Brain at work

Jordan has completed his valentines for school... just in time. It was a big project. I am grudgingly sort of won over; it was a lot of writing, on the one hand, but it turned out to be a pretty authentic writing experience for him. He had to write everyone's name for a good reason - in order to give them something. He had to write his own name so that they would know who it was from. His friends have to be able to read what he's written, and so does he, in order to hand them out. He was very motivated and energetic about it, and quite proud of himself when he was done.


Research suggests, however, that this is just as important to his cognitive development:

I'm anti-homework

Jordan is way behind on his homework. This is a ridiculous thing to say about a kindergartener. And it's definitely my doing: It's me who lets him play with Grandpa in the mornings, it's me who does not chase him off the piano, it's me who fails to interrupt his game of wacky basketball with his brother. I just don't believe that at age five, these activities should be shortchanged in favor of filling out worksheets. In fact, I don't think he should have homework at all. This NYT essay refers to research demonstrating no benefit until middle school. A quote I liked:

Jean Piaget famously referred to “the American question,” which arose when he lectured in this country: how, his audiences wanted to know, could a child’s development be sped up? The better question may be: Why are we so hellbent on doing so?

Nasty nail polish

Jordan still sucks his thumb a lot. He's five and a half, it's clearly messing with his teeth, and it's icky; we wish he would stop. Currently our efforts to help him quit are mostly in the form of constant reminders. Sometimes he goes along with us and works on not doing it, other times he resents our nagging him and hides. It's a whole bummer thing.

His dentist asked if we had tried a bitter nail polish. I had never heard of such a product, but lo and behold, there are many. One brand, Mavala Stop, is reputed to be extremely powerful. People write celebrating their 8 and 10 year olds who stopped overnight, the works. The reviews are pretty entertaining in a sicko kind of way: here's an excerpt from someone who used it to cure her own nail-biting problem:

"The taste is really horrible. It's like acetone (nail polish remover), bitter, rotten wood, and some sort of fish put together. It has a very chemical taste with a sweet undertone that makes for a horrible experience. The taste is also very durable and lingering. If you licked a nail painted with Mavala Stop, it would take a few minutes to get the taste out. The taste was so bad, in my opinion, that getting it off of my teeth, lips, and tongue when I slipped up stopped whatever I was doing or thinking about. It's very, very gross."

The enthusiastic parents have some cautions to go along with their hallelujahs:

- It tastes so horrific that if you touch your nail to your lips for any reason you practically run screaming out of the room, and you really can't get the taste out of your mouth. Kids can have trouble eating. A solution is to put a tiny dot of the stuff at the base of the nail so that the fingertips are still OK.
- A long-term comfort is being taken away suddenly and kids can have a hard time. Some can't sleep and are emotionally fragile. Parents advise being thoughtful about the timing.
- Parents who tried to use it on two and three year olds had mixed results. Some kids that age don't seem to get that it's the thumbsucking causing the horrific taste and are just miserable. Other younger kids don't mind the taste and/or just lick it off. And other young kids had miracle cures with no misery at all.
- Some kids have such a strong reaction to the taste that they puke all night, or in some cases for days. Parents say just power through.

Kind of a Clockwork Orange sounding thing when you put it that way. Maybe we should just all watch Thumbsucker and not worry about it.

Valentine kit

Jordan has a clear and firmly-worded Valentine's Day assignment from his warm, loving, and steely-eyed kindergarten teacher: Students will bring a card for each child in the class PLUS the principal, the music coach, the three art docents, the PE teacher, the music teacher, the secretaries, the nurse, the art-movement-and-yoga teacher, the retired teacher-tutor, the assistant, the cook, and the custodians. "We will be celebrating friendship, kindness, and caring about other people," says the letter, which was sent three weeks in advance. "This is a great opportunity to practice printing names."

This is a great opportunity for Mommy to practice patience, is what it is. Originally I had felt we would go the homemade route; what can't you do with white index cards, heart stickers, and red glitter glue? Who needs that whole Valentine industry anyway? Yeah, well, when the first valentine took twenty minutes of hounding to reach completion, I had to rethink my strategy. I hadn't realized how much the lack of structure would slow things down... Jordan had to decide what to write (I'm just talking To and From here), where to write it, what kind of decorating to do, etc. And with chagrin I admit that I am not at my best while supervising kid art projects. The vigilance kills me. Now we've gone over to the mass-produced valentine card kit, with preprinted messages, To and From lines, and miniature tattoos that slip into a slot. Jordan thinks they are awesome and cranked out fifteen of them in one energized session. Woo hoo!

We buy our shoes online

Grandpa was trying to get Jordan out the door for a trip to the library, and Jordan was dawdling.

Grandpa: What’s happening in the shoe department?
Jordan: What’s the shoe department?
Grandpa: That’s where you put on your shoes.
Jordan: Um. I’ve never been there.
Grandpa: Then I bet you don’t have your shoes on.

More on girl T-rexes

A friend was kind enough to show me this sign currently on display at the Pacific Science Center. See my original post for context.

Aquarium update

The aquarium ecology requires that somebody eat the algae. Dale's research indicated that the best candidates to join our thriving community are a fish called a Siamese algae eater (not to be confused with a Chinese algae eater, which is inferior) and a little troop of amano shrimp. The algae eater hoovers along the rocks, snorting lines of algae and looking twitchy. The shrimp, though, they are really twitchy: when a fish gets too close, ping! they are suddenly on the other side of the tank. (Here's a terrific TED talk on just how fast shrimp movements can be.)


Snaisy seems to be doing very well. She's quite photogenic.


The guppies, meanwhile, are thriving a bit too much. Guppies are prolific breeders and at least one of our females has already had babies. These are fairly likely to be eaten, and mostly that's a good thing; we can't house many. However, a few of them seem to be successfully hiding out in the rocks. It is hard not to be charmed by something whose eye-to-body ratio is so very large.


In other crustacean news, after every bath, Aaron becomes a hermit crab.