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(Almost) Five

Aug 19th, 2011 by

According to the calendar, Simon is four and five sixths now. We’re big on fractions in this house; just ask Simon how much gas we have in the tank. Seeing as he is still only four and five sixths, this isn’t one of my annual mushy birthday letters.

Thing is, though, developmentally Simon has made huge, huge leaps in the past month or so. So while the calendar might not back me up, I think what I have on my hands is a five-year old. And I’ve got to say, if I’m right, five is pretty spectacular.

A short list of changes and accomplishments in the past month or so includes the following:

  • The ability to put on his own clothes;
  • The ability and willingness to meet and play with new friends at parks, parties, and other public spaces; also the ability to work out small conflicts on his own;
  • The ability to sit through ceremonies/speeches with little talking or fidgeting;
  • The ability to climb a fence with minimal help;
  • The ability to tell a story, play pretend games that go on for hours, and make anything a joke by adding the word “poop”;
  • The ability to understand basic mathematical concepts like “one quarter” on the gas tank meter, estimating miles per hour on the speedometer, and doing simple addition and subtraction in his head.
  • The ability to cover his ears and cope with increasingly loud noises;
  • The ability to recognize melodies in music, say during guitar or piano solos, and sing the vocal parts that coincide earlier or later in the song;
  • The ability to help—really help—with tasks like laundry, dusting, and grocery shopping;
  • The ability to understand when he’s done something hurtful or disobedient and apologize without prompting.

The only bad thing to come about, and it’s not really bad, is the beginning of a more pronounced gender preference. Simon likes his girl friends, but when given the option, he seeks out boys, older boys if possible. A boy on the playground will divert him from a girl; he imagines just about any activity being more fun if a boy is involved. So when I took him for a go-cart ride on Monday, he was thrilled thrilled thrilled (“I didn’t know you were so good at go-cart driving, Mommy!”), and immediately imagined going back “with Daddy and Uncle Dan.”

I’ve read that somewhere around six, dads take over mom’s primary role in the lives of boys. If that’s true, the shift has already begun over here. But so long as he’s willing to tell me out of the blue that he “loves [me] all the way to Eris,” I think I’ll be OK. In fact, given how happy and confident he’s become, I know I will.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy | 1 Comment »

The Fours

Aug 17th, 2011 by

Today Simon became an upperclassman at his preschool. It’s hard to believe that he began KIP three years ago, but it’s true. What’s even harder to wrap my head around is that many of his cohort are starting kindergarten this year. Simon misses that mark by 16 days—16 short days that bring me the gift of a whole extra year to enjoy having Simon at home with me.

We also enjoyed the gift of a low-stress launch. We knew the first year would be rough at first, and it was. We didn’t know the second year would be, but it was. Last year we feared the worst, and Simon settled in happily from the very start. This year, with another whole year of maturity and confidence under his belt, we knew Simon would head upstairs excited about his new class.

How confident were we? We were so confident that we slacked off on some basic parenting responsibilities, like getting him to bed at a decent hour. You see, last night a bunch of former UK players who are now in the pros played the Dominican national team at the new YUM! center downtown, and Simon went. The Kentucky must run deep in our DNA, as we prioritized his watching Rondo, Harrelson, Wall, and the rest over being well rested. Simon got to bed last night at around 10:15, two hours past his regular bedtime.

But it’s all cool. He might have been sleepy, but he’s still getting off to a good start. For starters, there’s the school director Shary. Simon has known her for a long time now; she’s like family. Here’s how they greeted each other:

And for seconders, Ms. Andrea remembered Simon’s hand sign (a “W” for Whitworth) from when we stopped by to see his room last week while the teachers were setting up, and she flashed it as a greeting. That was enough right there to take her from “new teacher” to “good friend.”

I have a strong feeling that, even Baron-less, this will be Simon’s best year yet.

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy | No Comments »

Murphy’s Law

Aug 14th, 2011 by

What a day, what a day, what a day.

Yesterday was the Sixth Annual Celebration of Sudanese Scholars, and nearly everything that could go wrong did. Well, except this part:

The Class of 2010-2011

This part was awesome. We celebrated the graduation of 11 new associates, bachelors, and masters degree holders with ties to Louisville, 6 of whom were able to join us in person. Pictured above, from left to right, are Abraham Angol, Yol Goch Aciek, Christine Natiki Lokiru, Daniel Chakuoth, Abraham Deng Chol, and Mawut Mach. Our commencement speaker, Ngor Biar Deng, is another local Sudanese with a mind-blowing story, the short version of which is that he arrived in the US with a 9th grade education and managed to graduate from Louisville’s Speed Scientific School with a master’s degree in chemical engineering and a high enough GPA to garner tons of awards. He’s now a chemical process engineer; I don’t even know what that really means!

So that part, the commencement speech, the tributes to scholars, the recognition of a friend of mine for her service, the heart-felt invocation–that part was all awesome. The after party wasn’t too shabby either:

Just ask Simon. With traditional Sudanese food, lots of friends, and, above all else, cake, what else could you ask for?

The before and after bits, though? A totally different story. It began when I arrived an hour and a half before the ceremony, as the board had all agreed, and found my friend and colleague Paula Cohn sitting on the church porch with bags of food around her. We were locked out! There had been a communication error, and perhaps a bit of a disconnect between American and African senses of time. We got in 45 minutes later, with exactly 45 minutes before our program was due to begin.

And speaking of programs, we didn’t have any of those either! My friend Vickie and I miscommunicated. I thought she had them; she thought I had them; you get the drift. Thankfully, a kind church administrator let me in the office to run off copies (I had an original with me), and I just left an IOU letter on the desk.

Two snafus dealt with, and I figured the worst was over. Oddly, it calmed my nerves so that even though it was my first time running the show, I felt pretty serene. I figured it would be smooth sailing for the rest of the day.

Celebration-wise, it was. But it turns out that the rain that came down so heavily during the reception, rain that Yar declared was “God’s blessing us on this special day” was more than just a little rain. Over 100,000 Louisvillians lost power, including us. And some key traffic lights between Resurrection Episcopal Church and my house, including an interstate off-ramp, were out.  When I arrived home at 8:00 p.m. (I stayed late to clean the church hall), the last bits of sunlight were fading, Simon was ready to go to bed, and I was a bit hungry with no way to cook dinner.

My mom offered to put us up for the night, but we declined. The weather was mild, my dad’s generator-powered refrigerator saved us from having to throw away tons of food, and friends around the corner invited us over for a play-date this morning. Plus, in all honesty, I couldn’t help but feel silly getting hysterical about a power-outage on a mild summer day when I had just spent the day with folks who never had power until they came to the US.

Still, the next time God decides to bless Sudanese with rain, perhaps we could get a gentle soaking and leave off the high winds and downed power lines eh?

 

Posted in Friends, Jessica | 1 Comment »

Mama’s Boy

Aug 9th, 2011 by

Like many moms of boys, the realization that I was not going to have a daughter prompted some reflection. First was that a certain chain was broken; there would never be a “3/4 generations of X women” photo like so many of my friends have and like I myself have. And regardless of whether or how many children Simon might someday have, no grandchild of mine will ever be able to trace mitochondrial DNA on my side. I’m a genealogical dead end one generation from now.

Then there is the shopping. No pretty dresses or whimsical tops to shop for. No ruffles or French florals or fancy pleats to hunt for. And I will never, ever, be able to take Simon to the Polly Flinders outlet to shop for dresses hand-smocked by nuns. I got over all of this pretty quickly. Realizing that I have been spared a ton of princess stuff coming into my home helped in that regard. Still, there were all those memories of shopping with my mom and Bubbie that are so dear to me and that I mourned the presumed absence of.

But not so fast! Matt had errands to run Saturday that led to the mall, and Simon had strong feelings about a specific agenda. He campaigned strongly that they:

  1. Eat lunch at Panera
  2. Go shoe shopping at Von Maur

I can work with this. We’ll just ignore that the shoes he really wants light up.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy | 2 Comments »

Throwing Mama a Bone

Aug 7th, 2011 by

So that was a little embarrassing. Simon has picked up a few new tricks of late, chief among them the ability to undress and dress himself with minimal help. He can’t tie his shoes, but as of a few days ago he can do everything else unless a pair of pants or shorts has an inside tie or tricky clasp.

Last night, he took off his clothes and beamed at me. Then he pulled on his pajama bottoms, and beamed some more. And then he put on his pajama top all by himself and almost exploded with joy. He clearly wanted me to say something; I chose this time to get a little misty.

“Wow, Simon,” I offered.” Look at you! I’m so proud of you, but maybe a little sad, too.”

“Why sad, Mama?”

“Well, you are just growing up so fast, learning how to do so many things, and getting so independent. Before I know it, you won’t need me any more.”

Simon took a moment, but just a moment, to digest what I had just said.

“Oh Mama, I’ll still need your help to get dressed some times—like when I’m really tired or bored.”

I was flabbergasted. My four-year-old boy—four-and-three-quarters if you want to get technical, which Simon usually does—understood what I told him and decided to throw his mama a bone. Mama is going to have to monitor herself a bit better. But you know, I was almost more proud of what he understood and said than the self-dressing that prompted the discussion in the first place.

 

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | 2 Comments »

Shall We Dance?

Aug 5th, 2011 by

“Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?
Shall we dance?
Shall we then say “Goodnight and mean “Goodbye”?
Or perchance,
When the last little star has left the sky,
Shall we still be together
With are arms around each other
…

Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Shall we Dance?”

Yesterday Simon had a play-date with Greta, a girl I’ve been admiring since she announced “Good morning, Simon. I made coffee!” at the age of just under two years. Greta is the tallest girl in Simon’s age group, one of the smartest, and has a larger-than-life personality that is hysterical to observe in a 4-year-old package.

The two had never gotten together to play one-on-one before, so I was curious to see how things would go. Our attempt to hit the pool failed pretty miserably, but lunch, watching Olivia, drawing, and free-play were a huge hit, with the best part coming at the very end. Greta was very much the cruise director of this play-date, and in the last hour, she announced that she and Simon were getting married. (Whereas Caroline asked to get married on their play-date, Greta informed. And if you are wondering why all the preschool girls are thinking about marriage, look no further than that tiny shindig in England this April.) Greta ran back into her room, changed into a yellow dress, came out, held Simon’s hand, and kissed him on the cheek.

Then it was off to the honeymoon, which she informed us was in Lexington. Now, Lexington is about an 80 minute drive from us, but Greta was determined to fly. So she and Simon had to hurry to put all their toys in suitcases for the big trip. And once they arrived at their destination, it was time for a romantic dance. Greta put on some traditional music, grabbed Simon’s hands, and began to dance with him.

At the beginning, Simon pretty much stood in one place while Greta yanked his arms and/or twirled around him. Before long, though, Simon was looking down at Greta’s feet, matching her steps, and extending his arm out to spin her. He really got it! And he loved every minute of it. We’re going to get together for a dance-based play-date again next week assuming I can scrounge up the right music.

I have to say that, whereas Simon’s baseball ability kind of shocks me, his love of dance makes total sense. I’ve never had the balance or flexibility to be a real dancer, but I love ballroom and folk dance and always have. Simon first showed signs of being the same before he was born: about a month before my due date, he kicked me non-stop during during every musical number at a performance of My Fair Lady. He was also the only toddler boy willing to dance in the Itsies; I still remember him “raising the roof” with his hands to dance music at a San Francisco restaurant when he was about seven months old; and just last week he started to bounce in his booster seat when a new, all-female bluegrass came on the radio. “Who are they, Mama?” he asked. “Can we buy their music?”

It’s a shame cotillion isn’t for another eight years. Boyfriend is ready.

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Limits

Aug 3rd, 2011 by

We’re bumping into them all over the place.

Endurance Limits:

Today’s training run was 6 miles (should have been 5, someone misread the schedule) in 90-something degree heat with a dew point of 74 and a heat index of 109. The only way I could imagine it being more humid would have been to have it rain, a condition that would have been a significant improvement! To my surprise, I made it the whole way with no stomach issues or walking breaks, both of which have cropped up in similar miserably hot runs. The difference? I dropped my pace back to 10:30 minutes. I’m hoping that once it cools down I can work on my pace again, but for now slow and steady beats slightly less slow and sick any day.

Stomach Limits:

I also ate nothing after 2:00 p.m. and not much all day. Breakfast was my usual yogurt with granola, but lunch found me at a zoo cafe with no vegetarian options. I settled for a hot pretzel, and felt no queasiness for the first time in ages when I ran tonight. So until it cools down, I’m holding off on eating within 4 hours of running. I need the calm tummy more than the energy.

Tolerance Limits:

It’s unfortunate timing that I typically arrive home from my weekday runs just as Simon is getting ready to go to bed. Our routine is that Matt helps him brush his teeth while I get into bed and wait for him. Actually, I’m waiting for “Baby Kitten” at this point, an imaginary creature who has grown from a squeaking animal of 1 nanometer to a meowing one of about 3 inches. But that is perhaps a topic best elaborated on in a future post. Anyway…. Mama Cat waits for Baby Kitten, Baby Kitten crawls into bed, we snuggle for two songs, and I get kicked out when the third begins. On running nights I have time for the sweat to mostly dry before Mama Cat is on duty, but no more than that. So when I crawled into bed with Simon, I had to laugh when he made his highly unusual request:

“I think Baby Kitten wants Daddy Cat tonight. Mama Cat is too stinky.”

And I was. No hard feelings, Baby Kitten.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | 1 Comment »

Louisville Slugger

Jul 30th, 2011 by

This one is for all you baseball fans….

So the thing about being athletic non-entities, is that you don’t necessarily know if your kid is good at something or not.  Matt and I, it is safe to say, are sports zeroes. So when Simon started hitting balls off a tee last summer, we thought it was a bit of fun. And when he switched to hitting pitched balls this summer, we were more impressed but still didn’t think too much about it.

Then last Wednesday Simon was having batting practice in the Whitworths’ front yard when a neighbor trotted over.

“I want a closer look at this,” he announced.

Hollis is not an athletic non-entity, and he spent the next 20 minutes or so critiquing Simon’s form. Apparently, for an un-coached 4-year-old, Simon is very good about having a full rotation, stepping into the pitch, following through, and keeping his wrist soft or something. I don’t know exactly. I just know that Hollis was nearly slack-jawed at Simon’s hitting ability and persistence (he stayed out for a full hour on the hottest day of the year). At the end, he had three bits of advice for me:

  1. Get him into a coach-pitched league next year;
  2. Get him on the links and see if this swing translates to golf, too;
  3. Work on his pitching.

I will and I will and I will. Or, more to the point, (1) I will; (2) Matt, Jim (Simon’s Papaw),  or possibly friend Barry will; (3) Matt will. We took the above video last night, when Simon hit 12 of 13 in a two-minute span. All in all, he spent about 45 minutes outside and sent 18 over the fence. I don’t know how impressive this is at all, but we’re pretty tickled by it.

 

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy | 2 Comments »

Parting is Such (Not So) Sweet Sorrow

Jul 28th, 2011 by

Among the many, many changes coming Simon’s way when he leaves KIP for elementary school in a year or so will be the shuffling of the friend deck. I already know that one of Simon’s friends will be at Hawthorne or at the school where her mom teaches, and another has moved to a different county. With the current student assignment plan in Jefferson County, it is unlikely that Simon will end up with any of his KIP friends once he leaves preschool.

As it happens, though, the most dreaded split of all—the one from best-buddy Baron—is coming earlier than anticipated. Baron’s mom is expecting a baby in November, and she’s opted to move Baron and Asher to a new school. AJ has a new infant program that will allow all three of her kids to be in the same school from January, when the new baby will be six weeks old, until May, when school ends for the year.

AJ is Agotich’s school, and Asher will be in her class, but that’s not going to be much of a balm for Simon’s heart. I’ve had little to worry about this past year, as Simon has done well academically and socially. He’s happily trotted off to school each day, had a great time, and learned tons. Next year was supposed to be more of the same, but now I’m not so sure.

The boys at KIP are just so thin on the ground.* Second-best friend Aciek will be back repeating the threes next year, as he’s a year younger than Simon and was only in the threes last year because of space constraints.** Kamal, who I began to hear a fair bit about towards the end of the year, has moved with his family to Paris. That leaves Simon, Griffen, Brian, Logan, Keon, and Braylon as the six boys to be split among two classes next year. Simon wasn’t in Griffen’s class last year, and he’s never been in a class with Brian, Logan, or Keon.

Friend-wise, we’re right back at the beginning. The girls are no help to me, either. One on one, Simon plays well with lots of them. He loves Ruby and Caroline and Gabrielle and Jillian and Anieya and Lily and others. But once it’s time for group free play, KIP looks a lot like Saudi Arabia or a middle-school dance: all the girls on one side of the room and all the boys on the other.

The last time Simon was separated from Baron, in the Twos, he pined for him and didn’t really bond with the other (totally sweet) boy in his class. This social disorientation is exactly what I don’t want to see and fear will repeat. We’re three weeks away from what may well be Simon’s last year at KIP, and I was looking forward to his best year yet.

I’ve already had a chat with Shary about this to vent my spleen. I would have felt slightly bad about being so needy two years ago when I envisioned her keeping a file on me, but by now I’ve served as school treasurer, helped with fundraisers, subbed in the computer lab, built the school website, and otherwise earned a little face-time. She did her best to encourage me, saying that Simon will make friends and do just fine in either class next year.

“You’re worried about Simon?” she exclaimed. “Simon is the last kid at this school I’m worried about. He’s confident, popular, and smart. He’ll have a great year.”

I hope she’s right. Also, how lovely to hear this when just two short years ago everyone seemed to be worried about Simon.

*It’s not just at KIP. AJ also sports a dearth of boys in Simon’s age range. Unless all the boys are at day-care or different schools, I can’t figure it out.

** KIP does not make it a practice to put kids in the wrong class! When Aciek’s parents and adoptive grandparents looked into preschool for him, the Twos class was already over capacity. Since Aciek was only one year out of Kenya (his dad is a Lost Boy), was not yet fluent in English, and had had no Western-style socialization, Shary decided he could jump into the Threes, where there was space. There he learned how to make friends and follow instructions, and became fluent in English. Now he’s ready to repeat the year and follow the curriculum as designed.

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy | No Comments »

My How He’s Grown

Jul 26th, 2011 by

The standing refrain when people see Simon these day is something like, “Every time I see him, he’s taller.”

To which my standard reply is, “Every time you see him, he is taller!”

It’s true. Early this January, when I took him to the doctor he stood 40 3/4 inches tall. Five weeks later, he stood 42 inches tall. I thought that was quite a spurt, but it was only the beginning. When I had my “he’s too skinny” freak-out this spring, he had dropped two pounds and grown two inches, to 35 pounds and 44 inches. The weight’s back on: thanks to prodigious eating Simon is between 38 and 39 pounds.

He’s also added another inch, and now stands 45 inches tall. That’s a spurt of over 4 inches in six months. He’s the tallest boy at camp. Taller than the average 5-year-old with three months to go before his birthday. For kids his age, he’s in the 90th percentile.  And If I am to believe the size charts, he’s two pounds away from being a perfect size 6 Slim. Which means several things:

  • He’s skipped over a full size.
  • If I buy him size 5 Slim pants for fall, he’ll outgrown them the minute he grows even a half inch.
  • If I buy size 6 pants for fall, I’ll be cuffing until next year.
  • He won’t be wearing anything very cool; just like with adult clothes, specialty sizes are uniformly boring.
  • He has not one item of clothing from last fall/winter—not one!—that will still fit. Simon’s coats and jackets are still plenty roomy, but none are long enough.

Mama is going to hit the outlets in Indiana this season for sure!

 

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy | 1 Comment »

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