Protecting Henry

Miss R spent a little bit of time with her brothers yesterday. When she came home, I held her for a little while before letting Alicia put her to bed for nap time. Miss R wasn't fussy exactly, but I could tell that she needed me.

When she got up from her nap, we headed to Sears to take a look at beds. I had called around to Knock On Wood and Ethan Allen to ask about children's furniture, but both places said that they have twin beds that could be used as children's furniture but weren't designed as such. We found neat comforters at Sears. We are waiting to make our purchases until we settle on the bed issue.

We took The Twins to the mall play area. Miss R had fun on a steep slide. I helped her. Henry had fun running around. At one point, Jeff and I switched so that I was watching Henry. Henry was intrigued by a 5-6 year old boy playing with one of the spinning puzzle toys in a wall. He got mad at Henry for messing up what he was doing. Henry then went to play behind it, but that messed it up more. A little gal also came over and played with it as well. Henry went to another one at my insistance b/c I didn't want him to make other children mad. Too late. The little boy came over to Henry and said, "If you do that again, I'm going to take you on." I looked at the 5-6 year old and said firmly, "We do not threaten little kids. They can be annoying. But threatening them is simply NOT done." The little boy left. I think that he was trying to figure out whether or not to take me seriously or whether he could take me on. I weighed well over 110 lbs more than he did, so his decision to back off was a wise one. Detaining him wouldn't have been a problem. A few minutes later I saw him punching another boy, who was at least bigger than he was. Nevertheless, where were his parents to correct such bad behavior?

Interestingly, this encounter seemed to illustrate some points in a conversation that I was having my mother earlier in the day about daycare. I called around to a couple daycares. We have an appointment with Tutor Time this afternoon. It is a national chain. It has a curriculum that looks fine. Being a national chain, its tuition is relatively inexpensive. It is also located in an area that relatively poor. Ay, there's the rub. While I want to be progressive in my thinking about equality and diversity, I also know that one's social circle shapes one's thinking. When one goes to a private school for college, for example, one isn't necessarily getting better teachers as many public schools have fine teachers. But one is buying into a peer group that tends to come from families that value certain things (e.g., education, motivation, inquiry, advanced vocabularies, hopefully less vulgarity and violence). How would Henry and Miss R fair against children who come from potentially more aggressive backgrounds? Or am I employing unfair stereotypes when it comes to class? In any event, we have an appointment with Tutor Time this afternoon, so we'll get to see the school in action. We are also planning to visit a daycare at a Methodist church near the university. I had a lengthy talk with the director yesterday, and I liked what she had to say. The school has a waiting list of course. It also works with DES, so it doesn't have problems taking foster children.

After the kids played at the mall, we then had dinner at the food court. Henry didn't want to eat and was impatient to get down. Miss R basically had an Orange Julius for dinner. She was offered french fries, falafel, and tender meat from the Greek place. But once she had a taste of that Julius, she wanted nothing else.

As we went to the car, Henry announced that he wanted "toys." He pointed across the street to Toys R Us, which was on the other side of the parking lot, over six lanes of traffic, and through some trees. I could barely make out the neon sign of "Toys R Us" but it was in fact there. Either Henry was reading the sign through the trees (possible), or he has an uncanny sense of direction. Jeff was playing bad cop, however, and decided to take us straight home. But he too was impressed. How does Henry know these things? The kids sang several loud rounds of "Ah Wah Wah" in the car.

We went home. The kids were tired. We watched "Monsters, Inc." Then we took the kids to bed. It was a struggle. It is definitely time for a new routine...complete with new beds in a separate room from our own. That's the goal for June.