By: Revanche

My kids and notes from Year 5.6

October 19, 2020

If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?

Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69.

Surprise! Chores!

I’m pleased with the occasional initiative JB continues to show. They got up early one morning and while I still lay abed, they set up the dogs’ breakfast without being asked AND remembered the whole rigamarole of the kibble, and the supplements, and the medications, and the everything. Seamus’s dietary needs are many.

They can also be responsible for most of the laundry now. They load the washer and start it after an adult has poured in the detergent. They check and spin it again if it hasn’t spun enough water out. They can transfer to the dryer and then they hang up and put away the clean clothes. I generally do the sorting first just to make it more efficient (and I like sorting). I also do most of the folding but they’re good at folding the dish towels.

The initiative is still very sporadic though.

Education

I will leave this space free of my rant about the state of education for the moment but commenting on JB’s education: we spent the entire summer cobbling together a consistent education stream for them.

We were very lucky to have the help of a trained teacher to do the actual teaching and I added occasional supplemental classes through Outschool to give them some variety. They’re exploring all kinds of fun educational experiences as and when I can fit them into our schedule: “visiting” the cultures of other countries, dance, literature and math.

I was oh so grateful we had that solid foundation when they started kindergarten. JB is well accustomed to regular remote learning if done well (that part remains to be seen) and the regularity of a five day school week. Whether I feel like that formal education structure is best for them is not relevant right now, it’s what we have.

Different generations

Breakfast when I was growing up: small bowl of rice porridge, maybe soy sauce.
When PiC was growing up: bowl of cereal.
JB: Bowl of raisin bran, scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh mango and strawberries.

We ALL eat the same meals now (except for the parts I can’t eat), so it’s not like I’m blaming them for the choices we make. It’s just a huge contrast!

Pupdate

Seamus is losing senior dog friends left and right, as his cohort ages, and it’s so sad. They were all getting on in years and it was time for each of time, but it’s still heartbreaking. I’m glad he has Sera to keep him a bit engaged, even if he doesn’t necessarily appreciate her. They have a bit of a bond though, they check on each other every so often and she functions a little bit like his remora fish, cleaning up after him after their morning treats.

I keep tracking the number of Happiness Rolls he does every day. Once he stops having Happiness Rolls, loses mobility, or stops eating or drinking, we’re going to know it’s time. It’s very important to me that we do our best to get that right. We want him to squeeze out every good day and bit of joy he can but not hold him in misery because we’re too selfish to let him go. We know people who have been holding their suffering pets hostage to their emotions and it’s absolutely awful. When your pet hasn’t been able to get up or walk to tend their basic needs in months and has seizures almost regularly, it’s not a secret that they are suffering.

I think it’s been three years since we brought Sera home and for the first two and a half years, I was pretty sure she didn’t even like us. She was happy to eat our food and wanted to show submission but she was only bonded to Seamus, she didn’t want much to do with us humans.

We’ve spent loads of time on her training, even though it was frustrating to feel like we were pouring in gallons of energy into a bottomless pit. She’s still very reactive and therefore cannot be trusted off leash or on leash with JB. Not that she’d ever deliberately hurt JB, she’s simply still not capable of paying attention to the human on the other end of the leash and would absolutely drag JB face first on the ground to go after a dog she thought was menacing her. Well, she previously couldn’t. She’s finally making some progress. She looks at us when she sees another dog, anxiously and ever so briefly, but she does break that intent gaze voluntarily sometimes and that’s a world of difference from her earlier levels of hypervigilence. She’s also very much into the treats I’ve been getting her and she’s learned what heel means, though she won’t STAY heeling so that’s the next step of training. Her sit game is weak but she’s recently learned down!

What I find absolutely fascinating is that she listens to JB. (Seamus categorically will not obey JB unless there is obvious bribery. He considers himself above them, and he’s been a mature adult longer than JB has been alive so his judgement has been trustworthy much longer. But that’s diminishing now in his 15th or 16th year. It’s funny to hear JB adopt my low deep training tones to try and exude authority over him because it does not work.) Sera, though, will obey JB when we’re home. She’s obeyed commands to go to bed, sit, and lay down. She’s obeyed the sit and stay when JB is feeding them, and she’s sort of obeyed, about as well as she ever does for anyone, the “walk” command which is her release to go eat. JB scruffs her as best they can to “help” her slow down which is also hilarious because a five year old cannot possibly hold back a 60 lb pibble dashing for her food bowl. But they try.

Random questions

How do we make chips?
How do bears get their sounds?
What does ‘dire’ mean?

***

Things I didn’t expect my five year old to know about: Baba Yaga (thanks to Itty Bitty Hellboy which is a great read)

***

Amelia Bedelia moment
In one of their lessons, JB learned to make fish decorated with tissue paper. On a day they needed something to keep them busy, I asked JB to make me a school of fish for my office.

They taped together a few sheets of paper to draw a large building with a sign at the top: “Fish school.”

***

Believe me, I know you.

JB: Can you ask if mom can come on our walk?
Me: they just want me to come so I can walk Seamus and they can go fast with you and Sera.
JB: NO!! I JUST WANT YOU TO WALK WITH US. *Offended face*
Outside two minutes later…
JB: ok! Mom can take Seamus, you (PiC) ‘n’ me can go first.
Me: AH HA! J’accuse!

:: What were your favorite kinder-level books? What was your favorite childhood breakfast?

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