Seriously, how many times have I titled a post Blerg? So. Many. Times.
Things continue to feel really hard, but I know they aren’t actually really hard and it seems silly to come here and talk about how they are, so I don’t write anything and long stretched appear between posts.
My husband is similarly struggling. We are both tired and we have no energy or time to connect.
My son has had such a hard transition to TK. We’ve had so many conversations and meetings with his teacher. This week he’s doing better, after the installation of a “star” chart, but I worry he hates school and will always hate school. As someone who always had a pretty decent relationship with school, I hate thinking that my kid might be miserable throughout his academic life.
I know it’s just TK and it will probably get better, but he always complained about the “academic” components of his preschool too. He HATED circle time. He HATED art (when they practiced their fine motor skills with drawing and cutting). Now he hates most of his day, and wails when he’s told it’s still not the weekend.
He has made friends, and does talk fondly about school (aka recess) sometimes, so I don’t think the program, or teacher, are a bad fit. I just think he doesn’t really love doing the school thing. I hope that isn’t always the case.
Meanwhile he’s developing in leaps and bounds. He started listening to all the Ivy and Bean books (a return to a household favorite) over and over again, and runs into my room when something interesting happens to tell me about it (again). He definitely still misses subtleties in the story telling, but his comprehension of longer books has grown substantially. He is also really into music and dancing, and spends week compiling the perfect mix on our spotify accounts, then listens to it constantly (never mind that all the songs are from Transformer and Ninjago soundtracks, plus the new Teen Titans Movie).
He lost his first tooth today. I am so not ready for my baby to be losing teeth.
My daughter is rocking 3rd grade. She hit level L in reading in Kindergarten and then basically stayed there for the next two years, so this year I’m enforcing a 30 minutes reading requirement every afternoon, and she has to read a novel (she loves big non-fiction books with lots of pictures and while she does read some (maybe even a lot) of the text, she is not developing the stamina necessary to succeed in upper elementary school). At first I was getting a lot of resistance to this requirement but now she is loving the reading time. She still gives me a shit when it’s time to read a Spanish book (she has to switch between English and Spanish) but even that is mellowing out. She has a lot less written homework this year, which REALLY helps. Thank you 3rd grade teacher!
We started classes at a martial arts dojo this too. We’d heard such good things about it from a few different sources, but I wanted to wait until after our summer traveling to start. The classes are great, and I know my kids need this experience with things being hard but persevering and then eventually achieving a goal. They could also use the body awareness, quite frankly. It’s hard for them, so they don’t LOVE it yet, but they are always willing to go so that’s liking it enough for me.
My favorite part is the respect and consideration that is expected to be shown to teachers and peers. They need to respond with Yes Sir! and Yes Ma’am! to their teachers (or a student helper), and to look them in the eye and respond when they are spoken too. These expectations are held gently, but also firmly and consistently and I am almost relieved that someone is doing what I’ve lacked the consistency to do myself. I take mental notes while I watch their classes and am using some of the phrasings at home now. I hope that over time what they learn at the dojo will find its way into our house.
I might start taking classes their myself, though I don’t think we can really afford it.
Side note: I really do not know how people have their kids in multiple extracurricular activities at once – both logistically and also financially. I have always felt like my kids did less than their friends (they do), but honestly, I can’t handle more than one thing at a time. We always stop swimming lessons when we travel in the summer and usually don’t start them again until the new year. With martial arts classes I don’t know if we’ll start them again at all. And every time I get an email about Girl Scouts I try to convince my kid to quit (yes, I know, I’m a monster). So far it hasn’t worked yet.
But seriously, how do people afford all these activities, and how do they get their kids to them (and then home and fed and into bed at a decent hour) without going crazy (or bankrupt)?!
So there you go. I wrote a post. Happy Friday!
Yes, bankrupt and crazy. And that is before you add in the location of SF. Keep your accurate clarity so you do not doubt yourself.
You need a date with Husband…. at least 4 but better 6 hrs. GOOD LUCK!!!
Praising heavens that weather here is briefly being merciful and not nasty hot on top of it all. Hope you have good weekend.
It’s true. Multiple activities are expensive and exhausting. I try to schedule them very close to home to make them less inconvenient. But we living in a very urban area with lots of stuff within walking distance or, at worst, a 5 min drive.
On the multiple activities, I have one kid and work PT from home, which is how I do it. People who have multiple kids and work FT – I don’t know. I think both parents have to divide and conquer to cover the activities? And they must not mind being on the go constantly with little downtime? (As I recall, I don’t think your husband helps much with activities? Which I sympathize with, since mine doesn’t either – part of my not being interested in FT work at this point is that I have a pretty strong suspicion that even if we were both working FT the vast majority of kid activity stuff would still fall to me.)
On your son’s dislike of school: yeah, that’s tough. I’m going through what sounds like a milder version of that with my daughter. I always liked (or didn’t actively mind) school and did very well in it while my husband pretty much loathed it up until college and so far my daughter (2nd grade) is leaning much more towards my husband’s approach to school.
As much as I can, I try to tie stuff like reading and math to practical applications she’s interested in -“You want to play this game? Well, let’s read the directions together so you know how to do it.” Or, “You want that toy? How much is it and how does that compare to how much money you have?”
But at least a couple times a week since the start of this school year, I’ve still had to tell her “Yes, I know you don’t like going to school but that’s your job and you need to know how to read and do math to be able to get along in the world”, end of discussion. And I try to keep in mind that lots of people don’t like school and have made it through and then find the world outside school (which is most of our lives, anyway) much more to their liking.