Cold eggs

A friend of mine with a new baby was telling me how her husband, who is a fully capable father, lets the baby cry longer than she does. He will take his time finishing what he is doing before he responds to the baby, whereas she will leap to soothe. I think this is a classic split for parents, usually (if I may be so bold) along these gender lines. To this day, if one of the kids asks me to make breakfast, I will do that first, whether I've had my own breakfast or not. In fact, if I have made my own breakfast and set it on the table to eat, and then Aaron asks me to make an omelet, I will do that first. Only after I have provided for him will I sit down to my cold eggs. I mean, hello.

I think my motivations are not entirely based on satisfying the child; I also want to check this pending omelet off my list, the better to relax over my own breakfast. But still.

Riddle

Jordan, Aaron, and Amara in the back of the car on the way from school to their respective arts activities.

Jordan: I have a riddle. It is better than God; rich people need it; poor people have it; and if you eat it you die.
Aaron: I do not know.
Rachel: I think I know.
Jordan: Just guess. Not you, Mommy.
Aaron: Marijuana?
Amara: TNT?
Jordan: No. Mommy what do you think?
Rachel: Nothing.
Jordan: Right. See? Nothing is better than God, rich people need nothing, poor people have nothing, and if you eat nothing you die.
Aaron: [giggling] Wow. That is pretty good.

Upright piano

The piano player in one of Dale's bands inherited a baby grand piano and needed a home for his upright. We volunteered! It is a beautiful thing. It is larger than we pictured... it makes our electronic piano look (and sound) like a toy. Inserting it into our living room has caused a cascade of change; move the furniture, accept that some of it simply doesn't fit, rearrange other rooms to accommodate, realize that new lamps are needed here and new shelves there, that kind of thing. But we have now officially welcomed it into our home and are starting to enjoy it.

Moving it in was surprisingly straightforward. The movers had long ramps and a wheeled cart and that was pretty much that. The thing weighs 650 pounds.

Academic attention

Jordan is getting a kind of academic attention that we have never experienced before. His teachers really see what he is doing, and interpret what they see with insight and compassion. They are encouraging, while holding him to high standards. They are alert to his specific strengths and needs, and are able to design educational situations that will benefit him as much as possible. It is a real pleasure. Here is an update we got today about his reading, from the learning specialist who will be working with him in an upcoming book group: 

Jordan seemed to do well with Island of the Blue Dolphins; however [his regular teacher] knows much more than I do about that his day-to-day interaction with that book. The solid skills Jordan has when reading for pleasure are helpful when reading assignments for class. Whenever I checked in with him, he was engaged and was able to talk thoughtfully about the part he was reading. 

From conversations with [his teacher], I know that she wants to make sure he has a deep level of comprehension with regard to assigned text, and since she has the majority of the class to think about, having me focus on one small group seemed like a good way to ensure the understanding that we’re aiming for. (The book group meetings will be run mostly by the students, I’ll just be an observer or one of the members.) Making sure Jordan is able to demonstrate his level of comprehension orally (through discussion and maybe dictation, if appropriate), as well as in writing, continues to be an important aspect of assessing his understanding of any text. His writing seems to be going more smoothly for him and he is very capable; however I want to make sure we don’t forget that getting his ideas down in writing may still be impacted by his dysgraphia. So when assessing his reading comprehension, there needs to be an oral aspect of how we check in with him, as well as the written component. 

They just started the book this week, and it has some challenging themes and vocabulary specific to the time period. I’m sure Jordan will do well with the book.

Wow. For comparison, here is the kind of feedback we were getting about his reading last year:

Ouch. It still stings to read those. This was after we had the extensive learning assessments and conversations with the school to establish learning accommodations appropriate to his needs. I wish it could have been better for us in public school; I wish whatever wasn't right could be rectified (whether that is the preparation of the teacher, the teaching load, the class size, the curricular expectations, or whatever else contributed to this unfortunate situation). But it wasn't right, and I am so thankful to be where we are now.

Middle schools

As I have said in this space before, I worry about middle school. In particular I am not hopeful that our neighborhood public middle school will serve our older child well. So we are looking around. There are two other public schools we have our eye on, one a science-and-nature themed K-8, and one a new middle school just north of us. Both of these places seem to have visionary principles and happy teachers, and they both a lot smaller than our neighborhood middle school. However, they will still have large class sizes, and still be part of a system that doesn't have much time to spare for a bright, socially adept, non-disruptive kid who has not fallen far below his grade level. We are seeing wonderful benefits of being at a school whose teacher:student ratio is 1:10 instead of 1:25, and where teachers provide Jordan with the kind of cuing and feedback that enables him to get things done. Thus, we plan to apply for private middle school. We have to decide where to apply now-ish; we are well into tour season already, and applications are due in January.

There are a lot of private middle schools in Seattle. Only two are grades 6-8 (one near us and one in West Seattle). Some are K-8, and some are 6-12 or even mysteriously 5-12. Geography is important to us so we made a list of all the reasonably nearby ones, plus one that is very close to my work. This gave us a list of six independent schools to visit. We have toured three so far. The first was way too Catholic for our family (I don't know how I missed that). The second we loved; it seems like a wonderful education, great student body, and a great location; but spots at this school are so coveted that the chances of our getting in are extremely small, and the grapevine says they push students very hard academically, which is not something we want. The third seemed like a good, solid, ordinary school, like what public school should be but isn't; we will apply there too, even though the sports emphasis is not our style, and we hear that they don't offer much tuition assistance. Three more to go.

Even after we decide where to apply, there is the question of getting in. A K-8 or 5-12 school doesn't admit very many sixth graders, and even the places with major 6th grade entry points are small, admitting a total of 35-75 kids. The application itself is extensive, requiring essays by parents and students, multiple teacher recommendations, and scores on a standardized test called the Independent School Entrance Examination. And then on top of that, we would certainly be needing significant tuition assistance to go to any of these places. So who knows. But for now, we are plugging through this part of the process and trying to make the best decision we can with the information we have.

Challoween

We have gotten in the habit of celebrating both Halloween itself and Shabbatoween, the nearest Shabbat to Halloween; the former we do in our neighborhood and the latter is hosted by Jessica and Jules. This year, however, Halloween was a Friday night, and since our neighborhood seems to be the best for trick or treating, we hosted. There were more people than could sit down for dinner, and I was rattled by having had a lockdown at work that day (it turned out that there was no danger, but I was crouched under my desk for thirty minutes listening to the helicopters outside). Nonetheless we had spaghetti with eyeballs (meatballs with mozzarella-and-olive eyes), and apple vampire fangs, and challah stuffed with candy corn:

We managed to stuff all the kids into a frame for a photo before we headed out trick or treating. A vampire, a bat, a mummy, a Sith lord (that's Jordan), an Ewok (Aaron), an 80s chick, Jace, a demon lawyer (in the hockey mask - he served us all bloody papers), a gnome, and Kermit.

Jordan's costume put his camp-made lightsaber to great use; his robe was large enough to properly swirl out behind him, and picked up a hilarious amount of mud, too. Real Sith lords probably don't have this problem because the Empire's facilities are so clean. Aaron's Ewok costume took some doing... we had ordered a bear hat online, but it didn't come in time, so we repurposed a cat-ears headband by covering the ears with brown sock toes. Add a brown t-shirt for the snood, and that fantastic staff constructed by Dale from stuff in the yard, and voila! Ewok chieftain. His raccoon, Silvercoat, was an Ewok too, with a snood made of a brown sock. 

The grownups were in the spirit as well. I was mama Ewok, in the hat originally intended for Aaron.

Tashlich

Rosh Hashanah was over a month ago, but oh well, better late than never. Tashlich was at Matthews Beach during a miraculously sunny part of the day. The Seattle Times was there as usual and got some great pictures.

The children love this ritual. I try to help them be thoughtful about it instead of merely feeding the ducks; so I invite them to share what regrets or sins they are tossing away, if they are willing. (If they feel this is too personal, they do not have to share.)

Aaron: I threw away one time that I was not nice to Silvercoat (his plush raccoon). I called him a little coo.
Me: Oh, really. I am sure he would forgive you if you asked him.
Aaron: Yes I think so. In fact he did already. But I still wanted to throw it away.
Me: Got it.
Aaron: And I threw away one time that I .... [starts to cry] Mommy I don't like to even think about it -- [crying for sure now]
Me: Oh honey, what is it?
Aaron: [sobbing] One time I got mad at Jordan and I said I wished he wasn't even there, 
Me: Oh, sweetheart. You feel so sorry about that.
Aaron: [trying to pull himself together] I'm going to try and go have a little fun with him now to cheer myself up.
Me: Okay.

He ran off to play on the beach with his brother. I feel sure all is forgiven.