No comment on the misspelled last name.(He and I have been over it many times.)

As I began reading the writing journal, which contains tiny gems in both pictures and phonetically-spelled words, I said, “Awwwwwww…” out loud when I got to this one:

My translation: The most important manners is always be kind. Being kind is nice. It is fun too. I like being kind.

What elicited the “Awwwwww…” from me was the picture, in which Logan drew himself opening a door for other people and saying, “Ladies go first.”

“What?” said Logan, who was sitting across from me, doing his homework and heard my sigh.

“That’s so gentlemanly of you,” I said, showing him the picture.

“Aw, Mom, you’re making me dashful,” he said.

“Dashful?” I echoed.

“Yeah, you know, when you’re embarrassed? You’re dashful,” he explained.

“Oh, you mean BASHFUL,” I corrected.

“Yeah, DASHFUL,” he nodded.

Thankfully, we both agree that me working from home part-time is the best choice for our family. That way I can be here for the kids, take care of the house and meals, yet still earn some money. However, I would never be able to do that if I didn’t have him to support me financially. I’m so grateful to him for all he does for us. He works hard to give us what we need. I know there’s no way I would be able to afford to live in this house — the repairs and maintenance alone would kill me! — without him. He is also a wonderful father to our kids. He spends as much time with them as he can.

The reason I leave Glen out of the majority of my blog posts is because our relationship is very, very complicated, to put it succinctly. It’s not something I wish to publicly discuss. Although we haven’t managed to find a way to be together as a couple yet, there will always be love and friendship between us, no matter what happens. He doesn’t need to do everything that he does for me, yet he has been doing it for over two years now. I would fall on my face without his help.

Thank you, Glen, for everything you do for the kids and me. We are blessed to have you in our lives.

Do you have someone you’d like to express gratitude to for going above and beyond what he/she needs to do?

The kids were out shopping with their dad around Thanksgiving time and Logan saw something that caught his attention and held it for months. He came home all excited to tell me about the Bigfoot toy he saw at the store.

“It costs $100!” he said. “I wish I had $100 so I could buy it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said. (And, incidentally, what could be so amazing about a toy that it costs THAT much? Good grief.)

He brought the Bigfoot toy up many times, as well as his dearest wish that he would get it for Christmas. Again, I told him we weren’t going to spend $100 on a toy. In other conversations throughout the following weeks, he mentioned repeatedly that if he had the money, he would buy the Bigfoot toy.

So with this story in mind, you can imagine my surprise when the following paper came home from school:

I think the picture explains it all, but for the first graders’ celebration of the 100th day of school, they were given this paper with a copy of the $100 bill on it and asked to write what they would buy with their $100. In case you can’t read it, here’s the translation:

“If I had $100, I would give it Haiti and I would buy a toy. I would give it to my cousins.”

Logan has always been a generous little guy. He has been wonderful at sharing since he was a toddler, an innate trait he has that most kids have to learn. Still, I was impressed by his decision to spend his imaginary $100 on the people of Haiti and his cousins, rather than on the Bigfoot toy he has been wanting for so long.

I love the subtle, occasional peeks I get into the depths of my kids’ personalities. These two little sentences gave me greater insight into who Logan is and what is truly important to him.

I couldn’t be more proud.

What glimpses of your child’s best personality traits have you had? Share here!

]]> http://www.parentingbytrialanderror.com/2011/03/18/when-our-kids-inadvertently-impress-us/feed/ 0 http://www.parentingbytrialanderror.com/2010/09/03/the-curious-mind/ http://www.parentingbytrialanderror.com/2010/09/03/the-curious-mind/#comments Sat, 04 Sep 2010 01:24:20 +0000 Sarah E. Ludwig http://www.parentingbytrialanderror.com/?p=3002 Logan seems to have entered a new phase of destruction. When he was a toddler, it was flushing utensils, toys and other unidentified items down the toilet. When he was 3, he somehow managed, in the space of just minutes, to swipe and lose my engagement and wedding band set (to this day I haven’t found it). He has cut up, marked up, glued up, dumped out and stickered up all sorts of household items in his short lifetime.

Thankfully, there was about a year-long lull. Not much happened in the wreckage department and I figured maybe he had finally outgrown his curious tendencies.

Unfortunately, he has not.

About a month ago, I found a now-ancient and nearly impossible to buy LeapPad in pieces in his room. He had taken it apart and damaged it in the process, rendering it useless. I calmly tossed it in the trash and let it pass because I know he didn’t mean to break it; he was simply curious. I did have a talk with him about breaking his toys, whether intentional or not.

Just the other night, though, as I went in his room to tuck him in, I saw the only other LeapPad in our possession on his bed, also dismantled. A telltale small screwdriver sat next to it, as did a pair of kiddie scissors, with which he had cut every last wire on the gadget.

“Logan,” I began, exasperated.

Following my gaze to the mess at the foot of the bed, Logan interrupted me before I could get any further.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I want to see how everything works. I have to know. I just HAVE to know!”

“You just HAVE to know,” I repeated, thinking of stories my own mother told me about how she was constantly in trouble as a child for taking things apart to see how they worked. I just wanted to see, I heard her say in my head. I didn’t mean to break things, but I got punished anyway.

It was a good thing for Logan that this memory came to me because I’m not the sort who cares how anything works. It would never occur to me to waste my time taking something apart because I couldn’t care less about what makes it do what it does. In fact, if a giant green glob of slime were to suddenly fall from the sky, I’m the type who would look at it, shrug, and walk on, chalking it up to some mysterious force of which I was simply unaware.

Sighing, I told Logan that while I understand that he’s curious, he can’t take things apart without asking. Though I was seriously annoyed and cross, I was also secretly glad that he has the curiosity that he does. After all, it’s the curious minds that find cures for diseases, discover new inventions and figure out how to fix a car, a vacuum cleaner or a furnace. The world needs these people. I’ll just have to try to find experiments for him to do to help satisfy his craving for knowledge.

I just hope that in the interim between now and Logan’s eventual flight from the nest, nothing I seriously care about falls victim to his experiments.

Do you have a curious mind in your house? How do you satisfy the curiosity without sacrificing your precious belongings?

…a quiet reappraisal of helicopter parents is underway. Some researchers have begun to argue that late adolescence and young adulthood are such minefields today – emotional, social, sexual, logistical, psychological – that there are valid reasons for parents to remain deeply involved in their children’s lives even after the kids are, technically speaking, adults.

Further along in the article, a social historian argues that helicopter parenting is not the same as over-parenting, though people use the two terms interchangeably. She feels helicoptering is actually a positive method of raising kids.

So far, I’m not buying it. Being that involved in a child’s life cannot possibly be good for either party.

Until I read the next part, detailing the activities of a self-professed helicopter mom of twin daughters who are attending college.

She goes shopping with them. She gives them advice about their relationships. She weighs in when they are worried about an upcoming test or wondering which class to take. She helps decorate their dorm rooms. One night a week, when (her daughter) gets off work from her part-time job, (she) drives from her Newton home to downtown Boston, picks her up, and transports her back to Pine Manor College.

That doesn’t sound so extreme to me. In fact, that sounds like the kind of relationship I hope to have with my daughters someday. I would go so far as to say that this mom doesn’t really fit the definition of a helicopter mom. These girls are adults, they’re in college, and their mom is their buddy. She sounds very involved with her daughters’ lives, but not interfering.

If I stick to the Wikipedia definition mentioned in my last post, I have a big problem with helicopter parenting. Not allowing kids to fail and deal with it, or make their own choices and become independent-thinking adults, is not raising very healthy and responsible members of society. Life is tough and often unfair. Part of our job as parents is to teach our kids cause and effect, choices and consequences of those choices, so they will be prepared for reality, rather than stunned into immobility by how different the outside world is, where Mommy and Daddy aren’t there to rescue them.

Next time: How much is too much involvement?

What did you think of the Boston Globe article? Share your thoughts on its argument that helicopter parenting is beneficial for some families. Do you feel that “helicopter parenting” and “over-parenting” are synonymous?

“It’s coming down really fast, so it’s like a miracle,” he told me seriously, in the way that kids so often do, innocently reminding us jaded adults that everyday events truly are miracles.

Sometimes all it takes to rediscover the beauty and magic all around us is a 4-year-old’s unbiased observations.

How has your child shown you the simplicity and wonder of normal events that adults so often overlook?