Tag: #Parenting

  • SPRING BREAK with THE KID

    The kid is off from school, and I had it in my mind that somehow this might be a little vacation for me as well. That was very inaccurate. When there is no school, I become chief entertainer. Now, what can I come up with for this week?

    The park is an easy go-to, and we’ll be doing lots of that, weather permitting.

    Then, I have been putting off a home project of hanging a spice rack in the kitchen. That I think is something that we can do together. You know, a 44-year-old dad and his six-year-old daughter hanging something on the wall; can they do it without one of them getting angry, crying, or saying, “You can help dad by getting him a beer.”

    I also have a family picture project, which is getting up on the wall of the pictures of our family; Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and all. We have boxes of framed family pictures that for whatever reason we never get around to putting up. In fact, as I look at the living room, we don’t have any pictures of the kid. We have like twenty pieces of her artwork up on the wall, but not an actual photograph. Does that say something about us as a family?

    The big project that I want to tackle with the kid is to make a puppet show out of a story she told me about a girl and three friendly ghosts. There is a very fine line I walk with this stuff and her. I would love for us to make a puppet show together, but at the same time, I don’t want to force her to do it. She knows that her dad has worked as a puppeteer before the Covid times, and has every now and then asked me about it, but she doesn’t asked to make a show. And I also don’t want to take her story and make something out of it without her. So, I want to see if I can encourage her to do this with me.

    Either way, we gotta pass the time.

  • Returning to In-Person School for NYC

    Outside if NYC, I don’t know how many of you have heard, but today starts enrolment for remote students to return to blended in-person classes. As we are a remote learning family, we have from today to April 7th to decide if we will stay remote, or move over to in-person blended learning. Also, according to Department of Education, this is our last opportunity to make this change.

    What will we do?

    We have a great remote teacher for our daughter, and our teacher is actually one of the two main kindergarten teachers for the school we are in, or would be in if Covid hadn’t happened. So, we know that what she is teaching our daughter is in line with what is needed to move up to 1st Grade in that school, and the system at large in the whole school. Also, being that our kid is actually thriving in this not quite normal environment, makes us think she has the right teacher she needs.

    But, it is remote learning.

    And in remote learning, she is not getting the personal attention she needs from a teacher, nor is she getting any social interaction which is very necessary at this age.

    But, moving to blended in-person learning means that she would get another new teacher, which would be her third for the year. It would be another set of kids that she would be introduced to. And that change means that there will need to be another adjustment period, which could slow down her progress. And it still wouldn’t be five days a week classes, as it would be every other day. That doesn’t sound like that would be the best for her either.

    Yet, I had been hoping, really hoping, that the kid would start back to school so I could get a jump on all the things that I want to do, but can’t because, well, I spend all of my time with the kid when she is awake. I feel very selfish and guilty for saying this. I have enjoyed, and treasured this time that I get to spend with her, and I know that it has been a planet’s lining up fortuitus achievement that I have been able to help her learn how to read and write, which is something that would have never happened if not for Covid and getting laid off…

    But…

    I want to get a jump on my career again, but not at the expense of the kid.

    We’ve got two weeks to figure this out.

  • Watching Movies

    I’m a big movie fan, and I especially love awful, really bad movies. As a huge MST3k fan, that should come as no surprise. But, I still remember the wonder, and awe of going to see “Empire Strikes Back” in a theater with my dad and brothers. When I think back on it, it was like I won the lottery with “Empire” being my first movie. It set the bar pretty high.

    I also love sharing the movies that I grew up watching with my daughter. Some movies hold up really well, and some were not as good as I thought they were. But not all 80’s movies for kids are created equal. I’m not sure my six-year old daughter is ready for a melting Nazi.

    And today, I started to wonder when I can start watching dramas with her. You know, grown up dramas where what all the adults do is talk a lot, and the movie usually ends hopeful, but also a little sad. You know, like “Ordinary People,” Chariots of Fire,” “The Verdict” “The Big Chill” “Places in the Heart” “A Room with a View” “Broadcast News” “The Accidental Tourist” and “Dead Poets Society.”  

    When I was growing up, we didn’t get cable, but we got a VCR, and rented movies. My parents would rent a movie for us boys, usually an action movie like “Jaws” or “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and then the parents would rent a grownup movie, like from the list above. And out of all of those movies, the first one that I remember sitting through, and not leaving after the first boring talkie ten minutes, was “The Accidental Tourist,” which when I think about it, was an odd choice for 11 year old me to sit through, and enjoy.

  • First Time at the Dentist

    Yesterday was the kid’s first experience with going to see a dentist. I know for some people going to the dentist is not an enjoyable experience, and looking at the websites for pediatric dentists, almost all of them have a page dedicated to calming your child’s fears of going to the dentist for the first time.

    My kid saw Little Shop of Horrors, so she didn’t have the healthiest appreciation of the dental profession.

    But I was committed to making sure that the kid would have no issues with going to see the dentist for the first time. I found lots of videos online about kids going to the dentist where they explained the tools, and the procedures. We watched them together, and she very quickly associated that dentists are just like any other doctor, as they are there to help and make you feel better.

    And the pediatric dental office we went to was great! This is what they do, but they were really great at making the kid feel special, and explaining everything to her, so she wasn’t afraid. I could even feel my anxiety rise as the cleaning started, and the kid let the assistant start touching her teeth, but she was fine. It was all fine, and the kid even said that she found the dentist fun!

    I told her how proud I was of her. Then we got home to tell mom all about the dentist, and I added how proud I was of the kid. After dinner, I reminded the kid of how brave she was at the dentist, and that made me proud. As we brushed our teeth before bed, I reminded her how proud I was how she handled the dentist. And then when I tucked her in, she told me to stop telling her how proud I was of her.

    I was laying it on rather thick.

    And I had committed the sin of trying to over parent my child to compensate for my perceived failings in my life. I was a nervous, anxiety riddled child. I worried so much about things, that I often made myself sick to my stomach to where I couldn’t get out of bed. I wish I wasn’t the worry-wart little kid, as it created self-doubt and fear in me, and I have had to work hard as an adult to overcome it. I just wanted to make sure the kid isn’t afraid of things like I was.

    This might be one of those life lessons where as I parent I need to set the example, rather than over praise.

  • The Joy of Growing Lima Beans

    Remote learning for kindergarteners is pretty hard. I feel very fortunate that we have a great teacher for the kid. She makes the best out of this awful situation we are all in, and the kid really has taken to her. Hopefully, one day, we will get to meet each other in person.

    One of the projects that the teacher has assigned was growing a lima bean in a plastic cup. There was a kit I had to go and pick up at the school, which contained the cup, seed, and dirt. All the kids kept the bean in a wet paper towel until it sprouted roots, and then filling the cup up with dirt, they planted the bean. Weekly, the teacher has the kids bring their bean plant to class, so they can measure it, and keep track as scientists. The kid loves this project, and she gets very excited when she gets to show off her plant.

    The other side of this project, is that I also have become excited about this it as well. Every morning, I open up the curtains so light can come in, which leads me to move the bean plant around the apartment for maxim photosynthesis. I check the leaves to make sure they are healthy, and touch the soil to make sure it isn’t too wet, or dry. I even get excited on the mornings when I see the bud of new leaves starting to pop out.

    I have discovered the joy in keeping a plant alive.

    But I need to watch myself, to make sure I don’t take over this project from the kid. I have even started to think that I might want to plant my own lima bean. Or maybe get a planter box this Spring, and plant my own mess of beans? From working with the kid’s bean plant, I want to have my own experience of growing, of each day checking in on the progress the plants make. I am sure that this has to do with giving each of my days a purpose, which can have a beneficial result.

    In that sense, I would like to try my hand to growing gourds.