Monday night:
Nicolaus is suddenly this huge creature with all these limbs. He’s in the middle of our bed, stretched out like a great dane. He snores; they all snore in fact, except for me because I am a dainty and delicate flower.
He couldn’t sleep. He says the folders in his brain all have springs in them and if he tries to slam them all shut they all go pop! So he can’t sleep. I can see where that might keep a person awake. That plus continually talking to yourself and playing games where your hands are these little creatures who have adventures, plus asking random stuff like, “Mama? Do you think that we are literally just floating on lava?” and, “You know something that’s been bothering me? Beverly Cleary acts like five year olds are not smart and are all obnoxious. Everyone in those books acts like five year olds are almost worse than nothing. It really upsets me.”
I think he says this because Ramona is hassling Henry and his father tells him “Come on Henry. Surely you are smarter than a five year old.”
Tuesday night:
I should be asleep. Really, this is ignorant behavior – or, as my grandmother says barbaric. We’d do something ridiculous like jump on the furniture or eat with our hands or talk during the evening news and she’d say “WE ARE NOT BARBARIANS.”
In all caps, just like that.
Although technically, none of us are part of the Roman empire and a lot of my family is Dutch and Irish so actually, we sort of are barbarians.
And hey, did you know that the word barbarians comes from the way foreigners sounded to the Romans? When they made fun of the way other people spoke they’d say “Barbarbarbarbar”
It’s my kid’s fault that I know that. And now that he doesn’t wear costumes and make weapons all day he isn’t interested in history anymore, so now he’d say he doesn’t know what you are talking about.
It’s 1:46 and it’s crazy to be awake. I put the boys to bed early tonight. They were both barbarically cranky from staying up too late and waking up too early, and they were being so rude that I just said enough and put them to bed. If I’d been smart I would have gone right to bed, but sometimes it’s so nice just to be alone with my own thoughts that wasting it on sleep seems outrageous. It’s much easier to steal a nap during the day than it is to steal 30 minutes to sit and think and surf the web.
I spent the time working on ideas for Nicolaus’ school work over the next 3 months or so.
There’s also something missing from our daily school work, and I’m not sure what it is exactly. But I’m working on figuring it out. We are definitely following our nose day by day here, but a little planning and goal-making seems like a good idea. Right now we talk about science all day and he’s very interested in reading and being read to, almost to the exclusion of everything else, but I don’t want to get too off track on everything else. Math in particular. Math isn’t his strong area so he avoids it, but will play little mathy games with me or will take over the roll of the teacher if I role-play the part of a person who needs help.
So I did some research and found a few sites that are full of cool ideas. And if you know of any or have any (inexpensive) suggestions on guiding a verbal-visual type of kid through math problems, lay it on me.
Wednesday night
This week, Graham has thrown fits because:
It wasn’t time for his gymnastics class
We were going to his gymnastics class instead of a certain restaurant that isn’t even his favorite
I didn’t let him go tell a man that he met a cockatoo that could talk
I stole his ears and gave them to Kevin
I didn’t know he wanted me to zip up his jacket until we were almost inside, and I am an unreasonable whore who wouldn’t stop in the freezing rain to zip up a jacket when seriously – the door was three steps away
There are two blocks that almost fit perfectly into the back of his toy metal truck, but they weren’t made for it so when you put them in, there is an unsightly gap.
It was bed time
It was time to go to the bathroom
It was story time
It was not story time
He can’t make a perfect star out of playdoh
Or a square
It wasn’t bath time
It was bath time
Of what Arby’s did to his sandwich.
I didn’t hear him say he wanted water.
I didn’t know he was being a Vogon.
Crap, I just remembered I forgot to put the clothes in the dryer and I’m too tired to get up and do that. Now tomorrow they’re going to smell all wrong.
posted by electric boogaloo in
Journal and have
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