Now There are THREE Middle Schoolers in the House

The Youngest Boy (who recently gave me the green light to once again mention him in this space) has just left his elementary school days behind him. In September, he'll be movin' on up to the big middle school to join his elder siblings who'll be entering the eighth grade.

How this will work is anyone's guess as all three of them haven't been students in the same school before. (The Youngest Boy once attended pre-school in the same building as his elder siblings but there was no interaction between the pre-schoolers and the rest of the school population.) Will it go smoothly? Will there be resentment? Will the "vigorous" disputes the two boys have here at home spill out into the middle school hallways?

The three Picket Fence Post kids have quite varied personalities and don't really resemble one another much. One's quiet but determined, one's also determined but gregarious and the talkative one just collected an "award" for having the "best sense of humor." (A future Robin Williams-esque class clown?) Two play soccer and basketball while the other plays hockey and lacrosse. Two participate in bands at school (The Youngest Boy, a percussionist, joked to The Elder Boy that he's coming after his spot on one of the middle school bands) and one is active on the student council. Two are utterly addicted to video games and one is obsessed with voraciously reading books and watching Make It Or Break It episodes on my iPad, usually surrendering the device to me, under extreme duress, with .5 percent of its battery remaining.

So when The Youngest Boy walks into the middle school as a sixth grader in the fall, I hope he'll be able to carve out his own niche there and not simply morph into another incarnation of The Eldest Boy or The Girl, albeit with wildly curly hair and omnipresent sports jerseys.

Quick Hits: Kids Review 'Harry Potter,' 'The Mentalist's' 1st Season, Outside Resistance & Poop In the Pool

Picket Fence Post Twins Review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Yes, we Harry Potter addicts were among those who went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on opening weekend. We just had to as the anticipation had reached frenzied levels. The Eldest Boy and I went to see the movie on Saturday morning and The Girl accompanied The Spouse on Sunday morning to catch Harry Potter in all his glory. (The Youngest Boy is only on book six of the seven-book series – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – and we didn’t want to spoil his reading experience so he’s only seen movies one through five.)

I, personally, adored the movie. Cried four times, much to the shock of The Eldest Boy. What did my two resident Potterheads think of the cinematic finale of the series that has so influenced their childhoods? I wrote about their reactions over on CliqueClack Flicks. Check out my bibliophiles’ assessments here.

Learning The Mentalist’s Backstory

Back in May I wrote about how watching The Mentalist with The Eldest Boy has become “our thing.” After watching the dramatic, tension-filled season finale that month, we decided that we needed to go back in time, back to the first season of The Mentalist to find out the backstory about this whole Red John business.

So last night we started our journey and watched the first two episodes. We were stunned to see Eric Stonestreet, who plays the hilarious Cameron on Modern Family, playing a murderer who threatened the life of The Mentalist guy, Patrick Jane. So far, so good.

Outside Resistance

Okay, so it’s like a convection oven outside right now with 90+ degree heat (closer to 100 today), plus lotsa humidity. So I can understand why the kids don’t want to go outside and hang out in that soupy discomfort. That’s entirely reasonable.

But when the weather HASN’T made you feel like you’re walking through a pot of beef stew, I’ve been surprised to encounter enthusiastic resistance to my suggestions that they . . . wait for it . . . GO OUTSIDE. Oh, the horror!!

We have a trampoline, a basketball hoop, a badminton/volleyball net, rollerblades, a hockey net/soccer net, driveway chalk and playground balls (for Four-Square), footballs, Wiffle Ball stuff, scooters, bikes, a very battered pogo stick and a play structure complete with a little fort-like thing which affords them privacy. It’s like a kid amusement park here. And yet they still resist when I, seeking some quiet so I can write in my office without hearing "It's my turn!" "No, it's MY turn!" (*scuffle, scuffle*), suggest that they partake of those amusements . . . OUTSIDE. "Take a book outside if you don't want to play," I pleaded one day.

It has almost (I repeat, almost) made me want to do what essayist David Sedaris wrote that his mother used to do with him and his siblings when they were young: Shove them outside and lock the door. However I’ve not reached that point. Yet.

Poop in the Pool

This year we joined a summer swimming club, as we have for several years running. (Since I'm a lousy swimmer, it was important to me that my kids be strong ones.) I tend to take the kids to the pool in the late afternoons, depending on how much writing I’ve completed during the day, or The Spouse will bring them in the early evenings to give me a break.

Yet twice in the past two weeks, the kids and The Spouse have returned home early, spoiling the blessed peace in our domicile, because the pool had been evacuated because some kid pooped in it. Nothing's more of a summer buzzkill than poop in the pool.

Particularly vexing, last night The Spouse was swimming right near where said excrement was spotted on the pool floor. As soon as they came home, they all took showers.

Image credit: Warner Brothers.

It's School Time . . . Where Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

There comes a point during the summer when you're a work-from-home or an at-home parent, where you feel like you're going to lose your mind. Either the kids won't stop fighting over stupid stuff or they're telling you they're bored (like you're their cruise director in charge of their amusement or something) or they're nagging you to death for a) TV b) video games c) snacks d) all of the above.

Today as the three Picket Fence Post children went off to school, I was saddened to see the summer come to an end, but was pleased that I'll get a reprieve from moments like this one (though I'm not usually lying down in a bed when the children are still awake):

Sometimes We All Need an Escape Chute

When I opened up my Facebook account yesterday, I saw a post from a friend of mine who is obviously a kindred spirit when it comes to this whole parenting thing.

She wrote: “I am seriously getting depressed. If I see one more post about what a perfect family day someone had I am going to scream. My kids are driving me crazy and they are driving each other crazy. Nothing is perfect or idyllic here more like a slow boil with the chance to bubble over at any second.”

Her post seemed to have opened up a spigot of frustration as a chorus of similar parental sentiments followed in the comments section. Moms and dads chimed in with their not-so-nice feelings about the oftentimes aggravating, overheated days of summer. One person said that her kids constantly shouting “Mom!” were starting to make her feel like a “homicidal maniac.” Another joked that she’s only going to respond to her children calling for her when they refer to her as “Your Majesty." (Not a bad idea.)

I tossed my less-than-ideal summer observations into the mix, admitting that this week I’ve hidden from the Picket Fence Post kids in the garage so I could carry on an uninterrupted telephone conversation. (I could hear them looking for me but I said nothing as I sat there in the dark. No, I'm not proud.) Yesterday, I intentionally let them rug rats waste away the morning hours in front of the TV because they were driving me nuts and I needed the time to finish some work without being harassed.

There must be something in the air, because this morning I read a page one story in the New York Times about a flight attendant who, like some of these parents, has had enough. When a passenger on a New York-bound flight left his seat to get the belongings he'd stowed in the overhead compartment after the plane had touched down but it was not yet safe for passengers to leave their seats, a longtime airline attendant, Steven Slater, told the passenger he had to sit down. Here’s how the rest of this weirdly inspiring story played out, according to the Times:

“The passenger defied [the flight attendant]. Mr. Slater reached the passenger just as he pulled down his luggage [from the overhead compartment], which hit Mr. Slater in the head.

Mr. Slater asked for an apology. The passenger instead cursed at him. Mr. Slater got on the plane’s public address system and cursed out the passenger for all to hear. After citing his 20 years in the airline industry, he blurted out, ‘That’s enough.’ He then activated the inflatable evacuation slide at a service exit and left the world of flight attending behind.”

He paused, however, to grab two beers from the service cart before jumping down the slide and running across the tarmac to the employee parking lot, the paper reported. (Unfortunately, Slater was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.)



The comments on the Times web site about this story cracked me up. “I am having one of these [evacuation chutes] installed in every meeting room,” one person said, adding, “Haven’t we all wanted to hit the ‘escape button?”

Another said, “I wish my office had an evacuation slide.”

And for parents with young kids who spend summer days behaving like kids – meaning tormenting their siblings, challenging/harassing their parents and acting like the immature little creatures they are – don’t we all sometimes need an escape chute, an evacuation slide? Or at least a darkened garage to slip off to when Mommy needs a time out?

UPDATE: Apparently Steven Slater has already been christened a "folk hero," according to New York Magazine. There are Free Steven Slater T-shirts, a Steven Slater Legal Defense Fund and even a move to try to get folks to contact JetBlue on his behalf.

On Track to Become the Next Rory Gilmore

My 11-year-old daughter has declared it official: She wants to read more books than any other kid in our town library's summer reading program.

Last Wednesday, I took the three Picket Fence Post kids to the library and she was the only offspring of mine interested in signing up for the summer reading program as she proceeded to check out a huge stack of books. Over the course of a week, she read voraciously and constantly. (I'd love to spend my days reading!) She consumed not just the library books, but tons of books from around the house. (We've got a lot of books.)

I attempted to support her in her efforts, suggesting other titles I thought she might enjoy, like one I adored when I was in junior high: Jane Eyre. I'd previously tried to persuade her to read this classic but she never seemed to cotton to it. After pressing her about the book last week, she told me that the language was difficult and that she really wasn't interested.

"No way," I said, as I started combing through the book shelves for one of my two paperback copies of Jane Eyre and prattling on about how I'd read and re-read this book multiple times in my youth. "Listen to this," I said as I read aloud from the first page. Going off of the look on her face, I backed off.

When she submitted her reading log to the children's librarian today, her tally was 60. We'll see if she can sustain the first week's momentum. Regardless of what she chooses to read, I love that she loves books.

Got any good book suggestions for my 11-year-old gal?