Lydia Archives - Page 23 of 50 - Ramblin' with Roger

The Lydster: are we bad parents?

I came across this article 8 Things Kids Need to Do By Themselves Before They’re 13. The premise is this: “How do we raise competent adults if we’re always doing everything for our kids? Walk away from doing these 8 things for your teen this school year.”

How did the Daughter’s parents do?

1. Waking them up in the morning

Guilty, and it’s usually me. I think it’s a function of the fact that I HATE waking up to the alarm clock, which I hear every weekday morning, not for MY sake, but for my wife’s. The Daughter DOES wake up occasionally on her own.

It’s been a real change from sixth grade, when she could literally wake up 20 minutes before school started, still getting there before the late bell, and now, which involves taking the bus, which sometimes comes early.

I HAVE stopped repeatedly nudging her, though, because that was too exhausting for ME!

2. Making their breakfast and packing their lunch

She usually gets lunch at school, and she could get breakfast if necessary. Still, I’d rather make breakfast, because the cleanup afterwards is much less for me. And left to her own devices, she might just ea that pizza for breakfast that I was planning for lunch.

3. Filling out their paperwork

The only really complicated one involves names and phone numbers of our friends and relatives as emergency contacts. I’m just happy she brings out the paperwork in a more timely fashion, usually.

4. Delivering their forgotten items

I have done that once recently, before a field trip when she needed money to eat lunch on a field trip. I delivered her cash just in time, and I received a rare public hug. OK, I’ll try to do better.

5. Making their failure to plan your emergency

This tends to be more her mother’s failing, getting stuff for her she needs at the last minute, but the Daughter has gotten much better over the school year.

6. Doing all of their laundry

Her mother does do most of the laundry, period. But the summer will be a good opportunity for Clothes Washing 101.

7. Emailing and calling their teachers and coaches

Interesting, a couple teachers have contacted US, saying the Daughter is doing well.

8. Meddling in their academics

In the first marking period, she was doing less well in her favorite subject, probably because she hadn’t handed in some homework she had actually completed. I know this because I’ve sat with her when she did it. But I never got involved with her teachers, mostly because keeping track of her 12 classes in 8 periods was too complicated for ME. And she’s come to do more of her school work on her own.

I’ll admit, though, that I like knowing what she’s learning. 7th grade math that I wasn’t doing until 9th grade. Manifest Destiny, NOT as a given good. And there’s the occasional exercise I find annoying, such as finding words in a puzzle across, down and diagonally, the learning value of which I found dubious; both her parents helped her find those backwards diagonals.

Boy, are we the terrible parents or what? To be fair, she has learned a lot about self-reliance this year, and I’m guessing next year will be more of the same.

The year after that, she’ll be going to high school, and she’ll be able to walk there, which I am looking forward to, a lot.

The Lydster: Alexander Hamilton

A lot of people who’ve never even heard the music have dismissed it as a rap musical, when it features a mixture of popular musical styles.

One of mixed blessings of the past year has been the Daughter’s obsession with all things Alexander Hamilton. In case you’ve somehow missed the buzz, the musical Hamilton has been a Broadway and touring company phenomenon. It’s about “the poor kid from the Caribbean who fought the British, defended the Constitution, and helped to found the United States.”

On one hand, she knows far more about the Federalist Papers than she might have. On the other hand, for a good part of the past year, it was all Hamilton, all the time. She’d go to sleep to it, wake up to it, play it during dinner, play it on road trips. I got a bit Hamiltoned out, frankly.

And yet we fuel it. For Christmas, she received a book called HAMILTON: THE REVOLUTION by composer/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, “a cultural critic and theater artist who was involved in the project from its earliest stages–‘since before this was even a show’ [which] traces its development from an improbable performance at the White House to its landmark opening night on Broadway six years later. In addition, Miranda has written more than 200 funny, revealing footnotes for his award-winning libretto, the full text of which is published here.”

It’s interesting that a lot of people who’ve never even heard the music – and, as noted, I’ve heard it a LOT – have dismissed it as a rap musical, when it features a mixture of popular musical styles. Here’s a review of the original Broadway cast:

“Thanks to the arrangements by musical director Alex Lacamoire, the score includes tinkling harpsichords, schmaltzy strings, and lush choral harmonies. The Schuyler sisters—Angelica (Hamilton’s close, perhaps romantic, friend, played by Renée Elise Goldsberry), Eliza (his wife, Phillipa Soo), and Peggy (Jasmine Cephas Jones)—trade fast-talking verses and harmonize on choruses in an R&B groove that sounds like Destiny’s Child; Burr (a smashing, properly smarmy Leslie Odom Jr.) busts out with a fit of envy in the form of a razzmatazz show-tune, ‘The Room Where It Happens’ (commenting on the secret meeting among Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison at which American government’s first quid pro quo was bargained). Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) opens the second act returning from Paris and asking, in a boogie-woogie number, ‘What’d I Miss?’ And there are several… beltable ballads. England’s King George (a hilarious Jonathan Groff) pouts about the loss of the colonies in the mode of a bouncy British breakup tune: “What comes next? / You’ve been freed. / Do you know how hard it is to lead? / You’re on your own. / Awesome. Wow. / Do you have a clue what happens now?”

And all of us now sing the mundanities of life to songs on the soundtrack. I use to try to stir the teenager in the morning, “Just get up! Just get up!” to the tune of the first song that goes “just you wait, just you wait.”

The Daughter has seen/read/listened to all of these, of course:

How ‘Hamilton’ is revolutionizing the Broadway musical

Hamilton condensed down to seven minutes

Jesus of the Galilee

The 2016 Song- A Year in Review, Hamilton Rewind Parody

I Have an Opinion on Every Song in “Hamilton”

Top 10 Hamilton songs

10 Unforgettable Hamilton Moments of 2016

Alexander Hamilton’s shadow

Family health report, March 2017

Oh, my spouse made orange JELL-O with chunks of pineapple!

Anyone get the license plate of the truck than ran me over? Not literally, but…

Let’s back up.

Friday, March 10 – The Daughter was having some muscle pain, and I stayed with her, figuring she was dehydrated or something. But then she developed a fever, and felt lousy, as we tended to her with cold compresses and OTC medicine.

Saturday, March 11 – She seems better. Her fever is gone. She was helping the cleaning for my annual hearts party, which was a lovely event. But beware the two of diamonds! I theorized that she willed herself to be well, because she knew it was important to me.

Sunday, March 12- She’s feeling worse again, and her fever returned. The Wife stayed home with her, while I went to church.

Monday, March 13 – the Wife took the Daughter to the MD, who diagnosed her with strep throat AND either a cold or the flu.

Tuesday, March 14- you may have read how the snow forecast was overblown in the big cities such as Philadelphia and NYC. Well, it wasn’t overblown in much of upstate NY. My hometown of Binghamton got over 30 inches, about 3/4 of a meter, and Albany got a total of 20.5 inches, over half a meter. It was the first time in 36 years, I’m told, that the state closed down, allowing “non-essential” personnel to stay home without having to use a vacation day.

I shoveled the first six inches, no problem. But attacking the next nine was much harder than it should have been. It WAS windy and a near blizzard, but still, I should have been able to handle it. I was grateful for The Wife’s assistance to finish the job. I went to bed early, around 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 15 – I was going to drag myself to work, which, in retrospect, would have been a mistake. But since the Daughter was still recovering, I tended to her. By the afternoon, though, I asked The Wife to take me to the urgent care place. After about three hours there, which included various tests and a chest x-ray, it was determined that I had BOTH pneumonia AND influenza, despite having gotten a flu shot back in November. My wife decided to sleep in the spare room, which I thought was wise.

Thursday, March 16 – Did not sleep well. I was so congested I thought I was suffocating. My attention for anything – the computer, TV – is about 15 minutes. I can’t read a book or anything that requires focus. Oh, my spouse made orange JELL-O with chunks of pineapple! You’d be amazed how for that 10 minutes, how almost happy I was. Being sick will do that.

Friday, March 17 – Tried to write a blog post, but I kept writing the wrong word – “committed” when I mean “commented,”, e.g. I DO know the difference MOST of the time. And it’s exhausting to sit up. We have seven movies (DVDs) we got in anticipation of the snowstorm, but can’t focus enough to watch any of them, but for one we all saw back on Tuesday.

Saturday, March 18 – Lots of strange dreams about aliens, Burger King, the Berman family (my great-aunt Charlotte’s people). The one thing I remember in a dream was that the dreams you have do represent a memory of your life, but it may be an event that has not yet taken place. I think the dreams are a direct result of being dehydrated, probably from some medicine finally kicking in.

This feels like drunk blogging. I’ve started about six posts this week, and, including this one, the number completed so far: one.

Tuesday, I see my primary care physician. Until then, I’m not operating any heavy machinery.

The Lydster: Middle school transition

Her father dropped off her gym clothes, once.

We’ve been very lucky in getting the Daughter to school. In kindergarten, she went where the Wife worked. And for grades 1-6. the Daughter attended a school that was built only a couple of years before she entered, located less than a block from our home.

Inevitably, though, we had to deal with what I called junior high but what is now generally referred to as middle school. Among other things, this means taking the bus at a specific time.

By the schedule, that means at 7:32 a.m. a block away. However, the vehicle is occasionally early, she learned to her frustration. Or late.

Still, the dedicated service, provided by the local transit entity CDTA is a whole lot more reliable than the contracted yellow bus company that still provides rides to kids going home late after extracurricular activities such as sports and theater. In fact, the Daughter has found the yellow buses SO undependable that she has mastered taking the CDTA home, even though it involves two buses.

The trick about middle school is having eleven different classes in the eight periods and keeping track of which days are gym days, for instance. Her father dropped off her gym clothes, once.

She also has to deal with homework. Her mother is always suggesting that she put it away the night before, but The Daughter finds this suboptimal. She ends up checking her bag in the morning again to see if the homework is in there.

The result of this is not unlike this Luann comic strip from September 4, 2016. Substitute house key for car key and her ID for her charger and it’s about right. Frankly, this whirling dervish was exhausting. And her father dropped off her homework that she couldn’t find, but he did, once.

But an interesting thing: by Thanksgiving, she started hanging her ID on the front door, putting her homework in her folder, usually, and in general, taking more responsibility.

The Wife was wowed by my patience during the process, but it was my opinion that you can’t tell her what to do, but that she has to, like Dorothy in OZ, learn it herself.

Health Report: January/February 2017

It was particularly disappointing timing too.

A few weeks ago, a reporter for our local newspaper posted on Facebook, trying to find out whether this stomach flu – is THAT what they call it? – was around the area. Subsequent to that, I’ve been reading anecdotal tales about the nasty bugger that has hit several of my friends.

On Martin Luther King’s holiday, after coming home from seeing Hidden Figures at the movies, we realized the crockpot had been disconnected prematurely. But we thought the meat, rice, and carrots that had cooked in there would be OK. I’m known for having an iron stomach, consuming even some long-in-the-tooth that my wife wouldn’t touch. I think it’s the Protestant ethic of not throwing out things unless absolutely necessary.

But a couple of hours later, I’m having digestive distress. I figure it’s food poisoning, and that it would pass. But I visited the bathroom two or three times overnight. And the Daughter was likewise stricken at some level. We were both home on Tuesday and Wednesday that week. We all went to school/work Thursday, and I was about to head out the door for choir that night when I had a recurrence.

I went to work on Friday, but at noontime, suffered yet again, coincidentally when the new President was being inaugurated. I felt so poorly that I actually had to STAY at work, because I wasn’t sure I’d make it home. I missed the local Women’s March that Saturday because I was still feeling woozy.

Then at the beginning of February, the Wife was felled by not one, but two, ailments simultaneously, the stomach flu PLUS some upper respiratory thing with a sore throat. The combo made her looked more washed out than I had ever seen her but once. I would have stayed home with her that Thursday except for The Daughter, with a return of her own stomach flu, but still in better shape than her mother, stayed home and brought fluids and light food.

It was particularly disappointing timing too. The Daughter went on a church ski trip over that first February weekend, and The Wife and I were going to a play, a movie, maybe dinner; didn’t happen. And Monday, she still felt weak.

The potential of a snow/ice delay was on the minds of both the females in the house this past Tuesday, but it didn’t happen. But they DID get Thursday (yesterday) off, and I know they were glad for the rest, though my wife spent a goodly amount of time doing paperwork for school.

We all had gotten flu shots, so what we’ve been suffering from must be something else, unfortunately.

Being sick, then the extra cooking and cleaning I did has made my blogging output quite pathetic recently, for instance, two posts in a week. I guess why I write ahead.