Sozlet stories

:-)

Just scanned some more. Typically when she comes home from school she has a snack at a counter in the kitchen -- on the same counter also is a 3" X 5" post-it pad and a pen that we use to write down miscellaneous notes. She often grabs that to make drawings, and won't be disturbed until she's finished. They scan big, but they're really pretty tiny.

This started with her looking at a drawing of a mermaid on a Trader Joe's juice box (I don't ONLY feed her packaged food, honest) and saying "I can do better than that!" She drew this mermaid first, and then the scene around her -- a surfer has just fallen off his board and is underwater.



Then the other way around -- merman, girl surfer (the arrows are about where attention is directed):



Then a mermaid family, with pet fish:



Then a surfer family, with pet weiner dog:

Brilliant!






(you need a dog)

We so do.

Sozlet's having coyote dreams now (no more dinosaur dreams) and said she'd feel safer if there was a dog around the house. I told her to tell her dad that. (Shooting for next spring, we'll see.)

Re: the pictures, can you tell that by the last one she REALLY had to pee?

One other thing I forgot; we ran into some friends yesterday, and while the kids were playing the mom said to me out of the blue, "I bet [sozlet] is going to be the class president." I was like huh, is there something happening in kindergarten I don't know about? and she laughed and said no, she's just always (we knew them in preschool too) thought that sozlet would end up as class president... something about how she knows everyone and everyone likes her and she's smart. Nice of her to say.

[quote="sozobe]We have a bunch of wood left over from the tree trimmers and we can use some of it but don't have room to store all of it. She knows that we're a bit pressed for cash and suggested that we sell it as firewood. Again very detailed... "OK, the first thing we should do is go to a store and see how much they charge for firewood. Then we should sell our firewood for a little bit less than that... we want people to buy it from us instead, but we also want to make as much money as we can, of course."[/quote]
Sozlet, at five, knows more about market research than most adults...



Love the pictures...

The armchair economist in me is very fond of Sozlet at this moment. What a smartie!

In a few years, if Sozlet turns out to be interested in older men, we will have to get her and SonofEva together. He has a natural inclination toward all things financial.

When he was about 8 years old, I remember walking down the sidewalk in a nearby business district, and out of the blue he asked me, "Mom, how much does it cost to buy a business?"

Honestly, I come from a family of entrepreneurs, but that question didn't even occur to me until I was in my 20s.

By the age of 10, he knew how much our house was worth and could fairly accurately predict what the for-sale houses in our neighborhood would sell for.

Oh, and he has been the top Boy Scout popcorn-seller in his troop for the past four years.

You never know. If the age difference is too great, they still might make good business partners.

this girl will go far!


excellent drawings and a lovely vivid imagination

Sounds like they'd make a formidable pair indeed, Eva!

A couple more:

"Your advice came true!" (We had been talking about school and I suggested a solution to a problem, it worked.)

Aw shoot I had another I wanted to write down but I forget.

One thing I love about this kid is that it's super easy to get her going on extended gigglefits/ laughing jags. Just a bit ago, she was pulling on the elastic holding the end of her braid, trying to get it out, and said, "my braids are KILLING ME!!!"

I said, "What do you mean? Braids don't kill!"

She started to giggle and then said "GET THEM OUT!"

I did so, muttering, "What is she talking about, 'my braids are killing me,' they're braids!!"

At this point she's doubled over laughing. When she starts to get her breath back I yell "MY PONYTAIL'S KILLING ME!!!!" and she's off again. This went on for a good 10 minutes.

Come to think of it: could you give us a list of things you dislike about this kid? You certainly aren't giving Sozlet's dark, evil side equal time in this thread.

Glad to see she has such a nice sense of humor though, dark and evil as she might be.

[size=7]She colors outside the lines....[/size]

She can be hair-tearingly annoying and I really do need to get more of that down -- just always seems to be the good stuff that I think of in terms of what I want to record for posterity.

Example from last night. We've been trying to get her bedtime to be earlier, so what has been a pretty stress-free zone has gotten more fraught. She's been getting into stalling more, that tried and true kid thing of pushing back lights-out as far as it can go. I'm not particularly amused. We typically read books for a while, and then depending on what time it is, how tired she is, etc. we agree to talk for a certain amount of time, and then it's supposed to be lights-out, period, that's it, go to sleep. (I stay with her until she's actually asleep, usually. It's a matter of minutes most of the time.)

The last couple of nights she's come up with these big long drawn-out stories just as I'm reaching to turn out the light, and using other stalling tactics. I tell her that the time to negotiate is when we agree how much time we will talk, not when the time is over. Once the time is over, it's lights-out. She doesn't like this much, whiny and grumbly about it.

Last night she was really pushing things. She was begging to play a game where we draw pictures on each other's palms without looking and try to guess what it is, and I'd said no as it always adds time before she falls asleep and it was getting LATE. I was patient for a little while, but she kept pushing, and I said, "Sweetie, we already agreed we would turn off the lights five minutes ago, I'm turning off the light now and that's that." As a last-ditch effort she protested that there was something incredibly important she had to tell me, so I cocked an eyebrow at her and said "last chance." She ummed and hmmed and said well um I guess hmmm I'm not sure and I said "is there actually anything you need to tell me?" and she said "no but" and I said "OK" and turned off the light.

Now, since I'm deaf, turning out the light is final for this kind of thing. We do some sign communication in the dark, especially yes or no, but I encourage the finality by usually not signing anything else even if we could.

She got all upset and I could feel her protesting, and taking my hand and putting it near the light (she knows she's NOT to turn on the light after I've turned it off unless it's something really important). I refused, just limp/ not responding. She got more and more annoyed and then started crying. Sorry, sweetie, but ain't gonna work. She cried more and more violently and then started whapping me to get my attention, in a rather urgent way... I asked "are you hurt?" and she signed "yes", so I immediately felt like a creep and turned on the light, expecting that I'd accidentally pulled her hair or something.

Pure pitifulness, tears, etc. I asked where she was hurt and her hand slowly, slowly moved to her chest. "Here," she said, with full drama, "my heart hurts..." Oh good grief. Does anything else hurt? No. I closed my eyes and tried to get some patience to deal with this. She whapped me urgently again and said, "Be a good mom and help me!!" OY!

(By the way, I don't use that formulation with her -- be a good girl -- though her dad might sometimes.)

I'd thought that she wanted me to do that game and I really didn't want to capitulate on that point -- the whole thing of if you finally give in after x amount of drama, all you establish is that it takes x amount of drama for you to give in. Finally established that she didn't want the game and would go right to sleep if I just hugged her/ told her I loved her/ made her feel better. I fussed over her considerably, turned out the light, held her hand, and she was out in about 20 seconds.

I think part of the whole thing that she was overtired. This drama queen thing is something she does sometimes though that drives me absolutely crazy.

Been there done that soz. I dealt with it by hardening my heart. (It still hurt) but I knew not giving in was the best thing for the sanity of the rest of the family and for other dicipline reasons. My signals were "10 mins to bed time do you want a story/book", things got to the point where it was taking 30 mins to choose a book, thats was when I put my foot down.
so we stuck to the clock 10 min warning 5 min warning in bed lights out.
then.........can i have a drink of water. You just have to be cruel to be kind and let your kid know whos the boss.

(You know that anyway, I know you do)

Re be a good mom: My daughter was 14 when she screamed "I hate your guts and wish you were dead, I dream of killing you" when I would not let her go to a party where I knew there would be drugs and alcohol.

Was it worth the heartache? shes now 18 and I still get cuddles. What do you think?

But of course.

I ain't looking forward to 14, though. <shudder>

Meanwhile... my kid read me a book last night! A whole book (a beginning reader, nothing too fancy, but still), cover to cover, and actually reading not memorizing (sounding out words, etc.) Yay! <happy dance>

A dream come true -- congratulations!

I'm not sure if I already told you this, but my little sister D. was a little slow picking up the habit of reading. Here is how my mother really got her to read: She read a suspenseful book to my sister ("Ronia the robber's daughter" by Astrid Lindgren). In the middle of a chapter, at some cliff-hanger moment, "it occured to" my mother that she "had something else to do". So she went to the grocery store or wherever it was that she had something to do, leaving the book behind in my sister's room. When my mother returned home, she found her daughter reading and mesmerized.

I'm not sure if you like the sneakiness of this trick, but it worked like a charm for my mother.

Awwwwww.

Actually I've been purposely hanging back on the teaching her to read stuff. Several reasons. One is just that phonics are my weak spot, educationally-speaking, as I bypassed it in learning how to teach deaf kids (for obvious reasons). And I didn't want to go about it in a way that would be at odds with how she'd be taught once she reached kindergarten.

Another is that my general educational philosophy is to give 'em the tools and then let them go at their own pace, whatever that may be. Encourage a love of learning in general rather than an emphasis on mastering specific skills per se. And she is just so gung-ho about learning stuff -- this whole "hard math question" thing is her current favorite pass-the-time game. (We're doing simple division of fractions now -- what's 1/2 divided by 2? 1/4. etc.) So while I probably could have taught her to read at some earlier point (who knows), I've not pushed anything.

Cool trick, though! (I remember that book, it's a great one.)

Your teaching method mirrors my sister's home schooling method. She began by asking the kids "What would you like to learn about today?" If they duck subjects too long, she gives them multiple choices until they choose it. The boy wonder is now carrying a 4.3 in public high school and has every intention of being valedictorian.

Go, Turbo Frog!

Great to get updates on him, thanks. (High school senior already? Geez.)

Earlier this evening, we were hanging out in the kitchen and she was doing math problems I'd written out for her -- 96 - 45, that kind of thing. (We usually do it just verbally, no writing, and I showed her how much easier it is to do problems that have more than one digit if you write them down, she thought it was super cool.) (I have to make each top digit bigger than the bottom one though, haven't gotten to carrying the 2 and such yet.) So I'd made some cake and I'd given her a piece, she was eating that while doing the math stuff. We were talking about something and then she signed "I want more..." and was taking a long time to get to what she wanted more of so I hazarded "cake?" and she said, "NO, more of those math questions!!"

(And she didn't change her mind either, I thought maybe since I'd brought it up she'd say "actually more cake too" but she just bent to her task once I wrote them out.)

She also really likes rudimentary algebra -- I told her that the number is wearing an X as a disguise and you have to figure out what number is hiding behind the X. Problems like 100 - X = 50, that kind of thing, nothing too complicated. Although one that was cool was without preamble I said "X + X = 8" and she got that X=4.

We had a good talk today about school. She's been steadily saying she love love loves it and talking about what songs she learned and what games she played in gym and such, but the last week or two she's just been a bit off and I've been trying to figure it out. Thought it was maybe that she was coming down with something, didn't seem to be it. She's been surlier and clingier than usual, less willing to do her own thing and more wanting me to pay attention to her ALL the time.

I volunteered in her class today, first time, and it was cool but a little dispiriting -- so fast-paced, this then this then this and no time for recess. But seemed fine over all, she seemed to be comfortable and enjoying herself.

We were talking about it afterwards and I really don't remember how it started but all of a sudden we were in the midst of this big emotional thing. Basically, after the best-friend craziness of last year, she hasn't really made any friends at kindergarten that she considers to be really good friends. We always arrive early and hang out for a while before class with other kids who arrive early and I see them greet her happily and want to hang out with her, and her teacher said in an email that she's very well-liked, but there isn't anyone who is the kind of best friend that she's used to having. Most of her angst seems to be centered on two things: 1) that there just isn't time to play with ANYONE, and 2) that she has what she calls a crush and I don't want to call a crush but really seems to be some sort of a crush on this boy I'll call Jake.

Jake and sozlet sit at the same table and immediately developed some kind of a bond -- his parents talked to me in the first couple of weeks about how he was always talking about her at home. (He seems like a nice enough kid, with nice parents.) Sozlet kept talking about how she had a crush on him and I kept responding with "girls and boys can be friends, you know!" which would earn an "I know" and an eye roll.

After a bit I noticed that before class she seemed to be too grabby with him, always wanting to hold his hand and stuff and he seemed to be getting annoyed with that. At some point in there she told me that he wouldn't dance with her at music class, etc., and I said "remember last year when Dolly and Pearl were in your face all the time and grabbing at you and you didn't like it? I think maybe you're being a little bit like that with Jake -- maybe back off a bit, give him some space, and he'll come around." She did, and evidently that helped for a while. But then things just kind of shifted -- he started spending more time with this other girl and a boy, and not paying as much attention to sozlet as he had at the beginning. He seems perfectly nice to her, not mean or shunning or anything, just not as interested.

So she's really sad about that. Crush business aside, it hasn't happened to her much that someone she likes hasn't reciprocated -- in fact, for many of her friendships it's the friend who approached her. At preschool last year there was pretty much perpetually a crowd of kids trying to get her attention.

I kept asking her about whether other kids were friendly to her/ friends with her, and it really seems like they are within the confines of kindergarten structure but that there just isn't that much time to socialize in the way she really needs. So I told her I'd jump on scheduling more playdates (she's had a couple, could do a lot more), that cheered her up some. I also suggested that she get together with Dolly more often -- Dolly's birthday party was last weekend and they had so much fun together. Sozlet seemed so relaxed and secure. I think that until there are stronger kindergarten friendships, spending more time with Dolly (her best friend for the last two years who goes to a different school now) would be restorative.