Notes of a disenchanted mom reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Tim started enjoying solo reading when he was about the age Holly is now, whereas she still expects me to read her a bedtime chapter or two every night. As a result, this is my first time through the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. When Tim was in third grade, he too pored over these wildly popular graphic novels, but he read them to himself, whereas Holly has chosen them for nighttime reading with me this week.

And I have to say, so far I’m not a big fan. Somehow I don’t think author Jeff Kinney will miss me much; he’s spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list in the children’s fiction genre, so to say I’m in the minority is an understatement. Forty million copies of Wimpy Kid books are in print to date, and Kinney produced the feature film based on his series earlier this year.

My problem seems to be that as a reader, I simply can’t accept vapidity in a protagonist. Greg Heffley, the titular character, isn’t just wimpy. He’s whiny, trite, incurious and self-absorbed. No one’s mind is expanding by getting inside of his thoughts. No one is developing a larger frame of reference for the world by learning how he views his universe.

It’s not that I’m such a traditionalist where children’s literature is concerned. I’ve read some terrific new novels with my kids in the past five years or so that I savored just as much as any of the books of my childhood. And I’ve read some that were perfectly decent even if not brilliant.

But my theory about what’s wrong with books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid has to do with the fact that many of these authors were children in the 1970s, just as I was. And middle grade literature went through a significant change around that time, with authors like Judy Blume demonstrating a new kind of realism. These authors provided evidence that protagonists of children’s books could be lifelike rather than exemplary: regular kids, not paragons. It turned out you didn’t have to be as sanguine as Anne of Green Gables, as quirky as Harriet the Spy or as brave as Bonnie and Sylvia in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase to be a hero(ine). You could be a real kid, with fears, anxieties, insecurities, and hopes that might seem silly at times.

But I think there’s more to it than just an acknowledgment that real kids fight with their siblings and fear looking foolish on the soccer field. Blume’s characters, and dozens of other protagonists from fine examples of contemporary children’s literature, might have reminded kids of themselves, but they also had one crucial characteristic that the wimpy kid does not. They had introspection. They didn’t just witness the world; they contemplated it with a cerebral depth that lent them a certain degree of bravery. Blume’s characters, for example, pondered spirituality, cultural differences, moral decisions and prejudice. What made them appealing wasn’t just their realism; it was their depth. And depth is what Greg Heffley lacks – even depth as far as personal ambition.

Holly realizes I’m not crazy about this series. She likes it, because the wimpy kid gets to complain all he wants – after all, it’s his narrative -- and that’s exciting to a child who is discouraged from whining. And I do understand the argument that children’s librarians and teachers offer in favor of these books: for some kids, books like this are all that gets them to read anything at all, and something is definitely better than nothing when it comes to kids and reading.

So I shouldn’t be so quick to disparage. I’d rather read about characters who inspire me a little bit, even if they are only nine years old. But Holly should be allowed to judge for herself. And if these are the books that get her to read on her own, then she should indulge as much as she wants. But I won’t be a bit sorry if she sneaks off to read these in private – and saves the headier texts to read with me.

Foliage in a vase

On Sunday morning, I embarked upon some fast and furious housecleaning that needed to be done before visitors arrived at noon. In order to ensure that I could concentrate on the tasks at hand, I was on the verge of telling Holly she could play games on my computer when she approached me with a request. “Mommy, may I –“

I braced myself for the dreaded “…watch TV?”, knowing I was busy enough to guiltily say yes.

“…go outside and pick leaves?” she asked.

“Yes. Of course,” I said. I wasn’t expecting this. The leaves were just starting to change, but for the past couple of weeks Holly has needed to be coerced into most outdoor activities, and usually only after I promise that a stop at the ice cream stand will be included.

Holly knows that being outside alone means she has to stay within sight of the house. As I vacuumed, I could see her out the window, plucking leaves off the low-hanging branches of oak trees and collecting maple leaves off the ground. It’s a nice idea, but now she’ll come inside and deposit piles of dried-up leaves all over the house, I couldn’t help thinking as I started emptying wastebaskets.

I heard the front door open and close a little while later. I could picture Holly bringing her armfuls of foliage into the house and depositing them on the polished kitchen countertop. I mentally added “heaps of dried-up leaves” to the list of things I’d need to clean up before this housecleaning siege was over.

But again, I was surprised. “Mommy, can I choose a vase myself?” she called upstairs.

Yes, I told her. Just use the kitchen stool to reach the cupboard where the vases are stored.

After that I immersed myself in dusting and didn’t give much thought to what Holly was doing. So I was unprepared for the sight that greeted me when my cleaning project finally advanced as far as my home office. On each of the two windows in that room, outlined against the morning light shining in through the glass, stood a short round painted vase with a thick sheaf of crimson, yellow and green leaves standing in a few inches of water. While I expected Holly to toss down her bounty and forget about it, she had selected the most appropriate vases, remembered to add water, arranged the leaves beautifully, and found a perfect place to set them.

“Holly, that looks so pretty!” I exclaimed. She followed me into the room and smiled proudly, but didn’t linger for further praise. She felt an artist’s pride in what she’d done; she didn’t need to hear more from me about how lovely it was.

I underestimated her. Where I initially expected a request to watch TV, she went outside to gather the first autumn leaves of the season. And where I expected the activity to end with a messy pile, she made a beautiful arrangement – for my office, no less.

She has an emerging sense of artistic style that will probably suit her well in the years to come. And I learn a little more every day about why I shouldn’t hasten to judge my children. They still have the capacity to surprise me, after all these years.

Who's On First Banana Bread, Part V: The conclusion

The kids announced yesterday that they feel ready to give up Farmers Market for the season.

They weren’t exasperated or frustrated. They just thought they’d had enough fun with it and were ready to move on. They’ve baked and sold banana bread nearly every week since July 3rd. Over the summer, it proved to be a great project for them, just as I’d hoped (and wrote about here and here). Our summer was characterized by an absence of structured plans, and I encouraged them to pursue the idea of a banana bread business.

From a purely fiscal perspective, it went better than we ever imagined: selling 25 to 30 loaves a week, they raked in the cash. And from the perspective of a learning experience, they acquired new skills as well, just as I’d hoped they would: marketing, sales, customer service.

But it’s possible that no skill they’ve displayed throughout the Farmers’ Market experience was quite so valuable as the one that clued them into the fact that now was the right time to give it up. With homework after school and a need to relax at the end of the day that they didn’t have throughout the summer, they stopped enjoying the process of baking together. Nor did they find it so easy to wake up early on Saturday mornings and load up the car with all their Farmers Market equipment – table, signs, samples, product, cash box – once Saturday became the day they could sleep late after a week of early rising for school.

I admire my kids for this. I know how to bake bread. I know how to talk to customers and count out change. What I’m not so good at is knowing when enough is enough with any given project. But it turns out they do.

It’s harder for me to put an end date on something I’ve decided to do. When I joined the society of “streak runners” – runners who run a mile or more 365 days a year without taking any days off, per the definition of the United States Running Streak Association – I thought it would be a hard commitment to maintain, but three years and one month in, I’m not finding it difficult at all. Getting out there for my few miles every day feels necessary, and I’m never tempted these days to give it up. It’s easier to just get out there and go every day than come up with a reason to stop.

The commitment I find somewhat more difficult to maintain is blogging five days a week. Sometimes I can’t imagine how – or why – I plan to do this day after day without any idea of when I’ll end it. But I can’t seem to entertain the possibility of just changing the schedule. When I launched my blog thirteen months ago, I set out to post every weekday, and that’s what I’ve done. I find it very hard to imagine giving myself permission to change the rules.

My kids, it turns out, are a little less rigid than I am. “Farmers Market was fun. We will definitely do it again next year,” they told me yesterday. “But we’re finished for now.”

I thought about that. They weren’t burned out. Unlike many adults I know, who devote far too much energy to work or volunteer projects, Tim and Holly don’t even know the meaning of “burned out.” True, as children, they don’t have livelihoods that depend on facing down fatigue with persistence, but maybe that’s just one of the perks of childhood: there aren’t that many difficult things that you force yourself to do past the point of where you want to do them.

And for the two of them, it was easy enough to wrap up the Farmers Market season cheerfully. They’ll be back next year. They’re not burned out; they’ve just had enough, and they are able to recognize that fact. I could stand to learn a lot from them in this regard, I suspect.

Perfect weekend

At the end of the day on Sunday, I realized why we’d had such a great weekend…it was because every member of my family had the opportunity to do things that they love to do.

My husband Rick brought Tim and a couple of Tim’s friends to Canobie Lake Park in celebration of Tim’s twelfth birthday. They rode roller coasters. They drank Coke and ate hamburgers with French fries. They got drenched in a water ride. They let themselves become dizzy in the hall of mirrors. It was a dream day for him. (Oh, and Tim had plenty of fun as well. Just joking.)

Meanwhile, I brought Holly and a friend of hers to the science museum. Not the world-famous one in Boston; the small-scale version in a neighboring town, which to Holly’s eternal delight includes a hands-on art studio within their definition of “science.” It’s a small enough place – three floors in a rehabbed Victorian house – and Holly is familiar enough with the layout that she and her friend could explore on their own, which meant that for a five-dollar admission ticket, I could sit on the bench near the entrance for two hours reading the past three issues of the Sunday New York Times. Five dollars can’t be spent much more indulgently than that, in my opinion.

Tim and his friends came back to our house for dinner. While the pan of homemade macaroni and cheese baked in the oven, the boys played Ultimate Frisbee on our lawn. I’m not sure who enjoyed it more: the players or me, as I watched them, these generous and pleasant boys I’ve known since they were in preschool who will soon be teenagers.

The boys were staying for a sleepover, and after dinner they tucked into a marathon session of video games that would go on until nearly midnight. Holly does not especially like playing video games. She does like watching Tim and his friends play video games, but that night she had an even better option: my mother came over to babysit and played Holly’s favorite board game, Tea Party, with her.

It might seem odd that Rick and I went out while Tim was hosting a sleepover, but we’d already accepted an invitation before realizing this would be the ideal weekend for Tim’s party, and my mother was kind enough to say she’d come over for a few hours, so we drove a couple of miles across town to attend an annual party that about three hundred of our closest local friends also attended. We spent the evening catching up, swapping summer tales, and commiserating about back-to-school transitions. It’s so great having so many local friends; nothing beats a night out for me where I don’t have to go beyond Carlisle city limits.

On Sunday morning I made waffles and bacon for the sleepover group before they packed up and left. Just as they had at dinner on Saturday, they thanked me and praised my cooking. Midday, Tim had a baseball game: he played shortstop, Rick coached, Holly and I picnicked and watched the game from our lawn chairs. Not even the fact that the temperature had dropped twenty degrees since Saturday could keep us from enjoying the afternoon. Late in the day, Holly and I attended an event hosted by the Carlisle Conservation Foundation to introduce townspeople to a new piece of conservation land. There was fort-building, a singalong, cake, information sheets, and well-marked hiking trails. These are definitely a few of our favorite things. (Though a friend of ours at the same event commented that with almost the entire population of Carlisle tromping through the woods together, this would be an ideal time for local drugstores to practice some price-gouging on calamine lotion and other anti-poison ivy medications.) To top off a perfect day, I stopped next door to visit with my parents and resolved two technical problems they were having, one involving a text message and one involving the auto-dial feature on their cordless phone. As I’ve written about before, fixing tech-support problems makes me feel like a super-hero.

I often bemoan the fact that we don’t put our weekends to better use more of the time. We don’t devote enough time to cultural activities, especially in the city. We don’t do as many outdoor fitness activities as I would like. I don’t even cook as much on the weekends as I feel would be optimal.

But we have fun, especially on weekends like this one. Time outdoors, time at home, time with family and friends. Weekends simply don’t get much better.

My phone, "The Brick"

Several weeks ago, when we asked Tim what we should give him for his birthday, he said he’d like a new phone. He’d had his current phone for a year; it was a hand-me-down from me the last time I upgraded. Unlike many parents of middle schoolers, for whom outfitting their pre-teen with a phone is a soul-searching decision, it wasn’t much of an issue for us. Tim really wasn’t that interested in deploying telecommunications; but since he sometimes walks home from school, sometimes rides his bike, and sometimes takes the bus, I thought it would be convenient if he could easily be in touch and let me know what he was doing. I knew he wasn’t interested in spending a lot of time talking to his friends.

So we were curious why he wanted a different phone at this point. He told Rick it was a cause for teasing. “My friends call it ‘The Brick,’” he said.

This seemed implausible to me because Tim’s friends just aren’t the type to tease, moreover, he’s not the type to have a problem with teasing. Unlike some of my friends’ kids who are the same age, Tim’s not particularly concerned with how he fits in or what other kids think of him. Perversely, of course, that means he fits in just fine and other kids get along easily with him. Plus he has that inexplicable and yet timeless advantage of being an athlete. Boys who are known for being good at sports are almost never subjected to teasing, according to a report I read not long ago, and Tim’s experience tends to bear that out.

Later, when we pursued the question again, he downplayed it. “It wasn’t really teasing,” he admitted. “Austin called it ‘The Brick’ maybe one time.” Really, he confessed, he just wanted a phone on which he could send text messages.

Because it wasn’t a convenient time in our phone contract to buy him a new phone, I offered to trade with him. My phone is nothing fancy, but it’s a very slim flip-phone with more features, including a screen that would make texting easy, so we also bought him a texting plan. All we needed to do was switch the SIM cards so that we wouldn’t have to change phone numbers and we were all set.

And so I ended up with the phone they call The Brick, and although I was a little bit grudging about the sacrifice, it turns out I actually like it. Understand, we’re not talking about the first generation of cell phones here. This isn’t like carrying around a cordless in my purse. In reality, The Brick was probably one of the last models made before the advent of flip phones. It’s not all that big and bulky; it’s just…thick and oblong.

And that’s actually an advantage to me, because the slim black flip-phone was always disappearing in my purses and bags. It would slide into a crevice and camouflage against the black interior; I wouldn’t be able to locate it even when it was ringing. With The Brick, this isn’t a problem. It sits stolidly in my purse like a chunk of ice, its lighter gray sheen easy to see against the purse’s dark lining, its moderate heft easy for my fingers to locate.

I’m fine with its lack of fancy features, too. Yesterday when it started tinkling that old familiar Nokia trademark ring, a friend I was walking with said “Oh, how European!” More like “Oh, how two thousand,” I thought to myself; she was clearly reacting to the fact that I didn’t have a clever sound effect or popular song for my ringtone the way most phones purchased in the past five years or so do. The Brick doesn’t offer a lot of choices, though, and the default ring sounds fine to me.

The Brick doesn’t have an interactive screen. I can’t surf the web or access my email with it. I can make phone calls. That’s all I really want to be able to do with my phone. While everyone else wanders around lost in the distraction of apps, tricks, games and features, I don’t think about my phone much unless it rings. Phones the way phones used to be, you could say.

In general, I tend to be attracted to gadgets and new accessories, but this time is different. When I want to make a call, I know how to do it. I have other gadgets that can take pictures, play music, display email and shoot video. I’m fine with The Brick, a simple, straightforward and solid piece of electronica that can do what I need it to do. And until I decide I need to hear a Van Morrison tune every time I get a phone call, I’ll stick with it.

Summer on the fall solstice

I tend to read too much symbolism into the weather – the pathetic fallacy, I believe it’s called – but having a one-day blast of 80-degree weather yesterday felt reassuring. It reminded me that even though we’ve had crisp, cool weather after since the week school began, fall is still very, very young. In fact, despite the heat, it began only yesterday. “Fall arrived on a summer day!” Tim observed, amused. But he’s right, and for me it served as a comforting reminder that we’re only a little way into the new school year, and it’s okay if I don’t quite have the routine down pat yet.

For us, school has been in session for only two weeks and two days, after all. It’s tempting to start off with firm resolutions and expect everything to fall into place, but it’s helpful to remember that when it comes to establishing good habits, you actually do get second chances. In fact, if the common neurological lore is true and it takes three weeks to instill a habit, we still have at least another week to go before we can expect the patterns of the new school year to be set in stone.

I suppose it’s obvious that I’m building up to an excuse. Well, not an excuse, exactly. More like an explanation. An explanation to myself, as to why the few guidelines the kids and I agreed to at the start of the school year in theory are still taking shape in practice.

It was a simple back-to-school contract. I wrote these rules: Homework must be done before any screen time (TV, video games, computer games) takes place. No arguing about whether it’s a take-the-bus or pick-up-at-school day. No wearing the same shirt on consecutive days. Oh, and have fun.

We’re doing really well with the second one. Holly enjoys being on the bus because she sees friends who are not in her class; Tim’s not crazy about it but recognizes it’s brief enough to be painless since he’s the last one on and the first one off. And the fourth rule is falling into place beautifully: both kids love their teachers and classes, and are definitely having fun. The others? We still have a way to go.

The homework rule has stayed in effect but not without a lot of vigilance on my part. The kids argue that they want a break from schoolwork when they come home from school, and if anything, they point out, it would make sense to get screen time first and then hit the books later, once they’ve had a chance to refresh their minds. It’s a compelling argument, but common sense tells me to ensure they get their necessary work done before they lounge around playing video games, no matter that there’s a certain logic to doing it the other way around.

And the shirts on consecutive days? For some reason, that’s one of the toughest. It used to be just Tim; now Holly too has narrowed her clothing preferences down to two or three items. I try to beat the system by putting what they’ve worn immediately in the dirty laundry – even if it doesn’t really seem dirty – just so there’s no chance they’ll wear in the next day, but then I frequently end up running the laundry and it’s clean again. And yesterday I let Holly convince me that the prohibition against wearing the same shirt two days in a row wasn’t operative if one day she wore a sweatshirt over it and the next day she didn’t, since to observers it will appear that she was wearing two different tops on those two days.

I was starting to feel like I was losing my grip on the starting-the-new-year principles we’d agreed upon. But then this one-day summer blast hit us yesterday, and I felt exonerated. It underscored for me the fact that the school year is still young. Why, we’re barely even past summer yet: just look at the thermometer! Third and sixth grade are still new to us. The ink on the back-to-school contract is barely dry. We’ll work out the details soon enough. It’s only just becoming fall now, and there’s still plenty of time to instill good fall habits.

Good morning, good day

My friend and neighbor Tom Fitzpatrick, who produces the Globe’s Reflection for the Day, posted this Swahili proverb in yesterday’s paper: “A good day reveals itself by morning.”

At first, I quailed a bit when I read that, because it seemed to suggest that if a morning is not so good, forget about it – there’s no way to redeem the day. And I don’t want to develop that mindset, because surely it’s not always true: a difficult morning can still turn into a good day, can’t it? As if to reassure me – psychically, as it turns out, since I hadn’t shared this concern – my niece, Sophie, posted on Facebook before the end of the day that she “was having a yucky day, but then it totally turned around tonight when I made myself do something I didn't want to.”

I think both of them – the Swahili proverb-makers and my niece – are right some of the time. A good day often is one that’s already clearly on track before the morning is over…but a bad day can still turn itself around.

What feels more relevant to me is the corrolary: a good morning often paves the way to a good day. With the school year under way once again, I’m back on a morning schedule I love. I get up early so that I don’t have to rush through the kids’ breakfasts. Once both of them have eaten, Tim rides his bike to the bus stop, Holly heads upstairs to dress, Rick leaves for work, and I cross the pasture to the barnyard and let the sheep out to graze. The dog accompanies me, dashing across the fields or just nosing around the brook, depending on where a flash of movement first catches her eye.

After Holly climbs onto the bus, I hit the footpath for my daily run. It turns out this is a perfect time of day for me to run. Not so much physically but mentally. When I run just as Holly is heading to school, it’s like a physical transition between caring for other people – waking them up, feeding them, keeping them on schedule so as not to be late for school – and spending the next six hours by myself, writing. I say goodbye to her and then by turn my focus inward as I run: nothing demanding my attention but the need to propel myself forward along the footpath. First the quiet section next to the fields my father mows in the summer; then briefly into the woods by the day lily nursery; across Bedford Rd. and into the Center. I pass near the school at 8:55, just five minutes after class has started for Holly and an hour into Tim’s day; I picture both of them already immersed in classroom projects and discussions before I pass onward toward Concord St. and then turn around at Clark Farm to head back.

And then once I’m home, with my simple two-mile run done, it’s time to wash the breakfast dishes, brew the coffee and get to work. Writing is harder for me than running, but getting the run over with early somehow makes me feel like I’ve already slain some dragons. Running isn’t hard, but it gives a concrete sense of accomplishment in a way that neither household responsibilities nor writing necessarily transmit. I did my run; I can surely write this profile, I tell myself. Writing is just sitting here putting words together. Surely you can do that.

So I think the proverb makes sense. A good day may reveal itself by morning; a good morning often portends a pleasurable and productive day. On the other hand as Sophie said, there’s no reason to believe les jeux sont fait if it’s not such a good morning. I currently have a morning routine so enjoyable that the day to follow tends to be fulfilling as well, though. Like a nutritious breakfast, though it doesn’t guarantee a good day to follow, it definitely seems to provide an auspicious start.