Kid and Caboodle

Chris has been doing more than his fair share of parenting the last few days. On Saturday, I had to work all day to get out a lot of information about the situation in Haiti, including articles, texts, a podcast transcript and a photo gallery. I started my work day about 9:15 a.m., after making breakfast for everyone and getting cleaned up, and didn’t finish until about 10:30 p.m. Poor Chris not only had to take A.J. to his taekwondo and Chinese classes, but he also had to spend a few hours in the library trying to find information about a relatively obscure spider for a project A.J. has due next week. (He didn’t find anything useful in the library; we’re looking for good Internet resources now.) Chris didn’t get any break at all on Saturday; he also had to prepare dinner, a task I normally perform, and get A.J. to bed without any help. I really hope I don’t have to work again next weekend!

Tonight Chris also helped out a lot. He got home as A.J. and I were starting to get frustrated with each other over some homework that is fairly simple but that has to be turned in tomorrow. A.J. kept saying he didn’t know the answers and wanted me to tell him what to do. I refused. Chris took over the situation, delaying his own dinner, to work with A.J. After dinner, he again stepped in, helping A.J. bathe himself instead of having me handle that part of the evening ritual.

I’m really lucky to have Chris. I wonder how single parents manage?

Just checked the Fairfax County Public Schools emergency announcement page and learned that school has been cancelled due to snow THROUGH WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23. This, combined with the winter break scheduled to start December 24, means that A.J. is not scheduled to go back to school again until JANUARY 4. Good grief!

It’s a good thing I was already scheduled to be off all this week and that Chris was already scheduled to be off all next week, else we’d be scrambling for child care!

As a bonus, though, the federal government (in the D.C. area) is also closed tomorrow, so Chris doesn’t have to figure out how to get to work. Believe it or not, the federal government rarely gives its workers free leave because it costs so much money. This has been one heck of a snowstorm!

1 p.m. December 20: Driveway and walk are clear, but still no sign of a snowplow.

This morning my son decided to surprise my husband with a present.  He got up early, went downstairs to get a can of my husband’s favorite soda, then started cutting up paper to wrap it. Partway through, the scissors slipped and cut him slightly on the leg. According to my husband, our son yelled, but did not cry, and seemed just as upset about having to abandon his project as he was about getting hurt. My husband assured him that the present was our son’s thoughtfulness as much as it was the soda. And for me, our son’s actions were a gift as well.

My husband recently decided to shave off his beard because he thought it contained too much gray. When he explained his decision to our son, A.J. said, “What’s wrong with gray beards?  Gray beards are ok for normal life, and dark beards are ok for TV life.”

Yesterday I scolded A.J., my 6-year-old son, for abruptly shouting out a question while I was driving. He responded that his voice only has two settings — yell and mumble.

Last week my 6-year-old son took a quiz at school on Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the questions he had to answer was this:

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a/an:

A. Canadian
B. Hispanic
C. African American
D. Native American

My son answered “Native American.” His teacher marked the answer as “wrong.” I understand her perspective, but I find myself absurdly pleased my son was unable to identify MLK according to his race.

A.J.’s teacher e-mailed me to reiterate the school’s policy about birthday party invitations and suggested that I look in the PTA handbook for the phone numbers of the classmates A.J. wants to invite to our place next week.  Good idea.  The only problem is that I have no idea how to spell the names of some of A.J.’s friends.  Nevertheless, I looked in all the first-grade class lists at A.J.’s school and made a bunch of calls.  I managed to talk to two parents, and left hopefully comprehensible messages at three other numbers.  It was a little weird, since I don’t know anyone’s names, and vice versa.  I’m just hoping I got hold of the right families….

A.J. will be turning 6 on Tuesday.  He wanted to invite some friends from school to a party at our house to celebrate – one or two from his morning class, his afternoon class and his afterschool care program apiece – so I put together some invitations for him to pass out.  When he tried to hand them out, though, he was told by his morning teacher that unless he was inviting everyone in the class — about 26 kids — he could not invite anyone.  Oh.

I wonder if this policy holds true for all parties, or just birthdays?  I want A.J. to be able to get together with classmates outside of school so he can deepen his friendships.  But how can we arrange get-togethers if the school is so concerned about hurting the feelings of kids who are not invited to a private event?

A.J. got hold of the digital camera this afternoon. I’ve been going through his pictures laughing at some of the things he chose to photograph: his feet, door handles, a light switch, my left wrist, a corner of my laptop, a section of carpet, his father trying to relax…. I’m deleting most of these images, but here are two of A.J.’s first self-portraits:

This afternoon I spent a few hours outside with my son and two of my neighbor’s kids. At one point all three boys were busy drawing chalk pictures in the middle of the cul-de-sac. One of my neighbor’s kids, who is about 8, drew a picture of himself and his parents. “How cute,” I thought at first. Then he wrote at the top, “I miss my dad. I love my mom and dad.”

When I asked him about the note, he said that for the next two weeks his father would be away on a long business trip … again.

My neighbor’s other son, who is around 4, then also drew a picture of their father.

Not to be outdone, my son wrote, “I love Dad.” Then he drew a picture of me and wrote, “You (referring to my husband) love Mom.” Note that he didn’t write, “I love Mom.” Hmm.