Anachronistic Mom Blog

A Glorious Kindergarten Day - Happy St. Pats!

All this week when I've dropped my son off at school, small clumps of children have been waving to one another excitedly and hunching over patches of dirt and asphalt.

"Look! Look!" they say.  "They're here!"

The teachers have been leaving small patches of gold glitter around - and helping the children to track them.  The kids have been gathering the clues in cups and bottles and sharing them excitedly.

"It's the leprechauns!" said the children to me on Wednesday.  Tomorrow we're building traps, and on Friday, they're coming to visit!"

I love my child's school. It's hilarious. The entire kindergarten population (two rooms) got together with glue guns and tongue depressors and toilet paper rolls and jars and ... oh, tons of stuff ... to make about 24 leprechaun traps.  My son's was a toilet paper tube pointed up.  At the bottom was some gold glitter, and, as he explained to me, "The leprechaun climbs down there to get the gold and it can't get back up and you trap it!"

On Thursday night, the traps were set and baited.  The children went home, excited at catching a leprechaun of their very own (SO much cooler than a hampster.)

On Friday, when we went into school, we entered a mass of activity. The traps that had been set outside were torn apart and shredded.  The classroom was an unholy mess. Every single trap was upended or on the floor or torn apart -- and there were green footprints everywhere!  I have no idea how the teachers did it (someone's back must have really hurt!) but there were thousands of footprints, leading across the entire school yard (about 400 feet), back though the sand pit, around the house, and ... oh! the joy!

The children clumped around the teachers, and shoved and pointed. They hopped with happiness.  The teachers led them on a romp for about 20 minutes until they discovered two small treasure chests, filled with gold (necklaces and small gold pieces).  The children divvied up the stash, and wore their necklaces proudly all day.

After my son joined the fray, I walked into the Kindergarten classroom for a few minutes to admire the mess.  Two boys from the third grade snuck into the classroom to look around.  One of them said scornfully "The TEACHERS do all of this." The other boy said nothing.

Adult complicity to bring children joy and excitement is such a wonderful thing.  I propose a toast to the St. Patrick's celebraters everywhere.  And especially to the preschool and kindergarten teachers who help touch our children with magic and excitement -- even in the crushingly modern days of 2007.

Happy Saint Patricks Day!

Appliance Brutality - I'm There!

Sometimes at the end of the day, I just give up and pick up my Tivo control.  Usually when I scan through what Tivo has taped, I get a sinking feeling.  All day-long extravaganzas of Battlestar Galactica and Zoboomafoo will do that to you.  The stuff I like usually goes off the air pretty fast, and although Rock Star SuperNova was intellectually stimulating... it's over.

This past week, though, my husband left me a present. He had Tivo capture "Mr and Mrs. Smith," and it's the best housewife fantasy comedy I've seen in years.  (Um, maybe ever?  What IS a housewife fantasy comedy anyway?  The mind boggles.)

Remember all the PR when the movie was released. The excitement! The trauma!  I hate movies and couldn't be bothered, although I did read an interview with Jolie, who proclaimed the movie a "metaphor for marriage."  I'm always interested when the multi-divorced talk about metaphors for marriage. 

Yeah, yeah, smoky romantic scenes at the beginning. Yawn.  Fun desert scene with large explosion and Pitt looking like a dope.  Pretty good.  Professional woman acting miffed, surrounded by other fembot-types. Yawn.  (See why I avoid movies?)  But then it happens. My favorite part.  They chase one another through their big, boringly-decorated Stepford Wife house and shoot the hell out of it (to a great version of the old classic "Express Yourself"") Bingo!

I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but seriously, watching that Sub-Zero get strafed by a machine gun never fails to make me laugh out loud.  Gosh, could this be a new psychological option that comes with bloated appliances?  Come to think of it, it's almost as good as the existing one (that would be the "every massively expensive appliance will fall apart within five years rule).

Does anybody else have laughing fits at watching luxury appliances get shot up?  Or should I keep my identity secret and change the subject, so they don't take my children away and issue me Valium?

I'm a little ambivalent about the spouse-on-spouse violence (although it's done well), but if you're having a frustrating time with that remodel, I sure know of a movie you could watch!

This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog

The Last Mom Without a TV in the Car

We had a really dumb vacation this year, and it was all my fault. Oh, we talked about it, and we decided that driving down to Palm Springs on Christmas afternoon would be just ... stoopid, so we decided to fly.  Much more rational.  Makes sense.  We're busy, you see, and flying is more efficient.  Except that I woke up the next day and couldn't do it.  I "needed to drive."  It would be "fun" and "nice to have some together time with the family."  I'd "get to see the state." I bleated and sighed until my sweet husband said that he didn't care and we could do it. 

My family has been going to the desert for holidays for over thirty years. Now that my grandparents are dead, my mother continues the tradition. She goes to her surly retirement community and my brother's family goes to visit her.  We stay in our own resort in a different town, and we shop and dine together.  Sometimes we visit the surly retirement community pool together for the two hours that children are allowed, and we swim under the baleful watch of the walker-wielding denizens.  It's a real bonding experience with pure WASP overtones.  Golf, personal distance, family time, a dash of resentment (handily provided by the retirees, since I can't do it any more), and a cocktail lounge.  What's not to like?

My grandparents lived farther north in Northern California and they always drove to the desert on "the Five," as they call it in Los Angeles.  That power stretch of highway that makes Californians settle in and people from smaller places wonder if we're just insane.

At any rate, we drove to the desert.  It was a nine hour drive down on Tuesday, and a six hour drive back (from Santa Monica) on Sunday.  That gave us, um.... four days of vacation.  And two full days of driving on I-5.  Ain't truckstops cute?

When I have discussed this trip with people I know, a shockingly significant number of them have told me that I should have packed movies for my child.  Nope. Not going to happen.  I try to be polite about it and not use terms like "I don't believe in plugging my child into media to shut him up," but seriously, some of the people I talk with are amazingly pushy.  It seems that for many people in the area, it is considered almost a birthright to have access to keeno entertainment technology, like, from the age of two.  Especially during vacations. Just like mom and dad.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I had more than one child.  But hear me out.  I don't care if other people plug their children in to shut them up.  Sure, I find it a bit tacky, and I personally feel very strongly that it's not the way to raise a kid, but on the other hand, it's a lot quieter!

My child sat in the back seat for both drives.  We listened to lots of things on tape and CD, sang some songs, talked about what we were seeing (and he listened to his parents talk), and he drew pictures, made things, and read.  Sure, he was probably bored out of his skull, but tough noogies. If he doesn't get a little bored out of his skull at six, how on earth will he get through grad school?  <that was a j o k e.>  Besides, he needs to learn skills to cope with boredom and life.

A year and a half ago I took my child to a large chain mexican restaurant.  We sat down to see the two children at the next table watching a movie on a portable CD player.  What, your kid has such a short attention span that they can't sit through a family meal? Sheesh.

I realize that the portable CD players and movie players in the back of headsets are lovely.  They're ... luxurious.  They're special. They make trips into an extension of the TV room.  But is this really what our children need?  For reality, for the world to be some big, cushy, soft encompassing thing that they just sink into and watch?  I don't think so.  The entire concept drives me batty.

And by extension, the entire concept of luxury and children drives me nuts.  Have you noticed how many things nowadays have totally useless "luxury touches," many aimed at kids?  Like sugar.  My child, thankfully, doesn't have a sweet tooth.  Probably because he's not used to getting sweets.  Believe me, it's hard to not just give him a sweet or piece of gum or whatever.  I mean, heck, it costs, like one cent and I certainly eat what I want to. But I always think about the habits that I'm breeding, and I'm not willing to have some kid with a sugar entitlement syndrome, you know? 

Well, my kid had a "luxurious" trip.  He got to be with his dad and mom, with absolutely nothing in the way, for six days.  We laughed, talked, argued a bit, and looked at the world together.  At times it was very quiet for long periods of time.  Sometimes when I looked back, he was just sitting, looking out the window.

There is a (somewhat jokey) theory that you should try to create as many boring periods of time in your life as possible.  Boring is good, says the theory. It makes your life seem longer.

Well perhaps there's an alternate theory available for childhood. Time spent together with your family, just ... being ... is a gift in today's overscheduled, over-media-ized society.  Out of boredom comes creativity and the ability to cope with the simple stresses of life. And when you're together as a family, traveling, you can occasionally stop staring out the window or reading a book to just talk to your family.

As dumb as it was to spend that much energy on the road, I enjoyed the enforced time together.  The time that you get in a car isn't like time in an airline terminal.  However, I'm equally happy to report that my urge to drive is gone.  For at least a year.

This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog

A California Traditionalist

I think that ritual is cool.  I also think that there is a part of our brain that responds well to it.  Our humanist family dislikes many of the messages of organized religion, so when my son was very young, idealistic mom started out to make our own rituals (and traditions.)

When my son was a baby, I would take him out every single day and we would walk through the front yard, singing a song to greet the world. (Seriously.)  That's now over, but we did it for years.  For a time there, we would light a candle when we sat down to eat.  Since we really are (I mean, let's be serious here) big nonbeliever-types, we were a bit stumped as to what type of song to sing when we sat down, so we ended up letting my son choose. He decided that we'd sing "It is time to eat dinner," sung over and over to the tune of "Happy birthday to you."  Yeah.  We do that sometimes.  What else?  Um, does toothbrushing count?

I actually tried looking to the secular humanist movement to provide focus and direction for our home rituals.  And I learned that secular humanism, with its "one trick pony approach" (e.g. no, we don't believe) is really not half as fun as all of the wacked-out belief-based things that humans have come up with through the years.  Yeah, OK, we don't believe. But gosh, look! The people down the street are all dressed up for the festival of the giant turtle!  Let's go!   Religions have spent tons of years and tons of money to develop their rituals, and some of them are pretty darn neat. 

So what's a nice, nonbelieving family to do for traditions? After careful consideration, we decided to just celebrate everything. Except Kwanzaa. With all due respect, Kwanzaa has never really resonated with me.  I'm looking forward to Holi instead - that seems like a seriously cool holiday.

As a "tooth fairy athiest" as Richard Dawkins calls it, we try to give Solstice as much credence as that large, red-clad fellow, and we also celebrate Hanukka.  I mean, why not?  Properly engaged in, rituals and traditions are shared joy. We have always had a tree (nod to pagan traditions), and in our house the tree usually has a pink flamingo on the top, which we're not going to explain.

The decorations for our holiday tree are very special.  We have a dill pickle and a bagel and a glass box of chinese food, as a nod to the Jewish side of the family.  We have many moons and suns and wizards and fairies, as a wink to the pagan side of the family.  And we have many toys, such as bicycles, red wagons, a two-inch tall teddy bear, a hedgehog (!), and so forth, as a nod to memories and playing and some of the great Christmas stores in San Francisco.

We're trying to attempt at least one new tradition every year.  This year, we participated in a St. Martin's "Lanternfest" festival, where about a hundred people made lanterns, filled them with lit candles, and dangled them from sticks while walking through the street, singing songs in German.

It's not our tradition (yet), but I think I like it.  I wonder what's next?

This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog

On Mathematics and Passion

Several years ago I wrote a parenting manifesto which I still follow.  One of the goals was to be passionate about your interests and your life.  And to find other people who are passionate, as well.  "Probably the most compelling and defining moments of your child's life," (I wrote) "will involve exposure to people who are living a passion -- be it teaching, fly-fishing, painting, or being a rock hound."

So let's talk about math.

I was raised math challenged.  When I was nine, after my mother's last divorce, we moved to the California mountains, where we were surrounded by seventies hippie types, animals, a lot of Pink Floyd, and huge numbers of books.  I'm sad to report that the joy of math passed me by.  My mother disliked it and so did I.

Now we live in the silicon valley, where a good friend of mine told me several years ago that she plays "math games in the car" with her child.  I was utterly flabbergasted.  "You mean, like, fun?" I said.  "Oh yes," she said. "We have a lot of fun."  Wow.  This totally blew me away and I have to admit that I spent quite a while trying to think of a math-oriented game I could play in the car with my kid.

Didn't work.  "Gee honey, what's 2 plus 2?" lacked a certain ... resonance (on both sides), and we soon dropped it.  He had to settle for the same mishmash of science information, bizarre cultural and travel tidbits, agnostic rantings, and mommy's non-Platonic monologues on "what is good."  Poor thing. 

But I see him "doing" numbers sometimes and he seems to like them.  I'd love to hook him up with someone who loves numbers, who just experiences sheer joy in them.  Maybe it will rub off.  Certainly it would be nice to at least let him know that not everyone views numbers with a baleful eye.

Enter our good friend Chongo.  He was just over chatting with my husband tonight, and showed me this web page.  Check out the story about Chongo at six at the bottom of the page.  A good cautionary tale about schools and bright kids.

Chongo's page is called How High Can you Count?  It makes sense that some children experience (apparently) a frisson of power when they can count higher than other children.  Yes! (She said, brightly.)  Sounds like Fun!  Oh, I am in so much trouble.  Do I have to be supportive of MATH now?  OK, excuse me.  Sometimes when I blog, the neuroses come out through the keyboard, although I assure you that they are firmly subdued in real life.

So, if I can interrupt my inner voice and stop having the vapors for a minute, this stuff is actually pretty cool. Chongo's pages are about playing with math.  He discovered some Prime numbers and has never lost his love for math.  The thing that I like about his website is that it's not some velvet-wrapped iron fist technique for getting your kids to SCORE HIGHER.  It's a genuine website from a genuine person who just flat-out loves this stuff.

And check out this game that he's put together, called The English name for a number.   Figure out what number you want.  Check some boxes.  Do you want it named using English or American convention? Power of 10? Miscellaneous odd things that you can check?  I put in this number: 789485726475950938484758596969585747383398390450550 and the little applet told me that the name of the number is:

seven hundred eighty nine quindecillion,
four hundred eighty five quattuordecillion,
seven hundred twenty six tredecillion,
four hundred seventy five dodecillion,
nine hundred fifty undecillion,
nine hundred thirty eight decillion,
four hundred eighty four nonillion,
seven hundred fifty eight octillion,
five hundred ninety six septillion,
nine hundred sixty nine sextillion,
five hundred eighty five quintillion,
seven hundred forty seven quadrillion,
three hundred eighty three trillion,
three hundred ninety eight billion,
three hundred ninety million,
four hundred fifty thousand,
five hundred fifty

You know, I am a total non-math fan, and that was even a little fun for me.  Then there's the  cryptographically sound random number generator and ... Oh Lord, I just don't get it.  This is one of the reasons why it's good to cook, so that when really brilliant people come over and start talking with my husband about math and science and technology, I can go make soup.  And such a relief to be the intellectual slacker. I embrace it over here at our house!  Where IS my Agatha Christie book?

One last thing.  At the end of the evening, Chongo took my kid out in the front yard to look at stars, and boy does he have a different perspective! (check out the Astronomy vita!) USUALLY my child gets stories of the constellations, which of course morph into stories from mythology and then, social commentary.   When I went out though, Chongo was talking with him about ... Oh, I dunno. Some wierd space travel time continuum thing.

I realize that I've been waxing rhapsodic over some weird geek stuff (yeah?  Why ELSE live in the silicon valley for over 20 years), and I apologize.  Tomorrow I'll probably get irritated at the mall again, but for today, I just want to say "hooray for passions!"  And thank goodness my child won't have to grow up thinking of numbers without joy.

This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog