Kid Amnesiac

We are now a week or so out from fall soccer, and have gotten through what I will call re-entry. At first, with all that time on our hands and unseasonably cold temperatures outdoors, we were all on edge. What in the heck were we supposed to DO with ourselves? Honestly, none of us were sure, and Simon wasn’t the only one who was feeling restless and cranky.

Thanksgiving break provided a great reminder: We are supposed to socialize, something that we had largely forgotten about unless it took place on the sidelines. But this week we had a family holiday on Thursday, a party with friends we met at Brandeis on Friday, a party with some of our first Louisville friends (and Simon’s first ever friends) on Saturday, and then a soccer binge day today.

It was pretty glorious, especially Friday, which reminded me a lot of nights out in San Francisco. There were about six couples in all, and I feasted on Chinese, Filipino, and Indian food while getting to know everyone. We all had kids, but they were all boys, so we more or less tossed them in the basement and forgot about them. I think Simon went to bed slightly hungry because we opted to not cater to his pickiness and let him make do with what was on offer. And honestly, he didn’t seem too upset, because he’ll give up a lot for nearly five hours of one-on-one time with a friend.

Then last night we celebrated our friend Dave’s 40th birthday and remembered why we became friends in the first place. Simon, meanwhile, sneaked dessert with first friends Leah and Sophie and again went to bed slightly hungry after not eating enough of the Middle Eastern spread on offer. I, once again, stuffed myself nearly sick and opted to not worry about what or how much Simon was eating.

Adult conversation! Food that wasn’t pizza! The “benign neglect” school of parenting! It was a very good weekend. So good that today I did not mind at all slipping back into old patterns. We watched two EPL soccer games in the morning, I went for a run while Simon and Matt went to play soccer in the park in the afternoon, and for dinner we went to watch the U of L men’s soccer team play in the NCAA tournament. My dinner ended up being nachos and a pretzel, which I am deeply regretting even as I type.

But you know what? Friday and Saturday made up for a lot of bad meals before and after. And the entire weekend has me realizing that I need to grab the off-season by the reins and socialize my brains out. It’s not that I mind being a soccer mom—I actually kind of love it. It’s that I cannot only or primarily be a soccer mom all the time. And that it is wonderfully freeing to occasionally toss Simon into a scenario where I can largely forget about him for an evening or half-day. Given what a great mood Simon was in the entire weekend, I can only guess that he feels the same way.

Suddenly, the six weeks between now and the Winter II soccer session doesn’t seem so long.

At the end of any training session for an endurance event comes the taper. This is when, having reached the point that you can run, bike, swim, whatever for the full race distance, you back off your training to recover and conserve energy in time for race day. I’ve only tapered once, for the half-marathon I ran three years ago. What I mostly remember from it was feeling restless and agitated at no longer having my usual outlet for energy. It was made worse by the fact that all that training built up energy reserves to a new peak.

Simon is tapering now, and it’s not pretty. The soccer season ended two weeks ago, an unhappy event that coincided with shorter, darker, colder days. Matt and I are not so secretly relieved to have ease in our schedule. Now we have a soccer skills practice on Thursday, a tennis clinic on Sunday, and are otherwise free for un-rushed meals, homework assignments, and weekends.

Simon, on the other hand, is one crabby, cranky kid. He’s got energy to burn, no decent outlet for it, and is suddenly a moody, boundary-testing, hyper sensitive kid I hardly recognize. I know he just turned eight, but the timing seems suspicious; I don’t think this is about age. My theory is supported by the fact that last week, Simon was his usual sunny self on Monday, when he played with a friend all day, Thursday, when he had soccer, and Sunday afternoon, when he had tennis.

So what are we to do with this Mr. Hyde? Last year we dropped him into the last third of a soccer season and payed a prorated rate. I really don’t want to do that again this year, as there is so much going on between Thanksgiving and the new year. I think my best bet might be to take him out on runs with me, but the problem there is that Simon does 8-9-minute miles and I do . . .  uh . . . considerably slower ones. I’m thinking the best solution for now might be to take him with me for longer runs and hope I can make up for the slow place by doubling his usual distance. Five or six miles might—-just might—take the edge off. For now.

But then what do I do next year, when he’s going to have even more speed and endurance? There’s got to be some way to keep Mr. Hyde away!

If you look at the title of this post, you will see three words that should never, ever appear together. Kol Nidre is the name of the prayer that is recited at the very beginning of the evening Yom Kippur service. As Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, the very last thing one should be doing is picking a fight. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell that to a woman sitting behind me, and as a result a whispered confrontation took place between solemn prayers.

I still don’t completely understand what happened. My mom and I were standing with Simon just before the Kol Nidre prayer was to be recited when an older woman leaned forward and barked at Simon:

“Don’t do that again!”

Or something like that. She had a nasty tone to her voice and a Cruella de Vil mean look on her face. My first thought was “Did that just happen?” A quick look at Simon’s trembling chin and moist eyes informed me that yes, that really did happen. But what? And why? At the time of the remonstration, Simon was standing silently with prayerbook in hand. What could he have possibly done?

Alas, it was going to be a while before I found out, because the eponymous Kol Nidre prayer was beginning. It’s the heart of the entire service, the most solemn part of a solemn holiday, a vocal show-piece for the cantor, and is recited slowly in English and in Hebrew. Thrice. Meanwhile, my nervous system was in overdrive as corticosteroids pumped through my body preparing for a fight.

After what felt like ages, the prayer ended and I had my chance. I turned around and whisper-shouted at Cruella:

“Why did you just discipline my son?”

There were no “excuse me”s or “pardon”s here. I was angry and wanted to make my displeasure clear.

“He was kicking the seat,” she sneered.

The look on her face as she addressed me was pretty nasty. But unlike my son, I was prepared to defend myself. Perhaps more to the point, she was wrong. My mom spent decades sitting next to restless kids in shul and reprimanding them when their restlessness got too noisy. I spend two days a week wrangling preschoolers who tend to flail and kick. If there is one thing both of us are well qualified to do, it’s to detect inappropriate seat kicking, especially when the suspect is sitting next to us. I assure you our kicking-child radar never pinged.

But just for a moment, let’s assume Cruella was right. Let’s assume that before Simon stood up he was swinging his legs and kicking the seat underneath him. Now let’s ask some questions:

1. Was he kicking her seat?
2. Was he kicking loudly?
3. Was he kicking a part of the seat that could be harmed?
4. Was he kicking the seat when she yelled at him?

The answer to all these questions is “no”. Further, if she had a problem, she should have taken it up with me or my mother. So our conversation continued, and it didn’t get any nicer on either side.

“I don’t think he was,” I rebutted.

“He wa—”

With eyes blazing with as much anger as I could muster, I held up my hand in front of her face and cut her off. “No, stop. You listen to me. My son is a very well behaved boy, and he is also very sensitive. You’ve upset him, and he didn’t do anything to deserve that. The next time you think you see something that needs to be corrected, you take it up with me, not him. Got it?”

The look on her face was indignant anger. How dare I talk to her that way! “Certainly” she seethed.

“Then we have an understanding.”

This last bit was uttered with as patronizing and angry a tone as I could possibly muster, and I turned my back on her before she could say anything in return. Meanwhile, Simon was sitting like a statue, trying not to cry any more, and looking very anxious. The night was ruined for him.

On the way home we could talk about what happened. I explained that even though I teach him to respect all adults, sometimes grown-up are wrong and/or mean.

“You mean you were mad at her?” he asked.

“Simon! I wanted to rip her tongue out of her mouth, and I’m sure Bubbie did, too!”

“But why did she yell at me when I didn’t do anything?”

“I don’t know that either, Simon. She was either confused or just plain mean. But I told her she wasn’t allowed to speak to you ever again, so you don’t need to worry about her.”

The next morning he was still worried about “the mean lady”, so I let him stay home while I went to services. Cruella and I came face-to-face only once, at which point we both attempted the look-straight-through-a-person maneuver. I asked around to find out who she was, but no one seemed to know.

Finally, I had a short conversation with the synagogue’s executive director. He was appalled that someone would yell at a child in front of his or her parents,  disbelieving that Simon could have done anything worthy of admonishment, and visibly upset that Simon was now scared to come to the synagogue. He’s finding us new seats for next year.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make the entire situation go away. There will be repercussions. Simon is the child who struggles to fully participate at school because he is constantly worried that he will do something wrong. His teacher knows this about him and is working hard to increase his comfort level and free him up a little. She wants him to understand that learning entails making all kinds of mistakes–even behavioral ones–and that no one can be perfect all the time. Now one of his worst fears had just taken place: He was reprimanded in public (painful for an introvert) for doing something wrong when he didn’t know what that could possibly be.It’s absolutely not in the spirit of the season, but I can tell  you that I hate that woman and would still like to rip her tongue out of her mouth.

Coda: Several days out, Simon was able to laugh the incident off. He was happy to see me defend him, and he’s almost proud to have had his own “Mrs. Naomani moment”, which is what we call it when an adult who should so know better is unaccountably mean to a sensitive child.

It’s report card day here in Jefferson County, and that means several things:

• free ice cream, donuts, and game tokens at local eateries for kids who get As;
• mounds of Facebook bragging by parents of the same.
• me complaining again about how much I hate the report card song-and dance.

What began as suspicion and progressed to disapproval has turned into heart-felt, visceral hatred. I hate it so much that I filled out a JCPS parent questionnaire last spring in support of reducing the number of grading periods per year based solely on my desire to cut down on the number of free ice cream trips and social media bragging cycles.

For the record, this is not sour grapes. Simon does well in school, and his own academic performance has nothing to do with my unease.

Instead, I’m motivated for three reasons: in its current incarnation, the report card ritual discourages risk, potentially rewards the wrong things, and unintentionally makes good people feed bad about themselves.

Let’s start with the risk issue. Simon asked me last week if I’d be proud of him if he brought home some Os on this report card (an O is an A in the K-3 years). I flatly told him no.

“Huh?” Simon asked. “You won’t be proud if I make good grades?”

“I don’t care what your grades are,” I replied. “What I care about is that you work hard and do your best. If you do that, you can get straight Ss (satisfactory) and NIs (needs improvement) for all I care.”

OK, strictly speaking, that last bit is not completely true. But my general point stands. Rewarding good grades and only good grades increases risk aversion. If Simon decides that only an O will do, he’s not going to try things where an O isn’t a good bet. Just today he told me that he didn’t like the paper mache project they were doing in art class because “I’m not very good at it” and “so many in my class are better.”

“That’s awesome!” I told him. That means you will learn a lot, can expect to get better, and can get help from some of your friends.”

This was a new line of thinking for him, but I meant it quite sincerely. I wasted too many years not trying things I wasn’t naturally good at, and the single most wonderful part of being over 40 for me is liberating myself from those constraints. I have since found much joy—and great improvement!—in areas where I am not a natural and will never be great, but have worked hard to become adequate or good enough.

At a certain point in time, we all become specialists and follow our strengths. But surely we don’t have to start clipping the wings of elementary school students.

Then there’s a matter of reward. I’ve said (and typed) it before, and I’ll say (and type) it again: The kid who struggles in math but busts his or her tail every day to get better and pulls off a B deserves as much or more praise than the kid who earns the A with little or no effort.  The B (or C) student might not deserve entry into MIT—I believe in the meritocracy—but in the elementary years at least we should be encouraging and rewarding the effort.

Besides this approach being kinder, I also think it sets children up to be more resilient the first time they encounter something truly challenging. It’s much better to believe you can work your way out of a tough spot than simply thinking you automatically are good or no good at a given task.

Finally, I can’t help but think about all the parents out there whose children won’t be bringing home As. Some kids simply aren’t that academically able, and I don’t see why they should be made to feel second-class. (And where do all these As come from anyway? I smell rampant grade inflation going on.) Some kids struggle with health, psychological, or learning issues, and I don’t think they or their parents deserve to have these struggles highlighted.

Some kids have difficult home situations that prevent them from reaching their full potential. Do they need also have free ice cream withheld from them? And then there are all the worried parents of kids who make poor decisions. I assume they feel bad enough without the disparity between them and others broadcast all over their Facebook feeds.

I’m fighting a losing battle here, and I know it. But if it were up to me, report cards would be an occasion for private discussion and praise.

Much as I adore Simon’s role playing with Rainbow Dophie (the stuffed animal he’s been role-playing with for the last few months), there’s one aspect that’s been driving me around the bend: Dolphie has a speech impediment. Like many toddlers his age, Dolphie says his “r”s and “l”s like “w”s. I’m not sure where Simon came up with this, because he himself never did this.

Like my mother before me, I am the .01% of adults on the planet that respond to youthful speech impediments with concern and—if I’m honest—even more irritation. I don’t think Cindy Brady sounded cute: I think she sounded like she needed speech therapy! More than once I have gritted my teeth as a friend told me how much they loved the sound of their child, niece, nephew, or child of a friend whose speech was marked with a pathological mispronunciation.

Apparently, my joyless rigidity extends to imaginary dolphin friends. Because one night, about a month ago, Simon was having Dolphie tell me something or other when I blew:

“Oh my Gosh, Simon, I can’t take it any more. I think Dolphie needs to go for speech therapy.”

Simon was stunned, but for a time my strategy was successful. Simon would have Dolphie say a word (not) adorably wrong, and then fix it. After a while, however, it was clear that Dolphie’s speech therapist was a hack.

“Why did Dolphie just say “hungwy”? Isn’t he in speech therapy?”

“Yes, but this week he’s working on his ‘b’s.”

“Well his ‘b’s are fine. Tell that therapist to focus on the ‘r’s and ‘l’s. It’s driving me crazy!”

Tonight Dolphie sounded as bad as ever. I confronted Simon with his distressing lack of progress and learned the very sad news that Dolphie’s speech therapy school closed. It was a for-profit institution, you see, and it didn’t have enough students to stay open.

Simon shrugged at me, but I could see a gleam in his eye. He thought he had me on this one. He would soon learn not to underestimate his mother.

“It closed? It was a business? Oh, no, no, no. Dolphie is still under three. [I know this because Simon himself has explained that Dolphie plays in a U-3 soccer league.] He should qualify for free speech therapy from the state. We need to fill out some paper-work for him and get him on an IEP.”

For just a moment, I had him. Then he looked at me with narrowed eyes and offered a retort:

“I can’t do that, Mama. I’m just his brother. You have to do it.”

Now, a reasonable person would never consider filling out a fake IEP for a stuffed animal. But I’m pretty sure all of our conversations about Dolphie’s speech impediments offer ample proof that I am not reasonable in this regard. So tomorrow, sometimes between working on a PTA directory, printing out flyers about a PTA art contest, planning a Project Warm home insulation blitz for the Jewish Community of Louisville’s Community Relations Council, figuring out what the heck to do for Simon’s upcoming birthday, and—oh yeah—getting ready for Rosh Hashanah, I’m going to mock up a fake application for state aid for Dolphie.

Why? Because I can’t take it any more. Because I’m “cwazy”. And because I can’t wait to see how Simon spins his way out of this one.