Category: Family

The kids were in the pool for a bit today. But it was still cold and they could only be in for about 20 minutes, which is 20 more minutes than any adult would have ventured. The lass brought out her boogie board for the occasion and both of them used there goggles. When they got out, they left everything in the pool.

That set of circumstances led to an amusing moment later when it started to rain. The boy came running outside shortly after it started screaming “I’ve got to get my goggles out of the rain!”

I almost choked on my drink.

The most annoying trait the kids have adopted of late is they ask questions. Not different questions, but the same question. Over and over and over. Typically, it’s a request of some sort. “Can I have candy?” isn’t uncommon. “What can I have with lunch?” “Can I stay up later?” “Can we have waffles?”

I wish I could say it’s entirely unprovoked, but I cannot. Mainly, the sin the Wife and I commit is to not immediately respond. And by immediately, I mean with a microsecond of the question having been thought by the kids.

Alright, I exaggerate. But not by much.

The thing about most of these questions is the kids already know the answer. “No, you can’t have candy.” “Have an apple or strawberries.” “No, bedtime is bedtime.” “Maybe.”

But we don’t get a chance to offer an answer. Instead, they ask again because some internal timer goes off, meaning we didn’t hear them. The Wife and I get snippy at times with this and will intentionally try to ignore them. That when it devolves into a scene from a sitcom with the kid standing next the to their parent roboticly repeating themselves until they get a response.

My usual, exasperated response is to say “If you ask me that again, you’ll go to bed early.” Of course, being problem solvers they simply route around that obstacle and ask for the same information in a slightly different way. It’s like Chinese water torture.

Unfortunately, the situation is in something of a stalemate. They don’t seem to be taking the hint to think before they ask, and we aren’t interested in responding any quicker to their queries. The proverbial unstoppable force and immovable object.

I guess we’re hoping they’ll grow out of it. Soon.

Real soon.

The Wife made cupcakes when she was done with work today. The cupcakes happened to be for the boy’s birthday tomorrow. So she let him have first dibs at licking the mixing bowl. She let the lass lick the beater.

But the lass wanted some more, so she tried to get a pinch or two from the bowl that the boy was working on. Things quickly went downhill from their. The boy defended the bowl like he was the MVP goalie of the Stanley Cups playoffs. The lass resorted to every trick in her arsenal to penetrate his defenses. Including whining.

It finally got to the point that I told them both they were done. I shooed them out of the kitchen. Actually, it was more like ordering them out of the kitchen.

The boy didn’t take kindly to this situation. Apparently, he’s got some kind of 6th sense capability to accurately measure the amount of batter he’s consumed versus his sister. Something on the order of “A thousand-billion times” more. So he decided to take his frustration out on her by chasing her around with a rope and swinging it at her. The lass, or her part, ran around screaming at him to stop.

So, once again, I intervened. Telling the boy that it was just as much his fault as her fault that I’d made them stop eating the batter. I explained how he could have just told her to wait and that she could finish what he didn’t; that there had been no need for him to be so belligerent towards her. I took away the rope for good measure.

Anyone with experience with 8-year olds probably knows that my rational explanation had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever. He continued pursuing the lass around the house. The lass continued shrieking for him to stop. Finally, I’d had enough and confronted the boy a 2nd time. He finally relented his pursuit and went off to sulk. I also told the lass to stop shrieking and find something else to do.

Five minutes later I heard more shrieking from outside. I poked my head out. The boy and the lass were playing together on their play gym.

Last Thursday, I basically went insane for about a minute. I’d sent the kids upstairs to get ready for bed. We’ve had this arrangement for awhile now and it’s nice. They head up, brush their teeth and take care of other pre-bed rituals, and then we go up and say goodnight. It’s not one-hundred percent yet, but it’s getting close.

Well, that night ended up being a less than hundred percent night. I heard the lass whimpering. She’d started down that road just prior to going to be over her Lego project. Nothing like Lego troubles to thoroughly frustrate a child.

When I arrived in her room she was sitting in the middle of an unmade bed. Not unmade in the sense that it was a mess. Unmade in the sense that there were no sheets.

That was the beginning of the decent into insanity process. Frankly, I can’t explain why. It really wasn’t the lass’ fault that her bed wasn’t made. Although I was frustrated that she’d sat their whimpering rather than trying to do something about it. That frustration slowly ballooned into a full on fury where I was screaming as loud as I could.

When I was done, I hadn’t accomplished much. Both kids were completely silent, but the lass’ bed still wasn’t made. I was still upset as well, but I wasn’t screaming like a fool anymore.

So I made her bed, said goodnight to both of them and went downstairs to contemplate my absurd behavior. Definitely not one of my better moments in parenting. Kids can get under any parent’s skin, but in this case the lass really hadn’t done anything. Or, at least, nothing that directly precipitated my reaction. I’d taken a fairly minor offense, and blown it all out of proportion. Pretty child like, when you think about it.

My voice was done for the next couple of days. It finally started returning to normal in the last couple of days.

Well, it didn’t seem like last weekend’s real life Wild Kingdom experience with the garter snake in our garden could be topped. But then this weekend came along and offered a similar high drama.

This time, everything happened out in the yard. The boy called out “Look a snake!” The Wife looked out of reflex, and then quickly went back to what she’d been doing. In the meantime, I looked out in the yard and spotted the frog first. Then I saw the snake trailing behind it, keeping pace pretty well. It was another garter snake.

The frog hopped about half-way across the yard and then decided to stop. That was the only mistake it took for the snake, who reared up and snagged it. The kids and walked over to check things out. It was a tree frog, and was squeaking up a storm. The snake was a bigger version of the one from last week, probably about 2 feet long. I considered going to get the camera, but the snake made quick work of the frog. The whole thing was done in less than a minute.

By that time, our dog was circling and sniffing, trying to figure out what to do. Apparently, leaving well enough alone wasn’t an option. The dog would carefully scent his way in, the snake would flick it’s tongue and then the dog would jump back and bark, circle around a bit and start it all over again.

So I grabbed the dog and had the boy step towards the snake and it took it’s leave of the yard. Heading back to the quieter environs of the hedges.

When we first moved into the house, our garage was wide open from the floor to the roof. I spend a few weekend putting in the supports for a floor and created an attic space. Some time after that my father came up and helped me insulate the garage and we now effectively have an attic above the garage. We store most of our Spring and Summer paraphernalia up there: lawn chairs, plant pots, window box planters, hoses. We also put some of the outdoor Winter stuff like sleds and lights up there as well.

But every Spring, ever since it was unveiled for them, the kids are interested in one thing that they know is up there. The want the Water Table.

It’s a Step 2 toy that they got back when the boy was 3, maybe 4. It stands about 20 inches high and it’s shape is circular. About 30 inches in diameter, I’d guess. It’s a light blue color with a couple of different levels and a ramp on the side. It has 3 legs.

When it was first assembled, there was a water wheel that mounted on the upper portion of the Water Table. The water wheel had a reservoir that could be filled precisely using a pitcher that was supplied. All the water wheel did was spin and spray the water around a little when the water flowed through the reservoir. It also came with a little plastic sailing boat.

Over the years, we got other little boats that were also used in the Water Table. The kids would place a boat in the upper portion of the table and try to sail it down the ramp to the lower portion of the table. The would try to submerge and sink the boats. On occasion, they’d try to figure out ways to keep the boats under water.

Most of those little things are gone now. Every now and again, I’ll see one of the little boats in a sand box. The only time it gets wet is when it rains now.

But the Water Table endures.

When I went up into the attic above the garage over the weekend, I went up there intending to pull a few of the usual things down for the Wife to continue with her Spring chores. But the kids knew the Water Table was up there, and as soon as they heard the creek of the pull down door, they appeared in the garage. Both of them wanted me to bring down their Water Table. Much to there chagrin, it was the final item I brought down from the attic.

They wasted little time in getting it out on the deck and filling it up.

Truth be told, it’s held much more than water in it’s time. It’s held sand, dirt, rocks, a snapping turtle (for a couple hours anyway), and a painted turtle (for a whole day- it’s one of my first posts). It’s held “bubble juice” mixed into the water. It’s even held the kids at various times. The lass in particular had a penchant for climbing up into the table. Or she did, when she was smaller. It’s held water so dirty you’d wouldn’t believe it was actually water. It’s held chunks of ice from early freezes. This morning it had ice in it; brought on by the latest in a spate of freezing nights we’ve had lately.

But, remarkably, the best thing it’s held all this time is their attention.

As regards school, one thing I was curious to see about this year was the math lessons. Particularly where the boy is concerned. Judging from the news and the political machinations, a lot has gone on in the field of teaching math since I was a kid. I was curious to get a first hand account.

I’ve considered commenting on this before, but I held my tongue because it was still early in the school year and it seemed premature to judge things. Now, with somewhere around 2 months to go, the die has been cast and my verdict is in.

I don’t like what’s been done.

I have a couple of qualms with how they’ve taught the subject. One, I don’t think they’ve been adequately aggressive. They haven’t had much practice with subtraction (quizzes I’ve seen concentrate on addition) and they’ve done little with adding multi digit numbers and subtracting multi-digit numbers. Two, the techniques they’ve taught for adding and subtracting I think are error prone and don’t scale well.

Regarding techniques, they appear to have abandoned teaching borrowing and carrying. Rather, they have the kids rearrange numbers to make the addition easier. For instance, when calculating 17+6, the kids have been taught to turn the 17 into a 20, and then adjust 6 to 3, thus making the equation 20+3, which is easier to add. Which I agree it is, but only if that what was asked in the first place. As near as I can tell, similar gymnastics are used with subtraction.

The first problem is there are 3 steps, meaning more opportunity for error. The second problem is it become cumbersome real fast when adding multi-digit numbers. What do you do when calculating 137+286? Turn the 137 into 140 and the 286 into 283? They still have a carry to handle. Similarly, they haven’t learned a thing about borrowing in subtraction.

The Wife and I asked about this at the last parent-teacher conference. We got some boiler-plate response about wanting the kids to really understand how the math works or some such. It’s not like we’re talking about complex numbers or imaginary numbers. This is just simple addition and subtraction.

I’m not sure what to do about it either. Sure, I can try to teach him how to carry and borrow, but when? After he’s been in school all day and is sick of learning? On the weekends when all he wants to do is play on his DS or Wii? Frankly, we send him to school to learn that stuff.

But it seems to be too much to expect.