Happy Mommy Moments, 27 May 2014

Today I'm a happy mama.

Nothing particularly huge happened today--unless we count G giving his first-ever speech in front of his 2nd grade class--but I felt delighted at a number of little moments.

I arrived at the kids' school early enough to catch G's oral report on the common hippo (I'll refrain from quoting the whole thing right here, although I could probably do it from memory myself), and as I walked through the center common room on my way to his classroom, a little Kindergartner from Z's class walked past me on the way back from the restroom.  His face lit up in recognition when he saw me.  "Hi, Z's Mom!" he grinned.  At that moment I realized I love being known as Z's Mom.

And known as G's Mom too, as the 2nd grade kids refer to me!  I'm not gonna lie, I burst a few buttons as my darling 7 year old presented his research on the animal he'd chosen for his year-end project.  He remembered everything we'd practiced!  Deep breath to start, feet rooted to the floor, talk slowly, glance down at the cue cards and then look up and speak to the class with eye contact.  For this project, which included a multi-page written report, a diorama, and the speech, we were handed blank grading rubrics along with the assignment.  When I saw those, I gulped.  We're in the big leagues now, I thought, with rubrics and bibliographies and clay-baked sculptures.

G insisted on reading through the rubrics ahead of time to see what he'd need to do for the full 4 points per element.  He didn't want to mess around with 2- or 3-point quality work.  "Mommy, I want to get 4 points on everything," he declared.  We haven't gotten his grade for the written report or the diorama yet, but immediately after finishing his speech today, he turned to his teacher and asked, "Do I get 4 points??"

She chuckled, and that's all the grade he's gotten so-far.

But it sure seemed like a 4-point presentation to me!  His diorama is pretty cute too, and I'm especially proud because it's the the first time we've done baked clay for anything.

Presenting a common hippo and her calf wading somewhere in Central Africa.  I should have photographed this before taping the plastic wrap on it.  G told his class he'd used "assilic" paint.

Another absolutely precious little thing warmed my heart today.  I'll be revealing something about my age when I say that I grew up on the show Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton, and I recently discovered that our instant-streaming video provider carries the old episodes.  Naturally, I have been eager to watch through every episode myself share the show with my kids.  It turns out that Z's Kindergarten teacher has shown his class a couple of episodes too, so he's already a little familiar with it.  (I have to admit, it takes the wind out of my sails a bit to hear, "Oh, I've seen this one.")

As the two boys and I sat on the couch tonight, taking an inside-tour of the Library of Congress and getting up close and personal with the Statue of Liberty, I couldn't have been more full of warm fuzzies.  That is, I thought I didn't have room for more fuzzies...until the final credits and the reprise of the theme song--when Z started signing along.

My sweet little boy in his wandering soprano voice, singing a theme song that was heard in my childhood home almost every school day?  That is a happy feeling.

While we're on the subject of nostalgia combined with literacy, I recently brought out my copy of Heidi, on which is penned the inscription, "To Rachel, on her 7th birthday.  With love, Mom and Dad."  I could have handed the book to G to read, but I love reading aloud to my kids.  (Plus, I don't want him to crinkle the pages.)  Reading aloud, I get to use my college drama skills which don't see the light of day very often!  So for the last couple weeks, whenever the boys and I have some downtime, we sit together and I read about the little Swiss girl in the Alps who eats toasted cheese on bread (Z's new favorite breakfast) and delights in the beauty she finds in wildflowers, goats, glaciers, fir trees, and old grandmothers.

P.S. I'm ready to move to Switzerland.  Now.

Both boys love the story, although I think Z enjoyed The Secret Garden (which I read a few months ago) more.  Maybe something to do with the ratio of girl:boy characters?  [Teacher Note: It is way cool to do a compare/contrast with Heidi and The Secret Garden.  I hadn't realized how many similar themes they have until re-reading them so close together.  The kids and I had a great conversation about this during breakfast at a buffet this weekend.  SPOILER ALERT  And we haven't even gotten to the part where Klara starts walking yet!]

A couple days ago I finished reading a couple chapters and left the room to go work on something.  Thirty minutes later, I noticed it was still pretty quiet in the living room.  I could hear Z talking to himself a bit as he played with toys, but G seemed to have dropped out of sight.  Did he fall asleep? I wondered incredulously.  But his bed was empty.  Not seeing his fuzzy head peeping over the back of the couch either, I walked around to the front of it to see if he had lied down.  He hadn't.  He was kneeling on the floor, Heidi spread out on the couch in front of him, reading ahead from where we'd left off.

Talk about simultaneous horror of "He'll find out what's coming!!" and immense gratitude of "He cares about this story enough to read it himself!!"

The latter feeling has definitely won out.  And--thanks to those drama skills coming in handy--he's not bored listening to me read the parts he's already seen.

I'm not bored either.  In fact, reading this story again as an adult, I'm astounded to rediscover the incredibly strong theme of redemption in this story.  I choked up, right on the living room couch, reading the Grandfather's break-through moments after hearing Heidi tell him the story of the Prodigal Son.  And I again had to clear mist from my eyes when the story revealed that the darkness Heidi had experienced during a hard period of her life directly brought light to the heart of the Grandmother--a woman whose blind eyes saw nothing but blackness.

It's a good book, people.

But I've digressed from refraining to give you a report on the common hippo to giving you a report on Heidi.  That wasn't my intent!  I just wanted to take some time tonight to share a few ways that I'm loving being Mom to my boys.  There's been so much sadness and darkness in my adult life...I'm so thankful for these beautiful moments of recognition that all is not dark.  There can be light in my heart.

With that, in the iconic words of LeVar, I'll see ya' next time!