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Update

Posted in education, Home Life on February 10, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Pull up a chair, time for an update!

So when last we we had an up close and personal, C. was off to boarding school in New England.  So how has that gone? (Today we’ll do C.  M. will be the next post.)

All told, great!  Academically, there were a few kinks to work out in her schedule at the beginning, namely math and foreign language placement.  If she had remained at her MCPS high school, she would have been taking B/C Calculus.  Her new school essentially wanted her to  repeat pre-Calculus (a class she got A’s in in MCPS) for two terms  and then start B/C in the spring.  Daughter Dear would have none of it.  She *hates* to repeat stuff.  She wanted to proceed straight into B/C Calc.  Despite her diligent self-advocacy — and the promise that she would take full responsibility for her possible failure — the department head wouldn’t budge.  The compromise was  A/B Calculus, but only after she had successfully taken the first test in pre-Calc, which meant she would be starting A/B Calc already behind.  She proved her mettle,  joined the A/B Calculus class (the only junior in a class of seniors) and is doing great.  Similar situation in French.  They wanted her to repeat, and she replied “non!’  She was able to move.  Her other classes are Physics (one of two juniors in a class of seniors), Middle Eastern History (the only junior), and a special English class just for the new juniors.  (BTW, at this school 11th graders are called something else and “juniors” are actually what we know as freshmen/9th graders — but I’ll stick with the more familiar public school designation, “junior.”)  Academically, I think it is really what she was looking for.  The class sizes are ridiculously small: 7 in French, 10 in Physics — Middle East, at 16, is at the outermost edge of acceptable — as opposed to 35+ in her former classes.  There is discussion.  The teachers are engaged and really know each student.   She’s working very hard… but still has time to be involved in a slew of extracurricular activities.

Socially, it is very hard to jump into a new school during junior year.  It just is.  Add to that C.’s, ah, “choosy nature,” and that makes it a bit tougher.  initial impression was that students — especially the girls — are unfailingly nice and pleasant…but not as comfortable having a passionate debate about, say, politics. Which is what she loves.  There is a bit of “sameness” (Uggs? Check.  Long blonde side ponytail?  Check.) that anthropologically A. finds interesting…and disconcerting (“Mom, I just don’t know how to ‘do’ teenage girl.”).  Boarding school has thrown into relief what an unusually spirited, diverse, and liberal corner of the universe we inhabit here in Silver Spring.  (By boarding school standards she’s practically a hippy.)  She’s responded by throwing herself into campus clubs and activities, including Mock Trial, which she loves, a campus women’s group and weekly tutoring of middle schoolers from a neighboring town.  Last week she called to let me know that she found another junior girl who is as obsessive about politics as she is–oh happy day!  She’s also befriended a sophomore in her dorm and last week, after the latest tremendous snow, she walked into town with a new friend to visit a thrift store.  Overall, I think she’s happy.  She sounds happy.   And for that I’m deeply, deeply grateful.

A quick word about C.’s advisor.  She’s phenomenal. We went up for Parents’ Weekend and had a chance to meet for the first time and talk.  She so gets C. and appreciates some of the very qualities that were not appreciated by other teachers in the past.  Again, words cannot express how much that means to this mom .  In fact, we were impressed with all of C.’s teachers.

“What about you, SwitchedOnMom?” I hear you ask.  “How are you dealing with the separation?”  Honestly?  It’s not bad.  Sure I miss her, but those feelings are far outweighed by my happiness for her, that she has the opportunity to be part of this ideal learning community.  What must it be like to walk down wide, tree-lined paths in the fall, white spires against a blue sky? It’s flat out gorgeous.  To be surrounded by the energy of hundreds of talented, bright, energetic, athletic, musical young people.  And to live in that place and to feel “this is my place, my school“…that’s got to be amazing.  Naturally technology helps a great deal too.  I just got off the phone with her — she was excited to tell me about an email she got from a faculty member about a research project she’s working on, and about a very successful club meeting.  I text her.  She texts me.  She’ll call in the middle of the day.  We Skype.  I talk to her at least every other day.

I also love to see the growth, the maturity.  I have to say, at the end of winter break it gave me a thrill to pull up to the curb at BWI, lift her bag out of the trunk, give her a hug — and get back into the car and wave goodbye, knowing that she was fully capable of checking herself in, getting through security, getting on the plane and traveling back to school on the other side. Finally, it’s been nice to spend more time with M.  She says, and I agree that we’ve gotten much closer in the past few months.  The two sisters have also gotten closer to each other.  Now that is really nice to see.

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New Beginnings

Posted in Gifted, Home Life, tagged , , , on September 17, 2010 | 5 Comments »

Okay, one week in and it’s time to post.  Last Thursday we packed up the Prius, C. said her goodbyes and we headed north.  Those last few days were really sweet, capped by a lowkey sendoff with close friends and family at our local pool.  As we pulled out of the driveway, M. “piped out” her sister on her Irish tin whistle, their little joke.  C. came to hate the whistle and made her M. promise not to play it for the remainder of her time home in exchange for going on a quick trip to explore Ellicott City.  I’m proud to say that we did an awesome packing job, and with the seats folded down we were still able to have a clear view through the rear window.  Ziploc packing cubes and super jumbo bags rock!

I love roadtrips, the sense of “going” and anticipation, and I had anticipated this one for a long time.  Our first stop was Connecticut to visit my mom.  C. did about a third of a driving, handling the stretch of I-95 from north of Baltimore to the first rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike, and then from Armonk to my mom’s.  She drove the Saw Mill River Parkway for a stretch and that had me positively white knuckled.  I’m white knuckled when I drive it.  It’s two lanes and twisty with grass to the right and a Jersey barrier to the left, and no breakdown lanes.  Cars going 55 mph-plus.  Gulp.  The next day/night was spent in Cambridge.  And–at last–Saturday.  Move in day.

The weather was picture perfect.  C. drove to the school and at the turn off we were greeted by a gaggle of–what can I call them?–”school spirit people.”  Fun, but C. is soooo not a rah-rah kind of girl.  Or at least, she’s never felt rah-rah about any school she’s ever attended.  She kind of cringed and refused to beep the car horn.  Registration was painless.  On the way to her dorm we had to once more pass through the spirit people gantlet, only this time C. was in the passenger seat and of course we got caught at the light.  Had to have been the longest red light of her life.  What does when do when 50 or so of your future schoolmates are screaming and pointing, and thumbs-upping and just plain looking at you?  Well mom honked the car horn, as bidden by the masses. What else was I going to do?

Safely past that, it was on to her dorm.  We were able to pull right to the front door and several girls helped us quickly unload the car and ferry things to her room, a single.  We also were greeted by one of the house counselors.  Her room is small but comfortable. The bookshelf we brought fit perfectly and she quickly got things arranged.  Her window looks onto the roofline and she can spy a bit of the quad.  Nice bonus:  The sound of church bells wafting from somewhere.

We were so busy unpacking that we nearly missed lunch.  We got back in time for a house meeting, where everyone, including parents had a chance to meet for the first time.  “She reminds me of Ms. J,” I whispered to C., nodding towards one of the three house counselors.  Ms. J. was one of C.’s (few) favorite elementary school teachers.  She had that no-nonsense but warm thing going that seems to work for C.  The girls she’ll be living with are a mix of lowers (freshman), juniors (sophomores), uppers (juniors), seniors (seniors) and PGs or post-grads.  Hard to say much more than that at this point.  After the meeting we did a quick walk into town and which meant we were late for the schoolwide welcome.  Oh well.  Afterwards the parents and kids met separately.  Among all the blah, blah, blah two statements stuck out.

  1. When parenting teens you’re moving from being a manager to being a consultant, and
  2. We’ll believe half the things they tell us about you, if you believe half the things they tell you about us.

From 5:00 to 5:5o p.m. was designated as goodbye time, and parents were emphatically to be gone by 6:00.  When it was time for me to leave there was no drama, no tears, although there were two calls before I even hit the interstate–me to her ask if she had relinquished her library book for me to return, and her to me asking for advice on a stuck roller shade.

To be continued….

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Getting ready

Posted in Home Life on August 20, 2010 | 6 Comments »

Hello again!  Yes, it has been awhile.  Thank you to the kind people who commented and asked about my silence. Hard to say why I’ve been away from The More Child.  Combination of things, I suppose.  A huge storm that knocked our power out for four days (we had to dump the entire fridge) and then another day last week.  The general slowing pace of summer and a picking up of the pace at work.  The fact that my day job recently launched a new website built on WordPress, the platform hosting this blog, so that blogging has taken on the faint air of a busman’s holiday.  (Conversely, work just got a little funner :-) ).  Coming across discussion of this blog, my kids and my parenting on a forum.  Not going to pretend: ouch.  Definitely made me draw back.

But I do want to get back in the saddle.  So what’s the news?  Well I suppose it’s that C. is DRIVING.  Gulp.  Right after school finished she and three friends took a drivers ed class in the evenings for two weeks.  In that grand tradition of slightly off-kilter drivers ed teachers, C. was treated to healthy helpings of social commentary along with her passing lane info.   (I know whereof my speak–for a spell my stepfather taught drivers ed.  A truly, truly frightening prospect.)   The class did achieve its objective, namely instilling a healthy fear of driving (“I just want to live in a city and take the bus or walk everywhere.” Like many of generation she doesn’t have a burning desire to “get her wheels,” but she figured she wouldn’t have much time in the coming 2 years and it’s useful.)  She passed the class and then it was off to the DMV out on Rte. 29.  We showed up a half hour early on a Saturday morning, but there was still a long line to get in.  Thankfully once inside things moved along at a decent pace and at the end walked out with a driving permit.  Unlike a regular license, it has a portrait orientation, which I hadn’t seen before.  Her photo makes her look like a ghost, but that’s tradition too, right?  Awful license photos.

I announced the milestone on my Facebook wall and noted that now she just had to complete 60 hours of driving time.  My brother, the ex-military pilot who now lives overseas and possesses a healthy disregard for the American nanny state, wrote “60 hours? You only need 40 hours and 16 years old for a pilot license. Sounds like overkill. Just drive to New Mexico and back.”

The real test, however, has been actual road time.  I was pretty cool the first time, even C. said so, but subsequent outings have been nerve-racking.  I have a constant clutching in my stomach as I glance at the proximity of the right hand curb.  I’ve been reprimanded for my gasping sounds. And I’m not particularly proud of having insisted that I take over when she had a hard time navigating the sharp turn into our driveway, albeit it was at night.   I’m feeling better now that she has completed 6 hours of road time with a driving instructor.  And there is an upside:  mommy has a designated driver!  The other night I had a glass of wine at her friend’s house and let her drive home.

M. has gone and returned from Girl Scout camp, the best darn deal on the planet.  She and her best friend since the age of three attended a two week Rocks and Ropes camp in the Shenandoah mountains.  They had a great time.   Noteworthy achievement was that M. was the only one to make it up a particularly high climb.  I always love when the girls come home from camp. They’re so appreciative.  Showers.  Their bed. Fruit. The Internet.  M. wrote us the sweetest letter while she was gone.   Her laundry was less sweet.  Everything damp and stinky, with her shoes completely encrusted with clay mud.  At least she didn’t bring home a bag full of carpenter ants and larvae, like her sister did.  Now that was completely GROSS.

Other than  comings and goings we’ve been busy shopping and getting ready for C.’s departure.  It’s like packing up for college, just two years early.  The extra long twin sheets, towels, a printer, her own hair dryer, a small rug, a folding bookshelf, plates, cups, shower caddy, over the counter drugs….etc. etc. etc.  Things large and small.  This week she received her dorm assignment and got just what she asked for, a single in a picturesque dorm.  All the preparation has been hard on M., who desperately wishes that she could be going too.   I hope she gets her turn; we’ll be filling out applications this fall.

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What’s on for summer?

Posted in Home Life, Homeschooling on June 29, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Here we are, the week before the 4th of July, and I haven’t blogged about what our summer is looking like.

In a word: busy!

M. is almost busier now that school is “out” than she was when school was “in.”  But hey, with homeschooling it’s learning all the time, right?  Her summer kicked off with a session of camp counselor training (Health?  CPR–check!) and this week she’s camp counseling  little ones at her old preschool.  Two of her friends (friends since their 2′s and 3′s class at said preschool) are doing it as well, so lot’s of fun. As always, M. is a hit with the knee-high set; she reports that they follow her like ducklings, fight over who gets to hold her hand and love her mad facepainting skills.  Next week it’s archaeology camp (still figuring the logistics on that one, since it’s way the heck in north MoCo), a two week break, and then two weeks of Girl Scout caving and rock climbing camp in Shenandoah mountains.  During her non-scheduled weeks she’ll be taking some of those Lukion archaeology workshops, keeping up with math, learning Greek, spending time at the pool and generally enjoying herself.

As for C., she arranged her own internship here in ‘burbs with a statewide pro-choice/pro-reproductive health organization.  In addition to working in their offices four days a week, she’s helping to staff their booth at various area festivals.  So far she’s gathered petition signatures and talked to people about the issues at Bowiefest, Capitol Pride and Baltimore Pride.  Later in the summer she’ll be in the booth at a heavy metal festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion.  Certainly expanding her horizons!  She’s also been pulled in to blog, Facebook and Tweet.  Like mother, like daughter :-) .

For the past two weeks C. has also been taking — gulp — drivers ed classes.  Yes, my “baby” is on the cusp of driving.  Not that she has a burning desire to drive (if anything, the classes have put the fear of god into her and she’s more interested than ever in relying on public transportation).  But thinking practically, she feels it’s an important life skill, and this summer, before she goes away to school, she has time that she might not have later on.  Other things on the schedule include knitting (one sock done, one to go), lots of reading, starting a blog with a friend on activism for girls, and a week-long Girl Scout sailing trip to the Bahamas.

As for me, just work work work with a day or two off here and there.  The only block of vacation I envision is in early September, when we bring C. up north.

What’s on for your summer?  Are summers busier than the school year?

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Sailing Away in New York

Posted in Gifted, Home Life, tagged , , , on June 20, 2010 | 11 Comments »

This week Husband Dear and I had a little foreshadowing of what the “empty nest” will feel like.  C. and M., along with two friends, the friend’s exchange student, a mom and the mom’s friend went to New York City for three days, arriving home in the early morning hours on Saturday.

So what was it like for us?  Did we, as M. suggested on our recent anniversary, “paint the town beige?”  :-) Kind of.  On Wednesday we just came home as usual and collapsed.  On Thursday I had a monthly deadline, so didn’t get home until 10 p.m., but did have drinks with a contractor earlier in the evening.  Yesterday I had a drink after work with a donor, and then met up with Husband Dear for dinner at boisterous place in Dupont Circle.  It was a gorgeous evening and once again it made me yearn to move back into the city, or at least into a smaller place that is livelier and more walkable.  I would like that.  Meanwhile it was very quiet at home. [Note:  4 drinks in 2 days (unusual!) = headache.]

Meanwhile the girls and friends had a great time.  They took a BoltBus to the City and stayed in a women’s hostel that was clean and inexpensive.  They saw Promises, Promises, went to the Metropolitan Museum, explored areas of the city they hadn’t visited before, and poked around cool specialty shops.

On Thursday evening C. called to check in.  She and M. were in Times Square.  Were they getting ready to go to another show? I asked.  No, everyone else went off to see Billy Elliot but they decided the tickets were too expensive and they would rather walk around Times Square instead.  Okaaaay, so my 13 year old and not quite 16 year old were on their own.  In Times Square.  Not a lot I could do about it from DC, so I just exuded calm confidence and told myself  it’s just like the Piazza Navona in Rome, right?  Later that night C. called again, asking if I could check Edline for her.  Was she back at the hostel?  Oh yes, they had made their way back on their own–they had ridden the subway.  Double okaaaay.  But I have to say I was kind of pleased and impressed.  I mean, there is a very healthy percentage of American adults who would be completely overwhelmed and freaked out by New York City, and wouldn’t dream of venturing on the subway.  When I said so, commenting on their navigation skills, C. said, “Mom, it’s a GRID.”

This morning I told my mom, the Queen of Worry, about the girls’ adventure.  At first she was rather horrified. But since my telling came on the heels of her filling me in on a relative who is 18 and an utter mama’s boy/couch potato, I took the opportunity to say, “At least I can be fairly certain that they won’t be 26 years old and living at home in the basement.”  And she had to admit that my approach was proving right.

Maybe I’m missing some maternal gene or something.  Unlike the people who decried 16 year old Abby Sunderland‘s recent around the world sailing gambit, I said good on her.  A few days back I read a blog post in which the mom explained why her child was no Abby Sunderland.  She wrote, “It’s only been a couple of years since I’ve allowed my daughter to enter a public restroom on her own. Until recently, she had never walked up to worker at Baskin-Robbins to order her own ice cream cone. She has never walked to school on her own, nor has she ever ridden a bike to a friend’s house.”  I kept reading, thinking her kid was maybe 8 or 9 years old. Then she dropped,  “I have a hard time letting my daughter walk the dog solo around the block. That’s something I’ve got to change.  I won’t have a choice. In a little over a year, she’ll be eligible for a driver’s permit.”

Whoa Nellie, her kid is 14!  And never ordered an ice cream cone by herself until “recently”?  Really? My kids were doing that when they were 5.  I just don’t see how overprotecting kids helps them to become confident, competent adults.  My kids are already thanking me for having the confidence in them to let them explore and try new things.   That and for my mad minimalist packing skills.

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It’s All Greek to Me

Posted in Gifted, Home Life, tagged , , , , on May 31, 2010 | 11 Comments »

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what M.’s “thing” was.  C. has politics and her crafting and Nancy Drew and Sylvia Plath and…and…and….  Well, there’s always something and I always have seemed to know exactly what’s grabbing her at any given point in time.  But M…..  I’ve just found it harder.  Maybe because my passions haven’t been her passions.  Maybe because she just isn’t as overexcitable and dramatically vocal about what interests her.

Until now.  Some background first though.  Back in February, when I was on the cusp of deciding whether to withdraw her from that school, I had coffee with the friend for whom she babysits and shared my difficulty in figuring out M’s passion.  Fencing, my friend had deduced from conversations with M., was not “it”, and sure enough in the following weeks we reluctantly, at M.’s insistence, let her private lesson drop even though she has tremendous talent and aptitude for it.  As someone on a listserv said vis a vis a different issue, “They have to want it more than you do.”  Ugh. True.  Though it killed Husband Dear and me to see her “throw it away,” we realized we had to back off and let the weekly group lesson that she enjoys mostly for the social aspect, suffice.

Okay, so not fencing.  But what?  At that point in time, M. was lobbying hard for us to be bold and move overseas (Hello Maya Frost!).  That’s “it” my friend said.  You want to know what her passion is?  It’s traveling and experiencing other cultures. When she talks to me about Europe, she talks and talks and talks.  “Really?” I said.   I guess that’s such a given in our family that I didn’t really take it for a “thing.”  But then again, this is the kid with the Union Jack hanging over her bed, the one who has informed me, “Mom, when I’m 18 I’m moving to London.”

Shortly after that conversation with my friend, we resumed homeschooling, with that requisite what-the-heck-are-we-going-to-do? period.  And it slowly dawned on me that what’s been gelling on her part, an outgrowth of things European, has been a very serious interest in archeology, more specifically ancient Greece and Rome.  This is the kid who seemingly has watched every documentary on the History Channel.  Who loved her homeschool forensic science class last year.  Whose all time favorite Smithsonian exhibit has been  Written in Bone.  For whom the highlight of our trip to Italy last year was an excursion to Pompeii, something that C. and I skipped completely.  The one whose stated goal is to study at Oxford and get her PhD in archeology.

Okay, so I’m a bit slow, but I’ve gone with it.  I subscribed her to Archeology magazine.  I paid for her membership in the Archeology Society of Maryland.  I found out about ASM activities in our county and lo, there’s quite an active chapter here.  Through them I discovered that the Parks Department has an archeology camp this summer.  An archeology camp with the department’s archeologist!  It’s not ancient Greece, but still how cool is that?  And for teens there is a week-long counselor-in-training session, with the chance to volunteer for an additional session for younger kids.  Signed her up.  Through a listserv I’m on I learned about the Lukeion Project, which offers four-session online webinar workshops led by a working archeologist.  I enrolled her in Intro to Archeology and that was such a hit that she’ll do more workshops over the summer.   Extending that, I asked her, what skills do archeologists need?  For one thing, the ability to document and map one’s finds accurately.  M. has been doing a lot of sketching on her own; how about a drawing class?  Some hunting on the Internet and I found a local two-day drawing and sketching “boot camp.”  Next weekend Roman re-enactors will been meeting up not a half an hour away from us.  Roman re-enactors?  Seriously, who knew?  But we’ll be there.

Finally, one of the Lukeion workshops that interested her was about bizarre ancient languages and alphabets. Hmm…what about Greek and Latin? As it happens Husband Dear, a proud graduate of St. Johns College, had in the past offered to teach her ancient Greek.  Time to put money where his mouth has been.

We ordered materials for both languages and I am pleased to say that every evening for the past week or so the two of them have sat at the dining room table and have begun learning (or relearning, for my husband) ancient Greek.  I don’t know what they’re saying, but it’s very cool to eavesdrop, as other attempts at dad learning (ahem, math) have not always gone smoothly.  In this case she is the one asking to work on it together with him every evening.  Which is how it should be.

P.S. Through a local homeschooling list I found out about the opportunity to order some real Roman coins.  We ordered 5 and M. has been bugging me nonstop about when they are going to arrive.

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Thick Envelope, Thin Envelope

Posted in Home Life, School on April 8, 2010 | 2 Comments »

The 10-day spring break ended on Tuesday in these parts, and I have to say, it was an incredible mercy that high school seniors received word of college acceptances and rejections while school was NOT in session.

We were in the Southwest on vacation with family (it was wonderful, thank you) but it didn’t stop us from experiencing vicariously the heartstopping college application rollercoaster ride of C.’s friend in New England.  Although the same age as her, he had the good fortune (in C.’s opinion) to be allowed to skip two grades and thus is graduating in June.  Early in the week we got word that he had been rejected by five schools.  Ouch.  Then we got word that he was waitlisted at what should have been a slam dunk school.  His mother sent me an anguished email.  Was it his age?  What the @#$% was going on?  What were they going to do if he didn’t get in anywhere?  Panic. And all this while school was in session.  Can you imagine, each day kids texting their parents for news of the mail or checking their email and either whooping or quietly being crushed…in front of all their friends?  Every day the interrogation.  “Where did you get in?”  Shudder.

By Thursday, April 1 (oh the irony) just one more school remained: the Mount Everest, nay the Mount Olympus, of Universities, made all the steeper by the earlier rejections.  Notifications were to be sent out via email at 5 p.m. EST.  But wait!  C.’s friend had requested notification by snailmail!  From 2,000 miles away I was advising deep breathing.  They would have to wait another day to find out.

The next morning, I got an email:  The mailman had come, bearing a thick 9 x 12 envelope.  Against all odds, he was IN! A-mazing.  Huge relief and happiness all around.

C. informs me that at her school students have enacted a certain etiquette around sharing college news on Facebook.  One does not crassly proclaim, “I got into ____!!!!!” with every acceptance.  Instead, one simply posts a smiley :-) as a status update.  That’s a signal for friends to inquire, “Where did you get in?”  At which point one can modestly name the school.  A smiley is only posted for the school you are fairly certain to attend.

I think this is terribly civilized.

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Happy Day

Posted in Home Life, tagged , on March 11, 2010 | 5 Comments »

The FedEx envelope was waiting inside the door yesterday.  Fat.  Always a good sign.  I called C. and asked, “Should I open it?”

“Yes!”

So I did.

Accepted.  Creamy folders with creamy coordinated letters, brochures, certificates, DVD, business cards.  All declaring, you are in.  Best of all, the warm, personal note from the admissions person.  Just about made this mom cry.  Bestest of all…the financial aid.  Oh happy day.  Like winning the lottery.  Just think, the opportunity!  And the sudden realization that from here on out, everything carries an extra weight, because all too soon she’ll be gone.

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