Good Guys Versus The Dream Team

Alexander designed the day. A family competition day – he and Quince versus Bill and me.   On his schedule:  badminton, ping pong, netball, Wii tennis.  With a very, very complicated scoring system.  So many points if you win;  even more if you win by 5; you even can get points if you lose by no more than 3, and so on.

First up, badminton. Games to eleven. Best out of three. Badminton is one of my all-time favorite sports – if I may call it a sport.  I played hours of badminton during the summer as a kid.  All out, competitive, no holds barred badminton. Whoo Hoo --  Bring it on!

Bill and I name ourselves “The Good Guys.”  After much back and forth, Quince and Alexander settle on “The Dream Team.” The Good Guys take game 1.  Cracks start to show in the Dream Team.  Quince whines, Alexander criticizes.  Finally, Quince, scowling, free arm behind her back, stands at the net with racket in the air, but makes no effort to hit the birdie anymore as it sails toward her.   Alexander has had it with her.

We stop play.  Major negotiations ensue.   At first we leave it to Alexander and Quince to see if they can sort it out.   Can they play together or do they want to rearrange the teams?  Now is a good time to tell you that there had been a major shift in their relationship over the 4-week school holiday.  For reasons which are mysterious to me, they crossed a bridge and began to like each other, began to enjoy playing together, and most significantly, saw themselves as aligned.   Against us, their parents.  Now I realize that might sound horrible and wrong, but in fact, for a whole set of complicated reasons I won’t go into here, that is a positive.

It was important to tell you this, because you might think the easy out was just to change the teams around.  But they didn’t want that. They wanted to stay a team.  That wanted to play against us.   Unfortunately, that desire wasn't enough to propel them through the tough work of conflict resolution.  So much easier, and dare I say, more familiar and comfortable, to blame and accuse than to listen and understand.  So, bringing all my conflict management skills into play, I intervened.   You know how it goes.  “So, Alexander, what is Quince saying she needs?  Do you think you could try that?”  “Quince, it sounds like Alexander would like it if you. .“

And we were back on the court.  Quince making a big effort, Alexander praising her.   Game 2 to the Dream Team.    Game 3, all on the line, Bill and I surge ahead.  The score is 9-5.   Now my kids are old enough to handle losing, and I really like winning, especially at badminton, but it suddenly occurs to me that their tender little bud of sibling friendship will not be well served by a loss.   I catch Bill’s eye as he begins to serve and give him a microscopic shake of my head.  After 13 years of co-parenting, he sees it and gets it.  He makes it look good as he flubs the serve.   As do I when it comes back to me.  Final score:   13-11 Dream Team.   

The kids are ecstatic. They high five, they hug, the smiles broad on their faces.  Alexander, well trained, ducks under the net to tell us, the losers, good game.  He comes up to me, hugs me tight around the neck, and whispers in my ear, so only I can hear, “Thank you so much, Mommy.”  I hug him back, astounded.  Okay, maybe also a wee bit dismayed that he saw through what I thought was our so very professional throwing of the game -- I fleetingly wonder if those days of using that valuable parenting tactic of benevolent deception are behind us.  But mostly I am oh so proud of my boy because he got it. Got why we threw the match their way.  Appreciated it.  Knew not to reveal it to his 9 year-old sister.   Wow.

 I don't know how this very mysterious process of emotional maturation happens, but I am so very glad to have the pleasure of watching it happen.   

Green Dresses

It’s Mother’s Day.  We’re out for a hike in Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve south of town.  As we walk along, Quince comments, “Look mommy, everything looks so dull.”  I know what she means.  It is mid-autumn and the flashy, easy allure of summer is gone. But I want her to see the loveliness of nature at this time of year -- in the subtle, muted golds and greens and browns of autumn.  

I bend down, and point to the meadow of tall grasses.  “Look Quince, how many shades of green can you see in those grasses?”   She is on board immediately.   She begins pointing them out.  “I want that one in my wedding dress, and that one, and that one.”  I sigh and pause for a moment.   

I take a deep breath.   And then take this on too.   “Well, which ones would you want in your graduation dress?  And I mean your graduation when you get your doctorate.”  

The Tables Astonishingly, Disturbingly, Sweetly Turned

Yesterday, Alexander begged me to play this game that he and his mate, Tutty, invented over the weekend. You stand on opposite sides of the trampoline and throw a tennis ball at one another. The object is to make a throw that bounces at least once on the trampoline and is hard enough or tricky enough so that the other player cannot catch it and it goes behind him/her.

I’m not a very good thrower. I blame my father.  As far as I’m concerned that fell directly in his column of parental responsibilities.  But being a mature grown-up, I took matters into my own hands, and have tried to learn as an adult. I’ve studied others as they throw. I’ve asked friends for tips.  I even hired my basketball coach once to teach me how to throw a baseball.   None of it seemed to make a difference and so I still have that classic, awkward, completely ineffectual throw. I think you probably know exactly what I am talking about.

But I can catch. I have good eye-hand coordination.  I'm proud of my ability to snag a ball out of the air.

So I’m playing, apologizing for my lame throws that miss the trampoline entirely, but I’m confident in my defense.   I catch some and some go past me.   Once I get the hang of it, I can pay more attention, and do you know what I see?   Alexander is taking some heat off his throws!  He is putting only about 50% zing on the ball!   

I play on, but inside I am thinking WHEN IN THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN!!

I, the mother, the parent, the adult, am supposed to be taking something off my throws so my little boy won’t get discouraged, won’t give up, will keep playing and get better.   When did this natural order of things get reversed???   Inwardly, I am mad, and want to yell at him “Give me what you got, I can handle it!” But the truth is I probably can’t. Already, I am only stopping about half of his half-zing balls.   Alexander, wisely, doesn’t give me what he’s got because he knows, in fact, I can’t handle it. And if he did, then what?  I will get discouraged, I will give up and I won’t play anymore.   (Okay, I know this doesn't speak well of my character, but what's new?)

Alexander's patience with my ineptitude is remarkable.  But let’s be clear - Alexander has some definite self-interest at heart here.  He really loves this game and he wants someone to play with when his mates aren’t around.   It behooves him to be mindful of my fragile ego, to take care that I don’t get discouraged, to build me up ever so carefully so I will always want to play.  (Just like I tried to do with him with tennis. Except my patience with Alexander in that regard was less than remarkable.  My punishment for opposite-of-remarkable patience?   He hates the game.  But that is another blog.)

But whatever Alexander's motivation, I find this reversal of roles astonishing and disturbing and disconcerting.  It brings the future too frighteningly close.   What’s next – him cutting my meat into little pieces so I don’t choke?

I am not ready.  I cannot have it.  I am in a full on search for someone who can (in secret) teach me to throw  my own zingers, and pride evaporated, to catch.

Every Once in A While

If you’ve read any of my blogs on parenting, you’ll know I find it challenging.  I really just have no idea what I’m doing.  Most days,  I am pretty convinced my kids will need years of therapy to recover from my well meaning but inept mothering.   On my worst days, I think I am making all the right moves for my kids to turn to drugs and promiscuous sex and eating disorders and eventually land in juvi.   But every once in a while something happens and I think I can’t be doing everything wrong.

The other night, Tanya was over for dinner after having been out of town for a whole week.  Now, Tanya is first and foremost my friend, but I am forced to share her with every member of my family because she holds a very particularly special place in each of their hearts. What this results in is that when she comes to our house, the minute she walks in the door, words and stories tumble out of our mouths, bumping and jostling each other in the race to reach her first. 

This night, after 15 minutes of this conversational chaos at dinner, we decide that it will work much better if each person has some time to tell Tanya something about their week.   I go first, and then Bill.  Bill begins to tell her about going to the release of Myesha Jenkins' 2^nd book of poetry at Darkies Café.   In amidst the who was there, what we ate, whom we talked to, what the format was, Bill told Tanya about how when Myesha that night had read the title poem from her book, Dreams of Flight, he had turned to me and asked, “Does this capture what you are feeling exactly?”  

At that moment in Bill’s story, Alexander had wandered over and was coincidentally (or not) standing right next to my copy of Dreams of Flight.  “Let’s hear it,” I say, “Alexander, bring that book over. Read the last poem.”  Now if you know my boy, that is a bold thing to ask of him.   But he is as eager as all of us to be in the glow of Tanya’s attention and so opens the book and reads the short poem. He reads it well, with assurance, in his fine public speaking voice, as if he had been practicing .

And blam, that is the start of it, a poetry slam breaks out at our dining room table. 

After Alexander read that one, Bill takes the book and reads one that especially speaks to him, one that could have been written about him.   It tells of fathers who know how to plait their daughter’s hair and make spaghetti  bolognaise and know what time school starts.   Alexander, being very much Alexander, then pronounces that the poems are all free verse and that free verse is too easy, at which point he digs out some non-free verse poems he had written in Grade 6 and proceeds to read them all to us, deserved pride tingeing his voice. 

Quince, meanwhile, has been flipping through Myesha’s book and  is desperate to have her turn to be in the spotlight.  She stands up and reads us the ones she has selected, including a lovely one about feeling safe while wearing an older brother’s shirt.   And then, Quince, being who she is, quickly composes her own poem, and we gladly (me, glowing a little) listen to her read that one too. 

Feeling the magic, Quince suggests that we make every Sunday poetry night in our house.  Moreover, she declares that every Saturday she will spend time writing poetry to read at Sunday night poetry night.  Now I know how magic works – you cannot schedule it.  You must just recognize it when it comes and be grateful that it has chosen to visit.   But I also know that magic visits when certain things come together. In this case, I know part is Tanya’s presence, as she always brings out some magic in our family, and also part is the gift of Myesha’s beautiful, accessible poems.  And though I don’t know what it is, I can’t help but think somewhere along the way I did something right that set the stage for my family to spontaneously create a night of poetry.  It is rare, but I am feeling a momentary pride in my parenting.   Feels nice.

My Wonderful Paradoxical Girl

The reason I am focusing on my beautiful girl in these past couple of posts is that she and I have had a wonderful 5 days on our own. Bill, as mentioned in a previous post, fled to Kenya when the power went out, and Alexander is on the Pridwin Grade 6 School tour to Mpumalanga.

Quince has bought herself two books in the past week - both of which I made her use her own allowance for as they went against my feminist and atheistic morals (I once had a great discussion with a Christian colleague about how an atheist could have morals when not guided by a religion- another story).

The first book is a big-ol' Barbie fairytale book. Just as awful as it sounds. Skinny, white, long-blond haired girl fairies marrying princes, evil stepmothers and sisters and other predictably bad messages.

The second was from the Catholic book sale at her school - One Minute Devotions for Girls - I think she was bit seduced by the pretty pink cover and pocket size. Full on little lessons about loving God (fine), trusting God (okay, fine) and chasing away the devil (not fine). She reads them to me in the car. I can barely stand it but who am I to thwart my darling's attempts to figure out how she wants to engage with religion. I personally prefer her worshiping of the Greek Gods. Just two days ago, she asked me if I wanted some blessed water- which I agreed to since it had been blessed by Athena - her favorite Greek Goddess. (this was right before she began meditating - see photo in post below)

Given her recent bombardment of messages about a girl's happiness coming through marrying princes (Barbie Book, Ella Enchanted, and the school play, Cinderella, all in the space of 5 days) I thought a conversation about what really makes one happy was in order. Her response, a job which pays well, finding a husband (like Daddy - she said - sweet) and having kids.

First, I tackled the job which pays well part - you know, more important that you find work you love, blah, blah, blah. "Quince, what kind of job do you think you would love?" "I think I would like being a secretary and filling in forms." I reminded myself there is nothing wrong with being a secretary but not what I imagined for my girl who is a star at math, has always up until yesterday said she wanted to be a vet, and is one of the most creative people I know. "Hmmm," I said, "What about being the boss?" "I don't want to be the boss - then I'd have to share all my money. If I am a secretary I get to keep all my salary.'' Quick correction on the error in that thinking and then in for the crux of the matter. "Quince, what do you think a boy would want to be - the secretary or the boss?" "The boss." Jesus help me. I know the next logical step was to explore her thinking around that a bit, but I was too shocked at how at 8 1/2 she has already been indoctrinated with such gendered thinking about work. I'll have to come back to this one with her.

I then, very incompetently, attempted to tackle the husband and kids part. Nothing wrong with husband and kids mind you - and yes, they can be a great source of happiness. But I got a little worried when she referred to her future husband as her prince -- maybe I am just too jaded in my middle age and should leave her to her fantasies. Thoughts?

When a Gift is Not a Gift

Quince just had her 9th birthday.  Bill and I scratched our heads about what to get her for weeks.   She said she wanted various electronics - an Ipad, a Kindle, Wii games.  But I was  pretty sure that was because her older brother is an electronics fiend, and that is what he wanted when his birthday rolled around last month.  So naturally, being a younger sibling she was powerless against the supernatural influence of an older sibling and she wanted what he wanted.  I, being a younger sibling myself, recognized the phenomenon and knew to not take her stated desires at face value. But that still left us scratching our heads.

I have many faults as a parent - just take a look at every other blog.  One of the many is that I err on the side of practicality over fun.  So, in my mind I am thinking, okay, what is a present that would meet some parenting goal.  For example, although Alexander does love electronics, getting him a Kindle for his birthday was as much (or maybe more) about reigniting his love of reading by putting it into an electronic format as it was about getting him a new fun electronic gadget.  In fact, initially, he was extremely disappointed with a Kindle as a gift.  Achingly disappointed.  Perhaps my days are up disguising "good for you" gifts as fun.   Though as a post script, the boy can't put the Kindle down now - so I think it was a win-win.

The equivalent at-first-blush-fun-but-on-closer-inspection-good-for-you-gift for Quince was a bike.  My girl had just gotten her bike sea legs when we left the states and then since arriving had not had one opportunity to ride, until about 3 months ago when she was invited to a bike riding party.  Easy peasy - just like riding a bike.  Except that expression is crap.  Turns out just after learning to ride a bike is not a good time to go suddenly bike cold turkey.   I was dismayed to see she had completely lost her 2 wheel confidence.

In the top ten parenting responsibilities, along with teaching your child to swim and to blow a bubble, is making sure she knows how to ride a bike.  No daughter of mine would be one of those adults who sheepishly has to admit she can't go on the fun outing because she doesn't know how to ride a bike.  So there I find myself with every harried parent's dream- an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone (how many cliches can I use in one post?) - One, fulfill my sacred parental duty and two, solve the birthday present dilemma at the same time.  (and really, it was killing 3 birds (poor birds) because it also would meet  additional goal of having another way to keep my very sedentary project girl active.)

Now the thing is we couldn't get a bike without her, so instead of presenting her with the actual thing on her birthday, we just presented her with the idea.  At first, because she was trying her 9 year-old best to be grateful, she seemed excited about the prospect.  But then, and I'm proud of her for this, she admitted a bike didn't seem like that great of a gift.    Which of course it wasn't because it was all about fulfilling my parental duties, not about getting her something she was really jonesing for.

And I'm proud of myself for how I handled it.  Which I can say, because I'm rarely proud of my parent self. I said I get it.  Why don't you pick out another gift, and we'll go ahead and get you the bike - but not as a birthday gift.   Just get it for you because it is important you know how to ride a bike.  That worked for her.   What did she pick?  A fashion drawing book.  Not even in the top one hundred parental responsibilities to make sure your child knows how to design clothes. But that's okay because she is actually incredibly good at designing clothes and letting your child find and do what she is good at is at least in the top 3.

Post Script on the bike.  She LOVES it!!   She has named her Beauty, rides her around the yard - tentatively still, feeds her carrots and covers her with a blanket.  When I said, "Quince, the bike actually was a pretty good gift wasn't it," she reminds me, "Mama, it wasn't a gift."

Quince doing her homework next to Beauty to keep her company.  

Another on Parenting

I've been reflecting quite a bit on what I can describe only as the water drip erosion of my original parenting goals and ideals, from proudly peaked mountains down to rounded just barely there hillocks.   

Case in point:  When we first started giving our kids allowance, I jumped in with great ambitions of using it to teach them about saving and generosity and wise use of their own spending money.  Three sixths – pocket money.   Two sixths– save for college.  One sixth, which we match – give away.   Oh wasn't I the clever, creative and good parent?

For the first couple of years, Alexander choose World Wildlife Fund for his charitable contribution because they sent him a free stuffed animal for a certain minimum donation.    Basically every year he bought himself a $104 stuffed animal.  But okay I rationalized, it was a start on the right path.

It came to light a few weeks ago, as we were discussing the 2011 donation, that no donation had ever been made for 2010 – with the move to South Africa and all.  Putting saving my sanity above teaching good values, I invoked the Statute of Limitations.  It is enough just to figure out how to get the 2011 money out the door and into the right hands – dealing with 2010 now that it is 2012 is just plain overwhelming.  


The whole college savings bit is happening - in that Bill keeps a spreadsheet tracking all their weekly allowance money that is supposed to go into their college fund. The only problem is that the kids never see the money or the spreadsheet and it all remains as abstract and un-lessoney as if Bill and I were just squirreling minute amounts of money away for their college fund every week. Which I guess basically IS what we are doing.


So what does that leave us with?  That's right - with the capitalistic part of the whole enterprise.  Every so often, after they remind us enough times that it has been a while since they got their allowance, we sit down with a calendar, add up what is owed and hand it over.  Into greedy little outstretched paws.  


And there we have it.  What started as an attempt to imbue my darlings with generosity and the good old fashioned habit of saving for the future boils down to "hand over my money, mom."  Why?  Because the day-to-day of keeping my boy off screens, arranging play dates for my friend-starved daughter, reminding both of them to please wash their hands before dinner and then for the 6000th time to please please please use a fork to eat (Quince still!) and to stop putting your face right down in the plate to shovel the food in (Alexander, still!), drips all my energy out of me, one admonishment at a time. Drip, drip, drip each day wearing my idealistic parenting mountain down.  I've got nothing left to sustain those clever value teaching systems I cook up when I get a spurt of inspiration and energy. They get pushed far down on the list, lost, and then guiltily remembered while lying in bed.  


My friends are not like this.  They somehow, miraculously I think, find the energy to teach manners AND instill good values. Through some mysterious parenting process, they are raising kids who volunteer on their own volition, who ask birthday well-wishers to give money to a chosen non-profit instead of buying a birthday gift, who start save-the-environment projects, who protest against social injustice. I'd feel better about it if my friends' kids had the manners of 3 year-olds, but of course they don't. They save the world and eat with forks, and use napkins, and say please and thank you.


I have decided that I am just one of those people who would actually be quite good at parenting if I didn't have kids wearing me down all day.  After all, I have loads of great ideas to raise caring, generous, world-saving people.  I wonder, once my kids are off on their own, no doubt having chosen some ozone-destroying career, if my worn-down little rounded hills can re-grow the peaks of parenting idealism.  Watch out future grandchildren - do I have some ideas for you.   

Position Available

Yesterday, parenthood, or rather should I say Parental Responsibilities (P.R.), outpaced me, outstripped me, plain outran me.   I was running along at a pretty good clip (meetings with support staff at Quince's school, rushing critical forgotten homework to Alexander's school -which normally I would not do but it was his birthday, shopping for birthday dinner, listening to Quince do her homework reading).   For much of the day, I was ahead of P.R.  Then in the afternoon, both kids home, I felt it pull up alongside and keep pace with me. All good.

But suddenly, as I am finishing up last minute work emails, Alexander is on the computer signing up for Facebook and P.R. streaks ahead leaving me in the dust.

How did this happen???  How am I so unprepared??    Alexander has been begging for a FB account for about the last year. To put him off I said okay when you are 13, which is when Facebook allows it, and which at the time seemed like it would never come.   But Wednesday it came, snuck (sneaked I think is the correct word, but I like snuck better) right up on me.  To be fair to him, he has been saying for the past few days, "On Wednesday, I get a Facebook account."  I was busy preparing to close out my mother's 5 week visit, host my friend's son for 5 days and figure out two kids' birthdays, not to mention trying to squeeze in that pesky thing called work.  We'll have time to deal with that FB stuff once life has returned to normal.  Ha.

Because there it is, in the blink of an eye, Alexander has 40 Facebook friends, and I haven't even looked at one "Protecting Your Kids on Facebook" website.  I am feeling wildly inadequate for this job.  Whoever gave it to me was a nut.  If I were my supervisor for this parent job, I would be at this very moment advertising for a replacement.   I'm not waiting.  I have my CV out.

Balloon Friends?

When I was about Quince's age, I remember finding a rock, not a particularly note-worthy rock as I recall, that I formed this attachment to. I carried it with my everywhere like a secret friend to keep me company.  When out for walk, I would put it down and kick it out in front of me as one does - but I made sure never to kick it so far that I would lose it. At then end of the walk, I'd pick it up and pop it back in my pocket.

Quince too forms these attachments to inanimate things, so I wasn't surprised when I saw her yesterday at Tanya's birthday party gathering all the party balloons into a small area. Sure enough she had attached and wanted to adopt them.  Long process short, Tanya relinquished her parental rights to the balloons.  Bill rigged a towel sling to get the herd of balloons to the car. Once home Quince squirreled herself away in her room, drew faces on and named every one. Then she put them all in her bottom bunk and put them to bed.

Awwww, cute, clever, creative.  Except am I the only one that thinks they're also incredibly creepy? In that horror movie come-alive-in-the-middle-of-the-night sort of way. What about a nice rock for a friend, Quince?

The Best Gifts

Sometimes the best gifts turn out to be the one bought last minute in the grocery store in a desperate panic to have something to fill the stocking.

This photo does not do justice to the play dough miniature dining room and table setting - all stylishly monochromatic- but it gives an idea of the hours of pleasure Quince is getting from this Pick N Pay moment of accidental genius.

Sophisticated Work

Tonight while I was making dinner, Quince, feeling in a loving mood (I'm sure it is because Alexander is away at Leadership Camp and she is basking in single kiddom) said, "Mama, thank you so much for giving me life twice. First when you gave birth to me and then by feeding me for all these years." Then Bill walked into the room.  Not wanting him to feel left out, she said, "And Daddy, thank you for going to work." Realizing her error immediately, she quickly added, "I am thanking you because your work is sophisticated." 

I must say, I am a bit proud of myself because she still has her head, and I didn't even send her to bed without supper.  In fact, I very calmly just asked her to explain what she meant. Turns out those who go into offices have sophisticated work, and those of us who work from home do not.   Apparently, according to Quince, when we were in the States and I was going into the YouthBuild office, my work was sophisticated but now, even though I am doing very similar work from home, is not.   Who knew?   (but I really do want sophisticated work - does anyone have an office I can come work in?)

Tonight while I made dinner, Quince, feeling in a loving mood (I'm sure it is because her brother is out of town for 4 days and she is basking in single-kiddom), said, "Mommy, thank you for Tonight Tonight while I made dinner, Quince, feeling in a loving mood (I'm sure it is because her brother is out of town for 4 days and she is basking in single-kiddom), said, "Mommy, thank you for

Quince's Rose

When I went to pick Quince up on this first day of Grade 3, the St Teresa's 2012 booklet caught my eye. On the cover was a picture of a rose which was nearly identical to the photo of our rose that I had taken in the morning. When I showed it to the principal, she agreed that it was a nearly perfect match and thought that it must be a sign. St. Teresa's is a Catholic school, so I am sure she meant a sign from God, but God, the Universe, whatever, I too am going to take it as a sign.  Quince, this is your year to find your footing, to bloom like this rose, to remember, even in the dark times, that you are miraculously and wondrously beautiful.

Back to School

Last two days the kids have been dreading going back to school, especially Alexander. But the dread tap must have been on full blast because by this morning it seemed to have all drained out, replaced by eagerness.  I'm sure there must be some scientific explanation for such a turn-around.