Sydney, our youngest, is graduating high school and I am a little nostalgic. I have been thinking back to her growing up years. She has always been a wise little soul (now she is a wise tall soul). Here is a piece I wrote about from the very month she started kindergarten where she delivers a message I needed to hear which I am not sure I have quite grasped 13 years later.
From the Blog Archives, September 2008
Teachable Moments
Jackson had been invited to a birthday party and Sydney could neither understand nor accept that she had not been invited. I told her we could do something fun and she chose to go to Toys R Us to buy Jackson his birthday present. Jackson’s birthday is not for two months but she was most excited about the gifts he had given her and she wanted to buy him something special. (by “she” and “buy”, she means ME). I am touched though, and agree to go.
At Toys R Us we are getting out of the car and she is wearing her Cinderella sunglasses which she clips onto her she shirt, she is carrying a cell phone transformer in one hand and she also wants to bring a stuffed dog in with her. I suggest to her that bringing THREE things to the store is pushing it and odds are she is going to put one of them down when she looks at something she wants to buy. I let her bring all three things in knowing I’ll be the one to keep track of them. If I keep this flexibility up I’ll be qualified to teach yoga!
[From the Blog Archives: March 30, 2011 – when we had a puppy and 2 weeks of spring break. I note that I don’t know how/if we would have survived the pandemic with at-home school. Hats off to anyone who has]
I know that you both must be very busy. I must impose and ask that you compare schedules to come to our house. At the same time. Preferably when I have a bottle of red wine on hand.
Mary P, I know you think Jane and Michael banks were a challenge. You have no idea how the second week of spring break is going around here. Our 7 year INSISTED on play Monopoly Jr. this morning. My 9 year old and I obliged and it was going well until said 7 year old teetered on the edge of insolvency. She does not like to lose. When I had the audacity to land on the square where I get all that money in the middle of the board she threw a fit and screamed so loud the windows shattered.
I expect, being Mary Poppins, you will know everything about everything. I hope that includes computers as our 9 year old is an unstable element as he tries to figure out why PowerPoint is not loading properly on the computer. While occasionally I can solve these computer issues, with or without computer phone support from Husband, I certainly cannot do it while aforementioned 7 year old is screaming “YOU STOLE MY MONEY, I TOLD YOU I WANTED TO GET THAT MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I know you may suggest that we have not kept them busy. We have tried. We have them in 4 days of camps over two weeks. In addition that have been swimming three times, lunched at Chuck E Cheese’s, seen two movies, attended one birthday party, enjoyed one grandparental sleepover and been to one family gathering. But still I have conversations like this:
S: J hit me! Me: Why would he do that? S: Maybe because I put my sock in his face. Me: Why would you do that? S: I can’t remember, but I had a really good reason.
Or ones like this:
J: S won’t play with me. Me: Why don’t you think she will? J: I don’t know. But she is being super annoying and I told her so. Me: Maybe that is why she won’t play with you. J: Well if she would stop being super annoying then we could play.
I wish were the limit of what is going on. The dog is also driving us crazy, which is why I thought the Dog Whisperer could pay a visit.
Dog W, at the beginning of spring break in an amazing show of productivity the kids counted how many holes the dog had dug in the back yard. They stopped when they got to 27 or 28. They could not agree whether it was 27 or 28 and got into a fight about who was right.
We know that dogs will be dogs and we created a canine-only digging area, but that seems to be the only place that she won’t dig. And because it is raining, she is favouring the holes with 6 inches of water. Or digging in bark mulch which I can tell you likes to adhere to Maltese fur. If you read above, you will know that I do not have time to give the dog the 3 baths she requires every day.
If that were the only problem, I think we could cope. But the dog has a paper, cardboard and pencil fetish the likes of which I expect you have never seen. She can chew a pencil down to nothing in the few minutes we are chasing her around the room trying to disarm her. I signed up for pet insurance solely for the reason that a bowel obstruction is imminent. She can dislodge toilet paper rolls from their holders and chew threw a full roll before we know what she is up to. You may guess how much time I have to clean up a thousand little scraps of toilet paper. Any scrap of paper is fair game. Just last week she ate half a birthday party invitation so I ended up dropping our daughter off early as the start time for the birthday is working its way through her intestines.
