Good vs. Good Enough

One of the challenges in my life (probably in everyone's life) is not getting too comfortable. I don't mean that one shouldn't be comfortable -- comfortable clothes are good, a comfortable life is nice, comfortable friends are wonderful.

What I mean is that it's all too easy to accept the status quo, whatever it is, as being good enough. Sometimes the status quo is great -- when the status quo is that Universe Man actually gets up in the morning without having to be dragged out of bed or that Mr. Personality can write faster every day -- that's good status quo.

But all too often status quo is "good enough" and I get used to good enough, even though it's not really good enough.

I stopped taking the reddogs to agility class because the schedule was killing me. In the plan, the trade-off was that I'd be able to spend more time training the dogs, and that I would get to take that time. The reality is that I haven't done any agility training since July. I needed a little time to get my head above the water, and now no training is the "new normal, " the status quo.

And that's not good enough. It's not OK.

Sometimes though, good enough has to be OK. The books are in the bookcases in the boys' room, but they're stuck in there every which way. It's sort of a mess. For the moment, that good enough has to be OK. The boys put the books away themselves, the books are not on the floor, and eventually (hopefully eventually soon), I'll get to it and get the books organized properly.

That good enough is OK. For one thing, the boys are asleep in their room, so it's not like I can do anything about it right now anyway.

The struggle is to be aware of the way things are, to be able to distinguish between good enough and good, and to know when it's not good enough.

Telling Stories

The way I convinced Universe Man to give “The Chosen” another try was by telling him that it takes place in the same place that Grandma grew up. My children are hungry for information about how I grew up, how the LSH grew up, how our parents grew up. A couple of weeks ago we all ate cookies that used to be a special treat when I was growing up. They didn’t taste as good to me now as they did then, but who knows if that is memory or if the cookies really did change somewhere along the way?

The funny thing about the cookies is that my Dad doesn’t remember them at all, and I don’t know if my sister and brother do either. I wonder how many things there are that only I remember, how many things there are about my childhood that I might not think to pass on.

I realize now that I actually know very little about my mother’s childhood. All I have are snapshots, vignettes. And there is no one now alive who can tell me. I was shocked to learn this summer from my mother’s cousin that all of the cousins used to get together every week when they were growing up at their grandparents house (or maybe it was just the grandmother by that time – I’m not sure). She showed me some pictures from one of these gatherings and said that my mother would have been there but wasn’t in that picture. My mother never mentioned anything like that. In fact, she never talked about her grandparents at all.

All I can do is tell my children the stories I do know, tell them my own memories, tell them the stories of things that they don’t remember because they were too young, tell them stories of someone they no longer remember or never met. The story about my mother taking Universe Man to the wrong hospital the day Mr. Personality was born. The story about Universe Man eating pistachio ice cream with my mother. That he read to her, though he can’t remember it, that she saw Mr. Personality the day he was born and saw him walk and talk before she died.

Memory is all there is now, and it isn’t enough. It will never be enough.

Refraction

It’s amazing how different the experience of reading a book can be at different times. This is most true of great books, but I suppose also happens with lesser ones. What was exciting the first time is boring the second, what was cute is trite. But a couple of decades can give you a whole different perspective on a book.

Universe Man is currently reading “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok. We tried him on it about a month ago and it didn’t take, but when I suggested it again, he started reading, and he has abandoned the much more conventionally exciting children’s fantasy book he was reading to devour this one. I’m not entirely certain why this book has captured an 8 ½ year old so completely, but I will ask him. After he finishes it.

I first read “The Chosen” when I was only a few years older than he is now. I might have re-read it in junior high or high school, but I certainly haven’t read it since then, so it occurred to me that maybe it was time to re-read, if only so that I could discuss it with Universe Man. (That is both one of the joys and burdens of a reader like Universe Man. I can discuss books with him and it is fabulous, but I spend an awful lot of time finding him books and reading them so that I can make sure the content is appropriate and so I can be ready to talk to him about them.)

What a difference a few decades and parenthood makes! When I first read “The Chosne,” it was my window into a piece of the world in which my mother grew up. Of course, she was born after the events in the book take place, and she didn’t grow up in quite that world, but that’s what my mother told me when she handed me the book those many years ago, and that’s what I got out of it.

What I took from it now is something completely different. It seems to me now that the book concerns itself with any number of questions, but most importantly with the dynamic of parents and children, and with how parents raise their children. Which is not an unimportant issue in my own life these days, and of course something I could not possibly comprehend when I was 10 or when I was in high school. The struggle to raise a brilliant child to be a moral human being looms enormous in my own life and I cannot recall ever having seen this struggle so clearly depicted as in this book. Actually, until I got to the end of the book, I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms at all, even as I feel my way through it.

I will be interested to find out what Universe Man thinks of the book when he’s done with it. I haven’t yet decided whether I will talk to him about the ways in which the book is so very different for me now than when I first read it. Probably not. I’ll just tell him that he should be sure to re-read it when he’s a parent himself.

The Power of Motivation

Universe Man recently spent a week with his grandfather. He doesn’t start school until next Monday and Mr. Personality started the day after Labor Day, so the extended visit made my life a whole lot easier. (Of course, LSH’s car troubles this week have made my life more difficult, but that’s another story).

In any case, Universe Man is definitely a night person. Of the, “I hate morning, I’m cranky, don’t wake me up, I’m not getting dressed” variety. He is not a morning person. I feel the same way about mornings, so I can relate and usually empathize and we get through those tough mornings somehow.

But when he was visiting Grandfather, Universe Man turned into a morning person, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one. The alarm went off at 6:20 am and by the time Grandfather had gotten to his room to let Universe Man know that it was time to get up, Universe Man was up and dressed and ready to go. This is shocking. It was not shocking when Mr. Personality did it during his visit with Grandfather. Mr. Personality is a morning person and the reason we have “no earlier than” rules at our house and are very, very grateful for the precocity that allowed us to convey this concept to the boys at an early age.

So Universe Man is up and ready to go and when he called me to tell me about his day, I asked why he was getting up so early. I figured he wasn’t going to let his little brother show him up. That may have been part of it, but it turns out that wasn’t the official reason why. Why? “If I didn’t get up, we’d have to go to late minyan. I didn’t want to have to go to late minyan.” So I asked him if he’d be getting up and getting himself dressed for school when he was at home. He said he wouldn’t be doing it then (I can dream, can’t I?), but that “if we had to go to late minyan we’d miss out on a lot of the day.”

On the other hand, he’s really anxious to start school this year, so maybe he will get himself up and ready, at least for a little while.

It was awesome

Yesterday was Mr. Personality’s first day of school. His first day in first grade. And if anyone asked him how his day was, he said the same thing. “It was awesome!” I know that he said this because he said it to me, he said it to the Long-Suffering Husband (LSH), and he said it to his aunt.

He reported that he learned lots of things, that it was fun, that there were toys in the morning classroom but none in the afternoon classroom (and no playtime in the afternoon), that he met old friends and new friends, and that one of his new friends tied his shoe for him when it became inexplicably untied. He did not say inexplicably untied. I believe he said something like, “For some reason, my left shoe got untied.” All by itself. It could happen.

Mr. Personality also reported that he saw lots of his friends who are in kindergarten this year while waiting for carpool but that some of his friends are riding the bus. He then instructed me to call several parents “right now” to arrange playdates. This is the kind of thing he does, and this is why he may a) not survive his childhood if he doesn’t learn to stop trying to order the adults in his life around and b) one day rule the world.

After we got home, he took himself upstairs and did his homework. Then he showed me a picture he drew, which was an accurate depiction of the event in question in black marker and pencil. Mind you, I sent him to school with a box of markers (not just black) and a box of crayons, as well as pencils.

So far, so good.

Raspberry picking

It’s been over a week now, but we had the best time raspberry picking last week. (We had a nice time picking yesterday too, but it wasn’t as much fun as the last time). I belong to a local organic farm and although we enjoy everything from the farm, the early spring (strawberries) and the late summer/early fall (raspberries) are my family’s favorite times to go to the farm and “pick.” As in, “We’re going to go pick at the farm after school today.” Which is how we refer to it.

The farm is also just about the only place I ever let my older kids get out of my sight in public. Not out of yelling distance, and the rule is that they must answer when I call them or privileges will be revoked, but in the several years since this privilege began, I’ve only had to revoke it once. That was a few years ago and if I recall, it involved Universe Man walking too fast for Mr. Personality.

While the Bunny Friend and I went and picked the rest of our produce, the boys got started with the raspberries. Eventually we joined them, but I wasn’t getting very far with putting berries in my container because the Bunny Friend wanted me to keep picking berries for her. And Universe Man was getting tired. I don’t remember what Mr. Personality thought about the matter.

So I asked Universe Man if he would be in charge of the Bunny Friend. He is much reliable about this than his brother because a) he is older and b) for whatever reason, he doesn’t get jealous as much. He agreed. (It should be noted that they were both right next to me the whole time). His assignment? Choose ripe raspberries for your sister to pick and eat. Keep up with her. Do not let her pick or otherwise eat overripe or underripe berries or anything else she shouldn’t eat.

He did a great job.

*Lest you think that we do not respect the “picking limits” at our farm, I should point out that when we eat as we pick, we don’t take as much home. We pick our share, we just eat part of it as we go. Sometimes we eat all of it, but not last week.

First grade ho!

With quite a bit of trepdiation, we’re sending E to first grade next week. Surprisingly, making the decision didn’t take very much time at all. It’s so clearly the right thing to do. I’ll agonize endlessly over the whole thing until we know for sure that it will “take” and then I’ll probably keep agonizing over it anyway. (And in 20 years, E will be telling me that I ruined his life by not letting him go to kindergarten with all his friends. He is, after all, a middle child).

We took E in for evaluation this morning and the school administrator went through part of the testing with him before deciding that she didn’t need to finish it and that the best decision is to put him into first grade.

I worry about the socialization and his friends. He’s been in the same class with some of these kids for the past 3 years, and that’s a long time in his life. But the kindergarten is being split anyway and the classes are right across from first grade, and he already knows one of his teachers really well. We just have to hope that he is able to cope with first grade socially, and that his friends who are in kindergarten will still want to play with him.

I worry about what the other moms will say. I’ve known a lot of them for 3 years now, and I hate the idea of being perceived as the “pushy, obnoxious mom.” It’s hard to balance being an advocate for your child with the possibility of pushing too hard. I think we’ve been too accommodating in the past, and we’ve definitely found that the you have to stand up for yourself or your children to get them what they need.

I worry about what will happen when it’s time for second grade or third grade. “Skipping” a grade is only a stopgap measure for a kid like E. In a couple of years we’ll be facing what to do next. I won’t skip him again. He’ll already be a year to a year and a half younger than most of the kids in his class. This school does have a history of providing academic enrichment, and that gets easier to accomplish for them the older the kids get, so maybe by the time we get there, we’ll be able to tackle it that way. I don’t know.

And when I worry so much, I’ll just have to repeat my mantra. “These children demand so much of us as parents, but the rewards of being with them are equally great.” I guess that mantra is probably true for any parent, but sometimes the challenges are so enormous that I have to remind myself constantly that the rewards are enormous too.

All Physics All the Time

It seems like we’re making the transition back to “school brain” because yesterday afternoon, for no apparent reason, the boys suddenly decided to fix one of A’s toys. With a screwdriver. Apparently, they were interested in putting new batteries in the farm, but then they got going and took a fair bit of a it apart before they were discovered. They did put it back together again (without new batteries because we seem to be out), but I’m still wondering where they found the screwdriver. Not that they can’t find them, but was it out within baby reach? I’ll probably never know.

That started a discussion about electrical circuits and wiring and soon we were off to a discussion of what exactly it is that travels along fiber optic cables and somewhere we detoured into a discussion of magnetism. J told the boys that this was all electromagnetism, and B groaned. He hated that chapter of science last year. It was pretty dull in his book – I know, because that’s the chapter we reviewed during the incredible 3+ hours in the ER for a cut-up toe with all 3 kids saga last May. When we told him it was sort of more particle physics he perked right up and has been on an electromagnetism/particle physics kick every since.

E added to the mix this morning by getting into a discussion about whether the universe or a whole bunch of galaxies were bigger and then exactly what a solar system was. He then moved on to the composition of the solar system and which planets were what and then he wanted to know all the moons of Jupiter, which I couldn’t remember. I used my usual line, that we’d look it up, and he’ll probably have forgotten by the next time I could look it up with him.

Life is getting very academic around here, and it seems like the boys are excited to go back to school. I’m excited for them to go, because they like it, and also because the juggling act of 2 full time jobs plus 2 kids at home is a hard one.

No time like the present

There’s always something else I have to do before I can start writing a blog. Something else I have to accomplish or a reason not to get started.

Instead of waiting for all that, I’m just going to jump in. Why? Because I have now stepped in the spot where the Old Lady wet the floor and I cleaned it up for the third time in the last hour. Make that 5 times. It’s hard to remember to step over a spot in the floor when you’re carrying a 5 year old (who is perfectly capable of walking to his room) and putting his 17 month old sister back to bed for the third time in the last half hour. Some days are like this.

Actually, it’s been a really wonderful day, besides the spot on the floor and the trauma of picking splinters out of both of the boys. Hopefully they’ve learned to tell me when they get splinters instead of waiting a couple of days. Probably not.

We went to a local fair where we met a friend of B’s from school and spent the afternoon with them. There were animals to see and pet, rides to ride, junk food to eat, and some extra parents who are thrilled to carry E “on their heads” which we try to avoid these days, given that he’s 40 pounds and not quite 4 feet tall.

On tonight’s exciting schedule, we have trying to keep the kids in bed, which has become increasingly entertaining since A has decided that sleeping at night is for other people, and trying to finish spinning up some merino/silk in time for a friend’s birthday. Which is tomorrow, but I won’t see her until Tuesday night, so I might actually finish enough to give her some kind of present. Oh, and I have to fix a bear sweater since, for reasons that escape me, a whole bunch of ends have decided to detach themselves and start unraveling the sweater. And the bear doesn’t like the shirt he’s been wearing in the meantime, so I need to fix his sweater right now.

I hope he can wait until after dinner.