Today, you are seven years old. Where does the time go?
Life with you continues to be mostly fun, with a few
frustrations. Recently, you learned the song “Little Rabbit Frou Frou” at
school. You sang it for me that afternoon in the car, and took great pleasure
in the punchline: “Hare today, goon tomorrow!” I sang a silly little
ba-dum-da-dum melody to add a flourish to your performance, and with perfect
timing and intonation came the rimshot “tsssshhhh” from the backseat. It was
hilarious! I burst out laughing, which made you laugh, and then you wanted to
do it all over again. You are so fun!
Another day, you were discussing ponies, unicorns, and pegasi
with your dad. “According to my research,” you told him, “Pegasus can fly, but
unicorns have to stay on the ground.” We are very proud of you for doing such diligent
research, and citing it appropriately.
All kids have charming little mispronunciations that they
slowly grow out of, to their parents’ chagrin. You, at seven, still have a few
that I’m reluctant to correct you on. Breakfast is still “breffikt”, and roast
beef – which one of the piggies has, while another goes to market – is “marf
beef”. But we recently discovered a new one, much to our delight – the object a
detective uses to search out clues, or a scientist uses to see things more
closely, is called a “magna-find glass”. Now doesn’t that make perfect sense?
We’ve been very busy packing and painting and cleaning and
organizing and putting a great many things from our house into our new storage
locker. The first time you heard me talking about the storage locker, you were
very curious and wanted to come with me to see what it was like, so I brought
you along. You were excited and animated and enthusiastic about helping me, and
when we got there you were quick to tell me that it was a little different from
what you expected: you thought it would be like “the ones at the swimming pool”,
silver with a yellow key. Our locker is not only a different colour, but, you
know, substantially bigger. You remain fascinated by the locker and are always
happy to help us with our trips there.
One day over breakfast, you raised your middle finger and
asked me what it meant. Hmmm. Where did you see that gesture, I wonder? I told
you that it meant a lot of rude, mean things, like “Go away” or “I hate you” or
“You’re stupid”. Then we talked about how people would feel if they were shown
that middle finger – for example, how would your teacher respond if you showed
it to her? “But what if I didn’t know?” you asked. “But now you DO know,” I
told you. So, you know, don’t do it!
We had a run of very frustrating and upsetting school days
recently, after the Easter break. You returned to school on Tuesday, and
mid-afternoon I got an email from your teacher letting me know that “Gwen had
multiple moments of frustration throughout the day. I will outline two
examples: I had to remind Gwen to use her words instead of grabbing things from
people. [A classmate] wanted to put the pencil crayons/pencils away but Gwen
didn’t like how she was doing it so she grabbed them from [her] hands and an
argument blew up. The other example was during planners. I had to take down the
planner message off the board because it was close to the bell time so Gwen
threw her pencil and hid in a corner. I had to finish the message for her.
I reminded her to talk less and work more. I hope you will have the time
today to remind Gwen of class expectations and also to use her words to
explain herself. “ We chalked most of this behaviour up to “holiday hangover”,
the return to school after four days off, but we did talk to you about using
your words and keeping your hands to yourself.
Then on Wednesday, when you unpacked your backpack at home,
you handed Dad and I some flowers you had picked for us. They were not
wildflowers or weeds, but planted flowers. When I started to question where you
had gotten them, you told us that it had been “Free Garden Day” at school that
day. Further questioning revealed that “a kid in a bigger class” had told you
about this supposed Free Garden Day, that it was for the whole school (but only
a few kids had participated, and no teachers or adults), and that it was the
first time ever for this event. Um. It was obvious to me that you had just
stolen these flowers from someone’s garden, after being manipulated by another
kid. We had a big talk about thinking carefully before doing things that other
people tell you to do, asking questions like “Why isn’t the whole school here,
if it’s for everybody?” or “Why aren’t there any teachers here?”
On Thursday, I got a text from your teacher that you had “flashed
the class and said, ‘Look at my boobies!’” I was completely thrown. I KNOW that
you know about privacy and private parts, and also, WE DON’T CALL THEM BOOBIES.
I’ve never heard you use that word in your life! I immediately wondered if you
had, again, been talked into this by another kid, especially in light of the
unusual word usage. When we talked about it that night, this was confirmed: a
boy in the class who according to you “hates girls” was hitting, scratching,
kicking, and pestering you to lift your shirt. “Higher,” he’d say when you
lifted it a bit, “higher,” again and again. So we talked again about not letting people talk you into things you know are
wrong, and then we talked about how to protect yourself: get away physically,
and use your words, in a LOUD voice.
I told you that if you had yelled, “No, get away, stop touching me!”, then the
teacher would have looked over to see why you were yelling, and seen the boy
bothering you. Then he would have been in trouble instead of you! I emailed the
teacher to fill her in, and hoped and prayed that Friday would pass without
incident. Somehow, miraculously, it did.
“Mom, can we have a block party?” You asked one morning. I
imagined the block parties I’ve heard about (but never attended), where a bunch
of neighbours get together for a communal barbecue and social event. But my
first instinct is always to ask you what you mean, because sometimes you have a
totally different thing in mind, and that was the case here. It turned out you
wanted to invite a whole bunch of friends over, and everyone would bring their
blocks, and you would all work together to build the biggest tower ever. This
sounds super fun, except I can’t figure out how to make sure that everyone gets
their own blocks back at the end. Once we find a solution for that, I will
totally throw you a block party!
We are, it seems, constantly in a hurry, rushing to school
and work and activities and bed without a lot of time to relax and enjoy each
other. You are often in your own little world throughout all this rushing,
which leads to a lot of frustration on our part, but sometimes makes us laugh
as well. Last week when Dad was trying to coax you out of the car so you could
go to before-school club, while you just gazed blankly at the handle above the
window, you told him in an awed voice, “Dad, I never noticed these handles are
so vibrational!” No idea what you meant by that, because I’ve never noticed
that either.
Love you a million, billion, kajillion, and SEVEN!
Love,
Mama
No comments:
Post a Comment