Laura Ingalls vs. Nellie Oleson

There are lots of possible titles for this post...
- The sisterhood of the elastic sweat pants (my idea)
- Flipping the bird (Jake's idea)

but we'll go with Laura vs. Nellie Oleson because that is probably how Elena thinks of it.


When we were in Austin, Gram took Elena shopping. At a fabulous sale at the GAP, we found some fleece sweat pants. Gram bought Elena three pairs in different colors. I thought this was great (thanks gram!) because Elena still likes to wear her skirts and it's so cold now in the winter. So she could wear these underneath. Or wear them around the house on the weekends. Elena was very excited for them to come out of the wash and wore the pink pair to school.

A little bit later, Elena started to complain about the elastic on the ankles. I thought it was too tight, maybe shrunk in the dryer? But the didn't seem to tight. Then Elena started to say how she hated them because they looked like 'Jacob's pants' (Jacob of her class - not Jake her poppa). Something about 'boys pants' - I pishawed this comment that elastics cuffs are not the definition of 'boys.'

I guess I didn't really notice, but she pretty much stopped wearing them to school. Until about two weeks ago. She must have worn them again (I don't keep a log of her clothes, so I couldn't be sure) but on Sunday morning she put on the pants to wear to church under one of her dresses. Before we left she detailed this elaborate plan to cut the elastic off the cuffs and hem them up with tape. I finally asked her what was going on. It turned out that Elena was getting made fun of at school for wearing the pants...because one girl (we'll call her Nellie - not her real name - for the purpose of this story) has deemed them 'boys pants' and teases her about them. So she stopped wearing. But she likes them, so her solution was to cut the elastic off. On the drive to church we discussed what it was to be a bully and tease people. Then I said, 'so say we cut off the elastic from your pants. Then Nellie makes fun of you for having cut the elastic off...what would you do?' Silence. Elena eventually responded, 'I never thought of that.' Then I asked her, 'so, if Nellie is a bully, and she is teasing you about your pants and you change your pants, what have you taught her.' Elena says, 'that teasing people get them to do what you want!' Hummmmm....

Appropriately the time for all ages during the service was about gloves and mittens. How sometimes we can feel like a finger in a glove - cold and alone...but really we are tucked inside a mitten of community - never alone. On the car ride home we talked about all the people in Elena's mitten - Anna from Sunday School, Sophie, Jacob (of the infamous elastic boy pants), all her Shabbos friends, her family, Mia, Xander...

So last week I noticed that Elena was wearing the pants again, a lot. At the parent-teacher conference we mentioned this teasing to Mrs. Stump. She wasn't too pleased to hear about it and asked if elena would come and tell her. Our sense was that Elena seemed to feel like this was tattling and preferred not to. Elena was wearing the pants again and seemed to be handling it OK.

Tonight I go in to read bed time stories - Nellie Oleson has returned to the story line - dun dun duuuuunnnnnn. And I noticed that the red pair of elastic pants was set out for tomorrow. Then I remember she wore the green pair to school this morning. So I asked,
'How's it going with the whole pants thing? Has Nellie quit teasing?'
'Nope -she still makes fun of my pants during lunch. That's why I'm wearing them every day now to school.'
'Really? You've been wearing them every day?'
'Yeah - so I don't teach Nellie to tease people until they change.'
'What does she say?'
'Elena's wearing boy pants again.'
'What do you say?'
'Nothing, I just ignore her. I don't want her to think that I care.'

At this point I started to laugh and I put my arms around her. I pictured my little girl, a stone wall of elastic cuffed pants, stubbornly making her point that she wasn't going to change. In fact, Nellie, if you don't like my pants, I'll just wear them every day! Ha - take that! I had Elena tell the story to Jake, and he laughed too. We told her that we were really proud of her for finding a way to handle the situation, but if she started to feel sad or overwhelmed to tell Mrs. Stump, that is wasn't tattling.

There are times when her ability to be stubborn and sick to her guns in the face of great adversity has caused us much anxiety. Because those stubborn guns were pointed in the wrong direction. We've know that she can grit her teeth through a lot. It's nice to see her turn that into an amazing display of confidence.

All of a sudden, I have this incredible urge to order myself some elastic cuffed fleecy sweat pants and wear them to school lunch. I hope I can sit by Nellie Oleson.

Settling in and saying no

We've had about 18 months to settle in to our new home. And this winter it finally is starting to calm down and feel like 'normal.' This is the first time that at the two year mark, we are not preparing to leave a place. So it's nice. Instead of looking for new childcare, new place to live, new jobs...we are thinking about preschool for Egan in a year or so, starting to think about a renovation for a mud room, and establishing work routines.

We have really been welcomed by our new communities. Work is very supportive, and in spite of all the budget challenges, we feel pretty stable. Our neighbors remain wonderful, though we see much less of each other on these snowy winter days. This summer we started going to a local Shabbos, hosted every friday night by a family with a daughter in Elena's class. Here we have found new friends, both faculty and community, that have been amazing. We have settled in at our new church - and though we still miss our morning two block walk to the classed in New River Valley UU Congregation...we don't mind the drive to Reading to one of the original UU churches. I've been helping with the auction committee and Jake volunteers in the nursery.

All of this settling in has lead to some saying no. Especially in the last week. Last Sunday at church, the president asked me to consider running for the board. Sunday evening, when we were at a dinner in town, I met the mayor of Kutztown. Upon learning that we lived on the 'south-side' she and Kurt (work friend) joking tried to convince Jake or I to run for town council because they need more people from our side of town. (I know you are probably thinking what I was 'Kutztown has sides?') Then today, Andy Arnold (host along with his wife Arabel of weekly Shabbos and candidate for the 'north side' council seat) tried to convince me to run for school board. I'm flattered that people think of us (even if it just because of where we happened to buy a house) and a little amazed that we can be so settled as to be cajoled into running for local offices in only 18 months. Then again, there are a lot of really old people in town who aren't going to run for office! During these times, I call upon the 'angel' on my shoulder, a working mom mentor I've had for a long time, Cathryn Harbor - wife of our undergraduate advisor Dave Harbor and amazing doctor (the medical, not rock, kind). They have three amazing kids - all of whom I used to babysit when I was in college. But I digress. Cathryn told me that when you have kids and two full time careers you get to do one (maybe two when they get older) 'extra' things. She said, 'I'm not on the PTA, I don't run races to cure cancer, I don't teach Sunday School or coach soccer. My 'one' thing is taking care of myself, I eat well and exercise. When you are a working mom, you only get one thing. Pick it, and say no to everything else.' So when someone asks me to run for school board (or heck coordinate the school carnival) Cathryn appears on my shoulder and whispers in my ear. I have to ask myself - is this more important that my 'one' thing? You might ask, what is my 'one' thing? Well, right now mine is working out. A 4 days a week at the gym when I get up at 6:05 am and can get home by 7:15. The other two days I do yoga in my office with my window covered. (Jake is pigeons of course!) So is the school board more important than my workout? Right now, no. I have to say no. I have to take care of myself. But maybe some day I'll work up to 'two' things - then maybe I can consider something important like church board, town counsel, or school board. And I like thinking that we now live in a place where I have this to consider.