Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Can I be sick today?

Cheese Boy has the sniffles.

"Maybe I'll keep you home tomorrow, if your cold worsens, " I tell him as I tuck him in at bedtime. Don't want to pass germs on to the entire preschool.

His sleepy eyes twinkle with hope, "Really?"

Then he drifts off to sleep, dreaming of a nose full of snot.

In the morning, I find crumpled pieces of used tissue stuffed into the space between Cheese Boy's mattress and his bed frame. "Rough night, " I surmise.  But Cheese Boy's nose is only a little bit leaky.

"Do I have to go to preschool?" he asks me.

"Let's see how it goes, " I say. "But it does not mean you get to do anything fun. It means that you'll have to stay home. Perhaps even in your bed."

We do our usual morning scramble of begging and pleading with my boys to brush teeth, put on shoes and leave that toy at home! Finally, we're in the car, on our way to preschool on the tardy side of course.

Once out of the car, my boys race each other to their classroom. They're happy, mingling with their friends and checking out the morning's projects.

"OK, Mom, let's go, " Cheese Boy announces, pulling my hand.

"So you're not feeling well. Really?" I ask.

Cheese Boy forces out a cough.

"Alright, you can stay home with me. Let's tell your teacher."

We inform his teacher, bid a temporary adieu to our Chalk Boy brother and saunter out the door. And I do mean saunter. Sick people do not saunter.

Once out in the fresh air, Cheese Boy looks up at me with a big, satisfied grin. It's the grin that says, "We really pulled one over on everyone, didn't we?"

He skips off toward the gate, filled with glee. He is not so sick that he can't go to school, but I feel like following his lead. "Let's go out for breakfast!" I'm about to say. As twins, my boys so rarely get alone time with either parent, so I relish the days when I get to be 1:1 with one of them, even if that child is under the weather.

As we get to the parking lot, we run into a girl from his class and her mother who are just arriving at school. They look surprised to see us leaving. "He's, um, sick, " I explain, my fingers signaling quotation marks. "Sick."

"Oh, come on Cheese Boy, come with us, let's go to school, " they say, cheerfully.

"OK, " he replies and turns back around, following them to class.

"We're back, " I explain to the teacher and to his brother.

Cheese Boy scoots off in search of his friends.

I head home, missing my little "sick" boy. He'd have made terrific company at breakfast. I drive home, replace Cheese Boy's box of tissue with a fresh one and plunge into a morning of housework.

Maybe Cheese Boy will be sick again tomorrow.

Original Chalk and Cheese Chronicles blog post.

LeapFrog: Creating Haves in a Have-Not World

I love the whole genre of children's books. One of my most favorite activities is browsing about bookstores, especially children's bookstores such as Linden Tree and Hickelbees. If I lived in Portland, Oregon, I'd take up residency within the dusty mansion of Powells Books.

Coffee. Books. Rain. A winning combo.

We are readers. I enjoy buying books for my children. Our structurally weak Ikea bookshelf is at capacity, leaning dangerously to one side. We have board books and picture books, chapter books and lift-a-flap books, vintage books (from my childhood & from used bookstores) and over-sized books from the bargain bin, we have books on CD and books downloaded to my iPod. We also make the rounds of our local libraries, but those outings must be carefully timed to coincide with my boys' good moods; we've been reprimanded there more than once by stern librarians. My husband and I have been reading to our boys since they were tiny bundles. My husband includes an elaborate, improvised story every night before bedtime. In the darkness of the room, two wide-eyed boys stare at the images flying all around, until eventually, they surrender to sleep, hugged by the words of their dad.

Earlier this month, I joined other Silicon Valley Moms Blog contributors for a discussion hosted by LeapFrog. Dr. Anne Cunningham, of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, and on the LeapFrog advisory board, led the forum which focused on the importance of reading to your children. (For a great recap of the discussion, read Linsey's post on Me Too You or this post from a third grade teacher.) What struck me the most during the discussion were the implications of the Matthew Effect which Dr. Cunningham touched upon in her presentation.

The Matthew Effect as applied to literacy describes how the have and the have-nots grow further apart in their reading achievements based on the disparity of their early exposure to reading. Basically, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It has largely to do with one's socioeconomic background. In a tiny nutshell, the have-nots have not been given huge doses of language at an early age. So by the third grade, when expectations of language comprehension greatly expands, the have-not kids are at a huge disadvantage. Some of these kids might not ever learn to read.

As I and my fellow attendees gleefully brought home bagfuls of LeapFrog products that night, I started to think about the Matthew Effect of the have and the have-nots. I quite often feel like a have-not by Silicon Valley standards yet as I review all that I've been able to give my children, despite not being materially wealthy, I have to think that my children are very, very lucky. They have parental involvement on their side. They have books, trips to the library, preschool, dinnertime conversation, and now, our new LeapFrog Tag Reading System. Thus, we may not have material wealth, but we are a family firmly on the side of the "haves."

So I wondered, how does LeapFrog attempt to create haves in a have-not world? Clearly, a low income family cannot afford to plunk down over $50 for a Tag Reading System. According to a spokesperson at LeapFrog, the company believes that early literacy experience is the key to reading success. They would like to spread the experience of early literacy to ALL children. LeapFrog is currently developing a program with PACEAPP (Professional Association for Childhood Education Alternative Payment Program) to bring books and possibly the Tag Reading System into the hands of low-income families. The collaboration aims to go beyond the delivery of reading materials and into the realm of educating low-income parents on early literacy skills. LeapFrog also sponsors campaigns like 2008 Read for the Record and promotes literacy through local events and charities. These are just a few of the many programs LeapFrog is implementing in its effort to advance early literacy.

I'm proud of you, LeapFrog,thank you for reaching out to young readers of ALL families. 

Original blog post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Akemi/svtwinmom is hoping to someday use the Tag Reader to learn a new language. Product development, are you listening?

The Space Shuttle via Mad Libs

Ever since our boys started getting into the knock knock joke mode, my husband has been wanting to show them the humor of Mad Libs. He just thinks it's so funny. I did, too, back when I was eight. Our boys are newly minted 4-year-olds with a newly acquired potty mouth vocabulary, a bonus lesson from preschool.

Yesterday, my husband took one boy out for the afternoon and they returned with two books, The Original #1 Mad Libs and a paperback book called Silly Jokes & Giggles. Ok, I admit to having thumbed through these books a few times, but I just don't think my boys are ready. A 4-year-old child kind of needs some life experience to get this type of humor. Case in point:

What do you get when you cross three tenors and April 1st? Answer: April Fool's Day! (Hmm, don't exactly think a young 4-year old will find the humor in this one)

What cereal is a favorite with young magicians? Answer: Trix! (Do they sell that at Trader Joe's?)

We had a bit better luck with the Mad Libs. Of course, we had to simplify, simplify! Rather than saying, "Give me a noun!", we said, "give me a person, place or thing" but that turned out to be too many choices, so we said, "name a person" or "name a place" and that worked out much better. But the payoff wasn't worth the tedious task of sitting through all the questions, so we cut it short and read what we'd completed and got a few laughs.

So may I present our first ever 3/4 completed page of Mad Libs, culled from the vocabulary of 4-year-olds.

In 1981, the U.S. launched the first real space GRANDMA.
It was named Columbia and was piloted by two brave GRAMMY B's.
They had practiced RUNNING for two years and were expert DINOSAURS and PLANTS.
Columbia took off from SAN FRANCISCO using its powerful first-stage CUP and soared off into the BIG blue ANIMALS.
At an altitude of ONE feet, it went into orbit around a CLOUD.
For people watching from Earth, it was a NICE sight to BURP!

We got lucky that the story ended with a funny word like BURP. I'm dreading the day when my boys refuse to fill in the Mad Libs blanks with anything other than the word POOP. POOP is actually a good word for Mad Libs in that it's a noun (poop is everywhere), a verb (I'm pooping), and of course an exclamation, "POOP!" 

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.