In which Ziad apologizes, and I have mixed feelings

Behold Ziad's latest poem:

I'm not very smart and I know it
I'm also a terrible poet
I'm almost as smart
As a blackberry tart
I'm not very smart and I know it

This poem accomplished it's intended purpose, which was to make me laugh. Maya also found it very amusing. Still, I can't help wondering ... am I too hard on the boy?

Crazy days of summer

I found a summer camp I want to enroll my kids in. (Did she just end a sentence with a preposition? ZOMG!!!)

Anyway, money is a consideration. These are some pretty privileged kids, with the guitar lessons, the piano lessons, the tennis lessons, and god knows what else from time to time. Yet for some reason, I still think it's reasonable to send them to summer camp in Santa Cruz to cook for 5-6 hours a day (I'd be glad to tell you why I think that's reasonable, but really, how many digressions can one blog post support?)

So I asked my husband, "Well, how about if they trade some music lessons for cooking lessons?" my estimate being that about four guitar lessons would be the equivalent of the cooking camp. His answer? "No, that's OK. They can do it, but you owe me." Which made me realize how much I personally want this for them. It's not for me, it's for them, but still I really want it. Enough so that when my husband said, "OK, well, we'll just consider it your birthday present," I was actually on board. WHO SENDS THEIR CHILDREN TO SUMMER CAMP FOR THEIR OWN BIRTHDAY PRESENT???? Especially since this not one of those getting the children out of your hair kind of thing. I like being around them and miss them when they're gone, plus if I drive them to Santa Cruz, where the camp is, I'm not going to be coming home to get stuff done or anything. Is that the attraction for me? Guaranteed six hours out of the house for five straight days? Probably not. That actually sounds kind of tiring.

Being a mom is confusing, that's for sure. I still haven't untangled this all in my head.

Tired of waiting at the park?

So, the other day, it was getting to be time to leave the park. Ziad had taken his shoes off, scattered sand toys all over the sand area, and was deep in a game of tag on the climbing structure. I somehow extricated him, then got distracted myself as I made my way to the exit. When I got myself back into leaving mode, he was playing tag again. Which would be OK, except that he hadn't done anything about getting his stuff the first time I started to leave. Which made me mad. So I said to him, "I'm going home. If you can your stuff and get to the car by the time I leave, I'll give you a ride."

Which, surprisingly, lit a fire under him. (I mean, did he really think I was going to leave him at the park?) It was a long walk from the play are to the parking lot, so I knew he would be more than able to get his stuff and get to the car about the same time I did. I don't walk all that fast these days, and I certainly wasn't setting my fastest pace.

As Ziad comes panting up to the car, we see a mom back at the play area calling him. We realize he has his sand toys, all right, but does he have his shoes? No. So I had him stow his toys in the car and run back for the shoes, while I pulled out of the parking place and pulled up to the curb of the park entrance. A few days later I heard from another mom that as he ran back for his shoes, the look of fear on his face was striking.

I think I'm an excellent candidate for mean mom of the year.

The Hawks

Yesterday, we had gorgeous weather. The sky was blue, the temperature was cool and comfortable, the sun was shining. And we had magic -- the hawks who live in the woods nearby must have been feeling the spring, too, because four or five of them were flying and calling together in the sky over our house. As high as they were, I think my husband and son scared them off with their noisy electronics as they tried to take pictures, because they left soon after we started watching them, but then came back, and stayed flying nearby as I watched them from the shade of our roof overhang. Later, one perched in a tall pine across the street, and sat there watching the neighborhood for a long time. She was still there when we left to do some errands, but gone when we got back.

So watching hawks took up some of my time yesterday. I also spent a long time in the evening looking at the town report of the town next to the one I grew up in. It made me so homesick for the East Coast, where they still have Town Meetings where everybody who wants to can have their voice heard. Maybe it's only workable where the communities are relatively small, I don't know, but it still seems like such a good system.

So, apart from those two worthwhile activities, what did I do yesterday? Why did I go to bed feeling that I had accomplished little of any value? When I woke up this morning, I thought it over. I baked bread, I made yogurt, I baked a turkey breast for dinner and bread pudding for desert, I made lunch for my husband; breakfast, lunch, and dinner for my children; cooked special food for my husband to eat after work since he doesn't like turkey; went to the library and the hardware store; reorganized some bookshelves -- how does all that translate into feeling so lazy? It's not in the high-energy league of Jennifer and Lesley, but it's hardly nothing. (Sharp-eyed observers will notice that there's no formal schooling in there, which may be part of the problem.)

I think that's one of the worst things about staying home with kids. Somehow, it's easy to devalue what gets done, and only see what doesn't. If my husband had come home and made some remark about lolling on the couch eating bon-bons (or whatever) (not that he would do that), I would have been indignant, but also speechless and secretly wondering to myself whether my day really had been worthwhile.

And it's odd how I can be home with my kids all day and still feel that I haven't really spent enough time with them. Today, when we'll be out and about pretty much from now on, I guess that won't be a problem. I'll be able to account for my schedule -- guitar class, lunch, writing test, grocery store, park day, dinner -- in a way I couldn't yesterday. We'll talk in the car. Maybe we really need our down time and personal space at home. I don't know.

I just know that I think it's odd how I can be busy enough to be tired at night, to have no time to exercise or read for pleasure, and yet still feel that I haven't done anything and that I'm really going to have to try harder.

Budgie Brouhaha

Ziad and Maya have budgies that live in Maya's room. These birds are not especially tame, or particularly bright, and when they get out of their cage it can be really difficult to get them back in again. Most birds, homebodies all, will eventually make their way back into their cage, but these are some freedom-loving budgies. Or some not-so-bright budgies, maybe, because even with two doors in the cage open I've seen them have trouble figuring out how to get back in. And of course since there are two, getting them both in and the door closed is twice as difficult. Honestly, they are the most trouble I have ever had with caged birds. When (not if, unfortunately) they get out.

Now Ziad and Maya like to handle these birds, and are trying to tame them, and love to interact with them. That is why I say when, and not if, they get out. That's all well and good, but seriously, chasing budgies into a cage when you are late for guitar class is one of the most infuriating wastes of time I can imagine. Especially since the guitar teach will definitely guilt-trip you for being late and then be unable to add extra minutes for the one you missed (it's not the fault of his next student that you came late), so that I can hear a little meter ticking off the dollars it is costing me to chase those annoying birds.

Which is why I made the decree that if those birds were EVER flying around loose again, they were out of here. There's a new place downtown that's opened up with the purpose of placing birds, and I have no qualms at all about taking those budgies and putting them up for adoption.

So of course, it turns out that they have been flying around loose again. The process by which I discovered this is not all that relevant, but when I did, and got ready to follow through, of course, there was a huge upheaval in the house. Ziad was crying his eyes out, and eventually revealed that he had set them loose ON PURPOSE because he felt like, in his words, "causing some trouble."

Naturally enough, this caused even more upheaval. I am not that keen on children who deliberately defy me. As I pointed out to Ziad, letting the budgies fly around loose is not really that good for them, they are not toys for his personal amusement, and it was that much worse that he decided to something that entailed serious consequences for Maya, just because he felt like it. So of course he cried even harder.

Not being made of stone (and being very fond of the budgies myself, I have to admit) we eventually settled on a compromise. Ziad is now personally responsible for all household chores for the next two weeks, he apologized to Maya, and he is going to be losing a substantial number of toys, although they are mainly birthday presents I've been holding back due to space considerations.

Now I'm wondering: which is the better course? Should I absolutely hold to what I said, or should I work with my children to let them find consequences that sting, but are bearable? Am I going to find myself with a drunken teenager who has no respect for the rules, and feels that everything is negotiable, or am I going to have a child who trusts me to care how he feels and wants to maintain our relationship of trust? I honestly don't know. Maybe nobody does.

Feedback welcome.