When your preschool child wants to write a book

What do you do when you are at your computer, writing, and your preschooler wants to 'write' on 'your' computer.  Let her pound away?
What we did when my preschool granddaughter wanted to do this was to get a used keyboard. Just the keyboard.
 Then she would sit on the floor by my desk and type away, clickity-click-click-click, happy as a clam, while I did my writing. We were together. and we both were busy.
My youngest child (before computers) saw me writing on notepads and then typing on my typewriter, so one day she wrote a story on her notepad and illustrated it. (small notepad. one page. one illustration.) Gave it to me and asked me to read HER story. 
Well, it was the usual preschool scribbles, carefully staying on the lines of the small notepad. I took a guess from the picture (It looked like a jack-o-lantern) and quickly made up a story about a pumpkin who wanted to be a jack-o-lantern. 
I was totally surprised when it turned out to completely satisfy her.

The day she found out she wasn't white

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day (soooo many people forget that he was a Junior. That his father was Martin Luther King) I am reminded of this article by my college friend and much-loved author, Lisa Papademetriu, The Day my Daughter Realized She Isn't White, published in the Washington Post November 3, 2015.

Now, to me anyone who doesn't have a dark brown skin color is White.  But that's just me. To the rest of the world, anyone who has skin color even slightly different from them is "other."
(I read somewhere that Asians consider themselves white and think of us as pink.)

So, as you celebrate this day off from school (or day off from work that some people have) think about how children learn about discrimination, and about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s message.

Lisa Papademetriu's latest book is A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic.

Things to ponder

(It's hot (95 degrees) and I this is the first day I put the air-conditioning on. I also have an 8-year old in the house, waiting until it's time to go to her gymnastic tournament. So far she has painted several pictures, been on the computer, watched TV and part of a DVD, and has eaten yogurt.) (note from later -- she won two third place medals, two fourth place medals and a fifth place ribbon!)

I was just wondering:

Why are children so cheerful in the morning?
We can hardly drag ourselves from bed, but the 8-year old is there -- pulling on our arms, making sure we get up. She wants to go to the before-school-care early. That way she can do crafts until bus time. Wake up. Wake up.

Why can't children understand about air conditioning?
I spent several hours this morning cleaning the air conditioners, closing windows and doors, cleaning fans. Finally all was ready and I turned the air conditioners on.
No sooner than I had done so, than the 8-year old opened doors and windows -- she had been practicing gymnastics in the living room and was "hot" and wanted a cool breeze.
Uhhhh.
Then she went upstairs into her room and closed the door.
Uhhhh.
By the time I discovered her bedroom door closed, her room was 20 degrees hotter than the hallway.
Opened bedroom doors.
Close windows and the doors to the sunporch.

Why don't children go to sleep at night?
I actually had a teacher call to scold me about one of my children not getting enough sleep at night. Was I keeping her up too late? Sorry lady, I get the kids to bed. They're the ones who refuse to actually GO TO SLEEP. And the 8-year old? yup. She reads at night. By the light of the lamp post. By the light of a half-working flashlight that I thought I had thrown away long ago. By the light of a thing she got from McDonalds -- looks like a compact but has a light in it instead of face powder.
Should I object that she's reading?
(Mostly I scold her for staying up late and ignore the reading part -- I'm usually in favor of reading.)
-wendieO

Happy Mother's Day!

What a Mother's Day!

The 8-year old had made a beautiful bracelet that matched a necklace I owned already.
(This year's bracelet fits. I love it. Last year's bracelet was so large it falls off my hand.)

The 30 year old actually sent a Mother's Day card. (It's a record -- it's her first.)
The 35-year old had a safe trip home from France and remembered to send me a Happy Mother's Day e-mail while she was held over in Dover, having missed her connection to the San Diego Flight. (That'll happen when you make your reservations and the various flights forget about daylight savings time.)

The reason the 35-year old had to e-mail me?
Because the 8-year old was having her piano recital during the time she had her plane layover and she knew that I'd have my phone turned off.

The piano recital was lovely. What a relief that the 8-year old played her piano pieces straight -- without the additional frills she wanted to do. We've promised her that she can noodle around on the piano all she wants, now that the recital is over.

We won't talk about the pouring rain and the flood watch.
Nor the flow of fire engines (even one from Pennsylvania) that screamed their way past the recital hall, on their way to evacuate a smoke-filled nine-story building full of elderly people who had to be helped down the stairs and taken elsewhere overnight.

How was your Mother's Day?
-wendieO