How Much Is Too Much?--Is Not Always the Right Question

Jesse really balked about checking off the 100 things to get his "prize."  My husband (who is no softie) said it was too overwhelming; and, looking at it again, I had to agree.

We had a serious talk with Jesse, after his mini-tantrum a couple days ago, about the fact that we can't keep buying new video games for him every week; especially, not ones that cost $29.99.  He doesn't understand money yet; but I think he understands why we're trying to limit his video game-playing.  And he agreed that he shouldn't play video games more than about two hours a day (which is already a lot).

He will wait until this Sunday for the new video game; and, he was fine about working more on his writing, reading, math, and basic life-skills; and on following our directions.

I think it helped him that I spoke calmly and respectfully, and listened to his point of view--which is that he did, indeed, feel overwhelmed about checking off 100 items to win something.  The check-off system might work for some kids, but my son just really hates it.  And that doesn't make him a bad kid.

How much is too much (of anything)

Jesse is a big-time video gamer, like a lot of kids his age.  The games are not too violent, and his favorite right now is Minecraft, which is actually somewhat creative.  But--he spends too much time on them.

Yesterday he asked for a new game, which costs $29.99.  He fell in love with it through the videos of a man who has made tutorials for about ten different games.  Jesse absolutely adores these videos; he finds them amusing and very informative.  So of course, he falls in love with all the games this man introduces to him.  And wants them, badly.

I told him that he can get this new game if he does ten things that he doesn't enjoy doing, but needs to be doing every day or almost every day, like brushing his teeth in the morning, clearing the table, and reading/writing/doing math, 15 minutes each every day.  (The school year just started and he's only in 2nd grade, so the teacher hasn't assigned homework yet.)  I told him that he needs to do each of ten different things at least ten times for this new game.  If he does them once each over ten days, he will get the game.

He's so frustrated by this turn of events, and the fact that he's not getting his video game when he wants it (now), that there's a big crisis happening upstairs right at the moment.

Part of me wonders if I overdid it with the "Check off 100 things and you'll get the game" idea.  But I think one way or another, he has to learn that he's not going to get everything he wants without some work.  Especially expensive video games.

On the other hand--I haven't used the check-off strategy very often, and he really, really hates it.  He is generally a good boy, who will do things that we ask him to do...but maybe for him this feels like I'm dumping too much on him all at once.

Lovely Days

What a much-better day...at age 51 (almost 52) I'm learning how to appreciate the days where almost nothing happens, where one's mind has time to drift and to dream, where, yes, there are a lot of housewifely chores, but none of them are too onerous...where the son is mostly doing his own thing (and this mostly involves computer games or Magic Treehouse videos, but this makes him very happy)...where no one in one's little family group is injured or harrassed or especially troubled about anything.

The only thing I did with Jesse is take him to downtown Los Altos, our favorite downtown in Silicon Valley (and the only one, as far as I've seen, which makes a conscious effort to cater to kids) where we visited a pet store with a huge macaw, where he bought the Minecraft Redstone handbook and where he ate a chocolate ice cream cone at the local Baskin-Robbins.

Nearly perfect day in other words...easy for both of us and just what we needed.

Not Great

What a not-great day...

Many things went wrong but the most important thing was Jesse falling off his bike on the way to school--falling hard onto the pavement so that he badly skinned his left leg.  We made it to school and got some help with his injury in the office.

My son will be all right.  But he fell in the street--near the sidewalk, and thankfully, there were no cars coming, but it could have been worse.

I am going to rethink the whole biking-to-school part of the day.  Either he goes very slowly and stays mostly on the sidewalk, or we give up the whole bike-to-school project.  The traffic in this part of Silicon Valley is just a bit too intense.

Beyond Tragedy (a kind of light?)

Yesterday, shopping for a secondhand bike, I met a woman whose son was severely injured playing high school football.  He's in a wheelchair, perhaps permanently.

They live just a mile away; I met her briefly yesterday, standing and talking on her front steps, and might never see her again.  She spoke matter-of-factly about the injury; I made feeble noises of sympathy.

Coming home later, I could hardly breathe.

American football is insane, and we are a mentally ill country to be so fascinated by it.  A country that (like the ancient Romans) likes to see beautiful young men destroyed before their eyes.  Why?  Why on earth?

I think we can do better.  Flag football is a wonderful game; my brother and his friends played it a lot in the streets when we were growing up.

This woman, going through such a horrible experience, seemed utterly calm.  Not joyful, but calm.  Her quiet expression was filled with a kind of light--maybe I'm seeing it through the lens of my emotions at that moment, but I don't think so.  I think she's experienced just about every kind of hell a mother can experience, but has come through it with a sense of purpose.  I took a lot of inspiration from her in those five minutes I spent with her, talking mostly about her son's bike.

Late-night Blather

It's 11:30 and I'm still up which is a tragedy...

Have gotten seven hours' sleep a night two out of the last three nights, which is something of a record for recent weeks--usually the average is down to about six hours a night these days.  For no one good reason, more like, a combination of stupid ones.

This post will be lightning-quick.

The school year has started really well...for one thing, Jesse biked to school every day last week, which he hasn't done since kindergarten; but it was a short week, just three days.  This week will be the real test.  Can he adjust to the entire school routine, including the twice-a-day bike ride (four miles total) without burnout?

I think it'll have the opposite effect...that is, after a mile-long bike ride, he'll actually be settled enough, mentally, to start learning right away.  We'll see.

Making Good Choices

Seeing the Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte flail in front of the television cameras--or Donald Trump for that matter (he's raised flailing and buffoonery to a kind of art)...and, on the other hand, seeing others from the Olympics shine, or once in a blue moon, someone in politics do something heroic, it's hard not to think, "What did your parents teach you about life that perhaps helped you fall/rise to such a level?"

I read Barack Obama's first autobiography, and what stood out was his mother waking him up at 4:30 in the morning to make him study, as well as the fact of his father's very brief appearance on the scene, after his parents' divorce when he was very young.  The absentee dad from Kenya walked into his life again for just one week when he was around 10, and gave him a basketball.  Both parents, in their very disparate ways, pushed him to excel--his mother in a day-to-day, slogging-through-the-trenches manner (at least for the early part of his upbringing--his grandparents mostly took over while he was living in Hawaii) and his father, by having created an almost mythical aura around himself through his absence.  Apparently Obama suffered an identity crisis in his teens, which isn't surprising...but he weathered it with remarkable grace, and a remarkable certainty about his future as a global change maker.

What we do every day as parents really matters...but sometimes our absence from our children's lives is just as influential on their development as our presence...I can't pretend to read Lochte's psyche but it's pretty clear that he was ignored by someone; Trump as well.

I don't ignore my son, but perhaps I commit the opposite sin--perhaps I listen and support him too much...he probably could use a mother who makes a little more room for other influences in his life, including all the not-completely-positive ones.  Then he can learn to make good choices, when confronted with less than stellar individuals like, perhaps, a low-grade Lochte or a Trump.

Why Do This

What is the purpose of this blog?   I've written about that before--but here's a review of that, one more time:

--I'm writing it mostly for myself--to check in and help myself switch gears every day from my "Mommy" life to my life as a writer.

--I'm writing it to record my day-to-day experience as an older mom working to find her way towards a career as a writer and videographer.

--I'm writing it to amuse my son when he's older, and to preserve certain memories of his younger years.

--I'm writing it so my son will understand his mom better.

There's a possibility--slim, I will admit--that my musings about life as an older mother will make their way into a book that I will attempt to publish.  But we'll see--that's not the main goal here.

Sleep is Everything

Second day of the "new schedule," and my brain feels like tiny people are using it for a trampoline...five and a half hours of sleep last night.  I woke up at 4:45 in the morning, dismally wide awake for no good reason.  But what can I do?  Carry on as if everything is normal...

I finished the one hundred short-short stories sometime this spring...then got caught up in school volunteering, then a trip to Hawaii, then...it was June.  Past the deadline for spring submissions for most literary magazines.  Most will accept submissions again starting around September 1st or 15th.

Missing that June 1st deadline put a hole in my stomach that hasn't really gone away, but...once again, no point in lingering on that.  It's time, absolutely time to grab hold of whatever writing talent I have, and run with it.

First Day for Both

My son's first day of second grade today.  My first day back on this blog, and first day back in my writing life.

By the way, I'm getting tired of calling him "my son" here, i.e. not using a name, though I want to retain our anonymity...so I'm going to call him Jesse.  It's the name of the main character in Minecraft Story Mode (which he adores).

The summer was excellent for both of us, although in terms of work on anything to do with writing, it was nearly hopeless.  I was a full-time mom every day, with the exception of about nine days when "Jesse" was in half-day or full-day summer camps.  Then towards the end of the summer I was scrambling to put together an event at Jesse's school, which takes place in less than two weeks.

On a brighter note, I managed to restart the exercise routine, and am in reasonably good shape...right now I'm scheduled to run a 10K in early September, a half-marathon in November and an olympic triathlon next May and July...that's the plan anyway.  Just doing these races to encourage myself to improve physically and because, well, they're a kick sometimes.  I don't have any dream of winning or getting on a podium for my age group.  After the triathlons next year, I'll probably stop doing them for the most part, and do more hiking.

To take on any of that physical stuff, one thing I must do is improve my sleep habits...have gotten only about six hours a night for the past several nights.  I've heard that poor sleep patterns often occur when one is perimenopausal.  It also happens when you have a cat who sometimes meows for attention at midnight or two or five a.m.  But I simply MUST start turning out the lights no later than 10:45 p.m., if I'm going to function at any sort of decent level--mentally, emotionally, physically.

The send-off to second grade went reasonably well.  It will be something of a shock for him, being back in a classroom; his summer was very relaxed.  I'm not the kind of mom who believes in eight weeks of summer camp and umpteen projects during the summer months; everyone needs a break.   He only did one week of half-day camp and one week of full-day camp, plus sixteen swimming lessons...an easy schedule.  We also had play dates, a trip to Washington state, bike rides and hikes, trips to the library; we played badminton and swam in our backyard; he played Minecraft, and other similar games on his computer.  It was all very low-key...but now, second grade, and a much more challenging schedule.