Category Archives: School

See You in September

Posted on by
0 Comments

“I like that too,” said Christopher Robin, “but what I like doing best is Nothing.”
“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go and do it.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.
“This is a nothing sort of thing that we’re doing now.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh again….

Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world, with his chin in his hands, called out, “Pooh!”
“Yes,” said Pooh.
“When I’m—when—Pooh!”
“Yes, Christopher Robin?”
“I’m not going to do Nothing any more.”
“Never again?”
“Well, not so much. They don’t let you.”

From The House at Pooh Corner, by A.A. Milne

Noah and I were sitting on the bleachers of an empty baseball diamond in Jecquie Park on the third day of summer vacation. When his class’s sparsely attended goodbye party had broken up he wanted to stay at the playground so Beth took June to the grocery store and said she’d come back for us after she’d picked up a few items. We’d acted out a story from his pirate stories cd, climbed on the play structure and ridden the see-saw. After some consideration of what to do next, Noah said, “Let’s go to Ecuador!”

“Okay,” I replied. “How do we get there?”

“There’s the bus,” he said, pointing to the bleachers. Noah enquired about the route to Ecuador. I said it was a long way and that we’d have to travel through the Southern United States, Mexico, Central America and part of South America. I estimated it would take at least a week. “This is a very fast bus,” he assured me. He wanted to see my watch. It was 5:45. “When the big hand is on the twelve, we’ll be there,” he said.

We sat in companionable silence for fifteen minutes. Every now and then he would remind me to look at my watch. I fretted a little, wondering if this was quality time or not. We weren’t doing anything. But it was the end of a hot day and I was tired and he was tired and doing nothing felt okay. As Christopher Robin pointed out, sometimes a nothing sort of thing is just what you want.

In planning Noah’s summer it’s been hard for Beth and me to find the right balance of activity and down time. Part of me wishes I was the kind of mom who could keep him so happily occupied at home with spontaneous, creative art projects, leisurely nature walks and educational science projects that we’d have no thought of sending him to day camp so someone else could entertain him for a few hours at a time. After all, after the rough patch he’s had at school this spring, doesn’t he need and deserve a break from structure?

To an extent, he does, but on the other hand he thrived this year in his extracurricular activities — yoga in the fall and science and drama in the winter and spring. He especially loved the last two and they seemed to give him something important and even spiritually renewing he wasn’t getting at school. So maybe it’s just the day-to-day grind of a six-hour heavily academic day he needs to escape. We knew we didn’t want to send him to the summer program at his school. It’s heavily promoted by the school and free and he attended last year. We sent him so he could get acclimated to the elementary school environment for several weeks of half-days before he had to navigate it in Spanish. Academically the program was much too easy for him, though, and he ended up kind of bored and restless by the end. So I was surprised when he started to say he wanted to do it again this summer. I even started to waver, thinking why spend close to $1,000 for day camps when he was asking to go somewhere free. Eventually we decided he was just responding to pressure from school to sign up. Then again he also said he wanted to play t-ball again this summer, which no-one was encouraging him to do, and he hadn’t seemed to enjoy that too much either. Maybe he was just seeking the comfort of the familiar. In any case, we over-ruled him on both counts, no summer school and no t-ball.

Instead we chose activities he’s either enjoyed in the past or seemed almost sure to enjoy—a week of art and dance camp at his old nursery school (where he’s taken part in several high quality after school or summer programs), a week of music and math camp at the Takoma Park Rec Center, a week of robotics camp at Montgomery College and two weeks of theater camp at Round House Theater, where he attended spring break camp. The camps total five of his ten weeks off. We decided against an ancient Egypt-themed camp, even though it’s another one of his many interests, since scheduling more than half of his summer seemed like a tipping point. We’re also considering weekend swim lessons at the Y and he will probably be working with an occupational therapist on some of the sensory problems we think may have been a factor in his school troubles this year.

It sounds busy, but it does leave him more than a month of time at home, visiting grandparents’ houses or on vacation (we’re going to the beach for a week in August). I hope he’ll have enough time playing with his archery set, shooting baskets and running in the sprinkler to help him recharge his batteries for first grade, as well as enough time spent in fun, educational activities with kids his own age (and away from his exhausted mother and sometimes demanding baby sister). I want to keep him socially engaged, feed his creative side and bolster his sense of mastery. I also want to preserve my own sanity. Mostly I just hope he’s happy for the next two and half months. And I’m profoundly aware of how privileged we are to be able to afford all this.

The school year did end on a good note, or at least an improved one. His report card was stellar and at the meeting of his educational management team, in late May, Señora A said Noah had made significant improvement in not talking out of turn, though staying in place and keeping his hands to himself were still frequent problems. The behavior chart he brought home on the last day of school showed him in green for all the school days in June and there was a lot less yellow and red in May than there had been in March and April.

I’ve witnessed continuing problems first hand, though. At the end of the year program Noah gave the introduction (alternating lines with a classmate) and a recitation on vowels. He did a good job, but I was a little sad he didn’t get a singing, dancing or acting part since I know he would have enjoyed that. My suspicion is he was judged not to have earned that privilege. Anyway, when the program was over, he grabbed the ogre head and the horns off the heads of two of the actors in the Los tres chivos vivos (Three Billy Goats Gruff) skit. Ruby, one of the goats, burst into tears when her horns ripped. Then at the goodbye party, Noah and another boy pulled up a girl’s skirt and made her cry. (I am making him write and mail apologies to both of them since he refused to apologize in person.) It left me wondering how and when we can make it through this puzzling maze of misbehavior and it if will be this summer. I hope so.

I glanced at my watch. It was 6:02. “We’re in Ecuador.” I informed Noah. “What do we do now?” He pointed to some picnic tables and indicated we needed to see the President. After a brief conversation in Spanish, the President of Ecuador personally stamped our passports and invited us to explore his “país hermoso” (beautiful country). Soon afterwards Beth pulled up and honked the horn. Inside the car the game continued. We pretended to be in a taxi on our way to our hotel. Beth described the amenities of the hotel and detailed the restaurant’s dinner menu. And off we drove, into the beautiful country of summer.

Now We Are Six

Posted on by
0 Comments

It was the first day of May. The barista at our local coffeehouse glanced at my receipt before handing it to me and exclaimed, “It’s May already.”

I told her I was very aware of the date since my son would be six in two days. She surprised me by making a sympathetic sound, as if I’d announced he had chicken pox instead of an imminent birthday. I gave her a quizzical look and she said, “Five is so fun. I really liked five on my younger sisters.” She went on to explain that she’s the oldest in a family of six girls and a boy and she let me know in no uncertain terms that five is a better year than six. I guess she’d know. Interestingly, the book we have out of the library on six year olds seems to have the same thesis.

On the morning of his birthday, Noah opened his presents before school. We got him a few things, but the big hits seemed to be the robot kit and the weather-tracking computer program. He and Beth were on the computer looking at global weather forecasts and pictures of real-time cloud cover over the Earth when it was time to get on the bus. Of course, he didn’t want to stop and he left the computer in tears, but Beth said he was cheerful again before they even got off the porch.

That evening I made Noah’s favorite dinner— pancakes— while he started to assemble a robot using a diagram from the instructions. I picked an apple-cottage cheese pancake recipe that looked good and reserved some cottage cheese-free batter for him since he’s a picky eater and I thought he might object to cottage cheese in his pancakes. When he’d finished his pancakes and wanted more, I asked if he wanted to try to cottage cheese ones and to my surprise, not only did he try one, but he liked it, too. After dinner, Beth helped him finish the robot. That night he slept on his top bunk for the first time. (When we got him the bunk bed toward the end of my pregnancy with June we told him he could sleep on the top when he was six and he’s been eagerly awaiting this milestone.) He seemed a little anxious as I tucked him in, but when we asked him if he wanted to change his mind and sleep below, he said no. A few days earlier he had told me that once he was six he wouldn’t need me to lie down with him at night anymore but I didn’t mention this and he didn’t either. There’s such a thing as too much change all at once, and I don’t mean just for him.

The next day, Friday, was Noah’s class party. Beth and I had dentist appointments in the morning and the party in the afternoon and the house to clean for his home party the next day, so she took the whole day off. When we got to Noah’s classroom he was still filling out a language arts worksheet about syllables that most of the other students had finished. He tried to run over to us, but we told him to keep working. He kept glancing up at us and grinning as Beth and the parents of the other birthday celebrant set up the tables and I walked June around the room. I went over to the windowsill to see if his basil seeds had sprouted but there was only moist soil in the clear plastic cup marked “Noah.” Noah had complained to me earlier about his non-starter seeds so I wanted to see they were making any progress. Most of the other cups sported healthy-looking sprouts of various species but there were a few other barren plots. I was glad of that, at least.

When the tables were set up, Señora A told Noah he could finish his worksheet on Monday and he joined his classmates at the tables. The room was noisy with the chatter of fifteen five and six-year-olds, almost all of it in Spanish. When “Feliz Cumpleaños” was sung, the candles blown out, the cupcakes eaten and the juice boxes drunk, it was time to leave. Noah was excited to be walking home with us instead of riding the bus. As he gathered up his backpack and lunchbox, Beth handed Señora A a signed form (a vague but ominous-sounding communication from his school) indicating we would be attending the meeting of Noah’s “educational management team” later this month. And then Señora A asked if we could stay after school to talk. Oh no, not today, I thought. Can’t he just have his party and go home? But we stayed.

Noah had a run of almost two weeks’ good behavior. He even had a perfect 18-point day earlier in the week. We knew he’d gotten into trouble (with a substitute) for knocking over chairs in the classroom and missed recess for it the day before, but we thought in general things were going pretty well. And they were, until that day. He got low marks in all categories, but there were two particularly worrisome incidents. He got into a tussle with a girl over a pencil (hers) and he pulled Ruby’s hair, hard enough so that a strand of it came out in his hand. I reminded Señora A and Noah to speak in English so Beth could follow, but they kept forgetting and the conversation slid back and forth between the two languages. Meanwhile, June, who had been cooped up in her car seat or stroller or held on my lap in the classroom most of the day, was getting squirmy and starting to cry. I walked her around the room, letting her play with an abacus, then settling in the block corner where she played while I tried to listen. I can’t believe he pulled Ruby’s hair, I kept thinking. Finally, it was over. “Feliz Cumpleaños,” Señora A said as we left.

At home, Noah helped me hose off our pollen-coated porch and then settled in to watch television. I sat with him and watched June crawl around the room while Beth cleaned. At 5:30, we set off for a Thai restaurant in Silver Spring. Because Beth and I went out for Thai the night I went into labor with Noah, we have a tradition of going out for Thai around his birthday. But Noah, worn out from the excitement of his party, upset about the meeting that followed—who knows? —didn’t want to go. He said he wanted pizza. Somehow we talked him into getting into the car. It wasn’t until we got to the restaurant that he completely melted down. He was under the table, crying, demanding to know why we came to this restaurant with no food (i.e. no pizza). It was a scene less surprising than it would have been a month ago.

Beth escorted him out of the restaurant, telling me what to order for her. They were gone a long time. The fried tofu appetizer arrived and I ate a third of it, saving the rest for Beth and Noah. They came back as the rest of food was coming. Noah seemed cheerful and wolfed down the tofu and several plates of noodles. It was as if nothing had happened. (Later I asked Beth what she did. She said they just sat outside by the fountain while he cried. He was quiet for a while, then the storm out of his system, he said, “Let’s go back inside.”) After dinner we got smoothies (for me and June) and ice cream (for Beth and Noah) listened to some street musicians, then we went to the turf, where Noah rode his scooter until it was time to go home.

The party was the next day, at 5 p.m. We had to schedule it late in the day to accommodate the busy lives of Noah’s friends, filled with soccer practice, play dates and the party of the classmate who shares his birthday. My mother arrived in the early afternoon. When Noah opened her presents, rather ungraciously, Beth and I decided he would open his friends’ presents after the party, rather than during, as he had suggested.

Mom helped clean the patio furniture and frost the cake. Beth decorated it with a white cloud outlined in blue frosting set in a blue sugar sprinkle sky, since the party had a weather theme. I was nervous since this was Noah’s first party with children I did not (for the most part) know very well. To make matters worse, Noah had announced the day before that one of the guests was not his friend, but his “enemy.” (The boy and his friends have been stealing Noah and his group’s ball at recess. The ball is an armadillo in an elaborate fantasy game, set in a castle, they play every day— but that’s another story.) I wondered how everyone would get along. Beth, as is her habit when she’s under stress, got cranky. It didn’t help that she had to make the cake twice, since she remembered (as the first one was in the oven) that she’d forgotten the sugar. This threw off her schedule. Somehow, though, the baking and the cleaning and the decorating all got done. Beth attached the balloons (one in the shape of the number six and one that said “Feliz Cumpleaños”) to the gate and arranged the colorful wooden letters that spelled “NOAH” (a birthday gift from my sister) on the top of the porch stairs. I arranged the inflated plastic sun, clouds, raindrops, etc. in a path along the porch floor and wrote “Welcome” and “Bienvenidos” in chalk on the sidewalk.

The day before the party the forecast called for a high in the 70s and sun. On the day of the party the forecast was 60s and sun, but all afternoon it was overcast with occasional sprinkles and the temperatures never got out of the 50s. Nevertheless, we decided to keep as much of the party as possible outside. As the guests began to arrive, most of the parents made the same joke about such unpredictable weather at a weather party. But the kids didn’t seem to mind. The early arrivals grabbed the inflated weather shapes and a spontaneous weather parade formed. At one point, Maxine dropped hers and took up the sign in front of our house that reads “Peace, Love and Marriage for All Our Neighbors: Marriage is a Human Right” and marched with it at the head of the parade. (I just love Maxine.) At one point, Noah left the parade, saying there was “too much excitement out there.” Instead he helped Mom carry the presents inside. Soon after, he came back outside and was able to join the fun.

Around 5:25, all the guests had arrived except for Ruby, and Noah said glumly, “I don’t think Ruby is coming.” I thought he was probably right. Her father had already complained to the school about Noah rough-housing with her and I was afraid the hair-pulling incident might have put either Ruby or her dad over the edge. I decided I would tell Noah why I thought she hadn’t come after the party was over, to give him an idea of the seriousness of his actions. Still, I was sad for him, because Ruby is his best friend.

When the party moved to the backyard, I had my hands full getting one of the boys, (whom Noah reports is the only one to get in trouble as much as he does) off the porch. This was a scene that was repeated every time the kids moved: from outside to inside to make a weather wheel craft (you spin it to show the day’s weather), back outside for pizza and then inside for cake and the rest of the party once the weather got decisively wet and cold. The boy, dreamy and easily distracted, reminded me of Noah, but even more so. I must have been shepherding the dreamer from one place to another or nursing June when I missed a conversation at the sandbox in which some of the other party guests confronted Noah’s “enemy” about being on a different “team” than most of the others. Beth reports she got them to agree that the teams only apply at recess and here everyone was on the same team. She didn’t feel up to challenging their whole social hierarchy in one evening.

Around 6:30, just as cake was being served, Ruby and her father arrived. Quickly it became apparent that he intended to stay. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. When Noah finished nursery school last spring there were a couple boys, the rowdier ones, I decided not to make any summer play dates with, because I thought they’d be a bad influence. Who knew how soon my own intelligent, charming, up-until-recently well-behaved son would be the troublemaker, the one with whom you don’t leave your child unsupervised if you can help it.

Ruby didn’t want any cake so I assured her father it didn’t have any eggs (she’s allergic) but she still didn’t want any. After a while she began sneezing and her dad asked if we had cats or dogs. “Two cats,” Beth answered. Turns out she’s allergic to dander as well. After a half hour her eyes were itchy and they made a hasty retreat.

When everyone was gone and Noah was bathed and the guests’ presents were opened and it was time for bed we asked Noah if he had a good time at his party. His hazel eyes shone. “I wish it was a dream,” he said. “So it could happen all over again.”

Sunday morning we ran into my friend Jim and his partner Kevin at the farmers’ market. A couple weeks ago, Jim (who’s childless) told me that Noah was “getting old enough to have interesting problems.” He wanted to know how the party went. I considered: no meltdowns, either on Noah’s part or his guests’, the enemy was temporarily taken into the fold, the dreamer didn’t wander into traffic, Noah’s lady love showed up and he wants to do it all over again, just like it happened. Pretty well, I said.

That night, up in Noah’s top bunk he told me that he and Señora A were going to plant new seeds. “That sounds like a good idea,” I said, “To start over.” I gave him one last squeeze before climbing down the ladder. “Now seeds,” I thought, “start growing!”

En El Medio

Posted on by
1 Comment

“Hay sí o hay no. ¡No hay en el medio!” Señora A exclaimed in frustration. (It’s yes or no, there’s no in between.”) She was trying to get Noah to admit or deny having pushed another student earlier in the day. She and Noah and I were sitting around a child-sized table and she was filling out the scores on his behavior contract for the day.

Noah looked shame-faced and wouldn’t meet her eye. “No sé,” he said repeatedly. (I don’t know.) It was hard to balance in the tiny chair with June squirming on my lap and it was hot in the room. Noah, June and I were all in jackets because after the meeting we’d have to rush to drama. I knew we’d be late, but I decided to stay as long as we needed to. It was his first day with the contract and I wanted to know how it had gone.

Señora A and Señora B (a school counselor) had drawn up the contract after our meeting with them, a rather frustrating meeting, truth be told. We’d prepared by asking Noah’s preschool (and now drama) teacher and one of the moms who volunteered at his school last year for advice about what works with Noah in a school setting when Beth and I aren’t there. Their advice, given separately, was remarkably similar. They spoke of Noah’s difficulty attending to directions given to the group as a whole.

“Noah won’t hear you unless you’re talking directly to him,” Kathleen, the mom, said.

Leslie, the teacher, added it was a good idea to touch him lightly on the shoulder when you spoke to him to keep him focused on you. “He has a busy mind,” she said, making it sound as if it was perfectly understandable it can be so hard to get him to pay attention. He is, after all, engaged in thinking deep thoughts. (One of his recent musings to me actually regarded the existence of el medio. “There is no highest or lowest number,” he told me. “But there is a middle. Zero is the exact middle.”)

But it turned out there were more pressing problems than securing Noah’s wandering attention. Señora A reported he had been hitting and pushing, that the other children were afraid of him. Noah’s version of events on bad days usually pointed to an accident, so we were unprepared for this narrative about an aggressive boy we scarcely recognized. As a result, and because the teacher and counselor spoke mainly to each other and not to us, Beth and I were more passive in this meeting than we intended.

When we came out of the meeting, which took place right before school started, we noticed Noah’s classmates all huddled around him, interested in the toy he’d been playing with while he waited outside in the hall. None of them looked particularly afraid.

In the end, Señora A and Señora B drew up a contract for Noah covering three types of behavior: keeping his hands to himself, staying in his chair and not talking or singing when he was supposed to be quiet. If he received seven out of nine possible points in any given half-day, he gets a sticker redeemable for prizes worth ten or fifteen stickers.

It took almost a week to get the sticker system in place. In the meanwhile, Beth and I tackled the problem like any overeducated, middle-class parents would: we hit the library, checking out books on six-year-olds, “spirited children,” and sensory processing disorder (Beth’s current diagnosis — I haven’t read that one yet). We also signed him up for a psycho-educational evaluation at Johns Hopkins, something we’d been considering for a while, given Noah’s quirky mix of intelligence and social immaturity. Right now we’re reading our books and waiting. Señora B said the contract would need two weeks before we knew if it was working. It’s been a week, but more often than not when I ask Noah he says Señora A didn’t give him a score for the day. I suspect she’s having trouble finding the classroom time to implement the system.

So we’re en el medio, neither here nor there, not really knowing what comes next. And there is an in-between; there always is. In the contract meeting, Noah freely admitted to every charge other than the pushing incident (in such beautiful Spanish I kept getting distracted from what he was saying by my delight and pride in how well he was saying it). This struck me, so once we were home, I pressed him further about it. “Why did you say you didn’t know?” I asked.

“Because I don’t know. I don’t remember pushing her…” He trailed off.

“But you think you could have?”

“Yeah.” Noah knows himself well enough to know that he runs into people without meaning to, sometimes without even noticing it happened. So in strict honesty (and he is a very honest child) he couldn’t deny pushing the other child, but at the same time he wasn’t quite ready to accept blame. It was an in-between kind of situation for him and faced with the declaration that such situations do not exist, he didn’t know what say.

All this angst about Noah’s school situation sometimes causes me to forget to worry about June. She’s in a bit of an in-between place herself. I took her for her thirteen-month weigh-in on Tuesday and despite all the extra-fat strained Greek yogurt and shredded cheese we’ve been feeding her she only gained five ounces in the past month. The nurse practitioner was a bit disappointed, but since she is growing and her head continues to grow (exactly a half centimeter a month) we don’t have to take her in at fourteen months and we have two-month reprieve from all this focus on her weight. I know she’ll have a growth spurt at some point, I just don’t know when and I’d like to just let it be until she does. Developmentally, she’s normal, just on the verge of talking and walking. She knows about six or seven words but rarely uses them. She is very close to walking. In fact, today I thought she was going to take a step.

She and I were at a coffee house and she was cruising around and around a low table, eating bits of Fig Newton I handed her every time she passed by. She paused every now and then to remove the sugar packets from their container and scatter them across the table and floor and then she replaced them. As she reached the corner of the table closest to me, she let go and stood, swiveled on her feet to face me and smiled, as if she was going to do something dramatic. I waited, holding my breath, thinking this was the moment. Then she chickened out, dropped to her knees and crawled to me. I don’t know when she will walk any more than when Noah will start having an easier time in school. It could be months from now or right around the corner.

Meanwhile, Noah’s week has been better than last. Monday and Tuesday he didn’t say anything about missing free-choice play or being called out of class to the disciplinarian. They had a substitute both days and I noticed he came home in a better mood than usual. On Monday afternoon he even agreed to take a walk with me, an after-school activity I often suggest and he rarely accepts. Today when I went to pick him up from school and take him to drama, I asked Señora A, “How was his day?”

She smiled, gave me a thumbs-up sign and said, “Super!” I thought about asking for more detail, but decided to leave it at that. I liked super. Why mess with it? (Later Beth speculated that the onset of warmer weather and with it outside recess almost every day, plus permission I secured from Señora A for Noah to suck his thumb in class has helped relieve some of his pent-up energy and stress and improved his behavior. Time will tell, I suppose.)

At drama it was Noah’s turn to come up with the idea that would start the improv. He’d decided ahead of time he would set the action in a haunted castle, but his imagination had been captured by a movie they watched in music class that day, about a musical child prodigy and he wanted to act that out instead. However, they’d only seen part of the movie and the information he’d provided Leslie was scant. She wasn’t sure where to go with it and she was trying to convince him to use another scenario. A long but unhurried negotiation ensued, with Leslie, Noah and the other students all chiming in suggestions. Leslie handled the situation with her usual respectful aplomb. Finally, they found el medio. The scene started with the prodigy’s story but ended up in the haunted castle (and somehow an alien egg from last week made a repeat appearance).

As we waited in the next room for class to let out, I told Kathleen that June still weighs only sixteen and a half pounds. She waved her hand. “You only have to look at her to see nothing’s wrong,” she said. Her little dramatist Caitlin is also small for her age, but very self-assured and strong-willed. She’s six going on thirty-six, so Kathleen knows small doesn’t mean sick or weak.

On the way home, I bought Noah a popsicle to celebrate his super day. We’re in-between, but there are worse places we could be.

Postcards from Spring Break

Posted on by
0 Comments

Things have only gotten worse for Noah at school. There was the glue incident. (A scuffle over a bottle of glue left another boy with his face covered in glue and Noah holding the bottle. Interpretations of how the boys got into this tableau vary). There was the cutting in line incident. (Noah maintains the girl cut in front of him and he was merely reclaiming his spot, but only he was punished.) And so on. He’s so deep in dutch with Senora A that he has to sit out free-choice play frequently and he’s a regular at the school disciplinarian’s office.

More disturbing are the things he’s been saying about school. While he and I walked through the college campus on our way home from drama one afternoon shortly before spring break he saw a sign for a job fair and wanted to know what it was. I explained and he said he wished he could go to the fair and get a job and not have to go to school any more. I told him three quarters of a year of kindergarten was not enough schooling to become a meteorologist (his current career goal) and he conceded he’d have to keep going. Then one night when Beth was giving Noah a bath, his rubber duck told her, “Most of the things Noah does at school are wrong.” It breaks my heart he feels this way when he’s accomplished so much this year, learning to read among other things, and doing it all in a foreign language he’s quickly mastering.

So Beth and I have a meeting with Senora A and a school counselor later this week. Meanwhile, Noah’s ten-day spring break was a welcome respite for everyone. When he got off the bus two Fridays ago I greeted him, “Welcome to Spring Break.”

“It’s not Spring Break until Monday,” he said, ever the stickler for accuracy.

Here are some snapshots of what happened over the course of spring break, starting with the weekend before it officially began.

Day 1
At the cherry blossoms Noah’s mood was all over the place. One minute he was grumbling that he didn’t like cherry blossoms and the next he was running gleefully up and down the path. We picnicked near a plaque that informed us that this particular cherry tree was donated by the class of 1972 of a Catholic school from New Jersey. Noah studied the date and decided the plaque was a time machine that would take us back to “the year one thousand nine hundred and seventy two” if he jumped on it.

“How old were you then?” he asked. In April of that year, I was almost five and Beth was nearly five and a half, we told him. “How would you like to be young again?” he asked.

“Go for it,” I said and he jumped. As we spun back through the years toward five, I gave Beth a lingering kiss. We must have gotten stuck for a moment at twenty.

Day 2
In the morning Noah had a real honest-to-God tantrum, the first one he’s had in a year and a half. He and Beth were playing computer games together and when she said it was time to stop, he seemed fine and began to walk away from the computer. Then without warning he was crying and waving his arms and hurling his body around the study, seemingly completely out of control. Beth remembered what to do, dropping to her knees to get on his level, putting her arms around him and speaking soothingly. Once he calmed down she asked him if was upset about anything, maybe something at school? He said no.

Attracted by the noise, June kept crawling into the study and I kept retrieving her so Beth and Noah could talk. I wanted to leave the door open so I could eavesdrop but eventually I gave up and closed it. June stood outside the door balancing against it with her palms. When Beth and Noah emerged I asked her if she got anything out of him and she said no.

That afternoon we had lunch at the Taste of Takoma festival a few blocks from the house. Noah was still grumpy and wouldn’t eat. Then Beth made the wondrous discovery that the moon bounce was free this year. I went home to clean house while Beth and June watched Noah jump for a full hour. They came home; he ate a big lunch and was happy the rest of the day.

Day 3
At 2:50 pm, June and I arrived at the Round House Theater’s spring break day camp. We’d signed Noah up for the camp before his school troubles intensified but Beth and I were both hoping that three six-hour days of make-believe followed by a short family getaway to Ocean City would be just the mix of fantasy and family time Noah needed. Still, I was a little nervous picking him up because he’s been so negative about everything recently. Noah’s friend Maxine was also attending the camp and I chatted with her mother as we waited for the kids to be released. When we were invited in, we found ourselves in a long rectangular room scattered with art supplies and full of kids running around collecting lunchboxes and backpacks. Maxine came over with her arms full of art projects to show her mother. Noah had just a paper bag painted black, with small white paper cups glued to it for eyes. A cat, he told me. Every day at camp they went somewhere and today it was Music Land, he said. They’d made costumes and instruments and played in a band. It sounded too good to be true. Dress-up and music are among Noah’s passions. His group all dressed as animals. “I wish you could see my cheetah costume,” he told me wistfully, but somehow, he’d lost it. We looked around for it unsuccessfully. I asked if he had an instrument to bring home like some of the other children. No, he’d spent so much time on the missing costume he never got around to making the instrument. All this sounded pretty familiar. Noah misses free-choice play working on half-finished school projects about as often as he’s forced to sit it out for behavior. But he seemed pretty happy and not to mind, presumably since no one had made an issue of his not finishing.

After camp we went out for ice cream and to play on the Astroturf. (In downtown Silver Spring, there is a vacant lot the city covered in Astroturf to create a temporary green space where a skating rink is to be built. The turf attracts a real social cross-section– teenagers, singles, families of all income levels and races, anyone who wants to sit outside, which as it turns out is almost everyone. Due to overwhelming popular support for the turf, the skating rink may be scrapped and the turf made permanent. Here’s hoping.) I meant this to be a treat, but as it turns out, the turf is a two-adult activity, one to sit with June and one to tear around with Noah. He didn’t want to run around by himself, so we headed home. Mulling his day over, he decided that he didn’t like the cheetah costume he’d wanted me to see so badly because “it wasn’t very successful.” This is something Noah does frequently these days, revising his first report of events, always in a more pessimistic light. I wondered what his final assessment of drama camp would be.

Day 4
I needn’t have worried. When I picked him up the next day he said, “I’m sad tomorrow is my last day.” Maxine had even more numerous and complex art projects than the day before. Noah had a single tissue paper flower on a ribbon, but he was happy and excited to tell me they had gone to Sports Land and attended the Olympics. Campers invented and demonstrated their own games. Noah made the tickets and Maxine made the concessions. The paper flowers were medals, Maxine told me. No, Noah said, they’re flowers.

“Maybe medals that look like flowers?” I suggested. Maxine’s mother and the theater’s receptionist chimed in their agreement.

“Hers is a medal, but mine is a flower,” Noah asserted. Maxine agreed. Everyone was satisfied.

As we left I told Noah I had a surprise for him. April is Maryland Math Month and Noah had brought home a sheet of math games and activities, one of each day of the month. He wanted to do them all, but some required books we didn’t have. Beth told him we’d have to skip those, but I had made a trip to the library and to Borders and acquired all the books. Noah’s face was joyous when I told him. Today’s book was an I Spy book. For those of you unfamiliar with the I Spy series, every page is a photograph of a jumble of objects with a rhyming riddle directing you what to look for in the picture. The math sheet activity involved counting and sorting objects by attribute. We went to the café at Borders where I thought we could work at the tables. This turned out not to work since June was so antsy. “You have ants in your pants,” I told her.

“Tiene hormigas en sus pantalones,” Noah chimed in and I laughed at the translation.

We ended up moving into the children’s book area where June could crawl on the floor and play with a beanie baby display while Noah and I pored over the book, looking first for the objects in the rhymes, then for red circular objects. The day before Maxine’s mother had offered to drive Noah home the remaining two days but something made me turn her down. I wanted to make this after-camp time special for Noah and it seemed easier to do that away from home. Now I knew we were in exactly the right place. If we’d taken the book home we would have been distracted by something– television, computer games, laundry, cooking, whatever. As it was we were both totally present and focused on our task and each other. I put my arms around him as he pored over the book and nuzzled the top of his tousled hair.

Day 5
By the final day of drama camp, June had what child psychologists call situational awareness. She knew what was coming when we walked through the doors of the room and she began scanning it eagerly. The room was a visual treat– full of colorful objects and kids running around, but she only had eyes for Noah.

Mystery Land was Noah’s final destination. Each group had a mystery to solve. His involved the disappearance of all the lights at the Round House Theater. It turns out a window-seller (who wanted to create demand for windows) was the culprit. Before we left, Noah went up to each counselor and said, “See you this summer!” We’d told him he was going to the spring break camp so he could decide if he’d like to attend the longer summer version. I guess he made up his mind. We made a quick trip to Whole Foods for a smoothie and while we sat at the counter we looked at the I Spy book some more, but Noah wanted to get home quickly to pack for our trip to the beach. On the bus home, I looked down and noticed that June and Noah were holding hands.

Day 6
It was mid-afternoon when we got to Ocean City. After inspecting our quarters, a deluxe suite with a balcony overlooking the ocean and a Jacuzzi tub (the kind of accommodations we could never afford in-season), Noah and I went down to the beach. We ran around in the surf in our boots until I saw Noah was getting pretty wet. We retreated up the beach and built a sand castle, which we decorated with shells and a beach grass flag. It was the castle of a weather wizard, Noah said. He took a short section of beach grass, which he identified as the wizard and another he said was the wizard’s nemesis, who wanted to steal his power to control the weather. The game proceeded without much need for input from me, other than my listening and asking the occasional question. I lay on my side alternately watching the rise and fall of the waves, and Noah’s play. When it was time go up for dinner, we headed back to the room, where a cold and sandy Noah took a Jacuzzi bath. He said he did not like Jacuzzis, but he couldn’t suppress a grin when the bubbles came on.

Day 7
At the information center at Assateague Island National Seashore (http://www.nps.gov/asis/), Noah was back and forth about everything. He couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to touch the horseshoe crab, whether or not he wanted anything from the gift shop, whether or not he wanted to do the Junior Ranger activity sheet. Finally he settled firmly into a bad mood, lying down on the floor and saying he didn’t want to go hike the trails, he wanted to go back to the hotel. “Noah, get up right now,” Beth said firmly, and for a wonder he did. We hiked three short trails: forest, marsh and dunes. The whole time, Noah alternately grumbled and dashed ahead of us, seeming carefree and happy to be out of doors, asking me to read all the informational signs and pretending Hacker, the villain from PBS’s Cyberchase cartoon, had stolen the many missing signs and that he was on a mission to read all the remaining ones before they disappeared. We saw the famous ponies, but Noah didn’t seem all that interested. His reward for completing all three trails was the chance to ride his scooter down a paved trail near the beach.

That night we had pizza at a restaurant on the boardwalk in Ocean City. As we left, Noah announced, “I have great news. At 7:50 p.m. Noah Lovelady-Allen will be performing tricks on his scooter on the boardwalk.” And he did, zipping around, trying to make the little wooden scooter do a wheelie. After the performance, we took a walk down the boardwalk. It was cold, but the lights were bright and Noah zoomed ahead of us on the scooter, weaving around pedestrians, nearly crashing into many, hitting none.

Day 8
On the way home from the beach, we stopped at two lighthouses, one at Fenwick Island, Delaware (http://www.beach-net.com/lighthousefi.html) and one in Saint Michael’s, Maryland (http://www.cheslights.org/heritage/hoopers-str.htm). Noah has been in love with lighthouses since he was three and touring them and photographing him in front of them has become a hobby of ours. At the first lighthouse, which was closed to the public, Noah refused to be photographed. He’s been camera shy for the past year. (Disclosure: I bribed him with a deck of Old Maid cards for sale in the hotel lobby to get his consent for the Jacuzzi photo.) I decided not to push it. So at the second lighthouse, I was surprised when he agreed with only minimal coaxing to pose on the steps of the Chesapeake style lighthouse. Once inside, Noah delighted in exploring. He was particularly interested in finding the ropes of the pulley-operated fog bell on each level of the lighthouse. He and I went up the narrow, winding stairs to the top while Beth stayed on the lowest level with June. When we came down, he insisted Beth go up and see the top, so I stayed downstairs with June while they went up. We thought we were finished when Noah insisted I go up one more time to go out on the walkway. I had not noticed the tiny doorway at the top level when he and I were up there, but he’d found it and opened it while he was up there with Beth. I hesitated because the grounds were about to close and I wanted to use the restrooms before they did. “Beth could take a picture of us up there,” Noah bargained. That did it. Up we went.

Day 9
The night before Easter as I lay with Noah at bedtime he said, “I’m going to keep a lookout for that bunny!” Last year around Easter I got some very pointed questions about the Easter Bunny. Noah finally decided it was not a giant bunny at all but a man in a bunny costume. With this revision, he was able to swallow the story. I was sure it was his last Easter believing in the bunny and I doubted Santa Claus would make it until Christmas, but this year Noah actually seems to believe more easily than last. I wonder if he has a greater need of magic right now.

The bunny came, unseen, and brought chocolate bunnies for each child and jelly beans for Noah. In the afternoon I hid plastic eggs on the front porch and the lawn for Noah (he was unwilling to get our real eggs messy) and then he hid them for me. Once we came inside, we scattered them on the living room rug for June to hunt.

Day 10
Easter Monday was the last day of spring break. Beth was back at work after a four-day weekend. I had a busy day planned—a trip to the pediatrician to get June’s one-year shots (she couldn’t have them at her one-year appointment because she was one day shy of her birthday), a trip to the library, laundry, etc. But June had a truly horrific night and as I lay in bed that morning feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all, I began scaling back. We’d go to the doctor, but everything else was negotiable. Noah had come into our room and was playing with June, touching different parts of her body gently and telling her their names. June watched with grave attention. Beth called from the dining room that Noah’s cereal was ready and he said, “Bye, Juney. I gotta go eat my breakfast.” Then he hopped off the bed, dropped into a starting position and said, “Ready, Set, Go!” and dashed off.

We went to the pediatrician for June’s shots and out to lunch in the city. Then we came home, watched television and looked at the I Spy book. We did not go to the library; the laundry stayed unfolded. Instead of homemade broccoli, lemon and egg soup I boiled some rigatoni and made a salad. I wanted to take it easy because the next day spring break would be over and we’d be back to our routine.

Ready, Set, Go!

A Young Man’s Fancy

Posted on by
2 Comments

On the first day of spring I walked to Noah’s school to pick him up and take him to drama class. All the kindergarten classrooms have doors that lead directly out to the playground, and at 3:05, when school lets out, parents and nannies congregate by these doors. As I pushed June’s stroller up to Senora A’s door she caught sight of me and said, “He forgot and I forgot.” That meant he was headed for the bus, which was headed for our empty house.

“I won’t be able to get home in time!” I cried, in a momentary panic.

She ran off to the cafeteria to see if she could find him while I waited under the awning with June, wondering what to do if she didn’t catch him in time. A few minutes later she was back, with Noah. I was just calming down when she said, “Noah had a rough day.” The relief I was feeling dissipated at once. Noah’s had a lot of rough days in kindergarten.

“Oh?” I said cautiously. “What happened?”

“He was hitting people.” Oh goodness, it was worse than I thought, but then she started to mime what he’d been doing and I saw she meant he’d been spinning around, not watching where he was going and crashing into people. It’s an ongoing problem he’s had since preschool and bad enough, but not as bad as maliciously attacking his classmates, at least in my book. It turns out he was also lying on the rug and refusing to get up. As she described his behavior, Senora A reached for his thumb and took it out of his mouth. He’s not allowed to suck his thumb in her classroom. I accept this rule, but I found myself thinking petulantly that we weren’t in the classroom, we were outside, so she should just leave him alone. Noah sidled over and leaned against me. I ruffled his hair, and then asked him why he was lying down. He avoided my gaze, looking to the side, up, down, anywhere but at me. “That’s what he does!” Senora A cried, exasperated. She’s right. It is what he does when he’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to answer.

“Okay, we’ll talk about this at home,” I said. Then I asked if it was the crashing into people that got him exiled from his table recently. For two weeks Noah had to sit alone, apart from his usual tablemates, Maxine, Sean and Ruby. He’d been unable to tell us why and I kept meaning to find out. Senora A said it was because he’d been talking to the other three when he was supposed to be working and that after being separated from them for awhile and returning he was doing better. Well, that’s one fewer problem, I thought.

We were both a bit downhearted on the way to drama. Noah chafes at the structure and discipline of kindergarten and I worry about him getting turned off school at a young age. He says he likes science class better than regular school because the teacher focuses on facts and not on what he’s supposed to be doing, or not doing. And he loves drama because he can do whatever he likes. The class has an improv format so that’s the point. It also helps that it’s taught by his preschool teacher, who has always had an instinctive, almost magical way with him.

While Noah was in class, I chatted with my friend and fellow drama mom Kathleen while we watched our babies crawl around the room and play. I thought about telling her what had happened at school and decided against it. Beth and I would talk about it with Noah at dinner that night, but for now I wanted to let it sit. On the way home, I didn’t bring it up with Noah. As we approached the fountain on the small college campus near our house, he was talking about something he’d done with Ruby and I asked if they’d been playing together a lot. I knew I’d been hearing her name often recently. He said yes, and I said something about how it’s nice to have a friend you play with a lot. Then, to my surprise, Noah said,” Ruby loves me.”

“Really. Did she say so?” I asked, wondering if he had inferred this or if the girl had actually declared herself.

“She said so. Ruby loves me and Maxine loves Sean. And we all love each other and we are the best pairs of friends in the class. But Maxine does something to Sean that Ruby doesn’t do to me.”

“What is it?” I asked with some trepidation. Holding hands, maybe? Surely not kissing.

“She calls him Seanny, but Ruby doesn’t call me Noey.”

This was a relief. “Do you want to be called Noey?”

“Not really.”

“Well, then it’s good she doesn’t.” I said. And that was it, at least for that conversation. I smiled inwardly thinking, even if he’s acting up in class, he still has his place in the social system. He’s popular enough to be double dating. All at once his problems at school, while still vexing, didn’t seem quite as dire. And once I relaxed a little, I noticed that the daffodils, which I’ve been seeing here and there for weeks now, were everywhere.

Interestingly, Noah hasn’t told Beth anything about Ruby and when he wants to tell me something about her if Beth is present, he whispers. He seems pleased, if a little confused, by the alliance. He obviously didn’t initiate it and he seems a little unclear on how it all came about. He will tell me things like “Ruby started liking me in January.” Noah had a year of preschool and three years of day care before kindergarten. He’s had friendships, even obsessive ones, with plenty of children, male and female. Beth and I have often jokingly called these relationships crushes, but this was the closest he’s come to actually using the language of romance.

That night as I lay with Noah for a few minutes after lights out he said, “Mommy, when you leave, instead of ‘Mommy loves you very much,’ could you say, ‘Ruby loves you very much?” Suddenly this wasn’t so cute and funny anymore. That’s my line! I thought about it for a minute and said, “Mommy loves you very much and I hear Ruby does, too.” A bit grudging perhaps, but I’ve been loving him very much for almost six years! I know someday he will love some lucky person more than me. That’s how it should be, but this is early in the game. I’m not ceding my place to the first Tom, Dick or Ruby to come down the pike.

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might

Posted on by
0 Comments

About a week ago Noah and June and I were sitting on the front porch enjoying a mild, sunny afternoon. He had just come off the school bus and I was inspecting the contents of his backpack when he said, “Tengo dos mamás y un papá.” He’s in a Spanish immersion program and we occasionally have short conversations in Spanish. This sounded like one I wanted to navigate in English, however.

“Who’s the papá?” I asked.

“The man who gave the…” he paused, searching for the word sperm, couldn’t find it in any language and waved his hand impatiently. “You know,” he concluded.

“The sperm?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, we usually don’t call him a father,” I said. “We call him a donor.”

“Why?”

“Donor means someone who gave something and he gave something, but he isn’t raising you.”

“Oh.” He was quiet for a minute. I thought the conversation might be over, but then Noah was saying he wished he could meet his donor.

I told him that when he was eighteen he could contact the sperm bank and if the donor had kept his contact information current and consented, they could meet. “Would you like to do that?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, brightening considerably. He didn’t seem at all discouraged by the prospect of waiting more than twelve years. Just the prospect of a meeting, however iffy and far in the future, seemed to satisfy him.

What I didn’t tell Noah was that though the sperm bank will not put children in contact with their biological fathers until they are eighteen, finding half-siblings is considerably easier and can be done at any time through an independently-run online registry. The next day in a very short period online, I found a posting from a couple looking for vials of frozen sperm from Noah’s sold-out donor (a strong indication, but not proof they already have a child or children by him) and a whopping seven confirmed half-siblings for June.

I have known about the registry for some time, but I never looked at it since Beth gets prickly at the mere mention of any contact with either the children’s donors or their half-siblings. Sometimes I am baffled by this; sometimes I understand. Drawing attention to the other half of their genetic heritage underscores that she has no part in it. Even though I didn’t register Noah or June on the site, she was initially irritated that I even looked. I wanted to know, though, what information was out there. It might be useful the next time Noah asks me something. Beth and I do agree it will ultimately be up to the children what, if any, contact to initiate. For now, we are following Noah’s lead. If it occurs to him to ask if the donor helped make any other children, we will tell him what we know.

Then yesterday fathers came up again. Noah had stayed home sick after waking up vomiting. After his normal fashion, however, he seemed pretty hale and hearty shortly thereafter. At two o’ clock, there was an assembly, the culmination of spirit week at his school. He hadn’t wanted to miss it, so after lunch I asked if he wanted to go to school just for the assembly and he said yes. The last day of spirit week was “Put on Your Thinking Cap” day so after some careful consideration, he put on his wizard hat. We were walking on the path by the creek, about halfway to school when he said, “Some people in my class think it’s strange to have two mothers.”

“Yeah?” I said. He didn’t expand, so I said. “I bet Jazmín doesn’t since she knows Ari and Lukas and they have two mommies. Sometimes when you’ve never heard of something it seems strange, but then when you do, you get used to the idea.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Did anyone say anything that made you feel bad?”

“No, no-one said you have to have a father. But they said some things about fathers that aren’t true.”

“Like what?”

“Like that fathers have to be strong.”

We were quiet for a little while longer and then he said, “Some people in my class have robots. I want to build a robot. Sean has one, but no-one has one that they built themselves.”

“I suppose we could look for a robot kit for your birthday. Would you like that?” Even as I said it, I wondered if we could find one appropriate for his age. If we didn’t and bought one anyway, Beth would end up doing all the work.

“Yeah.” A little more quiet. “You know, in the two times I left a tooth, I never saw the Tooth Fairy.”

“Well, she’s pretty sneaky.” He went on to announce his plans to try to stay up the next time he lost a tooth and catch a glimpse of the secretive sprite. By then we were crossing the little bridge that goes over the creek and we were in sight of the school. Noah hoped there would be a storyteller at the assembly, like the last time.

Neither of us was really prepared for what followed, however. It was a pep rally, gearing up the older students for the Maryland Schools Assessment they would be taking the next week. I parked June’s stroller next to the back row of folding chairs and we took our seats. It was hot in the room, so Noah removed his wizard hat. His curly, light-brown hair was full of glitter from the brim. Soon the rally started. The school mascot Terry the Tiger made an appearance and let me tell you that tiger knew how to work a room. Children cheered and reached out their hands to shake his as he walked down the aisle. It was as if he were a rock star, or Bill Clinton. The spirit stick was awarded to one of four classes with 100% hat participation, after their teacher’s name was drawn from a hat to break the tie. Teachers danced and performed a rap about the MSA. There was a parody of American Idol in which the contestants (played by fifth-graders) instead of singing, read their BCRs (brief constructed response, or in plain English, short essays) about the nutritional value of strawberries. The judges (played by teachers) then went over the strong and weak points of each essay, while staying in character as Randy, Paula and Simon. Noah, who has never heard of American Idol, was completely lost. I haven’t seen it, but I at least know enough about it to follow the skit. Next, a teacher quizzed students on how to write a three-point BCR (answer the question, supply evidence from the text, and extend your answer). Prizes were awarded for correct answers. Finally, inflatable sticks were passed out. It turns out they make an impressive noise if hundreds of elementary school students bang them on their palms at once while chanting “Go team! Do your best!” Throughout the rally I was in turns amused, inspired and heartbroken by all the hard work the students and teachers were doing and all the ridiculous stress placed on these tests. The stakes are high, especially at a school like Noah’s with its high proportion of poor and immigrant students. I’m not saying the teachers should be going about their preparation a different way. I just know that as we left I felt a little depressed.

As we walked home I thought about the things Noah wants this week: to meet the man who helped make him, to build a robot, to see the Tooth Fairy. Then I thought about all the tests he will have to take in the years to come. I resolved to stop at the playground on the way home and to look for a robot kit.