Stay-at-home, work-at-home Dad

Dancin' Days

2010-03-15T10:32:00.002-04:00

Sundays I take my son to my small group meeting, where he usually gets to meet up with one of the other member's daughters, who's also eight. She takes dance classes, and this Sunday, she was trying to get Jordan to slow dance. Jordan, of course, has no real experience that hasn't been on the goofy side, so his dancing looks a little more like that Brazilian martial arts dancing [insert name of that Brazilian martial arts dancing when I think of it].

I was able to at least get him set up in the right position. Next, the box step. I figure if he's going to be a lady's man, he needs to dance.

The two-year itch

2010-02-27T19:35:00.002-05:00

Sometimes in the land of blogs, it's easier not to update than to figure out what and why to write about something. And in the life of an ever-changing little human, deciding when to listen to yourself or your dad is hard to figure out.

Jordan is now eight years and almost three months old. For the past year, he's been growing in character and personality at a greater and greater rate. Mostly, that's been all right. Sometimes he needs a little push or pull to one side or the other of a decision he makes. That's to be expected. I'm the same. Except no one is pushing me much.

Every couple of years, his independence runs smack into the rules of adults, and we have to intervene in ways not entirely fun. And it's been the same thing each time: he doesn't want to follow rules.

This time, he might have gotten the idea that because we didn't make a big deal every time he got into trouble for some little thing, we didn't care, which meant that he could do anything he wanted, trouble or not. He says that isn't the case, but sometimes we agree to disagree.

Whatever the cause, a thorough talk--complete with chances for him to ask his questions and tell his side--brought him to the point that his disobedience turned around completely, and his habit of making excuses for everything he did wrong decreased at least 50 percent.

I want to be careful that he doesn't feel like my dislike of his excuses means I don't want him to talk to me about problems. I'm learning in this deal just as he is, and together, and by the grace of God, we should get through pretty good.

The Creation of Mr. Pumpkin

2009-10-01T21:05:00.007-04:00

The Halloween jack o'lantern is a thrill for every youngster, it seems, and nothing seems more natural for him or her than to give the goblinesque creation the most realistic of appearances, getting every tooth and whisker just so. That is, until they try to carve it themselves.

Just two months shy of eight years old, my son appeared ready to handle at least part of the chore of slicing the orange melon's considerably meaty flesh, and I'm happy to report all went well. We used the score and score again technique, where a light line is notched with the point of the blade along the area to be cut. Then a second stab deepens the line, and a third or fourth goes all the way through the meat.

For the nose and ears, I demonstrated out the cuts don't have to go all the way through, but still provide plenty of pumpkinized realism.

And we even ate some of the noble squash, just to prove we could.

The picture at the right would have shown some of the cubed delights, if I'd taken a second to make sure they had made it into the picture. But here's what we did: all the pieces we took out--the eyes and the mouth--we saved, plus I cut some pieces of the fruit or flesh or meat or whatever you call the part that you eat. I cut them in small cubes, melted some butter in a small frying pan, added a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, and cooked them for about 15 minutes, just till they were soft enough to eat, but not mushy.

Okay, so it wasn't the healthiest of meals, but if the pilgrims had brought butter and brown sugar, I'm sure they would have done the same. Probably.

Soccer world

2009-09-11T11:55:00.002-04:00

Fall soccer season has begun and Jordan has a good team again. We've got a great coach, and I'm the assistant coach again, so that's as it is.

Team is second- and third-graders, and the kids are getting a much better idea of how to play. We have referees this time, so coaches are not on the field, but we still get to roam the sidelines and yell instructions.

Soccer is a cool game. It's a world game. Great soccer players can go anywhere. Might not understand what the people are yelling at you, but there you are.

Vacation post 2009

2009-08-01T19:31:00.013-04:00

My second annual vacation with Jordan found us plying the Lake Erie coast again, because, hey, if it isn't broken, don't repair it. We did add a couple of things, though, and left out a couple others, just for balance. And variety.

One thing left out was forgetting to pack the Cedar Point season pass. This time, we forgot nothing important (three unimportant things I don't recall right now) and were on our way shortly after church. Didn't take long for Jordan to fall asleep, but that's cool. He'd watched a movie on the way, so a little nap afterwards while the wheels go round couldn't hurt a thing.

We had two places reserved, one a motel with a fridge, coffee maker, microwave, pool, playground, and excellent breakfast. We began our stay there for four days and ended the week with two days of camping out at East Harbor State Park on Lake Erie. I'll spend a few weeks between now and next year thinking about starting out at the campground and winding up up at the motel. Could go either way. The camping really helped us to wind down from the fun of...

Cedar Point amusement park. This year's visit to the park came with the revelation that Jordan had grown just enough to be eligible for the rides that required him to be 52 inches tall. And we took advantage, believe me. The best new ride was Maverick, a twisting, turning metal coaster that had a line an hour long every time we rode, but it was worth it. A close second was Top Thrill Dragster, which also featured a hefty line, but we got there early and only had 30-minute waits.

The weather on Lake Erie (where Cedar Point lies) cooperated with our plans to spend as much time at Cedar Point as possible, but we also visited a couple of other play areas where Jordan got to drive a go-kart, play some putt-putt golf, and his favorite, ride bumper boats. If you've never experienced bumper boats, do yourself a favor and do it.

What can I say about Sandusky, Ohio, the lake, the park that you haven't already heard? Probably not much, so I'll throw some out here and you can make up your own story: Dippin' Dots, Vintage Cars, Dodgems, Ferris Wheel, sea gulls, forgetting where you parked your car, finding your car, the evening fireworks extravaganza. Can you think of more?

One thing different this year was the proliferation of cell phones. I admit to carrying mine around everywhere and taking over 100 pictures during the week with it. My digital SLR stayed in the motel's safe and deep in the darkness of my car during most of the trip. I took four pictures with it. But they were darn good ones.

I even took a picture of some people on the Ferris wheel and tried to bluetooth it to them. We couldn't figure that out. I think my phone might be to blame, although I can bluetooth easily to my old phone and to my computer. Getting to another iPhone and another computer isn't as easy as it should be; indeed, it hasn't been possible yet, so I'm missing some important piece of information. But I was able to message the picture to the folks from the Ferris wheel, which was pretty neat in itself.

We spent half a day on Kelleys Island. (For you punctuation nerds like me, they don't use an apostrophe in the island name.) Jordan likes to go to Kelleys because he gets a chance to drive the golf carts we rent to go around on.

Kelleys has a great beach, where we spent a couple of hours, and an excellent state park, with a couple of rentable yurts that are right on the beach almost. Very Hawaiian feeling. Might consider staying there a night sometime.

One thing we quickly found about the island entertainment: it's largely adult-centered. Very few restaurants that didn't also offer liquor, which is part of the mystique, perhaps, of a maritime-themed business district.

But there's good news, if you're like me and my son and not so big on the drinking and smoking:

Erie Island Coffee Co. and Papa T's, two places on Division Street where you can find good coffee and good food, along with great service. Of course, I zeroed in on the coffee shop because I like coffee and needed to augment my blood-caffeine level. Erie Island Coffee, according to Jessica, the beautiful and helpful attendant at the shop, is based in Cleveland. I think they are giving Starbucks a run for the money when it comes to coffee drinks and non-coffee drinks for the little ones who don't need the added stimulation.

Jessica directed us to Papa T's just up the street for good food and ice cream sans the alcoholic haze. The picture of Jordan eating an ice cream was taken on the porch of Papa T's. The only trouble we had at that place was choosing one of the over 30 flavors of ice cream for the cone. Anyone know what Superman flavor is? Or want to go half on a peach ice cream cake?

Soon enough it was time to go camping, Jordan's first experience with it. He especially liked the idea of the campfire and kept trying to get me to fetch more wood and make it bigger and bigger. So for our final night, we built a monster for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. He ate two hotdogs and half a dozen marshmallows, but the fire burned for over five hours. It had been a long time since I spent the evening watching a fire burn. Felt like a pioneer, albeit one who buys his wood in bundles at the local general store.

Our first evening at the camp, we spent a couple hours at the beach, which was nice, but they're doing some work on the bathrooms. It's not Waikiki or even Myrtle Beach, so it gets a little crowded, especially during July tourist season, and the waves, well, the waves are bigger at the Kings Island wave pool, but that's not the point, is it? The point is, you can go really far out into the water, throw Frisbee, football, whatever, and it's calming and relaxing.

Back to the beach for some sand/mud castle building and to the tent for a night's rest on the ground.

And then it rained.

The gentle thunderstorm wouldn't have been so bad, but it turned out the tent had never been seam-sealed. The manufacturer had kindly included a bottle of sealer in the tent peg pouch. I plan to ask them if anyone ever requested a tent that leaked and was that the reason they didn't just make the seams more water-resistant. Definitely a case of "buyer, pay attention to what's in the bag next time."

But only a pint or so of rain got into the tent and nothing was harmed, except a pillow. I gave Jordan mine and I used a couple of beach towels for the rest of the time there.

All in all, it was exciting. And something else struck me: the honesty of campers. I mean, it doesn't take a lot to unzip a tent and make all kinds of trouble, but you hardly ever hear of it happening. The same for beach people. Beach blankets, cell phones, car keys, all sorts of things get left behind while their owners enjoy the water that feels too cold at first.

We packed up on a Saturday morning. By Friday, the campgrounds, which had been practically empty the night before, had become filled with campers. It got noisy, and not the good kind of noisy that we experienced the first morning after the thunderstorm. That morning, birds of many kinds awakened us. From inside the tent, they sounded like all sorts of creatures: ducks, dogs, hyenas--who knows what?

Jordan had never heard so many so close, and he was amazed and enthralled. I recalled my youth as a child of the country, where I could recognize a lot of bird calls. Was quite an old memory those repetitious bird calls pulled out of me. Those were the days--having the time to memorize bird calls. Wow.

We left around 9 and headed for Cedar Point for one last hurrah on the Dragster before heading south to Uncle Les and Aunt Grace's where Jordan made them uncover the pool, despite it being only 76 degrees. He seemed not to mind. Likes pools, I guess.

And that's it, folks. Vacation 2009. I put a hundred pics in a flickr account that you can see, if you're feeling especially voyeuristic. It's here, and you're more than welcome to take a look.

July the What?!

2009-07-31T10:54:00.002-04:00

Before the month is over and I'm out the door again, wanted to quickly post a pic and a promise of more posting to come to let the family member and friend who read this blog (and whoever that other person is) that I am still waiting for the mythical time when I can spend a few unhurried minutes putting together my thoughts on vacation, softball, and many other things a father and son take the time to do when the days are longer and the nights are filled with blood-sucking flying beasts and the beat-down of thunderstorms on our tent.

Oh, it's an exciting story, one well worth pulling up a seat and a bowl of popcorn to hear/read. You'll see (I hope).

A moving story

2009-06-19T21:49:00.003-04:00

We've finally learned as a society that movement is essential to health. Not a big revelation, until you think about how hard we try as a society to keep kids motionless and silent.

As soon as we can, we shuffle them into classrooms of other kids and tell them to sit still and do nothing till told differently. Then, when they're older, we wonder why some of them get planted in front of the TV or behind a desk and do little else but add to their posteriors.

I'm glad summer vacation is here for Jordan. We spend a few hours a day reading, writing, learning, and part of it involves watching science programs on the computer screen. My desk, pictured, includes a NordicTrack ski machine that I use a few minutes most days. I have it set up for Jordan to use when he's here. Can't keep him off it, so I figured might as well size it for him.

While a program about the Kileaua volcano was on, I left Jordan in the chair and went to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee. When I came back, Jordan was on the exercise machine while watching the program.

Did he deduce that his future life would be better if he trained himself now to keep active? Did he decide he needed to increase his heart rate so his brain would be fed more oxygen and he could learn more thoroughly? Or does he enjoy moving around on the NordicTrack and feel like he could do that AND watch the volcano show?

Movement is natural for children. Becoming a stationary blob takes a lot of effort from well-meaning parents, teachers, and employers. As a society we need to change that paradigm, drastically and soon.

Mad thermals

2009-05-25T09:33:00.002-04:00

I strive to be a writer in my playtime, and to help, I'm in a critique group of various individuals who usually do not agree on anything much in the realm of writing. It's a good cross-section. Somebody's bound to like what you do. And somebody isn't.

A recent story I wrote for kids dealt with flying and the science of flying, specifically thermals. Couple of people couldn't believe that kids seven years old would have any idea what a thermal is. To them I say: watch some Sesame Street once in a while. But I say it with a smile firmly planted because everything we say to each other is given and taken with a grain of salt, which, I suppose, is meant to season the comment and make it more tasty.

From the photo above, taken at the Wright Patt Air Force Museum in Dayton, you can see the evidence that at least in the case of my son, flying is a way of life. He's known about thermals for at least two years, and while he might not be able to give you the scientific reason for their existence, he definitely knows they exist, that they are more prevalent on south-facing hillsides, and that they help you fly.

Couple of years ago, I observed him and a friend flying, and the other guy said, "Wow, Jordan, you got mad skills."

I could only agree.

What's good for the goslings...

2009-05-16T17:27:00.003-04:00

Another soccer season is over and a new softball season begun. Our amazing kids have learned the game of soccer better and better, they've become good friends, and I've grown as a coach and a human being.

It's tough sometimes being positive when kids are doing the opposite of what you ask them, when they don't listen to you at all, when they don't listen to anything at all except the voice in their head that says to do anything but play soccer. It's tough for me, anyway. I'm not naturally a forgiving person. It's against my nature to put up with being ignored and to keep trying to make children listen.

But that's what I worked on doing, because you know why? That's what we tell the kids to do: Don't stop attacking the ball. Keep after it. Don't stop.

It wasn't till the last game that the message sunk into my head deeply enough to make an impression that lasts. But it did, and now I'm ready to coach softball. I think.

Tony the Tiger would be proud

2009-05-05T13:20:00.004-04:00

At best I'm an optimistic pessimist, or maybe a pessimistic optimist, either way, it equals out. So I don't know how my son has developed into such a positive force. Maybe it's because his mom and I have always strived to give his thoughts and feelings their due importance.

Don't misunderstand. We don't negotiate every little thing. At least I don't. If it's green bean casserole for dinner, that's what it is. No begging for something else. For one thing, if it's green bean casserole, I probably don't have anything else. Besides, I add a little Tabasco and a touch of garlic and make that casserole rock, dude.

One day I made a new recipe of chicken and cabbage burritos, and I could tell by his face that the combination did not work for him. So I let him eat the chicken by itself, along with a side salad. (I think the disgusting cabbage made the salad taste better to him.)

So I keep it real for him, just like I'd treat (as I've said before) any obnoxious stranger. He deserves at least that level of respect. He is, after all, a human.

I took him to school this morning and pulled to the curb where we line up and let kids out. The principal came over and held the door for him. "Hi, Jordan," he said. "How are you today?"

Jordan steps out of the car into the 53-degree weather, big (mostly empty) backpack, shorts and aloha shirt, uncombed hair, and said as he closed the door, "GREAT!"

"What a good answer," principal Schwieterman said.

And I had to agree, though I'm not sure how it happened.

Pancake Serenade

2009-03-03T09:26:00.002-05:00

I am a lover of the pancake arts. They inspire me to many things. We have no IHOPs in the Dayton area, and this is a travesty of pancake justice. Thankfully, we have many memories of IHOPs in Colorado. One of the earliest memories my seven-year-old son has is of him and me going to IHOP for specialty pancakes.

"That was in Colorado, right?" he asked me. "I remember we used to go there a lot, didn't we?"

Jordan was aged three through five during this time, so it's cool that the memory stuck with him. His brain is developing so fast now, many of those toddler memories are being wiped out.

We also stopped by Sonic once or twice a week in those days. For those who don't know, that's a fast-food joint where you pull up to signs outside to order your meal, and it's brought to your car, often by roller-skating waiters or waittresses. Jordan would unbuckle from the seat, take off his shoes, and go crawling through the Vibe station wagon we had at the time. It had a sun roof, too, so of course he'd be sticking his head through that, weather permitting.

The last time I asked him about that, he didn't really remember it. Stupid me, I didn't take any pictures of it. Stupid! Always take pictures, people. It's the 21st century.

Being without a member of the IHOP franchise nearby, I've had to perfect my own pancake art, and can report success. Whenever my son stays with me, we have pancakes the next morning.

One of the best memories I have of my own dad is the making of pancakes on Sunday mornings. Not every Sunday, but there was a period of time when it was semi-regular. I'm very glad to pass down that positive memory to my son.

Passing, shooting, and reading

2009-02-14T19:59:00.002-05:00

Basketball coaching continues to be rewarding. The kids are doing much better at passing the ball. Some still have trouble guarding without going all helicopter on the opponent, and there is the problem of agressiveness causing more agressiveness till finally one or the other is called for fouling. Invariably, he doesn't understand it because the other kid was going it too. The no-touch policy works for a while, but soon, it's back to guarding by gymnastics.

Jordan's on the medium height segment of the team, though one of the younger. Next year, he'll be on the far end of the age range. He'll also be a bit more mature. He's already high up on the maturity scale, able to give up the bad percentage shot in favor of a pass inside. That's a hard lesson for this age to learn.

Tonight, he's playing computer games. I'm amazed by the online games and how they've grown over the past couple of years. They look like expensive games now. And Jordan plays them way better since he's learned to read.

Knowing that he has a good time reading is another high point for a writer daddy. His writing skills haven't quite caught up yet, but just to watch him sit and read a story book, that is about as good as it gets these days.

A better day coaching

2009-01-25T08:16:00.002-05:00

After our 7- and 8-year-old basketball kids were pelted in their first game by a group of kids who looked closer to 9 and who played closer to 14, I was a little fearful that my first foray into coaching had been a mistake. More so for the kids than for myself.

We'd missed our weekly practice because of snow and frigid weather on the 14th, so we went in without proper knowledge. This led me to a vigorous practice on the 21st where I explained proper guarding techniques. Most of them understood in practice, but when they got in the game, it was more of the same bunching around whoever had the ball. But that's normal.

We'll work on defense again this week, and add a few offensive maneuvers to get them away from dribbling into the mass of bodies and losing the ball, either by having it stolen or because they throw up a lob pass in the middle of the pack.

All in all, I think we scored more baskets this week. I was busy trying to keep our benched players on the bench and watching the clock so I could do substitutions. I felt semi-victorious in the knowledge that most of our players on the court had a better idea of what they were doing.

So far, so good

2009-01-05T19:05:00.003-05:00

Today was the first day back to school for kids in my son's elementary school. We're all proud to note that he made it through the day on the green light, and he was able to wake up on time without a lot of trouble. I was worried that his late nights staying up till 11 and 12 might give him a problem when school started back, but the night before the night before he zonkered out by 10:30, so that helped him get back on schedule.

SAHWAHD has seen schedules change drastically since the boy has been attending school. There's much more time to be at-home working, and less time to be at-home daddying. Just like when he started half-day prekindergarten, and when he potty-trained himself, Daddy feels a little less needed, a little less important in the life of this fellow who has changed his life. It felt good teaching him the year of kindergarten in half a year, and it felt super-good when he passed his Iowa tests with supersonic flying colors. I'm a little sad that he's kind of floating along scholastically now, but he's having fun learning how to work the system, and in the end, that's as important as learning how it's supposed to work.

I still maintain enough contact with him to let him know that there is a level of expectation above and beyond what the state has in mind. He knows that he can float or he can rise above; it's up to him. Right now, he chooses the path of least resistance to the computer games--unless somebody's there to chase him around. And after 10 laps around the house upstairs and down, I'm usually ready to sit down for some games myself. Hoping to build up to 20 laps by year's end.

So far, so good. :-)

Whose teeth are these?

2008-11-25T09:22:00.003-05:00

Watching a new human become aware of self is fascinating for a parent. It's been a couple of years since Jordan first started asking for his hair to be styled a certain way. For a year or so, that was spikes. The last few months, he's been combing it straight forward, like in the picture here. Hair is controllable, but another part of his face isn't: his teeth.

He started losing them kind of young, plus he got his six-year molars at four, so his mouth is full of teeth. He had a pretty nice smile before the front ones started coming out, and he's still got a wonderful smile, especially when you combine the full effect of his cheeks and eyes. A recent question he asked me told me how much he's thinking about his looks.

"Why are my two front teeth so big?"

It's rough growing up, having your parts fall out, regrow. Your clothes get too small, too short, too tight. You bump your head on things you used to be able to walk under.

And your teeth don't always fit in your mouth.

Think!

2008-11-21T11:46:00.003-05:00

When my son tells me he can't remember what he had for lunch or what he did in school or how something happened, I tell him to stop and think.

His answer at first is always a millisecond denial that he recalls anything. Why? He wants to do something else. He doesn't want to answer test questions from Daddy.

What color was that car? How many people just walked by? Write a sentence about what you did today.

These are all things that would be natural to retain if not for the mega-distractions of the world around, the games abounding, the attitude that everybody gets a pat on the back for doing the best they can do so who cares if they can't add eight and five without thinking about it for 30 seconds.

Well, all bad things must come to an end.

And after he thinks for a couple of seconds, he remembers something.

It's called thinking.

It's roundball season

2008-11-20T16:31:00.005-05:00

I stepped up and have been chosen to set out into the unknown of basketball coaching for 7- and 8-year-olds this season. Teaching the fine art of dribbling, passing, and shooting the "rock" is a challenge I do not take lightly.

Okay, maybe just a little lightly. They're only kids. I'm not looking forward to the coaches' training this Saturday morning. I kind of had other things on the backburners, but that's why God made Saturday afternoons, for the backburners.

On two, break. Go to the post, number 2, the post. Didn't we go over "the post"? Okay, time out. Hey you. What's the post?

Nothing but green lights

2008-11-04T08:25:00.003-05:00

The past month has seen Jordan really take hold of the whole "green" concept. It's now the rule rather than the exception, and I couldn't be more proud. Well, maybe if he discovered faster than light travel or how to run the car on grass clippings and dog poop, but for now, I can't say enough about his social growth.

He and his friends down the street are more and more in charge of their play times. It's great to have him be able to socialize with kids so close by, and as much fun for me to watch him play as it is for him to play. I'm amazed constantly by the ability of children to become thinkers and doers, little adults, but kinder and more honest.

How great it would be if we could keep that honesty as we grow.

Lessons learned

2008-10-10T11:03:00.002-04:00

The lessons of life continue to fill my little boy's days and evenings.

Green days have been more prevalent the last couple of weeks. If he makes it through today, he will have done the unthinkable and stayed green an entire week. That means a trip to the job jar, or something. He needs a job. He is, after all, almost seven.

We're learning the ways of live-and-let-live, respect for others, even if they're disrespective, and it all leads to leadership and self-respect.

Got a Christian group on Wednesday evenings for him at the school. Still doing soccer. Basketball is coming up. Supposed to get him in indoor soccer through the Y. Yikes, sign-up for that was last week.

My pride and respect for the growing boy is boundless. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to have the answers for him. He'll be teaching me soon, I know.

The pencil situation

2008-09-21T08:27:00.002-04:00

After a short week, my big first-grader managed to string two green days together before he raised his hand with a pencil in it and the pencil went flying and he laughed, then his table mates laughed, and the teacher moved his pin to yellow.

But hey, I think two green days is cause for celebration.

A green day

2008-09-12T07:38:00.004-04:00

Jordan's school uses a traffic light chart for kids' behavior. They have pins or clips with their names on them and everybody starts the day on the green light.

The teacher issues warnings and it's here that I'm a little unclear as to how many warnings and for what each kid gets before the clip is moved. Jordan always gets the requisite number, whatever it is, and his clip is moved.

The first few days, he stayed on green, but now every day is at least a yellow, a few are red, but at least he hasn't landed on black yet.

I was bemoaning his lack of self-control yesterday, knowing that if it's hereditary, that it came from me, and found myself praying that Jordan could have a green day.

Then I thought of the group Green Day and wondered if that's where they got their name. I can't picture them going through many days in grade school without having their clip moved. Nothing personal, mind you, just saying.

Another soccer season off with a bang

2008-09-07T18:47:00.002-04:00

I was unable to attend my son's first soccer game with his new team, but was happy to get a call from his mommy saying that he'd scored the first point of the game, taking the ball the length of the field. And it's a big field for little kids!

He scored the second point on a penalty kick after somebody tripped him. Whammed it in, according to reports.

The other team scored their only point in the third quarter, when Jordan had to set out to let others play.

Then he scored another point in the last quarter, as well as an assist on the fourth point the team scored.

I can't wait to watch them play tomorrow and the rest of the season.

The class clown

2008-09-06T08:26:00.003-04:00

Jordan can't help doing the wrong things sometimes.

Yesterday, he got put on the red light of his class's traffic light. No recess Monday. It'll be at least the second time he's had his recess taken away.

I blame his super-outgoing personality, along with being a child. It's not really that big a deal, but I think it's time that he took control of some of his fidgeting when he's away. Since he can do it when he's with me, I know he can do it when he's not.

Shock and dismay accompanied the discovery that his teacher had phoned Mom and Dad to discuss his unwillingness to do things like not rock his chair back and not put his eraser and pencil in his mouth. Several times he's lost his balance in the chair, causing it to fall. He thinks it's funny. It gets him attention.

I see a future where he's the smart kid in class who's a cut-up, a little disruptive but smart enough not to get caught most of the time. I knew a few of those in high school. They were fun. I might have been one. Might have. Okay, I was. Jordan adds super athlete to the mix. I was also a super athlete, but I was into music and growing my hair long at the time, so I wasn't allowed to represent the school in sports.

So it's punishment and correction time for my little boy. I hate it, but he needs to know that I am concerned. Many times when he's goofing off, he misses something important. And while some of his antics are meant to impress his friends and make friends, he needs to learn better methods of friend-making.

Anyone got any advice on teaching such self-awareness issues?

First week of school

2008-09-02T08:07:00.003-04:00

The Bug, as I sometimes call him, made it through his first week of school with flying colors. He's having a grand time, so far, and looking forward to it so much that he'll likely get plenty tired of it soon enough. I hope new activities continue to keep his mind alive and interested.

His teacher seems to be disposed to keeping the children invested in things to do. With a "reading loft," four computers, and a room with so much on the walls you can't see it and so many book shelves full of books an adult can barely turn around, the classroom is a child's paradise of learning.

The school uses technology much more than others I've encountered. Would be nice if the technology worked all the time. (Complain, complain, eh? Sorry about that.) One minor glitch is in the lunch room payments area. Students are given numeric codes to punch in to pay for their meals (if they choose to pay that way), but the school is having a problem getting new student information to be recognized by the meal-paying computers.

Balance that with everything else, and it's not so bad. I've got to pay a visit their anyway to turn in some other paperwork. Parents are allowed to join in the classroom now and then, as well as to visit the lunchroom. I plan to do both as soon as possible.

Jordan also had his first session of soccer last week, with Assistant Coach Daddy. He said I did awesome, so that's a feather in my cap. I got a pretty good workout from it, as well, so that's just an added benefit. I should do it every day.

Summer's end

2008-08-26T08:41:00.006-04:00

Today, I waved at my son on the school bus, his first school bus ride. I waited at the bus stop with another dad and his two sons. My son didn't want me to bring my camera and take pictures, because the other dad wasn't doing that. All the kids had new shoes, new backpacks, shiny new faces, and a new future coming at them.

And so I join the unknowable number of parents who have watched their babies take the first steps to becoming their future selves.

We've instilled a summer theme, a vacation, as it were, into our last days of summer before school starts. Trips to Cedar Point and Lake Erie islands, visits to nearby relatives to brag and demonstrate the boy's growth, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

As I look out the window at the sun shining on trees and grass and houses, I remember my own first day of school, photographed by my mom, as proud of me then as I am of my son now. As any parents must be of their children leaving the nest on a new adventure. Just as on his first day of prekindergarten two years ago, I'll hold back the tears and let go the prayers and wait on pins and needles for his report this afternoon.

Bite of shirt?

2008-08-13T17:24:00.003-04:00

My son is eating his shirt.

Okay, maybe not actually ingesting it, but he sticks the collar or any part of it into his mouth and chews on it. He does the same for certain pillows.

I remember a time in the distant past where I found the taste of saliva-soaked cotton curiously comforting. I think I was told at least half a million times to quit doing it, but didn't help. I'd still eat my shirts.

And now I'm waging a similar battle with my son, telling him for the 499,999th time about the 500,000th time I caught him with part of his shirt in his mouth.

Hm. He is losing another baby tooth, though. I wonder if the salty sweat in the shirt goo makes the blood in his mouth taste better. Weird.

The real reason

2008-08-03T14:40:00.003-04:00

Jordan likes to play his video games, and that's all right, I guess. I would, too, if I were him. But sometimes I like to get his nose out of them. And here's where I forgot to ask a question.

Getting ready for church this morning, I tell Jordan to turn off his game and get his shoes on. He says he wants to take the game with him, but I say, no, turn it off for a while. He disappears for a few seconds, returns, and says Mommmy said he could take the game.

I let it go. Not a battle worth waging. Especially when I tried being heavy-handed in demanding no game. After I had time to think about the situation, I figured out what had gone wrong: I'd demanded he do what I say without explaining the reason. And when he went over my head, I was too upset to think about the real reason I wanted him to turn off the game.

If I'd explained to him in the first place that the reason I wanted the game off was so he and I could talk. I like to hear his feelings and thoughts, and if I'd told him that, you know the game would have been off in a second. Or maybe his "thought" at that moment would have been that he'd rather play the game.

I don't like nostalgia

2008-07-13T08:00:00.004-04:00

In the life of the stay-at-home dad, changes happen fast. Sometimes they're small, other times large. Got a large one coming up. Actually it's already come up, if you count summer vacation. This fall, the boy is going to start public school. That doesn't mean I'll relinquish the role of teacher. Not at all. It only means, I won't be the only teacher and I'll be able to do something more with the SAH part of my life.

The past six years have taught me a lot about life through the eyes of a growing child. I've reclaimed a bit of my own past, rediscovered truths, and discovered new truths, changed my mind about a few things, and had beliefs strengthened. I think I always knew that children were inherently more intelligent than they're given credit for, but I was and continue to be amazed by how true that is for my guy.

Remembering those times when he proved to me that he's thinking far beyond what even I was at the time carries the danger that I fall into nostalgia and its inherent sadness for what used to be. The looking back and wondering if I could have done better. I have to remember that I might have done worse, though, it's best to be happy with the way it happened.

I'm planning to continue the work-at-home deal, giving me the freedom to be available for after school, emergencies, and "fun days," when we take advantage of better deals than school...er...you know what I mean. Won't have too many of those, but don't expect perfect attendance from this boy.

Let the good times roll!

2008-07-03T07:17:00.004-04:00

Sometimes the beast eats you, and sometimes you eat the beast. Yesterday, Jordan and I tackled the beast. It was a tumultuous, torturous, 78 mile per hour ride in the front car, but we screamed our way through. Jordan has a real love-hate relationship with coasters. He loves the thrill, that's for sure, and he's still at the age where he thinks if he holds my hand, that will protect him. Little does he know....

One of the joys of working at home is that you can take a day off in some cases whenever you want. Next week, Jordan has a summer fun class called Under the Sea at the local college. So this week, we did a museum Monday, a bike ride Tuesday, and Wednesday Kings Island, four water slides, a roller coaster, and a bowl of Dippin' Dots in three hours. Not bad.

I can always catch up on my work, but I'll never catch yesterday with the boy.

The new paradigm

2008-06-18T13:07:00.005-04:00

What a busy month! Much has happened, along with the promise of much more happening, and it's mostly great.

We got Jordan's Iowa Test scores back, and as we figured, he's doing some work two years ahead of his age level. Math is his area of greatest difficulty: he's only a third of a year ahead in that. But the good news is that he qualifies for entry into the first grade.

He's working now on getting used to awakening earlier in the day. This is the third day of his first week of a special program at Wright State where he gets to do arts and crafts from 9 till 3. Next week, he'll do three hours of soccer camp each day, starting at 9. The week after that, we may give him a break, or not. There are mini-camps of all sorts available at WS, and Jordan loves to do stuff like that. By the end of it, he should be acclimated to the early-to-bed-early-to-rise paradigm.

Of course, with that paradigm shift comes a change to mine. I have time through the day to pursue my own things. That means working and writing. Writing and editing is what I do for work, but writing novels and short stories is what I do for fun, as well as for the occasional penny or two.

My latest effort is set to come out in July 2008. THRIPZ is a revision of my novel that was published in 2004 by ArcheBooks Publishing. It was a nice-looking book, for a hardcover, but now it's a paperback available through Amazon.com for around $7 for a 234-page paperback book, 6x9 inches. I expect to put the PDF and MobiPocket files out for free as I continue the editing on my latest novel and the search for an agent for it.

So where does that leave my baby?

He misses his play time a bit. Not enough time on the Xbox and Flight Simulator to suit him, it seems. Plus he enjoyed his swimming on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We'll get back to the swimming lessons once school starts back up, and as for the play time, he'll have to learn to schedule his time better. Today was the first day he didn't start out with a complaint about the recreation issue. So that's progress.

We'll have time going forward to spend quite a few afternoons at Kings Island, a favorite haunt for both of us to get wet and thirsty. Not to mention the Boonshoft Museum and the Wright-Patt Air Force Museum. Gonna work in a few bike rides, for sure, and a few afternoons just chilling with a book or a movie or a game.

Keeping a few math and English pages up for him, making sure he doesn't forget too much of what he learned this year. I'm kind of proud of my efforts to teach him. Granted, he was largely responsible for the progress, his quickness and ability to grasp information are fantastic. I don't know if all children are doing so well these days, but if they are, the world is soon to be in much better hands.

The first grade

2008-05-19T07:21:00.002-04:00

To follow up on the new school year post, we've looked at several possibilities for first grade for Jordan, including homeschooling, private and public school, and Montessori-based learning. Because we live in a progressive and state-awarded public school district--and because Jordan is sure he wants to ride a bus--the local public school is going to win this particular lottery.

What happened to homeschool? Homeschool was great. If that were the only choice we had, we'd follow it with verve and dedication. But the truth is, it's not easy. I like being a teacher, and to a point I even like being a social coordinator for six-year-old. There is that point, though, where it would be better to be a dad more than a teacher.

I will miss the teaching, but I'm not going to give it up totally. We'll still do our own things, following his interests, delving deeper into airplanes, planets, cars, and buildings. We'll even take days off and head to a museum or park or just go for a road trip.

If our local school hadn't turned out to have the multiple rooms of the same grade, if they hadn't provided the opportunity for parents to be involved in the classroom as volunteers, if the vibe had not been so positive, we'd have looked elsewhere. That's the great thing. So many possibilities these days.

Looking back on our homeschooling year, I think we had a lot of success. It's something we can return to in the future, if necessary. I sure know that if I were a kid--maybe a little older than Jordan, for sure--and I lived in the city near other people and I had a chance to school myself and not sit through the interminable day in the building, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

First point

2008-04-26T10:41:00.003-04:00

You'll need to click the picture to see the full-size (800px wide) version to appreciate the subtleties involved. It's a photo of Jordan's (under the white arrow) first score with his new soccer team, a 15-yarder from the right side that snaked in past the other team's goalie. Note the positions of the players around Jordan: Jordan's clenched fists and his point of view (the blue line) as he watches the ball go in the goal; the teammate on the ground beside him, having given up his body to help allow the shot; the crowd of other players around and through whom Jordan forced his shot.

This is afternoon soccer fun delight, and it only promises to get better.

Jordan's bringing a bit of his basketball knowledge to the game. The sports are similar in most ways, except the obvious. Passing is important, as are moving forward and staying in position. At six and seven years old, the kids are still a little challenged at giving up the ball, even if they're three-quarters of the field away. Some (read: Jordan) want to keep the ball the whole way and score the point. But at this level, that's not always possible, as there are now easily half the players per team capable of taking the ball away from even the best six-year-old dribbler.

Sports teaches a lot. It's a little like chess. Each causes the child to have to think ahead, which builds up the white matter necessary to do that particular trick.

The new school year

2008-04-16T05:19:00.003-04:00

Jordan has finished his Iowa Testing for Kindergarten. Won't get the results back for a while, but I'm sure he'll be passed on to first grade. But how will he get there?

He had a great time in his prekindergarten, which was actually something called Ready-Set-Go, because he and the other mates in it were born too early for kindergarten and too late for prekindergarten. Much changes in children in those age ranges, so the half-year cutoffs make sense.

Coming to Ohio, kindergarten with one teacher in a class of 20, most of whom didn't know how to read or count to 20, didn't work out, so we bit the bullet and homeschooled. That worked out great, too. In five months, he completed nine months of work. Now we're on to first- and second-grade studies, along with various sciences, music, and physical activities.

But coming up for this first grade, we're looking at placing him in another private school. Why? I'll tell you next time.

Branding

2008-03-29T08:26:00.002-04:00

There's a chain of stores in town, named Rex, and they have no other logo or information on the buildings telling what they might sell. While driving past one day, doing impromptu reading skills with the boy, he read the name and asked what they sold there, dinosaurs?

The obvious choice

2008-03-17T12:19:00.004-04:00

Some things are so obvious that not even I, famous for my ability to state the obvious, feel the need to state them. But I do anyway.

Thing one: If you leave a bag of carrots beside a child playing video games, he will eat them. Same for a bag of donut holes.

Thing two: Movies with less profanity sell better than movies peppered with vulgarity. I'm sure somebody out there whipped off a quick #%@%#! after reading that report. I'm not sure why some people cuss. I used to, and I can't give you a one-sentence, good reason for it.

I quit swearing after realizing I wasn't really saying anything. Better to say nothing and figure out exactly what to say. And that's how we are raising our son, to figure out why he's happy, sad, mad, exasperated, whatever. Unfortunately, Hollywood has other ideas. We can't even watch network television without hearing two of George Carlin's seven dirty words, plus two or three more that weren't on that list but which are not ones I like to hear coming from my six-year-old.

And it's not only television, it's video games. Why do they have to go for that added "realism" of having soldiers cuss? Are game creators too short on creativity to figure one more thing out that would make their game great?

Back in the good old days, we had our violence and we laughed at it, like the Three Stooges or the old Warner Brothers cartoons. Who didn't howl with glee when the anvil fell on Wile E. Coyote's head after a half-mile fall off the cliff? And did he cuss afterwards? No. He held up a sign, teaching reading to young minds.

Yes, people curse, and why some (such as this writer) find it so offensive is a mystery I have no time to solve right now. Since I don't haunt a lot of public places, I can't remember the last time someone in public cussed where I could hear it. Come to think of it, I almost never hear any cursing outside of television.

Diving into the future

2008-03-13T16:10:00.006-04:00

Jordan passed his deep end of the pool test today and is allowed to jump off the diving board as much as he can stand, as long as there's a lifeguard on duty.

He was super proud of his green band, and displayed it with a wide smile, leaving me twice as proud as he was, and very impressed with his progress this past couple of months. When he got in the water to do the first part of the test (swimming across the deepend) he zoomed off, barely making a ripple, getting to the other end in seconds. He can tread water for over a minute, longer if it's a contest, I'm sure. And he's begun his practice at diving.

So, hats off to the boy. His bravery and abilities seem never-ending. He's been taking lessons this year for three months, and he took three months' worth last summer. By the end of last summer, he thought he could swim, and he could, sort of, but not like he does now. We started him back up this year to keep him busy through the winter, and he's made superior progress, as evidenced by his ability to tread water, swim four different strokes, and jump off a six foot diving board.

Bucket babies

2008-03-02T08:00:00.006-05:00

I've almost finished the Scientific American myelin article I mentioned in this post, and it reinforces several things that many of us have heard before.

Foremost, the earlier children begin to learn certain things, the easier it is for them to become world class practitioners. It likely makes sense to you that if you're 30 or 40, you'll probably not become a famous ballet dancer, baseball pitcher or football quarterback. But if you start when you're three or four, you just might make it.

The article says that those who begin to learn a foreign language when we're toddlers will probably learn it well enough to speak it without an accent. Wait till teenage, and you'll sound like Inspector Clousseau trying to speak English.

As a homeschooling dad, this gives me added motivation to teach my six-year-old son more regularly in Spanish and music, two areas I've neglected lately. As for sports, we have no problem. Jordan takes to the physical world extremely well. I want to add gymnastics, maybe even dance, as well as get him back into karate in a year or two.

Seems like we need to fill him with as much stuff as possible as often as possible while he's young. While a lot of it spills out, a surprising amount stays in. He's like a bottomless bucket.

The passing reflex

2008-02-29T08:11:00.005-05:00

According to Scientific American, our brains don't develop their reasoning abilities till we're in our 20s. A whitish material (myelin) grows over our neurons or synapses or something, allowing better communications to take place from one part of the brain to the other. This process starts in the back of the brain, the automatic area, I think, and travels to the front, hitting the reasoning areas of the frontal cortex last.

I bring this up because it's interesting watching kids five and six play basketball, or any sport, probably. They "get" part of the game, like dribbling. Seems like dribbling is for some the only reason to play basketball. Next comes shooting. Love to sink two. Passing is a distant third in the things they like to do with the basketball, but not always because they don't want to.

When the ball-handler stops, he's usually immediately surrounded by every player on the floor, those on his team as well as the other team. Too much information ensues. I watched Jordan get into this predicament several times, and once he just looked at the big guy guarding him, bemused and wanting to revert to some younger version of the game, probably the first game he devised: chase.

I've given him several alternatives for what to do when he's being guarded like this, and he painstakingly goes through a few of them, once even faking out the guard, ducking under his outstretched arm, and reaching up for a basket. But the decision-making process necessary to make a quick pass hasn't happened for them yet, unless they're thinking about it beforehand. Many times, Jordan has been in "pass" mode and even if he's got a clear shot at the basket, he'll look for somebody to pass to.

This sometimes frustrates the coaches, but hey, their myelin is supposedly fully formed.

Traveling, b-ball, pool, and school

2008-02-23T21:34:00.006-05:00

Jordan (in the green) fast-breaks for two.

Everybody made it home from Colorado okay. They had a good time skiing, tubing, and ice skating.

Next day, Jordan went straight to swimming and basketball. Swimming was playing in kiddie pool, so not a real lesson, but we signed him up for another seven lessons. He's as good at swimming as anyone, and like his other sports, when he doesn't have to do something, he doesn't; but if he has to show he can swim, he's fishlike.

Basketball, his team played the best team again, for the last time this season, and it was much better than the previous times. Not a blow-out, at least, and Jordan has shown remarkable progress, dribbling and passing, shooting from the free-throw line. He said he gets nervous sometimes because people are watching and he is not sure what he's supposed to do because one coach says shoot and the other says pass. Understandable. On both counts. The coaches don't really coordinate at this level, so you get what you pay for, and we paid for some nice green uniforms.

Now, we're looking at new curricula for the new school year. Thinking about what we could or should do, and it's quite difficult, almost as hard as choosing the homeschool in the first place. I think we're in agreement that homeschooling is the way to continue, as long as we're able to do so.

Through the door, again

2008-02-16T13:05:00.003-05:00

My little boy and his mom are flying to Colorado this weekend. It's not the first time I've watched him (and her) lug a suitcase through the doors into the airport. It never ceases to amaze me how brave and confident he is about his life. At least about most things.

Here's a boy who can work his loose teeth "a hundred wiggles breaks off one root" but who won't let a doctor take a throat swab or won't let us put eye drops in his eyes. It's something to do with being aged from six to nine, say the docs and the books.

But when I watched him walk through the doors today, I remembered the first time he flew, almost four years ago. He was barely able to push the door open. He never looked back then, and he didn't look back this time. He was headed into the future. And somehow I saw a vision of him walking through those doors in the coming years, getting taller and taller, till one day, he was grown and his visit was just a visit and he was going home.

Then, I'll remind him of when he was a child and couldn't see a future that didn't involve his mom and me being with him. Or maybe I'll just remind myself.

Living in the light of greatness

2008-02-10T09:21:00.000-05:00

As children get older, parents may find themselves reliving their lives through the eyes of those little ones. I know from the beginning, I've tried to figure out what my son is seeing, and how the world seems to him. It's usually not possible to remember the innocence of being a newborn (unless you're the obsessive-compulsive character Adrian Monk in the Monk mystery series), but some things came back to me as Jordan got older.

I tried to remember first times seeing things, and I'd often crawl around on the floor and observe from his point of view. Things are a lot different from below. Bigger, taller. I remember even as a first-grader how big my grade school gym looked, but going back as an adult, it was not so grand.

Ever since Jordan started doing sports, I've been blessed to be able to live the dream through him, as he makes the last-minute soccer goal, laughing and dribbling around his teammates and competitors to kick the ball into the corner of the net. I'm able to stand in awe of his easy confidence after he's learned the techniques in basketball that allow him to dribble (with his hands, this time) off-handedly while eyeing the competition and his team to see where he's going to pass the ball. I can thrill to his ability to force the ball into the paint, stop at the bottom of the free throw circle, and hoist up a perfect two-pointer.

But in both sports (and don't worry, baseball fans; we plan to introduce him to that, too, and maybe even American football, though I'm not too keen on that one), the biggest thrill for me has been watching him learn to give up his own glory, so to speak, in order to pass off and let somebody else enjoy the moment. Thanks to his selflessness, one boy in basketball was able to score his very first points. The coaches were screaming "shoot it, Jordan," but Jordan had other ideas, found the player who, in his words, didn't get to play that much, and passed it to him.

We still have some questions as to the idioms of basketball. When the coach yells things like "spread out" and "get on her," something is sometimes lost in the translation.

A rude ride

2008-02-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

The boy lost another tooth. This one came out onto his pillow while he slept. Needless to say, it was hanging on by a thread. We almost knocked it out during some basketball play yesterday, but not quite.

Now he's got three teeth missing: two on the bottom front, and one on the top front. Talk about a gap-toothed smile. And he's beginning to get embarrassed by it because people have a tendency to go "eww" when he showed them his loose tooth. What a rough time for a kid. Kind of like when Adam and Eve realized they should be embarrassed to be naked.

Life. What a rude ride at times.

Keeping up with the baby

2008-01-26T07:48:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it feels like every post has to be an epiphany, a symphony, a microcosm of life on the planet as distilled through the filter of blog-inspired truth and life. Huh?

Never mind.

Jordan and I have been having great fun homeschooling lately. We've joined a local homeschooling group that meets twice a month. Jordan wishes it were more, which causes me continued pause to wonder if he'd be happier at a daily public school, even if he didn't learn anything new. The group also has been having quite a few field trips, most of which Jordan has been able to enjoy, as well.

After a visit to Ohio Caverns, he's become a spelunker, quite knowledgeable in the area. He and his mom went to Mammoth Caves last weekend.

School work is in the realm of the first grade now. He's finished his 100 Lessons to Reading book, and we're now working on the weird stuff of English, like why there's no logical way to tell how the "ou" is going to sound in words like "should" and "about." Mathematically, he's begun work on carrying, understanding the concept of when to carry and why, as well as developing a concept of multiplication. A lot of his ability is intuitive, I can tell, so the task is to teach why his intuition is correct. Reminds me of a time when I was studying one of those problems in algebra where one train leaves Chicago at noon and another train leaves Phoenix at 2 p.m. heading toward each other, so who gets to each dinner first. I go through the whole algebraic web to get to the answer, while Deb (Jordan's mom) thinks about it for a second and intuits the answer. I do believe that Jordan is getting the benefit of both the right- and the left-brained answers to such problems and more.

He's started a graphic story that I hope he finishes in time to send to a PBS contest. I don't remember wanting to write a book when I was six. But then, I didn't learn to read at a second grade level till I was in the first grade, either.

And the fact that Jordan is wanting to write and illustrate stories is another reason that I wonder if I'm capable of teaching him everything he needs to know.

So, I continue down this road of trying to keep up with the social and educational needs of someone who in the not too distant future will be teaching me a thing or two, I have a feeling.

People and places

2008-01-12T08:31:00.000-05:00

Is it tomorrow yet? Of course it is. What does Jordan remember from his pre-kindergarten? Actually, it was called Ready-Set-Go, and was meant for kids between pre-K and kindergarten, you know, those born after the cut-off date for enrollment in school.

Anyway, what he remembers are first and foremost people. Kindred spirits. Actually there was one other boy who was as boisterous as Jordan, but he was older socially thanks to having older brothers. Then he remembers his first best friend, who was a girl who said she'd play with him and be his friend as long as he didn't talk so much.

For some reason, he liked his Spanish class, though he can barely do more than recite numbers from uno to dies. The outings to the zoo, the dentists, the vets, and to a play area remain with him, especially the first and last. The first because it was the first, the last because he got to go on his own without me.

He remembers his first playdate and his last three days in Colorado because they basically turned into an extended playdate as I had to be at the house to oversee packers packing.

Jordan has told me from time to time recently that he really liked the house back there. "I lived in it for years," he says, and he did, about three, to be exact. He liked his karate school and his soccer team, and so did I.

However, we have it pretty good here, too, he says. He has a bigger room, and we're closer to family, especially his only grandmother and his cousins. So we're getting used to life here.

But as far as learning what sound letters make and whatnot, those aren't memories that made a lasting impression, and I think I have an answer for that, related to another post on layers of memories.

When we make memories, they're layered on top of old memories. If we do something totally new, especially as a child, more than the usual number of memories are laid down. As new layers of memories are laid on the old "first" memories, the layers beneath get dimmer, less memorable. So, every day spent learning a new letter sound, a new geography fact, any kind of unexciting (though nonetheless important) activity, it becomes more of a ho-hum event that's pushed back in our minds.

While Jordan remembers going to school, he doesn't recall the day he learned the sound of a particular letter. Similarly for me, I remember that I blog, but I don't remember the details of every day's writings.

Remembering school

2008-01-03T14:24:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about my own early public schooling. What I remember is interesting. Almost as interesting as what I don't remember.

I don't remember the first bus ride to the school. Later on, I do remember the roads we took. I should. I spent nearly 45 minutes going and coming!

In school, I do remember the first day interrupting the teacher several times to tell her my full name. She told me to go sit down and be like a girl named Debbie Gee, who was sitting and saying nothing. I didn't like that, but I don't remember anything else from the day. Debbie Gee would become my girlfriend, off and on.

Nothing from the rest of first grade sticks in my mind.

Second grade, I had a crush on the teacher, Mrs. Jenkins. She had us learn to spell "transportation." I was a good speller, though, and learned to spell "Czechoslovakia." I remember being singled out because of that. Maybe, I thought, since the teacher liked boys who could spell, I'd give it my 110%. In fifth through eight grades, I'd be a school representative on the National Spelling Bee team, winning the county in the eighth grade.

I remember only one Christmas play of the six or seven I must have been in. I think it's the first one. I may have combined two or three into one memory. One, I and Don Richards were trying to out-sing each other. I was a character in a play in another one. I remember playing in the parking lot with my friends during one PTO meeting, or maybe it was the Christmas play. Can't remember. Only remember the playing.

I remember playing softball once we got into the fourth grade. There were two softball fields, and it was a great thing when we were allowed to play on the big one.

A magician came to the school at least once, and he used me in one of his skits, pulling a long line of underwear and clothing from my shirt. We watched him leave and I thought I'd be cool and told him to peel out, which was kind of funny because he was driving an old van. He talked to me about safety, and I felt upbraided and embarrassed in front of my friends.

My first basketball game, I didn't have shoes, so I was playing in my socks. I dribbled the ball really high and was wanting my girlfriend to see me. (This was about the third or fourth grade?) Bob Kilgour sneaked around me and stole the ball and made a goal. Couple of years later, I faked out Lem Curry and made a goal. Lem was really talented, so this was a major deal.

In second grade, two friends and I ran and ran around a concrete pad. They both ran till their sides hurt, and though mine didn't, I said it did.

There was a tree on the playground, and I went under it with a girl named Sheila. I liked her, and we'd try to sit with each other on the bus, but the bus driver wouldn't allow it.

In the second grade, my writing was very small. Mrs. Jenkins often wished I would write bigger. By the fourth grade, I was writing bigger, and Mrs. Jenkins said she wished I'd written that big for her. That made me feel bad, like she didn't like me.

John Kennedy was shot while I was in the fourth grade. I made an inappropriate joke about it and Keith Carlisle told me it wasn't funny.

So what's the point? Simply, it's that memories aren't made of learning facts and figures. They're made of people and places, doing things. This tells me that wherever Jordan does his learning, more important than the words and numbers--all of which come easily to him--are the places and people.

I asked Jordan what he remembered from school in Colorado. I'll write about what he said, tomorrow.

Don't say good-bye

2007-12-29T20:19:00.000-05:00

Jordan has reached a season where he hates to see visits and playdates end. I hoped a few weeks ago that the phase would pass quickly, but it's getting worse. A fun afternoon will turn into a begging, crying mess, because he doesn't know what to do with the strong feelings of affection he has. When the objects of that affection leave, he breaks down.

I remember having those same feelings as a child. Living "miles from nowhere," as we did, visits from anyone were rare. When those folks would leave, it was devastating to me. I felt like nobody loved me, like I was totally alone. Nothing or nobody could make me feel better. Eventually, of course, I came out of it.

My goal now is to figure out positive ways to help Jordan handle the feelings, to know that they're normal. My accepting his feelings won't take away the hurt, of course, so something else has to enter the equation. One to work on.

A Christmas thought

2007-12-26T08:42:00.000-05:00

Another Christmas in the books, and I've had a revelation of sorts. It came in two parts. One was earlier in the month while doing Bible study with my son in his Heroes Bible, in which a page featured the celebration of Hannuka. Or Hanukka. Or maybe it's Haunaka, or Hannakka. Looks like a Hawaiian word.

Jordan was engrossed in one particular aspect of the celebration. Can you guess what it was? That's right. Eight days of presents.

"Why don't we celebrate Hannuka?" he asked.

Besides the fact that it's a Jewish holiday, there is no fabulous excuse. It's not like we have to slaughter a goat or build a plywood tent in the yard. Maybe the fact that it's always on different dates. Yeah.

The second part of the revelation came with the Christmas morning opening of Jordan's presents, of which there were far too many. He had them all open in an hour and then spent the rest of the morning trying to play with every one of them. Too much for a six year old. Shoot. Too much for me.

And here's the second part of the second part of the revelation: some toys aren't what they're cracked up to be, and that's very disappointing to a kid who dreams of the perfect toy doing everything it claims to do on the box or the commercial. That's a huge downer, and if it happens more than once, well, you paint the picture.

So...my thought to open a present a day, maybe along with some study of Hannuka, leading up to Christmas.

You're saying, nine presents? That's the way it is for an only child sometimes, and every present doesn't have to be wallet-buster. Could start out with the easy ones, like a pencil, leading up to the new Beamer on the ninth day.

Much easier on the child, as long as the premise is explained. Don't let that be a surprise: "Oh yes, Johnny, that's the only present you can open today."

Not a good idea.

Egg and paper disaster

2007-12-20T09:20:00.000-05:00

The afternoon had been progressing well. The boy was drawing while I worked, PBS cartoons playing in the background.

"I'm thirsty," said the boy.

I went to the kitchen and decided to heat up a last boiled egg. I set it in the microwave for 30 seconds and poured the boy some drink. Walking it to the table where he sat, I noted the sunniness of the outside. A nice day, despite the freezing temperatures.

"Here you go," I said, handing Jordan the small glass.

"Thanks." He took a small gulp and set it down on the table beside his drawing of an icebreaker, icebergs, and a killer whale. Flavored water splashed a quarter teaspoon or so onto the paper. The day changed.

A stranger would have thought I'd kicked the baby or something the way he cried. His drawing was destroyed, he thought, no matter that there was only a tiny wet spot on it. I stood looking at him, as tears literally streamed from his eyes.

Then something popped and exploded in the kitchen. Another explosion seconds later. The egg. It had lasted about 24 seconds, bless its little albumen, but it couldn't take it any longer. At 1,000 watts, 30 seconds of full microwave excitement was too much.

I looked at the microwave steaming. I looked at the boy heaving.

This was a chance to try out my new skills of Talking So Kids Will Listen. What would two Jewish mothers do?

First I bit my tongue. I wanted to say, "Don't worry about it. It's just a spill. You can make another drawing." This could have negated his feelings, making him think that his feelings were not important to me and that instead he should listen to me and accept my assessment of his feelings.

Instead, I empathized with him. I got a towel and carefully dabbed it onto the drawing. I think I said something like, "Let's see if it dries okay. It didn't look too bad."

He didn't believe me, though, and continued sobbing.

Into the kitchen I went. The microwave was covered inside with boiled egg mess. The explosion had scattered the remains evenly throughout the interior. Ugly.

"Did you ever see a boiled egg explosion?" I asked Jordan.

That stopped the sobbing for a bit, and he came in to look, suitably impressed by the magnitude of my mess.

"I feel pretty bad about that, you know," I said, truthfully. "I was going to share that egg with you, but instead it exploded and now I'm going to have to spend a lot of time cleaning out the inside of the microwave."

He nodded agreeably, still sobbing a bit about his own disaster.

We returned to his drawing. It was almost dry. I demonstrated over the sink how the liquid had come out of the cup when he'd set it down. That elicited a smile.

Long story shortened, the drawing survived, he finished coloring it, and we both learned lessons. I learned not to nuke a boiled egg for more than 20 seconds, and he learned not to set drinks down near important documents.

Too much taste

2007-12-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

Jordan asked me one day how taste buds worked. I could barely remember the four (now there's five, I read somewhere) tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty. We found a few pages on the WWW on the subject and soon found out what parts of the tongue taste what taste, and we found out something I didn't know.

Taste buds are not only on the tongue; they're also on the cheeks and the roof of the mouth. And guess what? As we get older, the ones on the cheeks and palate begin to disappear. Maybe the tongue ones do, too, getting old and tired of all that food.

What that means is that kids get a stronger version of tastes than adults do. When I put as much garlic as I like on my food, Jordan gets way too much. That tells me one reason why he (I was the same way as a child) prefers plainer food, probably the main reason. He likes tastes of new things, once he gets used to them, but it's the getting used to that takes the time.

So, besides having more layers in their memories being laid down every day, kids also have a stronger sense of taste than adults do. The ability to retain that depth of experience as we get older would be a great thing. I wonder if we'd use up all our memory, though? Like a computer saving every digital photo in 10 megapixel format.

Layers of memories

2007-12-14T21:16:00.000-05:00

It's on some online site, probably LiveScience.com, where scientists have figured out a couple of things that have often crossed my questioning mind: Why does time go slower for children than for adults? And why do kids find some things distasteful that we feel is delicious?

I once posited that it was due to the time a child had been in the world that made each chunk of a day seem like a bigger deal. In other words, one day to a five-day-old child is one-fifth of his life, while that same one day to a five-year-old child is a much tinier portion. Linear math doesn't account for the vast differences in space-time feeling, though.

Turns out that when we make new memories, usually as a child, we engage a layer of the brain in making those memories not normally used for that. Why? Scientists theorize that the extra memories are to help the brain remember better. Makes sense.

So whenever Junior remembers playing in the yard yesterday, he has many times more folds of memories, more levels of the day to remember because adults don't bother to remember so much about it, having seen it for a lifetime.

Not so curiously, the phenomenon of time slowing down in an accident is also a function of this extra layering of memories. Or so say the researchers.

What about the taste thing? It'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Jordan's Sixth

2007-12-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

The boy turned six years old on Monday, a wonderful time for him. We are blessed to have a son who is almost always in a good mood, ready for fun, ready for whatever, except bed, bath, and brushing his teeth, or anything that stops him from doing what he wants to do at the moment.

We had a small party at the house for him on Saturday. Two of his soccer mates came, along with some of their brothers and sisters, so it was a good crowd for him. Not too big, not too little. The party was planned for 1 p.m., so at 12:59, when no one had yet arrived, Jordan began to wonder why. At 1:02, he was upside down with anxiety. "Where is everyone?"

He saw the first group arrive and drive around the corner and park, and from then through the rest of the day, he didn't stop being Jordan, the birthday boy, which meant that everyone had to do whatever he wanted.

The opening of gifts was followed by a special "follow the clues" treasure hunt devised by Jordan's mom that turned out to be one of the highlights of the day. She'd hidden six clues around the house, and the big item that Jordan had been ~~hinting~~ begging for was in the final destination. Jordan had such a good time following the clues, that now he wants everything to be a treasure hunt, "even my Nutragrain bars," those little packaged bits of grain and sugar that are breakfast and snack staples at the house.

Besides the great party, I'd email-blasted my brothers requesting cards from everyone and their children and whoever for Jordan, because our family is not big on sending cards for any reason. The ploy worked and now the plan is for the next few days of school to include writing thank-you cards this week.

What's your story?

2007-11-27T13:43:00.001-05:00

I wonder now and then where Jordan will be if we continue the homeschooling. Maybe like one of those preteens who graduate college with degrees in rocket science and molecular engineering? Or a semi-famous, troubled ski pro like that guy whose name escapes me. All I can think of is Billy Kidd, but he's a generation back. I'll think of it later. (Edit: Bode Miller. He was home-schooled in the mountains of somewhere till the third grade.)

So I was wondering if a bunch of you folks who have been homeschooled and/or are homeschooling might have some stories you could share relevant to the comparison of homeschool with public or private school. I'll probably take the hunt out to other blogs, since most people come here wanting to find out about homeschool. I'm reinventing the wheel as I go along in most cases, but it's still coming out round.

That's what leads me to wonder if there's an upside to learning everything you can sooner. I would think there is. How many of us have said at some or another that we wish we knew then what we know now? I know I would have benefited in so many ways. Not to say I wouldn't have found other ways to throw wrenches into my life's path, but I might have found out better uses for my tools.

Any comments, please?

Going with what works

2007-11-25T15:18:00.001-05:00

It's that hap-happiest time of the year. Not only Christmas coming up at the end of the coming month, but Jordan's birthday at the beginning of the month. He's been asking for three months how many days till his birthday, and now that it's only seven, he asks several times a day.

Still working the homeschooling and loving it. Had a couple of outings with the homeschool co-op group we're planning to join at the beginning of the year. Looks like a great group of kids, which will be a good thing for Jordan, to add to the number of friends that he has. The actual homeschooling itself goes so well I wonder if I'm leaving something out sometimes.

Jordan is signed up for basketball coming up this month. Got him a 28.5-inch ball, the size he'll be using, and got him bouncing around the house. He's picked up dribbling very well. We've got a post in the backyard on a concrete pad that looks like it used to have a basketball net. Just need to figure out how to get a pole, backboard, and basket on it. Or maybe it'd be easier to dig that thing out and get a movable setup.

We got his birthday gifts bought, along with his Cars cake ordered. He had a Cars cake last year. Nothing has come along to take away its magic for him, I guess. So be it. Works for me. I even ordered the same kind of marbled cake with whipped icing. Go with what works, eh?

Giving my son the business

2007-11-17T07:25:00.001-05:00

What's the future going to be like? Forty hour work weeks, still? Working at home more? More privately owned busiensses? Entrepreneurship going crazy?

What does the school system teach a baby these days? The same thing as it always did? We must learn our three R's and get ready to be a good little automaton. Factories need bolt tighteners?

I don't think so.

I'm into teaching my son the joys of Monopoly, the ravages of Life, the fall of dominoes. I want him to think more about starting his own business than about working for somebody else's business. Of course, there comes the problem of how to reinforce that desire. Kids think of things to do immediately, things that I as an adult know in my own stilted adult way won't work. Or will they?

What's stopping me from putting up a lemonade stand? The health department? The tax department? Competition from the Speedway down the street?

Do I know too much to start my own business?

Gotta get a lawyer, an accountant, a lawyer for the accountant, an accountant for the lawyers, and soon, I've got to get another job to pay for the great job I thought up. Why does my mind think that way? Bad brain, bad.

The daddy difference, part 3

2007-11-05T08:25:00.000-05:00

This isn't really part three of anything. I just decided I liked the name, "the daddy difference." Lots of people are noticing the dads at home, and perhaps more are turning away from the stereotype of Keaton's "Mr. Mom," seeing that as the comedy which it is and not the reality, which it can also be, no matter the sex of the parent.

I've just added a new SAH Parent link to Evolution Of Dad's blog after getting an email from one of the associate producers of the film called, The Evolution of Dad. It's one of those things that a lot of us blogging SAHDs look and say, "Sheesh, why didn't I think of that?"

Truth is, we probably thought of it, but didn't have the gumption to put it together. From the looks of the site, Messeurs Kaufman, Glatzer, et al, have done a great job, garnering notice from no less than Time Magazine. So, kudos, and here's my salute to the cause of helping SAHDs achieve full credibility.

Maybe someday there will be an Evolution of Dad II, in which the hero is also a work-at-home dad who takes on the added job of homeschooling his young charge, and together they save the world through advanced play on some kind of handheld computer game device.

The daddy difference, part 2

2007-11-02T23:12:00.001-04:00

Previously, I tried to analyze my thoughts about the effects on the child of having Daddy stay home instead of Mommy. After thinking through the situation, I wonder if the bigger effect is not on the parent.

I've become a lot more in tune with "why." Why what? Why anything.

"Why do I have to study?"
"Why do you have to work?"
"Why don't you want me to stomp in puddles?"

I do my child the respect of analyzing his questions, and I try never to give him the old "because I said so" answer, though sometimes I do. When I do, I apologize for being short with him and try to explain why I was that way. The scary thing is that he sometimes analyzes my responses depending on tone and attitude. Other times, he uses his feelings as an excuse for being the way he is. "Kids my age want to have lots of candy." Life father, like son, I guess.

There are lots of other things that have changed about me since I've been daddy, teacher, friend to a growing child, and all of it has been good for me, hopefully for him, too.

The daddy difference, part 1

2007-10-30T09:40:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I'm asked if there are any repercussions with my son since I'm the one who stays home, rather than his mom. I have to admit, I don't know any other dads who stay home with their kids, work a job from home via the Internet, and who take care of the homeschooling chores.

But after almost six years at it, I don't see much of a problem. My son is able to understand the reasons for Mommy going to work, and he's able to see the advantage of having one parent at home to do everything from chase him around the house and play games with him to teach him number skills and reading. As a parent, I'm a little ambivalent about the whole daycare scenario. Like good parents and bad parents, there are good and bad daycares. Everyone does the best they can under the circumstances, and the kids are almost always resilient enough to withstand the best of intentions. :-)

Something I had thought about was the possibility of a disconnect with his mom, but that has not been the case at all. On the contrary, if he had to make a choice of which parent to spend time with, if he could only be with one for whatever reason, he always starts out picking Mom. That stings sometimes, but I understand the different kind of bond that children have with their moms. I felt the same about mine, but she was a stay-at-home mom. I would have thought the preference thing would work in reverse, but that has definitely not been the case in our home.

The reading milestone

2007-10-27T07:48:00.000-04:00

I've gone through this several times in Jordan's life, and it's happening again. It happened when he started crawling and walking, then when he started feeding himself. Potty training was a big one--remembering the last time I had to change a diaper. "It's been years since I wore a diaper," Jordan said the other day.

A big jolt occurred when he started pre-kindergarten. He was growing up, becoming his own man.

And now, he's reading and writing and doing math. He's been reading "for years," too, but only small words and not as a rule. With the onset of kindergarten, he's had to increase his reading time, and with a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, he's learning at a super pace, enjoying every minute of it. There have been times when he even amazes himself.

Of course, there is a down side, which is also an up side: He comes to me less and less to read him what's happening on his games. He still does it by habit, but I coach him to read what it says, and he recognizes the words. I see the muted thrill in his eyes as he doubly understands that he can read and that he has deciphered what his game is telling him. Then it's ho-hum, back to the excitement of the game.

For me, however, the excitement is watching his unique potential turn into reality, remembering where he's been and wondering where he'll go.

Winning or losing, somebody has a good game

2007-10-21T08:58:00.000-04:00

Home school continues to rule, and not only because we are never late to class.

Children must be taught the right way to win and lose. Jordan is used to winning, and he likes the feeling. If he loses, however, he is wont to show extreme sadness, even anger. Enter the concepts of the gracious winner and the good loser. Oddly enough, both sides start out saying and doing about the same thing: Shake hands and tell the other player "good game." Obviously if he won, he had the good game; if the other person won, that person had the good game. Nobody needs comment on "the bad game."

Understanding that the other person may feel the same way about the outcome of a competition is a small revelation to children, at least to my son. I think he is beginning to cope with it, though.

Our game of the month is foosball. He learned of it at a friend's house, so we found a table on craigslist and brought it home. Turns out it was a left-handed table, but that's another day's post. I learned a little of the art of the foos in my army days, so I regularly beat the boy and his mom, either or both, sometimes with one hand figuratively tied behind my back. But as they are both fast learners, I must revel in my king of the hill status while I can. It will not last.

After a couple of days of having to shake hands with his foosball opponent (me) and say "good game," he is developing the habit. Plus, the act has the added effect of switching his mental gears from angry sadness if he loses.

One thing I find interesting is that when Jordan accidentally kicks the ball into my goal, he laughs about it. But if I'm ahead and close to winning and score a point, he's disappointed and adamant that I should not have been able to make that point. Another interesting phenomenon is that if he's ahead--especially if I've spotted him some points--he also doesn't mind if make a score or two. It's just when I get near winning the game that he gets concerned.

I don't always have to win, though, and a couple of times, when I've spotted him some points, he's beaten me fair and square. He has some good shots!

Additionally, there is some geometry and perhaps some elementary physics to be learned from our recess break games of foosball. Nothing like studying the roller coasters on the field trips to King's Island will be next year, but it's all good.

Financial education

2007-10-17T20:48:00.000-04:00

The way they teach in kindergarten is by repetition. Jordan learned the alphabet, days of the week, the months, everything, by repeating them.

As I edit and write about the stock market, I've had to share what I know about it with him, because the graphics and pictures grab his interest. The charts in particular intrigued him, so I told him they tracked the price of stocks through the day. Then he wanted to know what the dashed red line across the chart meant. I told him it was to show where the market opened so you could trace if stocks were up or down.

Wrong. So why, he wanted to know, did the chart start higher than the red line, as in the graphic above?

First I had to correct my answer to say the red line showed where stocks closed the previous session, then we got into how the markets around the globe open and close at different times relevant to where we are. That led to talking about the rotation of the earth, the earth's path around the sun, and finally we got back to the graphs.

We'll go over it some more, throwing in some continent, country, and capital names, and slowly but surely, he'll learn how money goes around the world and winds up back where it started. That information took me over 40 years to even begin to figure out. Jordan will be six in December.

Soccer season 2007 in the books

2007-10-12T20:50:00.000-04:00

Jordan had his third successful soccer season end a couple of weeks ago. Still the tallest, most eager to get the ball player on the team, he didn't take long to get the ball and drive it to the net. He started taking longer shots, like the one pictured, instead of trying to get almost inside the net before shooting. As you might be able to tell from the little girl guarding the net, being in front of one of his power kicks does not feel good.

Jordan learned more about passing this season, as did several of his teammates. He also learned more about defense, because after he would score his first two points--usually about two minutes after he was in the game--the coach would put him on defense. He didn't like not being able to take the ball to the net, but he did what was asked of him, and a couple of times, he nearly scored from the half field stripe.

We're in the process of figuring out where indoor soccer is here in Dayton, or maybe trying out basketball. Not sure how kid-friendly basketball is. Seems like it'd be all right. I've heard that T-ball can be boring for a lot of the kids, especially in the outfield. Soccer, on the other hand, is pretty much everybody running all the time, more or less.

By 2022, which is only 15 years away, btw, maybe soccer players will be making big bucks like baseball and basketball players.

Happy with homeschool

2007-10-08T10:51:00.001-04:00

I brought up to the boy the possibility that we might put him in half-day kindergarten while continuing to homeschool him, mostly so he could see other kids more often. The possibility's still not off the table, but Jordan at the time said he liked the way we were doing it now. Then he asked me if I liked it, too. I do, very much.

It's a little difficult putting together lesson plans so we both know what's going on every day, but with his mom with a bachelor's in elementary education, she can tell when we're not where we should be. And the thing is, we're at least two months ahead of where he's supposed to be. At this pace, he'll have to start first grade by next spring.

As for friends, he's seeing another soccer friend today, and he's still having a great time in children's church, though I've yet to crack the code to get into that clique of parents. Same with the local homeschooling co-ops, but it's coming along, slowly but surely. We have more lists of places to go and things to do. It's only a matter of putting it all together around the necessity of a little bit of work and a little bit more sleep.

The bike path to homeschooling

2007-09-29T08:08:00.000-04:00

Our new home in Dayton is blessed with lots of nearby bike paths, mostly level ones, too, not the hills and valleys prevalent in Colorado or Hawaii. Not only that, but there are park benches and porches all along the way, perfect for stopping and doing some homeschooling.

Another great thing about this area that I didn't remember till I was re-immersed in it, is the variety of wildlife. At first all I noticed were the dead animals on the road: skunks, ground hogs, possums, squirrels, and raccoons making up the bulk. But in the air are dozens of bird varieties that we haven't seen for years: bluejays, wrens, chickadees, flycatchers, swallows, cardinals. And all the usual robins and sparrows, but very few starlings.

We found buckeyes, walnut trees, bittersweet berries. All this along the route of only about five miles. So in a short period of time, we had writing (not a good idea without a decent table) and lots of natural sciences, not to mention an excellent workout. The boy goes extremely fast with his six-speed.

Raven and Dove

2007-09-24T08:28:00.001-04:00

I must face the real possibility that my son is going to know the Bible better than I do soon. The other night, I read the story of Noah from his children's storybook Bible, and it said Noah sent out two doves. Jordan said, "But first he sent out another kind of animal, didn't he?" I said , no, it says here two doves. Jordan repeated his assertion, so I opened up his Superheroes Bible, which is a children's NIV version. Sure enough, Noah sent out a raven first. How great is that?

And speaking of homeschooling, that is going very well, largely because of Jordan's ability to recall facts. But not only that, he is able to assimilate the information into communication. In other words, he's understanding what he's learning, as well as enjoying the whole process.

His reading ability is very high. We've skipped through the first month of the 100 Lessons book, simply because there's no need to repeat what he knows as second nature. We'll start this week with more extensive reading passages and see how that goes.

Geography and history for kindergarten is not extensive, but he enjoys learning what's on the globe and where he is in the world. Math comes easily to him, and his art is coming together nicely. In the sports arena, he's a great little soccer player, scoring almost at will in his soccer group. He's like an irresistible force when it comes to getting the ball. There have been only a handful able to even contest with him.

We had his first playdate last week, too, with one of his soccer friends, and the only thing wrong with that to Jordan's way of thinking was, of course, that it didn't last long enough. I'm still trying to find local coop groups to join for the camaraderie for Jordan, though I'd have to trade some of my skills, too. It's not that easy to get these groups to open up, for some reason. Maybe it's just my fault for thinking that everybody answers emails. Who knows? Or maybe I'm sending out ravens when I should be sending out the doves? What the heck does that mean? :-) Better call Noah?

So far, so good

2007-08-27T11:01:00.000-04:00

Starting the second week of kindergarten for Jordan, and he's having a real good time. Seems his first year of pre-kindergarten was just what he needed in order to know how to get along with friends and teachers. Still not sure we're totally on board with the new school ourselves yet, but I've found that kids are more like duck feathers than adults are. If something doesn't go perfect for a child, it doesn't take long for it to be forgotten.

Who's ready?

2007-08-21T09:51:00.001-04:00

The bug started kindergarten today. Not a lot of trouble waking up and getting ready. He was excited to get started and looked forward to getting into his room. Found his seat and settled in quickly.

So why don't I feel good?

His mom and I have been thinking about doing a homeschooling plan with him. We were used to the school Jordan went to in Colorado, and this one is different in ways that we're not sure we like. These days homeschooling is a lot more user-friendly, with some of the plans actually enrolling the child into a school. The only difference is the parent teaches it. There are get-togethers and trips with others in the class at regular intervals.

So why don't I feel good?

Jordan is a people who needs people kind of person. He is smart as a whip, but he'd rather play with his friends. And the problem right now is that we don't have friends for him to play with, so school is a necessity for that on a daily basis.

I was thinking that Sunday school could also help him build new friendships, and it can and will, I think. But that is in the future and requires the building up of everything, which for me will take ten times as long as for the normal person, because I'm a loner personality.

Homeschooling might still be in the boy's future, but rather than put it in front of the building up of friendships and relationships with other families, I think it will work better if it comes after all that is in place. If it comes at all.

Another sure sign of my not being ready now, is that instead of talking to someone about my feelings, getting advice from others who may have been in the same situation, I'm writing in this blog.

Let it ride

2007-08-13T18:37:00.000-04:00

If you ever want to see a happy kid, watch him on his first ride on the biggest roller coaster he's ever been on. And if you want to see him smile 50 more times, let him keep riding and riding and riding the bumper cars.

Jordan got to do all that this weekend at Kings Island, and if it were up to him, he would have stayed there for the night and woke up in line for the bumpers.

Seriously, he smiled and laughed so much, he said his cheeks hurt.

The one negative part was that he's almost an inch to short to ride the majority of the rides. Even worse, they don't all measure as carefully, so the guys on the big bumper cars let him ride seven or eight times until one jerk pulled out the metal swinging ruler.

But mostly, it was a great time, all 10 and a half hours of it. Just don't ask my feet.

The fine line

2007-08-10T10:11:00.001-04:00

As a parent, I try to teach my son a smidgen of humility to go along with his near limitless self-confidence. At least I try to impart why it's not always necessary to brag about how good he is at something, especially when it might hurt somebody else's feelings. It's a fine line, because I don't want him to turn into someone who stands back and lets mediocrity rule--though you know in this world today, when so much is ruled by mediocrity the only way to get ahead is to join their ranks.

During a recent game of Xbox Nascar, Jordan told me during a qualifying round, "I'm going to come in first place 'cause I'm so good."

I took my cue and tried to define "bragging" to him and how it wasn't always the nice thing to do, especially when you're in somebody's face saying you're going to beat them. Not always, anyway. He didn't quite understand why it might bother someone. I've seen him react to others saying that, and he laughs it off, probably because he believes he's better. A case of irresistible force meeting immovable object.

Shortly after I finished trying to explain how some people might be insulted by bragging or think less of a person for doing so, Jordan tapped me on the arm.

"Daddy, I'm sorry about bragging...but I did come in first place."

It's a fine line being bragging and self-realization.

Crap, I hope I didn't teach him to care more about his opponents' feelings than about winning for himself. That's kind of what happened in soccer last year. He became so concerned about knocking people down that he stopped going after the ball as fiercely as he did in the beginning.

"But they're my friends," he would say.

Stupid fine lines.

Could have been worse

2007-08-04T21:46:00.000-04:00

My son and I were eating a couple of those 100-calorie packages of cookies the other day. I finished mine and walked out of the room for a second and back in. Jordan had a little cookie in his hand and said, "Here's you a cookie, Daddy."

"Thanks," I said, as I ate the cookie.

"That's all right," Jordan answered. "I couldn't eat it 'cause it fell on the floor."

The Inner Sawyer

2007-07-30T15:12:00.000-04:00

Some kind of huge brain growth must go on around the ages of five and six where a kid's personality and idea of self explode into being. I know that Tom Sawyer was older than six in the classic books, but watching Jordan saunter off, towhead at an angle, taking care not to step on cracks on the kitchen tile, I'm drawn back to that simpler time somehow.

Times are anything but simple now. Instead of playing with sticks and stones on a dusty side street, Jordan plays with Xboxes and Playstations, where he's learned not only how to read but also why manual transmission cars have to be shifted and when. He downloads computer games, even helps me upload articles now and then, and when he gets tired of collecting bugs for his insect cage, you might find him on a six-speed Diamondback 20-inch bike worth more than all the bikes my four brothers and I had during our entire lifetime.

But still, he's a kid, a little towheaded improvisationalist who is ready to take on the world at any time or place. Except for doctors' offices. Too many bad memories of shots and swabbings, stabs and knockings to be totally trustful of the medical profession. It's kind of disconcerting, but it makes sense, much the same way his fear of the deep end of the pool wasn't cemented until he put on a snorkel mask and saw precisely what he was jumping into. So yes, anyone with any kind of memory capabilities will put each of those things together and not drop trou in a doctor's office or jump off the deep end of the pool without somebody being in it to catch him. Perfect sense.

And not simple, at least not to me; but when Jordan grows up, these will be the times he looks back on and remembers wistfully as the good ole days in the neighborhood. Then he'll jump in his spaceship and go to work.

The educational side of video games

2007-07-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

Maybe Jordan's only using the space bar, mouse pad, and arrow keys, but he's learning how to type a little bit, as well as to read while he plays video games on my computer.

Much has been said about the danger of letting kids play video games too much. But I say games don't make kids bad, parents who don't play along with the kids make the kids bad.

In my day, we played lots of politically incorrect games. Cowboys and Indians was the main one, but also Americans versus Russians spy games comes to mind. However, I or none of my brothers has grown up to become cat torturers or building burners. Some of the games that are available now are much worse than anything we could have thought of as kids in the 60s, and indeed I would never let my child play some of them, nor would I want to play them. But it's still a matter of explaining and spending time with junior.

Some parents are not good examples, though, I will have to say, and that's one thing that causes the children to be better at being bad than the parents were. I think most parents strive for the opposite, making their kids better than they were at being positive and good. The news media and our attention are drawn by the explosions of the bad, however. And that's as it should be. We need to live defensively. More now than ever.

My son is playing a race car game now, and he's been told that driving a real car is nothing like that. He might have been leaning toward believing it was at one time, but that was never serious, I believe. He's a new human and he simply needs to learn what is true and what's not...for sure. As he gains more knowledge, he's more capable of figuring out reality.

And now, he's more able to read. He comes to me less and less to know what the words are on his games. So for the summer, he's having fun with video games and learning to read. That's not too bad.

Further realizations on the inevitability of...huh?

2007-07-05T08:10:00.000-04:00

Jordan was six months old in the photo, having one of the best times of his life, apparently, the first time he met his Grandmother Farley. She passed away three years after this photo, so the pictures we have of her will be the only memory Jordan has of her.

Sorry about that title. I get carried away, but not far enough at times.

Being in Dayton, Ohio, now, I find I have a lot more relatives living closer, some just down or up or out the road. Yesterday, the Fourth, I took Jordan to meet some of his relatives on his Grandmother Farley's side.

Jordan doesn't remember his Grandma Farley, though he did meet her a couple of times when he was younger. He has vague recollections, but sadly, no real lasting memory. We shall build those up as time goes by.

Jordan almost always exhibits that happy-go-lucky attitude in the photo wherever he goes, especially if he knows he is among friends and family. He revels in being in such a crowd. Any crowd is okay, but especially friends and family. Probably because they are more likely to let him go on and on like he does, as if he were a stand-up comic or a motivational speaker. And if some of the crowd is made up of kids his age, look out for your eardrums.

I would not be so amazed by Jordan's actions around people were it not for my own propensity to stay out of crowds. I'm not phobic about it, but if given a choice, in most cases, I opt away from the crowd.

I'm glad Jordan likes crowds and being with people. I enjoy watching him act and react as much as those who have never met him before. However, I will begin to carry cotton for my ears, for those times that he meets another person his age.

More growing realizations

2007-06-23T08:51:00.000-04:00

Jordan likes to play computer games and I don't mind. They're fun for him, he's learning to read, and he's developing his hand-eye coordination, as well as learning where the keys are on a computer keyboard. I don't think he's mentally ill, even though he does like them a lot. So do I. I'm not mentally ill. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

Where was I?

One of the minor problems of letting him play games on the computer is that now and then he'll hit on something he doesn't understand. Then he'll have to bug me from my wonderful work (I work at home--that's the WAHD part of SAHWAHD.). A few moments ago, I left him saying that he's really going to have to learn to read better so he wouldn't bug me so much. That's when I thought: I'm pushing him away again.

He's going to learn to read, to swim, to rollerblade, to drive rocket ships all on his own soon enough. He hasn't needed me to clean his bathroom aftermath or chop his food or even read simple instructions. I don't mind that, all that much, either. Soon he'll be tying his shoes, which means he won't need me to brush and floss his teeth, if his dentist is to be believed. If I'd take more time with the shoe-tying deal, he'd have that down. It's not a big deal, though, because in this day and age, Velcro rules.

Still, watching the little fellow grow away from me faster and faster, learning more and more, becoming ever more self-sufficient, even at the tender age of five, is mind-boggling.

The Fairborn Farleys Arrive

2007-06-02T07:24:00.000-04:00

The final 56 miles to Fairborn and the Wexford on the Green apartments were smooth and quick. We had a good breakfast at the Richmond (Indiana) Holiday Inn, which was not one I'd recommend, unfortunately, unless you wanted to spend enough time there to take advantage of the exercise room and pool. The room we were in was small, appointed more like the unrecommended Best Western in Hays, Kansas, than like the recommended (but expensive) BW in Foristell, Missouri. But it served its purpose, if a little expensively.

While there I was able to set up our electric and gas here in Fairborn, and once we got here, I got my first UPS delivery, which was my DSL wireless modem. Wonder of wonders, it worked and I got set up lickety-split last night. Not fast enough for Jordan, though, since he wanted to play the games at addictinggames. com.

The apartment is nice enough. I'm thinking of how I want to appoint it. Simply, for sure, with few pieces, but the pieces that I need to be able to get my work and writing done. Something motivational, whatever that might be. I'm thinking more chairs than couch in the living room, and I'm not sure what kind of bed. Here, people have stuff stuck on their porches. I'm not sure if I want to stick my bike out there or not, but apparently if that's what I want to do, I can do it. The roadways in this part of town are almost too narrow for car traffic, let alone adding a bike to them. So I'll have to study that situation.

Jordan and I (and the dogs) took a ride to the house Deb is wanting to buy. It's nice, not quite like it appeared on the Internet, Jordan said, but a well-appointed home. We didn't see the inside of it, of course, but Deb is flying out this week to take care of a lot of the fine points of that situation. The drive there was a little more hectic than the ride back. We followed two different routes, as prescribed by the GPS navigation system in the Nissan Titan. If I had that system all the time, I'd probably forget how to read a map, just as surely as I forgot how to find square roots after the calculator become ubiquitous.

Jordie and I slept on the floor last night, so getting a bed of some sort might be a good thing in the next couple of days. The dogs stayed on the linoleum in the kitchen. They've been really good the past few days. The worst thing that happened was a bad case of gas during yesterday's excursion to see the house and get a sandwich. Fluffy is beginning to gather a little sense about how to heel on the leash without running circles around me and Missy, thus tying us all into an unhandy bundle.

For now, I must read the lease agreement to find out what to do with garbage.

SAHWAHD on the Road: Day Three

2007-06-01T07:17:00.001-04:00

What's a cross-country trip without a 90-minute traffic jam? Um, good? After a smooth 320-some mile jaunt from Missouri through Illinois and into Indiana, we hit a snag 23 miles from our destination. To be fair, it was much better than it must have been for the souls who were in the wreck that caused the traffic to stop. Never did find out about that.

Traffic was re-routed over to Route 40 and we went through a little town that was having actual Memorial Day yard sale festivities. It gave the GPS navigation system quite a workout.

Otherwise, let's talk about motels. The Best Western in Foristell, Missouri, was the best we've been in our three days. It was roomy, had a good desk and chair for working, and the TV wasn't boxed in a big wooden nightmare so you couldn't see from the sides. The BW in Richmond didn't take pets, so we booked the Holiday Inn. When we got to it, Jordan gave it a thumbs down, and so did I. No proper working desk, TV in an enclosure, and smaller beds. Though the Foristell BW turned out to be more expensive than I thought (note to self: always ask the price, don't assume they're all the same), it was less than the HI and much nicer. While the HI has a better pool and a workout room, as well as (expensive) room service, who has time for that? Except for the room service. And even it was not the best, as they forgot to bring the boy's milk.

But anyway, we're in the eastern time zone again. It's been ten years since I've been here for any length of time. This means I'll have to stay up later to get my work done. I just hope the wifey's work starts out later as well so I won't have to wake up so early to watch the boy. (Edit: Her work starts the same ridiculous hour as it seems always to have started.)

Trying to feel the increased oxygen. We've been in the high country for some five years. So far, all I really notice is the humidity. Not the good kind we felt in Hawaii, either. That air had a nearly constant breeze, and if not, then the ocean was never farther than 30 or 40 miles away. Also noticing the new pollens and allergens floating around outside. And the green. Much greener than in Colorado. This year, Colorado's had more rain than in the previous years we were there, so the yards are greening up and everything's greener than it was. But it's not the deep, variegated green of the Midwest. Here, the green is underneath everything, like it was always there, like the undercoat of a shaggy dog.

Which is what I'm beginning to smell like. I need a shower. Don't want to stink up the new place. Only 56 miles to go.

SAHWAHD On The Road: Day Two

2007-05-31T07:38:00.000-04:00

Somewhere in eastern Kansas, Jordan shot this group of cattle on a hillside. He's been doing very well with his Kodak P&S, taking lots of pictures, getting his photo mojo down. Back in my day, we didn't have these fancy digital cameras. We had to work for a week to enough money to get a roll of film and it had to do us for a whole year.

We're still in the mostly flatlands of the prairies. Imagine taking a wagon train being pulled by oxen. Wow. In the pickup with the GPS telling me which turn to take, the cell phone keeping me in touch nearly every mile along the way, I almost feel like I've not left the comfort of the living room.

I'm amazed a little at how easy it is to get online. At the Hays, Kansas Best Western, I had four wi-fi signals to choose from. The motel's was the strongest and fastest, thankfully. Here in Missouri, I have three, with the motel's being strongest and the nearby truckstop's a close second. It's just a couple hundred yards away. I figure the extra ones must be internet thieves trying to get me to sign on and give up some personal information. Guess even thieves gotta make a living.

Have been able to work both nights of the trip, at least enough to put files in order for our upload lady. If someone had told me 15 years ago that I'd be working online while I drove cross-country, I would have called them crazy.

The dogs have been pretty good for the trip. They slept most of the day yesterday while I drove. I'd made their "bed" a little more comfortable. Both dogs have been able to do onesies, but only Fluffy has made twosies both days. Missy always gets a little constipated when she has to move.

The only real difficulty in traveling with two dogs and a child is during trips into restaurants or rest stop restrooms. I don't like leaving the dogs alone in the vehicle, but there's not a lot of choice sometimes. It's not a comfortable feeling not being able to see the truck, not only an expensive item in itself, but also loaded with a few irreplaceable goods, while I wait in line for food or for Jordan to wash his hands after using the potty. He's very meticulous.

So far, however, our journey has been very blessed and we thank God for that and for the road ahead. Tonight, we've got a Holiday Inn set up in Richmond, Indiana, since the BW in that town is one that doesn't allow pets. Of all the nerve. If the schedule holds today, we should be in our new apartment early Friday morning.

SAHWAHD On The Road

2007-05-30T08:04:00.000-04:00

It's an hour later than I feel like it is, but I was able to get my work done from a Best Western in Hays (can't recommend it) with decent Internet. The area is creepy scary, though, and I don't know if I'll be able to sleep as well as I'd like. Too many thuggish looking people watching our Nissan Titan roll in and park. Too much cracked street material. Too many bottles and cans on the sidewalk. The picture on the webpage definitely makes it look like a nicer place than it is. The virtual tours were a giveaway, too, as they showed none of the surrounding area. The other two BW's I've logged into have much nicer surroundings in their virtual tours. The trials of riding with dogs, kids, and a hermit crab.

It rained heavily last night, causing Missy some consternation. I didn't noticie it so much until I woke sometime in the night and looked outside to make sure thieves weren't making off with the truck tires. The rain probably kept them from doing that.

Missy walked out from the far corner of the room, behind a bed. I'd wondered for a moment if she'd disappeared in the night when she didn't rouse herself on my waking and walking. Both dogs did a number one, and I found their leashes in their dog food bag. Still using the quickly fashioned blue cords still, though. Kind of like them.

Sleeping was okay. Jordan slept in the bed with me, as did Fluffy. Jordan must have been doing karate battle with something during the night, waking me a couple of times with kicks and punches, first to his pillow and then to me. He's sleeping pretty good, though, still. I woke up at my usual 4 a.m., wondering if I should try to fall back to sleep or get up and start the day. I chose the latter.

The weak coffee they provide here is not too bad if you double up the packets of coffee. I like the single cup brewer. Will have to look into one when we get to our "destination," as Jordan calls it.

Instructions

2007-05-27T17:56:00.000-04:00

When Jordan and his friends finally got me in gear to schedule a play date for them, I had to face the task of letting the unsuspecting mother know how to control Mr. Rambunctious. Since I have noticed a decided difference in the way that moms and dads allow and disallow activities, I came up with a few good ideas that I will share:

I. Have these phrases ready to speak:
    A. Jordan, slow down.
    B. Jordan, get down off there.
    C. Jordan, stop that. (This one can be used in place of A or B.)
    D. I don't care what your father lets you do; he's not here, is he?
        1. Each of the above can be prefaced or concluded with either:
            a. I mean it
            b. I'm serious

If it becomes necessary, always have the middle name of the child handy. The use of it may shock the child into behaving for a few minutes, but be careful not to overuse this one.

The family that kung-fu's together...

2007-05-26T04:52:00.000-04:00

From the age of 4 1/2 to 5 1/2, Jordan took karate lessons from Universal Kempo Karate in Colorado Springs. I managed to do enough to get the great uniform pictured left, along with the great picture, pictured left. I wish the photographer had told me to drop my left hand a little, so it'd line up with the right. But that purple belt I'm wearing didn't exactly come after years of intensive training from blind masters of the martial arts in the mountains of Tibet. Instead, just a couple of months, so I barely knew where my appendages were at the time.

I'll miss the days of taking Jordan to kung-fu fighting, soccer playing in the undependable weather, preschool with the "Mothers" twice a day, five days a week, wondering what new achievement or embarrassment--or both--I'd learn about that afternoon. The latest such occurred as he was going to school with a neighbor friend and her twin daughters, both in his class. As soon as Jordan got into the van, he for some unknown reason pulled his pants down in the back. Not a strong move in tidy-whities, unfortunately.

However, everybody laughed and the little girls averted their gazes, so Jordan continued his "show." He pulled up on my third demand that he stop. Guess I'm going to have to go to the underwear shop to get him some cooler underwear. Lucky for all of us, that particular trend seems to be fading.

Goo-goo gah-gah what?

2007-05-08T10:01:00.000-04:00

In the doctor's office yesterday for a checkup for Jordan, a grandmotherly nurse or orderly or something came in to check on the tissue they use on the examining tables. Jordan asked her what the paper was for, to which the lady answered, "It's so you don't get some other kid's icky-gooeys."

Jordan looked confused and slightly concerned for the woman for a moment and asked her back, "Are you talking about germs?"

Career killers

2007-04-24T08:11:00.000-04:00

Do kids kill careers? Probably. But so does everything else. As this picture shows, I could have been writing the next great American paranormal reporter novel; instead, I was at a soccer game.

The question about kids versus careers was posited in the Rebel Dad blog recently, and I just had to post a comment because his blogs always make me think. Here's what I posted:

Everything impacts everything. Whether it's writing or drawing or playing music, if you have a child running around, you will lose time in pursuing your career.

But losing time in the pursuit of your personal goals is not unique to child-rearing. If you have to make money to pay the electric or rent, etc., you will also lose time in pursuing your career.

Most "jobs" measure worth in bottom lines, which is not just hour worked, but widget produced. That's the industrial worker mentality. It's what most people are best at understanding.

By the time quality becomes a measure of total productivity, the worker is part of a different set of parameters, usually somewhere on the ladder to management.

The only sure way not to have outside interests kill a career is to be your own boss.

Five and Alive

2007-04-13T09:28:00.000-04:00

Many people like things to stay the way they are. Paradigm shifts, operational changes, those things cause headaches and mistakes till they become habits. But what if you're only five years old and grown-ups are trying to take the fun out of your life?

One of the things I need to change in my parenting is my habit of pointing out the bad things my son does and telling him to stop them. Pointing out the indiscretions only serves to reinforce them.

I know that I'm right, because in soccer practice this week, Jordan was tired and cranky, and he kept excusing himself by saying that he was always that way at that time of the day. That is something that his mom and I have said in his presence on more than one occasion.

He's only five, so rather than try to use grown-up logic to solve the situation, I need to remember five-year-old logic: Make things fun. If he doesn't want to do something, find a fun way to do it. Jordan likes to compete. He likes to play. He likes to race. In a game, his soccer ball got kicked 50 yards away, and he didn't want to go after it. He whined to his mom and me to go get it. We told him to go get it or we'd leave. Bad move. When Debbie started to go after the ball, Jordan at first thought it was play and started to run. Keeping it play would have been a good move. But then Jordan saw it wasn't play, that he was about to get taken out of the practice. Bad move number two.

In soccer, racing, playing, competing would seem to be part of the program, but as in so many other areas of life, when being taught how to do something, teachers are taught to teach the "elements" of the thing, not the thing. (Some people say that's why it's called "elementary" education.) But by taking out the big picture, they're also taking out the fun.

Another way to look at it is in architecture. Jordan likes to put together large intricate buildings using his Lincoln Logs or plastic blocks or whatever. But just think how quickly he would lose interest if I were to try to teach him some of the mathematics of building, along with the necessity to read and write descriptions. Bleh.

And that's what I've done in part with his social education. Not only have I not provided him time to actually learn and experiment for himself so that he can find his own place in the pecking order, I've tried to dissect much of it and tell him what happens when this is done and that is done. Double bleh.

Jordan is old enough that he's getting a picture of himself, how he is when he does certain things. He's interested in how I perceive him. He'll ask, "How was I?" after karate or soccer. Lately, he's begun to assess himself, and it's a little frightening to me because he says he feels like he's not doing too good. The things that he likes to do--talking, jumping around, playing--are usually not welcomed in a classroom situation. It's tough for him to come to grips with that, especially when he sees others doing those things and not getting in trouble. He's expected in some cases to be an example of the right way; yet those wrong things are fun to him.

It's tough being five.

Mom's laugh

2007-04-10T11:28:00.000-04:00

I was walking by Jordan today and he was acting goofy about something and it made me laugh. More of a giggle, but in that giggle, I remember the laugh/giggle of my mom many times as she watched me or one of my brothers monkey around.

It's strange in a way that I should have my mom's laugh, but in other ways, I guess not so strange. I favor the Williamson side of my family. That's more evident in younger pictures.

The other day, I heard Jordan laugh a real laugh. Sometimes he fake-laughs, and there's the tickle-laugh, none of which are confused with the real laugh that happens when he thinks something is funny. That laugh was my laugh, and in a way, perhaps, part of my mom's laugh.

Mom is gone now, but her laughter carries on. And knowing the feeling of abiding, all-encompassing love that I have when I use that laugh/giggle at something my son has done, I know that my mom loved me in much the same way.

When To Hug In Soccer

2007-03-30T11:42:00.000-04:00

It's soccer season for Jordan's little troupe. Jordan had to miss the first two practices because of the croup and his reaction to meds, but he's more than ready to play. And so is everybody else. Unfortunately, that doesn't always equate to soccer practice.

Jordan is a five-year-old boy, still very much like his four-year-old version, in that he likes to play. He's getting much, much better at standing still and even listening for short periods of time, but he's a boy. Most of his time is spent playing with cars, building log cabins, racing games on his PSP, Playstation, and XBox, and falling down. I have to say that he's better at not falling down than most of the other kids in soccer, though, no doubt due to his training in karate and his three hours a day in pre-kindergarten.

Anyway, the big problem I'm seeing right now is that there is no consistency for the kids to latch onto. The main coach says to them: Stand still, pay attention. He turns his back and half the kids start hugging and pushing and knocking each other down. Last year, Jordan would have been first to start that kind of stuff. This year, he's not wanting to do it, but if others are going to do it and not get in trouble, he figures, LET'S PLAY!

So who gets in trouble? That's right. The big kid who's just trying to fit in and have fun. And you know how that makes him feel? Frustrated and angry, which is normal. How would you feel if you were standing in line at the bank and somebody jumped on you and when you pushed the guy off you, a security guard arrested you?

Yeah, me either. Let's just hope the coaches remember the level of the kids' attention span and teach to that.

I should have listened

2007-03-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

"But Daddy, he doesn't like that game."

"I talked to his mom and she said it would be all right. He'll be able to play it with his family. It'll be fun then, not like at school. Besides, I don't want to get another toy that gets broken or lost in a couple of days."

"But he doesn't like to play that game."

"It'll be all right. We'll get another toy to go with it, just in case."

He knew he couldn't convince me otherwise, I guess, so he let it go. Turns out, he was right.

At the party, it was disaster for him. He wanted so much for his present to be a good one, to help him make a friend. But he was right. The crestfallen look on his face when his present was unceremoniously dropped to the floor made me wish I could disappear.

"He says he doesn't like that game. It makes me feel like I shouldn't have even got anything for him."

"It wasn't your fault. I was the one who bought it, not you. It wasn't your fault. Okay?"

"Okay."

The sadness and disappointment covered me. Uncomfortable looks crossed every parent's face as we all tried to process the honesty of a child.

It's over now, and the hurt will go away. I hope for Jordan that it already has. But for me, the memory of the pain I caused my son will be around much longer. I should have known he was right. He's smarter than I am. I should have listened.

Where's the love?

2007-03-16T08:22:00.000-04:00

Jordan wants friends, and I need to figure out how to help him be around kids who will be his friends.

I remember one year as a child my family lived a summer in Michigan, in a town among people. There was a kid who lived nearby who was our friend, the only person I remember from my youth that I didn't befriend in school. We lived near Lake Michigan and played on rope swings that landed us in sand dunes and built log cabins that we then made fall on top of us so we could scramble out.

That lasted maybe three months and we were back in the woods of southern Ohio, never to return. I don't even remember the boy's name that we played with, only his older brother's, Pierre, because, let's face it, how many Pierres does a misplaced hillbilly meet in his young life.

I don't want Jordan to be left with that kind of tiny memory of a friendship. I'm sure he will have more.

Hopefully I won't have to undergo gender reassignment to get Jordan a playdate playmate or two in the future. If that's the case, he just might have to grow up a loner, like his dad and mom. Maybe a simple cross-dressing kit could do the trick.

No growth in culture

2007-03-16T08:18:00.000-04:00

The old culture finally grew over the weekend, so another test was done, and it came up negative and stayed negative. Yesterday was the first day in maybe three months I didn't hear the kid cough like he had something rattling around his throat. So bring on the next one, world. Oh wait, don't say that.

One big nightmare

2007-03-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

One big cold turned into one big nightmare when Jordan's immune system went haywire from all the medications, presumably--we'll never know for sure--giving him a severe allergic reaction that resembles chickenpox at first, then measles, and finally some kind of fiery red unbelievable torment. Added to that, strep was found from a throat culture, though he didn't have any signs of a sore throat. Nor did the strep sample grow in the culture dish at the clinic.

So, doctors put him on a new antibiotic, along with some stuff to help his cough, because he still had his cold, apparently. But guess what? His allergy got worse and I had to race him back to the doctor. It wasn't as serious as I'd first thought, though, and he came through okay.

By Friday evening, he was reacting positively to being off all the previous meds and having them replaced with a steroid for the immune reaction and an antihistamine for the itching. Today, the redness is barely noticeable.

Tomorrow we'll learn if the strep culture grew. If not, it might be a false positive. At any rate, it was a nightmare for all of us for a while.

The one big cold

2007-03-06T23:37:00.000-05:00

Jordan had a cold a month ago. That turned into bronchitis a week ago. Now he's got another cold. He hasn't been to karate in a week. School one day in a week.

The medical assistant I talked to at the doctor's office said there was no cure for the cold. Duh, shucks. I was hoping I'd missed that piece of news.

And the only way to get over a cold was to acquire an immunity. The only way to acquire immunity was to...you guessed it...get the cold.

I thought about taking Jordan to school today as my part in the goal to get everyone's immunity to where it should be. But I didn't.

Elastic

2007-02-23T13:44:00.000-05:00

I'm constantly amazed by how resilient Jordan is. He's five and almost three months now, for those keeping count. He lost his second tooth yesterday, one of the original two that popped out four years and almost nine months ago. He gets $5 a tooth, plus gobs of toys and stuff, so he's already looking for the next one to loosen up and fall out. He may have located it already.

As a parent, I feel things much more than he does at his age. One of the things I feel that he seems to have become impervious to is cliques. Even at his young age, in prekindergarten, no less, cliques form. I suppose that is natural. Jordan knows no boundaries, though, and since he has no siblings, he has no experience with the need to ostracize others from his activities. On the contrary, he longs for others to join him in whatever he does. When I hear one of his classmates tell him he's not welcome in an activity, my heart breaks. Jordan, however, either ignores the admonishment and continues to play or he goes off and does his own thing.

He is independent, able to occupy himself alone, probably better than he can with others. The ability to join in with the others is one of his shortcomings in school, not because there is anything wrong with him, but because he hasn't been taught how. That falls back on me and my inability to schedule playdates with the other moms or dads. I should have tried harder, been brave, like my son is brave, fearless, ready to try anything no matter how embarrassing it might be.

And now that I am ready to emulate his fearlessness, it appears that we're moving. I was just starting to learn the streets, too.

But there's a little snow left

2007-02-07T14:39:00.000-05:00

Getting Jordan ready for school today, I told him to put on some shoes. He came out with his snow boots, not the heaviest that he has, but still heavy. I told him he could wear something less heavy, but he answered, "There's still some snow left on the playground, and if I don't have boots on, the teacher won't let me get in it."

It's nearly 60 degrees the last couple of days, so most of the snow is gone, but where it's been stacked deep--talking four to six feet--the drifts remain. And as long as they do, Jordan will be searching them out to play in.

It's a safety issue

2007-01-22T17:58:00.000-05:00

Last week was a short week for Jordan. Holiday on Monday, Mom home on Friday, and Dad not feeling up to par, so we didn't do much. That has followed through to today when instead of going to school and karate, we stayed home and played video games and didn't take a bath till almost evening.

We have good reasons. Mom's not home since Saturday, having left for Ohio for work. Coming back tomorrow. So we have till then to clean up.

Also, it snowed another half a foot on top of the 18 inches still on the ground. Best to stay off the road in such cases, right? Right. It's a safety issue.

There will always be time to stress out on getting ready to get someplace, do something, blah blah blah. Days when we can lay back and enjoy beating each other a game or 50 of video bike racing, those days are fleeting.

Giraffic Park

2007-01-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on New Year's Day. It was a little cold, but enjoyable, nonetheless. One of Jordan's favorite parts is feeding the giraffes. He trusts these giant animals because they are calm, friendly, and quiet. Obviously, one could knock him for a loop if it decided to use its huge head as a club, but Jordan trusts that it won't, as apparently do the zookeepers and parents of little children who allow them to feed crackers to the small herd.

What would happen if one did lash out at someone, especially a child? You wouldn't see that giraffe around for long, that's for sure. The whole feed-the-giraffe scenario would be rethought and probably ended. Baby giraffes would resent their parents for causing them to have to grow up not knowing the joy of receiving treats from human children.

But maybe zookeepers could make it possible to force the giraffes into behaving certain ways under certain circumstances. Such as, by putting an authority figure in place, and when that figure loomed over the giraffes, they would be afraid to do anything but be nice, like big Stepford-wife giraffes.

Of course, that wouldn't be normal, would it? And if the authority figure ever left, the giraffes would return to being their normal giraffe selves, which is better anyway, because as we all know, giraffes aren't deceitful creatures. They just like to use their 24-inch tongue to lick crackers out of kids' hands.

But hey, what if a kid got knocked around by a giraffe and then decided to grab hold of the giraffe's head? I can picture Jordan doing that, yelling, "Look at me" over and over again until everyone within hearing distance had heard him, and then he'd yell it a dozen more times just to be sure everyone was paying attention. He's like that. Doesn't take no for an answer. Not even from a giraffe. Especially from a giraffe.

Wherez the hugz?

2006-12-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

December is one big holiday season for Jordan. Not only did it snow for his birthday, but less than a week before Christmas, we had the second big storm of the season, dumping three feet or more of snow at the house.

The best gift of all from Jordan's point of view might be the visit of his cousin Jenna and Aunt Vickie and Uncle Jerry from Ohio. That's Jenna and Jordan getting ready for some heavy-duty inner tube riding and sledding yesterday. With well over a foot of snow packed down, temperatures in the 40s, and bright sun, it was a perfect day for it.

Watching the two of them talk and laugh, play and argue, I was struck with how marvelous it is to have them at this age. They're getting to the point where they can straighten out many of their own problems, but they're still dependent on moms and dads for hugs and consolation, not to mention reminding when to quiet down and take another bite of potatoes. In five years--twice their age now--such times will become much less. And in three times their ages now--only ten years--it's possible that they'll disdain any contact with parental units.

Of course, the parents of these two lively humans will be doing everything possible to make sure that such won't be the case. It's a delicate dance, trying to make sure you give the child the ability and confidence to make decisions, while at the same time letting it be known that you're there in case of emergency, or even for nothing. Maybe just a hug.

Nunchaka Belly is 5

2006-12-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

My little Nunchaka Belly turned five today. Much more a tweener than a toddler, he had his first birthday party yesterday with other children involved. It snowed like crazy for most of the morning, but a nice, gentle affair, with three or four inches accumulating. Still, driving was at best an adventure. Coupled with the busyness of the season, most of his classmates couldn't make it, but one did, along with two soccer mates, including the coach's family of three girls and boy. That alone would have made a decent-sized party.

If you've ever been in the position of trying to plan your child's first real birthday party, you know what I mean by being anxious that it will go off all right. Especially after having seen a couple of other kids' successful parties, Jordan was rearing for his to be good, too. And he had no doubts that it would be. I was another matter.

As he and I shoveled the driveway so those who could come wouldn't drive off into the yard--not that that would have matter a great deal--I hoped against hope that the snow would stop and a few folks would come. I should have had my son's confidence.

Next, what do you do with kids at a birthday party? If you have it planned as a function, someone moves everybody around from point to point. If you have kids over to your home, you plan things to do, like Twister, Hot Potato, etc. Or, you put the kids in charge and let them do what they want.

It's good to have a plan, of course, but plans are for grown-ups. Kids need only an open space, some string, and a few sticks. Okay, Jordan has more than that to play with, but it was amusing to watch each child find something new to him or her and take off with it.

Jordan was a pretty good gentleman about the whole thing, helping out where needed, at least until it turned out he was the only one without a radio-controlled vehicle to play with. Then he did ask for a turn with a toy.

He opened his presents before we were ready, and it was all we could do to keep him out of the cake. Probably should have let him have at the cake, come to think of it. What would it have hurt?

Only when he farted and pulled off his pants to check his underwear in the middle of the crowd, only to find he didn't have any underwear on did I get a little embarrassed. But that's Jordan. My free spirit of a son, in whom I am exceedingly proud.

Watch this!

2006-11-13T20:06:00.000-05:00

Life as a SAHWAHD can certainly get crowded when everything and everybody want all your attention. Nobody said it would be easy, though.

In true humanlike manner, Jordan is becoming more and more his own person, and one who doesn't follow every rule, except when he has to.

Case in point: I made mention to a karate mother a couple of weeks ago how Jordan was beginning to settle down a tad in his boisterousness, but not so much that it was alarming. Just taking more care with his actions in groups, where actions might matter.

The words were barely out of my mouth before Jordan talked the woman's son into having a contest to see which one could spit out his mouthpiece the farthest. We just watched in silent, unbelieving horror.

And that reminded me of throwing Frisbees in the 70s. My friends and I were pretty good at it, but almost every time we tried to brag beforehand about some great move we were going to perform, it didn't happen. So the best advice for predicting the path of a Frisbee or the actions of a four-year-old boy is to say simply, "Watch this."

Nunchaka Belly

2006-10-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Jordan's about to become a junior yellow belt in his Kempo Karate class, which means a lot more responsibility. Well, one can only hope. He's learning quickly these past few weeks, with the combination of school, soccer, and karate each teaching him the necessity for being attentive. He's picking up faster on the necessity than on the attentive part. But he's trying.

As I've said before, Jordan has no fears of doing anything, especially when he sees someone else doing it, and most especially when he has a spare ten seconds with nothing to do. Last week in karate, he was saying the instructor's instruction before the instructor, and in his usual manner, he wouldn't stop. So, the instructor brought him up front and told him to lead the class. Jordan's eyes lit up, his smile doubled in width, and he began leading the exercise. He's not quite five years old, so this amazes me.

Jordan also has a habit of trying to be funny, but he's funniest when he's not trying to be. Case in point, a nunchaka exercise last Friday involved swinging the weapons between the legs, during which they'd say "leg." Then they learned to swing to the side, I think (I'll have ask Jordan to know for sure.) and say "side." The next one was called "arm," then they learned to jiggle one end of the nunchaka to each side. The instructor asked what that move was called. I guess he'd taught them before, so he was hoping someone would remember. When no one spoke up, Jordan came up with his idea for a name, in a loud and clear voice: "Nunchaka Belly!

Do nothing and be rewarded?

2006-10-02T16:28:00.000-04:00

Or, why is the world getting fatter?

My thought is this: Children have it right. Move. Fidget. Wriggle. Anything but sit still.

PHOTO: Children need activity, and Jordan, in the center kicking the ball, can rarely get enough. Soccer is one of activity where movement is rewarded...most of the time.

But what is rewarded in the world beginning with prekindergatern and continuing through high school? Sitting still. Doing nothing.

Point: Birthday party. Group of kids. My son, the fidgeter. Moving ever closer to the action. No sitting for him. Get in line and walk slowly somewhere? Bah. Run beside the line and slip in when the leader turns around.

Time for leader to choose who goes next. The taken: those who sit meekly and do nothing. "You're being so good."

This is a bad message in my opinion. Not that the children who sit still are bad, but that they should be called "good." At best, they are being "mindful." But if everybody sat and did nothing, where would we be?

My son is so far on the extreme of being active, I don't think there's any chance of him deciding it's better to be a bump on a log just so somebody can call him good. But there are those who might be swayed in that direction, just as easily, perhaps, as they could be swayed in the direction of action.

Read the headlines about our kids falling in the intelligence tests and our waist lines increasing, and make your own decision.

Bully? My son?

2006-09-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

Sending Jordan off to school was hard for me. Since he had no siblings and no playdates in his experience, I worried that he would be at a disadvantage. So, we put him in karate classes to learn confidence and a bit of socialization. Still that wasn't school.

And so it was with horror that I heard about Jordan pushing kids and being in effect the thing I had tried to keep him from becoming: a bully. Long discussions ensued, hours of research online about why kids bully, and finally, along with some punishment consisting of video games being taken away for a week, we had some understanding of what bullying was and why it wasn't the thing to do.

Then I went on a school trip to the zoo, and my eyes were opened.

Jordan wasn't bullying. He was mimicking others, giving back what was done to him. Unfortunately for the others, Jordan is bigger, more competitive, and stronger. But Jordan, having no sibling rivalry to fall back on in his experience, he didn't know how to hide what he did or--dare I say it?--lie about what happened.

Now Jordan is aware of his advantage in size to the other kids and he's much more careful. He has to put up with some annoyances, and I'm more proud than ever that he is doing it. He's only four, for crying out loud.

Preschool is therefore not much more than a social experiment. His mom and I teach him way more than he learns there, but we don't have a dozen kids to interact with on a regular basis, and that's good for the boy, I suppose. At least he seems to have a ball there, not to mention at karate and soccer, especially soccer. I mean, what better sport for a kid than running, chasing down a ball, and kicking it?

But bullying. Nope. He's a caring little individual, learning where he fits in. And he's figuring out that some people just don't always make sense.

Attennn--SHUN!

2006-09-30T11:12:00.000-04:00

Jordan's mom and I are not shy by nature, but we're not exactly the lives of the party, either. We rarely go to parties, in fact. That's why we were a bit concerned that Jordan would be shy when he was away from us. Fear abated.

Jordan takes any and all attention and will do just about anything to get it, from eating dirt to falling on the floor as if in a faint. His fearless ambition is as much a part of him as my easy-going complacency is to me. I'm sure Jordan could be "taught" complacency; he learns quickly. But it's more fun championing his fearlessness and seeing where it takes him.