75 Benefits of Free-Range Baby Poop (Highlights)

Yesterday I read this great piece on Jezebel called Babies Pooping Over Garbage Cans and Hypnotized Toddlers: A Guide to Progressive Parenting.  Which reminded me of the post I had been meaning to write about Elimination Communication (EC).  I first heard of this fun new way to make mothers feel guilty shortly after Frack was born.  And when I did I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Seriously, are you fucking kidding me with this?  

As if I didn't have enough to do!  Sure, I agonize over the impact my selfish disposable diapering ways would have on the environment but the sheer misery of the business end of keeping a baby alive with little or no sleep made me want to make my life as easy as humanly possible, thank you very much.  Also, do you realize how often a new baby goes to the bathroom?  Really, really often!  Frack was too small for the size zero diapers we bought for him so they were worse than useless.  He frequently "eliminated" right onto my lap.  I guess I wasn't responsive enough to his "cues".

But recently I found out that Mayim Bialik is the poster-girl for EC and other forms of attachment parenting.  I have been a fan of Mayim Bialik since her debut in the movie "Beaches".  I love her appearances on "The Big Bang Theory".  I am also duly impressed at her PhD in neuro-science.  It seems the woman must know what she is talking about.  So I thought maybe I should look into it.  Maybe it's not as ridiculous and unrealistic as it sounds.

The first website that came up (and wasn't Wikipedia) was Diaper Free Baby: a community dedicated to educating the public about EC while supporting each other.  They very helpfully provided a list that enumerates a whopping 75 benefits of practicing EC.  Seventy five!  Have you ever been able to come up with 75 reasons to do anything?  I don't think La Leche League has been able to dream up 75 reasons to breastfeed so this EC stuff must be totally amazing!  I'll bet it cures cancer!  Why, oh why did I scoff?  What wonderful things did I miss out on because of my narrow-minded incredulity?

Turns out that most of these benefits are a stretch, many fail to mention the obvious alternative consequences, and more than a few are repetitions.  Out of the 75 you could maybe find ten that were legit good reasons to do this.  The rest are hilarious.  Allow me to share with you some highlights:

#5  Allows baby to go diaper-free in bathing suits.  "Swim diapers" don't prevent urine from getting into the pool and are not comfortable for baby.  (Um yeah.  Ever try to put your diaper-free baby in a public pool?  Good luck with that.)

#26  Enhances creativity.  American communities are not designed for pottying babies, so EC caregivers learn to "think outside the box".   (Diapering is for the unimaginative and uncreative.  I have never in my whole diapering career had to improvise when I was stuck without a diaper or wipes.)

#28  Amazes and impresses other people.  (I mean, that's why you had kids isn't it?  To impress people with their stupid tricks.  A-ma-zing!)

#33  Reminds parents that many "facts" about child-development are culturally-entrenched and believing these facts may lead families to limit certain experiences.  (Who the hell needs "facts" anyway?  Why limit certain experiences, like being shat upon for example, with pesky "facts."  So much better to live life to the fullest without being bogged down by "information" or "evidence".)

#36  Provides "advanced notice" of upcoming developmental milestones.  Increased "misses" frequently precede developmental change.  (Cleaning shit off the floor can't be a disgusting chore!  It's the joyous heralding of a new developmental milestone!)

#48  Can help older siblings bond with baby, especially since children have an intuitive sense about a baby's elimination needs.  (Did you know your other kids have psychic poo-powers?)

#54  EC respects children.  (You hear that, you selfish child-hating diapering Moms?  EC respects children.)

#58  Conventional toilet training starts with learning to "hold it" while EC starts with learning to "let go."  This can make a big difference in a baby's perception of elimination and of life in general.  (EC is totally zen.  You EC your baby and he'll end up like the fucking Dalai Lama.  Diapered babies have a hard time learning to let shit go and are ultimately unhappy as a result.)

#64  Has been practiced for centuries around the world.  (Because everything that has been practiced for centuries is a good idea.)

#73  Reduces the likelihood of having "two in diapers" and removes the stress of having to potty train a toddler before a new baby is born.  (Increases the likelihood of having two shitting on the floor, or one shitting on the floor while the other shits in your lap.  Which is not stressful in any way.)

I get that I am glossing over some of the real benefits of EC.  I think that saving money and reducing landfill waste are both good things as well as some of the other health benefits.  However I can't help but think that if you have to try this hard to convince people of how awesome EC is then you might just be full of shit.

Mommy Rotten's School of Phone Etiquette

Not too long ago I made a shocking discovery.  Frick has no idea how to carry on a phone conversation.

I don't remember needing to be told how to talk on the phone.  I think I just learned it by listening to my mother talk on the phone and by being allowed to answer the phone so I could hear the adults calling our house and saying things like, "Hi, may I please speak to..."

And it hit me that Frick never had these opportunities.  We don't let him answer the phone because our standard practice is to let the call go to voice mail and then call whoever it is back.  This was because of the unbelievable volume of telemarketing calls we were getting.  Yes, we had call display but sometimes it would say "private caller" which could have been one of our friends or those devious telemarketers.  Up until recently the phone wasn't for Frick anyway.  But now he's at that age where kids are calling our house every day.

This was how I discovered that Frick's friend Maverick also had terrible phone etiquette.

Apparently when Maverick calls our house he uses his father's cell phone which wasn't showing up on our call display.  He would call, hang up on our voice mail, and then call right back a millisecond later, repeating this process several times before giving up completely.

At first I was pretty sure I did not want to talk to whatever asshole thinks this is acceptable behaviour, but after two weeks of it I most definitely wanted the pleasure of giving that person a piece of my mind!  Instead I found out it was just Maverick and ended up patiently explaining to him the concept of "Please leave a message and we'll call you back."

It took another two weeks for him to get the idea.  Of course this point is now moot since I put our number on the National Do Not Call list and am no longer wary of answering the phone.  Which is why I am now treated to riveting conversations with the eloquent and loquacious young Billy.

Me:  Hello?

Billy:  Hi.

(silence)

Me:  Umm, hi?

(silence).

Me:  Who is this?

Billy:  Uh....where's Frick?

Me:  Is that you, Billy?

Billy:  Yeah.

Me:  Okay, Billy.  Next time try saying "Hi, this is Billy.  May I please speak to Frick?"

Billy:  Oh.  Yeah.

And of course the next time he calls we do this all over again.  And while it's nice to know that my kid isn't the only one who is totally clueless about phone conversations it can get annoying.  Like, make-you-begin-to-question-your-sanity annoying.  As in my delightful exchanges with Kix.

Me:  Hello?

Kix:  Hello?

Me:  Hello?

Kix:  Hello?

Me:  Yes, hello.  You know, we can keep going like this all day.  Why don't you just tell me who you'd like to talk to?

Kix:  Oh.

(silence)

Me:  Hello?

Kix:  Hello?

Me:  (Sigh).  Frick!  It's for you!

But my kid is just as bad.  So bad that I now make a point of sitting next to him while he's on the phone to give him some very necessary coaching.  Just the other day he hung up on his friend with no warning and no goodbye.  "I thought we were done," he said and shrugged his shoulders.

My guess is that all this modern technology making communication so easy and convenient might have played a role in these kids having poor social skills when using that technology.  There's just no real need to get our kids to answer the phone for us because the phone is always in our pocket and we usually know who the call is from and who the call is for and until they are around 10 or 11, it's generally not for them.

Or maybe it's just a boy thing.

Or maybe I'm just lucky.  Who knows?

Kindergarten Readiness

I hate parenting workshops.

Oh man, do I hate parenting workshops!

I try as hard as possible to avoid workshops at all costs but the evil of the workshop is that it will insidiously try to hide itself in something that looks harmless.  You go and sign up for oh, I don't know, a Kindergarten Readiness program and BAM! all of a sudden you're tossing around a ball of yarn and shouting out words like an idiot.

That's how they got me.

When the Early Childhood Educator (ECE) running the program called me up with the basic information they told me I would be dropping my child off at 9:30 and then joining them again at 11:00 for Circle Time.  This sounded great!  I'd drop him off, kill some time running errands or whatever, and then come back when they needed me.  Finally!  A program that gives me a whole hour and a half to myself!  Hallelujah!

I should have known better.

As I dropped Frack off in the Kindergarten room I was directed to go into the room next door for the "parenting workshop".

Great.

I wander into the next room to see about 9 other Moms sitting uncomfortably at teeny tiny desks in teeny tiny chairs.  The ECE running this workshop, let's call her Miss Sunshine, hands me a piece of paper and tells me to write my name in large letters on it and place it so she can see it on my desk.

"Sorry, we have no name tags" she says apologetically.

She starts the workshop with an "ice breaker".

Every session we are presented with an ice breaker, and every time I have to resist the urge to repeatedly bang my head against my teeny tiny desk.  Each ice breaker is more excruciating than the one that came before it.  The first was designed to help us get to know each other (because fully grown adults are known for being awkward and having no social skills).  But once we got the introductions out of the way, each new ice breaker had to have some educational purpose, typically to demonstrate how children get frustrated.

Because that is apparently the only way for them to make the point that kids get frustrated.  Without the ice breaker exercise the idea of frustration could only be an abstract concept.  Because parents somehow made it to adulthood without ever having experienced frustration or knowing that our school aged children get frustrated.

It's like they're saying, "Hey, we could have saved everyone a lot of time and just told you what our point was but we had so little faith in your intelligence that we had to make you feel stupid on purpose or else you wouldn't get it.  Aren't we smart?"

Slightly less irritating was Miss Sunshine herself.

Look, I know I'm a bitch, especially in the morning.  I tried to like Miss Sunshine, I really did.  She was so nice and she was trying so hard to do a good job BUT....

....everything she said sounded like she was addressing a room of four year olds.  It was almost as if this woman had spent so much of her career working with and talking to small children she had lost the trick of carrying on adult conversation.

She used her big happy voice and spoke slowly using hand gestures.  She made simple statements and then followed up the statements by asking us questions where it's obvious that the answer is the thing she just stated.  If we tried to give any answer that deviated from what she just said it was "wrong" and then she would patiently repeat her original statement.  Shoot me now.

And then there was the disappearing "r".

Specifically with the word "library".  The first time I heard it was when she uttered this little gem:

"Reading and going to the liberry are good ways to strengthen the bondage you have with your child."

WTF?  Did I just hear that?

I look around the room and none of the other Moms seemed to have noticed.  

Maybe I just imagined the "liberry" part.  I know for damn sure that she said "bondage" which is hilarious, but maybe that was just an unfortunate slip.  Maybe I just need more coffee.

Is this something I should even care about?  Am I just being a language snob?  A grammar nazi?  But she's an educator for chrissake!  She had to go to college for this!  No, no better to just ignore it.  

To be honest, the "bondage" slip was the closest I came to genuinely liking this woman.  But that "r" in "library" kept coming and going like Kevin Costner's English accent in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves".

At the end of each workshop we have a group discussion where we are obliged to share how we are teaching our kids literacy skills at home.

"I make fingerpaints out of pudding and get him to paint the alphabet in it.  He can write his whole name!"

"I let her pick out her own books and then she reads them to me, in two languages!"

"I give him cardboard and crayons and he makes his own books with pictures and words!"

The worst part of this is that the Moms honestly don't seem to be bragging.  They are all acting like this is normal, mundane four year old stuff.

When it was my turn everyone looked at me expectantly.  Frack barely speaks one language and my attempts to teach him the alphabet have not made much progress because he's obsessed with the letter "H".  Any time he is required to write he only writes "H" even to sign his name.  He makes the biggest possible "H" he can and he is very proud of his "H" drawing abilities.  Hell, I'm proud of his "H" drawing abilities.

But compared to these Moms Frack's accomplishments, and therefore my parenting, are somewhat less than stellar.  I've never liked the idea of regimenting every minute of every day with some education oriented activity in mind.  What he loves more than anything is lots of physical activity so I mostly just let him run around playing and doing his own thing.  I read to him at bedtime and we do speech therapy but these things suddenly don't feel good enough.  I start racking my brain for some other literacy related activity he likes to do.

"Uh, well, Frack likes using the dry erase markers on the white board at home so we let him doodle on that while I'm teaching his brother."

I could hear their collective gasp.  They were all staring at me, faces frozen in shock.

What?  What did I do wrong?

"Okaaaaaay," says Miss Sunshine.  "But of course you have to be very careful when using dry erase markers around small children."

And the other Moms are clucking and shaking their heads about the chemicals in the cleaner and markers themselves.

Listen bitches, lighten up!  You didn't even ask me if I was using non-toxic Crayola markers (which I am) and last time I checked they are called "dry-erase" because you can erase them without the cleaner.  Obviously I don't let my four year old handle cleaning chemicals.  Also, it's not like he's not being supervised.  Because you know what dry erase markers do not dry erase from?  My walls and my couch.  You're acting like I let him sit in the corner huffing solvents.

Nevermind.  Nevermind.  You are doing this for Frack.  Remember that.

And it was great for Frack.  He's almost a totally new kid.  He didn't want to go to school and now he does.  He's much more outgoing with kids his own age and is learning how to make friends.  He's more interested in books and he is exploring other letters of the alphabet instead of just "H".  I wholeheartedly support the Kindergarten Readiness program even though I hated every last minute of it.

And now that it is mercifully over I intend to celebrate our graduation with cupcakes and a pitcher of sangria.  Because there's nothing quite like being an adult in Kindergarten to make you want to hit the bottle.

Smut for the Thinking Girl

So everyone and her grandmother are going on and on about "Fifty Shades of Grey", the phenomenally best-selling book by ordinary wife, mother and career gal, E.L. James.  And by "phenomenal" I mean I can't believe this talentless hack wrote a best-seller and can now call herself an "author" and everyone seems to be cool with that.

I don't begrudge her success "Lies!  Lies!  I totally begrudge her success!" my inner goddess screamed.  I'm just jealous that I've spent so much time agonizing over every adverb and turn of phrase on my non-paying blog but this woman makes millions after farting out the worst travesty of fiction since V.C. Andrews drew breath in her body.  But my jealousy is strictly professional.  I actually have a sick appreciation for this poorly written drivel much in the same way I love the movie "Showgirls" or can't get enough of trashy reality TV.

Personally I feel that the summer is perfect for books like "Fifty Shades of Grey".  I prefer to read trash in the summer so I don't really have to think about what I'm reading.   I like laughing at how bad it is.  A nice, bitchy little vacation for my brain.  But if you're looking for smut of a higher calibre then boy, do I have some books for you!


Delta of Venus, by Anais Nin.  This book was the first work of straight up erotica I ever read.  It is a collection of short stories that were commissioned in the 1940's by a gentleman known as "The Collector" for his private enjoyment.  See, Nin throughout her career was best known for her diaries, but when she was younger and needed the money she began to secretly write porn for "The Collector" along with some of her writer friends.

He told Nin, "None of that flowery poetic shit.  Just give me graphic, hard-core porn."  But she did more.  Her stories are decadent, taboo and distinctly feminine.  She is widely considered to be the finest writer of female erotica.  It's quite possible that "The Collector" would have preferred the works of E. L. James but instead he got art.  

Anais Nin remains a very interesting character in her own right.  She was very beautiful and, though married, had several affairs with leading literary figures, the most famous of which was "Tropic of Cancer" author Henry Miller.  They wrote a whole bunch of letters to each other which were published in the book "A Literate Passion".

The Story of O, by Pauline Reage.  This book was given to me as a birthday gift from my friend, Jen.  I was curious to read it because I had read somewhere about sex therapists advising their clients to read it, but I couldn't find it anywhere.  (I don't know how you did it, Jen but you're awesome!)

The story is about the ultimate objectification of a woman.  If it's whips and chains you're looking for, look no further.  O is beaten, branded, pierced and much, much more.  "Pauline Reage" is a pseudonym and the author's real identity was unknown for a long time (which is a good thing because they would have faced obscenity charges).  Many claimed, probably because of the treatment of women in it, that the book had to be written by a man.  This book generated much controversy especially among feminists because they felt it glorified the abuse of women.

The truth is that it was written by Anne Desclos.  Annie was having an affair with her employer Jean Paulhan, who was really into the Marquis de Sade.  One day they were talking and he was all "Look at Sade!  What a genius!  Chicks could never write anything like that, because they're like, chicks."  And Annie said "We'll see about that!" and, after putting her clothes back on, she went to work.  She never publicly admitted to the authorship of the book until the mid-nineties, which confused the shit out of the feminists who no longer knew what to think.

"The Story of O" was compelling but I didn't personally find it to be very sexy; more of an intellectual exercise.  O is treated too brutally and that ain't my thing, but it's basically the story of Fifty Shades of Grey without all the bad writing and annoying characters, so there you go.

The Mammoth Hunters, by Jean M. Auel.  Jean M. Auel is a lot like E. L. James in that she is an ordinary wife, mother and career gal but that's where the similarities end.  She's a better writer (though that's not saying much) and her books are the complete opposite of BDSM.

This was one of my mother's books that I pilfered because I heard her talking about it to my aunt and the subject material seemed really interesting.  It takes place during "Cave Man Times" (I am neither an anthropologist nor an archaeologist) and talks a lot about what life was like back then: culture, social structures, technological developments, language etc.  Very pseudo-educational.

It's all about a strong female character named Ayla, who successfully challenged the sexist regime of her adoptive culture's patriarchy to become a career woman and then went out independently into the world to find the people of her birth.  "The Mammoth Hunters" deals with how she handles meeting her people of origin and the culture shock that goes along with that.

But OMG, the sex!  This book is chock full of cave-man sex!  And it's great if you're not a gal whose inner goddess is just dying for your boyfriend to slap you around and then remove your tampon to have sex with you.  Not one woman is beaten, tied up, or pierced for some dude to get his rocks off.  In fact, women are positively revered as living incarnations of the Mother Goddess.  "The Mammoth Hunters" universe is really the ultimate in Mommy-porn.  Ayla's people live in an egalitarian society where women are respected, the village raises the children and the men view pleasing a woman sexually as their sacred duty.

The sex scenes are both steamy and hilarious.  I mean, her mate's name is "Jondalar" and Ayla, for whom there is a slight language barrier, often talks like you would expect a cave-person to talk.  "Ayla enjoy share pleasure with Jondalar.  When we share more pleasure, Jondalar?"  And they never miss an opportunity to discuss Jondalar's long-standing problems with being hung like a mammoth and how most women are afraid of his penis, but not Ayla who seems to have a "cave" of matching proportions.

Out of the three books mentioned here "The Mammoth Hunters" is probably my favourite for summer reading.  It's interesting, informative and full to the brim with randy cave-people.  And it's definitely a plus that I'm not distracted by how badly it's written.

But you know what?

There's nothing wrong with reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  I plan to read it.  Yes, it's a badly written book.  Yes, it's insulting to women.  Yes, the ones who claim it is a "romantic love story" make me weep for humanity but I honestly don't think we're supposed to think about it that much.  I don't think E.L. James thought about it that much.  And as I've said before, when it comes to summer reading I prefer not to think.

Got Boundaries?

One of the best things about Frick being eleven is that I can allow him more freedom which, in turn, allows me more freedom.  For example, lately I've been letting Frick stay home by himself while I take Frack to his speech therapy.  He loves the independence and I love not having to drag him unnecessarily to the hospital when he already has so many appointments of his own.

But we have rules.  1) No answering the phone or the door while I'm not home, and 2) no friends in the house.

So it came as kind of a surprise last week when Frack and I were coming home from speech therapy to find a strange man standing in the open doorway of my house looking as if he were about to enter.  As I got closer I recognized him as his friend Maverick's Dad.

"Oh, hi."  He says to me.  "I'm just dropping off Maverick for their play date."

"What now?"

No one said anything to me about a play date.  I would have remembered because last time I checked 11-year olds do not have "play dates".   So I was caught by surprise, and whenever I am caught by surprise I have to prevent myself from having an over-the-top, knee-jerk reaction of being the insane angry bitch that I am.  Because that is a reaction I regret 99% of the time once I calm down and find out that I'm over-reacting because I don't have all the facts.  It can be very embarrassing.

I put on my best cool-Mom expression.  Sure Maverick can hang out here and play with Frick.  We've got a couple of free hours.  We don't even mind walking him home later because his house is on our way to Frick's swimming lesson (I have since found out that this gentleman personally escorts Maverick to his friend's homes whenever he plays there and expects the boy to be escorted home.  He lives five minutes from my house.)

When I went inside though I needed to have a little talk with Frick to remind him of the rules about not answering the door and not having friends over.  Because it really felt like he was trying to sneak his friend into the house while I was gone and if that were true this was going to be the last "play date" he would be having for a while.  Hopefully ever because, really?  Play date?  These kids are going to be shaving soon.

Apparently the only thing Frick did wrong was to make plans with his friend without asking me first, and then  just waited to tell me when he knew I was distracted.  Because obviously I wouldn't have agreed to have anyone over right when I would be at Frack's speech therapy.  But that was all he did wrong.  It's not like he keeps track of Frack's appointments.

Frick never heard anyone knocking at the door because he was playing a video game.  He wasn't paying attention because he's not allowed to answer it.  So when Maverick's Dad knocked and there was no answer he just up and let himself into my house, sending his kid in first to look for Frick.

What the what?  Is this a thing now?

I thought it was pretty fucked up when Dtmhnyddh's Mom just waltzed into our home without being let in, but she at least had the defensible reason of knowing that her child was here and she needed to pick him up. When I was a kid I was schooled in social etiquette.  Mummy Dearest may be a crazy hippie but she raised us right in the ways of being polite.  No elbows on the table.  Always call first before showing up at someone's house.  Don't peek in people's windows and never, ever walk into someone's home without knocking and being let in.  Unless the house is on fire.  And even then only to rescue the occupants, apologizing the whole while for entering their home uninvited.

It seems I probably should have done my over-the-top angry bitch reaction.  It's too late now, I was already nice to him.  I may be pissed but my anxiety won't quite let me have confrontations after the fact, especially with people I expect to have future interactions with.  I need to strike while my ire is hot.  Instead all I have is my cheaper than therapy and anger management blog.  So here goes:

Dear Maverick's Dad,

Here are some very good reasons why opening our door and sending your kid in looking for his friend was an asshole thing to do:

1)  It's hot and we don't have the AC on.  Because this is my house I like to hang out in my underwear when it's hot.  We all do.

2)  If you're knocking and there's no answer I could be in the shower, or just coming out of the shower.  That means I am not only unaware of your knocking because I didn't hear it, but I am also naked.

3)  If you're knocking and no one answers but the door is open there could be a robbery in progress.  If that's true then congratulations; you just sent your kid in to apprehend potentially armed criminals.  Nice job.

4)  There's a possibility that our kids are out with a relative and my husband came home for some Afternoon Delight.  And with no kids in the house we could be doing it anywhere.


5)  Most importantly because this is private property that you do not own.  I don't care that you think our kids have a "play date".  When you walk in to someone's house without being let in then you are trespassing my friend.  Last time I checked that shit is illegal.

I can't believe I even have to say this.  Next time, I think I'll be locking the door.

Kindergarten Information Night

At the end of June I got a phone call from Frack's school.  I was told that Kindergarten Information Night was coming up the following week.  It would be an hour long and I would get to meet Frack's teacher, find out if he is in the morning or afternoon class, which day he starts and other important stuff.

Oh.

This sounded highly unnecessary.  Why not just call/mail/e-mail me that information?  What else could they possibly be talking about that would take up an hour?  I already know that peanut butter is taboo and they don't like yogurt tubes because they make a mess on the carpet.  It's kindergarten.  How complicated could it be?

You see, I learned a long time ago that walking into that school outside of actual school hours without an appointment is a colossal waste of time.  I steadfastly refuse to go to Open House or Meet the Teacher night ever again.

You go to these things and kill about five minutes looking at the disgraceful condition of your child's desk and admiring their art on the wall, and then you stand around awkwardly waiting to shake the teacher's hand because some asshat of a parent is monopolizing their attention for a good half hour or more and ultimately leaving without so much as making eye contact with her because some other pushier parent squeezes in before you and for all it was worth you could have just stayed home and relaxed.

Uh, no thanks.  I'll happily show up to watch my kid perform in a concert or something but that's about it.

So I resolved not to go to Kindergarten Information Night.

And then my Mother in-law offered to go.  I talked her out of it.  I assured her that they would probably send me that information anyway or that I could call the school to get it and that it hardly seemed worth it for her to drive all the way into town to do so, but it got me thinking.

I really respect my Mother in-law.  If she thinks it's a good idea to go to this thing maybe I should ignore my previous 6 years of experience and show up.  If she's willing to drive out from the farm then shouldn't I be willing to walk five minutes from my house?  If it's an hour long maybe they're doing it like an Open House (which would make sense) where I can just show up, get the information I need and then get the hell outta there.

And hey, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to bring Frack so he can see his classroom and meet his teacher.  That might help him be less shy when the first day of school came.  Besides, I had promised the boys to take them to the park near the school that day.  We could go there after we had checked everything out.

So I resolved to go to Kindergarten Information Night.

I packed up the boys and told Frick to meet us at the park and that we wouldn't be long.

As Frack and I approached the school I could see other parents and their prospective Kindergarteners milling into the gym.  That's not right.  The Kindergarten rooms are on the opposite side of the school.  The gym is reserved for concerts and assemblies.  This did not bode well.

But sure enough parents were filing into and filling up the gym.  It really wasn't looking like the kind of thing I could just drop-in on and then leave.  People were sitting down.  Some lady was at the front making a presentation.  I did not want to go in there, especially with a four year old who was expecting to go to the park.  I decided to hover by the door to see if I could hear what this lady was saying and see if it was worth staying for.

At that moment a short, disgruntled looking woman gruffly marshaled us into the gym.  I'm sure she would have ordered us to sit down except that they had run out of chairs and were going to find more.  Well, at least I could hear what the presenter was saying now.

"Blah, blah, blah...play-based learning...blah, blah, blah...because children love to play...blah, blah, blah..."

Look, it's nice to know that Kindergarten teachers understand the educational value of macaroni art and gluing shit onto cardboard tubes but all any parent really expects from Kindergarten is that their kid learn their ABC's and 123's.  I'm sure learning about this stuff might be interesting for some people but, having been there done that already with Frick, I wasn't one of them.

And judging from the confused looks on the other parents' faces I wasn't alone.  I mean we've only been chilling with these kids for the last four years.  I think it's possible we might have picked up a few things on play-based learning by accident over that time.  Maybe.

But it was too late for them.  They were already seated and listening whereas I was unseated and still close to the door.  What, were they going to hold me hostage here until I heard everything they had to say?  Were they going to keep Frack's teacher and classroom a secret from me because I missed Information Night?  I looked around at the bored Dads looking at their watches and the frustrated Moms trying to keep their squirming children quiet in hard plastic chairs so everyone could hear the Nice Lady at the front of the room.

Screw it.

"Hey Frack, let's go to the park and do some play-based learning."

"Yay!"

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out the gym door nearly skipping with joy.  When we got outside we both burst into giggles and broke into kind of a run towards the park.  We passed a frazzled Mom and prospective Kindergartener in the parking lot.

"Hey!," she called after me.  "Are you going to Kindergarten Information Night?"

"Not anymore!"  I cried back with a laugh and raced my little boy to the playground.

He won.

Five days later we got a postcard from the school.  On it were his classroom, his teacher's name, and the time for our 15-minute appointment to meet with her before the first day of school.

I wonder if that Mom in the parking lot regretted going into that school gym after seeing me run gleefully away from it.

Paging Mrs. Herman....Mrs. Herman. Paging Mrs. Herman?

As I hinted in last week's post, right now is a particularly busy time in the Rotten household.  We've got appointments, community programs and therapy sessions up the wazoo and it's starting to get a little difficult keeping track of it all.  It's gotten to the point that I'm now getting Frick's social worker to do most of our work over the phone rather than meet in person just to minimize the number of times I have to travel across town to the doctor's office.

My Mother in-law very graciously enrolled both boys in daily swim lessons for the next two weeks, which started last night.  She was even thoughtful enough to schedule it so that they took place around the same time so I only had to take them to the pool only once a day instead of twice.  Mother Rotten is awesome like that.  On the other hand I'm kind of stupid at handling hectic schedules that are not my own.

Apparently.

Last night I pack up the boys and we head out to the local public swimming pool.  When we get there I'm pleased  to see that Frack's class is very small.  Only three kids.  This is great because it leaves less opportunity for the kids to spit pool water on each other, or something equally disgusting, while waiting for their turn.

I pass the time alternating between watching my kids take their turns swimming and reading the news on my iPod, so I'm really only half paying attention.  Frack seems to be having the time of his life, bouncing and splashing around.  But I notice that the instructor is using way too many words when telling him what to do.  I doubt he really understands what she's saying.  And I can tell she has no idea what he says to her.  But this is the kind of interaction his speech therapist says is good for him because it challenges him to try harder to communicate, so I stay out of it.

When I look up again I see the class is stopped and the instructor is talking to the lifeguard about something.  They both look kind of worried.  I wonder if something is wrong with Frack but he looks happy pretending to be a frog.  Then the other lifeguard comes up to me.  I'm sure she is going to want to talk to me about Frack because they can't understand him.  I look up expectantly and she asks me:

"Are you Herman's Mum?"

Herman?

"What?  No.  I'm here with Frack."

And then she nodded at me like everything was cool and went on to ask the other parents if they were with little Herman.  I went back to watching my boys and reading the news.

A couple of minutes later she came and knocked on the lifeguards' office door, which happened to be right next to me.

"Roger, we have an unattended little boy in the Splash class.  He is far too young to be on his own.  See if you can call his parents and get them to come here.  Also, at the end of the class do not let him leave the building."

Okay.  There are only three kids in this class and one of them is a girl.  So they are either talking about my kid, which is impossible since his name is not Herman.  He can say his own name and even though it's not perfect it doesn't sound anything like Herman.  Or they are talking about the other kid.  Which is weird because I thought I saw his mother talking to the instructor earlier.  But I told the lifeguard my kid's name and she has a clipboard with all the kids' names on it and everything was cool.  Right?  Whatever.  Herman wasn't my problem and obviously the pool staff was on top of it.

The lifeguard goes back to where the Splash class is taking place to stand guard over poor abandoned little Herman.  Every once in a while she exchanges nervous words with the instructor as they look around the room searching in vain for the little boy's mother.  Frack tries to show her a float toy.

A few minutes later the lifeguard comes back to talk to Roger.

"Any luck contacting the parents?  No?  Well, keep leaving messages for them.  Maybe try going out to the lobby and see if they're waiting there or just outside.  Remember, this little boy cannot leave the building until we have located his parents.  When you get a hold of them be sure to express to them that they can't leave their child here unattended.  What if he wanders out into traffic?  (Sigh) Who would leave such a young child alone at the pool?"

Poor, poor Herman.

I look over at Frack and he is loudly trying to tell the instructor that his brother is in the other class but she just shrugs and shakes her head in confusion.  He rolls his eyes, gives a world-weary sigh and continues playing with his float toy.  He might not talk well yet but his face is very expressive.  Right then his face seemed to say "I'm surrounded by idiots."

Shortly after that the class comes to an end.  Frack gets out and comes running to me for his towel which I have ready for him.  As I'm drying him off the lifeguard comes up to me.

Sure enough, Herman was my kid the whole time.

Turns out Frack's class was a half hour earlier.  We were in the wrong class by accident.  Herman had coincidentally not shown up so they assumed that Frack was him by process of elimination.  Because when they asked him what his name was he decided to say "Spiderman" which does indeed kind of sound like "Herman" when he says it.

Poor Herman's parents.

I guess they're in for a little surprise when they check their messages.