- DC1 has been having fun with blowing kisses. Hir new thing: teleporter hugs. They’re hugs that teleport over a distance to the recipient. They look like a mix of a normal hug and uh, a teleporter unit (which looks a bit like a shower, I guess). Can you tell that DC1 has been introduced to Star Trek?
- After a year with only two yellows (last year), DC1 got in trouble the first week for talking when the Religion teacher was talking. Oops. In this grade they lose 5 min of recess for going from green to yellow.
- We are a little concerned that even though DC1 has technically skipped two grades at this point, ze is bringing home 100%s on almost everything. We really hope it’s just beginning of the year review.
- Being forced to have an opinion seems to cause DC1 to have a melt-down. Ze hates questions that ask about hir “favorite” thing. We keep saying, “it doesn’t have to be your favorite, it could just be something you like” or “if you don’t have a favorite, just pick one.” We’ve also stopped giving options at dinnertime.
- Related, we’ve had some troubles with hir having melt-downs at dinnertime. We’ve traced this somewhat to hir not having a 3:30 snack, and have asked hir to make sure ze eats something as soon as after-school care starts.
- DC2 is still a tank, and still amazing with the gross motor skills, though hir rapid growth has made it more difficult to scoot forward (ze has been scooting to change direction though) or to completely support hir weight. Ze has also started to demand walking practice.
- DC2 also does this adorable thing where when we’re nursing and I’m trying to get hir to open her mouth more I’ll say, “Say Ahhhhh,” and, still with hir mouth closed, ze’ll go “ahhhhh.”
- DC2 loves music, especially REM and apparently Nancy Sinatra. Ze likes things that have a beat and are easy to bounce/walk to.
- It still irritates me when people ask if DC2 is sleeping through the night. Grrrr.
- Speaking of which… DC2, like DC1, has recognized that the night makes excellent Daddy playtime. Only DC2 is way less willing than DC1 to be bored to sleep… instead DC2 gets bored to tears and screaming. We’re working on making hir have more interesting daytimes, which is difficult when it’s so easy to let hir snooze from 8:30 to 10:30pm (except then ze wants to play from 1:30 to 3:30 or later). And sadly ze sleeps a lot for the mother’s helpers (on the other hand, our kitchen sparkles and our floors have never been so regularly cleaned.)
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RBOChildren
September 18, 2012 — nicoleandmaggie17 Responses to “RBOChildren”
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Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
September 18, 2012 at 6:51 am
Oof, don’t like the idea of losing recess time as a punishment…
My DC can send your DC some opinions if you would like. Mine has a surplus! And is somewhat unconvinced that it is OK if two people have different opinions, especially about matters that on some level have a “correct” answer (e.g. Which of the two monster trucks in that picture is bigger? Clearly it is true that only one is (though then we get into nuances of bigger: heavier? taller? longer?), but the idea that “I think the red one looks bigger, even though I know you think the blue one looks bigger” is, well, annoying — and I’m not the annoyed one, except by proxy.).
September 18, 2012 at 8:28 am
HAHAHA!
Mommm… https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/facts-and-opinions-are-not-the-same-thing/
I had surplus opinions growing up too.
September 18, 2012 at 7:24 am
Why would you worry about 100%? I know you hope she is not in a class too easy and needs a challenge, but I can tell you that I was personally pleased to get all my work done, get 100% and have time to read while everyone else was still struggling. When I was eight-years-old, I was glad there were stupid people. Maybe that is not nice, but I was only eight. Just because she rises to the challenge every time does not seem like a reason to worry. I would worry more if she did not achieve 100% all the time. I owuld be more worried about obligatory religion classes. It seems her education would be bettter doing something academic–unless, of course, you want her to be indoctrinated. I would worry that would hinder her understaning of science concepts.
That is so cute about the closed mouth aaaahh. How old?
September 18, 2012 at 7:32 am
Ze has perfectionist tendencies https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/preschool-perfectionism/ and also part of the reason they skipped hir, we think, is because ze was starting to be a bit of a pill when other people couldn’t do things as well as ze could. Ze needs challenges.
It’s a [mainstream non-evangelical protestant] school open to all faiths, so religion classes won’t be too indoctrinating. That also means I don’t feel guilty about not taking hir to Sunday school or church.
September 18, 2012 at 9:42 am
Challenges? I had my own challenges. When I was 10, I read all the Leatherstocking Tales. Nothing beat reading. When I was in the third grade, the teacher would never call on me when we raised our hands to answer questions she posed to the class. She quickly realized I always knew the answer. I really was annoyed that she would not call on me. ALWAYS! Even though I realized the reason, it was still an ego-killer and discouraging.
My father always disturbed the whole household with his bizarre sleep patterns, getting up at 3 am to go get cigarettes or just go anywhere. I have been known to get up and quietly read and go back to bed. My second child/infant would stay up exactly 1.5 hours at the same time every night. It would not have been so bad if the two-year-old would have slept at all during the day when she did. I read a lot of Shakespeare in the wee hours of the morning. THEN, that same little girl would get up in the middle of her sleep and ask to stay up with me, the night owl. She is rearing two children with same sleep patterns!
I would make sure she knows all the Bible stories so she will be able to understand simple allusions like “doubting Thomas.” You can teach it without putting a god-spin on it. The reason I say this is that literature and even Sunday comics are rife with Biblical imagery. Of course,an English major like me might be more into allusion and symbolism than you are. A fellow grad student said he wished he knew as much as I, but he never went to church or Sunday school as a child. That is the only reason I would even mention learning anything from the Bible. It was important to understand the plot or even subtleties.
Okay, after two hours sleep, I am tired.
September 18, 2012 at 9:47 am
We would like it if DC1 does not always know the answer and is ok with that. Because one day ze may be on the frontier of knowledge and ze isn’t going to get the answer right the first time. That’s something important to get used to, something that most kids get the benefit of on a daily basis, that it’s ok to be wrong and that one can learn from being wrong.
September 18, 2012 at 8:01 am
Ah, you almost make me miss the baby days. Almost. Petunia used to do the 2 hour party in the middle of the night, too. It sucks. Apparently I did it too. And then I came across an article on the BBC site describing research that indicates that was the natural pattern of sleep before there was artificial light or something like that… maybe I can dig up the link later.
Some of our friends are sending their son to Catholic school. He had to make a poster showing “God’s gifts”, with pictures he cut out from magazines. He had all the usual things- puppies, etc. And then he had beer. His parents are fellow beer fans and his dad is a homebrewer, so they were pretty amused.
September 18, 2012 at 8:14 am
Beer came before bread, so it really is one of God’s gifts. :)
Yeah, I think the sleep thing is also mentioned in Our Babies Ourselves. My mom and I still kind of have that sleep pattern (I generally get up in the middle of the night between sleep cycles… I posted on your blog today at 5am, though usually I just use the restroom or drink water), so she tends to send me articles on first sleep and second sleep back before modern electricity and the light bulb.
September 18, 2012 at 9:11 am
I’ve read a similar article. I tend to have the same “problem”, but I’ve learned to keep a small booklight, and books and journals by the bed to read or write if I wake up and can’t sleep again.
September 18, 2012 at 11:13 am
Sounds like both kids are growing and developing well! My little guy also loves standing and practicing walking. He’s also all smiles all the time unless he’s tired which is nice. Looking forward to hearing more as they grow.
September 18, 2012 at 11:17 am
I was complaining to #2 that all I can think of to post blog-wise are money and children topics… so there’s probably going to be a lot of children stuff, at least until I’m back to work full-time. (Possibly every Tuesday, but we’ll see.)
September 18, 2012 at 7:33 pm
Of course, the kid will sleep when the sitter is there. Or need to nurse.
September 18, 2012 at 7:37 pm
But at least they clean! I do like having a sparkly kitchen. And if we didn’t have an infant, we could totally spontaneously have people over without doing more than picking up a few toys. Hm, put that way it seems like not so good a trade-off. But we do enjoy playing with the baby in the evening… just not so much at night.
September 18, 2012 at 8:38 pm
I had a good laughter reading this, You’ll miss these days 10 years from now for sure.
September 23, 2012 at 10:03 am
It’s possible DC1 won’t find school “hard” until college or may never find school hard. I eventually did skip a grade and the schoolwork didn’t get any harder – there was just more of it. That makes the perfectionist tendencies really difficult to coach away.
September 23, 2012 at 10:08 am
First grade worked out really well (which ze did last year at the same time as K). Ze told me last week that ze liked first grade better than weekends, second grade equally to weekends, and weekends more than kindergarten. That seems about right. This week is a bit better, lots more spelling words ze doesn’t know (DH is currently coaching DC on Antarctica), and a few less than perfect worksheets came home.
September 23, 2012 at 1:12 pm
My children were always learning more than assigned in school. They had to memorize poems since they were assigned none by third grade. I taught them about waxing and waning moon. The two-year-old knew more about the moon than any child in town, I am sure, as she listened to what I told her older brother and sister. I purposefull taught them new words by using it in a sentence I was naturally saying to them. “You are exacerbating the problem my teasing your sister.” He stopped his torment of her long enough to ask what I was saying when he was almost four. Then, I kept using it. My friends thought I was just strange, plain nuts, to use words my children could not understand. When they went to school, I worried they were not being presented with enough homework. Teachers said I was the only parent who ever complained about not enough homework.
I never had to study much of anything and mostly did my homework when others in the class were goofing off or still struggling. Sometimes, I did my homework for the last subject while the teacher taught the next subject. The teacher did not like that, but I continued to do so. Finally, she figured out I could do both. If we had a small break, I either continued to do homework or read books. (I did study my algebra but never understood anything in class–whole different set of problems with school, not me.)