Parenting

GOOOOOOOOAL

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Okay, so maybe that might be a little melodramatic.  But as a former soccer player, I have to admit it was awesome watching Noah score his first goal.  It was a proud parent moment.

I sadly don’t have a picture or video of it–well maybe not sadly, as the memory of the goal can live on big and glorious with the reality of the ball trickling through the goalies legs and over the line.  It was a bit like slow motion.  But when you are 6 and playing soccer for the first time–it might have well have been a shot from outside of the 18 that find the top right corner.  It feels the same, when it’s your first–AMAZING.

The look on Noah’s face was one of pure shock and amazement.  It was his teams first goal in two games.  He is playing in an instructional league which is great–as he is learning a great deal and they really focus on skills.  Their games are short quarter-field games with only 5 players per team on the field.  It has been good for him and each time he plays and practices (they have a 1 and 1/2 hour practice 1x per week and then a 1hr game on Friday nights–under the lights).

My brother was able to come to the game and he was an pretty awesome soccer star in his day and Noah was so excited.  He ran by the side line early on in the game and smiled huge and waved at his uncle.  It was cute.  It takes me back to the days I played–on the very same fields my son currently plays on.  The high and lows–the amazing victories and the crushing losses.

I try not to get my hopes up that soccer will be the sport he loves.  The sport he can’t imagine not playing.  The sport the lives in his blood and dreams.  But for now, I will watch from the sidelines, cheering for him.  It warms my heart to know exactly how it feels to be out on the pitch.

I love that he loves sports.  I think sports are the most important thing our kids do.  Not because they are all going to be amazing athletes–but there is something about being part of a team.  About being part of something that is bigger than just you.  Team sports give a kid (and adults) and opportunity to build character in a way that other activities don’t.  It brings out their grit and perseverance.  It teaches them hard and important lessons about failure.

For Noah–his team lost, but he scored a goal.  He both lost and won.  Just like we all do so many times in our own lives.  It’s a great lesson to learn.

Pitfalls of Private School #2543

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 9 Comments

Tooth Fairy Generosity (aka–insanity)

So, Noah has his first loose tooth.  He has been waiting, not-so-patiently I might add, for this day.  The look on his face when he came and told me he thought his tooth was loose we priceless.  Most of the girls in his class have already lost lots of teeth.  They have one boy in their class who is on the older side (that’s a nice way of saying it right?) who has lost like 7 or 8 teeth, but none of the other boys Noah’s age have.  So, it’s very exciting.

The tooth is just wiggly–and probably 3 or so weeks away from being ready to really fall out–but this didn’t stop conversations about the tooth fairy.  I am in no real way stingy.  So when we were all talking on family vacation about the Tooth Fairy and what she brings, I thought $3 for your first tooth and $1 for each tooth after.  That seemed reasonable, right?  Okay, so now I know that it isn’t.

The day after vacation I got the following text from my brother informing me that the going rate for a tooth is $3.00.

So, I thought $3 isn’t so bad.  It seems a bit crazy, but you certainly can’t buy anything with a $1 like you used to.  I still remember penny candy and going to the local Ben Franklin and being able to get a bag of candy for $1 and it was a lot–now?  Not so much.

I resigned myself that I’d be shelling out about $60 over the next few years for teeth that have fallen out of my son’s mouth.

At dinner the other night, Noah happily declared, “I know how much the tooth fairy leaves!!”

“How much?”

“TEN DOLLARS”

Oh pardon me as I spit out my wine all over the table.  “What?”

“Ten Dollars, Mom.  The tooth fairy brings TEN DOLLARS.”

Are you kidding me?  These aren’t the first kids in the world to lose teeth.  Ten bucks for a tooth.  So, now.  I have to leave Ten Dollars for my kids first tooth.  Then who the hell knows.  I am still flabbergasted that $10 is actually what the going rate seems to be in the world of private school.  I know I shouldn’t be surprised.  For one of Noah’s classmates birthday’s-the parents of said child had an ice cream truck come to school.

So, what does the tooth fairy leave in your house?

In Which Her Dad’s Head Explodes

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

Zoë has boyfriends.  Yes that is boyfriend with an “s”.  As in more than one boyfriend.  We hear her on the phone pretend talking to them:

“Hello boyfriend.” in a sing-songy voice.

Every time she does that, I can feel Bill’s head begin to swell.  He isn’t prepared for it to start this early (or at all–let’s be honest, what father is ever ready for his little girl to like a boy?).  She is only 4.

The other night at dinner she was talking about her boyfriend and talking about how she was playing with him at recess.

“Playing with him or following him around?” I asked.  Because I know how girls operate and I know Zoë and how she operates.  I also know that we are totally in for trouble as she gets older.

“Playing I think.  We chased Eva.”

“Sounds fun.”

“I asked Finnegan (a different boy than she calls “boyfriend”) to marry me.”

At this point, I thought Bill was going to just pass out.  He surmises that he has the ability to handle 8 years of this boy stuff with his little princess.  And at this rate, he’ll be completely unable to cope by the time she is 12.  Poor guy. He has no idea what he is in for.  Well, maybe he does have some idea and that is why he is beginning to freak out a little.

“Zoë, you don’t ask the boy–you wait for him to ask you.”  Bill explained, clearly uncomfortable with the way this conversation was going.  I am pretty sure that he would have rather been talking about ANYTHING but this.

“Well, that’s dumb.  But he said no.” she said while giggling (she is channeling some serious pre-teen/teen girlie traits).

Just hearing her pretending to talk to her boyfriend on the phone and her ability to mimic what she surely will sound like as a teenager is amazing to me–she doesn’t have older siblings to have learned this from–she doesn’t watch “regular” tv, so that isn’t informing her pretend choices–she is simply expressing herself and it scares the shit out of me.  I can’t even fathom what the next decade (and beyond) is going to hold.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the universe is going to pay me back in spades for what I did as a teenage girl and I am not looking forward to that.  I don’t know if Bill can survive it.  Zoë might simply be locked in her room until she is 30.

The Son

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

August 21, 2006

I still remember this day–as though it was yesterday.  It was heart-wrenching.  It was both happy and sad.  We go to meet our son for the first time–but by looking at his frail, lithe, sick little body, we weren’t sure he’d be coming home with it.  Shortly after this picture was taken, we rode with him and many other children to see a doctor–who sadly was gone for the rest of the day.  We then drove to another doctor.  After that visit, we were taken back to Wanna and then we had to take Noah back to the hospital.  I remember walking down the hall with him and being so scared that we were leaving him there.  A hospital in a developing nation is a hard place to leave your child.  I knew his nanny would be with him and would watch him all night, but it was so hard.  He stayed in the hospital the next day–we didn’t get to see him as we had to go to immigration and take care of other logistics.  The next day Bill and I got to see him and visit another doctor and then Bill and I refused to take him back to the hospital.  We just couldn’t.  We knew that if we took him with us and loved him and gave him everything we could, that he would be okay.  It was a risk we had to take.

August 21, 2012

Today we (as were in 2006) are so pleased we took that risk.  He has grown and blossomed into an incredible kid, person, friend, brother and son.  He started first grade–I can’t believe it.  I hate to be cliche–but time goes so fast.  His spirit is amazing and to watch his personality develop continues to be amazing.  Being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever done, but it is also the most rewarding.

This morning is the early morning hours, Noah and I sat on the couch.  I held him close in my lap and kissed his head and told him that 6 years ago, half-way around the world, I got to hold him just like this for the first time.  We talked about how he was sick and why we celebrate Noah day on August 23rd and not August 21.  We decided in Ethiopia we would celebrate the day that we became his parents–the day we stuck out necks out and took a risk for our son.  The day we were his advocate.  That is the day that made us a family.  That is the day we celebrate.  We talked about how he was lucky to be at Wanna being cared for, because if he hadn’t been–he probably would not have survived.  We talked about how not having access to clean water is really sad and that getting medicine isn’t easy.  He thinks its sad that they can’t just go to Target and get the medicine they need.  I assured him that I think it’s sad too.  Every child, every parent should have access to the simplest things in life and water is one of them. Medicine is another.

I hope these are lessons that my children carry with them and I hope it informs the adults they grow into and influences their actions.

If Only There Was A Manual

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I know that the idea of a parenting manual is asinine as every kid is different.  But, I could certainly use one now.

Noah, our first, is an amazing kid.  He is so sensitive and full of life and love.  But he is also impulsive (at times) and easily frustrated.  He takes everything personally and this sometimes causes him to lash-out.  He hates to get in trouble.  Even more, he hates to be told he did something wrong.

As I write this, I realize I need to tell him more what he is doing right.  I will, without a fight, take responsibility for my child and their actions.

I could beat myself up with the questions:
What have I done to enable/encourage this behavior?
What has my husband done?

But I won’t.  As I lay awake in bed at 3:30 this morning, wondering what I had done wrong (I know a bit melodramatic–it’s not like my 6-year-old did anything that  horrible–he threw a toy at the neighbor girl and then hit the babysitter when she scolded him and went for a bike ride without telling her–causing her to panic a bit–yes, all serious infractions).  He is an angel at school, takes his consequences without so much as a eye-roll and is respectful to all authority figures.

This was the first time, he has acted like this with anyone who wasn’t his parents or his grandparents.  I have been trying to figure out how to leverage punishments as opposed to consequences.  I did a lot of early morning reading on my iPad as I pondered all my parenting wrongs.  I certainly need more than a few early morning sleepless hours for that.

My first instinct when I heard what he had done was to punish him but taking away TV, and making him stay in his room for the rest of the week/weekend.  But then I read something that really spoke to me and to the style of discipline that is used at the kids school.  That if I send him to his room for a weekend and take away TV, all I am teaching him to do is “do time.”  This made sense to me.  What I discovered might work (again, every kid is different) is a consequence that is task-based and not necessarily time-based.

So, I thought about what he had done and decided what the punishment consequence would be.  He would no longer be able to play with the neighbors when they have a babysitter (the dynamic of my two kids and there two kids can  be good–but it can also be bad–there is a lot of competition to be Alpha).  He would not be allowed to play with his swords when he has friends over. And he would not be able to play at all until he wrote a letter of apology to both the neighbor girl and the babysitter.

He fought it, and at first didn’t want to talk about it and spend some time in his room thinking about it and being mad at me (really being mad at himself).  He talked about not wanting to listen to teenagers, etc.  The sitter had told him he was being bad one day (he was messing with his sister) and Noah didn’t like that and it just all boiled up.  I made it clear that his babysitter is the BOSS when they are here and that hitting is never okay and isn’t going to tolerated anymore.  He doesn’t hit hard–it’s more of a symbolic gesture (he isn’t doing it to cause physical harm–but that isn’t the point).

He asked to write the letters this morning and we did.

I don’t know if this consequence will have an impact or not, but I do think it really got him thinking about what he did (more than being sent to him room would have) as he had to articulate what he did and how he felt.

Parenting is really just a crap shoot and I don’t know what i could have done differently, if anything, but we just have to keep trying and doing what we think is right.  Everyday I am a parent, makes me realize that attempting to judge any parent for what you see a kid doing at one particular moment is wrong and not helpful.  Maybe that is the only thing the parenting handbook needs to say.