Spinning on that dizzy edge

Sometimes I high-five myself for doing such a good job raising the Emperor, and other times I feel grossly under-qualified.

For example: a couple of weeks ago at pickup, one of his preschool teachers recapped an incident from that day. The Emperor and a friend of his were holding hands in line, and the other little boy said to my son, "I love you! Let's get married." To which the Emperor replied, "We'd have to move to a different country. Illinois doesn't let two boys get married." I was so gleefully gobsmacked at this that I totally failed to get a read on the teacher, if she was amused, amazed, or scandalized. I was just happy that he both took the proclamation of love in stride and remembered the one dinner conversation we'd had on the subject months ago.

It's amazing what sticks. It's so refreshing when it's information like that and not inappropriate Futurama quotes. (Like when the husband wore his Bender T-shirt yesterday that proclaims "Bite my shiny metal ass!" and the Emperor read it out loud at the dinner table, asking if that was correct.) His teacher told him that he shouldn't watch Futurama because it's an adult show. The way I figure it, at least he's not watching "reality" shows and hopelessly confused about fact versus fiction.

Playing with Legos the other day, he asked me if the universe has a floor. I stumbled my way through a response for that. I don't know that that question would have even occurred to me at five, let alone that I would have asked it.

His current favorite thing ever is Rescue Heroes, a donation from the son of a coworker. I have to say, the cartoons are pretty good; they pass the Bechdel test, they have multiple POC and women as the heroes, and there are no villains, just accidents and bad weather. Plus, the theme has a kicky techno beat.

He's getting so independent, too! He insists on brushing his teeth all by himself, and washes himself at bath-time, only letting me scrub his back. He gets dressed independently most mornings, and lets me sleep in on the weekends as long as I get him breakfast and something to watch on TV.

On a more distressing front, though, the Emperor's started saying on a regular basis how much he hates life, and how he can't wait until he and/or everything is dead, because life is so hard. Usually 10 minutes later he'll be laughing at something, so it's not like he's moping around all the time, but I really have no idea what to do about it. Is this a phase that will pass? Should I be rushing him to a therapist? Will kindergarten distract/entertain him enough that he won't feel that way anymore?

As it is, I'm worrying way too much about kindergarten and it doesn't even start for a couple of weeks. When I registered him a couple of days ago, the teacher was hawking a LeapFrog alphabet DVD. I told her that he didn't need it as he's already reading. Plus, she was surprised when I asked about gifted testing. Even though it's on the school website as being available for grades K-6, apparently they don't pull kids for the special classes until 2nd grade. My husband and I both have a bad history of being bored underachievers in school; I don't want that for him. What I need to do is find out from my dad what the magic words are to use with a teacher that fosters a "let's work on this together" attitude and not the "I'm a difficult, crackpot parent who thinks you suck" one.

Woo, Friday! We had way too much fun at the in-laws the past couple of weekends (bounce house AND swimming), so I'm looking forward to a low-key time at home, though I think the Emperor is going to be disappointed. If we could get some tolerable weather for working outside, that would be sweet as well.

I think I'm on that slippery slope between being exuberantly proud of my son and a little bit scared of what path his incipient geekhood is taking.

Exhibit A:

( The pencil is mightier than the scalpel...I hope. )

I walked into daycare today at pick-up time to find the Emperor intently copying figures out of a book; said book, mind you, was open to graphic photos of a dissected alligator's stomach/intestines (see picture with careful subtitles) and heart/lungs. I can only guess by his other notes that the rest of the book was similarly specific. Is this the start of a medical career or a creepy fascination with vivisection? Only time will tell. Of course, it does have a certain Far Side cartoony factor to it, too...

This was balanced out just a few minutes ago by his call upstairs, where he had spread his blankets out on the floor, perfectly smooth, to have a snuggle with me. He even dug out a floppy toy frog so I'd have my own animal to cuddle, and his plush triceratops stood ready to guard us from bad guys. You can't fight that kind of cuteness.

This weekend we'll be traveling to the 'burbs to visit my folks and then attend a family get-together on my dad's side. I can't wait to hear what my dad (the Special Ed teacher) thinks of his genius grandson. *grin*

Then it's one week until the Chicago Stargate Creation con and darsynia! It will be Legen -

WAIT FOR IT -

DARY.

Wow. Michael Jackson really is a total crazypants.

I got a little carried away at lunch today and started railing at the complete idiocy that is NCLB. Most of the details were new to my co-workers (all of whom had kids in school). One of them chimed in that if Obama fixed it, it would be the first useful thing he'd done since he'd gotten into office. She then proceeded to scoff at the stimulus package, saying that all future children would be born into debt beyond repayment. I had to bite down really hard on responses like "Yeah, closing down Gitmo was such a waste of time!" or "It's a shame that Obama cast the country into a financial pit of despair after Bush made us all rich!" These people can drive me crazy.

But hey, the Emperor is doing marvelously in school! His teachers are happy and full of praise for him, we're not walking into to reams of incidence reports in his cubby anymore, and he continues to make us laugh on a daily basis. Of course, he'd love it if he could just sit home and play Lego Star Wars all day. *grin* I don't know if the improvements at school are necessarily related to his PS2 privileges, but I'm certainly not complaining.

Now, if the weather can deliver on the forecasters' earlier promises of warm temps and sunshine for this weekend, life would be near perfect. Here's hoping.

Ugh. The Emperor woke up several times last night, complaining about his legs hurting (probably because he rolls over and into the wall with plenty of concussive force). Of course, he was perfectly fine this morning. Me, I'm a little tired.

He had awesome days at daycare both Friday and yesterday, which I'm fairly sure can be attributed to the fact that a third of his class is gone for spring break. If all it takes is a smaller classroom...Yeah.

Meanwhile, I'm still reeling from the overwhelming numbers of people who are raging online against the BSG finale. I absolutely loved it, and I'm shocked that so many people didn't. The disparity left me off-kilter all day yesterday. I mean, I'm not one to suppress anyone else's opinion, but it made me feel all defensive and wondering if we'd seen the same show. I had one small thing I would have liked to have seen ( Hell no I won't spoil ), but honestly, they wrapped up everything I wanted and stuff I never even expected to be revisited. I thought it was a thrilling emotional rollercoaster. I also had the treat of watching it on the gorgeously huge projector screen at the_sween and hecateuse's place, in a crowd of fans who all seemed to think as highly of it as I did, so that also colored my experience. I just don't understand the harsh responses.

For those of you that saw it, what did you think?

*blink*blink*blink* I hate being this foggy at the end of the work day, with hours yet to go until the Emperor's bedtime. I'm aiming to get to sleep on time tonight, that's for damned sure.

I am completely useless for work today. The most productive thing I've done is answer questions on a program that uses a procedure of which I am the reigning department champion. (Fortran ODBC calls to SQL Server – whee!) However, I've done a bunch of personal clean-up tasks that each took up ten minutes or less of brainpower. FSA paperwork, emails returned, library accounts cleaned up…anything to look busy.

I am tired, again, some more. I was supposed to be able to sleep in a bit this morning, as the conference at the Emperor's daycare was at 9 AM, a full 45 minutes later than I usually drop him off. However, the Emperor declared that he was "done sleeping" even earlier than usual, so my own snoozefest was more like a series of interrupted five-minute naps. Bleargh.

So the conference…It would have been much easier if I could have just continued to cast his teachers as the bad guys. But no, they have to be all sympathetic and understanding and supportive and nurturing. It was a sit-down with both teachers and the head of the pre-school section of daycare, whose name I didn't even catch. (Strike one against me.) She proceeded to give me the good news/bad news reasons for the meeting.

( Good kid. Bad temper. )

So now I'm investigating reward charts and point systems and all the parental work the real world requires, that we probably should have been doing all along. Plus, I'm going to make the damned doctor appointment and hope she can give us useful advice and not just a prescription.

Wish me luck and patience, guys.

I'm confused today (in a different sort of way from my usual confusion). You see, yesterday felt so much like a Monday that I'm having a hard time believing today is Friday.

Seriously, yesterday I could have sworn I was stuck in a perpetual series of "good news, bad news" jokes.

For example:
( Somebody moved my banana, code-monkey style; when vampire nurses fail to suck; daycare dilemmas. )

And now I'm off to the make-up holiday party at daycare, postponed from three weeks ago when daycare was closed due to a bad ice storm. Too bad I'm fresh out of holiday spirit.

A few nights ago, the husband and I were talking to the Emperor’s day-care teacher during pick-up. She commented that he’d had a good day, aside from needing to have his group spot moved to the middle of the circle so he’d stop poking his neighbors. (That would be a “my son” problem, as I am relentlessly tactile with close friends and family. I think I pet the Emperor more often than the dog.)

She also brought up that she was starting to have some difficulties keeping him in sync academically, as he’s mastered the alphabet and the numbers 1-40 way ahead of many of his classmates, and the school’s mandate is to teach to the highest levels in the classroom. She thinks he’ll be reading soon and maybe even branching into multiplication. She mentioned that we must have worked with him a lot at home, to which we replied rather sheepishly that, no, not really, we just read to him quite a bit and talk with him. I managed to blurt out something to the effect that my husband and I are both gifted, so we’re pleased to see that he’s showing all the signs, too, and that we know all about busting the bell curve.
( Commence confessional )
I would love to hear from the parents, teachers, and others out there who have some experience with this.