On Tuesday we took Squire Tuck to the doctor, where they determined that
he is not brain dead. Sometimes I have trouble deciding whether I am
more frustrated by American doctors ("Well, either your hearing loss is
permanent or your hearing will come back sooner or later") or Czech
doctors. As she fixed the funny hat to his head the nurse told him that
he looked like "Little Red Riding Hood".

I told him how in high school and college when I had my hair super
short people would call me "sir" and it’s nothing to do with you and
everything to do with them. And he heard that, I really think he did,
but he also is seeing a summer of sweaty long hair stretch in front of
him and he said, "When I come home from school today, I want you to cut
my hair."

I was a bit sad about it, because his hair is beautiful and healthy and
when he jumps up in the air it’s the flowing California hair I will
never have and part of the reason I used to shave my head: HA. Can’t
have it, never wanted it anyway. And I hate to think of him doing
something because he’s giving in to someone else’s standards, or even
just because he’s tired of feeling like he has to justify his own. So
it sort of hurt me to get the clippers out.

But on the other hand I absolutely understand the feeling that there
are so many things you can’t control, so many assumptions people will
make no matter your best efforts, and so many times that you’re so
twisted up in your head that you don’t even know whether your need for
change is internal or external, but you know you need it and you need
it now.

So he got in the tub and I got out the clippers and bzzzzt and it was
all gone. We swept it up into a bag to take to the cottage, because
human hair repels many critters and it may be nice for the birds,
although I think we’re late for this year. It’s weird to see his skull
shape again after a year of growing his hair. If he grows up into a
bald man he’ll have nothing to fear, as he really has a lovely cranium.
His face looks so big, and a bit older, and he seems to have grown into
my stubborn jawline in the last 12 months, too. He seems happy about
it. I asked him if he worried he might regret it, and he was like: Mom.
It is hair, it grows back.

I would maybe eventually like to be smart; not take every event as if it were laden with echoing meaning. I would maybe like to see each moment at its actual value. I would also like to get over this itchy feeling that if I shaved my hair off, I would somehow become as clear-headed as my son seems to me today.

 

hey guess what i went to on tuesday night? an AWESOME parent teacher conference. who knew, right?

Friar Tuck couldn’t go so i stood in the little line outside the classroom
reading my new margaret atwood book (love!) and pretending not to
listen to the woman who likes to complain about how much she hates the
teacher, how much she hates the school, how her precious boy has never
done anything wrong and she has had it up to here and blah. this woman
is very good for me because she makes me feel a glimmer of something
like sympathy for the teacher.

not that i haven’t expressed hatred for the teacher, because i have.
but i don’t think Squire Tuck is pure and i don’t think we’re without blame in
the problems he has. and i haven’t stood out in the hallway in front of
her classroom unleashing a non-stop tirade against her door. i’ve
dumped my tirade here so that i could go into the meetings with my
hands free, ready for whatever kind of working together could be
accomplished.

anyway, so the teacher (she doesn’t know Squire Tuck has a tutor, shhh) says
that she’s seen a vast, marked improvement in his attitude and in his
schoolwork since the last meeting. she’s very pleased. she’s delighted.
she’s amazed. it’s true that she has also sort of half-heartedly
started alerting us to upcoming tests, for which the tutor has been
thus able to help Squire Tuck study. i gave her a lot of credit for that, because it has
helped a lot to know wtf is going on in school.

this is what i have so far, this series of revelations: 1) this teacher
cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school (acknowledged
11/2005); 2) i cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school
(acknowledged approx. 4/2006); 3) Friar Tuck cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs
to know for school (acknowledged 11/2006); however (formally recognized 1/2007)
apparently SOMEBODY can teach Squire Tuck, and (like always) when you stop
banging your head against the wall and try the door handle, it’s like
ahhhhhhhff cooourssse!

should’ve gotten a tutor ages ago.

then i went down the hall to talk to the german teachers who are beside
themselves with frustration over how Squire Tuck CAN and yet WON’T. haha,
ladies, welcome to my world. "but he’s so smart… he’s so! smart! he
could do anything! he just won’t try!" so they were kind of wet
hennish. fortunately i was feeling charming and also very favorable
towards them because of the fabulous trip to vienna last month, in
which Squire Tuck realized that english was Not Enough and that german could
be Useful, which is when he started admitting that he had homework. so
by the end of it there we all were in the german teacher’s lounge
shaking our heads and laughing and vowing to work together and holy
smokes, y’all. that was probably the first parent/teacher conference at
which i neither pressed half-moons of blood from my palms nor cried on
the way home nor any of the other things that i was coming to think
were like, as much a part of the conference as olives are part of
martinis.

i gave the tutor a raise today, btw. he best not get another job while we’re gone in february.

i am thinking so hard these last few days that my head actually hurts.
look! i will spare you all that with instead a lovely little slice of
life story.

yesterday i asked Squire Tuck to do a few things and he agreed; in fact we
stopped just shy of spitting in our hands before shaking on it, so
heartily did we agree and discuss the rewards and penalties for
sticking with the agreement vs. not (respectively). about five minutes
after i left the room he told Friar Tuck he was done (uhm, no) and the two of
them went to the store.

i was in my lowercase rage by the time they came back, that is to say
not a full towering inferno of rage, which i reserve for catching
someone in a direct and hurtful-to-me lie, but up there. i know that
Squire Tuck felt that what i wanted him to do was not necessary (the list
included things like "brush his teeth") and i know that Friar Tuck thinks
that since the consequences are on Squire Tuck (dental care being covered, it
is Squire Tuck who will suffer from bad dental hygiene) then it’s up to Squire Tuck
to get stuff done. but. but. but. so they came home and i was all
grumbledy grumble grr. and Squire Tuck put his hands on the sides of my face
and looked me full in the eye and said, i know you are angry, but i
really really think i did what i really have to do, and it’s me who
takes the punishment if i’m wrong, so you really shouldn’t be mad at me
when i’m trying to take my own responsibility." then gave me a full hug
for about a minute.

and he goes, "now i know that was kind of manipulative in a way because
i know it’s hard for you to be mad after i give you a hug. but in
another way, it made you feel better, right, so is it still
manipulative?"

yeah, so Squire Tuck got beaten up in school a couple weeks ago.

to say that he’s one of the bravest people i know is the spin i like best for this right now. as in, the morning after it happened i told him he didn’t have to go to school if he didn’t feel like it, and he said, "they made me really sad and they made me really mad, but i don’t want them to feel like they made me afraid, and the best way to show them that is to go back to school." and he went.

it’s hard, the way you want desperately to be and to show that you are 100% on his side. it’s hard because the first thing is that you want to say "how did it get to this point?" and you want your kid to be able to take responsibility for his part, if he had one. everything starts somewhere. but it’s not about who started it, once he’s on the floor and someone else is kicking him.

Squire Tuck is not the only one being targeted. Squire Tuck is perhaps the only one who was held down by one kid while other kids kicked him, but Squire Tuck is not the only one afraid to go to school. Squire Tuck is not the sole target, and more obviously Squire Tuck is not the only person hurt by this. it’s all very messy. it is smeared with pain. bullies suck.

so there’s been a class meeting, and we’ve had a meeting with the teacher, and with the school psychologist. it’s all quite informative. to say that i’m furious would be an understatement, but what i want is not retribution, but resolution. i want it to stop; i want it to be stopped for good.

anyway, anyway. this horrible thing happened to my boy. the things about it that suck are nearly everything. the things that do not suck are of interest and so i will share them:

about Squire Tuck:
what saves this story is that Squire Tuck told me about it, that he knew it had to be talked about, and when he was done talking and listening he said he didn’t feel like talking about it any more for a while. there is licking wounds and there is picking scabs, and Squire Tuck knows which is which. that’s a strength.
and i liked that when we talked about it, that he doesn’t think of this in terms of what he should change about himself so that it doesn’t happen again, but in terms of how he should deal with this person so that it doesn’t happen again. he knows he’s not broken. i think that’s awesome.

about others:
this feeling i have that everyone i tell becomes part of this mass of people behind us, this collection of people who love Squire Tuck and see him for who he is. is he a silly boy, is he american, does he have blue eyes, is he small for his age, does he have a freakish fondness for swords and fantasy? yes.
is discussing these things moving towards solving the problem? no, not really. because first of all, we can’t change most of it, and secondly, he’s not the one who did something wrong.
i knew i’d have to cover some ground again that i’m tired of covering; i expected that. BUT! i did not expect his friend’s mother to take me out for wine and perspective; his circus teacher to offer to walk him to school; my parents to make a late-night call offering any assistance i could imagine. friends and family: the army of Squire Tuck.

so that’s where we are.

i dream that my ear itches and i go looking for a q-tip. they’re not on the bathroom shelf where they usually are; they’re on a different shelf, but it’s not any kind of a stressful hunt or anything, just, huh, different shelf. i wake up and my ear itches and i go looking for the q-tips, which i now remember i moved to the top shelf a few days ago. "well, well, you!" i tell my reflection, "you make my dreams come true!"

kids these days: which is more surprising, that a third of all czechs (mostly young people) don’t have any idea what happened on november 17th, or that only a third of california students passed their physical fitness test? those who cannot remember the past will be condemned to do sit-ups.

ah, here’s a topic. i hired a tutor for Squire Tuck last week. he starts this week so i have no real evaluation yet. i just know that Friar Tuck is unable to get over the wall that is Squire Tuck’s lack of organization, focus, and mainly interest, and i gave up slamming my head against it last year. grades have been slightly worse than poor this year. he comes home with homework that Friar Tuck is only able to explain by virtue of his fascination with grammar ("ah, this pluperfect verb is derived from the noun that shares a root word with this other noun"), and then Squire Tuck pulls stuff like, "now, what’s a noun again?" Friar Tuck has a full head of beautiful hair and i can’t watch him tear it out anymore; nor am i about to put my own long luxurious locks* at stake. i signed on for a number of things in parenting, including the understanding that i would be puked on more than twice, but i am not ready to drill a child endlessly in subjects about which he does not give a damn. i would have thought that education in matters such as subject and predicate was the job of the school (i thought my job was "try to aim for the bucket next time, sweetie"), but i would apparently have been wrong, and i am not willing to fill the gap, but i can see the kid is getting lost. hence: tutor.

*ha

Friar Tuck and i had a bit of disagreement about it, because getting someone to drill Squire Tuck on the difference between a noun and a verb, however creatively and professionally they do so, does not solve the fact that Squire Tuck couldn’t care less which is which. i think it’s worth trying anyway. i don’t know, but i bet i’ll turn out to be right. i usually am.

to his credit, despite his inability to tell a maple leaf from an oak leaf, Squire Tuck can run for 20 minutes solid AND he knows what november 17th was about.

yesterday we watched amadeus and then we watched the hurra torpedo video. it was a musical mashup of ginormous proportions! and i think: all parents want their children to be happy. i can be constantly disappointed that he doesn’t use his intelligence for the greatest possible profit to himself and others, whether or not he’s happy, or i can stand in the front row and cheer while he slams the refrigerator door down with percussive humor with his pants falling off him, as long as he’s happy. and i think it’s clear that i’m a parent who is going to fully applaud kitchen appliance 80s cover bands. but i also think i should get him a tutor in case he decides to write an opera. so to speak. in whatever form it takes.

Squire Tuck is pretty awesome. it’s interesting to me, our ability to go on for days
and weeks just sort of existing together in a calm affection and then one day he’ll enrage
me to the point that i think MAYBE BOARDING SCHOOL because i will never be able to handle him as a teen, and then the next
day he’ll melt my heart. recently it’s a lot more of the melting. this is preferred by a majority of the panel.

school is not so good, he is (or is
perceiving himself to be) the boynobodylikes, he doesn’t seem to think
people hate him but there is an stated absence of affection that
baffles me. he seems uninterested
in doing anything about that. i think that this is maybe okay. i told
him today on the walk to school that nearly everybody i know who is
interesting now had a pretty shitty time of it when they were kids, one
way or another, and he said, it’s only school that’s bad and i’m trying
not to mind it.

i wish i could make it better for him somehow but i think that i can’t
change the actual problem. i think the only way to make it
"better" is to counterbalance it and that effort seems to be going much
better. it’s i guess month six of "let’s not talk about school unless
Squire Tuck brings it up" and i’m not saying i’m perfect but we have
discovered a full range of other topics that are tremendously
interesting and much less stressful that we can talk about.

like on the walk to school we pass this guy almost every
day. he has a huge dog that he has clearly not trained and can barely
control; he walks his dog around the school every morning at the same
time the kids are arriving and you see him struggle to hold the dog
from attacking other dogs and small children. i hate this guy so much i
have to cross the street so i don’t punch him. "there goes that
donkey-hole again," says Squire Tuck as we cross the street; Squire Tuck, who is
trying to model for me cursing without cursing. donkeyhole is not as
good as pitchforks but i like it. in addition to its being clever, i
like that it sounds like "don quixote". your anger is tilting at
windmills, it says. lighten up.

one of the things we were told to do was to read more with him in
czech. it is hard to find great books in czech for this age. i go to
the bookstore and it’s row upon row of something translated from
english, and the translations of children’s books here are notoriously
bad. some are good i’m sure but i don’t know
which. this kills me because i know which books are good in english and
can talk about YA literature until my teeth are blue; i go into a
bookstore here and it’s nothing but series books from english, most of
which stank in the first place, translated by someone who at first
glance has translated "indian" as if it meant "american indian". i put
the book back on the shelf and walk away. Friar Tuck usually winds up reading
the news with him. perhaps that’s edifying.

right now they’re sitting in the living room; they’re reading a fairy
tale by jan werich, one that features a king giving a poor but
clever maid a riddle and she solves it and he marries her. i like
this version because it goes on after "happily ever after" and also
because it’s not remotely insulting to kids. also, it’s funny. they are
laughing pretty hard and that’s a good sound.