Perfect Parenting Projects

Hello from Impending Doom (i.e. Sunday night before another week of pandemic parenting)! I hope you are holding up – if so, you are killing it! Nice job! 

For those of you who, like me, now have a preschooler at home and previously had absolutely no skills at keeping said preschooler engaged because you work and they go to preschool for a reason, I am here to share with you my new Perfect Parenting Projects advice. I’m qualified to provide this advice because my brother and his wife are preschool professionals, and I have rudimentary Vulcan Mind Meld skills (don’t tell), so I can now be trusted to guide you along on this newly-appointed-preschool-teacher journey. 

Step 1: Flail around on various Montessori-at home websites, and become totally overwhelmed by the volume of material and required time investment. Also get extremely confused because you have no formal Montessori training and you are not privy to the above-mentioned mind meld. Close 45 tabs and come back to this one. Now. Ready?

 

Serenity - it will all be ok (maybe, unless we all die and/or lose our jobs/housing//family members/friends, but who is counting...ok back to focusing on relatively small things because the rest is too much)

Step 2: Set up a sensory day:

(a)   Sight – cut paint swatches in half, and/or gather pairs of different-looking things like different sized washers, nuts, bolts, etc.  kid can do matching and then also ordering. Kids with Montessori experience in particular totally get this. It’s kind of magical. 

Estimated set-up time: 5-20 minutes. 

Estimated time this will keep them busy: 5-20 minutes, depending how hard you made it (I had like 16 shades of taupe – so proud of past me for keeping those). 

(b)  Smell – grab some things from the kitche that are kind of obvious-smelling and wrap them in foil, then poke some holes in them. Offer them to your kid to identify.
Estimated set-up time: 5 minutes. 

Estimated time this will keep them busy: 3 minutes. 

Not the most visually appealing

(c)   Taste – cut up tiny pieces of things and have your kid close their eyes & pop them into their mouths. Probably best not to give them things that will make them freak out, like maybe no jalapeños, and probably nothing deemed “gross”. 

Estimated set-up time: 2-5 minutes. 

Estimated time this will keep them busy: 3 minutes. They will probably ask to do it again with different things. 

(d)  Touch – put random objects into a cloth bag and have your kid try to identify them without looking in the bag. 

Estimated set-up time: 5 minutes of casting about the random things in kitchen drawers. 

Estimated time this will keep them busy: 5-20 minutes, depending on how hard you make it and how many clues you give. 

(e)   Hearing – re-use your paper towel/TP rolls to make matching-paired-shakers. Put inside things like dry beans, washers, rice, etc. 

Estimated set-up time: 30 minutes. 

Estimated time this will keep them busy: Maybe 5 minutes, but more like 2 if you make it too easy. 

There are probably faster & definitely less crappy ways to do this

Step 3: Design and carry out a super-creative craft project using items from nature:

(a)   Find an old Glass Gem corn cob in a drawer. 

(b)  Kernels must be plucked off using tweezers. This is good for fine-motor-skill development/practice. Disclaimer: I did not come up with this; we bought this cob to copy a work from the little one’s preschool, but then the little one decided the cob was too precious to take apart. However, I convinced her to use the cob for this work because of the awesome final-outcome, which will be to have a beautiful necklace to wear and show off said awesome kernels.

(c)   When the older child decides this looks way more fun than doing math worksheets that have been assigned, spend 30 minutes negotiating with the little one that the older child can also pluck half of the kernels from the cob as long as the little one gets to wear all necklaces made from said kernels.

(d)  Drill holes in a portion of the kernels the younger child has plucked while the children try to build robots from random nuts and bolts, and you explain what torque is and why the little whirring battery-powered motor that will spin a tiny propeller won’t propel a wood/nuts & bolts robot across the floor.

(e)   Partway through the hole drilling, the kids get bored of their robot plans.

(f)    The younger child decides she doesn’t want to make a necklace after all, and the kernels now must just live in the bowl she put them in. 

So pretty! Maybe I'll just make a necklace for myself

Step 4: Feel discouraged. Decide maybe we can just do playdoh, read, and watch movies for the next month. That probably never killed anyone.  

Never underestimate the awesomeness of facepaint

How to get your kid set up for remote-learning

In this very weird new world we find ourselves in, connected to others by computer, phones, and waves across a 6-foot chasm, I thought I would share with you my winning solution to getting your elementary-school kids set up for their new remote-learning situation. 

First, try not to let the emails from your school district learning coordinator, superintendent, principal and teacher get lost amongst the avalanche of emails re-assuring you that it is totally fine to re-book your airline flight, buy cupcakes delivered by disinfected drone, sign up for a zoom-based exercise class, etc. 

Next, once you have located the relevant emails amongst the haystack of others, pour yourself some coffee (or other beverage), take a deep breath, and sit down to read them.

 

These kids are way smarter than you might realize. This guy made his own worksheet, and one for his sister, after re-arranging our guest room into a makeshift classroom the day we learned that schools were closing. 

After reading the emails, save them as PDFs or print them, or put them in a special folder, and/or mark them as unread, and add a star/flag/whatever, because you are going to have to find them again. 

Now, lay down and have a good cry. My cry was mostly about how sad I feel for my kids, who love their schools so damn much, and their friends, and their teachers. Yes, it’s really nice in many ways to have more time together – but holy shit I am a terrible little-kid teacher and I am definitely not a good little-kid-friend, and our house is not in any way a substitute for a school environment. 

After you have a good cry, and feel better even though it doesn’t particularly help anything, wait until the next day. 

Try again, this time with your kid. Open the emails. Walk through the instructions step by step with your kid, and let your kid explain the parts you don’t get (“I already know how to do this, mom”). Maybe throw in a little “stop clicking so quickly!” in your best curmudgeonly voice. 

Be grateful that (if you are lucky like me), your kid’s teacher/school is amazing, and their expectations are reasonable.  

Or, if not, maybe sent them an email. This is all a weird experiment and no one knows what on earth we are doing. 

Then hug your kids. And maybe cry a little more. 

Along the same lines as the first photo, when you have no idea what you are doing, your kids might just come up with their own learning projects. The 4 yr old came up with her own Montessori-based ordering work using these wrenches when I was fixing our car a few weeks ago (the kids did not find watching me get dirty and frustrated very interesting). 

How to do your job poorly

Well hello out there! Long time no overshare! 

It’s been a little hectic around here – we’ve been overcommitted at work and spending too much free time (figuratively) banging our heads into a wall fighting crappy development projects, and trying not to be horrible parents and such. So, not a lot of time to write stuff, but I’ve managed to get on top of a few things and finally carved out a few minutes! Feeling really chuffed with myself. 

I’ve been reflecting lately on the general concept of work, and how a person gauges their own aptitude and overall “goodness” at a job. I have learned that I personally require a lot of external feedback to gauge whether or not I am doing Ok – I mean, not that I completely listen to people when they tell me I’m being a stubborn asshole, but, as with my sense of time, my ability to self-gauge is….poor. 

Some of this is probably “imposter syndrome” – where you feel like you got in the door accidentally, and at any moment, someone will notice that you aren’t supposed to be there, and kick you out. But, some of the je ne sais quoi – “essence” let’s call it – of being good at your job is not related to how well you perform technically, but how productive per unit time you are, or how much money you make, or whatever – I’m sure there are heaps more metrics (“pleasantness” perhaps?) of what makes a person “good” at their job.  

ANYWAY. 

The point of this blog is that I was thinking of some really fabulous examples of people being just absolute shit at their jobs, and this in a way is really helpful for me, to give me a nice clear sense of “no, that is not good, do not emulate.” So, in case you, too, struggle with knowing “am I doing Ok?”, I hope these examples help you, as well. 

Case 1: Just really not quite getting it

This actually didn’t happen to me, but to my mom. I won’t tell the story as well, but I’ll try. 

Scene: at the shoe portion of a department store. 

My mom: “Hello, can I please try on this shoe? I wear a size 7 and a half.”

Shoe salesman: “Sure, one moment.” [disappears for a while]

Shoe salesman: “Here you are! We didn’t have a 7 and a half, so I brought you a 6 and a half.” 

My mom: 

Shoe salesman: “Would you like to try them on?”

My mom: “I. Um. How do you… Um. I….” [bursts into flames]

Just another day at work for my friend Jessica Meir, performing maintenance outside of the Space Station (OMG, WOW, right?!). This is a good example of a time when a half-assed job just won't do.

Case 2: Really exemplifying your point very poorly

Not too long ago, I was at a required training class at work. The class was intended to teach us how to be good workers. Being as I am always feeling a bit overwhelmed, I was excited to find out the secrets to not sucking that I figured everyone else already knew. I expected this would lead to smooth sailing through the days from here out. 

Scene: a windowless room with about 30 adults sitting around groups-of-4 tables with table-tent name tags we were encouraged to decorate to express ourselves.

Instructor: “Now, you are all great at your technical work, and that’s why you were hired. But the ONLY way to succeed in this job, and life in general, is to have good SOFT SKILLS. This means being emotionally intelligent and understanding how to interact with other people effectively.”

Me: “I don’t think you mean to say that is the ONLY way to succeed.”

Instructor: “Oh, yes, definitely. If you don’t have good people skills, you will NEVER succeed. You will be a failure.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure that’s discriminatory, and illegal.” 

Instructor: [completely loses his shit and screams at me, then realizes what he is doing and runs out of the room]

Everyone in the room: “Good display of soft skills there, instructor.”

Case 3: Act like you are a good person, but then do the exact opposite of what a good person would do

This one was inspired by a certain elected official who just really sucks, but I’m sure can be applied to many others across the planet. Perhaps they were all trained by the “soft skills” guy at my work. 

Scene: Anywheretown.

Nominee: You know what I care about? All the things that you care about! Let’s make stuff awesome!

Rabble: Yes! Finally! I’m so glad this person cares! I’m totally voting for them.

Elected person: Awesome guys, thanks so much for electing me! I totally still care about all the things that you care about. This is going to be wonderful.

Rabble: Woohoo! 

Elected person: Now, as I was saying, because we all care so deeply about the same things, I will now take decisive action to completely undermine these things, but I will do so while claiming that I have no other choice, and/or that you are just wrong in thinking that this is bad. 

Rabble: Wait, but no. We hate that. It is bad. Like, measurably bad.

Elected person: Well, what did you think was going to happen? I mean, I can’t actually make things better by making decisions that you approve of. That would be too hard.

Rabble: But, why?

Elected person: Well, because someone is going to complain about everything. So, I’ve decided it’s better just to say I care about certain things to sooth everyone’s nerves, and then behind your backs I will just do whatever I want. And then I’ll blame you, if you don’t like it. It’s really your fault for being fussy, you know. 

Rabble: What the fuck?

Elected person: I just smelled a rich person. Gotta run! Tootles!

Rabble: [scrabbling around] Where are the god damned pitchforks when you need them?!

Now THIS is some authentic good work. Little Jessica is working super hard here, most likely describing the difference in crystal size and therefore cooling rate of these two igneous rock specimens.

Case 4: Take all of your stress out on your coworkers

Scene: The conference room, with your core group of coworkers that you really like and respect.

Coworker 1: I have a very reasonable question for you!

You: FAAAACK. Really? I can’t. Blarggghhhh [rolls on floor for a while]

Coworker 2: I mean, that is a very reasonable question. Perhaps you can try to answer it.

You: [bangs hands and fists on floor, shakes head back and forth rapidly] Nooooo!!!! I don’t wannnnnnaaaaaa!

Coworker 3: Do you need to go home?

You: My kids have been sick for like a century and I got puked on and did four loads of laundry yesterday and haven’t slept properly in like a decade. Is that what you were asking about? No? Oh. You want me to provide data. OH! Sorry. I thought this was an opportunity to overshare about my personal stresses. 

Everyone: [stares]

You: Do you feel loved, that I’m comfortable enough with you to lose my shit?

Everyone: [shrugs]

You: [looks at notes] Ok, sorry. Looks like...42. 

Ok guys! Since Case 4 was me, today, I think I will self-diagnose bedtime now. Hopefully that will put Case 4 on the backburner for a while from yours truly...but in any case, if this coronavirus business keeps on its course, there might be more posts coming soon where this one came from, if we’re all stuck at home! WHOOHOO!

Do you have a best-worst-job performance story? Please leave it in the comments. It would be such a treat.