In a small town in Southern New Jersey this week, one twelve year old child lost her life and two teen boys ruined theirs- over a bike! Two families caught in the middle of pain and agony are trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. It’s a place where you let your kid ride her bike to visit friends and don’t expect her to encounter danger. The brothers, 15 and 17, killed her and stuffed her in a recycling bin… and then kept her bike. Their mother concerned about something she read on one of the son’s facebook notified police. Neither family will be the same. How do you begin to move on when your precious child is stolen from you like that? How do you move on when you realize the boys you love are capable of such evil? It must have killed that mother to do the right thing and call police. It doesn’t bring the other child back, but it begins in a very tiny way to make amends for something that can’t be fixed. Would you be able to call the police on your sons? I’m not sure….

A song from a five year old’s perspective about how babies cry, chew on things, and are very bad from the Sandra Boynton Book/CD series (Dog Tracks, Philadelphia Chickens, Rhinoceros Tap) that Kohls sold a couple of Christmases ago is really bugging me. Mostly because being bad is something The Girl takes seriously and she can’t figure what the babies are doing that is bad from the song. “Why are the babies bad? What the babies do bad?”

But they aren’t being bad- they are being babies. We have a couple of long talks about how babies behave and communicate since there is a new baby on the way and now she’s worried about the baby being bad instead of like her baby cousin. I reassure her that she’s a good girl, the cousins are good boys/babies, and that her new baby will be a good baby too. I’m not sure she believes me.

I’m really hating this series of books and CDs. The illustrations are amusing and engaging, the music is creative, but I hate the content. I hate the song that glorifies tantrums, the one that talks about how peas are yucky (she never knew you weren’t suppose to eat peas and other vegetables before we started listening to these), and I’m not thrilled with the one that teaches you to avoid the task at hand unless you’re yelled at. Nearly every set has at least two or three songs I find objectional because of the message they sent. I know they’re supposed to be kid-centered, and from a kid’s point of view, but why is there a need to teach this crap? It’s just for fun, I hear people saying. But The Girl wants to understand exactly what the song is about so we talk about each one and she isn’t getting it. She will find these funny when she’s five or six (or maybe even seven), but even then, what exactly do we want her to be learning?

I’m much happier with the They Might Be Giants children’s music. She has learned tons of things from the Science disk and begs for the TMBG music constantly. It is creative, funny, engaging, amusing, and teaches difficult concepts in unique manners.

I think what you teach is more critical than how you teach it… but it seems like I’m one of the few people feeling that way lately!

Across from me on a faded blue green armchair, a very realistic toy gecko by the name of Message waits for The Girl’s return. Left here by mistake in her eagerness to pack up and go see Daddy, she will squeal with joy when she spots him sitting patiently in the chair. Off they’ll go for a bath in the bathroom sink and she’ll bathe him several times on Monday, not because he’s dirty, but because she’s learned to turn the water on and (mostly) off and can reach the sink all by herself when she uses her step stool. She drags the step stool around as well using it to stand on while she points and names things on her science charts.

I think the gecko is named Message because of a misunderstanding about how the brain sends messages to parts of the body through the nervous system. She can identify the major parts of the nervous system, but now that I’m thinking about, I’m not sure she actually understands what a “message” is. She knows people leave messages on her Momma’s cellphone. She knows the brain uses them. This is the problem with having a kid who absorbs everything faster than you can look it up. You end up with a blanket called DNA, a gecko named Message, and a kid who thinks that everyone should know their elements. The element chart is one of her favorites and she points at each of her favorite elements calling out their atomic number and asking what happens if you mix two random elements together (and since I didn’t study chemistry- ever- and never learned my elements, I scramble for answers and check out elements books from the Library after Wednesday Story Time).

There’s something unique about this child- something almost scary at how others react to her. It’s very rare that people who come in contact with her don’t leave happier and more at peace with themselves. They go out of their way to talk to her or give her something. There’s no way we can teach her not to talk to strangers because since she was tiny strangers have approached her. This summer when we were at the shore, we (seven adults) took her to the amusement park. While she was carrying two stuffed toys, a man leaped from his booth and ran to give her a teddy bear. The rest of the workers applauded his actions while we (the seven adults with the one kid) were totally puzzled. The child wasn’t sad, neglected, or being ignored. She was happily walking with adults who know and love her when this random act of kindness happened. This kind of thing happens ALL the TIME when you are with The Girl! The end result of this kind of behavior can be crippling. We could end up with a child who expects people to give her things for no logical reason or who thinks that she’s special and wants to be treated that way. Most of the time, she’s just a happy kid who is thrilled to talk to you and loves whatever you hand her. Once in a while, she is a cranky brat but that usually means nap time is coming up quickly.

The child is brilliant. She has a memory for people, places, events, and things that go back farther than a two- almost three year old should remember. She can tell you who gave her what when and why (if there is a why). She loves science currently. It’s replaced her love of Spiderman and Batman. She’s not into dolls, though lately, the Purple Guy (a small cotton purple guy) has been part of the things she wants with her at all times. She loves tiny things- things so small no child that young should be allowed to have- but she doesn’t put them in her mouth. She can count to five in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese. Her Chinese tones impress native Chinese speakers. I’m not sure how many signs she knows since she only uses them with people who use sign language. She knows all the major Impressionistic painters and their works and can identify them when she sees them on the wall at the doctor’s office. I think she can read, but I can’t prove it. She thinks that books are for information and while she enjoys a good story, she’ll spend hours pouring over some non-fiction book way too old for her. She can retell a story and explain why a character did something. She knows all her letter sounds and has known her shapes (including the hard ones) for a year or longer. She loves big words. Her current favorite is “paleontologist”.

But she struggles with pedaling her tricycle and with doing simple puzzles. Learning to string beads was difficult. We work on fine motor skills every day and spend as much time as possible outside running around.

We have this on-going debate- is she a prodigy or does she simple work at learning things she loves and has people in her life who will indulge her every curious thought? I’m not sure there’s an easy answer. The child has a serious work ethic that she was born with. When we work in the yard, she won’t stop until the job is complete so I’ve learned to pick small tasks that can be accomplished. When she was learning to speak, she wanted to sit on your lap and have you name things in a book over and over until you were sick of the page. She tends not to answer or attempt something new until she masters it to her own satisfaction. People try to coax her through a task, but she resists, wanting to hear/see it repeatedly first. The first place she goes for knowledge is video- do you have a video of a kid singing in Chinese, NiNi? Where’s the video of the kid singing Chinese? Can we watch the video of the kid singing Chinese… and then… she’s singing in Chinese- tone for tone. My son says that because she doesn’t just “know” stuff, she’s not a prodigy. But how does anyone “know” stuff? Are prodigies born “knowing” stuff? I wonder… in the meantime, we all work at raising a “normal, happy child who just happens to love learning stuff”… and that’s not as easy as it sounds. You end up with things like geckos named Message watching you write- even if he startles you once in a while!

Found this when some ugly little spammer left a spamming comment on it and while I respect his right to do business, I wish he’d do it somewhere besides on my space…

The ugliness of this election is wearing on me more than most and I find myself grieving for the spirit of our people when we can say and do anything just to get the vote. Is this election important? Sure, but more important than being civil, trying to find an acceptable compromise, being a moderate, acting as a person of moral courage, and… in the end, we have to have a government that takes care of all of us. This election is being very costly- not just financially (which is obsene), but in the issues not discussed and the anger that can’t be unsaid. No matter who wins, we all lose at this point. And that makes me very sad… so don’t tell me why your guy should win… tell me it’s ok for your guy and his supporters to be so ugly…..

From November ’04…

My mother was a woman of fiery passion and it was a brave soul who dared challenge her. One of the things she was completely passionate about was her politics. Voting wasn’t a right or privilege, but an opportunity to prove her point.

I remember being left in the car to watch the younger ones while she “ran” in to vote on Election Day. It took forever. One time, furious at the wait, I waited until she was driving the gravel country road home before saying, “When I grow up, I’m never voting!” I ducked to miss the backhand, but she got me anyway.

Seeing the bruise on my face at supper, my father asked, “What’d you do?”

“She’s not voting when she grows up,” my still angry mother exploded.

I gauged the distance from her reach and myself and wondered if I should drop it. The odds were her favor.

“It’s useless and a waste of time,” I replied hotly, still angry about being slapped. Apparently, my self preservation streak wasn’t well-developed. She threw the thing closest to her hand, but I ducked under the table as the baby’s bottle hit the wall behind me and shattered. My brother started crying and I got the mop.

Side by side, we cleaned up the mess. More rational, she began to explain and explain and explain her views of voting.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know them. I have been taken to political rallies before I could walk and was one of those babies the campaigners kissed. I had met many politicians before I started kindergarten. Evening life centered around the news during the fall elections and my parents quit talking about who to vote for with each other by the time I was five.

Election Day was another holiday at our house, with a red, white, and blue theme (meaning the mashed potatoes were a sickly blue and dessert was red jello and whipped cream). She didn’t put us to bed on Election Night, leaving that task to us for a change. She didn’t want to leave the TV set until the results were in, and as long as you were watching the election results, you could stay up late.

My mother apologized for her outburst and I accepted her apology, and then she said, “Some people said that you don’t discuss two things with people- religion or politics, but I say, those are the only two things worth discussing at all. What people believe about religion and politics shows you their heart.”

TODAY … so while I’ll vote again this year, I wonder if this election is really showing us each other’s hearts, and it’s not a pleasant sight!

The Catalyst… the event near the beginning of the story that triggers the rest of the story. Life changing. Critical. If this doesn’t happen, there is no story… so… ok… I have a gem of a killer of an idea for a new young adult story. The “what-if’s” are firmly established. The characters are beginning to show themselves- their true selves. But I can’t figure out what triggers the story. Part of it is because I can’t figure out exactly what kind of story it will be. If it’s a fantasy, then all kinds of major events can be triggers. But if I want a contemporary fiction, then it has to be more realistic. It’s ok that I don’t have the trigger yet because this story is so new that it’s more of a faded dream than a story currently. But, as I begin to do the back story work, if I can’t figure out the catalyst, then there is no story.

All this makes me look at real life. You hear so many stories. Everyone has one to tell… I got sick, I lost my job, I had a miscarriage, I failed at school or love, I…. something happened that changed the direction of my life. It’s only when you look back that you can see what a profound impact an event had on your life. The decisions you made, the feelings, the work, and yet… you survived…. hmmmm…. still thinking…. *wanders away lost in thought!*

Last week was an unusual week since I had the Girl Wed, Thurs, Friday overnight before returning her to her Momma, and then Monday and Tuesday this week. Today is the first day that it’s been just me and the cat and while I had a ton of things I wanted to work on- the new Romance novel is begging for time, the new YA novel wants development time, and it would be very NICE if someone (anyone) would do MORE than sweep and run the cleaner (which wasn’t highly productive since the Girl needed her own broom so she could walk in my dirt and spread it out and wanted to use my vacuum cleaner since hers was upstairs) so I guess it would be nice if even those tasks were redone, I’ve been distracted. The electricity guys were in my back yard again (but they’ve been there so often this summer, it’s not a surprise to see them anymore.) The sun was shining. The cat threw up in front of the patio door when I wouldn’t let him out. I needed caffeine. And then I realized… it was too quiet. No one singing in the background. No one talking about science or toys or where something is. No one wanting a snack, a drink, or needing to go potty. I’ve become acclimated to life with a two year old. Today was story time at the Library, but I didn’t have a reason to attend since the Girl was with her momma at the Pumpkin Show. The good news is that I have two more days of quiet this week so maybe I’ll actually get some work done this week after all. In the meantime, I’m off to create a dish that uses butternut squash and scallops.

I’ve not been here in forever. I think about coming here, but get distracted and forget, but I hadn’t realized that it had been almost a year…. hmmm…. so what I have been doing over the last year? Well, I have the two year old granddaughter three days a week so we color, fingerpaint, count, go to storytime at the library, working on riding a tricycle (why is steering so hard?), and play play play. I’m teaching writing one morning a week to a group of Homeschoolers and that hour is one of my favorite hours of the week. And… of course, I’ve been writing…. sooooo…. how about you? What’s new?