Month: January 2011

Twelve girls sat in a circle on the floor of my family room. The carpet down there is green, which any girl with a good imagination can imagine into a lovely lawn for a spring-time picnic. The girls were decked out in dresses and eating dainty sized treats from plastic plates. It was Gleek’s Anne of Green Gables birthday party, and everyone was participating fully in the spirit of the event. There was much discussion about being lady-like and What Things Were Really Like For Anne, as the girls ate gold fish crackers, PBJ sandwiches, mini fig newtons, and Kit Kat bars. It was the dainty afternoon-tea feel of the food that was important not true period-accuracy. Gleek sat among the girls, glowing with happiness.

“10 is like the perfect age.” Gleek said to me one night as she was carefully tucking her blanket around the sides of the bed. Blanket tucking was an essential ritual before crawling under the blanket to go to sleep. “10 year olds can do big kid stuff and still play. It is kind of like the middle.”
“That’s why it’s called tween, because it is between being a kid and a teenager.” I said handing her a stuffed animal.
“Tween.” Gleek said, savoring the sound of the word. “Being a tween is perfect. When I got to heaven, I want to be 10 forever.” She tucked the stuffed animal carefully into place before sliding her legs underneath the comforter. “And I want wings.”

After the Anne themed picnic, the girls gathered for a shadow play. The shadow puppet theater hid the two teenage girls from the sight of the twelve younger ones. These girls had never seen a shadow play before and they were fascinated by the way the shadows could move and seem life-like. There is no shadow play in Anne of Green Gables, but it feels right for the party. Similarly appropriate are the little paper fairy boxes that the guests construct out of printed paper and tape. The girls sang songs as they cut and taped. Twelve tweens singing in chorus is very charming.

I first introduced Gleek to Anne of Green Gables several years prior to the party. I felt the knowing Anne would be good for Gleek. She could see how an imaginative, impulsive, energetic, creative girl could grow from someone who was always in trouble into a person to be admired. Gleek listened to Anne’s adventures nightly via an audio book. I think it helped. I know that Gleek came to love Anne.

“Happy birthday to you!” sang the girls. Gleek blew out the candles on her cupcake, and everyone cheered. Beside Gleek were the presents she had unwrapped a few minutes earlier. Craft supplies, art supplies, clothing, make-up, and jewelry. She received no toys, and did not even notice that she had not. The party wound to an end and the guests went home.

Gleek is 10, just one year younger than Anne at the beginning of the book. Her life will be quite different than Anne’s in detail, but the themes will be strikingly similar. This is why Anne of Green Gables is still beloved generations after it was written. 10 is a threshold. Gleek has entered double digits. She is beginning to leave behind her toys and heading off to new interests. She is still small enough to scoop into my lap and snuggle, but big enough for ear rings and pop music. I have to agree with Gleek. 10 is pretty close to perfect and I’ve got 365 days to enjoy it until we’re off into the adventure that 11 will be.

15 year old Kiki was obviously crying when I picked her up from school. Her eyes and nose were red in a way that can only be achieved through extended sadness. I knew that she had stayed up late the night before to finish off three homework assignments, which was simultaneously responsible (yay she got her homework done) and frustrating (she spent the entire afternoon playing a video game.) I was not thrilled to see her crying. I was really tired of emotional drama. Kiki climbed in the car and handed me a sheet with her term grades, all Bs and Cs with one No Credit.

I could have:
A. Responded immediately and negatively to the grades which did not represent her highest capability, thus goading her in the guilt and inspiring her to do better.
B. Looked at the grades, acknowledged they are not what we had hoped, and asked her if anything else is wrong, thus catering to her obviously fragile emotional state.
C. Vented a frustrated rant about exactly how she earned each of these grades through various forms of procrastination and irresponsibility, while hoping that she’ll get mad enough to prove me wrong.

Just like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books, even the “obviously right” choices could lead to dead ends, and each of the choices had the potential to backfire depending upon Kiki’s response. Unlike the books, I did not have the luxury of carefully pondering or peeking ahead in the pages. I had seconds to pick a response. I chose B.

Kiki then told me that two of the three assignments that she had stressed over the night before had been the wrong assignments. Despite staying up until 1 am to finish, she only got half credit because she’d done the wrong list of math problems. The English assignment she still had to do over the weekend. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. This conversation featured a return of the familiar “School is too hard, I want it all to go away” refrain. I’d hoped that the new year had gotten us out of that useless emotional eddy. I asked a chain of questions to make sure I had the facts straight. Getting all the facts required me to turn the car around and go back to the school so that we could find out why Kiki was listed with No Credit in PE. I certainly did not want to repeat any part of what we have been through this year. A conversation with the attendance office solved that problem and we got back in the car to go home. Kiki said “I’m Sorry.” in a very small voice.

I could have:
A. Delivered a lecture on the importance of keeping track of her assignments and when they are due, which emphasized that this is her job.
B. Praised her for the fact that she did buckle down the night before and get her work done, even if it happened to be the wrong work.
C. Ranted about how tired I am of helping with emotional crises over things which never need be crises in the first place.
D. Aired my worries about the fact that she seems to respond to pressure by crumpling. This has not always been the case, she is amazingly strong at times, but not about school work this year.

The car ride was just long enough for me to get through choice B and then choice A. We arrived at home, and I realized that somewhere in my words and Kiki’s responses my primary emotion had shifted from frustration to sympathy. After that there was hugging and we sat together on the couch to really focus on the grade sheet. We were able to identify exactly where each grade had come from, which assignments had been the ones to lower the grade. We could see that she got exactly the grades she earned.

I hugged her close and told her “I’m sorry this year has been so hard.” And at that moment I felt the truth of my statement. This year really has been hard for Kiki. It does not matter whether I think it should have been hard, or what little things she has done to make things harder for herself. It has been hard on her and therefore hard on me. But, and this is important, that does not mean it has been a bad year. At the beginning of the school year, when we shuffled her schedule around, this set of classes felt like the right choice for her. I reminded her of that and she nodded. Then she told me how one of her friends sat with her and talked through her sadness. He listened to her and opened up about some things in his life as well. They had a really good conversation and Kiki shared it with me. When the tears were dried up and the snuggles were over, Kiki said to me “This has been a really hard day, but I think it was a good one.”

From the moment Kiki climbed in the car, our afternoon was surrounded by a cloud of possibilities. I made choice after choice, like the branching decision trees in those books. This time we found our way to a happy result. That is not always the case between Kiki and I. Many discussions have ended with anger and slamming doors. I don’t think this was the only possible happy result, but I’ll keep it.

I learned another lesson from yesterday’s post about Plants Vs. Zombies. I am extremely motivated by check lists and reward systems, even when the rewards are imaginary. So today I put together a little motivational check box system that lets me measure my revision progress. I spaced things out into a fairly reasonable schedule so that I can finish the revision in about three weeks. I will now try to exceed that schedule, because that is always what I try to do with schedules.

I finished my allotted segment for today, but was stymied in my intent to get ahead because I had to sit next to Gleek for two hours while she caught up on all the homework she hasn’t done for two weeks. Gleek was awesome. She slogged through 6 pages of math problems for the reward of one gold fish cracker per problem solved. We upped the price to chocolate chips for the last couple of pages, because her enthusiasm was flagging. In the end we got it all done, which means she’ll be able to go to her class “I’m Caught Up” party on Friday.

It felt really good to sit there and give Gleek my complete focus for a couple of hours. Patch has been getting more focused attention as well. He doesn’t appreciate all of it, because it has involved much more regular bathing. Link and I had a time to sit down and talk about his school work, which I’ve not done since some time in October. That felt good too. Perhaps best of all, I gave less attention to Kiki and her homework. She’s stepping up and handling it herself, which is a mighty relief.

Here’s hoping tomorrow will bring as many good things as today did.