'Cause I'm Sick SOLSC Day 13

"Can I have some water, Momma?" my five-year-old croaked from his bed.  He had just woken up and I assumed the water request was really just a plea for my attention.  About fifteen minutes later, I heard vomiting in the boys' bathroom.  When I hurried in there, the little guy said, "Told you my belly hurt, Momma." 

"No, sweetie, you asked for water."
 
"Oh yeah, I forgot to say I wanted water 'cause my belly hurt and I was sick."

And so began the day.  I have to give it to Lucas, though.  He isn't a whiner.  He simply tries to make sense of it all.

Can I have cereal, Momma?
No, no milk when you are sick.
Oh, when I am sick, I can't have drinks?
You can drink, but let's stick to water.
Oh, can I have dry cereal then?
Sure.

Five minutes later:

Can I have cereal, Momma?
More cereal?  Maybe you should wait.
Oh, I have to only eat one time when I am sick.
No, but let's give that time to settle.

Thirty minutes later:

Can I have a popsicle, Momma? And cereal?
Just the popsicle, dear.
Oh when I am sick I can only eat one food at a time?

Followed by more questions all day long:

When I am sick, I have to eat slow, Momma?
When I am sick, I can't have jelly, Momma?
When I am sick, I have to only hug, but not kiss, Momma?
Can I dance when I am sick, Momma?
When I am sick, I can't eat all of the popsicles, Momma?
Can I have some more cereal, then, Momma, 'cause I'm sick?

Maybe by the time he is better, he will have this sick thing all figured out. I'm pretty sure that I won't, though.

Listening to My Talker (SOLSC--Day1)

My five year old is a talker.  I mean, he talks from the moment he lifts his little head from his Stitch PillowPet in the morning until the last moments of our evening when his eyes are closing and I have tucked him back into bed. He talks stories and questions and what ifs and do you remember whens. Sometimes he talks in pretend languages and sometimes he repeats conversations he has already had. He talks to strangers in grocery stores and characters in cartoons.  He talks when no one is listening, he talks while he bathes, he talks through any song or television show or movie someone else wants to hear.  Lucas is a talker.

So, when I took him to school with me today, I thought chatting with all of the students would be heaven for him.  A five year old on a high school campus garners attention and I thought he would soak it up.

Instead, every time someone said hi to him , he would look at the ground or hide behind my leg.  I kept telling him not to be shy and to be friendly, but he still refused.  He has a stubborn streak, so I thought it might be his way of trying to get his own way.  Finally, as we left campus, I asked him again, "Why are you pretending to be so shy?"

"Mom, I'm not pretending to be shy. I've just had enough of all the 'Hi, hi, hi.' It makes me tired."

I guess just because a little guy has a lot to say, doesn't mean he is an extrovert.  Lucas isn't shy, but he sure does know how he feels.  And he isn't afraid to share it.  And sometimes that makes me fear the years ahead, but today, it just made me smile.

Sick Kids Say the Darndest Things

Over the last few days, two of my sweet boys (and my husband) have been bitten by a stomach bug of some sort which has induced all kinds of yuckiness.  And while sickness is never fun, as I do in most situations, I try to find the something good to hold onto so I do not get sucked into the pity pit.

Hearing my guys speak their hearts is one of those bright spots that shines through sickness.  My middle son gets very unnerved by being sick.  He shakes and cries and says things like, "Why does God let this happen to us, Mommy?" That might not seem like something that would make me smile, but it does.  For me, it means that my boy is a thinker and a questioner; his spiritual journey has already begun.  It is such an honest and sincere question and when he asks me, I have to  tell him that I do not know.  I have ideas, I have heard theories, but I cannot say that I truly, completely know.  I like those moments of truth that we share, two human beings trying to make some sense out of a senseless world.

And then there is my littlest guy, my four year old.  I call him my sunshine and, ironically, it certainly comes through when he is sick.  Today, he looked at me and said, "Mommy, you are the very best at knowing just what I want."  For someone who has been trying to tend to a homeful of ill loved ones for five days, I am not sure there could be a better compliment.
 
Except for maybe his next one: "Mommy, you are the most beautiful mommy a sunshine ever had!"

Puddle Jumping

After a week of being quickly herded from the safety of one dry building to another due to the rain, the boys were ready to stretch their legs and use their outside voices on Saturday morning.  We trekked across the street to the school playground with our gear -- a football, a baseball, a mitt, a skateboard and scooter.  But the truth is, we didn't need to bring a thing.  Scattered across the blacktop were perfect puddles begging the boys to indulge.

All week they had been told, and rightly so, "Stay out of the puddles!"  Chad has to make three trips a day to the school for drop-offs and pick-ups and trying to do that in the persistent rain with an almost-three-year-old in tow is not a challenge that needs escalation.  I echoed his position when I first saw Lucas headed for the puddles.  As parents we are often told of the great dangers in mixed messages.  If Dad says no, Mom must say no, too, to avoid decreasing Daddy's authority.  If a TV show is inappropriate to watch on Monday, it is inappropriate on Tuesday; otherwise, the expectations for our children are unclear.  If we say do not lie, then we cannot lie in front of our children and still expect them to adhere to our rules.   But this time, I broke the rules.  And really, I don't feel too badly about it.

In my classroom, I notice that one of the struggles students often have is knowing when they can break the rules.  I don't mean the "No gum in class" kind of rules; I mean the "Sentences do not begin with because" kind of rules.  I find that my students have been told so many times by so many people what they need to write, read, solve and produce, that eventually they became almost incapable of functioning without a mandate to do so. Writing assignments are the worst for producing this sort of anxiety in them.  How long should it be?  Can we use the word I?  Where does the thesis need to go?  How many examples should I give?  They often believe life would be so much easier if I provided a neat checklist that they could mark off as they went:  Thesis? Check!  500 words? Check? Eleven sentences in each paragraph? Check!

But real writing, and real life, does not always work that way.  One of the signs of a mature writer is knowing when certain practices are appropriate and when they are not.  Profanity may be acceptable, and even demanded, when crafting a short story featuring seedy characters.  It, most likely, is not as acceptable when writing a proposal for your employer.  One of the qualities of a mature human being is the ability to consider the possible impact of a particular action and then to determine whether or not the action is appropriate, necessary or permissible.

I want my students to go into the world, not hemmed in by rules and regulations, but confident in their own sense of discernment and determined values.  I want them to write with the same confidence, knowledgeable enough about writing conventions, audience, purpose and voice to be able to choose when to follow the "rules" and when to create their own.

I want the same for my sons.  Puddle jumping is not an absolutely negative activity.  In fact, it is one of those childhood pleasures most adults wish they had partaken in more often.  No, on the way to pick up your brother is not a good time to soak your feet and splash everything within three feet of you, including your daddy.  But a sunny, after-the-storm Saturday filled with nothing but time to waste -- perfect!