest it and spend it wisely, but I am not one of those people who says, "Hey, let's [fill in the blank]" and the air is suddenly full of dollar signs. Whether my children take after me or their grandpa, though, I feel it's important that they understand how money works, and have some of their own to manage. They each get a small weekly allowance that is not tied to chores, and from that they are expected to put 10% in the bank each month, and 10% into the church offering or another charity. The rest is theirs to save for toys and games, and up until recently that worked out pretty well.

And then there was Lego. Lots of Legos, actually. Hundreds. Thousands. Car Legos, spaceship Legos, airplane Legos, Star Wars Legos, and most of all, Indiana Jones Legos. It starts out small, the little kit with the Indiana Jones guy and his little car and his little hat and his little whip. And on the back of the instruction sheet, there is a picture of a bigger Indiana Jones kit, with a sidekick who comes with his own little hat, and a tower and a boat and a snake to scare Indiana Jones with. And do you know what comes on the back of that instruction sheet? Oh yes. The MOTHER of all Indiana Jones Lego kits. It has 554 pieces, two 75-page books of illustrated instructions, six spiders, eight snakes, a plane, two skeletons, three working traps, a golden skull, and (this always feels vaguely heretical) a little plastic Ark of the Covenant.

It costs eighty bucks. So you can imagine that the kit advertised on the back of that instruction manual was not within the price range of someone who makes $3.20 a month, after giving and savings. Peter therefore took matters into his own hands. He asked for paper, a pen, a cup, some tape, a big cardboard box ("No, Mom, BIGGER!"), and refused to answer any questions about his business plan. Fifteen minutes later, he set up shop:

A closer look at the sign:

Not just any drik, it's good drik. He was open and ready for business, and since he'd chosen the kitchen floor for his grand opening, it was pretty obvious who his target market was. He set it all up, his box and his sign and his plastic cup of lukewarm water, and gazed hopefully up at me. To his disappointment, he learned some important early lessons about pricing and marketing when I didn't pony up the anticipated $76.27.

When that didn't work, we tried the more mundane approach of household chores. We would agree on a service and Peter's fee, he would do the work, I would pay him, and his amused and generous Mama Kate would match his earnings with her own donation. He liked the idea of getting money from Mom and Grandma, but the reality of actually picking up sticks, cleaning under his bed, and sweeping up leaves proved to be daunting.

His latest moneymaking venture arrived in a black construction paper "envelope", carefully folded and taped around a yellow construction paper letter. He had dictated it to an aide in his first-grade class, and signed it in red marker. It reads:

Dear Mom,

I like you because you're good. And that's very kind of you. And it would be very sweet if you would just give me $1,050,001.00.

Your son,

Peter

It was certainly worth a try, and if nothing else I got a good laugh out of it. Even with the transparent attempt to cloak his financial scheme in filial love, I was proud of his focused efforts to bring in a few more bucks toward the next box of tiny pieces of plastic joy. And in today's economy, I fully understand the exasperation of watching the slow, slow growth of a pile of dollar bills toward something you really want.

Now that I stop and think about it, though, stranger business plans have worked. Any number of now-successful businessmen were laughed out of the first ten (or hundred) offices in which they pitched their products, before finding ultimate success. Maybe he's onto something:

"Dear IRS,

I like you because you're very big and strong. And that's very kind of you. And it would be very sweet of you if you would just give me ..."

Role Models for My Children

"Inspector Gadget is not afraid, Inspector Gadget is brave." Mm-hmmm.

"But The Brain is not brave, he is afraid." Ohhh!

"Inspector Gadget is afraid of the cliff." Hmmmm.

"Inspector Gadget is, was, he's, is on the tree, he was on top of it!" Ohhh.

"There is a back door!" Mm-hmmm.

"Dr. Claw has a trap! A good trap! With a poky thing!" Ohhh!

"I'm going to build a trap! With a poky thing!" Hmmm.

"And trap Mary!" Mm-hm --


*click of maternal brain engaging*

"Buddy, no! We don't trap Mary with poky things! We don't trap anybody with poky things! No, no -- no traps."

I sigh, and remind myself that as wonderful as it has been to discover the delightfully clean television shows of my generation's childhood on Netflix's "Instant Watching" feature, Dr. Claw leaves a little to be desired as a role model.

I tried, I really did -- we have almost every Veggie Tales movie ever released, we have books upon books upon books, educational games, lots of Madeline and Wallace & Gromit, and a mindboggling array of Baby Einstein titles. But we also got talked into the occasional (parentally edited) showing of "Star Wars", and the smart-mouthed Jimmy Neutron made his way into the collection, and of course we couldn't pass up the Three Stooges and Bugs Bunny in the dollar bin.

And really, even if you ignore his protracted whining throughout the first half of Episode IV ("But Aunt Beruuuuu!"), there are worse role models for a little boy to have than the squeaky-clean Luke Skywalker. But no - Peter now is the proud owner of a Darth Vader cape, Darth Vader mask, Darth Vader plate, Darth Vader bowl, Darth Vader spoon, Darth Vader fork, and a red plastic lightsaber. And really, Vader is quite a bit cooler now that I look at Darth and Luke through adult eyes, unhindered by my 13-year-old sighs over Luke posed in the light of the twin moons of Tatooine, blond hair blowing (and blowing and blowing) in the desert wind.

I do see Peter's point. I mean, it's cool that he can play the little stick figure guy all the way through all the puzzle levels of the mentally stimulating computer game. But it is kind of funny when the little dude falls alllllll the way off the cliff and bounces on the ground in slow motion with his little stick arms and legs pointing in all directions. (Or maybe I'm just kind of a sick mommy, also a distinct possibility.)

Peter is very, very creative. There's no question about that -- whatever parts of his brain go in different directions from mine due to his mild autism, the creative bits are alive and well. But I have to worry a little when his creativity results in an elaborate contraption at the top of the stairs, string and Tinker Toys and bits of paper crowned with my exercise ball. I come to the foot of the stairs and look up at this vision of architecture, and hear his voice around the corner, giggling and cackling, "Mary will come home! and she will come up the stairs! and I will pull the string! and it will fall on her HEAD!" It's a little hard to chastise him when I'm laughing so hard I can't talk.

At the end of the day, all I can really do is be thankful for the creativity, since somebody has to design elevators and games and new-and-improved mousetraps. Maybe Dr. Claw never found redemption, maybe Wile E. Coyote never made friends with Bugs Bunny, but Darth Vader turned out OK in the end ... plus, he wore a really cool cape, and when it comes down to it, I just can't argue with that.

Fish, Et Cetera

You know those rear window stickers with the little stick figure brother, the stick figure sister, the stick figure mommy, the stick figure daddy (or sometimes the other stick figure mommy), and the stick figure dog? We don't have those stickers, and I doubt that we ever will. We are now a multi-species family that goes beyond the imaginations of the window sticker producers.

It started out with a dead cat. Lucy had been a part of our family since three months after we got married, long before human children were on the radar. She was petite and delicate, with long silky fur that never lost its kitten softness. She was a lovely mix of tan and grey and white, with perfect little white feet and enormous pale green eyes. She was so pretty you just couldn't help but pick her up, which was when you found out that she was in fact a horrid little wretch. She liked my husband, and barely tolerated everyone else. I am convinced that she thought she was a lion, and that it was only the fear of indigestion that kept her from eating me whole. Lucy never forgave me for bringing Mary and Peter into her domain, but when she finally died at the age of twelve, they mourned her sincerely.

It was a while before we were ready to bring another pet into the home. Katie the Cat was, shall we say, not a good fit. It transpired that the good people at the humane society had not been quite as successful as they claimed at housetraining her, and that she had originally arrived there due to her penchant for wetting on anything that would hold still. If it had just been the pee on the carpet (in every room of the house), the couch, the box full of clothes to give away, the bedspread on my bed, the sheets (after I took the bedspread off), the mattress pad (after I took the sheets off), and the mattress (after I took the mattress pad off -- she was fast, I'll give her that), well, that would have been one thing. But when it turned out that I was violently allergic to her liquid offerings, Katie found a new home, and we were pet-free again.

We asked the kids what they wanted for a pet, and they had some interesting suggestions. Mary said, "I want a fish!" Peter said, "I want a piranha!" Mary countered, "I want a puffer fish, and I'd name it Puffy!" Peter raised the ante: "I want a puffer fish too, and I'd name it ... um ... Puffier!" We said, "How about GOLDFISH."

Just so you know, it doesn't work to keep feeder goldfish in a bowl without a water filter and an aerator. Now that you know this, you don't have to try it seven times in a row, and that will save you the theological complexities of conversations with six-year-olds about the afterlife of goldfish. (The right answer, by the way, is "Yes." Even if you don't believe in God, heaven, or an eternal soul. All fish go to heaven by way of the toilet, end of story.)

Eventually, a betta fish named Wavy found a home in Mary's room, with nice blue rocks, a fake plant, a little light, and (lesson learned) an aerator. Wavy was joined in short order by Frogger the Frog and Rosie the Shrimp. (Did you know you could buy live shrimp at Wal-Mart? Apparently you can.) You'd think that would be enough, wouldn't you? You would be wrong.

Now, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, because if you read in tomorrow's "Weird News" websites about some deranged woman trying to mail an overly friendly pit bull to the outback of Australia in a large box with holes poked in the top, I don't want to leave a paper trail. So I'll just tell you some random interesting facts and hopefully avoid arrest.

It turns out that a perpetually grinning chocolate-brown dog with a penchant for licking people's knees is also capable of doing upwards of a thousand dollars' worth of damage to a home. Sarah can dig holes into decking, scratch off chunks of siding, bite off whole pieces of doorframe, chew through leashes, disembowel stuffed animals, destroy bedding, ravage carpet, and chew the heels off of cute new sandals that had only been worn once (not that I'm bitter). She can dig so many holes under the fence that you get to meet nearly every neighbor on your street and a few from the next block over, thanks to the opening gambit of "I think we have your dog." She can bash her head against a weak board until she actually goes through the fence, helping you meet even more neighbors. She can flatly ignore all efforts at housetraining, resulting in odorous little gifts in every single carpeted room in the house, plus a few closets, a laundry pile or two, and a scrapbooking project laid out on the floor for organizing. (Just so you know, in a showdown between dog pee and scrapbook materials, dog pee wins.)

I'm sure we'll get it all worked out at some point, and if I mail her anywhere, it will be to my sister in California because her dogs would put the fear of God into mine in about three seconds flat. But I tell you ... that piranha is starting to sound pretty good.

And now, for something completely different!

You know, I never do this. I just really don't. I don't get all activist about things, because I am too tired. And I don't link to other people's blogs, because this is the one little corner of the universe where I Am The Queen, so why should I share it any more than necessary?

But I'm making an exception this time, and for what I think is a pretty darn good reason. I will warn you right now that these links include discussions about nursing, lots of unhappy mommies, and a few Bad Words. So if those are going to offend you, stop now -- just skip it and you can come back in a few days and hear about Peter's ideal pet. (A piranha.)

I follow the blog of another mother, a wonderful writer who posts under the name of Her Bad Mother. She was flying home from the funeral of a friend, and her daughter got hungry. Since she is a breastfeeding mother, she discreetly set her daughter up to eat. Like many nursing mothers with a fair amount of experience at it, she didn't feel the need to lay a blanket over herself and the baby, since nothing was exposed and no one was looking. The flight attendant took it upon herself to "offer" her a blanket -- several times -- so that she could cover up and not bother people, even though no one appeared to in fact be aware that a baby was nursing.

The email campaign to Canada's WestJet Airlines that followed was, shall we say, not particularly successful. The airline sent a form letter that said very little at all, and the person sending it had not even bothered to change the name of the passenger from the last time such a letter had been sent. Her Bad Mother was understandably irritated, and I decided to pitch in with my blog since I know I have a few readers who support the idea of breastfeeding without having to practically put on a burka and hide in the ladies' room.

(And to those of you who have never breastfed, would YOU like to have to eat every meal with a blanket on your head?)

The post explaining the event is here. The post where she waits for a response is here. The part where she gets irritated and writes a funny interpretation of the form letter is here.

If this is the sort of thing that winds you up and you feel like sending a cranky email, please stop by Her Bad Mother's blog. I spent two years nursing my children, at home, in restaurants, on airplanes, in church, pretty much anywhere the baby and I went. (Sorry if I made you squirm when I was new at it and hadn't quite figured out that whole decency thing.) It's not the easiest thing in the world, and it gets a lot harder when people are glaring at you for, well, doing what mammals do. When I see a young woman nursing in public, I like to make eye contact, smile, and whisper "Good for you." They usually grin from ear to ear, since that's not usually what people say to them, unfortunately.

So, Her Bad Mother ... good for you, and I hope they send you flowers to apologize. One can always dream ...

Small Skeptics

You've heard it, the stereotypical image of a 4-year-old child: "But WHY, Mommy?"

It's a fun question when you're four. You get to find out all kinds of interesting things, like why leaves fall off of trees but branches stay on, and why Kool-Aid makes a stain but water doesn't, and (if you ask it enough times and your mom remembers what she learned in grade school about light and wavelengths and color) why the sky is blue. Plus, it keeps her talking with very little expenditure of energy on your part.

The simple brilliance of it is that it serves as its own follow-up question. "Mama, why is that ant carrying my sandwich crumb?" To take it back to the nest. "Why?" To share it with the rest of the ants. "Why?" Because ants all share their food. "Why?" Because they are social insects, and instead of eating what they find, they bring it back so that the ant queen and the other ants can eat it too. "Why?" And by the time your mom loses patience, you've learned quite a lot about ants, and maybe a little bit about people too.

You have to be kind of careful with this one-note line of inquiry though, or things get metaphysical. Ask it too many times, and you'll get a snappish little "Because God WANTS the ant to be that way, that's why." (Asking why God wants it to be that way will probably result in you being sent out to play or inside to clean your room.)

Somewhere along the line, we lose that. We stop asking some of the questions because we always get the same insufficient answers. We stop asking some questions because we are perpetually redirected to encyclopedias, which may or may not tell us what we really wanted to know. We stop asking some of them because we learn to trust our books and our teachers and our friends, which is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it can be dangerous if it becomes the answer to too many questions. Some questions, we stop asking because nobody knows the answer yet. And sometimes the reason is less complicated ... we stop asking simply because we move out of that childish phase of wonder and into a world with more immediate questions: "Can I call Madison, can I get my ears pierced, can I spend the night if her mom says yes?"

I think, though, that we need that questioning spirit more as adults than at any point since age four. We need it desperately, and sometimes half the battle is discovering that we need it at all.

We need it for the questions whose premises are so entrenched that people forget that there are more questions to ask. "Is global warming really our fault? How do you know? What studies were done? And if so, can we fix it? And if not, should we fix it?"

We need it for the questions that the media blithely answers for all too many people, without the prerequisite of even a moment's actual thought. "But WHY does Oprah recommend that? Did Barack Obama do his research? Has People magazine looked at the science behind that claim? Can John McCain back that up?"

We need it for the questions that pick up where our mothers' answers left off. "Why does God want it to be that way? How do we know? Did He say He does? If not, why do we think He does? If so, do we then have any responsibilities to change our behavior?"

More than anything, we need it for the questions that have not yet been answered. We need it for the tiny (the insects, the viruses, the insides of atoms) and we need it for the immense (the stars, the gods, the outsides of universes).

We need to teach it to our four-year-olds, to live it ourselves, and to remember it when we are old. We need the neverending Why.

Move Over, Dick and Jane!

Sorry, Dick and Jane ... you're great little kids, but you don't stand a chance against a talking tiger.

Peter started learning the alphabet in preschool, and it didn't take him too long to attach the sounds to the appropriate letters. However, he stayed at that point in his reading development for many, many months. Since we had plenty of other things to work on with him, it seemed unwise to push the reading and risk having him resist the whole idea of it, so we just reviewed the alphabet and read him lots and lots of stories.

When he started kindergarten, he had more exposure to other children reading, and his interest picked up again. He is in a special-needs class geared for children who have communication or social challenges, but who are cognitively up to speed. Some are in fact quite bright, but are likely to clobber classmates on the head over the ownership of a little green plastic soldier, just to pick a completely random example. His class therefore spends much time working on appropriate peer interaction and social skills, but they also work hard at keeping the children current with the schoolwork being done in the "typical" classroom. Since Peter's class is a combined group of kindergarten, first and second graders, this means he hears children reading aloud daily, and it was not surprising when he suddenly showed a renewed interest in letters and sounds.

I dug out the little reading system I'd used with limited effect with Mary, a set of ten books which move gradually through various vowel and consonant sounds. The pictures are funny, but the words (not surprisingly) are repetitive, and they quickly became tedious. All too often, Peter would make it four pages into a book, and then it would become airborne and he'd be off to play with his trains, which were infinitely more interesting.

We tried having him read his beloved Frog and Toad, but no dice. Slightly more success with the equally cherished Little Bear books, but he lost interest in those as well. I was ready to just hand the whole process over to his teacher, when he happened to run across a stack of Calvin and Hobbes books. Years ago, when my parents were cleaning out some bookshelves, they gave us several comic collections, and we have a large majority of the collected cartoon for the whole ten years it ran in the papers. Peter opened one, and fell in the five-year-old version of true love.

It's not too surprising, when you stop and think about it. Calvin is six. He rides the bus and eats dinner and goes to bed, just like Peter. He has funny hair that stands straight on end and sometimes appears to have a life of its own. He has a stuffed animal who walks, talks, and has his baths in the washing machine. It doesn't take long to figure out that this is way, way cooler than watching Spot run, stop, and run yet again.

Peter started out by just looking at the pictures, but when he realized that all the letters had something to do with the pictures (and were often easy words like "Wow!" and "Bang!" and "Hahahaha!"), he suddenly got very, very motivated to learn how to read. And boy, did he ever. Within about a month's time, he went from carefully sounding out three-letter words to being able to read at least half of the words in the cartoons -- not enough to get all the jokes, but certainly enough to figure out what was going on.

However, there was an unexpected flip side to all of this wonderful progress, as we discovered in a conversation with his teacher, Mrs. Beech. It transpired that Peter had been talking about some very unusual activities during their daily sharing time. Apparently when he was not at school, Peter was flying space ships, turning into a dinosaur, and being attacked by his food. Since they try hard to help these kids separate fact from reality, she requested that we not allow Peter to read Calvin and Hobbes any more at home.

We reluctantly complied, hid the books, and tried to find some alternatives. But really, if you were used to books where the main character could turn into Spaceman Spiff at will, would YOU want to read Goodnight Moon for the fourteenth time? I didn't think so. Neither did Peter. With his usual resourcefulness, he found the stash, and within a day or two he was to be found back on the couch every afternoon, reading and laughing hysterically.

And I do mean reading. The more he read, the more expressive he got, and the better he got at sounding out the words. By the end of kindergarten, he scored so high on the kindergarten reading assessment that I asked to have him tested again with the first-grade assessment. Sure enough, they estimated him at somewhere between a second and third-grade reading level, which isn't too shabby for a kid who just turned six (and has only been using complete sentences for two years).

So, my apologies to Mrs. Beech, but I don't think I'm going to mess with a good thing. I'll do my best to help Peter learn that balloons will not in fact take you to Mars and that mutant killer snowmen aren't going to invade our lawn. I apologize in advance for any incident in which he calls his lunch "green icky guck" or refers to a classmate as a "slimy bucket of boogers." And I'll just tell you right now that if he says he had a bath in the washing machine, you don't need to call Child Protective Services.

I think it's worth a little extra effort, when the trade-off means that he can painstakingly copy the word "transmogrifier" onto the side of a cardboard box, climb in, and emerge into a land of imagination. Books are the best transmogrifier out there, and if a naughty little boy and a smartmouth tiger can reach into Peter's heart and mind and bring him laughing into a new world ...

... then have fun, boys, and be back in time for dinner.

Children's Bill of Non-Rights

Dear children,

It is summer, and as you know, our daily life is a little different. We are not bound by bus schedules, carpool schedules, or gym schedules, and that means things get a little flexible.

However, the relaxed attitude of summer does NOT mean that all rules and discipline go out the window. You are not the King and Queen of Everything, and I think a few guidelines are in order.


Bill of Non-Rights

I. You do not have the right to watch all thirteen episodes of The New Scooby-Doo on DVD every single day.

II. You do not have the right to use the rewind button on the VCR as an act of aggression against your little brother.

III. You do not have the right to be given a milkshake every time we drive past a McDonald's.

IV. If you play a game that includes the words, "OK, now you sit on me and hit me with that pillow", you do not have the right to come and cry to me that your sister hit you.

V. If you want a drink of water, you know where the faucet is.

VI. You do not have the right to get back out of bed every half hour on the half hour until 11:30 p.m. When I say it's time for bed, IT'S TIME FOR BED.

VII. You do not have the right to whack your brother/sister on the arm for "looking at you funny." You also do not have the right to look at your brother/sister funny for fifteen minutes straight without some kind of parental intervention.

VIII. You do not have the right to wear your pajamas until 2 p.m. No, I don't have to explain why, it's just the way it is.

IX. Contrary to local popular belief, it is not child abuse to restrict the consumption of popsicles to one per day, even if it is 95 degrees outside. Also, there is nothing wrong with requiring you to eat them on the back porch and wash your hands afterwards. Washing hands is not in fact recognized as torture by the Geneva Convention.

X. You do not have the right to cover your body with band-aids as a visual reminder of every time your sibling accidentally bumped into you.

XI. You do not have the right to eat all of the Jelly Bellies your mom bought as a special treat for your dad, even if they were sitting right there out in the open on his computer desk, even if they are your most favorite treat ever, and even if the bag was sort of open already.

XII. You do not have the right to be the first one in the door every time we come home, nor do you have the right to punch your sibling for going in the door ahead of you. You do not have the right to spread your arms out or trip your sibling to keep them from getting in first, and you do not have the right to make "mean faces" at your sibling if he or she should happen to elude you and get through first.

XIII. If you sleep in the basement, I do not care who sleeps on which side of the couch. I don't care which is the favored side at the moment. I don't care if you have bad dreams on the left side of the couch, or if you can only sleep if you have your enormous toy horse standing next to you. If you interrupt me one more time with a couch-based complaint while I'm watching "24", I will put you to bed in your own room even if it IS the approximate temperature of Death Valley in there.

XIV. Playing outside on a beautifully sunny day is not cruel and unusual punishment, and you can expect to find that it is suddenly your only option if you say the words "I'm bored" seventeen times in fifteen minutes. And no, you may not dig a hole with a shovel, you may not wash the house with the hose, you may not put your brother up in the oak tree, you may not build a "home for ants" in the middle of the driveway, you may not pick the heads off the roses and put them in a pretty pile, and you may not have a hammer and nails for any reason. I really mean it about the shovel.


However.

I. I promise I will feed you good food three times a day, and sometimes you might even get hot dogs.

II. I promise that you will always have clean clothes to wear, even if I don't do daily laundry so you can wear that one pair of pants every single day all summer long.

III. I promise we will take fun trips to the park, the library, the carousel, and the Capital Building so we can feed the squirrels, even if we don't do them on the exact day you had in mind. You will not die of boredom on the days we stay home, I promise.

IV. I promise I will let you play in the sprinkler sometimes. But just as a heads-up, when you ask to do it at 9:45 p.m., the answer will always be "no".

V. I love you with all my heart, my sweet silly kids.


All items are subject to change without notice, even if that doesn't seem fair, even if it's not the way your friend's mom does it, even if that's not how we did it last time, and even if you think it's going to make you have bad dreams, throw up, cry, have an unexplainable ache in your left arm, or (dramatic sob) Never Be Happy Again.

Well, OK, all items are subject to change except the "I love you" one ... that one, you can count on.

Love,
Mama