When I think back on 7th grade, I don't remember much except that I think I had a really big crush on Greg Hardy. I know, though, that I wouldn't want to go back. Katya started the 7th grade this year. She was very nervous about it - so much so that we took her a couple of days before it started and walked around the school so that she would know where her classes were. I color-coded a school map by period so that she would know know how to go from class to class. When I asked her how her first day of school was she replied, "bad" although she couldn't give me any particular reasons why it was bad. Since then she hasn't really complained about it and actually seems to like school - or at least she gets up in the morning, puts her clothes on, usually brushes her hair and tells me she has brushed her teeth (I have my doubts about that one, though!). She went two days last week without being late to any classes - a tribute to the fact that she has finally learned how to navigate around the school. And then they switched her classes all around! They moved her into a special English class for kids that need help with reading and I had them move her out of Orchestra and into a Math lab and pretty much all her classes changed around. I wasn't sure how she would react but she did OK. I just heard one complaint about how she wishes that she could still have the same English teacher to which I explained that her old English teacher doesn't teach the special reading class and that the reading class will really help her out (I sure hope that it helps her out!).
About a week ago Alex gets this phone call from Katya who states that "she wants to go to a different school". He was on his way home and told her they could talk about it when he got home. We were both anticipating the worst - that some kid tripped her in the hall, that she had a fight with someone or that someone made fun of her. It turns out that her reason for wanting to change schools was that her friend that is a boy tried to hold her hand. Oh brother! Alex and both gave her the same advice - that she needed to tell him that she didn't like him as anything more than a friend since he was probably still going on the premise that she did "like" him since that is what she told him during the summer. She did go over his house to have this conversation a day or so later but I am not really sure how that went. My niece happened to be there and piecing the story together I can come up with that the boy's mother somehow got involved in the conversation and that in the end the boy was OK. Drama queen!
Yesterday Katya calls me at 11:30. The students are allowed to use their cell phones during lunch and so I will sometime get calls about whether or not she can have ice cream and sometimes I will get calls that seem to have no point to them at all. This call started with, "Mom, my pencil broke." (Although thinking back I remember I had to somehow drag this out of her since I was very confused about what she was saying and somehow was able to understand she was talking about her pencil when she mentioned the word "lead"). My reply was, "Can't you use another pencil?". "No - I don't have one," she says. I know for a fact that along with all the other school crap we bought at the beginning of the year that there were many pencils included. "Where are your pencils? We bought you pencils at the beginning of the year". "At home," she says. Of course! Where else would they be? "I think you need to borrow a pencil from someone and then when you get home put all the pencils we bought you into your bag!" It actually really made me laugh because it was very silly that she thought that I would leave work, drive a half an hour to her school, give her a pencil and then drive back to work. Seriously?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tutoring
At the beginning of July, we took Katya into the Sylvan Learning Center to have her assessed to see where she was it grade level wise. With summer upon us, I was feeling very unfocused, completely overwhelmed, and frustrated at having to suffer through Katya's horrid moods and utter lack of cooperation whenever homework or schoolwork was mentioned. I needed an out. So we shelled out the $175 to have someone else tell us what we already knew - that Katya was very far behind. If we could put Katya in the third grade, she would be at about the level of her peers and everything would be "hunky-dorey". The problem is that Katya is going into the seventh grade.
At Sylvan the message was almost like music to my ears. Their pitch is that you can drop your kid off for two hours a day, four days a week and they will educate your child without any stress on you. The kids absolutely love it, they say, because they make learning fun and give them little coupons that they can use to buy prizes (yeah - more junk!). By the end of the summer they promised that Katya would have gone up at least one grade level - maybe even two - and the thought of me not having to sit through tears while studying multiplication tables or getting raunchy looks when I correct a wrongly pronounced word sounded like heaven. And if I'd had an extra $1,600 a month laying around, I would have definately taken them up on that offer. Unfortunately, the initial nirvana of the meeting wore off and financial reality struck and so I started looking at tutors on KSL. They only charge $10 - $25 an hour, instead of $50, which was still going to be a stretch for our budget but definately more "doable". And I was going to be stress-free!
I decided to go with a lady that charged $25 an hour because she had experience with working with difficult children and she had impressed me in our initial phone conversation. Her first question was, after I had given her a background on Katya, "How well did she speak Russian because that is going to make a difference in how well she can learn English." While this was not a new concept to me, it was a clue as to how experienced this tutor was and I was sold! And I was one step closer to being stress-free!
I feel like I should change her name for "privacy purposes" (like one of those disclaimers at the end of a Law and Order episode) because I'm about to not be really nice, but let's just call her Cheryl anyway. It was after the first tutoring session that I knew I might not have hired what I thought I hired. I let her have the hour long session in privacy not wanting to lurk and actually enjoying the hour of Tony-and-me time. When they were finished, she started talking about Katya's bad past. At Cheryl's prompting, Katya had drawn a picture of something from her past that wasn't pretty. Cheryl told me all about how she had been beaten, that she didn't like the other kids in the orphanage, that she still wanted to be living with her mother, and a myriad of other details. None of the details were necessarily new to me, but I was frankly impressed that she had managed to get so much information out of her in the span of an hour. I'd been living with Katya for over a year and hadn't really gotten many more details out of her than this stranger had. Then we started talking about how she was doing in the education department. Cheryl said that Katya doesn't really want to learn (big surprise) but it seemed that she was of the opinion that we should just let Katya go at her pace and that we let Katya decide when it was time to learn. I, on the other hand, having come from Sylvan where they break down a child's "catching up" in terms of hours and having seen Katya's lack of learning motivation the entire school year (especially in the math department), wanted something a little more promising. After all, do you know how many grades there are between third and seventh?
Looking back, I wonder if this is where I went wrong. Should I have just trusted Cheryl and let her be lacksidasical (is that how you spell it - I'm too lazy to type it in Word to find out) about the tutoring hours and given her more leeway? Maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not. But what I did is opted for a more structured schedule - two hours a day, two days a week. I had a sneaky suspicion after the first session that Cheryl was very interested in playing amateur psychologist - maybe even more interested in this than actually teaching Katya. In fact, I had expressed this insight to Alex and we had agreed (mainly I had decided and Alex went along) that there could be some real benefits to Katya talking to someone else about her past and that $25 was pretty cheap for a psychologist.
I lasted about eight sessions before I'd had enough. At first Katya had liked Cheryl - she said she was "fun" - and then she no longer liked all the prodding that Cheryl did - trying to dredge out horrible details from her past. I was feeling like the money I was spending was not making good use and frankly I was actually feeling stressed about the lack of control I was having over the process. The last straw was a phone conversation I had with Cheryl to get an update on where Katya was. I didn't feel like I was "in the loop" of what was going on since I was never there when Cheryl came and I was getting Katya's progress reports from Alex - who (I love you babe!) isn't the most detail-oriented person. I needed to justify the dollars flying by and the progress report from Cheryl was scattered and inconcise and led me to conclude that I really couldn't give up control over Katya's education. I know, I know. I am a control-freak and I will admit it. I'd like to say that it makes me a good mother but I'm not sure. Anyway, Cheryl talked about how she was working on subtraction with Katya, which I was fine with since the Sylvan test had shown that she needed subtraction help. What really bothered me was that in earlier sessions she had been working on multiplication and fractions and in the phone conversation she started talking about geometry. My lack of focus had been what had driven me to go to Sylvan in the first place and now here I was with a tutor that seemed to be about as unfocused as I was! Where was my stress-freeness?
Alex offered to call and fire her. We started comparing notes and realized that neither one of us liked her "bedside manner". She was arrogant, intimidating, and a know-it-all and I didn't want to talk to her again. So Alex politely (I gave him strict instructions to be polite!) told her that we really couldn't afford her services anymore - which wasn't entirely untrue :) And where are we now? Right back where we started?
Not quite. I do have to give Cheryl credit for the following:
Katya really is almost 100% more cooperative than she was before. She will actually let you correct her mispronunciation without having a crying fit, she is for the most part pretty willing during our one hour three times a week tutoring sessions, and I do like Cheryl's suggestion of reading to Katya nightly to build vocabulary because it does give us some much needed one-on-one time.
Cheryl renewed my sense of purpose when it came to Katya and my willingness to have some empathy for what she has been through. Talking to Cheryl reminded me that I need to think more about what Katya needs and talk more about to her about how she is feeling about things. I don't know that I necessarily need to try to drag every horrible detail about her past out of her but I think it does help Katya to talk about it sometimes. Katya and I have actually had several insightful conversations post-Cheryl that have done a lot to strenghthen our relationship.
So, I have spent hours and hours figuring out my education plan for Katya, finding phonic programs and worksheets on the internet, and creating education "punch cards" and reward charts. And actually it has been working quite well. I am not stress-free, as I had hoped, but I think I have found a happy medium where I can accept my role in Katya's education. I have come to realize that Katya really does need to work on addition and subtraction - a fact that I wouldn't accept during her school year because it was so far behind sixth grade and how can we start so far back? We are reviewing all the phonic sounds despite the fact that the ESL teacher had given her stamp of approval because how can I help her if I don't know what she needs help with? Is it a bit depressing to seem to be going backwards? Yes, but as the Sylvan lady put it, "She is not going to catch up from third grade to seventh grade in one year." Her motivation was most likely more along the lines of seeing how much money she can get out of me but she really was right. Had I seen that at the beginning of this year I would have started at addition and subtraction and just think where we could be right now? Oh well - 20/20 hindsight is irrelevant. All we can do is go forward.
I am a little bit less stressed, though. I "let" Alex take over the grocery shopping and menu planning. After all, why should I get to have all the fun! Hee Hee!
At Sylvan the message was almost like music to my ears. Their pitch is that you can drop your kid off for two hours a day, four days a week and they will educate your child without any stress on you. The kids absolutely love it, they say, because they make learning fun and give them little coupons that they can use to buy prizes (yeah - more junk!). By the end of the summer they promised that Katya would have gone up at least one grade level - maybe even two - and the thought of me not having to sit through tears while studying multiplication tables or getting raunchy looks when I correct a wrongly pronounced word sounded like heaven. And if I'd had an extra $1,600 a month laying around, I would have definately taken them up on that offer. Unfortunately, the initial nirvana of the meeting wore off and financial reality struck and so I started looking at tutors on KSL. They only charge $10 - $25 an hour, instead of $50, which was still going to be a stretch for our budget but definately more "doable". And I was going to be stress-free!
I decided to go with a lady that charged $25 an hour because she had experience with working with difficult children and she had impressed me in our initial phone conversation. Her first question was, after I had given her a background on Katya, "How well did she speak Russian because that is going to make a difference in how well she can learn English." While this was not a new concept to me, it was a clue as to how experienced this tutor was and I was sold! And I was one step closer to being stress-free!
I feel like I should change her name for "privacy purposes" (like one of those disclaimers at the end of a Law and Order episode) because I'm about to not be really nice, but let's just call her Cheryl anyway. It was after the first tutoring session that I knew I might not have hired what I thought I hired. I let her have the hour long session in privacy not wanting to lurk and actually enjoying the hour of Tony-and-me time. When they were finished, she started talking about Katya's bad past. At Cheryl's prompting, Katya had drawn a picture of something from her past that wasn't pretty. Cheryl told me all about how she had been beaten, that she didn't like the other kids in the orphanage, that she still wanted to be living with her mother, and a myriad of other details. None of the details were necessarily new to me, but I was frankly impressed that she had managed to get so much information out of her in the span of an hour. I'd been living with Katya for over a year and hadn't really gotten many more details out of her than this stranger had. Then we started talking about how she was doing in the education department. Cheryl said that Katya doesn't really want to learn (big surprise) but it seemed that she was of the opinion that we should just let Katya go at her pace and that we let Katya decide when it was time to learn. I, on the other hand, having come from Sylvan where they break down a child's "catching up" in terms of hours and having seen Katya's lack of learning motivation the entire school year (especially in the math department), wanted something a little more promising. After all, do you know how many grades there are between third and seventh?
Looking back, I wonder if this is where I went wrong. Should I have just trusted Cheryl and let her be lacksidasical (is that how you spell it - I'm too lazy to type it in Word to find out) about the tutoring hours and given her more leeway? Maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not. But what I did is opted for a more structured schedule - two hours a day, two days a week. I had a sneaky suspicion after the first session that Cheryl was very interested in playing amateur psychologist - maybe even more interested in this than actually teaching Katya. In fact, I had expressed this insight to Alex and we had agreed (mainly I had decided and Alex went along) that there could be some real benefits to Katya talking to someone else about her past and that $25 was pretty cheap for a psychologist.
I lasted about eight sessions before I'd had enough. At first Katya had liked Cheryl - she said she was "fun" - and then she no longer liked all the prodding that Cheryl did - trying to dredge out horrible details from her past. I was feeling like the money I was spending was not making good use and frankly I was actually feeling stressed about the lack of control I was having over the process. The last straw was a phone conversation I had with Cheryl to get an update on where Katya was. I didn't feel like I was "in the loop" of what was going on since I was never there when Cheryl came and I was getting Katya's progress reports from Alex - who (I love you babe!) isn't the most detail-oriented person. I needed to justify the dollars flying by and the progress report from Cheryl was scattered and inconcise and led me to conclude that I really couldn't give up control over Katya's education. I know, I know. I am a control-freak and I will admit it. I'd like to say that it makes me a good mother but I'm not sure. Anyway, Cheryl talked about how she was working on subtraction with Katya, which I was fine with since the Sylvan test had shown that she needed subtraction help. What really bothered me was that in earlier sessions she had been working on multiplication and fractions and in the phone conversation she started talking about geometry. My lack of focus had been what had driven me to go to Sylvan in the first place and now here I was with a tutor that seemed to be about as unfocused as I was! Where was my stress-freeness?
Alex offered to call and fire her. We started comparing notes and realized that neither one of us liked her "bedside manner". She was arrogant, intimidating, and a know-it-all and I didn't want to talk to her again. So Alex politely (I gave him strict instructions to be polite!) told her that we really couldn't afford her services anymore - which wasn't entirely untrue :) And where are we now? Right back where we started?
Not quite. I do have to give Cheryl credit for the following:
Katya really is almost 100% more cooperative than she was before. She will actually let you correct her mispronunciation without having a crying fit, she is for the most part pretty willing during our one hour three times a week tutoring sessions, and I do like Cheryl's suggestion of reading to Katya nightly to build vocabulary because it does give us some much needed one-on-one time.
Cheryl renewed my sense of purpose when it came to Katya and my willingness to have some empathy for what she has been through. Talking to Cheryl reminded me that I need to think more about what Katya needs and talk more about to her about how she is feeling about things. I don't know that I necessarily need to try to drag every horrible detail about her past out of her but I think it does help Katya to talk about it sometimes. Katya and I have actually had several insightful conversations post-Cheryl that have done a lot to strenghthen our relationship.
So, I have spent hours and hours figuring out my education plan for Katya, finding phonic programs and worksheets on the internet, and creating education "punch cards" and reward charts. And actually it has been working quite well. I am not stress-free, as I had hoped, but I think I have found a happy medium where I can accept my role in Katya's education. I have come to realize that Katya really does need to work on addition and subtraction - a fact that I wouldn't accept during her school year because it was so far behind sixth grade and how can we start so far back? We are reviewing all the phonic sounds despite the fact that the ESL teacher had given her stamp of approval because how can I help her if I don't know what she needs help with? Is it a bit depressing to seem to be going backwards? Yes, but as the Sylvan lady put it, "She is not going to catch up from third grade to seventh grade in one year." Her motivation was most likely more along the lines of seeing how much money she can get out of me but she really was right. Had I seen that at the beginning of this year I would have started at addition and subtraction and just think where we could be right now? Oh well - 20/20 hindsight is irrelevant. All we can do is go forward.
I am a little bit less stressed, though. I "let" Alex take over the grocery shopping and menu planning. After all, why should I get to have all the fun! Hee Hee!
Day 14 of Katya's Braces
Katya got braces on August 10th. She had mixed feelings about getting them - one day she seemed very excited about them and the next she seem very scared and anti-braces. Her X-tutor seemed to think that she only wanted them because we wanted her to get them. I don't know if that is true or not and maybe it doesn't matter.
On day one of the braces, although she was definately more brave during the process than I expected, about four hours into the braces she asked if we could go back to the orthodontist and have him take them off. I told her that unfortunately we would still have to pay the $2,000 for them anyway to which she seemed to be completely unphased. She then threatened to take them off herself. She used up a whole container of wax that day, brushed her teeth about four times and complained about them every two minutes.
Luckily, things have settled down and I haven't really heard any complaining about them for about ten days or so. I never had to have braces when I was a kid so I do not know how she feels. I can sympathize, though, and I definately felt really bad about her suffering and am very glad that she is either not as miserable as she was when she first got them on or she has gotten use to the misery. Poor girl!
On day one of the braces, although she was definately more brave during the process than I expected, about four hours into the braces she asked if we could go back to the orthodontist and have him take them off. I told her that unfortunately we would still have to pay the $2,000 for them anyway to which she seemed to be completely unphased. She then threatened to take them off herself. She used up a whole container of wax that day, brushed her teeth about four times and complained about them every two minutes.
Luckily, things have settled down and I haven't really heard any complaining about them for about ten days or so. I never had to have braces when I was a kid so I do not know how she feels. I can sympathize, though, and I definately felt really bad about her suffering and am very glad that she is either not as miserable as she was when she first got them on or she has gotten use to the misery. Poor girl!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Cars
Usually when Tony wakes up in the morning, the first thing he does is make the sign for "eat". One morning when he woke up, he first thing he said was "car". I think he was probably dreaming about cars which is not surprising since he is OBSESSED with cars. During the day, he plays with cars all day and he always wants to ride in the car (this is really in theory, though, since once he gets in the car and we go very far he definately wants to get out!). When the TV is on and a car commercial comes on (which is actually very often!) he will make the sign for car and scream "car! car!" until we acknowledge that we too see the car!
My mother-in-law, Lisa, was going through her old stuff and gave Tony her son Joshua's old Chevron cars - about 10 of them. Tony was seriously in heaven! He drives those cars around all day making "vroom" noises and brings one with him whenever we go in the real car! You can tell that he is getting good use out of them, too, since one of them now has a missing door. But isn't that the best thing about hand-me-down toys - you don't have to feel bad about them getting broken because you didn't buy them!
Friday, July 16, 2010
I'm Happy Today!
Those were the words that came out of Katya's mouth several days ago. She told Alex and I and she told Grandpa Taylor. I wanted to blog about it because I don't think I have every heard her say those words exactly and since I doubt if happiness can follow her around for more than one day in a row I wanted to remember it :)
That day really was one of those days when I look at Katya and know that she can actually be nice and helpful and pleasant - it almost makes up for all of those days when she isn't nice or pleasant or downright mean! Although Allie is with us for the month of July, she was at her uncle's house for the day, leaving me, Alex, Katya and Tony. We had assigned Katya chores and she did them without complaining. (Mental note to self: I did let her choose her two chores so that may have had something to do with the accomodating behavior??) She even took on a few chores of her own doing - like organizing her jewelry and sock drawer! Her tutor came and she didn't complain about it. She told Alex and I that she loved us at least three times and she said that she really loved Tony and that he is the best brother ever. It really was a utopian day. I am going to have to add it to my list of "magical moments".
Unfortunately, her happiness may have also had something to do with Allie not being there. Allie and Katya's relationship - or lack of it - makes me very sad and I am at a loss to know what to do about it. The problem with their relationship is mainly due to Katya. She is so jealous of Allie and thinks that Allie gets everything and she gets nothing. Despite the fact that we tell her constantly that we don't love Allie more than her and point out all of the things that she has that Allie doesn't have, Katya still harbors this jealousy. I honestly don't know what to do about it. Maybe I need to find a book on sibling rivalry?
That day really was one of those days when I look at Katya and know that she can actually be nice and helpful and pleasant - it almost makes up for all of those days when she isn't nice or pleasant or downright mean! Although Allie is with us for the month of July, she was at her uncle's house for the day, leaving me, Alex, Katya and Tony. We had assigned Katya chores and she did them without complaining. (Mental note to self: I did let her choose her two chores so that may have had something to do with the accomodating behavior??) She even took on a few chores of her own doing - like organizing her jewelry and sock drawer! Her tutor came and she didn't complain about it. She told Alex and I that she loved us at least three times and she said that she really loved Tony and that he is the best brother ever. It really was a utopian day. I am going to have to add it to my list of "magical moments".
Unfortunately, her happiness may have also had something to do with Allie not being there. Allie and Katya's relationship - or lack of it - makes me very sad and I am at a loss to know what to do about it. The problem with their relationship is mainly due to Katya. She is so jealous of Allie and thinks that Allie gets everything and she gets nothing. Despite the fact that we tell her constantly that we don't love Allie more than her and point out all of the things that she has that Allie doesn't have, Katya still harbors this jealousy. I honestly don't know what to do about it. Maybe I need to find a book on sibling rivalry?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Thomas the Train
We decided to go see Thomas the Train over Memorial Day weekend down at the train depot in Heber Valley. My mom had showed Tony the Thomas the Train video and taught him how to say "toot-toot" so we were all sufficiently excited for this event.Tony enjoyed playing with the train toys and we will probably try to find him one of those cool train tables on KSL for Christmas (hush! hush!). We had a hard time pulling him away from fighting with the other kids over the trains.
The kids got tattoos. Tony loved his so much that when we got home he cried until I put him in the bath and washed it off!
They had a minature golf course that mildly entertained the older kids - they played the very small course about five times!
My mom and my nephew Jacob came along with us. Jacob talked Grandma into buying him an engineer's hat - spoiled boy!
The train ride was the most disappointing part of the trip. Since the activity was centered around Thomas I expected to see a full-fledged Thomas train but it was just a rickety old train with Thomas as the front car. The train scenery consisted of an awesome view of people's junky backyards. Although the ride was only about 20 minutes, Tony fell asleep during it. He didn't miss much anyway...
The tree monkeys, Jacob and Katya found a tree to climb to get out of the sun for a while.
We ended the outing with cotton candy. Tony couldn't get enough of it and Jacob, although he wouldn't eat it himself, had fun feeding it to grandma!
Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this over-priced event to anybody. It's a good thing the pictures turned out so cute because I'm almost convincing myself that we had fun!
Flag Football
I don't know what it is with Alex and football but he has been trying to convince Allie for about 12 years that she wants to play tackle football and since he's had no success with Allie he moved on to Katya. Katya was a little bit more responsive to his suggestion, until she actually saw what tackle football was. And although she was a bit more apprehensive, she still claimed that she wanted to play. Since tackle football is a bit pricey we thought that we would try flag football instead to see if she even liked the game. 
Football is sort of a complicated game and for someone that has never watched it - let alone played it - the rules are a bit confusing. The coach learned to just point to the spot that Katya needed to stand and tell her to grab the flag. She did actually carry the ball a couple times which made the sport very entertaining as a spectator! Instead of running forward, she kept just running back and forth from side to side. Since she is a pretty fast runner, this continued for a bit and was quite comical!
I think overall she had fun. She was the only girl on her team and I really only saw two other girls in any of the games so she was definately outnumbered. She didn't seem to mind, though. The large number of boys probably added to why we got my niece Kaylie to come to a couple of games and why Allie didn't complain too much about sitting on the sidelines!
Alex is not so "gung-ho" anymore about her playing tackle football. Although she would be able to play-down on account of her being so small, I can't imagine her out there with all that gear trying to tackle somebody. I am trying to convince her that in the fall she just wants to play soccer again and maybe ice skating. Besides, football in the fall would really suck. They play rain, sun or snow and I've already sat through three or four rainy and/or snowy football games (on account of the crazy weather this year!) and I am not in any hurry to do this again!
Alex's Bday
I am going to try and catch up so the next few posts will be stuff that happened months ago that I want to write about before I forget any more of the details. Sorry if it is boring!
We celebrated Alex's 33rd birthday on May 29th (instead of June 1st) because we had Allie that weekend. Sadly, I had to think about what year he was born in order to figure out how old he is, which is no different than when I try to remember how old I am! I just realized now that I am turning 34 this year - ugh! - which makes me older and wiser. Do you hear that Alex ;)?
We invited the fam over for cake and ice cream - at least I think it was just cake and ice cream since I don't remember any headaches associated with making any other food! The kids are always up for cake and ice cream although they really prefer ice cream and icing! Allie bought Alex a bag of chocolates that were her favorites (but not necessarily Alex's favorites!) and Katya bought Alex a Laker's T-shirt. Alex is a very hard person to buy a present for and usually he takes everything back that you get for him. Katya remembered him taking back the shirt she bought him for Christmas and I told her that she had every right to tell him that she was no longer going to buy him presents if he kept returning everything. So after presenting him with his gift she said to him, "Daddy, if you turn this back I am not every going to buy you a present!". To his credit, even if he didn't like the shirt (which I think he did), Alex kept the shirt. Awesome!
Here are some pixs of the family - mostly Tony because he is so darn cute!
This is Alex opening up his surprise pair of pants from my mom! Not really a surprise because my mom has also learned not to buy anything for him without prior approval. He actually ended up taking these pants back and he picked them out so I guess I shouldn't feel bad about him taking back my presents!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
In over my head
Sometimes I have these days when I look at my life and think that I am totally in over my head. Yesterday was one of those days. Katya has been off-track since last week. I wanted to try and set up a routine for the summer that includes her doing some reading, math, writing and chores every day. I don't think this is too strenous or too much to ask - for her to spend an hour or so on these tasks and then have the rest of the day to do as she pleases. I don't wake her up early in the morning and she gets paid for doing it so when she complains about it her complaints definately fall on not-too-patient deaf ears! She actually has been fairly cooperative - only occasionally griping - and one night she literally spent at least an hour and a half doing math worksheets of her own accord. This was partly due to her wanting to avoid going to bed but it was definately the best thing she's ever done to get out of bedtime :)
Yesterday, however, in the midst of doing some math and asking her what 7 times 2 is and receiving this blank look from her - how could I not be frustrated! Do you know how long we spent last July through Octoberish working on multiplication and division facts? I am so tired of math flashcards! But that is what I pulled out again and made her practice instead of doing the math worksheet I had for her. She was pretty frustrated too, especially when we got to the number 2 division facts and our little math session ended up with her in her room crying. I have to tell you that at that moment I sort of felt like crying too! It was like starting over. I sat next her - our chins resting on her window sill - and asked her if she was frustrated, to which her tear-stained face nodded yes. I then reminded her that other kids had four years to practice multiplication and division (2nd grade - 6th grade) and that she had only been doing it for less than a year. This was actually probably more for my benefit than hers - the reminder that her class really hadn't been doing their math facts for several months and this is why she no longer remembers them as well as when we were drilling them into her brain and that it is mostly my fault because we should have still been working on this math aspect. I told her that I know how hard she has been working to catch up to the kids that are her age and that I was very proud of her and that I knew how smart she was. I told her that if I didn't think that she was smart enough to do it then I wouldn't expect anything of her but that I knew better. It is OK to be frustrated sometimes and I said that I sometimes get frustrated too, to which she of course asked me what frustrated me - a question I had anticipated a second after the words came out of my mouth but that I wasn't really prepared to answer honestly. If I could answer that honestly I would have yelled "YOU!" at her but it didn't seem that it would help the situation so I half-answered her question by talking about how I would get frustrated when I was in school too.
This little talk seemed to have appeased her and I walked away with a good feeling that I had "done good" which is why what happened later that day hurt my feelings so much. Katya would be mortified if she knew I had told anybody this so you readers are all sworn to secrecy! Lately Katya has been asking me a lot of questions about the lovely once a month "curse" (I didn't call it a curse to her but - hey - I know we all think of it that way!) - about why it happens, etc. I wasn't necessarily prepared for these questions and the maturation program that took place back in May that I meant to take Katya to (I had actually specifically called the school to find out when it was because they do that presentation in the fifth grade and not in the sixth grade) popped into my mind, along with the thought that it probably would have been more worthwile than the football game that she would have missed. I don't think Katya really trusted my expertise on this matter based on my answers to her questions and she gave me this dubious look that seemed to say, "You don't know what you are talking about, mom!" and truthfully my answers did not seem to suggest that I was all-knowing. Perhaps if I had answered with more assurance or had more intuition about why all of the sudden questions I would have gotten her news out of her. Instead, I got a hushed "Katya needs to talk to you about something" from Alex when he got home from picking Katya and Tony up from my mom's. "She has something to tell you" he said and although he wouldn't tell me what, the barrage of questions from the afternoon came to mind and when I guessed the lovely-womanly-thing-that-us-women-do-not-really-wish-upon-our-little-girls had happened, Alex positively confirmed. I did coax the news out of her after dinner without betraying Alex's confidence. Apparently it had happened back in May the day before her birthday - coincidentally the exact same week that Allie got her's - and since Allie was there for the weekend Katya had kind of seen all about taking care of it and hadn't really needed me and thus didn't really need to tell me.
Katya's secrecy brought back the memory of when I got mine when I was younger - a not-too-fond memory. It was a Sunday and my mom was trying to get eight kids ready for church and my education on the matter was a rushed demonstration of how to use a pad and then I don't recall any other conversations EVER. I see now how unwelcome this distraction would have been considering what my mom had going on at the moment yet it was one of those telling moments in your life and I vowed that I would never do that do my kids and that I would always encourage them to talk about it. How could I not be hurt to realize that it had been almost a month AND that she had told Alex before me? When I asked her why she didn't tell me she said that she thought I would be mad. This was the second time that day that I felt like crying and the point in the day when I felt totally unqualified for this position of motherhood that I have taken upon myself. What was I thinking? I didn't know if was going to be so hard - that I would feel so inadequate and frustrated so often. I really am over my head - can I swim out?
Worse yet, Katya doesn't like to play tennis with me - she would much rather play with Alex! I have to laugh at this hurting my feelings because the truth is that I don't like to play tennis with Katya either. She sucks and I suck and the combination of us together makes for a very uninteresting (and unhittable) tennis game. So - I think I can probably get over this one :)
As for the other thing, I found a website that I can study-up on so that in the next couple of days I can sit down with Katya and have an educated conversation with her and redeem myself.
Yesterday, however, in the midst of doing some math and asking her what 7 times 2 is and receiving this blank look from her - how could I not be frustrated! Do you know how long we spent last July through Octoberish working on multiplication and division facts? I am so tired of math flashcards! But that is what I pulled out again and made her practice instead of doing the math worksheet I had for her. She was pretty frustrated too, especially when we got to the number 2 division facts and our little math session ended up with her in her room crying. I have to tell you that at that moment I sort of felt like crying too! It was like starting over. I sat next her - our chins resting on her window sill - and asked her if she was frustrated, to which her tear-stained face nodded yes. I then reminded her that other kids had four years to practice multiplication and division (2nd grade - 6th grade) and that she had only been doing it for less than a year. This was actually probably more for my benefit than hers - the reminder that her class really hadn't been doing their math facts for several months and this is why she no longer remembers them as well as when we were drilling them into her brain and that it is mostly my fault because we should have still been working on this math aspect. I told her that I know how hard she has been working to catch up to the kids that are her age and that I was very proud of her and that I knew how smart she was. I told her that if I didn't think that she was smart enough to do it then I wouldn't expect anything of her but that I knew better. It is OK to be frustrated sometimes and I said that I sometimes get frustrated too, to which she of course asked me what frustrated me - a question I had anticipated a second after the words came out of my mouth but that I wasn't really prepared to answer honestly. If I could answer that honestly I would have yelled "YOU!" at her but it didn't seem that it would help the situation so I half-answered her question by talking about how I would get frustrated when I was in school too.
This little talk seemed to have appeased her and I walked away with a good feeling that I had "done good" which is why what happened later that day hurt my feelings so much. Katya would be mortified if she knew I had told anybody this so you readers are all sworn to secrecy! Lately Katya has been asking me a lot of questions about the lovely once a month "curse" (I didn't call it a curse to her but - hey - I know we all think of it that way!) - about why it happens, etc. I wasn't necessarily prepared for these questions and the maturation program that took place back in May that I meant to take Katya to (I had actually specifically called the school to find out when it was because they do that presentation in the fifth grade and not in the sixth grade) popped into my mind, along with the thought that it probably would have been more worthwile than the football game that she would have missed. I don't think Katya really trusted my expertise on this matter based on my answers to her questions and she gave me this dubious look that seemed to say, "You don't know what you are talking about, mom!" and truthfully my answers did not seem to suggest that I was all-knowing. Perhaps if I had answered with more assurance or had more intuition about why all of the sudden questions I would have gotten her news out of her. Instead, I got a hushed "Katya needs to talk to you about something" from Alex when he got home from picking Katya and Tony up from my mom's. "She has something to tell you" he said and although he wouldn't tell me what, the barrage of questions from the afternoon came to mind and when I guessed the lovely-womanly-thing-that-us-women-do-not-really-wish-upon-our-little-girls had happened, Alex positively confirmed. I did coax the news out of her after dinner without betraying Alex's confidence. Apparently it had happened back in May the day before her birthday - coincidentally the exact same week that Allie got her's - and since Allie was there for the weekend Katya had kind of seen all about taking care of it and hadn't really needed me and thus didn't really need to tell me.
Katya's secrecy brought back the memory of when I got mine when I was younger - a not-too-fond memory. It was a Sunday and my mom was trying to get eight kids ready for church and my education on the matter was a rushed demonstration of how to use a pad and then I don't recall any other conversations EVER. I see now how unwelcome this distraction would have been considering what my mom had going on at the moment yet it was one of those telling moments in your life and I vowed that I would never do that do my kids and that I would always encourage them to talk about it. How could I not be hurt to realize that it had been almost a month AND that she had told Alex before me? When I asked her why she didn't tell me she said that she thought I would be mad. This was the second time that day that I felt like crying and the point in the day when I felt totally unqualified for this position of motherhood that I have taken upon myself. What was I thinking? I didn't know if was going to be so hard - that I would feel so inadequate and frustrated so often. I really am over my head - can I swim out?
Worse yet, Katya doesn't like to play tennis with me - she would much rather play with Alex! I have to laugh at this hurting my feelings because the truth is that I don't like to play tennis with Katya either. She sucks and I suck and the combination of us together makes for a very uninteresting (and unhittable) tennis game. So - I think I can probably get over this one :)
As for the other thing, I found a website that I can study-up on so that in the next couple of days I can sit down with Katya and have an educated conversation with her and redeem myself.
I don't want to grow up
Katya told me the other day that she doesn't want to grow up because grown ups don't have any fun. So then Alex and I were trying to tell her last night about all the fun things that grown ups get to do and we couldn't really come up with many. Alex said that he has fun playing video games, but then so does Katya. Then he said that is fun for parents to watch their children grow up to which Katya have him a totally bored look. I can see how that would sound boring :) As for me, I have had a hard time coming up with all the fun things that you get to do as adults but despite that you couldn't pay me enough to be a kid again. Why is that?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Katya's Birthday
"How much more days?" was a phrase that we heard around our house very often beginning in April, although I think towards the end it had actually become "How many more days?" since I had corrected her so many times! The countdown was on to Katya's birthday - the eventful day that was to occur on May 15th.
We decided to do a swimming party. This was partly due to Katya liking to swim, but probably mostly due to our other options such as Boondocks or Cowabunga Bay being way to expensive! Katya was limited to inviting 15 guests total, including herself, Allie and Kaylie. You would think that this wouldn't be a very hard feat but actually I think it was a little hard for her to narrow down her guest list. Once she did, she made a "party people" book complete with a red bow on it! Don't ask me what the names are since I think half of them are spelled with a mixture of English and Ukrainian!
I was very worried about the day being anticlimatic. This being her first birthday in America, I know she was excited about the presents and excited about getting two birthday parties (a family one and a friend one). Other than that, I wasn't sure exactly what she expected and I really didn't want her to be disappointed. We kept asking her what she wanted for her birthday and she would just reply, "Whatever you want to get me". We did warn my mom that Katya was sure that she was going to be getting her a wedding Barbie from Target!
The family party was fun. Katya seemed to think that we were going to be having the party over at Uncle Harold's house since that is where all the birthday parties lately have been held. As nice as it would have been to go and mess up someone else's house, we did end up having the party at our house. I had the brilliant idea that a BBQ would be awesome, as I seem to have a memory block when it comes to parties and forgetting about how much work they are! I think I thought that Alex would be home that Friday - since he normally is - but he had to work and I was left with all the planning and preparation. Fun! Katya and I made her cake. Not only was this cheaper, but I think Katya really had fun icing it and decorating it. This is something that I'm sure she has never done before!
With the exception of my two brothers and sister-in-law, I think all the rest of the family showed up so we had quite the houseful - about 35 or so people! Katya scored in the present department and she was very thankful and generous - making sure that all the gift givers got ahug and a "thank you".
Among her spoils were two Moxie girl dolls, two Barbie dolls, some clothes and a very nice music box from the Pottery Barn that my mom got her - too bad that I now refuse to buy the girls any more jewelry! (if you saw the way that they take care of it you would totally understand!). Before the party, Katya had asked me if it would be OK if she got up in front of the family and said something to the family. This sounded interesting and I told her since it was her birthday, she could do whatever she wanted! Evidently, she wimped out after the guest count ended up being so large and instead decided to present her letter individually to Alex and I. She made Alex read it himself and I at least got to hear the words from her mouth - which really helped out in the understanding department! Below is an image of the letter and I will try and translate it as best I can :) 
Mom and papa I love you and you so cool and I love to be with your family. and I draw the photo of you (I'm a little fuzzy about what this says...) and no matter what I do I still love you. and you mom you so cool and you my best friend and you my best mom ever. and you papa you too I love you and you are so awesome and you my best papa ever and all the family I love my family and I love my grandma so much. and I love Kim she is the best aunt. and Sky (Kaylie) to be my best friend. and I love everyone. and I love my Tony and my sis so much. and if my sis was in the California I miss her so much. and (I think this may say) my mom forgot about me and I still love her and here I went I miss sometimes I still love. Love you mom and the papa.Her swimming party ended up working out OK. When we got there, apparantly I didn't have the room reserved from 2-3 as I had thought but instead 1-2. I'm am still not entirely convinced that they didn't tell me 2-3 although it is definately possible also that I just remembered wrong! Since there was another party scheduled at 2:30, we had to rush the kids to eat the pizza and cupcakes, open the presents in the conference room instead of the party room - only to watch the party room sit empty up until the time that we left! How frustrating! Oh well - the kids ended up getting to eat some more pizza after swimming and finished up the last of the cupcakes (yeah! More cupcakes around my house was the last thing I needed since I still had leftover cake!). I think they had fun swimming. Only one boy showed up, though, so it was probably a good thing, Wendy, that Alex didn't come! I think all the other boys were at the Zoo field trip for the school's Safety Patrol kid volunteers that Katya was very disappointed that she couldn't make it to (sometimes you just can't do everything - there's not enough hours or energy in a day!).
The only problem we had swimming was Katya's friend Allison. I have come to the conclusion that she doesn't play well with others since she has had problems with both Kaylie and Allie. At one point she was supposedly crying because Kaylie had "dunked" her, although I got info from both Kaylie and Allie independently that Allison had originally pushed Kaylie and told them to go away because they both get to see Katya at home all the time and she never gets to see Katya! This was a hilarious statement because although Kaylie definately sees Katya quite a bit, Allie comes for possibly four days A MONTH and there is no way she sees Katya more than Allison. In any case, after talking to Allie about flirting with Isaac, the lone boy that Katya "kind of likes", and steering clear of the rath of Allison, the kids seemed to do all right! Alex definately got some mileage and some smiles from Katya by teasing her that she was so cool that the kids were fighting over her!
We survived the day is all I can say and I think Katya had a good birthday!
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