![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cap Would be Displeased
Oct. 16th, 2007 09:59 amI'm skipping my workout this morning.
I just have too much to do. I managed to finish pulling up the tiles in the utility closet yesterday despite being the house of plague, but now the room needs a fresh coat of paint (how do these things always lead to one another?) Plus, I have class tonight and I'm feeling really behind on all my reading (both for Wyrdsmiths and for class), so I was up until midnight last night doing that. In about ten mintues I plan to start writing on Tate's book.
It's funny that when I'm feeling so overwhelmed I managed to have a kind of break through in comforting Mason this morning when he was feeling exactly the same way with one of his dot-to-dots. I wrote the whole thing up here: http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2007/10/inch-by-inch.html. Mason often struggles with the fact that his brain is ready to do things that his body can't. He could easily mentally track a dot-to-dot of a thousand (he can count endlessly), but he still hasn't quite mastered the ability to hold a pencil steadily. He practices all the time, though. Not only has he been doing dot-to-dots for about a year, but he also loves to draw. Granted his drawings often resemble the usual scribblings of a four year old, but any time with a pencil in hand is good time. Mrs. R. has been having students take their own attendance by writing their names on one of those big rolls of paper at the front of the class as they come in. Mason has mastered all the letters in his name, although they're still often pointing in odd directions and are of varying size. Even though I'm proud he's risen to the challenge, I'm kind of stunned that four year olds are expected to be able to write. I don't remember having to learn to print until first grade.
School is a lot more demanding now-a-days, I guess.
Which is sort of strange since ancedotal wisdom would have me believe that kids learn less now than we did back then -- when we napped during our half-day kindergarten (most kindergartens are full day now), had entire summers off (Mason in is a year-round school), and ran around outside even in the sleet and snow.
I bonded with another stay-at-home parent because he's making his living as an artist -- seriously. He's a sculptor, and he's been designing (and producing?) things for that Hallmark Studio 57 (or whatever it is) as well as having made the entryway at the Rainforest Cafe at the Mall of America. Apparently, he also does "video-based citizen journalism" which you can check out at his web site: http://theuptake.org/?cat=32. His daughter is one of Mason's friends and it would be awesome if we could connect so it won't be quite so awkward when Mason invites her to his birthday party. :-)
It all came about because at the field trip on Friday, which I chaperoned (can I just say twenty-five 4 year olds on a farm is bedlam?) along with a number of other parents, including his wife. His wife is not from Minnesota -- she's from somewhere in the south -- and it's obvious because she will chat with anyone about anything. This may sound like a dis, but it's actually a compliment. The silence of Minnesotans is one of those things it took me a long time to adjust to, and I'm only from as far east as Wisconsin.
Anyway, I was wearing my "Writer" ball cap (from the writerstore.com) that my friend Ember bought me, and she asked that question I always dread. "Are you a writer then?" Which is inevitably followed by something that always, unintentionally sounds patronizing like, "Oh, have you been published?" But, instead Mason's friend's mom said, "My husband is an artist, too!" Which, of course, I instantly dismissed until she started telling me about all the work he's been responsible for (I think the problem is that everyone, especially working artists, know how hard it is to make an actual living doing our art and how many people aspire to do art who struggle.) The point is, I ended up giving her the name of my books and she promised to look them up. They did, and now we're all chatting. It's cool.
Oops, I went ten minutes longer than I intended. Time for me to write words on page. Inch by inch.
I just have too much to do. I managed to finish pulling up the tiles in the utility closet yesterday despite being the house of plague, but now the room needs a fresh coat of paint (how do these things always lead to one another?) Plus, I have class tonight and I'm feeling really behind on all my reading (both for Wyrdsmiths and for class), so I was up until midnight last night doing that. In about ten mintues I plan to start writing on Tate's book.
It's funny that when I'm feeling so overwhelmed I managed to have a kind of break through in comforting Mason this morning when he was feeling exactly the same way with one of his dot-to-dots. I wrote the whole thing up here: http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2007/10/inch-by-inch.html. Mason often struggles with the fact that his brain is ready to do things that his body can't. He could easily mentally track a dot-to-dot of a thousand (he can count endlessly), but he still hasn't quite mastered the ability to hold a pencil steadily. He practices all the time, though. Not only has he been doing dot-to-dots for about a year, but he also loves to draw. Granted his drawings often resemble the usual scribblings of a four year old, but any time with a pencil in hand is good time. Mrs. R. has been having students take their own attendance by writing their names on one of those big rolls of paper at the front of the class as they come in. Mason has mastered all the letters in his name, although they're still often pointing in odd directions and are of varying size. Even though I'm proud he's risen to the challenge, I'm kind of stunned that four year olds are expected to be able to write. I don't remember having to learn to print until first grade.
School is a lot more demanding now-a-days, I guess.
Which is sort of strange since ancedotal wisdom would have me believe that kids learn less now than we did back then -- when we napped during our half-day kindergarten (most kindergartens are full day now), had entire summers off (Mason in is a year-round school), and ran around outside even in the sleet and snow.
I bonded with another stay-at-home parent because he's making his living as an artist -- seriously. He's a sculptor, and he's been designing (and producing?) things for that Hallmark Studio 57 (or whatever it is) as well as having made the entryway at the Rainforest Cafe at the Mall of America. Apparently, he also does "video-based citizen journalism" which you can check out at his web site: http://theuptake.org/?cat=32. His daughter is one of Mason's friends and it would be awesome if we could connect so it won't be quite so awkward when Mason invites her to his birthday party. :-)
It all came about because at the field trip on Friday, which I chaperoned (can I just say twenty-five 4 year olds on a farm is bedlam?) along with a number of other parents, including his wife. His wife is not from Minnesota -- she's from somewhere in the south -- and it's obvious because she will chat with anyone about anything. This may sound like a dis, but it's actually a compliment. The silence of Minnesotans is one of those things it took me a long time to adjust to, and I'm only from as far east as Wisconsin.
Anyway, I was wearing my "Writer" ball cap (from the writerstore.com) that my friend Ember bought me, and she asked that question I always dread. "Are you a writer then?" Which is inevitably followed by something that always, unintentionally sounds patronizing like, "Oh, have you been published?" But, instead Mason's friend's mom said, "My husband is an artist, too!" Which, of course, I instantly dismissed until she started telling me about all the work he's been responsible for (I think the problem is that everyone, especially working artists, know how hard it is to make an actual living doing our art and how many people aspire to do art who struggle.) The point is, I ended up giving her the name of my books and she promised to look them up. They did, and now we're all chatting. It's cool.
Oops, I went ten minutes longer than I intended. Time for me to write words on page. Inch by inch.
