Langer Loksh

So It Comes Down to This: Batman Pajamas

This is my baby Charlie in striped pajamas. 

He's six years old now. 

I've always assumed that Charlie would some day get bullied for looking different. I was so worried that some horrible other children would make him feel awkward or bad about himself because he looks a little different. It turns out I was wasting my time! Because instead, a horrible other child tried to make him feel awkward and bad about himself because he has Batman pajamas. 

This summer at day care, another boy--we'll call him Alexander, because that's his real name, and when you are mean, you give up your right to privacy on other people's mother's blogs--was trash-talking Charlie on the baseball diamond. I spoke to the teacher about it and I thought she handled it well. But then, about two weeks ago, it was pajama day, and Alexander trash-talked Charlie's Batman pajamas. "You're wearing Batman pajamas?" asked Alexander, who, it should be noted, was not wearing pajamas. Either he refused, or his parents don't love him enough to remember when it's pajama day. And Charlie made a sniffing noise and said, "No." Then Alexander turned to each boy in the room and said, "Do you like Batman?" and each boy, buckling under the social pressure, scoffed "No." 

What do we tell our kids about bullying? We tell them to tell an adult. Well guess what. I am the adult, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I was so upset by this little boy's behavior because we're talking about our day care center, where everyone is so so lovely and they spend all their time making sure the children are lovely to each other. Volcano Girl returned. "Charlie, do you want to come to work with me?" I asked, and he nodded. I grabbed Charlie's lunchbox and turned to the teacher, who was just far enough away that she hadn't heard or seen anything. "We're LEAVING," I said, "because there is behavior going on here that is NOT ACCEPTABLE." Shaking, I drove to the office, where at least five adults greeted Charlie with an enthusiastic "Hey! Batman! Alright!" Because, DUH! 

The teacher who had been in the room left me a very apologetic voice mail. But when I called and spoke to the head teacher--the one who had totally made the baseball bullying go away--I was kind of shocked that she didn't bend over backwards to make me feel better. She said she'd remind everyone of the classroom rules. "So you're thinking that you're going to handle this on the kid level?" I asked. I really thought she should call Alexander's parents and tell him that their kid is a sociopath. An evil teenage girl in a six-year-old boy's body. But the teacher said, "Pretty much." 

I asked every single person I came across over the weekend what they would do. The concensus was, bring Charlie back to day care, and if there is even one more problem, go straight to the director. So I brought him back the next week. He was a little balky, but I think I felt worse. And then nothing happened with Alexander, and that was that. We're going on vacation for two weeks tomorrow, and then school starts, and Alexander lives in another town, so we won't have to worry about him until junior high. But I did chat with another mom who has also had some issues with Alexander, and it made me feel better--like I'm not crazy, and also not alone. Alexander, who is adopted, told this woman's daughter, who is also adopted, that her mother is not her "real" mother. All of these six years that I have been blogging and steeling myself for Charlie to get bullied about his adorable face, this other mom has been steeling herself for her daughter to get harrassed for being Chinese with a white mom. And here we have Alexander, who is himself Guatemalan with white parents, parents who are genuinely nice people who have no idea that their kid behaves like this, or they wouldn't keep coming up to us at free outdoor concerts at our school and saying things like "Hey Charlie! D'ja play baseball today?" with accompanying mime routine of swinging a bat. Because yes, Fred, yes he did, and your kid tagged him out at third and then yelled "You're OUT! You're OUT!" in his face no less than 50 times, which wasn't very much fun at all, so thank you for reminding us of that.

I'm telling you all of this because I would like to know what I'm supposed to do the next time someone teases one of my kids for any reason--pajamas, freckles, little ear, Sesame Street Muppet name--besides flip out and drag them to work with me. I really don't know what we adults are supposed to do besides tear apart the nasty other children on our blogs. Please make suggestions in comments. Has your kid been teased or bullied? How did you handle it?

I have a cool new phone with the Internet right on it, but apparently Typepad, my otherwise awesome blogging platform, does not do a good job supporting the Droid phone customer. In other words, in theory, I could be live-blogging our endlessly fascinating family vacation, but I might not be able to figure out how. Write your comments so I'll have a big stack of suggestions waiting for me for back to school in two weeks! 

Help Me Out, Readers: How Do You Tell Another Mom that Your Kid Would Rather Stare at the Wall than Have a Playdate with Her Kid?

Here are Summer and her friends at the newly renovated Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston. I took them there for Summer's birthday. The lady in the photo is the producer of the Planetarium show that we saw; I had interviewed her for an article, so when we went to the show, I introduced the girls, and she answered their questions about space, and computer graphics, and the Zeiss star projector you can see behind them.

Absent from this photo is a friend we'll call Victoria. 

She's absent because Summer didn't want to invite her. Summer has known Victoria since kindergarten and they're in Girl Scouts together. Summer has had many playdates with Victoria and attended her birthday party. I'm afraid, however, that Summer just doesn't like her very much. 

Victoria's mom and I are friendly from leading Girl Scouts and from our volunteer work on a committee in our town. I like her. She's from New Jersey too. She's fun.

Victoria's mom really, really, really wants Summer and Victoria to play together. 

Summer just doesn't like her very much. 

I'm in an awkward position.Victoria's mom is emailing me and pratically begging me for a playdate with Summer--maybe next week, when I'm at work? I've asked Summer if she'll go, but she'd rather sit in a chair in my office and stare at the wall for six hours than go to Victoria's house. And I don't have any need to force her. If I for some reason needed the coverage, I would just make her go, but I don't, so there's no point.

What do I tell Victoria's mom? 

Cars... and Cousins

While I was in Las Vegas, Charlie installed a piece of his car collection in the library display case. He had the opportunity to show off his collection in the fall, but he was unable to part with it at that time. So I guess he's growing up. 

Summer is too. On Friday night, she bridged from Brownies to Juniors. Charlie had his name in the paper for getting a hit in T-ball; Summer's picture will be in the paper for bridging. And what is better than getting in the paper? 

Last week, at the third grade ethnic luncheon, watching Summer and her classmates do a French Canadian folk dance, I got that weird time tunnel feeling, and suddenly everyone was 18 and going to the prom and I had to take deep breaths. 

But then sometimes I feel like I'm going to be changing poop diapers until I'm dead. 

Speaking of poop diapers, meet Max and Hudson. We are so happy for Alissa and Eric, and for ourselves, because what is cuter than twin baby cousins? Max and Hudson, we have been waiting for you. We are plan to dress you in all sorts of mortifying matching outfits.  Then, when you're 12 years old, Oscar will teach you how to hotwire golf carts. 

They are tornado babies--Alissa's water broke the day of the tornadoes in Western Mass. So they are badass from the get go. We love them. A lot. 

Boston vs. Chicago vs. New York

The Chicago Cubs played at Fenway for the first time since 1918. That's just the sort of thing that gets us going. So we went. And during batting practice, Cub reliever Carlos Marmol gave Summer and Charlie something to smile about: 

Prior to this adorableness, we rode the Swan Boats, my first time. 

Then Summer turned nine, and for this, we went to New York. Here she is on the Central Park carousel. 

Doesn't she look nine? 

Teacher Placement: Do You Butt In?

Stunned silence! Or almost! That is how my staggering Vegas post has been received. You are stunned! Or bored out of your gourd. Maybe what the Internet wants instead is more pictures of my children. Am I right? 

So, Mr. Charles Barls (pictured above with Jedi Jim at Charlie's sixth birthday party--hire him, he is awesome) will be headed to first grade in the fall. I made a great big mess of his teacher placement and now I wish I hadn't opened my mouth. Here is what happened. I told Charlie's kindergarten teacher (who was also Summer's kindergarten teacher) that the person who has Charlie in first grade (and really, all his teachers for all time) will need to be very patient and not mind repeating everything and checking in with him constantly to make sure he is receiving all incoming data due to his hearing loss. And Summer's first grade teacher, a.k.a. The Harsh One, does not strike me as the patient type (see: her nickname). 

Well, the kindergarten teacher, Miss F., she pointed out that The Harsh One's classroom is the quietest room in the school. Perhaps this is because the children are frozen to their seats in terror. No matter. It is a very good and valid point. So I started to think maybe The Harsh One wouldn't be so bad for Charlie. Miss F. says she is very on top of all special needs stuff. The other first grade teacher is... artistic, Miss F. says. Her classroom is chaos. 

Later the same day I chatted about the situation with the two other moms in our Irish dance carpool. Both these moms have had two children survive The Harsh One--some of them, just barely. "It could be a good thing for Charlie," I said. Their eyes bulged. "Oh, what am I thinking," I said, beginning to waffle. 

I emailed the special ed teacher who works with Charlie on reading. I heard she is involved in teacher placement. "I'd like to speak with you confidentially," I wrote, not wanting to hurt The Harsh One's feelings. She is not a bad person, just too grumpy to six-year-olds. 

Then I went three times zones west with no access to email. 

Dummy. 

Frantic voice mail tag ensued. Special Ed Lady wanted to make sure my voice was heard--but what exactly is it that I want to say? Teacher placement for the entire first grade ground to a halt. When I landed back in Boston Monday night, I called the principal on his cell phone. The principal is a friend of mine, but I was trying to avoid going over the teachers' heads unless I really needed it.

The principal told me that the speech pathologist wants Charlie to be with a few other certain kids, so she can pull them all out and work with them at the same time, and she wants them with The Chaotic One. And there are also some kids that Miss F. wants separated from Charlie, because they are distracting, and everyone thinks they should go to The Harsh One, so she can whip them into line. Suddenly I found myself about to argue on behalf of The Harsh One, for the quiet factor. I realized that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. NO IDEA! "I'm so sorry," I told the principal. "Just do what you need to do."  The principal said something diplomatic about how The Harsh One and The New (Unknown) One would be "great" for Charlie and The Chaotic One would be "...(pause) good" for Charlie. 

Now I am going to sit back and wait until August like the rest of the kindergarten world to find out who Charlie has for first grade. Whoever it is, she will need to support him and challenge him in just the right amounts. 

Oh! And by the way. The speech therapist told me that she wants to see Charlie five times a week next year. Which sounds totally and completely bizarre to me! But then after Brownies one day, another mom told me that her kid goes to speech five times a week, and it's been great for her. 

So again: I'm totally confused. 

I think we need another big team meeting. *sigh*

Tell me readers: what do you do when it comes time for teacher placement? Leave it to the pros? Picket the principal's office? I remember in my hometown, there was a fifth grade teacher who was really mean to boys. Several families pulled their boys out and put them in private school for just one year to avoid that teacher. Crazy? You make the call. Leave me a comment. 

There is At Least One Adorable Republican

and it's not the governor of Wisconsin. Here we are with our United States Senator (and fellow Tufts graduate), Scott P. Brown, R-Massachusetts. He came to a book signing at my local shop. Even though I am physically incapable of marking a ballot for someone who isn't a pathetic wimpy bleeding heart liberal, I had to meet him! How often do you get to meet your U.S. Senator? For me, never, though as I have mentioned, I met Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.

Before I left, I said to Jeff, "What do I say to him? What would you say if you had a minute with your U.S. Senator? 'End the wars'?" 

Jeff suggested "You're hot!" 

"OK then," I said. "How about 'Make love, not war'?"

I grabbed Summer and a box of Thin Mints. Summer was nervous that he would not like Thin Mints. 

As if.

"Are you a Girl Scout?" Sen. Brown asked Summer. "Thank you for making me fat." 

As if. 

Then he said he was a Boy Scout, and I said Summer's dad and uncle were Eagles. He signed my books, and then signed a frisbee for said uncle, who like Scott Brown played varsity basketball at Tufts, but for some reason Greg did not have a basketball, and anyway the frisbee was less embarrassing to hand over in the book signing line. 

He was totally charming and I keep meaning to read the book. The strangest thing, I thought, was how hostile my Facebook friends were about it. I mean, he's a Republican, not an axe murderer. 

Have Not Abandoned Ye!

 

Have had dreadful computer failure involving sudden invincible McAfee firewall preventing my computer from talking to the Internet; lovely tech support people in foreign lands wishing me "Good Karma!" but unable to fix computer; and heroic save by genius Uncle Eric. Thanks you Eric!

In recent news: 

Charlie accompanied Summer and me to the shower for Alissa and Eric's impending baby 

TWINS

(I'll just let that sink in)

and filled out his baby shower gift bingo card with such classic staple baby shower gifts as "chattering teeth" and "pet fish." Neither of these squares was a winner. 

This evening I pulled a horrifying engorged tick off of Oscar's swirl. We have now had so many ticks--and it's only April 21--that I have to label the ziploc baggies with the victim's name and date. DUDE. WHAT'S UP?

Summer acquired a pair of pink furry boots at Sears today for the gobsmacking price of four dollars and ninety-five cents. So that was awesome. 

ALSO: 

I have been thinking about the story about Charlie getting burned and saving his whole family, and it just didn't sound right. I mean, apart from the obvious reason that it isn't remotely true. Charlie just doesn't really make stuff up. And his friend Andrew does. Maybe it wasn't Charlie who came up with that story. Maybe Andrew made it up himself. So I asked Charlie, "Did you tell Andrew that you were burned in a fire and rescued your whole family?" And Charlie kept on stacking his Legos and replied simply "No." So I said, "What do you tell people when they ask you about your ear?" And he said, "I just say that's how I got bawned." By which he means "born," but by which I suppose Andrew could have thought he meant "burned," and then added the rescue part on just for some extra drama. So while I do like it, it's not ours, and we're not using it. We're sticking with the facts. 

Photo at top of post: peas-in-a-pod hats that I knitted for the two babies. *squeeeeeee*

I Can Now Die Happy

I brought Summer to an ice skating party today. "Are you going to skate?" the mom of the birthday child asked me. I hadn't thought of it. My skates are still out in the sun room--I haven't put them away for the season even though the ice went out over a week ago on the pond. "Come on Mom, stay," Summer said. So I did.

I watched Summer try to keep up with her friends. She was much slower at first, but soon she was right with them, back and forth the long way instead of around and around for some reason, and stopping to chat at either end.  Then they stepped off the ice for some potato chips and a drink. "Are you sure you want me here, Summer?" I asked her. "I'm not cramping your style?"

"Mom," she said. "You are my style." 

I'm going to hold onto that for dear life for the next five years. 

(Photo: One week ago, on the U.S.S. Constitution.)

Alaska Chunk by Chunk, Chunk IV: The Final Chunk! Kenai Peninsula

A friend has asked for advice on traveling in Alaska with kids, so I decided to ignore "make system backup discs for new computer" and "finish article due Monday" and "find Valentine's Day Brownie patch for vest" and skip down on the To Do list to "finish blogging Alaska."

 

Leaving Denali, we found our filthy rental van had been hand-decorated for us by some other travelers. Lovely! We headed down through Wasilla, the Framingham of Alaska. (Sadly, no Palin sightings. I would have loved to snap Piper smoothing down Oscar's hair.) After so long on dirt roads in the wilderness, I was utterly aggravated to have to sit still for a red light. It was during this leg that Charlie gave us the quote of the vacation. After we told him we were taking away all of his Fourth of July parade candy (I can't remember why), he said, "This is a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid focation." Which only made us laugh harder as we ate his candy. 

Our neighbor back home had told us about the Iditarod Center, a gift shop slash hall of fame for the best-known dogsled race in the world. Believe it or not, no web site to link to. Here is Oscar with Balto.

We paid, I can't remember, ten or twenty bucks for a 30-second ride on a cart pulled by real Iditarod dogs. We liked it so much, we used the money that Nana gave us to go again, since Nana had specified that the money was to be spent frivolously.

 

We traveled on to Seward, where it was cold and rainy. We visited the Alaska SeaLife Center and got to see Maxwell the seal, who I'd read about before we left for Alaska. 

We took a harbor cruise, which is the main thing to do in Seward, even though seas were rough. The kids did more Junior Ranger badge work (how hilarious is Oscar in the picture?). We saw some Steller sea lions, otters, and puffins, but Summer felt so sick she had to stand in the wind on deck and chew gum and pray.

As soon as we docked, we felt well enough to clown around on the fishing piers, taking many a rejected-holiday-card-photo.

Next morning, the sun came out for our ranger-guided walk to Exit Glacier. It was gorgeous.

 

Moving on, we stopped at this lovely little Russian Orthodox church and caught great views of Mt. Redoubt. At the beach nearby we saw as many as six bald eagles at a time. (Not pictured below; those are regular sea gulls. Obviously.)

Next stop: Homer, hometown of Jewel (from the '90s) and Time Bandit (from "the crab show," which, seriously, was on TV every time we turned on a TV for the whole two weeks.). We visited the small and lovely Pratt Museum, which had an excellent little exhibit about the Exxon Valdez spill, including audio from Captain Hazelwood's distress call. Overall, Homer was disappointing. When you are from New England and you hear that there is a quaint town with cute shops, you are expecting more than what you get in Homer. HOWEVER. The B&B where we stayed, Brigitte's Bavarian B&B, was--and I'm not using this word lightly--magical. It appeared to be hand-carved by fairies from driftwood; it was in fact hand-carved by Brigitte and Willie from driftwood. The place teemed with flowers. 

This picture made the back of the holiday card. 

 On the beach, we made friends with an otter. 

And then it was time to go home. Two weeks in Alaska--not nearly enough for a state so large that if you cut it in half, Texas would be the third largest state. 

We stopped back at Alyeska, the luxury hotel where we stayed during the wedding chunk of our trip (that for some reason I have zero photos of). After weeks of clouds, we hoped for clear skies as we took the tram to the top, and you know what, it wasn't too bad. And throwing snowballs in July is always good. 

 

We finished where we started, in Turnagain Arm, on the way back to Anchorage and the airport and home. We got to see a small bore tide, which is a really cool phenomenon of the tide taking the form of an actual wave. It can be much bigger and more dramatic, but this is the only place where you can see it in North America. 

I'm sure I've left out a lot. And I'm sure there's a lot we didn't even do. That's all I've got! If I ever return to Alaska, I'm going to go back to that barbecue hut with the fried pickles. And I'm going to get a telephoto lens so I can take pictures in which grizzly bears appear to be larger than apple seeds.

Thank you, Jeff, for an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime trip. 

This was the front of our holiday card for 2010. 

For the complete set, visit: 

Chunk I: Arrival, Anchorage and Girdwood

Chunk 1.5 The Musk Ox Farm

Chunk II: Kennecott (Jeff says this one is the best)

Chunk III: Denali

Regis Philbin - n - My Mom - n - Me

When I saw Regis Philbin say he was leaving his morning show, I had to make sure I saw him before he left. I'd been once before, probably in high school, with my mom, who was practically a regular in the '80s. So I wrote away for tickets, and the tickets came really fast. I quickly cobbled together a human chain of babysitters and drove down to my mom's in New Jersey on a Wednesday afternoon. When I got there, I almost didn't know what to do with myself. Kid free at my mom's house? First time ever. I drank a huge glass of white wine.

My mom set her alarm and woke me up at 5:45. I could not find my eyeliner or my barrette. I thought I was going to be a machine. I thought that without kids, everything would seem like I was dancing through a field of daisies. It turns out that 5:45 sucks with or without kids. But we got ourselves together and got on the train. 

Then we lined up at ABC (pic at top of post). I filled out an "audience spotlight questionnaire." I wrote that I had won $64,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when it was still a prime time show hosted by Regis. A producer type guy came and pulled me and my mom out of the line. He whisked us into the studio and said we could sit wherever we wanted. Then he pointed me out to the camera woman. I guess sometimes, if there's time at the end of the show, they put the camera on someone in the audience and "spotlight" them. So the whole time, I perched on the edge of my seat, with an extra layer of nervous energy on top of my usual high-frequency vibration. And in the end, they did not have time. Which was fine. I did not want to be on TV. I just wanted to see Regis in person, and sometimes he takes the day off, but that day he was there, interviewing William H. Macy. 

Reege made a big deal out of the fact that Bill and Flick have backyard chickens. As a chicken owner myself, I found it a little annoying. I can only imagine how actual chicken farmers feel about chickens suddenly being the epitome of Hollywood glam. (I almost never get to actually watch Live! due to the time conflict with King Oscar's PBS cartoons, but I saw it once a few months ago and Reege was chatting Reese Witherspoon up about her chickens.) But it was cool to see Macy--he is an actor I've always liked. And Kelly Ripa--forget about it! She is very, very good at her job! Funny with the audience during commercials, very much at ease as the staff swirled around her, spraying Static Guard up her skirt. "It's a dirty job, Bill, but someone's got to do it," she said as the audience laughed at Macy making an attempt to assist. I have no good pictures of Kelly, on account of the double-shot of nervous. 

Towards the end of the show, during a commercial, the producers conferred with Regis about how to use the time left. "The guy watches from the hospital bed for 13 years, that's something," I heard Regis say. When the show went live again, Regis and Kelly gave a special hello and blew kisses to a viewer named Vern whose home health aide had written in to say that Vern makes sure she puts the show on every day. That was definitely a better use of time than putting me on camera; I still break out in a sweat if I even show the tape of my Millionaire appearance at home. 

After the show I got to say hi to my sorority pledge leader (or whatever it's called, I can't remember) who is a producer there. She was lovely but seemed really busy, so I didn't ask her to take me backstage to see Regis. Like I said, I was just happy he was there that day. 

My mom and I ate breakfast at a diner and then took the train back out to NJ. I got in my car and drove all the way home. Even without kids, I was totally done halfway up the Merritt Parkway. Ugh. But when I told it all to my neighbor Ellen, who has a two-year-old and a newborn, she was amazed. "So there is life after three kids!" she said. I laughed. "Yeah, for 24 hours," I said. I picked up Summer at her best friend's house, and came home to Charlie and to Oscar, who had held it together for The Amazing Cousin Julia, only to ooze into a human puddle as soon as he saw me. 

And that was my whirlwind, madcap Regis Philbin adveture. Final flourish: here's a nice picture of a fruit stand on a Manhattan street. Also, we went to Magnolia Bakery and bought Oscar a T-shirt.

The End.