A Good Day

Good days like this don't come around very often.

Matthew was thrilled to giddiness this morning as we picked up a preschool friend and drove to the YMCA. He hates going to the Y's child watch area alone. With a friend, though, it's better than a regular play date! I got a good work out, ran into a friend, and also got a good chat.

Once we took Matthew's friend home, we went to the elementary school for "Bring a Friend to Lunch Day" with James. Matthew and I were accidentally 40 minutes early, but I didn't realize that until there were only 10 minutes left to wait *sigh* I can be pretty dense sometimes. James was thrilled to see us. We ate together and then went out to the playground before all the other kids came out. The boys had a great time playing together. Then the other kids came pouring out. Matthew ran back to my lap pretty quickly and stayed there the rest of the time. I watched James interact with some other kids. He was pushing a girl away and she was laughing, coming at him again and again. He ran off and hid behind a tree and waited, peeking out every once in a while. Then he ran over to me and Matthew. I asked him if he wanted me to leave so he could go play with his friends. James confessed that this girl was making recess torture for him. As she had all year. Every recess. He had used physical force and yelling and distraction to try and deter her. He even told the principal about it and she was told to stop. But she blocks him from telling the playground monitors about it. Running away was all he could think to do. He wanted Matthew and me to stay through the end of recess so she wouldn't bother him today. James was crying and angry and frustrated and feeling totally helpless about it all.

I'm struggling against the urge to swoop in and make a fuss with the adults and take this problem out of James' hands. This is HIS problem. Simply the next problem in a long line of problems he will face in the course of his life. My job isn't to solve his problems, but to help him identify them and develop the right tools to manage them. I was relieved to see him sharing such a weight with me. I desperately want to help. I asked him a few questions. I talked to Bobby and a couple trusted friends. I decided to contact James' teacher about it in the attitude of keeping her informed. She said she would talk to the teacher of this other student. Awareness is the first step. Bullying isn't tolerated at our school. There are strict guidelines and procedures in place.

Why would this experience contribute to a good day? Because now I understand something more about James. Now I see his reluctance to answer questions about school and friends as more than just keeping to himself. He was struggling with this and didn't know how to handle it. Any day that I come to understand my child better is a good day.

After school was piano lessons. Alice, Robert, and James all have lessons on Tuesday afternoons. But we had 10 minutes before we had to leave and Alice asked me to read out loud. Some explanation: Our Mother-Daughter Book Club selection for next month is The Hunger Games. There are clearly some aspects of that series that would be inappropriate for someone who is sensitive in the ways that Alice is sensitive. She suggested I read it out loud to her, editing out the worst of the violence and gore. But absolutely no reading just before bed. I agreed. So, I've been reading a PG version of The Hunger Games out loud to the kids during the day this week. Matthew doesn't care for it, but everyone else gets completely engrossed. Anyway, I started reading out loud and Robert was snuggled up to me on my lap, James cuddled up to my right. Robert is going through some of the same emotional/behavioral changes we saw Alice through after she turned 8. I thought it was a girl thing, but it's not. It's something else. Mood swings, irrational emotional outbursts, pride in independence and developing new skills while longing for a younger/simpler kind of life. It's hard growing up. Anyway, Robert wanted to snuggle. I don't often get to see his softer side. It was nice. He still likes me as his mom. And he wasn't wanting to snuggle because he saw other siblings fighting for me. He just wanted to be close. That is a rewarding form of affection (as compared to being a trophy the kids fight over *sigh*). I loved it.

Robert and I have both enjoyed the Sons-and-Mothers Club we started after he turned 8. We've done a lot of different things. And he gets nicer and sweeter to me the longer we do this. Last week, we went for a bike ride, ate Red Bicycle Ice Cream, and played at Meadowbrook Park. Here are most of our bikes at the ice cream shop:

Seeing them altogether just made me happy, so I took a picture. Five boys and their mothers makes a good size group. The boys are really good friends, so they play together well while the moms do a lot of chatting. And empathizing. And advice sharing. And so much laughing. I love this group as much as I love Alice's Mother-Daughter Book Club.

Anyway, back to today. At James' lesson today, it was amazing. Something just finally clicked...suddenly, he could sight read the music before him. His teacher had him play piece after piece in the book and kept saying, "Nope, you won't need to practice that one! We need to find something for you to practice!!" James was smiling ear to ear. Giddy with pride. He got to put "finished" stickers on 5 whole pages! He ended up with a few songs to work on, but nothing too difficult.

I snapped this picture while they were playing a duet:

His teacher confessed she looooooooves to play duets, especially Christmas duets, so we'll have a lot of those to look forward to soon. Wahoo!

Then, after dinner and bedtime, Alice remembered she had some algebra homework to do. She was happy about it. Not stressed. Not freaking out. Not scared. She cheerfully got her book and took it back to her room and asked if I would "help" her with it. This girl hasn't yet needed ANY help with her homework. What she's really asking for is a warm body in the room with her. That is so, so, so very much Alice. I obliged. I wanted to see her work on it, anyway. Her sixth grade math class was worse than a joke. This is the first time she's actually been challenged to learn something new (as opposed to memorizing multiplication facts, which can be tough in a different kind of way). Anyway, I settled on her bed right next to her. She plugged and chatted and worked and reworked. The more problems she did, the more excited she got. She could see herself getting better with practice. There were even a couple problems she could visualize the answer to before going through the prescribed steps. Her brain had found another way to solve it! She actually said out loud, surprising even herself, "I LOVE algebra!"

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesss!

That was, quite simply, the perfect end to a pretty good day.