The Girl Just Wants to Have Fun
September 29, 2008 at 9:45 am | Posted in Activities, Ballet, Swimming | 5 CommentsOn Saturday, Clare auditioned to be in The Nutcracker at her ballet school. Even though she’s taking classes there, auditions are held and being cast isn’t guaranteed. The lead roles in the ballet are performed by senior students and professional dancers; the younger kids play angels and soldiers. Clare was cast as an angel and is really excited. She won’t only be performing at a local theater, but also at The Bushnell in Hartford.
We’re a little concerned that Clare will have to go to rehearsal twice a week. She’s already going to her regular dance class one day, and she has swimming and diving at the YMCA another day. Clare’s Mom and I have told her that if she can’t also stay focused on her school work, she’ll have to drop out. Drop out of The Nutcracker that is, not school.
We’re also a little concerned about how seriously some of the other young ballerinas’ parents take dancing. While I was waiting to pick up Clare from her dance class last week, a mom struck up a conversation with me. How old is your daughter? How long has she been dancing? Did we look at other dance schools and ballet companies?
As the conversation went on, I realized that this mom takes her daughter’s ballet pretty seriously. Maybe too seriously. She’s planning years of training and a professional career for her daughter. And her daughter is also only six or seven.
When I mentioned that Clare also goes to the Y for swimming, the woman asked me how Clare was going to work swimming and ballet into a career.
How is she going to work swimming and ballet into a career? Really?
I was tempted to bring up syncronized swimming or possible remakes of Busby Berkeley musicals. But I said that Clare was taking ballet and swimming for fun. She might get a career out of them and that’s fine. But she probably won’t and that’s fine too. The woman’s look was somewhere between being confused and being insulted.
Luckily, most kids and parents also seem to be at Clare’s ballet school for the fun and the experience. I can appreciate that some young girls do want a career as a dancer, and in this field the sooner they start the better I suppose. But they have to appreciate that some girls just want to have fun.
Has anyone else dealt with parents who take their kids’ activities this seriously?
Daydream Believer and a Homecoming Queen
September 23, 2008 at 2:23 pm | Posted in Growing Up, Second Grade | 10 CommentsI’ve seen Clare in a whole new way in the past week.
Clare’s Mom went to the school year’s first Home and School Association meeting last week and open house at Clare’s school. Our fears that Clare is spiraling behind and will never make anything out of her life because she doesn’t like homework have been relieved. It turns out that nobody likes homework. Who knew? Clare isn’t the only kid adjusting to second grade. Thanks also to those of you who left comments telling me that your kids aren’t perfect little homework-doing machines either. It’s nice to get a reality check on things like that.
The struggles to finish homework are continuing—especially with spelling—but it’s not as bad as the first couple of weeks of school. And the work is paying off. Clare just brought home a 100+ on a spelling test. The “plus” was for spelling the bonus word, Mississippi. Ironically, she can’t spell Connecticut.
There’s something else that Clare’s teacher said that really struck me though. Clare, she said, is a daydreamer and everybody likes her. These things didn’t surprise me about Clare at all, but for the first time I thought, “We’ve got a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.” We’re raising Miss Congeniality.
Clare, like all kids, is growing and continually developing a personality. Sure babies and toddlers have personalities, but it’s maybe not until first or second grade that parents really see beyond the cuteness in all of them and start to envision the type of teenager and adult that their kids will be. It’s almost kind of sad to picture her grown. She’s tall, smart, stylish, friendly, caring, and I can totally see “daydream believer” and “miss congeniality” in her for years to come.
I think about the other kids in Clare’s class too—kids we’ve known for two years now—and I see it happening to all of them. I hate classifying kids or any people into types, but it’s inevitable. I can see who some of them will be. The brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, the criminal. Okay, with any luck there won’t be a criminal. And the basket case probably takes longer to develop. But we’ve got the princess covered. How about you? Were you a “type”? I was a brain and borderline nerd, but I think I grew out of it—I didn’t like science or math. If there’s such a thing as an arts nerd that was me. And how about your kids? Can you picture yours grown too?
Big
September 19, 2008 at 9:48 pm | Posted in Day Trips, Food and Drink | 4 Comments
I’m not a big fan of fairs. I could go all year without seeing (and smelling) livestock and prize-winning vegetables. I don’t really care who in New England sewed the prettiest quilt or bottled the best preserves. But, at least once or twice each fall, Clare and Clare’s Mom pull me along to a fair.
Today, Clare had a day off from school (for teacher meetings which probably could have been held three weeks ago before school started). Taking advantage of a beautiful summer’s end day, we headed to Massachusetts for the mother of all New England fairs. It’s called the The Big E which stands for the Eastern States Exposition. But, because no Eastern states outside of New England are invited, the E might stand for exclusive or elitist. I hear some of us East coasters have that reputation.
I wasn’t dragged to the fair completely against my will though. I’m a fan of the rides and the food. Especially the food. We’ve got the usual fair fare of popcorn, fried dough, candy apples, and greasy burgers and dogs. But, this being New England, we’ve also got lobster, clamcakes, chowders, maple sugar candy, Vermont cheeses, and apple and blueberry pie. Not to mention the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Sam Adams beer as well as other local desserts and brews. Yeah, the food kind of makes going to the fair worth it all.
So what are you and yours doing this last weekend of summer?
Wordless Wednesday: Pink Sky at Night
September 17, 2008 at 7:48 pm | Posted in Wordless | 3 Comments
Overwhelmed
September 16, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Posted in Homework, Second Grade | 5 CommentsI’m not the only person in the family who’s been working harder lately. Clare, who last year in first grade became accustomed to homework she could knock off in two minutes, is a bit, um, let’s call it overwhelmed with second grade homework.
It isn’t that she can’t do the work. Setting her mind to it, she can do everything correctly by herself. She doesn’t even need me to read instructions to her anymore. But she still wants me to help. She likes me to be on the ready so she can question everything she’s done. She also complains endlessly about the amount of homework she’s getting this year. But it really isn’t that much more.
It’s probably a matter of confidence. Maybe Clare just needs to be reassured every day that she’s smart and can handle second grade. I suppose it’s also possible that her second grade teacher isn’t as nurturing and reassuring as her Kindergarten and first grade teachers were. Every kid needs a few tough teachers along the way though―and come to think of it my first tough teacher was in second grade too. (Maybe sometime I’ll tell you how my Dad got me in trouble with her once and I had to polish church pews instead of getting recess.)
I hope the homework problem will improve. There has to be a point where she accepts it or gets more confident in her ability to handle it, right? Last week, Clare complained about her homework for so long that it took four hours to do it. And it was only four pages of second grade spelling. I think we’re slowly improving though. Yesterday’s homework breakdown only lasted about twenty minutes.
Have anyone else’s kids had a sudden problem with handling homework? Is it just because of the start of a new school year? Or might it be all downhill from here until I let her drop out in third grade?
You Made It!
September 11, 2008 at 6:30 pm | Posted in Blogging | 20 CommentsSo here you are. Welcome to the debut of Clare’s Dad 2.0. I had been thinking about moving my blog to WordPress for months and I finally did it. Let me know what you think of the look. I know it’s a little plain right now, but we’ll have some pictures eventually and the header image may rotate. I did want to keep a little color and the title font of the old blog. I’ve worked hard at branding, you know. As for old posts, only a couple of them are here from the old blog. The others aren’t gone forever; they’re being saved for Clare.
I’ve also finally bought the Clare’s Dad name as a dot.com. Be sure to update your links and readers. I know it’s a hassle, but I’ve done it for some of you. The old blog will be accessible for a couple of months and then go private. It’s not that I’m hiding from any of you, it’s just that I’ve finally decided that I want a little more privacy for my family life. As it was, it had become far too easy for anyone to Google me and read a history of the past three years. Besides, if you want to stalk me, just look me up on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re really into that, you can find me on LinkedIn too.
I’ll be around soon with more new posts. Thanks for sticking around.
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