School and Mars!

[lydamorehouse]

Mason is out exploring LaCrosse’s Myrick Park’s “marsh trail” with my parents, while Shawn is upstairs enjoying that rare working-parent treat – an afternoon nap.  I’m lying on my folk’s front porch (arguably the best room in the house) composing this to you.  Oh, and just to put icing on the cake?  I just discovered a wireless connection I can hop on to.

 

Sweet.

 

So, okay, let’s see.  There’s much to report.  Mason and I went out stargazing with 

jiawen

 on Thursday night.  After waking Mason up at 1:00 am, we drove out east of Woodbury to a place used by an astronomy club jiawen belongs to.  Mason was giddy in the car.  He told me that he was “so exciting he was shivering” (although that might have been compounded by the fact I forgot to bring along a sweatshirt for him and the temperature dropped pretty low.)  He danced in the backseat pretending to be MJ (Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s girlfriend.)

 

A quick aside:  Mason is often women when he plays pretend.  He loves being MJ and scolding Peter to go off and get milk for the family (Peter then runs in to all sorts of super-villains and, inevitably, comes home without the milk, which causes all sorts of hilarity.)  His other favorite is Susie (Susan Storm/Richards, Invisible Woman from the Fantastic Four.)  He’s even asked if he could be Invisible Woman for Halloween.  (I think I have a really clever idea for the costume – getting the usual blue tights and then covering a portion of them in white cloth and drawing the dashed lines on the seams they use in the comics to show where Susie isn’t visible any more.)  Shawn has been more actively trying to talk him out of this than I have.  (Not the playing, mind you, just the Halloween costume.)  My feeling is that he’s four.  This is probably the one time in his life where he can pretend to be whatever he wants without a whole lot of social stigma. 

 

Yet in typical pre-school honesty, Mason then also insisted in telling jiawen that she sounded like a strange man on the phone.  I was fairly mortified, but jiawen seemed to take it in stride.

 

Mason reads gender very stereotypically.  As I think I’ve reported before, anyone with long hair he tends to peg as “female.”  Mozart is a woman to Mason.  This isn’t always true, because he clearly recognizes our friend Steve, who has long hair, as a guy.  His default is always “she,” however, and that’s totally my feminist-self’s fault.  Ever since he was a baby, if we saw an animal whose gender wasn’t readily obvious (think the gigantic squirrel testes) I tended to say, “she,” because I was once harassed by a ten year-old for being sexist in my gender default during a cartooning class I was teaching.

 

But back to the stargazing… Mason was a little more low-key once we actually reached our destination and I suspect that had more to do with the late hour than it did the viewing experience itself.  jiawen taught him to use her binoculars, and he was still talking about the Pleiades the next morning.  He loved seeing Mars and told his Mom all about it the next morning.  The only thing I would do differently next time would be to bring warmer clothes for myself and Mason.  The field we were in was quite covered in dew and he got cold and wet pretty quickly. 

 

The next morning, we had an open house at Mason’s new school, Crossroads Science.  Once again, we had to drag Mason out of there.  We played in the I-Zone for several minutes and then ran upstairs and spent nearly an entire hour in the library.  The library, which we somehow had not visited previously, is, in a word, AWESOME.  Mason was literally running in circles screaming, “I love this place!  I love this place!” which pleased the school librarian no end. 

 

We sat in the various comfy nooks they had around (did I mention the soft cooshie chairs?  The skylights with natural light? The millions of books?) and read books Mason pulled from the stacks in giddy delight.  I introduced myself to the librarian and we made arrangements so that every Monday Mason and I could come in to check out books.  We can go either before school starts or after.  Mason is so stoked.  He keeps reminding me of the books he wants to check out first.

 

I think Mason is finally truly excited about school.  Previously, he’s been saying that he’s scared of all the new things, and, of course, I’m worried about his lack of social skills and the fact that he tends to come out of the bathroom without his pants on….  But, that’s in a lot of ways what Pre-K is for.  Mason will be learning how to get along with others and how to be IN SCHOOL. 

But, I’m so grateful jiawen is willing to have Mason tag along for astronomy nights.  I keep thinking how lucky he is to have a chance to actually see the planets he reads about in books.  He had huge tears when he found out that Mommy couldn’t come on Thursday night because she had to work in the morning.  He really wants to share Mars with her.  Now his big goal is to see Venus.

Comments

3 day weekend wooo!

[ravenfirestorm.livejournal.com]

I read that you're in La Crosse visiting your folks and I can't resist just asking you this. I live in Winona and was wondering if you would like to have lunch or coffee? I used to work at the People's Food Co-op in La Crosse so I can drive down or if you'd like to see Winona I'd be more than happy to show you around. I hope you have a great weekend and that Mason enjoys Myrick. My grandparents took me there when I was little and I loved it but I haven't seen it in years.

Cheers!
-Annie

Re: 3 day weekend wooo!

[lydamorehouse]

Oh, crap! I just noticed this today on our last day here! How is it LJ didn't forward this to me!!??? AARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH!

I would have loved to, argh, this sucks! Luckily, I'm in LaCrosse a lot, so we can try again. I am so sorry.

Re: 3 day weekend wooo!

[ravenfirestorm.livejournal.com]

Aww, too bad. But I'll keep an eye on your LJ and the next time you'll be in La Crosse, I'll e-mail you (which I probably should have done in the first place) and we'll see what we can do :o) I'll actually be in St. Paul two weekends from now, with my husband for our 1st anniversary. I hope you had a good vacation down here though.
-Annie
My e-mail is ladylahatiel AT yahoo DOT com. (Do you think the spambots have figured out how to interpret that yet? Clever little buggers that they are.)

[jiawen]

I get the phone thing quite a bit. I don't know why that is -- fewer visual cues to dampen down my naturally lower voice, maybe.

I was still worried that Mason was bored. He only peeked at things and then got down off the makeshift stand. But if you say he was interested, I believe you.

It would be great if he could do a report about what he's seen at school sometime. I really agree that it's good for kids to actually see planets (and star clusters, and galaxies, etc.) with their own eyes. It's good for everyone to do that. Seeing the night sky is becoming too rare an experience.

Venus should be very visible tonight, just above the setting Sun.

[lydamorehouse]

He loved it. He's been telling gramma and gramps about stargazing a lot.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it's kinda cool that Mason defaults to female for gender references and certain traits. I remember being told by a kid I was babysitting that mommies had short hair (I had long hair, and his mom had a short cut, maybe not as common in the '70s as now).

I suspect that school may change that, but stay tuned. But there are definitely worse things, eh?

Mason was literally running in circles screaming, “I love this place! I love this place!” which pleased the school librarian no end.

Well of course it would. What's not to love?

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

For some reason, when I friended you I did not realize that our kids are about the same age. My son went through a phase of playing princess, and insisting that his dad and I had to do it, too. Now it seems like he's bowing to peer pressure and not pretending to be anyone female. Boo. That sure didn't come from me!

He has decided that both Jeremy and the head Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine are girls. (After all, they speak in squeaky voices, right?) Most of his pretend play is anthropomorphizing faceless objects and making them be friends, or escape from things.

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, that's the thing. I suspect school will crush any number of things out of my son, and I suspect his williness to play pretend other genders may be one of them.

Although who knows? I pretended to be a guy... last week.

[holy-toledo.livejournal.com]

Mason is so cute. I stand by what I said. People should pay to baby-sit him, not the other way around!

-Mel

4-year-olds

[iraunink.livejournal.com]

At 4, my son was also running out of the bathroom without his pants. Usually it was in response to the doorbell. Very embarrassing when that was the only time the mother of the 2-year-old I was sitting saw him.