A word about being shy

(Forgot I was going to post this - Guess I was not quite done.)
Let me preface this by a quick story from one of our music classes. This was about a year ago, and a mom of an older child asked me, somehwat hesitantly, "Now, is Erin talking yet?" She was almost concerned, like, "You can have that tested, you know." Anyway, I responded that she talked all the time at home but that she was just really really shy. The mom said, "Oh, don't worry. She'll be ok." ! ! ! ! ! I know she meant well, but I thought to myself, "Wait a minute!!! She is OK right now!"

I teach this class on how adult temperaments affect children in the classroom. Participants take an adult personality inventory and then we discuss what they come up with and how they think what their tendencies are might affect the kids they work with. As part of my general points to make about introversion vs. extroversion, I have always made the point that extroversion is really valued in our society. Look how many books are in the parenting section of a bookstore about how to 'fix' your shy child! There is nothing about how to fix an extroverted child! The tendency is to want to help a shy child change into a not-shy child.
I think there is value in being a child who wants to stand back and take things in before jumping in. The difference is when a child is acting shy but really really wishes he could not be shy. Then it makes sense to help him learn coping mechanisms for what to do when fear takes over. But being shy is not something that inherently has to be fixed. It would probably do me some good to be shy every once in awhile!

Anyway, the whole point of me posting this is that I didn't want to sound like I was relieved that Erin was finally not shy! Surprised, definitely! But certainly not relieved! All I want for her is to be cofmortable in her own skin, whatever that means for her.
All of you who posted your comments are so wonderful! Thank you (even you, smart a** David) for being so supportive! I am learning to be a good enough parent!

What's that you say? A free Saturday?

(I would finish that like a Dr. Suess poem, if I were Mark. I am not.)

Let me start with the soccer, because Erin is so excited about it! She plays on Sundays, and last week was her first practice/game. She can't wait until this week's game. She was also very excited that her team has yellow (her favorite color) shirts. ("How did they know?", she said when she got her shirt at the orientation meeting.)

Erin has not done anything like this before, so she's got no idea about being on a team or kicking a goal or anything else related. She does kick pretty well when she's on her own, but is not much past that yet. Luckily she is on a 3 y/o team so no one else is either. She told me she likes her coach, and when I asked her what he said to the team, she said, "He says 'Come here' a lot!" That is th gist of it so far. And of course there are pics.

Jillian!

Oh yes, and Jillian. She continues to be such a toddler. She now has decided that everything - everything - is worth at least a shot at a tantrum. Completely going limp, throwing herself on the floor, and screaming, are he modes of operation. No matter what it we are doing, she figures she might as well try. I have done my best to just walk away, and usually she stops in about 10 minutes. Luckily this has not happened in public, but I refuse to talk about that possibility (probability?) any more.

She is still darn cute, and when not in freak out mode, awfully sweet. She misses Erin when Erin is at school ("Ain, cooool?" translated - Erin, school?) but has enjoyed a little Mommy time by herself. We've mostly either gone to the park or to the grocery. She talks like crazy, but in this funny psuedo-language. She has this knack for being able to make the sounds of a word without ever actually saying the word. Anyway, I have told doula clients this many times and now I am remembering my words - Even though I have already been a mom to a 20 month old, I am a first time mom to Jillian. I have to be sure to remember that!

And the knitting . . .

I have been introduced to this great site - Ravelry - that is really a knitters dream. I won't go into it here, because those of you who are interested already know about it, and if you don't know about it you probably don't care! You know my promises to actually catalog my works in progress and finished objects on Flickr? That is what I will be working on on my free Saturday! But it will be even better through this new site. I'll still post some knitting things here, but will really be using Ravelry for the details.

I will post here that I have decided to completely frog the Mystery Stole yet another time. It was coming along swimmingly, until I made some really glaring mistakes. I was going to just move on and overlook them (you know, in an effort to NOT be a perfectionist.) But I set it aside for awhile and now every time I look at it I want to start over. I am not giving up - it will be done! I am just succumbing to my perfectionist tendencies. Or maybe it's just that I want to be proud of it when it's done, and I don't think I really would be if I continued from here.

I have pictures of the mistakes, but I can't seem to find them right this minute. I will post when I run across them.

That's it for now!

And you think you know a girl . . .

Just about to get out of the car in the carpool line at her first day of preschool.

Last Tues. was the first day of Erin's preschool. Really besides VBS (where I was still in the church with her) this is the first thing she has ever done without me. We have been really talking it up and went to open house the week before. Her teacher Ms. Kathy even sent her a letter in the mail!

During the open house they gave us a "tell us about your child" sheet, where I explained that although Erin wasn't going to cry or thow a fit when I dropped her off, she would probably not talk to any one for quite awhile (I mean, like weeks). I said that we were fine if she was shy, as long as she was using good manners and being a good friend.

Anyway, to cut to the chase - - She happily got out of the car in the carpool line the first day and marched right on in. When I picked her up, Ms. Kathy said, "Well she talked and played all day!!" Yes (those of you who have been around Erin know how shocking this is) - Erin talked to teachers and kids the first day of preschool!

Ms. Kathy (who, by the way is THE BEST preschool teacher we could ask for) emailed me to tell me the things Erin did on her first day. How great was that?! She told me that Erin was telling her all about the play food and when she got to a breadstick, she told her, "I eat those in restaraunts, but not at Wendy's."

Day 2 - - Of course, still no problem getting out of the car and totally happy to be going to school. When I pick her up, she gets this funny smile on her face, like she is embarassed to be happy to see me. Ms. Kathy tells me that she talked about Jillian all day, without any prompting at all. She said, "I can see her face change when she sees you!" And then when I say, "Erin, tell Ms. Kathy 'thank you'", Erin acts all shy and won't talk to her.

The next day, we were talking about asking Mimi and Grandpa to go to ArtSparks with us. She said she would ask them, " . . .but I'm a little bit shy." So I took the opportunity and said, "Yeah, it's okay to be shy sometimes. Are you shy at school?" She answered, "No, just at home."

What?? She even knows she's only shy at home? Why couldn't she just tell me this?

Today was her first day in the 3 yr old room at church, where Ms. Lauren teaches. (Again, up until today she has always been in my room at church too). So about halfway through the morning, I peek my head in to Ms. Lauren's room to see what they were doing. Ms. Lauren says to me, "I thought you told me she was shy. She's been talking to me all morning! She even said, 'This is Dolly' and threw her in the corner, where she stayed the rest of the morning."

So what in the world have I been doing to my child for three years?? I swear I have made an effort not to smother her or supress her at all. And I feel like I have been very respectful of her shy (HA!) personality. I know that kids always act differently around their parents, but I am very surprised by the turn of events this week. And I am grateful we started all these activities when she was three and not and later - - she would have been trapped with me that whole time!

SoI am now that mom who has to pick her daughter up at school and be sure her bag is packed at night, etc. It's is really funny because I worked with those moms in so many different capacities for so long that it is hard for me to believe I am one of them! All in all we had a great week and I am now waiting in suspense to see what else I don't know about my children!

- - Next post: first soccer game, what Jill does while Erin is at school, and where's all the knitting??

One more blast from the past

There was an indirect request to post this photograph, so I thought I would oblige.

This was the end of June 2005, about 6 weeks before Erin was born. There was a painted belly contest in Baby Magazine so we, of course, had to enter. When I took this picture to work, several co-workers were astonished to find out that it was not real whipped cream. It's all acrylic paint. To our surprise, we did not win. In fact, the winner was published sometime after Erin was born and we never saw the winning photo.

Valerie, I know you are reading this . . .

So I was thinking about how I like to always be doing something, having my hands in everything that I can, and I wondered, "How in the world did I get this way???" And then it dawned on me:

The second semester of my Freshman year of high school, there was this girl who was willing to tie my bra in a knot for me although she did not even know my name. (ok - so that will be another post.) We became fast friends and eventually most people in our class decided that we were held together by some invisible force field. We did everything together. Sometime early in this friendship, Valerie let me in on her grand scheme. She was on a mission to get the biggest paragraph, and she insisted that I join in.

Paragraph, you ask? Yes, paragraph. By somewhere in our sophomore year, Valerie had decided that in our Senior yearbook she wanted to have the biggest list of activities below her name. She dubbed this her paragraph, and from that point on we had to be involved in things so that we could list them in our paragraph.

Now, in the classic nature vs. nurture kind of debate, no one will ever know if I was destined to be a paragraph builder all my life and I just happened to discover my true self in high school, or if it was all Valerie's influence that created the monster! Most likely it was both. But there you have it. In my quest to understand who I am, it all goes back to The Paragraph.

And to answer the question that I am sure is to come, I can't remember which of us had the bigger paragraph in the end. The evidence lies in a box somewhere at my dad's house, so next time I come across it I will check. Really, though, it doesn't matter. It was the process of the journey, not the product, that really mattered!

Valerie, you have been outed.

Me, my sister Pam and Valerie in Valerie's dorm room

freshman year of college (1995), Jefferson City, TN.