Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Irrational

Over on my hundred-things sidebar there, it says something like (I can't see it right now) "I buy yarn in inverse proportion to the time I have available to knit."

This is especially true at the very tail end of pregnancy.

I SO want to buy yarn right now. Specifically, I want to buy gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn, with which to knit lacey shawls. Do I already have such yarn? Yes. Do I have other yarn? Yes. Do I have time to knit it? Not much, and IY"H I'm about to have a lot less.

Doesn't matter. I still have this terrible urge to buy yarn. Which I simply absolutely cannot do, because not only do I a) have yarn already but b) I can't spend any money right now. I'm about to take 12 weeks off and most of it will be unpaid; there is no way we will get through this without digging into our savings; ergo, I would be taking money out of savings to buy yarn I really don't need and there is no fathomable excuse for such behavior.

Doesn't mean I'm not spending time trawling etsy and ravelry, though. And today I stopped in to the yarn store by work and almost bought a Zauberball. I didn't. But it was close.

Seriously, what is wrong with me? Do you know how much yarn I have? And how little time I have? Why do I feel like I need more yarn?

DSM-V, anyone?

Anyway...

Barak's conferences were... okay. Nothing terribly negative, although both his moros and his rebbe commented that he seemed anxious and stressed. No kidding. He's five years old and has a school day longer than what I had as a senior in high school. Of course, if they're commenting that he's stressed he's obviously more stressed than the other kids. Which I can believe, because Barak, as I have mentioned here before, really, really needs his processing time. He needs time by himself, playing on the floor with his Lego or his trucks or what have you. If he doesn't get it, he can't deal, and what's his average school day like? He gets up at 7, eats breakfast, is out the door at 8, on the bus by 8:10, off the bus at 4, in the door at 4:10, is assailed by little brothers, has dinner half an hour later, and is hustled along through dinner/bathroom/bath/teeth/bed by 6:30 or 7. If he's not in bed by then, he doesn't wake up in time in the morning and ends up with a bag of Rice Chex for breakfast. Which is not a good start to the day.

This morning he woke up saying he didn't want to go to school. And I said fine. He stayed home and played little Lego and hung out with Asnat, and came with me to drop off and pick up Iyyar, and had a nice day generally. And still was in meltdown by the end of the day, although part of that I think was that Iyyar took an afternoon nap and wasn't ready to go to bed at the usual time, so they both went to bed later than they should have (around 7:45--yeah, tomorrow's going to be fantastic.)

His moros commented that he plays by himself a lot, not because he doesn't get along with the other boys but because he prefers to. Yeah, I know. He mentioned it to me. "I just want to play by myself but my morah won't let me. She says I should play with the other boys." His rebbe mentioned that he was socially immature because he did not a) play ball, preferring to dig in the dirt instead and b) engaged in parallel rather than interactive play with his best friend. I don't know. I mean, if he sees a problem I feel that I should take it seriously, but truly I think that this is more his personality--he needs space--than a maturity issue per se. And MHH is 37 and is still not mature enough to prefer ball play to... anything, actually, that I can think of. Maybe root canal. No, probably not.

Anyway. It's hard to know how concerned to be. Neither the moros nor the rebbe seemed hugely concerned and I've talked to both of them before without their mentioning issues. His rebbe said he would have called a couple of weeks ago instead of bringing it up during the hugely inadequate five minutes (!!!) allotted per child for conferences, but his wife just had a baby so clearly time has been tight in the evenings (not complaining, I understand this completely). Mostly it was said in the context of "things to be aware of and keep an eye on." Yeah, I am aware that Barak is intense, I'm aware that he gets overstimulated and overwhelmed, and I'm really very aware that he needs more down time than he's getting. I'm not sure what exactly I can do about any of it though, other than offer him the option of a day off when I feel he needs it. I talked to him today about the concept of a personal day, and how I thought everyone needed that option. I guess it's just a question of how often he chooses to avail himself of it, and whether I'm going to find myself in the position of drawing a line.

37 weeks and a day. Absolutely nothing is happening. Not a single contraction all day. Further bulletins, &c.

4 comments:

Jasmijn said...

Mine had his conferences today too. I like his teachers.

I wouldn't worry too much, certainly not more. You know your child, and in fact you are like your child, so you understand him. Mine is like me, too. The rebbe & morah probably don't see kids like Barak a lot, so to them he is unusual and a bit puzzling and they want to make sure you know about it. You know, just in case you thought he was running off to school to play basketball all day and would be shocked to hear otherwise at the end of the year and demand they socialize him more. Now they know you know, and you know they think it's a bit odd, and everyone can just get used to it.

I agree completely that that is a very, very long day. It's got to be exhausting for him, poor lamb, no matter how much he might like school. You told him earlier you could get him at lunchtime: maybe doing that every Wednesday would break up the long days. Good you have personal days as an option, too. He's too young to have to put in 40-hr weeks and doesn't need to worry about attendance records yet.

LC said...

In line with the whole "school day being long" thing, and the "plays by himself thing" and "needs processing time" thing - maybe if the Rebbe and moros just *let* him play alone, and didn't bug him about being social during recess it might help a little? Then his recess might be less stressed.

Good luck. We have 12:30/2/4 pickup options in pre-K and K, most kids left at 2. 2-4 was or wasn't academic, depending on the year and teacher - and how many classes combined after 2pm. School from 8:30 - 4 didn't start until 1st grade.

And I also like Yasmin's suggestion of short Wed. - maybe that will stave off needing full personal days?

miriamp said...

Ours is 8:15 to 3:15 for K-3, 8:15-3:45 for 4 &5, 8:15 to 4 for middle school. On Thursdays my 3:15 kids have been staying until 4, but the last 45 min is afterschool art, which in a way is down/processing time, so my 5 and 6 yr olds seem perfectly fine after that. Plus neither kid is your specific kid.

As for the yarn -- it's nesting. No one said nesting had to be cleaning, although it usually is something "domestic." Knitting (or in this case, yarn acquiring) counts. I usually bake cookies instead. When Hadassah was born (Ta'anis Esther) we had a freezer full of cookies, so Aaron was able to make up homemade mishloach manos from us that year, even with me still in the hospital. (My excuse was that I wanted to be prepared in case we had to make a Shalom Zachor. Because cookies can't be bought or baked by someone else?)

Deborah said...

Now why did you post those lovely webs links?
I have no excuse, not being preggers and having lots of yarn to dye, spin and boughten. But those mittens I am knitting, some of those sock yarns would look might nice--did you see the $7.99 Araucania Ranco?