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Patience: September 2009 Archives
Jen and I headed to the National Book Festival on Saturday to celebrate our shared love of books with thousands of others. We ran into a few of our PBS friends while we were there.
I was missing Ethan especially, but Sid said, "Hi Ethan! I hope to meet you one day."
I was very excited to meet Wyatt. Can you tell how intense I felt?
The highlight for Jen was getting to meet and interview Judy Blume. She was lovely in every way.
I was beside myself to get a chance to talk to Tony DiTerlizzi, the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles. I was so excited I forgot to get something signed for Josiah but I think the interview was almost as cool.
Last but certainely not least, our very favorite Mr. Steve was there!
Wandering the mall all day I was struck but how much excitement and buzz literature still has over people. How authors can be rockstars, kid's faces lit up connecting stories and hearing them read. You can learn more about the Raising Readers program here. It gave me all kinds of ideas to help my kids dream about offering their own ideas and art to the world.
Are you concerned about reading? Wondering when and how it should start?
Learn how kids become readers and writers here.
Look for more interviews soon too! Did you go to the festival this weekend? How's the reading going at your house these days? Are you sick of reading that same board book 1,000 times? What books are your grade schoolers devouring at the moment?
Check out more pics from the festival here.
Everyone is all a twitter over here, especially Josiah. When I told him Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black were going to be at the National Book Festival, I think he almost peed his pants. The idea that he could actually meet the team who wrote The Spiderwick Chronicles was just so exciting.
Our blogging supersister, Pam, over at Booklights, has a great overview of all the book-i-licious goodness here.
Jen and I will be hanging out in the PBS Raising Readers Pavilion with our favorite, Mr. Steve!
Don't forget Elmo and all your other PBS Kids favorites. Truth be told, I'm just so excited that I will not be in labor this year! That's right, same day last year Lyra was born! So come down, say hello, stay for the biggest book birthday celebration for a one year old ever.
We would love to see you!
It started with a sleepover. The brothers returned home after one of the best nights ever to a task they had been dreading. After weeks of avoiding it and one million legos on the floor later, the time had come for them to clean their room.
Maybe it was the exhaustion from so much fun the night before or the magnitude of the job, but Josiah was pacing and looked very overwhelmed. He wandered in the kitchen, buried his face in his hands and started to bawl.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Life is so hard, ya know?" he said through heaving breaths.
"And as I get bigger, it just keeps getting harder." He went on.
I sighed and agreed, it is so true. I asked what was feeling big today.
"School is harder and my room, just everything, I feel so overwhelmed." he said.
The second week of school is always the kicker. It is the time when everything sinks in, revealing what is before you, all you have to learn. In a way, I have felt like I am in my own personal development academy. I can very much relate to feeling overwhelmed by all life is putting before me to teach me.
We sat together for awhile, reminding each other that we only have to do a little at a time and take it moment by moment. I suggested a break so we climbed in bed, he read books, I surfed the internet. Tomorrow is another day and our work will be waiting for us, but today we are just in life together.
Supersister tip of the day: Looks like third grade is a kicker of a year.
Are you hitting the second week wall at your house? What do you do when your kids feel overwhelmed? Or even better, what do you do for yourself?
The babies have always stayed close to me, really close. Jorge took them to snuggle on his chest, change a diaper, or hold in the crook off his arm but I was still their primary source of nurture and nutrition. Around the age of one, the parenting worlds start to shift and the guy who was just around making goofy smiles becomes the parent of choice.
We went apple picking last weekend and I watched it happen before me. Lyra sat in his lap eating apples and playing flirty games all day. Her back stiffens and eyes light up when he walks through the door at the end of the day. She makes her way to him with a book in tow insisting that he reads the same page over and over because she keeps turning the pages back. He is thrilled to be coming in to his time, the time when she is now a papa's girl.
Nothing is more charming than a man and his baby. And I watch all the love and chant in my mind, "No more babies, no more babies, no more babies..."
He was late again. Getting back into the school routine is hard for everybody but especially Jack. There were so many interesting things to distract him from the living room to the bathroom where he was going to brush his teeth. It might have been the lint on the floor that caught his eye. It's just hard to be focused on the task at hand when your mind takes you so many places.
This was driving me crazy. School was calling, the little box that lists the tardies on the report card has become my own report card of sorts. Truth be told, I failed miserably last year so I'm trying to not let the tardies get in the double digits this year. I sent Jack to get his socks on, it was my third attempt with no success, I was frustrated and went into drill sargeant mode. It was taking awhile so I went up stairs to lay into him, he started to explain but I wasn't having it. I went into a tirade about responsibility and schedules, he started to cry.
"Mom, I was upstairs thinking about how you weren't really listening to me, I really didn't hear you mom, I didn't know..." he cried in a sad whimper.
I stopped, this child has a way of exposing his heart and mine in the most thought provoking and tender way. He will tell me the truth in almost any circumstance, and I hear it, I see it, I will listen, even if I didn't before. We exchanged apologies and I got my first tardy of the year but it was worth it, I think I'm looking at a different report card now.
Money, money, money. I thought it wasn't polite to talk about money but somehow the subject has found it's way into many a conversation at our house. My husband had an unexpected job change last year, a month before we had our fourth child. This mixed with some other factors sent our family into a very difficult financial time that we are still recovering from.
There were:
Days we had to decline outings for lack of cash.
Moments when I questioned if I really needed to take the sick toddler to the doctor quite yet.
Hours spent wondering if our kids were feeling our stress.
Sleepless nights due to the unknown future.
Months of constantly calculating to try to figure out how we could make it work.
It seems almost once a day, I talk to someone who has lost their job or knows of someone in that position. This leaves lots of people trying to navigate a really difficult situation with their families, especially kids, wondering what will come next. How do we answer their questions? How can we come together as a family?
Al Roker and Deborah Roberts along with the Sesame Street crew will host a special primetime show called Familes Stand Together which chronicles four families coping with difficult financial circumstances.
With lots of help and expert advice, these families have found a way to strengthen their family bonds, even in tough times.
PBSparents has also put together a site with tips, resources and even a place to share your story
I know sometimes it's nice to know you aren't alone.
Familes Stand Together will air tonight in many places but you can check your local listings here.
We made it through another first morning of the first day of school.
New clothes were laid out ready for this morning, hair brushed, hot breakfast, lunches made the night before, and somehow we were still late. I'm blaming it on the pouring rain and not my perpetual problem of tardiness. Jack did ask if they could NOT be the last kids to be picked up from the car pool this year. I told him I would do my best.
I'm pretty sure this will also be the longest week of my life as preschool does not start until next week. This fact is near impossible for Lucy to understand as she had her snack and tote bag ready by the door this morning. I've never seen her get ready so fast and be so cheery. I've explained, clarified and drawn charts but there is no convincing her. She's sure it is a conspiracy against her.
So here we are, hoping all is well. Holding hope and space even from the house, saying little prayers for lunchtime friends and kind teachers.
If your crew started school today, how was your morning?
It feels like lately there are 100 exciting night events that require us to find babysitting. The problem is, we have one reliable lovely babysitter, who also has a life of her own. Not to mention paying someone to watch 4 kids can break the bank real quick. We are still a ways off, but I started wondering when we will be able to leave our kids for this and other things.
Let's have an informal poll, shall we?
When do you think it is okay to leave kids home alone? in the day? at night?
Do you ever leave kids in the car to run in the 7-11, or pay for gas, into a store real quick?
At what age do you think it okay to leave kids in the car for these short errands?
Tell us in the comments.
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