Tag Archives: Boys

Spell Is a Four-Letter Word

Or, How My Boy Learns

 From Life’s Archives, June 6, 2011

I think the first word Cinder ever wrote was FART. He didn’t actually write it, if I recall correctly, but carved it into a styrofoam meat tray. For a while after that, he changed every “art” he encountered into a FART. Very joyously. Then he learned how to spell POOP. We still come across the odd random POOP smear—I mean, written on a wall, book or garbage can.

And he hasn’t precisely grown out of that phase yet. We recently started working with the All About Spelling programme, as Cinder started to stall and get frustrated with his progress, or rather lack of, with the next level of Bob Books and reading. We had been doing it fairly regularly in March and April, and then reached a frustration/stall point again, so took a break to let it all simmer and marinate, and I put it back on the table today. Flora’s working through the program with us too, of course, and I did the Step with her first, and it went sort of like this: I reviewed the concept, she repeated it or nodded her head, I read the three-letter word, and she spelled it. Then I did it with Cinder. I reviewed the concept of “sh” and “ch” and “th” sounds. He spelled “shit” to illustrate. I said ok, now we’re going to spell the “u” words from the Step. He changed “shit” to “Shut up.” Somehow—after grudgingly spelling gun, bum, and butt, and rolling his eyes at hug and tub—he ended spelling jack ass and asshole.

I was so proud. (Up to you to figure out if there’s a sarcasm sign flashing behind me).

Meanwhile, Flora was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to a book on tape and drawing rainbows, hearts and flowers.

Every Women’s Studies course I ever took? Lies. All lies.

Math + Gun = …

A short moment for a commercial interlude: I highly recommend Mathletics.com, a math website both Austen and flora have been rockin’ on for the last few weeks. With the following review by Austen:

Austen: You know what would make Mathletics better? You get points for right answers, right? But it would be so much better if you could use those points to buy guns and then fire them at stuff while you’re thinking.

Beast In Disguise

S: Guys, guys, come look at this, you have to see how cute Ender looks!
Austen & Flora (simultaneously as if they rehearsed it): He’s a beast in disguise! He’s a beast in disguise!

Agents of Karma

Austen (whacking Ender after Ender kicked him in the shins and threw a car at his head): See? That’s karma.
Jane: No it’s not. One can’t be an agent of karma.
Austen: One can get beat up just for referring to one as one.

Thank you, Big Bang Theory.

Death By Flatulence (A Sad Story)

…or, unschooling reading and writing with a boy-boy

Austen and I were typing dorky notes to each other in Word. I typed a sentence and he read–then he changed the sentence and I read it. For example, I wrote, “Austen is not a gas bag.” And he changed it to (what else?), “Mom is a gas bag.” And on it went until we wrote this story. Austen’s debut in literature, world take note.

A SAD STORY

by austen and Mom

One day, a boy did a bad thing. He made a big fart. It blew his head off.

His head was not big. His head was not small. His head was gone.

He was sad.

Actually, he was dead.

All because of a big fart.

The end.

Ender Says Rock

Language warning for the sensitive of eye and ear.

Ender learned a new word today. His fourth or fifth I suppose. I’m so proud. I only wish his pronunciation was a mite better…

We’re at the Glenbow Museum. A perfect day. Cinder and Flora do their crafts in the Discovery Room, and then decide that they want to show Ender the rocks and minerals collection. We go up. They all pet the geode. And Cinder says, “See, Ender? You know what that is? A rock. That’s a rock.”

And Ender, adulation in his eyes, looks at his big brother and says… “Fuck?”

Flora’s eyes get big as saucers. Cinder howls and howls. “Yes, Ender, that’s a fuck. A great big fuck.” Sideways glance at me. “What? He said it first.”

J: “Doesn’t mean you have to say it.”

C: “You say it’s ok for us to swear when it’s appropriate.”

J: “I’d say right now is not appropriate.”

C: “Fine. Ender? Come with Bubba. Look here. What’s this?”

E: “Fuck!”

C: “And this?”

E: “Fuck!”

C: “How about these over here?”

E: “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

I may never be able to return to the Glenbow again.

The Great Scrabble Battle

I asked for it.

Cinder, you see, likes to win. Even when he’s playing a game for the first time―or against a clearly superior player. So as we were pulling out the Scrabble board, I very firmly and seriously told him―twice―that this was a game I was going to win. I was absolutely going to help him―I wasn’t going to be ruthless―but this was a game I was extremely good at, and he was just learning to read and spell. I was going to win, and he couldn’t be upset when I won.

Sean chimed in, “You can play Carcassone later and whoop Mom at that.”

Cinder shrugged. “I’ve watched Mom and Richard play lots. I know the strategy.”

And we played.

Cinder’s path to literacy has been slow. If forced to label him, I’d call him an emergent reader or a developing reader. (Labels suck.) He can work his way, when he pays attention, through phonetic three letter words and the handfuls of sight words he’s memorized (one of them is Cthulu). Four letter words, even perfectly phonetic ones, require a lot of concentration, some prodding. Over the last few months, we’ve been intermittently working on finding tools and strategies to help him. He’s come a long way, but it’s hard work for him―pieces are still missing―that “aha!” moment that came for Flora when she was four or five still hasn’t come for him. He plugs away at it… then takes a long break.

We’ve been on a long break most of the summer from the spelling program that gave him his last big leap forward and confidence boost―then slammed him into a wall he couldn’t get past. But after a summer of watching me, our neighbour Richard, and other Co-op firepitters play Scrabble on most fine Saturdays, he wanted to play the game.

He rattled off a dozen words he knew how to spell. “It’s a good start,” he said. I was very proud of him for wanting to play. So long as he was able to cope with losing.

We played. I played to open up the board―to create opportunities for building more words. I played long words, so there would be plenty of E’s and S’s and T’s and the like for him to use. He’d get stuck, and he’d ask me or Sean for help. A few times, we traded letters―he’d offer me an E for a U, a P for a G. It was a great game. He spelled Dog and If and Am and Bum. Also Hire and Fire, and, with help, Tear. And attempted to spell Dense―and came damn close. Figured out adding “s” “ed” or “er” to a word often got you more points than the original word was worth. Spelled Zoos with a triple letter word score for the Z. Quit―with help from me and a trade for a T―for a double word score. I accepted Ed was a word so that he could spell DOG somewhere in the vicinity of Yeti. Yeah, I gave him some slack―but he did great.

Flora kept score for us, writing down each score individually, so we didn’t have a final tally. He went out first, sticking me with -11 points. And we sat down to add up the numbers.

He did the math in his head and I checked it on paper. 276 for Cinder. “That’s a great score,” he announced. It was. In our Co-op games, we hardly ever break 300. We started adding up my score. Half-way through, I realized I was beaten. And not just by a little bit.

He beat me 276 to 171.

Now, yes, I helped him―and I wasn’t playing to score big. But how on earth, with all those three and two letter words, did he whoop me so badly? Well, before we even started, he studied the letter distribution chart on the board. He knew how many Os, Es, Ts, Hs etc. there were in play. He paid hyper-attention to the position of all the triple-letter, double-letter, double-word and triple-word scores. When he had gotten all the letters for Zoos, for example, he trolled the board carefully to see where he could stake out the position that would give him a triple hit for the Z. (He changed Nude to Nudes to make that play, getting points for that word as well.)

He was only mildly boastful, running up with the score sheet to his Dadda. “I might not beat you by quite so much next time,” he told me graciously afterwards. But he was very proud. And mentioned he was almost ready to start the “spelling programme that I hate” again. I nodded, didn’t push. Let him savour the victory.

He’s nine and a quarter―a third almost. My emergent reader. Who can look at a page in a book and tell you, with incredible accuracy, which letters and letter combinations occur on it with the most and the least frequency (also whether there are more curvy or “sticky” letters there. And who can whoop me at Scrabble with spelling mastery over a few dozen―a hundred if we stretch it―words, because he’s got the strategic aspect of the game down pat.

This is why I never worry that he will blossom into a competent reader, when he’s ready, in his own way. Why I don’t push. Why I don’t torment him with drills that, right now, won’t help and will only serve to discourage and frustrate. Why I can have the patience, and suffer from very little doubt, that his unique path to literacy will bear the required fruit, in time. Things like this Scrabble game―they happen all the time.

Whose Blood?

Cinder: Dad will come to the phone in a minute, Mom. He’s just washing his hands–he was cleaning up the blood in the bathroom.

Ears? Who Needs Ears?

Every once in a while, we need an “obvious as a smack upside the head” reminder of the obvious. I’ve know for a long time Cinder’s not a strong audio-learner. In case I forgot it, the universe reminded me of it today. The kids wanted to do some “proper typing” learning and I pulled up the BBC Dancing Mat Typing programme for them. Flora loved it. Cinder? He spent three minutes with it before shouting out in frustration, “How the heck am I supposed to learn to type with this Frickin’ Cow talking at me constantly!”

Turned off the sound on the computer… whole different ballgame. (Final review of the Dancing Cow: Flora still uses it. Cinder wants me to find him something with no frackin’ cartoon animals.)

Test drive the Cow yourself here. 

Bartering with the Dad

S: Cinder, if you let me borrow your computer for my client presentation tomorrow, I’ll let you play with my electric nail gun.

A Love Letter To The 9-year-old

Yesterday, I accidentally slipped my feet into my 9-year-old son’s shoes. And they fit well enough that I took a few steps in them before realizing my mistake. This first-born baby of mine, seven pounds eleven ounces nine years ago―the size of a grain of rice ten years ago, just part of cosmic dust before then―is now so long, so tall, so strong. Stronger than me. No longer in a sling, no longer kept safe and satisfied only in my arms―the journey has been gradual, but this year, this day, this moment, it strikes me, smacks me in the face.

I love him. When he was that babe in arms and I looked at him and fell in love with him for the first time―and then every day, every hour, all over again―I didn’t think it was possible to love anything, any creature, any person this much. And then I loved him more and more every single day, and today, when I look at his tousled, tangled head, his lanky, long legs, the eyelashes that half-cover those sometimes mischievous, sometimes sad eyes, I fall in love all over again and again, and I can’t believe it is possible to love anything, any person this much. But now I know that tomorrow, and the day after and the year after, I will love him even more.

He isn’t bliss everyday. Being a nine year old boy in 2011’s North America isn’t easy. Sure, you can dismiss this as a First World Whine―hey, he isn’t toting guns in Sierra Leone, living in a shanty town in Rio de Janeiro, starving in East Africa. Over-privileged middle class white boy of over-educated parents, what are your woes? Lusting after an X-box game, having to eat roast asparagus for dinner again? Our world dismisses his … heck, call it was it is, existential angst. But it’s there, and it’s real.

My nine year old boy, my love, is searching for his purpose in life. A little child no longer, yet a long way from man, he is on a journey. He wants to be useful. He wants to work. To grow. To contribute. And it is so hard, in 2011. Were he growing up in any other historical era―1000 years ago, 500, even 50 years ago―this angst would not exist. He would help on the farm, in the fields. Chop wood. Practice hunting. Fighting.

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t romanticize. We live longer, healthier, safer now than ever before in human history, for all our fears and complaints. But with this life comes the existential angst of our children. Especially such children as my son. See, he is the boy that you’d take on the hunt with you as soon as he could keep up with the men, because he’s got a strong arm and a good eye, and never gets tired. He’s the son who’d chop a cord of wood for you, then tame a colt or two, all before breakfast. He’d see the enemy coming before anyone else because he’d be up in the highest tree. You’d never lack for food―or protection―with him in your tribe.

What do you expect of this boy wonder in 2011? Well, you’d like him to sit quietly at a table and colour a pretty picture. Then cut up some cardboard and glue it, and maybe some dried up pasta too―look, we’ve got googly eyes, isn’t that cool?―to a piece of paper. Sit and listen to a story. Sit and read a book. Walk, don’t run. Write about this. Tell us about your feelings. Don’t be too noisy, don’t be too active, don’t be too disruptive.

But for goodness’ sake, don’t play too many video games, because that’s just not good for your brain. (Stop. I must digress. Video games invade my love letter, but ever wonder why today’s eight year old, nine year old, 12 year old boys love video games so much? Can you see it? Can you see the hunt, the fight, the chase? Those little buttons, those dudes on the screen―they’re speaking to their genes. They’re channeling the Caveman inside. Come full circle, video games back to love letter. I love my son. My son loves video games. I know why.)

My little love, growing so tall, so lanky, so strong. Searching. He wants to become a man, a useful, productive, important part of his tribe. What tribe? Where is it? When he was four, he decided he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up: the man who starts the fire at his community’s firepit. That’s who he’s going to be. But the path is long, and it’s tough, and not very obvious. So he’s struggling, searching, misstepping. And there I am, watching―he is my heart outside of me, exposed, and I want to protect him, help him, ease things for him, but there is so little I can do. So much of this he must struggle through alone, my love, and all I can do is be there―present, supportive, unconditional. There when he needs me, in the background when he thinks he doesn’t. Loving him, celebrating him, feeling blessed and grateful that he is my son… making sure he knows that I love him, celebrate him, and feel blessed and grateful that I am his mother.

It is another day, another night, and he is silent, falling asleep. He talked a lot today, about his game, the smell of rain, the trajectory of a roundhouse kick, the peskiness of little sisters. Then silent, perturbed. The eyes close, I see the brain, spirit, soul still working. Searching. What will he be? Fully himself, fully wonderful.

I write this to remind myself―to hold myself steady during the moments when he is not bliss. To remind myself of what matters and what doesn’t. To remind myself that the work we started, the bonds we weaved when he was a babe at breast, a toddler on hip, that work isn’t over. It continues, every day. Every choice, every word, said and unsaid, builds that bond and builds that relationship. Or harms it.

I don’t like to think of parenthood, motherhood as work. It’s not. It’s life, part of life, a definition of my life, as much a part of it as eating, sleeping, breathing. But the work metaphor creeps in, because in 2011 North America, everything that requires any effort at all is work. So―this love letter is my work. Put explicit into words, to exist outside of me as affirmation and expression and reminder. I love you, my beautiful son, unconditionally, perfectly, fully, in all your moods and moments. What will you be? What you are. Fully yourself, fully full of wonder. Cosmic dust transformed into a gift, to me, to the world.

Minecraft is Educational. Really.

Part of the homeschooling set up in Alberta includes twice-a-year visits from your school board’s facilitator. We’re registered with the main public school board in Calgary, and the facilitator from CBE visits us in the fall to discuss our plans for the year, and then again in June to go over what we’ve done. This post is an abbreviated report of the 2011 June visit. Its purpose? A glimpse into what Cinder considers important right now. Take from that what you will.

About as late in the year as you can get, but it went so well. I loved it that what Cinder most wanted to show our facilitator was his Tang Soo Do uniform, and Flora her bone collection—and Mary Anne got it, she was great with them. Cinder also showed her the MineCraft (video game) interface and his Slave I Lego model. On my request, Flora read her a book, and Cinder spelled two phrases I dictated. Then “ass pit,” “shit,” and he started to spell fuck. I told him to change it to fish if he ever wanted to eat sushi again. Everyone howled. (I was just a bit red-faced. Just a bit. Yeah.)

Ever notice how all English swear words are perfectly phonetic? Very interesting.

We set up an agenda for the visit — and we check it off as we go. If we didn’t do that, Cinder would hide in his room the whole visit. So, on Cinder’s agenda was showing her the Tang Soo Do uniform, MineCraft, the garden, the trampoline, and one of his Lego sets. (Note the complete absence of… well, anything even remotely academics-related.) On Flora’s agenda was showing the facilitator Flora’s Museum of Natural Mysteries, a trick on the trapeze bar, and her book of drawings. On my agenda, negotiated at the cost of a celebratory sushi dinner, was Flora choosing a book to read, and Cinder doing the spelling. In retrospect, I’ve got to say, the last was a mistake—Flora loved performing, and Cinder does not, and he got extremely stressed and wound up even though he did what he had intended to do. I regret putting him in that position: I didn’t need to. If I’m brutally honest, I wanted to show off how far he’d come from last year, and I’m the only one who really cared about showcasing that—it wasn’t important enough to him to demonstrate, and our facilitator didn’t need to see it either—she had other “proofs.” Oh, well.

The way to hell is paved with good intentions, and the path of motherhood is littered with well-intentioned disasters.

Halfway to 18

Austen: I like being nine. Halfway to 18.

Jane: Excited about being able to vote?

A: What? No–excited about being able to own a gun!

I might have gone horribly wrong somewhere here…

The Return of the Princess Dress

You may recall Cinder’s Princess Dress–the fluffy, lacey, floor-length Disney princess gown Flora received for her first Christmas from her Nana, and which was immediately confiscated by Cinder as his party dress, which he wore to every major party event for the next two or so years. He stopped wearing it quite abruptly–I remember feeling sad at the rise of consciousness that accompanied that decision of his, his awareness that “boys did not wear dresses” and his acquiescence to that norm. But, by the time he outgrew the dress, Flora was ready for it… and how many little sisters get to wear their brother’s hand-me-down Princess dress? “What a lovely dress,” people would say, and she’s say, “Thank you, it was my brother’s,” and people would not be quite sure what to say next.

The dress got too tight for Flora a couple of years ago, and got retired to the back of the dress up pile. Smaller friends wiggled into it, puppy Anya wore it on special occasions… and today, proud Big Sister dressed little Ender in it.

Flora had a couple of friends over today and they dressed up in a variety of costumes, uncovering the Princess dress. This evening after bath, Ender dragged Flora over to the dress up rack. “Peese?” he said, pointing. “Peese?” “Mom!” Flora called. “Ender wants the Princess dress! Can I dress him in the Princess dress?”

She did–although first, she had to let him run around the house naked, clutching the dress to his chest and bellowing, “Wheeee!” Finally, she wrestled him into it. He immediately ran to show himself to Sean. “This!” he announced, turning around. “Oh my god,” said Sean. “It’s like a … ” “He looks just like me!” Flora said. Pause. A critical look at Ender. “Only much fatter.”

She took him downstairs to show Cinder. “Oh, he’s wearing my Princess dress!” Cinder said. He tousled his little brother’s hair. Ender tried to bite him. They wrestled for a bit. “Did people make fun of me for wearing the Princess dress?” Cinder asked me suddenly. I frowned in concentration. “Not really,” I said. “I remember once, N and F did…” “And?” prodded Cinder. I remember very clearly — Cinder, wearing a Princess dress and yellow rubber boots and a baseball cap, marching into the house, getting the biggest water gun he could find, and a few minutes later… shrieks. He chased the girls with the gun, first spraying them with water, then trying to pummel them with the gun. It’s a story with a tricky moral–no one on the Common ever made fun of his Princess dress again. But, um, that whole pummelling with the gun thing…

“And… you kinda… ” I searched for the right word. “Whooped them?” Flora suggested. “Hmmm,” I murmured.

Cinder hugged Ender. “So, if anyone makes fun of you for wearing a Princess dress, you go and whoop them,” he said. “And if they’re bigger then you, come get Bubba, and Bubba will whoop them for you.”

“Wheee!” Ender vocalized. Then bit Cinder in the arm pit. And got a bit of a whoop in return.

Pre-Birthday Joy

I’m not sure who I’m more in love with right now: the adorable about-to-be-six-year-old who is so excited about tomorrow she can barely stop vibrating, or the two seven- and eight-year-old boys–Cinder and his best friend K–who gave up playing Plants versus Zombies and instead spent all night blowing up balloons and plastering the house with pink ribbon and hearts for her big day tomorrow.

“Everything’s Within Reach”

Austen [precariously balanced on you-don’t-want-to-know-what]: “Everything’s within reach. You just have to figure out how to reach it without getting killed.”

Whispering Death Rainbow

Cinder: So now everyone choose a name for your dragon, and its powers.

Flora: I know, I know, Whispering Rainbow.

K: That’s a pretty good name, but it needs something… Like Death. Whispering Death Rainbow.

Flora: Ok, that works, Whispering Death Rainbow. 

A Peculiar Aroma

Cinder: Mom, do you smell a peculiar aroma?

Jane: No… why, should I?

C: Not even on my leg?

J: Your leg smells? Why?

C: Because I put perfume on it.

J: Why did you put perfume on your leg?

Cinder: [laughing and jumping away joyously]: BECAUSE… I’M… WEIRD!

You’ve Been Warned

Austen: Mom, remember how there were 17 kids at Flora’s birthday party? Well, there are only going to be 7 here today–and I have to warn you. It won’t be like Flora’s. … we’re all going to be hyper and it’ll probably feel like there are more than 17 kids here. Because we are going to form an army and take over the co-op.

Neighbours, take cover. Austen’s birthday party starts in five minutes. 

Gunpowder

Cinder: Mom, can K and I have some sugar? Don’t worry, we don’t want to eat it — we just want to make gunpowder.