Surreal follow-through, dudes.

I had to get up and be on my way to IS early this morning, for a romantic tryst with a copier maintenance guy. So I thought, yesterday, that Sheeyun would drop Chun Woo off at his workplace this morning. But Chun Woo really, really wanted me to drop him off. I don't know why.

We agreed that I'd try to wake him at 6:30, and that if he woke up and cooperated he could come with me for the dropoff.

To my amazement, he woke readily and sunnily, despite a rather interrupted night, and remained good-natured and happy throughout our joint morning. Better-natured and happier than on the usual morning in which he's had more sleep.

He isn't five yet.

Extra bonus note: He has learned the word coprolite. I'm hoping he uses it a Lot.

Chun Woo: Ummah, I'm going to be bigger than you.
MA: Yes, almost surely. What will you do then?
Chun Woo: I'll take care of you.
MA: Will you change my pull-up?
Chun Woo: Eeeuuuwwhh, yuck! No!
MA: I change yours.
[pause]
Chun Woo: When you are a baby I'll change your diaper, but then when you're six or seven you need to wear knickers.

(Technical note: Chun Woo will be five December 30. At that point-- and he's been told repeatedly-- there will be no more pull-ups in his life.)

Chun Woo remains remarkably easy and pleasant for his age. Just lately, though, I've felt the need to work with him on responding to questions, requests, and remarks that require response, instead of simply ignoring them in favour of his own agenda. Sadly, as he's improved on that with me, he's apparently begun to make the same requirements of Sheeyun (while ignoring Sheeyun's topics, needs, and agenda)....

Yesterday Chun Woo asked me, "Ummah, if I were a dung beetle and you were a cow, would you give me lots of poop?"

Just now Chun Woo's very, very declaratively lovey-dovey with me.
The other day he said, "Ummah, do you know why I do things for you?"
"Because we're partners, and we work together?"
"NO! It's because I love you!"
"I love you, too."
And this morning, on the way to his workplace, he was discussing with me a small origami-ish construct he had made: a jet fighter, he claimed. And he also claimed he had made it because he thought it would interest me. :D
And he's cuddly, and sweet, and remarkably helpful, and even understanding of things like my not taking him to the Friday night party at Kindercare because I felt lousy-- and about not lying in bed watching his truck video with him last night because Sheeyun wanted to watch football.
It's kind of strange.
Partly because I think about how soon he'll be a young tough, and how soon after that he'll be an adult taller than I. Just in itself, that feels strange.
And I think about how weird he'd feel about this stage if he remembered it very clearly later on-- and I think gratefully how likely it is that he won't remember this with any clarity.
And among the many things I'm learning from parenthood is some kind of feel for folks who kind of stick, emotionally, to the cuddlier stages in their relationships with their kids.

Well, phonics is working brilliantly. Chun Woo's curly areas are straightening out happily in the sunshine. or, today, snow. Reading is going well, and he's not daydreaming during class. He's still engaged in whatever it is that is making full and finished toilet usage such a sluggish process-- I was hoping that would clear up-- but knows that he will never get another pull-up as of getting-up, December 30. (His fifth birthday.)

He has also loved a yoga class at the Apex Center, but they aren't continuing the kids' program. So he'll switch to ice-skating.

Right now I have cookies for his class "autumn party" in the oven. I have flu, so i didn't want to do anything requiring rolling and cutting, or even in-and-out. He will therefore take to class tomorrow a dozen brownies with white chocolate chip ghosts inside. I bet Chun Woo will want to draw frosting ghosts on them in any case.

And as for costumes: Chun Woo will be Godzilla, I will be Mothra, and Sheeyun will be A Citizen of Japan. At the Kindercare Friday night Autumn Party, and in the Idaho Springs church front steps.

Two weeks ago the Chun man's teacher called. Apparently he's been working at reading as if reading Chinese: visually memorizing each word. Which is of course slower, and makes the phonetic methods of the class gibberish to hear, I expect. So he began in their Phonics Learning Adventure. And Sheeyun and I have been playing with phonics with him more.

Also, so soon as I heard about this, a bunch of small accumulating mysteries came together. Chun Woo's increasing imperfection in toilet use, his strong expressed preference for playing (as opposed to class, which he'd always likes), the gradually growing problems with daydreaming about Godzilla in class....

He's picking up fast, and the dispersed adverse reactions have gone. He's pleased with his growing skill.

But for me, there are a couple of lessons.
1. Diagnostics are hard because problems starting appearing in all these displaced areas, gradually, and not usually intensely. We're lucky in Miss Carol's diagnostic ability. She's really good.
2. Chun Woo has no comparative strength in the difficult area of Not Being Successful Instantly. So Sheeyun and I are narrating about the value of working through things, and the magic of the moment when the wall's molecules part. And praising his persistence and hard work.

(Chun Woo is now in Maths, Music, Phonics, Science, and Spanish Adventures. Which makes us a trifle peculiar. We may drop the Music: in our family it has less value-add than most of those. While I started out a bit startled at how slowly and word-by-wordy the Spanish went, we kept him in mostly to validate the reality of the language. Which, raised in Anglo-space, he had trouble with. Now, he responds when I speak Spanish to him, and has begun to pick up phrases as well as vocabulary, and likes it. (He used to protest when I spoke Spanish or Korean. Now's he's okay with both.))

Thomas Chun Woo Park was asked to choose between :
a world in which everyone calls him Thomas
a world in which some people call him Thomas and some people call him Chun Woo
a world in which everyone calls him Chun Woo.
He decidedly chooses the last. We're just trying to figure out when to get to work on it.

We were talking about something I heard yesterday-- that the Idaho Springs Public Library has in its collection all the Godzilla movies*. And that one of the librarians particularly likes Mothra because of Mothra's ever-accompanying fairies, which wig me out.

"Ummah," said Chun Woo, "Mothra makes me anxious, because I know he's** going to die sooner or later. Whenever I see him** lay an egg, I'm a little anxious."

*   This turns out to be incorrect, but they do have a nicey collection. No Gamera, though.
** Thomas feel strongly that Mothra is and must be male. He burst into tears about it in Monterey. So I bought him Eric Carle's Mister Sea-horse.

Thomas's workplace is having a (Go, Rockies!) spirit week this week. Yesterday the Chunmeister was to dress in blue and take a favourite book to school-- esaily done. The chosen book was Ellen Raskin's Who, Said Sue, Said Whoo? which features many creatures including the ghost of a goat and a terminal stinky skunk.
Today's assignment was both kind of inexplicable and harder: come dressed as a favourite superhero (and participate in a parade). I did not think Thomas would want to come as Thomas the Tank Engine. We're not currently long on costumes. I asked him yesterday morning to think about what superhero he'd like to be, reminding him that he could always be Super Chun Man (who turns out lights and turns off appliances once their use is finished). He still hadn't decided yesterday afternoon. After a little thought, I told him that I'd thought of how to do a Godzilla costume. (His love for Gamera has given way to a love of Godzilla, to my sorrow.) But no-- he decided that he wanted to be Mothra. after some conversation I think it's because while Mothra appears in Godzilla pictures, unlike Godzilla Mothra is always good.
He drew and coloured a Mothra on Bristol board, and I cut it out. It's very natty and somewhat uncomfortable, attaching to the back of Thomas's shirt with safety pins.
I do hope he was able to tolerate it for the parade....

I was struck anew by how he talked about actors in the movie. And, though he's deeply moved by Godzilla and asks things in the fictional-world context, he does remember that it's a story. (For example, "Ummah, is Godzilla made of meat?" "Uh, you know that Godzilla's just in a story, right?" :Oh, yes." "Well, in the story, yes, Godzilla's made of meat and bone and skin and blood.")

(Sorry if this makes for a repetition, briefly. So far as I can see my earlier posting omitted the end of the post. So here it is.)

The Chun man's working on reading, in the simple, mechanical sense. And oh my does he love books.

But here's what evern more astonishing: he's had some rather unusual advanced reading skillz for quite a while.

Texts are magic. So magic in their creation of a virtual world that we have a hard time remembering that they're texts, not objective realities. I run into that especially a lot in pastoring, when people unconsciously go from a text embodying human understandings of the divine to verities about the divine. I mean, if you hold that Scripture is inerrant, there you go, but most of my reader-friends don't hold that view. On Thursday I was listening to a lecture by Elaine Pagels based on her book Beyond Belief, followed by a Q&A session. In the Q&A session a young man asked Pagels, "If God [thus and such], then why didn't God [so-and-so]?" God [thus-and-suched] in a text. Pagels handled it graciously and slid past: "That's an important question."

Then yesterday evening, watching the Americanized-by-adding-Raymond-Burr Godzilla with Thomas, I was struck anew by how he talked about actors in the movie. And, though he's deeply moved by Godzilla and asks things in the fictional-world context, he does remember that it's a story. (For example, "Ummah, is Godzilla made of meat?" "Uh, you know that Godzilla's just in a story, right?" :Oh, yes." "Well, in the story, yes, Godzilla's made of meat and bone and skin and blood.")

Boy, though, even though he knows that Godzilla's just in a story he was distraught that Godzilla was killed in the movie.

Chun Woo saw a portion of Coraline last month. Not something I recommended, but it turned out all right. Partly, I'd say, because Thomas decided when he'd had enough, and stopped watching there.
Last night, as we went downstairs to greet a homecoming Sheeyun, Chun Woo said, "I bet his eyes are buttons now!"

(Really more of how Kindercare is working for the Chun man, not so much a Grand Critique of the institution.)

A troubling thing about Thomas's spring was that he was getting naughtier. Whiny and irritable-- and generally seeming unhappy. Speculation that classroom sociology at La Petite Academy had something to do with it is supported by his returned sunniness now.

I am still so grateful for La Petite, and sad that it made so much sense to move him. I hope I'm wrong to suspect that he's had his last long-term experience as one among a group of mostly-kids-of-colour. However, just looking at the La Petite classrooms and the Kindercare classrooms makes clear how more they've got in the way of educational resources at Kindercare, and I believe that the days are much more structured by systematic educational programme. That seems to lead away from classroom culture with lots of the kind of social experimentation i associate with middle school, which I think was what caused Chun Woo pain.

I think he may actually be sunnier now than he's ever been, my darling boy. And he's certainly grasped the honey-and-flies principle. Tuesday night he charmingly and artfully and trandparently suggested that we all pretend that we were in a motel together and pretend that he was going to sleep with us. and it was just so cute that we let him. :D (Though I let him know its transparency last night.)

Thomas's Kindergarten teacher seems really good, though conceivably a trifle manic. On Monday I got the impression that she was personally excited to start the school year. Some conversations with her are a little odd for me, and I'm not sure what proportions of the following factors play into the oddness:
- Kindercare is a commercial establishment, so they're constantly maintaining custoemr relations and selling
- a lot of non-negligent parents are pointillistically edgy
- a lot of kids starting Kindergarten have trouble with the transition
- Miss Carol enjoys self-presentation
Yesterday when I dropped the Chun man off Miss Carol already had half a dozen kids with her on the solar system carpet, and one other parent on the way out, but she kind of stopped what she was doing with the kids to tell me again about how she and Thomas had talked about shooting stars on Monday.

Miss Carol says, by the way, that Chun Woo has a wonderful vocabulary and a fabulous imagination.

It's a leedle odd for me to think comparatively, or rather to try to think comparatively. I don't really like it. But I wonder-- surely teachers are saying similar things to the other kids' parents? Or not? Most people, including kids, pretty much seem bright to me. Thomas certainly does, but so do his colleagues, though I began to perceive at La Petite that what was excessive repetition to Chun Woo served as vital review for a lot of his colleagues.

It went well. He had a good time. The teacher was clearly excited to be starting the school year. In her note she said that the Chun man has a wonderful vocabulary and a fabulous imagination-- true dat-- and that they talked about falling stars and Mt. St. Helens.

Thomas had some sort of difficulty with his easy job, going to the loo when he needs to pee. But we practice saying, "Miss Carol, may I got to the bathroom?" so I hope that will be okay today.

When I picked him up yesterday I didn't notice the posted benchmark kids-wirintg-their-names. Thomas's was distinctly the best, with one capital and five lowercase letters, and merely one backward s.

We were going to start Kindergarten a day late, because M,, B., and I planned a worship planning mini-retreat at our Fort Collins house, and Thomas was going to come along. But M.'s husband M.'s back went out, rendering him ineligible for the wrangling of 1.5-year-old twins. We have therefore rescheduled the larger event. But Chun Woo was looking forward to the retreat, so he and I are having our own retreat this afternoon. It principally involves eating chips and salsa made for the planned retreat, and watching Godzilla movies.

Thomas also met his new colleague this morning. Very much to my surprise, we are going to have an intern from Iliff School of Theology working with us in Idaho Springs. He turned out a place offering $300 plus gas allowance each month, but does not appear to be deranged.

One of Chun Woo's sorrows is that, in moving from Kindercare pre-K to Kindercare private Kindergarten, he leaves behind his new close friend Jonathan. They are particularly fond of talking pottytalk together, so I don't imagine anyone else is sorrowing much.

(I should never have read El Capitan Calzoncillos to that child....)

She's just right. It looks like a class Thomas will really enjoy. He can still see his pre-K friends before and after Kindergarten.

And she says that it's different enough from school Kindergarten that her kids don't petrify with boredom going from her K to the public or charter school K. (She's kind of pushing charter school for bright kids. We're going to see whether public school won't work.)

So we're going to do it.

Fiscally, it's an extra $7 in tuition a week, plus the bigger bite that we can't pay pre-tax dollars for it as for pre-K (which qualifies as childcare). We are very fortunate that that's not much of an issue.

while I was in the middle of Kansas.

They wonder whether we might want to move Thomas from Pre-K to their private kindergarten because he's "`to use his teacher's words `so smart.'"

Apart from the issues figuring in a decision, it's kind of fascinating that he looks that way in this workplace, where his colleagues are from families that offer them lots of conventional educational stimulation-- more than his colleagues at La Petite had....

Chun Woo: Ummah, am I really as good as oppah?
Me: (by no means sure what this relates to) Yes, sweetie, I think you're as good a four-year-old man as oppah is an adult man.
Chun Woo: (sadly) But I'm not always good to you.

That was weird.

Round about two years ago, Thomas was explaining to chair of trustees Paul (whom I'll never stop missing as either a friend or a chair of trustees) how he used a small screwdriver to help with tasks. "I tap," he explained, and Paul was awfully nice and respectful.

Yesterday afternoon, Sheeyun and I were finally screwing the mirror back onto Chun Woo's bureau. "Let me help, ummah!" said Thomas.

"Well," I said--
and Chun Woo said, "I have the Allen wrench, ummah. Let me help."

And so he did, and it was the right size, and he screwed in his own screw, very competently.

Hoorah!