Hi Laura- I'm feeling inspired to check-in via a long email... (lol) Oscar + school work was a battle last week. Jen and I both made attempts with the sight words, but he resisted every step of the way. We didn't have a lot of time or energy to tackle more of the lesson plan. I think he did some A-Z kids and some ABC mouse. Maybe Jen did a math lesson. On the weekend I made a list again. It seemed like it had worked so well the previous weekend, but this time he fought that too. I included fun things like play legos, practice soccer, write Lyla back. I let him choose three things. (He chose the three I mentioned and nothing from the lesson plan.) I insisted that he at least practice and write his sight words at least once. "I'm going to go jump on my trampoline," he said. He went outside and Jen and I made breakfast, watching him through the window and remarking on how nice it is when he just goes outside and plays by himself (which can also be a battle). When he came in a little later, he exclaimed that he was out there a long time and he definitely earned some screen time, so we said sure. A couple episodes later, I got him to turn the TV off and encouraged him to go out and help Jen feed the dogs. It seemed like he might move in that direction and then instead of getting pants out of his drawer, he pulled a pile of books off his shelf. "Can we read all of these?" he asked. He knows I can't resist and honestly it made my heart swell because we hadn't been reading as much as we usually do. We snuggled up together. I started the first book and noticed it used some of his sight words. We still hadn't crossed site words off our To Do list, so I went and grabbed them and tried to make a game of it and then we were back to fighting again. We got through it--did some sight words, read a couple books (but not the whole stack as he had been excited for), and then he said he wanted to go help Mom. I sat in his bed, looking out the window, feeling like I had spoiled our reading time. Before he went outside I gave him a hug and said, "How about we take a break from sight words next week and go back to working on letters instead?" Late afternoon as I was starting on dinner, a LCOOC student messaged me asking if I'd be able to meet up for a walk. I was glad to hear from her and left Jen to finish dinner. I got home just a little before sunset. Oscar and Jen were watching a cartoon. She had got him to take a bath and he was still in his robe. When the episode ended, he turned to me and said, "I would play soccer with you Mama." It was late and I was tired, but soccer was on the list and it was the first time all day he had asked to do something on the list. I thought, What kind of an example am I setting if I am now the one to resist? I looked out the window. The fading sunset had filled the sky with bright red clouds. "Okay," I said. "Get yourself dressed." I flopped down on the bed by Jen. "You are a good mama," she said with a smile. A couple minutes later he jumped into the room in his polar bear fleece PJs, asking "Is this a good outfit?" We ran and passed the ball down the driveway and along our dirt road. We found the flow we had been struggling to find all week. We were fast and tricky and having so much fun. We listened to the peepers. We remarked on the moon. It was my favorite part of the whole weekend. This week I still haven't opened the lesson plan in Google Classroom, but I know we are making better progress. He has been practicing his uppercase letters using a puzzle we have and then choosing one letter that stumps him to practice writing using the Alphabet Learning Mats that were sent home. I was trying to find a fun way for him to practice his lower case letters. I Googled “lowercase letter puzzle” and “best ways to teach lowercase letters” without finding much to inspire me. I had a vision for a game I could make. I wanted first to find out which ones he needed the most help with and started to write them out. “I have an idea," he said. "You draw a line to match.” “Like this?” I write the lowercase letters a-k, in jumbled order, at the top of a page, then the letter A-K, in jumbled order, at the bottom. We do the first one together and then he grabs the pen and pad from me and spends the next 5 minutes quietly working on his puzzle. He hands it back to me when he’s stumped. We finish it together circling the letters that gave him a hard time so I can incorporate them into the next puzzle. We get through it quickly and without argument and I reward him by saying yes to his request for me to play Mario Wii with him. Yesterday after breakfast he was supposed to go outside and help Jen feed the dogs, but he lingered in the house instead. "I just want to snuggle with you," he said. I put my work aside. "Okay, but we are reading Birchbark House then." We started reading the series by Louise Erdrich a year ago. He had a hard time getting into it at first, but this fall when he started kindergarten and we had to get stricter about bedtime, he knew he could always get me to read longer if he requested Birchbark House. It became a chant, and a giggle, and a "I knew you wouldn't say no to Birchbark House." And then we would settle in together and nothing felt more special than sharing the history and story of this place written by a writer who I so admire. We have made it to the fourth book in the series, Chickadee, but have been moving through it more slowly. When I suggest it, he usually asks for picture books instead, so I am grateful when he concedes. We are snuggled together in his bed. The boy in the story is riding on an oxcart with his uncle. They drive through a swarm of mosquitoes. They are suffering. We remember battling mosquitos on our hikes last summer, but admit it was nothing like what is described in the story. This fall as we approached the end of the first book, Oscar fell asleep one night as I was reading. In the story a sick man had come into their village and I knew what was coming. I read on as my little boy slept next to me and then sat with this sad part of the story for several days, wondering if he was ready to hear it. "I feel like I've heard someone say you should wait to expose kids to the dark parts of history until they are in 4th grade or something," I said as I talked about it with my best friend. "I don't know that we are living in a time where that is possible," she said. This was before COVID. When we were feeling the weight of climate change and Trump and families being separated (the weight we still feel now in addition to COVID). As I recently navigated talking to my son about his body and what kind of touching is appropriate and what to do if someone makes him feel uncomfortable, I thought a lot about when and how my mom had those conversations with me. I drew on her ability to be honest and calm and compassionate. I was in elementary school when she told me my friend’s dad had gone to jail for molesting my friend and what that meant. She wanted me to hear it from her first and talked to me about how I could support my friend if she or others brought it up. When Inga was murdered when I was in high school, she took me along to the sentencing. She showed me how to show up for our neighbors when horrible things happen. She also wanted me to be aware. I’ll never forget the images shared in the courtroom that day. Every story of abuse and violence--from friends, from books, from podcasts--stays with me. They haunt me, but they also grow my empathy. My mom didn’t allow me to live in a bubble, and for that I am grateful. Eventually, I decided to read the hard parts of the story to Oscar, but I prepped him first. I told him the story was going to get scary and sad, but that things were different then. And really they were-- this is hard, but that was harder. Because we had read and talked about the way sickness can spread, we have something to reference when we talk about COVID now. We talk about how much we need to worry and how and why we need to be careful. I still worry that he is too little to carry this knowledge, but he seems to take it all in stride. He is safe. We are here. The chapter we read in the morning about the oxcart and the mosquitos was enough to suck him back into the story. At bedtime, we ask him which mom he wants to read to him and which books. "Mom reads SpaceCows cause she hasn't read it yet and it's funny, and Mama reads Birchbark House," he says. I brush my teeth and take out my contacts. I am able to read a couple pages of my own book before being summoned: "Mama, your turn!" Jen and I kiss goodnight in passing. I readjust the pillows and get under the covers. "Are you surprised that I said Birchbark House?" he asks, eyes glinting. “It makes me so happy,” I tell him, but he already knows that. We stay up late and finish the book. Of course it has a beautiful ending, of family reunited, of singing a song that we can’t know completely but we will do our best to imagine and feel.
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AuthorsMagdalen Dale and Kaite Sweval grew up a layer apart, overlapping and paralleling. Belonging to the shores of Lake Superior and yet not quite belonging. Laughing and dreaming on the bench outside the ferry booth as Mag passed the time and Kaite chose her time. Left to explore as soon as they could. And then as adults returned home, perhaps to their surprise. But glad to have each other... ‘cause we know there is strength in the differences between us and comfort where we overlap. Archives
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