The Care and Feeding of Elayna

[shadesong]

A letter to my parents... yendi, I know this isn't everything. Tell me what I'm forgetting!

Food: She has the same basic food obsessions... but now she also likes Quaker Chewy granola bars in oatmeal raisin. And she likes to make brownies from the boxed mixes - they don't require milk. At restaurants, she's interested in vegan desserts.

TV: Half an hour a day on weekdays, an hour a day on weekends. She can earn an additional half hour for every half hour she reads.

Movies: I don't think there's anything coming out that I specifically *don't* want her to see.

Books: She's almost at a high school reading level, but I'd limit her to middle-school-style books. The only barrier is content.

If I can find her Latin book, I'll send it; please remind her that it exists. She loves it when she has it, but it's out of sight, out of mind. If she finishes it, let me know and I'll get her the sequel.

Her current obsession is neurology, due to my seizures. See if you can get her library books about the brain. Dad, if you can tell her anything, that'd be great. She's also just interested in the human body in general. (She hasn't had the birds & bees talk yet.) If she expresses any kind of scientific or research interest, please encourage that!

Music: Try to expose her to new stuff! She loves Harry Belafonte, Dad.

Math: She's way into division. If I can get to the school supply store, I'll get her a book of worksheets.

Comments

[creentmerveille.livejournal.com]

I so wish she lived in Orlando.

Kix and she have so much in common!

Especially the avid reading and love of biology and math.

I think they'd like each other. :)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I bet they would; Elayna loves making new friends, too!

[beowabbit]

Remind me, what Latin book is she using?

(She hasn't had the birds & bees talk yet.)

I have to say, that strikes me as mildly odd, not from a practical-need standpoint, but just from the standpoint that she's a bright, scientifically-minded child, and I can't imagine her not wanting to know about such a major part of human biology and human society. (Although I suppose you can know an awful lot about pregnancy, gestation, and childbirth without knowing anything about sperm at all. :-)

[creentmerveille.livejournal.com]

I'll take that further: you can know all about childbirth, pregnancy, live birth vs. egg hatchlings, AND sperm and egg AND even understand in vague terms that animals "mate" and male + female are needed for this AND still not know the details of the mechanics of human sexual reproduction.

At least, that's the situation for my kidlet.

[rhapsody-98.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was 8 when my baby sister was born, so mama sat me and my other sis (5) down and explained EVERYTHING except HOW the darn egg got fertilized. It took me years to put it together. Hehe

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Minimus Pupil.

She's come around the edges of asking, but we haven't detailed it yet... I'm kinda scared to!

[beowabbit]

I'm kinda scared to!

I can imagine a number of reasons for being scared, but which ones are yours?

If I were you (DISCLAIMER: I've never raised a child!) I'd probably look for a book she could read that would cover it. Ideally, not a book about sex, but a book or collection of books that covered sex along with other things, but that had all the basics in them. For instance, a book on human physiology that had a chapter on sex, or an anthro book that talked (among other things) about how various cultures have sex and form families and raise children, or a history book that talks about sex (or even just contraception) through the ages, or fiction that discusses sex (maybe Judy Blume, f'rinstance).

I know I picked up my sex knowledge (by around 10 or 11) from that kind of reading (albeit not orchestrated by my parents), and I think my curiosity and interest in reading were similar to Elayna's.

[heathrow.livejournal.com]

Is she still using a booster seat in the car? You may want to remind them to use it.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! Can't hurt.

They bought her a snazzy new one last year after I blew up at them. It has cupholders.

[heathrow.livejournal.com]

Cupholders? Dang...

Of course, at the rate of gadgetization that's going on, by the time Amelia is Elayna's age, they'll have built in video games!

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

They already have back-of-the-seat DVD players...

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

Song, you might want to mention that anything rated __ is off limits even if she doesn't seem to be paying attention to it...

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Oooh yes! After the National Lampoon incident last year...

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking of...

[xaeon.livejournal.com]

(She hasn't had the birds & bees talk yet.)
When I was in 5th grade, they started teaching us that stuff in school. Might be starting even earlier these days. Just a heads up.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

I had it in 4th grade (plus scarily some little girls get their first menstrual cycle very early these days...)

[hookncrook.livejournal.com]

My mom gave me the talk at 3rd Grade, both my boys got the talk at third grade because that was when they started expressing interest in the human body and started coming home with bogus schoolyard gossip about it.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

my mom showed me a video when i was 5 when she was teaching my older brother's class (for some reason parents were teaching rather than the teachers for sex ed. I think it was some odd school board action).

My mom didn't really explain anything though, and asked if I had questions, but then wasn't comfortable answering things. I got some confused ideas from the whole thing (as one would expect being 5 and watching a pretty high level video with no explanations). It should be done...but it needs to be done clearly and well.

[iroshi.livejournal.com]

(She hasn't had the birds & bees talk yet.)

You might want to jump on that soon, sweetie. I know a lot of people who started their periods at age 9 and 10...it's early, yes, but it happens.

[yendi]

TV. Remind them that it's half an hour reading something on her level. Comics do not count, ditto magazines or anything she read back in the first grade.

Food -- she can make her own sandwiches, so they should leave the fixings in her reach.

And the brownies we've been making haven't been boxed. They've been the Baker's recipe, just using margarine instead of butter.

[rhapsody-98.livejournal.com]

'Song never said you were a Sluggite! I must go friend you too, now!

[yendi]

Of course I am! Although I'm years behind on reading the strip. But 'song and I own the first six or seven books. And I've got two or three T-shirts and a Bun-Bun hat.

[twisteddaydream.livejournal.com]

All hail Bun-Bun! ~grins~ I love him.

[rhapsody-98.livejournal.com]

Kiki has an LJ. Sort ofi (http://www.livejournal.com/users/voiceofkiki)

[wytchchyld.livejournal.com]

Places online with division stuff you can print out:

http://www.sssoftware.com/freeworksheets/division.html
http://www.edhelper.com/division.htm
http://www.aplusmath.com/Worksheets/Division.html
http://www.onlineworksheets.org/long_div2x6.htm (this and the next two are randomly generated so you can get different versions of a worksheet from these three by reloading the URL - useful if you have a division addict)
http://www.onlineworksheets.org/long_div1x3.htm
http://www.onlineworksheets.org/long_div1x3nr.htm
http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/math/div/ (this one has annoying popups attached to it)
http://www.aaamath.com/div.html (not worksheets, but some interactive on-the-web activities to help build automaticity)

[amokk]

So are we taking bets this year on how many days it'll take for all the rules to be totally ignored?

[lightgatherer.livejournal.com]

So is Elayna strictly vegan, or does she just have an interest in vegan foods? If she's a strict vegan, I don't envy you! I haven't gone the vegan route myself in part due to how difficult it is to make sure that all nutritional needs are met. If you've got to balance the critical nutritional needs of a growing child against the demands of a vegan diet, wow....

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Nope... she's just alleric to dairy. And now that she knows the word "vegan", she's fond of asking waiters if this-and-such a dish is vegan, rather than if it's just dairy-free....