But then in six years El 3atal’s professional life was rather stagnating.  He didn’t have as much to challenge him and few people were able to offer growth and development and mentoring.  So, the Gulf is a new experience.  The Beans and I are treating it as an adventure and so far are quite happy.  While missing their friends terribly, the one who most wanted to go missing them the most, they have settled into a new school and are making friends.  They are having their first school adventure in all English and loving it.  Removing the language barrier is allowing them to progress admirably in a new system that approaches education very differently.  We miss the Arabic input, but once we’ve settled into the new system, we’ll see about a tutor to handle that…

At any rate, we’ve been a world of minimal contact given the vagaries of hotel internet connections and it’s left me behind in my confessions of absurdity.  So, for that, dear readers, I apologize heartily.  Soon, you’ll begin seeing my new posts from a new venue and continuing adventure.  Rest assured that I have not been resting on my minimal laurels.  I have been snapping funny photos nearly daily and have a backlog of posts in my mind about life that will wow you.  Sadly I missed our first livestock moment with the camera.  I was too slow and it was over too quickly, but I’ll tell you all about it.  Stick with us, friends, we’re back up and running!

Happy Hopping!

Intrigued, I searched for the app (it’s not an app as I discovered) and came across a world I had never even imagined.  Close your eyes (well, okay you can’t because you’re reading this but you get the picture) and imagine this world.  Mom and Dad and kids sit down and assign chores.  They load them onto their children’s devices and the devices calculate how much allowance is owed for each chore.  Wow.  Now that is cool.  I can see kids doing chores just to play with the apps.  And there are a world of apps out there.  After looking around, I found that what Apple does is allow mom and dad to set up an automated allowance that adds money to Junior’s account at the end of the month.  For me, I’d actually like to see the ones that track by chore able to interact with iTunes and automatically create a gift card or something.  Other parents were also wishing for the ability to have the chores push onto the devices (you know to interrupt games with an alert).  I agree that would be cool.

To be honest, I’m kind of considering giving myself an allowance on iTunes.  That way I can spend on games and such, but only to a specified amount.  It will make it much easier to control and manage.  Hmmm… it’s a brave, new world out there!

Happy Allowances!

This year, I’ve been hearing about gas shortages (and I know how ironic that seems to everyone across the ocean).  First I heard that propane cylinders (used for heating homes and cooking) were gone (thank goodness we’ve got a clever guard who had some put away).  Next I heard that diesel shortages were being reported, meaning no more hot water.  Guess I’d better fill up the tank in my car quick before that becomes the next casualty.  But it also got me thinking.  During the summer, allergic folks and asthmatics began reporting serious breathing issues just after the government reported that electricity delivery issues in the Sinai had cut off our receipt of power from Egypt.  The back-up plan was fueling power plants by using diesel.  So, did I miss the announcement this winter that we’d be using diesel?  Or are we still using diesel?  Interesting to think that these outages are strategic relief valves intended to keep power going in the long run.  I wonder… anyone know anything?

Happy Candle-light!

While many adults would never be late for a meeting, many (most?) of the foreigners that have kids in school with mine bring their kids to school late.  School starts early, I certainly get that.  But it seems that their feeling is that school starts when the teacher begins to teach.  In fact, here in Jordan, school starts each morning with a line-up by class, singing of the national anthem and some other songs and such.  It’s sort of a greeting the day approach.  I like it.  It means the kids are there, all together, playing until time and then they have a few minutes to get into the mindset for school.  Honestly I kind of equate it to our nighttime routine with the kids.  After dinner, bath, and books, we sing two prayers, both alphabet songs, and then do prayers.  It gets them ready and focused on sleep.  This is particularly beneficial if your child has difficulty with transitions.

But somehow the foreigners have decided that the morning ritual, in which all of the other students participate, is unimportant.  They bring the kids to school exactly at the beginning of the school day (or even a couple of minutes late).  Somehow that 20 minutes of prep time is not valuable to them.  But here’s something else I’ve noticed… it’s not just about 20 minutes of time waster.  I get that it would be nice to get up later (trust me, I really do get it).  We leave quite early in the mornings to get there on time (which for me means no less than 5 minutes before the first bell rings and the lines are formed).  But, if my kids are not there to line up and sing the songs and greet the day, that’s just one more way they’re different.  It kind rankles to me that parents complain that their kids don’t really fit in and then do things that make them stand out.  After all, the other kids have parents (or buses) that bring them on time for school.  They garner school spirit by learning the song, along with others in the morning.  Repetition of the songs builds knowledge.  And they better understand the culture.

For all of those reasons, I’m befuddled that people who would consider it the height of rudeness for someone to show up 20 minutes late for an appointment find it acceptable to bring their kids 20 minutes after the first bell rings.  The longer I’m here the more I forgive the few minutes late that most Arabs show up.  After all, I can take my ipad or a book and simply entertain myself (and it’s not a cultural value to be on time).  But, why is it that so many folks think that their kids not being on time is somehow different?  It’s an interesting dichotomy, if you ask me.

Happy Late Arrivals!

We said goodbye to our old tea party kitchen, our beauty salon set, our little red wagon, in short, we’ve been getting rid of the vestiges of our younger time.  We started with the books as I thought it might be a little less emotional and a little less cling-producing.  The strategy seemed to work as they identified so many books to give away that I’ve been slowly selling off portions of a nice-sized children’s library.  When I say nice-sized, let’s put the number somewhere between 50 and 75 books.  Don’t worry, though, we’ve kept the older books which have to be at least twice as many (or more!).  Once we’re done selling, we’ve agreed to donate the rest to the public school that JujuBean’s class visited.  They took the girls in and showed them the lovely library with its gleaming shelves… waiting for books to arrive.  Yep, it was a fine, large empty room.  So, we dutifully sent in two of our nicer early readers in English.  And now, we know what to do with our excess from the garage saling.  The few that we really found very emotional to part with, we gave to little CousinBean.  That way we know someone we love is enjoying them and we may get to see them on visits.

Once we finished the books, we began to tackle the toys.  This was much harder for the kids… well and also for me.  Some of these things I remember buying for baby ButterBean.  I recall the look of joy on her face as she opened the presents, her intense concentration as she played with them.  They aren’t things, they’re memories.  But, as an aficionado of Clean House on Style, I know very well that I get to keep the memories long after the items are gone.  Nothing takes those away.  Unlike all of my past efforts to pry away toys and games from the Beans, this time they were finally ready.  We used Clean House’s fabulous method and had a keep box, a sell box, and a trash can.  Each item had to be placed in one of the three.  If it went into the keep box, the Beans had to identify a new home where they could keep the items.  It really seemed to click this time.  At first I was having to push them to define where it should go.  Shortly, they took the lead and dashed about dropping stuff in boxes, asking each other, and making final decisions.  Instead of leading, I was following.  My surprise (and pride) was complete when JujuBean offered up the salon and tea kitchen (I wasn’t even going there knowing the emotion attached to those two items).  The Beans are growing, aren’t they?

The thing is… those New Age warblers are right.  Doing a big clear out opens up space, in both your heart and your home, for new things.  With the money we can choose to have a new adventure.  Or the Beans may get to choose fun decor for their playroom.  The possibilities are endless.  And if they do decide to make a new space for themselves, we can be comfortable in knowing that the things inhabiting it are ones that made the cut.  They managed to be critically considered and be found acceptable.  In short, the creme of the age-appropriate crop is left.  And now, I look forward to seeing what exciting new things come to fill in our hearts (but hopefully maybe not our home).

Happy New Ages!

And now for a MommaBean confession, I can’t stand doing mom things. Those of you who actually know me are probably laughing already. People who come to my house figure out pretty quickly that there’s no point in asking “Did you make this lovely (insert food item of choice)?” They realize that HelperBean is responsible for the food in my house (mommy task one: outsourced). They also know that HelperBean manages keeping the house in order (for evidence of this, come over now when we’re doing a major go through and clean out and HelperBean isn’t allowed to do her usual neatening and straightening. It’s an absolute wreck. (mommy task two: outsourced)). And please, please don’t ask me to sew something. I promise all of MemeBean’s friends wonder where on earth I came from. If she isn’t making, sewing, or cooking something, she must be deathly I’ll. They say it skips a generation .

So traditional mommy tasks are really just not my thing at all. I’m not that kind of mom… But would you believe I have friends who are? And they get frustrated with their kids, just like I do. And they get dragged down on occasion. And they spend each day putting one foot in front of the other, too. And they’re counting the minutes until bedtime just like I am. Like me, I suspect they also think carpe diem is highly overrated. Some days they want to shoot, not seize. So, this article was timely and releasing. Basically, the author counsels us each to seize our Kairos moments. Those instants each day when we get beyond the daily tasks and the grind of doing and see, really see our kids. The unique smell of JujuBean. The sweet, lingering hug of ButterBean, the shout of triumph when JuniorBean defeats a particularly hard level on the Wii. You know, those “God” instants.

I have some friends who make comments that make it seem they think I’m some sort of special mom. They are impressed by my doing art projects and science projects with my kids. You know, they shouldn’t be. In addition to outsourcing all of the grinding mom-tasks, my art projects (like the cooking I do) take no more than 15 minutes. I could give an excuse like talking about the average attention span for kids at various ages, but let’s admit 15 minutes of patience is often all I can dredge up. But if I’m being really, really honest with you, I think our kids are cherishing their Kairos moments as well. And while they won’t be the same moments as ours, they are the special times out of the day… And 15 minutes is enough for them to think, hey that was really neat.

So, instead of imaging that we should love all day every day, I think we’d all be better off if we just admitted that we need to carve out moments of each day to make special memories and moments with our kids. The things they remember best aren’t going to be what great meals mom made or how clean the house was. The things they’ll remember are the quiet times when they just felt loved. So, when you look out and see super-mom, just remember, she’s not a better mom than you are, she’s a different mom. And her kids are probably no happier than yours. You’re a great mom too and that super-mom, she’s watching you and wishing she could play Barbie with her kids for an hour the way you do without wanting to break something, or speak in that sweet quiet voice you use, or… Well, you get the picture.

Happy Kairos moments!

They gave two groups of students the same test.  At the end, one group was praised for being smart and the other for working hard.  They then asked them which follow-up test they would like, one that was the same level or one that was a little harder from which they could learn something new.  The “smart” kids chose the same level test.  The “hard workers” chose the harder test.  They tried several different ways of measuring this effect and found it to continue to be valid.

Reading the comments was almost as interesting as reading the article.  Many people talked about how general praise (good job, smart girl, nice writing) made them anxious about their ability to repeat the success. Was their success a fluke?  Would people find out that the first time had just been luck?  Think about this, it is a very powerful message.  It is an exceptionally important point for parents.  If we praise our child for “doing a good job” what will they do the next time?  Do they know what they did well? If we say we’re “proud of them” will they know how to continue doing the things that make us proud?  I started thinking about (and listening to) the way I praise the Beans.  And then I changed it.

I’ve started praising the fact that they put in hard effort to get good results rather than the results themselves.  It’s helped me think through the fact that they are putting in a great effort and working hard is more valuable to them than getting an A.  Not that getting A’s wasn’t sacrificed when I put them in an Arabic language program that’s tough (except JuniorBean… we won’t go there that kid could probably gets As in Chinese if we put him on the playground for a week!).  I’ve also recognized that the fact that they are smart (if they are) does nothing for them.  It’s using those brains that makes the difference.  I push Junior Bean harder (having him read ButterBean’s stories) because things at his grade level are too easy and I don’t want him too used to that.  I got far too used to everything coming very easy.  It can make you lazy…  I’m also encouraging them to try things that are too hard to see what they can learn from them.  I let them know in advance that these things are likely above their level, but will be a great challenge to teach them new things.

The second article I read talks about how good parenting can raise test scores on the much-bandied-about PISA test.  They studied what actions on behalf of parents led to improved scores.  They found that reading every day to your first grader makes a huge difference.  Most interesting to me is the fact that supporting your child’s education makes the biggest difference.  This could be reading with your child, talking about their day, making sure they get to school.  These types of activities are more important for academic success than just playing with your child.  It makes sense.  I will say that I think all kids need some of both.  They need to see that Mom and Dad just want to spend time with them and be with them.  But, it’s nice to see that the Mom-things that I like to do are also particularly valuable.  Personally, I believe that playing Barbies or cars or whatnot is a particular form of torture… but I’ll read 20 books to the kids.

We, in fact, do read every day.  And we talk about what we read.  I actually thought that was a no-brainer that everyone knew, but have recently realized that some parents are just reading the story and moving on.  Don’t get me wrong, reading the story is valuable.  But, think through what reading does for you.  It provokes your thought.  It makes you think about your opinions and why you hold them.  It is a gateway into another world.  But how will your children know that?  Well, they’ll know that because you will teach them when reading.  When you read books with your kids, ask them questions.  First, make sure they understood the content.  then, move deeper than that.  In a story with a main character that is different than the others, ask how you think they felt.  Ask what your kids think happened after the story ended.  Talk about how they might react in the same situation.  In other words, just like you teach your child to add or subtract, teach them how to gain meaning from books.  It isn’t just a nice story, it’s an opportunity to learn and grow.  Show them that.

The other thing this article did is something that is very important to me as well.  It shifted the responsibility for learning from solely on the teacher to shared with the parents.  It acknowledges that we need good teachers.  But we also need good parents.  If your child is struggling with reading, don’t ask what the teachers are doing at school.  First look at what you are doing at home.  Have you sat down to read with your child?  Have you gotten early readers that promote good reading skills?  If so, what challenges is your child having?  Does it seem like it’s a learning issue?  Address what you observe with the teachers, making it a partnership to good learning.

Also show your child you’re interested in what they’re doing and learning.  I found it telling that they found talking with your kids about their day and what they’ve learned was more valuable than being a member of the PTA and involved at the school.  While I’m sure both are meaningful and we need both, your child clearly needs to feel you are interested in THEIR learning, not just the learning environment or community.  Certainly, test scores aren’t the be all and end all in any way.  But, they can be useful in measuring how well your child is learning.  And whether you regard testing as valuable to your particular situation, find ways to measure for yourself how well your child is understanding and internalizing the information.

The third article is an interesting one talking about how important talent is relative to practice.  The article is, in part, refuting the idea that has taken root due to the success of books like Malcolm Gladwell’s the outliers.  Gladwell talks about the fact that excellence often comes down to practicing.  He cites a study done where musicians who practiced 10,000 hours and were considered excellent.  5,000 made for good musicians.  It seemed, according to the study, that working hard would make the difference.  In this article, they talk about how the study tells only part of the story.

The author of the article cites a different study that found:

The remarkable finding of their study is that, compared with the participants who were “only” in the 99.1 percentile for intellectual ability at age 12, those who were in the 99.9 percentile — the profoundly gifted — were between three and five times more likely to go on to earn a doctorate, secure a patent, publish an article in a scientific journal or publish a literary work. A high level of intellectual ability gives you an enormous real-world advantage.

Interesting interpretation of that data to me.  While I find earning a doctorate, securing a patent, and publishing all very interesting, I’m not sure they necessarily rate as “real world” advantages.  You don’t meet that many PhD holders in the “real world”.  In fact, you do see a lot of Doctorates in academia – rather the opposite of the real world.  Patent holders can be part of the real-world, but not the real world most of us live in.  Do you find that your life in incomplete and you can’t perform your job because you never got a patent.  Unlikely.  In fact, I tend to think of patent holders as tinkerers and inventors.  Not exactly the fodder for real-world interactions.

Bottom line, the advantages he shows aren’t so much part of most people’s real-world.  There’s nothing wrong with them, but they’re not the stuff that everyday success (regardless of how you define it, unless the definition includes getting a PhD, obtaining a patent or publishing) are they?

The finding from the authors own research I did find interesting.  His work on working memory capacity and the impact it had on the ability to sight-read for musicians was interesting.  But I’d like to know more about applicability across professions.  He refutes the idea that IQ is most valuable when considering new and unfamiliar tasks with his study regarding sight-reading for musicians (the very definition of sight-reading is that it is new and unfamiliar).  But, in all he may be onto something. Certain types of intellectual ability may very well definitively impact certain types of success.  But the bottom line for me, as a parent, is that trying hard matters.  After all, a B student can earn a master’s as easily as their “smarter” sibling.  If we combine all of these thing together, the end result for me is that I need to challenge each of my kids to be the best that THEY can be with their talents.  And whether they have the greatest intellectual ability or the least among the three, each one can set and achieve goals if I teach them the right skills to do so.  So whether talent matters or not, we’ll be trying to the best we can with what we’ve got… because if we do our best in an area that we’re interested in, I think we often find that we have talents of which we simply weren’t aware.

Happy Perils and Talents!

The cards are little science/art projects that you can do.  They’re fun, the ingredients are reading available, and the kids love them.  You can see them here (50 Science Things to make and do).  They include things like making a movie (you know like when we were kids) by drawing small pictures on a notebook of paper and flicking them really fast), mixing vinegar and oil together to understand the properties of things that don’t actually combine (and making a nice salad dressing), making an acrobat out of card stock and modeling clay to demonstrate gravity (the base weighs more than the body), making a spider that goes up and down his web (friction).  My favorite so far was the one we did yesterday… using marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti, we learned about shapes and which ones are stronger.  The best moment?  When, just after an explanation of one of the concepts JujuBean says, “Wow, Mom, you’re really smart.”  Thanks Usbourne… you’ve fooled my kids into thinking mommy’s got science brain.

In honor of short exam days, we’re doing a science project a day… and it has been fun!  I encourage you to grab your own set of science cards and have a ball with your kids.  The activities don’t take alot of time and make learning new ideas fun.  And teachers, check out these cards… you’ll learn something new that you can pass along!

Happy Einsteins!

Now, I have a much bigger hate-hate relationship with banks in Jordan, as I’m certain everyone knows.  I’ve also had the founder’s daughter of one of the biggest banks in the Middle East comment when I’ve called them to task.  The banks have complacent, rude employees who give a mediocre customer experience on a good day.  When you team that with Aramex, well… let’s just say that I’m certain this is one of the 7 rings of hell.  Really.

Each time we need to get new bank cards from my least favorite bank in Jordan (who ever thought that I would want a “local bank” when opening an account at an international one.  Helloooooo, I want an international bank experience, not a Jordan one.  Please not a Jordan one).  At any rate, every SINGLE time our cards expire or need to be reissued I have issues.  Not with the bank mind you.  I have issues with delivery by Aramex.  In the past, I finally asked the bank to simply have an English-speaking staff member call me to come pick up my card.  That worked fine.  But now, here we are again…

Due to some account changes, El 3atal and I need new cards.  We went into the bank well before Christmas at the beginning of a 2 week stay in Amman for him.  We were assured the new cards would come well before he left.  They didn’t. Of course they didn’t.  I have no idea whose fault this is and I had expected nothing less.  When he had them issued, he confirmed 3 times (!) that if they came after he left, there would be no problem for me to sign for them.  He was assured, three times, that since it’s a joint account and I have signing authority it would definitely not be a problem.  Fast forward to yesterday (two days after El 3atal left, mind you).

I got a pleasant call from a nice girl at Aramex.  She wanted to know how she could call Mr. 3atal.  I explained that he was out of the country.  Oh, no.  She wanted to deliver his new bank cards (one of them ought to be mine as well, I’m pretty sure but let’s leave that aside for the moment).  They can only deliver them to him personally and he must sign for them himself.  So, when will he be back.  I then told her, I have no idea, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month.  Oh, then they will have to return the cards to the bank. Of course they will… of course.

After this little spiel, I attempted to explain to her that the bank had assured us that  I could sign for the cards.  I asked her to call the bank to check.  Apparently, such a phone call is impossible.  She was firm and adamant that no, she couldn’t call the bank and she couldn’t have me receive the cards.  OK?  I will admit that while my patience was very limited from the beginning of the call, this put me far past the limit.  I was rather unkind in explaining to her that she should never end a negative statement with OK?  It, in fact, isn’t OK.  OK? is asking for agreement.  If I say to you, let’s go to Chili’s for dinner, OK?  That implies that I either a) agree or b) have another option.  When I asked her, so with your OK, is there another option, she replied that of course there was not.  There was, in fact, no way at all that she could be of any help whatsoever.  I explained that in the future, if she is unable to assist in any way, she should not say OK.  She should simply inform the customer that here is the problem, she can’t do anything to resolve it, and the bank will contact the customer.

Understand that I have sympathy for her.  I know people who do customer service training in Jordan.  They are as clueless as those who perform as customer services reps.  So, I am certain this young lady has neither the authority to actually assist the customer nor the understanding (or perhaps interest) that she should think of a way to help.  I also get that the bank of my (un)choice has rules and has not exactly been clear with their partner.  But honestly, by calling my telephone with no solutions and no assistance all she did was waste my time.

And when I realized that my card should be in there and tried to call back to find out, the number listed left me talking to another nice girl who was not only helpless, but then actually managed to disconnect me.  So, no resolution and a hang-up.

If this were a one-off, I would be merely a tad miffed.  But this is a consistent issue.  It happens every single time we need bank cards.  It happens every single time we order via shop and ship (a year later I finally got one order and two months after that they tried to make me pay for someone else’s order).  When we worked with them in the past to have their delivery folks take invoices to customers and return with checks, they didn’t get it right a single time.  Not once.  Out of probably 20 opportunities.  I ended up hiring a taxi driver to go to each location and manage it.  He got it right.  Makes you wonder…

So, from now on I will be forcing my opinion on this one. It always seems to be me dealing with the incompetence and I’m done with it.  If the bank needs to get something to me, they can call me and tell me its ready at their location. Because frankly, the 20 minutes I spent trying to get both young ladies to think through whether they could actually help in any way and the annoyance I experienced that lasted after are not worth it.  I’ll never get that time back.  And if I have to choose, I’d rather spend my time parking in a crowded area and dealing with incompetent bank employees because at the end of it all, at least I’d have some resolution.  As it was, I’m just frustrated and will still have to go and deal with the bank.  So, thanks, but no thanks.  Please don’t deliver anything to my door because if there’s one thing I know, it’s this:  They won’t get it right.  Not even once.  Save me from incompetent service providers and their incompetent partners, please.  I haven’t got the patience to be nice…

Happy (Mis)Delivery!

In reading a very interesting article today about those “Tiger” Kids (you know, the Asian-American overachievers that Amy Chua so controversially extolled the virtues of in her book and articles on what great parents Asians are, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother).  The question posed by the author is, what becomes of these children who are taught (or bullied perhaps depending on point of view) into succeeding in school.  Can they get along in real life and how do they fare?

One observation that the article made got me thinking.  It talks about how Asians aren’t taught to smile.  Really.  It’s a common complaint about Jordan too.  We Americans think everyone always looks grumpy or downright mad.  My kids are so out-of-tune with the smiling phenomenon that when I smile and say hi to random foreigners, they ask who they are.  I explain that I don’t know them and they are eternally confused.  And it happens each time.  But me, I was brought up to smile say Hi to folks.  I don’t to most people here because they seem so uncertain how to respond (and seem to think I might mean something forward by it, which is sad for them honestly).

What I found interesting about this is the idea that people are discriminating against them because they are Asian.  Now, maybe they are.  But then again, in the examples they use, the people have very limited interpersonal skills to accompany their great test scores (college admissions) or technical skills (job promotions).  Well, welcome to the real world.  Without interpersonal skills, it doesn’t matter that you were the top of your high school class or your college valedictorian.  Those things don’t actually mean diddly-squat when you have to work on teams in the real work-a-day world.  

So, for those tiger moms out there in the US, and those Jordanian moms, and those (fill in any other country in the world because I can’t think of another one that has our unbridled enthusiasm for smiling), maybe you’d be better off teaching your child to smile than teaching them to memorize well and take tests well.  After all, test taking may get you to college, but it won’t help you get a job or a promotion.  Those school skills are done once school is.  So parents need to face the question, am I teaching my child to o well in school or to do well in life?  Clearly they aren’t the same and giving this more thought may do more than all the browbeating and Tawjihi prep sessions in the world…

Happy Smiles!