more birthday tidbits

It's been a week now since Elias' birthday BBQ, and I'm finally getting to posting a bit about it.,

I think it went really well:  lots of people came and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.  Some of the kids were shocked that we had cake and ice cream BEFORE dinner.  Elias liked it too, but usually played along the fringes with one or two other kids, which was just fine.  I was very proud seeing him at one point get very mad at another little boy for stealing his train, and instead of throwing a fit or fighting for it, he just got up and stomped away, muttering, stewed a couple seconds, then went right back to the train table and started calmly and happily playing alongside the same boy again.  Way to go on the coping skills, Dude!

The hit of the party were the chickens.  Trying to find something they'd eat was a challenge many took on, but when they became outnumbered my 4 hens prudently retreated to the cover of the pine trees.  They'd eat corn offered them, but were generally careful to keep an escape route open just in case.

After most people left, Elias and two of his friends played in the sprinklers while their mom and I got to relax and talk a bit.  At one point she went to get something from their car, and Elias asked "Where's Mom going?"  to which I said "I'm right here, Elias!" and he said "No, I mean the other mom."  Then he and one of the brothers--the corn buddies--finished off all the many remaining ears of corn.

Elias said something quite striking at the very end of the day.  When everyone was gone and we were coming in from putting away the chickens, he said "I had fun with my new friend J today.  J and I are the same color."  "What'd you say?" I said.  "J and I are the same color."  Oh.  Well, yes (he's from Ethiopia also), but I hadn't thought it mattered to Elias.  Well maybe it doesn't matter in any big sense, but in his eyes it is noteworthy.  Hmm.  Actually I thought he was having more fun playing with J's brother, who is white and nearer his age, but at that point I guess he was recalling his kinship with J more strongly.  It's another reason I'm thankful we're in Madison; opportunities to interact with kids that look like him (and those that reflect the whole spectrum of mankind) are much more plentiful here than in most places in the country.  It's a good thing.

joke

Elias has been telling his favorite joke lately.  He actually came up with it many months ago but it's recently found new life.  Here it is:

Thomas and Toby brought HOT as a present!   (Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)

Get it?

Elias quotes his books nearly continuously (it makes up a good portion of everyday conversation).  When he first encountered the sentence "Thomas and Toby brought coal as a present" (which makes sense if you know that these guys are steam trains), he misunderstood "coal" as "cold" and was confused.  When I explained it was COAL not "cold," he immediately insisted it was "cold," which doesn't make sense, and is therefore hilarious.  Now, extending the wordplay, he often replaces "cold" with "hot" which is even more obscure, and even more funny.  Apparently punsterism strikes early. 

Birthday rundown

Elias is FOUR years old!  That's:

We had his big party on Sunday, but today is his actual birthday.  Today Elias brought his very first bagged lunch to school.  After dinner he took his new stomprocket (he opened a few presents early!) outside along with his ice cream cone, asking Mom to hold it between launches.  Then he invited me to peek into the neighboring cornfield, then led me on quite the trek through it.  Neat stuff. 

I tried to get him excited to finally open his big pile of presents.  He very happily opened his first pick:  a tag reader from my parents.  He's pretty happy with anything Leapfrog, but it takes lots of set-up time to work, so he picked out another and slowwwly opened it:  a puzzle.  He loved it so insisted on dropping everything and doing it right away.  Next up:  letter magnets.  Again he had to try them out, then spell several words on the refrigerator.  By then it was getting pretty late, so we had a fancy cupcake and more ice cream.  He was so tired he went to his bedroom and lay down and "read" himself a Thomas book.  Then he switched to a poetry book.  (He loves poetry--pretty neat, eh?) After letting me finish reading it I told him I love him, and God loves him, and Nanna & Pappa love him, and...(you get the idea) he gently fell asleep.

I guess all those other presents are going to have to wait until tomorrow!

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.