Cerin Amroth

A couple weeks ago, Nate had plans during the day on a Saturday, so I took the kids to go see Where the Wild Things Are. In retrospect, it wasn’t really a young kids movie. It was a very good movie, but I had a hard time separating my own reactions to it from watching Ella and Dom’s reactions.

The emotions and situations were decidedly pre-adolescent in their potrayl. There was a lot related to the loss of childhood and innocence, as well as loneliness and not being accepted. The only true moments of escape were related to when Max and the Wild Things were just romping around having fun and getting lost in their play. I thought it was actually very true to the conflicted feelings hinted at by the book. Reading the book, I’ve always been struck by the pain of the “We’ll eat you up we love you so” declaration by the Wild Things when they see that Max plans to leave them. The interesting part of the movie is that these lines are directly quoted, but more as endearing statements. The pain and bitterness shows up elsewhere in the Wild Things actions and their own words.

I think the kids enjoyed the movie for its imagery and playful scenes, as well as the magic of seeing the drawings from the book come to life. At the very end when Max was leaving and the Wild Things were sad to see him go, I glanced over at Ella to see her crying. It’s the first time I have seen her cry in that way.

As we were leaving the theater, I asked her how she liked the movie. She said that she liked it, but didn’t like how it made her feel sad at the end. I agreed and said that it was hard to watch something that made you cry. I mentioned that I thought it was also a happy ending because Max made friends and also returned home to be with his mom. Ella acknowledged that, but was clearly most struck by the relationships portrayed between Max and his Wild Thing friends.

In a way, this makes me happy because it shows me how important friends are to Ella. One of her good friends from preschool has been away since the beginning of the school year. While she doesn’t talk about him a lot, every once in a while she’ll comment that she really misses him, especially after she sees a picture of him hanging in her room. It’s amazing to think about all the friends that will touch her and influence her in the years to come … and also a little frightening to think about how those relationships will make her both happy and sad.

Young kids can be so quick to forgive and not hold grudges.  Ella and her friend know how to push each other’s buttons, but no matter how much they annoy each other, the question at the end of the playdate is always, “When can we do it again.” If only we could keep that perspective.

Apropo of the previous post, this was Ella’s outburst at supper just now:

“HOW are we supposed to remember about E and Y?!  And C and K?  And S and Z?  Why did they DO it that way?!”

No good answer, my dear, no good answer.

I’ll admit it:  a few months ago, I was Worried.  The way my mom tells it, I was reading at age 4, largely self-taught.  And while every rational bone in my body told me that every kid is different, there were still those other bones who asked me why Ella didn’t seem quite as gung-ho about the whole process, and didn’t seem particuarly interested in reading on her own at five and a half.  We read to her an awful lot, of course, and she knew her letters and knew enough to work through plenty of the basics on her own.

I knew enough not to try to push her on it, thankfully, or to try to pre-teach her everything she’d be learning in school anyway.  But still there was that part of me that wished she’d be going after it a little bit more on her own.

Fast forward to the present day, a few months into kindergarten.  Our house is covered with letters.  Ella has two notebooks, a couple pads of lined paper, to say nothing of other random sheets of paper, scattered all around, covered in letters.  Sometimes she’ll meticulously transcribe words from books.  Sometimes she’ll just practice writing big and small versions of letters over and over.  More recently she’s been working on composing things on her own, calling out across the room periodically for help with spelling one tricky word or another.   She’s bringing readers home from school and mastering them in short order.  In short, she’s well on her way to reading and writing in full, learning at a terrific rate, and it’s great fun to see.

A couple related thoughts:

1.  While I’ve usually found it easier to just figure stuff out on my own, Ella seems to groove on the classroom environment, and being in that structure has definitely helped her learning take off.  She’s probably more similar to Suanna in that respect.

2.  English is a bitch.  I’ve always known it’s a language with a lot of contradictions and exceptions to its basic rules for grammar, pronunciation, and spelling.  But you don’t realize just how pervasive they are until you’re working through stuff with a five-year old.