Jen on the Edge

What is it about road trips that I spend my time in the car scribbling notes about things I need to do when we get home? Five hours in the car this weekend ensured that I came home with several pages of notes of things I had to remember, including:

• Scheduling Graceful’s next orthodontist appointment for this summer. (DONE) It’s been eight months since her first visit, so time for new x-rays and to see how much her teeth have shifted.
• Also scheduling a hearing screening for Graceful. (DONE) I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but Graceful is partially deaf in one ear due to congenital otosclerosis. In other words, the wee bones in her middle ear don’t conduct sound properly because they’re malformed. So her hearing is not quite stereo. She could wear a hearing aid, but chooses not to, as she has compensated just fine all these years without it.
• Finish shopping for the girls’ summer clothes and bathing suits. (NOT DONE) They’ll have to sit at the computer with me and show me which things they like before I hand over my credit card number to Lands End, LL Bean, and Hanna Andersson.
• Get birthday presents for my father-in-law and stepmother. (SO NOT DONE)
• Get groceries at Whole Foods (DONE, with happiness) and Sam’s (DEFINITELY NOT DONE, and I’ll certainly delay as long as possible)

So I’m starting off the week with a list of things to do, but am also moving through those items quickly, which feels good.

You know what else feels good? Spending the morning and part of the afternoon with this guy:

So, also on my list of things to do:

• Love the Boy (DONE DONE DONE DONE and IN PROGRESS)

I have academics on the brain right now. Specifically, my daughters’ future educations.

We used to live up in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC and I worked for several years as a fundraiser at a very expensive private school. The parents at this school were by and large an intense group of people and they demanded a great deal from their children and the teachers. After all, they were spending a small fortune on their children’s educations and by god they expected some results. As in, admission to an excellent university, preferably an Ivy. Not only did they expect their kids to do well academically, they also kept the children very busy after school — sports, music lessons, language classes, etc. — all so as to pad their children’s resumes. They started obsessing about their children’s future colleges when the children were still in preschool, as they felt quite strongly that decisions made for a four-year-old could have serious ramifications 14 years later.

This situation isn’t exclusive to the school I worked at; it can be found at schools across the DC area and the Washington Post regularly publishes articles on some variation of this theme. I suspect that one could read similar stories in newspapers in New York, Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere.

One of the many reasons we left the DC area and came back down here to Collegetown is that we didn’t want to raise our children that way. We wanted them to have normal childhoods where they could ride their bikes, splash in mud puddles, or lie in a hammock and dream and not worry about how their so-called loafing would affect their later academic success. We wanted our kids to be kids, not obsessing about what extracurricular activities would get them into Harvard.

This weekend, we visited college friends of ours who live in the DC area. They have a child in fourth grade in a magnet school for the gifted and their second child will start in the third grade there next year. As we always do when we get together, we talked about our children’s schools and what they’ve been up lately. As I was listening to my friends talk, I was struck by how intense life is for their ten-year-old — how much homework she has and at how high a level she is expected to perform academically. These are not only the teachers’ expectations, but also the parents’. The parents don’t seem to think it’s unreasonable for their ten-year-old daughter to spend an hour or two on her homework every night. (Studies show that about 40 minutes max would be appropriate for a fourth grader.)

Our friends are already thinking ahead to high school and which one they should choose for their children — the one with the International Baccalaureate program or the one with the Advanced Placement program? This choice would affect their children’s high school educations and, beyond that, could impact where they go to college. Listening to our friends, it became very clear to us that they expect their children to take the most academically rigorous program they can handle and we aren’t certain if the children will have any input into this process.

Pete and I, on the other hand, think differently.  For starters, we assume that our children will have a strong role in the process of deciding their educational paths. For example, when Graceful is in 5th grade, she’ll be able to choose whether she’ll take Orchestra, Band, Art, or something else. We expect to discuss those options as a family, listen to Graceful’s preferences, and guide her through the decision-making process. This will be a continuing trend as Graceful, and later on Elegant, go through school, and we want the girls to have a say in how they’ll be spending their school years. Obviously, they can’t choose not to take math or science, but they should at least be able to have choices when possible.

Once the girls are in high school the girls will have to decide if they’ll take Advanced Placement classes. Contrary to our friends’ thinking, Pete and I are of the opinion that taking as many A.P. classes as possible is too much and we’d rather that our girls only take A.P. classes in which they are deeply interested in the subject and want to go as far with it as they can. What we don’t want is a daughter with a full load of A.P. classes and who is so stressed and overwhelmed that she has a nervous breakdown by the time she’s 17.

[For a fascinating sociological study of just how stressed out today's high achieving high school students are, read The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins. It will blow your mind.]

What we’d really like is for our girls to pursue their interests as they go through school and find out what it is that thrills them. Of course they’ll have to take the basics (English, math, sciences, etc.), but we also hope they’ll also pursue their passions — whether it’s music or art or something else entirely. We want them to do the best that they can academically but we don’t want them to stress unduly over their grades or freak out if they get an A- because it might hurt their chances at Yale.

I personally don’t care if either of my daughters goes to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, and I am trying very hard not to care if they go to the University of Virginia, which is where Pete and I went and which is now a very difficult school to get into. What I hope is that the girls will figure out what kind of school they want to go to and then we’ll work together to find out which ones are a right fit.

As I was listening to our friends talk about their plans for their children’s educations, I didn’t explain our thinking as I knew they wouldn’t understand.

It has occurred to me that perhaps our thinking is off. That by not pushing our children we are instead encouraging them to be mediocre. That is not our intent, but maybe we’re not seeing things clearly.

But I’m curious. What do you think? Are we doing right by our children or are we encouraging mediocrity? That is, perhaps, a strong way to state it, but I think you understand what I’m asking.  Let me know your thoughts.  I look forward to this discussion.

Did you know that we do not celebrate Mother’s Day here in Jenworld? No, we really do not and I am adamant about this. No flowers, no gifts, no brunch at a crowded restaurant. Other than making phone calls to our mothers (and my stepmother), Pete and I don’t do anything else special for Mother’s Day. Ditto Father’s Day next month.

Why?

Because I just don’t like Mother’s Day. It’s a lame so-called holiday and I refuse to be a part of it any more than necessary. I won’t go so far as to not remember my mother on the day, because she chooses to celebrate it and that’s her right as a mother, but I don’t wish to celebrate it myself and won’t inflict it on my children.

Beside, if I need to be TOLD to honor and respect my mother on that one day of the year, that doesn’t say much about me as a daughter. I should be doing so every single day of the year. Beyond that,if I had a bad relationship with my mother — which I do not, as we are very close — then I would hate the moral imperative placed upon me to honor a person I do not like.

[Note: I really do not have any lingering issues with my mother. I do not. I genuinely love her as my mother, respect her as an amazing person, and enjoy her as a friend. She's a pretty cool person and also the person I would call first for help in an emergency.]

[Oh, and Mom? I totally forgot to buy cards this year. I was a bit distracted by other things and forgot about Mother's Day altogether. Mea culpa.]

The origins of Mother’s Day in the U.S. are actually interesting. It started as a call for peace and disarmament after the Civil War and was officially made a national holiday in the early 20th century. Within a decade, Mother’s Day had become so commercialized that the founders were disgusted by it and campaigned against it.

I know many of you reading this will disagree with me and it’s your right to do so. Feel free to leave comments refuting my statements or backing me up.

No matter what, I hope those of you who are mothers have a lovely day tomorrow, however you choose to celebrate it (or not). As for me, I’ll spend Sunday with my family, as I do every week, and I will simply enjoy our time together.

Updated to add: If you want to laugh so hard you’ll nearly cry, go to Derfwad Manor and watch this video. Thanks Mrs. G!

I am of the opinion that adults need to keep the promises they make to children. If children can’t count on the adults around them to do what they said they would do, who can they count on?

For example, if a young adult were to volunteer to coach a team of third grade soccer players, that means it would be his responsibility to attend all scheduled practices and all scheduled games, unless prevented by major illness or a veryveryvery important event, such as his own funeral. If this coach could not attend a practice, then it would be his responsibility to call the parents and tell them practice is canceled or ask another parent to run the practice.

Volunteering to coach a team actually involves taking on several responsibilities and keeping the promises implicit with the job:

• It means communicating with the parents regularly. ALL parents, not just a few. So if the coach is told several times that one family does not have email, it would be his responsibility to call those parents and not just hope someone passes the message along to them.
• It means showing up on time or even a little early for games or practices. It doesn’t mean showing up late or not at all.
• It means teaching the children about soccer. Helping them improve their game. Paying attention during the game and doing some coaching from the sidelines. Teaching the girls the rules. Not standing there and doing nothing during games.
• It means giving it your all, even if you lose every single game. Children don’t turn into David Beckham or Mia Hamm on their own. They need guidance.
• It means attending all games, especially the last one.

True, in this scenario, this person does not have a daughter on the team and is simply a young man who loves soccer and thought it would be fun to volunteer, but he would still have the same responsibility to the team as a parent would.

Parents of young soccer players have some responsibilities too. They need to get their children to the practices and games at the specified times. They need to take turns bringing snacks. They need to communicate with the coach regularly. And, it would be nice if they got the coach a thoughtful gift at the end of the season. Some examples would be a gift card to Starbucks if it was noticed that the coach has a coffee addiction or even a framed photo of the team with the girls’ signatures around the edges.

However, if the coach doesn’t follow through on his responsibilities, what then? What if the parents are frustrated that the coach didn’t seem to give a crap. That he didn’t do anything. That he didn’t take his responsibilities seriously and didn’t keep his promises to the children.

Then those parents would likely be irritated or even fully pissed off. It is likely that one particularly wise parent just might have predicted that the coach would skip the last game. It is also possible that the wise parent might have suggested that the parents skip buying the coach a thoughtful gif and that the other parents would agree.

But that seems unduly pessimistic. No adult would be that irresponsible as to not bother to attend the last game of the season, not tell the parents, and not say goodbye to his players. Right?

Just 24 hours after the soccer practice, the wise parent would then proven to be some kind of prophet, as it was discovered that the coach won’t be attending the last game. No email was sent out. The wise parent heard about it through word of mouth. At least the coach asked some other parents to coach. At least there was some advance notice of his lameness.

But then again, what kind of adult would make promises to little girls and then break them?

Updated to add: Since I wrote this, today’s games have been postponed because the fields are too swampy to play. I’ve emailed the coach (and copied all parents), politely asking if he’ll please let us know the details about the rescheduled game and also if we’re having practice this coming week (and if he’ll be there). We’ll see if he does the right thing.

Oh my holy hell.  Go read this.

I still feel the same way I did the last time.

Pete just looked at me and said, “These are people who don’t worry about their carbon footprint.”

Ahhhhh, it’s almost the weekend. It doesn’t matter if I’ve had an insanely busy week or a week where I’ve done nothing but sit on my butt and eat bon-bons, I’m still thrilled when Friday afternoon arrives.

[Wait a moment... Who am I kidding? I never spend a day, much less an entire week, sitting on my butt picking through a box of truffles. ]

This hasn’t been a particularly busy week. I’ve worked while the girls are at school but not much beyond that. I didn’t have any school meetings or anything else extra. Elegant has already finished her art class until the fall, so the only after school activity we had was Graceful’s soccer practice and that wasn’t particularly intense, as the coach opted not to show up.

Still, I’m glad it’s Friday. I always am.

Today, the retired lady across the street and I went out for lunch. In deference to my neighbor, I put a little more effort into my appearance, which means I actually did more than run a brush through my hair and apply some lip balm. I dried my hair carefully and then got really crazy and put on some make-up. The full works (for me, that is). I wore a nice outfit and even accessorized with various pieces of jewelry. More than I normally wear, but not so much that anyone would question my taste. In short, I looked like one those Ladies Who Lunch.

My neighbor had surgery a couple weeks ago, so we had to take things a bit slow today. I helped her into and out of the car. We walked sedately. We were careful of her stitches. But we went to one of our favorite garden shops and admired the plants. We talked about garden plans for this year and beyond. I even bought a few things. Then we walked next door and had a yummy lunch and much delightful conversation. We laughed and enjoyed ourselves without any time constraints or other distractions.

We were Ladies Who Lunch and it was quite fun.

Now I’m back and not feeling inclined to work too hard. Instead, I’ve been reading blogs, including Enviro Girl’s AMAZING post at Eco Women.

So now I’m off to get the girls from school. We’re going to play and have popcorn and generally enjoy our Friday afternoon. I finished putting the girls’ England albums together, so now it’s time for them to add their comments and stickers for color, which I’m sure will take some time. We had torrential rains last night, so it’s too wet to play outside.

This evening, we’re going to have pizza and then put on our pajamas and watch the Blue Man Group DVD that Pete gave me for National Jen Day.

All in all, it will have been a wonderful Friday. I hope yours is the same and that you have a good weekend too!

Happy birthday to the Guider!

Or, more accurately, Happy International Jen Day!

(If you somehow missed National Jen Day a week ago, click here.)

Since she’s Scottish, you should know that “guider” is actually pronounced more like “gayder,” which is how my husband now pronounces it whenever the Guider comes up in conversation.

Anyhoo, please wander over to the Guider’s blog and give her some birthday love.

You all know the game “Where’s Waldo?”, right? Today we are going to play “Where’s Jen’s Humor?” The rules are simple: We’re going to look around Jenworld and see where my Humor could be hiding. Look carefully, as my Humor appears to be well hidden and I just can’t find it.

Let’s start in the Jenworld Blogging Headquarters. Is my Humor hidden under the stack of old documents I need to shred:

Nope, not there.

Let’s mosey across the hall to the living room.

Is my Humor under the pile of crap on the coffee table:

Nope, not there either.

What about under the pile of vacation photos I’ve tossed on the floor and ignored for days and days:

Not there either.

Hmmm… This is really perplexing. Let’s go upstairs and see if my Humor is up there.

Is my Humor in Graceful’s room, which she has been asked repeatedly to clean:

There’s definitely no Humor hiding in there.

How about next door in Elegant’s room:

Not in there either.

What about in the laundry? Something could hide in there:

Nope not there either.

Well, this is really strange. I can’t find my Humor anywhere. I guess that means I have no Humor to share with you today. So sorry. I’ll try again tomorrow.

For those of you contemplating buying a swingset for your children, I suggest that you get one with at least one more swing than the number of children you currently possess.

That way, if your older daughter brings a friend home and they head out to the TWO swings, the younger daughter won’t feel left out and therefore feel compelled to climb to the top of the swingset and release the swing chain so that the older sister goes tumbling to the ground.

No one would be hurt in such an incident, but it would be necessary for you to then punish the younger child but also remind the older child to stop being such a bitch to her younger sister.

I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already. For whatever reason, time is flying this week, which I guess is better than it dragging its sorry ass.

Some random things for today:

• Go over to Eco Women and check out the three new posts I put up today.
• For some reason, Elegant’s fancy schmancy velvet blazer is back in play. It hung, unused, in her closet almost all winter and has recently come back out. Strange. I really thought velvet was a winter fabric, but apparently it’s more appropriate for fall and spring. Today, she wore it with an outfit like this, which is a look that no one else at her school has decided to attempt. Oh, and she finished off the entire ensemble with a purple glitter headband.
• The third grade is in the midst of standardized testing this week. Graceful is actually enjoying it greatly, as the students get an extra recess each day, some sort of yummy treat, AND there’s no homework. She’s pretty certain this is a pretty good deal.
• Graceful’s soccer team had their regular weekly practice yesterday. Too bad the coach didn’t actually show up to, you know, coach the girls. So, two other mothers and I supervised the practice and attempted to transform the girls into junior Mia Hamms before the final game of the season this coming Saturday. I don’t think we were successful, but you never know.
• On a related note, Pete is considering coaching soccer in the fall. He’s never played and knows nothing about it, but he figures he can’t be any worse than a coach who has done next to nothing this season. Luckily, my brother used to coach a high school girl’s team, so Pete’s going to ask for pointers.
• This week, I’ve read Fairest by Gail Carson Levine (almost as good as Ella Enchanted), How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill (so so), and Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (worth your time).
• It’s been a while since I’ve asked for suggestions on future blog entries from y’all. If there’s anything you want me to talk about, let me know. I’ll cover just about anything.

And that’s all for now. I really need to get busy, but must also make a Tar-zhay run, as SOMEONE (okay, a couple of someones) managed to use all of the toilet paper in two of the bathrooms and I found out the hard way this morning.