The Lie
02 Jun 2012 4 Comments
Up until recently, my children’s lies were pretty amateur.
“I didn’t eat it!” says a face covered in chocolate.
“I don’t need to poo!” Smell says otherwise, bub.
“I didn’t hear you!” right after I’ve had them repeat my instructions.
In general the children are dumbfounded by my psychic abilities in this regard.
But Me First blindsided me with a whopper the other day. It wasn’t just the lie; it was that he played on my sympathies and manipulated a situation to suit his own desires.
I guess you could say it was the grown-upness of the lie that upset me.
On Tuesday evenings, Me First is supposed to go to karate. Except he never wants to go.
This battle has been ongoing ever since he started karate a couple of years ago. Can’t say I blame him for not wanting to go, it doesn’t really look like much fun.
The Tuesday afternoon showdown begins as soon as he walks in the door.
“I don’t wanna go to karate,” he says, followed quickly by, “Are we gonna go out to eat?” Every once in a while we do. But somehow taking them out for dinner every time they go out for a bit of exercise seems to defeat the point.
Last week was no different.
“No, we aren’t going out to eat.”
“No, I won’t buy you a toy or otherwise bribe you to do something you ought to do anyway.”
It looked a bit like it might rain. The sky was a heavy, ominous gray. Me Too was already tired, so I guess you could say my determination was wavering. I wasn’t properly suited for battle.
Me First threw himself on the couch, declined to have a snack (!), and told me he was exhausted from having two class periods of PE that day. They do that sometimes, but it wasn’t on Tuesday’s schedule.
I told him that and he said one of the teachers was absent so the schedule had been changed. (This also happens pretty often.)
I didn’t have my guard up, and had no reason not to believe him, so I let him stay home.
That evening, though, when we got in the bath and I went to wash his hair, he resisted.
“I didn’t play outside today, and I didn’t have PE so my hair isn’t dirty,” he said.
Excuse me???
So I was a chump. Fanfreakingtastic.
I’ve come to the conclusion that if continuing karate is gonna make him a liar, then it isn’t worth it.
So there goes that.
He got loads of exercise when he was in preschool, but now at elementary he’s sitting all day long. They only have PE once or twice a week. Most days, by the time he’s finished his homework he’s too tired to go out and play, but I guess I’ll have to find a way to encourage him.
He’s always been so active that I’ ve never had to worry about him getting enough exercise.
Or telling convincing lies, for that matter.
(;_;)
The Scourge of the Girly Men
31 May 2012 2 Comments
Ride on any train here in the metro area, and you’re sure to notice it: the scourge of the girly men. Forget the ninjas and Last Samurai manly types of yore, these days being lanky, plucked of brow and fluffed of hair are the “men” the girls like. It’s a little hard for a woman like me to understand. I need a man who can kill a cockroach, after all. If he can drive and/or bench press a tractor, then all the better.
The femi-men are referred to here as “herbivores.” In contrast, an aggressive female is a carnivore. I’m sure there’s lots of giggling going on these days in high school biology classes.
Any drug store or supermarket worth it’s smelling salts carry a section of “men’s cosme,” cosmetics for men. These range from the expected aftershaves and other masculine mystique products that smell a lot like deer pee (in a good way) to pore strips and hair removers for men.
What’s the world coming to, eh? A Japanese friend didn’t believe me when I told her that Tom Seleck was my idea of a top notch manly specimen. She seems to like “moyashiko,” bean sprout boys.
Good for her. More for me!
Twenty Minutes in Hell
29 May 2012 5 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: children, education, family, homework, Japan, parenting
Me First’s teacher and I have reached an agreement that if the daily homework takes more than twenty minutes, it’s okay if he can’t finish. But she asked me to guarantee that he was actually concentrating and working for those twenty minutes.
So it’s a team effort, I guess you could say. Or more like a debacle.
I sit beside him at the table with the kitchen timer, stopping it every time he loses concentration, which is about every fifteen seconds. Right now the timer is on nine minutes, but in actuality we have been working for thirty. He’s tried crying, whining, saying he’s hungry, destroying his eraser, breaking his pencil, and throwing eraser bits all over the kitchen. Not to mention the general shitty attitude.
All over twenty problems of double digit subtraction.
The way they are teaching the kids how to borrow seems weird. They cross out the number in the tens place and subtract one, then carry over a ten on top of the row of numbers in the ones place. They subtract the lower number from ten, then add the remaining number. It’s lots of extra writing and an extra step. Maybe in theory subtracting only from ten is faster, but in practice they seem to be losing any time gained by writing the extra number.
(~_~;)
This is what it looks like. If you see this then run as fast as you can as far as you can.
Domesticity, Butt Tests, and The Sand Incident
28 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: children, cooking, daily, education, food, Japan, parenting
Domestic diva? Who, moi? Don’t be silly, of course not, but Mondays of late have been all about getting the house work under control and trying to start the week off on the right foot. Or at least not on my knees.
Today I washed the sheets, made a batch or bread dough in the bread maker then turned that into pigs-in-blankets, rolls, and rolls with chocolate inside. Yep, it got a little crazy. Anyway, I made the dough with 2/3 whole wheat flour, 1/3 white flour and let it rise twice as long as the recipe called for. The rolls turned out fluffy in spite of the whole wheat. I also used a whole egg instead of half, which made them moist as well. If they weren’t brown you’d never know they were good for you! Until you got to the chocolate, that is.
I also managed to not forget the kids needed the butt test this morning. Score one for me. Every year, the children of this archipelago have to be tested for parasites before they can use the pool. (Every school and kindy that I know of has a pool. How cool is that?) Basically the butt test involves dabbing their, um, bottom holes with a sticky piece of plastic as soon as they wake up in the morning. And then doing it again the next day. Then making sure you have the right plastic on the right bum, get it in the right envelope, and to the right school. It’s kind of like an IQ test. Since I managed not to forget it I guess that puts me right up there with the other vertebrates for once.
Anyway,
So while I was doing all this homemaking my children were out there in the big, bad world.
I went to pick Me Too up. The kids sit on the stoop while the teacher tells us what they did that day. I didn’t really listen much, though, because a little boy was busy stealing Me Too’s hat. Then throwing it at her.
(~_~;)
He did this a couple of times. I was a little too far away to step in, but was weedling my way towards them when he stands up and throws two big handfuls of sand right into her face.
She wasn’t doing anything. After he threw it at her she STILL didn’t do anything. It was “sit down time” and she didn’t want to break the rules.
Another mother standing there totally freaked out. She told the boy off, and went to get the teacher. At which point the boy throws sand at the little girl beside Me Too, getting it all in her mouth.
Thrower boy’s mom comes over, finally. She has twins. They are in two different classes, and she always picks up the other twin first. So I guess you could say I wasn’t very surprised to see him act out.
Everyone was fussing over the girl who had sand in her mouth, and Me Too and I were trying to quietly sneak away. She hates being the center of attention, and I was afraid that making a big deal of this would just make her even less likely than she already is to involve a grown-up when she needs help.
But Freak Out Mom caught up with us, brought over Twin Boys Mom and the teacher, and tried to make right with the world. I talked to her for a few minutes afterward. Apparently that boy’s behavior had been bothering her for a while and she just couldn’t bear the thought of him getting away with treating a quiet little girl like that.
I have a boy at home, too, and haven’t managed to completely block out what life was like with the four-year-old human equivalent of a monster truck. And I’m not sure that involving parents in these types of situations helps the situation much. The woman obviously has her hands full, and now she probably thinks I’m a bizatch.
I did have a word with the teacher, though. Me Too won’t complain and she is afraid to tell on the other kids. I asked the teacher to please keep an eye out and help her find her voice when she needs to.
I doubt the teacher will be able to do that, though. There are just too many kids in the class. Me Too will have to toughen up. Brother told her he would go punch the other little boy, and between the two of them that seems to be the plan.
Ggrreeaatt.
Ready for Failure
24 May 2012 3 Comments
Last week I was feeling lost in a sea of me-time and housework. I sorted through the kids clothes, washed windows, made cupcakes, mended clothing, cleaned out the back room, did all of those things I’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t been able to because the kids were underfoot.
And guess what? I felt like shit. I had no one to talk to but the children, whose conversation tends to flow from “He got more than me!” HRH has been grumpy and best avoided lately. (He forgot his house key yesterday and I stayed up past midnight waiting for him to come home so I could let him in, and he literally snarled at me. Said I must have let the kids touch his keys. Oookay, so keys getting misplaced has nothing to do with coming home plastered, must remember that.)
Come Monday morning, all of that hard work just needs to be done again.
Um, screw that.
So I don’t think I’m cut out to be a perfect homemaker. I need another outlet, hopefully something that involves monetary remuneration.
But I don’t think that’s likely, considering how preschool works. 9-2 except on Wednesdays, oh plus any other random day the school decides to let kids out early. And don’t forget the myriad events they expect mothers to attend, more often than not with little notice.
Anyone know any non-soul crushing work that can be done from home a couple hours a day? I’d like to try my hand at some translation, considering I often end up doing that for HRH’s work. Not sure that makes qualified, though.
And I know at some point I have to write this book that is itching to get out, before it eats me alive. The commitment is scary, almost as much as the rejection, criticism, and probable eventual imminent failure.
I’m certainly positive about it, aren’t I? Nothing like the power of a positive attitude.
(^_^)v
I’ve written several children’s books (see: commitment, criticism, eventual failure.) Even though they weren’t published, the kids enjoyed them so it wasn’t a total and utter waste of time. Unless you’re a butthead like Shakespeare.
But grown up books are different, aren’t they?
Can anyone spare a cup of encouragement?
Bard or Butthead?
24 May 2012 5 Comments
I learned a disturbing fact about William Shakespeare when I was googling “Shakespeare conspiracy theories” the other night. (This is totally normal behavior, by the way.)
Turns out the three children of the father of English literature were
(pause for effect)
illiterate.
Is anyone else completely mortified by this? I mean, Shakespeare was for the most part a self made man; he only went to grammar school. All the rest of that pomp and circumstance? All him, all ambition and a thirst for knowledge.
But for whatever reason he couldn’t be bothered to teach his own children to read. Maybe because they were girls?
Sure he was busy changing the written word forever, but if you can’t share that with your children what’s the point?
I know that in Shakespeare’s time schools were hard to come by. Teaching at home is hard, believe me I know. Thankfully we were able to organize an English school for an hour once a week. It is a million times better than nothing, but we have to put the work in at home every single day. Surely if little old me can do that, then a pillar of learning like Shakespeare could have done the same?
Was he just a butthead who didn’t care? Or was he really a fraud?
I’m kind of hoping for the fraud theory, because the Butthead Theory seems to awful to be true.
Let’s Play Paleontologist!
22 May 2012 1 Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: children, Japan, parenting, science
Me First can be a huge pain in the ass, and I guess a lot of my writing focuses on those times. But I gotta say I love his imagination.
He’s become (re)obsessed with dinosaurs of late. Recently there is a specific game he wants to play when it’s time to brush his teeth.
He’s the Supersauras fossil and I am the paleontologist uncovering him. He lays down on the floor, and I get his toothbrush and say things like
“Now I will remove one hundred million years of sediment from the powerful reptile’s teeth. He appears to have been a meat eater. I can tell by the sheer size of his massive incisors.”
At the end Me First jumps up, stretches out as if he will attack me, then lets out a tiny, high pitched squeal.
“There’s a lot we don’t know about dinosaurs. Sometimes they surprise us,” he explains.
Indeed.
