Kindergarten Confidential

@ ABC Nightline and all viewer of tonight's airing ---Yes this is a good thing, educate and test your child's abilities! Yes at 4 years old, when would you like to start? No you are not stealing their childhood, all playtime should be constructive. Do not spend $1,000s that is, (in my humble opinion), ridiculous! ( I don't know that the exclamation works with humility... I'm not changing it. This is your munchkin take time in daily life to give him/her more common sense than you have and more knowledge than you got. YES they are absolutely worth it!

Rough blog I know, but had to get it out of my head before I let it go and said nothing. Thanks for reading. Please, please, please leave any comments you like.

Remain Calm

There are times to get excited and leave calm to the way side, its just not when you have yet to evaluate the situation and start instead to let your tongue fly. I have those experiences where I have done just that and for the most part I can catch myself in the middle of my rampage and correct the situation. First by acknowledging that I need to get it together in my head and take measure. Second to apologize to my munchkins, it is wrong to jump them for something that truly is my fault or responsibility.  When I say apologize I mean to actually tell them "Mom is wrong, I should not have yelled at you and used  my tongue foolishly. Yes, we are a team and we are supposed to work together, but I am responsible for the end result" Yes I actually say these words to my children. Why, because its important to respect them on that level for so many reasons.

Determined

Souriya skated her first practice in sometime just last night. The skates were enormous on her and she did not care. I asked if she wanted to sit out and we would get skates that did fit soon enough, she looked at me and said, " Mom, please let me skate". Ugh! Fine, so she did, wearing her shoes inside the even still big skates she did well. They had scrimmage practice last night with Castle Rock and she was a jammer a couple of times, how elated I was to see her go round all the derby girls once to be able to make points and around again to score five of them. Fine Souriya, you get out there and skate.

Tantrum

Levi and I went skating this week, as well as my other munchkins, but from the minute we exited the vehicle Levi and I became inseparable for at least an hour. My son had in-lines on and is more familiar with quads so he was uncomfortable. I would have been completely alright with him needing additional attention but a tantrum was the last thing that I was going to accept. Please believe that training a child to have self-control is a must. I needed to get on helping Levi gain a lot of it now. The only words that came out of his mouth for that first 30 minutes were, "It's hard, I want to take these off, ow" as he cried and cried. I can not imagine what I looked like to any onlookers, maybe Carle can give a perspective, but I gave Levi the command not to talk and only focus on the standing up on his skates, it took many falls and tears before he knew he was not going to win. I could have given in and said, "Fine, Levi you win. Take your skates off and don't move". I could have, but who does that benefit? Not him or me. It only sets us up for another tantrum when he doesn't want "whatever". My goal is not to raise a punk.  So, we stayed out on the floor making him stand up only to fall because he was so focused on throwing a fit that trying to stand up was not even a thought. As I said it was a rough hour on the skating floor but when he finally knew that Mom was staying out here until he got it, he got it- self-control. He used it to win the battle of I can't and showed himself he could and did. He skated around and around all by himself with pride, that he could. Was my secluded time just for him worth it? Without a doubt. Many thanks to my daughter Souriya for loving on Lathan while I tended to Levi.

Jury Duty

I was summoned to attend court yesterday for jury duty and bummed that I was not randomly picked for any of the panels. This is one of the great ways that the US of A is still considered a democracy. I know from sitting in a room full of jurors that not really anyone wanted to be there. Granted it seems to be the general opinion that it really sucked to be summoned. It was a great sign of appreciation from the courts to take the time to address the specific questions in the audience with an overall video and judge who explained the details of what goes on to get through the process. I hoped of course that it gave many a new perspective of what an honor it is to be there, but no one seemed changed. I guess for me the bottom line is, I would want to have my many fellow citizens from all walks of life with different perspectives to listen to my side and deliberate, rather than have an individual (The Judge) who at some point I'm sure gets tunnel vision in that chair, decide the outcome.