Archives for March 2013

Remember back in January when I got my trash kicked by a group of 3-year-olds at church? Well, the following week Dan and I had a planning meeting, aimed at finding a way to take the power back… in love, of course.

And with a few changes, things got better quickly.

Each week we do a camp-song-style roll call at the beginning of class, putting magnets on the board with each of the kids’ pictures. We also put their pictures on the backs of their chairs so there’s no need to wrestle for position, climbing over the chairs or picking them up and smacking each other over the head with them, in pro wrestler fashion.

We also let them choose the agenda. We put pictures on the board of all the activities we can do during our hour together and then they decide as a class what order we’ll do them in. They always choose to have snack first. And then they always choose to never have a lesson. So when “Lesson” is the only card left, Dan and I slip it in near the top and teach them while they’re eating and any other chance we get. You could call it sneak teaching.

Well things have started to go so well that this Sunday I was bragging to a friend, snapping my fingers around like a diva, “Oh, Sunbeams? We’ve got Sunbeams down.”

Even if there’s not a reality TV camera following you around, never snap your fingers like a diva and say, “I got this” regarding something that’s fully dependent on a gaggle of preschoolers cooperating with you in any way.

Cue the worst week we’ve had since week one. During sharing time, one little boy pulled up my skirt and nestled himself underneath it like a tent. As I awkwardly extracted him from my nether regions, attempting not to flash the entire room, he pulled back with a huff and then slammed his head forward, crashing it into my knee.

I pulled him up onto my lap and comforted him while the rest of the kids melted down all around us. He kept saying, “I need to go talk to my dad. I just have to tell him one thing. Please let me go talk to my dad and tell him one thing.” Well, his dad was busy and I figured he could wait and tell him after class. Eventually I asked, “What do you need to go tell your dad?”

“I need to tell him how you hit me in the face.”

Yes you do.

So, the day continued with much crying, screaming, jumping, tattling, refusal to participate, refusal to NOT participate even though it wasn’t their turn, and even a moment where my own personal 3-year-old was fake crying so loudly, I turned to my husband and said, “We should take her to her parents.”

We made it through and we still loved them, more in a You-Are-All-Children-Of-God kind of way, than a I-Wish-You-All-Lived-At-My-House kind of way.

That was yesterday. But then this morning, we had a last minute shift in our non-church-related play group that consists of essentially the same group of kids and subsequently four of them did end up playing at my house all morning.

Things went fine until about five minutes before parent pickup, when they suddenly got way too quiet in the other room. I entered to find them gathered around the fish bowls, where our Bettas “live”.

One was missing.

“Where did the fish go, you guys?”

Blank stares.

I looked all around. There was water on the sofa table and on the couch. That’s when I noticed that the red fish had magically migrated to the bowl with the blue fish. They hadn’t discovered each other yet, at least not enough to start devouring each other, so I grabbed the net and spent 5 minutes chasing them around until I could move them back into separate living quarters.

“How did the fish get into the other bowl?” I asked.

They all said a name, the name of the tiniest kid in the group, a kid who isn’t nearly strong enough to pick up one of those bowls full of water and pour the fish into the other bowl.

“How did you do it?” I asked him.

“I just grabbed it with my hand,” he grinned.

At least now I know who I’d want to be stranded on a desert island with. The fish grabbing kid. Have you ever watched Survivor, where they swim around with full fishing gear, harpoons, masks, nets, and traps and can’t catch a piece of seafood to save their lives? I am like those losers. Five minutes it takes me to nab one of my fish with a net. This kid? 30 seconds alone and BAM! He grabs the fish like Danielson chopsticking a fly.

Two weeks ago, our lesson in church was “I am Thankful for Fish,” and we took our little fish in a jar and learned about Jonah and sushi and loaves and fishes. We passed around the jar until they started shaking it like Darla. They LOVED THE FISHY! I guess this little boy really took the lesson to heart. He wanted the fish to be free to play with its cannibalistic friend. At least my little friend didn’t eat the fish, or put it on land to see if it was amphibious.

According to our class, Jesus is amphibious. He is amphibious because he can go on land and on water. He is also amphibious because I asked them to name some amphibious creatures and, odds are, if I ask them a question at church, nine times out of ten, Jesus is the right answer.

I would go to a different museum every day if that’s what it took to get Wanda to keep saying “Moo-zeum” in her cute little gravelly voice. Doing this, however, would require planning, hopefully on the part of someone other than me. Lately we’ve been compelled by external forces toward museums around Seattle and that suits me just fine. Point me in the direction of a cultural experience and I’m there.

Most recently Target hosted us at The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Chinatown in Seattle. Did I know there was a Chinatown in Seattle? No, although I had my suspicions. Did I know there was a museum there with a really long name? No, I did not.

But someone at Target was persistent enough to keep emailing me about a blogging event there until I actually read the email and realized it would be a cool way for my family to spend a Saturday, eating Chinese food and learning about experiences of people from other cultures.

“What if you were born in China?” I asked the kids as we drove across the bridge on Lake Washington in our borrowed Prius. The Swag Wag was in the shop.

“Hmmm…”

“Your spirit could have been born into a body in Japan or Korea. Isn’t that interesting to think about?”

Fuel-efficient crickets chirped.

“Well, stop reading and look at stuff.”

When we arrived, Dan breathed in deeply and wondered aloud if all Chinatowns everywhere smelled the same. He liked the smell. It reminded him of Chinatown in New York City where he served a two-year mission for our church. The kids fell immediately in love with the red and gold fish painted on the poles under the overpass, the dragons clinging to the street signs.

The museum sucked me in pretty much immediately. It’s a gorgeous space, thoughtfully designed with ever-changing exhibits created by committees of volunteers from the community. There is no curator at the Wing, something you would not guess by visiting it.

We snagged a few freebies from Target, who treated us to lunch and told us about the work they’re doing to give back to communities. I already knew they donate a bucket load of money to schools, but wasn’t aware of all the community groups and non-profits they partner with. Every third Saturday since 2008, they’ve partnered with the Wing to offer Free Family Day on the third Saturday of each month.

This Saturday it included a paper-making/collage activity with plenty of water and mayhem to keep my people engaged. When they mentioned that they do summer camps, I was seriously tempted. If it weren’t a million miles from my house, I would seriously consider it. A little multi-cultural immersion would serve my people well. Our town is rather monochromatic.

Honestly, it’s thrilled me this year that Magoo’s teacher comes from another part of the world and has taken a lot of time to share with them about her country and culture. He is mildly obsessed with her background.

When we learn about differences, the otherness of those we encounter, we inevitably circle back to the realization that we have more in common than we thought, that although each person and culture is unique, our stories share threads that bind us together in this human experience.

My kids enjoyed the scavenger hunt and the version of pin the tail on the donkey that played a lot like pin the facial features on the Asian Mr. Potato Head. They were inserted into dragons.

They bought ceramic cranes and lace fans and tried to get out of eating Chinese vegetables the same way they would work to avoid American ones.

I don’t know that it was a deep or profound cultural experience for any of them. But it was fun. And it made the otherness of the Asian American experience slightly less “other”. I’d call it a success.

Happy late Pi Day. I hope you ate pie, you free-as-the-wind-gluten/sugar-eating free spirits of freedom. Can you tell this gluten-free/sugar-free thing is bringing me down, man? It is. But the good news is, I don’t feel a ton better off gluten, so bread may be coming back into my life. And pie. And things that taste good.

Sometimes I don’t post because I have nothing to say and sometimes I don’t post for a while because there’s too much to say and I can’t write it all so I get overwhelmed and watch Project Runway instead. It’s been one of those weeks.

I do have something that needs sharing though. Sharing, but with no visual aids. It’s about Drinking Things.

Wanda is my youngest. She is oh-so-three and she is fascinated by body parts, especially taboo body parts. Bums are raucously funny, for one. For another, she’s fascinated by all my friends who nurse their babies. Milk coming out of their bodies?!!?!?!?1!?! Genius!

Well, she’s never seen me nurse, and if all goes according to the plans that feel right to me and my brain and pelvic region, she never will. But the other day, we were taking a shower together and she looked up and her mouth fell open and she pointed up at me accusingly.

“YOU HAVE TWO DRINKING THINGS!” she yelled, shocked. She could not believe I had been holding out on her. All those times in the car when she asked for a drink and I said, “I don’t have anything to drink. We’ll get some water at home.” All of those times were lies, dangdable, dangdable lies.

She looked up at me skeptically.

“When did you get those Drinking Things?”

“When I grew up big like a mommy, I got them so I could feed my babies.”

“You didn’t let me drink your drinking things. Can I drink your drinking things?”

“Oh, you sure did, but you were too little to remember it. Towel please.”

She then looked down at her own chest, massaging it gently in circular motions, and hung her head. “My drinking things are not big. At all.” She looked like she was going to cry.

I assured her that they would grow someday, and that seemed to satisfy her. Until that night. And the next day. And the day after that. And every time we find her standing naked in front of a mirror inspecting them and lamenting. “My drinking things are still not growing big like a mommy. At all.”

She’s genuinely sad and I’m pretty sure it’s all about hydration. With her own set of Drinking Things, or jugs, as they are called in the vernacular, she could carry around milk wherever she went. It would be so awesome. It would be like me having a cheesecake machine growing out of my hip, only to find out that the dang thing was out of service and no one, absolutely no one, could fix it.

FRUSTRATION! SADNESS!

But she soldiers on. And one day. The Drinking Things will come. And hopefully, by that time, she will find more compelling and efficient ways to meet her liquid dietary needs. Because I’m not ready to break it to her that the jugs don’t come full of milk, chocolate or otherwise.