Category: Parenting

  • The Arts Are Needed In School

    This morning, I went to my kid’s school for a concert. The kid’s music teacher, Mr. Joel who works for a wonderful organization “Little Orchestra Society” was presenting songs that he and the students wrote together over the school year. Joining Mr. Joel were three professional musicians on stage; a trumpet player, celloist, and a clarinetist. The performance worked like this: Mr. Joel would play the song on his guitar with the student’s singing their song. Then Mr. Joel and the musicians would play the piece, and afterward, the students would make a suggestion for a change, which the musicians would incorporate. It was fun, and we all had a good time.

    Full discloser here, I have worked for “Little Orchestra Society” as a puppeteer. So, I might be a little biased toward what they do, BUT, what they bring to school kids in NYC is pretty important, so you have to deal with my bias. Now, I wasn’t a teacher, just a hired performer, like I assumed the three musicians were today.

    There are many things that are downright stupid about the New York City Public Schools, such as many schools do not have dedicated arts teachers, which requires these schools to contract out for teachers from organizations to come to their schools. The good news is that the artist that show up and teach the kids are amazingly talented, and are truly dedicated to teaching these students. I know, because I have several friends who do this work, and really do pour everything into their time with the kids.

    I also acknowledge that I am in a very special position where I have the ability to go and be an audience member for these performances. Most parents have to work, and I know if they had a choice, they would have been there today. The twenty or so of us that made it, did our best to be loud and supportive. You know, we wanted to make the kids and Mr. Joel feel good about what they accomplished, and also to say thank you to Mr. Joel.  And for me, I also wanted to make sure those three musicians up on stage, who all jokingly admitted that they got the sheet music for the songs the night before, know that their efforts were apricated as well.

    I know I am not the first person to say this, and I know I won’t be the last, but please remember to support the arts in your local school. For those of you in NYC, “Little Orchestra Society” is a wonderful organization to support, and a donation would go a long way to help children in the city.

    (Say! If you like what you have read, please like, share, and leave a comment. It would help justify my existence.)

  • Learning the Subway

    The kid is off from school today. A teacher in-service or something. She’s getting old enough now that I don’t have to keep an eye on her all the time, nor do I need to keep her entertained endlessly. But I don’t want her sitting around the apartment all day either.

    So, I made her run errands with me. Errands that took us out of the neighborhood. Errands that meant we were going to ride the subway together.

    New York City is not the best place for kids, I admit it. Kids see and hear things maybe they shouldn’t, and it can cause them to grow up a little too soon. But, when that happens, me and the kid have a conversation about what she saw and heard. I mean, that’s the job of being a parent sometimes; talking about uncomfortable stuff. And yes, the subway has lead to a great many conversations.

    And the subway is how the kid will primarily get around in this town. I feel it is my duty as a parent and a transplanted New Yorker, the teacher my child who is a natural born New Yorker, how to use this world famous example of mass transit.

    We started with learning the difference between local and express, followed by what uptown and downtown means. Then we talked about the difference between letter and number local and express trains. Now, we are trying to memorize the stops; 125, 116, 110, 103, 96, 86, 81, 72 and 59. Sure, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the MTA, but from the kid’s perspective, that’s her world when running around New York.

    I know for her, the City is vast, and these stops really don’t register as distances in relation to being away from home. It’s a little like magic for her. You go underground, get in a train, and come up in a different world, with different places and people. in that sense, NYC can be a pretty wonderful experience for a kid as well.

    (Say! If you like what you have read, please like, share, and leave a comment. It would help justify my existence.)

  • I Slept on the Couch

    Now, let me explain.

    As I said yesterday, the kid had a stomach bug, and she threw up a handful of times. So, as we got to bedtime, she understandably was nervous that she would get sick in the middle of the night. We gave her a bowl, just in case, and I promised her that I would stay in the living room, where she could easily call for me.

    Which meant that I slept on the couch.

    I guess I could have slept in my bed with my wife, but I was afraid that the kid would be up and down all night, and if she got me each time, then no one would get a good night’s sleep. You know, I was going to take one for the team.

    Turns out the kid slept soundly through the night.

    I, on the other hand, not so much. Not that I was upset about it. Not sleeping is part of the job.

    The couch isn’t the best to begin with, and the pads and pillows are getting worn down. When you lay on it, you feel the springs and the wood joints. I was waking up every hour or so, as when I would roll over, something would poke me.

    But the advantage the couch has over my bed is that the couch is next to a window. With it still being appropriately seasonable, the window was open with a slight cool early summer breeze coming in. As was the sounds of Harlem, that equally drifted in.

    Sure, there are sounds of sirens and car’s honking. Occasionally someone will start yelling, or a crashing sound explodes in the distance. All of that happened last night, as does that sound of the City humming. What makes that sound? Is it like white light, with all the colors combining to make it? Do all the City’s sounds mix together to make that hum?

    I bet some one could answer that question for me, but I don’t want to know the answer.

    The City just hums at night.

    (If you enjoyed this post, please like, comment or share it. Still trying to pay some bills here.)

  • Sick from School

    I got a phone call from the kid’s school today. It was the school nurse, telling me that my daughter had just thrown up. She wasn’t running a fever, but thought it best that I come and get her. I agreed, and headed over to the school. Yet another advantage of living two blocks from the school; I could get there pretty quickly. When I arrived at the school, the kid looked a little pale, and she was behaving a little meekly. I thanked the nurse for taking care of her, and we walked home holding hands. I told her she’d need to get into bed when we got home, and take it easy. She asked me if she could watch the iPad in bed, which I agreed to.

    This is yet another thing that was normal just a few years ago, and now feels very foreign. Back in 2019, the wife and I would get a call from the kid’s day school that she was running a fever, or not feeling well, and we’d go get her, and sit on the couch at home with her. It has been over two years since we had to go get our kid from school when she’s sick. Just a funny bit of life that is normal, but doesn’t exactly feel normal now.

    This all made me think about being sick when I was in school. The elementary I went to had a really scary nurses office. I was a windowless room in the back of the main office. I remember that it had a green vinyl chaise couch in it, that I can only imagine saw millions of sick kids lay down on it over the decades. It was the type of nurses office that made you feel worse if you got sent to it. I say that because on the occasions that I had to go to that office, and my parents were called to pick me up, I would have to lay there for close to a half hour before my parents were able to get me, due to the distances they had to travel from their work. I also remember feeling a little guilty when they came on got me, like I had better be really sick.

    Now I am the caregiver. Getting crackers and Gatorade, and letting her watch whatever she wants to watch. And I also have to remind myself, she might be contagious.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Summer, Dragon Warrior, and Louie Gohmert is a Coward

    (Get in loser…)

    The kid still has about a month left to school, but Summer is here. I have broken out the air conditioners due to a couple of eighty-degree days, and one awful ninety-degree day. The shorts are out as well, and so is the talk of going swimming. Nothing says Summer more than a kid wanting to get in the water and swim. For me, I’m not a huge fan of Summer heat – I did grow up in Texas so I have suffered under enough hot weather to last three or four lifetimes – but I like the feeling of freedom that summer creates in one’s mind. Summer means plans, and vacations, and projects, and also being a little lazy and watching tv all day. Also, Summer means that I will get to spend a great amount of time with the kid. I would like to take her to museums, and maybe a road trip out to the Pollock/Krasner house in Springs, Long Island. There are only eleven weeks to cram a lot of fun in.

    I have got it in my head that I want to play Dragon Warrior. If you don’t know, it was one of the first RPG for the NES back in 1986. (Yes, I am aware that the original name was Dragon Quest but was changed for the North American market, but we’re talking about a 45-year old’s nostalgia here, so I would like to keep calling it Dragon Warrior.) I have looked up the game, and I can buy a version to play on my iPad or iPhone, but both versions look updated, and clean. What I am looking for is the 8-bit original to play. It would be great if I could get that on my devices, but I feel what I’d have to do to make this happen is buy an old NES and blow on the cartridge hoping that it will load, and then hope beyond hope that it still can save my game. (Hey other 40-year-old! You know what I’m talking about.)

    And let’s not forget that @LouieGohmertTX1 is a coward that wants to make it easier for mass murders to get their hands-on semiautomatic guns as fast as possible. Thanks @LouieGohmertTX1 maybe you can club some puppies and baby seals before you walk out the door?

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)