Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

The Danger Zone that is the School Crosswalk

For 15 minutes a day, twice a day, the rules of the road are abandoned. I'm not talking about traffic in developing nations, I'm talking about residential streets alongside some Bay Area neighborhood schools.

Yesterday, my kids and I had a close call. We were walking in the crosswalk toward our school's back gate (a popular drop-off and pick-up location); no cars were coming in either direction, but cars were lined up along the long curb as parents let their children off.

A white car was idling at the curb, just behind the cross-walk. One of my sons was about 3 feet ahead of me, his oversized red backpack thumping at his back. Two little boys had just exited that idling white car, the door slamming behind them and then with that, their mother put the pedal to the metal and left the curb WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING.

And there was my son, my little son, making his way to his school, a car coming right at him.

I screamed, "Noooooooo!" and my son shouted something and the white car braked. Thank God for brakes.

He wasn't hurt.

It was close, so close.

I gave her a look of stunned disbelief. She looked shaken. I shook - for hours.

As we walked onto the school grounds, I caught up to her kids. One explained that his mom was just "excited because she's going buck hunting in the hills after school today."

I hate hunting (and in SV?) but I had to laugh. I always love the way kids explain things. Perhaps his mom thought we were a herd of deer?

"Oh, ok then, " I replied, "but please tell your mom that she should look before pulling away from the curb."

We all do dumb things when we drive. I do dumb things when I drive, like the time I made a U-turn without looking and nearly got plowed into by another driver!

I tried to post a gentle safe driving reminder to our school's Yahoo! Group but the group moderator wouldn't let me post it. I think it has to be positive and/or school related in order to post there. The principal told me she'd put a little blub on her announcements corner of the school website, but to me, that's like shouting it into the air when there's no one around you. Safety should be a top priority. Better to get the word out now about safe driving rather than having to post about a tragedy later.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now but when I see the image of my little guy barely making it across the street, I want to do something so that he - and all students - make it to their schools safely.

The San Jose Mercury News says that the city of San Jose is considering lowering the speed limit around schools to 15 mph. That's great news. A 15 mph school-zone speed limit should be a nationwide standard. Check out what Arizona is doing with their adaptive 15 mph school-zone limits. Then, of course, there's the ever-present distraction of using a cell phone while driving.

Our close call yesterday wasn't speed related or cell phone related, but perhaps if more attention were directed to safe driving, all drivers in the vicinity of a school will be more cautious with their driving. My friend's husband will literally stand in the street and yell to drivers to slow down. Kudos to him!

I saw a sign in a school parking lot that read: If you have your foot on the gas pedal, you are going to fast. For some reason, it's stuck in my head and I do try to keep my foot off the gas pedal when in a school or mall parking lot -- anywhere there's a lot of pedestrian traffic.

My kids aren't out driving cars, but they do have to know about pedestrian safety... and that neon orange is a cool color to wear.

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

 

 

 

 

Our Summer Wardrobe is the Camp Galileo T-Shirt

My twin boys have easy fashion requirements when it comes to clothing. They're into soft t-shirts with cool graphics and absolutely no hardware of any kind (we're looking at you buttondown shirt). It takes my boys all of two minutes to get dressed. T-shirts, shorts and presto, they're ready for the day.

This summer has been the summer of the Camp Galileo t-shirt. It's become my boys' summertime uniform. They wear their light blue Camp Galileo "Stars" shirts nearly every day. I think my boys wax nolstaglic when they're in their Camp Galileo shirts. We went to camp and a good time was had by all.

My boys took away some incredible memories from their two week experience at Camp Galileo. As the mother of the boys who wear their Camp Galileo shirts almost every day, Camp Galileo isn't far from my mind either. Those shirts are in every laundry basket I set out to fold. I can't fathom the number of times I've folded those shirts. I could probably pick them out of a pile of clothing with my eyes shut.

My boys have worn their Camp Galileo shirts to bed. They've worn them to other other camps. Our photos from this summer look like we packed in a hundred activities into one day because no matter what my boys doing, at least one of them is wearing a Camp Galileo t-shirt!

A few examples...

At the OMSI in Portland.

 

A the beach, making a fort.

On the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad.

At Santana Row, shopping with me (think I must've bribed him).

Chalk Boy wore his camp shirt to the aquarium:

His brother wore his while trying to earn time on his beloved Sony PSP.

Tomorrow will be yet another day of making memories in a Camp Galileo t-shirt. My boys will be heading to a spy camp at a local school district and guess what they'll be wearing? HEAVILY laundered Camp Galileo t-shirts, of course.

Another day, another Camp Galileo t-shirt to wash. I see no end in sight until my boys have outgrown them. Which leaves me to wonder why Camp Galileo only allows ONE t-shirt per camper per summer? Every camper gets one t-shirt only, even if they attend camp the entire summer. I say bump it up to one t-shirt per week of camp attended, or make the t-shirts available for sale on-site.

It's all good, of course. Camp Galileo = a summer of fun and learning. As long as my boys feel happy, I'm happy to wash those shirts, again and again. We loved Camp Galileo and will be back for more next summer. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask... pssst... Camp Galileo! Do you think you can allow me to stock up on t-shirts next year? Please?

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

Disclaimer: We participated in two weeks of Camp Galileo, each in a different location. One week we paid for on our own; the other is a complimentary week courtesy of Camp Galileo. I decided to write about our experiences at both camps and the opinions expressed herein are my own.

 

 

 

 

Scribbling Away at Self-Esteem

My nearly 6-year-old son is a scribbler at school. When he was 4, his jerky scribbles would reveal surprisingly accurate doodles of dinosaurs and light saber battles. Rarely, though, would he fill in the lines of those doodles with color. I loved those doodles, even using them as gift tags, proud mother that I am.

The scribbling didn't bother me.

This year, in 1st grade, the scribbling continues. A couple of times, he's been made to re-do his coloring work. Don't scribble, he is told. Do it slowly and carefully. His observant 1st grade teacher is working hard to make him care about his work. The message is clear: Color within the lines. Cover up all the white spaces. He showed me how he colored in a drawing of Columbus and rather than praise the process, I pointed out the scribbles.

My son's penmanship and overall fine motor skills need improvement. Desperately. At home, we have an art station. We have every imaginable type of writing instrument. We have lined paper, handwriting paper, blank paper, coloring books and even a Toy Story handwriting practice book. Everythiing my son needs for remedial coloring 101 is at the ready. We work on it every day. It's not really that he can't do it, it's more that he doesn't want to do it.

Starting 1st grade when everyone else is starting kindergarten

This post was inspired by the Yahoo! Motherboard topic, Back to School.

For me, back to school means revisiting my decision to enroll my twin boys in kindergarten last year at age 4. Time marches on, but was it the right decision? In a few days, my boys will be off to first grade among the youngest in their class. In fact, they will always be the youngest in their class because I started them in kindergarten when they were just 4-years old (two months shy of age 5).

It wasn't a decision I arrived at easily.

When it comes to anything else, I'm not indecisive. But when it comes to my children, I weigh all possible outcomes until I collapse with exhaustion. I think I grapple with too much information. It doesn't help that the state where we live (California) allows children to enter kindergarten so long as they turn 5 by December 2nd of the school year. They leave the decision making to us indecisive parents! For me, the decision to thrust my boys forth into kindergarten had a lot to do with finances. I didn't want to have to pay for another year of a double preschool tuition. So a year ago, at the eleventh hour, I told my twin sons: You're going to kindergarten tomorrow!

It was the least bad choice for my two little boys - twins - with a fall birthday. I knew the odds, I knew what we were up against either way. Sometimes, I wish I were blissfully ignorant; over-parenting brings on its own woes.

Though not without its rough patches, our kindergarten year turned out fine and my boys are doing well. I know I shouldn't look back but lately, I've noticed that so many of their same age (and sometimes, older) peers are just starting kindergarten while my boys are a year ahead, in first grade. Same age, a whole school year apart. On the other end of the spectrum, my boys will be in class with children who are a whole year (or more) ahead of them in age.

So whereas in the past, playgroups and such were formed around age, the focus now is on school year.

Chronological age versus school age

At the start of the 2010 school year, chronological age can be very different from school age:

• Timmy, born July 2004 entering Kindergarten (age 6)

• My boys, born a month premature in October 2004 entering 1st grade (age 5)

• Keith, born June 2004, entering 1st grade (age 6)

• Sara, born September 2003 entering 1st grade (age 6)

• Ben, born May 2003, entering 1st grade (age 7)

Meeting the World in Fourth Grade

The following post was inspired by the book Close Encounters of the Third Grade Kind by Phillip Done. Mr. Done is certainly the type of teacher whom some of his students will never forget. We can all scan through the list of our grade school teachers and pick the one who made the greatest impression on our young selves. For me, it's a teacher who once invited our entire fourth grade class over for a swim in her condominium pool!

I still have her letters. One is typewritten. A few are handwritten in her familiar cursive. Another is addressed to me in the bold lettering of calligraphy.

She was my fourth grade teacher and when she left our school to get married and move to Honolulu, she and I kept in touch for several years. As Ms. Kirby became Mrs. Izumi, I followed her trail through letters to a world bigger than my own. She wrote to me about her travels to Fiji and Guadalajara and about her life in Hawaii with her new husband, a lawyer.

In her classroom, she brought the world to us. We spent a lot of time talking about different countries. I spent a lot of time with my nose in encyclopedias, turning to the page of the country we were studying, finding the big map (Kenya!) and then tracing its outline onto tracing paper for my book reports. I loved doing those reports. Back in the classroom, the posters would change from Africa to Mexico to Japan. We watched many films about various countries, following the narrator into homes of the world. Our classroom felt like a museum.

The Dreaded Wednesday Folder

I dread the Wednesday folder. It's our elementary school's way of sending home paperwork. Everything I need to know about my children's school and classrooms is in that Wednesday folder. But it's a deluge of paperwork which instantly changes the landscape of my desk from clean to messy. I'm on top of things and then, suddenly, I'm not.

Last Friday, I sent my little boy to kindergarten carrying his Buzz Lightyear action figure. Fridays are his sharing days and up until, well, that Friday, I thought the children could bring anything they wanted. As soon as we entered the classroom, another child pointed to Buzz and shouted, "Hey, Buzz doesn't begin with a P!"

Say it ain't so!

It was a simple task and as a share day veteran, we knew the drill. Find something to bring to school that begins with the letter of the week. Easy! But we failed because mommy did not remember that somewhere in that Wednesday folder was a class newsletter and somewhere in that newsletter was a line that said that free choice share days were over; that now, the children were to bring in something that begins with the letter of the week, in this case, letter P.

I Will Separate My Twins in Kindergarten

Is Separating Twins Really the Answer? @ Yahoo! Video

I should have seen it coming that day when I watched the grainy screen at one of those early ultrasounds. My boys, still in in utero, floating in a silent space and then, suddenly...KICK...HIT...WHACK. I had a ringside seat to a fetus fight. My husband and I laughed but it certainly was alarming to see our tiny babies go at it like that. Couldn't they just put webbed fingers together and somehow hold hands?

Everything was going so well until this past year at preschool when one was asked to go on a play date and not the other. It was a miserable FAIL. I'm well aware of the benefits of separate play dates and I embrace them, but with my competitive two, one social and one tentative, it doesn't work just yet. The repercussions are brutal, with one twin suffering beyond just tears as a result.

My boys are best friends, but they do fight. They are competitive. They spend so much time together, that they need a breather, they need a chance for each to develop his own set of friends. They are fiercely independent, always fine on their own without each other, without me. But they also thrive on the bond they share. They share laughter and love, but they need a chance to develop into their own persons.

When my boys go off to kindergarten, I'll be separating them. I know it's the best thing for them, for their classroom, for their teacher, and for our family.

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Video originally from this post on Silicon Valley Moms.

Is Separating Twins Really the Answer?

Is Separating Twins Really the Answer? @ Yahoo! Video

When you think of young twins, you might think of double blessings, double strollers and double adorable trouble. In the early days, you might outfit your twins in matching or coordinating ensembles. You might dress them in onesies with cute little sayings such as Twin A/Twin B or Copy/Paste. You might push them about town in a Snap n Go stroller while strangers coo, "Oh, look at that, twins!"

Life is an exhausting sweetness.

When your multiples club hosts a kindergarten readiness seminar, the talk turns to the issue of whether or not to place twins in separate classrooms when they enter kindergarten. Most of the parents in attendance shake their heads at the idea. Kindergarten seems worlds away when you're still dealing with potty training and shopping around for preschools. No, you say, I can't see the need to separate my children, but I will deal with it when the time comes.

Kindergarten (Un)Readiness

When I was 5 years old, my mother enrolled me in kindergarten at our neighborhood school. I'm sure she didn't poll her friends to see if they'd be enrolling their age eligible kids in kindergarten because for the most part, she already knew. Most of her friends were also enrolling their children in kindergarten at their neighborhood public school. If we were age eligible, we went. It's just how it was done back then, at least in our middle class California neighborhood. Sure, a few went the private school route and a few more enlightened parents held their autumn birthday children (especially boys) back a year; but in doing so, they didn't conduct a massive search to find the "perfect" kinder prep program in the frenzied manner we do today. In fact, the children I know who sat out that first year, did most of the sitting out at home, playing with their siblings. Had I been born an October baby, I'm quite certain my parents would have enrolled me in kindergarten nonetheless and off to kindergarten I might have marched, a shy 4-year-old who might not have been quite ready.

Don't tour our preschool on the first day!

Today was my kids' first day back at preschool - hooray! We arrived late today (due to a previous commitment) and showed up during recess. Boy do pre-K kids look giant compared to last year's preschool class. As my kids ran off to play, I ducked into their classroom to put their lunch boxes into their cubbies. In the classroom, an itty bitty girl was sitting on the ground, shyly fingering a toy. Her parents were hovering over her. Other than myself, they were the only parents still there.

"Oh, first day of drop-off?" I said, smiling.

"Oh, no! She's just two-and-a-half, we're observing today," replied the parents.

"Have you checked out the preschool class next door? The teacher is amazing! This class is for the older pre-K kids, " I suggested.

"Well, she's ready for kindergarten only she's not potty trained yet."

"Oh..." I said, at a loss for words.

I glanced back at their little girl, who would be in kindergarten if not for her potty training issues.