It’s been a period of readjusting here at home since TLE’s school was cut down from 5 days a week to 2 days a week. Our eventual hope is to up it back up to 3 days a week but with the holidays coming up, it seems sort of silly to pay for 3 days a week when we won’t really be getting our money’s worth.

It was a pretty drastic change to our routine and neither TLE nor I do very well with routine changes. She cried and whined a lot during the first week, saying she was bored and that she wanted to go to preschool. At one point, she even told me she hated me (!!) which earned her a time out while I quietly lost my shit in another room. The battle of the wills continued until it got so bad that I reviewed my resume and posted it online, convinced that I’m just a failure as a stay at home mom.

Things have gotten better since then, with a bit of an attitude adjustment on both of our parts. Being in school so much sort of made me forget how much interaction TLE really craves. It makes working from home pretty much impossible while she’s around so I’ve taken to working late nights to make up for it.

I’ve found that she doesn’t do well with total “free form” days as she likes routines but hates predetermined schedules. So keeping an open, predictable routine seems to have been best. For us that means lots of “free form” play time where she determines what she wants to do.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not very good at knowing how to play with her which sounds horrible but it’s the truth. It’s taking a lot of conscious effort on my part to let her lead and follow up with information rather than lead her with information, if that makes any sense.

In many ways, I have to let her lead while I support. I’m finding that I’m having to shove aside any prejudices I may have had about unschooling because this is what is really working best for her at this stage in her life and with her personality. In our case, sometimes teaching her means letting go a little.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

I’m sure this will be a highly unpopular opinion but I hate reading Dr. Seuss out loud.

This has nothing to do with the subject matter of the books themselves. I think every Dr. Seuss book have great, solid messagse for children. I just hate reading the damn things out loud.

While I know reading to your kids is Super Important ™ and I do read to TLE daily, I’m the first to admit that I’m not the best person at reading aloud. But reading aloud has always been difficult for me, even when I was in school. I stumble over words, put words where there aren’t any. TLE is pretty observant and easily memorizes her books so she knows when/if I’ve added or forgotten words and will often point it out. (Oddly enough, I’m a decent public speaker but that’s because I refer to bullet points rather than read prepared speeches.)

I can read most children’s books aloud fairly decently but Dr. Seuss is a particular challenge due to the meter, alliteration and nonsense words he uses. The alliteration in particular really trips me up because I just can’t seem to wrap my tongue around the damned words sometimes.

I’ve considered getting a Nook or an iPad so I can get some interactive books for TLE. The expense makes me hesitate as does the idea that I’m not the one reading to TLE. I can soldier on reading Dr. Seuss books since that’s what makes TLE happiest. I just wish my tongue and brain would cooperate while reading them.

Hanging Out

When I went to sign out The Little Empress from school the other, the Director of the school happened to be standing nearby and told me an interesting story about TLE and how she plays.

The girls in her class were “having a dress up party” and TLE had joined in. Rather than dressing up with the other girls, TLE decided that she would be a kitty cat. She crawled around on the ground, mewing and rolling onto her back and playing with her friends as they played dress-up party. When the Director came in, TLE mewed and nuzzled her leg.

TLE’s quite the imaginative little thing! I love the fact that she’s not afraid to be original in a crowd. I can only hope that she will continue to not be afraid to be exactly who she wants to be.

But who needs a zombie escape plan when you have this zombie proof house?

The World's First Zombie Proof House

Perfect to raise your family, entertain your friends and protect them from the inevitable zombie invasion of 2012.

Zombie Proof House -- Fortifications

I mean, just look at those defenses! Secure yet movable concrete walls. Only one, easily defendable entrance on the second floor.

* For the record, yes, we’ve discussed both our earthquake and zombie invasion plan at length with relatively equal seriousness. Sort of. Honestly, they’re just about the same except one involves escaping hordes of brain-eating undead and the other involves escaping hordes of lawless, gun-toting hillbillies or gang members, depending on what part of town we’re in. Both The Hubs and I agree we’d rather take on zombies any day.

Remember how I said we were quasi-homeschoolers for now because we wouldn’t fully homeschool until July, when TLE’s speech therapy school was up? Well, it looks like we’re putting formally homeschooling indefinitely.

Why?

Long story short, we were awarded a scholarship for TLE to attend the preschool I wanted her to attend. After several months of research — and nearly fainting after I saw how much preschool costs around here — I started poking around to see what, if any, programs may help us afford preschool. I found one, applied for it back in December/January and never heard back. I assumed that we either got lost in the shuffle and/or didn’t qualify so I started our homeschool contingency plan.

Fast forward to last week,  I got a call from the program saying that our name had come up. After a week of back and forth between us and the program, here we are with scholarship in hand, ready to start another new school on Monday.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it all. On one hand, I’m effing thrilled. All through the process, The Hubs ™ and I had our doubts and nearly pulled the plug on it several times. But it worked out far better than we could have hoped for. The school she is going to go to was the “dream” school I’d picked out for when, you know, we won the lottery or something. So for this opportunity to come around is really something.

Yet, I feel almost forlorn about it. We had our homeschooling plan in place and I want to believe that once we got into a rhythm, we could make it work. But I have to admit to myself that so far, our homeschooling journey hasn’t worked as well as I’d hoped.

Was she learning? Yes. But I didn’t have confidence in myself as a teacher. I realized that our home environment wasn’t stimulating enough for her. It was a struggle to keep her busy and her mind occupied. I often felt like I was failing her as a teacher by not providing that environment.  I think she could sense my stress about it all.

All in all, not a good way to lay a solid foundation to a lifelong love of learning.

There were times that I considered putting a stop to the entire process and giving us no other option but to homeschool. But in hindsight, I realize that would have been foolhardy and to what end? To prove to myself that I could homeschool at the risk of her education? No. For what? My pride. Bull.

In the end, it is all about what is best for TLE. For now, that means taking the golden opportunity that we have in front of us. At some point, that “best for her” may very well be homeschooling. Or it may not be. In any case, I’ll be more prepared for either outcome.

I still fully intend on supplementing her schooling at home. One thing I love about the school we picked is that the actively encourage parents to follow the curriculum and take an active role in building upon what they learned in school.

We’ll see if homeschooling is still in our future. If anything, I hope that I can learn from this (somewhat) failed month trial of homeschooling and create a more inviting, educational space at home, whether we homeschool or not.

I like to believe that things happen for a reason. I try not to get too religious about things but I think that God really does have a hand in my life because the things that I need (but not necessarily want) tend to come into my life just when I need them.

Odd. It seems that during the course of the day, I’m screaming inside to find a moment or two to myself. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, there’s something to do: taking care of TLE, doing chores, running from here and there, etc. As most moms know, it is just the Mommy’s Life.

Yet moments like the one I’m in right now make me wish to be busy. Because when I’m busy, I don’t get the opportunity to think about the other things in my life that I don’t have time to get to.

Not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for blessing me with TLE. There are times that I think I can’t imagine what life would be like without her. She makes me laugh and cry, yell and giggle, like no other human being in the world ever has or ever will be able to. I love her with every single fiber of my being even as she exhausts me with her wild-child ways.

Yet as joyous as life is with her, I find myself perpetually isolated and desperately lonely. I  continue to try, sometimes desperately, to find a way to ease the loneliness. I’ve always loved stories of any kind because I can lose myself in another world, one where I have someone that I can relate to. And for awhile, the diversion works. But it is not a panacea. Once the story’s done, I’m still onely.  I can take before I realize how lonely I am. here are have been many days that I’ve been so lonely that I have just wanted to break down and cry.

This isolation is equally due to circumstance, location and choice. We don’t have family with small children nearby nor the built-in support system of friends-with-kids for playmates for TLE or a support system for myself.

Lacking such support, one would logically turn to a surrogate system, ie the parenting group. And I have tried several times. Admittedly, I’m not a person who makes friends easily but I did try, with several local groups. While I have met a few nice moms, the majority of mom’s groups and other parenting-oriented hangouts are generally populated by people who I have very little in common with other than having become a parent to a child within the past five years.

At its worst, I feel like a geek trying to fit in with the cheerleaders and popular girls. (In hindsight, the analogy may be more or less accurate.) In high school, it hurt. In college, I didn’t care. But as a parent, I worry about modeling proper social behaviors. I’ve seen kids modeling after their parents who ignored me and in turn, ignored TLE. Luckily, TLE doesn’t seem to notice/care and is perfectly happy to do her own thing but I still worry about giving her opportunities to play with other kids.

I worry so much about being a good role model for TLE. I keep in mind that I’m her model for how to interact with the world and I often feel like I’m failing her.  I “found” my place among otaku and geeks when I was a young adult but before that, I was just awkward and didn’t fit in… no matter how hard I tried. It feels like I’m right back to it.

You’ve got a favorite song or songs . Sometimes a whole frickin’ playlist of songs that you absolutely, positively adore and feel the need to share with the world. That’s awesome. We may even share musical tastes which would make it even more awesome.

You know what would make it more awesome? NOT MAKING IT AUTOPLAY ON YOUR BLOG. Just because they make a widget for it DOESN’T mean that you HAVE to include it on your blog.

Please, do your blog readers a favor. Don’t include auto playing music widgets.  Give your readers the option of choosing to play the music on their own. Please?

Love,

Me

* *

This PSA was brought to you by someone who frantically had to search for the mute button before searching, fruitlessly, on a blog’s sidebar for the controls to turn off an aforementioned auto playing music widget. Auto playing music widgets are like the auto playing midis of the late 1990s. It wasn’t a good idea then and it isn’t a good idea now. Just sayin’…

“Lotta water,” said TLE, her eyes wide as she pointed to the screen.

“Yes, that is a lot of water,” I told TLE.

She watched a bit longer as water began to overtake the buildings. “Mommy, they need help!” she said urgently, pulling at my elbow. “Need help!”

I probably should have shooed her away from the screen at that point as she began to get more distressed. And then, she asked the question I’d been dreading. “Why mommy? Lotta water. Why?”

I could have told her about how, when tectonic plates shift undersea, they displace a lot of water which, due to the displacement, creates a super wave called a tsunami.

Somehow, the scientific explanation just fell flat.

“I don’t know,” I had to answer as she frowned.

“They need help,” TLE repeated.

* *

The Japan disaster is never far from my mind and since I’m always in the Internet, up to date information is always easy to find, too. A friend in Japan reports that the Western media is sensationalizing the situation; I’m not surprised. Yes, it is a crisis situation but so far, people are keeping relatively cool heads, considering what they’ve just been through.

Disasters often show a person’s true character. I would like to think that, in a disaster situation, the character that is revealed would be one of hope and helpfulness.

My minor in college was Asian-American studies and one of the courses I took for minor was called Japanese-American Psychology. During that course, I learned about the incredible attitude the Japanese people have called  我慢 (gaman) which loosely translated, means “to endure” or “to persevere”. This 我慢 attitude is what helped the Japanese-American community survive internment and helped rebuild the war torn Japan after World War II. I have no doubt that the Japanese people will show their 我慢 spirit again through this crisis.

Something that made me cry was reading this translated message from a Chinese immigrant who was stuck in a building in Sendai. Chinese face discrimination in Japan, much in the same way that many Chinese have not yet forgiven Japan for the atrocities of World War II. (Racism — it is alive and well and not just in America. Sad.)

And yet, as the translated message shows, during this time of crisis, this Chinese immigrant was shown kindness, compassion by fellow survivors: given milk powder by a mother with a baby; helped to find water when feeling faint; being allowed to call home first amongst the 80 people trapped because she was Chinese.

Honestly, I can’t help but think that, in the same situation, absolute pandemonium and outright looting would be taking place if a similar situation would happen in California. I’d love for someone to tell me I’m wrong and make me believe them.

But from what I’ve seen on the Internet, some people’s true character is nothing short of disgusting. There have been quite a few people coming out saying that Japan somehow deserved this disaster,saying that it is somehow karmic payback for Pearl Harbor.

Reading those Facebook messages quite frankly made me physically ill. I damn near chucked something at the monitor when I read that.

What disturbs me even more are so-called “Christians” who are praising God for raining these disasters upon Japan. As one of the only practicing Christians in my group of friends, I am constantly defending Christianity and trying, desperately, to show people that Christianity is not a religion of hate or exclusivity. And then morons like this come up, praising and thanking God for teaching people a “lesson.”

The only lesson to be learned from these attitudes are decidedly not Christian. I can only hope that the people who are spreading such foul, disgusting attitudes are doing so to be shocking and not truly believe that this is a punishment to the Japanese people for not being a Christian nation.

Pray for Japan

While I have no real connection to Japan, save for a few friends that live there (and thank God, they’re safe!) and a deep love and appreciation for the Japanese culture, I have been glued to the Internet this past weekend to find out what is going on in Japan.

The tsunami’s force as it plowed through the coastal areas was as breath taking as it was heartbreaking. As we live our daily lives, it may be easy to forget how powerful nature can truly be.

California is also part of the Pacific Rim of Fire and the activity in New Zealand and now Japan has made us very uneasy. Luckily, we do not live on a major fault line ourselves (living at the edge of the Bay Area does have some advantages) but we do live close enough that damage is always a possibility.

I still remember the Loma Prieta quake in 1989. While we were fairly well away from its epicenter, the house still swayed and rocked for about ten seconds and was a magnitude 6.9 on the Richter scale. I can’t even imagine how horrific the several minutes of the Japanese quake must have been.

The Hubs ™ and I have talked some about our emergency plans. This has been made more urgent by the Japanese quake. Where would we go? What would we do? Our earthquake kit is not prepared — a huge oversight on my part. That will have to be rectified as soon as possible.

Are you prepared for a disaster?