The first day of first grade

Well, today is the first of our new 12-month school year, L's first grade. We had a graduation "ceremony" yesterday at L's insistence, where we all sang "Happy Graduation to You" and she passed out mini carrot cupcakes to our friends who were visiting us here in New Paltz.

I did some late night preparation for the first day, but felt pretty prepared. Ummmmm....nope. Wasn't prepared at all, it turned out. L requested that we start the day with Science. I whipped out my science curriculum, which I had copied and pasted from the Tanglewood website nature study curriculum, and all it said was "Study the movement of sun and time." I drew a total blank. Though I had read that thing over and over again in all my prep work, I never noticed that it actually doesn't tell you how to study the sun and time. Woops. I did some lame scrambling, read out loud to her from some book I found on the sun and tried to pretend we were done. L was pretty unimpressed.

Things went a little better after that--we did the introduction to the Story of The World (luckily L is excited to do it again, though we've already gone through the first few chapters already) and did a fun game identifying the continents. Later I read aloud Kipling's How the Whale Got Its Throat from the Just So stories and we did a narration.

We broke for lunch out on our deck, enjoying the sun and breeze and yummy fruit salad, then started math lessons with one from the Center for Innovation in Mathematics. It's interesting, as it introduces from the beginning mathematical concepts that most math courses save till much later on, for example, this morning's lesson on using the notations for more than, >, and less than, <. We're skipping around with that because while it brings in advanced concepts early, it also takes a long time to get to higher numbers (it gets to the number 10 only several weeks in), so will use it in conjunction with Singapore Math.

Now we're taking another break, and still have reading to finish. It's turned out to be a much longer day than I expected, but I think it will go more smoothly as we get into a rhythm and I learn how to be prepared (!). And know what to skip.

Wrapping up the year

Today was the last day of the Simple Machines class held at ROC, a homeschool community center in the basement of a church on the Upper East Side. I can't say we got a lot out of it, not because the class wasn't good but because we had missed so many after the car accident and getting sick and getting the New Paltz house ready. I think we ended up going to two or three. But we got to take the Lego educational kit home with us so we'll just do all the projects on our own, though Teacher Tom's talks on physics (for five-year-olds) will be missed.

There was one girl, about 8 or 9, who attached herself to L & me as we were doing our car-building project. I let her help because L didn't seem to mind, but found it incredibly annoying -- she wasn't signed up for the class, and was monopolizing what should have been L's project while her father sat about 6 feet away, totally ignoring what was going on. I had to jump in several times just to make sure L got a chance to put some pieces together herself. And she was wearing so much perfume that it made my eyes water to stand next to her! (meow) And all through my teeth-clenching, eye-rolling and barely restrained sighs of irritation, L let the girl build the car with her and complimented her on her pretty dress at the end. Now who is the child here?

I'm planning on starting 1st grade in June, and run a 12-month year so that we can get away with doing only 4 days a week and have wiggle room for slotting in other fun things. Like going to France this summer for 2 weeks and maybe London. Because we had to cancel our London trip due to the scarlet fever episode last month we still have those tickets that have to be used. That would be a hell of a field trip.

Bad Mothers

I think almost every single parent has experienced having someone judge their parenting and finding them lacking. It starts with the raised eyebrows and askance looks when you're in your third trimester and sipping the weekly glass of wine that your doctor prescribed. Or the little old ladies who scold you for walking too fast while holding your baby because you might "bounce her head off." The worst is, of course, when you actually aren't being that great a parent and someone catches you at it.

I had one of those experiences and I'm still boiling about it. I'm mad because the lady was in the right to say something, but at the same time so damn wrong. I was having a rough time with the kids, it was 5 pm, I didn't have the stroller for T, we were in Chinatown, I was carrying two bags, trying to drag two nudgy kids through one of those tight little revolving door turnstiles. Basically a horror scene. I finally burst through the entrance, the bags were falling everywhere, and for a second I got distracted trying to gather my wits along with all my crap. Suddenly, a woman behind me yelled--not sounding particularly concerned but in this nasty exasperated tone: "Lady, watch your kid." I turned around, and of course T was running for the platform. I managed to hook his collar while he was still a good 6 or 8 feet from the edge, but it was still scary and embarrassing. While I was wrangling him (and trying to keep an eye on L), the woman said something like,"You better do a better job watching those kids." I was so shaken and upset by then I just couldn't let this pass. I told her she didn't have to talk to me like that.

"I wouldn't need to say anything if you were a better mother," she snapped back.

I lost it. I told her to mind her own effing business (and yes, I think I actually used the term "effing" because I was trying so hard not to swear in front of the kids, not that I didn't slip in the next 5 sentences), and basically it went downhill from there. I couldn't believe it! I was literally having a screaming match with a strange woman in the Canal Street subway station in front of my two kids and dozens of strangers. It ended with me telling her, as I walked away, to raise her own fucking kids and her shouting at my back that she'd do a better job than I was doing.

The thing is, I wanted to be grateful to her for pointing out that T was in danger. I would have been grateful if she hadn't posed the whole thing as evidence of my bad mothering. I'm not a perfect mother. Hell, I'm not always even a good one. But I'm trying my best, which is all any of us can hope for. I was going to go on with some trite observation about making judgements, "walk a mile in someone else's shoes", blah blah, but you all know about that. We all know it, but there are times when it gets rubbed in your face. So stop pointing fingers at Britney, y'all. You never know when it's going to be you hiding in that bathroom waiting for the stormtroopers to break down the door.