Kindergarten?

It has been fun to watch reading start to make sense to Emry. We started working on putting letter sounds together last October or November. With the move, we were sidetracked for a little while, but we started again in earnest in January. Last week as we sat in church, Emry was busy studying the children’s bulletin. When she crawled into my lap for help with the Word Search (her first), she simply started reading the first few words. It was one of those joyous moments with being a parent is truly worthwhile: Emry can read!

Emry can read. She’s really good about looking at the words in her reading books, sounding out each letter as she puts the word together. She doesn’t understand all the rules and, naturally, there are words that defy every rule any of us understand (like two, comb or pterodactyl). But she still plows her way through with my help and speeds through her site words so well I need to find some other lists. She has also nearly finished the Kindergarten phonics book we started about the same time. With these thoughts in mind, I started considering what else I need to start with her. Math came to mind. For while she can count to twenty and even sometimes add (by accident), we haven’t really worked with number much. And there is penmanship. She can write her letters awkwardly since she often has to in her phonics work, and while I don’t intend to be overly strict with proper form (my 4^thgrade teacher was and it has made me a bit defiant since), I also don’t want her to pick up terrible habits. So, I needed a math book, penmanship, another phonics book, more reading lists…

If I’m going to do all this, we might as well just start Kindergarten. 

With those thoughts in mind, I discussed it with Ed. He didn’t care either way. All he’s adamant about is his children will be homeschooled. I talked with my mom a little and a friend at church about the laws in Indiana. Since there’s not much required, there’s no reason not to start her in Kindergarten at the age of 4. And so we will.

Research done, a math book has been ordered, a penmanship book, her next phonics book, and a set of Biscuit reading books. She is excited, I still have books to go through and plan and, well…we’ll just see how it goes!

Playgrounds: Around Town

All these recent thoughts on playground began with a random conversation with a complete stranger over the summer. She was the twin sister of a member of our small group and we were all having fun at a couple of fountains on Purdue campus. I don’t know how the playground conversation started, but she mentioned that a couple of friends of hers back home in Rochester, New York had started a blog reviewing playgrounds in their area. And that made me start thinking about playgrounds: past, present, work related, in Pittsburgh and here.

Back in Pittsburgh, we frequented a few playgrounds. One was across the Ohio River from where we lived in the town of Monaca, right where the Ohio and Beaver rivers meet. It was really a nice little playground with swings, a play structure for small children and one for larger children. Perhaps the only downside was that it really was for larger children as there was a tunnel that made an ascent and it was several months before Emry had the leg length to climb it. Only once or twice did we run into much larger children who were a little too rambunctious and unsupervised, which is always a challenge. But the best part of that playground? It was right on a river – the perfect spot to throw rocks.

The others in Cranberry, I’ve already mentioned: the Pirate Ship and the Tower. The former was by far our favorite. Other parks we visited now and then, but none as often as these three.

Here in Lafayette, there are three parks (of many) that we frequent. All are varied, which is nice, and I would say we visit them all about the same even though one is the favorite.

Armstrong Park is just short a mile down the street. We jumped in the stroller and headed down there one oddly warm day not long after we moved in. The park as a whole includes a pond with a trail around it (which I jog often), baseball fields, basketball and tennis courts, and the pool we frequented this summer. The playground is simple enough: swings and a wooden play scape with slides, a tunnel, a climbing net and climbing wall. The kids enjoy it, but there’s nothing fancy about it. Still, a trip down there with a packed lunch is a favorite pastime.

Munger Park is probably their favorite. Known by most kids as the “Spider Web Park” because of it’s huge climbing “spider web”, it may be the newest playground in town. I like it because it has the rubber matting throughout the swings, spider web, dragonfly seesaw, and sprawling play scape that includes various slides, multiple ways to climb up, three different sets of monkey bars, and it simply fun to run under as well as around and through. Also at this park are baseball fields, more pickle ball courts than I have counted and the older playground (which is newer than me, but you don’t see many kids on it). I like it because it’s easy to keep an eye on it, the kids are never bored, and there are almost always other kids there to play with.

Columbia Park is probably the highlight of Lafayette, Indiana. A sprawling park that includes the baseball field for the Lafayette Aviators (a summer collegiate team), the water park (complete with two new slides this summer), a train, a pond area, several playgrounds, and (greatest of all) the zoo! Yes, a zoo – complete with monkeys, wallabies, otters, bald eagles, a petting area, butterfly house and several other small animals. Next year, it will even have a penguin exhibit. And since it’s free and quite a nice place to wile away an hour or more, it’s easy to see why it’s such a popular place. The kids also love the various playgrounds, laid out around a hill on which sets the largest play scape which is quite tall with lots of slides and things to climb. The other play areas include swings and more age-specific areas, although that doesn’t seem to stop any child old or young from playing where they please. And while it’s a great place to take your kids to run off lots of energy, it’s the consensus among parents and grandparents that whoever the designer was did a bad job. That hill blocks views from one play area to the next so when a kid slips away (and what kid doesn’t in a blink of an eye?)…you’ve no clue which direction they have gone. And it can take the longest most frightening seconds (or even minutes) of your life to find them. This has happened with Emry, Ethan and my nephew Beto. I would never take them there alone and often want to start a petition to have that park redesigned.

And that ends my four-part “thesis” on playgrounds. And now, off we go to the playground!

Happy 26^thBirthday, Charlie!

Abby (aka: Charlie) - 1994

Playgrounds: A Work Perspective

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to put together my first proposal from “scratch”. Most proposals are full of profile sheets of former projects and resumes, so it was mostly a lot of pulling things from other locations and piecing it all together. But some things I had to make up from a blank page and a few projects I had to use the template to write up because they hadn’t been done yet. As we were looking for projects that would show how well we do certain things, one topic was playgrounds. I told my boss my kids loved a playground the firm designed in Cranberry. His response: “I love that one, too, but it’s too traditional.”

Traditional. I had to stop to think about that because, to me, the park wasn’t very traditional at all. I mean, how many parks have you seen with a pirate ship to play on? But “traditional” is a word that is hard to define. What I call “traditional” someone else doesn’t. Playgrounds I call “traditional” have slides, swings, seesaws, monkey bars and a merry-go-round all in various locations around the play area. That’s what I grew up with. My “baby” brother who is 15 years younger than me probably considers a playground “traditional” if it is a huge wooden maze-like thing. Why? Because those are the kinds of playgrounds he frequented as a kid. So, what makes a playground “traditional”?

In the realm of playground design, which the firm I work for does quite a bit of work in, “traditional” is considered a play area with swings, monkey bars, slides and seesaws or other pieces of equipment separated throughout an area. More like what I grew up with, only now you’ll find pieces of equipment you can’t figure out what to do with. So, yes, the playground in Cranberry is “traditional” even though it doesn’t have slides (except one coming off the pirate ship) or monkey bars. It does have swings, some odd looking things that you sit in and spin and 21^stcentury equivalents of a merry-go-round and seesaws as well as some odd, theme based pieces to go along with the baseball, pirate theme. (If you haven’t figured it out, the Pittsburgh Pirates donated the money to build the play area that weaves between several baseball fields for kids. Hence, the baseball and pirate theme.) Despite those facts, I still have trouble calling that playground “traditional” when the all-time favorite for my kids was the pirate ship, complete with steering wheel and plank to jump from. I would have loved one of those as a kid! Especially since Katey and I spent hours fighting the pirates from Swiss Family Robinsonin our backyard.

Working for landscape architects and people who are park professionals (as well as one playground safety inspector), I find the way I view playgrounds has changed considerably over the past few years. I am certainly far from being an expert, but I have read several articles and looked over proposals focused on playgrounds to know about natural play spaces, traditional play areas and play scopes focused on learning. It’s really rather astounding how many ideas and even thesis have been written about playgrounds and kids at play. But in a world where kids spend a majority of their time in front of video games, kids now have to be taught and encouraged to simply…well, play. Hence people who have whole careers focused on play.

I have discovered that when I enter a new play area, I survey it from a designing perspective. Not as an expert, of course, but from the little I know I can pick out things that were well thought out versus tossed together by someone who doesn’t specialize in playgrounds. I also watch what the kids gravitate towards and wonder if the designer would be surprised or already knew that would be the highlight of the area. Around here, I don’t know who designed anything. Back in Pittsburgh, I knew which play areas my co-workers had worked on and loved to observe what my kids thought of those playgrounds. Funny enough, they don’t gravitate towards the ones we highlight in our proposals. The Clock Tower play area in Cranberry was fun enough, but it frustrated both of them that they were limited to the areas designed towards their age groups. When they were very small, they rarely went on the swings that were too far from the other fun things. And I think the size and space itself intimidated them a bit. I think it did a lot of kids for it often seemed kids roamed aimlessly around. The Out of the Park play area, however, was always the one they wanted to go to. For one, the pirate ship. Two, plenty of things they could enjoy and still grow into. And lots of space to run around. Never did I see a kid that appeared aimless.

My conclusion? “Traditional” might not look good on paper. But kids really do love it! 

Mistakes

I don’t like making mistakes. Serious mistakes. On things that really matter. Not necessarily the misspelled word you might find before you finish reading this post. Or the math mistake that has me beating my head against a wall as I balance the checkbook. Or skipping a page in Emry’s phonics book because it was stuck to the previous one. I’ve done those things often enough that they’ve become mostly annoyances and not moments of deep confession. Because we’re human. We make mistakes. 

But if I make a mistake at work, I can get really upset at myself. Before my co-workers, I like to appear perfect...even though I’m not. I don’t like to forget something, procrastinate or do a lesser job than I might be able to, even on things I’m still learning (like creating proposals in InDesign). It’s not for their praise, really, although that’s nice. It’s mostly because I’m the office manager. I’m supposed to have all the answers, pick up all the slack and lift more than my share of the weight to keep the wheels turning. It’s my job, right?

On the other hand, mistakes at work are quite minor compared to many of the things I have done that could have ended in catastrophe. The moments I remember the most were times when my world was out of orbit and I was more focused on the problems than the obvious right in front of me. Those are the moments that could have been much worse than the problem I created. And it’s thinking about what could have happened that keeps me from forgetting what I did. A lesson, I hope by God’s grace, well learned and not repeated.

By definition, making a mistake is an accident. No one purposefullymakes a mistake. Something wrong done with intention is blatant sin. And while a mistake may be a sin, it’s caused by the fact that our natural state is sin and we lived in a sin-cursed world. Mistakes are inevitable. Yet, so often, we fear them.

When you think about it, it’s an irrational fear. It’s like fearing your eye blinking. Of course your eye is going to blink. It does so approximately 28,800 times a day. You can’t stop it. And so, of course you don’t fear it. Well, mistakes are the same way. They’re going to happen. Probably several times every day. And yet we fear them.

Why? Because we don’t like to let someone down, perhaps. Or because we enjoy the praise of those around us. And always lurking behind almost everything we do is that terrible sin called pride, taunting us that other people don’t make those mistakes. Another thought is that, for those of us who are Christians, we are called to be holy and perfect as our Saviour is both holy and perfect. Mistakes remind us of how far from either we are.

In the recent Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, I was reminded of mistakes. Excerpted from a 1987 newsletter by Richard Wurmbrand (the founder of VOM) was an article entitled “Fear: The Greatest Mistake”. A quote from that article has had me thinking for a couple of weeks now:

“We all have tasks from God. It is better to fulfill them with mistakes than to leave them unfulfilled.”

What are my tasks from God? Some, of course, are mundane: sweeping the floor, doing the laundry, preparing meals. But what about helping my children memorize Scripture? Talking to them, even in public, about Jesus. Loving my husband. Teaching the preschool Sunday School class once a quarter. Praying daily for so many things not only in my own life but in the lives of those around me. Do I leave these tasks undone because I fear I will make a mistake in my attempts? Often, yes. I’m afraid my kids won’t understand the verse they are memorizing or, even worse, shrug it aside as worthless fifteen or twenty years from now. What if I offend someone praying over lunch at McDonalds with the kids? I know my love for Ed isn’t nearly what it ought to be, so I’ll just read another book. Do I seriously fear what a four-year-old thinks of how I presented the story of Daniel? And there are so many people who pray way better than I do. God must get really tired of my distracted mind and often mindless words. So many mistakes. Maybe these things are better left undone than left hanging limply from the mistakes I’m washed them in.

But God knows that. Every vessel He has is full of warps and bumps. He created us. He knows our sinful natures and how very mistake prone we are. And yet He still chose us. Called us. Saved us. Uses us. Fearing the mistakes we are bound to make is saying that God made a mistake in calling us. 

And God does not make mistakes.

So, I need to set aside this fear. I need to acknowledge, like the blinking of my eye, that mistakes are going to happen and just go on. Obey God. Fulfill the tasks He has given me. And trust that the Sovereign God of all the earth is just that: sovereign. Even over my stupid mistakes.

Playgrounds: A Parent's Perspective

Emry was much too small to remember her first visit to a park. In fact, I’m not even sure she was two months old yet. Ed had it in his head that the first park she mustvisit was South Park in Pittsburgh, his old stomping grounds. For that matter, his mother grew up going to that park. In fact, his parents met there. His brother worked there. We even had our rehearsal “dinner” there. Personally, I preferred North Park in Pittsburgh, but one can’t beat out nostalgia, right?

When Ethan came along, nostalgia had been satisfied. His first park trip was at only two weeks old because we walked up the hill the park at the elementary school nearby so Emry could play and run off some energy. He visited parks a lot as a baby. All part of being a second-born.

Since Emry is my cautious child, it took her nearly three years to get over her fear of swings. Slides could be too high to risk. Why would anyone want to hang on bars? Tunnels were the only thing she absolutely loved. Ethan has never had anxieties. He’s always loved swings. Slides aren’t his favorite, but he’ll follow Emry. Of course bars are meant to be hanged upon…and tunnels to climb. Very little fear – or common sense.

To be honest, watching my kids play on playgrounds has probably caused me more fear than them. More than once my heart has skipped a beat and I have stopped breathing as I watch broken arms, busted heads and skinned up body parts become near misses. I wonder yet again how my mom did it. I was certainly never careful on a playground, vaulting off whatever, swinging about any bar available and walking every narrow object possible in my all-consuming daydreams of being the next Mary Lou Retton. Maybe she didn’t watch. I try not to, but I simply can’t help it. If Ethan is going to break something, I’m going to watch it happen.

My children are no different than any other child found on the playground. In fact, they are a great deal less adventurous than some. But even though playgrounds are inspected for safety, that’s a misnomer in so many ways. The warning labels printed on them and the age suggestions are futile. They’re accidents waiting to happen. Which is the definition of childhood. So, I stand back and let my kids be kids. 

And like so many aspects of parenting, it increases my faith.

What They're Up To

Summer is coming to an end. Even though the grass turns more brown by the day (not sure anyone remembers the last time we saw rain) and the heat is tiring which means the season is still around, all the signs of its close are here. Schools in the area start next week. The pools will be closed except on weekends for a couple of more weeks. Fall and winter clothes are replacing swimsuits in the stores. Pretty soon all we’ll hear about is pumpkin flavoring everything you can possibly put in your mouth. Summer is winding down.

And is has flown. I keep wondering where the last three months disappeared to. Mostly, I think, they were spent here:

 At the pool with it’s splash park about a mile down the street. Emry had her swimming lessons there and every week we walk or Grandma picks us up two or three times to wile away an houror so. Honestly, I’m sad it’s closing. The kids love it.

And there was dance lessons.

Those were for six weeks and will start up again in a couple of weeks, this time until December when the session will end with a show. Emry is matter-of-factly excited about all that.

Of course, there were endless hours spent playing outdoors, bathed in bug spray. We think our neighbor’s backyard eco-system is the culprit of the multitude of mosquitoes in our backyard. (No, they’re not green…they simply never mow their backyard.) Still, the kids have fun. And there were times at Grandma and Grandpa’s eating (I mean picking) blueberries and just, generally, having fun. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do at Grandma and Grandpa’s. 

This summer Ethan’s vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds. He can count well, knows his shapes and his colors. His wardrobe has consisted of two shirts, both with Spiderman on them, leaving me to figure out how to get them washed before they are permanently fixed upon his skin. He’s adjusted to a room of his own and “big” bed with only a couple of nightly tumbles to the floor. And we finally found a vegetable he’ll eat: carrots.

Emry has progressed greatly in her reading. She breezes through her sight words and sounds out other short words quite well. She has nearly completed her Kindergarten phonics book and so we have decided we’ll just start Kindergarten in September with penmanship, math, phonics, reading and extra things. She has turned into a little fish in the water, which is fun to watch. She puts away her own clothes, cleans up her room before getting up from her rest time and is forever telling Ethan exactly how their games should be played. Lately she prefaces every question with, “Mama, can I ask you something?” I have no idea why.

So, even though I can’t say our summer was exciting, it has certainly been busy. As it comes to a close, the busyness will just come along with us into the fall. But at least it will be cooler. I really can’t wait to wear jeans and long sleeved shirts again!

Reading Goal? DONE!

Granted, the reading goal I established for 2019 wasn’t that challenging. I knew that when I took it on. Part of the reason for such a lower standard of achievement was to allow me to read other things. Another reason is because next year I’m toying with a monumental goal…so, I wanted something easy this year.

Of course, I say reading Gone with the Windis easy. After all, I read War and Peaceover a summer. (Okay, okay…I wasn’t working, wasn’t married and didn’t have kids then – a totally different world!) If you asked Ed, though, he would say the thought of reading Gone with the Windin a lifetime was completely impossible. So, it’s all about your perspective.

Today Gone with the Wind is a controversial book. It was considered a classic when it was written in 1936 and the movie from 1939 was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and won eight of those, including best picture, best actor and best actress. It is still considered one of the top 100 movies in American Cinematic history. But that was in the 1930s. Today some hash-tag on Twitter would have it cause a political upheaval…which was never anyone’s intention.

I saw the movie sometime in my late teens. It was one of those movies I just wanted to see because, well, shouldn’t everyone watch Gone with the Wind? Besides, I had to see what sort of man would cause my grandmother and all her friends to sigh every time he walked on screen (and thereby cause my uncle to declare he would nevertake them to a movie again). I can’t say I was impressed with Clark Gable. I’ve seen him in many other things since and he by no means compares to, say, Hugh Jackman. But everyone has their own taste. As for the character Scarlett O’Hara, well, I barely made it through the 238 minutes without throwing something at her. Could anyone possibly be a more spoiled, rotten brat than her? I think not.

So, to be honest, I didn’t jump into the book with any high expectations. Which was good. Because Vivien Leigh earned her Academy Award. Truly, no one could have played spoiled, rotten brat Scarlett O’Hara better than she. She captured the very essence of the book’s heroine, a word that is hard to spit out when talking about a woman who cares for no one else but herself. But I had to give her credit. She never pretended to be anything she wasn’t. She knew she was conceited and didn’t really care. Even in the end when Melanie’s death makes her realize several truths she had selfishly pushed aside, she responds just as you come to expect Scarlett O’Hara to respond: she’d fix it. Which is another trait I will begrudge her: determination. While her goal (wealth, wealth and more wealth) isn’t something to emulate, the fact that she worked hard to achieve it is certainly a trait worth obtaining.

Aside from Scarlett, did I find the book to be controversial? No. Though I know why people say it is. But here’s the reality: you can’t change history. People want to. They certainly try to. Let’s forget the Holocaust, or Stalin, or every regime or people group who has tried to wipe out another people group. And in America, the trend is to forget the War Between the States, or slavery, or Reconstruction. Let’s knock down statues of great men, give money to those whose ancestors may (or may not) have been slaves and completely ignore the Northern aggression that dictated the military strong-arming of the South after the war. I’m sorry, but you can’t. Because the problems we face today are rooted in the wars, genocides and dictatorships of the past. You can pretend Gone with the Wind doesn’t exist all you want. But it does. And if it steps on your toes, well, too bad. Because pretending Hitler was never born doesn’t explain away the millions of people he had killed. And wiping American history clean of the Reconstruction doesn’t wipe away the reality of slavery, in the North or in the South. Deal with it.

So, would I recommend Gone with the Windas a great read? Well, you certainly have to get over Scarlett. And one can’t really say Rhett Butler is much better, although at least he’s blatantly honest about his dishonesty. The forever mooning Ashley Wilkes leaves much to be desired. Not even his sainted wife Melanie can make up for him. On the other hand, aren’t all people flawed? And the book certainly contains some quirky Southern characters of all colors. It also demonstrates well a cast of characters who simply lived in the times in which they lived, fighting to survive in a world that changed overnight right before their eyes. I would have to say, yes, if you like to read really large books Gone with the Windis worth your time, no matter which side of the Mason Dixon you may be from.