bunk beds

We have a bunk bed for the boys. We had it since they were 2 and 4. Since we got it when they were so young, we were very firm about the oldest sleeping on the top and younger one on the bottom. For a few years that was all nice and good, but over the past year and a half things started to change. The younger one wanted to be on the top, the older one, on the bottom. That was easy to arrange. They would switch occasionally and then switch back. Most recently, things were not so smooth any more.

Both boys wanted to be on the bottom. There were many reasons offered, but the most recent one was that the older one liked thinking down there and the younger one wanted to make tents out of blankets. While this was developing, the younger one was on the top bunk, and the older one was not willing to budge.

A few nights ago I sat with the boys and listened to them compromise and negotiate. It was not going smoothly: 6 yo was offering solutions and 8 yo was shooting them down, while offering his own untenable ones. 6 yo wanted to work out a switching system; 8 yo wanted to grab as much lower bunk time as possible. He was trying to tie in playing Monopoly, which his brother does not like. He was willing to switch for one night and then to revert to status quo. After listening to these negotiations going nowhere, I ordered the younger one to take the bottom bunk. 8 yo protested that he does not want to be on top. I suggested floor in a sleeping bag. He took his sweet time setting up, and then demanded to be tucked in. I said that the tucking in time has passed. He called his brother stupid and earned himself a night in the basement. Our basement is finished, and has beds. It is removed from everyone else, and I figured that's what was called for.

It took him a long time to fall asleep down there. The next morning he expressed regret at his behavior last night. I said that he still needs to work out with his brother a solution to the dilemma. That night, right after I tucked the boys in, he popped out to announce that the solution has been found: they will hold elections! I grew quite sceptical at that.

This morning, the details were fleshed out: they will vote on who gets to sleep where every four days. These four days are modeled on every four years of the presidential election, but he said that he could not wait that long. Each kid cannot vote for himself, so they will vote for each other. They are allowed to hang signs, but no campaigning in each other's bed. Whoever gets the most votes gets to sleep on the bottom.

6 sat down this morning to make his campaign signs. One had a drawing of the bunk bed with him on the bottom bunk, another said : "Vote for 8 yo". Then he wondered aloud whether he can form a super PAC. I wondered how he would do that, and realized that he referred to negative campaigning. I said that we will not do that. Then I spent the whole day thinking about how this will play out.

Now, luckily for me, both my husband and my mother-in-law were here at dinnertime when 8 yo held the elections. The boys voted for each other, 3yo voted for one of the brothers, and we grown-ups split the votes evenly. 8 yo seemed perplexed; he clearly did not envision this outcome. Bottom line, they decided to flip some coins and 6 yo lost. He did crawl into a top bunk, but he was quite upset. 8 yo suggested that just like in presidency, one is limited to two terms on the bottom bunk. 6 yo said that he just wants to have schedule worked out.

I will wait and see what happens in three days. In the meanwhile, this spontaneous exercise in democracy showed that the boys internalized election lessons and could apply them to real life. What I think they did not realize was that this situation calls for a different solution than elections. If I see unfairness taking place, I will interfere, but it would be nice if they reach the solutions acceptable to all parties on their own.

yet another day

8 yo charting the travels of Avram

We have been on a crazy trip to NY. My sister got married last Wednesday, so we drove up. By "we", I mean myself and the kids.

I am hoping to blog about the highlights of the trip someday soon.

We got back late Monday night and the rest of the week was spent trying to come back to our senses. We did a bit of Lashon HaTorah and math every day. I got 8 yo to review Chayei Sarah, to catch up to the place where we were. It only took two days, and he was able to translate everything on his own.

On Tuesday 8 yo woke up with a toothache, which was caused by an infected tooth and a few cavities. I am clamping down on my relaxed teeth brushing habits. My son is on antibiotic and, hopefully, we will save that tooth. He got pretty scared, decided to avoid dessert and is quite anal about taking his medicine. Thankfully, I do not even remember last time he took any antibiotic, so there is novelty in it. He also claims that it is like getting dessert three times a day.

Today was my turn to visit the dentist. I had to get a babysitter, as I was not sure how long the visit would take, and we got new insurance which sometimes takes forever to process. I did not want to make my kids wait for a long time in the waiting room. Now I know exactly how much my "services" cost: $13.75 an hour. Now 13.75 times 24 hours times 7 days a week is 2310$. There, that's my weekly salary.

While I was at the dentist, I got a call that the friends of ours from another town will be coming over for a visit. My kids like to play with them, and there was pizza involved, so when I got home, I used this as a bargaining chip to get schoolwork done.

This week is parsha Lech-Lecha, which 8 yo learned in school last year. I asked him whether he would like to prepare it and teach it to his brother. He agreed. I told him that I usually take notes of the main highlights of the story. He opened up a Stone Chumash, and wrote two pages worth of notes. He also requested a map of Mesopotamia to chart Avram's travels. Oh, and he wants to study a Ramban on the parsha. That one will have to wait till tomorrow, when I have time to prepare one.

When he was telling about abduction of Sarah, here are the illustrations he drew:

Apparently Sarah was referred to as "cutie pie", and, when things did not work out, Avram and Sarah were told to scram, in their car.

After this part, 6 yo lost interest, so 8 yo learned a valuable lesson of teaching: teach each according to his way. I sent him to do math. Both of the boys have been slowly working through Math Mammoth. Neither one adores it, but they do not complain too much. 8 yo is plagued by careless mistakes, and his addition/subtraction is still not automatic. 6 yo is moving right along, except when he decides that something is too hard.

By the time out friends got here, 6 yo has been done with all his schoolwork for a while, and 8 yo still had Lashon HaTorah and new pesukim left to do. We all went to pizza, which gave everyone a chance to catch up. Then the kids came over to play. I asked 8 yo to finish LHT before playing, and he asked his friends to stay outside while he finished.

The kids eventually subdivided by genders: all girls went downstairs to play with tents, while the boys played with bows, arrows and tepees outside. There was quite an age range, and the kids did mix for legos, but, overall, the division was by interests, same as grown-ups subdivide into social groups and clubs.

After the play time was over, I sat 8 yo down and reminded him that it's his night to make dinner. He said that he is not hungry yet. Then I said that we will do chumash. We had 4 pesukim left till the end of the perek, and he completed them. He called on one Rashi when something in the pshat did not make sense. I also asked him the overarching question of why spend all this space on telling us that Avraham got a burial plot for Sarah. Eventually, we concluded that this is the proof that the land was bought ( acquired) in a public transaction. I felt quite a bit of satisfaction, but my son glowed: I finished a perek in 3 days!

Then it was on to dinner. He originally wanted to make salami sandwiches, but he rebuffed my idea of putting necessary items on the shopping list when we went grocery shopping on Tuesday. Now it was a bit after 5pm, and he had to come up with dinner. He found some rolls from our trip. The salami he was planning to use was worrying me, due to not being the freshest, so I suggest frying it up. He joked that it turned into little kippas. While the salami was frying, he made a salad: sliced romaine lettuce, chopped cucumber and baby carrots. 6 yo came and also wanted to help. He chopped some pickles. The amount of ketchup used at this meal qualified it as a vegetable. In the middle of this meal, 8 yo said that he had a good day, not a fun day, but a good day nonetheless. He also expressed quite a bit of pride in his meal and said that now he can move away from PBJs. I am just hoping to get him into habit of planning ahead, executing, and cleaning up.

After everyone had diced peaches for dessert, I did a Tom Sawyer move of the night: I told boys that they could watch the presidential debate if they clean up everything upstairs. 6 yo protested and suggested Pokemon instead, but 8 yo convinced him that at least he gets to watch something. 6 yo lasted for about 20 minutes, while 8 yo had to be interrupted in the middle to go to sleep. The most curious thing though: after telling people that he would vote for Romney, he said that he likes the things that Obama said. He talked about taxes and solar power and new teacher hires and being concerned how much money those new teachers would cost. ( Confession: maybe this kid should vote instead of me, I did not watch the debate!) I am also so proud that he is open-minded enough to listen to the arguments made instead of sticking to his guns.

We concluded our day with a new nightly ritual: trying to feel the baby move. I get to answer questions like what's it like inside the uterus and can the baby cry and whether all the parts are formed already and why is the baby swimming in its own pee. Overall, it is very sweet and mellow, as everyone is being gentle and I feel so many loving hands on my belly.

election day

Today we were heading to the production of "The Emperor and the Nightingale". I told the boys about it yesterday and did not get very enthusiastic response. This morning, as I was rushing everyone to get dressed and daven, 8 yo proclaimed that he did not want to go. Knee-jerk response: fine, stay home. (Not sure how I was going to pull that off logistically.) Upon his second expression of desire to stay back, I asked him, why? He said, it's an opera and operas are scary. They have blood in them. I explained that it is for kids and I don't think it's an opera. He asked me what is it about. I drew a blank. We were sent a link to the synopsis, but, since the boys did not seem interested, I did not look it up. So there we were, half an hour before leaving our house, looking up what the show was going to be about. 8 yo said that he guessed it was about China and that he knew about the Lantern festival.

We got to the theater and the boys sat with their friends. The musical (it was not an opera) was very child-friendly, engaging the audience, funny at times and well-done. 6 yo was jumping in his seat. 2 yo squirmed in my lap. After the musical the actors lined up in the lobby. I excitedly proposed to meet them. My kids pulled and pulled to get away. I remembered last time 6 yo encountered Cat in the Hat at the book fair and ran out screaming and decided that we will wait outside.

Soon the rest of our group gathered. The kids had lunch together and then played some game which required running. There, we socialize and play with others. I got to talk with the other moms, something that I do not often get to do. What about adult socialization? Who is going to toot that horn?

Then we headed to vote. This is my second time voting in my life (blame it on the slow processing time of paperwork even for perfectly legal aliens). It is still new and exciting for me, and my excitement is somewhat contagious here. The kids lined up to see me sign the papers, present ID, get voting card and then march to the machine. I explained how some positions are uncontested, and we are really electing the person who is in  the office already. There is also a referendum on local traffic. The kids have been getting an earful about it, even at our past Shabbos lunch. Now, my husband and I vary in our political persuasions, so, hopefully, that gives my kids both sides of the story. They heard about why it is a good idea to pass the new transportation plan and why it is bad. At the end, they hopefully lined up for stickers, and there were none! The boys were disappointed.

On the drive back home, 8 yo remarked about placards on people's lawns and that we should get one. 6 yo sternly reminded him that voting is private and you do not want other people to know how you voted. They are getting the mechanisms of it. Can't wait for November... although I wish for my first major election that the choices were more exciting.

This afternoon, we checked out a tae kwon do studio. Today we were told just to observe. The boys declared that they liked what they saw and want to try it out. This place has 4 weeks free trial period and will mercifully put both boys into the same group. The teacher seems very strict, but good. I want to see that the boys will still be interested at the end of 4 weeks. I was also impressed that the teacher told us that kipas and tzitzis are ok, without me even asking, and that he understands that Friday afternoons might not work in the winter and we can switch to another day then.

Finally, I got in the mail today "What Your 3rd Grader Needs to Know". I like to get these books for myself, as I think they give me a general idea of which direction we are going. 8 yo saw the book, begged me to give it to him, and has been reading it to himself for the past hour. So if he will learning everything he needs to know in the next couple days, maybe it's time to move on to fourth grade?