Christmas was just the three of us. We were sick so I called off plans and visitors. There was something sweet about it, and though we missed our family we know we will see them soon. For me it resembled Rew Christmases of days of yore; we took turns opening presents and took time to express our thanks. We sank into the slow simplicity, Quinn explored his gifts and learned some html on the side; learning extra as he does when he has a break from school. Speaking of school, this fall has been pretty laid back; comparing in retrospect to sixth grade, seventh grade has been a breeze.
Quinn made me a trio of origami dolphin ornaments, which I adore and will treasure for years to come.
Quinn is rocking the texting this week! I heard from him tonight and the last few days and he’s been gone over a week so this is a big deal. getting closer to italy so the timing is perfect of course. putting in his paleontology camp application tomorrow for the first round deadline, and some of the texting was about getting letter of rec from his teacher and he texted me back “i did it” and I’m just feeling proud of the kiddo.
Quinn had a tearful moment writing his letter of intent for his paleontology camp application. He was bogging down and asking for wording suggestions… a wall went up when I suggested he not only say why he felt the camp would be fun for him, but also why he would be a good candidate for the camp – why they should invite him, why he would be a great addition to the group. It took some time to see behind the wall, but ultimately what was bugging him was trying to say he was any better than any other kid. At first he was phrasing it that he didn’t want to “make the decision for them” with his letter, and then I explained all kids applying would be writing similar letters, and the admissions people would have to make a tough decision if more than enough kids applied… well, he was just hating all of this information, but it was presenting more like anger or just simply aversion to “having to” write the letter but I didn’t go there… and then I finally got it. “Are you picturing the kids who don’t get to make it into the camp?” and the tears spilled over. Oh, not stubbornness, resistance, or aversion. Just empathy. Just intensity of emotions. That’s my kid. I finally got him convinced that most kids got in, that if there were kids who would cause problems, they’d figure it out from their teacher letters or things like that and maybe not invite those kids, and that worst case scenario, worthy kids who didn’t get in this time around get put on waiting list and get in next year. He still had scenarios he needed to cover, “what if this year would have been their only chance?”
“You mean if they’re a senior in high school?”
“Yeah.” We talked through all the scenarios, and how the instructors want for all the kids to go, and that’s why they have been expanding these camps (there are a whole panel of new ones this year- more fossil prep, one on illustration, etc.). I had been giving him words like “positive attitude” and “making contributions to group work” and he hadn’t been able to start typing yet but then I said let’s think of a time at last year’s camp when you showed these qualities… and tell it that way, like a story (finally a good idea) and he ended up using the story of last year’s camp having rainy weather and how he maintained a positive attitude and they still found fossils, and even pitched in to redo their instructor’s tent that flooded.
Since last time he was here, we have been playing lots of double nine dominoes (the game called chicken foot that Aunt Margie taught my brothers and I as kids). I guess I got a set of dominoes at the thrift store a while back and forgot about it, but they have been so fun. Funny when all the new Christmas toys are sitting here and we’re playing the 50 cent game. Hid play with his new stuff too, but playing games together might be his love language.
All the dinners last night. I made pizza for third dinner for everyone. He ate lots of pieces while playing dominoes. I am bragging about winning at point accumulation (which means I’m losing). I had market today, and while I was gone, he ate breakfast and more pizza, and by the time I got home he was back in bed asleep! He never does that. He slept for a couple hours and I woke him up at 4:30 to play more dominoes and eat more pizza.
As we played dominoes I would ask him one of his spelling words (on our list from words he had been misspelling that I gathered from his homework) every so often. One was field (he was writing feild). I told him about i before except after c, and then showed him, “except when your foreign neighbor Keith receives eight beige counterfeit sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters.” because that also made him giggle.
He wasn’t ready to sleep last night at 10pm because of his nap, so I left him with headlamp and magic cards (his dinosaur themed deck needed some rearrangement to add in his new rampaging brontodon card from his christmas stocking) and went to bed.
I did a free two week trial of the headspace meditation app. Originally it was to help me kick off my new meditation habit, but it ended up being a help to Quinn in a few difficult moments. One afternoon, overwhelmed about his homework piling up from not being up front with his dad about how much work he had, I encouraged him to take a break and listen to his favorite song. When seven nation army didn’t do the trick and he still wasn’t feeling able to get started, I asked him to come do a five-minute meditation with me. He was still grumpy after that but no longer flopping around refusing to even start, and was able to make some headway on his work. At bedtime I told him that headspace has sleep meditations and he said, “yes!!!” with both arms thrown up in celebration. I let him choose from the options, one of which is “sleepcast” which is “storytelling in a range of soothing voices” and he scrolled through and found one with an owl icon called “sleeper mountain” and he fell asleep that night listening to a 45 minute sleep story about the mountain and meditating with crickets and forest sounds.
In thinking over what to do about Quinn’s homework stress at his dad’s, I do think something will need to be said, but I think it’s going to have to come from Quinn. I am trying to keep my eye on the long term goal of Quinn self-advocating, even with his dad. The short term fix of me bringing it up to coparent could risk a blow up and I already told Quinn I wouldn’t. I’m having an ongoing conversation with Quinn about how preventing his dad’s anxiety attacks is not his job, and that it is causing his own anxiety to increase when it gets in the way of him getting his homework done for a week at a time.
He was doing better a few nights later… mostly caught up, and in pretty good spirits.
I have always sort of figured I should be able to meditate yet I have never done it. On the other hand, I realize I actually do it all the time, just not for very long. I quiet my thoughts, focus on my breath, when I’m feeling like I need to re-center. I also do it with Quinn, so he’s quite familiar. Another morning I gave him another 5 minute headspace one and he just sat on the couch with it and it’s a beautiful thing to see him sitting with his eyes closed just breathing. What do I want for him in life? That. Being ok in there.
Q asked me for a snuggle today after school and he had me sit on couch and laid himself on my lap with two fuzzy blankets over him (he was basically in egg configuration but didn’t play the egg game just then) and then Lisa kitty came right over and climbed up on top of him and curled up and we sat that way for ten minutes. I kind of want to brag on facebook about my kid, but not necessarily that he is in bed reading statistics right now, but, “my son, age twelve years ten and a half months, five foot eight inches tall, still asks to get on my lap.” It’s mildly painful but it is so sweet at the same time.
He is writing something but I don’t know what, and when I asked he wouldn’t tell me but said, “when I’m done you can read it.” I told him I totally get that, I am the same way! The apple doesn’t fall far.
camp boss verbosity warning: please excuse the verbosity of this end-of-schoolyear/start-of-summer month of lifelong learning and grab a cuppa!
pizza rolls and rubik’s cubes
quinn and i solved his christmas stocking rubik’s cube this month! He is pictured showing the initial progress just after the first step of solving one side (the green one, of course.)
he wants to know more about tides (the math of how they work) and the oxford comma (i gave him the zombie dinosaur spiel but he wants more details).
after a sleepover at aragorn’s house he reported that pizza rolls are yummy. the next time i made pizza for dinner i gave him some dough to work with. we ended up with a few odd attempts and some awesome commentary about pizza blobs, pizza nuggets, and a meatball pizza taco!
he procrastinated on social studies homework- he had to make greek mythology trading cards (rich laughed, “he put that off?”) chalk it up to perfectionism. he wanted to do some seriously intricate drawings, the tradeoff being he handed them in over a week late.
perfectionism likewise struck in his band assignment to record himself playing a few songs for placement next year, but these he managed on time!
middle school band concert! hard to capture great photos of percussionists, as they stand in the back!
we went tidepooling on a drizzly day. he had so much homework that i almost called it off but he expressed really wanting to go. we mostly hiked and didn’t peek into many tidepools. there were lots of seals in the areas we might normally explore further and we didn’t want to disturb them. a baby seal was right in the path to get around the last headland, so we didn’t go any farther. on our way back we found an egg (!) in a tidepool… it was so out of place, it did not immediately compute what it was. both of us had “you find an egg” thoughts like “is it a dragon? a dinosaur? A pokemon?” before returning to reality. it was a seabird egg, but had obviously been laid in the wrong spot or had gotten moved or washed out, so it was in the water, with a little sculpin treading water next to it. The bizarre context stopped us in our tracks and made us think impossible thoughts.
We saw lots of fossils on the beach, and with his upcoming paleontology camp they stood out to me. each time camp dawned on me i would get excited all over again.
Starlight parade
On the way to the parade, it was shouted around the bus “band attention! it is tradition to play living on a prayer when we are halfway there!” thus was bon jovi the 27th singalong of the trip. Most of the singalongs were crazy train, because that was one of their chosen marching songs, and the best thing about singalongs on band trips is that they sing their individual instrument parts.
when the instantly recognizable (or so i thought) intro to dream on started playing and several kids asked, “what song is this?” the other mom sitting kitty-corner from me on the bus exchanged extremely amused glances with me. We had the same reaction about them not knowing jump!
We chaperones marched along with our kids in the Starlight Parade, wearing “i’m with the band” t-shirts. some of the parents had squirt bottles of water with which to hydrate the kids in between songs; the three doctors among the chaperones were especially good at inserting water into kids without making them choke or gag, or soaking their uniforms.
I stuck with photo documenting. i overheard some choice quotes from the crowd of spectators and saw some killer dance moves as the evening light dwindled towards the end of the second mile of marching. The whole experience was magical. As I heard one little girl in the crowd say, “I can feel my heart vibrating!” Indeed.
at the end of the parade quinn was very tired. we got back on the bus and he got out of his uniform top and said, “mama can you hold this because i feel like i want to just drink water, and sleep. sleep while drinking water. yeah.”
And also, this was quinn’s shoe! his band teacher encouraged me to document this to show people why we need fundraising!
on the way home, we took the band to the zoo! quinn loves penguins.
outdoor school
day 1
the sixth grade outdoor school trip started with a climb up the dune at camp kiwanda state park. Highlights from day one included an after dinner beach trip for nature/sensory immersion and some capture the flag; meeting silvana and her mom, the girl quinn brought up in this post whose inspiring mom bonded with me throughout the trip; her story is so relatable, advocating for a differently wired child; also memorable were campfire and s’mores and camp songs!
it is also necessary to mention a boy (not actually) named pippin who is the second example of a new kid at school whom quinn has been the first to befriend this year. Pippin sidled up to me and laid the story of his life right on me at the start of the trip. his mom had died less than a month before. three weeks before, he had started school here, having moved from vegas with his three year old sister to live with his aunt. the day before i met him, he had received his mom’s ashes. “i think i want to get one of those necklaces where you can put some of the ashes in it to always have a part of her to carry with me.” the stories of these kids’ lives crack my heart open.
I told quinn how much i appreciated his way of welcoming newcomers, and quinn went the extra mile with pippin, changing cabins and leaving behind the rest of the fellowship (in sleeping arrangements only, but still) so that pippin would have a friend in his cabin. The teachers seemed to find it helpful that he had connected with an adult who would support him (he and quinn both gravitated to me at meal times) and who was also able to redirect him when necessary (he was frank about his adhd and that he had already gotten to know the principal pretty well in his short time here.) we found out we have martial arts in common and i invited him to come check out our dojo!
day 2
Tie dye art class with our group turned out to be a personality test… quinn needed his own space so no other dye mess got on his fabric, and he wanted to make a perfect spiral but was upset about his folding job, and wanted to make perfect pie slices of each color but he felt he was messing up… many pep talks and he was the last one to unfold his, but he got it done and was happy with the result. pippin was the first one done, all blue, with a few red spots, and he had left a big puddle of dye on the plastic tablecloth.
then our group walked to the lake and fished. a few volunteers who knew fishing were there to help keep lines untangled and reels working properly, and each kid was issued a rod and stood on the edge of the lake and fished. Some kids knew just what to do, like quinn, and others had never fished before. Some required a quick lesson, others an in-depth confidence boost: “you’re doing something that takes ton of coordination and some kids have done before but you’re brand new to it and it’s hard! but ‘we can do hard things’” (glennon doyle’s words came in handy a few times this week.)
Back at the lodge for our next art session, we laid on the floor and made big banners with the sharpies. “outdoor school 2019” block letters got written and filled in with doodles, and kids all added their personal touches. quinn declared “fractals!” and did a bunch of his math doodling in lime green. as most of the kids began to lose interest and wander back outside, quinn and i and the art teacher stayed and kept doodling for a while longer. quinn and i were our normal selves and the art teacher said, “i am really enjoying listening to the conversations you two have.”
while the kids did skit practice with counselors, i had break time… i filled up my coffee cup and i wandered off to one of the camp areas we weren’t using and sat in a pavillion out of the rain and read my book. at one point i laid my head on the book and power napped. in spite of the coffee, i was pooped. The quote at the beginning of the book i brought to read, unsheltered by barbara kingsolver, read:
“after the final no there comes a yes
and on that yes the future world depends.”
~wallace stevens
this spoke to me, echoing how i feel about these 12 year old people as they mature, the unfortunate state of the world they are inheriting, and how they are rising to the occasion against the odds.
At dinner i was again joined by quinn and pippin, who talked my ear off. then ran off. then ran back and checked in. he asked me for a hug and i said of course! motherless boy asking me for a hug. what am i going to do, say no? i don’t have it in me.
after dinner we went back to the campfire pit for skit night. more songs were sung, each of the six cabin groups did their skits, and smores were consumed. i sat with silvana and her mom a few rows behind quinn and friends. (he was with pippin and eomer, goldberry, aragorn and legolas.) one of the songs that was sung all week was boom-chicka-boom (with all the variations “janitor style” broom-sweep-a-mop-a-sweep-a-mop-a-sweep-a-broom… valley girl style, taco bell style, emo style “boom chicka rocka chicka MOM GET OUT OF MY ROOM” which both quinn and silvana thought was HILARIOUS and would look at their respective moms and sing loudly. all through the week, i loved hearing the sound of kid groups marching through the forest echoing repeat-after-me-songs “what can make a hippopotamus smile?”
day 3
there was unstructured time while the counselors had the kids cleaning and packing. quinn and a few of the kids were sitting around playing the one word story game. i went off to my own zone again for a bit with my coffee, as well as a short walk to the beach by myself. as i was walking through nature, i saw a flower i haven’t seen in almost 20 years called a “single delight”. it is tiny and appears to me to be rare (i had no idea it even grew in oregon and only saw it once or twice in olympic national forest) and has a lemon-lime fragrance. it was a lovely surprise to find them all over my own little adopted corner of the camp.
We made one stop on the way home at the tillamook cheese factory for a tour and ice cream. q had cookies and cream. i had hazelnut salted caramel.
starting to feel like summer
weekends… pizza and family movie night… watching the hobbit. filling up his plate with pizza 4 times. We launched our free family boating season on a beautiful sunday, kayaking for an hour.
He worked on his travel hacking assignment; the final 6 week grade was all one project, a “dream trip” itinerary and budget (they had $10k to work with). he had the itinerary roughed out but he needed to put some time in on the budget. all the googling “public transportation in perth australia” and “are there any restaurants on penguin island” and prices of admission on whatever museums and parks he would visit. he did well on his own, pricing out airfares and hotels. the small details bog him down because it feels never ending to him. i sat with him and talked him through some steps when he was really despairing of ever finishing.
Grammy and grampy!
on the last day of school, i picked quinn up at noon and he spent a good part of the afternoon watching pokemon. we started gathering materials for a journal project. i took him to karate that night since his belt test would be the following wednesday.
Grammy and grampy arrived around midnight. The next morning quinn woke up and asked for grammy to come in for his wake up. aw. they were hugging and smiling at each other, so happy to see each other. There was a visible shock reaction at how big he has gotten since last year.
We sat outside any chance we got, quinn played uno with whoever would play (always grampy, sometimes others). Grammy and grampy took walks in the morning together while i went to work to feed fish, and when quinn woke up would hang out with them. some days camp boss and kids came to bounce.
That week q had his first swim lesson. He put his face in the water more for his teacher than he ever has for me in one half hour session. she also saw the challenges he faces, and when we talked afterwards she said, “i really like him. and i think this is exactly what he needs.”
I had to take quinn to karate right after getting back from swim, and he was very put out. His prevailing feelings were, “i just need more down time,” But he also doesn’t want to not do any of the activities. i let him know how hard i had to work to get him exactly 5 lessons scheduled for the ENTIRE summer. once i got my point across i think he calmed down a bit. i can’t expect him to know what it takes for me to arrange these things to enrich his life, unless i explain. So i explained, not to guilt him into feeling grateful, but so he could understand and relax and realize it wouldn’t be every day that he would have swim/karate back to back.
One day camp boss and i packed hot dogs and snacks and all the kids in their swim stuff and we brought chairs and sat by the river in the sun-dappled shade. We enjoyed the relaxing sound of the water and kids splashing in the creek, the sight of kids with caterpillars crawling up their hands, kids throwing rocks in the water, and kids being kids.
Grammy, grampy, rich and i all went to quinn’s belt test. Quinn did very well. He received compliments from multiple people, including sifu in front of the whole group, for how well he did and how much hard work he has been doing. He was again asked to demonstrate techniques and forms the others had forgotten or didn’t know from memory, so he really got to showcase his skills. he was the only one testing who could remember kick set from start to finish and he got to lead them all through it. also he did long 2 form, which is the highest form he has learned, and did it by himself, so he got all his stripes on his belt for forms. he did GREAT for the kicks, and did not flinch! I was so proud! And i think he was even prouder of himself. After the test and pictures, he came right over to grammy and grampy and hugged them both. they were very proud and told him so. then we went home for nachos.
at lunch one day quinn saw grampy spreading liverwurst on his bread and asked, “what’s that?” he wanted to try it and gobbled up a whole sandwich of it. If grampy likes it, it must be good.
dishes washed by quinn
That night we had a very small party in the back yard. Rich had made a nice campfire, so the kids all ate smores.
on Saturday after market, quinn and i painted plywood for the band haunted house fundraiser.
that afternoon all five of us were sitting around the backyard and mom and dad were telling family stories. Quinn got to hear about grampy’s summer trips to his grandpa and grandma’s house (my great grands, quinn’s great great grands! This is the grandma from whom we got our typewriter). He described their house in Gowanda, NY, and its long, narrow yard with vegetable garden, raspberry bushes, and fruit trees, extending “all the way back to the crick.” He told how it was odd to be away from his brother tom, but grandma and grandpa took them for a week each, one at a time.
One time Uncle Tom built himself an airplane, an inventor then and to this day. it was all going great as he ran it off the edge of the hill, until the wings folded up. Dad just laughs when he tells about their childhood… one time tom was trying to get him to play ball (dad was reading his book) and since dad refused, tom put a wasp on him! it stung dad, he chased tom around and then finally decided he’d play ball after all.
Dad remarked that he might have a touch of ADHD in the sense that he cannot Just Sit. He spent his time visiting us in constant engagement, or asleep; he read books, split firewood, went for walks, fixed things, played guitar, did crosswords and sudokus, and instigated philosophical discussions. Thinking of his brother tom, i mused that if the two of them were children now, he’d also likely have a diagnosis; perhaps ADHD or asperger’s. i think it is possible they both fall into the same category as quinn, and their “challenges” are mostly a result of the intensity that goes hand in hand with giftedness. This article about overexcitabilities and the gifted explains the different forms this intensity takes, and it is easy to see how certain intensities can be confused with other types of challenges, a topic covered in depth in the misdiagnosis book i read earlier this year. If i were to make a table for the overexcitabilities (OEs for short) in our family, it might look like this:
Overexcitability
Me
Quinn
Dad
Mom
Intellectual
***
***
***
***
Sensory
***
Emotional
***
***
***
Imaginational
***
Psychomotor
***
***
Or how about:
Overexcitability
Me
Quinn
Dad
Mom
Intellectual
makes grids to understand a topic
studying calculus and the periodic table at 12
writing book on the electoral college
apple variety identification autodidact expert
Sensory
sound, touch, smell, taste
blenders made him cry, toothpaste was too spicy
Emotional
overthinking, perfectionism and existential depression, oh my!
perfectionism; refusal to throw away sentimental objects like dryer lint
my first call when i have something big to process
Imaginational
you find an egg
Psychomotor
gardening when not hauling water or slinging veggies
splits wood for fun
Intellectual OE is not just being a little bit intellectual, it is being intensely insatiable in needing to know every detail about a topic, to always be absorbing information and engaging the brain, to be asking questions, interpreting data, proposing new ideas. This makes for great lifelong learning potential, but also means we handle anything, from a hobby to a diagnosis, like a college course. Likewise, with each of the other OEs, there can be a next-level intensity in some people. There were key imaginational intensity components to some of the difficulties of quinn’s early elementary education, though i would never trade the sparkling magic of his imagination for all the world. Learning about these intensities has helped me understand myself better, for example, how my friend in high school pointed out that I never just felt medium about a song, I either LOVED this song or HATED this song… intensely. It’s not a bad thing, it just is a thing about me, but it can pose challenges if one is too intense for others’ comfort. It also means we have the potential for extra insight and strengths in these areas; emotional intensity, with awareness and seasoning, can go hand in hand with empathy and compassion; my mom was the long-time prayer-chain coordinator at her church, and couldn’t have been more perfect for that (intense) role of receiving the heft of other peoples’ gravest concerns. This handy exercise with the grid also illustrates how, while the rest of us have a grab bag of intensity, Quinn has collected almost the whole panel!
Speaking of really liking songs, through Grandma rew’s sister ida, dad received old 45s from the jukebox in the hotel she ran and was introduced to a wide variety of music. One that he recalled fondly was “highway 101” by the cheers, and he quoted parts of it, and it is of course a funny coincidence because highway 101 runs through our coastal town. And since we live in this fascinating modern age i went ahead and looked it up:
black denim trousers and motorcycle boots by the cheers
All five of us played uno in the backyard that night. It had gotten to be routine for quinn to bring out the cards, fetch the card table out of the shed, set it up, and get grampy to play, but this time he got us all involved, it being his last night before going off to camp.
Quinn spent some of the day packing; he handled it mostly himself (12 really is sublime!). We had gotten him a sun hat, clip on sunglasses, a head lamp, and work gloves, to fill out the list. He counted the exact numbers of undies, socks, shirts and pants the list told him to bring.
Once he was mostly packed, he and i spent some time together while he glued the quotes i had printed for him into his journal. We had done little parts of the journal book making throughout the week. We layered alternating graph and lined pages and sewed them in bundles; i carved four dino skull stamps at his request (t-rex, triceratops, mososaurus and pteranodon), and he stamped them on the cover; we added a green ribbon for a bookmark. My hope is that it inspires him to journal a bit on some of these trips he will be taking, with paleontology camp for starters, and on to italy next spring!
As he glued, he mentioned some anxiety about never having been away from “both parents” for this long. i said i remembered the first time i went to camp i had felt that way and wondered if i would make it or if i would need to come home the first night, but i had stayed and loved it and by the end of the week, didn’t want it to end and couldn’t wait for the next year. i said he would feel that way too, i was sure of it. we talked about each quote and how it applied to his situation. discussing the mark twain quote “you’ll regret more not going” and also how he was like a hobbit was going out his door on an adventure, his anxiety seemed to dissipate pretty quickly.
Grammy and grampy said goodbye to quinn before everyone went to bed, since we’d be leaving before they had to get up in the morning to take him to camp. I know he thoroughly enjoyed having them visit to launch his summer vacation!
Paleontology camp
We woke up early the next morning and took him to camp! Day one of camp was 6-23, the last day about which this lifelong learner post is concerned, so stay tuned for the next post where all the juicy camp details will be posted. Sharing about camp was one of the most effective motivators for catching up on these backlogged posts. this amazing opportunity seemingly manifested itself in quinn’s lifelong learning path because of how perfect it would be for him. several years ago when i signed up for the e-newsletter from the university of oregon’s museum of natural and cultural history, the day camps in natural sciences (including paleontology) never felt practical due to our distance from the museum. I have to applaud their targeted marketing because I have not felt inundated with emails from them, but this winter when the email subject heading read: “you might be interested in: middle school paleontology explorers camp” i thought, “heck yeah i might be interested in that!” (search terms for anyone else interested: sternberg camps, through fort hays state university’s sternberg museum, who partnered with university of oregon for the inaugural oregon camps this year.)
Quinn had to write a letter of intent and request a letter of recommendation from a teacher as part of the application process; the very first of probably many in his lifetime. It turns out that the paleontology explorers: kansas camp has a waiting list each year and is fairly competitive, but as this was the first year of paleontology explorers: oregon, there were six kids who applied, and all got in. you might be hearing more about kansas next year!
The six campers were instantly absorbed into helping their two instructors load gear into their van, with which they would be traveling around oregon to various sites of paleontological interest. Rich and i mingled with some of the other parents discussing all the dinosaur t-shirts our kids had packed. Then the leader of the program spoke to the parents while delegating the van packing to the staff and kids.
he talked about why he started these camps in 2014. he sees mentorship as a huge focus (this was obvious… even in the simple things like the layering of staff – lead instructor, t.a., high school assistant, students… for example, empowering the high school assistant figure out coordinating the middle school kids carrying gear from point a to point b… “got a plan? ok go for it.” he talked about connections and how there is a guy he was a counselor with when he went to camp, who is now the head of paleontology in eastern kansas, and this great connection is part of why this program is successful. It was amazing to think of these camp friendships about to form, and how they can have lifelong impacts (i know this very well as applied to my own life, as i obtained a sister-in-law from summer camp!) i had told quinn that when i went to camp i wrote down each of my new friend’s phone and address to send letters – we didn’t have email or text yet. I encouraged him to do the same (or the modern equivalent) if there was a new friend with whom he wanted to keep in touch.
The Sternberg program is running another first-time trip this year at the high school level; paleontology explorers: Australia. I get chills just thinking of this, as Australia is a place Quinn has always dreamed of going. i asked about the probability of the australia trip happening again in future years he said, “well, i have 3 kids on the wait list for next year already.” i said, “quinn is saving up for it,” and he said, “i now have four kids on the wait list.” Ha! He encouraged him to come to kansas next year, as most of the australia-bound students were repeat students from paleontology: kansas.
he also mentioned his philosophy on outcomes/jobs and how not only is this kind of program good for resume/college application building but also the actual skills they learn on the trip prepare them well- very hands on, it shows them not only the “college professor” option of this line of work, but that there are many other ways to be in the work force besides that – everything from grant writing to lab and field technical work to scientific illustration.
the kids all popped out of their gear organizing and said to each of us, “i was told to come and say goodbye to you. goodbye!” after a quick hug, they all went cheerfully off to camp. it was just awesome to see him blend right in.
rich and i mused on the way home how it’s like hogwarts and camp halfblood becoming reality for him, but in his favorite subject.
i picked quinn up from his dad’s, and received the tour of his self-built kayak, including the original concept drawing, the official plan drawings of the eleven, and the 11-foot-long boat itself! quinn explained the parts he did himself, including drawing the centerline, and then taking measurements off of centerline from the plans and inscribing them onto the plywood. he showed me his favorite power tool, the screw guns, and performed a paddling demonstration. by the end of the first week of school, they had it finished, painted, and varnished, and had launched it for a maiden voyage in beaver creek.
during our final week of summer vacation together, quinn and i attended family boating for the final two sessions of the season. we had the family of aragorn over for pizza and trampoline fun. quinn also ran one unofficial cross country practice, culminating in the 3 kids who ran tossing blackberries into each others’ mouths. i walked up to the middle school with quinn to get his schedule sorted out, but also to practice walking up, making sure he knew where to go and helping him feel confident it wasn’t too long of a walk.
quinn’s first day of middle school arrived! i delivered his laptop to him, hugged him and wished him luck, and snapped a photo of him distracted by the spider web behind him on the bush. “spider math!” he sang, and marched up the hill to sixth grade.
right after practice on friday there was excited/happy talk about school, schedule, classes, lockers, friends. after cross country we headed to the karate party centered around dessert and jump tag. quinn took me step by step through his day: he has first period spanish, second period language arts, third period math, fourth period band, then lunch/recess/homeroom, fifth period social studies, sixth period p.e., and seventh period science. he has been eating lunch with the fellowship.
everything he said was upbeat. he got his locker combo down by day 2, is getting to classes on time, and knows what to drop off and pick up and when. he likes every single one of his teachers, his language arts teacher being his favorite.
lots of games of jump tag and several cookies later…. he had a fairly extreme meltdown as soon as i parked in our driveway. the floodgates opened and he had a lot to say, and a lot of emotion to emote. we sat in the car for maybe 45 minutes while he poured it all out.
a predominant theme was that he was lied to, he was told his friends would be in classes with him. he only has legolas In one class, p.e., and zero classes with either gimli or aragorn. middle school is basically the worst place he has ever seen. there is almost no time for lunch, and even less time for recess, because all you have is the time leftover after you eat. he only has aragorn with him for cross country after school, and that isn’t even very fun. he feels like he is slow and the last one to finish every time, and hates when they clap for him coming in last and would prefer no attention at all. he doesn’t want to do activities where he isn’t going to be pretty good at them by maybe the 3rd or 4th practice. he feels like maybe he has signed up for more than he can handle. he needs at least a one month break from everything, and especially from middle school, which he would actually like to just drop out of completely.
i tried not to problem solve any further or argue any of his points right then, but instead told him it seemed really normal to be quite overwhelmed after his very first week of taking on so much new stuff. middle school and cross country basically in one week. a new school building, 7 teachers instead of 1, 7 different classrooms instead of 1, figuring out a locker combination, being in an upper level math class with a teacher giving lectures about how she won’t slow down for them. (never mind that he doesn’t need her to: the class is pre-algebra, 3 textbooks of which quinn read to himself this summer. he began reading the first algebra text in the life of fred series at the time he started middle school, because by golly he is in a hurry to get to geometry. the boy can solve for x. there is no issue over content or pace.)
he calmed down a lot after he got to vent all of it, agreed not to try to tackle it all in one sitting, and agreed he wanted to keep trying. it was time for a bath and bed. once he was in bed, he talked to me more, and was back to happy and positive. he has a crush on a girl, and he was happy about having a couple classes in common with her.
“can i ask you some advice? i mean, you were once a girl. now you’re a woman but… what i’m wondering is how do i even approach her?”
he’s absolutely right, i was once a girl. i told him not to put any pressure on himself in this area of his life. i said girls are just like boys and all they want in a friend is to know someone cares and is listening. you pay attention to things she says until a natural common interest comes up, then you strike up a conversation with her about that topic, with good reciprocity. i said it’s realistically going to look pretty much like a friendship at this stage/age in his life, so not to worry too much about gf/bf stuff right now. i also told him about a friend of ours refusing to date his good friend freshman year, because (even though they are of an age to realistically go on a date) he didn’t want to damage their friendship by dating, and then maybe breaking up and not even being friends anymore, as he had seen other friends do.
he also asked me at one point whether i would be volunteering in his class? “there is a science class, you know.” so he still wants me around.
quinn interviewed grammy and grampy and made an outline to remember what he wants to write for the historical interview assignment. (watching astronauts hit golfballs on the moon!)
paring pears
i was distressed about leaving town for 2 weeks having only had 5 days of his first month of middle school to cram in all the logistical skills (which browser to use to get connected to school wifi?) and coping skills as he makes this enormous transition. he had a sleepover with aragorn the day we left for oklahoma, and ran in his first cross country race while we were gone. i received photos from camp boss/stand-in mom (there’s a reason why she’s my emergency contact) of both his start and a strong finish! he was pleased to not be last, though we’ve talked about it not being about rank/placement, but about your own process of improving and strengthening, challenging yourself to complete a race and accomplish inner goals.
during our drive home from oklahoma, there was a text marathon between quinn and i, mainly concerning the procedure for charging his computer. apparently, he wasn’t as competent on that as i thought, so i walked him through finding the charger, plugging it in, and waiting an hour for it to be ready to try to turn on since no one had charged it in the ten days since i had last done so. while he waited the hour, we played emoji chess. i had a sinking feeling about what i would find when i got him home.
after the two weeks at his dad’s, quinn brought home zero materials and a completely drained computer, having quit the cross country team. he had an F in math and a slew of missing assignments. i only found that out the day before he came back to me, when i hacked into the school’s gradebook interface. the school has yet to mail out the log in info to parents of new sixth graders as of december, but i found my id number on school registration papers, and i did an end-run around by claiming i forgot my (never issued) password, and miraculously, i was emailed a link to reset. so i did. and then i promptly went to visit his math teacher, who reaffirmed his belonging in this level, and was very open to hearing what strategies i felt would help her help him.
he got to decompress for a little while, then started at square one on the math homework on friday night. sometimes he was in good spirits, other times were more angst-filled. he finished block 1 sunday afternoon, and he got started on block 2. we went over some of the questions he had been psyched out about (“i can’t multiply decimals”) until he was comfortable. both rich and i reminded him of how “i can’t read! i’m never going to read! reading is impossible!” turned out for him in the end. once he regained confidence, he started blurting out non-obvious answers left and right.
“Ivan has a board that is 5/8 yard long. He plans to cut the board into smaller boards that are each 5/32 yard long. How many boards will he be able to cut?”
almost instantaneously quinn said, “he gets 4 boards.” then it took him around 10 minutes to write out the problem and show the work to solve it. we discussed strategies for types of problems, like identifying the operation to perform based on key words in the word problem. none of this is new, but he hasn’t needed to think much about it yet. his learning style is such that he goes straight to the 100th story, then has to build the 99 floors underneath his levitating self. another strategy that seemed helpful was verbally articulating the steps to someone else who doesn’t automatically come up with answers like he does… how would you say this to a kid if you were their teacher? i think he likes to fancy himself in the teaching role, so that perked him up in between bouts of grumbling.
then i found him reading his life of fred algebra textbook in his bed tent. (an excerpt below in case anyone is curious about fred.)
he came to the kitchen later in the evening and asked, “do you know carl gauss?”
“um… well i think he died about 2 centuries ago but i know who you mean….”
“well, he was a problem for his teacher because he was bored, and the teacher sent him to the corner to add 1 through 100 including 1 and 100. the teacher came back later and gauss was just sitting there, not doing anything and the teacher accused him of not working on it but he said, ‘i’m done, it’s 5050.’ and the teacher went to the board and began doing the equation and it took a long, long time and sure enough, it was 5050 but he didn’t realize the way gauss did it was to add 1 and 100, 2 and 99, 3 and 98 (all = 101) and quickly realized that would happen 50 times, and therefore multiplied 101 times 50 to get 5050. and that was how he did it so fast. he was such a funny guy, carl gauss.”
special thanks to vi hart for telling him that story. also, why are we fighting about you being able to do math homework, son????
also from vi this month, quinn became obsessed with scutoids, the latest and greatest new geometric shape. vi’s video introduction to scutoids was as engaging as ever, and complete with a paper pattern to download so you could build your own pair of scutoids. he got out his sharpies and tape and set to work. the video featured pomegranates, and the way their seeds grow in the shapes that they do, and the fact that indeed, some of them grow into scutoid shapes, to fill the space as efficiently as possible. some of the seeds may be underdeveloped, so some of their neighbors may have 5 instead of 6 sides, to accommodate the spacing, whereas in other sections, 6 sided arrangements may pack together nicely. vi mentioned wanting to learn more about the way the scaffolding inside the pomegranates develops, and how the decision process for seeds becoming who they are works. i couldn’t help but see a metaphor in the intricacies of development and scaffolding and how they become ever more fascinating, the deeper you look.
that saturday i had farmer’s market, and left him a jellybean fraction multiplying problem and had him do a few problems before we went to the farmer’s market crew party where he had a lot of fun playing with magnatiles. he wanted me to play d and d with him during his “breaks” between doing homework all weekend, and sunday as he was waiting for me to play he sat contemplating his 20 sided dice, and realized “i know how many sides our magnatile creation had on it now!” because his 20 sided dice was the same, made of triangular faces that come together in sets of 5.
we also took a bayou walk and played his version of outdoor pokemon. we walked around and he told me what pokemon i could find and catch. we saw some actual wildlife so it made it more fun to say what pokemon they represented; i caught an ekans (snake) a kabuto (we saw a spider; kabuto is a fossil of some kind but he said it looked the closest to him) a poliwag (frog), a pidgeotto (hawk) and a caterpie (dragonfly).
that weekend also included me finding an egg (which hatched a triceratops).
i ask him if i can peruse his binder, and he says yes. some of his “just write” entries for language arts:
monday morning i had him write himself a post-it note listing what he needed to do that day: hand in math homework, schedule test retake, bring home music books and binder/planner. also, text mama if retaking the test after school that day. having him come up with the things needing to be on the list was pulling teeth, but he got there eventually.
he is going to work on keeping his planner filled in (the two weeks were pretty sparse), and told me of difficulties with that in some of the classes, for which we discussed solutions. he also had missing assignments from spanish and social studies, including his historical interview write-up.
that day of the sticky note, he completed every step of the to-do list, up to and including send me the text! we have been working on establishing some two-way communication via phone, so this was a win. when i picked him up after his retake, he was all smiles. carrying his binder, he hopped in and said his day was, “great!” i asked whether he felt that he and his math teacher had turned over a new leaf together and he said, “well, it’s more like it’s the same leaf, but less brown. it’s kind of light green now.”
he told me he went in after school and “she gave me a brand new test and i just did it all!” and i asked if he felt confident he knew how to do all the problems and he said, “yeah, it was like almost all fractions.”
um, yes my young genius, i know that, i just spent the entire weekend making you do the homework on all the things to do with fractions. he is such a wonder. later while taking a bath, he refused to close his book because, “i’m right in the middle of fred solving some fractions!” totally a reason to let your bath water get cold.
he felt great about it all, told me how he got his whole planner filled in with no problem, and immediately opened up the seaweed snacks i had bought while at the grocery store and devoured the whole package. we made sweet tangerine positive energy tea and he ate 2 more boxes of seaweed snacks. i figured he’d finally get over his cold.
we drank our tea and played d&d. he is taking me through an adventure (celvin, a dwarf wizard and starlefea, an elf cleric are the characters he is having me play) and i get to listen to him say lots of pretty phrases, “he regained his feet…” and pretty words “burnished, escarpment, cistern” etc. some of it is by the script from the book, but it’s a lot to keep organized (sort of choose-your-own-adventure on steroids) and yet he weaves it all into a story with appropriate inflection, and enough specific details to verbally orient you in the dungeon physical space and tell you how many doors go off in which directions and what your options are… he’s fun.
sometime during the evening, i logged onto the grade book and sure enough, his math teacher had already updated his grade. 37% F went to 88% B, quite literally overnight.
middle school operates on 6 week grading periods to give the kids a chance to get the hang of it all. he is not the only one to ever struggle with this transition. in order to minimize stress, there is some flexibility with retakes and grace periods with due dates. and also, a chance to start fresh if all else fails.
i feel it is important for team quinn not to encourage or feed into the negativity that he can sometimes default to, like any of us, when he is hungry/tired/thirsty/overwhelmed. he does not need help developing negative storylines he can latch onto… such as “he feels like he is being treated like an object and expected to perform.” “he feels pressured” was mentioned so many times with respect to cross country and math, and i believe he was encouraged in feeling that way and jumping to an extreme “solution” of quitting to alleviate it, rather than allowed to endure a small amount of positive encouragement to persevere aka “pressure”. i think quinn needs guidance from people who care, who know his goals and have his happiness in mind and his well-being as our most important priority. i am visualizing being a container for quinn to help keep his river in the proper channel and help it keep from spilling out over the banks or getting all dammed up. it’s a balance of not being too rigid, flexing enough so he cannot be bent out of his own shape by the “pressure”, but firm enough to keep him from spilling out and abandoning his own path.
another day when i picked him up, he was in a bad mood. “i know more about science than my science teacher. and i have lunch detention tomorrow.”
a kid in the lunch line said that day’s lunch detention was canceled and would be happening wednesday instead, and that quinn was also in it. and quinn believed the boy. i explained that only a teacher can tell you if you have lunch detention, not another student (it took a while to establish that no teacher told him he had done anything wrong, nor had he had 3 tardies or whatever else you can get detention for… and knew of nothing he had done to earn a detention) and i said i thought the kid was messing with him. “ohhh.”
quinn disagreed with things his science teacher said about the water cycle, and he refused to fill in the worksheet because he wouldn’t write things he didn’t believe to be true, and he would get an F if he didn’t, so it was all bad. i talked to him about focusing on what he did believe of the article, or writing “according to the article” and giving the answer the teacher wants, even if according to you it’s a little off. (the article was not inaccurate but was oversimplified, and quinn is very strict about abiding by the laws of physics and logic… he just doesn’t apply it in every situation, such as when a kid tells him he has lunch detention.)
he listened to some sparkle stories to unwind, had hot dogs, cauliflower, kefir and bbq potato chips for snack (hangry much?) and did a few math problems before karate. when we got to karate i went on the back mat with him to try to help remind him of techniques he was fuzzy on from being away for 2 weeks, and he wouldn’t do it, and said, “it’s just… the math. you’re not listening to me. i can’t do it, i shouldn’t be in the class, i should be in the other class…” all over again. we argued about that for a bit, then he joined his class as it was starting.
stalling and complaining notwithstanding, he had no trouble with the second homework on integers and finally ended up blazing through the last page of it and going to bed to read… math. specifically, the quadratic equation. he didn’t need to “study” or do the even problems this round, as there was nothing he “didn’t know” how to do on this whole assignment. at one point i made up a harder problem to enable him to articulate the steps to “someone” because he couldn’t explain how to add -6 +2 other than saying “‘you add 2 to negative six” so i gave him -1694 +252 and then he could say, “subtract the smaller number from the bigger number and assign it a negative sign because the bigger number is negative” because then there was actually enough to justify an explanation. again, he was saying the answer immediately as he got done reading the questions… and then had to write out the “work”.
the math class was still being debated. it is hard for him to hear from me that the other class isn’t the answer to his woes, that it would require just as much busy work on his part, (it’s still a middle school class), but it would be on topics he already knows and would get bored with.
“buddy, do you want to spend a whole year getting to this topic you’ve already mastered??? you’re ready for the pythagorean theorem.”
“i already know the pythagorean theorem,” quoth he.
gah!
i asked him to trust me that i know something about what goes on in middle school classes, and what the options are, and why he was placed this way; to trust mrs j from last year, trust mrs z (current teacher), because all of us are saying you belong in this class right now.
i tried to give him perspective that it would soon feel less overwhelming, since he had just done the first month of math homework in 4 days. i gave him kudos for working hard to get caught up, but also the assurance that doing one assignment every 10 days or so will feel a lot more doable.
when i asked him about his unit 2 math test after school, he told me he probably got a perfect score. he hadn’t seen his grade yet but she had told them it would be on the gradebook already so we could look it up. 100% on the test, 100% on the homework, and now a solid A at 94% overall. he grinned when i showed him. i said, “are you convinced you’re in the right math class yet?” and he said, “you know i am.” i took that as acknowledgement that i had believed in him even when he doubted. i am hoping we can put the “i need an easier class” argument to rest now for good.
rich teased him later, “i hear you’re going to change math class after all… to college math.” it was one of those moments where quinn was confused briefly (“you like spicy food, right?”), then caught on. still the same boy. he took his bath then put on his hexaflexagon shirt backwards. i found him still wearing his glasses in the morning when i went to wake him for an all-day outdoor school field trip on the beach. he had stayed up late and finished his algebra textbook by firefly jar light.
I have always sort of figured I should be able to meditate yet I have never done it. On the other hand, I realize I actually do it all the time, just not for very long. I quiet my thoughts, focus on my breath, when I’m feeling like I need to re-center. I also do it with Quinn, so he’s quite familiar. Another morning I gave him another 5 minute headspace one and he just sat on the couch with it and it’s a beautiful thing to see him sitting with his eyes closed just breathing. What do I want for him in life? That. Being ok in there.
