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Tell me about your kids - I love reading the little stories and funny comments, but I want to know more about them. Share pics if you want to!
No, this is not a creepy stalker thread. I'm not intested in knowing vital statistics alone or where they go to school or what they look like so I can kidnap them for nefarious purposes. I want to know their dreams, goals, special talents - the things about them that amaze you as their parents and make you just say "Wow."
Consider it a brag thread, but also a thread that might offer insight - I learn a ton from my kids, and they make me look at the world differently. Hatrack kids have always seemed to be a special bunch, so I know we can all learn from them. Plus they're all adoringly cute.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Natalie is entering seventh grade this fall. She is twelve on paper but much older in spirit, I think.
She's had to grow up too fast, with the loss of one grandfather to cancer last year, and the divorce of my parents, and then introducing my birth father into the family she's dealt with a lot of upheaval. Several years ago, when I was in the grip of depression, she bore the brunt of that, being the oldest child I treated her unfairly. When it was hard for me to do things around the house because all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and be miserable, she wound up doing things for the other kids, and a lot of housework, and then would get yelled at by me because I was angry and ashamed at myself and she was the only one there that I could lash out at, the other kids were too young to really blame for stuff.
Once I got help, and got better, one of the things I did was sit her down and tell her I treated her unfairly, and that I loved her and was sorry, and that I wanted her to feel like she could tell me the things that were upsetting her, even if it was something that I was doing or saying to her. The child responded with nothing but love, which almost broke my heart. But, she did take me up on that, telling me things that upset her, like she felt that when she came home from school I didn't act like I was all that interested in her day and she really needed to talk to me about it. So we made a deal that every day, when she comes in the door I drop whatever I'm doing (get off the computer, for example) and talk.
Now, of course, that I've been recovering for some time and things are better, she acts annoyed when I ask her about her day. But she tells me anyway, and I give her what she deserves - my attention and my respect. Because while it doesn't matter to me who sat with who on the bus and who likes what boy and who is mad at who, it matters very much to her. And if I love her and respect her I will at least make an effort to care about the things she cares about.
We have a great relationship now and I learn a lot from her. She wrote a poem not long ago about time. I would share the whole thing but she wants to try and get it published in some publications that accept entries from kids.
Here is an excerpt:
quote: Time. Time is a treasure. Time is priceless. So please use every second, Every gem of it, Wisely. Use every sparkling jewel of it To make life easier for those, Whose time has not yet come
She loves to read and write, and I think she's pretty good. For her age, she has good insight into people. She has such a high level of empathy, many times she's come home from school in tears not because anything happened to her, but because a friend is hurting about something. In one case it was because a boy we know that has Asberger's was being teased by other kids, Natalie stood up for him, telling the boys how smart the kid was, which then had them teasing her about the boy being her boyfriend.
Natalie mentioned that in passing, it didn't faze her. She was crying because "Mom, I know it was hurting Josh's feelings, but he was trying not to cry, and I just wanted them to leave him alone but they were trying to make him cry so they could tease him some more and I don't understand why people would want to do that to someone else."
Natalie can be brutally honest if I ask her to. Like when I told her to tell me if there was anything I was doing that upset her, she told me and it hurt. But it hurt because I knew she was right. Our relationship now is excellent, it upsets my husband some times because he feels like he isn't as close to her as he'd like to be, and he admitted he was jealous of our rapport. Natalie and I can sit and talk and laugh about books we've both read for an hour. Sometimes I let her stay up later than her siblings so we can curl on the couch together and watch one of our Lord of the Rings DVD's. We usually only get through one DVD of an extended version, so we try to remember which one we watched last when we get a chance to do it. I think right now we are on the second disc of The Two Towers.
I am simultaneously saddened and happy that she's beginning to look beyond her life here with us and plan for the future. Sad because I know I'll miss her desperately and happy because I believe she will achieve her goals and because I am so incredibly proud to be her mother and watching her grow up to a lovely, intelligent, talented, and kind young woman is just amazing.
Right now her plans for the future are to get a scholarship somewhere and major in English, particularly linguistics. She loves language, and wants to study it. Then she hopes to go all the way through, get a PhD and become a college professor. I realize that my being in college is probably influencing all these thoughts, she believes that every class I take is fascinating and that what she has to do in school is boring. So I know that it's liable to change, but I also know that if that's what she really wants, she can do it.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Belle, natalie sounds like a wonderful soul.
I'll tell all about mine when I have time to do them justice, but I'm supposed to be doing my annual report.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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OK, so I asked my kid (14 year old boy) if I could tell all about him. Um...he appropriated the computer and I had to wait for him to finish.
That about says it.
I do have a cute story about him from when he was about 4 years old:
I took him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Egyptian exhibit. (For anyone who hasn't seen it, it is awesome.) I told him that we would be seeing the mummies and stuff from Ancient Egypt. After a few hours of looking at the Egyptian mummies, he was getting restless, and said that he had seen enough of the mummies from Egypt, and that he wanted to see some of the ones from Ainsh.
"From where?" "Ainsh." "I don't know what that is." "You know -- the other mummy place. Ainsh." "What makes you think there is another mummy place?" "Because you said so, Mommy. You said that we would be seeing the mummies from Ainsh and Egypt."
He was disappointed when I explained that "ancient" just means really really old, and that the museum only had one mummy exhibit.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote: I wish I had kids. Try to teach them more then one language when they're young...
Always teach them more than one language, if you can. Preferably have English as one of them. It's very helpful studying grammar, and it's extremely benefitial when learning a third.
Of course, you might end up like me... Maybe it's not that worthwhile. Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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nah I want them to end up like you, I only know english and a spattering of french I want my kids to know Russian, Japanese, Chinese, possibly Hebrew and German y'know the important languages.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Amanda (12) wants to join Hatrack, but I told her she has to read a book by OSC first. (Now if I could just find my copy of Ender's Game ... )
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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My little one asked me if I could help her make a "potion". I wasn't sure what she meant. Turns out she wanted to make an essential oil blend to help our family's stress as we move. She shows her love in such sweet and beautiful ways. As my hubby and I are working so hard on our house, she often volunteers to give us foot rubs or back rubs. She's only 7, and already she's so sensitive to the family emotional dynamics!
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:My little one asked me if I could help her make a "potion". I wasn't sure what she meant. Turns out she wanted to make an essential oil blend to help our family's stress as we move.
That is the coolest thing I have heard in a while.
When I was her age, I was steadfastly refusing to let potential buyers in to look at my room. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Some of you other parents better get in here - I know there are some more fantastic kids that we need to hear about. Jenny, that is so cool. I wish I could meet your little one.
All right, my Emily. What can you say about her? You'd really have to just meet her, she's a very vibrant personality. Always moving, nearly always smiling. She's going to be 8 in September.
Emily is fascinated by all things medical. She wants to be either a nurse or a doctor. Her favorite book is a kid's anatomy book that describes the functions of all the major organ systems and has detailed pictures of muscle groups and the skeleton and such.
When my oldest daughter needed to have an ingrown toenail removed, Emily asked the podiatrist if she could watch. He said yes, and she was right there the whole time - leaning her head over so she could see better and asking questions, which he cheerfully answered. It made me queasy, because the nail was badly infected, so we weren't just talking about blood but all sorts of other nasty stuff but she didn't flinch. Dr. asked her what type of doctor she wanted to be and she said "I want to work with kids, and I want to be the one that fixes their bones when they break." He said "That's a pediatric orthopedic surgeon," and she just nodded and said, "That's what I'll be."
And if Emily says she'll do something, it's usually a done deal. This is the most determined, focused kid I've ever been around. She's a gymnast, and a pretty good one. She's been there a year, started in the beginner class, was promoted to intermediate class after four months and then to the Advanced class after another two months. She almost made the competition team this year, she just needed a little more upper body strength for the uneven bars. When her coach told her that, she came home and asked her Dad to put in a pull-up bar so she could do chin-ups and pull-ups and build up her arm strength. She kept asking until he did it, and now she goes out and does sets of five several times a day.
When they work on the balance beam, they have basic exercises they do and then they work on new moves. You're allowed to fall off on new moves, but if you fall on a basic exercise, you must do ten pushups before you can get back on the beam. Emily's never done pushups. Her coach told me she's the best tumbler in the class, a powerful vaulter, and has a lot of natural balance. Her Achilles heel right now is the uneven bars, but at the rate she's working on her upper arm strength it won't be for long.
When Emily sets her mind on something, she goes after it. I never, never tell her to work out or practice at home. Usually I tell her to stop before she hurts herself or because it's almost bedtime. She bugs me on gymnastic days "Do I need to get my leotard on yet? Should I tell everybody to get their shoes on so we'll be ready to go? Is it time to leave yet?" There's nothing she'd rather do than be at the gym, well, maybe watching a surgical procedure - that might be the only thing she'd prefer over gymnastics.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Well, as my daughter is only 8 months old, I don't have very many interesting stories. However, I can tell you right now that she is going to be a writer. A few weeks ago she really wanted to type at the computer (like me!), so I opened up a blank document and let her have at it. She typed away for a few minutes, then highlighted everything and deleted it. I told her that I understood the feeling.
Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Both my kids are registered users of Hatrack and have been for a few years, so I don't think they'd want me talking about them.
For that matter, two of my nephews are also registered users - one of them an active poster.
My daughter is around and reading Hatrack. I am not sure how much she is posting, though, as I haven't run across too many of her posts. We must be frequenting different threads.
My son is currently on a service project in Honduras, basically incommunicado for 7 weeks, with the exception of periodic group updates transmitted through the sponsoring organization's home office in NY.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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Aww... I was hoping this was going to be a thread about the kids who are ON hatrack, not kids of jatraqueros.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I think I have already given so many stories of my three kids that people are tired of hearing about them. And many of you have met at least one two of them. And since one of them IS a Hatracker -- I know that she would have the same reaction ElJay showed in the second post of this thread...
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I'll relate my favorite story of Anna as a young child. I was responsible for getting her off to either the babysitter or pre-school/school until about 4 yrrs ago. Getting her out the door was on time was always a challenge. The primary reason for the time crunch was her fussiness concerning her socks and underpants. She would take FOREVER to get dressed because either her socks or her panties didn't feel RIGHT. We had constant battles over this and one day she was even later than usual. I had made one or two sallies into her room to urge her to hurry. We were down to the wire for leaving and she still wasn't dressed. I was getting grumpy and I said, "If you can't decide on what panties to wear RIGHT NOW and get dressed, I'll decide what panties you'll wear and I'll put em on you like I would a baby (Anna's about 4 at this time). She looked up at me with fire in her eyes and yelled, "YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF MY PANTIES" This remembrance still brings a smile to my face.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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My 3yo son is just a cutie. My family, with the exception of my youngest brother are all anti- Harry Potter. We of course have been busy devouring the lastest book. So my 3 yo turns to my sister as we are driving up the mountain the other day and says
b: So have you read the new Harry Potter book yet? sis: Ummm no. b: You just have to read it. I am going to look at it later. sis: no answer Me: quickly change subject to avoid another discussion on the evils of HP...
We just had to laugh because he said it like some literary scholar sitting around at a get together discussing the lastest literature.
He is just too cute sometimes!
Friday night our two oldest spent the night at Grandmas. Our babysitters are out of town so we too B on the date with us. He was so thrilled to go on a date. We let him pick the dinner, McDonalds of course, then decided to just run errands since any of the movies we wanted to see aren't good for 3yos. So we went to Lowes and as he is getting out he says "But I thought we were going on a date" I told him we were, we were running errands for our date. Then I said "Boring huh?" He looks up with a serious look and says "Uh huh." Poor kid, just not ready for the married dating life....
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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On our last vacation, we gave Ryan Teddy Grahams for the first time. To keep him entertained, I would make the bears dance for him before he at them. Then, when he would put them in his mouth, I would quietly scream (we were on a plane) "Aaahhh, you're eating me, you're eating me! Nooooo!"
Now, whenever he eats them and he knows I'm around, he screams while they're in his mouth laughing all the time.
This will probably be the topic of one of the many therapy sessions he will have to have because of me.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Have (pronounced to rhyme with cave): To be good. As in, "We'll go to the park later today, if you behave." Sasha's reply--"OK Papa, I'll have all day."
Oreo: "She's the girl that swims in the ocean." ie--everyone's favorite little mermaid.
language question, is there a problem with children being confused when learning 3 languages. While Sasha knew a bit of Russian, he's mastered young English now, and his school is teaching Spanish, and we are planning on sending him to re-learn Russian when he turns 6.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Jim - Me I didn't see that thread, or I would have just bumped it. I enjoyed reading it.
Daniel is the boy half of my five year old twins. In another thread I've talked a bit about how he has a genetic condition that affects his muscles, joints, and fine motor control.
We first knew there was a problem when he was nine months old and still couldn't sit unsupported. Our pediatrician got us into physical therapy and he did very well - walking finally at 19 months. He walked for the first time right around Christmas and it was one of the best gifts I've ever gotten.
But I would be remiss if I talked only about the struggles Daniel has had. He is much, much more than just his limitations. This child I believe is the one most like me when I was that age. A lot of kids have imaginary friends when they are little, but Daniel had imaginary villages. He can weave fantastical stories, and tell them with expression and feeling. He loves books so much he sleeps with them. There are no stuffed toys in his bed when I go to wake him in the morning, he's surrounded by books. He can't read them yet, so he just pores over the pictures and makes up stories, sometimes I can even hear him talking and telling stories at night.
He is beginning to assert his identity as a boy, which is a tough thing when you're in a household all day with females. Wes' work schedule means he isn't here near as often as he'd like, but when he is, Daniel is attached to him.
I bathed the twins together for as long as I could, just for convenience sake, but I had to stop when Daniel insisted that he couldn't take a bath with a girl. He also is fascinated with everything to do with his daddy's profession of firefighting and has said that he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.
Daniel has taught me patience. I'm not a patient person naturally, but with him I've had to be. His older sisters were both high achievers early, and so is his twin sister. He is not...but I know that he's just as intelligent, not to mention engaging and kind, so I've had to learn to appreciate him and know that he'll catch up to all the academic type stuff soon, and that academic achievement is not a measure of my son's worth.
I was worried at first because he won't be able to play sports (his joints are too loose and susceptible to injury), and this is the south where sports is king. My husband played many different sports, and I know he wanted a son that he could play catch with and watch play organized sports.
But while it was worrying me, my husband wasn't much concerned at all. He said that none of our kids had to do or be anything in particular in order for him to be proud of them. He was extraordinarily proud of them all, and not because of their achievements in sports and school.
Daniel will need some help in the early school years. His occupational therapist assured me that by the time he reached middle and high school no one would be able to tell anything is different about him at all. But personally, I think he will be different from the other kids, and not because of his physical issues. He'll be different because he's bright, senstive, kind, creative, and just altogether wonderful.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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My son figured out how to get through the door on the silent cartographer. He's apparently not the first one ever to do it, but he discovered it on his own. He'll start kindergarten in a week.
The youngest is the most like her Dad. She'll make a great real estate agent, I think.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jenny, that is awesome! What a thoughtful girl!
(Will read more later, but have to pick Livvie up from theatre camp in an hour)
But I'll tell you about Matthew.
He's 8. He's very academically gifted. He reads on at least a middle school level ( test results any day now) and can do mental math faster than I could on a calculator. Today at the bank I asked him to do some arithmetic for me and he was complimented by another customer-he told me later that I should do these things myself in public, because he was embarrassed that his mother has such poor math skills.
His passions are Roman history, especially Julius Caesar, dragons, endangered species, and Harry Potter. He reads constantly.
Our classic story of what an awesome kid he is, is that he chose to give half his Christmas money for Tsunami relief.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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About the language thing, my advice is to teach very different languages, that way they can learn even more later when they have the foundations ready. I understand for example that for people who knows French learning Italian is pretty easy, not to mention Spanish and Portugese. I know Hebrew (Shematic language) and English (Indo-European language) so when I wanted to learn somehing alse I went to a completly different direction. Now I am about to begin my second year of Chinese in university and I'm loving every minute of it. I also learned French for 6 years because they made us learn it in my highschool but since I hate learning something I didn't chose (and the fact it doesn't help me understand "Friends" better) I didn't care about it and when the higheschool final exams came I got a good grade with the help of a private teacher and now I can't speak a single sentence in French, which I consider the biggest regret of my life.
let's see if you can see hebrew and chinese characters on your computers:
מה שלום כולם? 你好嗎? comment cava? (suppose to be french but who knows)
Posts: 34 | Registered: Jun 2005
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So, I'm making corned beef and cabbage in the crockpot today. I just went to add the cabbage. I went to the kitchen, chopped it, rinsed it. Emma followed me, interested.
Then she saw me open the crockpot and all the good smells came out. When I started poking around in it with a meat fork, rearranging veggies and meat to get the cabbage in, she walked over to "her" cupboard, where we keep her plastic dishes, and got out a plate, brought it over, and held it out to me. I told her it wasn't time for that yet, and to please go put it back. She did-- and brought me a bowl instead! She's just ready to eat this stuff!
So I gave her some teddy grahams in the bowl instead. Now she's over in a cardboard box with a foam liner we were shipped some chocolate-caramel covered apples in (a present from my aunt.) She's got her teddy bear, sippy cup of water, and bowl of teddy grahams in there with her, and is holding a pretend steering wheel going, "Voom! Room! Voom!" Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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*giggle* She HAS a cell phone, and we don't really wear makeup in this house. She has abandoned the "car" idea now, though, and is putting all the loose objects in sight into the box. I guess she's packing.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I've been thinking about writing about some of my children, but haven't gotten to it yet... maybe soon
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Tova is five and a half, and a teenager waiting to happen. She's bright and vivacious, and she has this weird charisma. I mean, my partner was walking her home from daycare when she wasn't even two (in an umbrella stroller), and someone made an unnecessary left turn just to get a closer look and tell my partner how beautiful Tova was.
Her vocabulary and way of talking is not that of a five year old. Probably because we've had a policy of talking to her like a person, rather than an incompetant, since she was in utero. I remember once when she and I were at Toys R Us in California, and we saw a woman pushing her child in a stroller. Tova was about 3 at the time, and I said, "Look, Tova, a baby boy". She looked, and turned to me and said, "Actually, it's a girl." Honest.
As we were finishing up at the store that day, she saw some bicycles and went to get on one of them (a pink one; she's batty about pink). It was two big for her, but she got on it. Then it fell over on top of her. Two women were at the customer service counter waiting to be helped, and had been watching this. They both made as if to run over to Tova. I held my hand up to stop them.
Tova didn't cry. She frowned a little, but got her determined look on, and pushed the bicycle up off of her. One of the women looked at me, amazed, and said, "She didn't even cry." I smiled and told her, "Watch. I bet she tries again." And sure enough, she got right back on the bike.
They say you shouldn't go to babies the moment they start crying. I so disagree. I think that the confidence Tova has is due in large part to the fact that we always went to her when she was crying, and that she feels secure.
Last week, we went to an Open House at her kindergarten. In the hall, each of the kids in her class had completed "What I want out of kindergarten is..." It was mostly "have fun" and "get smarter" and "play games". Tova wrote "hab a gob son" (have a job soon).
They have a recycling corner, where the kids build things out of paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls and egg cartons and old ketchup bottles and the like. There were little things called "Two T Tower" and "3 Stripe Tower". And there was this... thing, completely symmetrical, with egg cartons, ketchup bottles, tubes set onto the ketchup bottles, etc... and a sign telling us that it was "The Castle of Equality". Neither her teachers nor my partner and I have been able to get her to explain what that's all about.
My biggest worries are... well, probably unfair to her. She has charisma, like I said. Everyone notices her. She was at summer camp this summer, and the other four girls in her group all knew each other. Tova didn't know any of them. For the first two days, she kind of hung back, observing, but by the end of the week, the other girls were bickering over who got to hold Tova's hand, who got to sit next to her, and so on. Queen Bee Syndrome.
The only girls I ever knew like that when I was a kid were absolutely terrifying. And ruthless. I can't even call some of them cruel. They stepped on the "little people" like you'd step on an ant, without even noticing. Tova has such a big heart that it's probably wrong of me to worry, but you know, "power tends to corrupt".
Anyway, she's in this adolescent phase where she doesn't understand why we're entitled to tell her what to do. I understand that it lasts until they're in their 20s. <sigh> But I wouldn't trade her for anything in the 'verse. God was good to us when He gave her to us.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mr.Funny: Aww... I was hoping this was going to be a thread about the kids who are ON hatrack, not kids of jatraqueros.
Me too!
I thought the same thing at first, but I think I'm enjoying this thread more
--j_k
Me too!
By the way, has anyone else noticed that Hatrack seems to have had a bit of a baby boom in the last few months? What is it, three births and four pregnancies? I lost count!
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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That would be Abigail. Or as Natalie calls her - "Little Miss Queen of the World." This is the child that must not only be involved in everything - but in charge.
When I told the principal I didn't mind if he separated the twins into different kindergarten classes because she would only answer all Daniel's questions for him, she responded (in front of the principal) "Well, I wouldn't have to do it if he didn't get them WRONG."
There is a 10 foot tall personality packed into that tiny little body. Abigail is very small for her age, but doesn't let her size slow her down. She acts as if being born into the world at the same time as her brother means she must mother him his entire life. Poor Daniel doesn't stand a chance.
Abigail is a lot of fun, and the child of mine most interested in "girly" things like dressing up and looking pretty. She's also extraordinarily verbal - she has a pretty good vocabulary and definitely makes herself understood. I can't wait to see where she will be in 20 years, I have a feeling that she'll take the world by storm.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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My daughter loves capers, too. And salsa, and spicy Indian food, and candied ginger, and olives... Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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The little girl I babysit (who is almost exactly Ems age) doesn't like watermelon but pretends she does because her brother (3 and a half) does.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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But she tells me anyway, and I give her what she deserves - my attention and my respect. Because while it doesn't matter to me who sat with who on the bus and who likes what boy and who is mad at who, it matters very much to her. And if I love her and respect her I will at least make an effort to care about the things she cares about.![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
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I wish I could meet your little one. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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