State Fair

In contrast to my last post, this is a snippet of our day at the Wisconsin State Fair.  I think this was Elias' longest roadtrip, and he did just great, even though most the time it was obvious that I like fairs more than he does.

what a week

What a horrible week.  Last week, that is.  I was too tired to blog about it when it was happening.

Mainly, I discovered Elias has been having a horrible time at daycare.  I feel guilty and very angry at myself for not waking up and getting him out of there months ago.  In spring we went through a rough time, compounded by me being severely sick for over 2 weeks.  However, I thought that was over.  He was certainly showing steadily better behavior at home, and I thought the hard stuff at school (not being able to sit still, running and yelling, not listening, pushing teachers, rarely participating in group projects) was also extinguishing.  I was getting more glowing reports than the dreaded "Elias has a rough day." Then 3 weeks ago the Teacher A asked if something had happened at home, since once again his behavior was bad...but maybe it was just because she and his other regular teachers were on vacation the week before.  Well, that continued for another week, and worsened.  We had a conference to discuss other tactics, and I took it very seriously and scheduled appointments with his physician, a behaviorist, and a psychiatrist, as well as take a much closer look at how he behaves in all non-daycare situations.  I realize now that at that point they had given up on Elias.  They didn't listen to me at all (they, after all, are professionals.  I am just an old, misfit, single mother of one.) and I found out they'd never even tried any of my simple hints, or those of the school therapist who came in the spring.  In fact, they stumbled upon something that inflamed his behavior, and hammered on that harder and harder, just setting him up for failure.  Many were "no-win" situations for him.  Teacher A was openly hostile to me and gave odd, inconsistent reports.  Yet I had gone on believing I was partnering with them (the experts) to make it better.  I was called to pick him up after 1.5 hr on Tuesday because they couldn't handle him.  He was a model kid before school, and then all during the long boring day at my office (because I had a critical project and nowhere else to take him).  I feel foolish for the trust and belief I put in them, and guilty that I failed to protect him as I should have.  I feel there's a lot of damage to undo, mostly in his self-perception as a "bad boy" that I heard espoused directly by his peers and via euphemism by his teachers and the director.  Also, too, that he has now learned that he can be rude and defiant and even physical with adults and totally get away with it. Ugh.  I'm so sorry, Elias!  We can still undo this, but it's not going to be easy or pretty. 

So, that was Major Stress Item #1, about a year's worth, actually.  Ah, but other practicalities butt in, too.  First off, I had to find another daycare ASAP--not easy when the good ones usually have waiting lists and just before the school year starts.  Then, I'm in the middle of our 2 giant Quality Systems audits at work which I'm responsible for and for which my coworkers are lending virtually no support, and occasional griping.  I gave up my 8-month quest to address some of my long-standing health issues.  A nice little add-on is terribly hot and muggy weather and nasty annoying allergies, which have struck me this year for the first time.  My company is basically out of money and this time there's no savior in sight, and Friday my worst thoughts on that were confirmed by another coworker.  Also that day I heard back that the company I turned down in January is no longer in a position to hire, leaving my only other job prospect one that is out-of-state...and I need to get back to them to ensure it remains a viable option.  How I dread moving with Elias.  Then, on Saturday morning when the week's end was in sight, we awoke to discover we had no water:  our house well had died.

Have I painted a bleak enough picture?

Well, the amazing thing is, with all this going on, it was also a wonderful week!  Yes, really!  God is good!  Despite the terrible anxiety and guilt regarding his daycare difficulties, I have a clear path forward and am finally doing something to address the problem.  It was a tremendous relief to discover, after researching and visiting 3 other centers, that there are lots of good schooling options (whereas I'd come to the opposite conclusion 3 years ago when starting with this place.)  All 3 of my top picks surprisingly each has 1-2 slots still open for 4yr olds. My finances will be in serious trouble when/if I loose my job this month, but I took precautions against this in early spring.  God will provide for us, as He always has, even when the means by which it would be done remain a mystery to me.  Mostly, though, it was a wonderful week because of all the time I spent with my son.  He is utterly delightful, and I have a new found clarity and appreciation of that.  All week he's been tripping all over himself to be helpful, engaging and polite.  Plus, he's still his own fearless, hyper, thoughtful self, which is wonderful to behold.  I am so thankful he did not become a docile daycare drone.  He's also rekindled his passion for reading which had been flagging, constantly spelling out signs he sees and asking me what they say.  There were just 3 or 4 incidences where the behavior reported from school tried to bleed into home life, but these were immediately nipped in the bud, so instead of spiraling downward, he just clicked back into "good" mode right away.  That's been very reassuring as a parent.  Also reassuring is concluding that most of his troubles are just in the context of that school.  He's been more talkative and cheery this week.  He just eats up praise, which is good to see, but also saddens me that he's been getting so much of the opposite message.  We dropped everything and took a vacation day at beautiful Devil's Lake on Thursday to just play.  I think that was the first time I actually outlasted his energy level, when he fell asleep in the car even before we left the park.  We now have a new pump in the well so are enjoying running water at home again.  Rather than dread moving away, all the blooming flowers and the booming garden make it easy to really appreciate where we're living right now.

This has violated all my blog rules of thumb:  keep it short, narrowly focused, and positive, and add lots of pictures.  Yet it's here for me to look back upon in the future when I will have forgotten it all. There's even the tiny chance that anyone else dedicated enough to read all the way through this has seen some point of similarity or felt some camaraderie of shared experience that gives encouragement.  God is faithful and good, and His blessings are abundant even when we are so easily blinded to them.

like little children

This week's sermon used a great quote to expound on the Scripture where Jesus tells his disciples to become more childlike to partake of the Kingdom of God.  This is an excellent example of how walking in God's "mission" for me as a parent has made my overall Christian walk so much richer.  Without being fully immersed in Elias' abounding vitality and fiercely free spirit, I wouldn't be able to grasp Chesterton's point with nearly as much depth:  the difference in "knowing" and "living" something.

...and perhaps now I won't be so easily annoyed at his delight in "do it again, Mommy!"

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."      --G.K. Chesterton  

June rehash

Ack!  Somewhere I seem to have miss-placed June! 

It's been busy at work (even more than usual) and home (as usual, pretty much maxed out).  Elias, my little boy now (can't even fool myself that he's still a "toddler") has been delightful, with many blog-worthy moments when I think I'd better write this down or I'll forget.  Of course, I've forgotten them.  Some people strive to live in the moment; between my very poor memory and general overwhelming daily activities, that's just how I end up.

Ah, but that's where pictures come in!  I'm still loving my DSLR, and of course I'd like to have more opportunities to take and process more.  I finally downloaded a bunch today, which captures some of the things we've been up to.

My parents visited in June, on the 3yr anniversary when they met us coming back from Ethiopia.  I forced them to have professional pictures taken, which no one liked doing, but I'm glad to have the pictures anyway.

We drove around a lot and ended up at Lake Kegonsa one afternoon.  Elias discovered he could make us all laugh by bending down and wetting his face in the lake, then going over and putting it in the sand like a big face stamp.

Another June activity that's becoming an annual outing is the "Breakfast on the Farm."  We got there late (~9am) and the lines were horrendous!  At that point Elias was starving and'd been promised pancakes and sausage, so we were stuck.  We were also underdressed for just standing in the windy drizzle.  I must say, for a kid who struggles to sit quietly for even 30 seconds of "circle time" (ie-lecture) at daycare, Elias' behavior was indeed heroic.  Afterwards he did have a good time, too.

 We hosted a BBQ for our church adoption group.  It's a wonderful and growing community.  It's great to fellowship, pray for one another, and hear all the wonderful stories.  The slip-N-slide was a big hit.

With summer slipping away so quickly, and Elias no longer a baby, I really need to try to take advantage of all the fun opportunities around Madison.  We haven't even made it down to the Square yet for farmers market (although we often go to another one.)  A "little" thing we've been doing is having picnics out in the back yard, which is a great "time out" and way to enjoy our wonderful yard.  We should host more BBQ's, definitely.  The county fair.  Camping.  Fishing, even.  I have to be more intentional in planning these things to indeed experience those great in-the-moment times.

just a nice Sunday

The weather forecasts have been wrong all month...at least, as reported on my iPod.  It has been an exercise in flexibility.  This weekend I'm glad the dire predictions didn't come true.  It was mostly sunny, and dry enough to do some serious outdoor work that's been accumulating.  It's the end of May already and I just today got the opportunity to put the garden in (at least, the important stuff).

Today we slept in, making us late to church again (but not as late as we have been!)  Afterwards we went to Shopko and finally got Elias a couple more pairs of shoes that actually fit.  He's Size 11 already (well, actually his left foot is a 10.5).  He darted away when I was considering shoes and in 2 minutes excitedly brought back a Thomas the Train 24-piece puzzle.  It must be Thomas radar.  Well, he was being very patient and I'm a sucker for random gifts, so I said we could get it, provided he kept being good.  He showed off his prize to several fellow shoppers on the way out.  I bought a lot of plants:  flowers for the front and some "missing" pepper and tomato varieties for the garden.  As a bonus, a woman gave us her 20% off coupon, which ended up saving me >$25!  I passed it off to someone else upon leaving.

We stopped by McDonald's on the way back and had a "picnic" on the front lawn.  Elias declared it naptime and cooperatively went to bed...and then continually got up, read books, kicked, and talked to himself to keep himself awake.  Grrr.  I played hall monitor until most the kitchen was clean, then gave up and went outside to start on the garden.  By 2:45 or so I went in to get him, and discovered he'd been covertly playing in the basement.  Busted!  But he'd had a "quiet time" so I declared naptime over.

Last night I'd gotten my tiny rotortiller running and started in on breaking ground, and today I finished off the parts I needed.  It was a lot of work.  Elias cried most the time I was tilling, being overtired and scared of the loud noise, and I think because I said it was "very dangerous" and had him watch from the deck.  He watches out for me!  The soil is nice this year, with a lot of grass and chicken litter compost I added months back, and it was a pleasure to work in it without gloves.  This year I planted the sandy end of the garden with potatoes for the first time:  something Elias has been begging to do since around January.  Not sure where he came up with the idea, but it's a good one.  I also put in my standard zucchini, pole beans, 6 kinds of tomatoes (lots of canning this year!), 4 kinds of peppers, and carrots.  The basil and eggplant didn't quite get in today, and there's still the possibility of another kind of squash and something else that piques my interest.  It feels so good to get that done.

I couldn't get Elias to participate beyond the potatoes.  He played most of the time with his newly-favorite toy, a firetruck my folks got him a long time ago.  He's been taking it everywhere with him,  declaring that he's going to be either a fireman or (more often) a firetruck when he grows up.  His play mostly consists of what a friend generously calls "gravity verification experiments":  driving it off the edge of anything he can find.  Yes, it's destroying the truck, but he certainly gets a lot of joy from it.  Such a boy!  He'd mix it up a little with little excursions to climb anything he can find, explore the dense trees along the back, and chase the chickens.

After at least an hour of crashing his truck around different backyard features he convinced me to play frisbee with him.  I grabbed my camera and we did that, and catch, and just some plain old frolicking until I was totally worn out.  I was rescued by a few raindrops and dinnertime.  He's now at such a fun age.

I also had great fun taking LOTS of pictures, then reviewing them tonight to admire some and toss out most of them.  I used my 85mm most of the time and just continued to get used to my camera.  I'd share more it they didn't take so long to upload!

Some creative efforts:

Some playtime pictures.  He picked up frisbee throwing in just a few tries and is really good at it.

...and here's some of just plain cuteness!

(he can make) the best of times, the worst of times

My birthday did not start off well.  I stayed up far too late, giving myself a birthday present by indulging in Netflix episodes of Dr. Who in bed.  A mere 2 hours after turning in, Elias crawled into bed with me.  Normally I'd just roll over and return to sleep, but, no, he was wet through his nighttime pull-ups, so I had to get up and force him to go potty and change his clothes before stumbling back into bed.  But Elias wouldn't just go back to sleep; he was all squirmy and wanted to chat.  Forbidding movement and sound lasted about a second, then Elias'd say "NO squirming, NO talking when Mommy is trying to sleep!" recited dutifully and with feeling, with no hint of irony.  Ughh.   Then he got up, went to his room, and returned to my bed with books which he proceeded to "read" to me, begining or ending most sentences with "mommy":  MOMMY!  Pooh had too many honeypots, Mommy, so he decided to give some old honeypots away, Mommy, to make room for the new ones--right, Mommy?" One can not sleep through that.  Then I said if he wanted to read he'd have to do it in his bed.  So, whining and unwilling but obedient he took his books and climbed into his bed, where he proceded to set up shop and start the Pooh book all over again, this time shouting the narrative to be sure I could hear it.  I tried really hard to ignore it, but although I couldn't quite awake to functional consciousness, neither could I truely fall asleep.  Every 10 minutes or so he'd try to come back in "for just a little snuggles" but couldn't restrain himself so was soon kicked out again.  A couple times he was banned from my room altogether, resulting in loud, disolant crying, which I also, unsuccessfully, tried to sleep though.  I tried bribing him with my iPod (AKA "the game") but for maybe the first time ever he was uninterested.  After a couple hours of this, continuous, PBSkids came on TV so I tried that.  This decreased the periodicity and amplitude of the interuptions yet stayed above my sleep threshhold.  The broadcast kept freezing, which would drive Elias back to my bed to plead that I fix it.  By the time I got him to daycare I was absolutely beat.  Then I got to go to work, where I discovered I'd left his naptime gear in the car.  When I opened my email I found a message from a recruiter who reported she heard through the grapevine that my position would be opening and wanted me to view a candidate's CV--which was very good, to boot.  I did not pass it on.  A coworker confirmed the CEO is constantly singing my praises so I chalked it up to a mistake, but it still rattled me.  People at work did treat me to a very nice lunch...but it ended up making me feel very sick until late evening.

Yet, the day ended well.  I found a birthday gift from my parents on the front porch.  Elias and I watched The Polar Express, curled up together on the couch while he let me type on the computer with only a few lobbying attempts for sesamestreet.org.  He didn't put up much of a fuss for bedtime.  I read some books to him, he reciting many of the passages, and even reading a word from the background illustrations.  He arranged stuffed Pooh and "Puppy" beside him so they could read the books along with him.  He talked about his many friends at school (something I can rarely coax him to do).  Finally, after the alloted 3 books were done he requested a song, "Amazing Grace" and we sang it together.  He's fond of that as a bedtime song mostly because it's long, I think, but it still warms my heart to hear him sing hymns!  What could be more endearing?

I'll have to keep that memory alive, come 4:30am tomorrow morning.

Kite day

I'd never had much success flying kites, but the conditions yesterday were just about perfect:  a cool but sunny and dry weekend day, a strong, fairly constant wind, and a flat, open ~25 acre field next door that'd not yet been planted.  I dug out the kite I'd bought for Elias last summer but put away because I thought he was a bit too young then, and we headed out to the field. 

Happily, the kite practically flew itself!  Handing it off to Elias, he immediately got tangled up in the string.

...but soon we were off and flying agian.  Elias hung on tight..

 ...and was delighted to see his little kite take off into the sky.  But then he let go altogether.  We both ran after the string holder at full speed, as the kite dragged it bouncing along the ground.  I caught up to it in time to increase the tension to save it from the big maple tree in our front yard...

but not soon enough to escape the telephone lines.

 
 
 
After a maybe 5 minutes of kite-flying glory, we were done.  I had to cut the line and let it fly up there all by itself.