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thothmesWell, now that it's over (I love you all in a platonic sort of way, but I really put the emphasis on spending as much of this day as possible with Beloved Husband), I wish a Happy Valentine's Day! to you all. I understand that this is a very polarizing holiday, with True Believers, and Avoiders, and the Valentine's agnostics, who comment on the commerciality of the day and move on, but I'm kind of a fan, provided that the emphasis is on the silly (for the majority of the people in one's life), the [non-material] exchange of the expression of sentiment (for that one special person, when and if there is one), a gentle and subtle soft-peddling for the recently bereaved, also provided that there is a TOTAL AVOIDANCE of occasions where people [Elementary schools, I'm looking at you!] are put into the position of seeing others have their mailboxes run over while they themselves receive a pittance. Charlie Brown needs to have as nice a time at the party as the Little Red Haired Girl.
And how, you may ask, did The Whirlwind's Valentine's Day go?
It was okay in the main for the business part of the day. She came home from school with a goodly haul of valentines, some of the cheap cartoony kind (the boys, for the most part, and some of the girls) and hand made (a few, but they were all very... sincere-looking, because this is 3rd grade, and neatness is hard!), and a great deal of candy. Now if a great deal of candy came home, you can bet the farm that an even greater amount of candy was consumed on the bus ride home. I was not too surprised to find that her lunch was largely untouched.
I set her to eating that while she told me about the exciting day, and then sent her off with her dad so he could exercise with her during Middle Child's piano lesson. It's Passport to Winter Fun season, and if she can fill out 30 boxes (one for each day she does an hour of physical activity) before March 16th, she wins an insulated lunch bag. If she exercises with a family member, she gets an extra "family star" and with enough of those, there are other things she can get. As I was heading out the door to exercise myself, I noticed that half her sandwich was still in its container, but it was too late. They were gone.
When they got back Middle Child came in, but Beloved Husband and The Whirlwind remained outside to finish up the part of the hour they had left (the safe place for exercising is a 5 minute drive from the piano teacher's house, so it stood to reason that they'd need to get an extra 10 minutes in at home). When they came in I asked Beloved Husband if they'd got in a full hour (they had) and what they'd done.
"Some sliding, some hiking, and some lovely high-energy active tantruming!" he replied cheerfully, thus demonstrating that he had not been the one tantruming, and he went off to lie down for a few minutes before launching in on cooking dinner.
"Okay if I just write down 'sliding & hiking'?" I called after him.
"Probably best!" he replied, as I inked in the family star.
I got The Whirlwind working on her homework, and by the time Beloved Husband re-emerged and started clanking pans, it was time for her piano practice.
Things Did Not Go Well. The Whirlwind wanted to practice with Daddy, who is the Preferred Parent, because he is off at work all day four days a week. He puts in 60 hour weeks working 4 days a week and every 4th Saturday, with call from home every 4th weekend. Tuesdays are his day off, and he generally cooks the days he doesn't work, so I don't have to do it 7 days a week, and he was busy, so she was stuck with the yucky, always there, Undesirable Parent, me.
I'm really quite used to being second choice (until they are sick, and then it's my lap they want to lie in and be miserable, and my voice they want to sing them better) so that didn't phase me, but when she began to yell at me, the "Thou Shalt Treat Thy Practice Parent Like Thou Wouldst A Teacher" rule kicked in, and she earned a 30 minute time out. The 30 minutes starts when she is calm, quiet, and can reflect on what she did and prepare an apology.
By the time all that happened and she'd served her time, it was 2 1/4 hours later! She was determined to escalate!escalate!ESCALATE! in the face of almost total lack of opposition, which resulted in farcical scenes.
As we waited for the last of the cooking, Middle Daughter was doing a few dishes, and Beloved Husband and I were sitting down at the dining room table, with an eye on the hockey game on in the living room. All of us were silent, but The Whirlwind was shouting at the top of her lungs, "Just stop talking to me! Stop TALKING to me! Just SHUT UP!!! SHUT THE HELL UP RIGHT NOW!"
We hadn't said a thing.
Finally, as we were eating dinner, she decided she'd had enough of being ignored, and began to throw books, including a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Little Princess that my Nana (1908-2005) gave me when I was 9. It was a modern edition of Nana's favorite book when she was growing up. That was intolerable. I went in, and from a distance of about 2 cm. from the tip of her nose, I told her that if she ever did that again, she WOULD NOT LIKE WHAT HAPPENED BECAUSE SHE WOULD LOOSE THINGS PERMANENTLY. I may have been a little loud. Any of you hear me?
She decided that an angry mama bear is dangerous, and retreated, but not being without courage, she had to make it clear that she was not really retreating, so much as advancing to the rear.
"I wish you were stupid, Mom!" she yelled. "I wish you were really, really stupid! I wish you were!"
I'm afraid that's when all of us couldn't hold it together, and we lost it. I may not be the next Sam Carter, but my mother, Eldest Daughter, and I have all been accused of being "frighteningly bright". General consensus was that barring a head injury, her wish was likely to remain ungranted. Our gales of laughter probably set her back an additional 20 minutes.
Eventually she settled. There was silence, and then the sound of her playing her piece. We set the timer. Thirty minutes ticked away. She decided that she didn't want dinner and got ready for bed and took her night time meds. There on the table at her place was the heart-shaped box of very fresh Lake Champlain Chocolates chocolate truffles that her father and I gave her. The kids love these and look forward to them all year. She looked at it. She picked it up, and hugged it to her chest. She walked over to me, and held it out.
"Here, Mummy," she said. "I don't deserve this after all the trouble I caused for you and Daddy today."
"No," I said gently. "That's yours."
She hugged it to her chest again, walked over to the table and put it at her place and then she came back, her eyes tearing, and gave me a big hug.
"Thank you!" she whispered. "'Night."
"Night-night, Sweeting!" I said, and her father took her up to bed and tucked her in. She was asleep in minutes.
She really is a handful, but when she's done wrong and she knows it, and the paroxysms of prodigious and wasteful energy have all been expended, she's the very best of all my kids at stepping out of the ranks, owning up, and taking her lumps.
If she ever learns how to harness all that energy as a force for good, the world, or possibly the universe, is going to be short quite a few problems.
And how, you may ask, did The Whirlwind's Valentine's Day go?
It was okay in the main for the business part of the day. She came home from school with a goodly haul of valentines, some of the cheap cartoony kind (the boys, for the most part, and some of the girls) and hand made (a few, but they were all very... sincere-looking, because this is 3rd grade, and neatness is hard!), and a great deal of candy. Now if a great deal of candy came home, you can bet the farm that an even greater amount of candy was consumed on the bus ride home. I was not too surprised to find that her lunch was largely untouched.
I set her to eating that while she told me about the exciting day, and then sent her off with her dad so he could exercise with her during Middle Child's piano lesson. It's Passport to Winter Fun season, and if she can fill out 30 boxes (one for each day she does an hour of physical activity) before March 16th, she wins an insulated lunch bag. If she exercises with a family member, she gets an extra "family star" and with enough of those, there are other things she can get. As I was heading out the door to exercise myself, I noticed that half her sandwich was still in its container, but it was too late. They were gone.
When they got back Middle Child came in, but Beloved Husband and The Whirlwind remained outside to finish up the part of the hour they had left (the safe place for exercising is a 5 minute drive from the piano teacher's house, so it stood to reason that they'd need to get an extra 10 minutes in at home). When they came in I asked Beloved Husband if they'd got in a full hour (they had) and what they'd done.
"Some sliding, some hiking, and some lovely high-energy active tantruming!" he replied cheerfully, thus demonstrating that he had not been the one tantruming, and he went off to lie down for a few minutes before launching in on cooking dinner.
"Okay if I just write down 'sliding & hiking'?" I called after him.
"Probably best!" he replied, as I inked in the family star.
I got The Whirlwind working on her homework, and by the time Beloved Husband re-emerged and started clanking pans, it was time for her piano practice.
Things Did Not Go Well. The Whirlwind wanted to practice with Daddy, who is the Preferred Parent, because he is off at work all day four days a week. He puts in 60 hour weeks working 4 days a week and every 4th Saturday, with call from home every 4th weekend. Tuesdays are his day off, and he generally cooks the days he doesn't work, so I don't have to do it 7 days a week, and he was busy, so she was stuck with the yucky, always there, Undesirable Parent, me.
I'm really quite used to being second choice (until they are sick, and then it's my lap they want to lie in and be miserable, and my voice they want to sing them better) so that didn't phase me, but when she began to yell at me, the "Thou Shalt Treat Thy Practice Parent Like Thou Wouldst A Teacher" rule kicked in, and she earned a 30 minute time out. The 30 minutes starts when she is calm, quiet, and can reflect on what she did and prepare an apology.
By the time all that happened and she'd served her time, it was 2 1/4 hours later! She was determined to escalate!escalate!ESCALATE! in the face of almost total lack of opposition, which resulted in farcical scenes.
As we waited for the last of the cooking, Middle Daughter was doing a few dishes, and Beloved Husband and I were sitting down at the dining room table, with an eye on the hockey game on in the living room. All of us were silent, but The Whirlwind was shouting at the top of her lungs, "Just stop talking to me! Stop TALKING to me! Just SHUT UP!!! SHUT THE HELL UP RIGHT NOW!"
We hadn't said a thing.
Finally, as we were eating dinner, she decided she'd had enough of being ignored, and began to throw books, including a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Little Princess that my Nana (1908-2005) gave me when I was 9. It was a modern edition of Nana's favorite book when she was growing up. That was intolerable. I went in, and from a distance of about 2 cm. from the tip of her nose, I told her that if she ever did that again, she WOULD NOT LIKE WHAT HAPPENED BECAUSE SHE WOULD LOOSE THINGS PERMANENTLY. I may have been a little loud. Any of you hear me?
She decided that an angry mama bear is dangerous, and retreated, but not being without courage, she had to make it clear that she was not really retreating, so much as advancing to the rear.
"I wish you were stupid, Mom!" she yelled. "I wish you were really, really stupid! I wish you were!"
I'm afraid that's when all of us couldn't hold it together, and we lost it. I may not be the next Sam Carter, but my mother, Eldest Daughter, and I have all been accused of being "frighteningly bright". General consensus was that barring a head injury, her wish was likely to remain ungranted. Our gales of laughter probably set her back an additional 20 minutes.
Eventually she settled. There was silence, and then the sound of her playing her piece. We set the timer. Thirty minutes ticked away. She decided that she didn't want dinner and got ready for bed and took her night time meds. There on the table at her place was the heart-shaped box of very fresh Lake Champlain Chocolates chocolate truffles that her father and I gave her. The kids love these and look forward to them all year. She looked at it. She picked it up, and hugged it to her chest. She walked over to me, and held it out.
"Here, Mummy," she said. "I don't deserve this after all the trouble I caused for you and Daddy today."
"No," I said gently. "That's yours."
She hugged it to her chest again, walked over to the table and put it at her place and then she came back, her eyes tearing, and gave me a big hug.
"Thank you!" she whispered. "'Night."
"Night-night, Sweeting!" I said, and her father took her up to bed and tucked her in. She was asleep in minutes.
She really is a handful, but when she's done wrong and she knows it, and the paroxysms of prodigious and wasteful energy have all been expended, she's the very best of all my kids at stepping out of the ranks, owning up, and taking her lumps.
If she ever learns how to harness all that energy as a force for good, the world, or possibly the universe, is going to be short quite a few problems.
