Trees and Bing

Thursday, December 7, 2006

To my great relief, we got the Christmas tree 90% decorated last night. Mother had gotten Horace to put it in the living room last Friday but we simply didn’t have time to decorate it until last night. It really bugged me, seeing the naked tree in the living room. With Alesia’s help, we got it fluffed out  and decorated in about an hour and a half. There are still a few things to add, but the biggest part of the job is over. Alesia is good help, even though I had to explain to her our own quirky family rules about decorating. I got a kick out of explaining to her about the garland made of silvery links formed from tin foil – which is lovely and sentimental, because I made it when I was about 12. Amazing what a large box of foil potato wrap can become! There are also ornaments which are nearly 50 years old, that Mom and Dad got when they first married.

Some of the ornaments have great sentimental value but due to age or infirmities they look a bit peculiar. Alesia got the giggles when we put an angel with no legs next to an ancient elf without a nose or arms. We decided the top of the tree would be for ornaments with Limb Differences. We drew the line at the nutcracker soldier who had lost the top of his head. Too gory.

I had another musically uncomfortable few minutes last night when we were decorating. Alesia decided to do “Name That Tune” again. She started humming, stopped and looked at me and said “Mom! Guess what I’m humming!” – and proceeded to hum something completely unrecognizable. I listened carefully to the bizarre, off-key notes, and wracked my brain, but nothing came to me. The rythym didn’t help – it sounded like calypso music. Finally she stopped, exasperated, and said “It’s Away In A Manger!” I swallowed hard and I started singing the actual melody to it, hoping she would hear the difference. Alesia just rolled her eyes and shook her head. I want her to enjoy music and singing but she cannot comprehend how wrong she sings everything. I try to be very patient because I know it’s the Auditory Processing Disorder. It’s frustrating, though.

After dinner, we watched the movie White Christmas, a family favorite. Alesia made several funny remarks during the movie. When it first started she looked carefully at Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye and asked me “Which one do you think is cuter?” A few minutes later she pointed to Bing Crosby and said “He has eyes like a girl!” At the very beginning of the film is a war scene and Danny Kaye gets a bad cut on his arm and it’s bleeding. Alesia looked at it with wide eyes and turned to me very seriously and said: “Look! Don’t they have tampons?!” Now, I must explain why she said that. We showed her an e-mail recently about soldiers in Iraq who used tampons in a new way. One of the guys, a medic, had gotten a care package meant for a female soldier, and laughingly stuck the tampons in his pocket. When he was seriously wounded, with a deep wound, and the medic couldn’t get the bleeding staunched, he unwrapped a tampon and stuck it in the wound – and it saved the guy’s life. Now all the soldiers in the unit carry tampons. I remember my brother telling me once he had told his men in an emergency to use sanitary napkins on a wound. We had seen that done in an old movie when we were kids.

A few minutes after the war scene Alesia turned to me and said “Did they not have tampons or pads back then?! What did everyone do?!” I didn’t want to attempt to explain the history of feminine hygiene products so I just said “I’ll tell you later.” Now that I think about it, that’s something Granny will have to explain, since she actually lived during WWII and I wasn’t even a twinkle.

Alesia’s about to learn American history, finally – and not the Hollywood versions, either. I felt like the tutors were wasting her time with the History and Geography sections of the curriculum, so I told them to stop with that. I felt rather guilty about it, because I love History and I think all kids should have a basic grasp of it, and of Geography. However, they were doing more Social Studies type things – studying African countries, or Antartica, for example. Alesia doesn’t know American history yet – she studied it a bit last year, but didn’t really comprehend it. So I told the tutors to stop with that and concentrate on English and Math, and some science. It finally occurred to me last night to check and see what the upcoming 5^th grade curriculum has in it. It’s about American history. Yay! I already ordered some American History books for Alesia but now we can just use them as supplements. I told Gabriela to give Alesia one hour of History a day. They started the 5^th grade curriculum today, and we’re waiting for the 6^th grade math CD-ROM to arrive.

Alesia finally finished up 4^th grade in all subjects but math – Alesia’s getting ready to start 6^th grade math now. It took almost 6 months to get through the 4^th grade, which has alarmed me. Bronwyn said that Alesia’s comprehension skills are so much better now, though, since Lindamood-Bell.  She thinks they can zip through the 5^th grade curriculum in just a couple of months. I’m hoping that by the time I am home with my son in March and April that she will be up to 6^th grade, and 7^th grade math of course. I am going to let the tutors off and just do the tutoring myself then, for $$ reasons. I pray the condo will be sold by then so I won’t have that expense, too.

The main things I need to concentrate on after the 6^th grade are her English and Math for 7^th and 8^th grade. If she can get through those before high school I will feel so relieved. I’d like her to do Science, too, if there’s time. She likes Science. It would be a great career move for her if she could be a nurse, for example. We’ve talked about it. She is very caring, and is fascinated by the human body. I am trying not to push her anywhere though – I want to give her all the information possible but then let her decide for herself.

I don’t remember learning anything much about World History or geography until college, so I am not pushing that right now. She has a wonderful world map, and the other day I bought a nice globe. She already has materials to help with more broad information.

Tonight, we will work on the general indoor house decorations. There are dozens of angels and santas to strategically place, and a garland for the stair rail. I can’t wait to hear what remarks Alesia will come up with.