Category: 5 years old

Wabi Sabi

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In the children’s section of the library the other day, I spied a book titled “Wabi Sabi.”  I’ve been hearing a lot about wabi sabi these days because it’s all over  modern home design blogs (another obsession of mine). The idea, as it relates to home design, is that not everything in a modern home needs to be sleek, metallic, completely finished. Something simple, quiet, old, comfortable is also beautiful. I checked out the book without reading it and brought it home.

Later that afternoon, sitting on our decidedly non-wabi sabi couch, I read the book to the boy.

It begins with a zen proverb: “An old pine tree can teach you the sacred truths.”

“But,” the boy began, “what does it mean? How can an old pine tree teach you?”

“Just let it roll around your head for a while, kiddo.”

So we went on–the book is about a Japanese cat named Wabi Sabi who sets out to learn the meaning of her name. Along the way she meets various creatures who give her hints and finally (*spoiler alert*) a wise monkey who teaches her what it means to be wabi sabi. The illustrations are torn-paper collages and quite beautiful. Each page also has a haiku on it, which the boy is familiar with from the Jon Muth books I mentioned earlier.

One of these haikus starts by talking about something being alive and dying at the same time. “How can that be?” he asked.  I love moments like this, when you can see the little gears in his head turning.  When he hears a new idea and tries to process and make sense of it in a way that he can understand. It’s almost as if you get a window into the elasticity of a child’s brain. The page has an illustration of fallen autumn leaves. “Well, I said, it’s like those leaves that have just fallen.  They’re still a bit alive, but they’re dying also.” “Oh,” he said, not entirely getting it. Still, he loved the book.

A few days later, while walking to the bus stop, he spied a dried out yarrow bush. “Too bad that plant died, Mama,” he said.

“Not entirely, kiddo, look–there’s green leaves at the bottom. This plant comes back every springtime.” I said.

He gasped, “It’s alive and dying at the same time!! Mom! This is Wabi Sabi!”

And so it was. Since then he points out everything that is wabi sabi, sometimes a bit incorrectly, but so happy to have learned for himself just what it is.

Marble Jar

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You may remember an incident from October of last year in which the boy was caught carving up his dresser and lying about it. My friend Geoff made a comment in which he described using a Supernanny technique of putting marbles in a jar to reward good behavior, and so we started as well.

It took a bit of parental training until we were doing it right.  I think at one point I had a marble count of -2 and figured that I must be doing something wrong. The boy would, rather cagily, game the system as well. He’d set the table without anyone asking and then ask, “Didn’t I set the table so nicely? Don’t I deserve 2 marbles?”

We also took marbles out for bad behavior, and using the jar as a threat was a good deterrent. Once he had a particularly bad day and had run upstairs and slammed the door in Eric’s face and then proceeded to kick the door. Eric opened the door and told him to come downstairs, NOW. It was the verbal equivalent of dragging him downstairs by holding his ear. Eric picked up the nearly full marble jar and began POURING OUT marbles back into the source jar. The boy started hyperventilating and shaking. He lost about half of the hard won marbles with that.

He never slammed the door again.

Finally, this week, the jar was full. I had at first said that the prize was going to be watching (an edited) “Star Wars,” but the boy rejected this, saying it would give him nightmares. “Well, what do you want?” I asked.

“I know!! I want a real comic book!! Batman!!” and he started to giggle uncontrollably with excitement at the idea.

This seemed fair enough, so I looked up the comic book store (incidentally, their logo is in Comic Sans, which is possibly the only acceptable use for that font) and off we went. I expected the store to have a few random people wandering about that looked like the comic book guy from the Simpsons.

Instead, there was a line out the front door, and I learned that we’d stumbled into a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, whatever that is. The place was packed!

We looked around for the more kid-friendly comics–most of the stuff nowadays is really dark and violent, it seemed to me. The “Family Comic” section was a little TOO lightweight even for the boy. He’s not really interested in Darkwing Duck or Minnie Mouse comics. Browsing around the store, I got a glimpse of what the next 12 years is going to look like.

We eventually found some older Batman comics that were pretty good for him, and he was so, so excited!

Back into the jar went all the marbles, to be earned and redeemed again, hopefully sooner than 5 months this time!

Gender Identity

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Last night, the family was in a odd configuration in which the boy was in the bathroom, on the toilet, with the door closed and the rest of us were sitting outside. You know that seems to happen sometimes?  Anyway, a conversation ensued which went like this:

Girl: I girl, you (pointing to Eric) boy, mommy girl!

Eric: What about your brother?

Girl: Ummm…boy!

Me: What makes someone a boy or a girl?

Girl: ‘Cause! Just ’cause!

Boy (from inside the bathroom): Hey, girl, let me tell you.  I’m a boy because I have a penis and you’re a girl because you don’t.

Girl: I have penis, too!

Me (yelling through the door): She says she has a penis, too.

Boy (not missing a beat): Well, then, she’s a boy.

Glad that’s been cleared up.

Cold Day

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Today DPS cancelled school because it was going to be zero degrees. There was a lot of whining about the school closures on Facebook, especially from people who grew up in Wisconson and such, where they only close schools if the Packers lose and everyone is too depressed to do anything. Me personally, I’m happy to keep my kids out of weather that causes frostbite in 5 minutes.

On snow days, Eric usually stays home with the kids because his college closes as well. This time, they stayed open so I took off my 2nd day of work ever. When I don’t work, other people have to do the work I would have done, so I felt a lot of guilt about not going in, even though it’s not particularly busy right now. Then I felt guilty for feeling guilty about work and not putting my kids first. Do mommies get a guilt break, ever?

During the day so far, I think the girl has averaged about one time out per half hour because she screams when she doesn’t get what she wants. Screams. My ears hurt. I began to wish that school had just stayed open, frostbite be damned, because I just couldn’t take the screaming anymore. I know, I know, I’m terrible.

That all being said, we’ve done some fun crafty things and in some ways it’s been nice to be holed up with them, warm and cozy.

We started by making a paper snowflake garland. I had to look up how to do this, having forgotten from my childhood. It was so much fun! The boy loved doing this, and so did I. The girl did a few but got bored pretty quickly and found other pursuits.

Watching the snowflakes unfold was the most fun part!

These:

Turned into these!

Then we took some dental floss and clear tape and made a garland to hang in front of our fireplace. I think it looks just lovely–you can click to enlarge. (Full disclosure–prior to this picture, I took off of the mantelpiece: An entire deck of Uno, packing tape, 2 pairs of scissors, twine, a small stuffed animal, an old glass of water and and a knitting book.  It doesn’t really look that tidy all the time)

Then we started baking and made some cookies. The girl got sent to rewash her hands about every FIVE MINUTES because she kept licking them. I can’t attest that all cookies are 100% germ free. The baking has to kill most of them, right?

I chose thumbprint cookies thinking that there were a lot of steps they could participate in. Both kids had a lot of fun sifting flour and watching the mixer. They got a bit bored with making the dough into balls, but loved rolling them in coconut and finally thumbprinting. So, so tasty.

It is now, gratefully, naptime.

Now all I need to do is come up with some ideas for the afternoon….

If Only We All…

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Trying out my technique on the boy again:

Me: “Tell me something happy that happened to you at school today.”

Boy (completely serious): “Ummm, being a Zen Buddhist.”

Me (trying to keep the smile out of my voice): “How do you be a Zen Buddhist?”

Boy: “Well, I try to be like Stillwater and am just very peaceful and quiet.”

 
 
 
*As a side note, I highly recommend all the Jon Muth books. “Zen Shorts” is a good place to start.  Great stories that introduce Zen principles and approaches to life problems in a way that kids understand, all illustrated with beautiful watercolor paintings.

Fixing Nemo

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[Let me start by saying that I had  a clever idea for this blog post comparing my quest of the perfect Nemo hat to that of Ahab and Moby Dick.  It was funny.  Then, I mentioned this to Eric, who proceeded to tear it apart bit by bit until it was unusable.  Something about how Ishmael isn’t Ahab and how Ahab hated Moby Dick for eating his leg and how nothing really fit and I really don’t care because every time I’ve tried to read Moby Dick all I can think about is how I’m wasting precious minutes of my life being bored out of my mind, but still, it ruined my analogy and I didn’t want to get mocked by other intellectuals so instead you are left with this:]

The girl hates hats.  The girl loves “Finding Nemo.” It is cold in Colorado, and one needs a hat for the winter.  I thought, why not make her a Nemo hat?

While I was making it, she seemed pretty excited–it’s pretty fast and only took me a few days.

Once I added the eyes, though, she backed away slowly, fear in her eyes.  I got the boy to model it:

Pattern: Fish Hat: Dead or Alive

Yarns: Loops and Threads Impeccable Worsted

I guess it might be a little freaky to see friendly little Nemo eating your head. And before someone starts, I know that it’s not an exact replica but it’s close enough for a 2 year old’s hat.

So after much discussion, we figured out that the big felted eyes were scaring her.  She insisted on a change to “puh puh buttons,” or “purple buttons.” Her favorite color is purple.  So we dug up a few buttons from a sewing kit that the boy has, and he insisted on sewing them on himself.

 

 

 

 

After that, it must have been slightly less scary, because she agreed to put it on for a little bit.

Then she wore it to the store, where it kept falling off her head and I realized it was too big, even though I’d sized it down for her head.  I added a messy looking but functional dart in the back, figuring it would be hidden by the floppy tail.

 

And did she love it then?

No. She completely and fully rejects the Nemo hat.  Won’t wear it.

The boy likes it, though, and will wear it.  With one request–“Mom, can we put the big eyes back on again?”

 

 

The Hills are Alive…with Bandits

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I recently got the Sound of Music, now restored to a very nice high-def.  Now you can really see just how ugly the children’s curtain playclothes are and realize that Captain von Trapp had every reason to be horrified.   I remember when it was broadcast on network TV once a year and the whole family would gather around to watch.  I’d always take a break right at “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.” Blech.  I still can’t stand that song.

The boy and I watched the first half the other night.  It is long.  Really, really long and you see how much they cut out of the movie for the TV version, which I’d never known.

What was kind of funny, though, was the questions that the boy asked while we were watching it.

“What’s a telegram?” he asked after Rolf delivered the first one. I suppose there’s no reason he’d EVER know what that was!

“Well,” I began, “It’s sort of like an email, but they didn’t have computers so they had to deliver it by hand.” I figured I’d leave the whole lesson on Morse Code for another time.

The next one came shortly after that, when Liesl and Rolf are frolicking before the impending thunderstorm.  “What’s going to happen?! Are they going to be okay?!” He was genuinely terrified for them.  I think this is sort of interesting, but I wasn’t sure where it came from.  I wonder if it’s because many kids’ movies nowadays have their characters in almost constant peril.  Think of the latest Toy Story movie–I mean, the characters are rarely just enjoying a free moment.  Some of it might be that thunderstorms are just scarier to little kids than they are to adults.

My favorite, though, was during “Do Re Mi” when Maria and the children begin to sing at their picnic and then all get up and dance away across the hills. He asked, “Why are they leaving all their stuff there?”

“Well, kiddo, they’re just having fun and singing. Why do you ask?”

“Because a thief might come and take all their stuff!” cried my little city kid.

I’m so delighted that my child can watch the first, non-scary half of the Sound of Music and still find a way to find danger lurking in every scene.  I wonder how the second half is going to go when the actual bad guys appear.

New Year and Holiday Wrap Up

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Happy New Year!

Holidays were so, so fun this year.  We did our usual tradition of pierogies and started a new tradition: skiing on Christmas day.  There was no one on the mountain, the weather was beautiful, and we came home to open presents in the evening.  The boy had his first day on the mountain ever!  At the end of the day, he said, “I couldn’t stop or turn but I loved going down the mountain really fast!”  Sapana, as always, flew out for the holiday and it was so wonderful to have her here.  While she has no current plans to leave New York, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that Denver is a fabulous place to live.

I love that the kids are old enough now to really enjoy things.  I know there’s some of you out there that are real baby people, but I’m a bigger fan of the walking/talking set.  It’s just so great to see both of them excited to decorate the tree, open presents and participate in the marathon pierogie making.

Oh! The doll! The knitted doll went over very well, and, as I suspected, was promptly named, “Baby.”  The girl received a set of baby accessories from her other aunt and was pushing her around in the stroller and putting her to sleep in the pack and play.

We also watched a few movies over Christmas, with varying reviews.  First up, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”–I loved it, Eric hated it, Sapana just thought it was weird.  “Get Him to the Greek”–we were expecting a “Hangover”-like comedy, and instead just got awful awful awfulness.  Three thumbs down.  “Black Swan”–creepy and scary.  Three trembling thumbs up.  And finally, an old favorite, “The Big Lebowski.”  Sapana and I were so tired we fell asleep halfway into our white russians and were only awakened by Eric’s guffaws throughout the film.  One thumb up, two lame movie snoozers.

And to finish, a wrap up of the year’s knitting and a slideshow of the holidays.  I hope everyone had a great month, and here’s looking forward to 2011!

Conversation Starters

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Ever try to talk to a 5 year old about how his day was?

The typical exchange goes something like this:

“How was your day?”

“Good.”

“What happened at school today?”

“Ummmmmmmm……I don’t remember.”

I thought I had at LEAST another 7 years before I got that response, which is essentially a more polite version of “nothing.”

So I’ve been trying something different lately, which has worked well. Try it yourself and see how it works.  Instead of asking how his day was, I say, “Tell me something happy that happened today.” Then I go on to ask about something sad, surprising, funny, and something that made him mad.  I usually get an actual story from his day with these questions.

Today’s responses–

Happy: Playing with my friend N.

Sad: When my sister was mean to me.

Surprising: Nothing today.

Mad: When C was mean to me at school.

That led to the follow up question of what exactly it is that C does, which seems to be looking at the boy’s private stuff in his cubby, which he only allows other kindergartners to do.  Eyeroll.

Then I ask, “Is there anyone else at school who is mean to you?”

“Well, H and E are sometimes.”

“What do they do?”

“They make fun of my name.”

Now this I was NOT expecting.

“What did they say?”

“They keep making fun of my name ’cause it has the word ‘kiss’ in it and they keep saying it over and over  again. And I don’t like that and it makes me sad.”

“So what do you do?”

“Well, I use my words and I tell them to stop and if that doesn’t work I tell the teacher.”

He looked so sad talking about this.  I gathered him in my arms for a hug.

“You know, ” I whispered in his ear, “I think you have the best name in the world.  I love your name.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling, “me too.”

“Don’t you ever let anyone make you feel bad about your name, okay kiddo?”

“Okay.” I guess the talk was over then, because he moved onto “can you help me build this Star Wars rocket?”

I wonder what tomorrow’s conversations will bring.

(If any of you try this, I’m curious to see if you have any interesting chats from it–let me know!)

 

 

Peace Heart

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I had just come down the stairs and heard Eric talking to someone on the phone. “Sure,” he was saying, “you can come over at 11 on Friday.”

I started to wave to him to tell him something, but he’d already hung up.

“J is coming over on Friday,” he said to me.

“But…” I tried to be neutral. “The girl has a doctor’s appointment at 11.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that!” he protested.

“Yes, you did. We had a whole conversation about it.  Remember? I said, ‘Hey can you take the girl to the doctor this Friday because I’m working?’ and you said, ‘Sure, no problem, just put it on the calendar.’ and then I said ‘Are you sure?” and you said, ‘Yes of course.'” I waved my hands frantically at the calendar we keep in the kitchen. “See?! Here it is, right here, in orange sharpie. 11AM, doctor.”

“Well, how was I supposed to remember that?” he said.

This is when my head starts to feel like it’s exploding because, you know, there’s no one around to remind me when I have to take the kids to appointments.  I just do it.

I don’t remember exactly what was said after that, but our voices were getting raised and I’m sure a few “You always” were thrown around.

In the midst of this came the boy, scowling, who shoved a small purple construction paper heart up at us.

“You have! To use! The peace heart!!!” he shouted at us.

Eric and I stopped and stared down at him, and then looked at each other and smiled.  I reached out and took the peace heart between two fingers.

“Okay,” I said, “How does this work again?”

“You hold the peace heart! And you talk about your feelings!” he shouted at us again.

Since I was holding the peace heart, I looked at Eric and began in my best marriage counseling voice, “I am upset that when I discuss plans with you and you agree to them you do not remember them later.”

Eric started to interrupt me, but the boy snapped at him, “You can only talk when you’re holding the peace heart!”

I handed the peace heart over to Eric. “I am sorry that I did not remember the doctor’s appointment.”

We kept handing back and forth and, well, got over the relatively minor argument. Of course, it’s hard to keep fighting when your 5 year old is standing between you, arms akimbo, with an expression of combined anger, disgust and disappointment on his face.  I felt like I was being dressed down by a little league coach or something.

The peace heart, clearly a product of his Montessori school, is back on the refrigerator and the boy has pulled it out for us a few times since then.

Strangely, it always seems to work.

Even if I’m not feeling particularly peaceful at the time.