The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Last night, Thing 2 was in his final concert for his school. It was a musical of sorts, with a little story and several songs and all the kids on stage.

At the end of the last song all the kids raised their hands up. Most had an open hand, waving good-bye. A few had their hands up as fists.

My kid?
Did the Spock "Live Long and Prosper" hand.

Apple... tree... plop.

Today I was outside replacing the mailbox with my elder. The mailman happened to arrive and K got the mail from him, in which was a nicely addressed envelope for

Dr and Mrs MYFIRSTNAME OURLASTNAME

K pointed this out to me. What, I wondered, was the problem? He said it made his head hurt.

Why was that? Well, it took some fumbling around but he got to the point of recognizing that he wouldn't like it if he was called by someone else's name.

What, I urged him to think about, did it mean if mail was addressed to a couple by the man's name? He pretty quickly grokked that this had something to do with "men having all the power" and that wasn't a good thing.

The mail item was sent by a lovely couple whom we know well and who I'm sure intended this to be a politeness - a more formal method of address. I'm not sure I can yet convince him that these people meant well, but we take our teachable moments where we find them.

Other people say things better.

First up, Bruce Schneier has a great piece in The Atlantic about "stay calm and carry on" - what it means, why it's important, why we have the reactions we do.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/the-boston-marathon-bombing-keep-calm-and-carry-on/275014/

My mantra for today is, "I am not less safe than I was yesterday, or the day before."

"Refuse to be terrorized" is another good one, for those who can do it. I do realize some people are triggered by events like this and I'm sorry if you're affected. I hope people who are triggered can find help.

Parents like me also have to think about talking to our children - mine are turning into regular news junkies (and the younger one loves "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" which I regard as a highly positive sign). For parents like us, PBS has a set of three good links: http://pbsparents.tumblr.com/post/48058966053/our-thoughts-go-out-to-the-victims-and-those

Two of those links provide strategies and ideas for talking to kids about scary news in general. It's nice to know my tax dollars helped pay for this.

Kids are awesome. There is nothing about the "having kids" situation that doesn't continue to amaze, frighten, delight, and astound me. My kidlets have reached the age where they don't much want to hug me in public and my affections result in eyerolls and tolerant sighs much of the time. This amuses me, as one of my life-goals is to live long enough to be an embarrassment to my grandkids. I figure I'm practicing for it now.

The kids themselves... well, they're human beings. Ups and downs, stresses and trials and tribulations mixed in with the celebrations and fantasticness. I love that my kids think up puns and jokes on their own and despair that they think up new ways to avoid doing homework. I am terrified of their teenager-hood as it barrels down on us, and sad that I can't easily pick them up and carry them to bed anymore. I want simultaneously to shield them from all the things of the world that cause them fear and pain and anxiety and want them to be able to take care of themselves. Sometimes I nearly vibrate from all the energy it takes to hold still.

I'm trying hard to give them the tips that I didn't get until much later in life, like "make new mistakes next time" and "don't start with 'I can't...'; start with 'what can I do that...'" I wonder if any of it will sink in. Probably not - I had to live a certain amount of life before I was ready to learn those things. I still check on them every night before I go to bed.

If you have someone awesome in your life I hope you'll find the time to write about it, too.

Pygment: ...and remember to change your clothes.

Thing 2: *GROAN*

Pygment: I'm being groaned at. That must mean we have a zombie in the house.

Me: Complaaaains!

Pygment: That means it's a teenage zombie!

...but somehow I doubt it. The rest of you parents can laugh along.



ETA: by request, the back-story link: http://partiallyclips.com/2012/05/09/sitting-on-bench/
It's worth reading, too.

Thing 2 bounds into the computer room this morning, gleefully declaring, "Mom! There's a typo on one of my Pokemon cards!"

On examination it's true - it has printed "draw a car" where the meaning is clearly "draw a card." I agree that yes, he's correct, and furthermore it's undoubtedly my child who is proud that he has found an error while proofreading Pokemon cards.

"Oh, no," he says. "I didn't find this - [Thing 1] did."

Apple, tree... plop.

We have "First Meals" by Annabel Karmel and "Baby Let's Eat" by Rena Coyle and would like to pass them on.

These books are geared toward families with children (6 mo - 3 years) who are transitioning to solid foods and who want to feed the kids non-processed stuff that's relatively easy to prepare and nutritionally balanced.

Our experience was that they gave good basic guidelines though neither Pygment nor I are a big one for following recipes all that exactly. Both have good introductions to early nutrition, guides for things you might want to avoid, suggestions on fussy eaters, and so on.

If someone nerby wants to pick them up that'd be great but I'm also willing to mail them if you're not local to me.

Pygment, on logging onto one of her WoW characters: That's odd.
Me: Oh?
Pygment: $character is on a griffon. I wonder where she's going.
Me: Oh, you let Thing 1 play her - no telling where she's going. Or where she's been. You might want to wash her...

(OK, it amused us.)