Alaska

OK, now I get it: The incredulous looks on knowledgeable faces when I admitted I had never been to Alaska, despite the fact my sister had lived there for over a decade. I get it now. All of you - you were right, I was missing out.

It is perhaps the most beautiful place I've ever been.

The kids were in heaven. It is perhaps a kid-vacation paradise. Tide pools, hiking, fishing, kayaking, mud, mud and more mud.

It made me realize just how sterilized our Lower-48 outdoor play space has become. We are a family who spends a lot of time outdoors - we bike, walk, run, swim, you name it. But much of our outdoor time is spent in a yard or at a park or a beach or on a well-traveled trail. Even canoeing on the lake involves maneuvering around motorboats.

In Alaska, there are vast expanses of wilderness. Here in Wisconsin, I've noticed that kids create their own wild spaces. They all congregate around the largest, farthest, most hidden tree at the park, and build forts and find sticks and rocks and cool leaves. Kids need wilderness. (exhibit A: Michael Chabon's article)

How does one bring more wilderness into an urban/suburban life?

As for us, we are already planning our next trip to Alaska.

Headed to Alaska

On Monday, we head out to Homer, Alaska to visit my favorite sister. She's been out there for over 10 years, but we have never visited. ( I know, I know, I'm the worst sister in the universe.)

In my defense, I've been busy popping out (and raising) these:










Two of them in fact - one XX and one XY.

Taking babies/toddlers/preschoolers to Alaska was just not my idea of fun. Frankly, getting to the grocery store in one piece during the baby/toddler stage was some days more than I could handle.

But now, they look like this:












And we've decided they can probably handle the 12+ hours of travel without kicking the seat in front of them or spitting up all over the person next to them. And so we are off for a big family adventure to lands far away.

Now if I could get the boy to stop repeating "I can see Russia from my house," we should be all set.

If I were in charge of Education

Lots of commentary in the last weeks about how to improve education for poor kids.  See: 11D, and David Brooks, and Half Changed World. 

I've got a simple, sure-fire solution to raising the test scores of poor children.

Here's my plan:

Everyone who has more than they need can join a mentoring program, get matched to a child who doesn't have enough.  You simply promise that child that you will do everything in your power to make sure he or she has clothing and food.

That's it, really.  clothing and food.

You see, once the shelter, clothing and food needs are met - amazing things can happen. (Ideally, you'd be able to promise the shelter too, but let's not bite off more than we can chew right away. clothing and food, and books, maybe.  I should add books.)

OK, so maybe it is more than that.  You see, once you experience the sheer magic of helping a child succeed when they face every single conceivable obstacle in life....something happens to you.  You start to care. 

So, now a child has food, clothing, books (possibly shelter) AND an adult who cares.  Voila - higher test scores.

I've had a rough couple of weeks with my current match situation. Unbloggable stuff. Stuff that has me reaching out to social workers and other professionals.  Stuff that has me curl up in the fetal position on my living room rug when I'm all alone and no one can see me crying.

One possible solution for the current "stuff" is to find other matches for some of the other younger kids in the family.  Right now, I'm the only match and there are 5 kids. The 8-year-old boy has been on the waiting list for two years.  TWO YEARS. TWO YEARS.  

It kinda breaks my heart. Turns out there are almost 300 kids on that waiting list.  Mostly boys.  Most have been on for years. This mentoring stuff works, (really, it works.) 

But no one wants to do it. 

The one silver lining:  I was on the phone with a local respite center talking about (unbloggable stuff) and reading about all the things they need on their website. My daughter, who absorbs way more than I think she does, gathered up every penny she has ever saved, and carried it out to me. She wanted me to give it to the respite center.  We are headed over there this week.  Just when I think I am doing just about everything possibly wrong that I can as a mother, she goes and does something like that to prove me wrong. 

I guess.  

Part of me wants to shield my own 9 year old from the ugly parts of  the life of my 10 year old match. I try the best I can. But let's be honest: I can't. We've opened our home and our life to this other child and I can't pretend that her life is just like ours. It isn't.

But her test scores?  Up.  Way up.  So we plug on...two steps forward, one step back.

 

No longer the target demographic

There is a super cool start-up company, Alice.com, that is in my building, on my floor even. They are selling household products over the internet, with a social media twist. They have an extremely well written blog with gorgeous photos and a lovely design. I wish them great success. You should go there now, and subscribe to the blog. You won't regret it.

I was so excited when I learned they were moving into our building. I figured I'd be their perfect target demographic. After all, I have a blog. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. And I already buy almost everything over the internet. I have an Amazon Prime account. I order my milk/dairy products directly from the local farm over the internet. I often get my groceries delivered through the local coop over the internet. Prescriptions too, over the internet.

I'm one of the few people in my neighborhood who clean my own house, and given enough time and energy - I actually enjoy cleaning. So a new site with household and cleaning products over the internet - how perfect is that? (you know, now that I think about it, I might be the only person in my neighborhood who cleans her own house...sigh.)

But I have been dismayed to realize that I am so obviously not their target demographic.

Their message is not in any way directed at an over-committed busy 40-year-old working, PTA President, mother-of-two. They offer advice like "don't hit your snooze button" in the morning. Snooze Button? What is that? I haven't had to set an alarm for 10 years! Those children....they wake me up every single morning and last time I checked, they don't have a snooze button.

And we've been working very hard to get son D to stop saying "Yo!" Evidently, 6 year old boys enjoy preceding every sentence with the word "Yo." (So far, I haven't had to answer to "Yo Mama" but I tell you, it is coming any day now.) So, I'll have a hard time dialing a phone number that begins with "Yo" as theirs does.

I could go on and on. It turns out that I am no longer in the coveted "18-35" demographic and it's a weird, weird feeling. When did that happen? What's next? Will I start sitting on my front porch yelling "Kids! Get off the lawn!"

Thank God for Mir over at Want Not. She may not have a cool internet start-up. But she gets what it is like to be a crazy-busy mother with a crazy-busy life and still have to get the damn shopping done.

(And she has great coupons....)

Kids just want to have fun.

So far, we have limited our kids to 1 -2 extra-curricular activities at a time during the school year. For the girl, this means piano lessons and soccer. The boy has chosen baseball and soccer. (And they can walk to almost all of them - very little car transport necessary)

When they only have 1 -2 activities, we can still manage to eat dinner as a family 5 nights/week. I don't go too crazy from carting kids from activity to activity. They look forward to their activities and don't get too overtired or over scheduled. It works for us.

But.

But...we are seemingly alone in this philosophy. All their friends are in 3, 4, or even 5 different activities. Daughter D. didn't do Girl Scouts, because of the 2-activity limit. Son D didn't play on a basketball team. And so on...you name it, they didn't get to do it.

It's uncomfortable to be the only family with a certain rule. And as the kids get older, we are finding ourselves in that position more and more. We have stricter rules about a lot of things (video games, bedtimes, etc.) and the kids are starting to notice that. (Did you know that my son is the ONLY six year old in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE who has to go to bed at 8 pm and is not allowed to get a Nintendo DS? Really, he is.)

I can totally see them adding activities as they get older. But now - they are 9 and 6. They still like to run over to the park and play a pick-up game of some made-up sport with whichever kids they can collect along the way. I don't want to fill up every afternoon with some scheduled activity. When will they have time for unbridled fun?

For now, I'll take the unstructured play over another activity. Husband D and I are both coaching soccer teams this spring and I can tell you - some of these kids are burned out. They don't want to go to a practice and play an organized game. They want to run around and be silly and have fun with their friends. This makes coaching a tad more challenging!

Of course, in 10 years, when my kids get rejected from their top college because of a lack of extra-curriculars....well, then they can prove me wrong.

Another thing I don't understand

At least I'm not alone.

Deke and Laura don't get it either.

I watched the Susan Boyle video. I was touched. She has a beautiful voice and it is always heartwarming to see someone achieve one of their personal dreams.

But....international news? Really?

Her voice is lovely.

But every church choir in the country has someone with a voice like that. Every Madrigal group in any high school has someone with a voice like that. (And no, they aren't all beautiful.)

I just can't get over my feeling that Simon Cowell set us up. That he has some secret Facebook-savvy publicist behind the whole thing.

Hmm....maybe that's why the white house hired Kal Penn (actor from House and and Harold/Kumar fame) to help with communications. Perhaps he is working, at this very moment, on a Tweet to get us all sending Facebook gifts to each other shaped like the Bybee Torture Memo.

Skip, skip, skip to my Lou

I feel that I am very much on top of the education of our eldest child. She's been tested, prodded, and poked and put in every possible applicable enrichment group that exists. 

We have clear lines of communication with the teachers and have gotten involved wherever necessary to further her educational experience: 

Extra Parent-Teacher conferences.  Check.  

Meetings with the Principal. Check.  

Gift and Talented Coordinator meeting in our home. Check.

But the second kid? Ha. Pretty much dropped him off the first day of school in the hands of his incredibly wonderful and capable Kindergarten teacher and said, "Here he is.  Do whatever you think will work with him." 

So, it was a bit of a surprise yesterday, when I was having a casual conversation with his teacher and she mentioned, "They asked if you were willing to have him skip a grade next year."

Huh?

We are still working out the details on who exactly "they" are and I had to sign some paperwork to allow all the necessary prodding, poking, and evaluating of him that go into such a decision.

Our first reaction is to only do grade skipping as a last resort. He's the happiest and most easy-going kid in the universe - he loves school, loves his teacher, loves his classmates.  Why mess with that?

Anyone else out there skipped a grade?  Was it good? bad?  I guess if we are going to do it, this is the year to do it (Kindergarten into 2nd grade)  But still.  It seems a bit extreme.

Besides, won't that make him smaller for football?

(that's a joke - I haven't even watched a complete football game in over 20 years!)