stump the grandpa

My dad told this story from an afternoon with Tim:


He and Tim were walking along and Tim asked him, “Could a bird rule the world?”

My dad, being the amiable soul he is, walking along chatting with a child said, “Sure.”

Tim, in all seriousness, asked, “How?”

Love, Val

what's going on up there?

Okay, there is mayhem upstairs. Why always with the mayhem? We've got your door slamming and a lot of laughing. I can hear dance, dance revolution from somewhere up there, but this ain't dancing.

I have a box with about 12 shoes in it—all singles. Where are the matches for these shoes and bedroom slippers? I’ve looked all over the house. Where do random shoes even go? It kind of pisses me off, actually. Then I realized some don’t even fit anybody, so why even care? Sigh. Still.

What could that pounding possibly be, and why is an air conditioner running in November when it’s 50 degrees outside?

OH, GET THIS: Yesterday the air conditioner up there was running and when I crawled across the bed to shut it off, I realized Kari had her electric blanket on. This has happened before. The a/c AND the electric blanket?

Now the report from upstairs: Small kids were trying to break into the bathroom while Kari was going, and almost KNOCKED her right of the toilet. (Story told with much indignation and drama.) I do feel for her. These are not civilized people.

Our old house has the toilets right next to the door--which is an old-fashioned layout, but I actually like it because then when you're on the toilet you can hold the door shut if anyone comes bursting in.

Unless you're small and there are two of them and they knock you right off.

love, Val

what a rester

Okay so when I picked Julia up from preschool, the teacher, whom I love, told me: “Ohhh, she’s the best little rester in the world. She falls right to sleep at rest time.”

Yah. She’s also as white as paste and prone to whiny crying jags, slept 13 hours last night. The girl is anemic. I told the teacher, “Oh sure, she’s a good rester. She’s anemic. We’re giving her vitamins. It’ll get better. We gotta build her blood back up.”

The teacher’s mouth hung open, then she laughed, not sure if I was kidding or not.

She’s little. She has only a few sources of iron in her diet and obviously those are inadequate.

Not so much with the kidding. Yes on the Flintstone vitamins.

Sigh. Love, Val

uncle sandwich

Little Jay and his friend Sarah

This weekend was our last weekend at the lake, closing up for the season. TC didn’t want to leave. He wept on his mother, sprawled across her and his brother on her lap. I brought him Kleenex and told him I understood. His mom told him she understood too. His dad said he didn’t want to leave either, but he had to be on a plane to Colorado tonight for work. “We gotta go.”

At the lodge in Hayward: Tim, Lydia aka Kari, TC, and John

We headed out to the yard and his mom asked if he wanted to tell the kids good-bye? Little Jay spotted him crying, trotted over and lifted him up in a hug against his chest. Then he yelled to James, “This kid needs a sandwich hug!” James ran over and they wrapped their arms around each other, TC squashed between them, and jumped up and down. Little Jay hollered, “It’s an Uncle Sandwich! We’re Uncle bread, and TC is the peanut butter!” In a minute they let him slip to the ground again and he ran the rest of the way to the car laughing.

Big Jay and I stood out front and waved as the child beamed out the window yelling at us, “See you later!”

I wiped only one tear, then wandered back inside to finish packing with Kirsten…wipe out the fridge…scrub the bathrooms…

We won’t be back until April. All the days between now and then, the sun will rise and set, shadows moving across the rooms in silence.

The lake will freeze, snow will fall…the snow will melt again and the lake will thaw in the five months before we return.

Sigh. Gosh it was hard to drive away. On to the next thing, I guess. Love, Val

lucky to have tights

This morning I put Julia’s tights on her. She was kicking around on my bed, skinny long feet in the air. I tussled her into them, milking the knit up her legs, and it made me think of a conversation I’d had with my mom. When I was Julia’s age and even older, I wouldn’t dress myself. How pitiful is that? Mom would put the clothes out on the bed, tell me to dress and then go make breakfast.

I’d roll around on the bed in my underwear, kick around, goof around, waiting for her to come back and dress me. She yell breakfast was ready a couple times and I’d ignore. Then shortly she’d come to the room and scold me, “Why aren’t you dressed? …mutter, mutter,” and she’d put the tights on me, same as I was on Julia this morning. I mean, I could see she didn’t feel like it, but her griping was a small price to pay to have someone else deal with the tights.

I’ve apologized to her for what a brat I was. I argued with Pam too much, would toss around on the floor at the store when I was bored while she was shopping. It was obvious to me fairly early that I had some very benign parents… other kids had to clean their plates and couldn’t be in the stuffy formal livingrooms of their homes. This was the standard of our suburban neighborhood, yuck. But that’s how it was.

Other kids’ moms wouldn’t let friends in the house—kids had to play outside all the time. My mom didn’t care. I didn’t have to eat all my food, didn’t have an early bedtime. I could have friends play in pretty much any time, could take my Barbies and dolls and all their clothes and crap out in the yard if I wanted. Suit yourself, honey. My dad never yelled. Spanking was unheard of. It just wasn’t very strict at my house, and the parents didn’t get excited about much.

Anyway, when I apologized, she waved me off, “You were just a kid.” Well, yeah. A brat is still a brat. I could have been nicer.

My mom tells about when she was a kid in the 40s, they didn’t have tights. They had long stockings and garters. Children’s garters. They were an elastic contraption that involved two long, wide strips of elastic that went from the front of the leg all the way over the shoulders on each side, to the back of the leg. Clips were on the end to fasten the stockings to. In the middle was an elastic waist band that held the long strips together.

She says it worked perfectly when it was on. But when the thing was taken off, the elastic would spring into a tangled ball. Getting it untangled and back on in the morning was a hell of an ordeal. Her mother was working in the barn, so she wasn’t going to come tussle her into it. She had to untangle it and get the damned thing on by herself. Moreover, she had to untangle her little sister Pat’s garter and get hers on her too. Yeah, tights aren’t so bad after all.

Here’s a cute picture of my mom and Pat, her sister, my godmother, taken in about 1947? Look how docile and tame that chicken is, big claws dangling.

Here’s a picture of my parents. Take a look at their faces. In the whole world there’s nobody kinder, more generous, forgiving, and GOOD than these two.

Last week Little Jay had to name a mentor for National Honor Society. They discourage kids from naming parents, and I think that’s good. (Parents are such obvious mentors.) I asked him who he was choosing. I thought he’d name one of his teachers. He’s had so many excellent teachers over the last few years.

He said, “Grandma,” without hesitation.

I said, “Wow. She’ll be honored. How did you decide that?”

He said, “She’s always believed in me, like totally, you know?” Yeah, I do know. Totally.

Lucky, that’s what we are, and smart enough to know it. Love, Val

Mom, Kirsten, and Little Jay

the caterpillar lacks lettuce

This morning I followed Jay down the highway in his big plumbing van. He was taking Julia to preschool and I was headed to the office for a meeting. As he reached his exit before mine, we were beside each other for a minute, and he waved, big old paw. I waved back. Then I realized the sunlight was illuminating the back of the van where the windows are tinted, and I could see Julia waving like crazy. It caught me by the heart for a second, her grin, her polka dot coat, the tumble of golden hair over her shoulders, tiny hand waving at me. I blew them a kiss.

A couple miles later, some lady ran into the back bumper of my car. Nobody’s hurt. It’s just a bumper; everything’s fine. But still. I missed most of the meeting. After the meeting I waited to talk with the sales manager about some questions I have about a listing. He had another meeting, and suggested I call a different person. But I didn’t have her phone number. I could look it up on a computer, but all the computers were in use. I could ask the sweet woman who runs the desk, but she was on an interminable phone call with a technician of some kind. Sigh. I wandered back and forth for a while, waiting where she couldn’t see me.

Then my cell phone rang, and it was Lydia, sounding very tragic. “Joey’s out of lettuce and I’m afraid he might die.” Joey is her caterpillar. For several weeks he’s been living in a big glass tumbler on her dresser. “And we’re out of ketchup.” She sounded like she was crying, so I asked her. “No, I just have a very stuffy nose.” You know? I was all done waiting then, standing around that frustrating office. This is why I work from home in the first place.







I packed up my stuff and left, stopping for ketchup and lettuce on the way, and some gorgeous pumpkin cookies with raisins caught my eye too. I’m in my real office now, with bedroom slippers on, ready to actually get some work done. The chicken nuggets are in the oven, Joey has his lettuce and from the family room, I can hear Lydia’s happy chatter. I mentioned that they might want to put on clothes today and Tim told me, “Nah. We like pajamas.”


It all feels just right when I'm HERE. love, Val

blah blah, homeschool

This in response to a mom of an 8 year old who can read very well, but is whiny and "lazy" and uncooperative in homeschool:

Just some thoughts... I've been at this since 1989, still have kids in homeschool, and have learned a few things the hard way.

Okay--lazy is a very negative word. We all are lazy to some extent or in certain areas...get that word out of the picture. It's totally counterproductive. With a sixth grade reading level, he doesn't need much else--a little math (six problems is our standard until about age 12.) Just let go of it. Things that are "too hard" probably are actually "no fun." If he can read, what more does he need to do at this point? It's good enough.

He does NOT need to be studying grammar or spelling--those are not the basics--that's a school system idea, has nothing to do with actual human children.

The basics are being able to read, be beginning to learn simple multiplication at age 8, be experimenting with writing when he's interested, art when he's in the mood, reading about science and scientists, explorers, animals, planets--whatever sounds interesting to him... renting videos...playing soccer in the back yard... just going about the business of being EIGHT.

I understand you say you "fear skipping the essentials" but you are operating with a mainstream-school idea of what's essential when a guy is eight years old. Get back to the frame of mind of an 8 year old boy if you can. Is grammar essential for him? Heck no. He can talk. Later on he'll apply the sentence structure of his speech rhythms into his writing.

When he's about 13 or 14--in a few weeks by use of a standard workbook, you can teach him all the grammar that matters. He'll either be a good speller or a poor one, but I can't tell which is which until they're about 12 or so... they're all kind of bad until then, but who cares? As the good spellers emerge at 12-13, then it makes sense to do a little spelling--teach a few rules, memorize some common words for the ones who still misspell everything. Good spellers don't need this.

We used to have whining too. Then I quit bugging the kids about school and it went away.

In the peace, I got busy with my own should-dos: I went back to school, got my degree, started a business, sew beautiful baby blankets, refinish furniture, write.... They do a little work, but it doesn't matter when. And if they hate it--forget it. This is OUR homeschool. Nobody ought to be hating anything.

My oldest kids are adults. (I’m well into my 40s.) They went to public school at grade 9, went to the top of the class... had success at the university too.... Both are engineers, one with an MBA, the other his PE.

The baby is beautiful, but see how my son's eyes scrunch up into half circles when he smiles? I love them both so much.

They're both married to really nice women, have cute old houses, funny dogs, play softball in the summer. They each have children, including the baby who is here sleeping next to me right now.

The third child graduated the university and is working in underwriting at an insurance company. The fourth one studied in Scotland last winter and is finishing her economics degree. The fifth one is a senior at the public high school, honor student, the sixth is a freshman at the same school, also doing well.

Though it’s fun to tell of their success, the whole point of it is to tell you this: Everything is okay. It’s okay to go with the flow, to let six year olds be six, and ten year olds be ten...

Somehow--I'm not sure how---homeschool totally works, even laid back ones that seem to meander.

Amazingly, squirrels grow into really lovely adults.

There are still a few squirrels around our homeschool. They farm on Facebook and play Zoo Tycoon. They cook, and build legos, play with the dogs, and don’t get dressed until I am yelling at 2pm, “GET ON CLOTHES.” We do a little math, and they were reading about the planet Mercury earlier, did some worksheets on insects, and a cross word puzzle about Grover Cleveland. (That made me laugh.) Lydia baked a lemon cake and put cream cheese frosting on it.

It's safe for you to relax and do what your child feels like. Make sandwiches together, pack a lunch and go to the park or museum for the day. Just hang out. Hit some garage sales. Go bowling. Lie in bed all afternoon reading library books. Listen to the Beatles in the car…Or Elvis, or Louis Armstrong, Taylor Swift, whatever you want.

Rake leaves and cover the garden for the winter. It sounds crazy, I know, not like the essentials or basics. But being together and living life *is* the basics. It is the essence of the entire endeavor of raising a kid.

You can trust the natural need to grow that exists within all of us, give him room, and he'll let you know sooner or later what he wants. love, Val