The power of equal sharing stories:

During our bedtime chat on Sunday, Relia told me there was a question on the MAP (standardized) test that was bugging her. 
"What is half of 1/3? How can you have HALF of a fraction?" 
I said, "What if you me and Felix were having pizza and we had equal parts, but then nana, grampa & Ryan show up, and we have to share. What would we do?"
"It's 1/6! And half of a fifth would be a tenth." 
Then we halve a bunch of other fractions and we're so excited she can't get to sleep.

Tuesday night:
"Give me more fractions to halve" 
(against my better judgement, I relent)
We do a few, then I ask if she wants a tougher one. She's feeling confident, of course she does.
"What is 1/3 of 1/4?"
"1/6?"  
"Why do you say that?" (love the power of that question)
She thinks for a minute and then says "1/12!"
She explains that each of the 4 parts would be cut into 3 parts. (holy moly!) 
"What would half of 2/6 be?"
(with no hesitation at all) "Well,1/6 cause there's 2 of them and you just share them." 

Tonight, I ask if she wants to try a different type of problem. 
13 kids are going to the Children's Museum. 4 kids can fit in each car. How many cars do we need?
"I'm just going to think of it as 12 because I know that there are three 4s in 12."
"Does there have to be 4 kids in a car?" 
"No, but we don't want to take 13 cars to the Museum."
"Then we need 4 cars." 
"Why do we need 4 cars? You just said there are three 4s in 12."
"We can't just leave the extra kid behind, unless they got sick or something." 

I am just in awe of the ease with which she approaches these problems that completely stump the majority of 4th & 5th graders I've worked with. 

Did I mention?

When I'm leaving Leo's room at night, and say, "I love you. Sleep good." He answers, correcting me, "Sleep well."

Clothes weekend

FP took the kids down to Austin for some Shakesyear business yesterday, and I spent the day with my parents.

They took me out for bread and chocolate. I was a little unnerved having a leisurely breakfast out. I'm so trained to get everyone out before there's some kind of meltdown. Then mom and I went clothes shopping.
She got me a cute pair of black Danskos (I need some black shoes) a couple of shirts and a chunky bracelet. Then I found the softest coolest cowl neck dress. I loved it. There was no question that I was going to get it.


Then there was 50% off clothing at Savers this morning!

I bribed the kids. Each one had $4 to spend on what they wanted. FP and I took turns watching them. He looked for books, I went a little crazy on the clothes.

7 pairs of pants for Felix
3 pairs of pants for Relia
4 sets of Jammies for Felix
4 pairs of mittens/gloves
And....
6 pairs of jeans for me. Six! GAP, Levi's and Luckys! I took ten pairs into the dressing room and only put 4 back on the rack.

Under $100!

Turn it around

For so may years I felt inferior. Not as good as anyone else at whatever I was obsessing about. I was sure that everyone knew I was not worthy. If they didn't know it, they would probably find out if I did or said anything, so I kept quiet. Or said stupid, sarcastic things so they wouldn't know how truly shitty a person I was.
Yeah. That is really bad. But it is the truth. I'm 100 times better now, but I still go there more often than I'd like.

More than anything I don't want that life for my kids. and so far they are doing okay. They believe everyone in the world is a potential friend. But we are coming up on a fragile time in Relia's life. I just don't want her to shrink into herself like I did.

I try to say it out loud. That she should be herself. That we will try to have her back when she stands up for something. That she should try everything and that failing is learning.

But I struggle to live my words. I know she sees what I do a thousand times more vividly than what I say.

One struggle is in inviting her friends over. The trouble with a magnet school, is that friends are far flung. No one on our block goes to her school, so we have to set up "playdates".  Because I want no one to find out how terrible I am at hosting, cleaning, parenting, etc. (AKA: normal full time working mom with 3 kids and cats), I put off inviting her friends over because I am afraid of the imaginary judgement of their parents. The things that would never be said out loud even if they were true. So I put it off.

So I try to turn it around on myself. Trick my ego into thinking it is doing someone else a favor. When someone invites your kid to their house, it means their kid likes your kid. That feels good.  It also means that you get a break from your own, overwhelmingly awesome kid for a few hours. I will suspend a good chunk of judge-iness in exchange for that. And for the sake of my sanity and my children, I must choose to believe other parents will too.

Sledding!

I bribed the children into putting their clothes away neatly by telling them once they passed inspection, I would take them sledding with their new tube sleds from Santa. (Thanks Santa)

The big ones started us out and Leo joined us later on, after his nap. It was his first time and he loved it.





Felix was done and insisted we go to Nana's for hot cocoa.

Teamwork on the way home

Hot cocoa!