Meeting on the fringe

While I am getting more and more used to [and comfortable] being on the very fringe of society in general (birthing at home, no tv, eating locally, wanting backyard chickens...--okay or maybe we're just amish-wannabes!!)Every once in a while I see something that shows up in the media (okay, usually it's the NYT but that counts doesn't it?). Yesterday I got to open the Sunday Magazine (yes it was Monday) and lo and behold--someone I agree with, right there in the "How we live now" section called Kindergarten Cram.
I'm four years out from teaching now, and also a mother so it has made the student's [and their parents] perspective more clear...In my own defense, I was not a fan of homework, yet i did create a sheet that I hoped would get kids reading, and doing a bit of some mental work each day. It was still too much at home time. Because I see how days are carved up in families with kids in school, and as I do more research on how kids learn to read for example, this article rings increasingly true.

The interview with Obama in that same issue is well worth reading. I am tempted (but won't spend my time) to look through the archives and see if there was an interview where dubya strung together sentences in an interview like this. My initial pessimistic self thinks that I won't find an intelligent transcript like the way this interview reads.

All that said, I am baffled already by Rowan's transition to four (yes I know, it's only been a couple of weeks.) But he's doing really funny things, like he has created an alternate voice (not really baby talk, just pronouncing words differently) and it's amazing. He's always been a verbal guy, and I think this is him experimenting with how you make different sounds and speech--within english.

I have had a series of crazy power struggles with him, because I am operating the way we have, and now he has a different idea about how things should go. Forgive me Rowan, I was just getting used to the way things were three or four weeks ago. Apparently they're different now, and your mom is a little behind the curve. Just give me a few more tries to get it right. Be patient, I'm trying as hard as I can.

He is shoving me away and surprising me, and clinging to me and surprising me! and this, while I'm trying to formulate a research paper on "boys and reading in libraries"!

In other news, my sister is graduating from Grad school this week! Congratulations Auntie RAch, your program has asked a lot more of you than mine has. (THANK GOODNESS because I don't think I could offer more.)