Old Becomes New, New Becomes Old

I tried to nonchalently post about baking but since this blog had been silent for the previous three months I'll admit it was a little suspicious.  This fall may have been the most challenging three months in my time as a parent, and perhaps the most stressful quarter of my life.

It all started at the beginning of October when M's new school requested a meeting with us.  They were concerned that he wasn't adjusting well to school and was very disruptive in the classroom.  The school recommended psychological testing, a full time learning support aid and reducing his schooling to half time.  Since our boy started daycare at 8 months old and was fine in nursery school last year we were pretty shocked by this news.

As the weeks went on there was no improvement.  Many times I was called to pick M up early from school because he was having a difficult day.  While I was sympathetic toward my child,  I began to wonder what the issue really was.  We didn't experience anything other than normal 5 year-old behavior challenges at home, and M's behavior actually had dramatically improved since the Summer when we began to be firmer with discipline.

The test results came back extremely high in one verbal aspect, advanced in most areas and average or behind in a few. The psychologist explained that this type of "disharmonic" profile could be very frustrating for a child, and combined with an international move, a new school and other changes in his short life could easily explain his behavior. Plus, she and I reasoned out that in a class with kids 6-10 months younger, with most English learners, he didn't really have any peers in his classroom.  While he had friends in other classes he saw on the playground, he must have felt pretty isolated for most of the day.

One day out of the blue M told me, "I make noises when they are doing something I don't want to do."  I asked what he meant and he explained, "Like counting to 10.  I can count o 100."  OK, so he was, at least in part, being disruptive because he was bored.  I explained this to the school but it had little impact.  I had watched his teacher reading to the class and she did seem to be going awfully slow, especially when M was used to hearing me read chapter books to him. Was this acting out because he was bored and unchallenged? I had volunteered in the class a few times and seen several of the children wandering around, not doing as they were asked.  Perhaps the lack of discipline and structure was hard for M?

In January he tried out is previous school again, a school which is smaller and has more structure.  They knew he was receiving one on one learning support at the new school so they wanted to observe him to see the level of support that was needed.  We told M this was his opportunity to try out his old school and then as a family we'd make a decision.  Turns out, within five minutes he adjusted beautifully, stayed with his class for the whole day both trial days and everyone there--the school administration, learning support team and teachers--unanimously agreed that one on one learning support wasn't necessary!  So, whatever was going on at the other school seems to have been solved by more structure, firmer discipline and a more demanding curriculum.   We had a family meeting and everyone voted to move him back.

That was three weeks ago, and while it's still early days at least we know that he can hold it together during the school day (something the other school thought he was unable to do).  He is a changed kid--more agreeable, more mature, happier.  Every day he tells us all about what he did and what he learned, which I now realized I hadn't heard all Fall.  He describes the atmosphere as "calmer."

This experience, particularly learning about his intelligence profile, changed the way I parent.  I had always thought kids were adaptable, and things like school choice, while important,  wasn't really that important in the sense that kids adjust.  At least for my kid that's not true.  He's a much more sensitive person than I am and I need to continually consider that.  This will have implications for our move back to New York, but that's still several years away.  Perhaps if we give M 3 or 4 years of stability in his current school the move back to New York will be easier.  And we have a lot more choice in New York.   For now, we are all much happier where he is.

Food Friday, Sort of

Well, I at least thought of this post on Friday, even though it's Sunday and I'm just getting around to posting it.

About 15 years ago I spent a year in the developing world.  Daily life included many inconveniences, including power and water cuts, a lack of the type of entertainment I was used to and serious difficulties in finding foods that I never knew I would crave.

And crave I did.  One of the things I learned about myself while I was there is just how resourceful I am, and what a kick I get out of problem solving.  I made chocolate chip cookies with chopped up candy bars.  After a few tries I realized that some oat meal in the batter makes up for the gooeyness of the chocolate.  While I gave up a lot one thing I gained was cable TV.  This proved to be particularly challenging for my cravings because I was continually exposed to food I could not acquire. Two things I was particularly proud of making were a barbeque chicken sandwich (inspired by a TGI Fridays commercial) and English muffin bread.

The English muffin bread doesn't have the "nooks and crannies" celebrated in the add, mainly because it's not fork-split but sliced, but other than that it makes a nice breakfast toast.  And, if you've ever seen an English muffin recipe, you'll notice the bread is a lot easier to make.

So, when one of my favorite online expat forums was lamenting the lack of English Muffins in Holland I immediately thought of my English muffin bread recipe.  Funny, my tastes have changed and in the past year-and-a-half I have not once thought of making this bread, but I made some this morning and it was really good.  So, here it is:

2 teaspoons yeast
3 cups flour (I substituted about 1/3 whole wheat flour, as I do with almost everything)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup water
cornmeal & oil (for the pan)

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt and soda. Heat liquids until very warm (120-130 degrees Fahrenheit).  Add liquid to dry mix and beat well.  Stir in remaining flur to make a stiff batter.

Put in greased, cornmealed loaf pan (or mound on a making sheet).  Cover and let rise for 45 minutes.  Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes.  Remove from pan immediately and let cool.

[Pretty sneaky post, eh?  Not mentioning once my near 4 month absence from the blog.  I'm working on a post that explains that, so stay tuned.]