The Cool Factor

Here I am—sitting in the car outside of the orthodontist office helping my daughter blot away her tears before her appointment.  I had scheduled Hanna’s appointment to immediately follow soccer tryouts—completely forgetting they would be posting the results which turned out to be a devastating blow to her middle school ego. 

“It’s not fair,” she said.  “The girls that were on the team last year got to help pick the new girls.  They picked a lot of their friends—not necessarily the ones that were really good.”  I really stopped myself from saying the old parent stand-by “life’s not fair” and instead opted for something a little more supportive and empathetic. 

“I know your feelings are hurt and you have every right to be disappointed,” I started.  “When you work hard for something and then you don’t get it…well, it sucks.”  I think Hanna was both shocked and impressed that I had thrown out such a “never-say-around-parents” word and I thought we just might be turning the corner with our emotions.

“It does suck,” she said.  "I'm never trying out for a team again."

“You don’t really mean that.  It’s just hard for you to see through your disappointment.”  By the look on Hanna’s face that final statement caused us to come to a complete standstill on the emotional corner we were in the process of turning.

“What do you know?” Hanna questioned.  “You don’t know those girls.  You don’t know the coach.  You don’t know anything.” 

Ah, there it is.  The phrase I love the most as a Mom:  “You don’t know anything.”  As my children have gotten older I am beginning to hear that phrase a bit more often.  Sometimes I feel as if my children are looking at me in wonder thinking, “She is a complete moron.  How did she ever become a functioning adult with a job and a family.”

“You’re right, Hanna,” I begin.  “I don’t know the girls or the coach, but I definitely know how you feel.  When I was in the eighth grade I tried out for cheerleader and made it all the way to the very end.  There were only 10 girls left and I was so certain I would make the cut—I had practiced so hard.  Well, I didn’t make it and I was crushed."

Hanna is now staring at me through her tears as if my story of cheerleading woe has absolutely nothing to do with her situation or feelings.  “Nice story, Mom. 

“All I’m saying is that not being an eighth grade cheerleader had very little affect on my future success in school—or in life overall—and this little blip in your middle school career will seem like nothing one day.”

“I know, I know, I know,” Hanna says as she begins to dry her eyes.  “You’re right.  Life will go on.”  Then she adds with a laugh, “And even though I didn’t make seventh grade soccer, I could still become prom queen.”  

I realize she is referencing my only real high school claim to fame and although I detect the sarcasm in her voice there is a part of me that thinks the prom queen status just might make me cool in the eyes of my daughter.

“You can do anything you set your mind to, Hanna.  You know what I loved—student government.  Maybe you could be class president.  I always wanted to be class president.” 

“Mom, you’re a geek.”  So much for the cool factor.

Strategies of Distraction

Jack is sitting in the dugout picking at the bottom of his cleats.  He appears to be mesmerized by the amount of dirt and grass stuck between the spikes and just when I think he has gotten bored with the task, he screams out onto the playing field, “Hey, look what’s on the bottom of my foot.”  I look over to see the remains of a very long and gooey worm.  The poor dear met his unfortunate fate by being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the outfield.  Jack is ecstatic—as is every other kindergarten boy on and off the field. 

“So cool, Jack,” his friend Mark exclaims.  “Is it still moving?”

“No, only when I wiggle it with my fingers.  The other part is missing—it must still be in the grass,” Jack says.

“Let’s try to find it.”  Replies Mark as he yells to the other team who is now positioned in the field, “Hey, look for a worm part in the grass—Jack has the other part on his shoe.”

Obviously, the worm has become a distraction as Jack and his teammates (and even some of those on the opposing team) are busy trying to determine if the stuck worm is a whole or a part. Just then, Nate—who is already dressed for his late evening baseball game—gets up off the ground and walks over to the dugout.  He snatches the worm from Jack’s shoe and says, “There, it’s gone.  There’s no need to find the other part.  Watch the game.”

Nate has no patience for such shenanigans and would rather these young boys spend their dugout time cheering on their teammates or spitting sunflower seeds through the fence.  In his short 11 years of life, Nate’s sport experience has gone from frivolous fun to serious strategy and while he was once a reluctant baseball player (his real passion is football and wrestling), he has developed an admiration and respect for the game—something he is trying to instill in his young brother.  

“Nate!” Jack screams from the dugout.  “Why did you do that?”

“It’s a worm.  A dead worm.  I’ll find you a new ‘alive’ worm while you finish the game.”  Nate screams back.  Nate and I both know he has no intention of digging for worms during this game, but his reply seems to be just enough to appease the young boys on the team.

“Don’t you think Jack will be disappointed when he doesn’t have a new worm at the end of this game?”  I ask. 

“I don’t need to find a worm,” says Nate.  “I just saw the Mom with the snacks and she brought blue Gatorades and Rice Krispie treats.  They won’t even remember the worm in Jack’s shoe when they see that.  Hey, can we bring blue Gatorades when it’s our snack day for my team?”

“We don’t have snack days for your team, Nate.  You’re too old.” 

“Oh,” he says as he begins kicking the dirt with his cleat.  “Hey, look what’s on the bottom of my foot?”

I look down to see the missing part of Jack’s worm dangling oh so carefully from Nate’s shoe.  “I’ll just give him this part.  He won’t know it’s dead until he gets home.”

“The worm is not going in my car—dead or not,” I state.  

“Well, you better hope he likes the blue Gatorade,” laughs Nate. 

It’s nice to see the serious sport strategies that Nate is learning include how to distract his young brother.  Perhaps I should be taking notes.  

Life Lessons and Homework

Status Update:  Patti Smith Minglin knows very little about John Hancock. 

“What do you know about John Hancock?” My son asks.  Honestly, I know more about the John Hancock building in downtown Chicago than I do the man behind the name.  But how do you tell that to a fifth grade boy who not only struggles to get his homework done, but often forgets to turn it in?  I mutter something about his signature being the first one on the Declaration of Independence and encourage him to do his own online research.  “After all,” I say, “You are in the fifth grade now—you need to figure these things out on your own.”  Which is parent code for:  I have no idea what the answer is to your very hard question.

There comes a time during everyone’s educational career when a wise teacher or parent says, “You need to know this information—you will use it someday when you are an adult.”  I had no idea that the reason I needed to keep John Hancock lifestyle information—along with how to divide mixed fractions and conjugate French sentences—was to ensure I would be of some actual help on school homework nights.  I always thought the very fact I avoided going into a career in politics, finance or foreign language translation meant that I could move that information out of my brain—making way for new and exciting information such as how many kids Angelina and Brad now have. 

As my mind wanders to thoughts of enjoying a drink on the 95^th floor of the Hancock (I told you my base of information was firmly set in the building—not the man), my youngest son comes walking through the family room yelling, “P-I-G, pig.  D-O-G, dog.  2+3=5.  3+3=6.”  It is as if he is having a mind-dump of all the things he learned at school this week.  There isn’t really any rhyme or reason to his dialogue, just a constant stream of kindergarten knowledge that he is exceptionally proud to display.  “Mom, why can’t I swim?”  This is the brilliance of Jack—he seemingly transitions from one subject to the next without any stop in his flow of consciousness. 

“Well,” I begin.  “You have been busy playing other sports.  Do you want to take swimming lessons?” 

“No,” says Jack. 

“Then, how do you expect to learn to swim?”

“I just want it to happen—can’t I just ‘think’ it to come true?”

“That’s not how life works, Jack.  You can’t just ‘think’ things to come true, you have to work to make them happen.” 

“Oh.”  He says as he continues to walk through the house spouting off this week’s spelling words and math lessons.  I have apparently broken the spirit of a kindergartner by revealing one of those great awful lessons of life—things just don’t happen because you want them to.  Soon to be followed by the next great lesson—sometimes things don’t happen even when you work really hard to get them.  I think I’ll save that for the fifth grader who has reemerged from the basement with a list of accomplishments and facts about John Hancock. 

“Mom, what do you know about Thomas Paine?”  I have hit the wall with my learning capabilities and am certain that I can no longer parent—at least parent academically—past the fourth grade.  Let’s face it, even fourth grade was a challenge.  

The Psychology of Frogs

Patti Smith Minglin is enjoying her coffee at Starbucks while watching Jack write most of his numbers backwards.  Yet another sign that Harvard is in our future.

Watching Jack write his numbers backwards on the blackboard inside the coffee shop, I begin to regret our decision to not hold him back a year before he started kindergarten.  He is a young kindergartner having just turned 5 a few days before school started (and won't even be 6 on the first day of first grade thanks to a change in the academic calendar), but he had two years of preschool under his belt and is the youngest of three.  He carried himself in a way that most kindergarten students did not and not only had conquered such academic achievements as knowing the alphabet and spelling his name, he could also sit still on the reading rug and share his crayons.

Those first few weeks of kindergarten were brutal as Jack transitioned from a schedule of half-day preschool to full-day kindergarten.  Notes were sent home weekly explaining that Jack was having trouble grasping the basic classroom rules which resulted in his ‘frog’ being moved almost on a daily basis—a fate worse than getting your DS taken away.  In between the boot-camp-like learning structure I had created at home with flash cards and dry-erase boards, I spent almost every evening of those days crying myself to sleep—certain I had just sealed this poor boy’s fate and he would spend the rest of his educational career struggling to survive.

I’ll be honest, there was some real reason to doubt the authenticity of my decision.  After all, I am a work-from-home Mom who couldn’t wait until all three of my children would be in school full-time and we would finally be out from underneath the financial strain of childcare.  During those first weeks of school I began to think I had been blinded by my selfishness and what I thought I saw in Jack—that spark that made me believe he could succeed in school—was never really there.

Even when the weekly notes stopped and Jack’s frog seemed to stay in place on a more regular basis, I was worried.  I had such a knot in my stomach as we walked into the school to have Jack’s first parent/teacher conference—a knot that got even tighter when I noticed two teachers sitting at the table instead of just one.  “Great.  He’s doing such a horrible job that they have brought in a school therapist to help us explain to Jack why he has to leave his kindergarten friends and go back to preschool,” I whispered to my husband. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Minglin, this is Mrs. B, Jack’s reading teacher,” his teacher started, “We have to tell you something about Jack.”  From my previous experience as a parent, that sentence coming from a teacher (or psychologist, doctor, coach, etc.) is rarely followed by anything positive.  “Jack is doing such a wonderful job,” she finished.

“Really?  I mean, not that I was really worried, but he’s so young and all those notes about not getting the rules and his frog kept moving and…” 

“Oh, the frog,” his teacher started, “The overall progress of Jack does not ultimately reside in how many lily pads his frog has moved for the day.”  I suddenly felt so foolish—had I really boiled down my child’s educational success to the movement of a small amphibian?  This was my third child, yet I felt like a “new mom” sitting in that small (and highly uncomfortable) kindergarten chair. 

Yet, here I am near the end of the school year, sitting in a coffee shop and still second-guessing our decision.  “Jack, what is 2+5?”  I innocently ask. 

“Seven,” he quickly replies.

“How do you spell truck?”

“T-R-U-C.” 

First grade may be on the horizon, but Harvard still appears to be out of our grasp.

The Mind of a Fifth Grader

Patti Smith Minglin wonders what could possibly be packed inside the mind of a fifth grader that makes it nearly impossible for him to remember his lunch each day.*

Every morning I send the kids off to school and apprehensively walk back into the kitchen knowing that someone has left something on the counter.  Homework that has to be turned in for a grade, a signed permission slip that allows entry onto the field trip bus, an instrument that is in desperate need of being played or lunch. The very same lunch that I so painstakingly put together (OK, so I buy the frozen "Uncrustable" sandwiches--I still have to gather the chips and fruit) and asked the boy at least 3 times if he had put it in his backpack.  Yet, here I stand looking at the lunch bag--half expecting it to move itself from the counter to the school office.

I know the mind of a fifth grade boy must be filled with lots of stuff.  While Nate can't seem to remember his lunch he is always quick to offer up important information ("Did you know the Sox are in fourth place?"), exciting updates on events ("I think someone got arrested today at school--or maybe it was just a police officer visiting a classroom"), facts about friends ("Jake got a black eye during his hockey game on Saturday") and the all important daily sports update ("If I just move my arm up a bit, I think I can hit the ball harder").  I'd like to think there is also some more pressing information floating around in that blond-haired topped head such as math facts, spelling tricks and what he should possibly get his Mom for Mother's Day.  

I grab the lunch bag, mutter something completely awful to the dog and head to school.  It's a routine I do several times each month and one I am hoping goes unnoticed by school staff.  

"Good morning, is that Nate's?"  The oh-so-friendly secretary smiles.  I have two children at this school and the very fact she knows exactly why I'm standing in this office at 9:30 AM is frightening.  I am already certain our family folder has been filled with notes about missing permission slips and forgotten morning band practices.  Will I also be known as the "Mom of the kid that forgets everything?"  

"Yes," I reply.  "He was in such a hurry to get to school and learn something new that he forgot his lunch."  OK, that's a real stretch, but I suddenly felt the need to give the kid a break.  He may forget his lunch, but who else can tell you something unique about every player on his baseball team, his teacher's favorite book or why the Bears should spend good money on a new quarterback?  He's the kid that frets over missing math class for fear he will miss something new and is always the first one to volunteer to help a new student get more acclimated with the school.  So he forgot his lunch--OK, so he forgets his lunch on a regular basis.  Will this stop him from getting into a good college?

"Sure," laughed the secretary.  "I'll make sure he gets it.  Anything else he needs for his day?"

"No, he's all set.  Thanks."  I walk out of the office with my head held high and rush back to the car mocking her last words.  "Does he need anything else? Right.  He just forgot his lunch, it's not like he left his backpack at home."  As if on cue, I hear a thud from the backseat and turn around to find...two of Nate's textbooks. Great.  Looks like another trip the office. 

*based on Facebook status from April 2009

The Facebook Chronicles

When I was in college I kept a journal--a journal filled with stories of young love, school stress, fun-filled nights with friends and just a touch of good old-fashioned teenage angst.  I had several journals that chronicled my college years and as I got older I continued to try and tell the story of my life in some form or another.  Not exactly an easy task--especially when you have a job, three children and a boatload of other commitments.  Then came Facebook.  

While it didn't start out this way, Facebook has actually become my journal--giving me the opportunity to capture my life (and the lives of my family and friends) in small pieces and bits. Such is the basis for my first book--which I'm busy working on as we speak (or write).  Toward that goal, I am going to begin using some of my most recent Facebook status updates to inspire this weekly blog--hoping to update it more frequently and give you a sneak peek at what is to come.  

I am really looking for your feedback--so feel free to post your comments, advice, etc.  And, if you like what you read, tell your friends.  The more fans I have of this blog the better!!

Be on the lookout for updates--I can't wait to share a little bit more of my world with all of you.