I’m reading The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children by David Elkind. I think I checked it out hoping for guidance to easily move them away from tv and computer games.

As I read it I think about Daniel and Lindy and how they endlessly play with Molly, providing her such an enriched environment. That girl will have a powerful imagination. And if she’s not spoiled beyond belief, she will be one of those happy, well-adjusted people you meet every now and again: one of those people we all wish we could be!

Of course the beginning of the book is all doom and gloom about the sad state of toys and kids’ activities today. Children aren’t exercising their bodies enough, we all hear about it. But also, their brains are atrophying, decaying instead of growing in the glare of the digital age.

In one anecdote of evidence, a class of kindergartners didn’t know what imagination was nor how to use it!

Aaaaaaaaaah! I worry, I fret. Do my children have imaginations? Do they know how to pretend? All they do is play fighting games, I swear. I think back over the last few days of play and all I recall is the whining: “I’m bored,” “Can I watch TV?,” “Can I play on the computer?” and the endless karate moves they practice on each other for hours.

So tonight I’m reading them a great book we got from the library, The Wildest Brother by Cornelia Funke (translated from German) where little brother Ben talks about protecting his big sister from scary monsters, weekly burglars, foxes, wolves and bears. (Uncle Ben, Henry and Claire, a copy of this is coming your way!

And what do they do? They jump up at every monster and demonstrate how the monster moves and what the monster sounds like. They moan, roar and growl. They limp, bend and leap. They make up their own monsters, not even mentioned in the book.

Phew! I guess they have imaginations after all.

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly wish to be

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There’s nothing
To it

DeeDee Clarke says to Ethan: The girls love monkey bars. When they see monkey bars they have to climb on them.

Ethan says: I’m like that with soccer. When I see a soccer ball, I have to go kick it.

Matthew says: Yeah! Me too! When I see ice cream, I have to go eat it!!!

One of the moms at summer camp noticed Matthew playing in the water:
“Matthew sure is excited about that water!”

Her four year old daughter responds dryly:
“Matthew is always excited.”

… that needed stitches!

OK, he didn’t NEED stitches, the dr just said it would heal better if he had them, and since he was so calm they might as well give them to him.

I, however, was not calm. I broke my record of very serene injury review. Up until this incident I had always managed to maintain composure after falls, cuts, concussions etc.

I had walked into the kids’ bedroom to get Matthew’s pajamas when I heard him and a friend I was babysitting screaming. I walked quickly into the living room and Matthew ran up to me crying. If Matthew’s crying you know it hurts, because he’s a tough little guy (I think he’s missing some pain sensitivity neurons).

He buries his face against my leg and I put my hand in its accustomed place on the back of his head… to find it covered with blood! Blood all over the place. running down my hand, dripping on the floor. AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

This particular friend has a history of sudden violence. He’s not a bad kid, but you just have to be aware of him getting upset because he can kind of erupt in a physically aggressive way. In my mind I’m picturing that this child grabbed a brick and fractured Matthew’s skull! Of all the ridiculous things to think!

Anyway, Glen was Mr. Smooth. He has told me about the time his elementary school mate’s teeth sunk into his head in such a way that blood was spurting out. The school nurse screamed when she saw him and his shirt was covered in blood. So he was comfortable dealing with this situation.

Matthew, after getting over the first hurting part, was terrific:

2 stitches that will dissolve, administered after a local anesthetic.

I think he actually had fun. The sticker and popsicle they gave him is probably what he remembers most! Hopefully he’ll remember not to walk on the coffee table also.

We are so lucky to have so many wonderful libraries. Here on the peninsula we have more than a half dozen fantastic children’s rooms, complete with computers (the incentive for my children to go), rich book and music collections and comfy areas to sit and read. These are all within a 15 minute drive! All of the San Mateo County libraries are connected so it’s even more than we had in Berkeley.

Sometimes we find wonderful treasures and then we buy them. Like Sam’s Cookie by Barbro Lindgren and the Tickle Tickle series of board books by Helen Oxenbury. But some of them get returned and fade from memory.

So I thought I’d start mentioning them.

Anno’s Math Games
Mitsumasa Anno

The author is a japanese artist and educator whose work has received acclaim world wide. He is noted for making mathematical and scientific concepts accessible to children and for his interesting children’s book illustrations. For more: http://www.answers.com/topic/mitsumasa-anno

This Math Games book isn’t even mentioned in most of the bios I found about Mr. Anno. But Jared LOVED it. It is a PERFECT mathematical concepts book for pre-k and kindergartners. But don’t look for numbers or addition here.

It is about matching, and categorizing, and patterns and spatial relationships and measuring and charting and graphing. You know, how to THINK about math amd logic, not just memorizing functions and tables.

Jared loved it. Usually if I let Jared pick a book he goes straight for Berenstain Bears. He picked this one every night for 2 months. It is now overdue to the library and I better get it back. I’m really happy we found this gem right at this time. it was a perfect precursor to starting kindergarten.

(Jared is very worried about starting kindergarten because, while he knows addition ok, his “minus” isn’t very good and he doesn’t know multiplication at all! Horrors! Ethan’s kindergarten teacher Mrs. Franco says it’s always the smart ones who worry the most. Meanwhile, when I give him simple multiplication word problems he figures them out fine.)

Aunt Darcie sent us a little tooth box. It’s very cute.

A week later, Jared’s tooth is wildly loose. It felt like it could come out any second. (He looked very surprised when I told him all of his teeth were going to come out.) Daddy finally yanked it last night.

It was the same tooth position that Ethan first lost. Although, Ethan’s wasn’t quite this easy. His adult teeth started growing in behind it before it was loose at all – we called these shark teeth, like sharks’ rows upon rows of teeth. Of course, that was after I found out it wasn’t unusual for that to happen. At first I was freaking out.

Anyway, Ethan’s tooth required an extraction by the dentist.

The same thing happened with Ethan’s top front two teeth. First the row of shark teeth. Then one of the baby teeth came out, but the grey one that had gotten discolored so long ago when he fell on it wasn’t budging. The dentist told him to wiggle it and twist it as much as possible, which Ethan had not been doing thinking it “wasn’t allowed.” When this didn’t work for more than 8 weeks, we were about to take him back to the dentist. He finally tripped and fell on his face and saved us a visit. (Do not tease him about this; he is very sensitive about it. ??)

So back to Jared. Wildly loose, for 3 days I thought it would come out at any moment. And I was giving him ibuprofen because it was hurting him. But I didn’t pull it too hard because it hurt him. Daddy wasn’t really worried about that. YANK! WaaaaAAAIIILLLL! And it was still there! But came out a few minutes later.

I forgot to mention this highlight of Jared’s graduation.

After each of the little students had walked over the little bridge, center stage, and were seated again in their rows of chairs behind it, Teacher Nancy (bless her heart, what was she thinking) decided to create a “moment.” She announced: “Let’s all quietly listen to this song. The children may dance slowly to this music if they wish.”

The music starts.

Nobody moves.

Then, for your entertainment pleasure, ETHAN LIPKA (not a graduate by the way) slowly moves his way onto the stage and then up on the bridge to dance.

——————-

I didn’t want to just yank him off (visions of Mr. Bennett pulling Mary off the piano at Mr. Bingley’s party “you’ve entertained us long enough. let the other young ladies have a chance to exhibit.”).

Finally some other children started “dancing.” Their interpretations, while valid (“All interpretations are valid” Marcelle Dronkers), were not slow or quiet. When Jared and Ethan started hitting each other we yanked them both.

——————–

Anyway. Ethan sold 5 bags of fundraiser coffee at Hometown Days for CPNS all by himself, so I guess those hey-look-at-me skills have their place. I’m hoping Ed Coady can mentor him. Also Bapu, who was such a successful salesman he couldn’t leave the biz though he wanted to. (Golden handcuffs.) Friend Ed, who also tells funny Donkey stories, really loves sales though. He gave Ethan the tip to tell people that we normally sold the coffee for $18 per bag, but that today it was on specials for $11 (we always sell it at $11). It was a very effective technique. (Honesty shmonesty?)

See previous blog post Born Politician.