Teeny Manolo

And one of them is my son!

No, there is no imminent English invasion ahead. “Red-shirting” is the term used for holding children, usually boys, back a year in order for them to have a better chance at success in school. It is lifted from sports terminology when referring to team members who practice with the team, but don’t actually play. Usually to get them acclimated to the level of play so they will be ready the next year.

This is a big topic among almost all parents who have children with birthdays in the months of September through December. On one hand, you want your child to have as many advantages in school as possible. Some parents believe the developmental differerences between a child born in January and a child born in December of the same year are too large to ignore, thus putting the December child at a disadvantage in an academic setting. On the other hand, you have social pressure to put your child in school even if they have a late birthday because in doing so, you are somehow admitting your child won’t cut it.

Talk about a minefield!

I agonized over the decision to hold my son back for almost a year. The biggest opponent to holding him back was actually my own mother. She was not, is not, will never be happy that my son is in “Junior Kindergarten” this year instead of regular. She has tried to talk me out of it multiple times, each time with less and less patience on my part.

It is my opinion that with the heavy emphasis on academics in schools courtesy of the No Child Left Behind Act, he would do better if he was held back. I tried in vain to explain to my mom that the kindergarten of my youth is not the same kindergarten of today. He also, I think, needs more time to learn the important skills of cooperation and teamwork, which will hopefully make his school career go a bit more smoothly. Social skills are just as important as academic ones, and younger children are less socially developed than their older peers.

It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, and it certainly wasn’t because I want him to be the biggest and strongest kid on the playground. It also wasn’t due to a lack of intelligence, he can already read. However, taking all the factors listed above into account, as well as his personality, I made the executive decision. Because I am without a doubt the decider.

Besides, the school’s own admission policy states that any child enrolled in kindergarten must be five at the start of the school year. My son will be five at the end of this month. Many schools are doing this in their own self-interest to boost or maintain scores, as well as recognizing the increasing academic load being placed on our children at an earlier age. And since it works out that their policy is also in the best interest of my son, I’m all for it. As an added bonus, it shuts my mom up, too.

I remember my school lunches very vividly. My mother was cutting-edge in the seventies in that she latched on to the health food movement when all of perhaps 1,000 people in the United States were doing it.

I went from bologna sandwiches and chips to peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat with an apple. I was devastated because who wants to trade their Twinkie for an apple? Nobody, that’s who.

I also remember hating my lunches because they sat in my lunchbox, moldering all morning long in the coat room. By the time lunchtime rolled around, anything that was supposed to be cold was nowhere near, and anything that should have been warm was no longer. That seems like it should defy the laws of physics, doesn’t it? How does a cold thing get warm and a hot thing cold in the same box? I say the government should spend some of those research dollars on this topic, don’t you agree?

Anyhoo, lunches have evolved greatly since those days, and it’s high time they did. The paper sack was discarded in favor of a lunch box or reusable bag. Then, the reusable bag/lunchbox added insulation to better ensure that food temperatures stayed true.

Apparently for the hip moms, even those are passe now.

It’s all about the bento. And listen, the debate on whether kids today are more spoiled can be for another day. Today I’m all about the lunches.

These are not necessarily the laquered kind served to you in Japanese restaurants, or even the kind that Molly Ringwald had for her sushi in The Breakfast Club. No, some of these babies are pretty high tech.

I kind of like this because it looks fairly indestructible. You can stack the lidded bowls in the stainless steel canister. To me, stainless steel spells long-lasting, and if I’m going to spend that kind of money on a lunch “system” it had better make it through a year of dropping on the floor by accident. Which as we all know happens way more than you would think. Or perhaps my kid is just a klutz. Don’t answer that. Even on sale, it is a bit pricey.

Or you can be creative like my bloggy friend J, and create your own bento with brightly colored individual containers. Behold the beauty of this balanced lunch:

So, this year, try to do something different with lunches. You just might surprise yourself with your brilliant ideas. And if you have any, please share them with the rest of us!

Sooner than we realize, it will be time for the dreaded school picture.

It used to be that for the rest of eternity, only the top half of the outfit was to be visible.  All the parents of yore had to do was convince their child to wear at least a semi-decent shirt or sweater, and comb their hair.  Depending on the age group, both of those things can be tough. They were then good to go, and the biggest worry was that whatever was deemed in fashion at the time wouldn’t look supremely horrible in twenty years.  Although I think it is some sort of family tradition to go through the photo albums and make fun of the way your parents looked.   And no, I won’t be posting any of my class photos, thank you very much.

The class picture is a torture that everyone at some point is forced to endure. There are basic pointers to follow, such as avoiding white and making sure the remnants of your lunch and/or breakfast are no longer adhering to your face. Even with these well-known safeguards in place, there are those who still manage to bungle it. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you an example of how not to look for the class picture, courtesy of none other than Mr. George Clooney, circa whenever-bad-bowl-cuts-and-large-glasses-may-or-may-not-have-been-hip.  My friends, study this example and learn from his mistakes, I beg of you. 

Even though I am slightly traumatized by this picture, I want George to know that I totally blame his parents.

There will be a quiz on this later.

I hadn’t expected it really.

But it is that time of year, and of course, there it was.

The Back-to-School sale.

Now, my son is still in preschool, so I had planned on carrying over into fall the majority of his summer clothing. Because where I live, you can wear shorts during the day well into October and sometimes November. But, he had the nerve to go through a growth spurt just at the wrong time.  I scolded him on the way over to the store. “Don’t you know,”  I glared at him through the rear-view mirror “that you are only allowed to grow when the weather has changed?  No more growing in the off-season, Mister!”

When we arrived, I begin looking through the racks, and suddenly, I was no longer aware of my surroundings.  My son could have climbed out of his stroller and attempted to hitchhike his way across the state, and I would have been none the wiser.

The colors and styles of the clothes began to blur, all I could comprehend was that they were 60% off.

And before I knew it, I was standing there with six shirts, four pairs of shorts, a sweater, and a waffled long sleeved Henley.

Nervously, I looked across the rack and saw another mother clutching even more clothes than me.  Her breathing was shallow, and she looked as if she didn’t know exactly where she was.

We had both fallen victim to what experts like to term the “Sale Induced Trance” or SIT for short.  SIT gives us the ability to sort through dozens of items placed in the wrong section with lightning speed.  It also gives us an almost superhuman ability to work out proper percentages in our brains, even if we have to use a calculator to tip at a restaurant.

By some stroke of fortune or perhaps just too much caffeine, I was able to shake off the effects of SIT.  Because even though the Ralph Lauren shirt was only six bucks, it was pink, orange and blue.   Even Mr. Lauren can’t make me purchase something so badly color-coordinated. I put it back on the rack to join its fellow ugly brethren, of which there were more than just a few.

At the checkout register, I caught a glimpse of that same orange, pink and blue combination.  It was my fellow shopper.  I sighed and walked out of the store. SIT had claimed yet another victim.

Woman exhibiting a classic SIT symptom: the glassy-eyed stare

Ahhhh, kids.

They are the most wonderful and joyous things to touch our lives. Let’s not focus right now on the tantrums or the ability to shriek “No!” and slam their bedroom door. Let’s just keep our focus on the positive, of sweet baby gurgles and chubby cheeks.

We glowed with joy when we found out there would be a new arrival, whether it was our child, grandchild, niece, nephew, or the child of a good friend. We beamed, even as in the back of our heads we thought, “Yesssss, now I totally have an excuse to go into that baby boutique down the street!”

You can’t deny the tiny thrill we enjoyed, knowing that another being would be entering the world. This innocent would be totally dependent upon us and our good taste to pick out items of clothing that are both fashionable yet able to serve adequately as barriers against the elements, as well as various spilled fluids. And this being has no choice whatsoever in what it wears! For at least a few years, they are completely at our mercy!

Then, hopefully our fine sense of color and design will have worn off on them so as to keep the fighting over what to wear to school at a minimum. But still, our influence is always there, whether or not they acknowledge it, or even actively seek to rebel against it.

Talk about a feeling of power.

And, shall we use that for good?

Or for evil?

It’s a choice we must live with every day.

My name is Glinda, and I am here to persuade you to use your powers for good.

Welcome to Teeny Manolo! I want this to be a place where anyone, not just parents, can find something funny and interesting every single day. So my friends, click your heels together three times and say it with me, “There’s no place like Teeny Manolo!”