Are We Expecting Too Much From Our Kids?

I sent an email to Zeke's teacher this morning.  Nothing serious, I just wanted to see how things were going behavior-wise, since she'd called me last week on account of him being too physical when goofing off with his buddies.  I said he was telling me he hadn't had any strikes yet this week.  (She gives them strikes for everything from talking out of turn to not listening to breathing wrong...sorry, that last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much!)  He's also been, to my knowledge, staying on top of his homework.

The email I got in return was stoic, curt, and very matter-of-fact.  This is her style.  I'm still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt because she's quite personable face-to-face, but her written communication leaves a LOT to be desired.

She basically told me that homework needs to be signed AND discussed on a nightly basis.  Judging from my email, it sounded to her that I've not seen this or been doing this, and it concerned her.

My gut instinct here was to call her up and cuss her out.  Take THAT for criticizing my parenting skills, MADAM!!

But I didn't.  Probably wouldn't reflect well on my kids either.  Besides, some would probably view that as overreacting.  *sigh!*

I'd like to point out here that I, personally, don't get more than a couple of hours with my kids each night before it's time for them to go to bed.  This includes time for scouts, sports practices, and various other events that tend to pop up on occasion.

In other words, we DO have a life outside of school!

And shouldn't much of this be covered during school hours anyway??

It seems that, across the board and not just in America, there's been a shift in the role of parents when it comes to a public education.  I honestly don't remember my parents ever asking to see my homework.  I know I needed some help late at night when project deadlines were only hours away, and my dad would drive me over to the 24-hour Kinko's at 1 a.m. to get my US History report copied and bound, ready to turn in at 7:30 later that morning.  (My dad is awesome, by the way.)  :)  But they didn't have to sign stuff every day, let alone DISCUSS why exactly does 2 + 2 = 4?

Life is very different now for my 8 year old than it was when I was 8.  It's sad, but true.

There have been times I've had to put pressure on him to get his work done.  We've threatened to pull him from sports, if he's not willing to keep up with his homework.  And truthfully, there have been times I fully understood his frustrations, but I still had to keep up my end of the deal as a parent and make him do what he needed to do.  It doesn't always feel good either, arguing with your kid about why he shouldn't make a mountain out of a mole hill.

The other night, we were both so frustrated at each other that I told him to forget it and just get himself ready for bed.

"I'm not finished yet!" he said.

"I don't care.  If it's gonna take you that long to do something simple, then you may as well sleep on it and try again in the morning."

"I'm not dumb!"

[Pause...]

I'm not sure where that came from.  I hadn't said anything about him being dumb.  In fact, he's made the principal's list and honor roll both first and second quarter this year, so CLEARLY he's not dumb!  But I had to wonder if the pressure was getting to him.

Anyway, I've rabbited on long enough about this.  Writing must be therapeutic somehow because I'm not nearly as hot under the collar as I was when I first started.  Good thing, too.  I think I'm going to ponder on this a bit and see if there's some way to reach a compromise between my time and the teacher's.  Our common goal is to help the kids do well--I'm just not sure it needs to happen quite this fast or with such intensity.  Kids need time to be, well, kids!

Thoughts?

The Year of the Horse

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

Today marks the start of the year of the Horse.  MY year.  It's going to be a GREAT year - I can feel it already!

Being that half my heritage goes back to China, I feel it important for me to pay homage to this part of my background and be proud of my diverse family ties.

Did I mention this is MY year??  :)

We talked a little about CNY at our last cub scout pack meeting.  The boys don't really know much about it, and I wasn't sure how cool the parents would be by my introducing a culture different from their own.  Most probably wouldn't have an issue with it, but you never know.  So I just touched on it and had them play Chopstick Relay for their game (which they LOVED).

Anyway, the horse is said to be energetic, charismatic, highly captivating, and thrives on attention.  I think I'd have to refer to my elemental Earth Horse to see more of myself in the description, as I don't really think of myself as being one that thrives on attention.  LOL Taken from a Chinese astrology website:

"Earth Horses will work to meet their goals, no matter how long it takes. They’ve got the ability to view situations from all perspectives and this ability is especially useful when it comes to making decisions. They’re very adaptable and they’re funny too."

That sounds about right, I think.  :)

I Love Lucy!

I'd been waiting for this show for WEEKS!  Hubby decided to buy me tickets to this showing of "I Love Lucy Live at TPAC" for my Christmas present, and I was STOKED!!  You have no idea how hard it is to get this man to the theater.  When he first brought it up, I thought he must not have been feeling well, but then I realized the boy was serious!

I have to mention here the look of utter betrayal on our 8 year old's face when I told him what we were going to see.  "What, without ME??" he asked in disbelief.  Yeah, buddy!  [Insert evil laugh here.]  Turns out he actually likes to watch Lucy as well, thanks to YouTube.

(Yes, I'm working on schooling my boys in a little culture besides Ninjago and the Power Rangers.)

So...Sunday was the big day.  The kids were at my parents' house from the night before, and Hubby and I would be able to enjoy the show in Nashville without being parents for a few hours.  Sweet!

The crowd was, inevitably, mostly older than we were.  But you have to understand how much I loved watching this show when I was younger.  One year, my brother even brought me back a mug from his travels with the famous "chocolate factory" scene on it.  I still use it to this day.  :)

Anyway, the cast of the show we went to see did a splendid job.  Not only did they look the part, but most of the time, if you closed your eyes, you'd swear Fred, Ethel, Lucy, and Ricky really were on stage in front of you!  It was amazing to see such craft in action.

The performance is centered around the taping of two episodes of "I Love Lucy."  You, as the guest, are part of the studio audience at Desilu in Hollywood, California.  Not only did we get to see the taping of the shows, but we also sat through some pretty cheesy live commercials for all kinds of products, including Brylcreem and Alka Seltzer, complete with jingle singers.  A lot of people in the audience could probably remember when those commercials were on back in the 1950's, but that was definitely way before my time!

Still, by the end of it all, it was a very enjoyable performance.  We later stopped by a hole-in-the-wall sushi place on Union Street called Sam's (the proprietor wasn't very pleasant, but the food was actually really good), then later headed to Bar Louis in Murfreesboro for a quiet one while we waited for the grandparents and little children to come home.

All in all, a wonderful date night.  Or day.  Whatever.  :)

Crocheting a Baby Dress

I've been trying to widen my crocheting horizons lately.  Scarves, hats, and blankets are nice, but they don't really need you to pay attention to the gauge much.  My friend Elena is having a baby girl in March, and she's having a baby shower next weekend.  Soooooo, I figured I'd try something different.  I made her this cute little pink dress using a free pattern I'd found on Ravelry.

The original dress was a bumble bee design, yellow and black stripes with a large white flower on the chest.  I decided to go with the solid pink and improvised small daisies to go along the waist.  I even found some cute daisy buttons to use on the back!

The dress is larger than what I was originally going for.  The pattern said to use crochet thread and a size E hook.  I used baby yarn and a size F hook (couldn't do it with size E on this yarn), and I think it's more of 6-9 month size instead of the original 0-3 month the pattern was making.  Still, it'll give her something to grow into and can hopefully use as a tunic when she gets a little bigger.

I shared the post on The Crochet Crowd's page on Facebook.  From my post alone, as of right now, there are 95 likes and 482 shares!  Then TCC featured it on their page, too (sort of like winning the lottery in terms of crochet fame), and last I looked, there were 3,960 likes and 2 shares, as well as 140 comments and requests for the pattern.  WOAH!  It seems the dress is a big hit!

Unfortunately, Elena also happens to follow TCC on Facebook, so she saw the post.  GAH!  Well, I told her she wasn't supposed to see that post and to just act surprised when she opens my gift at the shower.  Geez.  LOL!  I can't wait to see it on Caisley though.  It might be a year from now, but I'll add it to my Crochet By Nabela page whenever I get a picture.

Can't wait!  :)

In the mean time, I've got some hats and scarves to make for the boys.  They seem to have outgrown the ones I made them last year, so they picked out some new, soft yarn and want me to make them aviator hats.  I'll give it a go.

I want to try and make clothing, too.  If I do, I'm probably going to bite the bullet and fork out the dough for the fancier yarn these patterns seem to call for.  I think the drape and final look and feel of the project will be worth it.

Oh, one more item I recently finished was Hubby's Harley Davidson throw...

Yeah, this one took some time.  I made the background using black yarn with the simple afghan stitch.  Then I took a picture I found, added a grid to it using Photoshop, and cross stitched the pattern on top.  The flames, I have to say, took the most time to do, but the final look is quite convincing, I think.  I had to do much of the work on the bus in order to keep Hubby from seeing it, and many people asked me about it and made comments.  A few were interested in buying it, but truthfully, they probably wouldn't pay enough to make it worth my while, not with all the hours of work I put into this baby.

I still have yet to put the black flannel backing on it to cover the work in the back.  Right now, Hubby is scared to use it for fear of getting it dirty or snagging the threads.  I assured him that he at least needed to keep it on the back of his chair so that *I* could look at it!  LOL  I'm glad he liked it though.

Well, more on my crochet work later.  I need to find something challenging to work on for the spring.  Maybe clothing for the boys?

Pinterest, here I come!  :)

Going to the Dentist

Hubby took the boys for their semi-annual checkups the other day.  Zeke is doing well, just a spot between two teeth that's showing signs of thinning enamel (huh?), so he needs to work on his flossing.  Gabe, however, has to have two cavities filled, one of which was from a spot they'd been watching for the past year.


I feel terrible.  :-\


To get the fillings done, we're going to have to put him through conscious sedation, after which I'm not even allowed to be in the room with him when they do the actual fillings!!  The instructions said that children tend to behave better when their parents aren't in the room, and that's probably true, but I hate the thought of not being able to be there with him.


So apparently, I'm supposed to supervise brushing and flossing until the boys are at least 10 years old.  That's news to me.  I thought that by the age of 8, they were quite capable of handling this simple task on their own, but I guess I was wrong.


WAY wrong!


Due to currently having the sniffles, I'm going to have to schedule Gabe's dental work for a few weeks from now, as they won't do the sedation if he's showing signs of nasal congestion or being ill at all.  Considering the time of year and the fact that he's in daycare all day every day, I'm not sure that's going to work, but okay.  We'll do what we can.


On the plus side, Gabe's making an effort to avoid eating candy.  We could spin this into something positive after all, me thinks!